Take out the Goat

February 13, 1950

A poor peasant, according to an old folk tale, went to the Wise Man of his village for help and advice. The peasant lived in a one-room mud hut with his wife and four children. He was driven to desperation by the noise, the quarreling, the smell, the dirt, the poor scanty food, the poverty, sickness, and squalor in which his family lived.

“I will help you,” said the Wise Man. So the next day he brought a male goat to the peasant’s hut, saying; “You must feed this goat and take him in and let him sleep in the hut.” “Why, O Wise Man?” asked the peasant. “You will see,” replied the Wise Man. “Come back to me at the turn of the moon.

On the night of the new moon the peasant was back. “O Wise Man, my life is unendurable. The noise in the hut is hideous. The smell is beyond belief. The goat knocks down the children and eats us out of hut and home. I am sunk in wretchedness and despair.”

“I will help you,” said the Wise Man. And he came and took away the goat.

A week later the peasant came to him again, his face wreathed in smiles. “O Wise Man,” he said, “my life now is wonderful. You cannot imagine the change since you took away the goat! The hut is quieter. The horrible smell is gone. My family has once more almost enough to eat. How can I ever thank you enough for taking away that goat? How infinitely wise you must be to have thought of such a marvelous plan!”

I keep thinking of this tale as I read about the new plans of the bureaucrats all over the world. They impose an endless network of restrictions, burdens, coercions, and prohibitions on their own peoples; they all but strangle production and trade. And then their most happy solutions consist in removing one or two of the burdens and prohibitions that they themselves have decreed.

The cleverest new scheme of the ERP bureaucrats in Europe, for example, is to remove 60 percent of the import quotas that they themselves imposed. Last September the bureaucrats of some 30 nations hit upon another wonderful scheme. Instead of forcing people to buy and sell currencies at rates ridiculously above their real market values, and so damming up the flow of international trade, the bureaucrats now force people to buy and sell these currencies at rates much nearer to their real market values. Perhaps an even more brilliant stroke would be to remove all import quotas and allow people to buy and sell currencies freely at whatever rates they could mutually agree upon.

The bureaucrats rightly recognize that there can be no free flow in international trade until currencies are made convertible. To achieve this they now propose complicated “clearing unions” which would provide jobs for still more bureaucrats. They put forward other schemes of wondrous ingenuity. But it hasn’t seemed to occur to a single bureaucrat that the only reason currencies are not now freely convertible into each other is that the bureaucrats themselves are forbidding holders of currencies to buy and sell them freely at market rates. Perhaps the idea of repealing this prohibition will eventually occur to some supergenius.

A few weeks ago the British Labour bureaucrats suddenly increased bacon and candy rations. Though this merely relaxed their own restrictions, the British bureaucrats did this with the air of philanthropists conferring a charity. The step was hailed as still another victory for Planning.

The most brilliant schemes of the planners today consist in tapering off their previous plans.

Even at home our politicians now talk of removing excise taxes. They too are going to confer a great favor by taking out a few of the goats they have forced upon us.

As the demand today is for constructive proposals, this department humbly submits its own. Stop putting needless burdens and coercions on people, production, and trade.

Let the bureaucrats take away their own goats.