• CHAPTER 4 • WHY DO WE LOSE LIBERTY?

AT THE OUTSET, let me acknowledge that I do not know all the causes of authoritarianism. This is by way of saying that I do not know all of the reasons for governmental interventionism or why so many people are intent upon forcibly imposing their wills on others or why they attempt to cast others in their own little images. Further, I know of no thoughtful person who claims to know all the forces which make us behave as meanly toward each other as we do.

Yet, without some estimate of these causes it would be a waste of time, effort, and money to attempt a replacement of interventionism with freedom. Without a basic diagnosis of authoritarianism there would be no more chance of success in this venture than in trying to find the proverbial needle in the haystack, blindfolded. We cannot repair flaws without knowing where they are nor can we expect to correct error if we do not know that we err—and we will be aided in our corrective efforts if we know why we err. Therefore, any program aiming at free and willing exchange, at the practice of private property principles, and at limiting government to its proper scope, will require not only an awareness of existing deterrents to freedom, but also a reasonably sound hypothesis as to why they exist.

My object in this chapter will be to draw up an inventory of some of the errors, fallacies, failures, and blind spots which appear to give rise to authoritarianism. I will not attempt to discuss these in the order of their importance, for I do not know how they should be ranked—except for one blind spot that lies deeper than all the rest. At least, it is as deep in causation as I am able to probe.

Blind Spot: That Man Is the Creator

Persons unaware of a Creation, a Creative Force or Principle, an Infinite Intelligence or Consciousness, far over and beyond the human self are susceptible to a belief in their own omniscience. And those who believe in their own omniscience, logically, cannot envision a perfect society unless it be one in which others are cast in their fallible images. It is difficult for me to conceive of anything more responsible for authoritarianism than this type of unawareness.

If a people do not accept the Creator as Sovereign, as their Supreme Ruler, as their Source of Rights, they must, perforce, locate sovereignty in some mortal man or in some man-made institution. Logically, they must believe in and accept the one or submit to the other. If they locate sovereignty in government—a man-made institution—they have created an authoritarianism they must live with until they revoke it.

Failure: Inadequate Development of Self

All individuals are faced with the problem of whom to improve, themselves or others. Their aim, it seems to me, should be to effect their own unfolding, the upgrading of their own consciousness, in short, self-perfection. Those who don’t even try or, when trying, find self-perfection too difficult, usually seek to expend their energy on others. Their energy has to find some target. Those who succeed in directing their energy inward—particularly if they be blessed with great energy, like Goethe, for instance—become moral leaders. Those who fail to direct their energy inward and let it manifest itself externally—particularly if they be of great energy, like Napoleon, for instance—become immoral leaders.¹ Those who refuse to rule themselves are usually bent on ruling others. Those who can rule themselves usually have no interest in ruling others.

Error: The Yearning for a Judas Goat²

Herbert Spencer called our attention to another type of human frailty from which authoritarianism springs:

Alike to the citizen and to the legislator, home-experiences daily supply proofs that the conduct of human beings baulks calculation. He has given up the thought of managing his wife and lets her manage him. Children on whom he has tried now reprimand, now punishment, now suasion, now reward, do not respond satisfactorily to any method; and no expostulation prevents their mother from treating them in ways he thinks mischievous. So, too, his dealings with his servants, whether by reasoning or by scolding, rarely succeed for long; the falling short of attention, or punctuality, or cleanliness, or sobriety, leads to constant changes. Yet, difficult as he finds it to deal with humanity in detail, he is confident of his ability to deal with embodied humanity. Citizens, not one-thousandth of whom he knows, not one-hundredth of whom he ever saw, and the great mass of whom belong to classes having habits and modes of thought of which he has but dim notions, he feels sure will act in ways he foresees, and fulfil ends he wishes. Is there not a marvellous incongruity between premises and conclusions?”³ (Italics supplied)

Why is it that a person who obviously cannot manage himself, let alone those who are beholden to him, concludes that he is competent to direct a nation of people or the whole world when even the wisest of men would feel utterly incompetent for any such project. There appear to be at least two reasons. First, the inability to succeed in such “small things” as the management of self and of one’s intimates leads to a frustration that can find no release except in affectations of grandeur. And, second, there are in any country countless thousands—often millions—of psychopathic cases who are ready and eager to follow such quackery. There are numberless people who are always looking for a shepherd, and only an incompetent and frustrated person could ever aspire to such a role. In short, there is a vast market for Judas goats.

Blind Spot: Inability To See Unheralded Accomplishments

The authoritarian who rises to the top, even though a frustrated person as implied above, is always a person of unusual energy, as suggested earlier. Being both energetic and having the power to impose his will on others, he gives the erroneous appearance of “getting things done.” He gives “bread and circuses” or “security” to the masses, always at their expense, or displays a sputnik as a great achievement even though it prevents millions of daily, unheralded achievements by the people. This false appearance of “getting things done” is accomplished by depriving the people of freedom of choice as to their activities and the fruits thereof and vesting control and all freedom of choice in the dictator. Nonetheless, to those who can see only highly publicized surface demonstrations and who are blind to the countless accomplishments of free men, the dictator is attractive. Those who wish to be told what to do and where to work and who prefer to be hand-fed in exchange for their labors, become the dictator’s supporters, and the more they demand of the dictator and depend on him, the less their chance to know and enjoy the fruits of freedom.

Fallacy: Thoughts on Liberty Can Safely Be Left to Others

Our modern world is a highly specialized world. Indeed, we have gone so far into specialization that we tend to let others supply us with all of our needs except for our own specializations. This is unobjectionable if limited to goods and services. However, we carry the practice too far. There are some things we should not turn over to others. There are matters which require strictly personal attention. For instance, we should not turn our religion over to others, nor our integrity, nor our conscience. Nor should we be so foolish as to believe we can relieve ourselves of thinking seriously about liberty. Such thinking should not be delegated to any person, group, or organization. When all of us come to believe that the preservation of liberty is a responsibility that can be delegated, then liberty will have not a single defender. Authoritarians thrive in the absence of libertarian thinking like weeds in the absence of cultivation.

Error: If You Can′t Lick ′Em, Join ′Em!

An increasing number of business leaders are concentrating on how they can accommodate themselves and their operations to the current governmental interventionism, not on how they can lessen the interventionism. Authoritarianism becomes very easy in any country where the business leaders cease their opposition to interventionism—as in Hitler’s Germany or in Mussolini’s Italy.

There is another aspect of this same distressing error: accepting membership on Boards of private organizations with collectivistic leanings, or positions in government bureaus having built-in socialistic designs, the intention being to “straighten them out” or, bluntly to interpret the motive, “to have them feel the impact of my good influences.”

Getting in bed with the devil to reform him more often than not results in the reformer becoming devilish himself. This tactic has a sorry record; one needs but be observant to agree. The gospel of freedom cannot be effectively preached from within institutions headed in the socialistic direction. Outside their precincts, one is free to act on the dictates of his own conscience; but become a part of their machinery, and it follows that one must not only accommodate himself to, but put his stamp of approval on, the deviations and compromises implicit in such arrangements.

Failure: To Know Liberty in the Absence of Pain

There would be no tigers in zoos if they remained as ferocious as when first captured. However, they soon become docile, for tigers forget the freedom they once had and, forgetting, they have nothing against which to contrast their existing condition. Their confinement becomes their normalcy.

There never would have been any Negro slavery in the United States had the Negroes remained as intractable as when first taken from their African habitat. But, like the tigers, most of them soon lost consciousness of a freedom greater than the enslavement into which they were plunged. They became accustomed to their lot and, for the most part, accepted it.

The tiger and the Negro are in no way singular in this respect. We note on every hand this same easy and willing accommodation to the status quo, regardless of how onerous it may be. Americans who only a few years ago screamed like wounded apes at some intervention by government today may give that very same intervention their approval. Indeed, you can hear them exclaim, “How could we possibly do without it!”

It has been said that “the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.” Yet, there are few persons who can be vigilant unless they are currently experiencing a restraint of a liberty they once took for granted. But, let the restraint persist for a short period and their aroused opposition will turn into compliance and finally into endorsement. Such persons merely add their weight to the interventionist movement. They aid authoritarianism.

Man, in the state of Grace or evolution or unfolding or emergence that characterizes most of us, is incapable of bettering himself except as he sees contrasts and faces and overcomes obstacles. All of nature seems to confirm this. For instance, we could not conceive of “up” if there were not a gravitational force pulling us down. Nor would there be any such word in our vocabulary as “light” if there were no darkness. The taking of a simple step presupposes something stepped on. Man, except as he achieves a higher state of consciousness than most of us can understand, cannot upgrade himself in an unobstructed universe. He requires what sometimes is referred to as “tension of the opposites” or “the law of polarity.” The art of becoming rests on the practice of overcoming.

The late Paul Valery wisely observed, “The idea of liberty is not primary within us; it is never evoked without being provoked; that is to say, it is always a response. We never think we are free when nothing shows us we are not free. . . . The idea of liberty is a response to some sensation or hypothesis of impediment, hindrance, or resistance, which opposes itself either to some impulse in our being, or to some desire of the senses, or to a need, or else to the exercise of our considered will.

“I am only free when I feel free, but I only feel free when I think I am being constrained, when I start imagining some state which contrasts with my present state. Liberty is therefore not felt, nor conceived, nor desired, save by the effect of a contrast.

“This is the conclusion I must draw: Since the need for liberty and the idea of liberty are not produced in those who are not subject to hindrances and constraints, the less we are aware of restrictions, the less the term and reflex liberty will exist. A person who is scarcely aware . . . of the constraints which are imposed on him by public powers . . . will react hardly at all against these constraints. He will have no impulse of rebellion, no reflex, no revolt against the authority which imposes such restrictions upon him. On the contrary, as often as not he will find himself relieved of a vague responsibility.”⁴

An intervention when first imposed causes change and, therefore, pain. But soon the changed way becomes the customary way, and no longer painful. “We never had it so good,” chant millions of Americans as they become adjusted to an interventionism that already takes more than one-third of their earned income.⁵

Fallacy: Value Is Determined by the Labor Put into a Good or Service

The classical economists—Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, and others—had no explanation of the market value of a good or service except the amount of labor that was used in producing it. It must be assumed that this explanation was not wholly satisfactory to such accomplished thinkers for it is so obviously wrong. Pursuing this theory, a mud pie would have the same value as a mince pie providing the same amount of labor went into the production of each. The classical economists, let it be said on their behalf, did not follow this labor theory of value to its logical conclusion for, had they done so, they would have come to the conclusion reached by Karl Marx: socialism. Following this theory, the makers of mud pies would have no way of being reimbursed for their efforts except as the government would take the fruits of the labor of others by force and subsidize the mud-pie makers.

Carl Menger of the University of Vienna, in the early 1870’s, was, so far as I know, among the first to deny and displace the labor theory of value.⁶ It was Menger and his followers who developed the free market theory of value.⁷ This theory holds that the market value of a good or service is whatever someone will freely exchange for it. The free enterprise thesis is founded on this theory, just as the socialistic thesis is founded on the labor theory of value.

While, logically and intellectually, the labor theory of value is as outmoded as the-earth-is-flat idea, it nonetheless persists to this day as a major cause of state interventionism. Why, for instance, should we in the United States subsidize farmers and not subsidize bankrupt retailers except for the belief that farmers labor so much harder for their income than do others? Thoughtful analysis will reveal that it is the labor-theory-of-value type of thinking that lies at the root of labor union monopoly and coercion. The wage earner receives so little in return for his toil, goes the sympathetic thinking. The amount of effort expended, not what others will freely exchange for the result of the effort, becomes the basis for wage-earner compensation. No more with wage earners than with mud pies can an above-market price be obtained except by coercive force.

Authoritarianism on behalf of farmers and wage earners are but two of the ever so many instances of interventionism where the labor theory of value is the underlying cause. Any intelligent person can grasp its fallacy when explained in mud-pie, mince-pie terms. Few, however, appear able to retain in practice that which they conclude in reason.

Fallacy: A Wrong Can Be Righted with a Wrong

Examine the position of every person you know who classifies himself as a free enterpriser. In nearly every case the “free enterpriser” will endorse at least one item of interventionism.

A friend of mine in Belgium takes a free enterprise position when he opposes the U.S.A. tariff imposed on the blankets he makes. However, he is an exception maker, for he favors tariffs on the products coming into Belgium from the Belgian Congo on the grounds that the highly paid workers in Belgium cannot compete successfully with the lowly paid workers of the Belgian Congo. In short, the evil of low wages in the Belgian Congo must be compensated for by introducing a restriction to free exchange, a wrong to right a wrong.

Many American farmers justify support prices and subsidies on the ground that businessmen have their tariff. They, instead of trying to remove the original wrong, practice what might be termed “compensatory evil.”

Cities and states apply political pressure for federal aid to local projects. “Others are doing it,” they claim.⁸ An eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth! The whole economy is rife with efforts, not to remove economic plunder, but to extend plunder.

Here we have the recipe for a concoction more poisonous than any witch ever brewed: Take the single exception allowed by each “free enterpriser.” Put these countless exceptions into a pot. Stir vigorously, rapidly adding emotion and self-interest unintelligently interpreted. Bring to a rolling boil with a political apparatus. In the name of accuracy and honesty list this dish on the menu as “communism.” Serve to every man, woman, and child in the nation. Carry this message at the bottom of the menu: “This dish has been prepared at your expense by the free enterprisers of your country. You may not like it but we find it is necessary for us to be realistic and practical.”

Blind Spot: Free Men Cannot Get Things Done

As the belief grows that coercion is the only practical way to get things done—housing and medical care, for instance—the belief in man acting privately, freely, voluntarily, competitively, cooperatively, declines. As the former increases, the latter decreases.

In the U.S.A., for example, government has a monopoly of mail delivery. Ask citizens if government should do this, and most of them will reply in the affirmative. Why? Simply because government has pre-empted this activity for so many decades that all enterprisers have ceased to think how mail could be delivered were it a private enterprise opportunity. Indeed, most of them have come to believe that private enterprise would be wholly incapable of effective mail service. Yet, I note that each day we deliver more pounds of milk than mail. Further, milk is more perishable than a love letter, a catalogue, or an appeal for funds. We also note that the delivery of milk is more prompt and less costly to us than is the delivery of mail. I ask myself, then, why shouldn’t private enterprise deliver mail? Private enterprise delivers freight. That’s heavier.

But, no; my countrymen have lost faith in man’s ability, acting freely, to deliver letters. Let us examine these people who have lost faith in free enterprise as relating to mail delivery.

Less than a hundred years ago the human voice could be delivered the distance that two champion hog callers could effectively communicate—about 44 yards. Free men have found out how to deliver the human voice around this earth—one million times as far—and in one-third the time.

Free men have found out how to deliver 115 persons from Los Angeles to Baltimore—2,600 miles—in 3 hours and 19 minutes.

Men, when left free to try, have found out how to deliver gas from a hole in Texas to my home in Irvington-on-Hudson, New York—1,300 miles—at low prices and without government subsidy.

Men, when left free to try, have discovered how to deliver an event, like a presidential inauguration, into every home, in motion and color, at the time it is going on.

Men, when left free to try, have learned how to deliver every 64 ounces of oil from the Persian Gulf to our eastern seaboard—more than half way around the earth—for less money than government will deliver a one-ounce letter across the street in my home town.

These men—miracle performers when free—have lost faith in free enterprise to deliver letters, and no longer question this activity as a proper governmental function. They consent to leaving mail delivery to government which employs the same methods in vogue a century ago and which presents the taxpayers with a $2 million daily deficit for the service!

Take a hypothetical example. Suppose at the beginning of our country’s political establishment, some 185 years ago, it had been decreed that all children, from the time of birth to adulthood, were to receive “free” shoes and stockings from the federal government. Now, suppose this practice had been going on for all these years and I were to suggest that supplying shoes and stockings was not properly a government responsibility; that it was a family responsibility. What kind of a response would my suggestion evoke? Because free men lose faith in themselves when government takes over an activity, they would respond, “But you would let the poor boys and girls go unshod”—which our own experience shows to be an absurdity. I note that the poor children are better shod in countries where shoes and stockings are a family responsibility than where a government responsibility; that the poor children are better shod in countries where the people are more free than in countries where they are less free. A decline in faith in free men and what they can accomplish results in a rising faith in disastrous authoritarianism.

Blind Spot: An Inability To Explain the Free Society

I have never heard of a consistent socialist. That is, I am not aware of any person who believes that authoritarianism should be universally applied, that the state should forcibly direct and control all creative and productive activities. There are areas that the most ardent Marxist would leave to free will and volition. In short, there is hardly a person who does not balk at authoritarianism in some of its forms.

In the U.S.A. there are many millions of people who rant against communism, who inveigh against socialistic measures, and who raise their voices to high heaven at state interventionism, particularly if the intervention is directed at them. This negative force, however, does not constitute effective opposition to authoritarianism. Bad ideas are not removed by damning them.

Bad ideas, if they are to be rendered ineffective, must be replaced with good ideas. Herein lies a great weakness of the freedom supporters. Millions can damn authoritarianism but how few there are who can skillfully, persuasively, and attractively explain authoritarianism’s opposite: the free market, private property, limited government philosophy! In the absence of this ability state interventionism thrives.

Fallacy: Authoritarianism Should Be Removed Gradually

Following World War II and prior to the relaxation of wartime wage and price controls, I made a speech entitled “I’d Push the Button.” This title was taken from the first sentence, “If there were a button on this rostrum, the pressing of which would instantaneously release all wage and price controls, I’d put my finger on it and push.”

This was regarded as a radical notion, radical in the sense of being so thoroughgoing that few persons shared it. However, if an act is morally wrong or economically unsound, the quicker it is abolished the better.

Many people seem to hold the view that the beneficiary of special privilege acquires a vested interest in his unique position and should not be deprived of it of a sudden. They give little thought to the many persons from whom the plunder has been taken. It makes no difference what example of wage or price control one takes—rent control is as good as any. Under this control people have been permitted to occupy someone else’s property at less than the free market would allow. By reason of this fact renters have been privileged to buy more tobacco or vacations, or some other good or service than would otherwise be the case. The landlord has been deprived of the fruits of his own labor. Yet, when it comes to the matter of restoring justice, most people will think of the disadvantages suddenly falling upon the renters rather than the accrued damage done to the owner.

Imagine an habitual and successful thief. For years he has been robbing everybody in the community without their knowledge. He has a fine home, cars, servants, and is a pillar of society. Upon discovering his fraud, should his robbery be diminished gradually or should justice be restored to the community at once? The answer appears too obvious to deserve further comment.

People, when contemplating the removal of authoritarianism, seem to fear that a sudden restoration of justice would too severely disrupt the economy. The fear is groundless. During the early days of our New Deal we were the victims of the NIRA, the National Industrial Recovery Act, a system of wage floors, price ceilings, and production quotas. Originally, it was accepted with enthusiasm by most of the business community. Slowly, the fallacy of this nefarious program was realized. Thoughtful business leaders agreed it had to be repealed. But, many of them argued that the repeal would have to be gradual. To remove it at once would throw the economy into a tailspin. Then, one afternoon the Supreme Court ruled that NIRA was unconstitutional. As of that moment all of its regulations and controls ceased to exist. Did this shake our economy? There wasn’t a noticeable quiver except that all indices of prosperity showed improvement.

The fallacy of the theory of gradualism can be illustrated thus: A big, burly ruffian has me on my back, holding me down. My friends, observing my sad plight, agree that the ruffian must be removed. But, believing in the theory of gradualism, they contend that the ruffian must be removed gradually. They fail to see that the only result of the ruffian’s removal would be my going to work suddenly!

There is nothing to fear by any nation of people in the removal of restrictions to creative and productive effort except the release of creative and productive effort. And why should they fear that which they so ardently desire?

If, in reciting a few of the more or less obvious causes of authoritarianism, I have left the impression that the remedy is beyond anything that can be expected from ordinary citizens in ordinary effort, then I have made my point.

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¹ For an enlightening discussion of moral and immoral leadership, see The Psychology of Leadership by Dr. Franz E. Winkler (Garden City, N. Y.: The Myrin Institute, Inc., for Adult Education, 1957).

² Goats used in packing plants to lead sheep to their slaughter. They are trained to betray their kind.

³ Herbert Spencer, The Man Versus the State (Caldwell, Idaho: The Caxton Printers, Ltd., 1944), p. 117.

⁴ See Paul Valery, Reflections on the World Today, translated by Francis Scarfe (New York: Pantheon Books, Inc., 1948).

⁵ See my “We Never Had It So Good,” The Freeman, November 1960, p. 13 (The Foundation for Economic Education, Irvington-on-Hudson, N. Y.).

⁶ Economists William Stanley Jevons (English) and Léon Walras (French) were independently developing the marginal utility theory of value at the same time as Menger (Austrian).

⁷ This market method of price determination is often referred to as the subjective or marginal utility theory of value.

⁸ See my “We’re paying for it, so we might as well get our share” (The Foundation for Economic Education, Irvington-on-Hudson, N. Y.). Single copy on request.