29. The Hazard of Equalizing Consequences

THE REGULARITIES OBSERVED IN nature guide our judgments. We infer from experience that there are causal relationships from which we can presuppose an outcome to be pursued or avoided by our actions.⁵⁰ We learn that actions and inactions have consequences, and we also favor certain consequences to others. Good judgments thus result in favorable consequences, while poor judgments result in unfavorable ones.

When the State makes one person responsible for another’s poor judgment, it encourages haphazard judgments, since critical consideration of one’s own actions becomes less consequential to the individual. Without the State equalizing consequences, people take greater care in the judgments they make regarding their acts and the perceived consequences of those acts. Self-reliance is a better tool than State-reliance, because it promotes prudence. Individual liberty does not guarantee better judgment, but it does gravitate in that direction via natural feedback, which benefits us when we make “right” decisions and penalizes us when we make “wrong” ones.

When people are responsible for their own actions, they have a vested interest in making “right” decisions, since they bear the primary cost of their mistakes. The saying “we learn from our mistakes” exemplifies this feedback mechanism that we intuitively use as our own personal guide through life. When the State diminishes the effect of the feedback of our mistakes, it also weakens the lessons we will learn from those mistakes.

⁵⁰Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Economic Science and the Austrian Method (Auburn, Ala.: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1995).