Part Three: The Present Problem

PART 3

THE PRESENT PROBLEM

If the true spark of religious and civil liberty be kindled, it will burn. Human agency cannot extinguish it. Like the earth’s central fire, it may be smothered for a time; the ocean may overwhelm it; mountains may press it down; but its inherent and unconquerable force will heave both the ocean and the land, and at some time or other, in some place or other, the volcano will break out and flame up to heaven.

DANIEL WEBSTER

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

SPECIAL PRIVILEGE

WITH GOVERNMENT in the United States taking 29 cents of each dollar of a person’s income at the present time—an amount identical with that for the USSR in 1929-1930 — what is to be done?

In considering any new proposals for governmental expenditures, and in reviewing those that now exist, this should be the guiding rule: Grants of special privilege to any person or group of persons should be denied, because these grants can be made only by infringement on the rights of others — on liberty. “Benefits” for this and “benefits” for that should be denied. The granting of any of the so-called benefits by government violates the foundation of liberty — that a person should have the right to the product of his own labor, and the right to dispose of it or to keep any part of it as he desires.

No attempt will be made here to list the numerous forms of special privilege now in operation. Each person can do that for himself, and if there should be a difference of opinion over an item, the difference could not be resolved by a mere listing of the item in question.

The nature of special privilege, however, should be clear in its main outlines. Special privilege is any item of income or of position in the market for goods and services where the amount paid and received fails to reflect the judgment of “the judges of the market place” as to its worth. It is where the judgment of the voters in the economic market place is overruled by their political servants; it is where persons are forced to pay for a thing beyond their opinion of its worth, through the device of an authority backed by the taxing power or legal penalty.

Among the things that fall in this class of special privilege are monopoly, prohibition of competition through force, fixing of prices by governmental decree or protection of others who do the same thing, the forcing of payment for work not wanted done, and the prohibition of the free movement of goods across political borders.

The government, having no independent source of income except what it takes from the incomes of the citizens, cannot give a “benefit” to any one person either as a direct transfer of money or in any other way without correspondingly denying another the right to the product of his labor. Some evening when there is nothing else to do, an interesting occupation would be to take a copy of the federal budget and study the projects reported therein as they fail to meet this test of special privilege. It would provide plenty of food for thought.

On a recent occasion when discussing a proposal involving a major program of special privilege, a well known person said that the only thing he could see against it was the cost. Its entire cost would unavoidably have to be paid in full by the taxpayer. It is common to speak as though this cost aspect can be dismissed lightly as a minor detail. One might as illogically say that his wife wants seven mink coats; that the idea seems to him to be a good one — except for the detail of its cost. Why is the matter of cost any less relevant when the item is under the scope of government?

“The power to tax is the power to destroy.” Special privilege is of necessity the process of destruction in operation, always and everywhere.

THE MATTER OF STRATEGY by persons, both individually and through their organizations, becomes highly important if there is a sincere desire to assist in the recovery of liberty.

An attitude which over the decades has contributed more and more to the loss of liberty is one that may be called “compensatory parasitism.” That high-sounding phrase refers, in more simple terms, to the philosophy of: You parasitize me and I’ll parasitize you.” It is the philosophy that one evil justifies another.

The effects of this policy abound on every hand. The government becomes a grab-bag and one citizen justifies his becoming a parasite by observing that others are doing it. “So-and-so is getting a hand-out from the government; why shouldn’t I?”

A cardinal principle of successful parasitism is that the number of parasites must be kept low. Otherwise the host is killed and the parasites must die.

The wolf pack operates as a form of parasitic economy. They live constantly in a meager existence, and some of them must die as their number increases relative to the sheep they plunder and kill.

Our economy is not like that of a pack of wolves, which plunders but does not produce. Ours is a productive rather than a parasitic economy. The basis of a free society is the absence of parasitism.

So the point of strategy is this: Why not encourage a complete about-face in policy among all thinking citizens and all leaders of thought? Why not oppose special privilege for each and every person and group, rather than try to acquire compensatory parasitism for one’s self?

If the principle of “no special privilege” is to prevail, it will be necessary to support that principle in its every application as a principle. It should be adopted as a uniform rule, across the board.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

RECOVERING LIBERTY

THE FASHION OF THE TIMES seems to be to “resign to the inevitable.” Some say that the wise thing to do is to relax and try to grab as much as possible for one’s self, while the nation declines into the abyss of collectivism. Anyone devoted to the principles of liberty will refuse to accept that solution; he will refuse to accept it on both moral and practical grounds. The plight of peoples all over the world where compromise and “resignation to the inevitable” has been the adopted solution should be ample evidence of what is in store if we continue to pursue that course. The prospect is not a pretty picture. No liberal will want any part in this route to the destruction of liberty.

Let us take a practical look at “resigning ourselves to the inevitable,” in economic terms. If we should adopt a policy of social parasitism, and if it were possible to divide up the entire supposed wealth of this nation and consume it as a pack of wolves would devour a sheep, there would be only enough on a valuation basis in these “fabulously wealthy” United States to sustain our present level of living for 3½ years. The estimated wealth of the nation, in other words, is only 3½ times the estimated worth of the goods and services produced in a year. So, if all these items of wealth were actually “consumables,” like those we eat and use in current consumption, there is only enough to sustain our present level of living for 3½ years. Thereafter, the wealth which is now responsible for at least nine-tenths of our output of goods and services would all be gone; those who survived the resulting privation would then have to exist on what they could produce under the economic sterility that would then prevail, by using primitive methods that would probably yield less than one-tenth of the level of living we now enjoy. When viewed in this light, “resigning to the inevitable” is seen to be a disastrous form of surrender.

“But we shall divide up only a part of the wealth, not all of it.” The evil effect will still be there, though in a lesser degree. Economic parasitism does not become a good thing when lessened in degree; it becomes only a less serious evil.

Our present society rests on a foundation totally different from that of a pack of wolves, and any undermining of its foundations will result in its collapse. Furthermore, the higher any society has risen, like ours, the greater the debacle whenever the loss of liberty undermines it.

This discussion has been mainly of the economic and material aspects of the problem; but it is not meant to imply that these economic aspects are the only aspects or even the most important ones. If Hume’s views are right — and I have no evidence that they are wrong — it is important to be ever mindful that the foundations of liberty embrace the foundations of justice and morals, and of a moral civilization. The most highly prized aspects of liberty are these, and the economic welfare that develops under liberty is but a pleasant, extra dividend flowing therefrom.

IF LOST LIBERTY is to be regained, the general course to be followed is simple. Liberties that have been taken away from individuals must be restored; there can be no other answer. Whether it be started with this or that liberty is a detail, however important. The way to start is to start somewhere.

The solution of the problem of liberty requires that a sizable number of thought-leaders grasp a wholly new attitude on matters of government. There must be a change from the belief that has increasingly prevailed during twenty years or more in this nation, and for a longer time in other countries like Germany and Britain which now stand as pathetic demonstrations of the effects of lost liberty. It is not enough to blame our congressmen and to expect them to do the job of regaining lost liberty alone. Weeds the size of sequoia trees have grown up in our vineyard of liberty, and one cannot eliminate a forest of sequoia trees by using a jackknife at the tips of the branches.

The present year’s budget for the federal government weighs about half more than the Sears, Roebuck or Montgomery Ward catalogues; it contains 1534 pages; on each page, on the average, is information about $26 million of expenditures. Suppose that a congressman is charged with the task of reviewing that budget and cutting out all “non-essentials,” and suppose that he were to take one hour to study each million dollars of expenditure — truly a cursory study of an expenditure of that amount of money. A congressman, spending full time at it, would be able to finish the job in about 21 years, or about 1970! He would then be ready to start a similar review of the budgets of the remaining 30,000 units of government, other than the federal, in the United States. That indicates the impossible task which confronts the law makers; it is not surprising that they bog down under it.

What conclusion can one draw other than that the hope of citizens’ supervision of governmental expenditures of $57 billion a year by the “democratic process” is a futile hope, no matter how it is attempted? It is foolish to expect to recover liberty in that manner. When once the power of free choice in the spending of their incomes has been abandoned by the citizens, and these economic rights surrendered to government, their liberty will have gone with it; it makes no difference how the governmental procedure is designed. Either you spend your own income as you deem best or someone spends it for you in some way that he deems best, and there is no alternative. The hope that 145 million persons can maintain control over such a stupendous expenditure, merely by the device of a few of them going to the polls once in a while, is pure fantasy. Until it is realized to be a fantasy, we are destined to pursue futility, buoyed only by a little fleeting hope every two or four years at election time.

What, then, is to be done? After liberty has been lost beyond a certain point, its recovery is difficult by peaceful means. The peaceful solution is to unwind the accumulated powers of government over the lives and incomes of the citizens.

Eternal vigilance is not now enough; it is too late for that to be adequate, for the same reason that eternal vigilance of the barn door is no help after the horse has been stolen. Nor is the changing of top personnel in the government, or “reform governments,” any answer to the basic problem. The gaining of better administration of an evil in the form of unwarranted power is a victory without virtue. The most efficient and best possible administration of slavery will not transform it into liberty.

A blueprint for the procedure of unwinding an illiberal government, even if I knew exactly the order in which it should proceed, is impossible here. But the principle that should guide the process is: No special privilege, no trading of special privileges.

“BUT WHAT can I do? Yours is a negative program of do-nothingness. I want to support a positive program!”

Suppose that the question at issue was that of a proposed murder, by shooting. Your objection to it is met with the rebuff: “All right, how do you propose that he be murdered?” Believing as you do that murder by any means is wrong, it would seem foolish to offer as a “positive” suggestion that the murder be by drowning. The objection is to murder by any means and by any “administration.” The positive program is that it not be done at all; that abstaining from the act is the wise course of action.

If such a stand is to be accused of being obstructionist tactics, and of putting obstacles in the path of progress, one must then conclude that the accuser differs on the very fundamentals of the matter. He must believe murder to be a good and justifiable act, which then reduces the question in his mind to that of a choice between various means of committing the murder and other administrative details of carrying it out.

Dealing with the issues of the day from the standpoint of liberty is similar. When the advocate of liberty speaks with disfavor about some program that would violate liberty, he is likely to be met with this sincere and well-intentioned rebuff: “Your objection seems to be well reasoned, and I’m inclined to accept it, but how do you propose that the program be set up?” The answer is that, consistent with liberty, you would have no “program” in the sense of which he thus speaks of “positive action.”

To one who believes in liberty, liberty is a positive program of the highest order. To one who believes otherwise, the only “positive” program is that which is destructive of liberty.

If, however, one with a basic faith in liberty fails to know its processes-in-action so well that he can solve the daily issues consistent with liberalism, he will constantly be pulled offside in the game of its defense. He will keep falling into the trap of being led to select one or another method of violating liberty, and he will thereby assist others in its destruction. If that destruction be the result of ignorance rather than of an unintentional mistake, the result will be the same and liberty will be destroyed.

So the first thing to be done by all of us with a basic faith in liberty is to acquire an understanding of it so thorough that adoption in daily practice becomes clear and automatic, like the things we do in our daily occupational duties. This degree of understanding is not easy. It is not to be bought in the store with nickels and dimes. Its understanding must be acquired in the same manner as that of any other complex subject, through long and careful study and thought.

To one who has acquired a mastery of the subject of liberty to that extent, action consistent with liberty will become a positive program, supported by considered reasons. He will know why the so-called “positive” programs, currently so popular, are programs that destroy liberty. Then, without self-consciousness and with a feeling of pride rather than of shame, he will take a clear and firm position against each and every means of destroying or diluting liberty, oblivious to appealing but false claims in which they may be clothed.

One will have then become capable of helping his friends toward a better understanding of liberty, without resorting to the futile process of voicing mere conclusions or platitudes that are lacking in the force of real understanding. Only in that way will knowledge spread to those who seek help and guidance, to those who are in search of honest answers to perplexing problems.

This method is, to be sure, slow. But there are no shortcuts to liberty. Shortcuts taken in a haste for action usually violate the basic tenets of liberty in the process, and for that reason they lead one further from his intended goal.

Correct action automatically follows understanding — the only route to correct action. Nothing else will serve. If this process seems hopelessly slow, there should be the sustaining faith that liberty is in harmony with truth, and with the intended design of the human social order. Truth is immortal, despite the defeats that it seems to suffer along the way. Truth has a power that is no respecter of persons, nor of the numbers of persons who may at any time be in darkness about truth. Truth has a power that cannot be touched by physical force. It is impossible to shoot a truth.

THE LOVER OF LIBERTY will find ways to be free.