The Vital Margin; F. A. Truslow

gin by which these enterprises exist, the margin necessary to induce men to take the risks or expend the energy to create more. Taxation is a tide in the stream which laps at the foundation of our freedom. But taxation is a result and not a cause. Governments do not tax in order to store up resources. They tax to pay expenses. Strong currents of taxation which threaten our freedom are not necessarily our most dangerous enemies. The extravagances and ill-considered expenses of govern ment should receive first consideration. We should fear taxation and attack the spending which generates it. These are complex enemies. If we spend and do not pay [202 ] our debts through taxation, then our money loses its value; and our earnings and savings disappear in the vast fraud of inflation. What we collectively spend must be paid for, regardless of the tax required; therefore, our public spend ing must be tested by the same stern scrutiny we apply to our individual spending. Even though that spending is planned in the name of our inherent desire to help others, it must not be allowed to rise and swamp the sources of our freedom.

There is a by-product of high public spending, and con sequent high taxation, which should not escape our fears. If taxes are high, then the power to exempt income from taxes becomes a potent weapon of those who would build an all-powerful government. In recent years we have seen vast public works supplant vast private projects through the simple device of financing those works by the strong attraction of tax-free "investment." Government has, by the device of tax-exemption in times of high taxation, in duced individuals to "lend" it their savings with which to acquire great chunks of private enterprise. Here is indeed an insidious enemy of free men. When we in the securities business expend our efforts in the sale of tax-exempt bonds, we are often accepting attractive immediate compensation for work which can ultimately destroy our freedom. I think we pay too little attention to this ·problem.

Failure to understand what makes our economy work serves to undermine private ownership and personal free dom. The wage earner who disregards the property rights of those who provide his tools, and demands all of the [203 ] product as his "rightful share" is like blind Samson. His freedom will die in the ruins of the Temple whose pillars he has pulled down. The public official who fails to realize that government cannot spend anything except a share of the margin be tween the production and the consumption of its people is a man to be feared as an enemy of liberty. The citizen who calls on government to supply him with security from the cradle to the grave, thereby encouraging government spending, is a danger to himself and his fel low citizens. If his pleas are successful, he can lose his freedom and gain no security in exchange. Men of greed and arrogance, who exercise their individ ual power as businessmen, labor leaders, or politicians to create dissension, ill feeling, and dissatisfaction within our system of private ownership and personal initiative and competition, are men to fear and abhor. They can both destroy our freedom and take control of our lives.

[204 ] TWO WAYS TO STOP STRIKES tlJ otonal'lG. leal ANYOneof numerous labor leaders in America today is able to cut off the supply of essential goods and services to mil lions of people. This can be done by the power and author ity of labor leaders to destroy delicate exchange mecha nisms and to create mass unemployment by "calling a strike." The authority for the exercise of such power is to be found in our laws which the government is obligated to enforce. Whether these labor leaders have usurped the powers of government or have received them as a grant is im portant only in determining where the fault lies. The fact to be reckoned with is that, in effect, they do possess both the power and the authority to force the nation to conform $ to their·wishes. The question, then, of how strikes can be stopped is one of serious import and calls for well-considered answers. There appear to be two answers-one being the collectivist answer, the other being the libertarian answer.