The Nature of Socialistic Disaster; L. E. Read

THE NATURE OF SOCIALISTIC DISASTER t'J oteonardG. Read OUR country has stumbled into socialism during the past half century; by now-1958-we have adopted nearly all the things socialists stand for. Those of us who are aware of socialism's built-in destructiveness have watched this process with apprehension and are forever predicting, or warning against, the impending catastrophe which we think we see hanging over our society. Under socialism, some men are put at the disposal of other men, deliber ately, legally, and on principle. Socialism, in other words, is premised on an immoral extension of political power. But this is not all; socialism. introduces disorder into the economic realm as well. Its economic reasoning is shot through with fallacies-which is why it has to rely on force to transact the business of production and ex change. This universe, we believe, is an orderly affair, and therefore, intolerant of disorder. It follows that while we are free to embody uneconomic and immoral practices in our society, we are not free to escape their inevitable consequences. Our malpractices will catch up with us and bear their fruits in eventual collapse and dis aster. Thus runs our reasoning.

67 68 LEONARD E. READ Socialism, as formal, legal American policy, was given its significant impetus 45 years ago with the adoption of the Sixteenth Amendment. With that law we proclaimed that taxation would become progressive. We adopted as principle something even worse and less idealistic than communism's "from each according to ability, to each according to need." The principle we adopted was, "from each according to a:bility, to each according to political expediency." That this principle-once accepted-even though moderately applied initially, would be increas ingly practiced throughout the whole economy was in evitable. That it has grown enormously is obvious. That it will continue to grow and spread is a foregone conclu sion-until the principle is abandoned. If and when! Yet, where is the debacle? What happened to the pre dicted disaster? On the surface, things are fine. The chat ter we hear and the stuff we read seem only to say, "We never had it so good!"

Where Is the Flaw? There's a flaw here somewhere and we should find it. Certainly, our dire predictions by themselves will effect no remedy. But, where is the flaw? The prediction that socialism must ultimately bring disaster appears to be sound enough. And yet, we cannot deny that millions of people are better supplied than ever before with bath tubs and other gadgetry. Perhaps we need to probe be neath the surface and look at some of the things in our life we have swept under the rug. Let's, therefore, examTHE NATURE OF SOCIALISTIC DISASTER 69 ine this question: 'Could it be that an important phase of the disaster is actually taking place more or less un observed? Disaster, in the context here discussed, is generally thought of as a state of social or economic upheaval and chaos, a panic, a famine encompassing nearly everyone, the collapse of law and order or internal revolution like the overthrow of the government or unemployment on a vast scale: some' kind of collective catastrophe, in short.

It is possible that socialism in America will never re sult in any easily visible, eruptive cataclysm that will be described either contemporaneously or historically as "disaster." There is the probability that the over-all effect will be, as in the Roman Empire, a slow, disintegrating, eroding process over a period of many decades. We will just peter out gradually. As there isn't any time when we say, "Today, I am old," so there may not be any day or week or year when we will announce, "This is it. The America of our fathers is at an end!" The oscillation of society's pendulum is usually too slow for any such pre cise observation. The kind of disaster that socialism breeds, we wish to suggest, is not necessarily to be expected in the form of a sudden, collective eruption-short of an atomic hell breaking loose! Look for its results in the form of disas trous individual experiences now taking place. If disas ter is not diagnosed in personal terms, there may be no awareness that it is presently wreaking its damage.

To discuss something in personal terms is .to invoke moral values. And-to anticipate the thesis of this article 70 LEONARD E. READ -the socialistic disaster is not so much the debacle which the pursuit of antisocial policies will someday visit upon us; it is the immoral procedures we are engaged in right now. This is a moral judgment aimed at present practices and not merely a warning that we face a depression. To urge that there is even now a violation of life's moral dimension is different from a prediction that certain con sequences will be unpleasant. A moral judgment does not ignore consequences, but essentially it is a judgment rendered before the consequences have appeared. For, as an 1846 editorial in The London Times observed: "The greatest tyranny has the smallest beginnings. From prece dents overlooked, from remonstrances despised, from grievances treated with ridicule, from powerless men op pressed with impunity and overbearing men tolerated with complacence, springs the tyrannical usage which generations of wise and good men may hereafter perceive and lament and resist in vain."

A Case in Point Analyze, with this in mind, the case of those living on a fixed income. When the Widow Doakes can no longer buy the necessities of life with the competence which seemed quite adequate when Joe left it to her, her per sonal problem seems too trivial to merit the label "disas ter." Yet, socialism, financed by inflation which in turn depreciates the purchasing power of the medium of ex change, has caused this calamity. Varying degrees of this type of individual experience exist on an enormous scale, THE NATURE OF SOCIALISTIC DISASTER 71 all due to socialism and the consequent debauching of our money. Here is where most of us err: We fail to regard as dis aster the forcible extortion of one-tenth of one per cent of an individual's earned income to finance state inter vention and political privilege. This is mere pittance, and a shrug of the shoulders summarizes our feelings. Yet, we would regard, at least as an individual disaster, the forci ble extortion of one's total income. If we are to compre hend disaster, we must think of the economically minor extortion of one-thousandth of a person's earnings as a 100 per cent moral disaster.

Actually, disaster occurs whenever sound principle is surrendered or violated. As this is qualitative judgment, the quantity of money involved matters not one whit. If one accepts the commandment, "Thou shalt not steal," is the commandment any less surrendered with the theft of a penny than with the theft of a million dollars? One of countless examples: Last year one farmer was paid $247,000 for not growing wheat. Millions of us were compelled to chip in to build up the socialistic kitty to finance this disservice. Each chip was an individ ual disaster-altogether millions of moral disasters in fractionized form. Multiply this subsidy by the whole shocking, growing caboodle of socialistic subsidies which are doled out to some people at others' expense, and the enormity of the national disaster can be reckoned. It is quite understandable why socialistic disaster so largely evades observation. Most of us evaluate affairs in our own or other countries with the careless scrutiny 72 LEONARD E. READ of tourists; that is, with the hurried, casual, unpenetrat ing, sweeping glance. We spend a day or so, for instance, in the capital of a country where socialism has for dec ades wrought its damage: Paris or Rome or Oslo or Monte video or Mexico City. We note a bustle of activity, shops filled with attractive merchandise, restaurants serving excellent food, galleries with invaluable art, buildings of amazing splendor, and numerous other tourist delights.

"Isn't everything wonderful? These, for sure, are a happy, prosperous people." The Forgotten Victims What we don't realize is that we are viewing only the social and economic Remainder-those persons and their activities who stay topside after all the rest have been shaken through the socialistic sieve. Unobserved are the millions who have been the victims of this riddling. These unfortunates are, in effect, out of circula tion. They're no longer the ones who are seen in the marts or heard on the air or read in the press. They are a forgotten and, for all practical purposes, a silenced people. We can't weigh them on our scales, and so, more often than not, we form our impressions solely from the Remainder and their activities. If we are among this Remainder ourselves, we are a busy and often a prosperous lot. It is we who paint the national picture for popular viewing. The painting is a reflection of what we see. And ,,,,hat we see is a reflection of our own still favorable experiences. Should disaster THE NATURE OF SOCIALISTIC DISASTER 73 overtake us, however, our painting days will be at an end. This explains, in part, why socialistic disaster does its work in the dark, so to speak, hidden from casual observation.

Prior to and responsible for the economic disaster vis ited on individuals is an erosion even less observed. It is the socialistic demolition, bit by bit, of our political and economic institutions, the pulverizing of their moral and spiritual foundations. Gone almost entirely, even from teaching in our schools, is the very essence of Americanism, the concept that the Creator, not the State, is sovereign and the en dower of man's rights. 1 No socialist or statist can, with consistency, say a kind word about our Declaration of Independence-except perhaps to praise its literary excel lence-for .this document derives individual rights from the Creator and proposes a government with no func tions except to secure each of us in these rights. Once our moral and spiritual foundations are de stroyed, it is relatively easy to pervert our political and economic institutions. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights, designed to protect the individual citizen against the excesses of government and of the majority, have been so twisted by political interpretation that they now promote governmental excesses at the expense of the citizen.

1 See the chapter, "Historical Approaches to Ideal Government" in Wh'V Not Try Freedom? by Leonard E. Read. Irvington-on~Hudson, N. Y.: Foundation for Economic Education, Inc. Single copy on request.

74 LEONARD E. READ And what of the free market? Willing as distinguished from unwilling exchange is its essence. Market exchange is consistent with the moral precept that no person shall do unto others that which he would not have them do unto him. But, what is willing about the forcible ex change of the fruits of one's labor for many thousands of police grants-in-aid disbursed all over the earth through socialist and communist governments? Or, to finance projects in our homeland in which one may have no interest, indeed to which one may be utterly opposed? The American market today is a politically rigged mar ket! Freedom of choice as to what one does with one's own income no longer exists as a right. The State is sovereign and confers rights and privileges! Government has been turned from its true purpose of protecting citi zens against plunder and has become the plunderer itself. We must bear in mind that the turnabout from moral to socialistic principles has been accomplished by almost imperceptible changes, hardly a one of which has been thought of as disaster-except by a few highly discerning individuals. 2 But the cumulative effect is catastrophic.

In concluding these ideas about the nature of socialistic disaster, and the darkness in which it is cloaked, let us reflect not merely on the millions of individuals who have been shorn of their competence and their opportu nities to develop as human beings, but on what has hap2 One of these few was the late John W. Burgess, founder and for years the head of the Political· Science Department of Columbia University. See his book, written 35 years ago, Recent Changes in American Constitutional Theory. Irvington-on-Hudson, N. Y.: Foundation for Economic Education, Inc. $1.00 paper, $2.00 cloth.

THE NATURE OF SOCIALISTIC DISASTER 75 pened to those other millions who are still among the Remainder. It must not be thought that these, even though still vigorously active and, to all outward appear ances, prosperous, are getting off unscathed. Indeed, looked at from the long view, what's happening to this Remainder may be the sorriest phase of· the spreading socialistic disaster. In South America recently, I came upon one of the most brilliant persons it has been my privilege to meet. How is his brilliance in the economic sciences being employed? He is selling his services to people of means, demonstrat ing how they can evade the existing interventionism and, by so doing, become more, not less, wealthy. Interven tionism has diverted this individual from the creative career that might have been his to a traffic in wealth by stealth. It is disaster when the cream of the human crop are seduced thus to employ themselves.

Here at home there are vast armies of lawyers, account ants, tax experts-with the highest of I.Q.'s-devoting their earthly existence to this same kind of trade, employ ing their brilliance to keep the pains of interventionism from their clientele. And, on the other hand, we observe vast armies of equally brilliant individuals serving in the "influence" trade, helping their clientele "benefit" from interventionism. And from our moral leaders and our clergy, very little rebuke for this traffic in political privilege. Most telling, perhaps, is the knockout blow dealt the business and professional elite. Among this group are men whose capacity for abstract thought is the equal of 76 LEONARD E. READ the best academicians. These persons are students of liberty. They understand the rationale of the free mar ket, private property, limited government philosophy, and are sensitive as well to its ethical and spiritual im plications. But however ably they may articulate this philosophy in private, how few of their number dare say publicly and bluntly that which they know to be rightl They feel compelled to adopt a wishy-washy public rela tions position aimed at offending no one-and make no mistake about it, the forthright spokesman for liberty does on occasion offendl Loss of Leadership So what we get on nearly every hand from people who are regarded as business spokesmen, are watered-down endorsements of qualified "free enterprise"; "safe" rather than sound counsel, mere verbalisms and banalities de signed to placate the interventionist powers. In short, interventionism seriously, widely, and effectively deletes an intellectual and spiritual quality without which a good society cannot be maintained.

Add together all the persons who acquire a vested in terest in intervention, their potential moral leadership thus being lost to the cause of freedom and righteousness, and we have here a disaster of incalculable proportions. "Who can measure the nervous strain, the time and en ergy spent in the struggle with the market on the one hand and officialdom on the other?" asks Wilhelm Roepke. "The real reckoning," he says, "is made in the THE NATURE OF SOCIALISTIC DISASTER 77 consulting rooms of our cardiologists and nerve special ists. Who can measure the sum total of content, satisfac tion, well-being, and fulfillment that is daily and hourly being destroyed?" Private gain of some at the expense of others-an es sential tenet of socialism-is nothing short of legalized evil. Its practice, like widespread grand larceny, can be expected to result in overt disaster. But if we are unable to discern the present and continuing disaster, let's not say that the principle of retribution is no longer in oper ation. Rather, let us look to our own myopia.