Genesis of Extremism; L.E. Read

GENESIS OF EXTREMISM SUPPOSE you have a property-some acres, orchards, herds, buildings. Fearing that it might be despoiled, you employ a guard for protective purposes. He is provided with your rifle and pistol. You contract with him to serve on behalf of that defensive force which inheres in your moral right to life, livelihood, and liberty. Should no trespassers or marauders appear, the guard remains alert but inactive. For defensive action is only a secondary action; it is brought into play only at the instance of someone else's aggressive action. Let us now assume that the guard becomes impatient with his inaction, that he despairs of his strictly nega tive role. Realizing that the self-same force he has been given to defend you can be used to take your life and livelihood, he turns on you, his employer. Contrary to your wishes and using your own weapons, he takes it on himself to sell your produce, pocketing the cash. Some he uses to increase his own wage; he gives other parts Mr. Read is Founder and President of the Foundation for Eco nomic Education. Some of his articles of the past year, though not included in this volume, are available in his book Elements of Libertarian Leadership (Irvington-on~Hudson, N. Y.: Foundation for Economic Education, 1962. 183 pp.) $3.00 doth, $2.00 paper.

38 GENESIS OF EXTRE1\USM 39 of it to neighbors he thinks are "needy"; more of your dollars are allocated by him to a savings account for your old age, but actually he uses these to gratify a space craft hobby of his and deposits his IOU in the account; he goes into debt, but he monetizes the debt so that the dollars he allocates to you are not diminished but in creased in number; he dictates how much produce you may raise and the prices you may receive. In short, your hired defender comes to dominate your life. Being a normal, self-responsible, self-controlling in dividual, you rebel at this immoral and unwarranted authoritarianism, stoutly maintaining that you do not believe in any part of the guard's program. The guard, in the meantime, will have rationalized his actions to the point of self-righteousness with two lines of defense. The first will justify his own actions, "But I am doing this for the good of all." The second will be little his critics by name-calling, "You are extremists."

Extremism, as currently publicized, is aimed almost exclusively at "the extreme right." Khrushchev has not been labeled an "extremist," nor have any of our home folks who sponsor federal urban renewal, or TVA and its extensions, or compulsory social security, or foreign aid to socialistic governments, or whatever. By their definitions, none of them is "extremist." But they are, almost w:.ithout exception, the ones who hurl the epithet "extremist" at those who do not agree with their au thoritarian actions. What we are witnessing is an instance of action and reaction. The genesis of the reaction is the action, and 40 LEONARD E. READ the origin of the current "extremism" is socialistic action. Let your memory or imagination take you back three decades to pre-social security days. A person who then said he did not believe in compulsory social security evoked no reaction at all. No one thought to classify him as belonging to "the extreme right."

Then came compulsory social security, as socialistic as anything that falls under the definition. The authors of this legislation took the action. Reaction, in the form of dissent, followed. The actionists now call the re actionists "extremists." Had there been no socialistic action in the first place, there would be no antisocialistic reaction now. Nor would the term, "extremist," in its present context, have come into usage. Parenthetically, there is, now and then, a person who remarks, "I deplore both the extreme left and the ex treme right." To unmask this bit of nonsense requires only that it be translated: "I deplore both action and reaction." This makes no more sense than to deplore the thrust of a jet motor or the kick of a shotgun or the flight of a golf ball. Such remarks originate in thought lessness and thus do not admit thoughtful analysis. Variable Responses What ought to be considered, and carefully, are the varied types of antisocialistic reaction evoked by social istic action. The social actionists tend to disparage all re action in one lump-"the extreme right."

There are as many types of reaction as there are perGENESIS OF EXTREMISM 41 sons who react. There are those who do not react at all to socialistic flippancy, as unmoved as animals in the zoo. Others only mumble in their beards. These are allies of the socialists in the sense that they are inclined to "go along" with what is} regardless of its character. But among us are numerous dynamic reactionists. Some are calm and rational while others are volatile and emotional. Some proceed peaceably, others belliger ently. Some expose the fallacies of socialistic ideas while others never rise above name-calling. Some confine them selves to educational methods, others to political de vices. Some try to gain a better understanding and ex position of freedom principles while others set out to reform "the ignorant masses." Some see the fault in them selves and their own shortcomings; others think the so cialistic debacle has its origin only in the Kremlin. Some do their work for freedom joyously while others work only in anger. Some give no thought to the time ele ment except their own economical use of it; others in sist that "time is running out" and promptly hurry in the wrong direction.

Not All to the Bad My concluding commentary on the current socialist action is that it may have some good in it. This is to suggest that this action, the forerunner of the antisocial ist reaction, has a kind of value; it isn't all to the bad. Liberty, as the late Paul Valery pointed out, is not primary within us; it is never evoked without being pro42 LEONARD E. READ voked. The idea of liberty is always a response. In the context of this analysis it is a reaction. We rarely think we ought to be free, or think about it at all, until some thing shows us we are not free. The socialis t action is a preface to the reaction. W ith out such action most consciousness of and attention to liberty might well fade out of existence. U nti! recently the idea of liberty was close to extinguished in the minds of the American people. Something had to provoke a new, dynamic, libertarian sensitiveness. Short of a social ist action, what could accomplish this? Reaction to it is the great and rewarding dividend. May the reaction be marked by intelligence, integrity, good manners, deter mination; in short, may it take the form of an ex treme intellectual, moral, and spiritual renaissance!