Painting Government Into a Corner; E. Opitz

PAINTING INTO GOVERNMENT A CORNER I AM GOING to discuss individual liberty ... eventually; but I'm going to begin at the other end with liberty's op posite-tyranny. If this roundabout method needs a de fense, I'll refer you to the procedure employed down on the farm to get a pig back into his pen. One's first thought is to aim the pig at the pen door, get hold of him, and pull. The pig resists. So then you get around back and push. Still no go. The expert solves the problem easily; he heads the pig in the direction he wants him to go, then pulls his tail in the opposite direction. If you want the pig to head northeast, pull his tail toward the south west! So I propose that we work our way around to liberty by starting with an all too common affliction of human society-namely, tyranny or unlimited government. "The history of liberty," as Woodrow Wilson said in New York in 1912, "is the history of the limitations placed upon governmental power." So, if we start with a picture of unlimited government in our minds, and then-step by step-apply the proper limitations to governmental 396 PAINTING GOVERNMENT INTO A CORNER 397 power, we should end up-if we have done our work right-with a pretty clear idea of what a free society looks like.

Visualize two rectangles. One represents government; the other, society. Now let us superimpose the government rectangle on the society rectangle. To all intents and pur poses, we now have but one rectangle: Government has swallowed up society and the two form a single, organic whole. This I shall call the 1984 pattern, taking my cue from the famous novel of that name by the late George Orwell. The novel is set in England. It is an England where a diabolically clever officialdom has succeeded in reduc ing the citizenry to a bunch of robots, controlled from the top, twenty-four hours a day. There is no private sector in the society of 19847 no sphere for personal action which belongs to individuals as a matter of right. The society is operated by the government as if the country were a vast, automated factory. Such is the intention, and such the theory. Now in actual practice, the theory limps a little. There are loopholes in even the most tightly organized, totali tarian society. The governmental machinery breaks down occasionally; officialdom is inefficient and occasionally corrupt. And so it is in 1984. The dictator of this society is called Big Brother. Big Brother's picture is everywhere, and the eyes of the portrait are designed so that as you look into them they seem to follow you. The universal slogan is: "Big Brother Is Watching You." His agents mingle with the populace to spy on people, and in every 398 EDMUND A. OPITZ dwelling there is a two-way television set which keeps the home under surveillance.

The novel has a hero named Winston, who works in what is called the Ministry of Truth. Winston's apart ment has the usual television set, but by an accident of construction one corner of Winston's room is out of range of Big Brother's seeing eye. Winston has a tiny sliver of privacy, but only because the Master Plan leaked at this point; the design is total political control of so ciety, and the consequent extinction of personal freedom. Such a society is called totalitarian. The principal feature of such a society is that no limitations are set to the ex ercise of governmental power over people; the govern ment is coextensive with society. As a result, this is a so ciety without freedom-regardless of the authority in voked to sanction governmental invasions of the various sectors of life. That authority may proceed from the will of one man, or it may rest on the will of a majority. No matter. Controls are controls, and unlimited government by definition denies individual liberty, whatever the rea son or the authority for the controls. Everybody in 1984 loved Big Brother; the regime was a total tyranny because it had the support of the whole people.

Unlimited Power But that's fiction, you say, and in real life things are different. Well, there is many a slip between intention and action, or the human race would never have sur vived; but let's stick with intentions for a bit. The first PAINTING GOVERNMENT INTO A CORNER 399 of the modern dictators was Lenin, who wrote: "The sci entific concept, dictatorship, means neither more nor less than unlimited power, resting directly on force, not lim ited by anything, not restricted by any laws or any abso lute rules. Nothing else but that." One of the men who learned from Lenin was Mussolini. "The State embraces everything," he wrote. "Nothing against the State; noth ing outside the State; everything for the State." This is the 1984 design as exemplified in the blood brothers, com munism and fascism-for the state to consolidate the so ciety, and for the combination to engulf the individual person. There is an inherent tendency in the state to move in this direction-unless a significant number of men in the society succeed in mobilizing the right counterforces.

Go back again to our two rectangles. When govern ment is superimposed on society, it means that all the various activities of people are controlled, directed, or commanded; that individual initiative is everywhere stifled, thwarted, or conditioned. Let me cite a quotation from Plato on this point, not as necessarily reflecting the mind of Plato or the actual conditions anywhere in Greece, but as revealing the destination of an ageless line of thought: "The principle is this-that no man, and no woman, be ever suffered to live without an officer set over them, and no soul of man to learn the trick of doing one single thing of its own sole motion, in play or in earnest; but in peace as in war, ever to live with the com mander in sight, to follow his leading, and take its mo tions frol'll him to the least detail .... In a word, to teach 400 EDMUND A. OPITZ one's soul the habit of never so much as thinking to do one single act apart from one's fellows, of making life, to the very uttermost, an unbroken consort, society, and community of all with all."

It C,an't Happen Here? What was advanced by Plato merely as a speculative idea, something to play with, has been actualized in our day. Listen to the words of one of the foremost experts on the Soviet Union, Bertram Wolfe. Speaking of Russia, Wolfe says: "The state continues to direct and control all aspects of life. A single party continues to dominate and rule the state, and to act as the core of all organizations." Well, you say, Russia is a long way off, America has a tradition of freedom, and the communists are no longer influential here. Besides, Americans are a good-natured people, and we wouldn't do this to each other ... would we? There are people who would do this to us, with the noblest of motives. Many instances occur to you, but let me offer just two. The first is from the pen of Senator Clark of Pennsylvania. Applauding the "liberalism" of American colleges, he writes: "Spiritually and econom ically youth is conditioned to respond to a liberal pro gram of orderly policing of our society by government."

The second statement is from a recent article by the eminent theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr. He is advocating liberalism of the Americans for Democratic Action type, and says, "... liberalism connotes a desire to use all the PAINTING GOVERNMENT INTO A CORNER 401 instruments and authority of the political state for the attainment of (social) justice. This means the welfare state, the politics of the New Deal, and the ... Adminis tration's current integration program .... " The trend is obvious. The country, under prodding such as this, moves toward a centralized society run from the top down. The national government commands each year an increasing portion of the people's earnings, and its power grows accordingly; its functions are extended and accelerated year by year. In other words, we are wit nessing and living in the midst of the natural drift of a state reverting to type. And a state reverts to type when ever counterforces are lacking. I propose in this paper to describe these counterforces in the hope of reactivating them.

History does not move in a straight line-there are ups and downs; there are periods of enlightenment, and ages that are dark. Liberty, too, comes and goes. It is lost and then found again. People experience the tyranny of a despotic ruler, endure it just so long, and then some thing inside them revolts. They frame a philosophy which provides the rationale for establishing sectors of individ ual immunity against governmental power, and they fight in various ways to achieve their goals. This is the pattern for the recurring struggle of men to be free in society, and it hinges on the success with which the func tions of government are limited to curbing aggression and maintaining the peace of society. If men are to attain freedom in society, they cannot do so on any old terms, but only on the terms laid down by liberty itself.

402 EDMUND A. OPITZ Seven Major Concerns of Man As we look back over human history, we note several major concerns which in every age have engaged the minds and hearts of men. These divide society into seven sectors. One of the great human enterprises is Economics. Man has to eat. He has to protect himself from the in clemencies of the weather; and he covers his body for warmth and adornment. It is by economic activity that men satisfy their bodily needs for food, clothing, and shelter. Work is involved here, and man has a natural inclination to avoid work. That is why he invents labor saving devices. One of the first labor-saving devices, as some cynic pointed out, was robbery. Now, a person pro duces for his own use and enjoyment and naturally he resents the thief; so, to curb thievery the police power comes into being. This is the seedbed of government, and whether we like it or not, politics has always been one of the major preoccupations of mankind.

Then there is Education. The adults of every society seek to introduce the young to the intellectual heritage of their culture and to initiate them into the world of the grown-ups. Schooling is part of education, and so is science. The fourth sector is Art-the world of painting, sculp ture, architecture, and literature. Art is a perennial con cern of man and should occupy a realm of its own in so ciety. So should Ethics. Men evaluate their own conduct and the conduct of others in terms of good and bad, right and wrong. These are moral judgments, and they PAINTING GOVERNMENT INTO A CORNER 403 stake out the ethical realm in human affairs. People strive to be better; they seek the good life-the kind of living appropriate to our nature. Moral effort takes us into the domain of Religion. Al most every person has, at some time or other, sat back and wondered what it's all about. Does the universe, that scheme of things of which we are a part, have any mean ing, any purpose? What is the significance, the aim and object of human life? What am I here for? Nobody above the moron level can avoid asking questions of this sort, which is what William James had in mind when he ob served that "mankind is incurably religious." Undenia bly, every society has exhibited some interest in this di mension of our lives, however varied the rituals and the theology which express this interest.

The seventh sector of human life is reserved for the free play of Voluntary Groups. Obviously, there is some overlapping here with the previously mentioned enter prises. A factory is a voluntary association; so is a church, in our society. And there are other voluntary groups de signed to further the ends of education, ethics, and art. Nevertheless, we need this category in order to include the groups -men form for sport, recreation, and just plain fun. These are the seven major areas of social life. Assume that we start with a society whose government is unlimited, politics being deep into every human con cern. Our task is to stake out the major human enter prises I have listed, to guarantee the integrity and relative autonomy of each by showing that-except for govern ment, the realm of law-politics is foreign to it. When we 404 EDMUND A. OPITZ have done this, the police power-or government-is painted into a corner where it belongs, exercising its rightful function of curbing destructive and criminal be havior and providing for the defense of the society against domestic and foreign enemies. When government is thus limited, the creative and productive actions of men are unhampered. Given this situation in a society, men would be free-as they are free today in one major realm, that of religion.

There is one important principle on which most Americans are agreed-the principle of th~ separation of Church and State. We take this principle of separation for granted, hardly realizing how unique it is in history and how strange it still sounds to non-American ears. England, and most countries of Europe, have national churches. A number of the American colonies had tax supported churches lasting, in my own state of Massachu setts, until 1833. Religious dissenters fared ill in many of the early colonies, but by 1779 the state of Virginia passed a Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom which was penned by the hand of Thomas Jefferson. "Well aware that Almighty God hath created the mind free," Jefferson begins, and then goes on to say "that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical." N or was any man to suffer civil disabilities because of his religious beliefs. He was to be free in this area to believe or not, to align himself with a church or not. In any case, his rights as a citizen were not impaired. The law would touch him only when a crime had been committed, and PAINTING GOVERNMENT INTO A CORNER 405 then-before the bar of justice-the believer and the non believer would be on equal terms. The First Amendment to the Constitution merely guaranteed that Congress would not overturn the religious arrangements the states had worked out for themselves.

The principle of separating Church and State is fre quently confused with something that sounds a little like it but is, in fact, altogether different-the separation of religion from society, the elimination of a spiritual dimen sion from social matters. Jefferson who, in the Declara tion of Independence, wrote that men derive their rights from the Creator, and who elsewhere wrote, "The God who gave us liberty at the same time," did not favor a nonreligious, secular society. He opposed a religious es tablishment and did favor government neutrality toward the churches. Why? In order that religion itself could play its proper role in the affairs of men. What is this role? The Old Testa111entView Compare our situation with that of the ancient world. Man, Aristotle said, is a political animal. Aristotle was not merely calling attention to the obvious fact that men live in social organizations as their natural habitat; by calling man a political animal Aristotle was saying that man is the kind of a creature who may find complete fulfillment within the Greek city-state.

The Greek polis was Church and State in one; its politics, one might say, was salvational. Our idea of relegating the state to the modest role of an umpire, keeping the 406 EDMUND A. OPITZ peace by merely enforcing the agreed upon rules, would have been largely incomprehensible to men of the ancient world. The head of the ancient state was also its religious leader; Julius Caesar, you recall, was also Pontifex Maxi mus, the chief priest. The individual, in this kind of a setup, was really locked into society-body and soul. Then, along came a new religion which transformed the ancient world by teaching that only part of man is social, that man's essence belongs to God. This idea is part of our heritage from the Old Testa ment, with its stress on God's transcendence. The com mon opinion in the ancient world was that a god was useful to have around to sanction social practices, to guar antee prosperity, and to insure victory in war. If a tribe lost a battle, this would be accepted as signifying the su periority of the god or gods of the victors; if a crop failed, the particular god who fouled up that situation was sacked. Some such idea of God is still widely held by our contemporaries. The Victorian novelist, Samuel Butler, satirized this notion when he said: "To love God is to have good health, good looks, good luck, and a fair bal ance of cash in the bank." But the ancient Israelites, al though they lapsed now and again, discarded the notion of a god kept on tap to bestow prosperity and victory.

They believed in a God of righteousness and truth, and they saw the workings of God even in their own poverty and defeat. They forbade all graven images, as well as any attempt to represent God in concept or word. The holy name was never pronounced or spelled. God was wholly other; he transcended human affairs, and yet-as PAINTING GOVERNMENT INTO A CORNER 407 the Creator and Sustainer of life-he was involved in them. This idea became part of Christian doctrine and it made a big difference to the politics of the West; it under cut the totalitarian idea which ruled the ancient world. Here is the way a British political scientist, J. B. Morrall, states the new political development which occurred after the fall of Rome: "The State as we should understand it today did not exist in the barbarian dark ages. Christian ity alone was left 'with the task of providing the West with a social unity across its new barbarian frontiers. It did so by appealing not to a primarily political sense of obligation, but to a basis of divinely inspired and com monly shared spiritual fellowship. Medieval Europe of fers for the first time in history the somewhat paradoxical spectacle of a society trying to organize itself politically on the basis of a spiritual framework (which gives to po litical life merely a relative value) . By so doing western European thought about politics was propelled along lines which were to be sharply different from those of any other human society."

Political theory in our tradition is based on the assump tion that men must be free in society because each person has a destiny beyond society which he can work out only under conditions of liberty. In other words, the inner and spiritual liberty of man implies the outer and social free dom needed for its completion. Loyal to these premises, the peoples of the West began their long and painful ascent toward the ideal of political liberty. By the time the West had attained a large measure of liberty-in the 408 EDMUND A. OPITZ eighteenth century-the premises had been forgotten. They are neglected today, but at least we do accept the principle that government should keep out of ecclesiasti cal affairs. Religion is to be free from political inter ference, just as we hope the other areas of life shall some day be free. The spiritual underpinnings of our institutions have suffered erosion, and we careen toward the pre-Christian idea of the state as the universal caretaker promising to feed, clothe, house, train, and guide its minions. By its very label, the welfare state advertises its self-assumed benevolence; and by the same token it cloaks the power inherent in all political action. So successful is the dis guise that it has even generated a specious religious support.

To sum up: Man is not a political animal, in Judeo Christian thought. He necessarily lives in societies and his societies require government. But the government must be limited to keeping the peace and administering jus tice, in order that individuals may have sufficient latitude to fulfill the law of their being, here and hereafter. Ethical Values This brings us to the domain of ethics. Every high re ligion is concerned with righteousness and the practice of virtue. As our religious values have eroded, there has been a decline of standards in ethics and a worsening of conduct. The figures on crime tell part of the story. Be tween 1958 and J 962 our population increased by 7 per PAINTING GOVERNMENT INTO A CORNER 409 cent, but crime increased by 27 per cent. Bank robberies have tripled in six years; embezzlement has doubled since 1956; there is an automobile stolen every 90 seconds. We in America steal more cars each year than there are cars manufactured in Russia! Other forms of violence are on the increase. Harder to measure are losses in integrity, the casual going back on one's word, the lack of moral indignation. And, of course, the trend is rationalized.

Ethical relativism is a widely held, but largely unexam ined, theory. People of different cultures, we are told, have come to differing conclusions as to what is good and what bad; and this, we are told, means relativism in mor als-no right or wrong as such. People of different cul tures have likewise come to differing conclusions as to what is true and what false. If the ethical relativists were consistent, they would have to say that this proves all truth is relative. Very few do. Some people embrace ethical relativism on humane grounds, because-they say-people who think X is better than Y will try to force X onto other people. This is bad logic and bad history. There have been annoying re formers who have sought to legislate morals, a misguided effort. But the great crusades, persecutions, and massacres of history have not been efforts to improve wayward con duct; they have been attempts to correct error, false be lief. If one adopts relativism on humane grounds, he should be consistent and deny any distinction between truth and error, on the grounds that people who believe they have The Truth might persecute on its behalf, as communists persecute ideological deviates.

410 EDMUND A. OPITZ The philosophy of the free society needs firm ethical support, and it is not getting it. As ethical standards de cline, some people seek to correct the situation by passing laws to control behavior. Government is, in fact, a sys tem of controls; but we ought to consider carefully the kinds of acts we decide to control by law. Crimes should be punished; on that point we all agree. But people can not be made good by law; they can only be made less free, and that is bad. Anglican Bishop William Connor Magee made a famous speech in the House of Lords in 1868 opposing a law which would have prohibited alco holic beverages: "I'd rather the English should be free than that England should be compulsorily sober," he said. Now it is only fair to assume that this churchman favored sobriety; but if he were forced to choose between sobriety and freedom, he would choose freedom as the higher good. The dictum, "You cannot legislate morals,"

is sound doctrine. But paradoxically, in a period when moral sentiments are weak, we have moved into the wel fare state, which is a gigantic effort to legislate morals on a national scale. When men go peacefully about their creative and productive tasks, minding their own busi ness, government should mind its business and let them alone. It cannot make them good, and it should not try. It can, however, curb destructive and criminal actions, and doing so is its proper job. It is one function of the educator to be the gadfly of the state, but he cannot be a gadfly if he is on the state's payroll. When the state begins its bid for total power, it must at some stage seize control of the country's educaPAINTING GOVERNMENT INTO A CORNER 411 tional system; it must establish a Ministry of Truth, as in 1984. Every culture devises ways of easing its young people into adulthood, by imparting to them the heritage of that culture so that the patterns and values cherished by the citizenry may endure. But when there is a break down in the culture, there is a contest to determine what values and what information will be imparted to the young, and by whom. This gives the state an opening wedge for starting a vast conditioning process by which the young will be adjusted to their place in society and be kept ignorant of the fact that there is any higher order of majesty than that of state. We have made some head way in this direction, but those who would take us down this road know that the time is not yet ripe to advocate controlled education-as they openly advocate a con trolled economy-and so, although they want government schools and urge federal aid to education, they assure us that this will not mean federal control. Despite their as surances, subsidy must lead to control, and control means nationalized education-a contradiction in terms.

Freedom in the Arts Now we come to the realm of art. The writers, com posers, and painters of Russia do not create for an inde pendent public; they work for the commissars. They do not seek primarily to embody such values as truth and beauty in literature and music; their work is designed to further the proletariat revolution. An official state ment reads: "The aim of Soviet art today must be to form 412 EDMUND A. OPITZ the consciousness of the people." American artists are in a tizzy these days on the question of the role of govern ment in the arts. Some opera singers and actors have come out in favor of federal subsidy for the arts, and there is now a Federal Advisory Art Council. But many American painters, sculptors, and writers are vigorously opposed to government interference, and the Council of American Artists Societies is on record in favor of free dom in the arts. We don't want an official art any more than we want an official religion. The real artist is neces sarily a free spirit; it is only the routine writers and decorators who would go on the public payroll. So in the interests of art itself, we must keep politics and govern ment out of this realm.

Art associations are just one type of innumerable vol untary associations in our society. Political clubs and dis cussion groups are other types. Then there are athletic clubs, camera clubs, fan clubs, and a whole host of groups drawn together because the members share a com mon interest. The totalitarian state must seek to destroy all lesser loyalties within it, just as it seeks to destroy religious loyalties above it; but in a free society, volun tary associations of all sorts flourish. Economic Freedom Finally, we come to the economic sector of our society, the realm of business, industry, and trade. This is the place where nearly everyone devoutly proclaims his dedi cation to free enterprise and the free market while simulPAINTING GOVERNMENT INTO A CORNER 413 taneously calling for more controls and regulations. This is a critical area of our life, because it is presently the prime target of those who prefer collectivism to a free society. Freedom cannot be won or retained on economic grounds alone, but it can be and is being lost on the economic battlefront.

Economic activity is fundamental to human existence. A Robinson Crusoe could get along without politicking, but if he did not work, he would die of hunger and ex posure. Out of economic activity emerge the concepts of rights to property and claims to service around which many political battles are fought. Economics, on the sur face, deals with prices, production, and the operations of the market as determined by our buying habits. Funda mentally, however, economics is concerned with the con servation and stewardship of the earth's scarce goods: hu man energy, time, material resources, and natural forces. These goods-in-short-supply are our birthright as crea tures of this planet. The strict limitation of government provides for an area of freedom in society within which men take care of their material needs by a system of bargaining, con tract, and free exchange. "The market" is simply a label for the system which uses free choice in buying and sell ing as a means of making economic decisions; it is the tactic of liberty applied to the workaday world. Within the network of market arrangements each man is re warded according to the value his fellows place upon his offerings of goods and services. This reward is his "wage."

Human nature being what it is, every man will tend to 414 EDMUND A. OPITZ feel that his own wage is too low, whereas other folks' prices are too high. Most people develop a reality sense on this point; others never do. Every collectivist ideology-from the welfare state idea to totalitarian communism-is strung on a framework of economic error. People are prisoners of their beliefs, and so long as they cherish a wrong understanding of economics, they will be appealed to by one form of col.. lectivism or another. But when people embrace sound economics, collectivism will cease to be the menace it is today. Parts of the Whole Freedom is all of a piece, and economic freedom-with in the proper moral and legal framework-is fundamental to the free society. Do we believe in religious liberty? Then unless there is private ownership of houses of wor ship, and private means for paying salaries, printing books, and holding meetings, religion cannot be free. Do we believe in a free press? But if newsprint is a govern ..

ment monopoly and all printing presses are government owned, how can newspapers be free? It is possible to have a Daily Worker in a capitalist country, but a Daily Capi talist in a communist country is inconceivable. Do we en.. dorse academic freedom? But if government owns the schools and appoints the teachers, then freedom vanishes. The restoration of freedom is a difficult job. It's one that will require every bit of ingenuity and determination we possess. Moreover, we ourselves are right in the middle PAINTING GOVERNMENT INTO A CORNER 415 of the picture. We cannot work from outside society, pre tending that we are like gods fashioning a culture piece by piece; we are within society, and any improvements we might make have to be an inside job. Our situation reminds one of the story about a town council in Ireland. The town needed a new jail, so the council passed a four point resolution: (I) The town will build a new jail to replace the old one; (2) To save labor costs the work will be performed by prisoners; (3) To save material costs, the new jail will be built with bricks and boards obtained by tearing down the old jail; (4) The prisoners will live in the old jail until the new jail is completed!

Not many Americans favor a dictatorship, but many Americans do favor the adoption of practices which will eventually lead to authoritarian rule. They believe in the welfare state, at the core of which lies a delusion. The welfare state is founded on the delusion that govern ment-the power structure in society-after using its power to divest citizens of a portion of their earnings via taxation, will dispense the riches thus accumulated at the bidding of the powerless. It cannot be; power will respond to power. The poor and weak in our society em ploy no lobbyists, and the welfare state spends its billions at the behest of its upper bracket favorites. Many of those who advocate the welfare state believe that society must be run by experts-given the current state of technology and the critical times we are in. But how do we know who is an expert, and who is not? At this point many intellectuals cast modesty aside and ad mit that they have themselves in mind. This simplifies 416 EDMUND A. OPITZ matters for the rest of us, until we note that these experts disagree among themselves as to who is really an expert and who is not. But one thing these experts favor, and that is the trend which is making our national govern ment ever richer and ever more powerful. They applaud this, because they visualize themselves at the helm using the money and power accumulated in Washington to carry out vast programs of their own devising.B u t if history teaches anything about politics, it is this: The in tellectuals and the idealists may dream up blueprints for a heaven on earth, but political power is never wielded by intellectuals and idealists-or not for long.

The welfare state operates on an evil principle: some body's program at everybody's expense. The intellectuals want a powerful government so that they can carry out their program, but this hope of theirs is doomed to con tinuous frustration-someone else always beats them to the punch. It will take a while before the intellectuals catch on to the futility of building for someone else's take-over, and by that time we'll probably have gotten ourselves squared away in the fields of economics, re ligion, ethics, art, and education. When this is accom plished, we'll have painted government into a corner, and men will be free.