Gerda's Empire; R. West

That is what is the matter with Gerda. She wants the result with out doing any of the work that goes to make it. . . . She is angry because we have some money. She feels that it might just as well belong to her . . . For her, the money might as easily have been attached to her as to us by a move ment as simple as that which pastes a label on a trunk ... As she has no sense of what goes to bring people love, or friendship, or distinction, or wealth, it seems to her that the whole world is enjoying undeserved benefits; and in a universe where all is arbi trary, it might just as well happen that the inj ustice was pushed a little further and that all these benefits were taken from other people, leaving them nothing, and transf erred to her, giving her everything. Given the premise that the uni verse is purely arbitrary, that there is no causality at work any where, there is nothing absurd in that proposal. This is the con queror's point of view ... Let us admit it, for a little while the whole of our world may belong to Gerda. She will snatch it out of hands too well bred and com passionate and astonished to de fend it. What we must remember is that she will not be able to keep it. For her contempt for the proc ess makes her unable to conduct any process ... To go up in an aeroplane and drop bombs is a simple use of an elaborate process that has already been developed.

But you cannot administer a country on this principle . . . Gerda's empire . . . will be an object of fear and nothing else. For this reason, I believe that Gerda's empire cannot last long. But while it lasts it will be ter rible. And what it leaves when it passes will also be terrible. For we cannot hope for anything but a succession of struggles for lead ership among men whose minds will have been unfitted for leader ship by the existence of tyranny and the rupture of European tra dition, until slowly and painfully, the nations re-emerge, civilization re-emerges. ~ 55 MALLORY CROSS ALTHOUGH strongly independent by nature, my friend thought cer tain government welfare projects were necessary - because he had never heard of an alternative. As I presented the libertarian view point, he listened attentively, but very soon caught me up. "Freedom? Are you sure free dom is always good?"