People are Not Goldfish; D. Westerholm

18 people ate not goldfi~h D. M. WESTERHOLM of life deemed ideal by many hu mans. You think not ? Well, consider: these little denizens of the not-so deep pay no rent or mortgages, do not have to work for their food, have all medical care provided, have no worries about old-age se curity, don't have to concern them selves about competition or self protection or, indeed, accept any responsibility at all. All is provided by a benevolent master. Is this not the utopian existence so desired by millions? Plainly, for my small finny friends, the war against poverty has been won - fins down. I'll admit that the life of a cap tive goldfish is not completely anal ogous with human paternalistic socialism, but it's close enough for some discomforting comparisons. Some folks might ask: "What's so discomforting about it? I should have it as good as those goldfish, and my worries would be over!" With my own worry and 1965 PEOPLE ARE NOT GOLDFISH 19 concern about the financial future, I can understand the question. The answer lies in another question, however: "What happens to my goldfish if I run out of fish food?

Or forget them 1 Or drop dead 1" Those fish haven't learned sur vival techniques, because their en vironment has not demanded such learning. True, they still have the survival instinct, but their arti ficial rather than natural environ ment will not long support them if unattended - not even if their individual initiative and knowl edge of self-responsibility and self-protection had not been atro phied by lifelong disuse. So, too, with a nationally so cialized environment for humans. Sound economics, in effect, is the "fish food" of human society essential to its life. Socialism is not economically workable. (Just ask the communists, who are somewhat clandestinely re-adopt ing various capitalistic methods, purely because socialism doesn't work.) A government can operate at a deficit, inflating the currency, draining the internal resources of tpe nation and the people, for just sb long. Eventually, inevitably, it will run out of fish food. When that happens, the only hope for the citizens will depend upon their own survival efforts - individual ly. They will have to find, or grow, or manufacture their own "fish food."

Individual initiative, resource fulness, full and efficient accept ance of personal responsibility these are the tools needed for hu man survival outside the goldfish bowl. And these tools are not easily forged, or preserved, in the stulti fying environment of pa.ternalis tic socialism or other varieties of collectivism. I, for one, have no desire for the deceptive, dangerous, goldfish bowl way of life. After all, people are not goldfish. People have the intelligence, the size, the physical and mental capacity to form their own environment. Why, then, should We be satisfied with an en vironment so precarious and dang erous as that forced upon my pretty, utterly dependent, little goldfish 1 ~ BUSINESS IMPLICATIONS OF THE lLNEW MORALITY" HAROLD O. J. BROWN "BUSINESS AND RELIGION! What does religion have to do with busi ness ?Theologians are not busi nessmen." Believe that if you will, but to do so you have to ignore basic historic facts. Religious ideas have a tremendous effect on the struc ture of society and thus on the scope and quality of business per mitted in it. What is communism itself if not a "religious" idea?