The Causese of Violence; F. E. Mahaffy

VIOLENCE in the streets of some of our large urban centers has stimu lated an investigation of the under lying causes of these riots, blood shed, hatred, disrespect for life, property, and the laws of society. Until we learn the causes, it will be hard to come by the cure for the disorder. To some, the obvious cause is poverty. But poverty does not of itself produce violence. While the mobs were rioting in the United States, I was visiting in an African home. The four children and their parents, as well as the chickens, shared one small room in the hut. The Reverend Mr. Mahaffy has served since 1945 as a missionary of the Orthodox Pres byterian Church in Eritrea, East Africa. Their beds consisted of mats on the hard earth with a piece of cloth or a block of wood for a pillow. But as I sat on the floor with them, eating a coarse bread with hot pepper sauce from a common dish, there was a pleasant exchange of banter followed by more serious discus sion and study. The deep poverty of this African family did not lead to violence; rather, they all mani fested the most gracious hospital ity and sincere friendship. In Africa, violence frequently charac terizes the activity of the newly educated and more economically advanced young people; the poor people more often retain their tra dition of gracious hospitality and friendliness. There is no direct re4 THE FREEMAN November lationship between poverty and violence in Africa - or .America.

It is my conviction that the causes of violence often lie in the philosophy of the welfare state. so ciety, promoted by politicians and widely accepted by many people. Recently, a religious periodical reported that a Christian college received a large grant of Federal funds toward building a library. A student of that college wrote of Federal grants to provide on-cam pus jobs for the students. This col lege would be classed as a conserva tive school in its political and religious outlook. Not one of the professors would think of support ing open violence but would roundly condemn it. All would agree that the Moral Law of God summarized in the Ten Command ments provides the absolute norm for conduct. Yet the supporters of such Federal subsidies to educa tion, like all supporters of the wel fare state, are unwittingly endors ing violence as a way of life.! Perhaps the shooting of police men· and civilians, the plundering of stores and burning of buildings seem remote from the promotion of the welfare state society via Federal subsidies. The one mani fests open and naked force against 1 Leonard E. Read, "Violence as a Way of life," Essays on Liberty, (Irv ington, N. Y.: Foundation for Econom ic Education, 1962), Vol. IX, p. 303.

the Iives and property of others; the other seemingly advocates Fed eral funds for worthy, peaceful ends. But both alike are manifesta tions of violence and are the fruits, in differing degrees of maturity, of the same basic philosophy. Redistribution by force The measures of the welfare state are means for redistributing the wealth. The recipients may be the aged who receive Medicare, for eign nations who are given tractors and money in foreign aid, urban dwellers for whom new houses are built, farmers who sell their grain to the government at a subsidized price, private or government school beneficiaries of state and Federal grants, children who receive free or subsidized lunches, or those businesses whose projects are gov ernment financed. Whatever the means of redistribution may be, the recipient receives what has been seized by violence in taxes col lected from others. He receives the fruit of legal plunder.

This legal plunder of property by the state is rooted in disrespect for life; for to seize property is to violate the life sustained by that property. Carried to its logical con clusions, the recipient of legal plunder assumes a right to the property and thus to the life of his better-situated neighbor. When legal plunder becomes the accepted 1965 THE CAUSES OF VIOLENCE 5 norm of everyday life, it is little wonder that more naked violence occasionally breaks out in our cities. The perpetrators of the vio lence have been taught through effective propaganda that they have a right to the fruits of the labor of others. When they feel that the agents of the redistribution have stinted in the distribution of these fruits to them, they take into their own hands the logistics of the division, speeding up the process by open violence and plunder. They are only carrying out to its logical conclusion the principle of violence involved in Federal subsidies to some at the expense of others. They are engaging in illegal pIunder and violence to accomplish what the welfare sta te does by means of legal plunder.

Dr. Ludwig von Mises has clearly pointed out the fact that socialism leads naturally to vio lence, bloodshed, and war. 2 Whether this socialism be that of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Rus sia, China, or the compulsory col lectivism of our welfare state so ciety, tbe final result is disruption into open violence. Such violence is only the fruit of the more subtle (and hence in many respects more 2 Ludwig von Mises, Human Action (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1949),pp. 449, 680-84, 820. dangerous) violence of redistribu tion. The causes of violence often lie in the philosophy of compulsion that characterizes all types of so cialism. And because socialism in volves violence, it flouts the moral law which restricts the use of force against others to the restraint of evil. Restoring Moral Law and Order The solution to the problem of violence does not lie in attributing it to poverty and promoting fur ther violence by way of urban re newal and Federal subsidies. The solution is to abandon violence as a way of life. Required is a renewed respect for law rooted in respect for God, the Law-Giver, not only by individual citizens subject to the law, but especially by those citizens who have been delegated the power of the sword for the suppression of violence among us.

It is still true that "righteous ness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people."3 True righteousness will evidence itself not· only in refraining from vio lence on the streets of our cities but in aband.oning the philosophy of violence which characterizes the redistributionist activities of the welfare state. • 3 Proverbs 14 :34 14. Capturing the Hearts of Men CLARENCE B. CARSON · .. And Christianity, by the lips of all its teachers, ought with all its emphasis to say to society: "Your present industrial system, which fosters these enormous inequalities, which permits a few to heap up most of the gains . .. needs important changes to make it the instrument of righteous ness." WASHINGTON GLADDEN, 1886 I take this as my thesis: Christianity is primarily concerned· with this world, and it is the mission of Christianity to bring to pass here a kingdom of righteousness and to rescue from the evil one and redeem all our social re lations.