The Great Difference; P.L. Poirot

It would all be the same in the end, and no one would have gained anything by reason of such ex changes. So, perhaps 'we need to remind ourselves and one another of our individual natures, our differences, our variable abilities, and our variable needs if we would con tinue to develop our respective lives in the company of others. Instead of seeking sameness from the cradle to the grave, let us ex plore and exploit the differences by which we live. "Human equality" is not a working formula of the Creator; it is a technical terln of limited political application. 1 Our mani1 We acknowledge that men should be "equal under the law." Civilized co existence requires certain minimum rules such as mutual respect for life and property. Penalties are to be as sessed impartially against any violator of these basic rules. 39 40 THE FREEMAN January fest and manifold inequalities ex tend to every facet of our beings, from the tiniest of our physical features to the highest povvers of our intellects and spirits, includ ing all the goods and services and products and all the other results tovvard vvhich human thought and action are directed. No tvvo indi viduals are equally motivated to any given end nor equally endovved to achieve it; nor are the economic, political, and moral circumstances of anyone's environment precisely the same as for any other.

It may be argued in this con nection that persons can and do cooperate or combine their similar qualities in a joint venture, as do the oarsmen of a college crevv, or the "Rockettes" at Radio City Music Hall, or the helpful neigh bors at a barn raising. But it should be remembered that col lege crevv racing remains a popu lar sport precisely because oars men are different rather than identical; othervvise, no crevv ever could vvin or lose a race. The pre cision dancing of the "Rockettes" does not reveal the divergent rea sons vvhy each girl dances, or the reasons vvhy customers pay to vievv the performance. Each man straining to hoist the side of a neighbor's barn vvill have in his mind's eye the help he expects on his ovvn pet project vvhen the time comes. Through different eyes vve see different vvorlds against vvhich to match our different scales of values. And by vvhat human stand ard can anyone attest that this is not the vvay things are or ought to be?

Whether or not vve like it, this is the competitive nature of our vvorld. Every moment for every living thing is a continuing strug gle to bring its differences into harmony vvith an ever-changing environment. The living is in the struggle and the competition. The individual living entity loses its identity - dies - vvhen it ceases to compete, vvhen it lets itself be fully merged into another body or or ganism or group or system, becom ing as an atom in a stone rather than a dynamic self-motivated being. Competition the Life of Trade From memory, if not from un derstanding, vve knovv that com petition is the life of trade. This simply is another vvay of saying that all economic relationships, as conducted in the open market, are based upon our differences. As vve survey scarce resources through our different scales of value and respective consumer tastes, vve find opportunities for specialized production and voluntary ex change, to the advantage and satisfaction of everyone involved.

1965 THE GREAT DIFFERENCE 41 Each party to every voluntary ex change must necessarily gain, giv ing up what he values less in order to get what he values more, else he would not freely enter the trade. Now, it is true that many pros pective buyers may be competing for every available unit of un eco nomic good, and this competition may seem to drive up the price that must be paid for the unit. But consider for a moment what price one might have, to pay if he were the only person in the world who wanted a 1965 Cadillac - and the manufacturer knew in advance that this was going to be the de mand situation! The cost would be fantastic. Competition among buy ers does not necessarily mean higher priced merchandise. The fact that several prospective buy ers are in the market affords the opportunity for lower unit costs through mass production. Also, there is likely to be com petition among prospective sup pliers or sellers of any given item and of various substitutes for it.

Such competition to sell is the buyer's insurance that prices will be reasonable. It also affords each manufacturer or supplier a check of his own methods and operations and his finished products against those of competitors, so that any improvements and efficiencies in trod uced by anyone of them will soon be copied and in turn im proved upon by others in the busi ness. Competition also lets a man know promptly when he fails while there is yet time to try his hand elsewhere. This competition among manu facturers and suppliers activates und gtimuluteg the mUl"ketg for labor and raw materials. The raw materials will be drawn from farms and forests and mines, slowly or rapidly as the market forces may signal, but always with an eye to the conservation of scarce resources and thesubstitu tion therefor of less expensive and more plentiful alternative factors of production. Labor, of course, is one of those always-scarce factors of produc tion which the unhampered mar ket strives to conserve and use sparingly, competitors constantly weighing the comparative costs of additional tools and mechanization versus extra men on a given job.

Competition among employers bids wage rates up to the limits the market will allow at any given time and place. And competition among workers encourages each to 42 THE FREEMAN January move toward the best job oppor tunities available to match his par ticular skills and aptitudes. In every open and unhampered market economy or society there is constant competition among those who want to utilize available goods and services, whether they be ultimate consumers of food, clothing, medical care, shelter, and the like, or ,vhether they be indus trialists seeking additional capital, raw materials, goods and services, to be used in the further output of producer and consumer goods. The same open market serves us all, and serves very well indeed if free to do so - that is, if it is not restricted by artificial man-made barriers to trade and by interfer ence with the voluntary movement of capital and labor. The free mar ket recognizes and respects our manifold differences and affords each indi vid ual the maxim urn op portunity to express his individ uality and to pursue his own in terests by serving others.

Perhaps a reminder is in order at this point, the reminder that our individualities, our different interests, and our abilities to achieve them, extend beyond our persons - our physical bodies and include the private property each has earned and owns. A man's property is the extension of his life, a part of his means of liveli hood, which he may consume or sell or give away or save or use in whatever manner seems to him to best serve his own interests. Thus, property - in land or buildings or tools or consumer items or what ever form - tends to take upon it self the characteristics of each owner and thus to reflect the dif ferences and the infinite varia bility to be found among human beings. Privately owned property is by no means the same as that which is supposedly owned in common and therefore belongs to no one. Private ownership, like personal freedom of choice, is essential if there is to be voluntary exchange or any other act of peaceful co operation among individuals. In other words, we trade upon our differences, not our sameness; and our differences extend to and through the property each owns.

The Unhappy Alternatives To more fully appreciate the blessings of competition and trade through which our differences are exercised to everyone's best ad vantage, let us now consider some of the alternative concepts and plans that always have stood in the way of the slow progress of man toward becoming human. The modern extension of pov erty in India under the successive "Plans" of the Nehru government affords a sad illustration of the 1965 THE GREAT DIFFERENCE 43 failure of compulsory equalization among men. The years of effort to industrialize the economy of India, aided and abetted by gifts and loans through the governments of other nations, have so disturbed her traditional agricultural pro duction that serious famine and mass starvation now seem certain. Heavy taxes have tended to drain from agricultural uses the little capital that might otherwise have been available. Land reform meas ures have taken management re sponsibilities from the more ca pable and transferred the task to those less able to manage. Price control and rationing programs have precluded any progress the free market might have afforded in conserving scarce resources and encouraging further production of those most needed items.

The basic premise behind Nehru's plans was that all Indians either are, or ought to be, alike. And whether recognized or not, this has to be the premise for all schemes of compulsory equaliza tion. There is no more respect for the indi vid ual dignity of those to be aided than for the individual rights to life and property of those compelled to render the aid. Dif ferences among men are to be ob litera ted; and if this is accom plished, then to that extent are wiped away the reasons men have for trading,cooperating, voluntarily helping one another. And with this destruction of mutual re spect goes the loss of self-respect. This is the great problem of India today, and it is the inevitable con sequence of compulsory equaliza tion, all over the world, whenever and wherever it is undertaken. Amer;~an fxper;ment~ Countless other examples could be cited from abroad, but the sad f act is that we already have the counterpart of all of them. right here on our own doorstep in the United States.

After more than a generation of heavily subsidized agriculture, which presumably should have improved the economic status of farmers and given an abundance of food for all consumers, we are now told by the master planners that millions of U. S. citizens go to bed hungry each night and that additional Federal aid is needed for farmers. No less acute is the housing crisis following years of rent con trol, public housing, and urban renewal programs designed to eliminate differences and bring 44 THE FREEMAN January about greater equality in the en joyment of housing facilities. The more the government intervenes in this area, the greater the cry for further intervention because landlords and tenants can no longer find a reasonable basis for volun tary exchange, because prospec tive home builders and prospec tive home buyers are finding more and more barriers in the tradi tional market lines of communica ti~n with one another.

Government intervention by way of the Wagner Act and subse quent labor legislation has all but destroyed the opportunity for com petitive bargaining and peaceful exchange between employers and employees. The higher the govern ment-enforced minimum wage rates and unemployment benefit payments, the more serious be comes the problem of caring for the unemployed. When the law sanctions union practices tha t tend to equalize the output of workers and the wages they re ceive, regardless of performance, this compulsory elimination of dif ferences among men denies them the opportunity to cooperate and trade voluntarily. "Collective bar gaining" and "arbitration" have come to be synonyms for coercion. After 25 years of taxing and coddling the aged under compul sory social security, the oldsters have largely lost the capacity or the will to care for themselves, and it is difficult to see how a self betrayed older generation can command the respect of the young sters expected to support them.

The problems of education in crease in direct proportion to the extent of state and Federal aid and government control over edu cation. There is every reason to expect that electrical services may be come as unreliable and inefficient as the postal service if the govern ment moves further toward mo nopoly of the power and light busi ness. The compulsory elimination of competition is the ultimate in equalization, after which neither love nor money will enable a cus tomer to obtain anything better than the mediocre. Enough examples; the evidence is all about us that our lives de pend upon our differences, that variety is the essence of life, com petition the life of trade. To the extent that we compose our differ ences by force, we diminish our selves and each other - and we die. Let us cultivate and exploit our individualities and our differences, for this way points the upward path of human progress - econom ically, socially, spiritually - the path of peaceful cooperation among men. ~ 4.