Alternative Compulsion; M. D. Barger

The believer in classic. liberal ism cannot, of course, offer alter natives to compulsion that will pro duce the same results that compulMr. Barger is a public relations representative in Jackson, Michigan. . sory programs bring. There-are, for example, few voluntary pro grams that will give individuals the' power to tear down whole· sec tions of cities and replace them with gleaming buildings as urban renewal does. There is no practical way for a believer in voluntarism to build an unprofitable dam or to endow a special interest group with largesse. But there is a powerful alternative to compulsion, and it may be rediscovered when compul sory measures finally fail. It is called attraction. It is amazing that so few think ers of our own day have grasped this idea of attraction and how it functions in ec}lnomic affairs. It is an idea impUci in Christianity as well as in the .undamental struc ture of American government. In 605 606 THE FREEMAN October Christianity, the idea emerges as "letting your light shine so that men will see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven." In American government, attraction is implicit in the Bill of Rights and other statements of freedom; there is at least a confi dence that goodideas wilLtriumph through their power of attraction if all ideas are allowed to circulate freely.

Reformers in Haste One of the ironies in attraction, however, is that it is not itself im mediately attractive as a principle of operation to restless individuals seeking shortcuts and trying to get things done in a hurry. In the days before the Wagner Act, for ex ample, labor leaders made relative ly slow progress in signing up union members on a voluntary basis. Some of this slow progress, admittedly, may have grown from strong employer opposition and the intimidation of workers. But at least a large portion of the slow growth of unions could be ascribed to the fact that many workers did not· find the union's program at tractive. Rather than re-examine their own proposals and practices, labor leaders found a faster way: compulsory unionism, which per sists to this day. Though defended vehemently as the only way unions can survive, compulsory unionism still goes against the grain with the American public to such an ex tent that intense pressure from la bor leaders has not succeeded in eliminating the right-to-work pro visions from the labor laws.

There are, of course, numerous other examples of turning to com pulsion when attraction seemed a bit slow and tedious. We now have compulsory social security pro grams, compulsory medical care, compulsory agricultural programs, compulsory auto insurance, and countless other departures .from voluntarism. Just. around the cor ner, apparently, are some new pro grams such as compulsory birth control and compulsory mental health on a nation-wide scale. Busi ness organizations are being sub jected to compulsory programs by other firms in their own industry; in quite a few industries it is now the practice to organize as a soci ety or an association and to compel all eligible members to belong or face the suggestion that they are "out of it" or "not qualified to be accep1ted.as equals." And on the surface, compulsion does get things done. The social security check arrives every month, union dues are collected by checkoff, and everybody receives his fluoride from the city water supply whether he has teeth or not.

Since compulsion gets certain things done so well, what is really 1967 ALTERN ATIVE TO COMPULSION 607 wrong with it? It may appear im moral, but its proponents will also argue that it's immoral to let old people starve or to let dangerous buildings stand in a slum. Compulsion Doomed to Fail; Cannot Deliver the Goods Compulsion can be condemned for a number -of reasons. There are, as Friedrich Hayek argued some' years ago, reasons to believe that an increase in compulsory pro grams' will eventually· place the most unscrupulous individuals in charge of governmental .affairs. There are indications that this may be happening, but they are not yet conclusive. Compulsion also appears to· be legalized plun der in the view of many ; but .• this objection is countered with the argument that "government has the authority and duty to redis tribute in order to advance the common welfare." A third objec tion, that compulsion destroys freedom, does not win as many ad herents as· it should because they insist that their brands of compul sion' eventually promote freedom.

Actually, compulsion may defeat itself through its inability to de liver the goods over the long run. It subsists on the lie that man is a compliant, subservient being who can be shaped and guided in definitely into productive channels by coercion outside himself. Man is not such a compliant being; and when compulsion has run its course he is the very .power who will put it aside in favor of at traction, a force that does work indefini tely ~ Perhaps one of the keener ob servations on this basic inferiority of compulsion to attraction was pinpointed many years ago in an essay on "The Will" in Thomas Troward's Edinburgh Lectures.! While writing chiefly of the hu man will and the limitations of will power, Troward indicted all compulsion by direct implication: "Many" writers a.nd teachers insist on will-power as though that were the creative faculty. No doubt in tense will-power can evolve certain external results, but like all· other methods of compulsion it lacks the permanency of natural growth.

The appe'arances, forms, and con ditions produced by mere inten sity of will-power. will only hang together so long as the compelling force continues; but let it be ex hausted or withdrawn, and the elements thus forced intounnatural combination will at once fly back to their proper affinities; the form created by compulsion never had the germ of vitality in itself and is therefore dissipated as soon as the external energy which sup ported it is withdrawn." 1 Dodd, Mead & Company, New York, 1909.

608 THE FREEMAN October No Chance for Progress The fatal flaw in compulsion is tha tit lacks the creati vity to pro duce the new ideas and forms which. human progress demands. When a project is supported by compulsion, it· is practically, im possible to remove the compelling force without also witnessing the quick death of the thing supposed lycreated. One •such -example is when ", the government subsidizes a dying industry in order to save it for some noble, public purpose or merely to aid a dese·rving com munity; the subsidy soon has to be of a permanent nature or. the industry dies anyhow from its own inability to attract the nutrients of industrial life. The same is true of programs to force busi nessmenand labor leaders to fol low wage-price guidelines; if com pulsion is relaxed for either group' or at any point, the' guide line is ignored and forgotten. It is also true of economic stimu lants applied to ·encourage the grQwth of new industries and get them on. their" feet; they never get to the point where they want to walk alone.

Attraction, if it is really pres ent, is like Biblical Love; it never fails. If an; attractive idea or ar rangement is in motion, it draws substance to itself. as unfailingly as a magnet draws iron filings. It worked remarkably well in our pasthistory,stillworks in numer ous social arrangements, and, is still believed in as a business prin ciple at many levels. It is easy to see why attraction always supplies the highest out put of ~reative"and' produ'ctive energies. When "compulsive tactics are followed, a large amount .of energy must be expended. simply in overcoming the resistance and inertia of those being forced to submit. But where there is mu tual attraction and agreement, the energies of all parties to, the ar rangemen.t are available for pro ductive use. This would be true of almost any social organization, whether a simple neighborhood as sociation or _a national govern ...

mente To some extent, it explains why the fledgling America quickly outdistanced -the armed monarch ial states of Europe _in. the last century. Few of the nation's en ergies had to be' tied up in appa ratus for compelling reluctant minorities to go along with-the ruling powers, and-we're, therefore free for other uses. How did attraction function in the 'American past.?W ell, ,we can only conclude, that immigrants came to the United States in droves because they were attracted to it and fed up with compulsion. They were attracted' by the, prom ise of economic gain and more freedom; but at the outset many 1967 ALTERNATIVE TO COMPULSION 609 of them had to make great sacri fices in order to get out of their native countries. The· attracting force was so great, however, that they came by the millions, endur ing stinking, dangerous ships and facing huge initial debts in orde·r to make the change. Once in America, they began to make a place for themselves because they were attracted by the prospect of betterment.. Most of us who are rather well off today owe much of our good fortune to determined ancestors who had the courage to break out of stifling conditions in feudal Europe and try something new.. Compulsive measures neve'r could have done the job of settling the United States a tenth as well.

Closed-Shop Methods What about social arrange ments? It's tempting to use legal means to force groups of peopile with: a common interest into an association, which is the kind of thing that tends to go'on today in union organizations and pro fessional societies. The latter, in particular, are choosing compul sive measures up to the limits of their powers ; and anybody who belongs to such a society fre quently hears discussions of meth ods to exclude certain people' and, at the same· time, to force others to belong. The medical, dental, and legal' associations are masters at this kind of thing,and are stI."engthened by the fact that practitioners in their fields must be licensed by states. Other pro fessional groups are not far 'be hind, however, and we seem to face a future in which themem bers of every profession will be able"to control their memberships and to pass judgment on' whether a newcomer to the field can be admitted.

The pretext of this kind of com, pulsion is usually "protecting the public" and "raising the stand ards of the profession." There's no denying that associations' prob ably do elevate' professional stand ards and help circulate vital in formation among their member ships.At the same time, however, all of them are powerful interest groups-seeking additional advan tages for their members. There's nothing wrong with interest groups, but they should not have the legal right to use certain com pulsivemeasures that' excIud'e some-andf orce others to belong against their will. We need not fear that denying them a means of compulsion will destroy profes sional standards or leave the pub lic wide' open to fraud and bad practice. Any association can sur vive by· making membership in it attractive to potential members; and it can win public support for its causes by offering convincing 610 THE FREEMAN October proof that its members· do provide the best services.

Attracting Cooperation Attraction also. offers solutions to social problems such as the present conditions of Negroes and other minority groups in the U.S. Most of .. the measures presently being advocated involve one form or another. of compulsion, and some of them have succeeded·· up to a point. There's no question, for example, that pressure from the Federal government has created employment.. opportunities in a number of industries that were probably closed to Negroes before 1960. But. compulsion .has not ac complished the j oh to anybody's satisfaction; and without the con stant application of outer pres sure, conditions. would tend to re vert to what they were before 1960. There are, after all, many rea sons why it is good business to hire Negroe's on an equal basis with anyone else. Prej udices were so deep-seated in almost every or.. ganization that few people real ized this, and the groups working in the civil rights field were al most totally obsessed with. secur ing legislative remedies. Now there is widespread disillusion ment because the legislative reme dies are failing to produce the desired results, and instead of re..

appraising the philosophy of com pulsion, its proponents are simply calling for more of it.·We can ex pect, therefore, that the people at whom this compulsion is aimed will continue to. follow the letter of the law, but rarely.· the spirit of it. Pleasing the Customer It's primarily in our commercial activities that we seethe most lively functioning of the forces of attraction. Throughout the United States, thousands of sellers bid for our attention, and work con stantly to develop products and ideas that we'll want to buy. Some times these attempts to win ··us over become tiresome and irritat ing, but we wouldn't really want it any other way. If 'somebody has· to· make his proposal or prod uctattractive to us, this means weare still being allowed to choose; and where there is a meas .. ure of choice, there is probably a certain amount of freedom. We expect a great deal from the merchants who want our business, and we really have little· sympathy for the enterprise that fails be cause it neglected the needs of its customers. Most of us are custom ers a good deal of the time, and we expect to be attracted. to our pur chases. If a businessman is able to make his products and services attractive to us, we're still willing 1967 ALTERNATIVE TO COMPULSION 611 to reward him handsomely for it, and he in turn is able to attract additional capital into his busi ness and thereby grow to· draw even more customers. It is hard to see how anybody is inj ured by this process, except perhaps the busi ness competitor who ignores the wants of the customers. The gen eral public, the investors,and the employees of the enterprise all gain, while the nation as a whole is made richer. Best of all, it's done without depriving anybody of his freedom or his right to choose.

Right now, however, the idea of attraction is in eclipse with little support among the restless groups seeking change and personal bet terment. Attraction will always lack appeal to impatient people. Attraction's chief disadvantage is that it cannot work except by the fr:ee choices of the people, while compulsion can bring all sorts of extraordinary projects into being for the short term. Compulsion is the chief tool of unimaginative people whose most prominent trait is considerable contempt for the nature of man. Attraction, on the other hand, is the hidden force that holds the universe together and makes the birds sing and the flowers grow. It is the creative power that causes free men to get things done. It will last forever. ~ Healthy Discontent You MEN AND WOMEN of the advertising profession are the high priests of the cult of discontent. You are peddlers of the healthiest kind of unhappiness.

You hold the carrot of temptation and desire before the con suming public. And we reach for it. And, in reaching, we create movement, action, progress. You stimulate our desire for improvement. You whet our appetites for better food, better cars, better homes, a better education, finer suits, smarter dresses. You fan the flames of hope and aspiration. And hope, perhaps, is the most powerful force in our world today. For, without hope, the future becomes a pattern of monotony. Without hope, without dreams, without aspirations and ambition, our future world would indeed be grim and gray. C H A R L E S L. G 0 U L D, from an address to the Advertising Federation of America Decisions and Progress ALE~ANDER EVANOFF THE PHILOSOPHY of individualism has these suppositions on the ed ucability of man. It believes that no one can teach anyone any thing, that no one can tell anyone anything which the individual does not already know, or is pre pared inwardly to accept. This is true of individual preachments as well as governmental proclama tions of truth and justice. The in dividual learns through his own abilities, limitations,·. and experi ences. Therefore, the broader the scope for individual action, the broader and the greater the num ber of experiences, the better ..The less imposition or interference from above, the better.