Power 4. Prospects: G.C. Roche III

Others have expected to create a "master race" through the ex termination of "impure" races. Such schemes invariably have ended in disaster for ruler and ruled alike. The record of failure is being extended by the most "modern" of the schemes to re make the world through the use of coercion. The record of the planned society, whether in eco nomic, political, or moral ques tions, is far from enviable. One of the worst features of the planned society is its incor poration of religious zeal in the service of repressive ends. The humility implicit in a· sound re ligious faith has often retarded men's appetite for power; but even religion is showing signs of degenerating into a mere human itarianism which substitutes the material for the spiritual and man for God. The increasing spread of the planned society has tended to sweep aside such institutional guarantees as religion and private property, and has tended to over ride the traditional political bul warks against such unchecked ex ercise of power. \Vorst of all, the extension of power has been suffi ciently gradual, and the accom panying semantic erosion has been 541 542 THE FREEMAN September so complete, that the new exten sion of power into every area of our lives is today widely accepted as our "traditional American way."

The new exercise of power in the name of "humanitarian" goals is none the less dangerous because its ends appear commendable. In the words of Immanuel Kant: "Nobody may. compel me to be happy in his own way. Paternal ism is the greatest despotism imaginable." For the social re former thus to select the .goals in pursuit of which he will exercise his tremendous authority is to deny men the exercise of their own will, stripping them of their humanity. Erosion of Value For many centuries throughout the history of the Western World, the belief in the divine origins of individual human personality be came progressively stronger, thus engendering an understanding of the necessity for the limitation and fragmentation of power. As belief in the divine origins of in dividual human personality has tended to wane in the modern world, this trend has increasingly reversed itself. Man has seen fit to dispense with God and sub stitute man in His place, and the barriers of Natural Law have come down as the result of that substitution. The way has been cleared for the exercise of power in a new moral framework. This framework now defines "morality"

as social utility, to be decided upon by those exercising power. The ethical abyss opening at the feet of modern man is the direct re sult of that definition. Since Descartes, Western phi losophy has increasingly departed from the realism of the Greeks, the Bible, and St. Thomas. The result? But in our society, where relativ ism rules supreme, where truth is not merely distorted but its very exist ence denied, power grows to mon strous p,roportions without any inner check in the bosoms of those who hold it. In the place of truth, the ideal is adjustment, that .. is, the acceptance of whatever happen to be the modes of thought and action established among us - not because it is pur ported that they are true, but just because they are. In this paradise for power unchecked by any criterion but its own, the way of the man who would bear witness to and fight for truth because it is truth is doubly hard. Not only, as in former ages, must he confront the established au thorities of the day with the diver gence of their acts from the demands of truth; he has to substantiate - ex plicitly or implicitly - the very title of truth as criterion.!

1 Frank Chodorov, The Rise and Fall of Society (New York: Devin-Adair, 1959), pp. vii-viii.

1967 POWER: PROSPECTS 543 Truth and Not Power Has the Last Word Yet, it is this modern relativism which today stands astride our society and which controls such vast and unlimited power. But power, of itself, is not the final controlling element in man's life. The old assertion that "the truth will out," suggests quite properly that Truth and not Power has the last word in the affairs of man. Power, resting upon any other foundation except Truth, ensures its own destruction, a destruction from which the Truth will again emerge in the intellect and spirit of man. Those exercising power upon any other basis than Truth are, in the words of George Schuyler, "like a colony of ants riding on the end of a log floating down the Mississippi, while dis cussing destiny." Correct action automatically fol lows understanding - the only route to correct action. Nothing else will serve. If this process seems hopelessly slow, there should be the sustaining faith that liberty is in harmony with truth, and with the intended design of the human social order. Truth is immortal, despite the defeats that it seems to suffer along the way. Truth has a power that is no respecter of persons, nor of the numbers of per sons who may at any time be in dark ness about truth. Truth has a power tha t cannot be touched by physical force. It is impossible to shoot a truth. 2 It is helpful to remember that throughout the history of man, oppression has been his usual lot.

The extent and duration of a sub stantial amount of liberty in this nation is the exception, not the rule. Should we continue to con done the wide exercise of power within our society, our exceptional circumstance seems destined to come to an end. We have reached the point in our society where we no longer seem to understand that central ized .authority has neither money nor power of its own. Centralized authority has only what wealth and power it can extract from society. It is this lesson which has convinced our most thoughtful social critics of the necessity of restricting power while dividing authority among as many diff erent elements of society as pos sible. Our modern trend is toward the destruction of such a system and the substitution of the more "efficient" exercise of centralized control. In The Course of Con stitutional Politics, Benjamin Con stant, viewing the excesses of the French Revolution, pointed out t F. A. Harper, Liberty-A Path to Its Recovery (Irvington, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education, 1949), pp.

126-27.

544 THE FREEMAN September that power, and not politics, was the real culprit: Entrust it [unlimited Power] to one man, or to several men, or to all men, as you please; whichever it is, the re sults will be equally unfortunate for you. You will· then wax hot against the actual holders of this Power, and will, according to circumstances, ac cuse in turn monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, mIxed governments, and the representative system. You will be wrong; it is the measure of force that is the culprit, not its holders. Your indignation needs to be directed against the sword and not against the arm. There are weapons which are too heavy for the hand of man. lilt Can't Happen Here!" Such sentiments caused our Founding Fathers to erect numer ous barriers in the way of the exercise of centralized authority. The success stemming from that limitation of power has provided more material prosperity and po litical liberty to more people than any other attempt in the history of the world. Ironically, the power of centralized administration in this country has grown in large part because of this very inex perience of the American people with tyrannical governments. The frequent response to the allega tion that centralization of power is creating a despotic administra tion is the attitude, "It can't hap pen here."

Yet, it can happen here! It is happening. A clear understanding of the American tradition of lim ited government and individual liberty is necessary if we are to resist and reverse the tendency of our times. Our forebears were consist ently suspicious of government and of the political spectrum in general. In "Thoughts and Details on Scarcity," Edmund Burke warned: To provide for us in our necessities is not in the power of government. It would be vain presumption in states men to think they can do it. The peo ple maintain them, and not they the people. It is in the power of govern ment to prevent much evil; it can do very little positive good in this, or per ha ps in anything else. Or, in the even more succinct statement of Will Rogers, "This country has gotten where it is in spite of politics, not by the aid of it." It is upon this tradition of hardheaded common sense that 1967 POWER: PROSPECTS 545 the reinstitution of the American framework must begin. Individual freedom, free enterprise, local community, the sanctity of such institutions as religion and fam ily, and the right of individual conscience ... it is in the reasser tion of these fundamental truths that power will find its nemesis.

Free to Choose' Innumerable times each day, we depend heavily upon freedom of choice in virtually every aspect of our lives. The free choice still available to the American citizen is virtually beyond belief to most of the inhabitants of the world in our time, or indeed at any time throughout history. Yet this very freedom of choice is suffering a rapid attrition. To reverse the trend, we must begin appreciat ing what blessings we have en joyed and still enjoy so that we may fully perceive the nature of the loss which faces us. Imagine trying to convince grandfather half a century ago that the time might come when the American farmer would re quire permission from a Federal agency to plant his crops ! Yet, to day, the farmer has lost his right to choose. N ewsp~pers recently c~r ried the story of an Ohio farmer who has spent the past ten years in constant litigation with the Federal government, nearly bankrupting himself in the attempt.

He is now threatened with the loss of his farm, all because of a dispute as to whether he planted twenty-three acres of wheat on his farm, or only fifteen acres. He has decided to pay his fine, the article reports. "Mr. Donaldson still maintains his innocence, but after ten years of fighting he decided to pay rather than see his 3S9-acre farm auctioned Off."3 What has happened to Mr. Donald son's freedom to choose? If a farmer can no longer raise the grain to feed his own chickens or a businessman can no longer decide which ,vorkers he will hire at what rate of pay, each has lost his freedom to choose to that ex tent. Each time the tax collector comes to your door for a growing portion of your income, you have lost that degree of freedom to choose in your life as well. Often the loss of this freedom of choice is a joker hidden in the deck and comes as quite a surprise to the community or the individ ual who so eagerly accepted the alleged benefits held out at the time the program was originally promoted. For example, Wichita recently discovered that it can no longer initiate a referendum to determine its actions or its con tinued participation in existing 3 The Wall Street Journal, April 20, 1967.

546 THE FREEMAN September urban renewal laws. It seems that once a city elects to come under urban renewal, and once condi tions exist for the application of urban renewal laws, the city in question no longer retains con trol, even by popular vote. 4 These specific examples, drawn from current newspapers, could be multiplied by the thousands the length and breadth of the land. Sometimes it helps, however, to talk about specific instances, spe cific communities, specific individ uals, because it is in these specific instances that freedom of choice is· lost for the individual or the community involved. What sort of freedom of choice lies ahead for us? The Federal government is even now extending its dominion into public education. Proposals are being put forth concerning a Compulsory Youth Corps for our young citizens be tween the ages of 18 and 20.5 How far need such trends go before the American people realize what they are losing in the bargain?

Freedom is such a precious good that we ought to be ready to sacrifice everything for it, possibly even pros perity and abundance, should we be compelled to do so by the necessities of economic freedom. Then we can point out that, luckily for us, an eco4 Topeka Journal, March 4, 1967. 5 "A Youth Corps for America 1" THE FREEMAN, April, 1967. nomic system based on liberty - with out which liberty itself cannot exist - is at the same time infinitely more productive than a system of con trolled economy. We should avoid luring men into acceptance of economic liberty by holding out to them the candy of ma terial abundance; our educational efforts should instead be made on the high level of social philosophy and should appeal to the last and supreme values. We should impress upon peo ple that one cannot deny freedom in the economic field and grant it in the remaining sectors of human activity, and we should summon the whole strength of logical argument and of experience to render this idea con vincing.6 Freedom for the Individual There is a reason, deeply grounded in moral principle, which explains the productive capacity of free enterprise. A planned, col lective economy suffers from so cial disorder and poverty, ulti mately because of the moral dis order at the heart of the system.

Conversely, the individual crea tive capacity released by a free system provides the energies to enable the free individual and his society to prosper. Such creative capacity stems from the individ ual's freedom to chart his own 6 Wilhelm Ropke, "Education in Eco nomic Liberty," What is Conservatism? (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Win ston, 1964), p. 79.

1967 POWER: PROSPECTS 547 destiny and choose his own course. A system which robs the· individ ual of that capacity for self-deter mination is immoral because it re.. moves the individual's right of moral choice, and uneconomic be cause it destroys the creative forces which produce prosperity. In short, freedom is a prerequisite of prosperity. But even if freedom did not "work," even if it did not provide more material goods to more peo ple than any other system ever devised, personal freedom would still necessarily remain man's highest goal. The desire not to be impinged upon, to be left to oneself, has been a mark of high civilization both on the part of individuals and communities. The sense of privacy itself, of the area of personal relationships as something sacred in its own right, derives from a conception of freedom which [should it decline], ... would mark the death of a civilization, of an entire moral outlook.7 Moral Norms In the final analysis, political theory, like economic theory, is a branch of moral philosophy. When successful, political theory is an application of proper moral norms to the area of political relations.

7 Isaiah B~rlin, Two Concepts of Lib erty (London: Oxford University Press, 1958), p. 14. Such moral norms hinge finally upon the power of the individual to make his own moral choices. Any system of economics or poli tics which infringes upon that range of moral choice beyond the point of establishing and enforc ing a universal rule of law, pro tecting its citizens against aggres sion, becomes immoral in its de parture from the individual framework within which all such choices must be made. To block the paths of action which a man has available to him and exert the power of the state to achieve a desired effect, no matter how be nevolently intended such an effect is likely to be, is an assault upon the dignity of man as a freely choosing, moral agent. Interferences with this dignity of man simultaneously stunt his moral and material growth. The ideal society was thus defined by Kant: The greatest problem of the human race, to the solution of which it is compelled by nature, is the establish ment of a civil society universally ad•.

ministering right according to law. It is only in a society which possesses the greatest liberty ... with ... the most exact determination and guaran tee of the limits of [the] liberty [of each individual] in order that it may coexist with the liberty of others that the highest purpose of nature, which is the development of all her 548 THE FREEMAN September capacities, can be attained in the case of mankind. 8 Unless men are left free to pur sue the path that they choose, the spontaneity, genius, mental en ergy, and above all, moral courage necessary for the progress of so ciety and the development of the individual personality will be crushed by what Mill termed "col lective mediocrity." It is the civilizing capacity of freedom, for both the individual and his society, that Western man has labored so long to understand and achieve. Confronting this civilizing capacity of freedom, the centralization of power now bids fair to invert the process. In the words of Ortega y Gasset, writing in The Revolt of the Masses: Civilization is nothing else than the attempt to reduce force to being the last resort ... "Direct action"

consists in inverting the order and proclaiming violence as the first re sort, or strictly as the sole resort. It is the norm which proposes the annul ment of all norms ... It is the Magna Charta of barbarism. How may this barbarism be turned aside and defeated in our 8 Ibid., p. 38. civilization? \Vhat are the pros pects for a free society and how may it be achieved? From what philosophic roots. must· the coun terrevolution of human freedom spring? Justice Man's traditional definition of a just society has been a social order in which, as Friedrich Hay ek wrote in his 1966 Mt. Pelerin lecture, "justice was conceived as something to be discovered by the efforts of judges or scholars and not as determined by the arbitrary will of any authority." In short, justice is an expression of a high er order than society, of a fixed and inviolable Natural Law which is to be discovered, not created by man. An order having origins higher than the state and society is a provider of inherent rights of the individual, rights to be inviol able in any society and any state, if justice is to be truly attained.

Private Property One such essential and inviol able right for a just society and for the freedom of the individual is the right to private property. Property is, in Richard Weaver's term, "the last metaphysical 1967 POWER: PROSPECTS 549 right." It is an area not subject to contention. The very hisness of property still suffices in our so ciety as a barrier protecting the individual against the increasing pressures of the omnipotent state. Private right defending nobie pref erence is what we wish to make pos sible by insisting that not all shall be dependents of the state. Thoreau, finding his freedom at Walden Pond, could speak boldly against govern ment without suffering economic ex communication. Walt Whitman, hav ing become a hireling of government in Washington, discovered that un orthodox utterance, even in poetry, led to severance from income. Even political p~rties, driven from power by demagoguery, can subsist and work in the hope that return to rea son will enable men of principle to make themselves felt again. Private property cannot without considerable perversion of present laws be taken from the dissenter ....

Nothing is more certain than that whatever has to court public favor for its support will sooner or later be prostituted to utilitarian ends. The educational institutions of the United States afford a striking demonstra tion of this truth. Virtually without exception, liberal education, that is to say, education centered about ideas and ideals, has fared best in those in stitutions which draw their income from private sources .... In state in stitutions, always at the mercy of elected bodies and of the public gen erally, and under obligation to show practical fruits for their expenditure of money, the movement toward spe cialism and vocationalism has been irresistible. They have never been able to say that they will do what they will with their own because their own is not private. It seems fair to say that the opposite of the private is the prostitute. 9 Opponents of governmental power all too often are prone to de vote much of their time and en ergy to charge and countercharge among themselves. If. the free so ciety is to be reinstituted, it would be well to remember that common ground does exist for the op ponents of the collective ethic. The state's use of coercion is the stick ing point. No matter what reform ism may be intended, the use of coercive power is unjustified. One of the great bulwarks placing limits upon the use of coercion over the individual is the institu tion of private property, the "last metaphysical right" which serves as the rallying point for the advo cates of a free society. In the words of Sir Henry Maine, writ ing in Village Communities, "N0 body is at liberty to attack private property and to say at the same time that he values civilization.

The history of the two cannot be disentangled." 9 Richard W~aver, Ideas Have Conse quences (Chicago: University of Chi cago, 1948), pp. 136-37.

550 THE FREEMAN September Just as a man is free within himself because he possesses an immortal soul which is his own, he is free in relation to the world outside only if he has private prop erty as the economic guarantee of human freedom. To erect a to talitarian system, it is thus neces sary that both spirit and property be denied. That is why the existence of God and private property are both denied simultaneously by Communism. If a man has no soul, he cannot allege that he has any relationships with anyone outside the state. If he has no prop erty, he is dependent upon the state even for his physical existence. There fore, the denial of God and the denial of freedom are both conditions of slavery.I° Self.Responsibility Just as private property calls for the exercise of responsibility in its procurement and its main tenance, man's inner claim to free dom, his immortal soul, also de mands responsible behavior of the individual. Thus, in both the out ward and inward manifestations of human freedom, the same pre condition exists: self-responsi bility.

In the modern erosion of values that has occurred, man has in creasingly lost the concept of self 10 Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, "The Ideo logical Fallacies of Communism,". House Committee on Un-American Activities, Sept. 4, 1957. upon which the individual could predicate his self-respect. If man is no longer the possessor of an immortal soul, the power and re sponsibility to choose his own course of conduct are no longer available to him. The traditional barriers to the exercise of power over the individual are thus dis carded. Natural Law is assumed to be no longer valid. The conduct of man's political and economic affairs is thus severed from a higher ethi cal standard, making morality what the state deems "moral." Re moval of an ethical yardstick against which the actions of ruler and ruled alike must be judged does not free the individual from his self-responsibility, but it sub stitutes centralized political auth ority and "group morality" in such a way as to delude each of us concerning his own ultimate responsibility for his individual actions. This distortion undercuts the attempt of the individual to realize himself as a person.

Man alone among the creatures of this earth has the rational ca pacity for self-transcendence, the quality of mind necessary to stand outside himself and view his own conduct in relation to the world around him. An individual no longer able freely to order his ac tions, in terms of the insight gained in that self-transcendence, is no longer a free man. It is this 1967 POWER: PROSPECTS 551 view of man as an individual in possession of a Godgiven soul, rather than a mere creature of society, that is epitomized in Paul's assertion in his second let ter to the Corinthians, "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is lib erty." How may such liberty be exer cised? If man is truly capable of freedom's exercise, what are the implications for his social order? The proposal to keep political pow er so decentralized that it cannot es cape the vigilance of social power rests its case on the assumption that the highest value in man's hierarchy is freedom. Does he put it above all other desires? Even material satis factions? If so, what does he mean by freedom? The definition that quickly suggests itself is "absence of re straint." The lone frontjersman had plenty of that kind of freedom and found it wanting; he was quite will ing to part with some of it in ex change for the higher wages that came from cooperation with others.

But cooperation entails an obligation, that of shaping one's behavior to the wishes of others, of considering pub lic opinion both in one's occupation and in one's deportment. So then, freedom in· Society is not the absence of restraints, but the management of one's affairs by a code of self-govern ance. The price of the benefits of co operation is self-restraint. ll 11 Frank Chodorov, The Rise and Fall of Society (New York: Devin-Adair, 1959), pp. 163-64. Man is only ready for freedom to the extent that he is willing to check his appetite, to demonstrate a stronger love of justice than of immediate gain. As Edmund Burke has suggested, the less re straint exercised within each in dividual in this regard, the more restraint must be exercised by the society in ,vhich the individual Iives. If men are to stay truly free, they must have the capability of self-restrain t. A Truly Moral Society Only such a society composed of individuals exercising self - re straint could be a truly moral so ciety. If the restraints necessary to maintain justice and equity come from outside the· individual, the free choice necessary for in dividual moral decision will not be present. Thus, a collectively en forced morality is divorced from the roots of all meaningful moral action. It should not be surprising, in view of this fact, that the col lective society becomes immoral in practice. Each time that central ized authority is exercised to coerce ethical choice, the capacity for making such an ethical choice is further eroded in the individual who has been coerced.

Edmund Burke's assertion that "there never was for any length of time corrupt representation of a virtuous people ..." is the state552 THE FREEMAN September ment of a painfully obvious truth. If the individuals composing a so ciety cannot make their own ethi cal choices, morality being a mat ter of individual conscience and free choice, then what possible hope can there be that collective political power can do the job? The attempt to shift individual re sponsibility to a collective ethic corrupts the action of the state by divorcing it from the individ ual moral action of free choice and conscience. At the same time, the individuals who are stripped of their capacity for moral choice are further weakened and cor..:. rupted .through the atrophy of will which stems from their loss of free choice. Ruler and ruled alike are corrupted in the process. Power Breeds Weakness So long as government is viewed as an agency through which virtue and happiness for the in dividual may be attained, so long as governments are viewed as causes rather than effects, so long as individuals believe that self responsibility may be escaped through retreat to the collective ethic, power will be rampant in our society. As the state grows more and more powerful, the in dividual citizen will tend to grow weaker and weaker. Paul Poirot's paraphrase is quite as true as Lord Acton's original dictum, "Weakness tends to corrupt and absolute weakness corrupts abso lutely." The double standard of morality which allows a person to endorse collective action which he would not perform as an in dividualis perhaps the greatest corruption of all since, in the words of Edmund Burke, "the number engaged in crimes, in stead of turning them into laud able acts, only augments the quan tity and intensity of the guilt."

Human freedom is not the power to do whatever we like, but is the privilege of being able to do as we ought. The free society is the society in which each in dividual voluntarily says, "I am my own responsibility." "Positive Action" The modern collectivist tends to view the society around him as an accumulation of "various prob lems" which must be "solved." Usually such "solutions" involve 1967 POWER: PROSPECTS 553 the coercive exercise of centralized power. Unless man is to achieve a hea ven on earth, we have no rea son to suppose that all human shortcomings are capable of solu tion. In fact, to assume that such perfection could be achieved is precisely the sort of thinking which removes God from philoso phy, substituting man as "the measure of all things." Numerous problems doubtless exist, how ever, which freely working human creativity can solve if the individ ual, voluntary, institutional well springs of human progress are al lowed to flow.

It is sometimes suggested that the libertarian/conservative is "against progress" or unconcerned with the hardships of others. In actuality, of course, all men of good will share the same goals of peace and prosperity. The differ ence between the collectivist and the anticollectivist mentality at the present moment in history is based on two libertarian assump tions: (1) Freedom is the best problem-solving device; (2) The largest "problem area" of our time is the tremendous concentra tion of power, with all of its cor rupting influences upon our so ciety, that has occurred as a direct result of the collective ethic. Thus, the collective mentality is not a problem-solving device but instead is our principal problem! Those who would plan all social action are confronted with the un predictability of human action. Because of this unpredictability, such planning does not work in practice. More important, such planning interferes with the growth of creative capacity which can only be achieved by the free in dividual.

There can be little doubt that man owes some of his greatest successes in the past to the fact that he has not been able to control social life. His continued advance may well depend on his deliberately refraining from exercising controls which are now in his power. In the past, the spontane ous forces of growth, however much restricted, could usually still assert themselves against the organized co ercion of the state. With the techno logical means of control now at the disposal of government it is not cer tain that such assertion is still pos sible; at any rate, it may soon become impossible. We are not far from the point where the deliberately organi zed forces of society may destroy those spontaneous forces which have made advance possible)2 A Negative Approach Those who oppose further state intervention in our society are branded as having only a negative program since specific "plans" and 12 F. A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty (Chicago: University of Chi cago Press, 1960), p. 38.

554 THE FREEMAN September "solutions" rarely are offered in rebuttal to the collectivist ap proach. But it is this very un planned quality of human freedom and creativity which is the ulti mate problem-solving device. New problems exist in our society? Then strike off the stultifying con trols emanating from the coercive exercise of centralized power, leav ing men free to deal with these problems (problems which, inci dentally, in large part have their origins in the very exercise of coercive power which was original Iy exercised in the name of solving some other "problem"). The choice is clear. If all the areas of individual creativity were pre-empted by the planned, col.. lective society, our society would face extinction. As the cartoonist suggested when he depicted one Russian bureaucrat speaking to another, "When all the world is communist, where will we get wheat?" Where, indeed, will the stuff of life be produced if the dead hand of centralized control ever perfects its grip upon our society?

It is often admitted by advo cates of the planned society that freedom does produce material gains. The complaint then leveled against the free society is that these material gains go only to those most able to produce, leaving the poor and the underprivileged at the mercy of "exploitation." Yet, it is in the voluntary and benevolent actions of a free so ciety that the individual citizen is most capable of helping himself and most readily helped by others. It is the repressive effect of the centralized state to curtail produc tion and block the paths to self improvement for those most in need. Not only is Peter discour aged from production when he is robbed to pay Paul, but, in the bargain, Paul is made the per petual ward of the state. Authority and Power In reality, it is not the libertar ian who is negative in his outlook. Rather, it is the modern collectiv ist who has lost faith in the peo ple to pursue their own affairs without coercion, control, and con stant detailed direction. How, then, may this corrupted and cor rupting centralized power be checked in our society?

Somehow, Authority and Power must be separated. Medieval man understood that Authority ulti mately was God, while Power was only a secular device. It is this distinction that modern politics fails to make. Thus divorced from a proper view of human nature and the human situation, the idea of "man as God" and the accom panying spread of coercive power have grown steadily. Coercion, be1967 POWER: PROSPECTS 555 ing negative in effect, has caused some men to oppose it. But when man talks only about "freedom from coercion," and does not relate this to a total integrated view of human nature, he remains at the mercy of coercionists. The coercionist has the plausible· argu ment at his disposal that freedom works in the abstract realm of theory, but that certain immediate goals can be reached by some "beneficent" coercion. The anticol lectivist who sees only "freedom from" finds no argument to carry the discussion from such short range goals to the long-range view of human existence in its totality.

"Freedom from," as a means of achieving what the human spirit can do, once free, is perfectly (~or rect, yet unpersuasive until it is used in pursuit of the long-term goal of human existence, self-trans cendence of the individual spirit. Just as the coercionist remains trapped on the short~term level in economics, doomed to repeat his basic mistake again and again, the thinker who sees no greater goal than "freedom from" will al so remain trapped on the short term level, doomed to carryon his endless arguments about means with the coercionist; he can only escape when he moves beyond the reach of the coercionist (where force can never go) to recognize the necessity for individual self transcendence. To limit power, man must rec ognize a source of authority above men: God. + HENRY HAZLITT latioD IT IS not only the United States that is troubled by inflation. The disease is world-wide. And it grows more virulent, not less.