Exploitation Virtuous; R. Bidinotto

It is my contention that there is officially-sanctioned social in justice in our nation. But the system which is its root cause is not capitalism, nor are the prin cipal victims of this injustice those for whom the Leftists mourn. Let us first discuss the word justice. My dictionary defines the term "just" as "given or awarded rightly, or deserved ... rightful, legitimate, deserved, merited. . . ." The clear implica tion is that justice consists of recognizing and granting those things which are rightfully and deservedly claimed by another man, or, giving men exactly what 1968 THE EXPLOITATION OF THE VIRTUOUS 569 they deserve. Any more or any less is, by definition, a breach of justice. Properly defined then, "social justice" would mean the principle of granting and accepting the de served and rightful in relations between and among groups and in dividuals in society. But what is wrong with the concept of justice promoted by the welfare-state advocates? It is simply that what they preach is not justice at all, but out-and-out injustice. What they favor is an abandonment of the concepts of deserved and undeserved, earned and unearned, and right and wrong. Their aim is as old as the one which motivated the world's first thief: "the fatal tendency,"

as Bastiat called it, to live at the expense of one's fellow meri. Freedom and Justice A truly civilized society exists by means of free, voluntary ex change of values between consent ing and willing individuals. It is the function of the government of a free society to promote justice. One of its more specific missions is to assure that exchanges are willing and voluntary, not forced and fraudulent. The initiation of force is outlawed by the govern ment of a just culture. Such a so ciety exists using reason, not plunder, as its means of survival. The state apparatus exists for the explicit purpose of protecting in dividual rights. The only social system based upon the recognition of individual rights is capitalism. Capitalism requires of man his creativity - his ability to produce goods and serv ices - as the price of his survival, for it recognizes the essence of justice: that a man receive what he earns by his own effort and thought, and not what he can plunder from the creative efforts of others. It allows men to trade with one another to mutual ad vantage in uncoerced exchanges.

Capitalism encourages the best men have to offer: thrift, practi cality, ambition, hard work, and honesty. Above all, it asks that men use to their fullest extent the productive ingenuity of their minds. Under laissez-faire capital ism a man is judged by his ac complishments, and the means he employs to achieve the values he seeks. Capitalism does not sepa rate ends from means. This system, based on justice and the respect of individual rights, built the most wealthy, productive, and powerful nation that has ever existed. Victims of Intervention But note what happens when government ceases protecting in dividual rights and actively vio570 THE FREEMAN September lates those rights instead. Who suffers and is victimized when our nation accepts the collectivist premise that it is proper to ex ploit an individual for the sake of society, and that individual rights should be subordinate to "public good" - as determined by democratically-elected politicians?

Our American welfare state, like other statist-oriented systems, is run on the tacit premise of "from each according to his abil ity - to each according to his need." That is the implied, but seldom-stated, basic principle of which the New Deals, Fair Deals, New Frontiers, and Great So cieties are but a manifestation. It is the implied justification of the Guaranteed Income proponents, the advocates of conscription, and the Welfare Statists. What this principle means is illuminating. It means that the need of one man constitutes a demand on the men of productive ability to fill it . . . as a matter of right to the "needy" man. The means of en forcing this principle is the coer cive power of the state, which confiscates the product of the able and creative to undeservedly bene fit those who neither produce nor create. What determines who shall be looted in this manner? Is mere possession of wealth the basis of the redistributionist creed? The answer is no. Wealth is something that has to be produced before it can be possessed. The allegation that it is the "possession of ex cess wealth" that is being recti fied by this principle is a smoke screen. The degree to which one is plundered is determined by the degree of one's productivity, or as I pointed out earlier, by the de gree of one's economy, practical ity, ambition, initiative, labor, in tegrity - the productive virtues.

The key virtue being man's ra tional faculty, his mind, and his creative use of that faculty, it is easy to see what is ultimately being looted and redistributed. It is man's mind that is being plund ered, through confiscation of the fruits of man's intelligence. It is thus the man of the greatest vir tue who is hurt the most by redis tribution. Subsidies for Failure What determines who shall be the recipient of the plundered wealth? One's need of that wealth - his inability or unwillingness to produce and create by using his intelligence to its fullest extent. In other words, one's faults! Who stands to gain and ,vho stands to lose in such a society? Who is ex ploiting whom? The producer is chained to pro duce for those who cannot main tain their own lives. The creator 1968 THE EXPLOITATION OF THE VIRTUOUS 571 is harnessed to fill the stomachs, clothe the bodies, and build the houses of those who create noth ing. The able man becomes a serf of the man who is not able to fill his needs, claims, and demands by his own effort. The best are pun ished and shackled for the sake of the least and the worst. The welfare state, established to cor rect an imaginary inj ustice, has perpetrated the worst immorality: exploiting the virtuous for their virtues. In such a society, to im prove oneself and show progress means that one gradually stran gles himself through his own ef fort; that the better one gets, the more demands are placed upon him, and the more of a slave to society he becomes. And worse: he is a slave not to sOlnebody else's superiority, but to his neighbors' inferiority.

/I Might Makes Right" When a nation proclaims the su periority of the collective whim over an individual right, it em braces a most peculiar standard of morality, based on the simple addition of numbers. The principle invoked is that might makes right, that the size of one's gang is his sanction to somebody else's prop erty. One might say, "But it's per fectly legal to tax one man to benefit another. After all, the laws governing welfare were democratically passed by the majority." This is even worse; it means that (a) the legal system of the na tion has been corrupted by the worst of principles,· and that (b) "the majority" recognizes itself as being outside the influence of the moral code which the state im poses upon individuals; that any injustice can be committed in the name of the "majority," or "so ciety," or "the common good" ; that morality is a numbers game of factions, individuals, minori ties, and the omnipotent majority.

The alternatives in the game are strictly limited. One either be comes a looter, or one is looted; one is either a parasite living upon others, or one is a victim a human sacrifice - to that para sitism. Join a Pressure Group How does one cash in on the welfare state? One joins a pres sure group. The purpose of a pres sure group is to pressure the legis lature to pressure the producer victim-taxpayer, extorting from him in proportion and to the ex tent of his virtues. This leads to the scandalous corruption of leg islators by lobbyists, whose only aim is to get a special coercive advantage over their neighbors via the power of the government. The presumed beneficiaries of the wel fare state are the confirmed para572 THE FREEMAN Septembe1 sites; and their victims are those who, under fre·e competition, would be the most successful. And while pressure-group warfare es calates,! new bureaucracies are created and new bureaucrats em ployed to legally plunder men's savings and distribute the loot among those seeking favors. And it is the doer, the thinker, the worker, the producer, who foots all the bills. There is the true "so cial injustice and exploitation" in America.

The remedy lies in the discovery 1 Walter J. Wessels, "The Theory of Political Escalation," Freeman, Febru ary, 1968, p. 81. of individual rights and the onI) system that can preserve them: capitalism. It is a false idea thai the producer of wealth should fee: guilty because of his ingenuity: creativity, and riches. Has he not earned the fruits of his effort? Is he to be apologetic about virtue and success? It is the task of libertarians to use every opportunity to promote the system under which no one is sacrificed, exploited, or treated unjustly for another's sake. That system is capitalism, with its re spect for individual rights. Its ruling principle is justice for all. ~ The Interstate Commerce Commission -a system of laws and rules and an administration of those laws and rules in which the overweening goal is to maintain at as high a level as possible the cost of moving the country's goods, in the interest of the financial welfare of the movers. The basic goal of regulatory policy is to maximize the earnings of the common carriers, particularly those in financial difficulty.

Much attention is given to the effect of technology upon in stitutions. Perhaps not as frequently noticed is the ability of institutions to counteract technology. The Interstate Commerce Commission and the regulatory system that it has helped to create have done a truly remarkable job of battling technology head on and, to a considerable extent, winning. The creation and maintenance of large barriers to entry where no signifi cant natural barriers exist (for example, in motor trucking) has been a monumental task, which the ICC has executed success fully in little more than three decades. A motor carrier's largest single asset is simply its permission to be a motor carrier. " . From Indiana Business Review, Marchi April 1968 The NatlOn-Topsy-Turvy World of Transportation Regulation" by David W. Maxwell, Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy, Indiana University A. REVIEWER'S NOTEBOOK HAVING LIVED through the past two decades and watched the steady growth of cliche versions of history, I doubt that future generations will ever know the truth about our times. But if error persists, it won't be the fault of William Rusher, the publisher of National Review, who has set down his experiences as a Senate subcommittee investigator in a re markable book, Special Counsel (Arlington House, $10).