The Out of Bounds Dilemma; L.E. Read

And, it has always been thus: . .. the greatest political problem facing the world today is . . . how to curb the oppressive power of gov ernment, how to keep it within rea sonable bounds. This is a problem that has engaged some of the great est minds of the eighteenth and nine teenth centuries - Adam Smith, von Humboldt, de Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer. They addressed themselves to this particu1969 THE OUT-OF-BOUNDS DILEMMA 285 lar issue: What are the proper limits of government? And how can we hold government within those limits?l The dilemma seems to be that government is something we can't get along without and something we can't get along with. Considering the great men who have attempted to resolve this di lemma, it seems unlikely that any one of us will hit upon a final solu tion. But we can and should .en tertain the hope of shedding a bit more light on the matter. My ef fort is no more pretentious than this.

During the last century, several of the best American academicians and statesmen - in an effort to prescribe a theory of governmental limitation - have agreed: The government should do only those things which private citi zens cannot do for themselves, or which they cannot do so well for themselves. That this is meant to be a pre cise theory of limitation is con veyed by the words, "do only those things." This proposal is repeated over and over again and we may there fore presume that it has a con1 Excerpted from remarks by Henry Ha?:Utt.. See.Wha-t!.s._P..a.sL."J.s...E1:'.ologue (Irvington, N. Y. : The Foundation for Economic Education, 1968), p. 14. siderable acceptance and is influ ential in shaping public opinion as to what is and is not out of . bounds in governmental activity. If that be the case, in the light of what's going on, we are well ad vised to re-examine this proposi tion. For it is true that all actions are rooted in ideas.

Parenthetically, one may wonder why I choose to pick on a small flaw in what, after all, is little more than an aphorism. It is my contention that this idea of limita tion "leaks," like a leak in the dike, and if not plugged, the whole countryside will be inundated. A trifle, yes, but as great oaks from little acorns grow, so do great catastrophes from little errors flow: For the want of a nail the shoe was lost, For the want of a shoe a horse was lost, For the want of a horse a rider was lost, For the want of a rider the battle was lost, For the want of a battle the kingdom was lostAnd all for the want of a horseshoe-nail. The aforementioned notion gains acceptance because it is so plausi ble. The government should, in deed, do some of the things which private citizens cannot do for themselves. All citizens, except 286 THE FREEMAN May philosophical anarchists - those who reject a formal agency of so ciety - are certain, in the interest of social order and common jus tice, that each citizen cannot write his own laws. Man is now and for ever imperfect and men must now and forever differ as to what is right and just. Codifying and en forcing an observation of the taboos gives the citizenry a com mon body of rules which permits the game to go on; this is what a formal agency of society can do for the citizens that they cannot, one by one, do for themselves.

Doubtless, this is what the liber tarian subscribers to this idea have in mind. And no more! They couldn't concede more and be liber tarians! A Leak in the Dike This proposal· is right as far as it goes; but it does not go far enough. It has a loophole, a "leak," through which an authoritarian can wriggle. One can easily conclude, from the wording, that government is warranted in doing for the citi zens only those things which the citizens will not and, presumably, cannot do f,or themselves. What they will not do and, therefore, "cannot" do for themselves is to implement all the utopian schemes that enter the minds of men, things that such schemers think the citizens ought to do but which the citizens do not want. to do. Re form ideas are legion; and these are the things that government is obliged to do for the people, ac cording to this proposal, as it is loosely written. That's how per missive it is; it leaves the door wide open; it's "only" is utterly meaningless!