Harmony or Antagonism; F. Bacon, Jr.

Barmon~ or"Anta FREDERIC s. BACON, JR.. IN THIS AGE of the "welfare state" there has been an accelerating drift toward more and greater con centration of social power in the hands of the state, resulting in increasing interference in our daily lives, our personal liberties, and our economic freedoms -.all maintained and enforced by the coercive police' power of the state. Before we reach that point of no return - beyond which it will be impossible to recapture our God given rights to life, to liberty, and to ,the pursuit. of happiness, .we should pause to consider the. ques tion: Are men's interests, when left to themselves, harmonious or antagonistic? About 120 years ago,Frederic Basti~t, a French. political econo mi~t, answer.ed .. this question ,in an essay .. entitled "To the Youthof Mr. Bacon owns and operates the Business Service Company of New Bedford, Massachu setts, specializing in bookkeeping, tax service, records, and business consultation.

France."l Bastiat's analysis is par ticularly applicable to the turmoil in America today. He argued that all men'·s impulses, when moti vatedby legitimate self-interest, fall into a harmonious social pat tern, and it· is the intervention by the' state in attempting to redirect these interests that causes turmoil and dissension. Bastiat pointed out that if we assume that· men's interests are harmonious the obvious solution to our social problems is simply not to try to redirect these in terests. If we accept the opposite, that men's interests are inevitably bound to. clash - the concept of the "welfare state" - and that the con flict can be averted only through the creation of an artificial social order to be enforced by the police 1 Frederic Bastiat, Economic Harmo nies, Irvington-on-Hudson, New York: The Foun'dation for Economic Education, Inc. $3.50 paperback.: 643 644 THE FREEMAN November power of the state, then mankind is surely in serious trouble, and we must get some solid answers to these questions: 1. Shall we be able to find a workable plan for society and a man to implement it?

2. Will this man be able to win over to the selected plan others who have conceived different pro grams for society? 3. How will the final form for society .be selected, adopted, and implemented? 4. Will men submit to the se lected planned society, which, ac cording to our hypothesis, must run counter to every man's interests? 5. Assuming that mankind will consent to being regulated under the selected plan, what will happen if another, obviously better plan, is developed? Should we preserve a bad social order, knowing it to be .bad; or are we to change the social order according to the per suasiveness of the inventors of new plans? 6. Will not all others whose plans have been rejected unite against the accepted. plan with the better chance of destroying it be cause, by its very nature, it runs counter to every man's self interest? 7. Is there any human force capable of overcoming the funda mental antagonism which is assumed to be characteristic of the self-interests of all men?

8. If individual self-interest is antagonistic to the general inter est, where would the principle of force be established? It would necessarily be outside of humanity in order to escape the consequences of our premise. 9. If a man or men are en trusted with the arbitrary power necessary to enforce a contrived social order, they must be different from the rest of us; they, unlike us, must not be moved by self interest; and, when placed in a position where there can be no possible restraint on them or any resistance to them, they must be exempt from error, from greed;. and from covetousness. The Case for Nonintervention It stands without proof that it is not necessary to force into har mony things that are inherently harmonious. It is also without, question that there is a natural harmony among men's interests, and so to solve the social problems confronting· us it is simply nec essary not to try to redirect them.

The idea of liberty is based on the premise that men's interests, when left to themselves, tend to form harmonious combinations and to work together toward "the good life." If one has faith in thewis dom of the Laws of Providence, 1970 HARMONY OR ANTAGONISM? 645 Nature, and God, one must have faith in freedom. Those who would direct and control the actions of men have accepted the Theory of Discord - that men's actions, when left to themselves, are· antagon istic. They propose to substitute coercion for freedom, a planned social order for the natural, and a work of their own contrivance for the handiwork of God. The idea of liberty is to let men labor, ex change, learn, band together, act and react on one another; accord ing to the Law of Nature there can result from their free and in telligent activity only order, har~ mony, progress, and all things that ., make for "the good life" because there never was, never is, and never will be any disorder in na ture.

For the Laws ofN ature to be harmonious, it is not necessary that they exclude evil. Evil has its purpose. It is self-limiting. Every pain is a means of preventing greater pain by the elimination of its cause. Every individual is a free agent, and, when man is free, he can choose; since he can choose, he can err; since he can err, he can suffer. He must suffer; for he starts in ignorance, and in his ig norance he sees before him an in finite number of choices. All but one leads to error. All error breeds suffering. This suffering either falls upon the one who has erred, setting in operation the Law of Responsibility; or else it strikes innocent parties, in which case it sets in motion the Law of Solidar ity. The Essential Freedom to Choose The action of these laws, com bined with the ability of men's minds to see the connection be tween cause and effect,brings man back, due to his suffering pain, to the path of righteousness and truth. However, if evil is to fulfill its purpose, the Law of Solidarity must not be made to artificially encroach upon the Law of Respon sibility; the freedom of the in dividual to choose must not be re stricted. Governments, under the pretext of· fostering among men an artificial kind of solidarity, have dulled and made ineffective the individual's sense of responsi bility. This lessens the correcting effect of error by spreading the consequent suffering among the innocent.

Through improper use of the coercive police power of govern ment, the relation between labor and wages· has been impaired, the operation of the laws of produc tion and exchange has been dis turbed, the natural development of education is distorted, capital and manpower are misdirected, minds and actions warped, absurd de mands inflamed, wild hopes dan646 THE FREEMAN November gled before men's' eyes, unheard of quantities of ,human energy wast ed, centers of population relocated, and even experience itself made ineffective. In this age of intervention under the "welfare state" ~ men's interests have been given artificial foundations. They cannot help but clash. And the thought leaders. in the news media,. in government, and in the intellectual establish ment say: "You see, all men's in terests are antagonistic .. Personal liberty and economic freedom cause all the trouble. Both must be stifled."

Nature cares nothing whatever about motive or intention; she cares only for order, and sees only that disorder shall. be corrected, and that the regular orderly se quences of actions be upheld. God made men's interests harmonious. Let us follow the Laws of Nature. Let us do away with coercive re direction of men's actions .. Let, us Economic Harmonies return to the concept, as expressed by Thomas Jefferson in apart of one sentence in the Declaration of Independence, "'. . . men are en dowedby their Creator with cer tain unalienable rights~ ..." Men must be allowed. to .be responsible for their own actions' and should not look to government for· any thing beyond the protection of life and property and· the .establish ment of justice. For men to havetrue'liberty and economic freedom the government must be limited~ Government should do only those things, in defense of life and property, which private citizens cannot properly do each man for himself.

Let all men have personal lib erty and economic freedom. That is the Law of Nature. Then and only then .will there be peace among. men and will mankind achieve "the good life"; for there never was, never is, and never will be any disorder in nature. I)' IDEAS ON LIBERTY THE SOCIAL WORLD is rich in harmonies that we do' not fully perceive until our .minds have gone back to their causes, in order to find their explanation, and have then gone forward to their effectEi,in order to know the, ultimate. purpose of. the phenomena they exhibit..... Ii' R E DE RIC B A; S T I A T ( 1850 ) DS AnD mEAns WILLIAM W. BAYES THE HONEST SEEKER,oftruth faces an exceedingly difficult task in penetrating 'the murky fog of claims and counterclaims made by the zealous 'advocates of various causes. All. men proclai~ lofty ends. No man 'proposes to' demon strate the evils which will follow the adoption of his plan. No as sociation or religious sect that hopes to acquire a large influence and many members sets out to show how affiliation with it will be detrimental to one's interests.