The Laws of Freedom; H. J. Denton, Jr.

They are said to be natural laws because one can depend on specific results under given conditions. If air is heated in a confined space, its pressure will increase. Sound travels at a certain rate through air, and under the same conditions will travel at the same rate day The. Honorable Mr. Denton is State Repre sentative from Sullivan County, Blountville, Tennessee. after day. Otherwise, one would have little use for the horn on his car. Today it would work fine, but tomorrow the sound might not travel fast enough to attract atten tion. Aluminum transfers heat faster than steel. This will happen today, tomorrow, and every other day. Bodies attract each other in proportion to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to their separation squared. Most people do not question these nat ural laws. Natural laws, however, are not confined to the realm of material things as many would suppose.

There are numerous natural laws, just waiting to be identified. There are natural laws concerning soci ology and economics, and some of them have been found. It is a nat ural law that the number of poor will not decrease by making poverty easy. It is a natural law that prices will increase if more money is 187 188 THE FREEMAN March generated. It is a natural law that the demand for an item will affect its price. It is a natural law that. labor will be encouraged by letting the laborer keep the fruits of his labor. The free market is self regu lating ... eminently orderly; that is the first law of economics. Why are the natural laws of human freedom so much more diffi cult to accept than are the ones which apply to landing on the moon? In this area of human ac tion and reaction, men continue to behave as though the world were fiat. Improvement will come only as we see and understand the need to be free. ~ IDEAS ON LIBERTY The Individual and Society Each one of us, as his awareness grows, Perceives the structure's vague outlines, And wonders where he is.

"What level am I on?" you ask, "How many floors are up and down from here?" Your fellow occupants are glad to help And show you many escalators, all marked DOWN. How easy it is to tour the lower levels, Being joined by millions in your search! But going up, where truth and rationality prevail, How hard that is! You must run fast, and dodge or push aside The hordes who bar your way. And if your energy is equal to the task, You face the loneliness of those deserted halls. RICH ARD L. ROPIEQ U ET, President Alta Industries, Inc., Portland, Oregon A REVIEWER'S NOTEBOOK JOHN CHAMBERLAIN Legacy of Freedom THERE IS OBVIOUSLY a Western tradition. The Westerner is Prome thean, he acts as though he had free will even when he is a Cal vinist, he considers that he has rights that inhere in his nature, he thinks the state should be limi ted in its power to tell him what to do. He believes in variety, in pluralism, yet he knows there are objective standards in ethics and esthetics.