Harmonizing to Each His Own; Leonard E. Read

Harmonizinlj 10 Each His Own LEONARD E. READ Weep not that the world changes did it keep a stable, changeless state, 'twere cause indeed to weep. -BRYANT MAN COULD NOT LIVE, let alone im prove his lot, were all static as a rock. Change releases the hidden strength of men. Out of change comes variation and in this diver sity are unique potentialities real ized. Creative dissimilarities emerge and account for our moral, spiritual, intellectual, and mate rial wealth. Change is of the very essence of life, and freedom to change is both an economic and a biologic necessity. The enormity and persistence of change and variation is recog nized and welcomed by some, though most persons tend to dis like it. "Change, indeed, is pain ful, yet ever needed," said Car lyle; inevitahle and necessary but, nonetheless, much resented. This feature of human nature poses a major politico-economic problem and substantially accounts for the continuing debate over freedom versus coercive collectivism.

The main reason for resenting change, I suspect, originates in a misunderstanding of how security is best obtained. Individuals, with rare exceptions, are interested first· and foremost in securing life and livelihood. Security is indeed desirable but, contrary to general belief, it is a dividend of natural change and variation - each pur suing his own uniqueness. There is no security to be found in bringing change and variation to 747 748 THE FREEMAN December a halt; nothing is so at odds with security as freezing or solidifying the status quo. Seek first security and there will be neither security nor change. Seek first the dy namic' improving life and secur ity is thrown in as a rewarding outcome.! To intelligently approach the politico-economic problem here posed requires, first of all, that we fully grasp just how fantastic our variations really are, else we will not know what the problem is or the meaning of "to each his own." Gloss over our variations, think of them as less than they are, and we will behave as un witting, mindless persons.

On Being Human - and Different Let us face a few facts. We re semble each other in outward ap pearance only: beings with two eyes, one nose, ten fingers, two arms, standing upright on two 1 Change, as I am extolling it, refers only to those forms induced in the exer cise of free choice. The enormous tech nological changes resulting from present coercive practices - moon ventures, for example - are, in my view, disruptive, unbalancing, and uneconomic. They lead creativity toward "national goals" or political designs and away from subjec tive value judgments; they make for in security. The trouble is, we see the moon craft and generally adjudge it wonderful. What we fail to see are the inevitable and disastrous consequences of - reac tions to - the coercion which brought this fantastic gadget into being. legs, and somewhat alike in other superficial ways. Even in these ways the variation is fantastic, "identical twins" being far from identical. 2 Human beings are distinguished from the animal world by the pos session of such traits as the abil ity to reason, to evaluate different causes of action, to make rational choices, to will their own behav iors, and even to transcend them selves. So varied are these poten tiali ties and their mode of reali zation that resemblances diminish sharply; we go every which way, in as many directions as each per son takes in a lifetime multiplied by all the human beings who ever lived. Chaos, seemingly!

The human scene holds no such thing as a changeless, single per formance with which to compare, to identify, to judge our works. At the human level there are as many kinds and qualities of perfor mances as there are viewpoints. Thus, the variety of performances equals all the people who have ever Iived times all the changing viewpoints each person ever ex periences. Trillions times trillions! This assertion itself is a per sonal viewpoint or evaluation and argues that the eye of the be holder is determinative. "Were 2 See various works by -Roger Wil liams, especially You Are Extraordinary (New York: Random House, 1967).

1971 HARMONIZING TO EACH HIS OWN 749 the eye not attuned to the Sun, the Sun could never be seen by it," wrote Goethe. Viewpoints, by and large, are based on major and easily observed distinctions. For instance, I glance ,at a. smiling face and a moment later at the same face when angry. The dis tinction evokes two evaluations, varying viewpoints easily come by. But widen the aperture to increase sensitivity to infinitesi mal changes, and even assuming no change in outward demeanor: the face is known to be older; the lighting is different; I have aged; and my vision has changed. The world of anyone sensitive to a wide range of variations is a far larger world than exists for those who are not so graced, that is, his viewpoints and evaluations are greatly multiplied. Or reflect on what the world means to a farmer and to an as tronomer. A particular farmer may be satisfied with treading the surface of our planet and scratching it with a plow; his world is a road, some furrows, and a field of' grain. The astronomer's wor ld, on the other hand, requires that he determine exactly the place that it 'occupies at each in stant within sidereal space; from the standpoint of exactness he is forced to convert our globe into a mathematical abstraction, into a case of universal gravitation. We might say that the farmer and the astronomer "are worlds apart."3 Infinite Variation In order to picture the enor mity of variation, consider the vary ing evaluations or viewpoints of each farmer times all the farmers there a.re and then of all the as tronomers since Copernicus and Galileo times all their changing viewpoints during these past four centuries. And last, contemplate all the performances there have been beyond the farmer and the astronomer and all the perform ances that lie between these two and all the varying evaluations thereof!

We can now see that it is the point of view that creates the variation panorama: an infinitude of performances in a constant flux. No person can do more than to become aware of this complexity; few even do this. To encompass this multiplicity, to bring it with in anyone's comprehension, is out of the question. Initially, such awareness cannot help but breed confusion. How can harmony ever be brought out of this social mael strom! Confusion, however, does not end here. It starts anew with 3 The idea and some of the phrasing in this paragraph are from an essay, "Adan en el Paraiso" (Adam in Paradise) by Jose Ortega y Gasset, 1910.

750 THE FREEMAN December countless attempts at harmonizing our variations. The confusion ap pears to stem from a fact seldom recognized in clarity: man is at once a social and an individualis tic being. Confronting each of us are the we and the lor, one might say, association and isolation. Not only is there myself to cope with: to grow, emerge, evolve, to be come what I am not yet; equally challenging, I must find out how to live in harmony with my fellow men. My life and welfare depend not only on what I make of me but also on how I associate myself with others upon whom I am also rigorously dependent, a depend ence from which there is no escape. Except in association, I perish! No need to labor this point. Psychological and Sociological Thus, two extremely intricate problems are posed. The first is psychological in nature: freeing self from superstitions, imperfec tions, ignorance, fears. We know far less about this than is gen erally acknowledged. The second is sociological, that is, freeing men from the restraints and impositions which we in our ignorance are in clined to inflict on each other. Un less the latter is reasonably re solved, the former cannot flourish at its best. Yet, a resolution of the latter is impossible without a flourishing of the former. Boxed in by a paradox! Or are we?

There are, broadly, two opposed theories as to how the sociological maelstrom should be resolved. The first - authoritarian - is steeped in tradition, as aged as humanity, and presently gaining ground all over the world. It is the old, old master-slave arrangement that has always stifled human progress and diverted man's ef forts to fighting, either to force his will on others or to combat the tyrant's army. The second freedom - is brand new as history goes, all too seldom understood or accepted. Perhaps no statement more openly and honestly reveals the authoritarian confusion than this: Only a moron would believe that the millions of private economic de cisions being made independently of each other will somehow harmonize in the end and bring us out where we want to be.4 Merged Into the Collective Where we want to be! Here is the authoritarian position set forth in crystal clarity: an I pre tending to be a we. It is safe to assume that no earthly person wants to be what the author wanted to be at the mom.ent of this phrasing. One knows, without 4 The late Walter Reuther. See New York Times, June 30, 1962.

1971 HARMONIZING TO EACH HIS OWN 751 looking at the record, that this author experienced a constant shifting in what he wanted to be during every day of his life. The same can be said of Napoleon or any of our numerous political au thoritarians, precisely as can be said of you or me. No living per son ever stays put; as to our aspirations, all of us are in flight, on the wing, in orbit. We need do no more than look about us to con firm this fact. The point is that no person who ever lived - not even Socrates has observed more than an in finitesimal fraction of the total universe. Each gazes through a tiny peekhole into infinity, glimpsing hardly any of it. Did Hitler see the farmer's furrow or what Galileo saw or what I see as I write or you see as you read these scribblings? Of course not! The authoritarian vision is lim ited and blurred at best. Pressed to a Single Mold What then must be the outcome of the authoritarian's solution to social problems, assuming that his will is invoked? Simple: all of us compelled to abide by what he sees through his unique and tiny peek hole which, of course, is next to nothing. All of us, if his will pre vails, restricted by his oblique view of reality.

Most appraisals of authoritarian ism are not as harsh as mine because no one has ever witnessed the horrible principle in more than partial practice. We observe peo ple living, a few rather prosper ously, in Russia, China, Uruguay, and falsely credit such of the good life as there is to the authoritari anism. To the contrary, it is in spi te of it! All that is good - no exception - springs from creative human energy obeying its nature, that is, freely flowing when not squelched. Like lightning, it zigs and zags along the line of least resistance, finding its way through or around the commands and stric tures of him-who-knows-next-to nothing. A harsh appraisal of the authoritarian ? No; that rating ap plies to all of us ! A supervisor of schools, attend ing one of our workshops recent ly, made this observation concern ing freedom as a solution to social problems: I came to your summer seminar with a hazy and limited knowledge of the principles of economics and the free market. You have helped me to see the simplicity and self-evidence of these basic concepts of freedom.

What most amazes me now is that anyone can fail to understand and put these ideas into practice. Yes, the simplicity of freedom in action copes with infinite hu man variation and works its won ders! Amazing indeed that so 752 THE FREEMAN December many are unaware of these prin ciples and thus have no faith in them. Parenthetically, any pro posed solution to the social and individualistic aspects of human ity that is not simple has nothing to commend it. This is another w.ay of saying that we should stick to what we know best - our own knitting - which, as already sug gested, is not very much. Each Free to Choose Let me now return to the asser tion, "Only a moron would believe that the millions of private econ omic decisions being made inde pendently of each other will some how harmonize in the end and bring us out where we want to be." I read this statement nine years ago and not until now did I realize that the author was sub stantially correct. Why? Only a person deficient in reasoning pow ers - not necessarily a moron could possibly believe that any scheme can "bring us out where we want to be." This is an I posing as we - absurd! The flowering so ciety, the only kind that merits our interest, is one that will not stand in the way of bringing you out where you want to be, while permitting the same opportunities for everyone else. And this is defi nitely a prospect when millions yes, trillions - of decisions are made independently of each other - that is, a situation in which freedom of choice prevails.

It is an observed fact that vari ation obtains throughout the nat ural order; it is a distinguishing feature of the universal scheme of things ranging from atoms and their components to galaxies which are but tiny parts of who knows what. No two things are identical - no two snowflakes or stars or sunsets or tidal waves. Everything at all times and in all places and in all circumstances is in motion. But note that instead of chaos there is order and sta bility - an incomprehensible har mony - and because of a mysteri 0us principle at work: All the phenomena of astronomy, which had baffled the acutest minds since the dawn of history, the move ment of the heavens, of the sun and the moon, the very complex movement of the planets, suddenly tumble to gether and become intelligible in terms of the one staggering assum p tion, this mysterious "attractive force."5 These variations we observe in nature, by reason of this "mys terious attractive force," gravitate into a harmony; that is, there is an inexplicable magnetism con stantly, everlastingly exerting it self. And precisely this· same force 5 See Science Is a Sacred Cow by An thony Standen (New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, Inc., 1950), pp. 63-64.

1971 HARMONIZING TO EACH HIS OWN 753 operates in exactly the same man ner on the fantastically varied out croppings of the human cortex: viewpoints, evaluations, inven tions, insights, intuitive flashes, think-of-thats. Freedom Can Worle Wonders, If Not Restrained Who understands creative hu man energy? Who can define it? No one! It is as mysterious and indefinable as electrical energy. Indeed, the two behave in much the same manner: they naturally flow along the lines of least re sistance. The point is, we live without understanding Creation or life; electricity and gravitation serve even though we haven't the slightest idea as to what they are; the same is true of creative human energy - provided we leave it free to flow. What at first blush appears as utter chaos - a veritable hurricane of flighty performances - turns out to be precisely the opposite: an ha.rmonic whole in the absence of I's trying to play we. You to your knitting, I to mine, each pur suing his unique potential, be it farming or astronomy or what ever. For only in this m,anner am I able to draw on your and every one else's unique realizations, others possessing countless ideas, enlightenments, goods, services hardly anyone of which is within my own potential. When freedom prevails, we can think of our situa tion as a vast human grid, sup plies responding to demands in a perpetual willing exchange. A harmonizing of to ea,ch h,is own! "

We cannot know how freedom, any more than Creation, works its wonders. Nor do we need to know the how of it. We need only know (1) that freedom does work won ders - the evidence is common place and all about us - and (2) that freedom exists in the absence of man-concocted restraints against the release of creative· en ergy. And observe how simple and realistic·- this is: it does not presuppose a single know-it-all! ~ IDEAS ON LIBERTY Principles of Prosperity IN THE FIRST PLACE, two people can work to produce more than twice as many valuable things as one can. In the second place, two people, simply by exchanging things they have, can each end up with more of the things they want. HART BUCK, "Freedom to Shop Around"