Power to the People; C. Keyser

CARL A.KEYSER PO~ER TO THE PEOPLE the naas. of despotisna THERE IS a specially apt para graph in The First Leftist,l a pamphlet by Dean Russell, which is worth quoting. The rallying cry of this new Left [the J acobins in 18th century France] was: All power to the people. And as always it sounded good to the people. But the point that the French people missed is the same point that haunts the world today [1951]. It is this: The people can not themselves in dividually exercise the power of gov ernment; the power must be held by one or a few persons ... whether the form of government is a kingdom, a dictatorship, a democracy, or what ever. If the people truly desire to re tain or regain their freedom, their at tention should first be directed to the principle of limiting the power of government itself instead of merely demanding the right to vote on what Mr. Keyser is Commonwealth Professor Emeritus of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst where he had specialized in ma terialsengineering and metallurgy. This article is adapted from a book manuscript Mr. Keyser is completing on the expanded role the Federal government assumes in our lives.

party or person is to hold the power. For is the victim of government power any the less deprived of his life, liberty, or property merely because the depriving is done in the name of - or even with the consent of - the maj ority of the people? According to Elie Hal evy2 so cialism was considered by its early advocates as a natural evolution of liberty, fulfillment of the rev olution of 1789, the end of the subjection of labor by capital. "But on the other hand," wrote Halevy, "it is also a reaction against individualism and liberal ism; it proposes a compulsory organization in place of outworn institutions destroyed by the Rev olution." Thus, old despotisms were to be replaced by new ones. Men were again to surrender themselves to the tyranny of the state. In the years following the Na poleonic wars Charles Comte and Charles Dunoyer founded a peri388 THE FREEMAN Jul·y odical called Le Censeur (The Censor) in France. The observa tions made in 1815 have perman ent validity.

"The first way," wrote Dunoyer, "that occurs to man to satisfy his needs is to take; plunder was the first industry, as it was the first end of human association; history hardly knows a society that was not first formed for war and pillage."3 "The first need of man," stated Charles Comte along the same line of thought, "is to provide for his subsistence, and, as we have al ready seen, he can do so only by the spontaneous product of nature, or by what he seizes from his fellows, or by the produce of his industry."4 Government Subverted The justification for peaceful government is to prevent the sei zure of one man's life and property by another. Today, government has been subverted to perform the very function the prevention of which justifies its existence: pil lage. This occurs when the gov ernment attempts to fulfill what are commonly ·called social needs: it takes from some and gives to others.

"In their present state," accord ing to Dunoyer at the start of the nineteenth century, "the nations can be compared to swarms made up equally of hornets and bees, swarms in ~hich the bees agree to produce torrents of honey for the hornets, in the hope of keep ing at least a. few combs for them selves. Unhappily, there is not al ways even a small part left for them . . . Man's concern is not with government; he should look on government as no more than a very secondary thing - we might almost say a very minor thing. His goal is industry, labor, and the prod uction of everything needed for his happiness. In a well-ordered state, the government must be only an adjunct of pro duction, an agency charged by the producers, who pay for it, with protecting their persons and their goods while they work. In a well ordered state, the largest possi ble number of persons must work, and the smallest possible number must govern."5 The same thought was expressed by Count Henri Saint-Simon, a brilliant but somewhat erratic and eccentric philosopher-economist, who was cognizant of the work of Comte and Dunoyer and who iron ically later became the founder of French socialism.

"Society," stated Saint-Simon, "needs to be governed as little as possible, and there is only one way to accomplish that - to be governed as cheaply as possible."6 Later Saint-Simon and his fol1972 POWER TO THE PEOPLE : THE MASK OF DESPOTISM 389 lowers forgot this advice and ad vocated a tyrannical industrial state ruled by a scientific elite. Dunoyer and Comte divided so ciety into two classes: those who wish to plunder and those who wish to produce and exchange in peace. Dunoyer wrote of the strug gle between these two classes. "We must not forget," wrote Dunoyer of the peaceful producer class, "that its members are still few in numbers and isolated from each other; that there are few means of communication and de fense; in a word it is not organ ized, while, generally speaking its enemies are organized."7 These and sicmilar thoughts made their way via Saint-Simon to Auguste Comte, the founder of positivism, to Buckle, the histori an, and finally to Herbert Spencer, the economist and philosopher. The philosophy was accepted in Eng land, the United States, and else where, playing a major part in the nineteenth-century economic ex pansion of the American West.

By the end of the nineteenth century socialism was thriving, claiming to be a new liberalism. It took hold first in Germany, later in England and the Scandinavian countries, and then in violent form, in Russia. Finally it evolved into the Fascism of Italy, the National Socialism of Germany, and the welfare state in England' and the United States. T.he strug gle between the peaceful produc ers and plunderers still goes on. The peaceful producers are "few in numbers and isolated from each other . . . there are few means . . . of defense ... , [the producer group is] not organized, while, generally speaking its enemies are organized." Near the end of his book Elie Halevy asked, "Am I going to be told about a future state of the human race, when a perfect so cialism will be united with a per fect freedom? What freedom? The freedom to do nothing, as in the abbey of Theleme, or the absence of obedience to a master, along with incessant labor like an ant or a bee? This ultra future ... goes beyond the limits of my vision.

And when I see men giving them selves up to these dreams, I can not help but think of Kant's dove trying to fly in the void or of Hegel's swimmer without water."s Loss of Freedom Socialism ends, although the end may be many years in coming, in tyranny and loss of freedom. The nineteenth-century French Socialists were followed by Napol eon III, the Socialists of Russia lasted a few months and yielded to Bolshevism, the postwar So cialists of Italy were followed by Mussolini' s Fascists, and after a 390 THE FREEMAN July dozen or so years the Socialists of Germany succumbed to Hitler's terror. In Spain, Franco was So cialism's heir. Once the terror takes over only a war seems able to bring about a change, and there is no assurance that a new terror will not replace the old. Under some forms of terror vestiges of private ownership were allowed to remain, as attempts were made to gain social security without com pletely extinguishing economic freedom. But freedom is indivis ible and freedom compromised is freedom lost.

Henry Watterson, the grand old editor of the oldtime Louisville Courier-Journal was rightly fear ful of unlimited government, even if it was the choice of the people. "We are told by Herbert Spen cer," wrote Watterson, "that the political superstition of the past having been the divine right of kings, the political superstition of the present is the divine right of parliaments and he might have said of peoples. The oil of an nointing seems unawares, he thinks, to have dripped from the head of the one upon the heads of the many, and given sacredness to them also, and to their decrees." "That the Proletariat, the Bol sheviki, the People are on the way seems plain enough," he wrote in 1919 with unusual foresight. "How far they will go,· and where they will end, is not so clear. With a kind of education - most men are taught to read, very few to think - the masses are likely to demand more and more for themselves.

They will continue strenuously and effectively to resent the startling contrasts of fortune which oppor tunity and aptitude have created in a social and political structure claiming to rest upon the formula 'equality for all, special privilege for none'." "The law of force," continued Watterson, "will yield to the rule of numbers. Socialism, disappoint ed by its Utopia, may then repeat the familiar lesson and reproduce the man-on-horseback, or the wor ld may drop into another abyss, and, after ensuing 'dark ages'. . . emerge with a new civ ilization and religion."9 At another point in Marse Henry , Watterson nevertheless wrote: "As poorly as I rate the reign of majorities, I prefer it to the one-man power, either elective or dynastic."lo Socialism and Mediocrity James Gibbons HunekeI' was a connoisseur of music, the arts, and literature. He lived from 1860 to 1921 and witnessed the socialist drift of the Western world, includ ing the Red revolution in Russia.

His biographer, Arnold T. Schwab, claims that HunekeI' was "the 1972 POWER TO THE PEOPLE: THE MASK OF DESPOTISM 391 most versatile and one of the most entertaining and influential Amer ican critics ..." Huneker's inter ests ranged far beyond the arts into political ethics and led him to spend time in the greasy restau rants of New York arguing com munism with those of the van guard such as Emma Goldman. The last book Huneker wrote, Varia,Uons, was a collection of essays published posthumously in 1921. 11 In his powerful essay, "Socialism and Mediocrity," Hun eker quotes Yves Guyotl 2 : "There are three words which socialism must erase from the facade of our public buildings, the three words of the republican motto: Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. Liberty because socialism is a rule of tyranny; equality because it is a rule of class; fraternity because its policy is that of class war."

Huneker himself then goes on to write: "M. Guyot might have quoted Napoleon, a realist, a cynic in politics, for he knew its seamy side, who said: 'Tell men they are equal and they won't bother about liberty.' How true - if we are all reduced to the level of slaves and live in filth and depravity, we shall not be concerned with ,freeing our selves from this condition, provid ing we all equally enjoy the same conditions of our non-existence. "Guyot ... attacks Karl Marx on his weakest flank, and, incidentally, proves him not to have been a proletarian, but the son-in law of a Prussian Junker. The selfishness of Marx, his tyrannical behavior, his unphilosophical wrath when opposed by two such intellectual giants as Bakunin 13 and Lassalle 14 ; his jealous attitude toward Ferdinand Lassalle, espe cially after his tragic death, are all well known. Able but frequent ly unscrupulous men amuse the idle and attract the multitudes such are the leaders . . . These leaders are plagiarists, with some variations, of all the communist romances inspired by Plato."

The Exploitation Theory Not only did Marx and Lenin plagiarize Plato but, according to Huneker, they "built up their theories upon a sentence of Saint Simon and three phrases of Ri cardo's. Our author [Huneker is quoting Guyot] gives these ex amples: 'German socialism is de rived from two sources: (1) The French doctrine of Saint-Simon; "The 1vay to grow rich is to make others ,work for one,' which in Proudhon's mouth becomes 'the exploitation of man by man.' (2) Three formulas of Ricardo, viz.: (a) 'labor is the measure of val ue',. (b) 'the price of labor is what prov,ides labor in general with the means of subsistence, and of per petuating his species without 392 THE FREEMAN July either increase or diminution',. (c) 'profits decrease in proportion as wages increase.'" Saint-Simon and Proudhon are guilty of vicious distortions and Ricardo of abject assininity unworthy of yet another tiresome refutation.

"N0 Socialist," Huneker con tinues, "has succeeded in explain ing the conditions for production, the remuneration, and the distri bution of capital in a collectivist system. No Socialist has succeeded in determining the motives for action which an individual would obey. When pressed for an answer, they allege that human nature shall be metamorphosed, but that the individual remains a constant quantity! Rank materialism, all this, and absolutely without vi sion ... "It may be said that man is ready for every form of sacrifice save one: nowhere and at no time has he been found to labor volun tarily and constantly from a dis interested love for others. Man is only compelled to productive labor by necessity, by fear of punish ment, or by suitable remuneration. The Socialists of today, like those of former times, constantly de nounce the waste of competition. Competition involves losses, but biological evolution, as well as humanity proves that they are largely compensated by gain. Fur thermore, there is no question of abolishing competition in social istic conceptions; the question is merely one of substitution of po litical for economic competition.

If economic competition leads to waste, and claims its victims, it is none the less productive. Political competition has secured enormous plunder to great conquerors such as Alexander, Caesar, Tamerlane, and Napoleon; it always destroys more wealth than it confers on the victors. The Socialist formulates a theory of robbery and calls it 'restitution to the disinherited.' Disinherited by whom? Disinher ited of what? Let them produce their title deeds ... Georges Ber nard says that 'socialism will be a regime of authority.' On this point Guyot grimly agrees with him. In reality it will be the most oppres sive spiritual and material system ever invented by man. " ... The future - which is said by some to belong to socialism will work out the problem of medi ocrity, especially if socialism is involved; mediocrity and social ism are not poles asunder. Con crete houses filled with concrete people who will eat, drink, .and think alike will cover the land.

Everything will be concrete, even our opinions. In his concrete Cap itol a concrete President will de vise concrete laws. Art, music, literature will be so concrete that our native Gradgrinds, hungry for 1972 POWER TO THE PEOPLE: THE MASK OF DESPOTISM 393 hard facts, will be ravished into the seventh concrete heaven . . . And this coming age of concrete, wherein all must walk and look alike, is it not a dream compared with which Dante's Inferno would be a Garden of Armida ?"H) Boris Pasternak would probably have answered, "Yes." Early Signs of Socialism Socialism, according to the classic definition, concerns itself with the collective ownership of the means of producing and dis tributing goods, under democratic government control. In practice Socialism has been expanded to cover government ownership, op eration and control of all the facilities and institutions which, even indirectly, contribute to the production and distribution of goods. Additionally, Socialist gov ernments have assumed responsi bility for providing those services which are used by most citizens, and for providing material secur ity for all of their citizens. Ac cording to this concept the govern ment of the United States has been engaged in Socialist activities ever since it was established.

Post-offices and post-roads were authorized in the Constitution un der Article 1. Certainly this would represent ownership and control of facilities which contribute in directly to the production and distribution of goods. Additionally, the provision of a service used by most citizens is involved. (The. argument is often made that serv ices used by all citizens should be provided by the government since this will take the profit out of the activity. How about breathing, for instance?) Eventually the Con gress made the handling of mail a government monopoly, and after 182 years of dismal deficits, the Socialistic postal service has been changed to an independent govern ment agency which is supposed to resemble a private corporation and which is supposed to be self-sup porting. It remains, however, a government agency, presumably owned by the people, and it is not less Socialistic than it was before.

The big-government liberals, who double as humanitarians when they dispense the money they have stolen from the thrifty, until recently revered Thomas Jefferson as a near-God, which, of course, he wasn't. Then one of his bi ographers made the rather un remarkable disclosure that Jeffer son had been a Negro slaveholder and this relegated him to the po sition of a latterday leper. Some years earlier it had been revealed that Jefferson regarded govern ment as "inherently corrupt, op pressive, and malevolent."16 This should have forewarned the lib erals and caused some anguish, but 394 THE FREEMAN July it didn't. Perhaps it was because, in spite of Jefferson's mistrust of government, he was responsible for several early American socialist sorties. The first Jeffersonian socialist endeavor was the Louisiana Pur chase of 1803, by which the United States became a dealer in real estate. This was an atypical so cialist activity in that it proved enormously profitable. The profits from the sale of Louisiana Pur chase land helped to pay the cost of running the government for the second fifty years of the country's existence. Although the interna tional legality of the enterprise was authorized under the treaty making powers granted by the Constitution, there is nowhere a clear authorization for the United States to engage in a real estate development the size of the Louisi ana purchase. Acquisition of ter ritory on a limited scale for pur poses of defense would certainly be permissible, but it is question able whether a big purchase could be justified under the general wel fare clause. In any event, who was to question the constitution ality of such a step? This and later real estate ventures of the United States have proved to be quite generally profitable in spite of their socialist nature. Perhaps it all proves that even socialists can make money in real estate.

A Federal Surplus! By 1806 the income of the Fed eral government had grown be yond what was needed for the limited government the nation then enjoyed. Small amounts of money were needed for service of the national debt and for national defense, the major government ac tivity. Unbelievable as it now seems, there was great concern over what to do with surplus funds! Handling this problem, Jefferson showed himself to be the eternal politician. Instead of rec ommending that customs duties, the major source of Federal in come, be reduced, he sought ways to increase spending. "Congress," he wrote, "should explore the pos sibilities of Federal appropriations for the great purposes of Federal education, roads, rivers, canals, and such other objects of public improvement as may be thought proper."17 It is to Jefferson's ever lasting credit that he was enough of a constitutionalist to have felt that an amendment would be needed to permit such a socialist invasion of fields heretofore large ly private. In this he was unlike twentieth-century politicians who increasingly agree with Mr. Dooley that "th' Constitution iv th' United States is applicable on'y in such cases as it is applied to on account iv its applicability."

It is noteworthy that for 82 of 1972 POWER TO THE PEOPLE: THE MASK OF DESPOTISM 395 the first 112 years preceding World War I surpluses were a problem.I 8 What a lovely problem! This brings to mind the 1970 row over federal-state revenue shar ing. 19 If the states are in need of more money and the Federal gov ernment is so overbu.rdened with cash that it can afford to give some to the states, why not simply reduce Federal taxes and allow the states to raise their own funds? Under this scheme the money would be raised where it is spent and the public could keep a better eye on how it was spent. Under revenue-sharing the Federal gov ernment will parcel out its favors subject to the influence of politi cal pressures far removed from the people who fill the till. This is hardly likely to contribute to care ful taxing and spending. The socialist proposal of Jeffer son that Congress consider Fed eral support of education have led many to consider him as the father of publicly-supported education.

Not until about sixty-five years later did Federal support of educa tion become a reality. In 1862 the first Morrill Act, known as the Land Grant Act, was passed pro viding for the establishment and maintenance of state colleges. Republican president, Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-1881), later pro posed that Federal grants be made for public education. "Whatever government can fairly do," wrote Hayes, "to pro mote free popular education ought to be done. Wherever general edu cation is found, peace, virtue, and social order prevail and civil and religious liberty are secure."20 Hayes was not a very reliable prophet, as the recent riots, tur moil and general breakdown of the legal and social traditions of the country have proved. Events in the 1930's in Germany, where public education had long been a tradition, also seem to show that education isn't the answer to all men's problems. Republican presidents Arthur (1881-1885) and Harrison (1889 1893) continued pressing for Fed eral support. In 1890 the second Morrill Act was passed granting $25,000 annually to each of the land grant colleges. In 1971 Con gress appropriated 18 billion dol lars in aid to education. Socialist enterprises have a way of grow ing on you.

In spite of all, socialist intru sions by the end of the nineteenth century represented a minuscule portion of American endeavor. The twentieth century has been quite different. The Federal government entered the field of social security under President Franklin Roosevelt. So cial security was not an invention of Roosevelt nor of his braintrust396 THE FREEMAN July ers, Bismarck having imposed it in Germany many years before. From Germany the idea spread to the countries north and west of Germany until it reached the United States. In this country the material security an individual might attain was, prior to Roose velt II, largely a private matter attended to by individuals them selves or by their relatives and friends, the latter often acting through churches and charitable or fraternal organizations. In ad dition to these private sources of material security, tax-supported services such as local "poor farms"

were provided by towns, cities, counties, and states. Herbert Hoover and the Republican lead ers of the 1920's and 1930~ en dorsed local tax-supported efforts and private charity as the solu tion to helping the needy. The socialism represented by tax supported welfare was on a state or lower level. Roosevelt's contri bution .to socialism consisted of federalizing the oldtime local socialist endeavors. Accompanying the federalization and wild ex pansion of these socialist activities there was a simultaneous and enormous transfer of power from individuals and local communities to Washington. The socialism that has been with us almost since the founding of the republic has been sponsored at times by the political ancestors of both Democrats and Republi cans. Since the turn of the cen tury, and particularly in the mid dle third of the century, both parties have accelerated their sponsorship. But it must be re membered that the politicians do not lead the people. They follow. ~ • FOOTNOTES • 1 Russell, Dean, The First Leftist which appeared in In Brief, vol. 7, no. 3, Foun dation for Economic Education, Irving ton-on-Hudson, New York, 1951, p. 7.

2 Halevy, Elie, The Era of Tyrannies, Essays on Socialism and War, trans. by R. K. Webb, Doubleday and Co., Inc., N.Y., 1965. 3 Ibid., p. 29. 4 Ibid., p. 29.· 5 Ibid., p. 31. 6 Ibid., p. 32. 7 Ibid., pp. 32, 33. 8 Ibid., pp. 313, 314. 9 Watterson, Henry, Marse Henry, An Autobiography, v. II, pp. 289-290. 10 Ibid., pp. 158, 159. 11 Huneker, James Gibbons, Variations, Charles Scribner's Sons, N. Y., 1921. 12 French laissez-faire economist, 1843 1928. 13 Russian anarchist, nihilist, and ter rorist who believed in anarchy excepting in organizations he controlled. 1814-1876. 14 German socialist and economist. 1825-1864. 15 See Huneker, OPt cit., PP. 111-120. 16 Clinton Rossiter quoted in Kimmel, Lewis H., Federal Budget and Fiscal Poli cies, 1789-1958, The Brookings Institu tion, Washington, D. C., 1959, p. 3. 17 See Kimmel, op. cit., p. 16. 18 Ibid. 19 Federal deficit sharing, rather than Federal revenue sharing has yet to be proposed. It might be more apprppriate.

20 See Kimmel, OPt ·cit., p. 47.