Down With National Priorities; A. Mode

Seldom identified is the fact that the concept of "national priori ties" refers to objects of govern ment spending. Seldom noted is the fact that consumers, acting privately in a free market place, always have had a choice of pri orities. Whenever a person chooses product A over product B, he is ordering his priorities. Only busy bodies try to tell their friends what the latter's priorities - tastes values, preferences - should be: Therefore, the whole notio"n of setting "national priorities" re duces us, in effect, to a nation of busybodies. The concept of "national pri orities" implies that a choice ex ists between governmental funcDr. Mode is an M.D. in Stamford, Connecticut. tions of unequal importance. When government is restricted to its proper functions - the police func tion, the judicial function, and providing for the defense of the country - there can be no question of "priorities." Each of these functions is equally necessary if the preservation of individual rights is to be more than a slo gan. The army, the police, and the courts are all equally indispensa ble for such protection. To ask citizens to compare in importance these three functions with other government activities - for exam ple, the police function versus the development of a mass transit system - is to miss the difference between the essential and the non essent~al, between jobs that must be done by government to carry out its purpose and jobs that could just as well be done by private enterprise, with no loss of individual rights (with a gain in fact).

Note that the need for police judicial, and military services is' by the nature of the adversary: limited. But when the government is funding a whole raft of eco nomic, social, educative, and health programs, where the goals are al ways, by their nature, unlimited and nebulous (for example, "a decent life for every American"), there can never be enough re sources available to fund all of 523 524 THE FREEMAN September them as much as their backers would like, so some have to be funded less than others. But by what standard should the "mores" be selected? Answer: there can be no reasonable standard for select ing one over the other, because there is no common denominator by which to measure the relative values of such diverse endeavors as, say, cancer research and the Tennessee Valley Authority. So, arbitrary standards must be used. One way of picking priorities is to have an autocratic leader, but Americans have traditionally shunned overt totalitarians. A var iation of autocracy is unlimited majority rule - democracy - with dictatorial powers wielded by "the 51 per cent" rather than by the individual leader. Again, Ameri cans tradi tionally have had too much respect for the rights of the minority to permit unlimited ma jority rule. Another way of se lecting is by continual tests of strength between vying special in terest groups. This is what we have now. Less politely, we have gang warfare between different groups, each with a vested in terest in government funds. Med ical researchers lament when "their" funds are threatened. Wel fare rights groups lament any diminution of "their" funds. And so it goes. Of course, they do more than lament: they issue frightening forecasts, demonstrate, occupy buildings, start legal suits, and the like. In time, the politically strongest groups get their desires met first. This necessarily leaves many other groups (or nonor ganized individuals) with their desires for public funds unmet.

Therefore, the initial idea of giv ing the entire public a voice in setting "national priorities" is doomed to defeat. Some voices will be heeded, others will not. This is inevitable under our present system. Therefore, I say: down with "national priorities"; up with in dividual priorities! In the free and competitive market place, all voices can be heard. Each citizen arranges his own preferences, but not his neighbor's. Noone has his choices overridden by stronger political pressure groups. For in stance, a worker who wants to buy an automobile doesn't have to cancel his order because the mass transit lobby convinced legislators to make mass transit a "national priority," resulting in higher taxes that left the worker with insuf ficient funds to buy the car. In that case, the government can devote itself wholly to its three essential functions. It can serve simply as an umbrella, protecting us from the reign of force and fraud, as each of us pursues his own brand of happiness. , ERIK VON KUEHNELT-LEDDIHN IN THE "German Democratic Re public" they tell the story about a weary old man who tries to gain entrance into the Red Paradise. A Communist Archangel holds him up at the gate and severely cross questions him: "Where were you born?"