The Free for all Society; G. North

GARY NORTH FREE-FOR-ALL: what an image! It brings forth memories of child hood, with a mass of children run ning, yelling, leaping on top of each other - a chaotic mass of hu manity, with "every kid for him self." Or it appears in the average American's mind as a barroom brawl, with slugging drunks, broken chairs and tables, bodies flying through the air. How many B-grade Westerns or 1944 military musicals have included in the sec ond reel a fight between two guys in a bar, and as soon as three punches have been exchanged, fifty-four other men are slugging it out with each other in a mind less pandemonium? Such nonsense may be all right for children or· the fantasies of Dr. North, economist, lecturer, author, cur rently is an associate of Chalcedon, an educa tional organization dedicated to Christian re search and writing. His latest book is An In troduction to Christian Economics, Craig Press, 1973.

the late, late show, but how many of us would actually like to live our lives in a constant free-for all? Not many, I suspect. Endless lawless chaos, endless pokes in the nose: it is not a pleasant prospect. Such a world would make it ex tremely difficult for men to plan, labor, produce, trade, or bring progress into the world. Leisure would disappea.r. In fact, the only way a free-for-all can exist, even for short periods of time, is for someone to subsidize it. It is no surprise that the free-for-all is associated with bawling children and brawling drunks. They are the only ones who can afford it. No society could long survive as a con stant free-for-all. Yet how many people today seem to regard the economy as a free-for-all? The ancient slogan of the socialists has been that na ture is wholly abundant, but arti ficial human institutions and eco731 732 THE FREEMAN De'cember nomic arrangements thwart the operation of nature's bounty. Pro duction is "normal"; distribution is fouled. Therefore, all we need to do is tear down the artificial bar riers to wealth. This was the vi sion of Marx and Engels, and it is alive and well in every society on earth, in spite of the fact that it is not always associated with Marx and Engels. 1 Marx and Engels did not invent the slogan; it has been around for as long as men have tried to appropriate the fruits of each other's labor.

limitations of Nature The premise is fallacious. Na ture has limited capabilities for production. If we have learned nothing else from the ecology movement, we should have learned this. Nature's productive power is a thin veneer; most of nature's energy is expended in merely re placing what dies, day to day. It is man, with his wonderful gift of reason, which makes nature flour ish. Man creates wealth, and this process is not free (gratuitous). It takes an expenditure of energy, capital, and time to make nature give up her fruits for the pur poses of mankind. The problem is not distribution; the problem is always production. Production 1 See my study of early Marxism, Marx's Religion of Revolution (Nutley, New Jersey: The Craig Press, 1968). creates its own distribution; dis tribution does not create produc tion. (The widespread distribution of nothing spreads mighty thin.) It is because the premise of so cialist redistribution is fallacious that a society of "free-for-all"

economic goods would become one enormous free-for-all. Economic goods are scarce, that is, at zero price there is greater demand for them than supply of them. Prices are the sure indication of just how far we are from a free-for-all economy. Prices allow us to plan, evaluate our costs, make clear and responsible choices. They restrain our demands on nature and on each other. If there is anything in creation that is unlimited, it is our demands; everything else is re stricted. So we live in a world of scarcity. But if we should try to abandon free pricing as our tool of allocation, what will replace it? State planning agencies ? Votes? Guns? Fists? We would have our selves a free-for-all in more ways than one. It would be every man for himself, like fifteen pups on an eight-nippled mother. We would be placing an economic pre mium on brawling instead of co operation. Productivity, already limited, would fall even more. And nature, already overtaxed, would be exploited unmercifully - after all, if nature is totally abundant, men should force her to give up 1973 THE FREE-FOR-ALL SOCIETY 733 her wealth. (Which is why the Soviet Union has such a disastrous pollution problem: Marshall Gold man, The Spo'ils of Progress, M.LT. Press, 1972.) Divided We Fdll Those who insist on voting themselves a piece of another's pie are thereby affirming their commitment to a free-far-all so ciety. Minimum wage laws, price supports, graduated income taxa tion (sadly called "progressive"), tariffs, government-guaranteed loans, regulated industries: the list goes on and on. With every piece of new legislation, the brawling increases, as more people jump into the fray.

We can legislate ourselves into a free-for-all world. I would pre fer to pay my money and take my choice. At least in these circum stances, what I see is what I get. In a free-for-all, one seldom gets even this much. What you don't see is what you get, such as a fist in the ear. Those who are produc tive tend to do poorly in slug fests, and those who are expert brawlers usually are not very effi cient producers. A world of pro duction can afford a few brawls, but a world of constant brawling starves. , IDEAS ON LIBERTY Capitalism KARL MARX completely rejected the only 'economic system on earth under which it is possible for the workers themselves to own, to control, and to manage directly the facilities of pro duction. And shocking as the news may be to the disciples of Marx, that system is capitalism! Here in America, ownership of our biggest and most important industries is sold daily, in little pieces, on the stock market. It is constantly changing hands; and if the workers of this country truly wish to own the tools of production, they can do so very simply.

They do not have to seize the government by force of arms. They do not even have to win an election. An in the world they have to do is to buy, in the open market, the capital stock of the corporation they want to own - just as millions of other Ameri cans have been doing for many decades. BEN J AMIN F. FAIRLESS, The Great Mistake of Karl Marx SO MYSTERIOUS is the process of profitably producing and market ing anything - say, a pair of shoes - that many persons are willing to believe it is accomplished by ex ploiting the customers, or the hired laborers, or perhaps both. In that case, their reactions may run in all directions but tend. to fol low three main channels: 1. Profits should be shared with employees. 2. Consumers should organize as a cooperative in order' to share the profits a,mong themselves. 3. The government can do it cheaper bec'ause it doesn't have to make a profit. Actually, these are not three separate alternatives to the free market - the profit and loss ar rangement under open competi tion and voluntary exchange; they 734 I SHARING PAUL L. POIROT are but three different aspects of compulsory collectivism.