A Matter of Self-Responsibility; P.L. Poirot

A Matter of Self-Responsibility PAUL L. POIROT IN "THE GOOD OLD DAYS"- of my boyhood on the farm, any fuel shortage we experienced was strictly our own fault. And the procedure to avoid or correct the situation was to get out the ax and crosscut saw, hitch a team, and head for the wood lot. It was no great trick for a couple of teen agers to make it home by nightfall with a cord of wood cut and split to stove size. Fortunately, our neighbors didn't mind if we sawed a fallen log or cut a crooked tree from our own woods. As long as we were in good health, they were perfectly willing to let us freeze if we didn't want to chop wood. I should hasti ly add that they were always ready to lend a hand in any case of real 118 need. Otherwise, they generally minded their own business and left ours to us. If there had been a thermostat in our house, we could have turned it to any setting we pleased. That is what I would call self-sufficiency on the energy front, but I'm not so sure it's what the President has in mind for the United States by 1980.

Nor would I advocate or vote for a reversion in 1974 to those good old days of each-to-his-own wood pile. Let me make it perfectly clear that we had an alternative then; we could have purchased a load of coal from the "foreigner" five miles away at the nearest railroad siding. And I'm quite sure we would have availed ourselves of 1974 A MATTER OF SELF-RESPONSIBILITY 119 that opportunity if ever we had more money than time and enthu siasm for chopping wood. We weren't being self-subsistent as a matter of principle - just lack of cash. More accurately, we didn't have anything we were willing to offer that the coal dealer was will ing to accept for a load of coal; so, we cut wood, if and when we had nothing better to do. Most of us today have something "better to do," which explains why we buy fuel in the form of oil or gas or electricity or whatever in stead of chopping wood. We spe cialize, and we trade with "for eigners," whether they be the neighbors next door, or the mer chants in town, or the mail order houses in Chicago, or the shippers in London, or the suppliers of "black gold" in Saudi Arabia.

We're not exactly self-sufficient any more, not with respect to fuel or to hardly anything else we de pend upon for our regular use. But that is not really the issue. The question is whether we are self-responsible. Is it my own problem if I want fuel, or is it the President's problem? There are stories about a couple of American Presidents who were pretty good at chopping wood. But I haven't heard if one has done it lately. So, I'm beginning to think my fuel problem is a bit too im portant to turn over to the President. I'll grind my ax and sharpen my saw, just in case I'm driven all the way back to self-subsistence. What One Can Do to Try to Stop the Meddling Hopefully, however, the market may not be closed entirely. Occa sionally, perhaps, a friendly "for eigner" may be found willing to part with a bucket of coal, a tank ful of gas or fuel oil, an hour or two of electrical current. As a po tential customer, I can do my best not to antagonize any potential supplier. If I think his price is right, I can buy from him, which should make both of us happy.

Otherwise, I can leave him alone and cut wood if I've nothing bet ter to do. Beyond this, I can urge the President and everyone else not to antagonize my potential supplier. If I want to pay his price, I wish others would not try to forcibly take from him what I've freely paid - not even the part that might have been pure profit for him. Without that part, he isn't going to be much of a future sup plier for me. More importantly, I can respect fully urge those meddlers not to set arbitrary price ceilings for me or my potential suppliers. For in that case, how could I possibly con vince any supplier that he should be trying harder to increase the 120 THE FREEMAN February supply? After all, if there's a, short age, lack of supply must be part of the problem. And the other part would be excessive demand, for which there is no better cure than higher price. So, price controls can only be described as one of the causes, certainly not a way to al levia te a shortage.

Good Neighbors Getting back to the wood lot, I cannot recall ever having had our load hij acked on the way home by needy neighbors - or even by "for eigners." Noone ever forced us to deliver a fourth or a third or a half of each load to the Whi te House for distribution among the poor. Hardly anyone was so poor that he couldn't fetch his own wood. But if he just couldn't make it, "Uncle Carl" or some other :p.eighbor generally attended to the matter without bothering to call a committee meeting or make a Fed eral case of it. In their "retirement" years, my parents rented a small farm house and a plot of "truck patch" or garden. This was part of a larger farm which boasted an oil well which, in turn, yielded a supply of natural gas that had been tapped as a source of heat and energy for the house. To the best of my knowledge, not once did the neighbors ever think of trying to tell the owner what to do with the gas or how much oil he could pump. In fact, I doubt very much that they helped drill the well in the first place. They simply minded their own business - cut their own wood. It's not easy to find such "careless" neighbors any more.

I Cut the Tree Recently, I confess, I chopped down our cherry tree. The poor thing had died. Somewhere in the neighborhood I suspect there lies a half-signed petition exhorting me to "cease and desist from de stroying our natural environ ment." Natural, my foot ! You wouldn't believe the hours of ten der .loving care the previous owner and I spent over· a . period of 30 years planting 'and feeding and spraying and pruning that sweet cherry in return for a week's peek at springtime blossoms and an an nual feast for the starlings at har vest time. Little do those potential petitioners know how often I've plotted - fruitlessly - to murder a starling. I've often wondered whatever possessed George Washington to chop down a cherry tree; but, if he did such a thing, I'm willing to forgive him. I doubt that the mat ter merits Congressional investi gation. I don't believe for a min ute that he was trying to take care of a national fuel shortage.

But, if he were, and if it wasn't 1974 A MATTER OF SELF-RESPONSIBILITY 121 his own cherry tree, perhaps there would have been reasonable grounds for impeachment. I believe it is not the Presi dent's place to tell me I have a fuel shortage, or to solve it for me, if I do. I'd rather he leave me alone, to chop wood if I choose, or to trade if I can with whomever is willing and able to supply fuel. The President's job is to stop me if I lie or cheat or steal or defraud anyone to get what I want from others, and to stop others who might try such coercive tactics against me. But let his job end there, leaving all of us free to com pete in the open market for the goods and services we want. Closing the Market When the President announces a goal of national self-sufficiency (independence) by 1980, he in ef fect is declaring war against the citizens of the U.S., implying that he intends to close the market at the national boundary lines as of that date. But he's only concerned about oil, you say? And if that's true, why would it be so? Is fuel more important than various min erals, foodstuffs, and numerous other items we now import? And what is it we are not to be allowed to export once we are not allowed to import oil? The President ought to know that imports are paid for with exports - and vice versajust as in the case of voluntary ex change between any willing buyer and any willing seller, wherever each may live.

Oh, I see, payment would be made with money instead of goods! And what kind of money would that be? Money the seller is pleased to accept in trade? Or a piece of irredeemable paper that has been declared "legal tender"? What the President has not ex plained to the American people is that our fuel shortage, like the re cent grain shortage and meat shortage and other "failures of the market," is really a monetary prob lem. When the U.S. gold window was closed to foreigners on August 15, 1971, when they were supposed to accept the irredeemable U. S. paper dollar as though it were good as gold, the American people suddenly were faced with a short age of foreign suppliers. They'd rather have wheat or soybeans or any commodity - rather than "paper gold." Nor is it likely that any Secretary of Foreign Affairs is magician enough to restart the flow of "black gold" from the Mid East if he has nothing better to offer in exchange than U. S. "legal tender."

The sad truth is that foreigners cannot be bound by U. S. declara tions of "legal tender." They don't have to supply goods and services to us at our ceiling prices in ex122 THE FREEMAN February change for paper dollars. Unless we are willing and able to give in return as good as we get from them, then we need not wait until 1980 to be self-sufficient and inde pendent. We are already. And isn't it grea t to thus be allowed to queue up and wait for a supplier who's been excluded from the mar ket by our insistence on paying him with bad money? Nor does such closure of the market occur only at national bor ders. To the extent that domestic price controls are imposed and en forced, they can make "foreigners" out of all potential suppliers of goods and services. Noone is go ing to fill your gas tank voluntar ily in exehange for unwanted "le gal tender" - as devalued by him as it is by you, because he can't buy much with it.

A Chilling Prospect So, now we 'all are in a position to know how foolish it was of us over the past generation and long er to ask the government to solve our money shortages for us. The paper promises are irredeemable. If we persist in demanding that government solve our fuel short age, the likelihood that we can keep warm by burning our ration coupons is a chilling prospect. Furthermore, the energy crisis is merely one of an endless list of shortages of goods and services that must inevitably grow out of government manipulation of mon ey and closure of the market. Since government is noncreative and nonproductive, it can only "solve" one shortage by causing one or more others; it can only give to one person or group what it first takes from others; it can only in tervene in international disputes in favor of one of the claimants by antagonizing the others; it can dispense as foreign aid only what it withdraws from the domestic market; it can only close the mar ket to foreign suppliers by simul taneously closing it in like amount to domestic consumers.

If the government is to main tain a fair field for all competitors -producers as well as consumers it must refrain from granting privileges to any of them or play ing favorites in any way. And if there is any hint of a shortage or surplus, the best the government can do is to get out of the way, stop its meddling, and leave th~ matter to willing buyers and sell ers in the open market. If the gov ernment will let us, and if we will be self-responsible, there is no rea son at all why anyone ever again would have to chop his own wood except for fun and recreation. , A REVIEWER'S NOTEBOOK JOHN CHAMBERLAIN ___F A S(: I SM _ WHO AND WHAT IS A FASCIST?The word is used pejoratively, with as little precise meaning as is at tached to the adjective "Red" by many well-meaning people who can't distinguish between a Com munist and an old-fashioned liber tarian or antiStatist. The confu sion about Fascism is the enemy of good foreign policy; it is also something that stands in the way of recognizing the many domestic weaknesses of democracy that pre pare the way for the coming of a Caesar, or a Man on Horseback.