Made in Washington; P.L. Poirot

are made in Washington leads many citizens of the United States to the false conclusion that solu tions are to be found there, too. Opinion polls may reveal that the popularity of the President, or of the Congress, or both, has fallen below zero; yet an overwhelming preponderance of these same sup posedly disillusioned citizens will demand that the Federal govern ment "do something" to solve whichever crises happens to be most aggravating at the moment. Let there be no doubt that crises are made in Washington - whether it be a matter of meat, grain, energy, transportation, education, health care, or even inflation. The reason why shortages invariably are caused in Washington is be cause that's where all the raw ma terial is concentrated. PAUL L. POIROT The raw material concentrated in Washington? The meat? The grain? The fuel? No, of course not these things. But meat is not the raw material of a meat short age, nor fuel the raw material of an energy shortage. The only raw material of any shortage of goods or services is coercive intervention.

And only when that coercive in tervention is concentrated in Washington can there be the kind of shortage that amounts to any thing like a crisis. Let's stick to the "energy crisis" for a moment. What is meant by coercive intervention? It is the use of violence to disrupt or inter fere with the peaceful voluntary actions and transactions of willing buyers and sellers. For example, someone steals a gallon of gas, or a whole truckload, or bombs a re finery, or even an entire oil field. 267 268 THE FREEMAN May Those are forms of coercive inter vention, and they are destructive and disruptive of production and trade. But does the theft of a gal lon of gas or the shutdown of a particular oil field result in a shortage or crisis of national or international proportions ? No, it doesn't. The market, if left open and free to function, can readily cope with and adjust to such changes. If supplies are dimin ished to some extent, higher prices will discourage consumption and stimulate production until a new balance is achieved, with no crisis whatsoever.

Major Violence Suppose there is more extensive violence - such as an Israeli-Arab war that closes canals, cuts pipe lines, destroys producing wells and shipping facilities. Wouldn't that bring an energy crisis? Indeed it could, but not necessarily, and not directly. Any crisis that comes of such warfa.re will come only in those countries where the war is used as a.n excuse to close the mar ket and coercively prevent prices from adjusting to the new condi tions of supply and demand. If the citizens of the United States, for instance, allow themselves to be stampeded by war in the Middle East to either demand or allow ceiling prices on oil and gas and other fuels, only then would there be concentrated in Washington the raw material of an energy crisis. And, to repeat, that raw material is coercive intervention: not the war in the Middle East, but the coercion turned against the people of the United States by the government in Washington to which they had surrendered their freedom of choice and freedom to trade.

Market Interference The process of closing the mar ket against citizens is called price control, but a more realistic name would be people control or prohi bition. Citizens are coercively pro hibited from buying or selling precious fuels at market prices. If the legal price is lower than the free market rate, the consequence is a shortage - a demand that will not voluntarily be satisfied at that arbitrary price - a crisis of coer cive intervention that must persist as long as the Federal government chooses to exercise the power of choice citizens have relinquished. What motivates individuals to allow government to close the mar ket may be of interest, but it doesn't have anything to do with the consequent shortage or crisis. Perhaps it was sympathy for Israelites or hatred of Arabs, a desire to befriend the poor, a con cern over pollution, an objective of national self-sufficiency, an at1974 MADE IN WASHINGTON 269 tempt to curb profit margins, or anyone of the other reasons that might have entered 200 million different minds.

The fact is that the power to close the market was concentrated in Washington and was exercised; and no other consequence was pos sible except a shortage and a cri sis, at the prices and under the rules coercively prescribed. To then demand that Washington ex ercise further power, impose ad ditional prohibitions, can only ag gravate the crisis. All that is nec essary to effect an instantaneous and miraculous end to the shortage A Better Idea is to lift all controls over the pro duction and marketing of fuels; leave the matter to the voluntary actions of willing buyers and sell ers in an open market. So, how does one go about lift ing these controls? Write his Con gressman to do something? Per haps that might be helpful. But an alternative is to stop writing Con gressmen to do things for us, do what we can for ourselves and ac cept the responsibility for such risky decisions and actions. Wash ington would soon get the message if we wanted to try freedom. t) IDEAS ON LIBERTY THE USE OF FORCE to battle an idea tends to generate it rather than to kill it. I doubt if an idea has ever been killed by means of force.

The enemy of the free market is an idea - the belief that controls can serve the freedom of man .... Any law or regulation win be nullified whenever enough persons judge it to be unwise and improper, and not until then. Not every person needs to become convinced that it is unwise. Not even 51 per cent of them need to become convinced. All that is necessary is for a few thought leaders lln all walks of life to become convinced because they are the ones to whom many others turn for guidance and advice. It is this understanding among the thought leaders that we now lack and that we must have for success in regaining freedom to trade. F. A. HARPER, "Gaining the Free Market"