Yielding to Temptatoin; J. Sparks

It seems logical to me that you would want to unmask the immor ality and dishonesty of an evil that has long existed and is widely practiced today. Yet, it is of a kind that is easy to overlook or misunde·rstand. My concern here is with one of the fundamental rules of mankind - moral and re ligious - the admonishment against stealing. Hardly anyone disputes Mr. Sparks is an executive of an Ohio manu facturing company and a frequent contributor to Th'e Freeman. 436 the evil in unlawfully taking prop erty owned by another. Theft at gunpoint or' the burglarizing of a home is wrong; and few persons, professional churchmen or others, would try to rationalize such acts into moral or religious acceptabil ity. This is not the stealing to which I refer. There is another method of tak ing property owned by someone else that is strenuously debated among political theorists. It is felt by a great number of people that property can be taken lawfully, via the democratic process of majority rule, and that this method does not violate either moral or reli gious principle. On one point, most theorists seem to agree: that the property, either stolen, or redis tributed via majority rule - which ever the point of view - is identi fiable, and the act is perpetrated openly in accordance with printed tax law widely dispersed and avail able to everyone. It is no secret that personal income tax rates are steeply progressive. Even though 1974 YIELDING TO TEMPTATION 437 I disagree with such "redistribu tion of private property" and would wish that clergymen everywhere would perceive the moral error, this kind of appropriation of prop erty is not my subject here.

The special kind of stealing that is the deep concern of this letter, a form of theft for which no poli tician wants to a.ssume, responsi bility, is inflation. Inflation is a process by which the Federal government increases the quantity of paper money so that it may p,ay out or spend more than it receives in revenue. Citi zens expect the Federal govern ment to maintain the integrity of the monetary unit, but history re veals how difficult it is for the con trolling politicians of this or any other nation to resist the' tempta tion to buy votes. They recognize tha t votes place them in office and votes keep them there. One way to be' popular and to win votes is to pass out benefits to people. But benefits have to be paid for, either by taxing the peo ple: or by printing paper money (inflating the currency). Taxation is not considered a good way to win popularity or votes. Conse quently, politicians seem to prefer inflation rather than direct taxa tion as their source, of revenue.

Then, to compound their dishon esty, they point to others as scape goats. They would have the people believe that farmers, merchants, manufacturers, doctors, hospitals, colleges and all other sellers of products and services are "profit eering"-just as though, at a given signal, people everywhere in all fields of economic activity decided to hike' prices. This, of course, is sheer nonsense! Counterfeiting may be a universal temptation, but government alone has the motive, and the power, to arbitrarily ex pand the money supply. When the printing presses double the money supply, it follows as night follows day, that prices will tend to double. The Federal government is the culprit, and the enormity of the "crime" - if measured either in dollars, number of participants, or harm done - makes the scandals of Watergate, special privileges, and tax avoidance and evasions look like penny-ante affairs. Any one can measure the dilution of his personal purchasing power by comparing current prices with those paid ten years ago. Yet, no one can measure exactly how much has been confiscated by inflation - the innumerable errors in judg ment, malinvestments, wasting of resources and other unwise deci sions. The total loss or' waste has to be enormous when we consider the disruption of economic signals, destruction of the intent of con tracts, misunderstanding of his torical statistics so badly needed 438 THE FREEMAN July for intelligent decisions, the mis leading of individuals and com panies into inappropriate invest ments and capital expenditures that seriously harm the very struc ture of our working lives.