Contraction of State Must Be Common Goal; K. McDonald

Kenneth McDonald Contraction of State Must Be Common Goal MORE than a century ago, Frederic Bastiat described the state as "that great fictitious entity by which ev eryone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else." The illusion haunts the modern state today. In country after country governments have dug themselves into pits from which they seek to escape by dragging the rest of society_down. Yet they got there with good intentions. There is an attraction to doing good with other people's money that is very seductive. Men and women are drawn to politics by a desire to improve the lot of their fellows. If they choose to do so without reach ing into their own pockets, who shall blame them? The welfare state Kenneth McDonald is a Toronto freelance writer. This article is adapted from one that appeared in Re port on Business, The Globe and Mal" Toronto. 714 makes philanthropists of us all.

Unfortunately it seduces us also with a belief that the state, which the citizens concocted to serve such common needs as for roads and lighthouses and police, and to which common purpose they contributed through taxes, has money of its own. It is in this, in the changed per ception from a man-made conve nience to an independent organism, that we were led astray. Imputing to the state the abilities that only man possesses-to invent, to produce and to innovate-we have imputed to it also the ability that flows from them: to create wealth. Thus when political leaders prom ise to do this for us, or to do that, we look gratefully upon them for their munificence, as if the wherewithal to do those things were somehow CONTRACTION OF STATE MUST BE COMMON GOAL 715 plucked from the air. Forgetting that it must be plucked from us, we have forgotten that the contributions which we are now obliged to make were made at one time by an agree ment which is no longer sought.

Having accepted that we shall be taxed, we have accepted that the proceeds will be spent, not merely upon roads and lighthouses and po lice, which serve us all, but upon a multitude of things which serve only some of us: in youth education; in age pensions; in between almost ev erything from failing companies at home to failing countries abroad. As if to excuse the changed per ception, our leaders explain that the state's apparatus has become very complex, as indeed it has. But the complexity is man-made too, made by the state's functionaries taking on more than they can handle. Here we find a change from the good intentions to the compulsions of politics, from the common ser vices that are necessary for all to the particular services that are desir able only for some. "We have done such and such for this group. How can we deny the claims of that?" It is not long before those reflections are magnified into endeavors of the functionaries themselves. "We have regulated this.

Why should we not regulate that? We have established a state corpo ration to do this. Why should we not establish another, and another? Having established them, why should we not put some of our own people in charge of them, or some others from the world of politics in which we have come to move so easily?" Missing from the reflections is any sense of participation by the great mass of citizens who in the end must pay the price. Whether from the taxes that are paid or deducted, or from lending to the state through bond and other instruments that lose value every minute, or from the tax of in flation that results from the func tionaries' excesses, the ever-grow ing bill is paid by the citizens. Never are they given a choice. Never, for example, are grants of their money put to them in terms they can understand, as in, say, to the citizens of Ourtown: "We are going to set up this industrial park in Anothertown and we're going to take some money from you to pay for it. Is that OK?" Or, say, to the citizens of Anytown: "We are going to set up a pulp and paper facility in Transutopia and we're going to take some money from you to pay for it.

Any objection?" William B. Stout, principal de signer of the Ford Tri-Motor air plane, used to advise aircraft de signers to "simplicate and add more lightness." It is good advice for poli ticians today, but how are they to follow it? As they know too well, any at tempt to reduce the expenditures of 716 THE FREEMAN one department will be contested vehemently by that department's clients: Agriculture, farmers; Con sumer Affairs, consumer associa tions; Regional Development, every region within hailing distance of the capital; and so on and so on. In short, their profligacy in the matter of promises to particular kinds of elec tors has come to haunt them: every one has been promised something and no one will withdraw the claim. The device that was concocted to serve common needs has puffed itAdherence to Principle self up into a multitude of state cor porations and departments of state, many of which are duplicated in subordinate jurisdictions. Shrinking it is a task beyond the powers of a few; it must be undertaken by all.

Just as the state grew from a com mon need, so must its contraction be made a common purpose. Through inflation, all are suffering now. If the expenditures of all the depart ments were cut, all would endure the illusion of suffering for a time, but how could any complain? , IDEAS ON LIBERTY IT is only in the moral realm that socialism's antagonists-freedom's devotees-can find any common ground for concerted or unified effort. Where we can make no impression at all over the personal loss of 30 cents, or any multiplication of small change, we can win agreement on the point that there is no difference in principle between the forcible extortion of 30 cents and the forcible extortion of one million dollars. One is misappropriation as well as the other. The distinction is one of degree, not of kind. To violate the principle, even minutely, is to com promise the amount but not the principle. The principle is surrendered, regardless of amount. To forswear allegiance to honesty and integrity the principle here at issue-is to destroy the moral underpinnings with out which no good society can endure ....

Moral standards for individuals, fairly well established by all the world's moral and ethical systems, find no reasonable sanction for mod ification by individuals acting concertedly, whether organized as gov ernments or labor unions or trade associations. No new rights come into existence by collectivizing two persons or a million of them. LEONARD E. READ, "How to Reduce Taxes"