Progress Is Difference; G. Leef

George C. Leef Progress Is Difference PROGRESS IS DIFFERENCE. SO wrote Herbert Spencer, the great English philosopher, scientist, and defender of individual liberty a century ago. Spencer's insight is simple-one might even say obvious-yet pro found. He lived in an age, as do we, which took progress for granted, and very few people ever stop to analyze the essential nature of that which is taken for granted. Spencer did. What he is telling us is that if people are not at liberty to try something dif ferent, something out of the ordi nary, if they have always to follow the traditional or approved course of action, then we would never dis cover any improvements at all. Without difference, our products, services, and institutions would never have advanced beyond the level of our most primitive ancesGeorge Leef is Assistant Professor of Economics, Northwood Institute, Midland, Michigan. 730 tors. Indeed, Spencer would point out, the physical advancement of the human species itself from a compar atively small-brained, ape-like crea ture to its present state has come about entirely due to the beneficial effect of differences. Changes which improved our chances for survival were incorporated; those which did not were selected against. That is the way natural selection works.

Unfortunately, as I said before, we live in an age which has seen so much progress that progress has come to be taken for granted. The danger in this is that we seem to be losing sight of the fact that progress is not a dependable, eternal given like the sun rising in the east. For there to be progress, there must be freedom to try new approaches. This explains why the communist bloc nations have such low standards.of living and never invent anything PROGRESS IS DIFFERENCE 731 which is useful to man in his striv ing to live his life comfortably. Un der tightly controlled and centrally planned societies, deviations from the standard are not permitted. Un wittingly (in most cases), the advo cates of increased government own ership and regulation (which is de facto ownership) are taking us down this same path. The leftist intellec tual fad of governmentally-enforced standards would put the creativity of human beings in a strait jacket.

It would stamp out progress. DifferencesOutlawed Several examples will help to con firm the continuing relevance of Mr. Spencer's observation on the need for liberty to be different. Consider first the phenomenon of building codes. One finds them in virtually every locality; they tell the builder in minute detail how he must con struct his building. The reason given for the enactment of such laws is that they protect the purchaser or any other occupier of space in a building against its collapse or other mishap due to the employment of improper methods or materials. To accomplish this objective, which could be achieved without any coer cion through contracts and the in vocation of tort law when necessary, the government sets up a standard. Failure to comply in any respect with this standard gives the building in spector the power to forbid further work on or use of the structure until the violation has been remedied.

Most people think this entirely good and proper. Protection against hazards always sounds beneficial, but we must look not only at what is seen, but also at what is unseen. As Bruce Cooley writes: What (building codes) actually do is "protect" the consumer from any con struction practice, faulty or not, which differs from those spelled out in the building codes. And in the process they make housing more expensive. One vet eran builder, Sol Sylvan of Kennewick, Washington, puts it this way, "[the codes] tend to become treated by the officials who enforce them as religious dogma." This, he argues, limits the introduction of innovations in building materials and designs.! (Emphasis mine.) Thus, by prohibiting differences in building, we prohibit the use of hu man ingenuity which could lead to better and less costly housing. As with all regulation by government, imposing conformity in order to pre vent some harmful acts serves to fil ter out a large number of beneficial but nonconforming acts.

Another illustration of how pro hibiting difference gets in the way of progress can be seen in the regu 1ation of railroads in the United States. That the railroads have been regulated almost to death is well known. Here is a specific example. The Federal Railroad Administra tion is a part of the Department of 732 THE FREEMAN December Transportation. Among other du ties, the FRA oversees railroad safety, and therefore has the power to approve or forbid the use of ad vanced railroad technology. In 1976, the Bi-Modal Corpora tion, of Greenwich, Connecticut, be gan development of a vehicle which could be either pulled as a truck trailer or as a freight car, depending upon whether its inflatable tires or railroad wheels were down. Bi-Modal named its creation the "Road Railer." The advantages of the RoadRailer are obvious: compared with the standard "piggyback" train (trailers riding atop flatcars), RoadRailer trains reduce weight and wind resistance, thus conserving fuel.

When tested, RoadRailers passed the stress tests of the Association of American Railroads. But then the FRA entered the pic ture. The safety tests and potential cost savings did not matter in the least to the bureaucrats. They refused to approve the RoadRailer. Why? The official line went as fol lows: All railroad equipment must conform to the specifications of the Rail Safety Act, passed in 1893 and last amended in 1910. Since the Rail Safety Act was passed before the in vention of the RoadRailer, the latter could not possibly meet the require ments. Unofficially, the reason for disapproval may well have been pressure from existing equipment suppliers who feared loss of business to the RoadRailer, perhaps com bined with the usual animosity which bureaucrats have for the entrepre neur. Eventually, the FRA's obstruc tionism was bypassed. A special act of Congress amended the Rail Safety Act to permit the employment of the RoadRailer. However, the Govern ment's hostility to difference de layed its introduction by two years, and the FRA's aversion to innova tion-progress-in railroad tech nology remains as strong as ever. 2 Medical Education Controlled A third example of this phenome non of governmentally-imposed con formity stifling progress is found in education, specifically medical edu cation. At one time, medical schools were completely free of state regu lation. The focus was on the output of the school, namely the compe tence of the physician, rather than upon the school's curriculum.

All of this changed after the fa mous Flexner Report of 1910. This most unscientific study found many of the medical schools in the United States to be "substandard." When the state legislators heard about this alleged problem, they swiftly set about remedying it. How? By estab lishing standards recommended by the American Medical Association. The AMA's interest in the matter is not difficult to see. Fewer medical schools and longer, more expensive 1981 PROGRESS IS DIFFERENCE 733 training periods mean less competi tion, hence higher earnings for those in the profession. Of course, the ra tionale presented to the public was that the standardization of medical education was for their protection. What effect did this have on med ical education in the United States? By now, it should be easy to predict the answer. With the imposition of rigid specifications, medical schools became hidebound and conserva tive. As Professor Reuben Kessel states, "There was a hiatus of over forty years in the search for better curricula and training methods, and in the utilization of the talents of scientists outside of medical schools for the training ofphysicians."3 Innovations-in anything-most often come from newcomers to the field who must do something differ ent in order to compete with those already established in the field. But government standards prevented this in medicine. Any new school which dared to deviate from the orthodoxy risked loss of certification. Progress was arrested for over forty years, as Professor Kessel points out.4 The cult of standardization en forced by the power of the govern ment has become deeply entrenched in the United States. Examples such as those discussed above could be multiplied almost endlessly. There is no need for that, though, as the principle at work here should be quite clear. Progress is impossible unless people are free to be differ ent. This is an inescapable reality, and it applies to every aspect of hu man existence.

Those people who clamor for more control and regulation of our lives are necessarily advocating an end to experimentation and innovation. We owe our present lofty standard of living to the large measure of free dom enjoyed by our ancestors, and if we are to overcome the problems which now beset us, we too must have the liberty to use our greatest asset-ingenuity. The world is far from perfect. Progress is a necessity. And progress we will have, as long as people are free to be different. , -FOOTNOTESl"The Shortage in Housing," Libertarian Re view, August, 1981, p. 39. 2For the complete story of the RoadRailer, see William D. Burt's article, "The Plot to Take Over America's Railroads" in Reason, March, 1981, pp. 20-28. 3Reuben Kessel, "The AMA and the Supply of Physicians," Law and Contemporary Prob lems, Spring 1970, p. 270. 4For a fine discussion of the entire spectrum of problems caused by governmental regulation of medicine, see John C. Goodman, The Regu lation of Medicine: Is the Price Too High?, Cato Institute, 1980.