The Brigans and the Bargainers; E. Ross

Ernest G. Ross The Brigands and the BargcJiners IMAGINE a nation at civil war. Imagine two great armies, inter mingled guerrilla-style, battling in every city, every day, year in and year out. Imagine the two factions' spokes men, the intellectual lieutenants, interviewed every night on national television, calmly commenting on the terrible, destructive results of the chaos perpetuated by their opposing ideas. Imagine the people looking on, be wildered and increasingly bitter, as the war divides them-splitting families, neighborhoods, universi ties, cities and states. See in your mind's eye the citizens' raw frustra tion as the civil war first propels their lives into stagnation and finally, into Mr. Ross is an Oregon broadcast commentator and news editor especially concerned with new develop mentsin humanfreedom. a slow disintegration. Conceive of these people drawn by the call of survival into r~sentful, envious gangs, looting o.e another's prop erty and livelihoods.

If you can envision this, you have grasped not an i~aginary war, but a real one. The war is not in North ern Ireland, Beirut or EI Salvador. It is the civil war of economics in :modern America. The two armie$ represent diamet rically opposed ethics-the ethics of the Brigands anU the ethics of the Bargainers. The outcome of the war is far from decided. Both sides are energetically trying to convince more,!people to join their camps. Their intellectual lieuten ants are the econpmists, who also act as high-level r~cruiters. They are doing their best' to persuade influfilfi 516 THE FREEMAN September ential politicians, teachers, stu dents, businessmen and workers to ''join up." Choices About Right and Wrong Of course, the economists have by and large already decided which camps they favor. They have done so on the basis of a fundamental ide ational force which motivates all men. That ideational force is ethics.

Ethics is the branch of philosophy which deals with choices. Specifi cally, ethics is concerned with choices about right and wrong. No one escapes the motivations of ethics. It is literally, by the nature of things, impossible to do so. In order to live on this planet at all, each of us must make choices about what he considers right for his survival or wrong for it. Indeed, for mal ethics, as codified sets of stan dards for living, undoubtedly evolved from observations of fundamental choices' about what was prolife or anti-life. Therefore, in judging which camp to join in the American economic civil war, we must decide which side is governed by the ethics favoring hu man life and which side is governed by the ethics destructive to human life. My contention is that the ethics of the Bargainers is prolife and that the ethics of the Brigands is anti life. But how do I know? Who are the Brigands and the Bargainers? What, in practice, do they stand for?

I recently sent spies into each camp. Here are the summaries of my agents' observations. First, the report of my spy in the Brigands' camp: "The first thing I noticed upon in filtrating this enclave is an air of pervasive tension. It is not the heal thy tension of minds eager to engage in exciting new work, but the corrosive tension of fear. "After surreptitiously observing and interviewing everyone from lowly workers to top brass bureau crats, I have concluded that a fun damental premise underlies all eco nomic actions in this camp: Everyone believes that the way to 'get things done' is to force someone else to do them. This is the ethical heart of those you have tentatively desig nated the Brigands. I believe the designation is appropriate. "If a bridge or hospital or road or store is needed, the labor is con scripted. The money to pay for con struction is taken from the people either directly through a penalty on wages or production (called 'taxa tion') or indirectly through expan sion of the fiat monetary system (called 'inflation'). These things are implemented at the discretion of the state-often under threat of fines, imprisonment or worse against those citizens foolish enough to resist.

"You must understand that all 1982 THE BRIGANDS AND THE BARGAINERS 517 wealth is considered to be first and foremost the property of the state. As one elderly gentleman cynically put it to me, 'Everyone's belongings belong to everyone else.' The official state euphemism is, 'All wealth be longs to the people.' In practice, it is the state-or rather, those privi leged few who govern it-which owns the wealth. "I have observed that the psycho logical/economic consequences on the average individual are extreme. No man feels that his possessions, his residence or his work's products are secure (despite official slogans that the Brigands' system provides the ultimate in 'Social Security'). Each man is perpetually suspicious of others, fearing that they may be, or have connections with, politically more powerful people who could, on almost a moment's notice, uproot all that he has. As a consequence, this is a staggering, stagnant economy.

"Except among the young, fire-eyed idealists (who believe the slogans because they've not yet been worn down by the system), there is simply no individualincentiveto work hard. As one weary middle-aged man told me, 'I should work my hands to the bone? For what, when what I make today they will take tomorrow?' "What real work people do engage in is in 'The Underground,' the black market. Compared to the official state economy, I must say, The Un derground flourishes. Even with the severe, crushing penalties for par ticipation in black: market ventures, The Underground alone offers the promise of signifiqant improvement in one's personal and family life. Even so, the black market is not truly a free economy; psychologically, the fear of discovery 1 by the Brigands' agents always hangs heavily and gloomily in the background. "This was the ef?senceof my obser vations. Details of the mismanage ment, shortages, inefficiencies, breakdowns and 80 forth, follow... "

The Bargainers' ~amp And here is th~ report of my man sent to the Bargainers' camp: "Well, sir, first I must say that you gave me an unexpectedly easy and exhilarating assignment! At no time did I feel like a spy! I didn't have to 'infiltrate' anything. I simply walked or drove (transpqrtation for a quick and reasonable fee is readily avail able everywhere) and no one both ered me. In fact, the atmosphere was one of cheerful' helpfulness, even though everyone! seemed quite busy. "After interviewing a representa tive cross-section of this enclave, I have concluded that most everyone believes the way!to 'get things done' is to do them y<j>urself-and if you can't, then you negotiate with some one else to do tbje work or help you. This negotiation process-which they call 'bargainin~' - is largely auto matic. Or, perhaps it just seemed that 518 THE FREEMAN September way to me because they do it so nat urally.

"For example, if an individual wants to buy a television set, he simply walks into a store (or several stores, in a process called 'shopping around'), looks over the types of T.V. sets (called 'brands,' representing different, private manufacturers), decides which one he wants and then pays for it. Often he will pay with small, privately minted metal cast ings called 'coins,' usually of gold or silver. But more often, he pays by 'check' or 'credit card,' systems which act as claims on gold or silver (or notes for same) which the citizen has stored in any of a dozen varieties of private institutions called 'banks,' 'S and L's,' 'brokerage houses' and so on. There is no official government currency. "(As a side note, I ran into my counterpart from the Brigands' camp. He told me that there were always long lines at state stores-except those run especially for the bureau cracy. I never found this to be true in this enclave, although I did once have to stand in line for nearly two hours to see a popular anti-tyranny science-fiction movie called 'Star Wars IlL') "The way things work here is like this: "If a bridge or hospital or road or store is needed, people pool their wealth to build it-usually with the hope of charging other people for the use of the facility, eventually offset ting the original investment and all the while bringing in 'profits' (a type of income for entrepreneurs). Some times, incredibly, these people will build certain facilities-as to house the indigent-with money raised entirely through donations; there seems to be no shortage of private generosity!

"The Bargainers' system, I have observed, provides enormous incen tives. Virtually everyone feels that if he works hard, he can, sooner or later, significantly improve his per sonal and family life. As paradoxical as it may sound, the ever-present opportunity to risk their economic necks makes these people feel se cure! (They even have a name for that opportunity-freedom, and a popular slogan to express it-'The Land of Opportunity. ') "I cannot honestly say there is an 'underground' economy here; it is all above groundl The state does not en ter the picture by either restricting or subsidizing trade. "There does appear to be a mini mal state here. I wish to emphasize, these people are not anarchists. But the state's activities are strictly de fined and limited to defensive-re lated actions-military, police, courts. The people seem constantly watchful to keep the state in check. Indeed, to my surprise, they have devised innovative systems to han dle things which might otherwise be 1982 THE BRIGANDS AND THE BARGAINERS 519 state functions, such as private courts and some private police. Even the military is handled through private financing (a type of insurance pol icy), the people feeling that their liberty is a good investment.

"This conc1udes the basic summa tion of my observations. Details of the efficiencies, high productivity, variety and quality of goods and ser vices and financing methods fol low... " Of course, in our modern America, the camps of the Brigands and Bargainers are intertwined; they are our mixed economy. ,Often the ethical loyalties of individuals themselves are stretched and bounced between the Brigands and the Bargainers. Whether we wish it or not, we are all in the fray, all involved in the American civil war of economics. Free economics is the banner of the Bargainers; coercive economics is the banner of the Brigands. I'm joining the Bargainers. Where do your ethical loyalties lead you? i IDEAS ON LIBERTY Man's Destiny: Forced or Free? FROM the colonial and frontier days down to die more recent times, when a tide of mostly poor immigrants from Eurppe swelled the popu lation, America's national success story has been an amalgam of the individual success stories of boys, born in poor families, who started at an early age to help their parents and themselve~ by taking any avail able odd jobs, combining this with school and college study, and later becoming more or less prominent business and p~ofessional men. Look ing back to their boyhood, these men almost invariably recognize that this early experience in work and self-reliance was immensely benefi cial to them in adult life.

But today's well-meaning lawmakers have added so many minimum wage and other restrictions that it is impossible" in many cases, for an employer to hire young people without paying th~m more than they are worth. Here is one of the most obvious artificially created causes of youth unemployment and of juvenile delinquen¢y. For it remains just as true now as in the days when the proverb was more frequently quoted that Satan finds plenty of mischief for idle hands!. WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN E. C. Pasour,Jr. Small Business and Entrepreneurship BUSINESSNEWS in the United States focuses on economic activities of giant corporations. In recent years, for ex ample, politicians and newspaper editors have castigated the ~~obscene profits" of ~~Big Oil." A large in crease in profits by Exxon, IBM, and other large corporations frequently evokes calls for divestiture. The con ventional wisdom is that the Amer ican economic system is dominated by large corporations because big business firms are so productive that small firms cannot compete. In this view, ever vigilant government reg ulation of these large firms is re quired to prevent exploitation of workers and consumers.