Interventionist Liberalisml and the Fast Lane

FREDALLEN once quipped that "The world is moving too fast for the Moses-model man," Since then, we have speeded up considerably. A sil icon chip may come to hold it all. And we have spun off into space, with destinations as yet unknown. Those who have grasped these comets' tails are euphorious, when not assailed by fear of future shock. The rest of us are bewildered by it all. Few of us would wish these mira cles to vanish. Division of labor now promises an end of toil by robotry man's longest dream in sight. So why are we distraught? The prime an swer is that philosophy is dead. Much of the madness around us is just that: reminding us that we are in the age of psychiatry, where even the normal may be gauged as abMr. La Dow of San Diego, is a retired teacher of his tory and government with an ongoing concern for maximizing the freedom of the individual. normal. For the sake of personal san ity, we cannot too often remind our sel ves that matters cannot be as horrendous as depicted. Mter all, the world has never been utopian and a good case can be made that we have "never had it so good." When one looks around, it appears that most persons are behaving themselves reasonably well and quite a few are doing outstandingly. Indeed, it is only by contrast with this moderate order liness that we can get an impression of how dreadful the ex ceptions are.

Nevertheless, however unreason able they may be, it is best that we take the signs of our times seriously. In an era devoid of philosophical wis dom, we have, arguably, stretched the engine of capitalism to the breaking point. Perhaps we are ask ing wealth to do what it is unfitted to do: solve all "social problems," 655 656 THE FREEMAN November while all but abandoning individual responsibility. If this is capitalism, then capitalism must be at fault. What, then, are the grounds for hope? First, those who enumerate such matters tell us that today's youth, despite continuing socialistic bias in education, are turning up most often as conservative-libertar ian-to use the current vernacular for whiggishness. An even more sub stantive occurrence has been the sinking, almost dead, esteem into which Keynesian economic theory has fallen. It is difficult to find an economist of that school today. Even Congress belabors its mind with "the deficit." And such a callow youth as Arthur Laffer often has the last laugh.

Without Keynesian theory in prac tice, the "new liberalism" must be a sinking star. Only deficit financing can sustain it. Roosevelt's New Deal was chicken feed compared to the cur rent welfare state and that is all that we would have, had it not been for LordKeynes' magic and theconsump tion function. The interventionist liberal revolution would have run out of cash flow. What goes on now is a rear guard action, trying to save some boondoggles from the debacle. While, as long as the goodies flow, we the people wili grab them; yet too many of us, in all classes, are getting wise to the political Ponzi game knowing that a bill· comes with the lunch. It is not equally recognized how much of the pressure which so many of us have referred to as the "rat race," has been the result of the fore named false economics. Stimulation of consumption by means of transfer payments must play hob with an otherwise free market. It offers the carrot to the consumer while beating the producer to make him keep up with resultant inflation. Wasted en ergy and wasted resources have been the result. Buyers overbuy to hoard goods instead of cheapening money.

Producers and sellers are squeezed by ever-rising costs, in resources and labor. Skimping in quality and plan ning for quick wear-out in fashion and substance was an inevitable re sult. We became the throwaway so ciety, whose trash-disposal became a world wonder equal to the pyramids. Eventually, sound companies were chivvied into making unwise merg ers in attempting to survive the rat race. Collectivism Is the Scoundrel If this were capitalism, it would make socialism look attractive: any thing to bring orderliness and de pendability out of chaos. But this was not capitalism; nor was it so cialism, for public ownership was minimal. One hates to admit it; but those who attacked it as fascism were closest to a common definition: private ownership with public right to use, which spells out state control.

1985 LIBERALISM AND THE FAST LANE 657 legacy has been chronic unemploy ment, single-parent families, teen age pregnancy, racial and sexual conflict, and a host of other social ills which accompany establishment of a welfare class. For, make no mistake, it takes organized political power with police force to create such havoc. So capitalism is not the scoundrel. It is the government which has wrought this time of travail: for there is no animosity in the truly capitalistic free market. By far most buyers and sellers will make their contracts in reasonable amity. The legitimate purpose of the state is to suppress and punish the minority of frauds and criminals who are always with us. To do otherwise, with gov-Individual Liberty and ernment trying to run the market, Social Harmony has always and everywhere in-So life in the fast lane, in the man creased the numbers of such ras-ner to which the new liberalism has cals-and, most disastrously, in gov-made us uneasily accustomed, is not ernment itself. For Lord Acton was inexorable. Indeed, it is close to indubitably right in his aphorism re-bankruptcy. But we are well advised garding the corruption of power. to maintain a degree of calm until The closest we have come to insti-the funeral. The cure is wisdom tuting capitalism and the free mar-which is not born ofvituperation and ket in the United States was estab-mass action. As Leonard Read was lishment of our Federal Constitution fond of saying, the answer to error and its Bill of Rights; but we have is to make of oneself "one better been eroding its principles gradually unit." He understood that only such ever since by ever looser interpre-efforts would add up to any desirable tation. The document still stands. All change in affairs.

that is necessary is to honor its clear There is little wrong with life in intent-if we wish to know capital- . the fast lane which cannot be ism. None of us can plead ignorance amended by movement to the con of the free market; for each of us, dition of individual liberty, for per even among the criminal element, sons, of whatever status, are the must make some unpoliticized, un-most viable masters of their own forced transaction every day. That is welfare. Taken in the aggregate, why they say that there is honor their individual efforts to that end even among thieves. and based on complementary interNo one could possibly know less ests, create what Frederic Bastiat concerning what is good for the in-called "economic harmonies," or so dividual citizen than the so-called cial peace and order such as possible liberal politician. His intellectual in this world. @ Gary North ShouldAmerican BusinessGive Up Smoking OVER the past two years, the United States' trade deficit has skyrock eted. This has led to a renewed in terest in the question of free trade.