Don't Sell America Short; R. Awenius

152 Don'tSellAmerica Short • We have much to accomplish and much to be proud of in America. by Robert Awenius Mr. Awenius is a retired attorney and freelance writer in Tulsa, Oklahoma. T oo many persons take a dim view of the problems that Amer ica has faced and solved-and in a negative manner dispar age America and its future. They say that the glorious days of our country are over and will not be repeated in the fu ture. Some even contend that we are no longer the world's leader; that Russia has supplanted the United States as a world power. Some of these prognosticators even say that we are through as a nation. To many foreign nations, America has seemed to be an implausi bility-but an actuality, a reality. Our coins contain the motto: e plu ribus unum, meaning one out of many. But it takes more than a phrase to give unity to 235 million Americans, composed of adolescents and adults, men and women, whites, yellows and blacks, city dwellers, farmers and ranchers, liberals and conservatives, protestants and cath olics, Jews and gentiles, factory workers and shop owners, public em ployees and private employees, and retired persons and workers. A foreigner looking on this melting pot of mixed human elements would expect to hear jeremiads and witness untold trouble, rather than to see the harmony that arises in this nation. Instead of wrenching dis harmony, the republic proceeds on a note of unity.

Three centuries ago-1651 to be exact-Thomas Hobbes in England wrote a book entitled Leviathan, advocating the doctrine of sover eignty, setting forth the theory that all men fear each other and hence must submit themselves to the supremacy of the state in all secular and religious matters. In Hobbes' time that meant the King. Hobbes would have had considerable trouble accepting the fact of the Amer ican experiment of self-government outlasting many kingdoms, dic tatorships and assorted despots. America has thrived in an arena of free enterprise, where the self regulating free market economy maximizes the free choice of our cit izens. Here private entrepreneurs are relatively free to start a busi ness-any business they wish-without obtaining permission of an official; and they can set their own prices and locate in any place in the country. This is in contrast to the authoritarian practices in much of today's world where centralized planning is the motif. Such plan ning is much akin to the mercantilist regulations of European econ omies in the seventeenth century. In this country the invisible hand of the market place can better organize an economy than the command economies of autocratic nations.

Yes sir, under our form of limited government and free enterprise, America is in good hands. Don't sell America short. D Special offer A Pattern for Failure: Socialist Economies in Crisis, by Swedish economist Sven Ry denfelt, underscores the necessity for our commitment to freedom. He shows how gov ernment domination in fifteen socialist coun tries throughout the world has brought impov erishment and misery to their citizenry. Dr. Rydenfelt offers the solution to these so cieties in crisis: "The new ideas of the philo sophies of freedom and entrepreneurship are revolutionary in the true sense of the word and will everywhere transform the societies in which they work." Dr. Rydenfelt's remarkable book performs an immense service in bringing together detailed evidence on the performance of fifteen widely separated countries in which the government plays a dominant role in organizing economic activity. No one who reads Dr. Rydenfelt's account of the course of events in these countries can fail to recognize the uniformity of their experience.

This highly thoughtful, original, and provocative book deserves a wide readership. -From the introduction by Milton Friedman Originally published at $22.95, A Pattern for Failure is available to Freeman readers at $10.95 FEE pays all postage on prepaid orders. Order from: The Foundation for Economic Education Irvington-on-Hudson, New York 10533 154 A REVIEWER'S NOTEBOOK Moralityofthe Market by John Chamberlain T he Fraser Institute of Can ada had a grand idea when it invited more than two dozen people of varying persuasions and expertise to talk about the morality of the market. The idea was to bring theologians together with economists of a predominantly secularist bias to discuss values as they may affect the ways of men and women who have their livings to make. The results of the Fraser sym posium have been collected in a book called Morality of the Market: Reli gious and Economic Perspectives, ed ited by Walter Block, Geoffrey Bren nan, and Kenneth Elzinga (The Fraser Institute, Vancouver, British Colum bia, 601 pp.).