No Vote for the Canditate; T. Machan

I received a letter from one of them, greeting me as "Dr. Machan." I surmised from this that someone on the candidate's staff had found my name in the university phone book, and so knew that I taught there. Most of the letter was pretty routine, promis ing hard work and claiming good roots in the community. One paragraph, however, caught my eye. In it, our candidate made the following promise: There will be many occasions where the al location of budgetary resources can be a major force in facilitating quality growth and development. [Your] University, for example, needs additional funding to achieve its poten tial for excellence. I envision a far greater role in federally-sponsored basic and applied re search in a wide range of areas, many of which are untapped. My record of 14 years in [your] legislature is well-documented with support for higher education. I am particularly proud of sponsoring and providing leadership in the passage of the Eminent Scholars Bill.... I will be responsive to the personal needs of my con stituents....

Now this all sounds nice. We can send some one to Congress who will be responsive to my personal needs! In these days of runaway governTibor Machan teaches philosophy at Auburn Univers ity, Alabama. He recently edited Commerce and Morality for Rowman and Littlefield. ment spending, what we need is for one more politician to go to Washington and bring back a lot of loot for his constituents. And people talk about the need to eliminate government waste! That is puny stuff. What is necessary is to eliminate the power of govern ment to ladle out the kind of favors my aspiring Congressman offered. What we need are bills to limit government growth and spending, not peo ple who make promises they can keep only by mortgaging the wealth of unborn generations or by· spawning massive wealth redistribution as proof of public service. What our country needs more than anything else is to cut back the power and influence of government, to revitalize the energies of the pri vate sector, to rekindle the spirit of individual ini tiative. After all, isn't this the message of all those socialist countries that are running away from central planning? Are we not learning that blind faith in the power of government to "facilitate"

virtually everything from education to health care has led to worldwide bankruptcy? Wouldn't it be refreshing to have a candidate who is really concerned about this country's over all solvency and credibility? One might be able to vote for someone like that and feel proud. I am afraid, however, that despite all the hue and cry about deficits and sacrifice, little is going to change with our present team of leaders. The politicians seem to have paid off the few people who might have saved us from them-those teaching about the political system we live in. These politicians will continue to make promises, and most of our university professors will continue to be as interested as the next guy in 430 THE FREEMAN • NOVEMBER 1989 government handouts. So these professors aren't going to tell us that when we abandon the princi ples of limited government and free enterprise, eventually we will go belly up and reach true na tional disaster.

Once again, it was awfully difficult for me to vote. The other candidates were even worseone of them appealed to the fear of imports, and the other promised still more handouts. What a sad spectacle! Where is the America that made itself the leader of free people? Where are the politicians who serve not special-interest groups, but the genuine public interest--everyone's rights to life, liberty,and the pursuit of happiness? D 431 The Unspoken Dialogue of the Market by Matthew B. Kibbe On coming to Paris for a visit, I said to myself" Here are a million human beings who would all die in a few days if supplies of all sorts did not flow into this great metropolis. It staggers the imagination to try to comprehend the vast multiplicity of objects that must pass through its gates tomorrow, if its inhabitants are to be preserved from the horrors offamine, insurrec tion, and pillage. And yet all are sleeping peacefully at this moment, without being dis turbed for a single instant by the idea of so frightful a prospect. On the other hand, eighty departments have worked today, without co operative planning or mutual arrangements, to keep Paris supplied. How does each succeed ing day manage to bring to this giganticmarket just what is necessaryneither too much nor too little?