The Future That Should Have been Ours; J. Sparks

My complaint is addressed initially to our long distant ancestors who did not focus clearly upon their rulers and see them for what they were despots and tyrants who had no divine right to rule anyone. With a few minor exceptions, this kind of government dominated until the American Revo lution, by which I mean the philosophical revolu tion, rather than the shooting war that sprang from it. If my complaint were in a court of law, the ques tion ultimately would be: What is the measure of my injury? How have I been hurt or deprived of something I would have had? In other words, put a number on it. All right, let's try it. It has been just over 200 years since the American Revolution, which pro duced a government with severely limited powers, thus providing Americans with more freedom than any other people who ever lived. It is unnec essary to detail the explosion of knowledge, new products, advances in health, and other human comforts that followed.

There is a direct correlation between freedom and a better life-running the gamut from physical health and longevity to cultural achievement and luxury.This is no accident. Good government proMr. Sparks, a retired businessman in Canton, Ohio, has served for many years as a Trustee of The Foundation for Economic Education. tects its people from those who would take lives, interfere with peaceful transactions, and steal property. When government does this and nothing more, then each person is free to pursue his own ideas, make his own peaceful choices-and human progress results. Keep in mind this direct correlation-freedom and a better life-while we apply a little imagina tion. The last 200 years of comparative freedom produced the miraculous upsurge of products and knowledge we know today, all because of the absence of bad government. This means that these advances could have happened anytime before-if bad governments hadn't been tolerated by our dis tant ancestors. It is conceivable that people living in the year 1000 A.D., for example, could have reached the same level of life we enjoy today! And thus we may be 1,000 years behind where we should be. If we had not had bad governments cen turies ago, perhaps we could have a standard of liv ing equivalent to what people may enjoy 1,000 years from now.

Think about it. Youcan fill out a list of your own specific complaints. Will you include the lost.lives of your loved ones who could have been cured of diseases or injuries had they had access to medical knowledge that will be available 1,000years from now? What other possibilities are there? But if human wellbeing is closely related to freedom, why do we still enjoy a high living stan dard when our government has been restricting freedom for most of the 20th century? The answer is that freedom from the 1800s and early 1900s 323 324 THE FREEMAN • AUGUST 1992 built up a momentum-a way of freedom-based life-that bad government cannot destroy at once. However, the development of new inventions, products, and methods will be increasingly delayed, or may not happen at all. This will be difficult to see, except when we compare our selves with other countries where freedom may grow. If there are no other places to compare with, then we will fly blind, unaware again of what we are missing.The risk to mankind is a rep etition of the ignorance of the Dark Ages with progress postponed and living standards held in suspension-or worse.