The Collectivist Illusion; T. Machan

The Collectivist Illusion by Tibor R. Machan S·orne fallacies are easy to detect. Consider the fallacy of composition: take a group of human beings and ascribe to it capacities only individuals can have. "Society says," "We decided," "America is violent." Strictly speak ing, none of these claims can be true. Society has no mind and mouth with which to say or do anything. Nor are we able to decide any thing. You, I, and others may decide the same thing. That is the only sense in which we've decided. Ordinarily when we say such things, it is usually well enough appreciated that we are taking linguistic shortcuts. "America is vio lent" is supposed to mean only that a signifi cant number of folks in America are willing to deploy violent means to solve problems. Or it refers to the government and not to Americans at all. Unfortunately, the care necessary to keep this in mind is not always diligently exercised.

Karl Marx did not exercise that care when he said humanity is "an organic whole." Strictly speaking, humanity has no convictions, thoughts, memories, imagination, intentions, purposes, or any other attributes of individual human beings. So what, you say. Why fret? Changing Standards The problem is that once you forget that humanity comprises concrete human beings, Tibor Machan is a professor in the school ofbusiness and economics at Chapman University. 39 instead of some big entity, the standards by which we evaluate societies change. After all, it is sometimes necessary to sacrifice a part to save an organic whole. A cancerous organ or gangrenous limb is removed to save the person. Thus holistic social thinking can have dan gerous consequences. Some people's goals, perhaps even their lives, will begin to seem available for sacrifice for the sake of others. Why? Because individuals are not seen as possessing the same rights to life, liberty, and property, but rather are regarded as parts of a whole whose priority is set by public policy.

Why is this kind of thinking even plausi ble? The reason is that in some contexts groups almost become a single entity. A close-knit acrobatic team, orchestra, or choir nearly exhibits single-mindedness. A jam ming jazz ensemble not only works as a single musical unit, but also embarks on the kind of spontaneous innovation that we would usually expect only of individual human beings unen cumbered by the necessity of pleasing others. It almost looks as though individuality has disappeared. Yet it is precisely individuality that makes such cooperation possible. Failure to cooper ate is also attributable to individuals, as, for example, when someone fails to understand what is needed to maintain unity. Complex cooperation requires the utmost concentration by the individual participants. Indeed, there is usually a critical mass 40 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY • DECEMBER 1999 beyond which groups in pursuit of a single objective cannot function well without central direction. A jazz group can jam and produce great music. A swing band cannot-too many people. The same is true with teams, choirs, and other large ensembles. The marketplace, which can comprise the largest number of people, succeeds precisely because there is no central direction and each member is free to pursue his own objectives. A free society has no purpose. Rather, it exists because it enables its members to achieve their own pur poses, which they do by using spontaneous institutions to coordinate their activities.

Inspiring Harmony Witnessing the beauty of harmonized activ ities aimed at a single purpose can be so inspiring that one might wish to see similar cooperation extended globally.When a modem day Karl Marx envisions humanity acting like an organic whole, he extrapolates from the musical ensemble, convinced that what is pos sible for the small group could be, indeed ought to be, realized for the entire species. Marx knew that this wasn't possible and never had been. But his vision of its beauty formed a standard of humanity's health and well-being, making it something to be achieved in the future and to be used in judg ing the present. The big problem with this vision is that in life any given human being can embrace only so many others, after which the fit will be forced and, indeed, must be coerced. Human beings are essentially individuals geared to moderate social entanglements. Our emotional make-up does not prepare us to be intimate members of a world society, or even of a country, in the sense that we are members of a family. Despite what President Reagan said, America is not a family, nor is Ireland or Iran.

Families are sized to permit, with some atten tion and vigilance, their members to stay close to one another-eelebrate birthdays and weddings, attend to the sick, mourn the dead. If we were the kind of collective beings Marx and other champions of collectivism have imagined us to be, we would have to spread our emotional energies way beyond what they are capable of. We would lose our capacity to love intimately, to care, and to be close. Circles of friends and families are rea sonably sized so that one is not always torn between sadness about someone's mishap and joy about someone's good fortune. But if we attempted an intimate relationship with every member of humanity, nothing could be felt toward others because it would be canceled out by opposite feelings every time. The kind of community that fits human beings can vary a good deal; some people are much more gregarious than others. Thus it must be left to free choice to discover how much intimacy is right and how many com munities we can honestly join.

The individual's right to choose freely whether to belong to this, that, or another group is the best moderator of our social capacities. We can overestimate or underesti mate what we are capable of in this as in many other regards. But in the long run such things are best left to each of us rather than having visionaries impose an impossible and ulti mately destructive social dream. D CAPITAL LETTERS Who Wreckedthe Trains? To the Editor: There is much in Gregory Bresiger's arti cle, "Train Wreck" (The Freeman, August 1999), that is factual, but some that is mis leading and false. Yes, at least some railroad leaders after World War II were "lulled" by the strong per formance of railroads during the war into "thinking that the good times are back." Yes, most of the railroads' troubles over the years were attributable to (1) wrongheaded govern ment regulation, (2) the tax-financing, subsi dization, and government promotion of com petitors to the railroads, and (3) the intrusion of labor unions into decisionmaking that belonged, then as now, in the hands of man agement. And, yes, government ownership and operation of railroads were prime goals of socialists and communists through much of this century, their relative quiescence today notwithstanding.

But to say, as Mr. Bresiger does, that the troubles of the railroads after the war resulted in "The death of an industry" is manifestly and totally false. Total rail freight volume in 1997 was actually double that of 1944, the peak war year, when railroads carried three fourths of total traffic in the United States. True, a very few sizeable railroads, most notably the Rock Island, did "die" and go out of business after the war. Most, however, were acquired by other railroads and continue oper ating today as part of larger independent sys tems, thus continuing the same process that has led to the consolidation of railroads throughout history. Still others, mostly small er railroads, continue as independents even today. Some serve as feeder lines for larger 41 systems, and others perform specialized ser vices, such as for sightseers and train buffs. Nor is it correct that the "once mighty Pennsylvania ... was typical of a sick, over regulated industry." In fact, the Pennsylvania (later Penn Central) was actually atypical within the industry. The troubles that led to its bankruptcy and takeover by the government were directly traceable to the wrongheaded policies of its early management, especially of the railroad's first chairman and CEO Stu art Saunders. Saunders's decision to cave in to union demands as the price for its support of the Penn Central merger was a disaster. The common share price soon after the merger was upward of $80. By the time it was taken over by the government a short while later, the price had plummeted to $2.50.

As for passenger service, the problem "in a word," Mr. Bresiger says, was "politics." Not so. The real problem was, is, and may always be the automobile, which today as for years past handles over 90 percent of total U.S. pas senger travel. Only in World War II were rail roads a significant factor in the movement of people in the United States, and that was out of necessity. The proper role for railroads is, always has been, and always will be to move goods. Even in the heyday of passenger service, the move ment of people accounted for. only slightly more than one-fifth of total railroad revenue. Largely because of the automobile, Amtrak will always be a money loser. Mr. Bresiger's failure to distinguish between the two ser vices, freight and passenger, is at the root of the confusion that pervades his otherwise well-written article. -CHARLES O. MORGRET Holmes Beach, Florida Gregory Bresiger responds: Mr. Morgret makes a convincing case in criticizing my article. He argues that the poor leadership of the Pennsylvania Railroad in the 1950s hastened its downfall and that the rail road industry is alive and well. I have two points in response. First, the article focused 42 THE FREEMAN/IDEASON LIBERTY • DECEMBER 1999 on passenger service. Clearly, private rail roads, including the Pennsylvania, were ham pered by regulatory policies that prevented them from raising or dropping fares. They were also hamstrung by ICC accounting stan dards that were confusing. The Pennsylvania was hurt by regulators during its merger with the New York Central, which took about a decade to complete and included several uneconomic requirements. Finally, Mr. Mor gret disputes my argument that politics was a factor in the decline of many railroads and blames instead the automobile. But the auto mobile-through various subsidies and state built and state-maintained interstate high ways-was the preferred transportation mode of politicians after World War II. The federal and state governments favored the railroads' competitors at every tum. Even the best railroad leadership was hurt by these wrong headed policies.

I agree with Mr. Morgret about freight ser vice, which has been far more profitable than passenger service in the United States and which has been making a comeback. But why? Because rates were partly deregulated in the 1980s. D We will print the most interesting and provocative letters we receive regarding Freeman articles and the issues they raise. Brevity is encouraged; longer letters may be edited because of space limitations. Address your letters to: The Freeman, FEE, 30 S. Broadway, Irvington-on-Hud son, NY 10533; e-mail: freeman@fee.org; fax (914) 591-8910. "With his masterful grasp of history and his ingenious insight into economics, phi losophy, politics, and human nature, Dr. Faria has provided us with an enormous contribution to the recent literature on health care reform, and an important weapon in our life-or-death struggle to preserveprivate medicine." - Jerome C. Arnett, JT., M.D.

Medical Sentinel MiguelA.Faria,Jr.,MD. arguesthatmanagedcare and HMOs are not"freemarket"alternatives,butratheran unholypartnership of government and corporate interests seeking monopolistic governmentprotectionto eliminatecompetition... Miguel A. Faria, Jr., M.D. Editor-in-Chiefof the Medical St~tinel of the Association of American Physiciansand Surgeons CAAPS), and author of Vandals at the Gates of Aledicine-HistoricPerspecti'L"eSan theBattleOverHealthCareRefann. ~OrderDirect Call1-S00-7S7-9S73 $23.95 • Hacienda Publishing ISBN: 0-9641077-2-4 Fax: 1-912-757-9725 • RO. Box 13648 • Macon, GA 31208-3648 Economics on Trial DECEMBER 1999 Heilbroner's One-Armed Philosophers by Mark Skousen "Without the government, the market as a system would not last two minutes." -ROBERT HEILBRONER1 T he May-June issue of Challenge maga zine highlighted Robert Heilbroner, per haps the bestselling economics author of all time. This year he published the seventh edi tion of his celebrated work, The Worldly Philosophers (Simon & Schuster, 1999), which has now sold over three million copies.