2. Doing Things the Easy Way

This is the principle of conservation as applied to human effort-and it is the basis of all progress. In satisfying his desires, modern man is constantly exchanging goods and services with other men. In mak ing these exchanges, his urge is always to obtain some thing which he values more highlythan what he gives up. A certain primitive man may have discovered that he was very clever at catching small game and that at the end of the day he had more than enol\gh for his family's needs. But he was a terrible fisherman, and after fishing all day he had little to show for his efforts. His neighbor may have been an able fisherman but a poor hunter. So the one who was poor at fishing dis covered that he could trade half a day's hunt for many more fish than he could catch in half a day. A trade was made, and both men benefited. This may have been the beginning of the Age of Specialization-man simply trying to satisfy his desires with the least possible effort.

*For a more complete discussion of this subject, see:F. A. Harper, Gaining the Free Market (Irvington-on-Hudson, N. Y.: Foundation for Economic Education, Inc., 1952). 18 But this trait in man's nature sometimes leads to trouble. Some men think that the easiest way to satisfy their wants is to steal from others. And perhaps this would "be so except for one thing: The victims resent it. In most societies, of course, stealing is considered to be a violation of" the basic codes of conduct, ethics, and morality; it 'is· a violation of our first assumption, a person has the right to own property. If stealing is considered wrong in a society, it is natural that laws be passed to puni.sh thieves. Legalized Theft Through the years, some men have discovered how to satisfy their wants at the expense of .others without being accused of theft: They ask their government to do the stealing for them. This method of trying to get something for nothing has spread all over the world in recent years. It is simply a perverted expression of man's laziness-of his desire to satisfy his wants with the least possible effort on his part.

Most people tend to forget the moral arguments against .stealing; they forget the basis of morality and look to statutory law as the guide. This is the way in which men have come to use government to pervert the law into an instrument of the tyranny it was designed to suppress. The solution requires a restatement of the code of ethics and a reapplication of the moral codes long known by men. 19 3. Scarcity versus Abundance The material welfare of an individual, a family, a group, or a nation is determined by the amount of goods and services at its disposal. A nation, like an individual, cannot consume what it does not have. Thus, the ma terial level of living which the people of a nation enjoy is measured by their production-plus or minus inter national gifts. The American family has more material. things than has the Chinese or Indian or Russian family because the American worker produces more. The reasons for this greater productivity-capital accumulation, private own ership, tools, etc.-are fairly well known and are not a part of this story. The point we are trying to establish here is that high-level consumption is based on high level production and exchange-on abundance, not on scarcity.