7. Nature's Logic

CHAPTER 7 NATURE'S LOGIC In prior chapters the origins of socialism were marshalled. The roll call was not exhaustive, nor is it necessary for our purposes to make it so. Our purpose is not to count and classify each tuft of moss in the collectivist bog, but rather to locate the general whereabouts of the bog, and if possible to discover why men persist in wandering in such difficult and unreward ing terrain. We are confronted immediately by the startling-even shocking - fact that the bog has very ancient origins and that 118-THIS BREAD IS MINE it lies about us on every side. Only occasional islands in the sea of marsh give us assurance that there could be something better than the dismal swamp of universal shirk-and-share. So, let us begin with these non-utopian islands. The first fact to confront us here is that the islands are natural con ditions which have occurred when men followed their own natures and acted in accordance with their own best interests.

The bog has occurred when men have become fog-bound in the miasma of illusion and suppose the world to be other than it is. Early Socialist Colonies Clearly, then, our first requirement is to determine some thing of the nature of man and the world in which he lives. And here we must confine ourselves to stark realism. Let us not seek to ascertain the nature of man on the basis of what we hope his nature should be. Let us not have a theory and then seek to fit man into it. Let us insist on accurate obser vation, without bias in any direction, and be content with our findings, sans theory.

NATURE'S LOGIC - i19 Admittedly, there is an almost universal dream of share the-wealth. This is an observable fact. It has been catalogued in prior pages. It is also observable that an actual condition of share-the-wealth has never in the history of man been maintained. Colonies of share-the-wealthers have been found ed from time to time. Our own country, America, has had a number of them. The Plymouth colony, with its Mayflower Compact, was a commune. It constituted a "planned economy" in which all means of production and distribution were to be controlled by the central authority. While the colonists were still aboard the vessel which brought them to the bleak New England coast, they agreed to be bound to a central authority "for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of such just and equalllaws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meete and convenient for· the generall good of the Colonie unto which we promise all due submission and obedience."

It was understood immediately, even before land came into view, that no man could strike out for himself; that all 120-THIS BREAD IS MIN~ produce to be raised or all provender discovered should be long not to the finder or producer but to the collective; that all colonists would share and share alike and that any deviation from this code would be met with the most severe punishment. A reading of Governor Bradford's history of the colony is instructive. After two disastrous winters and a single sum mer in which a pitiful harvest was all that rewarded the conscript efforts of the settlers; after robbery and thievery had become common; after sickness and death from exposure and malnutrition had reduced the colony numerically and close to despair, Governor Bradford proclaimed that he would no longer lead the colony according to the agreement of the Compact. He allotted to each man his own land and told him to work for himself if he would; that all he could produce would be his but that anything he failed to produce would simply add to his own discomfort.

With astonishing vigor, heretofore lacking, men and women and little children applied themselves to their fields. The harvest this time was so plentiful that the first ThanksNATURE'S LOGIC -121 giving banquet to ·be held in the new world was celebrated on the shores of Massachusetts Bay. It is noteworthy that the Plymouth colonists were devout Christians and had only tried to establish a divine economic scheme on earth. They found the facts of .life are such that a compulsive mutual sharing is not conducive to production. When they abandoned that procedure and undertook to es tablish an independent and an individualistic economy, there was not only enough but "to spare." The colonists learned to trade their personal surpluses with the surpluses of others and from that moment, the adventure succeeded. But the Plymouth colony was only one of the efforts to socialize the· economy in this nation; it was certainly not the most important, nor was it either last or first.

James Truslow Adams reminds us that the Virginia colony (founded 1607) had an experiment in socialism. Captain John Smith commented: "When our people were fed out of the common store, and labored jointly together, glad was he (who) could slip from his labour or slumber over his taske, 122-THIS BREAD ·IS MINE he cared not how; nay, the most honest among them would hardly take so much true paine in a weeke, as now for them selves they will doe in a day; neither cared they for the in crease presuming that howsoever the harvest prospered, the general store must maintain them, so that wee reaped not so much corne from the labours of thirtie as now three or four do provide for themselves." But this, of course, came after Captain Smith's dictum: "Those who will not work, shall not eat!" And as John Rolfe wrote: "They could sit under their own fig tree in safety, gathering and reaping the fruits of their labors with much joy and comfort," after the transition from a socialist to an individualist economy had occurred.

In 1825, Robert Owen founded a socialist society at New Harmony, Indiana. It is interesting to note that it was this American who, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, ninth edition, gave us the word "socialism." The theories of Owen were originally called "Owenism" but this was unpopular with many of his followers. It is believed that the NATURE'S LOGIC -123 words "socialist" and "socialism" were first used by Owen in discussions in England in 1835. The term "socialist" was also used in France in 1838 by Pierre Leroux, and figured in 1839 in Reybaud's "Socialistes Modemes." Marx and others from. 1840 on, also used the term. Francois Fourier organized a number of communes in this country and the arguments of Fourier so inspired the great newspaperman and educator, Horace Greeley, that the town of Greeley was established in the State of Colorado under the aegis of the Fourier phalanx. There were addition ally, the Oneida colony in upstate New York, the Amana colony in mid-Iowa, and by far the most famous, Brook Farm, established in 1841 at West Roxbury, Massachusetts, with such illustrious "transcendentalists" vitally concerned with its success as Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Without exception, these colonies have all succumbed· to the realities of life as it is. The "share-the-work" and "share the-reward" theories of these movements, largely inspired from religious doctrine, have come to naught.

124-THIS BREAD IS MINE The most successful of all was the above ...named Amana colony. This particular group of Christian devotees labored so diligently that they maintained their socialistic integrity from 1855 until approximately 1932, having been in existence as a going concern for more than 75 years. The descendants of the original settlers at that· time took stock of their affairs. They found that their Amana blankets were superior products; that Amana refrigerators and freezers were in great demand; that they were missing out by virtue of their socialistic methods since they were not competing on a PROFIT basis with the other enterprises in the nation. They reorganized, divided the property of the colony among the heirs and workers, formed a cooperative of 1,400 members, and abandoned the strict commune idea. Since then, the members of the colony have been permitted to profit personally by virtue of their efforts and there is little indication at the moment that the reorgani zation has been much in error.

Had the shift been all the way - had the Amana people consented to the formation of a true stock company and NATURE'S LOGIC -125 abandoned even the collectivist features which persist in a marginal manner in cooperatives - their success would have been assured. As it now is, though they have a tax advantage because of their cooperative character, they are still unable to .compete most effectively since individualistic profit isn't possible. Thus, they cannot offer the incentives to the in dividuals of true genius that may arise. Consequently, there will be a tendency for the colony to drift along at status quo, until such time as a further reorganization comes, or until such time as free competition from outside reduces it to stag nation and ultimate dissolution. Nonetheless, the Amana colony deserves a pat on the back as the longest to be sustained, unnatural community ever to endure on North American soil. Its existence under modified capitalism establishes it as a freak of nature, not as a going concern. And it might be pointed out that the standard of living of the inhabitants prior to 1932 was so low that it failed utterly to attract new followers and had become ingrown and psychologically cannibalistic to the ambitions and desires 126-THIS BREAD IS MINE of its weary devotees. Even now, its standards cannot be favor ably compared with those of a majority of the citizens in nearby Cedar Rapids. Amana wins the prize for submissive endurance of its inhabitants, not for freedom and daring.

It would be unprofitable and a useless repetition to at tempt to catalogue all such socialistic communal efforts even in this nation, let alone the rest of the civilized world. Hope springs eternal. In truth, scarcely a year goes by but some economic fanatic, inwardly urged to udo good," appears with a handful of followers and attempts to establish a commune. It is predictable that they will aU· fail sooner or later. Most will fail sooner. This is not the way of the world, nor is it within the nature of man. To their credit, let it be noted that most of these colonizing efforts on the part of good and ideal istic men and women are conducted without the use of brute force. The real test of modem socialism will not be found in the framework of a voluntary association. It will be found in the involuntary association ordained by an instrument of force, a government.

NATURE'S LOGIC -127 To discover examples of governmental inauguration of socialist ideas requires no search at all. All governments, both modem and ancient, have endorsed socialism to some degree. But for a precise example of how socialism advances upon a people by means of their government, we can think of no better than that furnished by the government of the United States. If ever a government was established with the principles of individualism predominant in the minds of its founders, the American form of government provides us with the case in point. And this illustration will be employed shortly so that the political syllogism of individualism as contrasted with that of socialism can best be observed. American Advantages What is important for us to recognize in this chapter is that the nature of man is opposed to collectivism and favor able to individualism. That is why, in this country, with a government originally dedicated to individualism and inde pendence, man's lot improved so swiftly and with such startling results.

128 - THIS BREAD IS MINE Once the individualism of this nation had been secured, largely by virtue of the Declaration of Independence and its inspired utterance of the rights of man, inventive genius came to the fore here as in no other place on earth. When Sargon I ordered his Assyrians into battle twenty centuries before Christ, the favored captains rode in chariots and the leaders of units ·rode in saddles. The horse was the king of battles. When Washington commanded his troops in the battle of New York, the progress of nearly 4,000 years had put an .. extra pair of iron-shod wheels on the chariot and the general himself rode in a saddle. Today, thanks to the freedom and the individualism of our primary economy, Americans ride farther and faster on the seat of their pants than any other people in any time or place. We have trains and automobiles and steamboats, and airplanes and rocket ships and even the lowly motorcycle and bicycle. Anyone of these things would have been looked upon as a divine manifestation by Sargon I.

NATURE'S LOGIC -129 For thousands of years, men lived in pitiful hovels and caves, shivering in the cold, coughing and inhaling the smoke from inadequate wood and coal fires. Now they live in three bedroom homes of taste and comfort; in steam-heated apart ments of luxury and refinement; or in hotels which put to shame the loftiest platforms of the Babylonian Ziggurat. They have centralized, diffused heating furnished by coal, oil, gas or electricity. They have, with the flip of a switch, the in trusion of the light of day into the darkest hours. They even have air-conditioned comfort in sultry mid-summer. They shut out the vicissitudes and rigors of the temperatures both hot and cold, and apply themselves in whatever manner is pleasing to them. From the pallet of damp and vermin-infested straw, modem man has graduated to down filled, inner spring luxury. From the rude stone or wooden bench, he reclines gracefully on foam rubber, covered with a myriad of velours, brocades and plastics.

From a diet of half-raw mutton, acorns and the inner bark of trees, with occasional bread made from flour so full 130-THIS BREAD IS MINE of grit that it ruined his teeth, man has moved up the scale of elegance to the point where the average regularly employed worker in these United States dines at a table covered either with linen or with highly decorative individual place mats, uses sparkling glassware and stainless cutlery, and affords a menu that would have sent the kings and emperors of a few hundred years ago into spasms of envy. He has his choice of a dozen kinds of bread, plus rolls, all grit free; he has an assortment of canned goods so vast that there is no one in the United States today who can, without prompting, tick off the delicacies available to him for a few pennies. So far has he gone that he now believes that salads, the indescribable luxury of Saladin, are an essential to the well planned meal. His steaks, roasts, chops and cutlets are stuffed into his personal deep freeze unit in such array that he could feed a platoon of men with little warning and probably with out bankrupting himself.

And as for vegetables, he has such a plethora of beans, cabbages, squash, pumpkins, lettuce, peppers, potatoes, rice, NATURE'S LOGIC -131 tomatoes, lentils, sprouts, cauliflower .. onions, radishes, beets, carrots, parsnips, rutabagas, broccoli, chard, spinach, zucchini, oats, barley and okra that he himself doesn't know what to do with it all. And as for fruits, melons and berries, there is no limit to what he can have in or out of season. Instead of having a sizable portion of our society drop dead from starvation as an annual event, the American mal de tempus is heart trouble, much of it occasioned by over-eating! And the clothing! In the 17th century it was not uncommon for an individual to receive a single garment at maturity which garment was to suffice for his entire life. Changes of linen were afforded only by the nobility and royalty,which had taxes to sustain its taste. Now, in America, and beginning to splash over to the rest of the world, is such an array of clothing as to stun the imaginations of a Belshazzar, a Cheops or a Richard I. We dress not entirely from necessity, but from sheer joy. The hues of our donnings put the. rainbow to shame. And as for warmth in the cold, and coolness in the 132-THIS BREAD IS MINE heat, who in the time of France's Louis .XIV could have im agined such comfort?

Take one other thing, the cleanliness. Human beings dur ing what we call the dark ages washed when they were rained on. Otherwise, once a year ALL OVER was enough. A few fanatics insisted that four annual ablutions were in order, one to celebrate the beginning of each season of the year! But such extravagance was out of reach for most. Now we are born into antiseptic purity with a bar of soap and running hot water only a few steps away. We have shower baths and tubs at such frequent intervals that no modern home would be complete without at least one such advantage. But these things, and thousands more, came into common usage in these United States not because our government caused it, but because our government was unable to prevent it! All the improvements were made by individual men in an individualistic economy the like of which had never been seen before.

NATURE'S LOGIC -133 It was not that other people in other places were not hungry, and tired, and dirty, and poorly clad, and destitute of reasonable shelter. It was that their governments had prac ticed socialism for so long, that such INDIVIDUAL advan tages were forever out of reach of the ordinary citizen. Socialism Was Ordinary Don't imagine that socialism is peculiar to our time and place. Rose Wilder Lane, in her great book, "Discovery of Freedom," reminds us of the facts. She quotes from Henry Thomas Buckle's book, "History of Civilization in England," to give us an insight into conditions in England and in France before the industrial revolution. "In every quarter, and at every moment, the hand of government was felt. Duties on importation, and on expor tation; bounties to raise up a losing trade, and taxes to pull down a remunerative one; this branch of industry forbidden, and that branch of industry encouraged; one article of com merce must not be grown because it was grown in the colonies; 134-THIS BREAD IS MINE another article might be grown and bought, but not sold again, while a third article might be bought, and sold, but not leave the country.

"Then, too, we find laws··to regulate wages; laws to regu late prices; laws to regulate the interest on money; custom house arrangements of the most vexatious kind, .aided by a complicated scheme which was very well called the sliding scale - a scheme of such perverse ingenuity that duties varied on the same article, and no man could calculate beforehand what he would have to pay. "To this uncertainty, itself the bane of all commerce, there was added a severity of exaction, felt by every class of producers and consumers. The tolls were so onerous, as often to double and quadruple the cost of production. A system was organized, and strictly enforced, of interference with markets, interference with manufactures, interference with machinery, interference even with shops. "The ports swarmed with tide-waiters, whose sole busi ness was to inspect nearly every process of domestic industry, NATURE'S LOGIC -135 to peer into every package, and tax every article; while, that absurdity might be carried to its extreme height, a large part of all this was by way of protection; that is to say, the money was avowedly raised, and the inconveniences suffered, not for the use of government, but for the benefit of the people.

In other words, the industrious were robbed in order that industry might thrive. "Indeed, the extent to which the government classes have interfered, and the mischiefs which that interference has produced, are so remarkable as to make thoughtful minds wonder how civilization could advance in the face of such repeated obstacles. In some of the European countries the obstacles have, in fact, proved insuperable, and the national progress is thereby stopped." Be it remarked that all of these "benefits" to human beings hampered them, and in contrast, when Americans on these far shores were left free of the "protection" furnished in such excess, they ran up the curtain on a new age of plenty, vouchsafed them by reason of an individualistic economy. By 136 - THIS BREAD IS MINE abolishing state tariff restrictions, the American scene became the largest free trade area in the world. By having a feeble and limited government, the individual man received the scepter of his own economic prowess and exploited it, to his own advantage, but to everyone else's as well.

Surely, it must be seen that any system of economics which can produce such abundance is manifestly superior to prior economic systems which, while seeking to protect and to cause a sharing of burdens, penalized the productive and created an almost universal poverty. And such a benevolent system must be natural, one in harmony with the facts of life as they are. It cannot be contrary to nature, for if it were, no such results could have been forthcoming. Socialist Failures Recur Thus the socialists are given the lie. Socialism has had centuries in which to prove itself. Its failures are staggering. Individualistic enterprise, as a general policy, has had only a few years of freedom. Yet in those years, the whole comNATURE'S LOGIC -137 plexion of human life has been changed for the better. How can anyone imagine the human race would be benefited by reversion to the collectivized failures of hundreds of nations and thousands of years of experience, when the clear and certain success of unhampered freedom of enterprise has been proved to be correct and has demonstrated its fertility, its productivity, its precedent-shattering benefits?

But now, it appears, thanks to the manifold promotions of the socialist complex through governmental, educational and religious channels, we are turning our backs on a natural and productive order to embrace the planned economic state. It may be we are near a socialist apex now. Similar conditions have existed before and were preludes to disasters. It is as though nature will permit violations of her fundamental laws up to a point. Then, she rises. up, shakes out her skirts and puts the erring nation in order. Such order as an outraged nature can enforce may compel a temporary rever ... sion to more primitive .economies.

138 - THIS BREAD IS MINE The Individualist Ethic We began with the nature of the world as the socialist sees it - a whirling spheroid with fixed amounts of land and water and a population which, in the socialist moral clime, should share the land and the benefits to be derived from either land or water on an equal basis. The individualist recognizes the more or less static ratio of land to water; the differences between one parcel of land and all other parcels whatsoever; and the divergencies in human character, per sonality, skills, talents, inclinations and proclivities which a mong people are so vast as by contrast to give all land and water a universal sameness. Additionally, the individualist recognizes there is no such thing as a stable and constant population. While the land mass may remain more or less a constant, human life does not. The population of the earth is expanding. But if we rely on social ist persuasion and conceive of· division as the moral absolute, then it must follow that each new birth is a disaster. Each additional person must be inserted in the equation for ultimate NATURE'S LOGIC -139 sharing with the total wealth. The more people-alive, the smaller the share each will finally have. Socialism becomes S:I1 open doorway to universally shared poverty with state birth control as the only means of preventing universal star vation.

The socialist must, perforce, recognize the inequality of land values and in human abilities. Also, he must recognize that a growing population forever dislocates a static absolute, even in his idealistic static dream world. The socialist doesn't approve of the world as it is. He recognizes that he cannot change it in its beginnings, so he attempts to harness all divergent elements and by force to bring about uniformity at the end. He subscribes, sometimes unconsciously, to the theory of Thomas Malthus that the world population can never be greater than the food supply and that whereas food supplies tend to increase on an arithmetical basis, populations tend to increase on a geometric basis. Hence, as with everything else, he concludes that populations must .be controlled and fall under the purview of an almighty state.

140-THIS BREAD IS MINE On the contrary, the individualist sees the nature of the world to be diversified; recognizes the diversity of human beings; concludes that the products of these diversified .ele ments will always be diversified, adjusts himself to the reality and is happy in the result. The individualist stops worrying about conditions which he finds in nature. He knows that nature preceded him and that he is a product of it, as much a part of the universe as any other part of it. He will adjust himself to nature's law rather than seek to ignore it or to create fictions about it. And for the theories of Thomas Malthus, he reserves the back of his hand. He may concede that the world's population will never be able to expand beyond its ability to eat. But he points to the tractor, the combine, the harvester, soil enrich ment chemicals, selective plantings, scientific cultivation, etc., and offers evidence that the ability of human beings to produce food has increased so sharply.during the days of America's free enterprise decades that it has actually provided for the population increase. Instead of always having the population NATURE'S LOGIC -141 pressing .against the food supply, as Malthus gloomily pre dicted, the individualist shows that the reverse, at least in America, has been demonstrated when free individualistic en terprise is granted room to expand and to flourish. Now the food supply in America is pressing against the people. A non Malthusian problem is where to put the produce. Granaries have long since been full to bursting. Surpluses have been stored in caves, in silos, and in the holds of ships going no where. Even city streets have been heaped high with grain, because there was nowhere else to put it. It can be argued the surplus came with political incentives. True. But is was human energy and land and tools which produced the abundance.

Governments do not produce food. And what has been done in America, only partly free, may be duplicated elsewhere if socialism will be abandoned. And here is perhaps the most important single rule to be adopted in respect to nature. Nature may be harnessed, but she will not be thwarted. She is harnessed by scientific judo, a process wherein her great laws are directed in such 142 - THIS BREAD IS MINE a way that they serve a human purpose. But her laws are not eliminated. Man may not reverse the infinite flow of nature's energies. Nature moves in understandable, predictable fashion. Man may study her moods and directions and ultimately comprehend them sufficiently to employ them gainfully. But he ·may not bid nature reverse herself. The socialist in effect declares that nature is in error in having permitted diversity in respect to humankind. It is his purpose not to permit diversity. Human beings must be com pelled to be equal, he declares. They must be treated equally.

Man is a collective animal. It is the good to the total mass of man that counts. It matters not what injury befalls a single man, if only the mass man benefits. Everyone is to have equal education; equal wealth; equal social status (whatever that is). Socialism Is Not For This World Perhaps the socialist dream can be achieved on some other planet where natural laws differ from those which function here, if such a thing is possible. It cannot be. achieved here.

NATURE'S LOGIC -143 All nature sings the song of diversity in this world* And the individualist knows it and rejoices. He recognizes that each man is self-controlling, self-directing, responsible for his own choices and actions by virtue of the fact that he and he alone controls ALL of his own energies. No man is ever more than one, nor ever less than one. A man may marry, have children, dedicate himself to his labors, join a hundred separate organizations, but in all of these actions his· basic nature is not altered. He is still an individual. He will be born individually. He will live individu ally. He will die individually. Even twins are individuals. There is no such thing as a litter man, a group man, a collective man, a mass man. Where does this illusion of collectivized man spring from? Where do fairy stories originate? Who can say what deep subliminal urging far below the surface of the conscious mind causes men to hope and pray and yearn that things will be other than they are?

But there is more to· this illusion than a subliminal hope in the hearts of ignorant but idealistic people. There is a 144-THIS BREAD ··IS MINE pattern here, of purpose and intent which fits the schemes and desires of the power seekers. Strabo, writing about 30 B.C., says: "Poets were not alone in giving currency to myths. Long before the poets, cities and their lawgivers had sanctioned them as a useful expedient. They had some insight into the emotional nature of the rational animal. Illiterate and un educated men, they argued, are no better than children and, like them, are fond of stories. When through descriptive narra tives or other forms of representational art (politics?) they learn how terrible are divine punishments and threats, they are deterred from their evil courses. No philosopher by means of a reasoned exhortation can move a crowd of women or any random mob to reverence, piety and faith. He needs to play upon their superstition also, and this cannot be done without myths and marvels. It was, then, as bugbears to scare the simpleminded that founders of states gave their sanction to these things. This is the function of mythology and it accord ingly came to have its recognized place in the ancient plan of civil society as well as in the explanations of the nature of reality."

NATURE'S LOGIC ---145 Although Strabo does not tell us so, a myth can be employ ed both as a fear inducing medium to prevent evil doing, and as an inspirational medium to encourage doing good. And what more impelling myth can one devise than the myth of socialism? Think of a world in which there is no poverty; in which there is abundance for all; in which responsibility is taken by the governmental officials; and in which all people exist indulging their various whims and being guaranteed a mini mum competence, simply because they happen to be human. This is a myth. There is none more impelling. How easy it is, with this kind of doctrine expounded from the hustings in democratic contests, to convince the voter that he should adhere to the political organization which promises the most for the least effort. Deliberate Mythology There may be an unconscious yearning for a super world in the hearts of those who succumb to socialist blandishments, but in the hearts of those who preach the doctrine there is more 146 - THIS BREAD IS MINE than a subliminal hope; there are downright crafty machina tions underway with the conscious aim of seizing power and ascendancy over the masses. It is from the masses that the taxes come. And by pretending to solve the problems of the masses, the modem political pitchman can sing the song of the Lorelei and at the same time contrive to get himself on the public payroll.

No, there is more than a subconscious yearning for some thing for nothing. On the side of the deliberate, there is a consciously induced mythology which fosters and sustains the illusion that the world can be amended by political fiat, that nature herself will reverse her laws if only the legisla ture commands. This sorry framework of distortions, misdirections and lies is deliberately set forth so that some men can and will obtain power over other men. Having discovered that the ignorant can be cozened and led, some men tum to such prac tices and make careers of them. And finding influence possible, they confuse influence with control. They suppose that beNATURE'S LOGIC -147 cause they can convince a certain· man that the myth of socialism is a fact, they have attained control over him. And multiplying this facility so that as many as possible are af fected, they imagine themselves IN CONTROL of the human race, and that they and no others are making all decisions.

Let us stick to reality. You and you alone can control your own energies. If you are urged to take a certain course, it will be your decision that sets your feet on that pathway, or it will be your decision that sets your feet in an opposite direction. No one can control your energies for you. You may be pressured, beaten, tortured, starved or even killed, but no one other than yourself can control your own energies. In the midst of torture, you may decide to change your mind and submit to the wishes of your tormentor. It is YOUR decision. Try as he will, no other human being can possibly control your energies. Only your mind will direct the muscles of your arms and legs. Only your intelligence will tell you what you are to believe.

148-THIS BREAD IS MINE It is true, of course, that with the use of force and vio lence in the hands of another you can be injured permanently and in a way that curtails your ability to control your own energies. For example, you could have an arm removed. For ever afterward you could not control that arm, since you would no longer have it. You could experience the result of lobotomy or other mental operation which might deprive you of the use of certain centers in your brain, or even your whole brain. This in no way alters the central fact. You and you alone CONTROL your own energies. Others may, by force, succeed in atrophying your abilities. But they cannot substitute their control for yours. Even in hypnosis, it is your will to be hypnotised that makes it pos sible for another mind to appear to exercise control. Actually, the other mind does no such thing. Your mind is still the controlling fact, but it permits a rider. Does the equestrian control the muscles of the horse? No. The equestrian may dominate, but the horse submits and it is the will of the horse that makes submission possible. The horse's muscles still belong to the horse.

NATURE'S LOGIC -149 Unalienable Rights This is what the American founding fathers were getting at when they insisted in the Declaration of Independence that man has certain unalienable rights. It was their position not only that governments may not alienate those rights, but even the men who have them cannot do it. If a right is unalienable, then the right is the same as a natural function and no one else can exercise it. Can anyone breathe for you? Can anyone operate your digestive juices for you? If you plunge your ann into a fire, can anyone else experience the pain for you? You have an unalienable right to function as nature intended that you function. And this is at the base of individualism. The natural fact of life is that you are an individual. Do what you will in connection with other people, you are still an individual, and so is each one of them. You are not primarily an American, a Chinaman, a Republican, a Democrat, a Kiwanian, a Girl Scout or a socialist. Primarily, you are individual. And even if you become a number of other things, nature insists that you always remain what you naturally are - an individual.

150 - THIS BREAD IS MINE But, if you are naturally an individual, you cannot natu rally be a collectivist, a mass man. And here is the reason why no socialist scheme has ever been retained with any degree of permanency. It is contrary to nature. Man may permit him self to be organized, regimented, dominated and coerced. This may go on for years under a Lycurgus, a Diocletian, an Inca,. a Stalin or even a Roosevelt. But sooner or later, man recog nizes that this condition is contrary to nature. Knowingly or unknowingly, he again aligns himself with nature. When this occurs, the forces of nature are ruthless in toppling the regi menter; civilization slides down the scale to a natural stopping point and the whole process of developing individuality, even through mistaken means, begins again. Here is the history of the world in thimble-size. It would seem that the lesson we have thus far learned from history, asB. H. Liddell Hart indicates, is that thus far we have learned nothing from history.

Individualist Origins How can we begin to learn? Oddly enough, we have only to begin where the socialists began, in ancient times. If it is NATURE'S LOGIC -151 true that the Essenes and others held a universal sharing of wealth to be a moral way of life, the fact is that most men were not Essenes, and despite these teachings, whether they occurred under Buddha, Moses, Confucius or Christ, men acted out their true natures. It is as natural for a man to produce and to keep the products of his production for him self, as it is for him to breathe. Thus, for thousands of years, this is what men did. While some political overlords were con triving laws and taxes and jails for criminals, most men were going about their natural tasks of seeking to sustain life. l\1:en, and not governments, learned how to make fire, to till the soil, to irrigate, to make bow and spear and sword, and even gunpowder. And these things were made in the ·ever present compulsion to find an adequate food supply, clothing, shelter, a more abundant life.

In this endless drive, some men profited more than others. But for centuries, this fact served as a double signal. It served to summon the brave, the daring, the productive, to make rugged effort, to produce, to trade, to profit in spite of all.

152-THIS BREAD IS MINE It is upon the efforts of such as these that civilization has advanced. It also provided the signal for the political bandits to swoop down on the successful, rob him of his surplus, and thus reduce the incentive to produce even adequately, let alone abundantly. Since we have laid the burden of guilt at Plato's feet for first writing down the socialist dream, it is fair that we must credit another ancient Greek for having propounded the opposite of Plato's doctrines. Our reference is to Zeno (342-267 or 270 B.C.), the founder of the stoic philosophy of individualism. This sage, who came originally from Crete, opposed Plato's Republic. He repudiated the omnipotence of the state, its intervention and regimentation, and proclaimed the sovereignty of the moral law of the individual as supreme, remarking that since man was a moral being, if he were to be freed from the compulsion,s of the state he would respond in accordance with his true nature and have no need for courts or for police.

Unfortunately, all of Zeno's writings have been lost. We only get a fragmentary picture of this man and that is secondNATURE'S LOGIC -153 hand. But from what we can learn, the immortal Zeno coun seled that the drive for survival would temper man's dis position in his relationship with others of his kind and cause him to become cooperative and productive, since by so be coming he would benefit himself. It would seem that nature has endowed men to create, to invent, to produce; and at the same time that ambition has endowed governments with the socialist dogma of seeking to take from those who have, to give to those who have not. And since it is always true that no government has anything that it has not firs~ taken from someone else, it follows that govern ments shall always be the first recipients of the largesse of stolen goods. So men have labored for thousands of years so that they might profit individually. And governments and a hundred dogmas have labored right alongside in an effort to prevent the diversity and the· inequality which nature insists shall be the character of success and production.

So, here we have two worlds, a world of reality geared to things as they are, and a world of illusion geared to things as 154-THIS BREAD IS MINE certain theorists wish they were. It is characteristic of man that he will trust his illusions before he will trust reality. Man is a myth maker, and a myth seeker. Man, in all his ages, is fearful of the profits some producer may amass. So he flies to the arms of the predator who gives him nothing at all except taxes, regimentation and abuse. But he does it gladly, know ing that the predator will treat the producer similarly, and that thus the producer will not be permitted to excel him. But always, it is the world of reality that will win. Illu sions come and go, but facts remain. So it is time we had a doctrine of facts on which to base our lives, rather than the many different socialist doctrines of superstition and illusion. Christian Individualism Curiously, we can find the beginnings of a doctrine based on natural right in the Christian religion. For if Mark advises us that Jesus intoned against the rich, and insisted that heaven was almost impossible for those who had been financially successful, Matthew tells us another story. In Chapter XXV, NATURE'S LOGIC -155 14th to 30th verses, appears one of the oldest and soundest lessons in basic economics to be reduced to writing. It is the parable of the talents.

It is strangely contradictory to other statements in the four gospels, and is certainly opposed to the acts of the a postles following the crucifixion. But without this parable it is doubtful if Christianity would have ever become a major religion. The parable provides the escape hatch for the suc cessful and business-wise Christian. He learns here that it is not sinful to make profits; that it is prudent and, indeed, com mendatory to make as much profit as possible. In the first three centuries after Christ there were few wealthy and in fluential men to take up the new religious doctrine. Christian;.. ity got its impetus toward material success by virtue of this idea, carefully included in the gospel of St. Matthew. Scholars are prone to believe that the parable was an addition to the original text and was appended as an afterthought. They insist that evidence abounds that the author of the book of Matthew did not pen it, for it contains characteristics of other authorship.

156-THIS BREAD IS MINE In any case, this is the free enterprise theory, the law of nature and of nature's way of permitting and encouraging a multiplication of goods and services. Here is the solace to the man of means, which can comfort him in the darkest hours of transitory socialist success. For this parable is purportedly recited by Jesus himself, and on it, Christianity, especially Protestant Christianity, has .gone forward to seek the rewards of which the Master spoke. It has been observed that in nations predominantly Protestant, the greatest progress has been made in science, business and industrial development. "For the Kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. "And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several. ability; and straightway took his journey.

"Then he that had received the five talents· went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents.

NATURE'S LOGIC -157 "But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord's money. "After a long time, the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them. "An so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliverest unto me five talents; behold, I have gained beside them five talents more. "His lord said unto him, Well. done, good and faith ful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things. I will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy lord. "Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art a hard man, reaping where thou has not sown, and gathering where thou has not strawed: "And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in th~ earth; 10, there thou hast that is thine.

158 - THIS BREAD IS MINE "His lord answered and said unto him. Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knew est that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed: "Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. "Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him 'which hath ten talents. "For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. "And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer dark ness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Here is counsel, stern and uncompromising, based upon the nature of things, as they are. Here is no socialist pap, but red-blooded economic vigor. Here is praise for the man who exploits every opportunity, even perhaps an opportunity which may fall to hand accidentally. The lord in the parable harvests crops which the hand of nature alone has sowed, NATURE'S LOGIC -159 and he. profits thereby. Here is even the recommendation that interest (usury) be collected if profits cannot be made in any other reasonable fashion. This is no precursor of Proudhon, Marx or the Fabians who with one accord thought that interest, profits and rents were wrong. Here is a sound moral source, urging production, seeing in a plentiful harvest some thing that will benefit all persons, especially the diligent.

Here is the opposite of Marx, who championed the con cept that you should take from those with ability and give to those without ability on the basis of need. Here is, instead, the concept that those with ability should be rewarded and on the basis of that ability; whereas those without ability, even if seemingly in need, should be cast into outer darkness. This is the philosophy of something for something. The miracle is that Mark and Matthew are believed to be reporting evidence from the same source. In any case, here is individualism expressed economically. Nothing else of such vigor and adherence to the nature of things was to be reduced to writing until Adam Smith, in 160-- THIS BREAD IS MINE 1776, published his treatise called "The Wealth of Nations" and laid the footing for modem economic thought. There was no free enterprise Plato to decorate the age of Greece. The science .of economics is of more current origin. It has taken at least twenty centuries of experimentation with shortages and socialism to convince a few that a doctrine of individual ism can be logically outlined and supported as a natural and moral way of life.