Libertarian Means and Methods

Method is of supreme importance if this revolution is to be accomplished. If everyone's method were in accord with the con cept' here advanced,>there would be no ideological problem at all. This is by way of saying that if everyone were attending to the improvement of his creative self, there couldn't possibly be a med dler among us; and with no meddlers there could be no authori tarianism, no socialism, no intervention by government into the creative and productive activities of the citizens. The choice in method is between improving self and reforming others. It is comforting to diagnose the world's ills as due to other people, and consequently most folks are bent on reforming others. This is so nearly an instinctive trait that we overcome it only with [ 81 difficulty. Few persons appear to have any faith that this will be come a better world if they do nothing about it beyond improving their own understanding and exposition. Apparently they fail to realize the impossibility of creatively doing to others that which they have been unwilling or unable to do to themselves. No man can teach that which he does not know. Personally, I join with the unknown versifier who wrote: And so I hold it is not treason To advance a simple reason For the sorry lack of progress we decry.

It is this: Instead of working On himself, each man is shirking And trying to reform some other guy. The reforming-others fallacy especially characterizes most organizational programs to combat interventionism. Expenditures of time and money in this direction are worse than useless; they do a positive damage to the cause of freedom. What Organization Can Do Certain things can be effectively accomplished by organizing. Assuming that there are a respectable number of us who believe in free exchange, private property, and limited government prin ciples, we organize: 1. To escape working in individual isolation; 2. To lend to the educational endeavor the prestige that num bers provide; 3. To create a legal entity for the receipt and disbursement of funds and for the acquisition of such aids as working quarters, libraries, equipment for the dissemination of in formation, a staff, a secretariat, and so on; 4. To give to members, supporters, and searchers for liber tarian knowledge the advantages of each other's under standing.

The above, however, is about as far as proper institutional possibilities go. The institution should never make the common 82 ] error of expressing a view for a membership not unanimous in that view. The institution should be maintained simply as ma chinery, as the physical aid, for the improved understanding, speaking, and writing of its individual constituents and those others in whom the libertarian spirit of inquiry can be aroused. The institution which speaks as a collective and embarks on a program of making over others is a type useful to our collectivist adversaries, to those who would destroy a free society; it is, in my view, an instrument of harm to the creative task of advancing understanding. 1 Individual Action It is the individual, then, and what he can do to advance un derstanding of freedom principles that require our examination. Perhaps a recounting of some of my earlier experiences will help point up the importance of individual action as well as some of the means and methods which appear to contain the ingredients of success.

Some twenty years ago, in the state of California, the people were about to elect as Governor a man devoted to authoritarian and interventionist views. The conservative citizens of both major political parties, realizing that they could not defeat this man at election time, concentrated on electing a conservative Senate and Assembly. They succeeded so well that this collectivist became one of the best governors California ever had, for the conserva tive legislators kept the Governor from succeeding in any of his collectivist acts - all but one. Shortly after assuming office, and with the use of the state's relief funds, state owned and operated retail stores began to spring up in California. The privately owned retail establishments complained bitterly and quite properly about this kind of com petition. The conservative legislators, however, acknowledged that they did not knowhow to oppose the Governor in this lSee my On That Day Began Lies, a critique of the resolution-passing organiza tion. (Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education, 1949.) See also, W. J. Brown's "Imprisoned Ideas" in The Freeman, March 1958.

[ 83 program, that they did not know the kinds of arguments that they could make to the public 'against this scheme which the Governor called "production for use." As General Manager of the Los Angeles Chamber of Com merce, it was my responsibility to analyze the error in such move ments and to make the findings available to others. This is sub stantially what I said to the Chamber's economist: Doctor, I wish you would prepare an essay on "production for use." First, demonstrate the fallacy of state ownership and control of the means of production. Second, show the efficacy of production for gain, for exchange, or for use. Third, let your essay be as brief as possible but employ whatever length is necessary to make a com plete explanation. Fourth, write as simply as you can but under no circumstances "write down." Write at the intellectual level that will assure thorough exposition. Fifth, make no disparaging references about any person. Sixth, do not tell the reader what to think or how to act. Confine yourself to setting forth the facts, the ideas, the arguments, the evidence. This is the stuff from which convictions grow. Do these things, please, and let me see your manuscript.

The manuscript was excellently done by our economist. We published it in a 32-page pamphlet. Less than 10,000 copies were mailed. They went to the Governor, to heads of departments in the state government, to professors in the universities, to leaders of parent-teacher associations, labor unions, trade associations, chambers of commerce, and business establishments. One copy of this essay fell into the hands of a nationally known professor, famous for his strong socialistic convictions. He read it and is reported to have said, "I cannot answer a single argument advanced by the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce." From that day on the so-called production-for-use movement has not been seriously sponsored in the state of California. What happened? Unknown to me or to my libertarian friends, this professor was the "genius" behind the so-called production for-use movement. Did we change his mind? I rather guess we did not, for he is as interventionist in his thinking today as ever. What happened, 1 suppose, was this: the professor envisioned himself 84 ] up against thousands of persons understanding a set of arguments and principles with which he could not cope. He simply quit the whole thing. Without him the movement ceased, for the Governor didn't know the difference between so-called production for use and production for anything else. Thus ended one of the interven tionist threats in California.

There is a lesson to be drawn from this experience. Had the Los Angeles Chamber followed the popular procedures, we would have prepared and published small, oversimplified tracts designed to influence the so-called masses, the kind of tracts that qualify as "baby talk" literature. Our eye would have been on reforming others rather than on the perfection of our own understanding and thinking. Such a procedure would have been utterly futile, for the important person in this case, the professor, would not have deigned even to look at such unintellectual material. The Power of Minorities We must realize that all movements, good or bad, are led, always, by very small minorities. Knowledge is not general on any subject, even on how to wash dishes, let alone on something as complex as social, economic, moral, and political philosophy. Every movement has an intellectual leader. There is always some one at the head of the class who knows more about it than the rest. Reviewing movements which have changed the course of events, it is apparent that their leaders - in the early stages, at least - are unknown. to their contemporaries. It is also clear that leaders have unsuspected origins, that their leadership could not have been predicted in advance. I recall that the leader of a sub stantial movement nearly two thousand years ago was born in a manger. The leader of a bad movement, a few years ago, was an Austrian paper hanger. Who are the potential or budding liber tarian leaders in the Argentine or in the United States of America right now? You do not know. I do not know. Quite likely the per son himself, or herself, does not know. All of us, it seems, are possessed of aptitudes unknown even to ourselves.

We must appreciate our own blindness relative to others. To [ 85 each one of us, all others possess unknown qualities. Our task, then, is to perfect our own understanding and to make available to all within our own circles the understanding we have come to possess. To employ an analogy, it is as if I had sold you a plot of land under the surface of which are a few rare and invaluable bulbs. I explain to you that I do not know where these bulbs are and that they will only grow and bloom if you apply a certain fertilizer. How would you proceed? Would there be any sound procedure other than to spread the productive fertilizer over the whole area? Actually, this is the procedure set forth in the Parable of the Sower. Christ knew full well that most of the seeds of truth he strewed would fall on rock, bramble, and barren soil. But he also knew that now and then a seed would fall on fertile soil. The extravagance of this process has to be disregarded, for there is no other effective way. Bear in mind, however, Christ's perfection.

Do not lose sight of the fact that the term "sower" presupposes a person with seeds to strew. Other valuable lessons were learned while attempting to combat the interventionist movements in California. We had progressed to the point of using educational as distinguished from political methods. But we were specializing in negation, proving this or that nostrum to be wrong. While we succeeded in defeating every one of these movements, we discovered that new ones were rising to take their place. Debunking each one in turn was some thing like proving only that the world is not Hat. Get that done and you still have to prove that it isn't a cube, a prism, or anyone of a thousand forms that shape can take. Negation, I discovered, was no answer. Someone proved the earth to be a sphere and, by so doing, removed all the fallacies about its shape. Thus, in our field, it is not enough to prove merely that this or that interven tionist act is wrong. Something else is needed. We need to demon strate clearly and repeatedly the efficacy of man in free, in dividual, cooperative, competitive, voluntary effort - with govern ment limited to defense against fraud, violence, misrepresenta tion, and predation.

86 ] Proving the efficacy of man in free action is impossible for one who does not understand such action or who lacks faith in its outcome. A person of little understanding and small faith cannot build understanding and faith in others. As suggested in the previous lecture, our basic problem is really to learn our own philosophy. The learning process, however, presupposes two con ditions: 1. A person with the desire to learn a particular subject; 2. A source from which the learning may be drawn. Conceded, we need thousands of individuals who wish to learn the free market, private property, limited government philosophy. If they have no desire to learn these concepts, they never will learn them regardless of all the talk and all the writing all of us may do. What is it, then, that can create this much-needed desire to learn? It is the second part of the above equation: a source from which the learning may be drawn.

Let me illustrate. There wasn't any widespread desire to learn about nuclear fission or fusion twenty years ago. But the moment some one person learned how to release the energy of the atom, the moment this knowledge existed and was communicated, from that moment thousands of persons wanted to learn about this complex subject - persons with an aptitude for it. It was the in novator who served as the source and the perfection of the under standing who created the widespread desire to learn. Increasing Understanding At this point I wish again to emphasize the vast diHerence be.;. tween reforming others and perfecting self, between selling the masses on the one hand, and developing sources of understanding on the other hand. Suppose, for example, that my object is to improve cooking in the U.S.A., that I don't even know how to scramble eggs, that I use the selling-the-masses technique and run all about the country admonishing and exhorting everyone to become better cooks - I, the novice, doing this. Such behavior on my part would, assuredly, be repellent. Soon, everyone would [ 87 avoid me. Now imagine the employment of the opposite approach.

Assume that I go to work on the one person on earth over wholll I have some control in the creative sense, namely, Leonard Read, and that I try desperately to become as great a cook as the re nowned Escoffier. Next, make the assumption that I succeed. This program of self-improvement would lend attractiveness to nlY teaching efforts. Not only would I increase interest in cookery but interested persons would sit at my feet or drink at my foun tain, as the sayingsgo. I cannot emphasize too much that influencing others destruc tively is fairly easy. This, however, is not the kind of influence that concerns us. We are concerned with advancing an under standing of the libertarian philosophy - influence of the creative type. Creatively, we are limited to the power of attraction. We have this power or none at all. How else can we make this all-important point about method? Perhaps I could put it this way: Go where you are called. That is, talk to the person who seeks your counsel; address the audiences that wish to hear you; write for those who are anxious to read your explanations. It is obviously useless to go where one is not wanted; it is impossible to inflict one's views on others.

Disqualifications Following this line of reasoning, it is plain that one's creative influence can be extended only as one succeeds in increasing the call. If we will examine what it is in others that leads us to call on them, to seek their counsel, to draw from them, that attracts us to them-be it cookery, golf, music, libertarianism, or whatever - we will discover some of the qualities that must exist in our selves to cause others to call on us. My deepest conviction about the qualities responsible for libertarian attraction is that they lend themselves to infinite perfectibility. The freedom adventure is an endless undertaking. While no person can even list all of these qualities for self, let alone for others (the qualities that cause attractiveness vary as to persons), I would like to suggest a fe,,, of the disqualifications which appear to have general application: 88 ] Anger. No one calls on an angry person when in search of sober judgment. Anger is a repelling, npt an attracting, force.

While it isn~t easy for one with libertarian convictions to contain his wrath at the deeds of authoritarians, anger is, nonetheless, a fault to be completely. overcome. Indeed, upgrading in personal understanding requires that one's soul remain wholly unrankled by the acts of ideological adversaries. Name-calling and disparag ing references are not admissible behaviors for one who would be come an accomplished libertarian. Vexation. Being vexed at opinions which deviate from one~s own is a distinguished disqualifier. We should keep in mind that it is impossible for any two persons to have precisely identical value judgments. Actually, an individual who is progressing in his own thinking differs today from his self of yesterday. Many persons who are libertarian in their political and economic con clusions remain as intellectual authoritarians, that is, they con demn as inferior those who do not entirely agree with them. Per sons thus vexed set up a wall that keeps others from seeking their counsel. It isn't a calamity that another holds a different view from yours. It is important if another improves his view himself by some contribution you are able to make.

Timid.ity. Fear to express accurately that which one believes to be right certainly does not inspire confidence but rather repels it. This type of fear can be overcome by realizing that it is not dangerous to be honest. "Anyone making a habit of being truth ful with himself opens the portal leading to a deeper insight."2 Vanity. Libertarian thinking has been so generally disregarded, is in such a state of disrepair, that little more than minor effort can elevate one head and shoulders above friends and associates. Vanity at any point in success spells an end to personal improve ment. It is axiomatic that the know-it-all cannot take on additional understanding. Seekers after truth do not call on, do not knock 2Rudolph Steiner [ 89 at the vain person's door. Vanity, a repellent attitude, is opposed to teachableness, an attractive attitude. Ambition. I do not refer to ambition for improvement of self but to ambition for attention, fame, adulation, notoriety. Ambition of the latter type is the stuff authoritarians are made of. Others seek only favors and special privileges from ambitious persons; they do not call on them for a higher knowledge. Libertarians are made of a finer and a sterner stuff - humility and a desire for harmony with Infinite Purpose as distinguished from the plaudits of earthlings.

Discouragement. There are tens of thousands, perhaps mil lions, of potentially skilled libertarians who are inactive for no other reason than the seeming hopelessness of arresting and re versing the tides of authoritarianism. There isn't any remedy for this discouragement where individuals persist in trying to reform others. They cannot help realizing, sooner or later, the utter futility of this procedure. They must eventually conclude, "Oh, what's the use!" However, there isn't any real reason at all for discouragement on the part of those who try to perfect their own understanding. They can ask themselves a simple question: "Am I working as intelligently and diligently as possible?" If the answer is affirma tive, they can then make a sensible conclusion: "The balance of the problem is in the hands of the Lord. I have not been given the world to manage." There are those who get discouraged by reading or hearing each day of interventionist gains. These events are water over the dam. Nothing can be done about fait accompli. They have no meaning for the libertarian beyond instruction for the future.

Otherwise, they are to be cast out of mind as if they happened in the far distant past. There are those who get discouraged about the failure of their ideas to· penetrate the consciousness of others. This failure may be due to the inability of others to perceive - in which case one can do nothing. Or, the failure may be due to their own inade90 ] quate powers of attraction and exposition - in which case the only point of concern is with their own improvement. There are those who get discouraged about the slowness of ideas to manifest themselves in economic, social, and political action. This ground for discouragement disappears as soon as we realize the delayed-action nature of ideas. An idea must penetrate the consciousness of individuals, ripen there and mature, undergo a certain social diffusion and attain some unpredictable pressure before it can become manifest. Ideas, like most of the forces which operate in the universe, are invisible to the naked eye. An idea cannot be seen at work in the mind of a stranger, nor in the mind of a friend, nor even in one's own mind. This, however, is no basis for a lack of confidence that an idea, once turned loose, will do its work.

Hold an opaque cup at eye level. Add drops of water one at a time. No effect can be observed from the first drop or the 100th or the 1,000th or the 4,000th or the 4,800th. But drop number 4,801 will cause the cup to overflow. Now, most of us would be confident that adding drops of water to a cup would eventually cause the cup to overflow. We need only apply this same principle of simple addition to ideas. "The most trilling action, every little thing accomplished, has something of importance in the great cosmic household, and it is merely a question of being aware of this importance." Positive Steps It isn't difficult to be negative, to give advice on what not to do, to point out the behaviors that are repellent, to suggest the things which deter others from drawing upon one's proffered service. It is quite another matter to enumerate the qualities that lead to intellectual and spiritual attractiveness, to moral leader ship. Perfectibility has to do with the Infinite and therefore with the Unknown in its limitless vastness. How can I counsel others on the positive steps to their emergence, to their unfolding, to their perfectibility when self-analysis reveals how incompetent I am to control myself in these respects? Always, when probing for a deeper understanding, I find myself confronted by the Un[ 91 known. What am I to say to others, then, not one of whom is similar to me?

At this point I· should like to relate how I came upon the phrase, "Go where you are called." I was most agreeable to these lectures, the time they would consume, and this rather extended trip, while the invitation was in the speculative stage. But last September I was confronted with a definite "yes" or "no" decision. There were many pressing matters at home, including financial problems at FEE, requiring strict attention, which argued against this trip. Yet, I had made a promise. Quite often, when con fronted with a significant dilemma~ I acknowledge my lack of wisdom and just ASK. The answer came clearly and quickly, <:<:Go where you are called." It may very well be that this is the note on which these lectures should be concluded. For, while I cannot give instruction as to the positive steps any other person should take, I am convinced that preparing oneself, day in and day out, year after year, is a good way to further life's purpose. Certainly, the continual quest for righteousness and the search for truth is consistent with liber tarianism as I define it. With this thought as a procedural guide, one can constantly add to his own stock, thus having stores that can be called upon.

Improving One1s Own Understanding Incidentally, the recipe for increasing one's own stock is to make available, to give off, that which one has in store. One will receive more when giving; that is a fact because of the nature of kinetic, dynamic, Howing energy. One will receive more as he gives more. This is another way of saying that the best way to learn is to teach. I can conceive of no art higher than teaching. In its highest form teaching presupposes not only a continued upgrading on the part of the teacher, which in tum posits the true teacher as the perpetual student, but it also presupposes two other important virtues - patience and eloquence. Patience has the effect of attrac92 ] tion. Eloquence as here used refers to skills in writing and speak ing. It has been said, no doubt correctly, that liberty depends on eloquence. The counsel, ~~Go where you are called," seems to make sense in every way. It would suggest that no attention be paid to occupa tional category, to wealth status, to sex, to color, to creed, or to geography. The cause of liberty in the U.S.A. can be as well served with the initiating of libertarian ideas in the Argentine as at home.

Ideas have no boundary lines except those mentalities in which -the spirit of inquiry is dead or those minds to which ideas have no access. Ideas have a far more mysterious way of traveling than the radio waves we pick up on our receiving sets. In concluding these thoughts about libertarian means and methods I may, by reason of my emphasis on sell-improvement, appear to be commending the life of a hermit or a cloistered monk. This is not intended. As stated earlier, the learning process presupposes (1) a person with the desire to learn a particular subject and (2) a source from which the learning may be drawn. Stlmu'ating Interest Certainly, free market, private property, limited government principles can fare no better than now if there is not a stronger and wider desire to understand them than presently exists. I believe it can be assumed that each of us in this Seminar has the desire to understand this philosophy better. It is also reasonable to assume that we would have others understand it better than they do at present. However, if others do not have the desire for improved understanding, they will not improve their under standing. What, in these circumstances, can we do?

Our own improved understanding - the magnet that attracts desire to understand on the part of others - is a personal, intro spective achievement. This is where the emphasis has to be placed, for this is the first and absolutely necessary step to any wider and better understanding over which we as individuals can have [ 93 any influence. One can accomplish no improvement short of this.3 It is the inclination on the part of so many people to attempt a widening of our philosophy before beginning to master it them selves that accounts for my insistence on behalf of self-improve ment. Once we accept our own upgrading as the prerequisite to any part we can have in libertarian progress, then the marketing phase of our philosophy is in order. Even this, however, has to do with the perfection of our own writing, speech, manners, at titudes toward others, ability to render service, mutual assistance skills, typographical creativeness, and so on. Effective marketing is simply making what we know as attractively available to others as possible. It avoids any attempts at reform, at imposing our ideas on others.

To me, we appear to be living in a troubled world, and as Dr. Franz E. Winkler puts it, "The last thing we want in a crisis is persuasive advice ... it is a torch we crave when we ask for guidance." So let me repeat what I said at the outset of this lecture: "The political authoritarianism that is currently being embraced by people . . . is too powerful to be remedied by ordinary people in ordinary action." Fortunately, there are latent qualities of percep tion, understanding, and exposition in thousands of persons, latent only because of neglect. Each person holds the only key there is to unlock these qualities in himself. I would aspire to be prepared, if and when called, that I might have the guidance other searchers may be seeking. If each of us were to make this our prime aspira tion, we would then have adopted the most effective means there is to libertarian achievement and realization. For, to be increas ingly called upon one must constantly be knocking at the doors of higher knowledge himself. Such is the stern requirement of in tellectual and spiritual attractiveness.

3"Only those who are their absolute true selves in the world can fulfill their own nature; only those who fulfill their own nature can fulfill the nature of others; only those who fulfill the nature of others can fulfill the nature of things." - Tsezse, grandson of Confucius. 94 ]