According to The Columbia Encyclopedia, “the existence of only two major parties, as in most English-speaking countries, presupposes general public agreement on constitutional questions and on the aims of government.” The reason for two parties is that each might keep a check on the other in order that neither party exceeds its constitutional bounds. The competitive two-party system, so it was thought, would assure a continuum of moral as well as political rectitude. The competition would expose and thus rid the public offices of charlatans; only statesmen would hold down the jobs.

Certainly the two-party system aimed at, if it did not presuppose, honest candidates contending for office; that is, each office seeker fairly presenting his own beliefs, leaving to the voters the matter of choosing. In respectable two-party theory the candidate tries to persuade the voters that his views are the ones they should support. Clearly, the theory did not include the idea that vying candidates should be nothing but mere responses to voter opinion polls. That would be senseless. Were this the case, we could now feed all voter opinions into an electronic computer and, within a few seconds, have all legislation written for us!

Regardless of how respectable the theory, its practice has come a cropper. Today, trimming is so much in vogue that often a voter cannot cast a ballot except for one of two trimmers. Heard over and over again is the apology, “Well, the only choice I had was to vote for the lesser of two evils.” Implicit in this confession are a moral tragedy and a political fallacy which, in combination, must eventually lead to economic disaster.

I. The Moral Tragedy

It is morally tragic whenever a citizen’s only choice is between two wrongdoers—that is, between two trimmers.

A trimmer, according to the dictionary, is one who changes his opinions and policies to suit the occasion. In contemporary political life, he is any candidate whose position on issues depends solely on what he thinks will have most voter appeal. He ignores the dictates of his higher conscience, trims his personal idea of what is morally right, tailors his stand to the popular fancy. Integrity, the accurate reflection in word and deed of that which is thought to be morally right, is sacrificed to expediency.

The above are severe charges, and I do not wish to be misunderstood. One of countless personal experiences will help clarify what is meant: A candidate for Congress sat across the desk listening to my views about limited government. At the conclusion of an hour’s discussion he remarked, “I am in thorough accord with your views; you are absolutely right. But I couldn’t get elected on any such platform, so I shall represent myself as holding views other than these.” He might as well have added, “I propose, in my campaign, to bear false witness.”

No doubt the candidate thought, on balance, that he was justified, that righteousness would be better served were he elected regardless of how untruthfully he represented his position—than were he to stand for his version of the truth and go down to defeat.

This candidate is “a mixed-up kid.” His values are topsy-turvy, as the saying goes. In an egotism that has no parallel, he puts his election to office above honesty. Why, asks the responsible voter, should I endorse dishonesty by voting for such a candidate? He has, on his own say-so, forsworn virtue by insisting on bearing false witness. Does he think his ambition for office is right because he needs a job? Then let him seek employment where want of principle is less harmful to others. Or, is his notion of rightness based on how much the rest of us would benefit by having him as our representative? What? A person without moral scruple representing us in Congress! The role of the legislator is to secure our rights to life, liberty, and property—that is, to protect us against fraud, violence, predation, and misrepresentation (false witness). Would our candidate have us believe that “it takes a crook to catch a crook”?

Such righteousness or virtue as exists in the mind of a man does not and cannot manifest itself in the absence of integrity—the honest, accurate reflection in deeds of one’s real beliefs. Without this virtue the other virtues must lie dormant and unused. What else remains? It is doubtful if anything contributes more to the diseased condition of society than the diminishing practice of integrity.

Those who attach this much importance to integrity must perforce construe trimming as evil. Therefore, when both candidates for public office are judged to be trimmers, the one who trims less than the other is often regarded as “the lesser of two evils.” But, is he really? It must be conceded that there are gradations of wrongdoing: killing is worse than stealing, and perhaps stealing is worse than covetousness. At least, if wrongdoing is not comparative, then it is self-evident that the best of us are just as evil as the worst of us; for man is fallible, all men!

Principles Will Not Bend

While categories of wrongdoing are comparative, it does not follow that wrong deeds within any given category of evil are comparative. For instance, it is murder whether one man is slain, or two. It is stealing whether the amount is ten cents or a thousand dollars. And, a lie is a lie whether told to one person or to a million. “Thou shalt not kill”; “Thou shalt not steal”; “Thou shalt not bear false witness” are derived from principles. Principles do not permit of compromise; they are either adhered to or surrendered.

Is trimming comparative? Can one trimmer be less at fault than another trimmer? Does the quantity of trimming have anything whatsoever to do with the matter? Or, rather, is this not a question of quality or character? To trim is to ignore the dictates of higher conscience; it is to take flight from integrity. Is not the candidate who will trim once for one vote likely to trim twice for more votes? Does he not demonstrate by any single act of trimming, regardless of how minor, that he stands ready to abandon the dictates of conscience for the place he seeks in the political sun? Does not the extent or quantity of trimming merely reflect a judgment as to how much trimming is expedient?

If the only relevant question at issue is whether or not a candidate will trim at all, then trimming is not comparative and, thus, it would be incorrect to report, “I cast my ballot for the lesser of two evils.” Accuracy would require, “I felt there was no choice except to cast a ballot for one of two men, both of whom have sacrificed integrity for the hope of votes.”

Irresponsible Citizenship

We must not, however, heap all our condemnation on candidates who trim. There would be no such candidates were it not for voters who trim. Actually, when we find only trimmers to vote for, most of us are getting what we deserve. The trimmers who succeed in offering themselves as candidates are, by and large, mere reflections of irresponsible citizenship—that is, of neglected thinking, study, education, vigilance. Candidates who trim and voters who trim are each cause and each effect; they feed on each other.

To repeat, when one must choose between men who forsake integrity, the situation is tragic, and there is little relief at the polling level except as candidates of integrity may be encouraged by voters of integrity. Impractical idealism? Of course not! Read Edmund Burke, one of the great statesmen of all time, addressing his constituency:

But his [the candidate's] unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

II. The Political Fallacy

Is it fallacious to believe that responsible citizenship requires casting a ballot for one or the other of two candidates, regardless of how far the candidates have departed from moral rectitude?

Before trying to arrive at an answer, let us reflect on the reason why the so-called duty of casting a ballot, regardless of circumstance, is so rarely questioned. Quite obviously, the duty to vote is one of those sanctified institutions, such as motherhood, which is beyond criticism. The obligation to vote at any and all elections, whatever the issues or personalities, is equated with responsible citizenship. Voting is deeply embedded in the democratic mores as a duty, and one does not affront the mores without the risk of scorn. To do so is to “raise the dead”; it is to resurrect questions that have been settled once and for all; it is to throw doubt on custom, tradition, orthodoxy, the folkways!

Yet any person who is conscious of our rapid drift toward the omnipotent state can hardly escape the suspicion that there may be a fault in our habitual way of looking at things. If the suspicion be correct, then it would be fatal never to examine custom. So, let us bring the sanctity of voting in to the open and take a hard look at it, not in the spirit of advocating something but of exploring it.

Hitler vs. Stalin

Now for the hard look: Where is the American who will argue that responsible citizenship requires casting a ballot if a Hitler and a Stalin were the opposing candidates? “Ah,” some will complain, “you carry the example to an absurdity.” Very well, let us move closer to home and our own experience.

Government in the U.S.A. has been pushed far beyond its proper sphere. The Marxian tenet, “from each according to ability, to each according to need,” backed by the armed force of the state, has become established polity. This is partly rationalized by something called “the new economics.” Within this kind of political framework, it is to be expected that one candidate will stand for the coercive expropriation of the earned income of all citizens, giving the funds thus gathered to those in groups A, B, and C. Nor need we be surprised that his opponent differs from him only in advocating that the loot be given to those in groups X, Y, and Z. Does responsible citizenship require casting a ballot for either of these political plunderers? The citizen has no significant moral choice but only an immoral choice in the event he has joined the unholy alliance himself and thinks that one of the candidates will deliver some of the largess to him or to a group he favors. In the latter case, the problem is not one of responsible citizenship but of irresponsible looting.

Registering a Protest

Does responsible citizenship require voting for irresponsible candidates? To ballot in favor of irresponsible candidates as though it were one’s duty is to misconstrue the meaning of duty. To cast a ballot for a trimmer, because no man of integrity is offering himself, does as much as one can with a ballot to encourage other trimmers to run for office. Can anyone conceive of any element of protest in such balloting? To vote for a trimmer goes further: it would seem to urge, as strongly as one can at the polls, that men of integrity not offer themselves as candidates.

What would happen if we adopted as a criterion: Never vote for a trimmer! Conceding a generous liberality on the part of the electorate, millions of us would not cast ballots. Would the end result of this substantial, nonviolent protest, this large-scale demonstration of “voting by turning our backs,” worsen our situation? It is difficult to imagine how it could. For a while we would continue to get what we now have: a high percentage of trimmers and plunderers in public office, men who promise privileges in exchange for ballots—and freedom. In time, however, with this silent but eloquent refusal to participate, the situation might, conceivably, improve. Men of integrity and high moral quality—statesmen—might show forth and, if so, we could add their numbers to the few now in office.

Would a return to integrity by itself solve our problem? No, for many men of integrity do not understand freedom; or, if they do, are not devoted to it. But it is only among men of integrity that any solution can begin to take shape. Such men, at least, will do the right as they see the right; they tend to be teachable. Trimmers and plunderers, on the other hand, are the enemies of morality and freedom by definition; their motivations are below the level of principles; they cannot see beyond the emoluments of office.¹

Here is a thought to weigh: If respect for a candidate’s integrity were widely adopted as a criterion for casting a ballot, millions of us, as matters now stand, would not cast ballots. Yet, in a very practical sense, would not those of us who protest in this manner be voting? Certainly, we would be counted among that growing number who, by our conscious and deliberate inaction, proclaim that we have no party. What other choice have we at the polling level? Would not this encourage men of statesmanlike qualities to offer themselves in candidacy?

A Sacd Institutioren

Why is so much emphasis placed upon voting as a responsibility of citizenship?² Why the sanctity attached to voting? Foremost, no doubt, is a carry-over from an all-but-lost ideal in which voting is associated with making choices between honest beliefs, between candidates of integrity. We tend to stick with the form without regard to what has happened to the substance. Further, it may derive in part from the general tendency to play the role of Robin Hood, coupled with a reluctance to acknowledge this practice for what it is. Americans, at least, have some abhorrence of forcibly taking from the few and giving to the many without any sanction whatsoever. That would be raw dictatorship. But few people with this propensity feel any pangs of conscience if it can be demonstrated that “the people voted for it.” Thus, those who achieve political power are prone to seek popular sanction for what they do. And, as government increases its plundering activities, more and more citizens “want in” on the popular say-so. Thus it is that pressures increase for the extension of the franchise. Time was when only property holders could vote or, perhaps, even cared to vote. In 1870 the franchise was extended to Negroes and in 1920 to women. Now the drive is on to lower the age from 21 to 18, and this has already been achieved in some places.

Frédéric Bastiat gave us some good thoughts on this subject:

“If law were restricted to protecting all persons, all liberties, and all properties; if law were nothing more than the organized combination of the individual’s right to self-defense; if law were the obstacle, the check, the punisher of all oppression and plunder—is it likely that we citizens would then argue much about the extent of the franchise?

“Under these circumstances, is it likely that the extent of the right to vote would endanger that supreme good, the public peace? Is it likely that the excluded classes would refuse to peaceably await the coming of their right to vote? Is it likely that those who had the right to vote would jealously defend their privilege?

“If the law were confined to its proper functions, everyone’s interest in the law would be the same. Is it not clear that, under these circumstances, those who voted could not inconvenience those who did not vote?”³

An Alternative

We can, it seems to me, glean from the foregoing that there is no moral or political or social obligation to vote merely because we are confronted with ballots having names and/or issues printed thereon. Has this so-called obligation of a citizen to vote, regardless of the ballot presentations, any more to support it than political madness on the rampage? And, further, does this not deny to the citizen the only alternative left to him—not to endorse persons or measures he regards as repugnant? When presented with two trimmers, how else, at this level, is he to protest? Abstinence from ballot-casting would appear to be his only way to avoid being untrue to himself.

If we seek more evidence than we now have as to the sacrosanctity of ballot-casting as a citizenship duty, we need only observe the crusading spirit of get-out-the-vote campaigns. One is made to feel like a slacker if he does not respond.

To rob this get-out-the-vote myth of its glamour, no more is required than to compare ballot-casting as a means of selecting representatives with a method devoid of all voter judgment: selection by lot. Politically unthinkable as it is, reflect, just for example, on your own congressional district. Disqualify all under 21, all of the insane, all illiterates, all convicts.⁴ Write the names of the balance on separate cards to put into a mixing machine, and let some blindfolded person withdraw one card. Presto! Here is your next representative in Congress, for one term only. After all, how can a person qualify to vote if he is not qualified to hold the office himself? And, further, it is assumed, he will feel duty-bound to serve, as when called for jury duty.

Wanted: An “Ordinary Citizen”

The first reaction to such a procedure is one of horror: “Why, we might get only an ordinary citizen.” Very well. Compare such a prospect with one of two wrongdoers which all too frequently is our only choice under the two-party, ballot-casting system. Further, I submit that there is no governmental official, today, who can qualify as anything better than an “ordinary citizen.” How can he possibly claim any superiority over those upon whose votes his election depends? And, it is of the utmost importance that we never ascribe anything more to any of them. Not one among the millions in officialdom is in any degree omniscient, all-seeing, or competent in the slightest to rule over the creative aspects of any other citizen. The recognition that a citizen chosen by lot could be no more than an ordinary citizen would be all to the good. This would automatically strip officialdom of that aura of almightiness which so commonly attends it; government would be unseated from its master’s role and restored to its servant’s role, a highly desirable shift in emphasis.

Reflect on some of the other probable consequences:

a. With nearly everyone conscious that only “ordinary citizens” were occupying political positions, the question of who should rule would lose its significance. Immediately, we would become acutely aware of the far more important question: What should be the extent of the rule? That we would press for a severe limitation of the state seems almost self-evident.

b. No more talk of a “third party” as a panacea. Political parties, which have become all but meaningless as we know them, would cease to exist.

c. No more campaign speeches with their promises of how much better we would fare were the candidates to spend our income for us.

d. An end to campaign fundraising.

e. No more self-chosen “saviors” catering to base desires in order to win elections.

f. An end to that type of voting in Congress which has an eye more to re-election than to what’s right.

g. The mere prospect of having to go to Congress during a lifetime, even though there would be but one chance in some 10,000, would completely reorient citizens’ attention to the principles which bear on government’s relationship to society. Everyone would have an incentive to “bone up,” as the saying goes, if for no other reason than not to make a fool of himself, just in case! There would be an enormous increase in self-directed education in an area on which the future of society depends. In other words, the strong tendency would be to bring out the best, not the worst, in every citizen.

It would, of course, be absurd to work out the details, to refine, to suggest the scope of a selection-by-lot design, for it hardly falls within the realm of either probability or possibility—at least, not for a long, long time. Further, only folly would be heaped on absurdity were one to advocate any meddling with the present machinery.

Reform Follows Understanding

Why, if one believes mass voting to be inferior to selection by lot, should one not urge immediate reform? Let me slightly rephrase an explanation by Gustave Le Bon:

The reason is that it is not within our power to force sudden transformations in complex social organisms. Nature has recourse, at times, to radical measures, but never after our fashion, which explains how it is that nothing is more fatal to a people than the mania for great reforms, however excellent these reforms may appear theoretically. They would only be useful were it possible suddenly to change a whole nation of people. Men are ruled by ideas, sentiments, customs—these are of men’s essence. Institutions (social organisms) and laws are but the outward manifestation or outcome of the underlying ideas, sentiments, customs, in short, character. To urge a different outcome would in no way alter men’s character—or the outcome.⁵

Why, then, should selection by lot be so much as mentioned? Merely to let the mind dwell on this intriguing alternative to current political inanities gives all the ammunition one needs to refrain from casting a ballot for one of two candidates, neither of whom is guided by integrity. Unless we can divorce ourselves from this unprincipled myth, we are condemned to a political competition that has only one end: the omnipotent state. This would conclude all economic freedom and with it, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of worship. And even freedom to vote will be quite worthless—as it is under any dictatorship.

Responsible citizenship demands, first of all, a personal attention to and a constant re-examination of one’s own ideas, sentiments, customs. Such scrutiny may reveal that voting for candidates who bear false witness is not required of the good citizen. At the very least, the idea merits thoughtful exploration.

Notes

1. If it be conceded that the role of government is to secure “certain unalienable rights, that among them are the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” by what stretch of the imagination can this be achieved when we vote for those who are openly committed to unsecuring these rights?
2. Responsibilities of citizenship involve a host of personal attributes, first and foremost a duty to one’s Maker, duty to self, to family, to neighbors, and so on. Is it not evident, therefore, that voting is a mere formality after the fact? It’s much too late to be a responsible citizen if the responsibility hasn’t been exercised before election day. Everybody voted for Khrushchev in the last Russian election! Clearly, that was no evidence of responsible citizenship.
3. See The Law by Frédéric Bastiat, pp. 16–17. Obtainable from the Foundation for Economic Education.
4. One might like to disqualify everybody who receives governmental aid but, then, who would remain? The very bread we eat is subsidized. Those who ride on planes or use the mails, and so on, would be disqualified.
5. See The Crowd by Gustave Le Bon (New York: The Viking Press, 1960), p. 4.

Related posts:

1. The Lesser of Two Evils
2. Regardless of Choice, Vote!
3. I Won’t Vote!

“True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written; in writing what deserves to be read; and in so living as to make the world happier and better for our living in it.”
—Pliny the Elder

The Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder was born in 23 A.D. When he passed away at the age of 56, he had written 37 books on the nature of the physical universe—including geography, anthropology, zoology, botany, and other related subjects.

Pliny did, indeed, leave the world happier and better for having lived in it. He lived every moment of his life with zest—enthusiasm—perhaps the greatest stimulus for noble works. Wrote Emerson: “Every great and commanding movement in the annals of the world is the triumph of enthusiasm. Nothing great was ever accomplished without it.”

The following is an attempt to think through and to understand Pliny’s three parts of True Glory. If even partially successful, I will make a small contribution to the displacement of that which should be neither written nor read.

True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written. It consists in noble deeds worth recording. This is to be distinguished from blatant notoriety. History presents far more writings of the latter sort than the former. Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, and countless other great destroyers loom too large in written history.

Why these lopsided recordings? It is the bad, not the good, that attracts the public eye. Observe today’s media and the preponderance of reporting that does not deserve to be either written or read, spoken or heard.

In my study of writing that deserves to be written, I’ve been surprised that most of the world’s great writers—past and present—never kept a daily journal. Obviously, they had other disciplines that brought out their remarkable writings. We are all different in all respects. As for me, I have kept a journal for nearly 27 years without missing a day—capturing every thought that comes to mind or that I have learned from others—a rewarding experience. What a discipline—writing such entries for nearly 10,000 days!

Recently I came upon my entry of August 11, 1955, long since forgotten:

If it were not for the gravitational force pulling us down, there would be no such concept as “up.”

I now recall discovering, just a few days later, while reading Dagobert Runes’s Treasury of Philosophy, that around 500 B.C. Heraclitus was saying the same thing: “Men would not have known the name of justice if there were no injustice.” This made me laugh at my “originality” and brought to mind Goethe’s assertion: “All truly wise ideas have been thought already thousands of times.”

Assuming the above observations to be valid, then “doing what deserves to be written” is learning how to cope with and overcome life’s countless obstacles. It is an observed fact that the art of becoming—human development—is composed of acts of overcoming.

Obstacles are assuredly the source of aspirations. Human frailties—which lead to such things as governmental interventions of the kinds that destroy creative activities—inspire their own overcoming. Why, then, do errors have their value? Their overcoming leads to evolution—human liberty!

True glory consists in writing what deserves to be read. There are countless thousands of books, articles, and commentaries that deserve to be read. The vast majority of these writings are known to a mere handful of people. I shall refer to only one that is an inspiring and instructive example: You Are Extraordinary by Roger J. Williams.

Professor Williams, a noted biochemist, became convinced that his wife’s death was caused by the doctor treating her as “an equal,” rather than as an individual. This led the professor to his first study in human variation, having to do only with the variation in taste buds in different people. The findings, published in Free and Unequal, are fantastic.

Having an unusually inquiring mind, he began an investigation into ever so many other forms of variation. The findings appeared in 1956: Biochemical Individuality, somewhat technical for lay readers. Nevertheless, I read it with avidity, because it contained an important key to the freedom philosophy. It was this book that led to my acquaintance with the author.

We corresponded, and after answering a question of mine he added that he had just written a book, to be entitled You Are Extraordinary, designed, he said, for lay readers. The manuscript was enclosed.

Professor Williams was extraordinary. So are you and so am I and so is each human being. Indeed, no one is the same as a moment ago. Variation is a rule of all life—plant, animal, and man.

Once variation is recognized as a fact of life, there can be no endorsement—none whatsoever—of know-it-alls controlling the creative actions of you or me or anyone. Authoritarianism dismissed as utter nonsense! We would witness hosts of public officials reduced to a mere fraction thereof. All but a few would return to that wonderful status of self-responsible citizens—America’s miraculous performance on the go again.

True glory consists in so living as to make the world happier and better. How do we live to make others happier and better? Here are a few guidelines, mostly gleaned from others:

Stand for and staunchly abide by what is believed to be righteous—seeking approval from God, not man.

Strive for that excellence in the understanding and explanation of freedom which will cause others to seek one’s tutorship. This brings happiness to both the striver and the seeker—and the world!

Live with zest and enthusiasm. Nothing great was ever accomplished in the absence of such spirit.

Be optimistic. This does not mean a blindness to dictocrats lording it over us. Rather, it is self-assurance that a turnabout is in the offing. The world is not going to the dogs as the prophets of doom proclaim. Optimism increases happiness for it is contagious.

To serve truth and freedom is as high as we can go. When more of us than now attain this intellectual and moral height, the path toward glory will open:

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

Related posts:

1. Glory Be!
2. Glory Be!

I have vowed never to support any organization which would take positions representing me, which positions I would not willingly (peacefully) stand personally responsible for. In short, I object to organizations that claim a consensus that does not exist—a false reporting of agreement growing out of committee action.

It is logical for anyone to inquire, “Well, what about support of and membership in one of the two major political parties? Would you go so far as to take part in neither of these? You would vote for the candidate of one or the other party, regardless of positions, wouldn’t you?” These are good questions and deserve a careful answer, though I am not suggesting that anyone else adopt my view.

According to The Columbia Encyclopedia, “the existence of only two major parties, as in most English-speaking countries, presupposes general public agreement on constitutional questions and on the aims of government.” This idea is fundamental to my thesis. Under such agreeable circumstances, each party keeps a check on the other, thus giving assurance that neither party will step out of the bounds that have been agreed upon.

Let it be re-emphasized that the two-party system (1) presupposes a general agreement on constitutional questions and the aims of government and (2) aims at, if it does not presuppose, honest candidates contending for office within the framework of that constitution. In this kind of political order, each office seeker is supposed to present fairly his own capabilities as related to the agreed-upon framework, voting being for the purpose of deciding which candidate is more competent for that limited role.

Clearly, the theory as originally conceived did not intend that the positions of candidates should be a response to voter opinion polls concerning the content or meaning of the constitution and the aims of government. If voters could thus reshape or reform the boundaries of government at will, there would be no need of candidates. Far less costly and more efficient would be the purchase of an electronic computer into which voter opinions and caprices would be continually fed; it could spew out altered constitutions and governmental purposes every second!

If there were “a general public agreement on constitutional questions and on the aims of government,” and if candidates were vying with each other for office solely on their competency to perform within this framework, I would have no comment. But there is little contemporary agreement as to constitutional questions and the aims of government! Name a point that can now be presupposed. Both the questions and the aims are at sixes and sevens.

And as to candidates—with a few notable exceptions—they no longer contend with each other as to their competence to serve within a generally accepted framework but, instead:

(1) they compete to see which one can come up with the most popular alteration of the framework, and

(2) they compete to see which one can get himself in front of the most popular voter grab bag in order to stand four-square for some people’s supposed right to other people’s income.

The upshot of this political chaos is that voters are seldom given the chance to decide on the basis of competency but have only the choice of deciding between opportunists or, a better term, trimmers. This changed situation does, indeed, call for comments about political party membership and voting.

Despite the respectability of the two-party theory, its practice has “come a cropper.” Today, trimming is so much in vogue that often a voter cannot cast a ballot except for one of two trimmers. Heard over and over again is the apology, “Well, the only choice I had was to vote for the lesser of two evils. I had to vote for one of them, didn’t I?” A moral tragedy is implicit in this confession, as well as a political fallacy; in combination they must eventually lead to economic disaster.

I. The Moral Tragedy

It is morally tragic whenever a citizen’s only choice is between two wrongdoers—that is, between two trimmers.

A trimmer, according to the dictionary, is one who changes his opinions and policies to suit the occasion. In contemporary political life, he is any candidate whose position on issues depends solely on what he thinks will have most voter appeal. He ignores the dictates of his higher conscience, trims his personal idea of what is morally right, tailors his stand to the popular fancy. Integrity, the accurate reflection in word and deed of that which is thought to be morally right, is sacrificed to expediency.

These are severe charges, and I do not wish to be misunderstood. One of countless personal experiences will help clarify what is meant: A candidate for Congress sat across the desk listening to my views about limited government. At the conclusion of an hour’s discussion he remarked, “I am in thorough accord with your views; you are absolutely right. But I couldn’t get elected on any such platform, so I shall represent myself as holding views other than these.” He might as well have added, “I propose to bear false witness.”

No doubt the candidate thought, on balance, that he was justified, that The Larger Good would be better served were he elected—regardless, of how untruthfully he represented his position—than were he to stand for his version of the truth and go down to defeat.

This candidate is “a mixed-up kid.” His values are topsy-turvy, as the saying goes. In an egotism that has no parallel, he puts his election to office above honesty. Why, asks the responsible voter, should I endorse dishonesty by voting for such a candidate? He has, on his own say-so, forsworn virtue by insisting on bearing false witness. Does he think his ambition for office is right because he needs a job? Then let him seek employment where want of principle is less harmful to others. Or, is his notion of rightness based on how much the rest of us would benefit by having him as our representative? What? A person without moral scruple representing us in Congress! The role of the legislator is to secure our rights to life, liberty, and property—that is, to protect us against fraud, violence, predation, and misrepresentation (false witness). Would our candidate have us believe that “it takes a crook to catch a crook”?

Such righteousness or virtue as exists in the mind of man does not and cannot manifest itself in the absence of integrity—the honest, accurate reflection in deeds of one’s beliefs. Without this virtue the other virtues must lie dormant and unused. What else remains? It is doubtful if anything contributes more to the diseased condition of society than the diminishing practice of integrity.

Those of us who attach this much importance to integrity must perforce construe trimming as evil. Therefore, when both candidates for public office are judged to be trimmers, the one who trims less than the other is often regarded as “the lesser of two evils.” But, is he really? It must be conceded that there are gradations of wrongdoing: killing is worse than stealing, and perhaps stealing is worse than covetousness. At any rate, if wrongdoing is not comparative, then it is self-evident that the best of us are just as evil as the worst of us; for man is fallible, all men!

Degrees of Evil

While categories of wrongdoing are comparative, it does not follow that wrong deeds within any given category of evil are comparative. For instance, it is murder whether one man is slain, or two. It is stealing whether the amount is ten cents or a thousand dollars. And, a lie is a lie whether told to one person or to a million. “Thou shalt not kill”; “Thou shalt not steal”; “Thou shalt not bear false witness” are derived from principles. Principles do not permit of compromise; they are either adhered to or surrendered.

Is trimming comparative? Can one trimmer be less at fault than another trimmer? Does the quantity of trimming have anything whatsoever to do with the matter? Or, rather, is this not a question of quality or character? To trim is to ignore the dictates of higher conscience; it is to take flight from integrity. Is not the candidate who will trim once for one vote likely to trim twice for more votes? Does he not demonstrate by any single act of trimming, regardless of how minor, that he stands ready to abandon the dictates of conscience for the place he seeks in the political sun? Does not the extent or quantity of trimming merely reflect a judgment as to how much trimming is expedient?

If the only question at issue is whether a candidate will trim at all, then trimming is not comparative; thus, it would be incorrect to report, “I cast my ballot for the lesser of two evils.” Accuracy would require, “I felt there was no choice except to cast a ballot for one of two men, both of whom have sacrificed integrity for the hope of votes.”

We must not, however, heap all our condemnation on candidates who trim. There would be no such candidates were it not for voters who trim. Actually, when we find only trimmers to vote for, most of us are getting what we deserve. The trimmers who succeed in offering themselves as candidates are, by and large, mere reflections of irresponsible citizenship—that is, of neglected thinking, study, education, vigilance. Candidates who trim and voters who trim are each cause and each effect; they feed on each other. When the worst get on top it is because there are enough of the worst among us to put them there.

To repeat, when one must choose between men who forsake integrity, the situation is tragic, and there is little relief at the polling level except as candidates of integrity may be encouraged by voters of integrity. Impractical idealism? Of course not! Read Edmund Burke, one of the great statesmen of all time, addressing his constituency:

But his [the candidate's] unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure—no, nor from the law and the Constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

II. The Political Fallacy

Is it fallacious to believe that responsible citizenship requires casting a ballot for one or the other of two candidates, regardless of how far the candidates have departed from moral rectitude?

Before trying to arrive at an answer, let us reflect on the reason why the so-called duty of casting a ballot, regardless of circumstance, is so rarely questioned. Quite obviously, the duty to vote is one of those sanctified institutions, such as motherhood, which is beyond criticism. The obligation to vote at any and all elections, whatever the issues or personalities, is equated with responsible citizenship. Voting is deeply embedded in the democratic mores as a duty, and one does not affront the mores without the risk of scorn. To do so is to “raise the dead”: it is to resurrect questions that have been settled once and for all; it is to throw doubt on custom, tradition, orthodoxy, the folkways!

Yet any person who is conscious of our rapid drift toward the omnipotent state can hardly escape the suspicion that there may be a fault in our habitual way of looking at things. If the suspicion be correct, then it would be fatal never to examine custom. So, let us bring the sanctity of voting into the open and take a hard look at it, in a spirit of inquiry rather than advocacy.

Now for the hard look: Where is the American who will argue that responsible citizenship would require casting a ballot if a Hitler and a Stalin were the opposing candidates? “Ah,” some will complain, “you carry the example to an absurdity.” Very well, let us move closer to home and our own experience.

Government in the U.S.A. has been pushed far beyond its proper sphere. The Marxian tenet, “from each according to ability, to each according to need,” backed by the armed force of the state, has become established policy. This is partly rationalized by something called “the new economics.” Within this kind of political framework, it is to be expected that one candidate will stand for the coercive expropriation of the earned income of all citizens, giving the funds thus gathered to those in groups A, B, and C. Nor need we be surprised that his opponent differs from him only in advocating that the loot be given to those in groups X, Y, and Z. Does responsible citizenship require casting a ballot for either of these political plunderers? The citizen has no significant moral choice but only an immoral choice in the event he has joined the unholy alliance himself and thinks that one of the candidates will deliver some of the largess to him or to a group he favors. In the latter case, the problem is not one of responsible citizenship but of irresponsible looting.

The Duty to Vote

Does responsible citizenship require voting for irresponsible candidates? To ballot in favor of irresponsible candidates as though it were one’s duty is to misconstrue the meaning of duty. To cast a ballot for a trimmer, because no man of integrity is offering himself, does as much as one can with a ballot to encourage other trimmers to run for office. Can anyone conceive of any element of protest in such balloting? To vote for a trimmer goes further: it would seem to urge, as strongly as one can at the polls, that men of integrity not offer themselves as candidates.

What would happen if we adopted as a criterion: Never vote for a trimmer! Conceding a generous liberality in defining trimmers, millions of us would not cast ballots. Would the end result of this substantial, nonviolent protest, this large-scale demonstration of “voting by turning our backs,” compound our problem? It is difficult to imagine how it could. For a while we would continue to get what we now have: a high percentage of trimmers and plunderers in public office, men who promise privileges in exchange for ballots—and freedom. In time, however, this silent but eloquent refusal to participate might conceivably improve the situation. Men of integrity and high moral quality—statesmen—might show forth and, if so, we could add their numbers to the few now in evidence.

Would a return to integrity by itself solve our problem? No, for many men of integrity do not understand freedom; or, if they do, are not devoted to it. But it is only among men of integrity that any solution can begin to take shape. Such men, at least, will do the right as they see the right; they tend to be teachable. Trimmers and plunderers, on the other hand, are the enemies of morality and freedom by definition; their motivations are below the level of principles; they cannot see beyond the emoluments of office.

Here is a thought to weigh: If respect for a candidate’s integrity were widely adopted as a criterion for casting a ballot, millions of us, as matters now stand, would not cast ballots. Yet, in a very practical sense, would not those of us who protest in this manner be voting? Certainly, we would be counted among that growing number who, by our conscious and deliberate inaction, proclaim that we have no party. What other choice have we at the polling level? Would not this encourage men of statesmanlike qualities to offer themselves in candidacy?

Related posts:

1. I Won’t Vote!
2. Ideas and Consequences: How Important Is Your Vote?
3. A Vote for Myself

There is a line of reasoning, gaining ground among businessmen and others, that tends to narrow an understanding of freedom rather than broaden it. It relates in part to our work at the Foundation for Economic Education, and I want to examine the reasoning from this standpoint.

Over the past 14 years—from countries as remote as India as well as here at home—have come inquiries to this effect: “In what ideological pigeonhole can FEE be put? You folks don’t quite fit Bentham or the Physiocrats or the Georgists or Smith or Mill or Simons, or any system. Where shall we put you?”

Honor be to these discriminating inquirers, for what FEE attempts to purvey is neither a system nor is it “pigeonholeable.” On the contrary, we seek to learn of freedom in its consistent, undiluted, ideal form, and to report candidly and in full what that search reveals.

This effort on behalf of the ideal has met with enough approval to put FEE on its educational and financial feet. While always challenged and even criticized by many “practical” people—among whom are some of the world’s greatest producers—there has been an adequate corps of what we shall call idealists to keep FEE going as a small-scale enterprise. Now, however, “practicality” appears to be winning converts from among those who were thought to be the idealists. Limiting these comments to the “practical” as distinguished from the idealistic businessmen and putting it bluntly, defections are observed at a time when leadership on behalf of the ideal might well turn the tide for freedom.

These “practical” people—many of them—will readily acknowledge that our society is shot through and through with socialism. But, having said this, they will add, “While I agree with your idea of the ideal society in theory, it is utterly naïve to insist upon its rightness in today’s world. The existing political interventions are fait accompli, water over the dam. To condemn them and to suggest the ideal in their stead, as you so undeviatingly do at FEE, is to operate in a dreamland. Forget about upholding the ideal and do your educational work for freedom premised on the what is, not on an idealistic what-ought-to-be. Let us be practical!”

Such counsel, increasingly offered, could more accurately be phrased, “Tell us how to make socialism work,” as though we at FEE could perform that miracle if only we’d try!

For instance, the “practical” argue that TVA is here to stay, as are subsidies to farmers, compulsory Social Security, federal delivery of the mails, exchange controls, the minimum wage at which one is allowed to work, the maximum one is permitted to earn, coercive powers in the hands of labor unions called “gains for the laboring man,” indeed any item of socialism once it is put on the statute books. Everything, no matter how absurd, appears sacrosanct to them the moment it becomes law. Thus, they regard as foolhardy any questioning of what they deem “unalterable.” The president of one of America’s largest corporations summarized their conclusions, “We wouldn’t think of supporting the work of FEE. Why those folks even argue that the government’s social security program is not right.”

Conceding, as they do, the hopelessness of removing any of the interventions, and recognizing clearly enough the miserable distortions these interventions inflict on a free and competitive market, the “practical” minded look with favor on additional anti-market devices such as governmental protections against their competitors. They privately regard as “economic nonsense” the wage earner’s claim to the job he has vacated and, at the same time, claim a right to an exchange made by other parties. They denounce compulsory actions of unions as they ask for compulsory protection for themselves. Their inconsistency, which certainly is apparent to them, is charged off to “being practical.”

It isn’t that these people quarrel with the way FEE presents the ideal; it is that they reject the presentation of the ideal as sound educational procedure. This brings us to the nub of the question, to the point when analysis of their position is possible.

One thing for certain: our “practical” friends, according to their own admissions, are dead set against any more socialism than we now have. Except for some socialism in the form of protection against competition or a pet project, they stoutly advocate “dropping anchor.” Yet, their unwillingness to criticize the status quo, coupled with their refusal to uphold the ideal of a free society for all to see and hear, makes them more effective obstacles to freedom’s progress than are the socialists themselves.

This, indeed, is a serious charge. Valid? Let’s see.

Socialism has only a few articulate antagonists and only a few articulate protagonists. Between these two small groups are unnumbered millions who are more or less indifferent, who at best are only followers of one camp or the other. Every issue has always been thus.

Socialism’s protagonists will argue for, not against, their credo. Count on that!

Now, socialism’s antagonists, were they to follow the counsel of the “practical” people, would remain neutral—standing neither against socialism nor for the ideal. In short, not one person in the population would be signaling either right or wrong. What is not shown to be wrong is perforce right, or so that unnumbered millions “who have the votes” would be warranted in concluding. . . .

Those who, in this moral crisis, remain noncommittal while purporting to be private enterprisers are, in effect, however innocently, abettors of collectivism. They, not the socialists, have the educational obligation for stating the private enterprise case, ideally.

Regardless of how thoroughly we may adjust ourselves to our sickness—or even enjoy it—the numerous social diseases must be repeatedly and consistently identified as maladies lest we mistake our sickness for a state of health. Indeed, such diagnostic action is a necessary preface to corrective action, to the presentation and ultimate realization of freedom in its ideal form.

There aren’t many of us at FEE naïve enough to believe that identifying socialistic projects as maladies, and upholding the ideal, will bring about the ideal. Any such expectation is absurd among human beings who, by nature, are fallible. However, we do insist that this course is the essence of genuine practicality, for only in this manner can our country’s direction be reversed. Man can do no better than travel toward the ideal, and this he can do only if the ideal is sought for and to some extent discovered. We must always face in the right direction! There will never be any undoing of socialism unless the ideal of freedom is identified and upheld with enthusiasm and with undaunted faith.

Related posts:

1. Perspective: The Power of an Ideal
2. Government: An Ideal Concept Leonard Reads Formula for Freedom
3. The Search for an Ideal Money

Someone once said: It isn’t that Christianity has been tried and found wanting; it has been tried and found difficult—and abandoned. Perhaps the same thing might be said about freedom. The American people are becoming more and more afraid of, and are running away from, their own revolution. I think that statement takes a bit of documentation.

I would like to go back, a little over three centuries in our history, to the year 1620, which was the occasion of the landing of our Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth Rock. That little colony began its career in a condition of pure and unadulterated communism. For it made no difference how much or how little any member of that colony produced; all the produce went into a common warehouse under authority, and the proceeds of the warehouse were doled out in accordance with the authority’s idea of need. In short, the Pilgrims began the practice of a principle held up by Karl Marx two centuries later as the ideal of the Communist Party: from each according to ability, to each according to need—and by force!

There was a good reason why these communalistic or communistic practices were discontinued. It was because the members of the Pilgrim colony were starving and dying. As a rule, that type of experience causes people to stop and think about it!

Anyway, they did stop and think about it. During the third winter Governor Bradford got together with the remaining members of the colony and said to them, in effect: “This coming spring we are going to try a new idea. We are going to drop the practice of ‘from each according to ability, to each according to need.’ We are going to try the idea of ‘to each according to merit.’” And when Governor Bradford said that, he enunciated the private property principle as clearly and succinctly as any economist ever had. That principle is nothing more nor less than each individual having a right to the fruits of his own labor. Next spring came, and it was observed that not only was father in the field but mother and the children were there also. Governor Bradford records that “Any generall wante or famine hath not been amongst them since to this day.”

It was by reason of the practice of this private property principle that there began in this country an era of growth and development which sooner or later had to lead to revolutionary political ideas. And it did lead to what I refer to as the real American revolution.

I do not think of the real American revolution as the armed conflict we had with King George III. That was a reasonably minor fracas as such fracases go! The real American revolution was a novel concept or idea which broke with the whole political history of the world.

Up until 1776 men had been contesting with each other, killing each other by the millions, over the age-old question of which of the numerous forms of authoritarianism—that is, man-made authority—should preside as sovereign over man. And then, in 1776, in the fraction of one sentence written into the Declaration of Independence was stated the real American Revolution, the new idea, and it was this: “that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” That was it. This is the essence of Americanism. This is the rock upon which the whole “American miracle” was founded.

This revolutionary concept was at once a spiritual, a political, and an economic concept. It was spiritual in that the writers of the Declaration recognized and publicly proclaimed that the Creator was the endower of man’s rights, and thus the Creator is sovereign.

It was political in implicitly denying that the state is the endower of man’s rights, thus declaring that the state is not sovereign.

It was economic in the sense that if an individual has a right to his life, it follows that he has a right to sustain his life—the sustenance of life being nothing more nor less than the fruits of one’s own labor.

It is one thing to state such a revolutionary concept as this; it’s quite another thing to implement it—to put it into practice. To accomplish this, our Founding Fathers added two political instruments—the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These two instruments were essentially a set of prohibitions; prohibitions not against the people but against the thing the people, from their Old World experience, had learned to fear, namely, over-extended government.

Benefits of Limited Government

The Constitution and the Bill of Rights more severely limited government than government had ever before been limited in the history of the world. And there were benefits that flowed from this severe limitation of the state.

Number one, there wasn’t a single person who turned to the government for security, welfare, or prosperity because government was so limited that it had nothing on hand to dispense, nor did it then have the power to take from some that it might give to others. To what or to whom do people turn if they cannot turn to government for security, welfare, or prosperity? They turn where they should turn—to themselves.

As a result of this discipline founded on the concept that the Creator, not the state, is the endower of man’s rights, we developed in this country on an unprecedented scale a quality of character that Emerson referred to as “self-reliance.” All over the world the American people gained the reputation of being self-reliant.

There was another benefit that flowed from this severe limitation of government. When government is limited to the inhibition of the destructive actions of men—that is, when it is limited to inhibiting fraud and depredation, violence and misrepresentation, when it is limited to invoking a common justice—then there is no organized force standing against the productive or creative actions of citizens. As a consequence of this limitation on government, there occurred a freeing, a releasing, of creative human energy, on an unprecedented scale.

This was the combination mainly responsible for the “American miracle,” founded on the belief that the Creator, not the state, is the endower of man’s rights.

This manifested itself among the people as individual freedom of choice. People had freedom of choice as to how they employed themselves. They had freedom of choice as to what they did with the fruits of their own labor.

But something happened to this remarkable idea of ours, this revolutionary concept. It seems that the people we placed in government office as our agents made a discovery. Having acquisitive instincts for affluence and power over others—as indeed some of us do—they discovered that the force which inheres in government, which the people had delegated to them in order to inhibit the destructive actions of man, this monopoly of force could be used to invade the productive and creative areas in society—one of which is the business sector. And they also found that if they incurred any deficits by their interventions, the same government force could be used to collect the wherewithal to pay the bills.

I would like to suggest to you that the extent to which government in America has departed from the original design of inhibiting the destructive actions of man and invoking a common justice; the extent to which government has invaded the productive and creative areas; the extent to which the government in this country has assumed the responsibility for the security, welfare, and prosperity of our people is a measure of the extent to which socialism and communism have developed here in this land of ours.

The Lengthening Shadow

Can we measure this development? Not precisely, but we can get a fair idea of it by referring to something I said a moment ago about one of our early characteristics as a nation—individual freedom of choice as to the use of the fruits of one’s own labor. If you will measure the loss in freedom of choice in this matter, you will get an idea of what is going on.

There was a time, about 120 years ago, when the average citizen had somewhere between 95 and 98 percent freedom of choice with each of his income dollars. That was because the tax take of the government—federal, state, and local—was between 2 and 5 percent of the earned income of the people. But, as the emphasis shifted from this earlier design, as government began to move in to invade the productive and creative areas and to assume the responsibility for the security, welfare, and prosperity of the people, the percentage of the take of the people’s earned income increased. The percentage of the take kept going up and up and up until today it’s not 2 to 5 percent. It is now [1961] over 35 percent.

Whenever the take of the people’s earned income by government reaches a certain level—20 or 25 percent—it is no longer politically expedient to pay for the costs of government by direct tax levies. Governments then resort to inflation as a means of financing their ventures. This is happening to us now! By “inflation” I mean increasing the volume of money by the national government’s fiscal policy. Governments resort to inflation with popular support because the people apparently are naïve enough to believe that they can have their cake and eat it, too. Many people do not realize that they cannot continue to enjoy so-called “benefits” from government without having to pay for them. They do not appreciate the fact that inflation is probably the most unjust and most cruel tax of all.

Inflation is the fiscal concomitant of socialism or the welfare state or state interventionism—call it what you will. Inflation is a political weapon. There are no other means of financing the welfare state except by inflation.

So, if you don’t like inflation, there is only one thing you can do: assist in returning our government to its original principles.

One of my hobbies is cooking and, therefore, I am familiar with the gadgets around the kitchen. One of the things with which I am familiar is a sponge. A sponge in some respects resembles a good economy. A sponge will sop up an awful lot of mess; but when the sponge is saturated, the sponge itself is a mess, and the only way you can make it useful again is to wring the mess out of it. I hope my analogy is clear.

Inflation in the United States has ever so many more catastrophic potentials than has ever been the case in any other country in history. We here are the most advanced division-of-labor society that has ever existed. That is, we are more specialized than any other people has ever been; we are further removed from self-subsistence.

Indeed, we are so specialized today that every one of us—everybody in this room, in the nation, even the farmer—is absolutely dependent upon a free, uninhibited exchange of our numerous specialties. That is a self-evident fact.

Destroying the Circulatory System

In any highly specialized economy you do not effect specialized exchanges by barter. You never observe a man going into a gasoline station saying, “Here is a goose; give me a gallon of gas.” That’s not the way to do it in a specialized economy. You use an economic circulatory system, which is money, the medium of exchange.

This economic circulatory system, in some respects, can be likened to the circulatory system of the body, which is the blood stream.

The circulatory system of the body picks up oxygen in the lungs and ingested food in the midsection and distributes these specialties to the 30 trillion cells of the body. At those points it picks up carbon dioxide and waste matter and carries them off. I could put a hypodermic needle into one of your veins and thin your blood stream to the point where it would no longer make these exchanges, and when I reached that point, we could refer to you quite accurately in the past tense.

By the same token, you can thin your economic circulatory system, your medium of exchange, to the point where it will no longer circulate the products and services of economic specialization.

Those of you who are interested in doing something about this have a right to ask yourselves a perfectly logical question: Has there ever been an instance, historically, when a country has been on this toboggan and succeeded in reversing itself? There have been some minor instances. I will not attempt to enumerate them. The only significant one took place in England after the Napoleonic Wars.

How England Did It

England’s debt, in relation to her resources, was larger than ours is now; her taxation was confiscatory; restrictions on the exchanges of goods and services were numerous, and there were strong controls on production and prices. Had it not been for the smugglers, many people would have starved!

Something happened in that situation, and we ought to take cognizance of it. What happened there might be emulated here even though our problem is on a much larger scale. There were in England such men as John Bright and Richard Cobden, men who understood the principle of freedom of exchange. Over in France, there was a politician by the name of Chevalier, and an economist named Frederic Bastiat.

Incidentally, if any of you have not read the little book by Bastiat entitled The Law, I commend it as the finest thing that I have ever read on the principles one ought to keep in mind when trying to judge for oneself what the scope of government should be.

Bastiat was feeding his brilliant ideas to Cobden and Bright, and these men were preaching the merits of freedom of exchange. Members of Parliament listened and, as a consequence, there began the greatest reform movement in British history.

Parliament repealed the Corn Laws, which here would be like repealing subsidies to farmers. They repealed the Poor Laws, which here would be like repealing Social Security. And fortunately for them they had a monarch—her name was Victoria—who relaxed the authority that the English people themselves believed to be implicit in her office. She gave them freedom in the sense that a prisoner on parole has freedom, a permissive kind of freedom but with lots of latitude. Englishmen, as a result, roamed all over the world achieving unparalleled prosperity and building an enlightened empire.

This development continued until just before World War I. Then the same old political disease set in again. What precisely is this disease that causes inflation and all these other troubles? It has many popular names, some of which I have mentioned, such as socialism, communism, state interventionism, and welfare statism. It has other names such as fascism and Nazism. It has some local names like New Deal, Fair Deal, New Republicanism, New Frontier, and the like.

A Dwindling Faith in Freedom

If you will take a careful look at these so-called “progressive ideologies,” you will discover that each of them has a characteristic common to all the rest. This common characteristic is a cell in the body politic which has a cancer-like capacity for inordinate growth. This characteristic takes the form of a belief. It is a rapidly growing belief in the use of organized force—government—not to carry out its original function of inhibiting the destructive actions of men and invoking a common justice, but to control the productive and creative activity of citizens in society. That is all it is. Check any one of these ideologies and see if this is not its essential characteristic.

Here is an example of what I mean: I can remember the time when, if we wanted a house or housing, we relied on private enterprise. First, we relied on the person who wanted a house. Second, we relied on the persons who wanted to compete in the building. And third, we relied on those who thought they saw some advantage to themselves in loaning the money for the tools, material, and labor. Under that system of free enterprise, Americans built more square feet of housing per person than any other country on the face of the earth. Despite that remarkable accomplishment, more and more people are coming to believe that the only way we can have adequate housing is to use government to take the earnings from some and give these earnings, in the form of housing, to others. In other words, we are right back where the Pilgrim Fathers were in 1620–23 and Karl Marx was in 1847—from each according to ability, to each according to need, and by the use of force.

As this belief in the use of force as a means of creative accomplishment increases, the belief in free men—that is, men acting freely, competitively, cooperatively, voluntarily—correspondingly diminishes. Increase compulsion and freedom declines. Therefore, the solution to this problem, if there be one, must take a positive form, namely, the restoration of a faith in what free men can accomplish. The American people, by and large, have lost track of the spiritual antecedent of the American miracle. You are given a choice: either you accept the idea of the Creator as the endower of man’s rights, or you submit to the idea that the state is the endower of man’s rights. I double-dare any of you to offer a third alternative. We have forgotten the real source of our rights and are suffering the consequences.

Millions of people, aware that something is wrong, look around for someone to blame. They dislike socialism and communism and give lip service to their dislike. They sputter about the New Frontier and Modern Republicanism. But, among the millions who say they don’t like these ideologies, you cannot find one in ten thousand whom you yourself will designate as a skilled, accomplished expositor of socialism’s opposite—the free market, private property, limited government philosophy with its moral and spiritual antecedents. How many people do you know who are knowledgeable in this matter? Very few, I dare say.

Developing Leadership

No wonder we are losing the battle! The problem then—the real problem—is developing a leadership for this philosophy, persons from different walks of life who understand and can explain this philosophy.

This leadership functions at three levels. The first level requires that an individual achieve that degree of understanding which makes it utterly impossible for him to have any hand in supporting or giving any encouragement to any socialistic activities. Leadership at this level doesn’t demand any creative writing, thinking, and talking, but it does require an understanding of what things are really socialistic, however disguised. People reject socialism in name, but once any socialistic activity has been Americanized, nearly everybody thinks it’s all right. So you have to take the definition of socialism—state ownership and control of the means of production—and check our current practices against this definition.

As a matter of fact, you should read the ten points of the Communist Manifesto and see how close we have come to achieving them right here in America. It’s amazing.

The second level of leadership is reached when you achieve that degree of understanding and exposition which makes it possible to expose the fallacies of socialism and set forth some of the principles of freedom to those who come within your own personal orbit. Now, this takes a lot more doing.

One of the things you have to do to achieve this second level of leadership is some studying. Most people have to, at any rate, and one of the reasons the Foundation for Economic Education exists is to help such people. At the Foundation we are trying to understand the freedom philosophy better ourselves, and we seek ways of explaining it with greater clarity. The results appear in single-page releases, in a monthly journal, in books and pamphlets, in lectures, seminars, and the like. Our journal, The Freeman, for instance, is available to students and libraries on request.

The third level of leadership is to achieve that excellence in understanding and exposition which will cause other persons to seek you out as a tutor. That is the highest you can go, but there is no limit as to how far you can go in becoming a good tutor.

When you operate at this highest level of leadership, you must rely only on the power of attraction. Let me explain what I mean by this.

On April 22 we had St. Andrew’s Day at my golf club. About 150 of us were present, including yours truly. When I arrived at the club, the other 149 did not say, “Leonard, won’t you please play with me? Won’t you please show me the proper stance, the proper grip, the proper swing?” They didn’t do it. You know why? Because by now those fellows are aware of my incompetence as a golfer. But if you were to wave a magic wand and make of me, all of a sudden, a Sam Snead, a Ben Hogan, an Arnold Palmer, or the like, watch the picture change! Every member of that club would sit at my feet hoping to learn from me how to improve his own game. This is the power of attraction. You cannot do well at any subject without an audience automatically forming around you. Trust me on that.

If you want to be helpful to the cause of freedom in this country, seek to become a skilled expositor. If you have worked at the philosophy of freedom and an audience isn’t forming, don’t write and ask what the matter is. Just go back and do more of your homework.

Actually, when you get into this third level of leadership, you have to use methods that are consonant with your objective. Suppose, for instance, that my objective were your demise. I could use some fairly low-grade methods, couldn’t I? But now, suppose my objective to be the making of a great poet out of you. What could I do about that? Not a thing—unless by some miracle I first learned to distinguish good poetry from bad, and then learned to impart this knowledge to you.

The philosophy of freedom is at the very pinnacle of the hierarchy of values; and if you wish to further the cause of freedom, you must use methods that are consonant with your objective. This means relying on the power of attraction.

Let me conclude with a final thought. This business of freedom is an ore that lies much deeper than most of us realize. Too many of us are prospecting wastefully on the surface. Freedom isn’t something to be bought cheaply. A great effort is required to dig up this ore that will save America. And where are we to find the miners?

I think we will find these miners of the freedom ore among those who love this country. I think we will probably find them in this room. And if you were to ask me who, in my opinion, has the greatest responsibility as a miner, I would suggest that it is the attractive individual occupying the seat you are sitting in.

Related posts:

1. The Essence of Americanism
2. Americanism in Action
3. A Reviewers Notebook: The Essence of Hayek

I want less talk and more action.”

Thus speak Americans when they suddenly awaken to the fact that their liberties are endangered. Talk, they say, is useless; only action counts. But perhaps talk and action aren’t necessarily opposites. What if studying, talking, writing, and explaining should turn out to be the only worthwhile action there is? What then?

There are only two types of action: physical and intellectual. Do those who would save liberty advocate physical action? If so, how? To use physical force against others, except defensively, is to destroy the liberty of others which, by definition, is not liberty. To adopt this tactic—to employ physical force against others in any form or degree, except in self-defense—would be merely to substitute a new form of compulsion for the existing forms of compulsion, trading violence for violence—revolution! At best, it is the court of last resort and is not, really, what most persons have in mind when they insist they want action. Most of them mean only that they want “something done,” and quickly! They want to fight peacefully. The thought of using fists or guns never as much as enters their heads; they reject physical action, in their calculations, by not even contemplating it. Thus, according to their own thesis, nothing logically remains but intellectual action.

The Mania for Organizing

How, then, does one fight for liberty intellectually? The best thing to do even in an intellectual fight for liberty, many think, is to organize—which is a form of action. Usually they think in terms of organizing someone else to do something instead of organizing their own time and energies. This damaging tactic is employed as though organizing had the power, somehow, to absolve individuals from doing any more than joining some organization. This mania for organizing is usually little more than an effort, doubtless unwitting, to transfer responsibility from oneself to some other person or persons whose competence is often unknown.

Responsibility and authority always go hand in hand. Thus, if this process of organizing succeeds, authority over one’s own actions is lost precisely in the degree that responsibility is shifted to someone else. The citizen who “wants action,” and resorts to this type of tactic, ends up further from his goal than ever. In fact, organizing, more often than not, is merely an attempt to “pass the buck.” Yet, oddly enough, the mere act seems to have the strange power of conferring a sense of accomplishment on the ones who organize.

Organization, though much used, seems to be little understood. In the field of extending individual liberty, organization has strictly limited, technical possibilities. Unless these limitations are scrupulously observed, organization will inflict on liberty more harm than good; thwart, not abet, the spread of understanding. Sobering is the thought that if there were no organization, there could be no socialism! . . .

For Voluntary Cooperation

Organizations can, however, serve a highly useful purpose in developing and spreading an understanding of liberty if organization is confined to its proper sphere. For the purpose of advancing liberty, which depends solely on the advancement of individual understanding, the only usefulness of organization would seem to be to accommodate and to make easier the joint contribution to, participation in, and ownership of the physical assets that will aid in the process. These physical assets may include typewriters, buildings, specialized libraries, printing presses, telephones, and the many other tools helpful to individuals who are attempting to extend their understanding of liberty. These physical accommodations can enable searchers for truth to exchange and disseminate ideas and knowledge more effectively. They can be used to secure the advantages which derive from specialization or division of labor. Organization, limited to this form of voluntary cooperation, is a useful and efficient means for achieving these desirable ends.

Organization, however, like government, if extended beyond its proper sphere, becomes positively harmful to the original purpose. This fact constitutes the need for much careful thought on organizational limitation. Just as government becomes dangerous when its coercive, restrictive, and destructive powers are extended into the creative areas, so do voluntary organizations pervert and destroy the benefits of intellect when the capacity to merge is carried to the point of subjecting individual judgments to the will of the majority or group. Truth, as each person sees it, is the best that the mind of man has to offer. Its distortion, inevitable when achieving a collective chorus, does injury to understanding.

Try Self-Improvement

If organization is not the best way to secure liberty, then what is? My answer—self-improvement—is the essence of simplicity. The reasons which lie behind the answer, however, are not so simple.

The inclination to escape personal responsibility—plus the belief that somehow intellectual miracles can be wrought by us on someone else—is too pervasive for easy rejection. Unless we fully understand that these inclinations and beliefs are wholly without merit, we will continue to indulge in them. I wish to make the argument that self-improvement is the only practical course to liberty.

Is there one book or one article written by anyone at any time that can be designated as the final word on liberty? Perhaps the best that can be said is that the finest minds of all time have been in pursuit of its understanding and that now and then a tiny ray of new light has been thrown on what theretofore was darkness and lack of understanding. These few most advanced searchers have been among the first to say, “The more exploration I do, the more I find there is to learn.”

The reason for this difficulty in understanding liberty is that liberty, like truth, is an object of infinite pursuit, a quest without end, ever! The understanding of liberty requires intellectual ventures into the areas of the unknown or, more likely, into the areas that have become unknown or that majorities have declared taboo. Have you not noticed the vigor we employ when a present liberty is threatened and then, when it is lost, how soon we refer to it as a “social gain”? How can one who has been thus trapped, or who himself has lapsed into thinking of a new restraint as a “social gain,” possibly identify the liberties he has lost?

Every individual ought to realize that he has not mastered the subject of liberty until he thoroughly understands, and can competently explain, this idea: With government properly limited to its legitimate functions of defense, our problems of interdependence can be resolved through voluntary effort, and only through voluntary effort. If that is a correct appraisal, then most persons are inexpert in their understanding of this subject.

In brief, not a single person among us is justified in regarding himself other than as a student of liberty. No know-it-all exists or ever will.

In searching for a student of liberty, the search must be within oneself. In the world of persons, it is only within each of us that the fertile, explorable areas exist. The best explorer of oneself is oneself. It is not possible to impart to others that which we do not possess. And even after we have made some progress in understanding, the most we can do for others is to make known to them a willingness to share what we have discovered by our own thinking, or what we find edifying from recorded thinking. Whether or not what we offer is, in fact, shared, is beyond our power; and we should realize this.

It is conceded that the student attitude, this search within ourselves, may at times appear unrewarding. But if the understanding of liberty is to be advanced, the attempt must be persisted in, regardless of its seeming extravagance in time and effort.

Along this line, a fictional statement ascribed to Christ is heartening if one will think of him in the symbolic terms of truth and infinite goodness, and of our own weakness and inabilities as weeds and brambles; and of our own rare virtues and abilities as fertile ground:

Presently the Master appeared on the steps of the Synagogue and began to speak. It was immediately obvious that he had been aware of the rudeness of the crowd—and deplored it. He had been appointed, he said, to offer a way of salvation to the world; and that meant everybody. In a task so great as this, no prudent thought could be taken about the cost of it or the waste of it. His mission, he said, was to sow the seed of good will among men in the hope of an eventual harvest of peace. Much of this seed would be squandered. Some of it would fall among weeds and brambles where it would have no chance at all to grow, but the sower could not pause or look back to lament this extravagance. Some of the seed would fall upon stony ground where there was very little soil to nourish it and the tender plants would soon wither and die; but the sower must not be dismayed. Some of the life-giving grain would grow! Some of it would find friendly lodging in fertile ground!^[1]

The Only Practical Action

Action? The casual thinker might imagine that the best course is to try to tell others what to do and how to think. But reason supplies a contrary answer. It suggests that pursuit of one’s own personal understanding is the only practical action for one to take. If a person advances his own understanding of the true and the false, the understanding thus acquired will be sought by others. Reason recommends that a person get the horse before the cart; that first one must learn; that influencing others will take care of itself. Reason says that influence in the creative areas can have no effectiveness prior to learning; that learning has no end.

Some persons will assert that the conclusions herein set forth are self-evident, but will argue that this suggested student approach—this process of self-improvement—is too slow to meet the challenge of these times.

I am in no position to deny this. But, in my opinion, there is no shortcut. The only way to truth—that is, to understanding—is through one’s own person. When we gain an appreciation of this simple fact, we will be on our way to as little violence against persons, and thus to as much liberty among persons, as is within our power to bring about.

Action? For authoritarians it is physical force. For libertarians it is first understanding and then explanation—the latter being “talk,” either verbal or written. []

1. Lloyd C. Douglas, The Big Fisherman, Houghton Mifflin, 1948, p. 377.

Related posts:

1. How To Get Action
2. How to Gain Liberty
3. Human Action

"But he who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer that forgets but a doer that acts, he shall be blessed in his doing."
—James 1:25

A few men who did look into "the law of liberty" bequeathed to present-day Americans a unique heritage. They were the authors of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. In what respect were these political documents unique? First, they unseated government as the endower of men’s rights and placed the Creator in that role. Second, they more severely limited government than ever before-for the first time in history, hardly any organized coercion standing against the release of creative energy. Result? The greatest outburst of creative energy ever known, simply because the millions were free to act creatively as they pleased. Political power diminished and dispersed beyond the ready grasp of authoritarians who would run our lives. That was the American miracle!

Each of these founders is thus-according to the biblical prescription—"blessed in his doing." There are, however, two sides to this law-of-liberty coin. That which has been bequeathed to us carries an obligation that we, if we be doers who act, bequeath this heritage to our children, to oncoming generations! Indeed, it has been written, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."

It is easily demonstrable that giving is the precedent to receiving. The more we give the more we receive. Thus, if we would retain and strengthen that heritage bequeathed to us, we must bequeath it to our children. The discharge of this obligation is, in fact, nothing more than enlightened self-interest, precisely as is the payment of any debt. When one strives to be a pattern for oncoming generations—our children—he reaches for the best in himself. Help them, help oneself.

Most Americans who give it serious thought would approve acting according to the law of liberty. Yet, in today’s world, this is more of a challenge than first meets the eyemore, far more, than was the case with our Founding Fathers. Our politico-economic sires were familiar with the tyranny—authoritarianism—from which they found escape. It was close to their skins, as we say. Their children, however, were a generation removed from the actual experience. We, in our times, are seven generations removed, and have little to go by except a dwindling hearsay. We lack the stimulus to draw a sharp distinction between the Command Society and the Free Society.

There is yet another deterrent to becoming "a doer that acts." By reason of our heritage, a vast majority of this later generation are inclined to take the American miracle as much for granted as the air we breathe—neither of which is much regarded as a blessing.

The "hearer that forgets"—one who lacks awareness of liberty as a blessing-is unlikely to be "blessed in his doing." Nor can such "hearers only" confer on their children the heritage their ancestors bestowed on them. Because of an abysmal unawareness, they receive without gratitude and, for this reason, their failure to give is attended by no sense of wrongdoing. Indeed, unless they act according to the word, they will continue digging ever deeper into the pocketbooks of their children—a far cry from the law of liberty.

What steps are required, then, for a return to liberty by the millions who have innocently gone along with "leaders" of the Command Society? Assume that our well-meaning individual would do not unto his children that which he would not have had his ancestors do unto him, that he would give to his progeny at least as much as he has received-if not more: where must he begin and where should he go in his thinking? Because it is more blessed to give than to receive, how best can he attend to his own self-interest? These are questions each of us must try to answer, for no one among us is flawless. Improvement in understanding and clarity in exposition is a potentiality of everyone who lives!

It seems obvious that the initial step is to grasp the very essence of Americanism: ". . . that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty . . ." This acknowledges the Creator as the endower of our rights to life and liberty and, for the first time in the history of nations, casts government out of that role.

Until 1776, men had been killing each other by the millions over the age-old question as to which form of authoritarianism should preside as sovereign over human lives and livelihood. The argument, till then, had not been between freedom and authoritarianism, but over what degree of bondage. Our heritage stems from this glorious triumph of human liberty—everyone free to act creatively as he chooses. I devoutly believe, along with our Founding Fathers, that the source of human creativity is the Creator.

The next step is to recognize the real meaning of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. As a student of American history some 65 years ago, I was taught to pay obeisance to these political documents. But even then, it was scarcely more than a gesture, comparable to a salute or a pledge of allegiance to the flag or singing "My Country, ‘Tis of Thee." Few teachers knew the real meaning in 1776, fewer still when I was a boy. And today? Possibly one in a thousand!

For the true significance, reread the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and note that there are 45 "no’s" and "not’s" circumscribing governmental power. Reduced to a sentence, they decree: "Government, keep your coercive fingers out of these activities; we reserve these-all of them-to ourselves as free and self-responsible citizens!" The beneficial results were more than I can count but three should be obvious:

1. Fewer political know-it-alls meddling in private affairs than ever before!
2. More free and self-responsible men and women than ever before!
3. A greater outburst of creative energy than ever before!

An agency of society to invoke a common justice and to keep the peace is a social necessity. Its role is to codify the taboos—injustices—and punish any trespass on individual rights. Bear in mind that coercive force is implicit in such an agency. Ideally, it is our protector. But to expect that coercive force so delegated will be or even can be self-limiting is utterly absurd. Yet that is the common view today. This carelessness is fatal to a good society. Why? Our hoped-for protector turned plunderer, as we are witnessing.^[1]

There is one remedy, and one only: eternal vigilance on the part of the citizenry is the price of liberty. How be vigilant? Master the "no’s" and "not’s" set forth in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and insist with all the reason one can muster that the taboos limiting runaway power be strictly observed. If we would bequeath to our children that which our Founding Fathers bequeathed to us, this is the price. Is that price too high? Not if we can discover where our self-interest lies!

Given these foundations for enlightened self-interest, one may appreciate, with Henry Hazlitt, that economics "is the science of tracing the effects of some proposed or existing policy not only on some special interest in the short run, but on the general interest in the long run." Our children’s interest, as well as our own!

A sampling of how one, thus enlightened, will react to some of the modern proposals for political intervention:

He hears: The way to prosperity is to increase farm prices.

He reacts: This makes food dearer to city workers.

He hears: The way to national wealth is by means of governmental subsidies.

He reacts: This is to claim that more goods result from increased taxes.

He hears: The road to recovery is to increase wage rates.

He reacts: This is to say that recovery depends on higher costs of production. On and on, ad infinitum!^[2]

A good guideline by John Stuart Mill: "Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called." Our Founding Fathers saw eye to eye on despotism and declared their independence of it. May we follow in their footsteps! And more good counsel: "Don’t hoard good ideas. The more you radiate [share], the more you germinate." This is another way of asserting that "It is more blessed to give than to receive."

The heritage we owe our children is to look into the perfect law of liberty, be doers of the word and, thus, blessed in our doing.

Notes

1. There’s a delightful story of how Congressman Davy Crockett stumbled into a keen awareness of the distinction between protection and plunder. See "Not Yours to Give" an our website, www.fee.org. Or contact FEE for a printed copy. (Please enclose a stamped selfaddressed envelope.)
2. These examples paraphrase ideas from Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt, available from the Foundation for Economic Education, Inc.

Related posts:

1. Book Review ~ Ask the Children: What Americas Children Really Think About Working Parents by Ellen Galinsky
2. On Heroes, History, and Our Heritage
3. Our Heritage

The author of The Wealth of Nations (1776) is frequently classed as an eighteenth-century economist. But Adam Smith was primarily a professor of moral philosophy, the discipline which I believe is the appropriate one for the study of human action and such subdivisions of it as may be involved in political economy.

Moral philosophy is the study of right and wrong, good and evil, better and worse. These polarities cannot be translated into quantitative and measurable terms and, for that reason, moral philosophy is sometimes discredited as lacking scientific objectivity. And it is not, in fact, a science in the sense that mathematics, chemistry, and physics are sciences. The effort of many economists to make the study of political economy a natural science draws the subject out of its broader discipline of moral philosophy, which leads in turn to social mischief.

Carl Snyder, long-time statistician of the Federal Reserve Board, exemplifies an economic “scientist.” He wrote an impressive book, Capitalism the Creator.^[1]

I agree with this author that capitalism is, indeed, a creator, providing untold wealth and material benefits to countless millions of people. But, in spite of all the learned views to the contrary, I believe that capitalism, in its significant sense, is more than Snyder and many other statisticians and economists make it out to be—far more. If so, then to teach that capitalism is fully explained in mathematical terms is to settle for something less than it really is. This leaves unexplained and vulnerable the real case for capitalism.

Snyder equates capitalism with “capital savings.” He explains what he means in his preface:

The thesis here presented is simple, and unequivocal; in its general outline, not new. What is new, I would fain believe, is the proof; clear, statistical, and factual evidence. That thesis is that there is one way, and only one way, that any people, in all history, have ever risen from barbarism and poverty to affluence and culture; and that is by that concentrated and highly organized system of production and exchange which we call Capitalistic: one way, and one alone. Further, that it is solely by the accumulation (and concentration) of this Capital, and directly proportional to the amount of this accumulation, that the modern industrial nations have arisen: perhaps the sole way throughout the whole of eight or ten thousand years of economic history.

No argument—none whatsoever—as to the accomplishments of capitalism, or that it has to do with “capital savings.” But what is capital?

The Ideas Behind Capital

The first answer that comes to mind is that capital means the tools of production: brick and mortar in the form of plants, electric and water and other kinds of power, machines of all kinds (including computers and other automated things), ships at sea and trains and trucks and planes—you name it! These things are indeed capital, but is capital in the sense of material wealth sufficient to tell the whole story of capitalism and its creative accomplishments or potentialities?

Merely bear in mind that all of this fantastic gadgetry on which rests a high standard of living has its origin in ideas, inventions, discoveries, insights, intuition, think-of-thats, and such other unmeasurable qualities as the will to improve, the entrepreneurial spirit, intelligent self-interest, honesty, respect for the rights of others, and the like. These are spiritual as distinguished from material or physical assets, and always the former precedes and is responsible for the latter. This is capital in its fundamental, originating sense; this accumulated wisdom of the ages—an overall luminosity—is the basic aspect of “capital savings.”

It is possible to become aware of this spiritual capital, but not to measure, let alone to fully understand it—so enormous is its accumulation over the ages. Awareness? Sit in a jet plane and ask what part you had in its making. Very little, if any, even though you might be on the production line at Boeing. At most, you pressed a button that turned on forces about which you know next to nothing. Why, no man even knows how to make the pencil you used to sign a requisition. These “capital savings” put at your disposal an energy perhaps several hundred times your own. This accumulated energy—the workings of human minds over the ages—is capital!

“Truly Scientific”

With this concept of capital in mind, reflect on how unrealistic are the ambitions of the “scientific” economists. Carl Snyder phrases their intentions well in the concluding paragraph of his preface:

It was inevitable, perhaps, that anything like a ‘social science’ should be the last to develop. Its bases are so largely statistical that it was only with the development of an enormous body of new knowledge that anything resembling a firmly grounded and truly scientific system could be established. It is coming; already the most fundamental elements of this knowledge are now available, as the pages to follow will endeavor to set forth. (Italics added)

Snyder is, indeed, statistical. He displays 44 charts. Nearly all of these show the ups and downs—mostly ups—of physical assets in dollar terms. This, in his view is a “truly scientific system.” But how scientific can a measurement be if the units cannot be quantified and the measuring rod is as imprecise in value as is the dollar or any other monetary unit?

And what is truly scientific about showing the growth in coal production, for instance, if there be a shift in demand favoring some other fuel? This would be only a pseudo-measurement with no more scientific relevance than a century-old chart showing the dollar growth in buggy whip production.

Professor F.A. Hayek enlightens us: “‘All the physical laws of production’ which we meet, e.g., in economics, are not physical laws in the sense of the physical sciences but people’s beliefs about what they can do. . . . That the objects of economic activity cannot be defined in objective terms but only with reference to a human purpose goes without saying. Neither a ‘commodity’ or an ‘economic good,’ nor ‘foods’ or ‘money,’ can be defined in physical terms but only in terms of views people hold about things.”^[2]

National Accounting

Economic growth for a nation cannot be mathematically or statistically measured. Efforts to do so are highly misleading. They lead people to believe that a mere increase in the measured output of goods and services is, in and of itself, economic growth. This fallacy has led to the forced savings programs of centrally administered economic systems—programs which decrease the range of voluntary choice among individuals. This is the heart of the failure of the socialistic policies of the underdeveloped nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. As Professor P.T. Bauer has written so eloquently: “I regard the extension of the range of choice, that is, an increase in the range of effective alternatives open to people, as the principal objective and criterion of economic development; and I judge a measure principally by its probable effects on the range of alternatives open to individuals.”^[3]

Indeed, even an individual’s economic growth can no more be measured, exclusively, in terms of historical statistics than can his intellectual, moral, and spiritual growth. These ups and downs cannot be defined in physical terms but only in terms of views people hold about things. These views—highly personal—are in constant flux; you may care nothing tomorrow for that which you highly prize today.

Once we grasp the point that the value of any good or service is whatever others will give in willing exchange, and that the judgments of all parties to all exchanges are constantly and forever changing, it should be plain that even physical assets—money, food, or whatever—do not lend themselves to measurements in the scientific sense.

And when we further reflect on the fundamental nature of “capital savings”—that they emerge out of ideas, inventions, insights, and the like—the idea of scientific measurement becomes patently absurd.

In any event, it is this penchant to make a science of political economy, to reduce capitalistic behavior to charts, statistics, theorems, arbitrary symbols, that leads to such nonsense as the Gross National Product (GNP), “national goals,” and “social gains.”^[4] The more pronounced this trend, the less will the economics of capitalism and the free society be understood—“a dismal science,” for certain. Indeed, could the ambitions of the “scientific economists” be realized, dictatorship would be a viable political system. At the dictator’s disposal would be all the formulae, all the answers; disregarding personal views and choices, he would simply run his information through computers and thus meet production schedules.

When we grasp the point that no man who ever lived has been able to foresee his own future choices, let alone those of others, economic scientism, as it might be called, makes no sense.

Man’s Arrogance

How did we ever get off on this untenable course? Perhaps we can only speculate. A flagrant display: At one point in a recent seminar discussion I repeated, “Only God can make a tree.” And then this exclamation by a graduate student, “Up until now!” This, it appears to me, is the reflection of a notion, so prevalent in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, that every facet of Creation, even life itself, lies within the powers of man. Merely a matter of time!

To tear human action asunder and then to assign symbols or labels to the pieces, as the scientists properly do with the chemical elements, is no service to economic understanding. This method makes understanding impossible for the simple reason that it presupposes numerous phases of human action that can be mathematically or scientifically distinguished one from the other when such is not the case. Why am I motivated to write this or you to read it? Doubtless, each of us can render a judgment of sorts but it will not be, cannot be, in the language of science.

Political economy is as easy or, perhaps, as difficult to understand and practice as the Golden Rule or the Ten Commandments. Economics is no more than a study of how scarcity is best overcome, and the first thing we need to realize is that this is accomplished by the continued application of human action to natural resources.

Natural resources are what they are, no more, no less—the ultimate given! The variable is human action.

Political economy, then, resolves itself into the study of what is and what is not intelligent human action. It should attempt to answer such questions as:

Is creative energy more efficiently released among free or coerced men?

Is freedom to choose as much a right of one as another?

Who has the right to the fruits of labor—the producer or nonproducer?

How is value determined—by political authority, cost of production, or by what others will give in willing exchange?

What actions of men should be restrained—creative actions or only destructive actions?

How dependent is overcoming scarcity on honesty, respect of each for the rights of others, the entrepreneurial spirit, intelligent interpretation of self-interest?

Viewed in this manner, political economy is not a natural science like chemistry or physics but, rather, a division of moral philosophy—a study of what is right and what is wrong in overcoming scarcity and maximizing prosperity—the problem to which it addresses itself.

Once we drop the “scientific” jargon and begin to study political economy for what it really is, then its mastery becomes no more difficult than understanding that one should never do to others that which he would not have them do unto him.

Notes

1. Carl Snyder, Capitalism the Creator (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1940; Arno Press, 1972).
2. See F.A. Hayek, The Counter-Revolution of Science (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, The Crowell-Collier Publishing Co., 1964), p. 31.
3. P.T. Bauer, Economic Analysis and Policy in Underdeveloped Countries (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1957), p. 113.
4. For more on the GNP fallacy and how economic growth cannot be “factually” reported, see “A Measure of Growth” in my Deeper Than You Think (Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc., 1967), pp. 70–84.

Related posts:

1. Economics: A Branch of Moral Philosophy
2. Book Review: Economics: Between Predictive Science and Moral Philosophy by James M. Buchanan
3. The Bill of Rights and Moral Philosophy

—Leo Tolstoy^[1]

This is a striking statement. Is it possible that there is something of a wholly destructive nature which has its source in councilmanic, or in group, or in committee-type action? Can this sort of thing generate lies that actually cause the loss of “millions of human beings”?

Any reasonable clue to the unhappy state of our affairs merits investigation. Two world wars that settled nothing except adding to the difficulties of avoiding even worse ones; men lacking in good character rising to positions of power over millions of other men; freedom to produce, to trade, to travel, disappearing from the earth; everywhere the fretful talk of security as insecurity daily becomes more evident; suggested solutions to problems made of the stuff that gave rise to the problems; the tragic spectacle, even here in America, of any one of many union leaders being able, at will, to control a strategic part of the complex exchange machinery on which the livelihood of all depends; these and other perplexities of import combine to raise a tumultuous “why,” and to hasten the search for answers.

The Search for Answers

Strange how wide and varied the search, as though we intuitively knew the cause to lie in some elusive, hidden, unnoticed error. The affair is serious. The stake is life itself. And the error or errors, it is agreed at least by the serious-minded, may well be found deep in the thoughts and behaviors of men, even of well-intentioned men. Anyway, everything and everyone is suspect. And, why not? When there is known to be a culprit and the culprit is not known, what other scientifically sound procedure is there?

“. . . on that day began lies. . . .” That is something to think about. Obviously, if everything said or written were lies, then truth or right principles would be unknown. Subtract all knowledge of right principles and there would not be even chaos among men. Quite likely there would be no men at all.

If half of everything said or written were lies. . . .

Human life is dependent not only on the knowledge of right principles but dependent, also, on actions in accordance with right principles. Admittedly there are wrong principles and right principles. However, the nearest that any person can get to right principles—truth—is that which his highest personal judgment dictates as right. Beyond that one cannot go or achieve. Truth, then, as nearly as any individual can express it, is in strict accordance with this inner, personal dictate of rightness.

The accurate representation of this inner, personal dictate is intellectual integrity. It is the expressing, living, acting of such truth as any given person is in possession of. Inaccurate representation of what one believes to be right is untruth. It is a lie.

Attaining knowledge of right principles is an infinite process. It is a development to be pursued but never completed. Intellectual integrity, the accurate reflection of highest personal judgment, on the other hand, is within the reach of all. Thus, the best we can do with ourselves is to represent ourselves at our best. To do otherwise is to tell a lie. To tell lies is to destroy such truth as is known. To deny truth is to destroy ourselves.

It would seem to follow, then, that if we could isolate any one or numerous origins of lies we might put the spotlight on the genesis of our troublous times. This is why it seems appropriate to accept Tolstoy’s statement as a hypothesis and examine into the idea that lies begin with “decisions of men united in councils as more important and more sacred than reason and conscience.” For, certainly, today, much of the decision that guides national and world policy springs from “men united in councils.”

In what manner, then, do “the decisions of men united in councils” tend to initiate lies? Experience with these arrangements suggests that there are several ways.

The Spirit of the Mob

The first has to do with a strange and what in most instances must be an unconscious behavior of men in association. Consider the mob. It is a loose-type association. The mob will tar and feather, burn at the stake, string up by the neck, and otherwise murder. But dissect this association, pull it apart, investigate its individual components. Each person, very often, is a God-fearing, home-loving, wouldn’t-kill-a-fly type of individual.

What happens, then? What makes persons in a mob behave as they do? What accounts for the distinction between these persons acting as responsible individuals and acting in association?

Perhaps it is this: These persons, when in mob association, and maybe at the instigation of a demented leader, remove the self-disciplines which guide them in individual action; thus the evil that is in each person is released, for there is some evil in all of us. In this situation, no one of the mobsters consciously assumes the personal guilt for what is thought to be a collective act but, instead, puts the onus of it on an abstraction which, without persons, is what the mob is.

There may be the appearance of unfairness in relating mob association to association in general. In all but one respect, yes. But in one respect there is a striking similarity.

Persons advocate proposals in association that they would in no circumstance practice in individual action. Honest men, by any of the common standards of honesty, will, in a board or a committee, sponsor, for instance, legal thievery—that is, they will urge the use of the political means to exact the fruits of the labor of others for the purpose of benefiting themselves, their group, or their community.

These leaders, for they have been elected or appointed to a board or a committee, do not think of themselves as having sponsored legal thievery. They think of the board, the committee, the council, or the association as having taken the action.^[2] The onus of the act, to their way of thinking, is put on an abstraction which is what a board or an association is without persons.

Imagine this: Joe Doakes passed away and floated up to the Pearly Gates. He pounded on the Gates and St. Peter appeared.

“Who are you, may I ask?”

“My name is Joe Doakes, sir.”

“Where are you from?”

“I am from Updale, U.S.A.”

“Why are you here?”

“I plead admittance, Mr. St. Peter.”

St. Peter scanned his scroll and said, “Yes, Joe, you are on my list. Sorry I can’t let you in. You stole money from others, including widows and orphans.”

“Mr. St. Peter, I had the reputation of being an honest man. What do you mean, I stole money from widows and orphans?”

“Joe, you were a member, a financial supporter and once on the Board of Directors of The Updale Do-Good Association. It advocated a municipal golf course in Updale which took money from widows and orphans in order to benefit you and a hundred other golfers.”

“Mr. St. Peter, that was The Updale Do-Good Association that took that action, not your humble applicant, Joe Doakes.”

St. Peter scanned his scroll again, slowly raised his head, and said somewhat sadly, “Joe, The Updale Do-Good Association is not on my list, nor any foundation, nor any chamber of commerce, nor any trade association, nor any labor union, nor any P.T.A. All I have listed here are persons, just persons.”

It ought to be obvious that we as individuals stand responsible for our actions regardless of any wishes to the contrary, or irrespective of the devices we try to arrange to avoid personal responsibility. Actions of the group character heretofore referred to are lies for in no sense are they accurate responses to the highest judgments of the individuals concerned.

The Spirit of the Committee

The second way that lies are initiated by “the decisions of men united in councils” inheres in commonly accepted committee practices. For example: A committee of three has been assigned the task of preparing a report on what should be done about rent control. The first member is devoted to the welfare-state idea and believes that rents should forever be controlled by governmental fiat. The second member is a devotee of the voluntary society, free-market economy, and a government of strictly limited powers and, therefore, believes that rent control should be abolished forthwith. The third member believes rent controls to be bad but thinks that the decontrol should be effected gradually, over a period of years.

This not uncommon situation is composed of men honestly holding three irreconcilable beliefs. Yet, a report is expected and under the customary committee theory and practice is usually forthcoming. What to do? Why not hit upon something that is not too disagreeable to any one of the three? For instance, why not bring in a report recommending that landlords be permitted by government to increase rents in an amount not to exceed 15 percent? Agreed!

In this hypothetical but common instance the recommendation is a fabrication, pure and simple. Truth, as understood by any one of the three, has no spokesman. By any reasonable definition a lie has been told.

The Lowest Common Denominator

Another example. Three men having no preconceived ideas are appointed to bring in a report. What will they agree to? Only that which they are willing to say in concert which, logically, can be only the lowest common-denominator opinion of the majority! The lowest common-denominator opinion of two persons cannot be an accurate reflection of the highest judgment of each of the two. The lowest common-denominator opinion of a set of men is at variance with truth as here defined. Again, it is a fabrication. Truth has no spokesman. A lie has been told.

These examples (numberless variations could be cited) suggest only the nature of the lie in embryo. It is interesting to see what becomes of it.

Not all bodies called committees are true committees, a phase of the discussion that will be dealt with later. However, the true committee, the arrangement which calls for resolution in accordance with what a majority of the members are willing to say in concert, is but the instigator of fabrications yet more pronounced. The committee, for the most part, presupposes another larger body to which its recommendations are made.

These larger bodies have a vast, almost an all-inclusive, range in present-day American life. The neighborhood development associations; the small town and big city chambers of commerce; the regional and national trade associations; the P.T.A.’s; labor unions organized vertically to encompass crafts and horizontally to embrace industries; farmers’ granges and co-ops; medical and other kinds of professional societies; ward, precinct, county, state, and national organizations of political parties; governmental councils from the local police department board to the Congress of the United States; the United Nations; thousands and tens of thousands of them, every citizen embraced by several of them and millions of citizens embraced by scores of them; most of them “resoluting” as groups, deciding as “men united in councils.”

These associational arrangements divide quite naturally into two broad classes: (1) those that are of the voluntary type, the kind to which we pay dues if we want to, and (2) those that are a part of government, the kind to which we pay taxes whether we want to or not.

For the purposes of this critique, emphasis will be placed on the voluntary type. In many respects criticisms applying to the former are valid when applied to the latter^[3]; nonetheless, there are distinctions between the way one should relate oneself to a voluntary association and the way one, for the sake of self-protection, is almost compelled to relate himself to a coercive agency.

Now, it is not true, nor is it here pretended, that every associational resolution originates in distortions of personal conceptions of what is right. But any one of the millions of citizens who participates in these associations has, by experience, learned how extensive these fabrications are. As a matter of fact, there has developed a rather large acceptance of the notion that wisdom can be derived from the averaging of opinions, providing there are enough of them. The quantitative theory of wisdom, so to speak?

A Lie Compounded

If one will concede that the aforementioned committee characteristics and council behaviors are perversions of truth, it becomes interesting to observe the manner of their extension—to observe how the lie is compounded.

Analyzed, it is something like this: An association takes a stand on a certain issue and claims or implies it speaks for its one million members. It is possible, of course, that each of the one million members agrees with the stand taken by the organization. But, in all probability, this is an untruthful statement, for the following possible reasons:

1. If every member were actually polled on the issue, and the majority vote was accepted as the organization’s position, there is no certainty that more than 500,001 persons agreed with the position stated as that of the one million.
2. If not all members were polled, or not all were at the meeting where the voting took place, there is only the certainty that a majority of those voting favored the position of the organization—still claimed to be the belief of one million persons. If the quorum should be 100, there is no certainty that more than 51 persons agreed with that position.
3. It is still more likely that the opinion of the members was not tested at all. The officers, or some committee, or some one person may have determined the stand of the organization. Then there is no certainty that more than one person (or a majority of the committee) favored that position.
4. And, finally, if that person should be dishonest—that is, untrue to that which he personally believed to be right, either by reason of ulterior motives, or by reason of anticipating what the others will like or approve—then, it is pretty certain that the resolution did not even originate in honest opinion.

An example will assist in making the point. The economist of a national association and a friend were breakfasting one morning, just after the end of World War II. Wage and price controls were still in effect. The conversation went something as follows:

“I have just written a report on wage and price controls which I think you will like.”

“Why do you say you think I will like it? Why don’t you say you know I will like it?”

“Well, I—er—hedged a little on rent controls.”

“You don’t believe in rent controls. Why did you hedge?”

“Because the report is as strong as I think our Board of Directors will adopt.”

“As the economist, isn’t it your business to state that which you believe to be right? If the Board Members want to take a wrong action, let them do so and bear the responsibility for it.”

Paying for Misrepresentation

Actually, what happened? The Board did adopt that report. It was represented to the Congress as the considered opinion of the constituency of that association. Many of the members believed in the immediate abolishment of rent control. Yet, they were reported as believing otherwise—and paying dues to be thus misrepresented. By supporting this procedure with their membership and their money they were as responsible as though they had gone before the Congress and told the lie themselves.

To remove the twofold dishonesty from such a situation, the spokesman of that association would have to say something like this to the Congress:

“This report was adopted by our Board of Directors, 35 of the 100 being present. The vote was 18 to 12 in favor of the report, 5 not voting. The report itself was prepared by our economist, but it is not an accurate reflection of his views.”^[4]

Such honesty or exactness is more the exception than the rule as everyone who has had experience in associational work can attest. What really happens is a misrepresentation of concurrence, a program of lying about how many of who stands for what. Truth, such as is known, is seldom spoken. It is warped into a misleading distortion. It is obliterated by this process of the majority speaking for the minority, more often by the minority speaking for the majority, sometimes by one dishonest opportunist speaking for thousands. Truth, such as is known—the best judgments of individuals—for the most part, goes unrepresented, unspoken.

This, then, is the stuff out of which much of local, national, and world policy is being woven. Is it any wonder that many citizens are confused?

Three questions are in order, and deserve suggested answers:

1. What is the reason for having all these troubles with truth?
2. What should we do about these associational difficulties?
3. Is there a proper place for associational activity as relating to important issues?

“And now remains

 

That we find out the cause of this effect;

Or, rather say, the cause of this defect,

For this effect, defective, comes by cause.”

Pointing out causes is a hazardous venture for, as one ancient sage put it, “Even from the beginnings of the world descends a chain of causes.” Thus, for the purpose of this critique, it would be folly to attempt more than casual reference to some of our own recent experiences.

First, there doesn’t appear to be any widespread, lively recognition of the fact that conscience, reason, knowledge, integrity, fidelity, understanding, judgment, and other virtues are the distinctive and exclusive properties of individual persons.

Somehow, there follows from this lack of recognition the notion that wisdom can be derived by pooling the conclusions of a sufficient number of persons, even though no one of them has applied his faculties to the problems in question. With this as a notion the imagination begins to ascribe personal characteristics to a collective—the committee, the group, the association—as though the collective could think, judge, know, or assume responsibility. With this as a notion, there is the inclination to substitute the “decisions of men united in councils” for reason and conscience. With this as a notion, the responsibility for personal thought is relieved and, thus relieved, fails to materialize to its fullest.

A Blind Faith

Second, there is an almost blind faith in the efficacy and rightness of majority decision as though the mere preponderance of opinion were the device for determining what is right. This thinking is consistent with and a part of the “might makes right” doctrine. This thinking, no doubt, is an outgrowth of the American political pattern, lacking, it seems, an observance of the essential distinctions between voluntary and coercive agencies. It is necessary that these distinctions be understood unless the whole associational error is to continue. The following is, at least, a suggested explanation:

Government—organized police force—which according to best American theory should have a monopoly of coercive power, must contain a final authority. Such authority was not planned to be in the person of a monarch, in an oligarchy, or even in a set of elected representatives. The ultimate, final authority was designed to derive from and to reside with the people. Erected as safeguards against the despotism that such a democratic arrangement is almost certain to inflict on its members were (1) the Constitution and (2) the legislative, executive, and judicial functions so divided and diffused that each might serve as a check on the others.

When the concession is made that government is necessary to assure justice and maximum freedom, and when the decision is made that the ultimate authority of that government shall rest with the people, it follows that majority vote is not a matter of choice but a necessity whenever this ultimate authority expresses itself. No alternative exists with this situation as a premise. To change from majority vote as a manner of expression would involve changing the premise, changing to a situation in which the ultimate authority rests in one person.

For reasons stated and implied throughout this critique the majority-decision system is considered to be most inexpert. However, it proves to be a virtue rather than a fault as applied to the exceedingly dangerous coercive power, providing the coercive power is limited to its sphere of policing. This inexpertness in such a circumstance tends to keep the coercive power from becoming too aggressive.

Conceding the limitation of the coercive power, which was implicit in the American design, the really important matters of life, all of the creative aspects, are outside this coercive sphere and are left to the attentions of men in voluntary effort and free association.

The idea of citizens left free to their home life, their business life, their religious life, with the coercive power limited to protecting citizens in these pursuits presents, roughly, the duality of the American pattern. On the one hand is the really important part of life, the creative part. On the other hand is the minor part, the part having to do with constraint. Constraining and creating call for distinctly different arrangements. Constraint can stop the trains but it is not the force we use to build a railroad.

Out of this pattern has developed a high appreciation for our form of government, particularly as we have compared it with the coercive agencies of the Old World. Here is the point: The majority-decision system, an effect rather than a cause of our form of government, has been erroneously credited as responsible for the superiority of our form of government. It has been thought of as its distinctive characteristic. Therefore, the majority-decision system is regarded as the essence of rightness. Without raising questions as to the distinctions between creating and constraining we have taken a coercive-agency device and attempted its application in free association. Something is not quite right. Perhaps this is one of the causes.

Loss of Reason

Third, we have in this country carried the division-of-labor practice to such a high point and with such good effect in standard-of-living benefits that we seem to have forgotten that the practice has any limitations. Many of us, in respect to our voluntary associational activities, have tried to delegate moral and personal responsibilities to mere abstractions, which is what associations are, without persons. In view of (1) this being an impossibility, (2) our persistent attempts to do it, nonetheless, and (3) the consequent loss of reason and conscience when personal responsibility is not personally assumed, we have succeeded in manufacturing little more than massive quantities of collective declarations and resolutions. These, lacking in both wit and reason, have the power to inflict damage but are generally useless in conferring understanding. So much for causes.

“What should we do about these associational difficulties?” This writer, to be consistent with his own convictions, finds it necessary to drop into first person, singular, to answer this question.

In brief, I do not know what our attitude should be, but only what mine is. It is to have no part in any association whatever which takes actions implicating me for which I am not ready and willing to accept personal responsibility.

Put it this way: If I am opposed, for instance, to spoliation—legal plunder—I am not going to risk being reported in its favor. This is a matter having to do with morals, and moral responsibility is strictly a personal affair. In this, and like areas, I prefer to speak for myself. I do not wish to carry the division-of-labor idea, the delegation of authority, to this untenable extreme.

This determination of mine refers only to voluntary associations and does not include reference to membership in or support of a political party. The latter has to do with my relationship to coercive agencies and these, as I have suggested, are birds of another feather.

One friend who shares these general criticisms objects to the course I have determined on. He objects on the ground that he must remain in associations which persist in misrepresenting him in order to effect his own influence in bettering them. If one accepts this view, how can one keep from “holing up” with any evil to be found, anywhere? If lending one’s support to an agency which lies about one’s convictions is as evil as lying oneself, and if to stop such evil in others one has to indulge in evil, it seems evident that evil will soon become unanimous. The alternative? Stop doing evil. This at least has the virtue of lessening the evildoers by one.

The question, “Is there a proper place for associational activity as relating to important issues?” is certainly appropriate if the aforementioned criticisms be considered valid.

First, the bulk of activities conducted by many associations is as businesslike, as economical, as appropriate to the division-of-labor process, as is the organization of specialists to bake bread or to make automobiles. It is not this vast number of useful service activities that is in question.

The phase of activities here in dispute has to do with a technic, a method by which reason and conscience—such truths as are possessed—are not only robbed of incentive for improvement but are actually turned into fabrications, and then represented as the convictions of persons who hold no such convictions.

It was noted above that not all bodies called committees are true committees—a true committee being an arrangement by which a number of persons bring forth a report consistent with what the majority is willing to state in concert. The true committee is part and parcel of the majority-decision system.

Intellectual Leveling-Up

The alternative arrangement, on occasion referred to as a committee, may include the same set of men. The distinction is that the responsibility and the authority for a study is vested not in the collective, the group, but in one person, preferably the one most skilled in the subject at issue. The others serve as consultants. The one person exercises his own judgment as to the suggestions to be incorporated or omitted. The report is his and is presented as his, with such acknowledgments of assistance and concurrence as the facts warrant. In short, the responsibility for the study and the authority to conduct it are reposed where responsibility and authority are capable of being exercised—in a person. This arrangement takes full advantage of the skills and specialisms of all parties concerned. The tendency here is toward an intellectual leveling-up, whereas with the true committee the lowest common-denominator opinion results.

On occasion, associations are formed for a particular purpose and supported by those who are like-minded as to that purpose. As long as the associational activities are limited to the stated purpose and as long as the members remain like-minded, the danger of misrepresentation is removed.

It is the multi-purposed association, the one that potentially may take a “position” on a variety of subjects, particularly subjects relating to the rights or the property of others—moral questions—where misrepresentation is not only possible but almost certain.

The remedy here, if a remedy can be put into effect, is for the association to quit taking “positions” except on such rare occasions as unanimous concurrence is manifest, or except as the exact and precise degree and extent of concurrence is represented.

The alternative step to most associational “positions” is for the members to employ the division-of-labor theory by pooling their resources to supply services to the members—as individuals. Provide headquarters and meeting rooms where they may assemble in free association, exchange ideas, take advantage of the availability and knowledge of others, know of each other’s experiences. In addition to this, statisticians, research experts, libraries, and a general secretariat and other aids to effective work can be provided. Then, let the individuals speak or write or act as individual persons! Indeed, this is the real, high purpose of voluntary associations.

The practical as well as the ethical advantages of this suggested procedure may not at first be apparent to everyone. Imagine, if you can, Patrick Henry as having said:

“I move that this convention go on record as insisting that we prefer death to slavery.”

Now, suppose that the convention had adopted that motion. What would have been its force? Certainly almost nothing as compared with Patrick Henry’s ringing words:

“I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

No one in this instance concerned himself with what Patrick Henry was trying to do to him or to someone else. One thought only of what Patrick Henry had decided for himself and weighed, more favorably, the merits of emulation. No convention, no association, no “decisions of men united in councils” could have said such a thing in the first place, and second, anything the members might have said in concert could not have equaled this. Third, had the convention been represented in any such sentiments it is likely that misrepresentation would have been involved.

One needs to reflect but a moment on the words of wisdom which have come down to us throughout all history, the words and works that have had the power to live, the words and works around which we have molded much of our lives, and one will recognize that they are the words and works of persons, not collective resolutions, not what men have uttered in concert, not the “decisions of men united in councils.”

A Waste of Time

In short, if effectiveness for what’s right is the object then the decision-of-men-united-in-council practice could well be abandoned, if for nothing else, on the basis of its impracticality. It is a waste of time in the creative areas, that is, for the advancement of truth. It is a useful and appropriate device only as it relates to the coercive, that is to the restrictive, suppressive, destructive functions.

The reasons for the impracticality of this device in the creative areas seem clear. Each of us when seeking perfection, whether of the spirit, of the intellect, or of the body, looks not to our inferiors but to our betters, not to those who self-appoint themselves as our betters, but to those who, in our own humble judgment, are our betters. Experience has shown that such perfection as there is exists in individuals, not in the lowest common-denominator expressions of a collection of individuals. Perfection emerges with the clear expression of personal faiths—the truth as it is known, not with the confusing announcement of verbal amalgams—lies.

“. . . on that day began lies that caused the loss of millions of human beings and which continue their unhappy work to the present day.” The evidence, if fully assembled and correctly presented, would, no doubt, convincingly affirm this observation.

How to stop lies? It is simply a matter of personal determination and a resolve to act and speak in strict accordance with one’s inner, personal dictate of what is right. And for each of us to see to it that no other man or set of men is given permission to represent us otherwise.

If such truth as we are in possession of were in no manner inhibited, then life on this earth would be at its highest possible best, short of further enlightenment.

Notes

1. The Law of Love and the Law of Violence (New York: Rudolph Field), p. 26.
2. It is acknowledged that most of us acting in association do not consciously regard any of our acts as bad. Yet, the fact remains that we persist in doing things in this circumstance that we would not do on our own responsibility. Actually, involved is a double standard of morality. Morality is exclusively a personal quality. Any action not good enough to be regarded as attached to one’s person is, ipso facto, bad.
3. The common political idea that a member of Congress, for instance, must “compromise,” that is, must on some issues vote contrary to his convictions in order to effect a greater good on some subsequent issue, or to keep himself in office that he may insure the public good, leaves shattered and destroyed any moral basis of action. If each member of Congress were to act in strict accordance with his inner dictate of what is right, the final outcome of Congressional action would, of course, be a composite of differing convictions. But the alternative of this is a composite of inaccurate reflections of rightness.
4. It is evident that any such report as this is worthless. Yet, a more pretentious report would be a lie, a thing of positive harm. If a procedure can result only in worthlessness or harm, the procedure itself should be in question.

Related posts:

1. On That Day Began Lies
2. On That Day Began Lies
3. Discrimination by the Numbers: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics