“You fellows,” say the interventionists, “don’t know what you want. You are always against, never for, anything. and you are often in disagreement as to what you are against. Some of you are against tariffs; others are not. You all talk about the free economy and small government, but you never agree on what limits you would put on government powers and on what its function should be in a free economy. A few among you would go so far as to abolish public schools, which you call government schools, and there is a fraction among you who sound like nihilists. Why don’t you libertarians get together on a common and positive program?”

Thus do our ideological opponents twit us for our lack of conformity and purposiveness. One could easily reply that conformity is characteristic of life in a prison where the inmates are united on the single purpose of getting out. Or, one could point out that the interventionists are not quite in agreement on the degree of interventionism they want, ranging from middle-of-the-road socialism to outright communism. But, while such rebuttal is good for debate, it fails to establish the very affirmative position of all libertarians, a position that is far more positive than that held by all socialists, except the ones who call themselves communists.

To put it succinctly, the libertarians, no matter how much they may differ on the details of attainment or on the minutiae of doctrine, are all for freedom. What can be more positive than that? The differences that arise among libertarians stem from the barriers to freedom that have been erected by the interventionists; a few of us would throw caution to the winds and tear these barriers down without further ado; but most of us recognize that the cure, in the short run, might be worse than the disease, and are willing to contend for position after position. We will take states’ rights, for instance, not because that is in itself a guarantee of freedom, since the individual states can do all the socialistic things the federal government can do, but because state governments are restrained from going too far by the fear of emigration to other states. We are for any reduction in taxes, no matter how small, and no matter which segment of society is favored, simply because we know that the degree of interventionism is determined by the revenues of the government. Some of us may take a position on current issues as a matter of tactics, even if that seems to entail a compromise of principle; but the ultimate goal of freedom is never lost sight of by any libertarian worth his salt.

The singleness of purpose among libertarians is underlined by their theme: free enterprise and limited government. While this seems to be a double plank in the platform, the fact is that it is really one. A government of strictly delimited powers is unable to do much in the way of interventionism. If our government were under restraint of the Constitution, as originally conceived, especially as to its power of taxation, it could not engage in enterprises in direct competition with private companies; it could not interfere with the price mechanism; it could not rear giant monopolies and grant many privileges to special groups. Thus, it is a redundancy to speak of the free market and limited government. Given a limited government, the free market, which is in the nature of things, would follow as a matter of course. It is the regulated market that needs strong government.

Limited government—a government confined to the primary function of protecting life and property—is the one and only plank in the platform of libertarianism. And it is one that equates perfectly with the ideal of freedom, which all libertarians are for. Can the socialists claim such singleness and positiveness of purpose? That which is described as negativeness is simply our opposition to the investment of government with more and more power, and the consequent degradation of the individual to a condition of servitude. But we certainly know what we want—freedom to act as we please, creatively.

What is the cause of war? There have been a number of answers to that question, but the one that comes to mind as we read the current newspapers is the answer that was widely accepted as final and irrefutable only a few years ago. War is caused, said these diagnosticians, by the profit motive; by implication, the whole capitalistic system is to blame. This verdict was spelled out in great detail in a book that was a “best seller” in the early part of the century. It was entitled War What For, and its socialistic burden was that profit-hungry munition makers were back of every international conflict.

We now find that the USSR, a socialist country, is supplying arms to Egypt, while a capitalistic country, the U. S., is either selling or giving munitions to a rival nation, Israel. It is not quite clear from the newspaper dispatches just what is going on, sales or gifts, but it is a certainty that the agents in these operations are not private citizens prowling for profits; they are governments, ostensibly looking after the interests of their respective nationals.

The question as to the cause of war is therefore reopened. The socialistic answer is definitely disproven. It would seem from recent developments that the answer lies somewhere in the field of politics, that the natural habitat of the seed of war is the political establishment.

Inviolate Private Property

Not everything you have may be seized by the government. There are some things that the tax collector is restrained from appropriating if you fail to pay your taxes. In Section 64 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, you are told what specific items of property are held to be inviolate, as follows:

(a)       Enumeration—There shall be exempt from levy

(1) Wearing Apparel and Schoolbooks—Such items of wearing apparel and such school books as are necessary for the taxpayer or for members of his family;

(2) Fuel, Provisions, Furniture, and Personal Effects—If the taxpayer is the head of a family, so much of the fuel, provisions, furniture, and personal effects in his household, and of the arms for personal use, livestock, and poultry of the taxpayer, as does not exceed $500 in value;

(3) Books and Tools of a Trade, Business or Profession—So many of the books and tools necessary for the trade, business, or profession of the taxpayer as do not exceed in the aggregate $250 in value.

Subsection (b) tells how the officer “seizing property of the type described in subsection (a) shall appraise and set aside to the owner the amount of such property declared to be exempt.” The owner may appeal the evaluation. Then follows the statement which spells out the prior lien of the government on all other property:

(c) No Other Property Exempt—Notwithstanding any other law of the United States, no property or rights to property shall be exempt from levy other than the property specifically made exempt by subsection (a).

There is no guarantee that these exemptions cannot be canceled out. The government that sets the limits on its own right of seizure may withdraw these limits; it has the power to do so.

In a recent editorial (on the departure of Clement Attlee from leadership of the Labor Party) the New York Times infers that the Welfare State is not inconsistent with “democracy and freedom.” This calls for some tall thinking in the field of philology, modern style.

The Welfare State is a political organization which undertakes to look after the material (and, inferentially, the cultural) welfare of its subjects. They become its wards. To carry out its guardianship, the political organization must be possessed of distributable wealth. Since it has none of its own, and has no competence as a producer of wealth, it must have power to confiscate whatever is produced within the area over which it exercises control. Admittedly, the wealth to be distributed is the result of effort expended by the wards themselves, and the distribution is to be made by the political organization according to a formula it considers equitable. But this negates any prerogative the producer may claim in either his labor or the product of his labor; for, if the individual is to exercise any such prerogative, in the choice of occupation or in the private enjoyment of his output, the welfare program would be vitiated.

In short, the Welfare State rests on the proposition that the individual has no absolute right in private property or, as a consequence, in the pursuit of happiness. He is not a self-operating and self-satisfying person, but only a replaceable accessory of the mass machine, of which the State is the controlling factor; he is not an entity in himself, but rather a drop in the mass. “Democracy” is the name now given to this mass machine, and “freedom” is the condition of wardship enjoyed by its component parts. The words are old, but the meanings are new.

New England governors are urging the federal government to go into the flood insurance business. If they go after it strenuously (and enlist the support of the governor of every state that has a brook), they will achieve their purpose; for, because of the way federal “insurance” operates, the bureaucrats in Washington are always in favor of any such project.

Like social security “insurance,” or veteran’s “insurance,” that proposed by the governors would be accompanied with taxes. The propaganda would call these taxes “premiums”; but the fact is that these payments would be dropped into the general coffers of the Treasury where the money would be available for any and all government expenses. It would be spent with the usual alacrity. Then the government would set up a “reserve fund,” consisting of its own bonds in an amount equal to the flood “insurance” tax receipts. The interest on these bonds which comes from new taxes would be used to pay losses; ifthis interest should not be enough to indemnify the “insured,” some of the “reserve” would be liquidated. In short, any government “insurance” project is merely a new way of collecting taxes.

News that the new Argentine government has seized the headquarters of the General Confederation of Labor should give pause to the politically minded leaders of the AFL-CIO. Peron came to power by the support of the GCL. The pay-off, of course, was the granting of special privileges to the leaders of the organization. The cost of these privileges, plus the rulers’ personal loot, was borne by the taxpayers. But, when Juan was kicked out by the military, the GCL lost its position as a prime political factor and there was no need to coddle its leaders. Their day is done, proving that the strong government our own labor leaders aim to erect may boomerang and leave them in a most unenviable position. Meanwhile, the dues-paying workers, the “shirtless ones,” are just where they always are under political conditions: they get wages for work performed—and pay taxes.