Perspective
Print This Post
• Email This Post
• 0 comments • 
Add to favorites 
Filed Under: Columns
Private business enriches society. You have a greater responsibility and a greater attitude toward the things you own. In socialism, everything “belonged” to everyone, so no one had a responsible attitude toward the equipment and material.
—Milan Strba, a commercial painter in
Czechoslovakia, quoted in the
March 1991 issue of New Dimensions
Free to Choose
A central feature of bourgeois philosophy, what I have called “classical individualism,” is that human life is not subject to predictions. This is because human individuals have the capacity to choose what they will do. Of course, one can estimate trends, based on well-established habits of mind and action, the constraints of nature and law, and so forth. But just how human beings will cope with the constraints, how they will come to terms with their own habits of mind and action, whether they will change their laws—those questions must not be answered prior to what they will actually do. Perhaps the most grievous fault of contemporary social science is to have built up expectations in us that ignore the above aspects of human life. Social engineering can only go so far—usually as far as the next person’s intelligent way of preempting the engineers’ plans.
—Tibor R. Machan
Auburn University
Free-Wheeling Capitalism
Picture this: a Southern town invaded by hordes of motorcyclists. If it were the plot of a B movie, you all know how the script would go. The people are apprehensive; the motorcyclists are abusive. But this action takes place for real every year in Daytona Beach, Florida, and most residents couldn’t be happier.
The event is officially called Bike Week, though that’s Harley-Davidsons not 10-speeds, and this year was its 50th anniversary. It takes place in the time period after the Daytona 500 race has ended and before Spring Break begins. It’s when the motorcycle engines at the Daytona Beach racetrack start revving up. It’s also when you start noticing folks around town who don’t exactly remind you of Ozzie and Harriet.
But before you even notice the folks, you notice the signs. “Welcome Bikers.” On the Food Lion Supermarket, there’s a big piece of white cloth draped out front saying “Welcome Bikers.” The Wal-Mart also welcomes the bikers; so do many of the restaurants and motels. A Western-dress store runs advertisements on television only during Bike Week. Ditto a gun store. The bars welcome the bikers too.
Now these guys look a lot like the guys in those B movies. They are dressed in black. Many of the men sport beards and long hair. In general, both the men and the women have a je ne sais quoi ambiance about them, which sets them apart. Perhaps it’s all their tattoos. But nonetheless, townspeople understand that underneath it all is a common humanity. If you prick them, do they not bleed? And better than that, do they not share with the rest of us the need to eat and sleep and purchase souvenirs?
Welcome Bikers. Residents enjoy going out on the town just to see hundreds, sometimes thousands, of motorcycles parked in front of local businesses. And there’s a parade marking the end of Bike Week that passes by the McDonald’s with its “Welcome Bikers” sign out front. Come back next year, bikers. Daytona Beach doesn’t have much industry, and it’s people like you who keep this town going. So come back and bring your buddies and don’t forget your wallets.
See! It’s not just Southern hospitality that brings out the best in people. And it’s not just laws that overcome prejudices. It’s capitalism too.
—A. M. Rogers
Ormond Beach, Florida
Anyone Can Do It
Of all our social problems, crime is certainly the most inexcusable, and the criminal is deserving of the least compassion. People who suffer from physical and mental disorders or unforeseen economic hardships have had their situation thrust upon them, and they truly suffer from the cards that were dealt to them. This is not true of the criminal, however, and one is hard put to include him on the list of those who drew the short straw from the fates.
The professional criminal is a volunteer. All that society asks of him is that he stop doing what he is doing, and this doesn’t seem to be an unreasonable request. It isn’t a great exaggeration to say that every man, woman, and child in the United States is capable of not stripping a car, not selling drugs, not vandalizing property, and not robbing a store. No one is asking the lawbreaker to run a four-minute mile, to translate the Dead Sea Scrolls, or to play a fugue on the harpsichord. Obeying the law requires no talent and no training. Anyone can do it.
—Donald G. Smith
Santa Mafia, California
Reaping the Harvest
I had my gall bladder removed last summer by a new surgical procedure that kept me hospitalized for only one night. This is a vast improvement over the standard gall bladder surgery, and the nurses made quite a fuss over my “miraculous” recovery.
Of course, I had almost nothing to do with this “miracle.” Someone else thought of it; someone else invested in it; someone else went through a lot of training to make it work.
As we look back, we see that such advances are based upon a seemingly endless procession of similar breakthroughs. The advances of the 1990s are based on the advances of the 1980s, the 1970s, and so on. It takes a long time to perform major surgery in less than an hour.
What type of environment gives rise to such advances? What percentage of them have occurred in an open atmosphere of relative freedom? What percentage of them have relied upon coercive taxation, regulations, and orders from above?
When we examine history, particularly the incredible advances that have been squeezed into the past 200 years, we find that free societies lead the way. A free society is truly a breakthrough society.
Can we, as individuals, contribute to such advances? Most of us, after all, don’t work at the cutting edge of science, technology, or medicine. We can, however, contribute to the cause of freedom, for it is freedom of thought and freedom of enterprise that will nurture the great advances that will bless our children.
—Brian Summers
