In addition to getting their bodies squeezed by the TSA, airline passengers are now getting their wallets squeezed by the airlines as well.

Some airlines have begun charging $5 for printing out your boarding pass at the airport. Even if you print from a self-service kiosk, you’ll still pay a $1 printing fee. Some airlines are now charging a 10 percent fee for infants traveling on international flights who are seated in your lap. One carrier, Ryanair, charges extra for babies on any flight, domestic or international. Some airlines have a fee of $40 for bringing a large carry-on onboard. The fee is only $20 if you indicate as much when you book your ticket. Some airlines are now charging extra for snacks. The last time I checked, JetBlue and US Airways were charging $7 for a blanket and pillow and American Airlines was charging $8. The extra fees were obviously not enough to help American, as it just filed for bankruptcy.

Obviously, to get around paying the fees, passengers could print their boarding passes at home, leave their infants with family members when flying overseas, travel only with small carry-on bags, eat before they board, forgo the blanket and pillow, or choose an airline that doesn’t have the particular fee they don’t want to pay.

But one practice that all airlines (except Southwest) have instituted, and maintained in spite of cries from the public that they are being gouged, is a fee for checked luggage. In a perfect illustration of the laws of supply and demand, as airlines imposed fees to check bags, more passengers began carrying their luggage onboard.

But the outrage of the flying public has only increased. According to Steve Lott, spokesman for the airline industry group Air Transport Association, fewer than one in four passengers now pays a checked-luggage fee. That means not only that more carry-on bags must go through security checkpoints, further slowing down the security process, but that space for carry-on bags in airplane overhead bins is at a premium. It’s no wonder that too much carry-on luggage toted by passengers recently emerged as the number-one complaint of air travelers.

Sen. Mary L. Landrieu (D-La.) aims to change all that. Like all statists in Congress — the overwhelming majority in both parties — she believes that the solution to any problem is government intervention. She has just introduced a bill (S.1913), the Basic Airline Services to Improve Customer Satisfaction Act, or BASICS Act, to forbid airlines to charge for the first checked bag.

In a press release, Landrieu maintains that airlines collected $3.9 billion in checked-baggage fees in 2008 and 2009. She asserts that her legislation will solve both the “financial burden of paying a fee” and the “headache of trying to fit everything into a carry-on.” Says the senator,

When an airline advertises a flight, that is how much it should cost, plain and simple. Passengers should not be charged additional fees for checked or carry-on baggage, drinkable water or other reasonable requests. Air travel can be a stressful experience for many reasons, but unfair fees for basic amenities should not be one of them…. Passengers have been nickeled and dimed for far too long and something has to be done about it. Air carriers should be required to provide a minimum standard of service to their passengers or face additional fees — that is what the Airline Passenger BASICS Act and the FAIR Act will do.

The FAIR Act would impose additional fees on airlines that do not comply.

The only redeeming thing about the bill is its brevity and simplicity. Section 1 gives the title of the bill and section 2 states just the following:

Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration shall prescribe regulations —

1. to require an air carrier operating under part 121 of title 14, Code of Federal Regulations, to permit each passenger who has purchased a ticket for air transportation on the air carrier to, without paying a charge in addition to the price of the ticket —
   1. check one bag that is not considered overweight or oversized pursuant to the policy of the air carrier in effect on the day before the date of the enactment of this Act;
   2. carry on to the aircraft one personal item and one carry-on bag that are not considered overweight or oversized pursuant to that policy; and
   3. once the passenger boards the aircraft, have access to–
      1. a seat;
      2. potable water; and
      3. bathroom facilities; and
2. to impose a civil penalty on an air carrier that fails to comply with the regulations prescribed under paragraph (1).

That is it. That is the entire bill. But a clear and concise bill is not necessarily a good bill.

First of all, Steve Lott points out that “banning baggage fees would actually be less fair to customers, as it could result in higher ticket costs that all passengers would bear as opposed to just those who are checking bags.” According to the Air Transport Association, airfare alone does not cover the operating cost of a flight. The price of jet fuel has risen from an average of a little more than $1 a gallon between 2001 and 2005 to more than $3 in 2011. According to Tony Tyler, the chief of the International Air Transport Association, “Domestic and foreign carriers will transport about 7.6 million people next year, but profits are projected at less than 1 percent.” The airline industry as a whole lost $25 billion in the last decade. The lesson here is that things are not always as they seem and there are always unintended consequences whenever the government intervenes in the economy.

Second, banning airlines from charging fees for checked bags — for whatever reason — is a form of price controls like those instituted by Richard Nixon in 1971 and Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chavez, in 2011. Nixon’s “temporary” imposition of wage and price controls on August 15, 1971, turned into more than two years of Soviet-style central planning in the United States with a cost-of-living council and pay boards and price commissions to approve requested price increases after a 90-day freeze. Invoking the ideals of Lenin, Chavez recently said that “the Law for Fair Costs and Prices would prevent unscrupulous businesses from unjustly raising prices.”

Although Nixon did it to institute “a new economic policy” (kind of like George W. Bush’s saying he had to abandon free-market principles to save the free market), and Chavez to “protect the people from capitalism,” the result is the same: government central planning by bureaucrats.

Sometimes government price controls take other forms. Minimum-wage laws are a result of government bureaucrats’ setting a price floor below which the price of labor is forbidden by law to fall. Price-gouging laws are a result of government bureaucrats’ setting a price ceiling above which the price of goods is forbidden to rise.

But whether governments dictate that prices can’t be raised, can’t be lowered, or can’t be changed at all, price controls are still a form of Soviet-style central planning.

Third, just as there is no right to a free drink with your meal at a restaurant or free use of bowling shoes when you go bowling, so there is no right to free checked luggage when you take an airline flight. Do I want to have to pay to check my luggage when I fly? Of course not. Who would? I don’t want to have to pay for my flight either, but I do it if I want to board the plane. Just as I pay for dinner at a restaurant or for tickets at a theater, even though I would prefer to eat and watch for free.

Fourth, consumers have the power to persuade airlines to lower prices or eliminate fees without the heavy hand of government mandates and regulations. After major U.S. banks recently announced that they would begin charging their customers a monthly fee for using their debit cards, Americans in droves voiced their opposition and began transferring their money into local credit unions. The banks caved in and discontinued the fees.

Fifth, and most important, whether the airlines are “gouging” consumers, whether they are charging “unfair” fees, or whether the airlines can “afford” to not charge for checked bags is not the real issue. Where does Mary Landrieu or any other member of the Senate or House get the authority to tell businesses what services they can and cannot charge their customers for? Certainly not from the Constitution they have sworn to uphold. Congress is checking the Constitution at the door if it thinks it has the right to dictate such things. The BASICS Act is one more piece of statist baggage that further weighs down a free society.

Originally posted at The Future of Freedom Foundation on December 7, 2011.

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Statist Baggage on the Airlines

Every person of good will longs for peace on earth; he strives for justice and fair play in human affairs. Proclaiming such goals as these does not distinguish the Socialist from other men; rather, it is his means for attaining these ends that marks him out. The operational imperatives of a Socialist order demand a coercive arrangement of society, within which the lives of the many are planned and managed by the few who wield political power. Why do many otherwise idealistic and intelligent people find this scheme appealing? This is a recurring question. Everything about freedom seems so natural and so right to those who understand it that they can’t help but wonder why anyone rejects it in favor of Socialism or Communism. But millions do.

The twentieth century faces Left, and nation after nation succumbs to a "progressive" ideology. Marxism, of the Moscow or the Peking variety, is the official faith of hundreds of millions of people the world over. Countless others may reject Marxism, but they embrace a "liberal" ideology; they advocate national planning, state regulation of key industries, public works, welfarism. Add up these millions and you ask: Who else is there? Well, there are a few people in today’s world who are firmly grounded in the tradition of eighteenth century Whiggism, or Classical Liberalism; who acknowledge the political wisdom of The Federalist; who embrace the free market economic theories of the Manchester and Austrian Schools. There are able scholars in this camp whose writings demolish collectivist theory and marshall solid, carefully reasoned moral and intellectual arguments on behalf of the free economy/free society position.

The soundness of this freedom philosophy is attested even by its opponents, that is to say, by the triviality of Left-wing analysis and criticism of it. The Left rarely attempts to make the case against the philosophy of the free society by meeting its arguments on their own level. We may be sure that if the Left had such a case they’d use it. The Left opposes the free society position, of course, but seldom by argument, that is, intellectually. Opponents of the free economy position have several typical ways of dealing with it. The first tactic is to ignore it; don’t discuss; pretend it isn’t there. The second line of defense is: If you can’t ignore it, misstate the position; then knock the straw man down. Third, call names. Useful epithets are "reactionary," "eighteenth century idea," "capitalist," "outdated." Fourth, allege hardheartedness toward the plight of "the poor." This last is almost hilarious.

To the extent that the free economy has been allowed to function in a given nation, in like measure has the free economy elevated more poor people further out of poverty in less time than any other system! What amalgam of ignorance, stupidity and malice does it take to bring this charge against the free economy, that it neglects "the poor"? The record shows that the government handout system, by contrast, not only fails to help "the poor," it keeps them that way — and demeans them to boot!

Attacks Rooted in Envy

The system of liberty has solid intellectual and moral foundations; why, then, do not more people find the case persuasive? Why do so many people gravitate toward freedom’s opposite, jostling one another as they crowd the road to serfdom? Is there some human trait which, released from moral controls, is readily enlisted under the banners of Socialism? The answer is Yes; there is such a trait — envy. Envy, and its twin, covetousness, are unlovely facets of human nature, and only moral energy keeps them bottled up. But when envy and covetousness are uncorked they work against freedom and for Socialism.

Ask the man in the street what he understands by Socialism, and he’ll tell you that it’s a scheme for dividing up the wealth; "the equal division of unequal earnings," as someone put it; soaking the rich to pay "the poor." Spellbinders of the Left play upon the feelings of envy and covetousness with practiced skill, setting person against person, class against class. These ugly traits of human nature have caused trouble since time immemorial. "Thou shalt not covet," is one of the Ten Commandments; envy and covetousness are two of the Seven Deadly Sins. Our forebears, aware of the destructive potential of these traits, endeavored to neutralize them by making their control a religious duty.

But if the egalitarian drive is to pick up momentum, it needs the fuel only envy and covetousness can supply. Socialism uses envy, and exploits the new morality whose energumens tell people that they should covet their neighbor’s goods. Roll your own Ten Commandments, and remember that there are easier ways of getting your hands on a buck than working for it! The society is first divided into the Haves and the Have-nots. Then the Have-nots must be convinced that their lack of the amenities is somehow the fault of the Haves; that the man who earns twenty-five thousand dollars a year is somehow to blame for the fact that another man earns only seventy-five hundred.

With a part of ourselves we’d like to believe this, so it is not surprising that a lot of people are reluctant to utter a mea culpa in the case of their own failures and shortcomings; they find it gratifying to learn that someone who seems more successful than they, is the reason they are not doing better. Such sentiments as these are music to our ears, but they cannot survive even a limited exposure to economic reasoning.

Advantages of Trade

We can learn from economics, if we will, that the free economy is not like a zero sum game where one man’s gain inevitably means another man’s loss. In a poker game, as one man’s stack of chips grows higher and higher there is a corresponding shrinkage of the other players’ stacks. In the market economy, by contrast, there is a progressive increase in the number of chips (so to speak) available to every player; and every man earns precisely what consumers think his services are worth. Now, in his secret thoughts, Everyman knows he is worth a great deal more than consumers think he’s worth! It is only experience and self-discipline that allows the reality sense in most people to be brought into play and prevail in the end. But economic understanding, and reasonable considerations such as these, must be squelched in order to inflame more acutely the envy of the Have-nots.

But envy is only the first half of the story; the inflamed envy of the Have-nots must be orchestrated into harmony with the aroused guilt of the Haves. Now, a person whose wealth has been obtained by force and fraud should feel guilty; if there is no guilt feeling associated with advantages gained at another’s expense there is evidence of a moral blind spot. Parenthetically, there are scores of millions in this category — gaining advantages at someone else’s expense —every person on the welfare state’s subsidy list! And paradoxically, most of these would be thought of as being in the Have-not category, and would so place themselves, and they would attach great virtue to the particular means by which they obtain an income!

Consumers Make the Awards

Every one of us in a free society is rewarded by his peers according to the value willing buyers attach to the goods and services he offers for exchange. This market place assessment is made by consumers who are ignorant, venal, biased, stupid; in short, by people very much like you and me! This does seem to be a clumsy way of deciding how much or how little of this world’s goods shall be put at this or that man’s disposal. Isn’t there an alternative? Yes, there’s an alternative, and it occurred to people more than two millennia ago. We’ll invite the wise and the good to come down from Olympus to sit as a council among men, and we’ll appear before them one by one, to be judged on personal merit and rewarded accordingly. Then we’ll be assured that those who make a million really deserve it, and those who are paupers belong at that level; and we’ll all be contented and happy. What lunacy! The genuinely wise and good would not accept such a role, and I quote the words of the highest authority declining it: "Who made me a judge over you?" Anyone who applied for such a role would cast grave doubt on his wisdom and goodness by the mere fact of applying!

The market place decision that this man shall earn twenty-five thousand, this one ten, and so on, is not, of course, marked by supernal wisdom; no one claims this. But it is infinitely better than Socialism’s alternative, which is to recast consumers into voters, who will elect a body of politicians, who will appoint bureaucrats to divvy up the wealth by governmental legerdemain. This mad scheme backs away from the imperfect and crashes into the impossible! There are no perfect arrangements in human affairs, but the fairest distribution of material rewards attainable by imperfect men is to let a man’s customers decide how much he should earn; this method will distribute economic goods unequally, but nevertheless equitably.

Parenthetically, it should be understood that the market does not measure the true worth of a man or a woman. If it did, we would have to rate all who make a lot of money as superior beings — rock music stars, producers of porno films, publishers of dirty books, television commentators, authors of best sellers — and they’re not superior. To the contrary! But such people constitute only a tiny sector of the free economy, and they are a very small price to pay for the blessings of liberty we enjoy.

A Guilt Complex

In a free society, those who earn more than the national average are entitled to enjoy their possessions, for they’ve gained them in a system of voluntary exchange; the well-being they enjoy is matched by the well-being they have bestowed upon other people! There are no valid reasons for anyone to be plagued by feelings of guilt on this score. There is genuine reciprocity in the free society, but its opponents are blind to the market’s built-in mutuality. The Left, therefore, will make a determined effort to instill a guilty conscience in everyone who lives above the poverty level. They use Karl Marx’s exploitation theory which alleges that the man who works for wages produces, over and above his wage, a "surplus value" which is garnisheed by his employer. To be employed is to be exploited, and the whole capitalist class should feel guilty for denying the working class its due!

This naive notion was demolished by Böhm-Bawerk even while Marx lived, and it is not now defended even by Communist theoreticians. But the "surplus value" idea accords with feelings of envy and guilt, so it is still useful as propaganda.

Given a century and more of Marxist propaganda and it is not surprising that there are a lot of guilt-ridden millionaires and sons of millionaires, as well as many captains of industry and top executives whose hearts bleed for "the poor." Envious Have-nots and guilty Haves: fertile breeding ground for Socialistic propaganda!

It is not only among individuals that wealth differentials are exploited; there are Have and Have-not nations. The Have-not nations are those to whom Americans have given upwards of two hundred billions of dollars worth of goods since the end of World War II. But despite this incredible bounty (for which the nations of the world rise up and call us blessed!) we still have too much, in the eyes of our critics. The words vary but the music is always the same: Americans who represent only 7 per cent of the world’s population consume 20 percent of the world’s food, drive 75 per cent of the world’s automobiles, have 75 per cent of the world’s television sets, and so on and on and on.

Now, I’m an amateur critic of the quality of life lived in America, and for those who insist on having my opinion I’d say that Americans do eat too much, and they stuff themselves with food of the wrong kind. It would be good for them to leave the car in the garage occasionally, and walk, or ride a bicycle. Furthermore, no mixture of ease, comfort, speed and gadgetry will add up to the good life — as most persons would agree. But all this is by the way; the matter at issue here is not the desirability of a more Spartan or Stoic style of life — which, incidentally, is not practiced by the rich of Asia, Africa, Europe, or you name it. It’s just that more people in these fifty states are enabled to enjoy more material wealth than all but a handful of people elsewhere, and so we are conspicuous enough to provoke the carefully nurtured envy of the rest of the world. Should Americans deliberately lower their living standards? Well, perhaps there are good reasons for a return to plain living, hard work and the Puritan ethic — but deferring to local liberals and critics from the Have-not nations is not one of them!

Productivity the Key

Americans do consume more on the average than the people of other nations. It might be interesting to ask why. The answer is clear: Americans consume more because Americans produce more. If the people of India want to consume more, they’ll have to learn to become more productive. And America is bursting with people who would be delighted to tell them how to increase their productivity. You merely have to accumulate capital at a faster rate than population growth, so that each worker will have more and more machinery, tools, and equipment. Productive efficiency, in other words, requires institutional incentives for capital accumulation — such as widespread belief in the sacredness of private property; an ethic which exalts honesty, thrift, and hard work; the idea of inherent rights, and so on. A nation that builds on a foundation like this is bound to prosper, as America has.

Suppose the American government continues to yield to the pressure of envy stemming from the Have-not nations, and increases the tax bite on American citizens so that they will consume less. Suppose, in other words, that a larger and larger percentage of the goods produced here annually is siphoned off and shipped abroad.

What will happen to production here when our people are prevented from enjoying its fruits? You know what will happen to it; production will decline, inevitably. Why does a man produce? He produces in order to consume; consumption is the end in view of all productive activities. If everything a man produces is taken from him he’ll stop working; and if fifty per cent is taken from him he’ll slow down.

The upshot is that the worst help we can give to the Have-not nations is to inflict policies upon Americans which will inevitably make us dollars poorer without making the Have-not nations a penny richer.

This envy/guilt syndrome provides an interesting glimpse into the Socialist mentality, which has little concern with production, with the way material goods come into existence. Socialists are preoccupied with the political redistribution of the already existing stock. There is, in fact, only one way to make economic goods appear, and that is to apply human energy, augmented by tools and machinery, to raw material. Human labor applied to natural resources is the only way to produce food, clothing, shelter, and the amenities; but the Left has no interest in this process, let alone in increasing its efficiency.

Tax and Subsidize

The attention of the Left is focused on taxing producers and subsidizing consumers. Assuming that production occurs by magic, automatically, Socialism has no program except to seize property from the Haves and distribute it to the Have-nots. The guaranteed end result of this to enforce domestic poverty and spread hunger around the globe. But a certain glamour attaches to any Robin Hood operation which promises to take from the rich and give to the poor — and some of this glamour lingers even after it has become plain that Robin the Hood is actually robbing both rich and poor for the benefit of Robin!

As a result of economic progress, a society moves up from a situation where just about everybody is poor to one characterized by general prosperity, shared by all but a few. That is to say, there will be pockets of poverty in any prosperous society, and the contrast between rich and poor makes the residual poverty painfully obvious to all compassionate people. Indignation suggests a remedy which appears obvious to those who respond emotionally, without thinking. If some are better off than others, why pass a law to deprive the former of a portion of their property and dole it out to those in need! Not an efficient procedure, by the way; it costs the government several dollars to give one dollar to "the poor."

Imagine a system of medicine where doctors blamed sickness on the healthy, and sought to cure illness by making the well sick! This is madness, and if this tactic were used in medicine few patients would survive. Economic distress likewise; poverty cannot be relieved unless we known its cause, and this means that we must also learn the cause of prosperity, for poverty can be overcome by productivity, and in no other way.

Prosperity in a nation is generated by efficiency in production, and productive efficiency demands such things as a climate of freedom, security for property, the accumulation of capital, progressive technology, good work habits, skillful management, and the like. It follows that any impairment of the functioning of any or all of the factors that cause prosperity makes people poorer. Here are some examples of political interventions which hamper productivity: confiscatory taxation which diminishes the supply of capital; minimum wage laws which disemploy large numbers of people; monopoly unionism which institutionalizes unemployment by exacting an above the market wage and imposing a rigid wage structure; price and wage controls; inflation.

Such political interventions as these do no one any good, and they do some people immense harm. Those most severely affected are the very ones whose plight arouses our sympathy and causes some short-sighted citizens to demand drastic government action to correct disparities in income! The only sound strategy is to apply the formula for prosperity across the boards; and this means that we must find some way of stopping government from hurting people by unwise legislation. Unshackle production, turn the market loose, and everyone will share — more or less — in the ever-increasing prosperity.

Of course, it is not enough for a nation to be merely prosperous; riches don’t bring happiness. A happy person is one who has something to live for, whose way of life challenges him to draw upon his powers and exert his full potential. Material well-being — food to nourish you, clothing to keep you warm, shelter against the elements — material well-being is one element in the good life. But in our time this one element looms so large in the eyes of many that evidence of economic distress anywhere is all the excuse they need to demand a program that will wreck the system which produced our prosperity! It is as if a doctor had treated a completely paralyzed patient with some miracle drug which restored function to arms and legs but left the former patient with one stiff knee, and was then accused of malpractice and blamed for the man’s game leg!

Justice and Charity

Justice first; no legislation designed to give some an economic advantage at the expense of others, no arbitrary controls which prevent people from being as productive as they choose to be. Then, after justice, charity — which is simply an acknowledgement that some handicapped people can’t cope. The scope of private philanthropy is still enormous, even after a generation of government welfare schemes. The springs of compassion have not run dry, and it is obvious that they run more freely in the voluntary sector of society than in the coercive governmental sector. The coercive sector hits John Doe with heavy taxation during his productive years and uses his money to finance programs he’s against. Doe is tens of thousands of dollars poorer as a result. During the same period the Social Security tax deprives this man of thousands more. And all the while government is inflating the currency which increases the price of everything John Doe buys. When retirement comes, the government leaves John Doe with a lot less money than he actually earned during his productive period, and it cheapens the value of every dollar it gives him during his latter years. This is how government takes care of the poor!

There is no doubt in my mind that envy, covetousness and guilt —plus plain stupidity and ignorance — are of Socialism’s essence. Socialism would stall at ground level if it could not inflame these feelings and shortcomings. But there are other causes contributory to the advance of Socialism in our time. There’s idolatrous religion. We live in a period when the traditional religious faiths no longer exert the hold they once had over the minds of millions of people. The predominant world view is earthbound, with little or no place for the dimension of transcendence, or the sacred. Unable or unwilling, therefore, to make a religion of Religion, many twentieth century people make a religion of politics or economics.

A Religious Impulse

The term religion has reference, on the one hand, to intensity of belief and devotion; and, on the other hand, it has to do with the object which inspires this intense belief and devotion. Lacking a transcendent object, God, because of the prevailing earthbound world view, intense belief and devotion will affix itself to some object whose nature does not merit worship, such as the State, or Revolution. Thus Socialism or Communism becomes an ersatz religion for millions of people in our time.

The case of H. G. Wells is instructive. Wells was an early Fabian, and until the disillusionment of his late years, worked tirelessly for the advancement of Socialism. "Socialism," he wrote, "is to me a very great thing indeed, the form and substance of my ideal life, and the only religion I possess. I am, by a sort of predestination, a Socialist." Similar sentiments have been voiced by a multitude of the intellectual, literary, scientific, and political leaders of our time. Perversely, the low ebb of spiritual religion in our time has affected the churches, making it possible for men whose real religion is reform or revolution to capture large segments of the church for Socialism — by controlling various sounding boards, such as editorial offices, teaching and preaching posts, social action committees, interchurch councils.

And just as the religious impulse has been bent to the uses of Socialism, so has the artistic impulse. The artist cannot "let nature take its course”; he must impose significant form upon it, bringing his kind of order out of what appears to him to be chaos. Twist the artistic vision around to society, and lo! the planned economy! The untutored mind does not sense the magnificent and intricate order in a free society, which is the result of human action but not the consequence of human design. Merely enforce a few simple rules against theft, fraud and murder, enforce contracts, redress injury — and within these few rules people acting freely and productively will project an order so complicated that it defies human understanding. Could we fully understand it, economic calculation apart from a market would be feasible — which it is not.

The artist in us dislikes loose ends, insists on tidying things up, is caught up in a vision it feels bound to realize. Fine, on canvas! But if you insist on a certain pre-planned order and pattern as an end result in your society — the nation as a work of art — it is obvious that this overall goal cannot be achieved if everyone in the society is free to pursue his own peaceful goals. There is no way to achieve a unitary National Goal except by nullifying individual goals.

Diversity Encouraged

The free society not only tolerates individual differences, it encourages diversity on the ground that each person has his unique contribution to make to the total richness. This position runs counter to the pressure for uniformity in this age of mass man. The advocate of the free society, therefore, runs the risk of rubbing people the wrong way; often he has to make his case against the grain of human nature which hates dissent. In order that a society may be free, a great many people must exhibit a much higher level of tolerance for individual eccentricity than has hitherto prevailed.

The believer in freedom, then, is like a salesman trying to persuade people to buy a product, by telling them that, chances are, there are things about it they won’t much like after they get it! That’s a hard sell! Freedom means putting up with a lot of things you don’t like, and living with a lot of people you can barely stand. Freedom of speech and press, of religion and economics, means that other people will say, print, believe and produce things which we might find distasteful. Freedom doesn’t come cheap; it costs, and those unable or unwilling to pay the price will never achieve freedom, nor will they retain the freedom they now enjoy.

The late Dean Inge used to say that labels are libels! How shall we label the social system of America, England, and some European nations in the period between the Civil War and the New Deal? It was an age marked by a great expansion of science and technology, so we might speak of the Age of Science. A fine historian characterized the period as the Age of Materialism. Democracy took over as the kings departed, and that label is popular. The mode of production during this century was "capitalist," the label given currency by Marx. It suited the Communists to use one label, "Capitalism," for the social system they wanted to destroy, rather than, say, "Democracy."

A Deadly Label

Now, a modern western nation is an exceedingly complex affair, and it takes patient analysis to understand any single phenomenon of the many it exhibits. A social evil demands attention and it takes knowledge and skill to trace out its root causes. Much simpler to blame everything that goes wrong on Capitalism! Why poverty? Capitalism! Why the Great War? Capitalism! Why the Great Depression? Capitalism! Why unhappiness? Capitalism! Nothing was better calculated to deaden the analytical and critical faculties of several generations of intellectuals than this Marxist strategy; it worked; "social scientists" were conditioned to salivate on demand over the prospect that they had been chosen to lead humanity into the promised land.

Some able men are attracted to Socialism because it pretends to be scientific and progressive; and they regard themselves as scientific and progressive. But it is obvious that the mass of ordinary people are quite otherwise; they are stubborn and backward, and consequently, they make a mess of things. They refuse to accept the best scientific information available to them, preferring instead to be sloppy and unscientific. Witness their life style, their eating habits, the way they rear children, their resistance to new trends in schooling, the foolish way they spend their money, their superstitions! The indictment against the man in the street is a lengthy one, and the conclusion is that ignorant people such as this cannot be trusted to run their own lives. Any volunteers for the job of running people’s lives for them? Of course! Lots of highbrows believe themselves competent to operate a progressive society along scientific lines, all for the people’s own good, of course.

Who Shall Live Your Life?

Now, it may be true that a lot of people exercise but little wisdom in running their own lives, but it is a non sequitur to deduce from this that A’s situation will be improved if B runs A’s life for him against A’s will ! We know that this cannot work because it violates the basic law of life, a law as fundamental in human affairs as the law of gravity in Newtonian physics: Each person is in control of his own life, and if he doesn’t take charge of himself no one can assume this responsibility for him.

Life is a chancy thing, and of course we all make mistakes. But the mistakes we make while running our own affairs will teach us something, and we’re on earth to learn. As St. Augustine put it, "We are here schooled for life eternal." Unless we are allowed to make our own mistakes, to pick ourselves up after every failure, and stand taller with every success, the learning process is stymied. The great issue here is between those who regard human beings as mere things to be manipulated into some social pattern, versus those who believe that persons need liberty, because without it they cannot work out their proper destiny, which requires this life and the life to come for fulfillment.

The attention so far in this paper has been directed at "them," people of the Left, Liberals, Socialists. What about "us"; free enterprisers, capitalists, businessmen? Do people get turned on to Socialism because of us? I’m afraid they do. Now, no one can really blame an ordinary businessman for not understanding the theory of the free economy, and for his inability to articulate its concepts clearly. The blame, if any is to be laid, attaches to intellectuals who dig no deeper than this for their understanding of the free economy. Admittedly, however, it does not make our chore any easier when business organizations seek government favors for their members, or rush forward to praise wage and price controls.

But the real problem is elsewhere. A sharp distinction must be made between the economic theory of the free market and the ideologies erected around market theory by its self-proclaimed defenders. How many potential supporters of the free economy have been turned off by hearing certain ideologues of capitalism loudly proclaim that you have to be an atheist before you can become a genuine capitalist! Or you have to be a rationalist. Or a utilitarian. Or an anarchist. Furthermore, it is difficult for an outsider to judge the arguments for the free market on their economic merits if he has to wade through dubious notions of history, art, literature, psychology, ethics and religion to get to them! High level arguments in economic theory coupled with low level arguments in the ideological framework are not very damaging to Socialism, but they can make a shambles of Capitalism! It is only within the right philosophical structure that the market becomes the market economy, and that structure needs shoring up.

Economic action is necessary to survival, but by itself it cannot generate the free economy. The food, clothing, and shelter without which no people can exist are produced by human exertion on natural resources, and there is no other way. The division of labor is as old as mankind; people have always traded and bartered. These interlocking events constitute the market, and the market is ubiquitous. But the ever-present market does not become the market economy by spontaneous generation; nonmarket factors must be present to act as catalytic agents. Create a political structure around belief in the inviolability of the individual person and you have a context of liberty and justice for all in which property is respected and free choice maximized. The market, then, is institutionalized as the free economy. Neglect this necessary political framework — the one we inherited from the eighteenth century — and as it decays it will take the free economy down with it.

Our Fear of Freedom

There is something in human nature itself which makes us ambivalent toward freedom. Human beings would never strive for a free society unless the urge to be free were a drive deeply rooted in human nature; and we wouldn’t have to strive for freedom — nor periodically lapse into despotism — were there not a paradoxical strain in our make-up which fears freedom. Let me try to elucidate.

Each of us has his own life to live, his own ends to achieve. We are purposive beings, so we project a series of goals which constitute our lifelong pursuits, and we set up various targets for occasional endeavors. It is a self-evident truth that each of us wants maximum freedom to live the life that is ours and to pursue the goals we have chosen for ourselves. It is inconceivable that anyone in his right mind would deliberately invite other people to impair his freedom of action, for no one can set goals for himself and simultaneously ask other people to prevent him from reaching them! If, in some bizarre situation, a person does ask another to restrain him, then his real goal is to be restrained—no matter what he says his goal is.

The most evil tyrant imaginable, whose goal is to extinguish human liberty, does not want impediments placed between himself and his goal; he wants to be free to wield power unconditionally. Everyone, in short, desires his own freedom; but not everyone is seriously concerned that all other persons have as much freedom of action as he has. Very few people, as a matter of fact, favor equal freedom — a social condition of maximum freedom of action for everyone.

And there’s the rub! Freedom for yourself is a biological urge; the will to equal freedom for everyone stems from a more complex facet of our nature.

Man Must Think and Choose

No person can help wanting freedom for himself. This is part of our fight for survival, the struggle to continue in existence. Man shares this with every other living thing. But every living organism — except man — has a built-in servomechanism which preserves the nature and guarantees the continuing identity of the organism in question, whether tree, tiger, oyster, or whatever. The truly human person, however, is a different kind of creature; we cannot complete our nature — realize our potential to the full — without deliberately willing to do so. Our inner freedom is so flexible that each person has a lot of latitude in choosing what he will make of his life. Your final destiny depends on the wisdom of your daily resolves. Each of these daily and hourly decisions we make, breeds consequences — for which we must assume responsibility, and with which we have to live. This is intrinsic to the human situation.

Things would be much simpler if we could just sit back and let Nature take its course with us, as Nature does take its course with animals. It’ll never happen! Nor can we be wound up like robots to function as we should, as T. H. Huxley once wished. Belying his name as "Darwin’s bulldog," the famous scientist said, "If some great power would agree to make me always think what is true and do what is right, on condition of being wound up every morning before I got out of bed, I should instantly close with the offer." Don’t wait, the offer will never be made!

We are neither robots nor animals. We are persons, gifted with an inner freedom, which puts us under the necessity of choosing, where we face the constant risk of making wrong choices. We are responsible beings, and the burden weighs heavy on us. This is the freedom we dread — our unique freedom which forces us to strive constantly if we would attain our humanity. It is in this fear of freedom that Socialism takes root. Socialism offers the siren promise that we need not be individually responsible, either for ourselves or for anyone else. "They" will be responsible for us, and at the same time relieve us of any obligation toward others; the burden of being human will be lifted from our shoulders.

Human nature, then, exhibits these two facets; the biological urge to be free, and the all-too-human wish to shirk responsibility. The biological drive to be free manifests itself in some types as a grab for power, a lust to dominate others. This is a constant threat latent in human nature, which is why every period in history has to contend with tyrants and dictators. That history is not one unbroken record of tyranny, that freedom ebbs and flows, is due to the fact that this authoritarian thrust in human nature may be rechanneled. Such rechanneling is our first line of defense against tyranny, and it consists of moral and religious restraints on the will to power which the authoritarian accepts as binding upon himself. The energies of the might-have-been tyrant are redirected in constructive ways.

There is a second line of defense against tyranny. This barrier is located in the hearts and minds of the to-be-tyrannized-over; it is a deeply felt conviction which affirms, in the familiar words of the Eighteenth Century: "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." Our ancestors believed that life and liberty were inseparably joined; both were gifts of God. And because no one could fully serve his Maker unless he was free, freedom was just as precious as life itself. No person who acquiesced in tyranny could fulfill his life’s purpose.

In a nation where both lines of defense are in working order there is maximum liberty for all persons. On the one hand, inner restraints quench the thirst for power; and on the other, a people, who know that the purpose of life cannot be realized unless they are free, will be alert to detect the slightest threat to their liberties. But when the would-be tyrant recognizes no inner curbs on power, and when the populace invites him to rule over them because they shirk the responsibility and burdens of being human, then the dictatorship is total.

To be a person, means accepting full responsibility for our acts of choice and our conduct. But the prevailing earthbound ideology instructs us that we don’t really possess free will, and because we are the mere end products of our natural and social environment we are not responsible for ourselves. Accept this blighting ideology and the will to freedom withers; you have optimum conditions for tyranny. The same materialistic ideology which convinces the multitudes that they are not responsible convinces authoritarians that there are no inner restraints on power. Dictatorship gets the message: All systems go! The tidal movement of Socialism in the twentieth century is no mystery.

You’d like to roll back this tide? It’s very simple! The social order outside of us is a reflection of the mental and moral situation inside of us. If there is social disorder, we may infer that there is disorder within, in our hearts and minds. The great Spanish philosopher, Ortega y Gasset, puts it this way: "Any explanation of the visible changes appearing on the surface of history which does not go deep down until it touches the mysterious and latent changes produced in the depths of the human soul is superficial." (What is Philosophy?, p. 31) Each person, therefore, must first work on himself before his improved understanding can radiate to those in his orbit.

If only we could straighten out our own thinking we might order our lives aright, and if a significant number of people did this, then the society — which, after all, is but a reflection of ourselves — would begin to square itself away. This is a slow way to go, but it is the only way.

If we have looked back over history to learn the lessons taught by the rise and fall of nations, we know that societies never die of old age but only of autointoxication. We learn that civilizations have been, and can be, rejuvenated —from within! What other peoples have done in times past we can do today and tomorrow — provided we have the will to do it. We have all the ingredients for the restoration of our society; only the will is lacking — and only individual decision can make that up!

Originally published in the July 1975 edition of The Freeman. Read more from the Edmund Opitz Archive.

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Why do “They” turn to socialism?

A snippet I wrote for the March 2010 issue of Liberty Magazine in the Reflections section under the title “Story Time”:

I’ve heard people say that the only way to achieve a truly free society is to let things get so bad that they finally get better. If we hit rock bottom and live in a fully socialist world people will see how bad it is and realize how much better a free economy would be. They will not have to struggle to understand the unseen because they will be living in the world that free-market advocates warned against. People will embrace liberty only after learning the hard way.

I wish to dispel that idea. This strategy would be disastrous, for two reasons.

First, there is no guarantee we will hit rock bottom. The city of Detroit has been in an economic free-fall for 50 years. I’ve heard many times that the city can fall no farther and its bloated government will have to loosen its grip. As far as I can tell, the city is still in free-fall.

There are countries that have been mired in socialist mediocrity or worse for decades and show few signs of a free-market revolution. Apparently they haven’t hit bottom either.

Second, if things actually did bottom out, there is no guarantee that people would understand why. After the stock and housing markets tanked in 2008, was there a general awareness of the failures of central banking and interventionism? Was the response a swift move toward a freer market? Government created the crisis, yet there was little agreement among Americans about whom to blame and what to do next.

Few see a cause-effect relationship between government activity and the Great Depression. When they do see such a relationship, it’s often that of reverse causality; they believe intervention cured rather than caused the depression.

Waiting to hit rock bottom is not the key to a classical-liberal resurgence. What is?

Narrative.

Whether you think the future is bright or dim, no favorable long-term change will occur unless we tell the right story.

Most narratives place the blame for crises on free markets. The story during the Great Depression was that capitalism had failed. With a few notable exceptions, it was only many years after the histories had been written that alternative explanations entered the discussion. How many bad policies were (and still are) enacted because of false narratives of the Depression?

Shaping narrative is more important than winning policy battles. A good policy in which the public has no faith will be charged with crimes it did not commit. A bad policy which the public loves will be credited with successes it did not achieve. Policy follows paths blazed by belief.

I do not believe we are headed for rock bottom. Market liberals have been in the limelight with the right story about the financial crisis. They may not have the loudest voices, but they have discredited simplistic anti-market explanations and forced further discussion.

But even if we are on a death spiral toward socialism, the only way back is clear and continuous communication of the causal connection between intervention and economic stagnation. Only if people hear the correct narrative on the way down will they know why they hit bottom and how to climb out.

In my weaker moments I think I’d love to see socialists live in the world their policies would create. But as long as I have to share that world, I don’t want to let it happen. Neither should you. Tell the right story.

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Should We Let Things Get So Bad They Finally Get Better?

Capitalism is the only moral social system. Only a capitalist system allows you to act in your own interest, to keep what you have worked for and trade it with other willing individuals. For much of human history, wealth has been produced primarily by looting or enslaving others. Under capitalism wealth is created by serving others, by creating values for them. Individuals who produce the best goods and services are rewarded by making the most profit. Those who produce shoddy goods, mediocre services or try to defraud others are weeded out when exposed.

Capitalism is win-win. Producers only make profits on goods and services that consumers choose to buy. Competition among producers ensures that consumers have a variety of goods and services at different price ranges to choose from. Workers and employers come together based on mutual consent. Employers can choose to fire incompetent workers, and workers can choose to leave an employer for a better job. Competition among employers for qualified workers drives wages and benefits up. Whereas politics is a zero-sum game in which power and tax dollars are redistributed from one group to another, capitalism continuously creates more wealth, thereby growing the pie and increasing prosperity for all.

Capitalism is fair. Capitalism is predicated upon and respects individuals’ free choices. No one has to pay for what he does not want and derives no benefit from. Under capitalism, individuals and businesses cannot seek politically enforced advantages or handouts. For instance, in a capitalist system steel producers would not be able to obtain tariffs and subsidies in order to avoid being undersold or driven out of business by foreign competitors, and a workers’ union could not get government to force employers to provide higher wages, more benefits and greater job security. Unable to run to the government for help, these groups must prove themselves entirely based on the worth of the goods and services they produce. That is fair to consumers and competitors.

Capitalism empowers the consumer. The consumer votes for or against goods and services with his money. If companies do not offer the kinds of goods and services consumers want to buy, they fail — but their demise inspires the emergence of new markets, new products, new services, and new methods of production. In this way, capitalism promotes innovation and efficiency through a process of creative destruction. Capitalism also fosters the creation of mass communication tools such as the internet. Thus, consumers can make informed decisions about what to purchase and can let others know about the quality of that purchase. Many consumers united together can persuade a producer to lower prices or change his product or service for the better.

Capitalism reflects human nature. People have limited knowledge. State-planned economies fail because no bureaucrat or committee, no matter how well educated in economics, has the knowledge to coordinate the actions of millions of individuals. People are also motivated by different values. Under capitalism people can pursue their chosen values, provided of course that they do not violate the rights of others. Pursuing values and being allowed to keep, dispose of and profit from the results of that pursuit motivates people to take care of things, to produce, and to innovate. Further, by tapping into human beings’ competitive nature, capitalism makes everything better. Just compare the best car created under a capitalist system to the best car created under a socialist system, where competition is suppressed.

Capitalism fosters benevolence. When individuals are well-off, as would be the case for the bulk of individuals under capitalism (perhaps only those currently receiving special treatment from some government body would be the exception), they have time and money to take care of others. Further, if they have the right to keep what they have worked for and dispose of it in the way they choose, they are more likely to embrace helping people in need and give more than if their money is forcibly taken from them by the government via taxation. For instance, you might already donate money to your local homeless shelter, food pantry or to an organization working for a cause that is very important to you. But if you were not taxed as heavily as you are, you might be willing and able to donate more.

Capitalism makes everyone richer. Even the least well-off person in a developed country today lives a life of luxury beyond the wildest dreams of the richest kings centuries ago: consider televisions, computers, iPods, cell phones, microwaves, cars, washing machines, or air conditioning. Compare how poor people live in the United States today to how they lived in the US a hundred years ago, or to how they live in Third World countries today. In fact, capitalism is our best hope for alleviating and eventually eradicating poverty worldwide because it creates more wealth — for everyone — than any other social system.

Capitalism promotes peace. Capitalist countries are less likely than non-capitalist countries to initiate violence against their citizens or against other countries. Where people come together for mutually beneficial interaction such as trade, issues of race, religion, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation are less important. What matters is whether you can offer me the kinds of goods and services I want for the price I am willing to pay.

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Enjoy Capitalism!

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What are we so worried about again?

Adam Smith’s monumental achievement was to enlarge the individual person’s freedom of action in economic affairs, and thus in other sectors of his life as well. Smith’s argument had several minor loopholes, but these were plugged by the Austrian School—Carl Menger, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk about a century after The Wealth of Nations. Today, it is fair to say that Ludwig von Mises and his students have created a genuine science of economics—a systematic exposition of the free market economy-which, as an intellectual structure, is virtually impregnable. Misesian economic science is, so to speak, The Answer. It’s the recipe for anyone who wants to know how a society must organize its workplace activities so as to maximize economic well-being for all.

The Question is: How may we achieve the free and prosperous commonwealth? To which The Answer is: Install the free market economy, as taught by Austrian—and some other—economists.

Trouble is, almost no one is asking The Question!

Economic science does not tell John Doe how to make a million dollars on Wall Street, or a killing in real estate, or how to protect his assets. Entrepreneurship is an art, not a science; profitable investing likewise. Economic science, like every other science, deals with abstract principles and general rules. Economic science sets forth the general rules which members of a particular society must apply in practice if the society is to enjoy maximum productivity and raise the general level of economic well-being. Economic science is a scholarly endeavor which shows what must be done to maximize the wealth of nations.

Economic science has The Answer for anyone who asks how a society may advance from poverty toward affluence. But economic science has no answer for those who ask: How can I make a fast and easy buck?

This is the wrong question, so far as economic science is concerned. How can people be persuaded to ask the right question? The question people should ask might be phrased as follows: How can we create the social institutions which provide maximum opportunity for all of us to be more prosperous? Only a sense of moral obligation will generate such a question.

The ordinary, decent, law-abiding citizen in his private dealings with his fellows would not use force or fraud to gain advantage over another. But when force and/or fraud are legalized millions do seek some advantage for themselves at the expense of their fellows. When the State allocates resources and redistributes the wealth, it is using its power to deprive producers of what belongs to them, in order to dispense it to those who have not earned it. Everyone is forced to pay tribute for the benefit of the wield-crs of power and their friends. Concerned with their own immediate well-being and looking to the State for handouts, tens of millions of Americans have no interest in working toward an economic order which would assure a rising level of prosperity for everyone—the free market economy.

Austrian economics is The Answer, all right, but it is the answer to a question which only a few are asking. The reason: only a few have an ethical incentive to ask it. Millions are searching for ways to increase their salaries, double their incomes, and enjoy the good life. Only a handful, by comparison, are working with any intensity to advance the free society-market economy way of life.

Economic Fallacies

We have it on the authority of Henry Hazlitt that “Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man.” Who can deny it? Any reasonably bright high school student can read Economics in One Lesson. Haw ing read the book, he can spot the fallacies in many textbooks of economics, in the speeches of public figures, in the commentaries of television and radio pundits, in sermons and academic lectures, in almost any place he cares to look.

The discipline of economics is not mired in simple ignorance; it is stalled by willful ignorance. Economic fallacies abound because every economic fallacy in practice gives someone an economic or other advantage over someone else. Pocketbook motivations keep economic fallacies alive; slay them in one generation and they return from the dead in the next.

Virtually every economic fallacy that plagues us today has been demolished time and again over the past couple of centuries; but has this work of demolition diminished the number and power of economic fallacies? Hardly; they appear about as numerous and virulent as ever. There are few new economic truths, but new errors proliferate wildly. Demolishing fallacies and exposing errors may be exhilarating for a time, but it is negative work; it is to toil on a treadmill. The positive maths of a market economy—together with its supporting institutions and ideas—are reached only by taking a different route.

The celebrated classicist, Gilbert Murray, offers some wise words on truth and error: “The great thing to remember is that the mind of man cannot be enlightened permanently by merely teaching him to reject some particular set of superstitions. There is an infinite supply of other superstitions always at hand; and the mind that desires such things—that is, the mind that has not trained itself to the hard discipline of reasonableness and honesty, will, as soon as its devils are cast out, proceed to fill itself with their relations.”

There will always be a need to expose economic error and demolish fallacies, but something more is needed if we wish to advance in the direction of a truly free society; and that something more is the sense of moral obligation which motivates persons to pursue the goals they perceive to be ethically right and good. Economics needs ethics.

Mises points out that economics “is a science of means, not of ends,” and that science, furthermore, is value- free. A science describes; but does not prescribe. “Science,” Mises goes on to say, “never tells a man how he should act; it merely shows how a man must act if he wants to attain definite ends . . . . Praxeology and economics do not say that men should peacefully cooperate within the frame of societal bonds; they merely say that men must act this way if they want to make their actions more successful than otherwise.” Moral obligation, a sense of “oughtness,” is not within the purview of science; the sciences, basically, operate in a sector of the universe that is ethically neutral. By the same token, there are no grounds in economic science per se for telling anyone that he ought to do this when he prefers to do that.

Although every science is value-free, the universe is not value-free! We live in a rationally and ethically structured universe where some things are morally right and other things are morally wrong; there is genuine good, as well as real evil. Moral obligation, besides being a reality that presses on the sensitive conscience, is a potent incentive to strive to translate the reasoned maths of economic science into a go_ ing concern economy.

Economics is the science of human action, and the actions of human beings are intimately implicated with ethical standards and moral obligation. In other words, economic science does not stand alone; it is a “means,” and as a means economics needs to be hooked up with disciplines that deal with ends.

What we have here is an IF—THEN situation. The economist cannot tell us that we ought to prefer a free and prosperous commonwealth; but IF that is what we want, THEN economic science can demonstrate that the market economy is the only means to achieve that end. Economic science can only explain; the economic argument must therefore be joined to an ethical imperative which commands.

Strengthening the Case

Economic reasoning can demonstrate that the free market system is the most efficient way to produce goods and services, rewarding every participant according to his contribution to the productive process—as that contribution is judged by his peers. But the economic case for freedom is strengthened immeasurably when it is bolstered by moral reasoning which demonstrates that the market economy is the only economic order which embodies the ideas of liberty and justice for all. Capitalism is the only economic system that does not reward some at the expense of others.

The interventionist state provides cushy jobs for many a predator and parasite, people whose services would not be needed in a truly free economy. Many of these people, once they become dependent on consumer choice, might, to begin with, be worse off economically than before. The pocketbook argument will not persuade them, but the moral argument might.

Originally published in The Freeman, April 1989.

Read more from the Edmund Opitz Archive.

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Economics Has the Answer: What’s the Question?

The church plays an important role in human life.

It was once the unwritten rule in polite society that two topics have no place in civilized conversation; religion and politics. It was ill-bred to discuss religion; it was gauche to talk politics. But times have changed. We live in a different and more open age. Now we discuss religion for political reasons, and we talk politics for religious reasons! The Bishops issue a Letter; the highest dignitaries of the various denominations pronounce on matters of government and business. The people behind these proclamations represent only a tiny minority of the total church membership, but they presume to speak for everyone. What they say is, in effect, the Socialist Party platform in ecclesiastical drag.

These ecclesiastical documents focus on an economic malaise, poverty; the poverty of the masses, especially the masses of the Third World. Churchmen profess to know the cause of this poverty. Third World poverty is caused by the wealth of the capitalistic nations; they are poor because we, in becoming wealthy, have pauperized them. Likewise, within our own nation the wealth of those who are better off is gained at the expense of those who are made worse off in the process. These are the typical allegations: the rich get richer by making the poor poorer.

Ecclesiastical myopia views the market economy—or capitalism—as an evil system which, by its very nature impoverishes the many as the means by which the few are enriched. The suggested cure for these differentials in wealth is to use government’s power to tax to exact tribute from the rich, and then distribute the proceeds to the poor—minus the cost to the nation of these wealth transfers. Robin Hood robs the rich to pay the poor, but Robin takes his cut!

It is as if these churchmen had swallowed the current secular agenda to which they have merely added oil and unction; as if social reform were the end, religion the mere means; as if religion has little more to offer modern men and women beyond what they can get from contemporary liberalism or socialism. The church has a more important role to play in human life, as I shall suggest in the course of this article.

One of my favorite modern theologians is the late William Ralph Inge. Inge was the Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, the scholar’s pulpit of the Church of England. Dean Inge wrote some notable books in theology, philosophy, and social theory, but he was also a newspaper columnist during the 1920s where his hard-nosed comments on the passing scene earned him the nickname, “the gloomy Dean.”

Christian Socialism was strong within the church of England, with some churchmen going so far as to declare that for a Christian not to be a socialist was to be guilty of heresy. A popular slogan was “Christianity is the religion of which Socialism is the practice.” Dean Inge would have none of this, so he waged a perpetual war of words against the socialists, especially against socialists of the Christian variety. “I do not like to see the clergy,” he wrote, “who were monarchists under a strong monarchy, and oligarchs under the oligarchy, tumbling over each other in their eagerness to become court chaplains to King Demos. The black coated advocates of spoliation are not a nice lot!”

It was not that Dean Inge was a defender of the status quo; far from it. Inge was a severe critic of many features of the modern western world. He argued that socialism is little more than a logical extension of many of the worst features of the modern temper, derived from the French Revolution, with its inveterate faith that man is a good animal by nature, but corrupted by his institutions; “Man is born free, but is everywhere in chains,” as Rousseau put it. This being the case, said the socialists, all we have to do is change our institutions in order to produce an improved society out of unimproved men and women.

Dean Inge foresaw a tendency within this mind-set toward “a reversion to a political and external religion, the very thing against which the Gospel waged relentless war.” It is not that Christianity regards social progress as unimportant, Inge goes on to say; it is a question of how genuine improvement may occur. “The true answer,” he wrote, “though it is not a very popular one, is that the advance of civilization is in truth a sort of by-product of Christianity, not its chief aim; but we can appeal to history to support us that [the advance of civilization] is most stable and genuine when it is the by-product of a lofty and unworldly idealism.”

The Pull of Public Opinion

Churchmen in every age are tempted to adopt the protective coloration of their time; like all intellectuals, churchmen are verbalists and wordsmiths; they are powerfully swayed by the printed page, by catch words, slick phrases, slogans, and bumper stickers. In consequence, they are pulled first this way then that by whatever currents of public opinion happen at the moment to exert the greatest power over their emotions and imagination. Today, it is the powerful gravitational pull of “environmentalism.”

I’m using the word environmentalism as a label for the belief that the human species is nothing but what external conditions have made us, that we are the victims of circumstances, that our lives are determined by forces we can barely understand, let alone control. Random chemical and physical interactions produced mankind in the first place. Then this raw material—mankind as it comes from nature—is shaped into various forms by the particular society in which we find ourselves. The social class to which we belong determines, finally, what we are and how we view the world and ourselves. Environmentalism exerts a powerful attraction today over intellectuals of all creeds. It is the ideology of Marxists and non-Marxists alike that men and women are the mere end products of nature and society—responsible men and women no longer—and that social engineering can construct a perfect society out of defective human units. Environmentalism has the cart before the horse; it is dehumanizing.

If there is disorder in our society it follows that there is disorder within our very selves, in our faulty thinking and erroneous beliefs, in our misplaced loyalties and misguided affections. Disharmony in our personal lives will result in conflict and frictions in society. This is why serious religion has traditionally focused on the inward and the spiritual, on the mind and conscience of individual persons, to make them responsible individuals. The premise is that only right beliefs rightly held can produce right action. The good society emerges only if there is a significant number of people of intellect and character; and the elevation of character is the perennial concern of genuine religion, in league with education and art.

But the modern world views the matter differently. The modern world assumes that the human species is the mere end product of external forces; a product, first of all, of physics and chemistry—our natural environment; and a product, secondly, of the particular society in which an individual happens to live. The basic assumption is that man’s character is made for him, by others; no individual is really responsible for himself. It is only necessary, then, for “the others” to acquire political power and use it to create social structures designed to produce a new humanity. Transform external arrangements and—according to this ideology—it matters little if men and women remain unregenerate; they will behave correctly because their institutions have programmed them to act according to the blueprint. This is the modern heresy.

Christianity, rightly understood, stands for a society with such basic features as personal responsibility, equal justice under the law, and maximum freedom for every person—the kind of society envisioned by the 18th- century Whigs like Burke, Madison, and Jefferson. Such a social and political order as the Whigs had in mind lays down the conditions in a nation which permit the operation of one kind of an economic order only, the free market economy—later nicknamed capitalism—the thing described by Adam Smith.

The economic order which Adam Smith challenged was called Mercantilism. Mercantilism was the communism or socialism or planned economy of the 17th and 18th centuries. The nation was covered with a network of minute regulations controlling every stage of manufacture and exchange, and the controls were brutally enforced, as they must be in every planned economy; in a 73-year period in France, 1686 to 1759, approximately 16,000 people were put to death for some infraction of the government regulations over the economy.

Adam Smith set out to free the economy with what he referred to as his “liberal plan of liberty, equality, and justice.” (p. 628)It is more than a coincidence that The Wealth of Nations and the Declaration of Independence appeared within a few months of each other, in the year 1776. The Declaration endorses the Whig political vision whose main features were voiced by Jefferson in his First Inaugural: “Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations—entangling alliances with none . . . freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of the person under the protection of the habeas corpus,” and so on. This was the political and legal framework laid down by the Whig theorists, within which Adam Smith’s free market economy, or capitalism, had the freedom necessary if it was to function-his “liberal plan of liberty, equality and justice.”

Millions of people during the 20th century have turned away from the traditional religious faiths of the West—Christianity and Judaism-to embrace some form of secular religion, such as communism or socialism. The prevailing world view in our time is not Theism—the belief that mind and spirit are rock-bottom realities in the universe; it is Materialism—the belief that basic reality is composed of nothing else but particles of matter.

Materialism is explicit wherever Marxism is the official creed, but it is implicit almost everywhere else. Begin with the Marxist premise of Dialectical Materialism—or any other variety of Materialism—and some form of totalitarianism logically follows. Such a society reduces human persons to minions of the state, to be used and used up in the utopian endeavor to bring about the classless society of the communist pipe dream. Christian doctrine, by contrast, makes the individual person central. His role in life is to serve the highest value he can conceive—God; the modest role of the political order is to provide maximum freedom for all persons in order that we, as created beings, may achieve our proper destiny.

The Theocratic Temptation

In the free society, church and state are independent of one another, as set forth in the First Amendment. But there is, historically, a perennial temptation for church and state to join forces and form a theocracy—an alliance which tends to divinize politics and depreciate genuine religion. We are moving in that direction.

The church has been allied with the state ever since the fourth century, and this church-state combination has often been less than Christian in its treatment of Christians, and others. Edward Gibbon, the 18th-century historian, is only one of the many scholars who have chastised the official church for its misdeeds. But listen to Gibbon when he refers to original Gospel Christianity; he speaks of “. . . those benevolent principles of Christianity, which inculcate the natural freedom of mankind.” (Vol. I, p. 661)

The idea of Christian freedom came into sharp focus in the preaching of 18th-century clergymen in New England. F. P. Cole, an historian of the period, writes: “There is probably no group of men in history, living in a particular area at a given time, who can speak as forcibly on the subject of liberty as the Congregational ministers of New England between 1750 and 1785.”

It was the custom of the New England clergy to preach twice a year on some theme having to do with the secular order, the Artillery Day Sermon and the Election Day Sermon. These scholarly sermons were published by the Massachusetts General Court, as the legislature was then called, and they have provided the raw material for many a doctoral dissertation. Let me offer a typical statement by one of the ablest of these preachers, Jonathan Mayhew of Boston, in 1752. “Having been initiated in youth in the doctrines of civil liberty, as they were taught by such men as Plato, Demosthenes, Cicero, and other renowned persons among the ancients; and such as Sydney and Milton, Locke and Hoadley among the moderns, i liked them; they seemed rational. And having learnt from the Holy Scriptures that wise, brave, and virtuous men were always friends of liberty,—that God gave the Israelites a king in His anger, because they had not the sense and virtue enough to be a free commonwealth,—and that ‘where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty’—this made me conclude that freedom was a great blessing.”

Religion and the Founders

Most of the men we refer to as our Founding Fathers were not active churchmen, for one reason or another, but they were men of strong religious convictions. Norman Cousins has compiled a 450-page anthology of the religious beliefs and ideas of eight of these men in their own words. (In God We Trust, 1958) Those quoted are Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, the two Adamses, Hamilton, and Jay. There’s also a section devoted to Tom Paine. A familiar statement of Jefferson pretty well summarizes the outlook of this remarkable group of men. “The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.”

Tom Paine authored some influential political pamphlets, and he also wrote a great deal on the subject of religion, much of it critical—which is all right, because there is much about the ecclesiastical life of any period which deserves criticism. But when it was a matter of Christian liberty, Paine was on target. Cousins, for some reason, does not quote a surprising statement by Paine: “Wherefore, political as well as spiritual liberty, is the gift of God, through Christ.” (From his essay “Thoughts on Defensive War”)

What was the situation in the 19th century? Let me offer a few remarks by one of the keenest foreign observers ever to visit this nation, Alexis de Tocqueville. Tocqueville landed in New York in May, 1831. Nine months and seven thousand miles later he returned to France and wrote his great book, Democracy in America, with special attention being given to religion and the churches. “The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds,” he wrote, “that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other . . . Religion in America takes no direct part in the government of society, but it must be regarded as the first of their political institutions . . . They hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions.”

“Despotism may govern without faith,” he continues, “but liberty cannot . . . [for] how is it possible that society should escape destruction if the moral tie is not strengthened in proportion as the political tie is relaxed?”

Tocqueville observed that the clergy stayed away from politics. The clergy, he observed, “keep aloof from parties and public affairs . . . In the United States religion exercises but little direct influence upon the laws and upon the details of public opinion; but [religion] directs the customs of the community, and, by regulating everyday life it regulates the state.”

A Spotty Record

The history of the church during the past two thousand years is a spotty record, with many ups and some downs. There have been glorious epochs, and there have been periods which make for melancholy reading. Occasionally, the church has sanctioned tyrannous political rule; from time to time it has lent its support to persecutions, inquisitions, and crusades. As an arm of the state, or as a tool of the state, it has betrayed its sacred task while it pursued secular goals like wealth and power.

In the 20th century segments of ecclesiastical officialdom and councils of churches demand legislation to transfer wealth from one group of citizens to another. They work for a collectivist economic order planned, controlled, and regulated by government. The intended aim is to overcome poverty and feed the hungry; the means is the planned economy, otherwise labeled socialism, collectivism, the new deal, or whatever. Whatever the label, the planned economy puts the nation in a strait jacket; the planned economy, however noble the intentions of the planners, is the road to serfdom, as F. A. Hayek demonstrated in a landmark book written some forty years ago.

A planned economy forcibly directs the lives of individual men and women, and to do so the state must deprive people of their earnings which they would otherwise use to direct their own lives. Nation after nation during the 20th century has gone in for political planning of the economy and the results have been disastrous; where the planning has been strictly enforced, as in communist nations, the result has been a nation ill housed, iii fed, and ill clothed, it is a sad paradox indeed that the secular program, promoted by church hierarchies to alleviate poverty, has caused poverty in every society which has tried it. The only way to alleviate poverty in a nation is to increase productivity; and increased productivity is generated only by an economy of free men and women. Freedom is an essential part of the church’s business. Freedom is a blessing in itself, and it’s a double blessing, for prosperity follows freedom.

The socialists, until recently, have claimed the high moral ground. Their boast is that only socialists—or liberals—really care about people. What nonsense! Every person of good will wants to see other people better off; better housed, better fed, better clothed, healthier, better educated, with finer medical care, and all the rest. The dispute between socialists and believers in the free economy is not so much over the goals as over the means by which these goals may be met. The socialist’s means—his command economy—will not achieve the goals he says he wants to reach; socialism makes the nation worse off; poorer in material wealth, and poorer in every other respect as well.

There is another route for churchmen to take, a way that leads to more freedom for people in society, rather than less freedom. Freedom is at the heart of the gospel message, and the true genius of our religion was proudly proclaimed by our forebears, some of whose words I have quoted.

Man’s will is uniquely free; that’s the way God made us. We are free beings precisely in order that each person shall be responsible for his own life and therefore accountable for his actions. It is by acts of will, acts of choice, exercised daily over the course of a lifetime that each of us becomes the person we have the potential to be. Each person is by nature self-controlling; each person is in charge of his own life.

The free society, then, is our natural habitat; freedom in the relations of persons to each other accords with human nature. The tactic of freedom in the business and industrial sectors is the free market economy; the free choice economic system corresponds to the freely choosing creature that each of us is.

Animals, unlike us humans, have a finely tuned set of instincts which infallibly guides each creature according to its species. We humans do not have such elaborate instinctual equipment; instead of instincts we are given a moral code, which we are free to obey or not. Anyone can figure out for himself that no kind of society is possible unless most people most of the time do not murder, steal, assault, or lie. Thus we have commandments that say Thou shalt not murder, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, and so on. These and other commands compose the basic moral code which is the foundation of our law.

Because we are flawed creatures as well as free, we occasionally break the law, and so we need an umpire to interpret and, if necessary, enforce the rules. We refer to this umpire function as the political order—government, the police power, the law. And we have the courts, where honest differences of opinion may be examined and resolved.

The Productivity of Capitalism

The free market economy, or private property order, or capitalism—if you like—is, by common agreement, the most productive economic order. In fact, it’s the only productive economic order. Socialism in a given country lives by exploiting the previous productive economy of that country, and when that gives out, socialist nations live on largess from capitalist nations.

The incredible productivity of capitalism is generally admitted, even by its critics; it’s the way the wealth gets distributed that they complain about. What’s wrong about capitalism, the critics charge, is that some people in our society have enormous incomes while other people have to get by on a mere pittance. Disparities in income show up most vividly in the sports and entertainment industries. Take basketball players, for instance. Basketball is a fun game which thousands play for pleasure and recreation. But many professional players make more money in a year than any six of us will make in a lifetime of hard work. Baseball is almost as grotesque, and then the players threaten to strike for more pay! A rock singer gives what is laughably called a concert and more money changes hands in one evening than the Seattle Symphony sees in a year. Supply your own examples. The question is: How can any person with even a modicum of intelligence and refinement condone such grotesqueries? How do we respond to such a critic?

Part of the answer is that in a free society—a social order characterized by equal freedom under the law—the market place becomes a showcase for popular folly, ignorance, superstition, bad taste, and stupidity. The market, in other words, is individual free choice in action, and no one is pleased with everyone else’s choices. But our displeasure is a price we must learn to pay if we are to enjoy the blessings of liberty. We must stand firmly behind the processes of freedom, even though we can barely stand some of the products of freedom. So let’s stop wringing our hands; let’s try to be tolerant, and let’s get on with our lifelong task of setting a better example of what freedom means.

Remember that no one is forced to pay over good money to watch a sporting event; no one has to listen to some hyperkinetic young man howl and gyrate in public places to the accompaniment of amplified sound. You and I might not pay money for such a performance, and if everyone were just like us, those who now make millions playing games would have to go back to sport for its own sake, just like the rest of us. And if a miraculous change in musical taste should occur, there’d be crowds attending Bach recitals every Sunday afternoon on your local church organ.

Turn from the sports and entertainment field to the business and industry sector. Here, too, there are wide variations in wages, income and wealth. How does this come about?

Here’s a person with a knack for manufacturing a better mousetrap, which turns out to be just what millions of consumers have been waiting for. They are willing to pay handsomely for this better mousetrap, and so the manufacturer becomes wealthy. His employees also benefit. Our entrepreneur’s wealth is voluntarily conferred upon him by consumers who aren’t forced to buy the product, but who find that these new mousetraps make their lives safer, better, and more enjoyable. Every step in this procedure—manufacturing, marketing, exchanging—is free and fair, and when this is the case the resulting distribution of rewards is also fair. It is only when someone profits and becomes rich because government gives him a subsidy or provides him with some advantage over his rivals and his customers that there is mal-distribution and unfairness in the final result.

Setting a Good Example

Let me emphasize the fact that the free market economy rewards each participant according to the value willing consumers attach to his offering of goods and services. Why does a rock singer make millions while your fine church organist makes hundreds? The answer is obvious; crowds of people would rather pay a lot of money to hear rock than to listen to Bach for free. We may find this intellectual and esthetic wasteland repugnant to our refined sensibilities. But what an opportunity this situation presents to every teacher. I refer not only to full time professors, preachers, and writers. Most anyone can be a teacher. Nearly everyone, in other words, has the capacity to convey a new idea to some other person, to instill a nobler sentiment, a superior value, a higher moral tone. More persuasive than any of these, we can set a good example.

It is a solid truth, I believe, that you cannot build a free society out of just any old kind of people. A free society is built around a nucleus of people of superior intellect and integrity who are, at the same time, cognizant of economic and political reality. You need people who love God and their neighbor; people of understanding and compassion; people with enduring family ties. Our schools and our churches should be producing people of this caliber, for it is the function of education and religion—in the broad sense of both terms—to make us better and wiser men and women. When we have a significant number of wise and good people living lives of a quality high enough to deserve a free society we’ll have a free society. All the rest of us, riding on their coattails, will reap the rich blessings of liberty.

Originally published in The Freeman, August 1986.

Read more from the Edmund Opitz Archive.

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Churches and the Social Order

The Climate-Change Bill was just moronic.

Universal Health Care, though, is going to be the new Post Office — and Obama even has admitted it! Face-palm yourselves right now, folks, and then let this video smash every last ounce of faith you have in government-sponsored anything.

There you have it, another priceless moment brought to you by Obama. The Commander in Chief says to his tribe that if the Universal Health Care plan works right, it’ll be just like the Post Office. Doesn’t that make you feel great about the future of modern medicine?

What makes this all the more perfect — ooooh you’re gonna love this! — is that the New York Times published a column in its Business Section (and in the Business Blog) this past Friday that outlines the dire plight of the Post Office, and questions whether it is necessary at all. The truth is, the USPS is seriously in the hole right now — a 7 billion dollar hole to be precise. And why? Because of all the extra regulations and stipulations that come from being a government entity. The Government Accountability Office put the USPS on its list of “high risk” federal agencies mere weeks ago, saying that it needs “to restructure to address its current and long-term financial viability… USPS must align its costs with revenues, generate sufficient earnings to finance capital investments, and manage its debt.” Not that this is possible in the least, not without the tools of being a real business rather than a government organization.

The US Postmaster General John Potter gets this: “If you are asking me to run it like a business, give me the same tools that someone would have in the private sector.” Surprise, surprise… 

The Heritage Foundation acutely notes: “On the one hand, the President remarks how great his public health care plan will be. On the other hand, he notes it won’t be good enough to crowd out your private insurance, i.e. the Post Office comparison. So which is it Mr. President? Will it be so great that private insurance disappears or so awful that it isn’t worth creating in the first place?” My sentiments exactly. Universal Health Care = worthless.

Remember this day, my friends, the day when the Obamessiah said that the best scenario we have is that Universal Health Care runs like the Post Office.

Maybe, someday, America will get a clue that the entire government, at its core, is just like the Post Office. Poor service, and way too expensive… Not to mention immoral.

The irony runs like a raging river, don’t you think? Give your opinion, or just laugh, in the comments below…

Post from: LibertarianChristians.com

Universal Health Care is the new Post Office

Obama’s New Theocracy | The Beacon

The depiction of Barack Obama as the new, secular, American messiah began with his full approval during his presidential campaign and led directly to the spectacle of his coronation/inauguration. In what can only be described as a delusional, self-righteous pronouncement of himself as the new messiah (”the chosen one”), Obama has stated that: “We are the ones we‘ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” [emphasis added]

The second includes a well-known quote from Lewis about “theocracy”:

C.S. Lewis on the Evil and Corruption of Theocracy

I fully embrace the maxim (which . . . borrows from a Christian) that “all power corrupts.” I would go further. The loftier the pretensions of the power, the more meddlesome, inhuman, and oppressive it will be. Theocracy is the worst of all possible governments. All political power is at best a necessary evil: but it is least evil when its sanctions are most modest and commonplace, when it claims no more than to be useful or convenient and sets itself strictly limited objectives. Anything transcendental or spiritual, or even anything very strongly ethical, in its pretensions is dangerous and encourages it to meddle with our private lives. Let the shoemaker stick to his last. Thus the Renaissance doctrine of Divine Right is for me a corruption of monarchy; Rousseau’s General Will, of democracy; racial mysticisms, of nationality. And Theocracy, I admit and even insist, is the worst corruption of all.

—From The World’s Last Night: And Other Essays, by C.S. Lewis

Now, be sure to distinguish the difference between “theocracy” as Lewis expounds and the direct rule of God, as in the time of biblical Israel. Of course, Yahweh is the Great King of the Universe and ultimately we Christians believe that God rules all. Lewis, however, is talking about “faith-based statism,” which is an awful, terrible system.

David Theroux is the founder and president of the Independent Institute.

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Obama’s New Theocracy

Your weekend reading: The Use of Knowledge in Society

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Happy 110th Birthday, Friedrich von Hayek