For hundreds of years whenever men began to make innovative breakthroughs in farming and trade, governments stopped them. The aim was to help but the result was to harm. Efforts to help were based on the false notion that human energy and individual initiative can be directed and controlled through an overriding authority using the brute force of military and police power. Force and fear have their uses but they are ineffective at stimulating ambition, initiative, creative effort and perseverance. Threats of the concentration camp or firing squad might make a man run a little faster or work a little harder, at least temporarily, but fear reduces endurance and hastens fatigue. It also works at cross purposes to mental development and moral growth. Slave labor has never been able to compete with free men in occupations requiring a high degree of initiative, resourcefulness and persistence. The unbridled use of arbitrary power breeds intolerance and sadism. Unfortunately force still has to be used to neutralize the misuse of force. Police are used against the outlaw. Laws on the statute books can never be adequate substitutes for moral restraint based on enlightened self-interest which means a recognition of one's duties as well as ones rights.
In 1990 Michael Moffatt, an anthropology professor at Rutgers University surveyed 232 college students across the country and found that 45% cheated occasionally and an additional 33% cheated more regularly. Another study concluded that less cheating occurred at schools with well defined and publicized honor rules.
Laws that cannot be enforced do more harm than good. They weaken respect for enforceable necessary laws which is cause for boosting penalties and encourages the passage of additional laws They de-emphasize personal responsibility and suggest that outside forces can substitute for self-control and individual morality. They increase red tape and government overhead which removes more and more people from productive work. Whenever we give government responsibilities that properly belong to individuals we undermine personal freedom. Moral restraints are more efficient than outside legal restraints. To those who have no faith in their fellowman and think what I propose is naive I would remind you that to make changes in the direction of enlightened self-interest and personal responsibility, that is to work in harmony with the fundamental nature of man, is not as hard as repressing individual development and forcing men to sacrifice their self-interest for the good of the whole. We have seen eastern Europe emerge from the stagnating effects of a planned economy and regimentation, why do so many of our leaders want to take us down that rocky and well worn path?
Bees have no self determination or individual initiative, the will of the swarm controls. A bee's life is exhausted in selfless, changeless toil for the common good; the swarm itself is the living creature. Human society is based on trade and self-development. Human energies do not function in the manner of the bee swarm and any attempts to govern the actions of multitudes of men always results in oppressive power being placed in the hands of the few. A small or strong group of persons always sits in the administrative saddle Dictatorships feed on themselves. Human energy and individual initiative are put in a straight jacket and the inevitable result is poverty and distress and often war.
To do anything out of line, a deviation from the master plan, calls for asking permission. * These master plans see individuals as cells of a larger organism-society as a whole, the common good and so forth. Self-surrender of the individual to the collective will has been called many things. Hegel and Trotsky called it the state, Karl Marx called it economic expression necessity, Lenin called it the dictatorship of the proletariat, Mussolini called it "Immortal Italy" and so forth. It always leads to supression of freedom and of expression.
Marx contended that capitalism would devour an increasing share of the wealth and that working man would end up in destitution. At the same time a Frenchman, Frederick Bastiat was saying almost the opposite. As an illustration he took a capital base of fifty and showed that ten would revert to the owners and forty to the employees. With a capital base of seventy-five, twelve would go to the owners and sixty-three to the employees. With a capital base of one hundred the owners would get fourteen and the employees eighty-six. I recommend the writings of Frederick Bastiat.
It's almost impossible to measure the value of any useful invention. Increased industrial production is only part of the story and may be greatly exceeded by human efficiency. Just think how much energy was released throughout society with the wide spread use of electricity, telephones, automobiles and airplanes. Consider the time wasted by people in daily living just 200 years ago.
Central planning, with commissions or board members of one sort or another always work at cross purposes to the development of independent thinking. Energies that might otherwise have been directed into channels of creative usefulness, are diverted to forms, procedures, and oversight.
No board is capable of picking the right people or the right project to work on. If John Deere on Henry Ford had to stand, hat in hand, and beg for a grant they would never have been chosen. Inventive or scientific talent of a high degree can't be produced by bureaucratic edict nor discovered by formalized procedure. Personal freedom in this country allowed natural selection to work and we had Eli Whitney, Thomas Edison, Goodyear, Burbank etc. They were all self-selected.
Human effort is motivated by hope of reward and fear of punishment. America's economic progress is a result of conditions which have provided maximum opportunities for reward and limited penalties to personal insecurity and business bankruptcy.
The recognition that the individual is a responsible human being free and self controlling and capable of looking after himself, keeps down the overhead of bureaucratic red tape and the cost of policing. This makes low taxes possible, with the result that any enterprising person may reap a good share of the fruits of any extra effort that he's willing to put forth.
In earlier years there were good incentives to save and invest; no one else was going to take care of your old age. The capital resulting from those savings made it possible to build up tremendous resources in the form of more efficient tools of production thus multiplying the effectiveness of human energy to an unbelievable degree.
In America, material wealth was the result of an approach based on sound moral principles. Our Constitution threw away the notion of a static universe and admitted no limitation to man's progress so long as he directs his imaginative abilities and creative faculties in harmony with truth and righteousness.
Voluntary cooperation was a hallmark of American industry and depended upon the observance of ethical standards based on the recognition of human rights, human obligations and individual responsibility. It is a practical manifestation of the brotherhood of man and it is good business. It's too expensive, slows things down saps energy that would otherwise be directed to productivity to rely on coercion in the form of police and courts of law. Laws on the statute books can never be adequate substitutes for moral restraint based on enlightened self-interest which means a recognition of one's duties as well as ones rights. Laws that cannot be enforced do more harm than good. They weaken respect for enforceable necessary laws which is cause for boosting penalties and encourages the passage of additional laws They de-emphasize personal responsibility and suggest that outside forces can substitute for self-control and individual morality. They increase red tape and government overhead which removes more and more people from productive work.
Human energies do not function in the manner of the bee swarm and any attempts to govern the actions of multitudes of men always results in oppressive power being placed in the hands of the few. For hundreds of years whenever men began to make innovative breakthroughs in farming and trade, governments stopped them. The aim was to help but the result was to harm. Efforts to help were based on the false notion that human energy and individual initiative can be directed and controlled through an overriding authority using the brute force of military and police power.
To do anything out of line, a deviation from the master plan, calls for asking permission. * These master plans see individuals as cells of a larger organism-society as a whole, the common good and so forth.
For hundreds of years whenever men began to make innovative breakthroughs in farming and trade, governments stopped them. The aim was to help but the result was to harm. Efforts to help were based on the false notion that human energy and individual initiative can be directed and controlled through an overriding authority using the brute force of military and police power. There's a difference between a free people and a people who's needs, tastes and desires are regimented in line with some arbitrary overall plan. It is not as hard as repressing individual development and forcing men to sacrifice their self-interest for the good of the whole. We have seen eastern Europe emerge from the stagnating effects of a planned economy and regimentation, why do so many of our leaders want to take us down that rocky and well worn path?
To those who have no faith in their fellowman and think what I propose is naive I would remind you that to make changes in the direction of enlightened self-interest and personal responsibility, is to work in harmony with the fundamental nature of man.
We've been free to trade with each other over wide areas, free to buy what we please from whom we please, from Maine to California. Absence of trade barriers between states has kept us from Europe's problems. Until the last 20 or 30 years Americans had been pretty free to decide for themselves how to earn money, whether to save or spend it, whether to get more education or go to work, whether to stay with one job or leave and try to get another, whether to start a business or work for another; whether to hire or rent a housing unit to this person or that; whether to plant wheat or rice and where and how much; whether to rent, purchase or build a house; how much they would spend on an automobile or a suit of clothes and what they would accept for the sale of a steer or a work of art. I am running for office because I am alarmed by the number of these decisions that have been taken away from today's Americans. Planners, legislators meddlers have made these decisions for you.
But even more alarming is the voluntary abdication of responsibility. Just after Thanksgiving 1990, the Wall Street Journal ran a front page article about homeowners in southern California who were alleging the builder of their homes had a moral obligation to make sure they (homeowners) didn't lose money on their homes. These citizens purchased property during the height of the real estate market only to see prices plummet a few months later. They were looking for someone to blame, someone to assume responsibility for their bad judgment, for a guarantee of profits on their homeownership.
In a collectivist economy, public needs enjoy the same sort of built-in priority that private consumption enjoys in a capitalist economy. In the collectivist economy all resources are available to the public sector and private consumption is restricted. Witness the empty shelves and long lines in many collectivists countries. In a capitalist economy public services are restricted to claims against the private sector.
Uncle Sam's extensive land holdings are six times the size of France. We need to repeal the Davis-Bacon Act which stipulates that workers on federal projects shall get prevailing (union scale) wages.
The discovery process of the market is the best means for improving the position of the worst off. Hayes says of the capitalist "He is led by the invisible hand to bring the succor of modern conveniences to the poorest homes he does not even know."
Society becomes more charitable as it prospers. As people become richer and acquire more exchangeable goods the marginal utility of those goods decreases. Concurrently, the marginal value of none changeable goods-those things that money can not buy, like the pleasure of helping others, increases. Therefore a growing economy encourages charity and good works.
I'm not arguing that environmental concerns are trivial or misplaced. Pollution, overuse of various resources, toxic waste disposal, and other environmental issues are legitimate concerns. Yet these problems arise, not from a failure of the free market system, but from the very failure to apply free market principles to resource management in the first place.
The failure to define property rights in all natural resources has led to the tragedy of the commons-the tendency to treat publicly owned resources as free goods, to which everyone has a claim, but for which no one bears any responsibility. The competing collective claims upon vast tracts of govt-owned land, the abuse of air and water, the conflicts between protecting endangered species versus advancing the economic well-being of people-these and many other dilemmas are caused by the absence of the principles of property rights, free markets and individual accountability.
Some environmental extremists have a death wish for mankind. "An ice age is coming and I welcome it as a much needed cleansing. I see no solution to our ruination of Earth except for a drastic reduction of the human population. They rejoice in famines, as Mother Earth's natural defense against overpopulation. and some view the AIDS epidemic as the end of industrialism which the see as the main cause of the environmental crisis. They consider AIDS a necessary solution.
Before World War I Europeans moved freely without passport or formality. The astounding growth in America, as a result of laissez-faire economics, made America a mecca for the world's poor.
". . . government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way. It does not keep the country free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate. The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way." - Henry David Thoreau, in his essay "Civil Disobedience"
"I believe that no American should ever give up any freedom or right, even when the health consequences are compelling, if the problem can be addressed at a lesser cost." - Columnist Carl Rowan 12-16-85 speaking against the ban on tobacco advertising
Powerful interest groups-senior citizens, business operators, educators, farmers, , oil producers, environmentalists, advocates for the young, the poor, the uninsured, you name them- they all treat government as a cow to be milked. They don't seem to comprehend that government has nothing to give except what it first takes, and in that process of redistribution it skims off a goodly amount which it spends on itself.
"Once the principle is admitted that it is the duty of government to protect the individual against his own foolishness, no serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments." Why not protect the mind and the soul as well as the body? Why not prevent him from reading "trash", from listening to degrading music, from looking at bad paintings?
Leaders of other countries are always anxious for Americans to bring their capital to their countries---to invest there. They don't talk so much about labor but they ask us to bring our capital to their countries--they promise not to be abusive to capital, not to over tax it, not to confiscate it but to allow it to be repatriated to the USA in dividends ;they realize the rich don't consume their seed corn but the government does. Capital put to work creates jobs and economic growth and a higher standard of living. Rich vs poor is a false issue---we're talking about America's future. This country was built on a revolution against the high tax policies of King George---takes courage to stand up to government and say you've grown enough and we're not going to give you any more. Reducing taxes and spending is the only way to eventually get the deficit down. (When challenged and asked to square your claims with other studies or facts say something like "Those are the people who told us a recession wouldn't come or that Medicaid would only cost ----- or the deficit would be zero by now etc. But if you look historically---look back that's history and factual.") The whole world is copying our model while we seem intent on destroying it.
U.S. Chamber has found $1.76 in increased spending for every $1 of cut thanks to the FY1991 budget agreement. Only way to cut budget deficit is to limit spending.
"You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich." Lincoln
Gorbachev's chief economist told the US Chamber of Commerce that the problem the soviets have that citizens don't want other citizens to succeed---envy tries to pull entrepreneurs down. Unfortunately there is some of that here. Revenues went up every time capital gains taxes were cut.
July 19, 1991
Losses are to capitalism what sin is to religion. Trouble with aspects of the Brady plan is that it skews economic decisions making them different than what they would have been in the free market place. Bankers may have found it in their best interests far earlier to forgive certain aspects of debt or lowered interest rates or whatever but for the infusions of capital via the World Bank, the IMF and so forth which allowed them to receive the full benefit of their bargain----a little longer. "Help" thus created a larger problem---piling debt upon debt---than would have otherwise been the case. When still a teenager trying to figure out what to do with the only life I felt I would ever likely have, and determined to do "good" I quickly saw what so many of today's politicians fail to see---that very often when one thinks one is helping a problem one is really causing more harm. Often if no one comes to the so-called rescue the situation will be resolved in a more beneficial way by the person, nation or situation supposedly needing help. If nothing else, in the case of the individual character is built through responsibility. In one of my books on the Deficit I used the example of a Jane Fonda -George Segal movie called "Fun With Dick In Jane". There a couple down on their luck, facing foreclosure of their gorgeous home, halting the construction of their swimming pool and so forth turn to the wealthy parents of the character paid by Jane Fonda. In a scene that is obviously meant to poke fun and show how callous and cold "Republicans" can be, Jane's screen-father refuses financial help and tells her going through the set back will build character and he doesn't want to rob them of this wonderful life experience of working through problems. I said in my book that I could have given the same speech and in fact have taken this approach in raising our own sons---an approach that the film maker obviously expected the viewing public to realize was archaic, cruel and ridiculous. It is up to parents and schools to see that as well as becoming proficient in the traditional three Rs (reading , writing and arithmetic) another three are added---responsibility, risk and reward. By reward I mean understanding that it is acceptable and praiseworthy to spend one's life in the pursuits which do not yield large amounts of cash. It must be fashionable again to recognize that their are numerous things of value in this world besides money. It should be commonplace for a man or woman to take pride in having spent extra time nurturing a family, cultivating friends, tending a garden, caring for animals, exercising and/or drawing closer to nature, reading, studying, praying, communicating, creating in any of the arts---all rewarded, not generally with money but with intangibles that demand respect. A person's life should not be judged so heavily by material possessions but these other things should be taken into consideration when valuing a life---especially when a young person is attempting to find out how to spend his or her life.