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, distress and often war.
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 forty-five percent cheated occasionally and an additional thirty-three percent cheated more regularly. Another study concluded that less cheating occurred at schools with well defined and publicized honor rules.
Should the federal government mandate honor rules in all schools? Is it the role of government to protect the individual against his own foolishness? Why not protect the mind and the soul as well as the body? Why not prevent students from reading trash, from listening to degrading music, from looking at bad paintings? Sure, most local schools have rules against cheating. Are they the same as laws and are they enforced? Laws that cannot, or will not, be enforced do more harm than good. They weaken respect for enforceable laws which leads to stiffer penalties and encourages the passage of additional laws.
The emphasis should be on personal responsibility and self-control. Moral restraints are more efficient than outside legal restraints. Whenever we give government responsibilities that properly belong to individuals we undermine personal freedom. That increases red tape and government overhead which removes more and more people from productive work.
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. I would remind those who have no faith in their fellowman 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. Besides, it is not as hard as repressing individual development and forcing men
to sacrifice their self-interest for the good of the whole.
There's a difference between a free people and a people whose needs, tastes and
desires are regimented in line with some arbitrary overall plan. We have seen
eastern Europe emerge from the stagnating effects of a planned economy and
regimentation, so why do so many of our leaders want to take us down that
rocky and well worn path? 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.
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 or 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, Charles Goodyear and Luther Burbank. They were all self-selected.
Master plans see individuals as cells of a larger organism i.e. 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. No matter the name, it always leads to suppression of freedom and of expression. But to deviate from a master plan, calls for asking permission.
Marx contended that capitalism would devour an increasing share of
the wealth and that the 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.
Leaders of other countries always welcome American investors. They have the labor but
lack the capital. To attract American capital they
promise not to abuse, over tax or confiscate
it but to allow it to be repatriated to the USA in dividends. These leaders realize
the rich don't consume their seed corn but governments do. Capital put to work
creates jobs and economic growth and a higher standard of living.
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. [Is 2010 déjà vu all over again?]
Losses are to capitalism what sin is to religion. The trouble with one aspect of the Brady plan back in 1991, was that it skewed 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 created a larger problem---piling debt upon debt---than would have otherwise been the case.
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. Uncle Sam's extensive land holdings are six times
the size of France. The competing collective claims upon vast
tracts of government--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. 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. 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.
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 speaking against the ban on tobacco advertising on December 16, 1985
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.
The discovery process of the market is the best means for improving the position of the worst off. 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 cannot buy, like the pleasure of helping others, increases. Therefore a growing economy encourages charity and good works.
Many Americans are familiar with the following lines attributed to President Lincoln:
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.
Today rich vs. poor is a false issue when talking about America's future. This country was built on a revolution against the high tax policies of King George. It took courage to stand up to Britain and say we're not going to give you any more. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce told us that thanks to the FY1991 budget agreement there would be $1.76 in increased spending for every $1 cut. Gorbachev's chief economist told the Chamber that the Soviets' problem was that citizens didn't want other citizens to succeed—envy tries to pull entrepreneurs down. Unfortunately there was/is some of that in the United States. Revenues go up every time capital gains taxes are cut.
When still a teenager trying to figure out what to do with my life 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 one is really causing more harm. Often, if no one comes to the well intentioned 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 an 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 and Jane. The stars portrayed a couple down on their luck, facing foreclosure of their gorgeous home, halting the construction of their swimming pool and turning to the wealthy parents of the character played 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 the couple 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 sometimes praiseworthy to spend one's life in pursuits which do not yield large amounts of cash as long as living expenses and incurred responsibilities are covered. Recognizing that there are numerous things of value in this world besides money may become fashionable again in the 21st century. 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 necessarily with money, but with intangibles that demand respect. At least this would add another dimension to the choices considered by young people when figuring out how to live their lives.