For sixty known centuries this planet that we call Earth has been inhabited by human beings not much different from ourselves. The ancient Assyrians, Persians, Egyptians, and Greeks were intelligent people; but in spite of their intelligence and their fertile lands, they were never able to get enough to eat. They often kiled their babies because they couldn't feed them.
The Roman Empire collapsed in famine. The French were dying of hunger when Thomas Jefferson was President of the United States. As late as 1846, the Irish were starving to death; and no one was particularly surprised because famines in the Old World were the rule rather than the exception.
Why did men die of starvation for 6,000 years? Why is it that we in America have never had a famine? Why is it that Americans have outdistanced the world in extending the benefits of inventions and discoveries to the vast majority of people in all walks of life? How and why did this come about?
Perhaps the best way to find the answer is first to rule out some of the factors that were not responsible.
To say that it is because of our natural resources is hardly enough. The same rich resources were here when the mound builders held forth. Americans have had no monopoly on iron, coal, copper, aluminum, zinc, lead or other materials. Such things have always been available to human beings. China, India, Russia, Africa---all have great natural resources.
Is it because we work harder? Again the answer is "no" because in most countries the people work much harder, on the average, than we do.
Can it be that we are a people of inherent superiority? That would be nice, but I'm afraid difficult to support. Other people have had a desire to live, just as strong as ours. They have had at least as much physical strength as the average person of today, and among them have been men and women of great intelligence. But down through the ages, most human beings have gone hungry.
Can it be that we have more energy than other peoples of the world? Maybe now we're getting somewhere. We may not be endowed with any special energy---mental or physical---but it is a fact that we, in the United States of America, have made more effective use of our human energies than have any other people on the face of the globe----anywhere or at any time. We have moved from backbreaking drudgery into the modern age of power, substituting steam, electricity, gasoline and nuclear power for the brawn of man. It is true that many of these developments originated in other countries. But new ideas are of little value in raising standards of living unless and until something is done about them.
That leads to even more questions! Why, for instance, does human energy work better here than anywhere else? To get to that answer we first need to ask about the nature of human energy, to find out how it differs from other forms of energy, what makes it work, what keeps it from working, how can it be made to work better, more efficiently, more effectively? We need to take a closer look at human energy at work.
Let's take an extreme case. A robber breaks into your house and threatens you at knife point. You may elect to pass over your valuables without a struggle but you make the decision and you do the passing. If instead of a robber it were a kidnaper after you child there would be a different story but in either case your thoughts and actions are under your own control.
Thousands of men and women have suffered torture and even death without speaking a word that their persecutors tried to make them speak. Your freedom of action may be forbidden, restricted, or prevented by force.
The robber, kidnaper or jailer may bind your hands and feet and put a gag in your mouth. But the fact remains that no amount of force can make you act unless you agree----perhaps with hesitation and regret---to do so.
This brings me to two important points. First individual freedom is the natural heritage of each living person, and second, freedom cannot be separated from responsibility. Your natural freedom---your control over your own life-energy---was born in you along with life itself. It is a part of life itself. No one can give it to you, nor can you give it to someone else. Nor can you hold any other person responsible for your acts. Control simply can't be separated from responsibility; control is responsibility.
A steam engine will not run on gasoline, nor will a gasoline engine run on steam. To use any kind of energy effectively, it is first necessary to understand the nature of the energy and then to set up conditions that will permit it to work to the best advantage
To make the most effective use of steam energy, it is necessary to reckon with the nature of steam. To make the most effective use of human energy, it is necessary to reckon with the nature of man. And there's no escaping the fact that human energy operates very differently from any other energy.
Only an individual human being can generate human energy and only an individual human being can control the energy he generates. A human being has the power of reason, the power of imagination, the ability to capitalize on the experiences of the past and the present as bearing on the problems of the future. He has the ability to change himself as well as his environment. He has the ability to progress and to keep on progressing.
A human being has enormous untapped powers; powers to make new things and to change old things into new forms. A human being may not only own property, but can actually create property. In the last analysis, a thing is not property unless it is owned; and without ownership, there is little incentive to improve anything.
Every human act is preceded by a decision to act, and that decision is based on faith. One cannot even think without a deep-seated faith that he exists and faith that there is a supreme standard of good in the universe. This is true of every living person---whether his god is the God of Abraham and Jesus, Allah or Budha, reason or fate, history or astrology, science or goes by any other name. The fact remains that every action of every human being springs from the desire to attain something which he considers to be good---or from the desire to avoid something which he thinks is evil or undesirable.
Since the actions of individuals are determined by their beliefs, it follows that the underlying control of the energies of any group of persons is the philosophy and ethical code by which they live.
There are hundreds, if not thousands of variations, but for purposes of this discussion, they may all be grouped under three general headings:
From the pagan viewpoint, man is not self-controlling, not responsible for his own acts. The pagan universe is timeless, changeless, static, with no room for progress. Man is passive, his place is fixed, his fate is decreed and any apparent change is merely a human illusion. If he tries to resist, his efforts will be futile.
The pagan belief is similar to that of a very young child. The newborn baby has not yet learned how to control himself. He must be spanked before he can even breathe, and for a long time he will kick himself in the eye when he tries to taste his toes. He cannot get food, he is fed. He is uncomfortable, and he is turned over. Warmth, comfort, cleanliness----all are given to him by some power outside himself, enormously stronger than he. This power controls the conditions of his life, but it does not control him. Did you ever try to stop a baby's bawling when nothing was the matter but he wanted to hear himself bawl? If babies were able to think and speak, no doubt any baby--all babies---would contend that some great power controls the lives of babies. But babies grow up, and in time the normal baby becomes a self-controlling human being. Yet, throughout all history, down to and including modern times, few adult persons have ever discovered that they are really free.
The vast majority of people have always been pagans. Most of them are still pagans. The superstition is deep-seated. It had its beginning back in prehistoric times. For thousands of years, the majority has always believed that men are passive objects controlled by some superhuman or superindividual authority---and for thousands of years, people have gone hungry.
One of the oldest, if not the oldest form of pagan worship is based on the idea that human destiny is controlled by the will-of-the-tribe, rather than by the initiative and free will of the individual persons who make up the tribe. Since it is true that human beings must exchange mutual aid with each other on this sometimes inhospitable and dangerous planet, savages in prehistoric times came to believe that they were governed by the spirit of Demos, a superindividual will of the "mass", endowed with omnipotent power and authority.
The welfare of this mystic being is called "the common good," which is supposed to be more important than the good of the individual---just as the health of a human body is more important than the life of any cell in it. Collectivists recognize human equality and the brotherhood of man---in theory at least--- but they fail to recognize the real nature of man.
Collectivists operate under the ancient, infantile assumption that individual persons are controlled by some superindividual authority. They don't bother to question this pagan superstition; they take it for granted.
To a collectivist, individuals are merely cels of a larger organism--the tribe, the people, society, the mass. It is the self-surrender of the individual to the will of pagan authority, which the collectivists believe to be "the common good."
It is in this concept that we find the origin of human sacrifice to the pagan gods. No one hesitates to destroy the cells of the hair on his head nor of the nails on his fingers or toes. They are not important in themselves. Their only value is their use to the body as a whole. Thus, for that "common good" they are sacrificed without a moment's thought or pity.
It was precisely in that spirit that the ancient Aztec priest thrust a knife into the human victim on the altar and, with holy incantations, tore out the bleeding heart. In that same spirit, the Cretans sacrified their loveliest daughters to the Minoan bull, and the Carthaginians burned their living babies to placate the great god, Moloch.
Even today, many civilized persons--nice people, cultured, gentle, and kind, our friends and our neighbors, almost all of us at some time or another---have harbored the pagan belief that the sacrifice of the individual person serves a higher good. The superstition lingers in the false ideal of selflessness---which emphasizes conformity to the will-of-the-mass---as against the Judaic and Christian virtues of self-reliance, self-improvement, self-faith, self-respect, self-discipline, and a recognition of one's duties as well as one's rights.
The collectivists, ancient and modern, contend that human society should be set up like the beehive. But human energies simply do not function in the manner of the bee swarm, and any attempt to govern the actions of multitudes of men always results in oppressive power being placed in the hands of the few.*
Old World minds have rarely doubted that they are controlled by some authority outside themselves; but down through the ages, they have become inclined to the belief that the authority resides in a human form---either a living god or some exalted person who, by reason of birth, ancestry, class, race, or color, is endowed with divine or supernatural attributes which make him the living embodiment of God.
The pharaohs of Egypt, the Roman emperors, and the Japanese mikados were believed to be gods in human form. Until 1911, the empress of China was a sacred being. The Tibetans still believe that God is incarnate in their Grand Lama.
Then there are the philosopher-kings; the aristocratic do-gooders. It is highly presumptious of any mortal man to assume that he is endowed with such fantastic ability that he can run the affairs of all his fellowmen better than they, as individuals, can run their own personal affairs. The harm done by ordinary criminals, murderes, gangsters, and thieves is negligible in comparison with the agony inflicted upon human beings by the professional "do-gooders," who attempt to set themselves up as gods on earth and who would ruthlessly force their views on all others---with the abiding assurance that the end justifies the means.
But remember, no human being can be made to accept these overseers; a subject or citizen must choose to do so, and generally does, because it feels secure to depend on these superhuman persons who have both the right and the power to control the lives of people assumed to be their natural inferiors.
Whether the monarch is looked upon as a living god or as God's personal agent, all property is at his disposal; and in practice, he bestows great wealth and the exercise of some authority on a few persons, who then form a superior class---nobles, samurai, aristocrats, bureucratic ministers in control of this, that, and the other. Such men, headed by their emperor, their king, or their queen, are looked upon as the government.*
But let's get back to the question of energy. Human energy has worked in jerks, so to speak. Whenever men began to develop farming and crafts and trade, government stopped them. Of course government never intended to stop them; indeed, its honest aim was to help them. But the effect was the opposite, for the simple reason that 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 which are ineffective in stimulating ambition, initiative, creative effort and perseverance.
Human energy cannot operate effectively except when men are free to act and to be responsible for their actions. But liberty does not mean license; for no one has a right to infringe upon the rights of others. Certain restraints are necessary, and they are provided in two ways: first, legal restraints---passing of laws to be administered by governmental agencies and enforced by police power. Secondly, moral restraints---which depend on individual self-discipline, logical reasoning, good sportsmanship, and a consideration for the rights of others. Laws on the statute books can never be an adequate substitute for moral restraint based on enlightened self-interest---which means a recognition of one's duties as well as of one's rights.
In fact enacting laws that cannot be enforced does more harm than good. Most importantly it belittles personal responsibility and promotes the dangerous notion that legalized force can be used as a substitute for self-control and individual morality. It undermines respect for the really necessary laws and as law observance deteriorates a remedy is sought in increasing penalties and in passing even more laws. And if that were not enough, it increases red tape and government overhead because the greater the number of laws, useless or not, the greater the number of people required to administer and enforce them, which means taking more and more people away from productive work.
Any attempt to give to government the responsibilities which properly belong to individual citizens, curtails the advancement of personal freedom. It retards progress---morally as well as along the lines of greater productivity. Look at it from any angle you please, but there's no escaping the conclusion that moral restraints are more efficient than legal restraints..
Right here the objection may be raised that "to depend on moral restraints calls for quite a change in human behavior." I won't attempt to argue the point---except to say that changes and further improvements in the direction of enlightened self-interest and personal responsiblility are not nearly so difficult to attain as the unnatural changes that are promoted by those who would repress individual development and reduce human beings to the status of the beehive.
Progress lies in working in harmony with the fundamental nature of man, not in reverting to the pagan superstition which, for over 6,000 years, has suppressed individual initiative and kept human energy in a strait jacket.
It is difficult for Americans to even begin to understand the stagnating effects of regimentation and how it leads to greater and greater oppressions. It is generally outside the range of our experience because we have lived in a new kind of world where human energy and initiative have usually worked under the natural control of the individual--which is the only way that they can ever work effectively.
For 200 years, during the greatest display of progress that the world has ever known, each American has been mostly free to decide for himself how to earn money and whether to save or spend it; whether to go to school or go to work; whether to stick to his job or leave it and get another---or go into business on his own; whether to plant wheat or corn; whether to rent or buy or build a house; how much he would, or would not, pay for a shirt, a hamburger or a televeision set; and what he would accept for the hand-made quilt or the modified hot-rod. But how long will this last?
No one knows who first made the discovery that men are free. The fragmentary records begin with one person. When Ur was the great empire, about 4,000 years ago, a shepherd named Terah, with his son, his daughter-in-law and his orphaned grandson, travled with his flocks toward the Far West. When Terah died, the family---now headed by Abraham---continued westward.
That was back in the days when people believed that everything was controlled by the wims and fancies of pagan gods. As water ran and winds blew, so men thought and felt and acted as the gods might will.
But Abraham denied the existence of all these pagan gods. He insisted that there is only one God---the God of all things, the God who creates and judges. He taught his increasing family that God is Rightness, Reality and Truth; that man is free and self-controlling and responsible for his own act; that each person is free to do good or evil, as he may choose, but that any wrong act will result in punishment to the evildoer.
Abraham's theological concept laid the foundation for scientific progress for as long as men labored under the delusion that the universe is controlled by the whims and fancies of prankish gods, there was no point in tying to improve anything through individual effort. Progress did not come until men began to realize that everything works according to a divine plan, the essence of which is truth and rightness. This applies not only to questions of morality, but also to all other things. Every engineer, every scientist, every farmer and every mechanic knows that nothing will work, that no act will succeed, unless it is in harmony with rightness---the true nature of things as they are.
After Abraham's death, the record shows that during times of famine his descendents moved into Egypt in search of food. They had "pull" with a kinsman named Joseph who understood the crop cycle and made himself Pharaoh's favorite by laying out a planned economy known as the "ever-normal-granary." But when crops failed and famine came, the farmers and herdsmen had to sign away their fields and pastures in order to get back enough grain to keep from starving. Thus rank-and-file Egyptians were reduced to virtual slavery. But the privileged class, rich and secure, had no particular objection to slavery. It didn't hurt them---or so they thought!
Abraham's descendants, as members of the favored class, grew and prospered until a new man came into power. He was anxious to gain favor with the Egyptians, and he said, (according to the old King James version) "Behold, the people of Israel are more and mightier than we: Come on, let us deal wisely with them." This sounded good so the oppressed classes rallied and seized the property of the Israelites and placed them in bondage, worked many of them to death and killed their babies. Finally a man called Moses came to the rescue. With great difficulty, he got the children of Israel out of Egypt and across the Red Sea. Some of them died on the journey and those who came through alive were not very appreciative.
After long years of slavery, they had forgotten the teachings of Abraham and expected others to take care of all their needs. They would do nothing for themselves and soon they turned against Moses, blaming him for all their troubles. When food was scarce, they howled that he was starving them. When he didn't bring them water they wailed that he was killing them with thirst. One wonders how Moses stuck it out. But for forty years he kept on telling them that they were free men; that they were responsible for themselves. "Your murmurings are not against us," he told them, "but against the Lord." But slaves are passive. They submit. They obey. And they expect to be fed. They wanted Moses to be their king so they could hold him responsible and blame him for everything. But Moses turned them down and kept on insisting that they were free, responsible for themselves; that there was no pagan god to control them and be responsible for them; that no man could rule another man. But the children of Israel kept on murmuring, drifting back into idolatry, and sneaking every chance to worship their pagan gods.
Finally, as a last resort, Moses reduced the teachings of Abraham to a written code of moral law. Known as the Ten Commandments, it stands today as the first and greatest document of individual freedom in the recorded history of man. Each of the Ten Commmandments is addressed to the individual as a self-controlling person responsibler for his own thoughts, words, and acts. And each of them recognizes liberty and freedom as inherent in the nature of man. It is one of the greatest achievements of history that the straggling little tribes of Israelites preserved the teachings of their prophets and passed them down through countless generations. Most of the Old World rulers have always hated the Jews. For 4,000 years, the word Jew has symboized freedom and individual initiative, in contrast tot the pagan concept of a static world and submission to the gods of superstitition.
But the knowledge that men are free is not enough. If the human race is to progress, individual freedom must be combined and tempered with the principles of cooperation, based on a recognition of human brotherhood.
Abraham declared that every man is a free agent, responsible only to God. Moses reduced the teachings of Abraham to a written code of moral law, directed to he individual. Christ expanded on these teachings and added a new commandment emphasizing the principle of human brotherhood. These events marked the turning point in a world which had long been dominated by the gods of superstition---the will-of-the-swarm and the living authorities. In relation to recorded history, Abraham, Moses, and Christ lived in ancient times; but the pagan view to wihich they were opposed dates back to the beginning of primitive man, which has been estimated at 500,000 years ago. So relatively speaking the foundations of the Hebrew-Christian religion are of modern origin.
The new teachings were too revolutionary to be accepted all at once; even down to this day, they have never been given a thorough trial. But their impact on the deep-seated superstitions was terrific; and history since the time of Christ is largely a record of conflicts and compromises between paganism and freedom. There had been glimmerings of freedom---perhaps independently of Abraham and the Hebrew prophets---but nowhere else do we find the principles so clearly stated and emphasized as the God-given rights of the individual person.
In ancient Greece, for example, there had been some degree of freedom, but it was on a class basis; and even in the days of their highest culture, the Greeks continued to cherish their pagan gods. They had implicit faith in the ability of the government to take care of their needs. It seems never to have occurred to them that the individual person is self-controlling and responsible for his own acts. They labored under the delusion that their democracy was a guarantee of peace and plenty, not realizing that unrestrained majority-rule always destroys freedom, puts the minority at the mercy of the mob, and works at cross-purposes to the effective use of human energy and individual initiative. It seems unfortunate that so many Americans have lost sight of the fact that our government was designed, not as a democracy, but as a republic. It is interesting to note that the word democracy does not appear in the Declaration of Independence or in the Constitution or in the Bill of Rights; and I understand that prior to 1913 it had never been used in any official presidential statement.
Paradoxically, when not kept within bounds, the democrtic process has always led to the destruction of democratic ideals and has served as a springboard to dictatorship and war. The temptation to buy votes through governmental spending is too great. Prompted by political ambition or by sincere desire to do good, and usually by both, a champion of the people emerges with tthe age-old and appealing promise of "something for nothing"---to be financed through ever-increasing taxes. Supply and demand are thrown out of gear--the overhead goes up; the effective use of human energy goes down; the standard of living is lowered because money cannot buy wealth that is not produced. No government can support its people, for the simple reason that a government must derive its support from the people.
In Greece it was the glittering Pericles who, in the role of benefactor, set up and maintained his dictatorship through increased government spending. Then, to divert attention from the impending disaster, he led his followers into the even greater disaster of war against Sparta. It was the beginning of the end for Greece. But there had been some degree of freedom among the upper classes and it reflected itself in their contributions to architecture, art, science and philosophy.
Taking advantage of what could be learned from the Greek philosophers, the methodical Romans built a political structure based on codified law. Under the Roman empire economic regulations multiplied and were so efficiently administered that farmers could no longer farm; and many of the small businessmen, faced with starvation, committed suicide in preference to being executed for black marketing. There was no work for the workingman, so the beneficient govenrment stepped in and, by taxing the rich, managed for a while to provide the populace with bread and circus tickets. But that was no solution. The improvement was short-lived.
Money can't buy goods unless the goods are produced. The mounting taxes put more and more people out of business. An increasing number of workers were forced onto tax-supported relief uhntil there was not enought productive energy at work to pay the tax bills. The great Roman Empire---with its plans for a thousand years of peace and security--collapsed into the Dark Ages.
Henry Thomas Buckle's History of Civilization in England (1874)--compare it with 1991
"In every quarter, and at every moment, the hand of government was felt.
Duties on importation, and duties on exportation; bounties to raise up a losing trade, and taxes to pull down a remunerative one; this branch of industry forbidden, and that branch of industry encouraged; one article of commerce must not be grown, because it was grown in the colonies, another article might be grown and bought, but not sold again, while a third article might be bought and sold, but not leave the country. Then, too, we find laws to regulate wages; laws to regulate prices; laws to regulate profits; laws to regulate the interest of money; custon-house arrangements of the most vexatious kined, aided by a complicated scheme, which was well called the sliding scale, --a scheme of such perverse ingenuity, that the duties constantly varied on the same article, and no man could calculate beforehand what he would have to pay. . . The tolls were so onerous, as to double and often qudruple the cost of production. . . .A large part of all this was by way of protection: that is to say, the money was avowedly raised, and the inconvenience suffered, not for the use of the government, but for the benefit of the people; in other words, the industrious classes were robbed, in order that industry might thrive."
During the reign of Louis XIV, the French weavers went through a whole season without moving a shuttle. While the people were waiting for clothes, the weavers were waiting for the government to tell them what kind of cloth they would be allowed to weave, what color it should be, and how many threads would be permitted for each inch of warp and woof. Regulations on the textile industry alone covered over 3,000 pages.
The state is called the government, but it cannot actually govern the individual acts of any person because of the nature of human energy. Men in public office are only men and no man can control another's thoughts, speech, or creative actions. But remember, no possible use of physical force can compel anyone to think, speak, or act---it can only limit, hinder and prevent.
In the last analysis, and stripped of all the furbelows, government is nothing more than a legal monopoly of the use of physical force---by persons upon persons---and the monopoly is permitted by common consent. Remember, no government can exist without the consent and economic support of the people.
Down through the ages, century after century, time and time again, men have killed their rulers and have slaughtered one another in untold millions, in the effort to find an authority that would improve their conditions. Such rebellions sometimes bring temporary benefits. They interrrupt the mechanism of attempted control and permit human energy to work a little---for a little while.
There has never been but one real revolution. It is the revolution against pagan fatalism---the revolution for human freedom.