By LEONARD E. READ
TO . . . the seeker of truth . . . the exemplar of liberty: the key to a better world!
Originally published by the Foundation for Economic Education, January 1981.
CONTENTS
1. Thoughts Rule the World
The spiritual origin of all by which we live and prosper.
2. Freedom is Not Free
Each generation must earn it.
3. Pre-Emption: Legal Thievery
Stop asking government to steal for you!
4. Good Intentions Gone Astray
The end pre-exists in the means.
5. Woe Betide Ye of Little Trust
Freedom comes to those who trust one another.
6. Little Men Cause Big Government
Bondage for those who fail to try.
7. Goodness: The First Step To Freedom
Not in outward things but in the inward thing we are.
8. Dependence And Independence
Cooperation among self-reliant individuals.
9. The Free Mind
Accountable to a higher tribunal than man’s.
10. Love Makes The World Go Round
We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.
11. The Practice of Manners And Morals
These twin virtues are signs of maturity.
12. Why The President Said No
In defense of limited government.
13. Obligations Spawn Mental Growth
Obstacles as steppingstones.
14. Our Mutual Obligations
Learning is a sharing of ideas.
15. The Role of Goals
Not failure, but low aim is crime.
16. The Voice of Conscience
Conscience asks, is it right?
17. The Emergence of Truth
The more one knows, the greater the unknown.
18. Aspire to See Afar
Genius is a superior power of seeing.
19. From The “Known” To The Unknown
Each achievement reveals a higher goal.
20. The Masters of Victory
Those with the wisdom, courage, and determination to win.
21. The Power of Thinking Joyously
Take comfort in achievement.
22. Thoughts: Dead or Alive?
Ideas are powerless unless activated.
23. Count Our Blessings, Not Miseries
Enjoy thine own, envy not others.
24. Reaping The Blessings of Freedom
Those who would expect to reap the blessings of freedom must undergo the fatigue of supporting it.
25. Perfection? Knowing Our Imperfections
Those most assume who know the least.
26. Good News
Individuals best help themselves and others when free.
1
THOUGHTS RULE THE WORLD
Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than material force, that thoughts rule the world.
—EMERSON
Discoveries, inventions, insights, intuitive flashes—thoughts—are what I understand by “spiritual.” It is obvious that everything by which we live and prosper has its origin in the spiritual before its manifestation in the material. First the ideas, then the object. One of the countless examples: To claim that my electric typewriter is the product of a million thoughts would be a gross understatement. Reflect on these points:
•Press the button and instantly electric energy flows. No one can come close to estimating the number of thoughts that have contributed to this phenomenon—from the day Benjamin Franklin with his kite discovered that lightning is electricity to today’s electronic miracles!
•That which encases all of this fantastic gadgetry originates from a combination of mined ore. Modern mining includes everything from ropes to shovels to elevators to dynamite to consumer demand. Thoughts galore, beyond anyone’s imagination, no two identical! • Facing the typist are 55 keys, the touching of which performs a magical function. Of what are these gadgets made? Millions of thoughts! And reflect on the letters, from A to Z, components of the English language. Who can calculate the number of thoughts that brought them into being over the centuries? No one, even remotely!
The above paragraphs have to do only with the thoughts responsible for the creation of a typewriter. Imagine how many more thoughts it has taken to account for the automobile! Every day for the past 80 years new thoughts have added improvements to the vehicle we take for granted. A 747 Jet has 5,000,000 parts and no individual knows how to make a single one of them—any more than anyone knows how to make a simple wooden lead pencil.1
I glance around my office and see at least a hundred items, ranging from beautiful artificial flowers to an accurate radio-clock. No one knows how to make a single one of these items, or even the pen I use as I ponder the complexities of the role of thought!
The point is that no one person has the capacity to manage the storm of thoughts that bombard the universe. But when free to flow, thoughts tend to configurate into the goods and services by which we live and prosper. So, let us have faith in freedom.
Given a sufficient realization that thoughts are fleeting, ever-changing, in an ideological flurry—given this understanding—the practice and impact of know-it-all-ness would dwindle. When it is recognized that no person on this earth—past or present—can command the thoughts of a single individual, let alone the millions, the command way of life is seen to be the mistaken way of the past. Politicians will be replaced by statesmen; our 78,000 governments—federal, state and local—will be limited to prohibiting the acts of aggression and destruction of a disappearing number of wiseacres. The cost of all governments will be insignificant—this alone being worth the ideological struggle.
Good thinkers of our day are blest with thoughts by wise men the world over, from ancient to modern times. Examples: Confucius, Socrates, Jesus, Epictetus, John Locke, Edmund Burke, Bastiat, Cobden, Bright, Adam Smith, Washington, Emerson and many more.
This good advice from the Roman Emperor and philosopher, Marcus Aurelius (121–180): “The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts, therefore guard accordingly; and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue.” Aurelius was a devoted Stoic who held to the philosophy that all happenings are the result of Divine Will. Thus, no belief, none whatsoever, in a political or any other type of dictocrat!
That happiness depends on the quality of our thoughts is a truism. Wrote the French philosopher, Blaise Pascal (1623–62): “Happiness is neither within us only, or without us; it is a union of ourselves with God.” As to quality of thought, this is unquestionably number one!
Aurelius wisely cautions against notions unsuitable to virtue. Briefly, entertain no thoughts nor take any actions out of harmony with Judeo-Christian charity, intelligence, justice, integrity, love, humility, reverence!
The elderly American divine, Daniel March (1816–1919) gave us this bit of wisdom: “The great thinker is seldom a disputant. He answers other men’s arguments by stating the truth as he sees it.” In our realm of thought, the freedom devotee who trades blows with a socialist merely hardens the latter in his ways. Bad method! Stating the truth of freedom, when done with enough expertise, occasionally attracts a socialist to a better idea. Good method!
Truly, thoughts rule the world. However, their rule will never be to mankind’s benefit unless the most difficult thought of all is understood and practiced. And what might that be? Several benchmarks:
1.To concede that everything is mystery, that is, to realize how infinitesimal is your or my understanding.
2.To recognize that trillions times trillions of good thoughts—no two alike—when left free to flow, will mysteriously configurate to the benefit of one and all as we stand in worshipful wonder.
3.“I call that mind free which protects itself against the usurpations of society, which does not cower to human opinions, which feels itself accountable to a higher tribunal than man’s.”
William Ellery Channing
He or she who stands in reverence of Creation is indeed one whom the truth makes free!
***
In the conviction that thoughts rule the world, I offer this, my 27th book. More accurately, it is a series of essays—thoughts on freedom as they have come to mind—enclosed between two covers.
_________________
1See “I, Pencil,” copy on request.
2
FREEDOM IS NOT FREE
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
—ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Only a few—the pure, the apt and the true—never deny freedom to anyone. All others, while they may hope for freedom for themselves, deny this blessing to others in countless ways, sometimes knowingly but often in ignorance. Whoever diminishes your freedom deserves it not for himself! Thanks, Honest Abe!
We can also thank William Harvard for his counsel: “The greatest glory of a free-born people is to transmit that freedom to their children.” Never in all history were a people more blest in being freeborn than Americans. And for at least twelve decades they transmitted this blessing to their children. Then came the slump and for many reasons, ranging from prosperity going to their heads—thinking gone dormant—to government “education.”
Lincoln’s thought reversed would read: When enough of us grant freedom to others we shall have it for ourselves! For, as Edmund Burke wrote: “Depend on it, the lovers of freedom will be free.”
Who amongst us have the capability or the potentiality of advancing an understanding of freedom? Only those individuals who find the freedom cause a happy pursuit. Wrote Saint Augustine about sixteen centuries ago: “Happiness consists in the attainment of our desires and in our having only right desires.” Among the right desires is freedom!
If we are to enjoy the blessings of freedom, there are ever so many ideas and ideals that must grace our understanding and exposition. Among these are (1) the proper role of government and (2) the rights of citizens. According to the late Robert H. Jackson, Justice of the Supreme Court from 1941 to 1945: “It is not the function of government to keep the citizens from error; it is the function of citizens to keep the government from falling into error.”
Wrote the Roman Emperor and philosopher, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121–180), “Our understandings are always liable to error. Nature and certainty are very hard to come at, and infallibility is mere vanity and pretense.” A very large percentage of elected and appointed officials assume they are infallible and, as a consequence, attempt to protect us from our countless errors. The costs of this assumed infallibility? Almost without limit. For one, inflation on the rampage! As the Bard of Avon wrote, “You take my life when you take the means by which I live.”
Now to the important side of this problem. Justice Robert H. Jackson pronounced a great truth: “It is the function of citizens to keep the government from falling into error.” How are we to cope with and overcome the vanity and pretense of nearly 16,000,000 political office holders? They presume powers bordering on magic, in the sense of “producing extraordinary results.”
To repeat what I have written numerous times before: (1) ours is not a numbers problem; (2) it is not a selling but a learning problem.
•Every good movement in all history has been in response to an infinitesimal minority. One of many examples: The very few who did the thinking which resulted in The Declaration, Constitution and Bill of Rights.
•Ideas cannot be “sold”; neither can they be thrust into the minds of others. The correct formula? Become so excellent in explaining the freedom way of life that others will seek your tutorship. Become mentors! Excellence begets excellence whatever the endeavor—be it cooking, science, golf, music or whatever. All experience attests to this fact.
The achievement of these aspirations requires extraordinary effort, of a kind and quality which only those who love freedom are happy to expend. This is testimony to the fact that freedom is far from free.
It is interesting to observe what others have had to say on this important subject. Walter Weisenburger was President of the National Association of Manufacturers during the early forties, and one of the most brilliant freedom devotees any business organization ever had. He pointed out that: “American business needs fewer orders from the government and more orders from customers.”
No one, from the local policeman to the President of the U.S.A., is aware of even a small fraction of the millions of orders from our 78,000 governmental units—national, state and local. But we do know that every order beyond keeping the peace and invoking a common justice makes creative effort more difficult and hinders a progress that would be far greater than now.
One example should suffice to make the point. Governmental intervention makes for heavy taxation, deficits, and inflation. Individuals, then, are left with less money of their own to spend, but the interventionist government pressure causes prices to rise relentlessly—as in the case of automobiles and motor fuel. Prices of larger model automobiles, especially, are now so high that the supply exceeds the demand. Dealers’ lots are filled with unsold cars, and one of our largest manufacturers is being bailed out with a government loan. What is needed, obviously, are more orders from customers; impossible unless there be fewer orders from government.
Wrote Will Durant: “Freedom is not inborn or imperishable. It must be acquired anew by every generation.” We do not inherit an understanding of freedom—or the necessary devotion to it—from the previous generation. Freedom perishes unless acquired anew in one’s own generation and by a number sufficient to constitute an attracting leadership! There are many steps to such a glorious achievement. What are they? Two of them are (1) new phrasing for old truths, and (2) the necessary disciplines required if we would be free.
•Such old-time phrasings as “the home of the brave and the land of the free” or “Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable” have long since been meaningless—mere empty sounds. So, in our time, we search for new ways to explain freedom, even though no one will ever be able to explain it fully. Try to explain Creation! It is impossible. Creative action at the human level borders on this difficulty. One way of phrasing will be apprehended by a few, another phrasing by a few others. Explaining liberty is, indeed, a task now and forever.
•What are the necessary disciplines? It is perpetual “training that develops self-control, character, efficiency.” In our case, the basic discipline is the perpetual study of freedom that we may better understand and explain this wondrous way of life. To repeat a wise thought by G. K. Chesterton: “The world will never starve for want of wonders, but only for want of wonder.” If we want freedom to continue working its wonders, we must allow for the mystery of creativity.
Finally, two wise thoughts, the first by Felix Morley: “If people do not possess the capacity to govern themselves, they are inevitably governed by others.” This is an excellent and improved phrasing to describe our present politico-economic holocaust: “great or widespread destruction.”
The second is by Edmund Burke who expressed the same idea two centuries earlier: “It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.” Those of intemperate minds—going to socialistic extremes—lack the capacity to govern themselves. The result? An unholy and tyrannical extreme: governed by governments!
The alternative? Self-government, self-reliance, self-responsibility, self-consciousness. Easy? No! But only those who move in the direction of these intellectual, moral and spiritual goals—while happy in their pursuit—gain a profound awareness: Freedom is far from free!
3
PRE-EMPTION: LEGAL THIEVERY
Petty thievery is punished, but thievery on a grand scale is honored by a triumphal procession.
—SENECA
Of all the devilish tactics which are leading the U.S.A. head-on into socialism pre-emption tops the list. Lamentably, the word is not in most people’s vocabulary, and try to find even a freedom devotee who is aware of its causal effects. All of us have some homework to do if we are to realize that pre-emption is legal thievery on the grand scale!
Before going further, it is necessary to define the proper role of government. One cannot tell what government should or should not do unless one knows what government is and is not.
Government is organized force! It issues edicts backed by a constabulary—a physical force which can be symbolized by the clenched fist. Find out what the fist can and cannot do and we will know what government should and should not do. The fist can restrain, inhibit and penalize. What, in all good conscience, should be restrained, inhibited and penalized? The answer was given in the moral codes long before Christianity: the “Thou shalt nots”—destructive actions such as stealing, killing, and so on. Inhibit those destructive acts: that’s what government can legitimately do—period!
Most important is the answer to what government can not do. It is not and can never be a creative force. All such forces are spiritual in the sense that discoveries, inventions, insights, ideas, intuitive flashes are spiritual. Everything by which we live and prosper shows forth in the spiritual before it is manifested in the material. A water glass is inconceivable had not some cave dweller discovered how to harness fire. A jet plane would be impossible had not some Hindu ten centuries ago invented the concept of zero. All modern chemistry and physics would be impossible had we to rely on Roman numerals.
What, then, is government’s proper role? It is to inhibit all destructive actions, keep the peace, and invoke a common justice. Leave all creative actions—education or whatever—to citizens acting privately, voluntarily, competitively, cooperatively. That’s how to draw the line.
The dictionary’s definition of pre-emption is: “To seize before anyone else can; excluding others.” Let’s pose a hypothetical example. Government has not pre-empted welfare. We can, if we so choose, give to others as generously as we please. However, government spends so much on welfare—billions of dollars annually—that most citizens behave as if it were pre-empted. Their reaction to a starving neighbor: “That’s the government’s job.” Were they not afflicted with the pre-emptive error, they would share their last loaf of bread with their starving neighbor—the practice of Judeo-Christian charity.
What do I mean by legal pre-emption? I am speaking of any productive, peaceful activity or service which government puts out of bounds to ordinary citizens, like the service of delivering private messages as a profit-making enterprise. The national government has legally pre-empted this service; it runs the U.S. Postal Service, and there is a law on the books making it a crime for any private citizen to go into the business of first-class mail delivery. There are cases in the courts periodically, prosecuting some entrepreneur who sought to set up a business for the peaceful service of carrying private messages for profit.
Legal pre-emption of any peaceful service—the Post Office is only one of thousands of instances—results in a species of thievery. In the case of mail delivery, legal pre-emption robs entrepreneurs—thousands of them around the nation of the opportunity to deliver mail. Were this opportunity thrown open to anyone, many would regard mail delivery as the most favorable occupational choice available to them. Why should they be forbidden to make this choice?
Mail delivery is as much a creative activity as voice delivery. Prior to 1864 the voice could be delivered about 50 yards. Left to the free market where the wisdom is, the miracle: the human voice can be delivered around the world at the speed of light—one-seventh of a second! One of many personal experiences: I once phoned my office from Switzerland, and it took no longer than phoning a next-door neighbor. This is an example of the efficiency of the market.
Contrast the situation in Argentina, where the phone system is “run” by government. Recently, I tried to call my office from Buenos Aires. I waited several hours. Why? Pre-emption by a political collective—the government—from which creative wisdom never has, does not, and never will originate.
Governmental pre-emption of mail delivery results in ever-increasing prices and the service declines year by year. Leave mail delivery to the market and the result would be no less phenomenal than present-day voice delivery by the market! No one in today’s world can imagine how wondrous it would be any more than Leonardo da Vinci could have foreseen the wonders of a 747 Jet!
It is my belief that creative wisdom never originates in political action. Why doesn’t it? Why is political action so devoid of rationality, discernment, sagacity? The correct answer to this difficult-to-solve riddle would open up a politico-economic gold mine: freedom!
Presumably, our 16,000,000 officeholders—federal, state and local—are equal in intelligence to those who elect them. Why, then, are their speeches and writings so often lacking in creative wisdom?
Here is a suggested answer: An officeholder tends to speak or to write as a member of a party or as the voice of a political collective. The individual and the personal are unwanted byproducts when words are fed into the political meatgrinder, only to come out as a homogenized communique! The truth is ultimately a personal witness issuing from a man’s highest self; written or spoken words reflect the mind and heart of the person who utters them and stands by them. His very being vouches for them; they are from the soul and make their just impact on the soul of another. Perhaps Emerson was getting at this point when he said, “What you are speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say!” Words, to have weight, must match the man who voices them; take away the man and his words have lost any attachment to reality.
And it is precisely this we are guilty of when we operate as a committee. The mere spokesman for a committee, a sect, a party, or any other kind of collective, is issuing words that are anchored to no reality. They are adrift! A manifesto issued by a collective is but one set of words loosely related to another set of words; the personal note is eliminated, and with it the truth.
True, there are a growing number of officeholders who are statesmen and speak for freedom as individuals—separate and apart from the political collective. Also, there have been officeholders who have stepped aside from their political role and have prospered as creative citizens efficiently serving consumers.
The freedom way of life has its birth in a nation of self-responsible, self-reliant citizens—individualism—but never from a collectivistic society as Russia. Political collectives do not nor can they create!
In the foregoing I have commented on government pre-emption of mail delivery, and the disastrous consequences that have ensued. Contrast this with the field of voice delivery, where the market is free and miracles are commonplace. The Postal Service is not the only instance of political pre-emption; there are thousands of others. Many persons will thoughtlessly assume that some of these other thousands of pre-emptions are okay. But, if the same reasoning be applied to any instance of pre-emption as has been used in the cases of mail and voice delivery, the answer will be an emphatic, “NO!”
Let us not cast the derogatory eye only at political officeholders. Many citizens in all walks of life seek private advantage from some form of pre-emptive action. Labor unions keep non-members and youngsters from job opportunities; minimum wage laws outlaw the more or less unskilled.
Then there are businessmen who obtain or advocate embargoes or tariffs in their effort to pre-empt freedom to trade goods and services. There is not an occupational category in which preemptive thinking or action does not exist—more or less. Thus, we have “thievery on the grand scale, honored by a triumphal procession.”
The nearest one can come to remedying this thievery is by example: Make oneself an honest person and there will be one less rascal in the world!
4
GOOD INTENTIONS GONE ASTRAY
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
—RICHARD BAXTER
This English Divine (1615–91) provides an excellent phrasing for my thesis: Disaster results from certain policies however well-meaning the people may be who sponsor them. We are on a hellish road, although it may be conceded that the intentions of our countless “pavers” are good—in their own view. They are afflicted with a shortsightedness that has only one remedy: a better understanding of why their notions are against everyone’s interest, including their own.
All of us who believe in freedom should try to surpass each other in putting brighter and brighter lights along life’s pavement. It is not enough that one’s intentions be good. People with good intention, but whose ideas are afflicted with fallacies, cannot avoid acting against their own interests, as well as everyone else’s. Here are a few thoughts on the hellish results.
Tariffs are anti-consumer. One of several flaws in early American history was a tariff law. There were two excuses: (1) revenue, which was skimpy and (2) protection of our infant industries against the competition of European giants. Here are three questions and three answers:
1.What nation in all the world and in all history has had the most infant industrial starts? The U.S.A.
2.In what nation has there been the greatest number of infant industries growing into industrial giants? In the U.S.A.
3.In what nation has little-to-bigness development faced the greatest competition? In the U.S.A. where there have been and are now more industrial giants than have existed elsewhere.
A friend of mine became one of the wealthiest men in America by discovering novel ways to lower his costs several years before his competitors. By the time they had caught up with him, he had devised new ways.
Much to my surprise, he one day advocated tariffs. Why? To outlaw foreign competitors who had found ways to undersell him. Today, there are thousands of leading businessmen who advocate tariffs and embargoes to destroy competition. The extent to which free trade is squelched, locally or internationally, to that extent are consumers deprived of goods and services.
Labor unions are anti-employee. As every employer should be free to hire or fire whomever he pleases, so should every individual be free to choose his employment. Such freedom does not exist in any business, educational institution, or any other endeavor dominated by unions. The labor union leaders, by reason of coercive force, granted by government, become employers, deciding who shall have work and who shall not. Walter Reuther, head of the United Auto Workers for years, truly believed in his domineering role: “Only a moron would believe that the millions of private economic decisions being made independently of each other will somehow harmonize in the end [freedom] and bring us out where we want to be.”1
Today, there are some 20,000,000 members of labor unions, about one-fifth of the adult population. Reflect on how this limits the right of access to job opportunities by nonunion citizens. Briefly, coercion is used to prevent nonunion people from working in unionized endeavors; force is used to prevent willing workers from taking jobs which union members have vacated, whether by reason of old age or death or whatever.
If we concede that such mental delinquency is opposed to life’s high purpose—an improving righteousness—then all the Reuthers and all citizens would fare far better were there no coercive labor unions!
Government handouts are anti-charity. Judeo-Christian charity in its highest form is anonymous—giving aid to those in distress without disclosing the identity of the giver.2 Not only keep one’s benevolence unknown to the recipient, but even to one’s self. Forget it! Let nothing enter the mind which leads to such an assessment of self as “What a great Samaritan am I!” Such is to destroy one of the greatest of all virtues: humility!
According to the above characteristic of true charity, government handouts are the very opposite. Instead of secrecy there is blatancy: “to bellow; disagreeably loud; noisy . . . obtrusive.” The “giver” government is not the source of its handouts; rather, government merely redistributes the livelihood of all citizens. If this be charity, then charity is evil, a sin of the first order!
One more comment about government handouts. Whenever government pre-empts any activity, citizens forget how personally to practice it. As it is today, when a neighbor is in need the common reaction is to regard caring for the needy as government’s role. But were there no pre-emption, we would share our last loaf of bread with our neighbors in distress. Government handouts are, indeed, anti-charity!
Price controls are anti-trade. Assume there were no trade, that you were compelled to live on what you now produce or know how to produce. You would perish! Trading—exchanging our specializations—is implicit in survival. This is self-evident.
We Americans have literally millions of specializations. The freer the results of specialization are to flow and configurate, the more will prosperity grace our lives; the less free, the worse off we are. There are countless obstacles to the free flowing of goods and services, and prosperity is one of them! “We have it made,” as many “think,” and thus their talents lie dormant—thinking deadened! Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, and prosperity may cause us to forget—an all too human frailty.
There is, however, another “frailty” of which we should beware: the persistent faith in price controls. Anyone may rewrite the price tag, but the real price of a good cannot be controlled by law. Price controls tell lies!
Observe the people who say they are for freedom yet insist on price controls—the same as saying they favor people control! The fruits of your labor are yours no less than your existence is yours. It follows that the prices you can obtain for your goods and services in willing exchange are as much yours as your life. For government to control your prices is to control your life. Wrote Edmund Burke: “No government ought to exist for the purpose of checking the prosperity of its people or allow such a principle in its policy.” Prices are no more government’s business than deciding how long we should live.
Child labor laws are anti-youth. Wrote the American Bishop, Edmund Janes (1807–76): “The interests of childhood and youth are the interests of mankind.” If we are to have a society graced with citizens devoted to freedom we must see to it that our children are not dominated by authoritarians. Are they now? Yes, in several ways. Child labor laws, for example. Young people are not free to accept employment until the age of 16! Work opportunities that make for growth and help them learn the problems of adulthood are denied. Result? Political domineering on the rampage!
The minimum wage today is $3.35 per hour, this being a government edict sponsored by labor unions. Why this immoral, destructive law? The minimum wage eliminates competition by youngsters in the labor market, thus giving a special privilege or advantage to labor unions. Stunting the growth of future citizens in this fashion may well be the most anti-freedom device ever devised!
When we assume that life’s highest purpose is a growth in awareness, perception, consciousness—a correct and laudable assumption—we must perceive child labor laws as nothing less than a death sentence. Youth committed to an intellectual tomb! That I, at the age of 82, have been able to write this, my 27th book on the freedom thesis, is partially due to a childhood not thus encumbered. Work was part of my daily routine.
Was I a laborer? Yes, and not only in childhood but into my advanced adulthood. “Laborer” is a label I refuse to relinquish. From the age of eleven to eighteen—when I entered World War I—my work week was 102 hours. Up and away to work at four o’clock, cleaning stables, milking cows, six hours at school, evening chores on the farm, clerking in the village store until nine o’clock week days and until midnight on Saturdays. Cows were milked on Sundays, too! Work is still an everyday matter with me. If all of this doesn’t qualify me as a laborer, pray tell, what does?
One summer there was a break in the above routine—working 60 hours a week running a cement mixer. The pay? Five cents an hour! That’s quite a contrast to the present minimum wage of $3.35 an hour! Given a choice between my 5 cents with opportunities unlimited or the present death-sentence law, what would my answer be? I’ll let my readers make the guess.
The above are mere samplings of good intentions gone astray. Today, there are more than one can count. Your and my role? See if we can improve the clarity of the explanations here offered. Have a try at explaining such ideological paradoxes as: Social Security is Anti-Security, Maximum Hours are Anti-Work, Energy Control is Anti-Energy, Medicare is Anti-Health, Rationing is Anti-Plenty—on and on!
A Latin scholar of more than 2,000 years ago gave to us a splendid idea: Begin to be now what thou would be hereafter!
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1See the New York Times, June 30, 1962.
2For an instructive and inspirational book on this subject see, Magnificent Obsession, a novel by Lloyd Douglas (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1938).
5
WOE BETIDE YE OF LITTLE TRUST
The soul and spirit that animates and keeps up society is mutual trust.
—JOHN SOUTH
The economist, Dr. Donald Kemmerer, calls our attention to a lamentable fact: “The rotting fabric of trust causes our buying power to melt away as a cube of ice in July.”1 While the dissolution may not be that fast, it is deplorably rapid. His metaphor helps to dramatize the cause and curse of inflation.
Wise men of the past have had a lot to say about “trust,” and quite a few held views similar to the Englishman, Lord William Burleigh (1520–98): “Trust not any man with thy life, credit or estate.” Why such a negative view about this important virtue? Burleigh lived in the age of mercantilism, a form of authoritarianism similar to our present planned economy and welfare state—little know-nothings afflicted with the I-Am-It syndrome. Trust them with one’s pocketbook or way of life? Might as well leave one’s fate to a Hitler!
Admittedly, trust requires a great deal of discrimination. Never trust a thief or those who advocate political thievery, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need”—plunderers! But reflect on the countless persons we can trust, and by trusting we increase adherence to this important virtue. Wrote Henry David Thoreau: “I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may waive just so much care of ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere.”
Imagine a person who never trusted anyone. His life would be filled with bitterness and error, resulting in despondency—a hopeless character. Trust falls in the reciprocal category; it furthers mutuality. The fewer persons I trust, the fewer will trust me; conversely, trust begets trust.
Reflect on the vast majority of the world’s people—including ever so many in the U.S.A.—who do not trust the private ownership, free market, limited government way of life; there is little trust in the potentially miraculous results of citizens by the millions acting creatively as they please. What is the thrust of this general lack of trust? Toward socialism! Citizens vote and install in public office those who know no more or even less than they do, giving politicians power to run our lives. An utterly fallacious trust! Ergo, the thrust is toward the Command Society—freedom to produce and exchange goods and services made increasingly difficult, inflation and rising prices. Difficulties compounded!
Thoreau was right: “We may safely trust a great deal more than we do.” Safely and also wisely, for those of us who trust others assuredly make fewer mistakes than those who are bogged down in distrust. In order to minimize our own mistakes—errors—we must learn from others—past and present. And we can learn from even the most unlikely sources. Wrote John Maynard Keynes: “By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.”2
For freedom’s sake, let us look for light from whatever source. Psalms 8:2: “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings has thou ordained strength.” Doubtless, the brightest light is to be found among those whose aim is the same as that of Cardinal John Henry Newman: “Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead Thou me on!”
Trust is defined as the “firm belief or confidence in the honesty, integrity, reliability, justice . . . of another person . . . faith, reliance.”
There are millions of citizens who sincerely believe in the planned economy and the welfare state, but who can be trusted in ever so many other respects. Most of them can be trusted to keep their promises, pay their bills, obey the laws be they good or bad, do their best at their profession, be it cooking, carpentry, washing windows, operating machines or whatever. Trusting these people when and if trust is deserved is not only good for those of us who trust them but, sooner or later, may cause a few of them to abandon their socialism and put a trust in freedom!
What about the virtues bound up with “trust”—honesty, integrity, reliability, faith, justice? There are tens of thousands of men and women who labor for the world’s many airlines, and they constitute one example, among many, that deserves reflection. These laborers range from those who keep the planes spic and span, to baggage loaders, to flight attendants, to engineers, to the Captains.
Having flown more than 2,000,000 miles during the last 62 years, I have some familiarity with exemplars of the above-mentioned virtues.
•I have never encountered dishonesty in the personnel.
•As to integrity, broken promises are rarely encountered.
•Reliability? Name something more worthy of reliance. Air travel is by far the safest form of transportation. Millions of miles are flown daily in perfect safety.
•Do I then have an unwavering faith in air travel? Not quite. Why?
•Only in justice do they fail. All of these laborers, including the Captains—now and then an exception—are members of labor unions. They resort to coercion as a means of working fewer hours and getting higher pay. A Captain on a U.S.A. airline receives pay as high as $117,000 a year and the limit of labor is 75 hours per month. Coercion is sinful!
Longfellow gave good counsel to you and me and all who labor in this or that endeavor, including airline personnel:
Man-like it is, to fall into sin;
Fiend-like it is, to dwell therein;
Christ-like it is, for sin to grieve;
God-like it is, all sin to leave.
_________________
1See “The Rotting Fabric of Trust,” The Freeman, March 1980.
2From The Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes, 1920.
6
LITTLE MEN CAUSE BIG GOVERNMENT
The real difference between men is energy. A strong will, a settled purpose, an invincible determination, can accomplish almost anything; and in this lies the distinction between great men and little men.
—THOMAS FULLER
The English divine, Thomas Fuller (1608–61), gives us an enlightening distinction between great and little men. There is no genius in life unless genius is buttressed by energy—an idea supported by the English dramatist and poet, Nicholas Rowe (1674–1718): “The wise and active conquer difficulties by daring to attempt them. Sloth and folly shiver and shrink at sight of toil and hazard, and make the impossibility they fear.”
When little men cast long shadows, the sun is setting on a civilization. Little men now abound by the millions. They do, indeed, cast their shadows—shiver and shrink at the sight of toil and hazard. This accounts, in no small measure, for the growing socialism.
These little men, having no high purpose of their own, are attracted by political folderol—“mere nonsense.” And their naivete, in turn, attracts modern medicine men, representing themselves as having supernatural powers: “Elect me to office and I’ll handle all your problems.”
We have about 16,000,000 individuals elected or appointed to political office—federal, state and local. With a few notable exceptions, what is their remedy for the woes of the little men? It is to promise something for nothing—taking from those who produce and giving to those who only consume. This is planned chaos, but both the little men and the political medicine men glory in this pandemonium—“the abode of demons . . . the capital of Hell!”
Conceded, both groups are presumed innocent of wrongdoing as they raise havoc with freedom. Their innocence sprouts from their naivete—“an almost foolish lack of worldly wisdom.” Let’s explore the remedy: a Heavenly Wisdom!
This wisdom is possessed by great men—men of energy! Wrote Goethe: “Energy will do anything that can be done in this world; and no talents, no circumstances, no opportunities will make a two-legged animal a man without it.”
Not everything can be done in this world of ours. Some things are impossible; other things are difficult and can be accomplished only by the expenditure of much energy over a long period of time. Reflect on Cro-Magnon man of some 35,000 years ago. He made tools of flint and of bones, and left traces of his art in cave paintings. His brain was large, suggesting a mental potential and an untapped reservoir of energy that links him to modern man. But it took 35,000 years for the creature, Man, to transform the simple artifacts of Cro-Magnon man into the miraculous man-made environment of modern technology. Cro-Magnon man would have been flabbergasted had he been able to foresee the world in which you and I live; our mental powers and energies are much more fully invested in our creations than were his. This evolutionary advance occurred because in each generation from his day to ours some human beings made full use of the powers they possessed at the time, and drew the rest of us on. By the same token, we would be equally amazed if we could catch a glimpse of the world in the year 36,980!
The eminent psychologist, Fritz Kunkel, wrote: “Immense hidden powers lurk in the unconscious of the most common men, indeed, of all people without exception.” What a boon to civilization were all individuals to recognize their hidden powers!
Recognition, however, is but the initial step. The idea is useless—lies dormant—unless accompanied by a dynamic and everflowing energy, the power of implementation!
Energy is necessary for high-grade behavior, but there are, as Fuller noted, several related virtues which must be practiced if men are to be great. Wrote Tryon Edwards: “The highest obedience in the spiritual life is to be able always, and in all things, to say, ‘Not my will, but thine be done’.”
The spiritual life ranges from the highest thoughts of the finite mind to Infinite Consciousness. When we make the latter life’s guideline and adhere strictly to it—looking always to The Source—burdens will be light and our duties a joy.
Another required virtue: a settled purpose. Wrote the American clergyman, Theodore T. Munger (1830–1910): “There is no road to success but through a clear strong purpose. Nothing can take its place. A purpose underlies character, culture, position, attainment of every kind.”
Reflect on the number of individuals who go through life with no purpose—as a ship without a rudder, going every which way. For these poor souls, life is no more than a meandering adventure; they wander aimlessly and idly.
The secret of success in life is to have a supreme purpose, one which harmonizes all other strivings. Individuals vary, so each person makes his choice of a lifelong goal from among the many alternatives open to him. Freedom prevails in a society when each person has maximum latitude for making these decisions. Life’s purpose realized; what a reward!
Fuller’s final virtue, if great men are to be among us, is “an invincible determination.” Wrote the English critic and author, William Hazlitt (1784–1870): “There is nothing more to be esteemed than a manly firmness and decision of character. I like a person who knows his own mind and sticks to it; who sees at once what, in given circumstances, is to be done and then does it.”
Here is what a few other great men have written on this subject:
Not education but character is man’s greatest need and man’s greatest safeguard.
—Herbert Spencer
The great hope of society is in individual character.
—W. E. Channing
If you would create something you must be something.
—Goethe
We cannot dream ourselves into great character, but must hammer and forge this virtue in our daily living.
I wrote in a previous paragraph about the woes of the little men. The longer they continue in that lamentable category, the more woes will they experience. As Shakespeare said:
When one is past another care we have;
Thus woe succeeds woe; as wave a wave.
The opposite of woes are blessings, a virtue of great men. The more they recognize and count their blessings, the more are they blest. Let us appreciate our countless blessings.
7
GOODNESS: THE FIRST STEP TO FREEDOM
None can love freedom heartily, but good men, the rest love not freedom, but license.
—JOHN MILTON
John Milton (1608–74), English poet and author of the renowned plea for freedom of the press, Areopagitica, referred to “good men,” presumably in the generic sense, meaning male and female. He stood steadfastly against the hierarchy that ruled in his time and may well have been the first outright exponent of the right to freely publish written material. This is a seminal freedom; implicit in such a position is freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to act creatively, and to produce and exchange as anyone pleases. Briefly, Milton achieved a monumental politico-economic and ideological breakthrough!
A first century Roman writer had this to say: “Some are good, some are middling, the most are bad.” These judgments are no more than three generalities relating to human beings. Actually, there are as many variations in virtues and vices as there are individuals, multiplied by their variations from one moment to the next—billions times billions! All of us are forever changing. However, these three categories of behavior deserve reflection for improvement’s sake. The definitions:
•GOOD: Morally sound or excellent; specifically virtuous, pious, kind.
•MIDDLING: Mediocre; betwixt and between.
•BAD: The wicked, the evil, the unrighteous, the reprobates.
There are countless ways to evaluate the wide range between good and bad but I shall adhere strictly to the greatest of all concepts within the range of man. It is the freedom to act creatively as anyone chooses—Creation at the human level! Briefly, ideas and ideals versus notions and nonsense.
As to the bad—the wicked, the reprobates—it’s a safe guess that even thieves have had, on rare occasions, a civil thought or done a kindly deed to someone. They may be 99 per cent but not 100 per cent bad. But, even at their best, they are devilish and a curse to mankind. An excellent warning in I Peter 5:8: “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” Our quotable John Milton wrote in his Paradise Lost: “The Adversary of God and Man, Satan.” Avoid these human evils and their nonsense as thou wouldst shun a deadly plague!
Before commenting on the next category, a confession: While that Roman writer’s grading of people stimulated some thinking, I believe he erred as to numbers. Here is my revised version: Very few are good, the vast majority are middling, and the bad number no more than one in many thousands.
The middling—the betwixt and between—wreak far more havoc on society than the bad. We know not all the reasons, but for one, there are so many more of them. Reflect on the infinite numbers of dubious “thoughts”—errors—that sprout from vast multitudes. Three thoughts by others on this point:
The multitude unawed is insolent; once seized with fear, contemptible and vain.
—David Mallet
License they mean when they cry liberty.
—John Milton
The mass never comes up to the standard of its best member, but on the contrary degrades itself to the level of the lowest.
—Henry David Thoreau
Unless an individual stands in awe of Creation’s wonders, he thinks of his finite self as the only source of our countless blessings. The unawed are, indeed, vain.
Most of those among the betwixt and between will claim an adherence to liberty for no more reason than its favorable connotation. By labeling themselves friends of freedom, they feel less evil as they indulge in countless forms of license—“freedom to deviate from strict conduct, rule or practice; excessive, undisciplined freedom, constituting an abuse of liberty.”
Every pronouncement or action which impinges on the right of anyone to live creatively as he or she pleases—embargoes, tariffs, minimum wages, maximum hours, coercive taking from some and giving to others, government subsidies, on and on—is pure license.
Wrote the American clergyman, William Sprague (1795–1876): “In the same proportion that ignorance and vice [license] prevails in a republic, will the government partake in despotism.” For proof, merely take a look at what’s going on in America!
Reflect, finally, on good men who love freedom heartily. Here is an excellent thought from E. H. Chapin: “Goodness consists not in the outward things we do but in the inward th