Sarkozy Is Wrong

Tibor R. Machan

The French president, with a Hungarian father and born in the mid 1950s, recently made headlines by announcing that "Le laisser-faire, c'est fini." This means that free market capitalism is finished.

What is interesting about Sarkozy having said this is that the term “laisser-faire” refers to how the French king was responded to when he asked French farmers “So what do you want?” He was told: “Leave us alone.” Accordingly, laisser-faire came to refer to a system of economics, also defended by Adam Smith and the classical liberal and libertarian political economy tradition, in which the government plays the sole role the American Founders assigned to it, namely, “to secure [our] rights.” Just as referees do at games, government has the important role of making sure the rules are followed and violators are punished. In the case of a society, including its economic system, the rules are that the rights to private property and freedom of contract are strictly respected and protected.

This idea has never, ever been fully implemented but here and there, especially in America, it has gained some inroad in public affairs. Certain compared to the rest of human history and the rest of the globe, America’s economy has often been relatively free. But as with most democracies which may not ban the input of even undemocratic ideas, the best that has been achieved is a mixed economy, one with socialist, capitalist, fascist, theocratic and even communist features, a fully free market never existed in America.

Still, whenever some upheaval with economic implications does occur in America and other mixed economies, defenders of some variation of the ancient regime of mercantilism—which include champions of all kinds of statist economic systems such as socialism, fascism, etc.—quickly announce what Sarkozy said, namely, that free enterprise is now dead, proven to have failed. In the current financial fiasco this is all too evident. Day after day one can read this bunk, in The New York Times, The New Republic, letters to various magazines and newspapers, you name it.
A regular feature of this glee, exhibited by folks who have never shown the slightest sympathy for free enterprise, is to mention that people in the business world are often complicit in promoting statism. But that’s no news at all, of course. Adam Smith already observed it back in the 18th century. As he warned:

“The proposal of any new law or regulation which comes from [businessmen], ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.” The Wealth of Nations, vol. 1, pt. xi, p.10 (at the conclusion of the chapter) (1776).

The bottom line is that in mixed economies it is somewhat difficult to detect the source of economic problems. The chattering classes—many of whose members would love to rule the world since they tend to believe (following the lead of a certain reading of Plato) that only they are qualified to do so—jump at the chance to blame freedom, including free enterprise, since that is the main obstacle to their being in charge.

My simple plea is, do not fall for this ruse. The current—as all human produce—economic fiasco is the fault of statists who routinely distort the natural ways of an economy. (In this case it had to do with massive amounts of easy money doled out in the name of helping the poor, minorities, and so forth.) As usual, such interference results in disaster.

And those who are responsible have no intention to confessing their guilt in making it happen and one effective way to hide that fact is to point the finger at the innocent party, human liberty.

Whistling in the Dark

Tibor R. Machan

It is hardly ever disputed among honest political economists that most Western countries, including the United States, are welfare states or mixed economies. Unlike, say, a fascist or socialist country, in a relatively free society if a substantial number of voting citizens champion a system that undermines the very liberty that makes it possible to have an influence in how the country is governed, the country is going to reflect this fact in its public policies. Under socialism, which is a planned society--especially when it comes to its economic features--or fascism, which is run by some charismatic leader, opponents tend to be officially silenced. The more the system is socialist, the more such silencing takes place. The same with fascism. Unity is crucial for both of these political organizations and when such unity is believed by the leadership to be threatened, dissent is squelched.

But in countries where political participation is deemed to be a basic right, it isn't customary to silence opponents. At most a kind of compromise is achieved among the various political factions. It is very rare that some given political idea succeeds at dominating public policy. Accordingly, a mixed economy is exactly that, a mixture of various conceptions of how the economic affairs of the country ought to be governed. Some parts of the economy will be substantially, maybe even totally free of government regimentation or regulation. Consider the market wherein pottery is being produced, sold, exported, imported, etc. It isn't subject to much government meddling. Or posters or hats. And this could be the case for many other goods and services, although in an integrated economic system regimenting or regulating one sector of the market will tend to have an impact on the rest. What is pretty much guaranteed, especially where no strict constitutional protection of free trade exists, is that there will be no system-wide socialism or capitalism or fascism in play but, instead, all these and some others will somehow coexists and champions of every one will advance and retreat in their respective influence on the country's economy as a whole.

It is, therefore, a foregone conclusion that those who assert that a mixed economy has become fully socialized or is completely laissez-faire are engaging in hyperbole. When a columnist for The New York Time, the author of some book on public policy, or a letter to the editor writer says that the philosophy of free market capitalism has become the ruling ideology of the country and is responsible for our ills, they cannot be telling the truth and they must know that they aren't since no genuine free market system exists. Furthermore, it is inherent in the mixed economy that it is, well, mixed. Perhaps in one or another era one or another part of the mixture can be more pronounced. And, certainly, one or another part of the mixture of a mixed economy could find more vocal champions supporting it. But unless these champions manage to change the basic law of the land that give legal backing to its mixed character, their position will not dominate.

So when it is asserted that the American economy is based on market fundamentalism--or, indeed, on any other pure idea of economic organization--this cannot be right and is very likely done for a purpose other than to say what is in fact the case. As the English linguistic philosophers J. L. Austin argued, there are goals apart from stating the truth that we pursue when we offer various utterances. In his wonderful little book, How to Do Things With Words? Austin identified, among other such goals, the influencing of people's beliefs and even actions. Thus, for example, there are what he called perlocutionary utterances whereby those making the utterance want to make others do certain things they deem to be important. But they want to achieve this influence in a roundabout fashion, not directly, mostly by pretending something that is false, namely, that the welfare state is a well functioning system of political economy.

I am convinced that when opponents of free market capitalism charge that America has been in the grips of market fundamentalism, they don't mean to say anything that's true. Rather they want to influence others to act in certain ways that such utterances are likely to encourage. They want to belittle free market capitalism by associating it with various disagreeable aspects of the American economy, one that is anything but fully capitalist but rather highly regulated, highly interfered with by the various levels of government.

Please do not fall for this trick. A great deal depends on repelling it, especially when perpetrated by prestigious people and prestigious institutions.

Not everyone should vote!

Tibor R. Machan

Back in 1992 I wrote a column for The Chicago Tribune that is even more pertinent now, with the recent publication of George Mason University economist Professor Bryan Caplan's book, The Myth of the Rational Voter (Princeton University Press, 2007). Here is the gist of it, only slightly edited.

From various celebrities to the radio announcer at the station to which I listen, everyone urged me to vote this coming November. But, in fact, it isn't always such a good idea to vote.

I did, actually, fill out my absentee ballot but decided not to vote in a bunch of the races I had a chance to make a choice. I did record my choices on most of the ballot measures. When it came, however, to the folks who wanted to be judges and members of city council and such, I decided I had no idea what they stood for and voting for them would just be irresponsible.

And I bet that is so with nearly all of us--many of the people we have a chance to vote for or against are unknown to us. This is especially so when it comes to their ideas on the various issues they will have to address once in office. That is very troubling, since these days politicians address nearly every issue under the sun. Government isn't limited to keeping the peace so one could keep abreast of its activities fairly simply. No, in Congress the men and women serving must decide about everything from how many tanks should go to NATO forces to what percentage of alcohol must be in imported beer. Municipal, county, state and federal authorities have their noses into millions of issues and very few citizens they serve have even a clue as to how they will decide on them. It would take innumerable full time jobs to keep tabs on today's issues facing Congress, the state assembly, the county supervisors, and the city council.

So those who urge us all to vote need to temper their enthusiasm with a little dosage of reality. Most of us are ignorant about the issues and, moreover, this is unavoidable. We cannot possible keep up and still have a life of our own. As a result, if we were to listen to the counsel of all those celebrities, it would guarantee that our representatives would get elected by a bunch of ignoramuses. Come to think of it, isn't that just what we witness in the various centers of power? Isn't that one of the reasons political discourse is so inept, sinks so low, is so full of character assassination and void of substance in most regions?

It is plainly impossible these days to educate the public about all of what politicians and their appointed bureaucrats need to know to do the right thing. When folks must make decisions for so many people, on so many issues, there is no way to do the right thing--one will necessarily wrong many of the people affected. Even having a general political vision is insufficient, mainly because those who hold office vote not so much in line with some political philosophy but as they believe the various vested interests in their districts would like them to.

One reason the American Founders wanted a limited government is that they were aware of how much of a war of all against all the politics of a democracy could become unless democracy is severely checked. Government was supposed to secure our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and elections were to decide only who we hire to do this job. By now, however, the job has gotten way out of hand -- politicians and bureaucrats have taken over supervision of nearly all parts of our lives. And the people are completely divided as to what they want from them. It all depends where their vested interest lies and what kind of coalitions they can arrange.

Yet, there is no way they can actually learn which proposal their politicians can vote for or against will do them the most good. So what is left? To vote ignorantly, based on vague impressions, style, feel, sex appeal, etc. Or to refrain from voting.

In such a climate it is no wonder that people begin to yearn for a simplified process, one whereby perhaps a great leader provides us with political guidance. In some areas the only virtue left to democracy is how it slows down political power. Even that is unappreciated by many people (consider how when a bunch of "world leaders" come together to sign some treaty they need to face the agony of selling the deal to their people; and then they are badgered about it by the less democratic of the parties).
I say, vote only if you have a clue. Otherwise do not vote and then, perhaps, the selection process will gain from the fact that the few who vote do have a clue. But, of course, the real answer is to reduce the scope of what politicians can vote on and keep them worried about just a few matters, mostly how best to defend our individual rights

Another Lesson in Freedom

Tibor R. Machan

When I became seriously interested in the free market I began, also, to encounter a good deal of criticism of that system, mainly because the critics mindlessly blamed the great depression on it. But looking at it more carefully I learned that by the time of the Great Depression there was nearly nothing left of laissez-faire capitalism in America. Sure, compared to some other countries there was more capitalism here than elsewhere but compared to a dead drunk someone who only staggers around a bit from booze seems nearly sober. Sadly, America was never "sober," never a completely free market economy and after the populist political economic influences of the early 1900s only the momentum of the remnants of a free economy was in evidence. Contrary to widespread myth, FDR did not rescue the country from the government induced Great Depression--it was the Second World War that exerted the greatest remedial influence.

One thing critics of capitalism kept repeating since the New Deal is that nothing like the Great Depression and the economic mess surrounding it can happen now since government stepped in with all its regulations and safety measures. Now, the mantra went, it just cannot happen here any more.

When the current economic slide began to be undeniable, defenders of the welfare state, of extensive government intervention in the market place, started to blame it all on market fundamentalism, on the "ridiculous confidence" shown in the free market system. Of course, this was a ruse and continues to be, as put out by the politicians who keep this way adding fuel to the fire they set in the first place. They keep repeating the lie that deregulation caused the current fiasco when, in fact, the main culprit is the easy credit policy demanded of banks and other lending institutions so as to "level the playing field" for everyone. (Of course, if by "deregulation" is meant taking off the legal protection of contracts and property rights, then, yes, "deregulation" is reponsible!) Instead of enabling minorities and groups whose members had experienced injustices and economic setbacks in the past, by means of freeing up the economy as fully as possible, the political class tended, in the main, to embrace the idea that handouts, special breaks and privileges, including easy credit, would be the proper way to "help." It never is, of course, but it can postpone the chicken coming home to roost. For a while by stealing from Peter so as to support Paul, which can appear to be effective but, in time, Peter will not take it anymore.

These elementary lessons of the vitality of freedom--in this case vis-à-vis economic health--keep being rejected and even outright distorted by statists around America and the world. Because it isn’t simple to trace out the chain of causation when disaster finally hits, many people keep repeating and get some mileage out of their anti-market message. (A perfect example is Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism [Metropolitan Books], which is a vicious, irresponsible attack on the late Milton Friedman and his defense of the free market and which gained equally devastating reviews in both the libertarian Reason and center left The New Republic.)

What is really sad is that nearly all those who have been most instrumental in precipitating the current economic fiasco are walking around telling lies with virtual total immunity. It is very much like all those Soviet communists who got off scot-free after the fall of the USSR and are continuing to mess things up for Russia and the former Soviet colonies with their influence on how history is understood there and how public policy is forged.

Instead of going after the political criminals, a great many pundits and academicians are slandering freedom and keep asking for more of the same, namely, government meddling. The famous bailouts, for example, were perpetrated by those folks but despite their total failure, the perpetrators are still running around trying to manage the economy. The chorus of those who understand how ineffectual the government measures are and how much they make tings worse is too small and hardly gain a hearing in the mainstream forums where the problems are being talked about.

I know what I must do in the light of all this. I must continue to try to educate folks to the superior value of human liberty and how it is the only hope for bringing about recovery. Maybe you can help me.

Academic Conundrums

Tibor R. Machan

After I entered college, somewhat late in my life, I searched for a discipline I would be able to be devoted to. Took me a couple of years but my very first inclination had proved to be right--I became smitten by philosophy. One reason was that I didn't detect any orthodoxy in the field, not at least as taught where I first took courses in it. Not that I liked the idea that no philosophy could be correct, not by a long shot. But I liked that none was officially embraced, like Marxism was in my native country at the time. I have never regretted entering this discipline despite the many frustrations that I have encountered there.

My eventual choice was to defend something fairly ordinary, namely, that the world exists independently of how we feel about, perceive it, wish for it to be, etc. Even in ethics and politics I concluded there are right answers, though this is not as simple an idea as it may appear at first. To this day I enjoy taking part in various Socratic discussions--nearly free-for-all exchanges--inside or outside the halls of Ivy. But I admit that sometimes it is frustrating to take seriously what fellow academicians defend, or give voice to. Yet that is just what those who sign up for an academic career must accept, a lot of frustrating, even bizarre ideas being aired by one's colleagues.

At a couple of recent gatherings, for example, there were several notions circulated that just didn't seem to me to make any sense. For example, some of my colleagues from the natural sciences argued that time is unreal or, perhaps more accurately, that times is something different for those belonging to different cultures. (No wonder, I suppose, that many participants came "late" to the event and we started about 20 minutes "later" than scheduled!) In the course of the discussion it was even proposed that "everyone is right," meaning, I take it, that no right and wrong can be found about anything at all--which I take to imply that this idea, too, is neither right nor wrong. And that is quite difficult to make sense of for me.

Another notion that got aired, quite seriously, is that what counts as bona fide, genuine art is entirely flexible and certainly changes from one era to another. So standards of art would, for some of my colleagues, amount to something very temporary. (Does this invalidate the idea of timelessly worthy works? Or works that are artistically excellent in any period of human history, like the classics?) The only problem with this idea, as some even admitted, is that there would be no way to distinguish genuine art from trash. Ah, but I guess this is philosophically appealing to some, even while in matters of politics diversity is mostly frowned upon. (Many academics love diversity on the surface but when it comes to substantive diversity they disapprove--is liberalism a sound political idea, socialism, capitalism, or affirmative action or the minimum wage law?) Yet if everyone is right, then surely nothing can be politically correct, either.

When I teach undergraduate courses I sometimes imagine what my frosh students must go through as they try to explain to their relatives what is happening in college while visiting home on their Thanksgiving holiday. Of course, teachers don't often wholly convey their own ideas in their class rooms, especially if these ideas can only be fully appreciated by those who have a good sense of the history of a discipline. But students do not encounter their professors only in the classroom and if they come to some of faculty seminars and report back home what they hear there, this could land them in some emotional difficulties. Unless their relatives understand that university education is a kind of smorgasbord where many ideas are explored and none is required to be believed, only mastered.

Yet this idea, what is probably the meaning of a liberal education, is not all that widely understood by parents and relatives who have been away from college and university classrooms for decades. One can only hope that however perplexing the ideas of some professors may be, students have enough confidence in their own minds that they will think things over before they accept the more incredible ones. Yes, there are some serious issues to be explored about time but, yes, time is real--so show up for class when it begins!

The Futility of Egalitarianism

Tibor R. Machan

The ancient Greek myth of Procrustes’ bed has it that the bed had the attribute of being exactly as long as anyone who lay down on it. Procrustes didn't disclose to his guests his scheme that those who lay down on this extraordinary bed got manipulated so that if they were too short for the bed they had their legs chopped off and if too long, the legs got forcibly stretched. This, it appears, is where the expression “one size fits all” originated.

Egalitarianism is the political view whereby everyone must be subject to equal benefits and burdens, as a matter of public policy. Arguably the mess with the current loan defaults originated with this idea, namely, that all citizens, never mind their particular circumstances, must be treated as if they were the same, as if they could handle mortgages of the same size, purchase equally fancy homes, etc.

For egalitarianism to have a ghost of a chance it would have to be true that fundamentally, in their essence, all human beings are the same and only various accidents render them different. Public policy, in turn, is supposed to be aimed at erasing the differences, forcing us all into the same Procrustean bed.

One area where the idiocy of this doctrine shows up good and hard is in athletics. Mr. Michael Phelps, for example, won 8 gold swimming medals at the 2008 Olympics because he was very, very different from the rest of us, indeed even from other champion swimmers. Phelps is a giant, with huge hands and feet, and so his chances for winning the races for which he prepares are far better than anyone else’s. And he is of course just one example of such extraordinary talent. Roger Federer in tennis may be another, as used to be Pete Sampras and Bjorn Borg, among a few others in tennis, and thousands of other athletes throughout history.

It turns out that a recent study (published in the September 2nd issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) has shown that matters are even more anti-egalitarian in human affairs. The study identified a gene variant that actually significantly extends people’s lives. Those lacking the gene live shorter lives, those with it live longer ones (on average and apart from accidental deaths). And this is just the way it is--as the article reporting on this in Science News says, “Life’s just not fair.” But there are diehards who will refuse to accept this and insist on remaking us all to fit their dream-world of universal human equality. And from that stem a hole lot of difficulties in public affairs. The most important result is a government that takes it as its task to force people to conform to various models deemed to serve the futile egalitarian goal. Perhaps the most drastic examples of this result were Hitler’s Nazi Germany, Stalin’s Soviet Union and Mao's Red China. In each the government assumed the role of coercing everyone--well, not actually everyone since the leaders were exempted--to fit certain models of proper humanity. We still see remnants of this while looking at those insane parades in North Korea which symbolize the total absence of human individuality!

Certainly in both systems individuality was banned. That means, of course, that individual liberty was also banned since when men and women have their right to liberty respected and protected, they embark on vastly different pursuits! Dissent in such systems is regarded a form of mental illness and dissidents are locked up for fear that they will infest the rest with crazy notions like personal distinctiveness, with the possibility of excellence as well as failure.

But it turns out that that’s just what the study of genetics helps us further to appreciate, namely, that we are by nature very different human beings. Yes, there is our humanity which is universal (excepting some truly crucial incapacities), but one central aspect of our humanity is that we are also very different from one another. This is so clearly evident from just observing our friends, family, neighbors, and the various historical periods that exhibit human variations that the egalitarian effort to deny its centrality and eradicate it should both be given up as hopeless, futile efforts.

There is much more to be explored about this issue, of course, but one thing seems indisputable: the unfortunately prominent egalitarian doctrine--especially in the academy and among public officials--has produced and continues to produce some devastating public policies, Draconian and less so. That should be enough to turn us away from it for good.

Once Again, They Lie

Tibor R. Machan

Anytime I run across some piece of writing that contains the assertions that the world, especially the United States, has been in the grips of market fundamentalism or the doctrine of laissez-faire capitalism, I tend to drop everything and pen a firm response. It's a lie, nothing less. Take the case of Ryan Blitstein who has written, in the course of a review of a book in the Miller-McCune.com magazine, that "America now faces the blowback from 40 years of political dominance by right-wing market utopians, who championed extreme industry deregulation only to increase government's size and power." Mr. Blitstein blames this on the late Professor Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize winning economist who did, indeed, champion the free market capitalist economic system.

But Friedman was anything but very influential in his efforts. Indeed, over the years that he has argued for freedom as against government planning and direction of the economy--through the various ways that is done and advocated by believers of the wisdom and virtue of government officials--the various political groups that have governed have been less and less committed to free market capitalism. And Blitstein acknowledges this but then still insists that what is at fault is the free market. Never mind that he himself admits that no such things has existed since the New Deal at least, if not since the establishment of the Federal Reserve system around the turn of the century.

Blitstein keeps talking about hypocrisy but the only hypocrisy that he can identify occurred among politicians and champions of greater and greater scope for government involvement in the market place. Friedman and other supporters of the free market, such as Ludwig von Mises, F. A. Hayek, James Buchanan, and even Alan Greenspan--who has always supported the free market but was willing to try to work with the politically more palatable mixed economy--never endorsed big government, certainly not a government with the humongous scope of authority that most politicians champion. All the free market advocates I have run across over my 45 years of interest in political economy have been severely critical of the provisions of the welfare state and the impossible mixture of capitalism and socialism. They have repeatedly warned about what will happen in time if this kind of public policy is continued.

Of course, there are ways to postpone the inevitable, mostly by printing money and placing the burden of the nation's debt on yet unborn future generations (who are not here to protest and to vote their interest). But in time one simply cannot get blood out of a turnip, nor even fake to be able to do so. Politicians, of course, keep promising that they will do just that because that is how they gain office, by fooling their constituents into thinking that they are magicians. With more and more government involvement which produces worse and worse public policies and economic consequences, the politicians and their cheerleaders simply postpone the fiasco that we are now experiencing. But, sadly, most voters keep thinking, these politicians can perform miracles just by wishing to do so.

One group in society that hasn't faced up to its systematic malpractice is the liars who keep blaming the mess on human liberty--if you do not treat people like children are treated by their nannies, they will cause havoc. Well, some will, and there will be some havoc. But if you leave it all for government to fix, the havoc will be of fare greater scope than anything that market failures, so called, tend to create. Markets are, in fact, self-correcting pretty soon after the mistakes made in them come to light. Enron is a good example of this. But when the market is undermined and politicians pretend to be able to square the circle, then all hell breaks loose.

People like Bryan Blitstein are the ones who are mostly responsible for Americans failure to learn economic realities. But they will not fess up to this, not unless they are repeatedly called on their intellectual misconduct.

What Politicians Should Say

Tibor R. Machan

Here is what members of Congress should tell the voting public:

"Ladies and Gentleman, you asked for it and now you have got it, good and hard. The bulk of you want both, a healthy economy and provisions for the needy. The former requires economic discipline or, in personal terms, the strict practice of the virtue of prudence. The latter demands giving those who cannot afford homes, loans, etc., and so forth a substantial break. These folks need to be provided, at taxpayers' expense, with financial support—low interest loans, forgiven debts, insubstantial collateral, and the illusions that they can live the plush life but not earn enough to afford it.

"You may think that $700 billion is a big amount of money to pay for the public policy that combines sound economics with extensive support for those who otherwise would be left without the means to live well. It is not, when you think in terms of a country with 350 million people. While many are well to do, quite a few are not. Yet the policy makers and their cheerleaders in the think tanks and universities all demand everyone be living a satisfactory life. Egalitarianism is, in fact, the dominant political philosophy at universities, think tanks, and among the punditry. The top political philosophers, such as Martha Nussbaum, Amartya Sen, Peter Singer, Peter Unger are all convinced that justice demands that everyone live pretty much as if he or she had plenty resources from which to fund the good life, at least economically. Elected politicians follow the lead of these prominent thinkers by promising to help everyone who needs it with ample government support. And they are eagerly elected and then pass laws that try to square the economic circle by having a country that promotes equal conditions for everyone while also maintaining constant economic growth and development.

"But this is really impossible. In order to have everyone live more or less equally well—with roughly the same benefits in health care, vacations, education, amenities and so forth—those who are luckier and more hardworking than the rest must also be taxed far more severely than the rest which, in turn, discourages their eagerness for continuing to add to their wealth. In other words, combining the philosophy of socialism with that of capitalism is expensive and produces the kind of economic fiascoes we are facing today. However, most Americans asked for this when they voted into office the likes of Barney Frank who firmly believe in the mixed economy.

"We just ask you please not to belly ache so much since the bulk of you are surely getting exactly what you wanted. True, what you wanted amounts to the impossible—a smoothly functioning economy along with an egalitarian society. But people often want to have their cake and eat it as well, and these days it seems most Americans fall into this group. They want small government but also want the government to fund all kinds of projects they favor, such as farm subsidies or guaranteed health insurance. You want better paid teachers but also lower taxes. So why would it surprise you that as a group Americans want to balance the budget but also provide those who want it with cheap credit? You want a lean and mean federal budget but also wish for higher federal deposit insurance backed by taxpayers who may have to come up with the funds if the deposit holders will not pay what they owe.

"So we are simply puzzled about why you think the government is acting irresponsibly when, in fact, most of the voters insist government doing just that when you cast your ballot and elect your representative. You want to find someone to blame for all this, someone on Wall Street or in Washington but, mainly, it is you all who are to blame, collectively as well as individually. You want to live like a king but pay like a pauper. That, dear citizen, is not possible and leads to just what you are witnessing now. And there is no way out but to bit the bullet."

The Importance of Individualism

Tibor R. Machan

Over the last several weeks I have run across numerous efforts by different political thinkers and activists to discredit individualism. Some have argued that the idea of the individual is a myth created for us by our society. Others have pressed the idea that the individual is a solitary being whose life is awful, lonely and dangerous, so no one ought to champion individualism, the social philosophy which assigns prime importance of human individuals. Others have argued that we are all but cells in the larger body of society or some community, with no independence or will of our own.

At a conference I attended a while back participants were asked to read a book in which the reality of the individual was flatly denied by a scholar who argued for a new version of Karl Marx's socialism. The individual, the book’s author maintained, is a mere social construct with no ultimate reality. (Marx, you might recall, maintained that individualism was an ideology invented to serve the ruling class!) And at an opening frosh seminar at my university one professor read a paper in which he defended the idea that the individual is a figment of our imagination put into our minds by various social forces that benefit from believing in such a thing despite its unreality.

Why, you may wonder, is there so much trepidation about individualism, about the notion that individual human beings do in fact exist and are, indeed, the most important aspect of human communities? This is, in fact, the message of America’s most important philosophical document, the Declaration of Independence. Individual rights which, if they exist, identify one’s realm of personal authority which may not be undermined, are the center piece of the American political tradition. So if one wishes to undermine American ideas and ideals—admittedly not fully realized in American history—it makes sense to target individualism first and foremost. Those who reject American exceptionalism, the view that there is something novel and uniquely valuable about the ideas underpinning American society, also zero in on individualism. They draw on all kinds of disciplines, such as sociology, psychology, and even neurobiology, in their efforts to demean the American individualist outlook. Often they resort to distorting individualism, caricaturing it, in order to besmirch it and thereby undermine any admiration people might have for American institutions and traditions.

One very crucial problem with all this individualism bashing is that it is all done by, you guessed it, individuals. The scholars, political theorists, psychologists and sociologists who weigh in against individualism are, of course, individuals. So what is it they are after with their relentless criticism?

My hypothesis is that the critics want to rob individuals—you, me and all the rest—of the authority over their lives and property. By abolishing the individual person, they are then able to dismiss the wants, desires, purposes, goals, and values of other individuals. In other words, individualism-bashing amounts to a quest for power by some individuals over other individuals. For those who say that it is the community that matters most—or, as a recent piece of writing put it, who elevate society over the individual—really have nothing with which to replace the central role of individuals since communities, societies, countries, and even families are all composed of individuals.

So the most reasonable interpretation of the anti-individualist position, in my view, is that some individuals, by pretending to speak for the group, society, community, or humanity aim to rule the rest of us. No doubt sometimes this is motivated by a belief that if these individuals had the power over us, many problems would be solved, much good would be achieved. No doubt, too, some of the problems of people in various societies do stem from the misconduct of some individuals that others could at times remedy.

Yet, this is not going to be achieved by placing certain other individuals in positions of power. Only when individuals act to invade the lives of their fellows may power be exercised in order to defend against the invaders. As to complaints about how various people think or behave apart from such invasive conduct, they must be dealt with through persuasion and not the wielding of power.

It is always wise to be on guard when people demean individuals and individualism. They are most likely up to no good when they do so. Their claim that we should not take ourselves, individuals all, so seriously but instead serve the group amounts to a plea for the power of some individuals over others, nothing more.

Zakaria: Cheerleader of Regulation

Tibor R. Machan

Over a decade ago I read an essay in The New Republic on the topic of business ethics written by the then Harvard graduate student Fareed Zakaria. It was insightful and lacked the standard ingredient of mainstream discussions of the ethical dimensions of business, namely, business bashing. Quite the contrary. It was refreshingly free of cant.

I sent a note to Zakaria asking him if he may be a champion of the free market and his response indicated that my suspicion was right. Since then I have sent him emails now and then and have on occasion received replies. He has since then written several books and one of these, The Future of Freedom, was especially poignant in distinguishing between liberal and illiberal democracies throughout history and around the globe in our time. Genuine supporters of the free society have always insisted that while democracy as such may have the virtue of inclusivity, it can be just as tyrannical as more direct command systems unless restrained by a well crafted constitution.

When a couple of months ago Zakaria became host of CNN's public affairs program "GPS" (which stands for "Global Public Square")--not long after giving up hosting Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria for PBS, another good program focused on foreign affairs--I was hopeful that finally someone has emerged in mainstream media who will not join the cheerleaders of contemporary mercantilism, of the ubiquitous government intervention in the market place. And for a while this hope seems to have been fulfilled. Zakaria didn't immediately join with the rest of the statists on the tube, even if he wasn't quite the Harvard (JFK School) educated version of John Stossell.

Alas, then came the current financial debacle which, of course, was precipitated by the federal government which had been ordering various institutions under its command to lend money at very cheap rates, to go easy on folks who couldn't or wouldn't cover their debts, especially in the housing market (where over the last five decades, at least, a policy of populism has prevailed, with low interest rates and little collateral for many borrowers and with incentives such as mortgage interest deductions). This is when I would have liked and indeed expected to see a courageous journalist speak up about how it is the perversion, corruption of the free market that has produced the mess. Sadly, it wasn't to be.

After I returned from a lecture tour in Europe this last summer, I started checking out Zakaria's new CNN program and gradually learned that the host has joined with the rest of the government-loving commentators, such as The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, claiming that what is needed to deal with the problem is, you guessed it, more government intervention. In his column for the September 29 issue of Newsweek, the international edition of which he himself edits, Zakaria intoned as follows:

"As of this writing, we don't know the details of the plan that is being crafted by Henry Paulson [US Secretary of the Treasury] and Ben Bernanke [head of the Federal Reserve] to restore confidence in the U.S. financial markets. It is impossible to know that it will work. But the administration and the Federal Reserve were right to intervene in a large and systemic manner. Modern capitalism depends on credit, and credit depends on confidence. By the middle of last week, fear was pervasive and no one was ready to lend money to anyone for any purpose. [This is plain wrong--I have personal knowledge that proves it!] It turned out that only government intervention could change this psychological paralysis. The lesson of the almost 100 (smaller) financial crises of the past three decades is that only government intervention can stabilize the system when it chokes."

Of course, the system choked because of government intervention, because of the easy money policies of the past several decades, because of the politically motivated efforts of the likes of Bill Clinton to gain favor with the electorate by doling out almost entirely unsecured loans to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who came asking for something he could not afford. That is not a market phenomenon but one typical of the mixed economy's welfare state. Free markets did not produce the current crisis and it will do no good, in the long run, to continue with government interference which is always subject to the pressures identified in public choice theory, namely, politicians and bureaucrats engaging in self-dealing and being mostly ignorant as to what is needed to sustain and, when necessary, restore confidence in bona fide markets.

Maybe the pressure from colleagues and other cheerleaders of government meddling in people's lives was too much for Zakaria to resist. Or maybe he has just signed up to championing a bad set of economic ideas for some other reason. In any case, he has now joined the group whose complicity in promoting the political economy of the mixed economy brought about the mess we are in now.

Bush’s Confusion

Tibor R. Machan

It is generous to call it that. More likely President George W. Bush was prevaricating, not confused, when he stated, looking straight out at the audience listening to is speech about the current financial disaster, “The market is not functioning properly.” That’s because he—or his advisors—must know that the American economy is not a genuine market at all but a politically manipulated arena of criminal interference with people’s economic decisions.

Take the plain and easily demonstrated fact that during Bill Clinton’s years in the White House the two government-supported lending corporations, Fanny and Freddy May, were forced by his administration to lend money to people are unbelievably low rates. This was done so as to encourage home ownership among low income citizens, ones who ordinarily could not afford home loans. But government interfered and made it easy for such people to obtain money without adequate collateral, without solid jobs, without a ghost of a chance of actually paying their loans back.

Of course this is just one of the reasons for the current crisis but what is clear beyond any reasonable doubt that no such system as a market was functioning at all. Markets are destroyed as markets when the government interferes in such a fashion, taking out the normal instrument of risk which leads people to tend to act rationally, prudently.

So is President Bush so economically ignorant as to fail to understand even this much about the recent history of the housing market? Does he not know that when you provide people with artificially low mortgage interest rates and with ridiculously easy terms, they will then most likely cut deals they should never even go near? If you force a merchant to part with his or her product or service at prices that are way below what the free market would command that merchant is going to go broke and the customers are going to be utterly mislead about the requirements for doing sound business.

The American economy has for decades been subjected to such irrational public policies that seriously distort the market process and many economists predicted that exactly that would happen nearly a decade ago. These economists, who do understand the nature of a properly functioning market, aren’t shocked, shocked with the current economic state of affairs. But when they aired their warnings in all kinds of forums, they weren’t listened to because it was deemed politically incorrect to oppose easy housing and other loans to people who had no business getting them. Yes, they were too poor to handle those loans and when government nonetheless forced financial institutions to make them, they were paving the way toward today’s financial collapses.

Why Mr. Bush would join all those dishonest “economists” who advocated the government’s easy money policies with the claim that it was “the market” that is “not functioning properly” is a mystery to me, especially after he announced, in that same speech, that he favors the free market and is reluctant to interfere with it. But then President Bush clearly appears to have only pretended to be a friend of freedom, what with his enormous budget deficits which coerce members of future generations into near bankruptcy even before they are born.

Thomas Friedman, The New York Times columnist who recently wrote The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, about globalization, said a few days ago that until the very end of one’s journey falling from a skyscraper one will feel like one is able to fly. So over the last few decades, as housing prices kept climbing and every Tom, Dick, and Harry has become a home owner, never mind the ability to afford a home, millions of people were like the bloke who was deluded that he could fly until he met his demise by crashing to the ground. But instead of learning from this, Congress and those cheering it on are committed to fooling us into thinking that one can really get away forever with financial imprudence.

The Regulation Trap

Tibor R. Machan

Mercantilism, socialism, and fascism have pretty much been discredited as economic systems by Adam Smith, Ludwig von Mises, F. A. Hayek, and actual economic history. One could have learned from the lessons that government economic regulation was no less refuted as a way to deal with economic problems but, alas, the fantasy of useful, helpful and just state coercion keeps bouncing back. The resilience of such faith in the state rests on nothing but wishful thinking and the myth of the power of public service.

For starters, the very same reasons that incline people to distrust market processes should lead them to distrust government regulations. This that people can often misbehave when they have a chance to do so unless some virtuous and wise overseers make sure they do not. Government regulators are among these people and since they have no one overseeing them, the likelihood that they will misbehave is considerable. Given the power government regulators have over those they regulate, and given how power tends to corrupt, government regulators are far more likely to misbehave than are the people they are supposed to regulate. We might put this as follows: Government regulators are in far greater need of government regulation than are free market agents whom they believe they must regulate!

Then there is the regulators’ necessarily limited knowledge, indeed ignorance, regarding what those whom they regulate need to do. Because of such ignorance, combined with the imperative to do something, anything, to prove their worth to the electorate, malpractice is more the rule than the exception for government regulators.

There is more. Who is to regulate the regulators, given that they are far more powerful than the rest of us? Profit may tempt market agents to misbehave but the regulator’s political power nearly guarantees that the he or she will do so.

All of this plus some matters better left to longer discussions ought to silence those who keep insisting that what must happen in a market economy is for there to be more government regulation. There is just now good reason to think that in general government regulation is going to help avoid the occasional malpractice in a free market place. And, indeed, nearly all the problems with markets come not from the misconduct of market agents--who, of course, do make mistakes and do now and then act badly--but from the interference of ignorant, powerful, self-deceived government regulators urged on by even more mendacious politicians and their cheerleaders in the general culture.

Most of this is pretty much implicit in the theory of public choice for the development of which Professor James Buchanan received the Nobel Prize back in 1986. This theory argues, fairly straightforwardly, that people who presume to regulate the rest of us from their seats of government power are no less motivated by their own agenda than are all those in the market place. Except that there are inherent restraints on those in the market--any fraud or theft or violation of property rights is actionably illegal--whereas government regulatory misconduct is nearly untouchable by the law! (It has the protection of sovereign immunity, the idea that what governments do is immune to prosecution because it amounts to something we all do to ourselves via the democratic process!)

Ever since the end of the 18th century people eager to use government to get what they want without having to peacefully ask for it have championed government regulations. Innumerable agencies at the federal, state, county and municipal levels of government were established to interfere with free market processes. This is especially so with financial markets, beginning with the socialization of money itself!

Now that some of the adverse consequences of all this are coming home to roost, the politicians and their academic cheerleaders insist that the solution is, yes you guessed it, even more government regulation. So a few years hence we will be facing the same troubles and then, too, it will be the free market--the alleged ubiquity of laissez-faire in our society, will once again be blamed! But this isn’t that surprising: people in power never hold power wielding responsible for any problems they create. No. It is always the lack of even greater power that is to blame!

Are Air Fares Too High?

Tibor R. Machan

In genuinely free markets prices reflect the overall intersection between supply and demand, so there are no prices that are too high or too low. Such notions express personal expectations and nothing objectively true. An exorbitant price is one someone finds beyond his budget, a good deal something well within it.

In particular, if airfares were truly exorbitantly high, planes would be flying with few passengers just as few people drive Bentleys or Maseratis, both of which cost a bundle while are also widely desired. In contrast, planes are mostly filled to the brim.

As someone who flies nearly every week, all over the globe, only by purchasing tickets way before the scheduled trip do I manage to get decent seats. The flights are I take, most often between some point on the West Coast and someplace East or the Midwest, are completely booked. Indeed, I recall when back in the 60s this wasn’t true and planes flew half full, mostly. Nowadays they are full and upgrading is nearly impossible. Airlines have restricted upgrades to passengers who purchase fairly high price tickets in the first place--supersavers don’t seem to qualify.

Despite the high demand for their services, executives such as Glenn Tilton of United Airlines are urging the public to implore Congress “to take immediate action to solve our nation’s fuel crisis.” (Hemisphere Magazine, September 15-30, 2008, p. 13). He claims that “Record-high fuel prices are having a devastating impact on our economy, and the airline industry is taking drastic steps to remain competitive, including cutting flights and services, increasing fees, grounding inefficient airplanes, and laying off employees.” Yet, each but one of the six United flights I took the other week was full. American Airlines, US Airways, Southwestern, all of which I have flown recently, are no different. And on one United flight the pilot explained that the reason why we had to wait an hour and a half on the tarmac is that New York’s La Guardia Airport “is too small by 30% to handle all its flights.” So not only airlines but airports seem to regularly overbook!)

By all reasonable accounts, if airports cannot handle all their scheduled flights, especially on days the weather is perfect everywhere, they should not be trying to accommodate them and ticket prices must be too low. (Prices, in a free market, are supposed to serve to ration goods and services! When shortages develop, prices need to rise to send potential customers to some other means of transport!)

It is of course wrong for the Chairman and CEO of United Airlines to urge passengers to try to get the government to manage fuel prices. Government’s task isn’t to order the prices of goods and services but to preserve the conditions for us all to carry on peacefully as we go about our various businesses. True, this idea of how markets must function isn’t much in vogue these days when too many market agents try to get their politicians to do deals for them instead of making deals themselves. Nearly all major businesses have abandoned and betrayed the ideal of free market capitalism, both in the U. S. A. and abroad. Getting government to bail out firms that overextended themselves is now routine and politicians are only too eager to accommodate, though not without putting all kinds of conditions on their loans which then keep the firms beholden to them. And, of course, all of this is for the sake of the public interest, never for their own survival at the expense of taxpayers! No, you will never hear them admitting to wanting to rip off Peter so as to rescue Paul. Instead they are simply being public spirited. Yeah.

I am almost certain that Mr. Tilton’s advisers have told him to plead public spiritedness as he implores his customers to lobby for help from the government. (While decent selfishness has a very bad reputation, phony altruism is a favorite mantra in both business and politics!)

Just remember, most people fly because they can afford to do so! Although the absolute figures of the cost of flying look big, the portion of income it takes up is not more than it used to be before, probably less (which is why planes are so full).

Everything costs more these days in nominal terms--milk, gasoline, flights, grapes, cars, etc. But compared to what people earn now, prices aren’t rising a lot.

It's Always Freedom's Fault

Tibor R. Machan

In the middle of the financial scares I went to a little college in New Hampshire to debate whether politics ought to be about moral virtue of individual liberty. I took the position that even if one means to promote moral virtue, one must do so by first securing the right to liberty for all. It is not moral virtue if men and women aren't free to choose their conduct. Regimenting adult human beings to act properly, ethically, just doesn't cut it as a way to promote human morality.

My opponent argued that politics should be about promoting morality and that the individual8ism implicit in my position is dangerous--he even claimed that Hitler's Nazi politics arose because of too much individualism! While he was advocating a conservative program, in fact, as I understood him, his objections to the libertarian alternative were no different from the Left's communitarianism which also blames everything on individual liberty and claims that individualism is actually atomism, the idea that people are self-sufficient and are able to thrive without society.

The debate was conducted at a pretty academic, abstract level although sometimes we made reference to current events to illustrate some of our points. What was rather remarkable for me is just how eagerly my conservative opponent found fault with the classical liberal viewpoint because of its embrace of individual liberty as the prime public good. As I returned to earth from the debate and resumed listening and reading about the current problems on Wall Street and what politicians say and want to do about it, I noticed that mainstream figures in both parties also targeted liberty as the culprit, claiming that recent erratic and halfway deregulations of the financial markets--supposedly a perfect example of championing fully free markets--is responsible for it all. None of the mainstream commentators took any notice of the fact, pointed out in a recent comment by Professor Donald Boudreaux of George Mason University, that it was free market economists who warned about the policies that ushered in the current problems. Indeed, as these economists noted, the policies of the fed and other governmental--and governmental sustained outfits like Freddy and Fanny--can be clearly identified as precipitating the credit crises.

More generally, despite the fact that the likes of New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, a Princeton University economists, keep repeating that some mythical market fundamentalism that's running rampant across the country and the world, is causing all the trouble, free market economists from such institutions as the University of Chicago, George Mason University, the Austrian School and the Cato Institute have been warning that government meddling in the market place will have dire consequences. The most general lesson, as I see it, is that governments are forever giving special breaks to people everywhere who are only too eager to take on risks that then they need to cover but can count on government to do so. This is often a hidden agenda but when one removes all the mambo jumbo from the legislation and regulations, it is really the bottom line: You can do whatever you like and not reckon with the consequences because Uncle Sam will bail you out every time.

And this is then labeled market fundamentalism? Go figure. But the people who environ themselves as ruling the rest of us do not stop with their efforts to besmirch freedom, including, especially, free markets since only by discrediting this most productive, most just institution do they have a chance to turn enough citizens against it and gain the control they so desperately seek. I can only express the strong hope that they will not succeed. And maybe pointing this out often enough will stop them. (By the way, anyone who wishes to read some really solid economic analyses about the current situation and the history that has produced it should check out www.cafehayek.com. Even thought the mainstream media ignores this very valuable source, perhaps they will not succeed at suppressing its content by focusing mostly on surface matters instead of the substance.)

Welfare State Follies

Tibor R. Machan

By all historical accounts the fully free society has never been tried, so arguing about it will always be to a large extent theoretical. But than nearly all of contemporary astrophysics is theoretical, as it much of psychology and other social sciences in which controlled experiments are not possible or permissible.

Based, however, on much thinking and research, some of it historical enough, there is no reasonable doubt about the benefit of human liberty in all realms of human endeavor. Unfortunately the sole trial has been conducted in the realm covered by the First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, effecting religion and the arts and humanities (including journalism). And few other than out and out Fascists and theocrats deny that in these areas freedom has been all to the good! It may, therefore, be reasonably inferred that liberty would mostly likely serve us well in all areas of human concern, including the financial markets and even emergency services, two in which recent upheavals haven’t been dealt with swimmingly by the welfare state. That’s despite the fact that welfare state measures--namely vast government interference in various professions and ordinary human activities--are most often defended on the grounds that they are needed to prevent or cope with disasters, financial or natural! It is here where welfare state advocates roll out their market failure arguments, examples (mostly imagined) where free men and women are unable or unwilling to solve problems successfully.

Yet, despite piles of government regulations imposed year after year, with bureaucrats being given immense powers to regiment the society--supported by both the Left and the Right, though focused on different “failures”--the disasters keep coming and the prominent pundits, such as The New York Times’ line of the welfare state’s cheerleaders (like Paul Krugman, Bob Herbert, at al.) keep trying to blame freedom for them all. No sooner does some trouble arise, these folks chime in with the same mantra: We need more government! And they support these incantations with the blatant falsehood that America is in the grips of market fundamentalism!

But what seems to be the real culprit for mounting troubles is not freedom, not free markets, but all the phony government supports Congress and other bodies politic keep erecting so as to pretend to be helping everyone. All the financial woes come from the easy credit that is mostly the policy of all the governments whose “public servants” promise to solve all our problems by stealing from Peter to aid Paul--an endless daisy chain of the government’s version of Ponzi schemes. The lack of ability to cope with natural disasters, too, comes from all the reckless faith in government supporter of which, sadly, still manage to get away with claiming that government is the answer. (Just check out the bulk of the current crop of candidates to verify this!)

Is it so unthinkable that if the government didn’t pretend to help us, we would put our minds to the task of finding solutions ourselves? Given all the flaws with the very idea of government solutions--flaws pointed out in well developed, Nobel Prize winning work such as “public choice theory” that shows how politicians are mostly promoters of their vested interests--it should be clear by now that moving in the direction of a more and more free society is much more promising than moving away from one.

Alas, the temptation to rely on coercion so as to get solutions to one’s problems is very powerful and has been yielded to virtually throughout human history. So there is probably not going to be a quick turnaround from such a trend even if, like the hope that one is going to win big in Vegas, gets shattered over and over again. Attempts to get where one wants to go by means of discredited shortcuts keep being made and there is only very slow progress toward embracing full freedom. Nonetheless, it is really the only genuine systematic solution to the problems the promoters of the welfare state create and keep promising to handle just fine.

Rejoicing at Liberty's Delights

Tibor R. Machan

When I was a kid living in Budapest, Hungary, massive censorship was just beginning to descend on the country, in the wake of the takeover by the Soviet communists in 1948. Afterwards virtually all interesting books, especially those from the West, were banned and could only be obtained via the black market. That is where I picked up my copies of Zane Grey, Earl Stanley Gardner, Mark Twain, Max Brand, and other novels that I so much enjoyed reading in my youth.

One great benefit of living in a partially free society is that those aspects of it that are free produce immense benefits for those who enjoy its fruits. So, for example, if one is an avid reader of literature and non-fiction works, in a country like the U.S.A., with a pretty strict prohibition against government getting involved in meddling in what people write and read, there is an abundance of material for everyone to delve into. No one tells you what you may or may not write or read and even works that the mainstream publishers refuse to touch manages to get to a sizable readership these days, what with the Internet and all kinds of non-traditional publishing venues at hand.

And, of course, this is true not just of writing and reading but most of the arts. Virtually all of the visual arts are out there for people to pick and choose from. Even if one lacks the big bucks to purchase the fine arts--or to attend concerts featuring great orchestras, bands, and so forth--there are innumerable ways to encounter works one yearns to view and hear.

For example, I regularly canvass the net for what various museums and art galleries display and while this may not quite compare with having great works hang on one's own walls, it is still a plentiful source of aesthetic satisfaction. Those of us who aren't well enough off to purchase original paintings can at least obtain prints or, at least, view small renditions of nearly any work on one's computer screen. And there is such an abundance of sources of nearly any form of music now--via cable TV, radio, the Internet once again, and, of course, CDs and such--that no one can complain about a shortage of offerings by which to be delighted, amused, thrilled, enchanted via whichever medium of art one finds most appealing.

I am really very lucky because much of what I wish from life is produced in what amounts to a largely free market place. No government bureaucracy stands between me, the consumer of art works, and the creators and merchants. If I really want some expensive work badly enough, all I need to do is save up a while and then get it. As to novels, I can hardly keep up with what my favorite contemporary authors produce. And of course there is a great deal available from past masters, major or minor.

This is not what it is like in countries that lack the legal equivalent of the First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. Even in Western Europe there is nothing like what the U. S. enjoys in the way of literary freedom. And, of course, in many places around the globe governments, often in cahoots with some religious leadership, have full "legal authority" to dictate what people may write and read, paint and view, listen to, and so forth.

Of course, there is an unfairness about this because if one is interested in productive and creative undertakings which aren't unregulated by the various levels of government in a country, one is not going to enjoy the fruits of liberty as I and those who seek satisfaction from the arts, literary and otherwise, manage. But this unfairness isn't the fault of those who are the beneficiaries of the selective protection of human liberty involved. Just like people who can escape the oppression of military conscription or some form of taxation--folks referred to as draft or tax dodgers--those who are the beneficiaries of the "loopholes" provided by the First Amendment ought to take full advantage of their better lot. But they ought to join with all those who strive to set markets free in all areas of human endeavor, not just the arts, the press and all other forms of expression that are fortunate to be free of the bureaucracy's heavy hand.

Another Problem with Welfare Rights

Tibor R. Machan

A welfare or positive right, so called, is something that can only be protected by coercing others to provide it. Consider the right to health care. This supposed right can only be honored by making health care professionals provide services for those who have need for it.

In contrast, a negative right, such as the right to one’s life, may be respected and protected without making anyone do anything. To respect a negative right one need do nothing at all, merely abstain from doing something, like killing or assaulting or robbing someone. Respecting negative rights is what happens when there is peace among people, when none is intruding upon others.

The practical import of this is that a government that secures our human rights acts only to repel criminals or foreign aggressors whereas a government that is supposed to secure positive rights acts to force people to do service to one another. Your supposed right to health care requires that health care professionals or those who have to pay for their work be forced to do what they do not choose to do. Your right to your life or liberty or property, in contrast, requires no such intrusiveness from government.

It is interesting to realize that those who advocate negative basic rights, the kind listed in the Declaration of Independence and identified by the English political philosopher John Locke, have no difficulty generalizing these rights to all human beings--they are, after all, human rights. As Locke argued, just because of one’s nature as a human being, one has these rights.

On the other hand, so called positive rights cannot be advocated for all. So, for example, Hillary Clinton’s defense of the right to health care applied only to Americans not to human beings as such. She could no more defend such an alleged right for Germans or Koreans than she could defend a minimum wage for them. That’s because she was seeking an office that would empower her to force people to provide health services to their fellow citizens but not to non-Americans. While as far as the right to life is concerned, Mrs. Clinton could easily advocate it for all people everywhere since all that right requires is for people to abstain from murder.

It is true, as some have noted, that to secure negative rights, governments or some similar agencies need to stand ready to respond to those who would violate them. But all that amounts to is a prohibition of aggressive conduct among people and that is why governments are like body guards, agents who seek to secure one’s basic negative rights by repelling aggression. Like body guards, such governments do not have the authority to force anyone to do various things that others need.

Consider, also, that no gratitude or compensation is required when people respect each others’ negative rights. If you do not kill me, I owe you no thanks, no money, nothing, whereas if you provide me with medical care you need at least to be thanked but more likely you need to be paid (since that is how you earn your living). This means that to secure such alleged rights, people’s resources must be confiscated from them so as to pay the providers (unless they are directly conscripted to serve).

What so called positive or welfare rights really are is services some people want from others for which they do not want to pay. They do not want them to earn a living for what they provide but simply give it away. And while such generosity is not unreasonably asked of relatives and other intimates--though even then it should not be abused--it must not be coerced from strangers.

In a free country negative rights are all that the law is concerned about, unless a contract has been freely entered into so as to secure the provision of services. So medical services are not free--no one has a right to other people’s free professional services! Not as they have a right to other people abstention from aggressive conduct.

Bad v. Good Pitch to Votes

Tibor R. Machan

Do voters actually believe it when candidates promise them health, happiness, vacations, clean air, and all those other goodies while also demanding that they stop being selfish, stop joining special interest groups and dedicate themselves only to the public good? I doubt it very much. This sort of pitch seems to me to put most reasonable voters on guard. Something is up, a ruse is afoot, for no one can deliver on these promises. (Or are voters like all those gamblers flocking to Las Vegas who think they will come away big winners?) So a great many people stay away from the voting booth and it's all left in the hands of dreamers.

I am not sure if candidates have actually given this a try but I would count on a different strategy. How about promising voters just one thing, namely, a competent defense against the violence of those of their fellows who are inclined to be violent, against those who wreak crime and war. And then urge them not to stop being selfish but to be intelligently self-interested. That would be thinking of some broad benefits that we all should be striving for, such as freedom, the security of our rights, peace, and justice. These are benefits all voters would gain from big time! So they are objectives that are quite reasonably considered self-interested, for everyone.

But such self-interested benefits need some education to be effectively appealing to voters. Too many people shun being thought of as selfish because they associate selfishness with trivial pursuits. Yet, genuine, serious, big time selfishness is about broad, lasting values such as justice and peace. Those are what is really good for us all!

In that very famous movie, Casablanca, Rick, the character of Humphrey Bogart, turns to Ilsa, the character of Ingrid Bergman, near the end of the film and delivers a little speech that goes like this: “Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that. Now, now... Here's looking at you kid….”

Unfortunately a great many who’ve seen the film take Rick to be talking of self-sacrifice whereas, in fact, what he is talking about is devotion to great values, such as liberty and justice--values that Ilsa will in time realize outweigh those she would like to have now, namely, romantic bliss.

If those running for office were truly devoted to high ideals, they could explain to voters that these high ideals are of great importance to all. They are to everyone’s self-interest both short and long term.

That is what proper, uncorrupted politics is about: devotion to very high human community values, such as rights, liberty, justice, the rule of law, peace and all those conditions that are indispensable for people aiming to live flourishing lives in their communities. To think that devoting oneself to these amounts to unselfishness, self-sacrifice, is bizarre. These are everyone’s most important values, with everything else--including (and this comes from a died in the wool romantic) a great romance--paling in comparison.

Urging people to renounce their self-interest will simply never fly for very long. The idea that serving others is more important than serving oneself just sounds nice--yes, nice--but is by no means noble. Noble objectives are all elevating to those who pursue them. Saving one’s child from a blazing fire is noble but not because it is unselfish. (Is there anything that’s more genuinely selfish than saving one’s family from disaster? And one’s friends, and sometimes even strangers?)

No, candidates need to educate voters about how utterly selfish and proper it is for them to vote for those who will secure for them justice, the protection of their rights, peace and other social conditions that make a decent, good human life possible for us all. And if they cannot do this, then they are not good candidates for political office. Then they are merely vying to gain power so as to implement some kind of agenda they can never fulfill.

Bona fide politicians, serving us as honest political representatives, are very much to our self-interest. And the candidate who can deliver on that promise must also see it as something of grave importance to him or her! That is the way constituents and politicians can come together without cynicism, without suspicion.

Leadership is a Pseudo Issue

Tibor R. Machan

Both pairs of current major candidates, Democrat and Republican, make much noise about leadership. As if the point of national politics in a free society were about who should lead the citizenry. Lead them where? For what purpose? No mention is made of that. Somehow leadership is supposed to be its own justification, a self-evidently desirable attribute in a candidate. But that is a drastic misconception, an misunderstanding of the job description of politicians in a genuine free society.

Yet this is easily seen to be a very bad mistake--never even mind that the term "leader" is just what "Fuhrer" means in German, what Hitler was supposed to be called by everyone! Yes, in the old regimes political executives were supposed to leaders of sorts because countries were assumed to be on the march to some goal, as if they were a corporation or team or club. Yes, the Boy Scouts need leaders, as does General Motors and the U. S. Olympic fencing team. There are all organizations with a purpose, with a goal their members strive to attain and for which it is useful to have leaders, guides, captains or such. And when a government is conceived of along such lines, it makes sense to think a lot about getting a good leader for it, someone who knows where the people--the subjects of leadership--are supposed to be headed.

Free societies are different. Government, as John Locke and the American Founders understood it, don't exist so as to lead the citizenry anywhere. Citizens have their own purposes, goals, directions in life. What they need from government is protection from criminals and invaders, people who would interfere with their pursuit of their own ends. As the Declaration of Independence states so precisely, governments are instituted so as to secure our rights. That doesn't amount to leading citizens anywhere--not even economic prosperity, nor cultural or scientific or artistic progress, is something governments are supposed to pursue; it's the task of citizens to choose if they want to be solvent or serene or contemplative or something else in their lives, with the government, the cop on the beat, making sure no one gets in their way. Even when there are pressing issues, such as medical emergencies, bad weather, whatever--these are problems the citizenry is supposed to face on its own, by way of the innumerable voluntary agencies they are free to establish.

Politics is something that comes from the ancient Greek understanding of the value of organized human community life. But the point of organization is not spelled out--it is a subject of much debate in political philosophy or theory. What was so innovative, radically so, in the American idea of politics is that government had been demoted from the role of leaders of society to protectors, a professional group that's supposed to take care that their is peace in the country which then makes it possible for all the citizens to pursue their own goals, to be their own leaders or to find some specially skilled fellow citizens to lead them where they wanted to go (so long as it was a peaceful pursuit).

In short, free men and women need no political leaders! John Locke realized that what makes politics necessary is that there are violent people among us who would intrude upon us, try to conscript us to their purposes and prevent us from pursuing ours. To reduce this as much as possible, governments may be established but only for this limited purpose, not to be our saviors, not to lead us on various ventures the candidates and their misguided supporters think up.

It is sad that among the major candidates, within the major political parties, no one now understands politics in this properly limited way. Instead they are all vying to be leaders, our Fuhrer! Sad indeed.

Ayn Rand & Selfishness

Tibor R. Machan

For more than forty years I have been seriously interested in the ideas of Ayn Rand, ever since I read her novels and later her non-fiction works. This despite the fact that Miss Rand once declared me “persona non grata” for writing her a disagreeable letter. Oh well, but her ideas never ceased to intrigue me and after much study and reflection I still think her philosophy of Objectivism is largely right.

One element of Rand’s idea is the notion that selfishness is good, which clearly runs counter to received opinion both Left and Right. And she has received a great deal of rebuke for finding self-interest a proper pursuit for all human beings. I think, however, that this is due to a colossal misunderstanding of Rand’s position.

One of Rand’s non-fiction books is titled, quite deliberately, The Virtue of Selfishness, A New Concept of Egoism (New American Library, 1964). The title is still widely misunderstood, despite Rand’s attempt to warn readers, by way of the subtitle, that she is advocating something unusual.

The terms “selfishness” and “self-interest” are not simple ones because the meaning of the term “self” is very much in dispute. In fact it is one of the most controversial ideas in human history. Another and similarly controversial idea is “individual.” These are what some philosophers have called essentially contestable concepts. That means they are by their very nature always being argued about, like “liberty,” “justice,” “democracy,” or “morality.”

In ancient Greece the self was understood as the human soul and while it meant the soul of the individual, it was also taken as a social concept--the human self was supposed to be something intimately tied to the social group within which one lived. A good self, for example, was understood as one that’s gregarious, liberal, generous, and engaging. In the ethical writings of Aristotle, for example, the system of principles one should live by was called eudemonia, the set of guidelines for achieving a good self or soul, or, in other words, happiness. And that implied living rationally, governed by the rules of reason, the virtues, some of which had to do with self-perfection, some with considerateness.

This was all changed in the 17th century, mostly at the hands of the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes. For him the human self consisted of raw impulses or beastly drives to gain power in life. Thus the term “selfish” changed its meaning, too. Instead of implying eudemonia--a decent, benevolent self--it came to imply something closer to hedonism, pleasure seeking and power hunger at all cost. The self lost its connection to reason. Instead it became connected to mindless feeling or passion. So a selfish act would come to be one that is driven by someone’s feelings, passions, or emotions, not someone’s good judgment.

Ayn Rand tried to do the nearly impossible thing of returning the concept of the human self to what it used to mean for the ancient Greeks with but a few amendments added based on modern psychology. But the bulk of the world had by then accepted the Hobbesian idea and used “selfish” to mean “self-indulgent,” ruled by one’s feelings or emotions.

So, sadly, despite her efforts to make herself clear--not just by the subtitle of her book but, especially, by its content--Rand left the impression that she was advocating a Hobbesian idea of the human self or ego--a kind of wild, unruly, irrational element that drove one to do anything one damn well felt like doing.

Rand’s one time intellectual partner, Nathaniel Branden, tried to undue the damage by writing his book, Honoring the Self: Personal Integrity and the Heroic Potentials of Human Nature (Los Angeles : J.P. Tarcher, 1983). Unfortunately, the work didn’t manage to alter the way most people, especially the anti-individualist intellectuals in the culture, used the term “self.”

Still, it is perhaps useful now and then to try to set the record straight. Ayn Rand, a very popular novelist and thinker, was not advocating rapacious, nasty, brutal, inconsiderate “selfishness” as her detractors maintain. That’s because she had a noble view of the human self. Those who are interested in doing justice to Rand’s views, even if they disagree with her in the end, might well like to remember this.

My Summer "Vacations"



Tibor R. Machan



Every summer since 1989 I have flown to Europe where I take part in a seminar on political economy organized by the Institute for Economic Studies, Europe, a classical liberal think tank in France. The objective is to familiarize students from around the globe with the principles and implications of classical liberalism-libertarianism by way of lectures by several scholars from different disciplines.



Initially students came mostly from the former Soviet bloc countries. More recently they have come from across the globe. These week-long seminars take place in various countries and are attended by about 35 students each. The language varies—some are held in French, some in English. The lecturers are philosophers, economists, historians, and legal theorists.



Aside from these seminars I also lecture around the USA and numerous countries, such as South Africa, New Zealand, Argentina, the Republic of Georgia and Armenia, mostly covering elements of liberty. What has appealed to me about these venues is just how interested and intelligent are the students who attend. Although the focus is on the free society, a great deal of time is spent on considering alternatives and challenges. While the faculty is largely in agreement about the superiority of the libertarian alternative, there are numerous disagreements as well, certainly many details to be ironed out. And, of course, there are always the traditional questions about whether it is even possible to reach firm conclusions in a complex field such as political economy.



Most of the seminars amount to a brain storming session—every lecture of about 45 minutes is followed by a Q&A for which questions are carefully prepared by the students and this then gives rise to many challenges and follow-up discussions. Even once the formal sessions are over, there follow exploration of the related ideas.



Although on and off someone jokes about these being indoctrination sessions, in fact there is wide open contribution from a great many political and economic positions. If they aren't introduced by students, the lecturers will discuss them, usually with scrupulous fairness--what's the point of dealing with critics whose views are distorted? Even those who make no bones about their commitment to certain principles have no trouble playing devil’s advocate. Aside from the several classical liberal thinkers who are routinely examined, such as Hayek, Mises, Rand, Rothbard, Friedman, Locke, Smith, Schumpeter, et al., the ideas of many others such as Habermas, Sen, Rawls, Dworkin, Sunstein and the like are also explored.



I am extremely eager to take part in these seminars and for a variety of reasons (not excluding the fee I receive, which is, however, quite modest). For one, getting classical liberal ideas seriously considered is the best way to give them a chance in time to be tried out in practice. My own thinking about the issues can always use the challenge from thoughtful and seriously interested young people. I get a chance to travel and even visit the few members of my family still living in Europe. And there is also the opportunity to see how different places across the globe deal with various common and diverse human problems.



There is, of course, no guarantee that even the most competent discussion and defense of classical liberal ideas will lead to concrete results. But the chance of it is far greater when the ideas get a good run for their money.

I cannot pretend, and would not even be tempted to, that I am indifferent to the success of classical liberal-libertarian ideas, that all this is merely some kind of academic exercise to me. As far as I have been able to discern, these are the best ideas when it comes to understanding and shaping a decent, just human community. Not that it is highly likely that they will triumph but just the chance that they might is enough to keep those like me going, hammering away on the task of changing minds and hearts.

Is Religious Politics Libertarian?

Tibor R. Machan

In many ways the principles of a fully free society are the most hospitable to the great variety of faithful in a large society. The main reason for this is that in such a free society the right to private property is strictly protected. Even more, the strict protection of the right to private property serves religion well because it establishes a culture of tolerance and non-interference among the different faithful.

Tolerance, of course, isn’t acceptance--I can tolerate your weird jokes or garb without considering them desirable. However, I will not do anything against you because you make such jokes and wear such garb. I’ll leave you be. And in a free society members of a religions order must be tolerate towards those of another even if they disapprove of them so long as they carry on within their sphere, their private domain.

Some object, saying that such tolerance amounts to encouragement but this is really quote wrong. If I tolerate your strange clothes I by no stretch of the imagination encourage you to wear it. What I am doing is respecting your right to your life, liberty, and private property--I refuse to interfere with you. Not at all the same as approving of what you do!

Most religions are relatively uncommitted to the kind of political system under which they can function and be practiced. As long as the government does not ban their rituals, there is no conflict between state and church. Obviously, if a particular faith demanded that every Sunday a young child be sacrificed to God, this would be prohibited in a free society. That’s not religious freedom but religions oppression (unless it is an adult who voluntarily submits to such a sacrifice). But apart from such barbaric religious practices nearly everything adults might choose to do within the domain of their church can co-exist with the principles and citizens of a fully free society.

The few exceptions include religions faiths that demand that aggressive actions must be taken by the faithful toward some who are not among the faithful. Thus if a religious group embarked upon attacks on gays or gamblers or meat-eaters or those who would abort a fetus before it becomes a biological (as distinct from religiously understood) human being (around the 25th week of pregnancy), that group’s practices would be banned. Not because of religious discrimination but because of the fact that everyone has the right to life, liberty, property, etc., and the violation of these rights constitutes illegal conduct in a free society. It is not religions discrimination to prohibit the sacrifice of a child at some holiday! No one may do that!

Also, if a given religion accepts the idea that its faithful must follow an edict from its good book that amounts to the violation of human rights, that religion may not carry out this edict. If a religion holds that God demands that gays or gamblers or divorced people must be penalized, treated badly by the political authorities, in a free society this will not be acceptable.

There are many benefits to religions from living in a free society but one will not be available, namely, to forcibly establish a homogeneous culture that follows that religion’s dictates and none other. Such imperialism is just what some religions--or at least factions of religions--insist upon and they will not get it from citizens of a fully free society. The faithful who insist on such hegemony will simply not be satisfied. If their mission is to coerce everyone to follow their way--not just those of the faithful but everyone else--they will be rebuffed, opposed and if they take action to fulfill their mission, they will become criminals.

The laws of a fully free society are based on human nature, not on particular, sectarian conceptions of human nature. These laws are to govern members of the community as human beings, not as members of some particular religions faith. Of course, those of a religious faith may find this frustrating, just as vegetarians are frustrated by the existence of meat serving eateries and anti-gamblers by Las Vegas or Monte Carlo. But that is no justification for attacking those who do not embrace their edicts for proper living.

Human nature is such that it makes it possible for there to be millions of different proper ways to live, as well as some very improper ones. One needs to figure out which is which and fashion laws and public policy accordingly.

Racial, etc., versus Individual Competition

Tibor R. Machan

What do blacks want? In the late 50s and early 60s the answer to this question was fairly obvious although rarely complete. How could it be? Blacks are not all alike and while on some fronts they shared similar problems and needed similar solutions, on many others they, like the rest of us, had problems related not to race but to just living in the world. Still since they were a hounded group, they had many common problems arising from the injustices to which they were relentlessly subjected.

Some of these injustices were private or social, having little to do with law and government, but many of them dealt with how the government and public policy treated them. That was the main travesty of segregation, the public policies, backed by laws and law enforcement. In some case the private sector was moving away from dealing with blacks in prejudicial, unjustly discriminatory fashion but the law posed an obstacle. Just goes to show that democracy is not always a blessing!

Those days are nearly gone and good riddance. Sure there are pockets of America and groups of Americans who will not let go of their stubborn, nearly ingrained racism; it is now becoming an embarrassment to belong to this segment of American society. Yes, it still poses some serious obstacles to the lives of many black people but these are not all that different from obstacles put before us all by irrational neighbors, relatives, colleagues and the rest. In other words, racism is no longer a focused but more of a dispersed social malignancy. And it certainly doesn’t only impact blacks--Hispanics, native Americans, Arab Americans and even whites are facing it.

Most importantly, though, racism is slowly abating, subsiding and now some of its consequences are more troublesome than it is itself. Having been left behind in school or at one’s job or in one’s neighborhood because of one’s race or ethnic or national background is no doubt a burden many Americans are experiencing, yet these are not all that different from other burdens ordinary socio-economic lives encounter--being overlooked because of one’s accent or looks.

Perhaps the promise of a Barrack Obama presidency suggests that race will subside as an American problem, especially in light of the clear fact that it is a problem nearly everywhere else, including in Africa, between members of different tribes of blacks.

What now appears to be emerging as a related problem is the misguided belief, propagated by so many intellectuals and educators in the social sciences and humanities, that human beings are naturally linked to various others apart from members of their families. The communitarian doctrine that we all belong to some community, that individuality is a myth, that individualism is something insidious, is replacing the idea that race constitutes our primary identity.

Communitarians are wedded to the notion that without others in very close proximity to one’s life, one is basically crippled. An individual cannot be even spiritually, psychologically, let alone economically or professional, self-sufficient--that’s what most social psychologists and sociologists teach at many universities. (I was at a frosh opening assembly recently where this theme was asserted as a virtual necessary truth--by professors who were featured speakers--with no need of defense!) Indeed, individualism was the only position explicitly denigrated, something from which the participating teachers believed students need to warned off.

This is too bad since nearly every major conflict in history and around the globe involves various groups members of which think they together must somehow conquer and rule others in order to be safe, so as to flourish. The best antidote to this is of course individualism whereby people regard it as their major task in life to become excellent at who they are, as individuals, to improve from day to day, to break one’s own recent record. This is not a matter of rivalry or contest or competition since each will be striving to improve on him or herself, not so much on others who are, after all, too different from oneself to make a good, valid comparison.

The American idea--still only a model and no blueprint--that we all need to be the best we can be, in our own terms, and not always compare ourselves to others, this hasn’t made a lasting enough impact. But where it has, in some sports for example, it has reaped good results. Instead of pitting groups against groups, there is more of a face to face contest the result of which do not lend themselves to any generalizations about which country, which race, which gender is the best.