Myths Are Born This Way

Tibor R. Machan

Education is filled with more or less accurate accounts of what is what, including human (American) history. Various champions of systems of ideas eagerly work to capture for themselves the stories that bolster their doctrines. This is one reason so many prominent statists are relentlessly spreading the lie that our current economic fiasco is the result of market forces—of the free market, capitalism, free enterprise, the unregulated market place, and so forth.

If they are successful in spreading this rank distortion, they secure for themselves and their ideological brethren a greater chance of ascension to political power, which is what statist desire most.

Defenders of the free society haven’t any political power at stake in the debate about how the fiasco was produced because in no case are they going to gain, for among other matters they do not want, political power. What such folks are after is the truth and the reason is that with the truth comes, in this instance, a more prosperous and more just political economy.

Yes, defenders of the market are also quite self-interested in this matter for they know that everyone’s lot has a better chance of improving when freedom reigns in a society. No, there is no guarantee that freedom will make us all happy and successful in life. That utopian dream is only peddled among the dishonest promoters of statism since with the state’s rise to economic power we are all supposed to do well. All one needs to verify this is to listen to the likes of Barack Obama, Paul Krugman, Robert Kutner, et al. They are all advocates of greater government power over the economy for the purpose of solving our economic problems, problems that stand in the way of the country’s flourishing. With sufficiently huge stimuli plucked out of thin air and dumped into the American, indeed, world economy at various points, everyone will be happy and, especially, equal justice will be served big time.

Free market advocates cannot make this promise because they know that none has the power to deliver such a result to millions and millions of human beings in a highly complex and uncertain economic environment. Sure, free market advocates do argue that free men and women are more prone to prosper since they are, naturally, free to turn their careful attention to their economic prospects. But that has never been a guarantee of triumph over unforeseen obstacles; it is merely the best chance of overcoming them.

So what is one to make of a letter such as this one in the International Herald Tribune (3/14-15/09): “David Brooks gives Republicans sensible advice. But for all of Brooks’s honesty, we could wait forever and neither he nor the Republicans will own up to how they overestimated the power of market forces”? We can tell that it is a clear illustration of the attempt to distort history. After all, there have been hardly any genuine, bona fide market forces at work in the American economy for decades now, not since the federal government basically seized the reigns of American finance back when the Federal Reserve Bank was established, since the dollar was destroyed as a sound currency, and since all those alphabet soup federal agencies began to intervene with the decisions of market agents in every nook and cranny of the economy. Ours, as well as those of all Western societies’ economic systems are mixed ones, plain and simple, with huge doses of socialism and fascism operating within corrupted markets.

So however well or badly “the power of market forces” would do, such forces haven’t been in evidence for honest students of economics to study and track. Instead economic history has been a history of substantially and predominantly statist forces, as they have been throughout human history with but bits and pieces of exceptions in small regions of the world. Sure, prospective market agents will naturally try to turn all of it to their advantage—that’s their job just as most of us attempt to do well in our commercial endeavors—mostly, however, in the messy arena of markets-cum-politics. Yes, the exceptions have most likely produced economic wonders that are denied only by statists who just cannot credit economic freedom for anything good anywhere—such freedom leaves them with nothing much to do! But because of the massive doses of state intervention at every turn, no clear record of how the market is doing can be gleaned from taking some time slice such as the recent fiasco and reporting on it.

There haven’t been clean, undisturbed market forces at work for us to tell just from the record of events what their impact has been on our lives. For that it is necessary to do some very honest and detailed theoretical and historical research. Instead, of course, the statists just keep asserting that the free market is responsible for every economic problem we have which, if believed by enough, will help them gain and keep political power. What free market are they talking about?

Beholden to our ancestors

Tibor R. Machan

When the idea of paying taxes, especially the exorbitant ones extorted from the well to do, is debated, defenders sometimes maintain that these are due because we owe it to our ancestors who forged institutions and other results that now benefit us all. So even our own selves, our bodies, health, pleasant looks, and, of course, any inheritance we were left by our elders do not really belong to us free and clear.

No, these are all owned by us conditionally, provided we pay back some of the goodies, through taxation and other burdens on us. We owe it, in other words, to our ancestors because they left us with lots of benefits, including such institutions as the legal system that protects us and our property. The great art we have inherited from those who went before us, for example, and the science, too, are what came our way and our use and enjoyment of these all bestow upon us the obligation to pay with our labor and resources which, of course, are to be collected from us by the government. As one prominent defender of heavy taxation and government wealth redistribution put it, "we haven't just 'come across' our unearned wealth. We--meaning the children of the rich--have inherited through a systematic institution, which needs principled defense or critique." And from this it is supposed to follow that we owe the government(!) and those it picks for its largess big time.

Well, all this is quite open to dispute and skepticism. For one thing, even if our ancestors, including parents and grandparents, left benefits and riches for us to enjoy, it doesn't follow that we owe something in return. They, too, gained from their parents and grandparents and from the surrounding world from which they obtained what they picked. And when they produced what we inherited from them, they didn't do so, at least as a rule, so as to benefit us! It is a fair assumption that they created and produced all the values they did because they believed it was something they ought to do, something important quite apart from those of us who followed in their footsteps. So we may safely assume they made their wealth, art, science, and so forth because they wanted to do it quite independently from what we inherited from them, except when, in fact, they specifically planned to benefit their offspring or some causes they believed in.

Another problem with this thesis is that when you give a gift to someone who hasn't asked for it, you don't later get to go to that individual or group and ask for payment! Unsolicited benefits are supposed to be given gratis, free and clear of obligations in return. The artists and scientists and entrepreneurs who have benefited us all unless they were coerced to do so did it of their own free will and for reasons of their own and did not attach the rider, "You may have all this provided you pay your government for it." (Why, indeed, would it amount to payback to fork out money to the government for all this? Those who provided us with the benefits are, after all, long gone and current governments are not working for them any longer but for current citizens.)

The best system for what some call inter-generational justice--for squaring with our ancestors fairly--is the private property system that does a reasonably decent job of securing for everyone what he or she has a right to, what everyone is entitled to. The country's system of property law translates this idea of the right to private property from one generation over to the next and except for cases of corruption or error, this is how rights and obligations stretch out into the future. Those in the past may be presumed to have taken good care of themselves with the aid of this system as we are supposed to do for ourselves. (Cases of corruption would be when those in the past stole from their fellows, like the Europeans did from the native Americans for instance, and when slave holders robbed the labor and time of their slaves, or when successful common criminals did this from their victims! In these cases restitution is due where it is possible to establish it through a just and functioning legal system.)

Over the history of political thought there have often been those who wanted to represent previous generations and take from current ones what they regarded as payments but it is little more than either a gross error or an outright ruse. It is a ploy by which some today get to take from their fellows and has nothing at all to do with collecting various mythical obligatory repayments!

The Unearned Wealth Trap

Tibor R. Machan

Sometimes defenders of human liberty put their case badly and one such instance is when they defend the right to private property by identifying all expropriation or extortion as the taking of earned wealth. But it isn't a matter of whether the wealth was earned or not--quite a lot of one's wealth, the benefits one enjoys in life, belong to one even if one hasn't earned these.

Surely it is not even possible to figure out how much of what one has is earned, how much one came by through luck or accident--even in the market place sometimes there are windfall profits or earnings, as when someone sells his or her labor for big bucks yet it took little effort to provide it. Indeed, when one finds a bargain one would have paid much more money for, one is getting something extra, beyond what one has earned. Some artists, for example, sell works that took just a tiny bit of effort for huge sums and many of us work at jobs we love and would do even if we were paid less then we are. Beautiful people often get paid big bucks to appear on covers of magazines or just adorn something in a commercial. It is convoluted to claim they all earned this as if they had done hard labor to get the goodies.

So if one rests one's case for private property rights on whether the owners actually earned their wealth or resources, much of what people actually do own will appear not to be rightly theirs and there for others to claim for themselves.

Fact is, we all have stuff we just ran across, stuff that we obtained simply because of being somewhere at a lucky time or being born into a hard working or lucky family. And yet the goods that come with this luck are all ours by right, no one else's. If the opposite were true, other people could rip off our good fortunes with impunity. Any wealth we got without strictly earning it could then be construed as public property, available for others to confiscate from us. Any money we get for just being lucky would then turn into unowned resource and others could take it for themselves and trying to hang on to it would make the owners some kind of thief.

No. Even if you have what you have by sheer luck, others have no authority to take it from you. It is what is called in logic a non-sequitor to deny the point--it doesn't follow from the fact that my pretty smile gains me fame and fortune that others may take this from me, not by a long shot.

For one, that kind of outlook would make slaves of us all. People could just take any benefit we enjoy that we were born with, our talents, our attributes that are popular with others and bring wealth to us as a result. Why should it be these others rather than the original lucky ones who have the authority to use and dispose of the wealth that's come by through fortune? No reason at all. Those others who claim a share of our wealth because we came by it through luck have no leg to stand on since we didn't promise other people that they could have such wealth, the wealth we didn't earn.

Now it may appear to be a plausible idea that if one hasn't earned his or her wealth, this means others may have it but it isn't true. What makes it plausible is all the talk about how one's property involves what one has earned, worked hard to obtain. But that idea is wrong. So it follows that the belief is false that such unearned wealth is available to others, however much they might like or even need it. (After all, if one didn't enjoy the luck--say, by not having been born at all--others couldn't even imagine getting it for themselves!)

The bottom line is that what one has a right to is one's life, one's liberty, and the property that arises from these whether come by some hard way or easy. Otherwise we would all be at the mercy of other people who see fit to intrude on us at their pleasure. But they haven't the moral and should not have the legal authority to do such a thing, however tempted they are to do so.

Government Regulations Revisited

Tibor R. Machan

You might not think it considering my relentless concerns about the growing power of government, but I am not a pessimist. There are many areas of life where liberty is making advances--e.g., gays are no longer being so persistently harasses by government and even the obscene "war" on drugs may eventually give way much saner policies. But in the economic realm, where it causes so much direct damage to us all, government's interference is on the rise.

Yet many people do not fully appreciate how that interference is evident throughout the economic sphere. As a friend recently pointed out to me, many people believe that government regulation of business, industry, the various professions and so forth is but a legitimate effort to carry out the fundamental task of a government, which is the protection of our basic rights. Government regulation, according to this view, amounts to no more than shielding Innocent citizens from "the bad guys," say the likes of Bernard Madoff or the Enron team of corporate rogues.

How, then, could most people appreciate that government regulation amounts to what I have for years called petty tyrannies? All those regulators are like the cop on the beat, standing there to repel crime. Isn't that so?

There are elements of the regulatory system that do function like that, yes. For example, the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) polices corporate fraud, among other things, which is indeed one legitimate function of the government of a free country. And other regulatory agencies, too, do some things that amount to rights protection--for example, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) prevents invasions by some broadcasters of others on the electromagnetic spectrum or the airwaves.

But the bulk of government regulation is very different. It involves regulation or regimentation, leading various professions by the hand to act in accordance with various codes or rules that are intended to preempt any malpractice. That is to say, such regulations target innocent people in the various professions, mostly in business but also in medicine or farming, so that the professionals avoid malpractice, so they are prevented from doing anything wrong--dangerous or hazardous. The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) is a clear case in point--their edicts to drug manufacturers and researchers is all about guiding the conduct of the people working in the industry, as is OSHA's (Occupational Safety and Health Administration).

Government regulations are, in the main, preventive measures which is why I refer to them as a species of prior restraint and policies that aren't compatible with the principles of a free country. These principles prohibit controlling people's conduct unless the people have been shown to have done something wrong. Government regulations are more akin to the policies of a police state, where the government regiments the population so as to make sure everyone is acting correctly, properly.

Measures like such regimentation are attractive because many people believe that governments are highly qualified to supervise what we do, as if they were like our parents or teachers or coaches. But the plain fact is that government is simply a bunch of other people, with no special qualifications to run our lives, to supervise us all. Many of the American Founders and various prominent presidents were aware of this so that, for example, Abraham Lincoln wrote that “No man is good enough to govern another man, without that other’s consent.”

Not only is government regulation unjust because it places some people in a position to rule others--albeit always with the excuse that this serves the public interest--but it is most often quite ineffective. Government regulators are frequently captive to the very industries they are meant to steer straight. They don't actually know much about the industries or professions they are required to regulate--for example, the SEC had no clue at all about derivatives when all the financial shenanigans occurred over the last few years. Or, as with the FDA, the regulators are so afraid of risks that they themselves facilitate illness and even death by policies that delay the availability of medicines.

As usual, the immoral turns out also to be largely impractical. And this exactly how it is with government regulations.

Regulation Mania

Tibor R. Machan

Government regulation of the American economy--with the implication for all economies--is back in favor with politicians, bureaucrats and, most importantly, certain outspoken economists. (Nobel Laureate and Princeton University professor Paul Kurgman, who is a regular columnist for The New York Times and a very frequent talks show guest is a good example, as is political scientist James Galbraith of the University of Texas at Austin.) These and a lot of other people have lamented the very moderate deregulatory efforts under the Reagan and subsequent Republican administrations. Their refrain goes, "If only there had been more government regulation, the current economic fiasco would never have happened."

A couple of matters need to be said in response to the mania for government economic regulation. First and foremost, government regulators are no Gods, nor angels, but human beings every bit as susceptible to making mistakes and even being corrupted as are all those folks who work in the market place. The question, "And who will regulate the regulators?" hasn't ever been answered satisfactorily because no one will. It is an irreparable situation--something for which Professor James Buchanan received the Nobel Prize when he and Gordon Tullock identified the problems with public choice. The gist of this theory is that all persons, in or outside government, tend to promote their own agendas. I would add that this is especially the case in government where accountability and budgetary constraints are minimal and where the very loose, vague idea of the public interest is impossible to follow as a guide to forging policy.

There is also a serious problem with government regulation that is rarely mentioned, namely, that it involves something inimical to the free society, namely, prior restraint. In the criminal law it is well recognized that no one may be incarcerated or otherwise punished unless he or she has been convicted of a crime. But government regulations impose burdens on millions in the market place who haven't been convicted of any crimes! This is unjust. Not that matters of injustice figure heavily in contemporary political thinking which is now proudly pragmatic, unprincipled, and thus allows for arbitrariness.

Third, government regulation is very, very costly and removes resources from the market place that could generate economic growth, employment, and deposits that could be used to provide loans for starting business enterprises. I am not here in the position to recount the enormous cost of government economic regulations but there are many works that demonstrate it clearly and convincingly, including such popular fares as John Stossel's early special on ABC-TV, "Are We Scaring Ourselves to Death?" Stossel showed, with concrete numbers, that the cost of government economic regulation actually results in extensive poverty, something that is the major cause of misery in a society.

Arguments for government regulation are plenty but they aren't good ones. One is based on the phenomenon of market failures but omits from considerations that there is a far greater hazard from political failures when governments regulate the market. Another is based on the myth of positive human rights, duties everyone owes to others to take care of them, a position that encourages impermissible involuntary servitude in society. The only slightly credible support for government regulation, identified in an article by Kenneth J. Arrow, another Nobel Laureate in Harper's Magazine back in 1984, comes from what Arrow called judicial inefficiencies associated with air pollution and other negative externalities or harmful side effects of economic activities such as manufacturing. But even this is unnecessary when one considers that such bad side effect could be dealt with through public health laws that prohibit defiling the air mass and other public realms.

All in all, the case for government regulation is weak and those who promote the idea seem more convinced of their own invincibility as managers of the economic lives of the rest of us than of any positive elements of the process. It is time to stop the expectation that government regulators can solve our problems.

One's Right to be Wrong

Tibor R. Machan

In a recent demonstration outside the Earl Warren Bldg in San Francisco someone was waiving around a sign that read: "A moral wrong can't be a civil right." Well, in fact it can! A simple case in point is when someone writes something that is immoral or produces pictures or movies that are morally corrupt or writes a book that praises Hitler or Stalin or Pol Pot (Khmer Rouge). In America one definitely has a legal or civil right to do all this even though it's all arguably morally wrong. And all human beings have this right, actually, whether their legal system acknowledges it or not.

Indeed, the entire point of having rights is to be in charge of a sphere of one's life, which means one is free to act well or badly within such a sphere--it is entirely up to the individual and others may not invade the sphere even if quite rightly they judge what one is doing morally wrong.

This does not mean there is no right and wrong, or that no one can know it. It means only that whether one does what is right or does what is wrong must be up to the oneself and may not be imposed on one. The only exception is with wrong conduct that is a violation of someone else's rights because in that kind of case the intervention is not for correcting the bad conduct but for protecting the victim of rights violation.

This, at least, is the way rights are understood in a fully free society or country. Obviously in regimes that do not prize individual rights and liberty, what the people "in charge" will try to do is impose their own understanding of right on everyone else, just as if these others were their children! Even in a relatively open welfare state such as America, Britain, Canada, or Germany, the government will often impose on people its conception of what it amounts to be moral or ethical, thereby robbing them of their chance to be sovereign, to govern themselves. For example, all the so called compassion that governments engage in involves forcing citizens to part with their resources so governments than can do with them as they see fit, which sometimes amounts to helping certain citizens but more often comes to supporting some favorite project of the politicians and bureaucrats. The same with forcing people to be prudent about their use of drugs or alcohol! These are all challenges individuals must face on their own or with the help of family and friends.

Why should people have the freedom to do what is wrong, provided they aren't violating anyone's rights? Because they are by their very nature moral agents which means they can make decisions based on their convictions and this is how they earn credit or blame for how they live. And doing so is a person's major life project, to do the right thing of his or her own free will. But that also means they might fail, as many of us do quite often. By not permitting one to fail at living a morally good life, one also robs him or her of the chance to succeed! And that basically amounts to undermining their very humanity, the thing that makes them human--their moral nature.

What many folks even in America do not grasp is that the most important aspect of the American political tradition, including the revolution that got it more or less fully implemented in the country, is this establishment of the regime of individual sovereignty, of demoting the king and governments in general from their pretense of being in charge of the lives of their so called subjects. Government was identified, for example in the Declaration of Independence, as existing only to protect the rights of the citizenry not to run those lives.

Indeed, president Barack Obama would do well to keep this in mind as he talks of laying out grand plans for the country, plans that inevitably intrude on the personal projects of the citizenry. A free country isn't about such plans but about making it possible for all citizens to embark upon their own peaceful plans and projects, grand or modest.

Opulence for All!

Tibor R. Machan

As I drive to work in the morning I pass a community college on my right and for years now I have been struck by its opulence. This facility looks like some palace built for pharaohs, not a supplementary educational institution helping people with a few under-division college courses each term. No, by now at least California has several of such fabulous schools--I recall Foothill College up in the Bay Area, which matches some of the best endowed private universities in its architecture, as well as Santiago Canyon or Santa Barbara City College. These and others stick to my mind but there are hundreds of them, as well as similar so called public facilities that show enormous investment at taxpayers' expense or on government credit.

When I hear about California's enormous budget deficit--were they not constitutionally required to balance it each year?--my mind quickly focuses on these and other indulgences throughout the state. They certainly make it appear that whoever plans the state's educational programs has no concern about frugality or thrift. Instead the mentality that appears to go into these projects is that if anyone anywhere is studying at a marvelous college, well then everyone must, including those who spend but a few hours three times a week on campus.

This egalitarian mentality seems to me to have contributed big time to the country's financial wows. Although I am convinced of the superiority of privatizing all education, I figure that if the government is going to get into the education industry, it could certainly practice some restraint. Subsidized education ought at least to be modest and the opulence witnessed around California and some other regions of the country--Long Island, New York comes to mind, as does Florida and Texas--is simply way over the top. Certainly if I am going to ask my friends to help me out with some of my personal needs, such as purchasing a car or dish washer, I would be abusing the privilege if I spent their good money on the most expensive of these items.

But the egalitarian entitlement mentality is such as to insist that if some people in society are studying at institutions with outstanding and beautiful facilities, well then everyone is entitled to the same. Never mind that the money is obtained through the extortion method called taxation, a relic of feudal times when monarchs had to be compensated for allowing their realm to be used by their subjects.

Which brings to mind a related matter--Nevada Senator Harry Reid's recent contention in an interview widely circulated on the Web that taxation is voluntary and that when taxes are collected, it's like collecting dues from us which we all owe because we choose to pay them. Bunk.

Dues are the result of signing up for a benefit with the provision oft paying an agreed upon weekly, monthly, or yearly fee. But taxes are nothing like this. Just being born and trying to make a living qualifies one as the subject of it, to being extorted arbitrary portions of one's livelihood.

But back to the egalitarian opulence that has contributed to the current fiscal meltdown in so many regions of not only America but the rest of the world. It may be driven by envy or by a phony political ideology, namely that everyone is naturally entitled to equal "shares" of the country's wealth but in either case it is nonsense. And it's costing big time.

Of course there is an ancient habit afoot that supports this sentiment. It is one that sees society as a club or team to which everyone belongs as an ant to a colony and from which everyone may draw maximum benefits, so long as the leadership allows it. In the time of kings and other mythical leaders of state it was an ideal to aspire to because it was one way to wrest of the wealth from the rulers--persuade them it isn't theirs in the first place (which it wasn't though they firmly believed it was). But once it was widely enough realized that societies were supposed to be realms wherein we all were to be free to work and aspire to some level of success but not entitled to end up like everyone else, this was supposed to change and we are all more or less competing with the understanding that in a competition people end up in different places at different points of the race. But by refusing to see it this way, the society is seen as obligated to maintain everyone in a state of economic opulence and that is simply unsustainable and leads to George Orwell's very apt depiction of an egalitarian society in his novella, Animal Farm, wherein everyone is equal only some are far more "equal" than others.

Executive Compensation

Tibor R. Machan

Most executives draw pretty reasonable salaries, maybe up to $250m+ per year and bonuses, depending on how the company is doing or how important the executive's contributions is expected to be. This isn't unlike how baseball and football players are hired and compensated, especially the stars among them.

Some people are sought out very eagerly and promised exorbitant pay, including bonuses above the regular salary, and all this is agreed to from the outset, after pretty heavy negotiation. Contracts usually specify the terms, some of them unconditional, some conditional. If bonuses are promised no matter how the company is doing, this will be binding just as such contracts are binding in professional sports so that if a very promising hire turns out not to have done well, payment must still be made.

With the current brouhaha about high payouts in bonuses to company executives whose companies didn't manage to be successful, it may appear to be unjust to pay as per the terms of the contract but it isn't. As the saying goes, a promise is a promise.

Where trouble arises is when a company is receiving public funds in order to remain in operation and a sizable portion of these funds is used to pay bonuses agreed to prior to the bailout. What has happened is that the company's authority to pay the bonuses has diminished since the original contract was drawn up independently of the public intervention and subsidy. That, of course, could also have been taken care of by the terms of the contract--it could have specified that regardless of whether the company receives bailout funds, the compensation to the executive will remain the same. Or the terms of the bailout could have included a provisions that the original terms granting huge bonuses to executives needs to be changed for the bailout to go into effect.

I think looking at the matter along these lines should clear up any confusion about the current furor of executive compensation. But, sadly, the executive compensation issue seems to be a fodder for once again tearing down capitalism. And this time out of rank envy. Why all the fuss about the high pay executives get so long as they aren't stealing it? Makes you sick to see all these people fret about how well their fellows are doing. Oddly, in sports this attitude doesn't appear to be dominant, so when Tiger Woods is doing well people aren't demanding that he be brought down and make room for inferior golfers. Or with Kobe Bryant or Michael Phelps.

But when CEOs make big bucks from their closed offices, never mind what goes into their work, how much aggravation and preparation and anxiety, they immediately get attacked. This is precisely what makes some of us concerned about Obama & Co., this attitude of always looking at how others are doing, how well off they may be and how this cannot be tolerated. It is in fact the typical socialist mentality, one that was evident all over the Soviet bloc when I lived there--the snooping, the worry about how well others are doing. And that made some sense since socialism is a collectivist system and the tragedy of the commons and a zero sum game mentality prevail there, with no clear way to tell who earned what, who should enjoy how much. But in a near capitalist society agreements take care of this--if the CEO gets what was agreed to, that's the end of it. Unless, of course, the system has come to be corrupted by bialouts and subsidies and partial nationalizations.

I recall when I came West from communist Hungary I enjoyed all the wealth that surrounded me despite having hardly any of it myself. What a great thing that people can make lots of money and obtain what they needed and wanted for themselves and their loved ones. Look at all those great homes, fabulous cars, exquisite eateries, you name it and I found it all thrilling because it showed what all is possible for those who work hard and have a bit of luck.

But not long thereafter I realized, to my dismay, that even in the West, even in America, too many people are green with envy and would rather work on bringing down their fellows than getting up there themselves. Shame on them all!

The Infinite Dullness of PBS TV

Tibor R. Machan

Over the last few months I have had my TiVo record the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, the famed PBS TV program deemed very highfalutin by my liberal colleagues and pals. It's not so much that I lack news sources but more a matter of my own limited amateur investigative journalism. I am curious how a substantially government-funded news program deals with the current national and international economic fiasco.

By now I have watched over three months of this program and just as I suspected, it is so terribly biased, so uninterested in balanced reportage that it has become very boring to watch it evening after evening.

First of all, the two commentators, David Brooks (a slightly conservative or more accurately moderate Republican who writes a column of The New York Times) and Mark Shields (a moderate but reliably liberal pundit and perpetual TV commentator) are the dullest people one will encounter on TV, with virtually predictable right/left observations, "criticisms" and not an idea that hasn't been sanitized by the Washington press corps. All is just so terribly "respectable" and snooty that one may wonder how many viewers use their input as sleeping aids.

Then there are Jim Lehrer's minions, Judy Woodruff and Co., all of whom report the news as if it went through the editorial scrutiny of The New York Times and The Washington Post. Anytime these sterling journalist are given the task of gathering some educated opinions about various elements of the news, they manage, dutifully, to collect the very few usual suspects. There are all the apologists for President Obama's recommendations and policy proposals, of course, most of them members of the administration, and a few dissidents from the Republican opposition in Congress. When experts are called upon, the most frequent sort are the likes of Paul Krugman or Thomas L. Friedman, both, as you probably have guessed by now, from the Op Ed page of The New York Times. James Galbraith of the University of Texas at Austin shows up, with his predictable cheers for neo-Keynesian ideas and praise for anything that came out of the New Deal. (The idolatry toward FDR on The News Hour is truly embarrassing!)

I have been following the academic debate over President Obama's economic proposals and policies and none of it shows up anywhere on The News Hour. It is as if all the country's professional economists had to offer was more or less fierce Keynesian stuff. Not a dissenting voice! You would think that just as a matter of being differentiated from, say, Fox TV News, The News Hour would invite Professor Gary Becker of the University of Chicago or Professor James Buchanan of George Mason University outside Washington, DC, or perhaps some of their highly credentialed students of political economy but nothing. It's just neo-Keynesianism over and over again, with an undisguised glee, given how Keynes is (quite mistakenly, by the way) taken to be an unqualified supporter of huge government intervention in the market economy and how much this team of pseudo-journalists find the current fiasco a major excuse for bolstering the big government ideology that keeps PBS TV itself in business. (In the field of journalistic ethics it is clearly a case of unethical self-dealing for The News Hour to be so blatantly biased in favor of big government!)

Perhaps I am being naive to even bring up the idea that The News Hour ought to pay attention to the ethics of journalism by broadening its coverage of educated economic opinion. Maybe these folks are so unabashedly partisan, so bent on propaganda instead of journalism--reminiscent of Pravda and Izvestia of the old Soviet Union--that speaking up about it makes me appear to be a country bumpkin. But, dammit, The News Hour is taking money from the whole gamut of American taxpayers and has a professional duty to make room for a wide variety of political-economic opinion even if those producing and regularly appearing on the program find it unpalatable to do so.

Alas, however much one chides these people, they know who is in power now and will not budge a millimeter in the direction of presenting their viewers with a decent debate on public policy. Instead they are, well, propagandists, albeit of a somewhat nuanced variety--with that tone of snobbish voice so familiar from another of these public broadcast services, National Public Radio (which broadcasts at nearly every university radio station across the country).

It's a wonder most of us do not just throw in the towel, what with the dogmatic refusal of these people to show any interest in a national debate on vital public policy matters.

Revisiting Socialism

Tibor R. Machan

During the recent Conservative Political Action Conference, held in Washington, D.C., several speakers laid in on President Obama for his alleged promotion of socialist policies. They were referring to various provisions of his bailout program as well as elements of his admittedly highly dubious neo-Keynesianism, the idea that it is best now for government to create demand for goods and services to offset the proclivity of Americans to withdraw from the market, to stop buying stuff and thus to impeded employment and economic growth. These conservative Republicans, especially radio talk show star Rush Limbaugh, allege that bringing the government into the economy as President Obama and his team are bent on doing is tantamount to socialism.

Well, that’s not quite right and by making the charge one thing these conservative Republicans are certain to achieve is to discredit themselves, to demonstrate their ignorance.

Socialism in the sphere of political economy amounts to the public ownership of the major means of production. Nationalizing banks and car companies and farms and so forth would qualify as socialist. But what Obama & Co. are proposing is in fact what has been called over the last century a system social democracy. Yes, much of the free market is undermined by social democratic policies but that’s not quite socialism, not what most of us think of when invoking that term.

In the non-economic realms of society, too, what Obama & Co. are pushing for doesn’t quite qualify as socialism. That would involve the complete abolition of a system of individual rights, including civil rights, and the collectivization of the bulk of society. Under socialism actually no individuals are even recognized to exist. Society is the focus of attention and it is even contended that society is a living entity of which the population are the cells. No independent individuality is recognized because socialists claim that people are integral parts of society, just as someone’s organs, limbs, and related biological constituents are integral parts of a human being.

Certainly there is no direct attempt to bring about this socialist vision, not at least so far, although bits and pieces of the vision presented by President Obama come close. Furthermore, there is something to the claim, which is perhaps what these conservative Republicans are referring to, that an American version of socialism is being promoted by the current crop of Democrats in Washington. Consider, in this connection, what Normal Thomas, the leader of the American Socialist party and six time presidential candidate of the Socialist Party, said in a 1944 speech:

"The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But,
under the name of ‘liberalism,’ they will adopt every fragment of
the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist
nation, without knowing how it happened."

Thomas then continued: "I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democrat Party has adopted our platform."

So, arguably, a certain version of socialism could be said to be the goal of President Obama and the leaders of the Democratic Party. However, this is not Soviet Socialism--so when Rush Limbaugh refers to Lenin and Stalin in his criticism of President Obama’s regime, he is engaging in hyperbole, even in demagoguery, rather than helping his audience understand what is happening in America today.

As with many political systems, socialism has several versions. That’s true with capitalism as well, although in its pure, unqualified version capitalism is, plain and simple, an unregulated economy with full protection of the right to private property (including in the major means of production) and freedom of contract. But most people call various system with significant protection of the right to private property “capitalist,” including the current American or Canadian or English welfare states.

It is true that under the leadership of President Obama the American government is very likely to move closer and closer to a full scale socialist regime, so much so that in time many of the non-economic aspects of society will reflect socialist, collectivist principles. Perhaps in time there will not even be much room for the right to freedom of speech since a socialist government could well regard the exercise of such a right as a very serious obstacle to bringing about various goals of the government. Even totalitarian socialist measures could be coming down the pike if the government believes that its needs to micromanage the country so as to achieve its objectives.

But that’s not where we are now and to claim otherwise renders those making the claim disingenuous and robs them of credibility. It may be tempting to simplify in the realm of day to day politics but it is very doubtful that the distinctions warranted need to be abandoned, even in the heat of political debate.

Obama & Special Interests

Tibor R. Machan

In his weekend radio address of February 28, 2009, President Obama once again talked about how he isn’t captive to any special interest group. As he put it, "The system we have now might work for the powerful and well-connected interests that have run Washington for far too long, but I don't. I work for the American people," Obama declared. "I didn't come here to do the same thing we've been doing or to take small steps forward, I came to provide the sweeping change that this country demanded when it went to the polls in November."

Commenting on the $787 billion spending bill he insists on calling an “economic stimulus package” —despite the fact that no one knows now whether the funds will in fact stimulate any kind of economic growth—Mr. Obama said "I know these steps won't sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they're gearing up for a fight as we speak." Then he added a flat out threat: "My message to them is this: So am I."

Yet consider this for just a moment. Who are all these (mean, vicious) special interests? And who are all the (honorable, virtuous) American people? Lo and behold they are the very same citizens of the country! Yes these special interest groups are composed of Americans who are represented by experts at approaching the government for various types of support. They are farmers, artists, merchants small and large, teachers, steel workers, auto workers, bankers, brokers, dentists, doctors, and so on and so forth. That is who all these nasty, vicious special interest groups are made up of, the same folks who are so noble and innocent, The People!

The plain, unadorned fact is that so long as the various governments across the country, municipal, country, state, or federal—it makes no difference—have funds to dole out, there will be experts with the skill to navigate the corridors of power with the aim of bringing home to their clients what the government has to offer. Millions and millions of Americans—the American People—are among these greedy special interest groups.

Now I cannot for a moment believe that President Obama is unaware of what I just wrote! He has been in government, he has taught law, he is familiar with all kinds of theories of public affairs—he didn’t just step off some Martian spaceship without a clue as to how it goes with all this public affairs stuff. He knows well and good that everyone is out there trying to get the goodies, let us not be naïve. And to attempt to convince his audiences across the country that there is some large mass of citizens who are The People, standing over against all those gangs who are the special interest groups, is totally disingenuous, President Obama knows better, so why is he talking like this?

Maybe our new president is simply making an attempt at plain old demagoguery, pretending that there are some few really nasty folks out there who have managed to capture the government, the politicians and the bureaucracy, while the rest of us innocent, vulnerable citizens are being abused by these few. But that cannot be right—as I said, Mr. Obama wasn’t born yesterday. He has been in the thick of politics for years; he knows the underlying system that makes the game possible—tax people as far as you can without them revolting, then make it appear you are giving back what you took from them with your special understanding of the people’s needs. Of course, as this process unfolds, the politicians and their supporters—yes, Mr. Obama is supported by a lot of special interest groups—work diligently to get in on the take.

Maybe a man such as Mr. Obama can convinced himself that he is above this game, that his intentions are all commendable and that only his critics are evil monsters. But I don’t believe this is true and even doubt that every moment of the day he can deceive himself to believe it either.

It's Wrong To Soak the Rich

Tibor R. Machan

Someone asked me why I defend the rich and I told him I don't, not in particular. I defend individual rights, and since the rich have the same rights we all have, I also defend them, especially when they are targeted for systematic rights violation as they often are by governments. I also defend the tall, beautiful, talented, short, scientists, scholars, athletes--well, you get the point. I defend individual human rights, period, and these can use all the defense that can be mustered in their support since individual human rights, not the rights of the rich or tall or pretty, are under constant assault by those who think when you do well in life, you are fair game for being assaulted, having your goods and services expropriated or conscripted. (See my book, Individuals and Their Rights [1989] for the long story!)

In fact, no one is fair game for that, not anyone. It is ridiculous, morally obscene, to believe the rich can be ripped off and urge the resulting public policies from this idea. If the rich are rich honestly, if they got their wealth through good fortune and work and other people's voluntary patronage, no one has any right to take their riches, not even democratically, no way.

Yes, it is counterproductive, too, to do so but that's not the central issue. The central issue is that the rich are human beings with their unalienable individual rights, including the right to their lives, liberties, and property. John Locke was right--to deprive someone of his or her property is to invade his or her life, no matter how much of it there is. (The only exception Locke allowed is in a state of total natural chaos, like a major earthquake or flood or the like, in which case some might gain an unjust monopoly by sheer accident.)

Frankly it has always been a puzzle to me that people want to rip off others who have more than they do. After all, if the stuff is theirs, how dare anyone do so? Why not rip off one's extra kidney or eye or why not attempt to make the beautiful ugly so they don't gain extra advantages? It is clearly rank envy to believe that such actions or policies are acceptable.

When people are luckier than I am, so much the better for them--many are (for example, all those who get published in books, magazines, newspapers, etc. where I'd love to see my work appear). (Oddly, the supporters of wealth redistribution aren't all that eager to part with their own advantages, such as prestigious appointments at Harvard or Princeton University or important book contracts with Oxford or Stanford University Press!)

Something infects people when they think of other people's economic advantages, although now and then it goes further than that. But somehow when a baseball player garners enormous wealth from playing ball--yes, playing!--it seems to be fine for most. Why? Maybe because they can see the player do what he gets payed for, whereas the rich of Wall Street or of the banking industry earn their wealth behind closed office doors. (And don't talk to me about crooks--there are plenty of those in any field of work, including baseball!)

There is just one thing I can think of that may make all this envy, all this zero-sum game thinking, slightly understandable. This is that not too long ago in history the rich--the monarchs and their minions--were nearly all crooks. They ripped off the peasants, they confiscated wealth through taxation (because they viewed others as working on "their" land, in "their" country). Since much of human history witnessed gaining wealth by illicit means--and sadly a good many still do so--millions still think that all wealth must be gained that way. Wrong. And to treat all the rich as if they got rich by robbing people is rank injustice.

Sadly even in America, the supposed leader of the free world, with its institutions of supposedly largely free enterprise and free markets, people still don't get it. Wealth, unless it is stolen, doesn't grow on trees but must be produced, created, earned. Sure a bit of it is a matter of luck--like that of the beautiful model who cashes in by adorning the covers of Vogue or Harper's Bazaar. But we all benefit from some luck, just as we suffer from some misfortune, rich or not alike.

A Country Isn't a Club

Tibor R. Machan

A fundamental flaw in President Obama's thinking is that he views America as a club or team that we all joined for some common purpose. But a country isn't a club, nor a team. People are born into a country, they do not join one, although of course they do indicate their preference to live in it when they remain there. But a club, like the Rotary or Kiwanis or Elk club, is an organization intentionally set up for some purpose that those who join consider important and want to support.

A country is, in contrast, a place wherein citizens can undertake innumerable and highly diverse task, pursue a huge variety of different goals, have enormously different purposes, just so long as they do not encroach upon others, do not violate other people's right to do likewise. Even your neighbor is not a fellow club member but an independent citizen whose company can only be enjoyed if he or she chooses to join in some common venture with you but who is normally free to do as he or she wants. In a free country, especially, citizens may not be conscripted to contribute to goals that are not their own. The Amish or Roma Catholics, or scientist and artists and farmers and steel workers--all these folks have different agendas and in a free society that's exactly right. And a free society is what is right for human beings, not some dictatorship or totalitarian regime.

Of course, there are times when citizens of a country may have to unite for a while to achieve some truly common goal, such as defending the country from aggressors from outside. And different regions of a country will at times emergencies that effect them all that all those in such regions will have to contend with, often together so that they manage it effectively. But this isn't the norm. Rather in a free country the routine is that all varieties of goals are pursued by all varieties of individuals and voluntary groups.

The president in a free country isn't someone who leads everyone toward some common end since in a free country the ends of citizens vary enormously. What the president and his administration exist for is to make sure conditions are proper for this great variety of endeavors the citizenry undertakes. If this is forgotten, the citizenry start being treated like members of a military, they get to be regimented about for purposes they did not consent to pursue. This is done through all kinds of coercive means--the main one being taxation. Others include government regulations and public policies that everyone is required to support.

In totalitarian countries it is the norm that everyone must submit to such regimentation, regulation, and dictation but in a free country that is entirely out of order. And the trouble with totalitarian regimes is precisely that they fail to appreciate the individuality and diversity of the citizenry. Just recall the pictures from North Korea, the old Soviet Union, and the Third Reich where millions of citizens are all dressed up in the same way and made to march together to give a clear indication that they are understood to be part of the same team, the same club, lead by some dictator toward the same goal.

How can someone like President Obama be so misguided about this? After all, one of the worst legacies of America is slavery, where millions of individuals were violated, deprived of the chance to choose their own goals in their lives, to take charge of it, to be sovereign citizens. That is the condition that millions of black Americans remember as their ancestors' lot and they of all Americans should completely reject the idea that they belong to some club that is being directed by a leader.

Mr. Obama is the presiding officer of the administration of America's laws, not some Fuhrer to drive us all to go in a direction of his choosing or even of the choosing of a majority of Americans. Yes, many Americans fail to resist being drafted into this club but they are wrong. They should realize that others can have very different ideas as to what goals to pursue and not thwart them in this effort.

Alas, the collectivist vision is still a powerful, has been throughout human history, starting with when men and women operated in tribes or clans, when that was necessary for bare survival. But those times are gone and in our day the individuality of everyone should take precedence and not be subjugated to some common purpose.

Ideology Again

Tibor R. Machan

Perusing the Sunday New York Times will almost guarantee running across the term "ideology" in various commentaries and news analyses. In her essay in Week in Review, titled "Cutting Slack Is So Old School," Sheryl Gay Stolberg invokes the term as follows: she reports that Newt Gingrich's view is that "the minority party has the right, even obligation, to stick to its ideological principles." And she says Ronald Reagan "swept into office as one of the most ideologically driven candidates in modern history." In neither case does she provide a clue as what work the term "ideology" does as she uses it. Nor is there some way to discern this by the context, say, by seeing a contrast between ideology and something else. It seems to be used derisively, though, that's evident, since it is applied only to those whose ideas Ms. Stolberg finds objectionable, ones that fail to give support to President Barack Obama during his honeymoon period. She quotes 82 year old former Virginia Senator John Warner saying that Mr. Obama "must be given the opportunity to exercise leadership of his own choosing consistent with the will of the people who put him in office."

Let me now bother with the particulars here--for instance, is the president to "be given the opportunity to exercise leadership of his own choosing" by those who consider the enormous stimulus package utterly disastrous for the country? Never mind that millions of young people are being put into debt with no opportunity for them to have a say about it all. But I guess that would be to think ideologically, whatever that is supposed to mean.

It looks like the use of "ideology" serves to obscure whether someone's principles of politics or economics are well supported by history and theory and simply involves indicting principles one doesn't consider sound. For President Obama the right ideology, then, is John Maynard Keynes' idea that creating artificial, government driven demand for work projects is a sound approach to public policy. For his critics the right ideology is that such infusion of phony money is far worse a "cure" than the disease it aims to remedy. But both ides, then are ideologically driven and Obama's are ideological principles no less than are the principles of those who find his views unsound. So what then does it add to call them "ideological"?

There was a time, a century or so ago, when many intellectuals used "ideology" to impugn the honesty of someone's ideas, implying with the use of that term that the ideas were mere rationalizations, invented, consciously or subconsciously, so as to give them the appearance of seriousness. Just as a rationalization is a corrupted reason, so ideology is corrupted philosophy, or so it was widely believed.

But this view about ideology was founded on a very complicated and highly dubious philosophy, worked out by the likes of Hegel and Marx, so it soon fell into disrepute. After a while "ideology" came to mean, instead, "simplified philosophy" and lost its critical bite apart from that. Since most of us lack the time and patience to always lay out our full case for the positions we hold, nearly all of us are mainly ideologically driven. Our principles, too, are ideological ones, be they those of Barack Obama or Ronald Reagan, since those in public office simply have no time and opportunity to develop the foundations of their thinking. Some choose to buttress this with claims to being pragmatic or flexible, as if these didn't involve elaborate theoretical foundations in order to given them solid footing.

So it looks like "ideology" is a term of derision that has lost its conceptual foundations and now is used merely to express one's emotional dislike of certain ideas. They are ideological principles if one doesn't approve of them but genuine principles if one does. Maybe calling attention to this fact will in time stop the pointless use of the term.

Charity and Coercion

Tibor R. Machan

If one is concerned for the helpless or homeless or otherwise needy, what is the proper response? Just today someone I deal with nearly every other day told me he saw "Sicko," the Michael Moore "documentary" and was very upset that there are many homeless people who don't seem to receive medical help. Ordinarily this individual isn't very eager to go out and rob Peter to "help" Paul but in such cases he was ready to cheer for government support for those in dire straits.

I was very disappointed by the quality of the thinking exhibited by this individual. Despite our having known each other for over a year and discussing these kinds of issues on innumerable occasions, the emotional response to "Sicko" seems to have clouded my pal's judgment. He offered no discussion of how these folks got themselves into their dire straits; nothing about whether private charities could help; no mention about whether he himself ought perhaps to dip into his own resources instead of advocating expropriating from others, nada. The emergency nature of what "Sicko" depicted--of course, with little discussion of alternatives in the film itself--seems to have blinded my pal to any need for upholding the rights of those whose resources would be raided so as to satisfy his sentiments.

It all brings to mind this great remark by Herbert Spencer: "Sympathy with one in suffering suppresses, for the time being, remembrance of his transgressions….Those whose hardships are set forth in pamphlets and proclamations in sermons and speeches which echo throughout society, are assumed to be all worthy souls, grievously wronged; and none of them are thought of as bearing the penalties of their own misdeeds." (Man versus the State, p. 22) Somehow when sentiments rule, never mind about any prohibition of slavery or involuntary servitude. People who look with great sorrow and outrage at America's history of slavery, as well as slavery around the globe and throughout human history, seem to throw their principles aside and endorse the very thing they supposedly consider so dastardly because they believe that the deplorable conditions of some people's lives need to be remedied no matter what!

Some time ago I wrote an essay in which some of this was discussed at length and the following applies here particularly aptly:

"The virtue of generosity is a character trait that inclines one to extend oneself toward benefiting others in a spontaneous fashion, except for some of its more remote manifestations—i.e., through institutions. Generosity is a virtue when its development and practice is a matter of human choice. As such it requires the presence of a community in which the sovereignty of individuals is granted and respected. That sovereignty, in turn, implies the institution of the right to private property since to make decisive and responsible choices a person needs to act within a determinate realm of nature, a realm—great or small—within which he or she alone governs or chooses what will happen.

"Unless there is widespread voluntary acknowledgment of such sovereignty and suitable conduct that accommodates this, a community must at least have this sovereignty of individual human beings vigorously protected. This is necessary for any virtue to flourish, but especially for generosity because of its involvement with the disposition of what persons own, including their labor, skills, property, time, etc.

"There remains only one point to be covered, rather briefly, namely, whether governments themselves would ever be morally obliged to be generous. Would this not undercut their own rather particular mission of maintaining and preserving justice? Would it not make them into wealth-redistributors and thus instruments of regimentation of human action which would impede the possibility of individual and voluntary social virtuous conduct? Furthermore, if governments need to remain scrupulously fair in the performance of their primary mission, how could they remain fair while also extending themselves generously to­ward some people in society? If the duty of fairness is so vital in government, and if generosity consumes resources and extending it would generally involve favoring some citizens over others, would not all cases of generosity involve some breach of duty?"

Despite all this, it seems that for many people just feeling--former President Clinton's "I feel your pain"--for the helpless or homeless and then advocating government action in behalf of them suffices to feel morally virtuous. Sorry, that just won't do.

Bias at The News Hour

Tibor R. Machan

Often I check out newscasts from several sources, not just in print and on the Internet but also on radio and TV. One place where I check things out fairly regularly is PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) TV's The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, mainly because I am curious how a program funded to a considerable extent from money taken in taxes handles controversial topics. After all, the taxes are taken from all Americans who have a wide variety of viewpoints about the news while The News Hour has limited resources and time and obviously cannot give all these viewpoints an equal chance to be represented.

Not surprisingly, then, nearly all treatments of controversial matters are decidedly biased on this program. And while one can say the same about NBC-TV, ABC-TV, CBS-TV, CNN TV and Fox TV, those are all privately funded and they aren't taking money from people and covering stories in ways these people may very well find seriously objectionable. PBS has an obligation to do a creditable job of representing the wide variety of viewpoints, at least to some extent, while those other privately funded organizations do not other than in a professional sense, as journalists. PBS's responsibility is a political, not only a professional one, because they are funded by all taxpayers!

There is, of course, no doubt about the bias on The News Hour. For example, only two commentators are invited to offer opinions on various issues, David Brooks and Mark Shields, day after day, without a break other than when one goes on vacation. Needless to note, there is a far greater variety of opinions on the various topics in the country than what Brooks and Shields provide. These two represent mainstream conservatism and liberalism, at best, although even there many conservatives and liberals would probably find that their views never see the light of day at all.

But the bias is evident elsewhere, perhaps even more, This is when one of Lehrer's reporters brings in two or three economists, foreign policy experts, educators, business professionals and the like, again mostly lukewarm mainstreamers without a scintilla of a seriously challenging opinion coming from any of them. It is mostly people who would be offered space on the Op Ed pages of The New York Times or The Washington Post. Now and then a Wall Street Journal reporter or editor is invited but rarely.

Even part from the selection of "experts" in the various fields being discussed on the air, there is also the more blatant bias of some of the news reporters. For instance, in a recent report on the way President Obama's stimulus plan is being viewed around Washington, reporter Kwame Holmes made reference to some doubts about this policy by referring to "fears that President Obama's economic plan may not be enough...." He didn't mention fears that the president's plan may be wrongheaded, misguided, overblown, or the like--only that it may "not be enough," thus showing a bias in favor of just one way the plan might be improved, namely, by making the various bailouts even larger than what they are because as they stand they are too little.

In fact, of course, hundreds, even thousands of critics can be found across America's universities and think tanks who do find the plan misguided, wrongheaded, and so forth, as the list of them featured recently in a Cato Institute sponsored advertisement makes abundantly clear.

Has Jim Lehrer ever let anyone on the program who pointed out that President Obama grossly misrepresented whether there exists a consensus among academic economists concerning his stimulus policy? No. No one has appeared on the program, one paid for in part by all Americans, voicing criticism of the Obama policy apart from some Republicans who could then be dismissed as being purely partisan, without any scholarly credentials.

Bias on PBS TV and NPR (Nation Public Radio) abounds, of course, and one could do a doctoral dissertation ferreting it out but in a column I can only call attention to a few cases. Yet they should suffice to indicate that public television is anything but representative to the American public.

"It's Only Money!"

Tibor R. Machan

How is it you never hear prominent critics of Western materialism and capitalism defending the likes of Bernard Madoff with the exclamation, "It's Only Money!"? If their disdain for money is honest, if they consider it something dirty and unimportant in human life. at least in a decent, exemplary human life, then surely it should be of no great significance that some people like Madoff steal if from people big time.

Indeed, why is it that when there is an economic downturn like now all those folks who urge us to go back to nature--really they mean the the wilds--and who decry all the development that occurs in good times are deafeningly silent? There ought to be triumphant Op Ed pieces in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, The Nation, The New York Review of Books or other publications that often publish pieces dubious about our materialist ways. Don't you think? This is just what such folks wanted--the destruction of the automobile, the de-industrialization of the country, the return of workers to labor in their gardens or the woods. What could be better than widespread unemployment to undermine the excessive commercialization of society? Without jobs, people will not be crowding the malls but, more likely, commune with nature in the hundreds of national parks and forest preserved for just the occasions when the rat race of capitalism has subsided?

Oh, but times like these make folks more honest than when it costs them nothing, not even embarrassment, to deride modern materialist society. Still. I would admire the people more if their integrity showed when it may be a bit tough to live by one's professed ideals. It would be admirable to see animal rights advocates out in the wilds defending small prey against the large, show that they are not only against the human use of animals but also against other animals' use of vulnerable animals. Or to have all the critics of modern civilization to step up and publicly applaud all the downsizing going on in Detroit and elsewhere, maybe even lend a hand to those who have become unemployed by, say, hiring them as gardeners or farmers and animal care givers--you know, all those jobs that leave the wilds intact and do not cause urban sprawl.

Alas, this reminds me of that well known quip that there are no atheists in foxholes (which, by the way, is a crock). Integrity, which is keeping in mind and acting on all the right values without ditching some of them when they become inconvenient, is in short supply. It is in extremely short supply with politicians and bureaucrats who are part of an essentially corrupt system, one that lives off the principle that it's perfectly fine to rob Peter in order to benefit Paul (and skim some of it in the process for one's troubles). It also brings to mind those celebrities on late night talk shows who insist on attempting to persuade the audience that they care nothing about money, nothing at all, only their art concerns them! Yes, and I have this bridge you may wish to purchase from me if you believe that bunk.

For all the people out there who are routinely disdainful about money, I call upon you to come to Bernard Madoff's defense--as well as the defense of others who defraud clients and rob banks and otherwise take other people's money without permission--by proclaiming loud and clear, "Hey, it's only money, so what's the big fuss?" I implore all the priests and ministers who keep telling their flock that "the love of money is the root of all evil," to now insist that Bernie Madoff & Co. are not worth fussing about since all they did was take the money, which, as the faithful have been told over and over again, isn't really what's truly worthwhile. (But then why bother about sending around the collection plate?)

Fact is, money represents hard work and some luck in our lives and we use it to obtain the products of other people's hard work and creativity (and a bit of their luck, too) if they are willing to sell them. To scoff at money is no smarter than to denounce theater tickets that get you in to see the show! And when one has it stolen from him, as the Madoffs are willing to do, one has every reason to be outraged. Because money matters!

Bad Deja vue

Tibor R. Machan

I was born on the eve of World War II and once I could think a bit for myself my life was surrounded in Budapest with the disaster of Soviet style socialism. One standard feature of that system is that everything is run or strictly managed by the government. This was even true with the press--what is today the media. And a constant, relentless offering in the state run newspapers included nasty cartoons depicting rapacious, viscous, ugly, gross capitalists. Every day you opened the papers on the editorial page you found some drawing in which American or Western capitalist were caricatured as the scum of the earth. As if they were child molesters or something truly vile, not the usually hard working financial experts, wealth care professionals these people actually were and still are.

Oh, my critics will immediately bring up Enron and this current bunch of crooks with Bernard Madoff on top of the list, followed by Texan billionaire Allen Stanford and of course Enron and the other firms that have deceived clients and customers, as if finance is the sole sanctuary for crooks in a free country. What about all the quacks in medicine, the dead beat professors in higher education, and, of course, the majority of politicians who live off stolen resources and hand out bailouts as if they were being generous benefactors instead of the worst kind of Robin Hoods! (Robin, by the way, actually stole from the taxman and returned the funds to his victims!)

But never mind. What came to mind for me in the last few days is just how the culture in America is slowly taken on the style of Hungarian, Soviet backed statism. Demonize those in finance, as if their profession were no better than that of hit men or bank robbers! From the President all the way to two bit locals who fawn over him these days as if her the Messiah--and perhaps in comparison to George W. Bush this is somewhat forgivable--there is now in America a generalized disdain for Wall Street and all those associate with it. Not that all such professionals are innocent of wrong doings but compared to the vile stuff pulled by people who are being elected to high office they are pretty much small fry.

What is scandalous is the class warfare mentality which I had thought would only flourish in a country ruled by puppets of the Soviet Union, ruled in all phases of life, including journalism and education where one received nothing but nasty anti-capitalist propaganda. Here in the USA there was to be a different attitude afoot. Although of course all professions have their crooks and malpractice is certainly evident on Wall Street, as much as on Main Street, this clearly prejudicial, indiscriminate derision of the community of financial professionals, just brings to mind for me the stuff with which I was bombarded as a kid by the "communist" regime. (They were, of course, just thugs, no more communist that the Mafia is Christian!)

Sure, we still have a reasonably free press, although who knows for how long, judging by the abuse heaped upon global warming skeptics at universities and by many who work in government. I can still write a column like this one, and even one that expresses grave doubts about global warming or the bailout, although the trend may be toward soon silencing the more influential folks like me. (Just read Patrick J. Michaels' Preface to his and Robert C. Balling, Jr.'s just published book, Climate of Extremes [Cato, 2009].) But yes, Virginia, it can happen here and there are signs it may very well, sufficiently to put lovers of liberty on alert!

Oddly, I may sound like a pessimist and in the short run I am. But there will always be bumps on the road to liberty and today we see many of them, although there are areas were freedom does flourish--women and gays are far freer now than before. But when these bumps do occur, it is the business of loyal friends of liberty to make sure no one forgets that freedom is a good thing even while officialdom is trying to besmirch it.

Bailouts versus bailouts

Tibor R. Machan

The current focus on bailouts brings to the fore a widespread confusion. Perhaps it can best be understood by comparing the bailouts many of us who are parents have performed, versus the government's bailout of banks, car companies, etc.

As a parent of three grown children I have on and off been approached by one or another of them asking me to please bail them out of, for example, credit card debts. The sums are not inconsiderable, given my economic standing, but I could usually manage, if only by going into temporary debt myself. Say my child maxed out his or her credit card to the tune of two or three grands. Being something of a pushover parent and not wishing to saddle them with bad debt early in their lives, I would comply with their requests. And I have done this several times, actually.

Each time, however, I would dip into my own savings or borrow on terms my lenders and I could agree on. I would not ransack the homes of my neighbors or friends in these undertakings. I certainly would not even think of using other people's resources without their consent (for instance, that of my my bank). Nor would I gather citizens of my community and use a democratic process to confiscate their wealth.

When you borrow money from other people on mutually agreed to terms, they assume a risk but with full awareness that this is what they are doing. And if they are at all economically savvy, they would make sure the terms insure them against loss and even bring in some profit by way of the going interest money would fetch at the time.

Now this kind of family bailout may have its downsides, of course. First of all it can send very bad signals to your children about the way money needs to be earned. Simply providing them with the bailout can suggest, if only implicitly, that money just grows on trees, at least on family trees. And in time this can come to haunt parents since they will at some point stop earning enough to keep increasing their savings, or have made some unwise investments, or the politicians and bureaucrats in Washington and other centers of economic interference have managed muck up the system so that one's money has come to be nearly worthless.

There are innumerable other ways that the parents (or grandparents) can start becoming less and less capable of doing these bailouts. Hopefully the children are mature enough that they, too, appreciate all this and begin to be more prudent, manage their resources more sensibly and stop needing and asking for bailouts. My own have nearly reached this point although not yet, even though they are now in their late or mid 20s. My idea is, however, what else am I to do with my resources if not first of all provide support for my children, hoping that I will be sensible about it and not send bad signals to them. (Some, by the way, are more eager for bailouts than others!)

When the federal government provides bailouts of the sort it has been doling out recently the situation is very different. And the central, most crucial difference, is that the government has no resources of its own--Mr. Obama and his team do not bail out anyone, nada. They do not go to their savings accounts and dip into these so as to help out failing banks or auto companies. They do not refinance their homes in order to enable them to do these bailouts. What Mr. Obama & Co. do, along with all the politicians and bureaucrats involved in these endeavors, is to place millions of Americans who have no say in the matter into very serious debt, a debt that will have to be paid by imposing confiscatory taxes on them, including their children and grandchildren who aren't even around to have some kind of electoral say about the matter. Mr. Obama & Co. view the country as their firm, a company they own that has resources they can use at their discretion, a company that can assume debt as would one in a free market place, only of course these assumptions are way off.

Sure, maybe the majority of the voters can be taken to have agreed to assume the debts incurred by the Obama team but what about those who didn't? Does democracy really mean one may vote on other people's use of their resources? Then why not on what religions they must subscribe to, what they may think and say? In fact, that's what many people argue, in effect taking it that the United States of America is a huge voluntary cooperative or corporation or commune or something and its political leaders are like conductors of orchestras. They completely ignore that fact that the country was founded on principles of individual rights to one's life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, etc., matters not subject majority rule! They ignore that the whole point of a country such as the US was meant to be--as per the Declaration of Independence--is to make these rights secure, including secure from the majority, not just some British king.

When parents bail out their kids it may not always be wise and prudent but it is honest. When Mr. Obama & Co. do a bailout it is dishonest since they do it always with the resource or future resources of millions of citizens who haven't consented to the policy and whose own purposes are thus just as severely thwarted as if a criminal had burglarized their homes and run away with what they own.

Acknowledging the Merits of Capitalism

Tibor R. Machan

Anyone with but a little knowledge of Marxism, at least Karl's version of it, knows that the old communist wasn't altogether hostile to capitalism. He regarded it as a necessary and indeed beneficial phase of the history of humanity. For Marx this history unfolded comparably to how an individual human being's history unfolds, with an infancy (tribalism), childhood (feudalism), adolescence (capitalism), young adulthood (socialism) and maturity (communism). But in the last analysis capitalism is undesirable, just as adolescence is, though with elements to it that are needed for the species to grow up properly.

One reason most American Leftists are confused is that they fail to see how the goal they all share, the planned economy--despite denying it a lot--requires this capitalist phase. Without it a society cannot advance because under capitalism the means of production develop powerfully so as to be taken over by the government under socialism. For a Marxist socialist to destroy capitalism amounts to killing the goose that lays the golden egg.

One of the flaws of Stalin's version of "communism" was that, well, it wasn't any kind of communism at all. It was in fact a form of fascism, something the late Susan Sontag very perceptively observed (to the consternation of many of her Leftist friends). Sure, Stalin, just as Lenin, invoked a kind of Marxist vocabulary in his rather inept ruminations about political economy. But the actual regime he headed up was a fascist dictatorship.

A very illuminating glimpse of this can be gained from Orlando Figes's The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia (2007). The review essay of this book, by Joseph Frank in The New York Review of Books (February 26, 2009) is itself a fascinating read. No one can get through the book, or even the review, without affirming the fundamental viciousness of Stalin's regime, both a moral and political viciousness, that makes sense of why there remain Russians who are nostalgic for it.

What jumped out at me in the review essay is not the central feature of it, or even of the book, but a remark Frank makes about capitalism, one that's rare among Leftists. He observes that "Collaborations with Western left-wing parties during the Popular Front period had already opened the way for books and films to offer a much more alluring image of life in the capitalist West," much more, that is, than that which was presented to Russians by Soviet propaganda. This has produced an attitude favorable to liberalization, albeit not much came of it back then.

It is remarkable how when one considers capitalism in contrast to the Stalinist era--just as if one considers it in contrast to, say, (Cuba's) Castro's or (Venezuela's) Chavez's version of so called socialism (which is, as noted earlier, just a type of fascism)--even authors writing for a Leftist publication such as The New York Review of Books acknowledge that capitalism is superior. Of course, the capitalism they are talking about is actually a kind of welfare state "liberalism." But the essentials of capitalism, its system of private property rights, freedom of expression, democracy and so on, clearly compare favorably to the dictatorial regime that any large scale socialist system requires.

It would be useful if Leftists kept this in mind and instead of insisting on pushing Western welfare states further toward a planned, statist political economy they got on board with all those who want to develop the capitalist system to achieve its best version.

Of course, the concept "capitalism" is used to mean different systems by different people but the basic element of it, one that is acknowledged implicitly in both Figes's book and Frank's review, is its individualist social philosophy. Whatever the details of capitalism, about which there is a good deal of controversy--for example, there are so called left-libertarians who reject its embrace of the business corporation because it involves, they argue (dubiously, in my view), a form of statism--it should be evident by now, both from history and from theory, that the system is far more humane, far more productive, and far more just that all those put in opposition to it.

It is gratifying to read that some who would ordinarily be expected to oppose it actually acknowledge its merits.