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LEON RD E RE D

THE FOUNDATION FOR ECONOMIC EDUCATIONIRVINGTON ON HUDSON NEW YORK 10533 1968


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TH UTHOR AND PUBLISHERLeonard E. Read, author of numerous articles,has written the following books:

Romance of Reality o.p.)Pattern for RevoltStudents of LibertyOutlook for FreedomGovernment: An Ideal ConceptCoverno rn Concito IdealWhy Not Try Freedom?lPor Que No Ensayer LibertadElements of Libertarian LeadershipAnything That s PeacefulTodo Por PazThe Free Market and Its Enemy n migo Del ercado LibreDeeper Than ou Think

The Foundation for Economic Education is anonpolitical, nonprofit, educational institution.Its Senior Staff and numerous writers are studentss well as teachers of the free market, privateownership, limited government rationale. Samplecopies of the Foundation s monthly study journal,The Freeman are available on request.

Published May 1968Copyright 1968 by Leonard E. Read.

Permission to reprint granted without special request.


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FREDERIC STI T


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ont ntsTHE DEDI TION 1To Frederic Bastiat 1801-1850), who sought fortruth rather than outcome and never witnessedthe fruits his labor bore. Obedience to consciencewas his first rule; witness the results.

THE SOUR E OF PROGRESS 6Leadership is a matter of enlightenment. Not byfollowing leaders, but by exchanging ever-improving ideas, do we leapfrog one another towardhigher understanding.

2 ON THINKING FOR SELF 14The man born into a culture conndent of itsknowledge is in danger of becoming a barbarian.The political consequences of not thinking forself. Suggested counsel to those who take some-body elses word for everything.

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viii ACCENT ON THE RIGHT3 A C C E N T O N T H E R I G H T 22

We see mostly what s wrong and declaim; weshould be looking for what s right and exalt.What s right, being commonplace, has little recognition, few articulate protagonists, and no press.Yet, what s right far exceeds what s wrong.

4 F I N D T H E W R O N G A N DT H E R E S T H E R I G H T 3If we will discover what s wrong and should beprohibited, there will open up to us the infiniterealm of righteous activities. We can tell wherea person stands in the ideological line-up by observing what he believes should be prohibited.Methods of enforcing prohibitions.

5 R I G H T A N D W R O N GS I D E BY S I D E 46Progress and regress go on simultaneously, givingthe false impression that the regress is the causeof the progress. But entrepreneurial ingenuityexceeds political depravity; capital is formedfaster then destroyed; restrictions on exchange donot keep pace with their increase. Not yet

6 C O U N T Y O U R B L E S S I N G S 52The personal and social evil of covetousness. Thecure. He who is rich in worldly goods but unaware of his blessings is poor, and probably covetous; he who is poor in worldly goods but awareof his blessings is rich, and assuredly withoutenvy.


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CONTENTS ix7 T O E C H H IS O W N

Implicit in the taboo cCThou shalt not steal isthe positive assertion of private ownership. Therecognition of this principle witnessed the dawnof civilization; and without it our civilizationmust fall.

8 C O P I N G W I T H P O V E R T Y 64Devotees of liberty with their eye on open opportunity for all and special privilege for noneforget to stress that the poor should look to free-dom. As a result the baton is picked up by thesocialists who play to the grandstand. Libertarians should accent the point that the alleviationof poverty is a by-product of freedom.

9 IN H R M O N Y W IT H C R E T IO N 7The free market relates not only to the exchangeof goods and services but also of ideas knowl-edge discoveries inventions. This free movementis in harmony with Creation. Creative Wisdomfundamental to social existence explained. Therole of competition in this context.

10. M N S M O B I L I T Y 85Man and his ideas and his labors and his productsare all of a piece. To arrest the movement of per-sons is no less destructive than to bring the exchange of goods and services to a standstill. Therecreational economic educational and politicalsignificance of travel within and without theU.S.A.


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CCENT ON TH E RIGHT11 A C C E NT AW R E N E SS 95

Reforming others vs. improvement of self. Thecommunist conspiracy idea used to illustrate thesuperiority of the latter over the former. Correctmethod in advancing liberty is the occasion forencouragement.12 D O N T L O O K B CK 1 4

Looking back on the good old days is a wasteof energy. Nothing can be put back togetheragain the way it was; we are in flight There arehundreds among us having the stature of ourFounding Fathers, but they are sunk in a sea ofthinking alien to freedom. They can rise asspokesmen and be in evidence only as libertarianexcellence is increased. Your role, and mine.I N D E X


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WHY GOOD M N C N T BE KEPT DOWNIt is said that there is not enough darkness in thewhole world to put out the light of one weecandle. Nor is there enough ignorance andwrongdoing on earth to submerge what s right.Creation h n ow righteousness with a built-in buoyancy it persists rising to the top oftenin the most unlikely persons always in good menl


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edic tionDEDI TION of a book is a writer's way of payingrespect to someone, or of acknowledging a devotedhelper, or of honoring a loved ope and as a rule, thetribute is to a contemporary.Why, then, my dedication to Frederic Bastiat (18011850)?

First, Bastiat is one of my heroes. am unaware ofanyone who saw more clearly through the political fogthan he and who more brilliantly and copiously revealed his insights.

And what integrity For instance, his re-election tothe Chamber of Deputies was in grave doubt: his constitutents had observed that he voted now with the Leftand then with the Right, giving the appearance ofinconsistency. This was his defense, I have not made

1 His collected works in the original French in FEE's Library run to some 1,200,000 wordsl1


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ACCENT ON THE RIGHTan alliance with anyone; I have not joined either side.On each question have voted according to my ownconscience. He was re-elected.

Second, and unconventionally, I think of Bastiat asa contemporary, for he does in fact live on. The fruitsof his fertile mind are better known in the U.S.A. todaythan at any time since he began to write nearly a century and a half ago perhaps more widely understoodand shared here than ever in his own country. This isan important kind of immortality.

However, I pay tribute to Bastiat primarily to portray a truth we s sorely need to recognize. Most antisocialists, frustrated by what goes on, and impatientlylooking for immediate remedies, repeatedly resort touseless short cuts. They want action now And getnothing for their pains, absolutely nothing except, perhaps, discouragement The hard fact s that the trendlines in social thinking do not alter their direction-much less reverse themselves at your insistence ormine, however voluble. These trends, particularly whenheaded toward social decline, move with a near inexorable force and are changed, if at all, by starterstuff leaven or if I may coin a term, intellectual incubation.

The only persons of constructive influence, the oneswho really count in social shifts for the better, are thosewho labor at the incubation level. And they must bethose rare individuals who receive satisfaction from fol-


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THE DEDIC TION lowing the dictates of conscience; there is no otherreward; they seldom, if ever, live to witness the fruitsof their labor.

Bastiafs was a one-man performance, advancing concepts that found little hospitality in his native France,during his lifetime or since. A lesser soul would havebeen beaten down by discouragement and have thrownin the sponge. How many Americans die on the vinebecause their compatriots number in the thousandsonly, instead of in the millions t takes a man to stand lone

Free Trade n EnglandBut who can ever know where ideas, once properlyincubated, will take root Here is a striking illustration:

one of the most significant turnabouts in Western Civilization a shift from mercantilism to free trade, fromstate interventionism to the free market took place inEngland some time following the Napoleonic Wars.While Richard Cobden and John Bright have beenlargely credited with this unprecedented achievement,research reveals that Bastiat was the ideological incubator.2 But he was entombed in Rome-Saint-Louis desFrancais ere his labors bore this English fruit.

2 See Frederic astiat Ideas and Influence by Dean Russell.175 pp., a multilithed, bound volume) Irvington-on-Hudson,N. Y The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc., 1965.)


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4 ACCENT ON TH RIGHTAn eminent economist3 expressed this view to me:

The two most influential books bearing on WesternCivilization have been The Holy Bible and The Wealth Nations A debatable opinion, perhaps, but there isno doubt about the enormous influence of Adam Smith sbook. Yet Smith, as Bastiat, searching for what s right,working at the incubation level, serving as leaven,passed on before his labor bore its remarkable fruit.And more than likely, these men, as others who searchfor truth and report their findings, never suspected whatthe results would be. Indeed, they probably neverhoped for results; to have focused on outcome doubt-less would have corrupted the purity of their investiga-tions. Such men seek truth and not outcome and getresults. Others seek outcome rather than truth and getneither truth nor results.4

The spirit of seekers after truth, the attitude of thosewho do in fact serve as agents of civilization, is illus-trated by Karl Jaspers. He was dismissed by the Nazisfrom his professorship at the University of Heidelbergand forbidden to teach or publish. Yet Jaspers used theyears of his retirement for reflection and writing. Hehimself tells the story:

3 Dr. Thomas Nixon Carver, for 32 years Professor of PoliticalEconomy at Harvard University.4 C S Lewis put it: Aim at Heaven and you get earth thrownin. im at earth and you will get neither. ere Christianity

London: Geoffrey Bles, Ltd., 1953, p. 106.)


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THE DEDICATION 5When in 1938 a young friend said to me: Why

are you writing, it can never be published anyway,and one day all of your manuscripts will burned,I replied playfully: One never knows; I enjoy writing;what I am thinking becomes clearer in the process;and finally, in case the overthrow should occur someday, I do not wish to stand there with empty hands. 5Frederic Bastiat was not present at the overthrow of

mercantilism in England but, had he been standingthere, his would not have been empty hands. May youand I be entitled to as salutary a verdict

5 Taken from A New Humanism Karl Jaspers, appearingin Adrienne Koch ed. , hilosophy r a Time of risis New ork E. P. Dutton Co., 1959), pp. 320-21.


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1The Source of Progress

LL SPECTS of life are in flux nothing stays put.There is progress in some sectors accompanied byregress in others. For instance there is economic prog-ress only to be followed by a decline of material well-being. And there is moral social political scientifictechnological intellectual as well as spiritual progressandregress.

Most everyone prefers progress in the above areas toregress. Progress is the direction man goes when fulfill-ing his destiny; regress his direction when revertingto type. Progressing emerging hatching evolving arein the same harmonic scale.

Attaching such value as we do to progress requiresalso that we give a prime value to leadership for it isan observed fact that progress is a phenomenon flowingfrom leadership. Thus when leadership is not under-stood or when it is sought where it does not existprogress is not only in jeopardy it becomes impossible


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TH SOURCE OF PROGRESS 7for it has lost touch with its source. It is importanttherefore that we try to discover for ourselves whattrue leadership really is The following is an attemptto pinpoint that type of leadership from which progresssprings.

A Judas goat one trained to lead innocent sheep toslaughter is a leader of sorts. But obviously this is notthe kind of leadership which serves as the source ofprogress: the goat is no more conscious of betrayal thanare the sheep of their fate. This is simply a case of theblind leading the blind the leader having no roleother than that of being followed.

Similar behavior among men is not difficult to ob-serve: our history books are filled with accounts ofleaders so called who have been in the vanguard ofmovements ending not only in economic disaster butoften in slaughter. These leaders have been dis-tinguished more by their lack of understanding than byany o n ~ o u s malevolence. They knew not where theywere going; they found themselves out front only be-cause millions of people suffering from prevailingfallacies and emotional enthusiasms saw in the leaderan energetic personification of their own illusions.Enormous energy and personality quirks and little elsehavemarked these leaders. The sad part is that weneed not turn to history for examples; we are now x-periencing a rash of these leadership situations notonly abroad but at home as well.


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8 CCENT ON THE RIGHTLet us not, however, confine our reflections to those

in the vanguard of destructive movements. That wouldbe to miss the point of this analysis. For example, thoseof us with a libertarian bent will, unless we are ex-tremely careful, think of Frederic Bastiat as a leader.But that excellent spokesman for liberty would havebeen the first to reject any such accolade. He denied theleader-in-person notion when explaining to some of hissupporters why he sometimes voted in the French National Assembly with the socialists and communists:One must base his vote on r what instead of withwhom Here we find a cue as to the meaning of trueleadership. First, however, a few thoughts on thedangers of thinking of any person as a leader.

When we think of a person-Bastiat, or anyone else,for that matter as a leader, two kinds of disaster arelikely to follow. The first is more than likely; it is certain: we who commit this error in our thinking resolveourselves into blind followers; we limit what we perceive to nothing more than the personality traits of anindividual. Whatever he does is right r no morereason than it s who does it

The second disaster, if it happens, is an outgrowth of1 A noted clergyman of the last generation, Parkes Cadman,lamented, Do you know what is wrong with my church? Mypeople like me, but they don t love God, In short, they were

following a person; they were not embarked on the EternalSearch for Truth.


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THE SOURCE OF PROGRESS the first: any individual widely hailed s our leader isin grave danger of actually believing what he hears; hemay conclude that multiple errors add up to truth-that he is in fact, a Leader. Acceptance of this dis-torted view of self dangerously weakens one's resistanceto the messiah complex.

The messiah complex is a common failing, readilydetected: those who suffer this psychosis think of them-selves s the fountainhead of truth; they see nothingin the cosmos above their own finite minds and, thus,quite naturally become intellectual and or politicalauthoritarians: Believe precisely as I do or act as Icommand lest you stand condemned in my eyes. Theywill forsake their role s students or workers in thevineyard, and will pontificate s oracles, on any subject;indeed, they may even aspire to usurp the role of GodThus, disaster comes to both the followed and the fol-lowers: If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall intothe ditch.

Success ay estroyouDean Inge once observed, Nothing fails like suc-

cess. Why is the good Dean's observation so often con-firmed? Success is heady stuff; few can experience itand remain sober. When a student of liberty, for in-stance, gets ahead of others in his own little orbit, hehas a measure of success. utlet the others embrace


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1 CCENT ON THE RIGHThim as their leader acommon failing and let him, asa consequence of this unwarranted Hattery, look uponthem as his disciples an infatuating weakness , andhis initial success must turn to failure. The studying,which accounted for his success, is at an end. As thesaying goes, cCRe s a big-shot.

To bring this analysis into sharper focus, contemplatetwo relatively intelligent individuals exchanging ideasin a two-way inquiry of serious import. While bothleadership and followership would then be in evidence,we could not accurately ascribe the attraction andresponse to either one of the individuals themselves, butto some object beyond both individuals, which one understands better than the other. The leadership andfollowership w observe n this situation has o y anideational explanation one of the persons embodies anidea, an insight, a perception, a new spark of consciousness which he shares; the other, who perceivesthe point, remarks, in effect, follow you. This meansthat he, also, perceives the idea. Leadership, in thissignificant sense, is ,enlightenment, not the making ofcarbon copies. Nietzsche once observed that it is nocredit to a teacher if a student resembles him overlymuch.

Followership, in this sense, means to partake of theenlightenment. c o improve oneself, wrote Ortega yGasset, one must first admire perfection in others. Ifit is ideational perfection that is admired in another,


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THE SOURCE OF PROGRESS then it ideational perfection of self not imitationthat one will strive for

Individuals when discoursing in a spirit of inquirywill experience light and interchanges of light that isthe teacher and student positions will alternate eachfeeding on the other the baton of leadership passingback and forth It is worthy of note that writing read-ing and printing have done away with many of thelimitations once imposed on this process by time andspace; we find ourselves enlightened by ideas recordedin the distant past

The Measure of a ManRefer again to Frederic Bastiat We of recent genera-tions have not had him as a personal acquaintance;

thus the leadership we are prone to ascribe to his per-son is patently false The for wh t the work of thisFrench philosopher and statesman constitutes the soleleadership we follow His writings are clear expositionsof ideas he perceived or consciousness he attained orprinciples he deduced; they r the fruits of his studiesgleanings from his devoted and intensive search fortruth. His awareness that leadership is an ideationalphenomenon rather than a personality trait caused himto conclude One must base his vote on rwhat in-stead of with whom.

When Abraham Lincoln in his Peoria speech said


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TH SOURCE OF PROGRESS except as his own consciousness, in some measure, approximates the higher one.2 Thus, the search for leadership demands a continuing growth in healthy skepticism, discrimination, awareness, wisdom. That thesearch becomes more difficult as one advances is conceded, the difficulty accounting for much of the misconstruction put on leadership; discrimination in ideas isdenied to those who find the required labor and self-discipline too difficult. Yet, sensing the need to followsomething all of us are followers in most respects-many people tum to leaders ; they follow the reputations of fallible men ready made and shallow answersto this native necessity and thus never discover thekind of leadership on which all progress, all humanemergence, is founded.Where there is no leadership that is, good ideasbeing sought, grasped, explained, understood there isno economic freedom, no liberty. Thus, we need toknow what true leadership is, lest we be misled in ourquest. Such truths as are perceived, not the personsadvancing them, constitute the sole source of progress;only these truths qualify for that type of leadershipworth developing or following.

2 A man only understands that of which he has already thebeginnings in himself. An entry of December 17, 1854, in]ourn l Intim of Henri Frederic Arnie .


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On Thinking for Self

DURING the discussion following one of my recentlectures, it occurred to me that the questions fell intoa pattern, and that this pattern was the same-whetherin Manila, or Boise, or wherever. Each question wasbased on something the inquirer had heard or read;no questions appeared to stem from a genuine impassein the person s own effort to solve a problem. Thesepeople were merely repeating questions someone elsehad raised for them; they weren t seeking directions byreason of having lost their way for, in fact, they haddone no exploration on their own

What a fearful thought-if this situation is general:a nation of people the vast majority of whom do nothinking for themselves in the area of political economyPositions on matters of the deepest social import forrrledfrom nothing more profound than radio, TV, and newspaper commentaries, or casual, off-the-cuff opinions,or the outpourings of popularity seekers The quality

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ON THINKING FOR SELF 5and influence of an idea, Ortega saw, was not so muchin the idea as in a man s relation to it. Has he madethe idea his own, or merely inherited it? . . . The ~born into a culture confident of its knowledge is indanger of becoming a barbarian. l

Granting the correctness of this gloomy thought,what are the political consequences? And what counselcan you and offer individuals who are doing no thinking for themselves? So let s explore the two significantquestions this deplorable situation seems to pose.

To assess the political consequences, view the American populace as a market. Suppose, for instance, thatthe consumer tastes in literature have deteriorated untilthere is demand for pornography only. Pornographicauthors and publishers will spring up by the thousands;authors and publishers of ethical, moral, and spiritualworks will fade away for lack of a market. Reverse themarket situation and assume only highly elevated tastesin literature. Authors and publishers of pornographywill then be displaced by authors and publishers ofhigh-grade literature.One needs no poll to detennine the literary tastes ofa people. Merely observe the kind of literature that isgaining in favor and profit. We can infer from this thatit is useless to blame commentators, authors, and publishers for purveying trash. They are merely irresponsi-

1 anasOctober 25 1967


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6 ACCENT ON THE RIGHTble responses to the general taste the market what-ever it is 2 The market determines who are to be thesuccessful purveyors.

h olitical limateMarket demand also determines the kinds of persons

who vie with each other for political officeAssume a people who do no thinking for themselves.

Theirs is a stunted skepticism. Such people only reactand are easy prey of the cliche, the plausibility, theshallow promise, the lie. Emotional appeals and prettywords are their only guidelines. The market is made upof no-thinks. Statesmen men of integrity and intellectual stature are hopelessly out of demand. Whenthis is the situation, such statesmen will not be foundamong the politically active.

And who may we expect to respond. to a marketwhere thinking for self is absent? Charlatans Wordmongers Power seekers Deception artists They comeout of their obscurity as termites out of a rotten stump;the worst rise to the political top. And when our onlychoice is the lesser of two evils, voting is a sham.

2 Exception: Men of virtue and talents the natural aristocracy,to use Jefferson's term would never irresponsibly respond to thelure of either fame or fortune should the response contradicttheir concept of righteousness. Man cannot stoop below his goodness.


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ON THINKING FOR SELF 7Now assume a society of persons who do their own

thinking and, as a consequence, possess a healthy andintelligent skepticism, persons who cannot be takenin, hardheaded students of political economy gracedwith moral rectitude. The market for charlatans is dead;we are scarcely aware of such people. Instead, we findstatesmen of character and integrity vying for politicaloffice.

There is no need for a poll to determine whetheroriginal or introspective thinking is declining or rising.Merely keep in mind that whatever shows forth on thepolitical horizon is the response to the market, an echo-ing or mirroring of the preponderant mode in thinking.When thinking for self is declining, more charlatansand fewer statesmen will vie for office. Look at thepolitical horizon to learn what the thinking is, just asyou look at a thermometer to learn what the tempera-ture is. So, blame not the political opportunists for thestate of the nation. Our failure to think for ourselvesput them there indeed brought them into being. Forwe are the market; they are but the reflectionsAn interesting fact intrudes itself into this analysis:

approximately 50 per cent of those who do not thinkfor themselves are furious with what they see on thepolitical horizon which is but their own reflectionsAnd to assuage their discontent they exert vigorouseffort to change the reflection from Republican toDemocrat, or vice versa. As should be expected, they


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18 CCENT ON THE RIGHTget no more for their pains than new faces maskingmentalities remarkably similar to those unseated. Itcannot be otherwise.3

No improving trend on the political horizon s possible except as there is an improvement quantity andquality in thinking for self. Thus, it s of the utmostimportance that we seriously attend to our thinking.What helpful points can we make?

h roper Role of overnmentGiven the present situation, where government is

recklessly out of bounds and has its hand in practicallyevery aspect of life, the well-informed citizen is x-pected to know all about everything: how to delivermail, poverty the world over, give-aways to foreigncountries, you name it, are up for public discussion.Most of these so-called national or world problems areof similar origin and nature each one trying to manageeveryone s business but his own. This hopelessly impossible challenge doubtless accounts in no small measurefor so many having thrown in the sponge when it

3 In the above I have assumed the two extremes: nobody andeverybody thinking for self. In society this s never the case; it salways a tendency toward one extreme or the other. The societaltendency, of course, s not swayed or determined by the manywho fail to think for themselves but by the few who strive to dotheir own thinking. The thinkers ultimately govern.


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ON THINKING FOR SELF 9comes to thinking for self. No person on t face of theearth knows how to make socialism work And don ttry Instead, concentrate the thinking on what the principled and proper scope of government really is This iseasily within the realm of any reasonably intelligentperson, and is first of all the kind of thinking for self inpolitical economy one should cover. 4 All else-welfare,security, prosperity-is in the realm of the free market:you to your affairs, me to mine.

The Individual s RoleMost individuals who have abandoned thinking for

self in matters of political economy are unaware thatthey thus dry up the source of Creative Wisdom. Suchwisdom as society requires does not and cannot existin anyone person, though each of us should be responsible for his own part. Each of us views the worldthrough a tiny aperture. No two apertures, no twoviews, are identical. Your and my disparate wisdoms,such as they are, these minuscule dividends of exercising the introspective faculty, can be likened to two weecandles, each different from the other and each, byitself, barely perceptible. But when all persons with anycapabilities in this respect are realizing their potentiali-

4 Commended for reference reading is The w by FredericBastiat (Irvington-on-Hudson, N. Y : The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc., 1962


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20 CCENT ON THE RIGHTties, there is a remarkable wisdom, a Creative Wisdomthat can be likened to an over-all luminosity, a greatlight. 5 To understand the nature and origin of CreativeWisdom is sufficient to inspire many persons to introspective action.6 The responsible citizen insists onknowing what is his part and then doing it.

There are obstacles, of course, on this path to wisdom. One is a lack of faith in an over-all wisdom representing a coalescence of tiny bits of individual understanding. There are numerous reasons why it isn ttrusted. Obviously, cannot be seen with the eye; itcan be apprehended only by abstract thinking. Norhave enough people been thinking for self to make animpressive demonstration. Yet, this is the nature ofknowledge in society and it behooves each of us tomake the best of it.

Another obstacle is busy-ness, a consuming preoccupation with housework, children, the job, a business,making a living, or whatever. ut these amenities oflife are impossible in the absence of a good society anda good society cannot be developed except through theprocess of thinking for self. Until such introspectionbecomes as natural as eating and breathing, there islittle prospect for the good life.

5 See The Use of Knowledge in Society by F. Hayek. hreetrUln May, 1961.6 More of an explanation of Creative Wisdom appears inChapter 9.


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ON THINKING FOR SELF The essential critical faculty cannot be devefped

when we copy-cat the questions and conclusions ofothers. Each to his own thinking The rule, therefore, isnot to take somebody else's word for it. And to be consistent, what must my counsel be? Don t take word r it Scarcely any self-anointed seer or prophet wantsto go that far; but, unless he will, write him off as anintellectual authoritarian, a be-like-me god.

Does this counsel, Don't take my word for it, meanthat others should close their minds to my word? Notnecessarily. Indeed, one who would think for himselfshould look not only among his contemporaries but alsoamong his predecessors, even among the ancients, forany bits of wisdom that can be garnered. Take full advantage of one's environment, experience, and heritage,but let each thoughtfully do his own selecting, evaluating, and reasoning.

To trust this Creative Wisdom reflects an abidingfaith in self and in all free men really a faith in thecreative process. But don't take my word for it; thinkthat one through for yourself.


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3Accent on the Right

A STU NT turned in his paper, What s Wrong withAmerica. After pronouncing it excellent, his teacheradvised, Now write another essay and show what sright with America.Could it be that we of the libertarian persuasionhave, like that student, spent too much time with thenegative and the critical? Might it not be better toconcentrate our thinking, talking, writing on what sright with our country? This thought, at least, deservesa hard look.

Reflect on what, for the most part, we have beendOing. We have clearly seen and duly deplored thestriking shift toward Federal responsibility for securityand welfare and prosperity, political determination anddictation of human affairs, public ownership and con-trol of property, price and wage and interest and rentcontrols, and centralized government growing out of

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CCENT ON THE RIGHT 3bounds.1 We have been so engrossed in denouncingthese things that are wrong that we have lost sight ofmuch that is right. To verify this, try committing topaper everything you can think of that s right and observe how short the list is

Righteousness Loses Default do not mean to suggest that what s wrong is negligible; our society appears headed toward collapse.

Nor do mean to condemn the reporting and analysisof wrongdoing. The scholarly diagnosis of fallacies, asdistinguished from diatribes and polemics, is an absolute necessity. ut the direction in which we are headedmay be a significant signal that the libertarian tacticitself, viewed over-all, has been wrong. Look at the result, in which we have been unwitting accomplices: Itis self-evident that what s right has no supporters amongthe wrongdoers; nor has right action any vocal protagonists among those of us who keep our eye on andcriticize only the wrongdoing. The upshot is that rightaction has no voice, no announcers, no press; evenworse, the wrongdoing faces no well known alteroo

1 See my Reflections on Coming of Age. A copy of this monograph on request.For a much more detailed outline of what s wrong, see ~ h eTask Confronting Libertarians by Henry Hazlitt. The Freeman

March, 1968. Copy on request.


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24 CCENT ON THE RIGHTtiv s That which is right is buried in silence; it losesby default. How, then, can right action be expected toassert itself and, thus, prevail?

Perpetual declaiming has another fault: it quicklybecomes boring and tiresome; it tends to seal all ears.Would-be teachers and preachers of the libertarianphilosophy reach a low point of simply crying on oneanother s shoulders, often misleadingly phrased s talking to ourselves. This hopeless situation, s much asanything else, causes them to throw in the sponge,give up the ghost.

Were we to pursue the proper tactic, we would firstacquaint ourselves with all the right actions we caninventory. We would next bring these to light, enshrineand ennoble and sanctify them s we do motherhood,for instance make them politically untouchable. Thiss the kind of intellectual nurture that righteousnessrequires in order to expand and grow. Further, when weaccent what s right, we put ourselves in the realm ofthe positive; our message becomes attractive, for it isone of hope rather than despair. This approach alsostrips the wrongdOing of its plausibilities and withoutany declamation on our part leaves it bare, naked, andexposed.

While I am conscious of the libertarian plight broughton by our tactical errors and am aware of the dividendsthat would accrue were we able to accent the right, thepositive, and the hopeful, I confess to a frustrating lack


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ENT ON THE RIGHT of ability to practice expertly that which I now com-mend. In the practice of what I am preaching here,I stand, as do many others, an utter neophyte. For thisdemands ofme that I break with habits of long standingand embark on a wholly new and unpracticed approach.Bluntly, have been so overwhelmed by the wrong-doing that am hardly conscious of those actions thatare right, nor am capable of itemizing them withoutresorting to a difficult concentration. Any libertarianwho questions the sincerity of this confession shouldgive himself the test.

The Exceptions Make NewsYet, there s one obvious fact from which we may

draw comfort and help: What s right with America -ceeds what is wrong Were this not true, the wrong-doing would have taken over completely by now. Andit has not

Why, then, s the wrongdOing s glaringly evidentand right action s hidden from view? The answer tothis s simple: The wrongdOing s exceptional andmakes news; hardly anything else do we read about inthe press and listen to over radio and TV. Doing right,on the other hand, s s commonplace that it nevermakes the papers. Actually, we couldn't manufactureenough newsprint to report all the kindly acts, thehonest transactions, the intelligent thoughts and obser-vations. Right actions are taken for granted and no


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ENT ON THE RIGHTmore impinge upon our consciousness than does the airwe regularly breathe or the rhythmic beat of our hearts.The wrong is seen; the right is not. So, let us try tobecome aware of the commonplace, that we may focuson what is right until we are better able to emphasizeand enshrine it.

Consider, for instance, what it would be like tosponsor a FEE Seminar in Russia, or in any of the Ironurtain countries, or in China, or even in Spain. Youwould be confronted by men with weapons.In America, regardless of ominous signs, we are still

free to speak and write our thoughts and to assemble,even though our views may be diametrically opposedto those of the presiding political establishment. Libertycan never be counted out where and when freedomof speech, of press, of assembly prevail. Why not takenote of these blessings, praise them to the skies, andmake them sacrosanct? While they stand, authoritari-anism cannot overcome US 2

2 A critic of this conclusion is correct in claiming that freedomcannot exist in the absence of private ownership, but he may notbe right when he insists that private ownership can be abolishedin the presence of free speech, press, assembly. es it can begreatly impaired, as we are now witnessing; but, ultimately,the institution of private ownership must stand among a freepeople unless, of course, they degenerate to the point wherethey no longer prize the right to the fruits of their own labor.In this unhappy event, there isn t anything remaining to argueabout. he idea of liberty must grow weak in the hearts of menbefore t can be killed at the h n s o tyrants


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ACCENT ON TH RIGHT 27Despite the infringements upon religious freedom

cast by programs such as social security and mass medi-cation freedom of worship is largely intact in the Unit-ed States.3 This falls in the category of that which sright and stands in important opposition to the totalstate. Glorify religious freedom

Powerful onstructive ForceEvery time you make a phone call this s a willing

exchange and reflects a gain on the part of both you andthe telephone company. Consider the grocer the dairy-man the candlestick maker and the countless otherswith whom you daily deal. Billions of these exchangesfree of coercion take place every day. In their incred-ible sum total they constitute a constructive force out ofall proportion to the destructive coercive forces. Ade-quately demonstrate the virtues of these right actionsand you automatically curb the wrong ones.

Suppose for example that we had been extollingthe economic educational political and recreationaladvantages of travel to countries around the globe to

3 For instance a religious feature of the Latter ay Saintsof the Amish and others s looking after their own. Compulsorysocial security s a denial of this. Fluoridation of the watersupply s mass medication which contradicts the tenets of Chris-tian Science. Freedom to worship s one chooses has beenchipped away to some extent.


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28 ENT ON THE RIGHTthe point of general appreciation and acceptance. TheWashington hierarchy would no more dare suggesta restriction on foreign travel than it would dare todeny travel between the fifty states. We may be late inour enshrinement of this item among the things thatare right; but if we are late this further illustrates thevalue of accenting the positive.4

Aside from the restrictions imposed by minimumwage laws licensing trade union compulsions and thelike there remain literally millions of willing exchangesbetween the sellers and buyers of personal servicestransactions in which the market unfettered. Let ustake cognizance of these and show the benefits theyconfer on all parties concerned. By so doing the legallyrigged coercively restricted transactions will be exposed for what they really are: impediments to thelong-range interests of everyone.It is true that we are people-controlled to a marked

extent in the name of rent and price controls farmprice supports and other political interventions.5 Butfor the most part producers and consumers are still free

4 My associate Dr. Paul Poirot on reading this manuscriptvolunteered to accent the positive as related to travel. SeeProgress Through Travel The reeman April 1968. My attempt appears as hapter 10. But more important try your ownhand at this.

5 See Price Control Is People CoIitrol by Dean Russell.The reeman October 1961.


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ACCENT ON THE RIGHT to engage in open competition guided by the unerringsignals of ever changing market prices. It takes anenormous amount of observation and learning to upholdopen competition interestingly and attractively. But itis an important part of the tactic of accenting rightaction.

ngels and hipping ysPerhaps these few examples may suffice to suggest

that right action exceeds the wrongdoing in America.No mention has been made of the little personal chari-ties thoughtful deeds kindly sentiments helping handsfair dealings integrity initiative acceptance of respon-sibility piety love wisdom angels Emerson calledthem that manifest themselves in nearly every Ameri-can to some extent. o let us not only take note ofthese exemplary attributes but put them on paradeextol and pay tribute to them that is exalt them.

Do we run a risk in shifting from the declamation ofwrongdoing to the enshrinement of rightdoing? Willwe perhaps leave the wrongdoers without opposition?Would they not then be free to run rampant evenmore so than now?

First we should know that there is a better tacticthan declaiming grumbling growling name calling.

Second upholding right actions is a form of presen-tation that leaves wrongdoers nothing to scratch


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CCENT ON THE RIGHTagainst; its practitioners remove themselves as whip-ping boys who serve to distract attention from thewrongdoers and their deeds. 6 When we accent right-doing, we move into a realm beyond the range ofwrongdoers. Darkness cannot penetrate light; it is theother way around. Increasing the candlepower is whatcounts

Finally, there s the prospect that as one learns to puthis emphasis on right actions, he simultaneously with-draws any support he may have been giving, howeverunwittingly, to the wrongdoing.

I insist that the individual himself s upgraded tothe extent he succeeds in understanding, accenting, andliving by what is right. And if this isn't worth thecandle, pray tell, what s

6 Supply your own names; the whipping boys are legion, theones who indulge in extravagant, unverifiable claims, name-calling, and so on; in short, the opponents of socialism who saythings the socialists can legitimately point to as absurd. Thepublic eye s thus fixed on these absurdities and thereby dis-tracted from the absurdities of the socialists. But the brashopponents serve the socialists in yet another way: opponents,because they are associated as opponents, are made to lookabsurd.


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Find the Wrong andThere s the Right

As in most disagreements the current politico-economic controversy revolves around what s right. Andcontrary to what a socialist or a libertarian usuallythinks of his opponents each is as convinced of hisrighteousness as the other. A consciously malevolentperson is seldom found.

That this contest as to what s right in social relationships will ever be resolved is doubtful; for what s rightis to be found only in what s true and who among usis qualified to settle on that? As do most others I havenumerous views which I believe to be right and noteven debatable. ut to list or classify them? ar easierI think to define right actions as those which are notdemonstrably wrong. or it is possible to bring withinour purview and make some reasonable assessment ofthe wrong; what s right is so vast that it hardly lendsitself to any such analysis.

Those actions which are wrong in social relationships


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CCENT ON THE RIGHTare the ones we should aim to prohibit by personalendeavor, by education and, as a last resort, by society sformal agency of organized force: government. Thus,to analyze what should be prohibited is a means ofopening to our vision the infinite realm of righteousness.

s an introductory thought, reflect on how misledwe so often are when judging people by first appearances To dramatize the fact that what first meets theeye is often deceiving, imagine identical twins. Theydo indeed look alike, but how they can differ in otherrespects One brother can be an out-and-out collectivist, statist, mercantilist, interventionist; the other anardent believer in individual rights, free market practices, and private ownership of property. For reasonsdifficult to explain, one has a socialistic orientationwhile the other has a libertarian devotion.

But even these opposed designations-socialist andlibertarian do not accurately or revealingly stake outthe significant differences between these two men. Suchlabels may have considerable emotional impact, butthey do not precisely distinguish the conflicting philosophies. What really, in the ideological sense, marks theone from the other? Is there some one characteristicthat can be identified and evaluated? Yes I believethere is, and this brings me to my point: he differ-ence etween the soci list nd the li ert ri n thinker is difference of opinion as to wh t others should e pro-hi ited from d ing


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FIND THE WRONG AND THERE S THE RIGHT Let s use this claim as a working hypothesis think it

through and test its validity. If the claim proves irrefutable then we have come upon a fairly simple methodof evaluating our own or anyone else s authoritarianismor conversely libertarianism. 1 Further we shall byidentifying what should be prohibited discover what swrong and thus expand our awareness of what s right.But first some reflections on prohibitions in general.

ules tor urvivalHow many animal species have come and gone no

one knows. Many thousands survive and the fact oftheir survival whether guided by instincts or drives orconscious choices rests in no small measure on theavoidance of specie-destructive actions. Thus all surviving species have at the very minimum abided by aset of prohibitions things not to do; otherwise theywould have been extinct ere this.

Certain types of scorpions for example stick to dry1 Some will make the point that the authoritarian employscompulsions as well as prohibitions. My thesis s that all compulsions can be r edu ced to prohibitions thus making it easierto assess authoritarianism. Fo r instance we say that a Russian

s compelled to work in the sputnik factory. But it s more accurate to say that he s prohibited from any other employment;he builds sputniks or starves and freely decides between therestricted choices left to him. So-called compulsions by government are in fact prohibitions of freedom to choose.


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CCENT ON THE RIGHTland; puddles and pools are among their instinctualtaboos. There s some prohibitory force that keeps fishoff dry land lambs from chasing lions and s on and on.How insects and animals acquire their built-in prohibitions is not well understood. We label their reactionsinstinctual meaning that it is not reasoned or consciousbehavior.

Man on the other hand does not now possess a likeset of instinctual do-nots: built-in prohibitions. Insteadhe must enjoy or suffer the consequences of his own freewill his own power to choose between what s right andwhat s wrong; in a word man s more or less at themercy of his own imperfect understanding and conscious decisions. The upshot of this is that human beingsmust choose the prohibitions they will observe and theselection of a wrong one may be as disastrous to ourspecies as omitting a right one. Survival of the humanspecies rests as much on observing the correct prohibitions as is the case with any other species.ut in our case the o serv nce of the correct must

nots has survival value only if preceded by a correctconscious selection of the must-nots. When the survivalof the human race is at stake and when that survivalrests on the selection of prohibitions by variable imperfect members of that race the w onder is that theideological controversy is not greater than now.When Homo sapiens first appeared he had little

language no literature no maxims no tradition or his-


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FIND THE WRONG AND THERE S THE RIGHT 35tory to which he could make reference; in short hepossessed no precise and accurate list of things not todo. We cannot explain the survival of these early specimens of our kind unless we assume that some of theinstinctual prohibitions of their animal cousins remained with them during the transition period frominstinct to some measure of self-knowledge for throughout many millennia we know nothing of man-formalized prohibitions. Then appeared the crude taboos observed by what we now call primitive peoples. Thesehave survival value in certain conditions even thoughthe reasons given for the practice might not hold water.

nforcing t ulesIf prohibitions are as important as here represented

it s well that we reflect not only on the man-contrivedthou-shalt-nots but particularly on the several typesof persuasion to make them effective. For it is selfevident that there can be no thou-shalt-not worth themention unless it is backed by some form of persuasion.o far as this exploration is concerned there are threeforms of persuasion which make prohibitions effectiveor meaningful. I shall touch on the three in the order oftheir historical appearance.

The Code of Hammurabi 2000 B.C. is probably theearliest of systematized prohibitions. This is consideredone of the greatest of the ancient codes; it was par-


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ACCENT ON THE RIGHTticularly strong in its prohibitions against defraudingthe helpless. To secure observance, the persuasivenesstook the form of organized police force. The olumbiancyclopedia refers to the retributive nature of thepunishment meted out as a savage feature an eyefor an eye literally. Not only is this the oldest of thethree forms of persuasion as a means of effectuatingprohibitions, but it is today very popular and lT uchemployed all over the civilized world, in the U.S.A.as elsewhere.

The next and higher form of persuasion appearedabout a millennium later the form employed to effectuate the thou-shalt-nots known as The Decalogue.Here the persuasiveness was not organized police forcebut, instead, the promise of retribution: initially, thehope of tribal survival if the commands were obeyedand the fear of tribal extinction were they disobeyedand, later, the hope of heavenly bliss or the fear of helland damnation. It may be said that The Decaloguewas backed by moral rather than political law, that is,the persuasion advanced from a physical to a spiritualforce. We witness in this evolutionary step the earlyemergence of man s moral nature.

The latest and highest form of persuasion is thatwhich gives effectiveness to the most advanced prohibition, the Golden Rule. s originally scribed, around500 B.C. it reads: Do not do unto others that whichyou would not have them do unto you. What per-


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FIND THE WRONG ND THERE S THE RIGHT 37suasiveness lies behind this prohibition? Not physicalforce And not even such spiritual force as hope andfear This latest force is a sense of justice perhaps theinmost law of one s being. That this is a recently acquired human faculty s supported by its rarity. Evers many people will concede the soundness of theGolden Rule, but only now and then is an individualto be found whose moral nature is elevated to the pointwhere he can observe this do-not in daily liVing. Theperson who achieves mastery of this discipline movesbeyond a satisfaction with external rewards and punishments to the profound conviction that virtue and excellence are their own reward. Doing what s rightcounts above all else.

he merging Moral acultyIt is relevant to that which follows to reflect on what

s meant by an elevated moral nature. To illustrate thelack of such a nature: We had a kitchen employee whopilfered, that is, she would quietly lift provisions fromo ur l arder and tote them to her own larder. This practice did no offense to such moral scruples as she possessed; she was only concerned lest anyone see herindulge in toting; nothing was wrong except gettingcaught My point s that this individual had not yet acquired what is here meant by an elevated moral nature.

What distinguishes the individual who has an ele-


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38 ACCENT ON THE RIGHTvated moral nature? For one thing he cares not onewhit about what others see him do. Why? He has aprivate eye of his own far more exacting and severethan any force or fear others can impose: a highly de-veloped conscience. Not only does such a person possessa sense of justice but he also possesses its counterpart adisciplinary conscience. Justice and conscience are twoparts of the saIne emerging moral faculty. It is doubtfulthat one can exist without the other.

It seems that individual man having lost many of thebuilt in instinctual do nots of his animal cousins ac-quires as he evolves far enough a built in rationalprohibitory ethic which he is compelled to observe byreason of his sense of justice and the dictates of con-science. I repeat proper prohibitions are just as im-portant to the survival of the human species as to thesurvival of any other species.

o not do unto others that which you would not havethem unto you There is more to this prohibitionthan first glance reveals. Nearly everyone for instancewill concede that there no universal right to kill tosteal or to enslave because these practices cannot beuniversalized if for no higher reason. ut only theperson who comprehends this ethic the Golden Rule-in its wholeness who has an elevated sense of justiceand conscience will conclude that such a concessiondenies to him the right to take the life of another torelieve any person of his livelihood or to deprive any


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FIND THE WRONG AND THERE S THE RIGHT human being of his liberty. Without an elevated moralnature, he ll miss the point. And, one more distinction:While there are many who will agree that they, personally, should not kill, steal, enslave, it is only theindividual with a first-rate moral nature who will haveno hand in encouraging any agency-even government-in doing these things for him or others. Anyone hogets the whole point of the Golden Rule sees that thereis no escape from individual responsibility by resort tothe popular expedient of collective action.

Where Will ach StandLet us now return to the question this chapter poses:

What shall be construed as wrong and, thus, prohibited? For, I repeat, it is the difference of opinion asto what should be denied others that highlights theessential difference between the collectivists-socialists,statists, interventionists, mercantilists-and those of thelibertarian faith. Take stock of what you would prohibitothers from doing and you will accurately find yourown position in the ideological line-up. Or, this methodcan be used to determine anyone else s position.

Consider the following statement:Government has a positive responsibility in any

just society to see to it that each and every one of itscitizens acquires all the skills and the opportunitiesnecessary to practice and appreciate the arts to the


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40 CCENT ON THE RIGHTlimit of his natural ability. Enjoyment of the artsand participation in them are anlong man's naturalrights and essential to his full development as acivilized person. One of the reasons governments areinstituted among men to make this right a reality.2It significant that the author uses the term its citi-

zens, the antecedent of its being government. Such aconception is basic to the collectivist philosophy: Weyouand belong to the state. We are ts wardsOf course, if one accepts this statist premise, the aboveposition is sensible enough: it has to do with a detail inthe state's paternalistic concern for its charges.

Inhibited hoicesBut we are, in this chapter, on another tack, namely,

examining what a person would prohibit others fromdoing. The writer of the above statement does not imply, at least to anyone who cannot read below the surface, any prohibitions. He dwells only on what he wouldhave the state do r the people. Where, then, are theprohibitions? The program he favors would cost X hundred million dollars annually. From where come thesemillions? The state has nothing except that which ittakes from the people. Therefore, this man favors thatwe be prohibited from using the fruits of our own labor

2 See The ommonweal August 23, 1963, p. 494.


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42 ACCENT ON THE RIGHTSubsidize below-cost pricing in air, water, and land

transportation, education, insurance, loans of countless kinds;Socialize security; Renew downtowns that consumers have deserted,

build hospitals and other local facilities;Give Federal aid of this or that variety, endlessly.

We have not, however, exhausted the prohibitionsthat the socialists are imposing on us. For another phaseof socialism is the state ownership and/or control of themeans of production. Included among the existing prohibitions of this type are:

The planting of all of a farmer s own acreage towheat, cotton, peanuts, corn, tobacco, rice-even tofeed his own stock;

The quitting of a business at will;The taking of a job at will;The selling of a citizen s own product at his own

price, for instance, milk, steel, and others;The free pricing of services wages ;The delivery of first-class mail for pay;Again, the listing of prohibitions is endless. Harold

Fleming, author of en housand ommandments(1951 ), having to do with prohibitions of just oneFederal agency, The Federal Trade Commission, is


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FIN THE WRONG AND THERE S THE RIGHT presently bringing his book up-to-date, entitling it,Twenty Thousand ommandmentsThose who favor the socialization of the means of

production would, of course, frown on the profit motiveand prohibit profit.

Which of all the prohibitions listed above and implicit in socialism do you or others favor? This s theappropriate question for rating oneself or others ideologically.

Those among us with a libertarian devotion would,it s true, impose certain prohibitions on others. Theyquite accurately note that not all individuals haveacquired a moral nature sufficient strictly to observesuch fundamentally sound taboos s Thou shalt notkill and Thou shalt not steal. There are those whowill take the lives of others, and those who will take thelivelihood of others, such as those who will pilfer andthose who will get the government to do their pilferingfor them. Most libertarian believers would supplementthe moral laws with social laws aimed at prohibiting anycitizen from doing violence to another s person (life) oranother s livelihood (extension of life).4Thus , they would

4 How prohibited? Unfortunately, by organized police forceor the threat thereof, the only form of persuasion comprehensibleto those lacking a developed sense of morality and justice. Be itnoted, however, that this s exclusively a defensive force, calledinto play only as a secondary action, that is, it s inactive exceptin the instances of initiated, aggressive force.


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ENT ON THE RIGHTprohibit or at least penalize murder, theft, fraud, misrepresentation. In short, they would inhibit or prohibitthe destructive actions of any and all, and that is allAsserts the libertarian, Freely choose how you actcreatively, productively, for this s in the realm of what sright. I have no desire to prohibit you or others in thisrespect. I have no prohibitory designs on you of anykind except as you or others would keep me and othersfrom acting creatively, productively ourselves, that is, freely choose I do not classify any creative actionas a wrong action.

Observe that the libertarian in his hoped-for prohibition of destructive actions does no violence to anyoneelse s liberty, none whatsoever. The word liberty s asocial term; it would never be used by an individualcompletely isolated from others. We must not, therefore,think of liberty as being restrained when fraud, violence, and the like are prohibited, for these destructiveactions violate the liberty of others and, therefore, theyare not in the composition of liberty. Destructive actionsare the negations of liberty; it s self-evident that libertycannot be made up of its negations. An accomplishedlibertarian would never prohibit the liberty of another.There we have it: the all-out collectivists at one end

of the ideological spectrum who would completelyprohibit individual liberty and, at the other end of thespectrum, the libertarians whose prohibitions are notopposed to but are in support of individual liberty. And


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FIND THE WRONG AND THERE S THE RIGHT their prohibitions are few and as simple as the twoCommandments against assaults on life and livelihood.

There Is Something BetterFinally, libertarians, as the socialists, do not believe

the hum an situation to be in apple-pie order; imperfection s rampant. The libertarian, however, observingthat human frailities are universal, balks at halting theevolutionary process which s the ultimate prohibitionimplicit in authoritarian schemes. Be the political dandya Napoleon or Tito or one of the home-grown variety ofprohibitionist, how can the human situation improve ifthe rest of us are prohibited from growing beyond thelevel of the prohibitionist s imperfections? Is nothingbetter in store for us than this?The libertarian s answer s affirmative: There is something better But the improvement must take the formof man s growth, emergence, hatching the acquisitionof higher faculties such as an improved sense of justice,a refined, exacting, self-disciplinary conscience; in brief,an elevated moral nature. Man-concocted prohibitionsagainst this growth stifle or kill it. Human faculties canflower, man can move toward his creative destiny, onlyif he be free to do so; in a word, where liberty prevails.

What should be prohibited? ctions which impairli erty Let us find these and be rid of them, for theyare wrong. s this is done, the infinite realm of righteousness will hove into view.


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5Right and Wrong,

Side by SideTH RI HT and the wrong, progress and regress, occurring simultaneously

A modern Dickens might well describe ours as thebest of times the worst of times. ur standard ofliving soars as opportunities for employment multiplyin pace with the quantity and quality of goods andservices available. Yet, at the same time, we experienceon an unprecedented scale the reckless waste of workstoppages, political controls, and other restraints uponfreedom.

This is the great anomaly, so pronounced on bothcounts and so hand-in-hand that many persons believethe wrong actions are really causing the creative outburst This is perfectly illustrated when, on hearing acriticism of the growing governmental interventionism,many Americans reply, We've never had it so good.Such mistaken correlation will persist unless we under

46


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RIGHT AND WRONG, SIDE BY SIDE 7stand and explain why wrong actions cannot bringabout economic well-being.The paradox of increasing prosperity with more extensive interventions is not new. In The istory ofng-land (1839) Lord Macaulay observed, It has oftenbeen found that profuse expenditure, heavy taxation,absurd commercial restrictions, corrupt tribunals, disastrous wars, seditions, persecutions, conflagrations,inundations, have not been able to destroy capital sofast as the exertions of private citizens have been able tocreate it.

Brazilian entrepreneurs have another way of explaining their simultaneous progress and regress: We getthings done while the politicians sleep.

If the notion that wrong measures cause the rightresults, that regress brings about progress, becomes afirm and general conviction, then, assuredly, the regressive forces will overtake, consume, and eventuallydestroy the progressive forces. For example, should webecome convinced that a minimum wage law is a meansof raising wages and then base all facets of the economyon similar illusions, the American miracle will haveended. So it is of the utmost importance that we dissectthis anomaly and divest it of its mystery.

The explanation is quite simple: exchange has been1 See Chapter III in Macaulay's h istory of ngland

New York: E. P. Dutton, 1934), p. 217.


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ENT ON THE RIGHTmultiplying more rapidly than restraints on exchangeConsistent with this answer is the fact that authoritarianism, so far, has lagged behind the release of creativeenergy; bureaucratic dictation has failed to keep pacewith entrepreneurial ingenuity; capital has been formedfaster than destroyed; citizens in pursuing their owninterests have accomplished much while the politicalgods have been sleeping.

hanging Formsof e lthA systematic understanding of the importance of

specialization and trade exchange) s of recent origin.Prior to the time of Adam Smith s Wealth of Nations

less than years ago, wealth was concentrated in fewhands and was reckoned mostly in inventories: preciousmetals, jewels, slaves, acres of land, size of manor orcastle, and so on.

Then, with the advent of specialization which AdamSmith understood and explained so admirably, a newconcept of wealth came into being. Instead of idleinventories possessed by feudal dukes and lords of themanor, wealth in the fonn of useful goods and servicesspread to the masses whose skills were needed to activate and operate the tools of industry. o marked hasbeen this change that today s American laborer iswealthier in the variety of things he enjoys than thelegendary Midas, Croesus, or any medieval king.

However, a shift from a near self-subsistence econ-


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RIGHT AND WRONG SIDE BY SIDE 49omy foraging and the like to a specialized economypresupposes not only the accumulation of savings andcapital but also freedom to exchange.

Were a people to specialize and not exchange, therewould be no wealth; indeed, all would perish. s theabsence of exchange results in poverty, so does theproliferation of willing exchanges result in increasedwealth.

That wealth increases through the process of willingexchange is understandable once we apprehend thesubjective nature of gain. 2 To illustrate: I produceshoes; you produce sweaters. If I cannot sell my shoes,and if you cannot sell your sweaters, is it likely thateither of us would keep on producing these things? Sowithout exchange, there would be no further increasein wealth. But, should we willingly exchange, eachgains. I value the sweater more than the shoes, and youvalue the shoes more than the sweater two increases invalue as each of us judges value. Were this not thecase, there would be no willing exchange between us,no increase in wealth, no further production. Clearly,willing exchange right action is the key to increasedwealth and increased production.

Willing exchanges are incalculably more numerousnow than in the days of Adam Smith, even than in the

2 For a more detailed explanation of the subjective theory ofvalue see Freedom s Theory of Value. The reeman October,1967.


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CCENT ON THE RIGHTdays of my grandparents. This is apparent to anyobservant person. But what most of us overlook is theenormous proliferation of exchanges during the pastthree or four decades; the increase takes on the natureof an explosion. Try to reckon the number of exchangesyou engage in daily; they are so numerous that you arescarcely conscious of them. This is our economic prog-ress.

During this period of exploding exchanges we havealso witnessed governmental intervention in the marketrestrictions on willing exchange wrong action literallyby the thousands. This is our regress.

But the regress has not to date anyway kept pacewith the progress. In this fact lies the explanation of thegreat anomaly.

or easons UnknownIt is doubtful if anyone can more than casually

account for the explosion in exchanges. Quickenedtransportation and communication some of it at thespeed of lightning assuredly plays an important role.Inventiveness resulting in fantastic technological break-throughs must be included. Perhaps questionable moti-vations have had a hand in the phenomenon; for in-stance a raging passion for material affluence as if thiswere the highest object of life. While too complex topursue some of the restraints obstacles have doubtless


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RIGHT AND WRONG SIDE BY SIDE generated the ingenuity to hurdle them and, thus, haveaccounted partially for the progress. Necessity is, onoccasion, the mother of invention. However, my purposehere is only to set forth a fact; haven't the effronteryto attempt a complete explanation for the exchangeexplosion.

Nor am bold enough to posit all that lies at the rootof our regress. Why does authoritarianism grow? Whydo so many wish to lord it over the rest of us, that is,why do they behave as gods, not as men? We maynever know; we can only reflect as has Lionel Trilling:We must beware of the dangers that lie in our mostgenerous wishes. Some paradox of our nature leads us,when once we have made our fellow men the objects ofour enlightened interest, to go on to make them theobjects of our pity, then of our wisdom, ultimately ofour coercion. 3But of one thing feel reasonably certain: We should

bring sharply into question the absurd notion that thewrong actions are the cause of our progress. Failure todo this may soon result in the end of progress. Thereare signs of this At the very least, let us be aware thatsuch progress as we have achieved is in spite of and notbecause of the regress.The chief obligation is to identIfy the wrong that the

right may be known, practiced, and accented.3 Quoted in The merican Scholar Autumn, 1965.


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CountYour Blessings

To COUNT one s blessings is to accent what s right. utthis might rarely be recognized as an item in the infiniterealm of righteousness were we unaware of Thou shaltnot covet as a wrong. This helps to illustrate the subject of a previous chapter, Findthe wrong and there sthe right.

While many people deplore covetousness, few willcompare it to murder, theft, adultery as an evil. Norwill they think of it as having any bearing on ourcurrent politico-economic problems. This wrong assessment may be due to the fact that Thou shalt not covetbrings up the rear of the Mosaic thou-shalt-nots.

suspect that the ordering of the Commandmentshad nothing to do with a sin-grading scheme. Only oneof the ten had obvious priority and it became the FirstCommandment. The other nine were listed, perhaps, asthey came to mind. And covetousness, more subtle and


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COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS an afterthought concludes the list. ut on reflectioncovetousness is as deadly as any of the other sins-indeed it tends to induce the others.

Covetousness or envy generates a destructive radiation with ill effect on all it touches.

Psychosomatic illnesses can be traced as much toenvy as to hate anger worry despondency.

But consider the social implications the effects ofenvy on others. t first blush the rich man appears notto be harmed because another covets his wealth. Envyhowever is not a benign dormant element of thepsyche; it has the same intensive force as rage and agreat deal of wisdom is required to put it down. Whereunderstanding and self-control are wholly lacking theweakling will resort to thievery embezzlement piracyeven murder to gratify his envy and get his share.

iding ehind a MajorityThough weakness of character affiicts all of us to

some extent only a few are so lacking in restrainingforces as to personally employ naked force such asthievery to realize the objects of envy. Fear of apprehension and reprisal tends to hold such open-faced evilin check.

However if the evil act can be screened if the senseof personal guilt and responsibility can be sufficientlysubmerged that is if self-delusion can be effected


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CCENT ON THE RIGHTgratification of covetousness will be pursued by thebest people.The way is an open secret: achieve anonymity in amob, committee, organization, society, or hide behindlegality or majority vote.With the fear of exposure removed, millions of Amer-

icans feather their own nests at the expense of others,and on a scale never imagined by thieves, pirates, orembezzlers. Our best people, including the highlyeducated, gratify their envy with no qualms whatso-ever. ut their salved conscience in no way lessens theevil of covetousness; quite the contrary, it emphasizes tous how powerfully this evil operates at the politico-economic level. This subtle evil is indeed the genesisof more obvious sins.We should also note the extent to which this guilt-

less taking of property by coercion is rationalized.Accomplices, bearing such titles as philosophers andeconomists, rise to the occasion; they explain how thepopular depredations are good for everyone, even forthose looted. Thus, we find that covetousness, un-checked in the individual, lies at the root of the declineand fall of nations and civilizations.In considering the effect on the one who covets, we

must be careful not to confuse the taking of another sproperty with the taking unto oneself of a higher levelof intelligence and morality exemplified by another. Theformer is depredation, harmful to both self and the


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COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS other; the latter is emulation, helpful to all concerned.

As contrasted with the emulation of virtues, whichtakes nothing from but adds to the welfare of others,envy is nothing more than an avaricious greed to possesswhat exclusively belongs to others. Envy is a lust of theflesh as opposed to an elevation of the spirit. The Hindus saw it clearly for what it really is: l:l:Sin is not theviolation of a law or a convention but ignorance which seeks its own private gain at the expense ofothers 1 William Penn grasped the point: l:l:Covet-ousness is the greatest of ~ l o n s t r s as well as the rootof all Evil.

Aiverting ProcessAs a person cannot be in two places at the same time,

so is it impossible for the eye to be cast covetously atthe material possessions of others and cast aspiringly atone s own creativity. Thus, envy leaves unattended thehuman being s upgrading; it is a positive distractionfrom the l:hatching process-Creation s Purpose. It seither hatch or rot, as with an egg; envy leaves the soul,the spirit, the intellect, the psyche to rot, and there canbe no greater evil than this.When it is clear that covetousness thwarts Creation s

purpose and, thus, man s destiny-that among the car-1 From h hagavadgita Translation y S RadhakrishnanNew York: Harper Brothers, 1948), p. 224.


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CCENT ON THE RIGHTdinal sins none is greater it surely behooves each of usto find a way to rid himself of this evil.I believe the way is simple to proclaim: ountyourblessings

Any person who is not aware of countless blessingsregardless of how low or high his estate will be nomore aware of his blessings should his envy be gratified.Awareness of blessings is a state of consciousness and isnot necessarily related to abundance and affluence. Hewho is rich in worldly goods but unaware of his bless-ings is poor and probably covetous; he who is poorin worldly goods but aware of his blessings is rich andassuredly without envy.

How easy the advice: Count your blessings Butwhat about the person unaware of his blessings? swell advise him to acquire wisdom for wisdom is aware-ness. Some individuals are aware of no blessings othersof a few still others of numerous blessings. Yet no oneis more than slightly aware just s no one is more thanslightly wise.

Exactly how unaware we are of our blessings can beseen by committing them to paper actually counting.While they are in infinite supply observe how few arerecognized. Now throw the list away; for these mustbe alive each and every day in the consciousness notstored on paper not mechanically canned.

Try again later: this is an exercise that one shouldnever abandon. The list is longer? Note also how


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OUNT YOUR LESSINGS 7much greater the wisdom is Conscious effort reallytrying constantly pressing against the unknown formore light is the nature of this discipline.

As progress is made in an awareness of our blessingswe are struck by how greatly they outnumber our woesand troubles. In a state of unawareness the woes loomenormous and we tend to covetousness; in awarenessthe woes are but trifles and the covetousness fadesaway.What a remarkable cure for covetousness While the

cure rids us of our woes it also puts us on the road tosocial feliCity; and a further dividend is wisdom.


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TO EACH HIS OWN and steps taken to discourage theft long before manwas able to write codes. Why the certainty? There isevery reason to believe that the observance of thistaboo, this respect for the principle of private ownership, marked the dawn of civilization. Whether thisthou-shalt-not is honored or breached primarily determines the rise or fall of civilization. This requires someexplanation.

True, thou shalt not covet is even more basic thanthou shalt not steal ; if no one coveted the possessionsof another, there would be no thievery. But the cure ofcovetousness-counting one's blessings-requires a stateof awareness rarely achieved unto this day; it is not tobe found in primitive man; when such awareness exists, man is not primitive So we cannot attribute theemergence of civilizations to man's overcoming his covetousness; this is an achievement of man after he iscivilized, that is, after he has attained a sense of justice,a moral nature.

Private wnership a ustTo refrain from stealing is the genesis of civilizations

Only two points need to be understood and acceptedfor this assertion to ring true. First, civilizations riseand fall with the rise and fall of individual freedom.Second, individual freedom rises and falls to the degree that private ownership the absence of stealing is


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60 CCENT ON THE RIGHTrespected and adhered to. Individual freedom s out ofthe question wherever and whenever private ownershipdoes not prevail

s to the first point, such evidence as we possess supports the conclusion that creative outbursts the markof civilization bear a direct correlation with increase inindividual freedom. The Golden Ages of Sumer, Egypt,Carthage, Athens, Rome, Kiev, Venice, Amsterdam,Britain, and the U.S.A. invariably have been associatedwith enterprising producers, traders, travelers-activities that are nonexistent in the absence of individualfreedom; I am unaware of any creative outbursts whereindividual freedom has been wholly suppressed. However, this point need not be argued; the record speaksfor itself; let those who think contrarily present theirevidence; the burden of proof s on them.

Now to the second point. The Soviets, distraught bytheir failure to make socialism work after a half century's effort, are cautiously resorting to a few featuresof capitalism: incentives, ersatz profit motives, and thelike. However, as Henry Hazlitt points out, they arehopelessly lost, regardless of how many features of capitalism they imitate, unless and until the institution ofprivate ownership s adopted.2 This, of course, wouldmean the abandonment of their socialism.

2 See Private Ownership: A Must by Henry Hazlitt. hreeman June, 1967.


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TO EACH IDS OWN This private ownership thesis rests, fundamentally, on

a defensible assumption, namely, that one person hasas much right to his life as any other. If an individualhas a right to his life, logically follows that he hasan equal right to sustain his life, the sustenance of lifebeing the fruit of one's own labor or what can be obtained for it in peaceful exchange. Conceding the foregoing, we must conclude that livelihood is but theextension of life.

Thus, to steal is to take life. Not to steal is to respectlife; it is to endorse and to hold sacrosanct the institution of private ownership.

ackward PracticeIt does not necessarily follow that a civilization will

be born where thou shalt not steal is observed, forother generative forces are required. But it is self-evident that no civilization could be born without theobservance of this taboo. The institution of privateownership to each his own has spawned all civilizations

My mind was on this subject as waited to bechecked out at a supermarket. The woman ahead of mehad a dozen items. Quick as a Hash, when no one waslooking, she slipped half of her purchases into theshopping bag she carried. How short would be the lifeof that supermarket were such thievery not the excep-


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CCENT ON THE RIGHTtionl Were such behavior the general practice, wewould quickly descend into another dark age. A resortto law would be useless; the gendarmerie also would bethieves Are we failing to accent the close correlationbetween life itself and private ownership?

h onsense of onownershipPublic ownership, so-called, bears no resemblance to

private ownership. Indeed, public ownership is a misnomer, for ownership refers to one's own to own, reallyto control. To test your ownership of or control overTVA, for instance, try to dispose of your stake in it.TVA is neither mine nor thine.

The only ones who can remotely qualify as ownersof TVA or the Post Office are those who control. Whoare they? There is no precise answer. This explains whythese business ventures, held in public title, are economic failures. It simply isn't possible for one to havethe same sense of responsibility toward an enterprisethat belongs to whom nobody knows as toward one thatis his, all his. Nor need we rest the case on theory. IfTVA and the Post Office are not adequate demonstrations, then there is Russia. Or, back home again, wehave the accounts of the Plymouth Colony, Oneida,New Harmony some 200 communalistic utopias allshort-lived failures, and good riddance.

While the institution of private ownership has been


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TO EACH HIS OWN given lip service over the centuries by the people andgovernments alike actual observance has been more ofform than of substance.3 Give a people the title to thefruit of their labor and they will relinquish control ofit to government with but little resistance. Few amongus understand that private ownership can be universallyendorsed in principle and completely obliterated inpractice. Nor is it widely understood that the forcibletaking of income beyond that required for the principled functions of government has the same erodingeffects on private ownership as stealing.4 Legalizingthe compulsory transfer of control still amounts to thedestruction of private ownership.

It takes no mental giant to realize that individualfreedom and thus the flowering of civilization are possible only where private ownership prevails. Merelyimagine owning absolutely nothing required for yourown livelihood. Your life would be in the hands ofothers.

To each his own is a fundamental maxim for civilizedmenl

3 For an excellent treatise on the history of private propertysee n Defense of Property by Gottfried Dietze Chicago: Regnery Company 19634 For a review of my ideas on the principled functions ofgovernment see Government n Ideal oncept Irvington-onHudson N. Y The Foundation for Economic Education Inc.1954


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COPING WITH POVERTY foreign friend interrupted his own silent curiosity byexclaiming, I I Why you folks are for the poor peopletoot FEE s professor replied, Of course we are; thathas seemed so obvious to me that I hadn t thought thefact worth mentioning; I have taken for granted thatyou understood it.

What a mental block this well-intentioned socialistsuffered Like millions of Americans, he labored underthe misapprehension that the philosophy of individualliberty is little more than an intellectual apology forentrenched wealth, a rationale for persons who have noconcern for those below their own dollar stations. Likea few others, however, he was curious enough at leastto listen and to see how much of this free enterprisestuff he could stomach. After all, the capitalists seemto succeed where socialists fail; there must be something to it. utbecome an ardent devotee? Never

must hasten to add that the moment our socialistfriend l saw the light he executed a complete ideological Hip Hop he became one of the best students of thefreedom philosophy we have had at the FEE School.He returned to his country as a confirmed believer andan excellent exponent of free market principles.Furthermore, he has become a key figure in his nativeland.

Most of us who stand for liberty are as guilty, as wasFEE s professor, of a tactical error. So firmly embeddedin our own minds is the fact that liberty is the poor


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CCENT ON THE RIGHTman s best ally that we mistakenly assume a like awareness on the part of everyone else. Failing to identifythe free market and related institutions with kindlysentiments and noble objectives such as a better lifefor the poor we fumble the ball, s to speak, allowingthe opposition to run with it and play to the grandstand

Progress a By Product o LibertyThe era of free and willing exchange extends,

roughly, over the past 175 years. In no other period ofhistory have so many raised themselves out of poverty.Why, then, are those of us who champion free

accent on the right

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