There prevails in the writings of many contemporary authors the disposition to represent every extension of governmental power and every restriction of the individual’s discretion as a step forward on the road to liberty. FULL ARTICLE by Ludwig von Mises
Source link: http://blog.mises.org/10861/freedom-is-slavery/
Freedom Is Slavery
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“The government says to the citizen, Pay taxes or my armed constables will imprison you.”
Not Spooner, but Mises.
The most glaring reversal of political terms today is the Red State – Blue State concept.
Red, the color of Revolution, is used to depict the more conservative areas of the country.
Blue, that most conservative color, is used to depict the red-hot radical progressive areas.
I wonder if the origin of the Red State – Blue State depiction can be traced. Was it the NYTimes, perhaps?
The notion that voluntary trade among citizens somehow amounts to coercive force is laughable and yet this ill premise has festered thru the generations until it has become legitimized in far too many minds in our society.
It all starts in the mind of a child as a simple enough error… many perceive it as force when they are asked to make more self effort in order to maintain their own existence or attain the things they need or want from the world around them. In their minds they are being forced if they have to start tying their own shoes, if they have to clean their own room and help around the house for an allowance, if they have to make and save money for a toy they want, or eat beans instead of steak because they do not earn enough money from an employer.
And left unchallenged these excuse seeking children grow into spoiled adults who pretty much perceive the world the same way. Most do learn enough not become armed robbers and would not directly steal from you in order to provide for themselves, or pay for Mary or John’s food or doctor bills, but these same people see no moral problem voting in a politician to spin reality and do their stealing for them so long as they are kept at a non-personal non-responsible distance.
Red State – Blue State is just a TV thing. When elections started being covered like football games, the networks started coming up with all kinds of gimmicks, including the colored maps of the US. Over time this became standard practice, and only very recently (I almost think it was 2000), a “standard” coloring scheme evolved. So Red State – Blue State is actually a very new concept, one that has little to do with “colors” of ideologies.
As a time-traveler, Ludwig von Mises reminds us from his vantage in 1952 of some very basic concepts.
Namely, that The Freedom which a government allots to its Economic Sphere is DIRECTLY correlated to human welfare.
The less freedom there is in the Economic Sphere, the less well humans fare.
Our own Sense and Sensibility of General Morality correlates directly to the Economic Sphere’s morality and ethics — and yes, we can be “bought off” by those who promise us more of OPM (Other People’s Money).
For example, how many people who rushed to take ‘advantage’ of the CASH FOR CLUNKERS program actually stopped to think if it was morally right? Who was taking advantage of whom?
Morally right — what a quaint idea.
When some of us get our shiny new cars “for the good of the Economy” but in actuality others of us have to pay through our ever-increasing taxes, does ANYONE actually say “STOP, I don’t think this is RIGHT”?
Riiiiiite — nobody does.
Why? Because our Governmental Authorities have already spread the poisonous thinking (from our Central Bankers on down) — that this is ‘good’ and ‘necessary’ because we are ‘stimulating’ the Economy.
They say “we will all benefit in the long run”.
To that I say “RUBBISH”. (In the first place, this ‘stimulation’ will prove to be illusory, as the depression deepens.)
It becomes clear that as a State moves toward more and more control over the ‘sheeple’ (and whether that State calls itself Socialist or not is irrelevant — it is the DEGREE of CONTROL that is RELEVANT) that State demeans, corrupts, and actually FORCES its populace to become more and more complicit with that State in its own IMMORALITY.
The easiest way to gain entry to this PURGATORY is for the State to take control over the ‘management’ of the Economy, as Ludwig von Mises reminds us —- for the ‘good’ of the people.
The State claims that the people in the Big Banks and on Wall Street are immoral, therefore it becomes necessary for the State to force its view of Morality on those Economic sectors.
Who is kidding whom here? That the State is some Paragon of Morality is a new on me.
In the end though, with such intervention (for our own ‘good’), all of our personal liberties are threatened. And so is the functioning of the Economic and Financial system. And so is ultimately our own personal and societal wellbeing.
Let’s not forget that it is this Economic sector that is the wellspring from which comes the wealth and ability to do good, to provide people with jobs and incomes, and ultimately, sustenance.
It is through the toil of the people that this wealth is created, of course, but if governments were superior to the private (free) sector in their ability to ‘manage’ the creation of this wealth, Zimbabwe would be the wealthiest nation on Earth.
I am waiting for the day that abortions won’t just be freely available —- I am waiting for the day that these abortions are FORCED on the people, for their own ‘good’ (as in some places in the non-free world today).
Happy ‘Thanksgiving’ to all!
Funny how Von Mises would write an article with a title taken from a slogan from a book by a man who fought for the Trotskyist POUM in the spanish civil war and was a supporter of the British labour party…..
Regardless of Orwell’s personal political delusions, he was a very observant man, as evidenced by his work 1984. James, do you have anything more substantial than ad-hominem to offer?
I have to be a critic of Mises here for missing vital points.
Perfect (as in “limitless”) freedom is despised for its obvious association with anarchy and a disregard for the rights of others. In the best of possible worlds, those who violate the rights of others forsake a like portion of their own rights. Their freedom is curtailed as a means of punishment and as a means of preserving the freedom of the people. However, it is less fun to be a champion of “Limited Freedom.”
Mises clumsily attacks government by turning it into a simplified man-with-a-gun, willing and capable of committing any and all coercions. If one completely disregards political representation, that’s true. However, the governments most lambasted by Mises are not dictatorships, but are liberal democracies and republics. “Assume all governments are unbeholden to the will of the people they govern” is a terrible assumption, and Mises should either drop it or make an argument to establish it. Otherwise, the slippery slope to totalitarianism is bunk.
It’s quite true that the notion of fighting coercive practices can be and is distorted by many, but I think it is because it is a dicey area. In what lies freedom? is the question here, and it is not a trivial one. Are we free because we make our own choice, or are we free because we can make *any* choice?
For instance, a drug addict makes the choice consistently to consume more drugs. He may not want to want drugs, but he wants drugs nonetheless, because he has little or no power to reverse the neurological consequences of a previous decision, an outcome that was probably not considered when drug use began. Is he free, despite being incapable of making different choices?
A sick man walks into a doctor’s office, and is told that he is having a heart attack. Although he’d rather be treated by a different doctor in another town, he chooses to be treated by this doctor, because he would otherwise die. Is he free to choose who treats his condition, despite being incapable of making any other choice?
It’s important to avoid a great inconsistency in claiming that these two people have unimpeded freedom, even though circumstances have eliminated other choices, and also claim that government reduces freedom by eliminating other choices. If we avoid this inconsistency, we find it imperative that people should be protected in situations where loss of freedom is unavoidable, else their loss will be someone else’s gain.
A third individual is incompetent. He struggles to provide a living wage to his family, but is one day offered the choice of becoming a slave. In exchange for a lifetime of labor for one employer, his family will receive a goodly sum of money every month until he dies. Believing the contract to be a vast improvement over his current condition, he accepts eagerly. Afterward, he regrets his choice, because his master is abusive. Should his master have been permitted to buy his freedom from him, or should all such contracts be considered invalid?
Allowing stupid, ignorant, or simply careless people to fall into such traps and calling it survival of the fittest is a clear endorsement of the doctrine of Social Darwinism. While fools may deserve to suffer for their poor choices, those who set the traps are certainly undeserving of the spoils. If such practices are not opposed, then fools will certainly be a dying breed in society, and despite our grandiose imaginings, we are all fools at some hour of the day.
Funny how Von Mises would write an article with a title taken from a slogan from a book by a man who fought for the Trotskyist POUM in the spanish civil war and was a supporter of the British labour party…..
Orwell was a Socialist who was opposed to totalitarianism. Maybe that’s a contradiction, or maybe that was just him being naive.
Nonetheless, his novels 1984 and Animal Farm managed to strike a chord in a lot of readers, not just Mises. But it’s the entire song that counts, not just a chord or two.
Ribald, have you read much Mises? He was a minarchist, not an anarchist, and he could hardly have been said to support any “survival of the fittest” view.
I agree that a discussion of freedom is important, and one of the most important distinctions is between poltical freedom versus other types. A drug addict or a person with a heart attack have not been denied political freedom (or at least, not because they are an addict or having a heart attack). Sympathy and support for one’s fellow being with such problems is a social and civic matter, and cannot be used to justify political coercion in the form of government health care, government welfare, or other interventionist policies.
This does not create a “survival of the fittest” view, but avoids it, for when one turns to utilizing the coercive power of the government to achieve one’s ends, even with good intentions, it quickly becomes a matter of who has the most political power and pull to control government policy. The greatest fool is the one who does not realize that he’s being one.
I fear that Ribald is playing at being the Mises website A.P. (Agent Provocateur) here.
So I cannot agree with the remarks posted by Ribald as being a meaningful retort to the Ludwig von Mises essay.
I know that psychology can explain some criminal acts due to brain trauma suffered earlier in life by some criminals.
Psychology can explain some further acts of criminality due to abuse suffered during childhood.
So, sure, not everyone is Free to be Good. Not everyone has Free Will.
But that does not make this a discussion about Unlimited Freedom versus Limited Freedom. This is a discussion about Unwarranted Government Intrusion into formerly Private Affairs or into personal business that needs no intrusion to be of better utility for the good of the individuals concerned AND THUS DIRECTLY for the good of all individuals in our Western societies.
This is a discussion about what the proper role for Government is — and that, as we all know, depends on what you think the definition of IS is — just kidding on that last point.
But I do not think we need to go into a discussion of whether there are underlying logical explanations for pathological behavior in individuals as a response to von Mises’ essay. Saying that Society (or something else) made me do it to myself or to others is not productive and is not even applicable here IMO.
The Ribald hypothetical examples are just that — hypothetical. Sure they occur at times and in places. Some people have no choice of medical care provider or even a choice of ANY medical care.
Some do sign up for slavery (at least I can see it happening somewhere in the world, as in such places where forced indentured labor still exists). And some individuals are authors of their own misfortune, whether trapped in drug or other addictions.
http://nodis3.gsfc.nasa.gov/displayEO.cfm?id=EO_13126_
As Michael A. Clem states:
From von Mises:
From the vantage point of 1952 I would have to say that this is a pretty good definition of at least one aspect of many governments. Certainly it is true for many governments that existed worldwide back then in 1952.
Possibly it is true even for Liberal Democracies like Canada and America and Australia, amongst others. IMHO Ludwig von Mises does not need to waste his time supporting this assertion. It is a valid and well-understood perspective in studies of history.
Let us not forget the experience of many full-fledged citizens in just a few of the so-called Liberal Democracies that Ribald alludes to.
How about the Japanese Canadians and Japanese Americans that were interned during the Second World War? Or the Ukrainians and Germans that were interned during the First World War? Or the Racism that has existed against Native Americans and against African Americans over many centuries?
Were these internments and racist policies the result of the initiatives of private citizens? Could they have been carried out without their sanctioning by Federal and/or State Governments in those so-called Liberal Democracies?
http://www.infoukes.com/history/internment/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_American_internment
http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/dnutting/germanaustralia/e/internment.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Canadian_internment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_America
From Ribald:
I know that Henry Ford supposedly said “History is Bunk” but does Ribald believe that also?
I would submit that even if only 1 group or subculture in a Liberal Democracy is targeted for such Special Treatment as described above, then yes, we indeed are on the Slippery Slope to Totalitarianism.
But it is not even Totalitarianism that is the core issue in the essay by Ludwig von Mises.
The core issue is the ability to undertake one’s private affairs including one’s private economic business affairs without government involvement, at least not beyond what the Constitution mandates as reasonable intrusion.
Sure the government has a role, but it is a piddling role compared to the powers Western governments have granted themselves during recent times — most especially those powers assumed SINCE 1952 (just as Ludwig von Mises feared).
Check out the American Constitution and maybe Dr. Ron Paul’s take on the APPROPRIATE role of governments at various levels along with their appointed tribunals and agencies.
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=3970818&page=1&page=1#
What we are witnessing since 1952 is a process that is only accelerating. It has accelerated most notably since the tragedy of 9-11 and since the GFC (Great Financial Collapse) which is currently ongoing.
That is what we have to fear — that every solution is More Government.
This cannot possibly be correct.
We may well end up with Big Brother because of “TINA” —— There Is (seemingly) No Alternative (Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher) —— and because of our own implicit and complicit acquiescence.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,26215153-7583,00.html?from=public_rss
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/currentaccount/index.php/theaustralian/comments/dollars_push_to_parity/
Please remember that Evil can come from Good Intentions and from Ignorance.
If we don’t know why we (and our institutions) are doing something, then just maybe, we should stop?
If our systems have faults we need to correct them, not paper them over, as we are currently doing.
While Ludwig von Mises railed against the intellectuals who were actually championing Government Intrusion, we have an even more insidious problem.
It is not the intellectuals who are spearheading the current ever-increasing government involvement in our lives — it is the non-intellectuals in political life who IMO are the spear carriers today.
Let us not forget one of the greatest lessons of the 20th century, whether from Nazi Germany, from Stalin’s Gulag State, or from our own sad history in our Western ‘Liberal Democracies’:
Ribald:
Your arguments remind me of all those that claim that Microsoft was evil to have “hooked” everyone on their windows operating system and gave them no other choices.
But what Mises says about force and coercion is crucial, and this issue appears nowhere in your discussion. Force means, “do what I say or I’ll kill you”. As Harry Browne pointed out in “As long as you comply…” a law without force behind it is merely a suggestion. And even a parking ticket can end up in your death if you keep resisting enough.
When presented with 2 choices that are both undesirable, one must compare them with all other choices that are less desirable.
Your example of the sick man and the doctor ignored all the other choices, albeit less desirable, of self doctoring (or no doctoring) or traveling to the far away doctor (at risk of dying on the way). Just because these choices are (assumed by you) less desirable than choosing the nearby doctor, doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
With the government, the alternative choices are ALWAYS death or imprisonment. At least with Microsoft, there’s linux, mac, and dozens of other less well known alternatives. Microsoft cannot kill you if you choose an alternative. The government will.
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