Originally published by the Foundation for Economic Education in 1979
ALMOST EVERYONE
says he favors freedom; just try to find a single individual who says
he does not. The search would almost certainly prove fruitless. Indeed,
so many declare themselves for freedom and against communism that
hundreds of organizations now exist to satisfy the common devotion to
this attractive term. But, in spite of this lip service to freedom, our
actual liberties continue to dwindle. The centralized State makes more
and more of our decisions for us.
Why is it that the millions of us who vocally proclaim
for freedom do not constitute a solid front against the omnipotent
State? Perhaps it is because some who proclaim their devotion to freedom
do not understand the requirements of freedom, its “operational
imperatives.” Thomas a Kempis, the fourteenth century author of The Imitation of Christ,
saw the problem of peace in similar terms. “Many favor peace,” he
wrote, “but not many favor the things that make for peace.” When it
comes to an understanding of the proper means and methods for achieving
the goal of freedom, there are some real divisions among those who say
they believe in freedom. Why is this so?
When speaking of believers in freedom, I do not
refer—for the purpose of this inquiry—to those Americans who have a
distaste for the godless apparatus headquartering in Moscow. That would
be nearly all of us. Nor do I have in mind all who avow a dislike for
state socialism. Or, the millions who give lip service to “the American
way of life.”
When I speak of the differences of opinion in the
freedom camp, I am referring to the relatively few of us—tens of
thousands, not millions—who claim an affinity for libertarian ideals.
When the inquiry is thus brought into focus, the question reads, “Why do
we—the hard core of the free market, private property, limited
government philosophy—disagree with each other? Why do we
not present a solid front? For it must be acknowledged that even we
have pronounced differences of opinions and that we are in constant
argument with each other. Why? That’s the question.
A Dying Movement?
Several years ago I put this puzzle to a distinguished
American conservative who, at the time, was being taken to task by
scholarly individuals who shared, in a general way, his own ideological
persuasions. His answer—no doubt somewhat influenced by pique—was, “This
fighting among ourselves is the sign of a dying movement.” Let us hope
that he was wrong for, if not, the cause of freedom would be hopeless,
so vigorous are the arguments among the few of us we call, “We.”
I shall try to make the case for a contrary
interpretation: These sharp differences of opinion among those of us who
in a general way share libertarian ideals are the sign of a movement
not yet come fully alive, of a movement suffering birth pains.
However, before going further, it is necessary that we
understand what these arguments among ourselves are really about. Can
they be reduced to a single issue? In the first place, they are not
about the desirability of freedom, for we are all agreed on that. Nor,
except in a few isolated instances, do they revolve around the question
of anarchy, or no government at all, versus limited government. All but a
few freedom devotees believe in limited government, that is, a formal,
legal agency of society which invokes a common justice, and secures the
rights of all men by restricting such destructive actions as fraud,
violence, and predation.
What Price Freedom?
What, then, is the nature of the contentions so rife
among us? The arguments, stripped of all their semantic inaccuracies,
boil down to: How cheaply can freedom be bought?—although
it is rarely so stated. Is freedom something that can be had for the
wishing? For casual effort? Is it a prize to be won by delegating the
chore to some hired hands? Or, is the price of freedom an intellectual
and spiritual renaissance with all the hard thinking and difficult
introspection required to energize such a revolution in thinking?
Some believe that freedom can be had simply by
uncovering card-carrying Communists and then calling them names. To
these people, our ills originate in Moscow. Be done with Soviet agents
and, presto, freedom!
Others believe that the loss of freedom stems from
what they call “the ignorant masses.” Merely finance educational
programs aimed at “selling the man in the street.” Teach this ignoramus
that there is no such thing as a free lunch or some other such
simplicity that can be grasped as he passes a bulletin board or drowsily
reads baby talk literature in a barber’s chair. Gain freedom by writing
a check!
A considerable number offer political action as their
highest bid for freedom. Organize “right down to the precinct level” and
elect “the right people” to public office. As if freedom could be had
by activating the present absence of understanding, so as to shift
existing ignorance into high gear!
Another group believes that the price need be no
higher than the cost of beaming radio reports behind the Iron
Curtain—relating to those slave peoples how luxuriously we Americans
revel in our gadgetry. Freedom as a consequence of exciting
international envy!
Then there are those who would insure “a free world”
by having the federal government coercively take the fruits of our own
labor to subsidize foreign governments. As if friendship could be
purchased for an exchange of cash; as if subsidized relationships were
the essence of freedom; as if this kind of communism at home would
discourage world communism!
The highest priced bid, in dollar terms, is the resort
to the sword. Outdo the godless States in the hardware of mass
slaughter and American freedom will remain intact!
Preservation—or Restoration?
But it is useless to name all the various panaceas
proffered as our bids for freedom—bids aimed at the mere preservation of
individual freedom. But we cannot preserve that which has already been
so largely lost. We have a restoration job on our hands. Freedom must
experience a rebirth in America; that is, we must re-establish it from
fundamental principles. Most of the bids aimed at a renewed freedom are
far too low. If this were not a fact, freedom would have been restored
by now. In fact, it would never have been lost. The price of freedom is
not increased political activity or even economic understanding, nor can
the cost of freedom be stated in dollar terms.
Political collectivism, the antithesis of individual
freedom, can be likened to a cancer. It is not like a skin cancer that
can be treated with relative ease; it resembles the type known as
“metastasis”—the wildly spreading kind. The disease has spread through
the whole body politic, a fact not likely to be observed except by those
who work full time on behalf of freedom. Nothing short of the best
therapy ever known to man can cope with this problem.1
Freedom To Become What?
To realistically assess the price at which freedom may
possibly be had, I believe we should begin by asking ourselves the most
difficult of all questions: What is man’s earthly purpose?
Perhaps no two of us can reach precisely similar answers. Nonetheless,
the quest and the finding of an answer satisfactory to each of us—this
intellectual and spiritual effort—is a part of the price we must pay for
freedom. Without a purpose in life, a fundamental datum line, a basic
point of reference, no effort aimed at restoring freedom makes much
sense. Man needs to be free in order that he may fulfill the demands of
his nature. Freedom to become what? is the only relevant question.
My own answer to this question is founded on three
assumptions: (1) the primacy and supremacy of an Infinite Consciousness;
(2) the expansibility of the individual human consciousness and (3) the
immortality of the human spirit. With these assumptions in mind, I
conclude that the individual’s earthly purpose is to come as near as he
can to the realization of those creative powers which are peculiarly and
distinctively included in his own potentialities. Man’s purpose is to
grow, to emerge, to evolve in consciousness, partaking as much as he can
of Infinite Consciousness.
If the above be accepted as the highest purpose of
earthly life, it follows that any force—psychological or
sociological—which retards or in any way restrains the individual human
spirit in its emergence—bondage of any sort—is an immoral and evil
force. Conversely, the absence of such retarding and restraining
forces—freedom—is moral, good, virtuous. Viewed in this light, freedom
is a necessary part of godliness.
The psychological restraints on freedom are such
things as ignorance, insensitivity, pride, stupidity, personality
defects, and the like. They are, no doubt, more stubborn impediments to
emergence than are the sociological restraints. They might be termed
spiritual faults which demand a spiritual remedy. This aspect of the
problem is beyond my competence and outside the scope of this lecture.
It is enough for me to touch on only a narrow but extremely important
phase of the sociological aspect; man’s inhumanity to man as manifested
by the misuse of governmental power.
Spiritual, Political, and Economic
This brings us to the second part of the over-all
price that must be paid for freedom: the intellectual and spiritual
effort required to grasp the full implications of the idea expressed in
these words of the Declaration of Independence: [Men] . . . “are endowed
by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. . . .” This, quite
obviously, is a political concept with tremendous spiritual overtones.
Indeed, this concept is at once spiritual, political, and economic. It
is spiritual in proclaiming the Creator as the endower of men’s rights
and, thus, as sovereign. It is political in the sense that such an
acknowledgment implicitly denies the State as the endower of men’s
rights and, thus, the State is not sovereign. And this is an economic
concept because it follows from a man’s inherent right to life that he
has a right to sustain his life, the sustenance of life being nothing
more nor less than the fruits of one’s own labor.
As freedom is a necessary part of godliness, so is
spiritual faith—godliness—a necessary part of freedom. Or, so runs my
argument. Freedom is to be restored only as we place faith in our
Creator, and such faith is possible only as the human spirit is freed of
stifling restraints. Spiritual faith and freedom are thus two reciprocating
parts of a Divine Principle. In a strict sense, they are inseparable
and, thus, they tend to rise and fall together. I use the word “tend”
simply because they are not inseparable as are two sides of a coin, but
inseparable as are two mountain climbers securely tied to each other by a
long rope. There is a “play” between them, and it is this “play” which
permits one to help the other advance and which may keep the other from
falling. In any final analysis, they do rise and fall together. Alexis
de Tocqueville had a full appreciation of this point:
For my own part, I doubt that man can ever support at the
same time complete religious independence [atheism or agnosticism] and
entire political freedom. And I am inclined to think that if faith be
wanting in him, he must be subject; and if he be free, he must believe.2
Unless we believe that man’s rights are endowments of
our Creator and, therefore, inalienable, we must conclude that the
rights to life and liberty derive from some human collective and that
they are alienable, being at the disposal of the collective will. There
is no third alternative; we believe in the one or we submit to the other. If the latter, there is no freedom in the social sense; there is despotism.
Faith and Freedom—A Divine Principle
If we lack this spiritual faith, our rights to life
and liberty are placed on the altar of collective caprice and they must
suffer whatever fate the political apparatus dictates. The record
clearly shows what this fate is. Russia is the most degraded example,
but practically every other nation, including our own, drifts in
Russia’s direction. Among the Russians we note that freedom of choice
has been forcibly lifted from the individual and shifted to the
political collective. The dictator and his henchmen prescribe the manner
in which the fruits of the citizens’ labor shall be expended and how
his life shall be lived.
There is one other feature of the Moscow apparatus
about which we should become acutely conscious: its godlessness. This is
no accident. The political collective would undermine its own power if
it condoned the peoples’ belief in the Creator as the endower of man’s
rights. If Russians believed in and understood the full implications of
the Creator concept, the political collective would fall. As suggested
above, freedom and spiritual faith are two parts of a Divine Principle
and tend to rise and fall together.
We do not have to confine our observations to Russia,
however, to see faithlessness and the loss of freedom going hand in
hand. This same phenomenon can readily be seen here at home. While we
cannot measure the loss of spiritual faith with anywhere near the
precision that we can calculate the loss of freedom, there is a great
deal of evidence to support the conclusion that they are falling or,
shall we say, failing together. For instance, we can measure with a near
precision the average citizen’s loss in freedom of choice as it relates
to the fruits of his own labor. During the past twelve decades, by
reason of governmental expansion, his freedom of choice has declined
steadily from 95-98 per cent to about 65 per cent—and the trend grows
apace. In other words, taxation which once took only 2-5 per cent of
earned income now deprives us of about 35 per cent.
Let us now reflect on the loss of faith in the Creator
as the endower of man’s rights. This spiritual concept is rarely
mentioned in our day. For all practical purposes, it is a forgotten
element of faith. I am unaware of any contemporary textbook which
develops the implications of this concept. Permit me to make an even
more serious charge: The Creator sovereignty concept issues from all too
few American pulpits! Bear in mind that the American ideal of
individual liberty and limited government is the political
implementation of a religious concept of man. Early American clergymen
deserve much of the credit for this magnificent accomplishment. But
their successors, by and large, and especially the men who have gained
access to the ecclesiastical sounding boards, have forsaken this path
and are now following in other footsteps. As a consequence, most of the
people of our country have already crossed the border and have left this
spiritual concept to history. They have accepted new ideas which put
their God-given rights at the mercy of the State, which is, by its
nature, an amoral and, thus, a godless apparatus.3 Here at home we sadly note another proof that faithlessness and the loss of freedom fail and fall together.
The Ultimate Goal
I do not mean to suggest that we should turn from the
godless State to the Creator concept for reasons of mere material
advantage. That would be to pervert religion, to get the sequence upside
down, to confuse cause and effect. Faith in Infinite Consciousness—our
Creator—is a spiritual achievement, a goal for which one strives for its
own sake. The goal is the emergence of the individual human spirit that
it may achieve its fullest measure of immortality. Desirable earthly
consequences are a by-product of this pursuit. The highest aim is to
bring individual consciousness into as near a harmony as possible with
Infinite Consciousness.
However, once we have the sequence right, which is to
say, when we first focus our thoughts and energies on life’s highest
purpose, there follow the most efficacious earthly consequences. It is
only when we tap The Source of all blessings that blessings become the
lot of mankind. “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all these things
shall be added unto you.”
As the removal of restraints—the practice of
freedom—releases the perceptive powers of the individual and permits
spirituality to grow, so does faith in the Creator bestow an increasing
freedom. As suggested earlier, no governmental apparatus can lord it
over a people who conceive of their rights as deriving from their
Creator. This conception makes impossible, among those who hold it, any
ascendancy of government beyond its principled position. It restricts
the powers of government to the exercise of such force as any individual
is morally warranted in employing. The individual, as a being
responsible to his Creator, has a moral right to defend his own life and
liberty and property against fraud, violence, misrepresentation, and
predation. Lacking this right, he could not discharge his responsibility
for the proper stewardship of his own life. Government, logically, can
have no powers beyond those which individuals may properly exercise—if
the Creator concept be accepted. Man is free to act creatively or
productively as he pleases. Here we have the absence of any and all
political restraints on creative action, in short, total freedom from
governmental interference in this area.
I have used the term “total freedom.” It must be
understood that freedom does not and cannot include actions which impair
another’s freedom. Freedom, except in its psychological sense, is a
social term. Socially speaking, freedom has a place in our vocabulary
only as it describes a felicitous relationship of man to man. Therefore,
freedom is not and cannot be synonymous with unrestrained action. To do
as one pleases, if it infringes upon the freedom of another, is not
freedom at all—it’s tyranny. It is impossible for freedom to be composed
of freedom negations. Total freedom, then, as relating to society and
government, is the ideal to be sought. This is a goal to be kept
uppermost in mind, and any deviations from it are to be disapproved.
The Power of Right Thinking
At this juncture, there is one other point that needs
emphasis: Merely to agree with the spiritual concept that men are
endowed by their Creator with the rights to life and liberty is not at
all adequate for bringing about the renaissance our serious national
situation requires. Many people give lip service to this concept without
relating the concept to its practical, political application. All of
its implications must be brought into sharp focus in the minds of each
of us. If this be accomplished—and it takes a bit of doing—then
government, in our ideal theory, is automatically excluded from any
action beyond securing the rights with which we are endowed by our
Creator. Governmental tampering with or management of any creative
activity becomes unthinkable. Creative activity is a manifestation of
the Creator as it shows forth in men and, in good conscience, is not to
be hampered or restrained or destroyed by man or any of his
organizations. To interfere with this Divine Energy in any manner
whatsoever is to thwart and defy our Creator, It is man putting himself
above God.
Once enough of us to compose a leadership—it need not
be large—accept and understand the full implications of “endowed by
their Creator”; once we have our fundamental principles straight; once
we have brought ourselves into harmony with Divine Providence; once we
conquer completely any impulses to dethrone the Creator; then, our
social problems untangle and the way to individual growth, evolution,
emergence becomes clear. Life and liberty unobstructed by man, yes! But
there is more, for in seeking to realize life’s highest purpose lies the
pursuit of happiness. We are truly happy only when we are in a
perpetual state of hatching, when our own consciousness is opening
itself to Infinite Consciousness.4
Let us now reflect on the way of life that naturally
follows an application of the endowed-by-their-Creator concept. We need
only take note of several seemingly self-evident facts.
The Flow of Creative Energy
The most striking fact is that the creative
potentiality in any individual is unknown. We only know that the
aggregate potentialities among all who live is enormous; that creation
manifests itself in strange ways and through persons we have no manner
of guessing. For instance, about a century ago, there was a
twelve-year-old lad of humble origin, a railroad newsboy, whom an irate
trainman picked up by the ears and pulled into the baggage car. Who
could have guessed that this boy would become the world’s greatest
inventor? Little did that trainman know that he was abusing Thomas Alva
Edison through whom Creative Energy was to flow with practical
consequences rarely if ever equaled.
All energy seeks its destination, the fulfillment of
its purpose. Holes in the dikes are but the result of potential energy
trying to become flowing, kinetic energy. Likewise, Infinite
Consciousness, at least as I conceive it, tries to flow into and through
persons, manifesting itself as individual human consciousness. When not
too much obstructed, it shows forth in man as insight, cognition,
inspiration, inventiveness, in short, creativeness. Some creativeness we
classify as material, other as intellectual, but all creativeness is
spiritual.
Through whom will this Creative Energy flow? We can never know in advance any more than we can know what form it will take.
We do know that it manifests itself more or less to
some extent in nearly everyone. For, who has never had an idea? We also
know that the consciousness of a few is greatly expanded when compared
to the mill run of us, as in an Edison, a Goethe, a Milton, a Beethoven,
a Leonardo da Vinci, or a Henri Poincare, to mention but a few.
Further, we know that it never manifests itself in any two individuals
identically. Indeed, it is infinitely varied in its manifestations.
Picture it as waves of energy, as an electrical current, sometimes
imperceptible, now and then—and perhaps only momentarily—strong and
vibrant. It shows forth unequally, differently, infinitely throughout
humankind.
The Law of Attraction
These Infinitely varied waves of Creative Energy have
their source in Infinite Consciousness and, accordingly, are governed by
the laws thereof. These laws we try to discern and, to the extent that
we do, we grow in consciousness, that is, partake of Infinite
Consciousness. One law or principle, as stated by an eminent scientist,
is highly relevant to this thesis:
All the phenomena of astronomy, which had baffled the
acutest minds since the dawn of history, the movement of the heavens, of
the sun and the moon, the very complex movement of the planets,
suddenly tumble together and become intelligible in terms of the one
staggering assumption, this mysterious “attractive force.” And not only
the movements of the heavenly bodies, far more than that, the movements
of earthly bodies, too, are seen to be subject to the same
mathematically definable law, instead of being, as they were for all
previous philosophers, mere unpredictable happenso’s.5
Why is the above quotation so relevant to this thesis?
Simply because all the highly varied creative energies, as they
manifest themselves in millions of individuals the world over, fall
under this very law, this mysterious attractive force. These
creative energies have an affinity for each other and, if not impeded,
that is, if free, will automatically, spontaneously, miraculously
configurate or draw together in the most unpredictable patterns to form
the goods and services men live by. Think of yourself. Reflect on
how helpless you would be were your life dependent on the tiny
consciousness which is yours. You would perish. So would anyone else,
similarly handicapped. Yet, we all live in relative luxury. What
accounts for this? It cannot be explained except in terms of creative
energy and creative energy exchanges, except by this mysterious
attractive force in operation.
Why is it that each one of us will admit that “only
God can make a tree”? Is it not because we acknowledge that we do not
know how to make a tree? Molecules, in response to some mysterious law
of attraction, form in never-ending patterns to give us trees, rocks,
grass, an infinite variety of blessings we refer to as “nature.”
Admitting only God can make a tree, are we not warranted in concluding
that only God can make an automobile, a symphony, a pencil, a house, an
infinite variety of things men live by? No single person on earth knows
how to make an automobile, for instance.6
Yet, there are 75 million of them in our country. How come? These
things we enjoy and live by are not ours by reason of any single-minded
human management. They are simply varied creative energies
configurating, drawn together without any human’s know-how, configurated
by this mysterious law of attraction. Adam Smith observed this
phenomenon and wrote that man, seeking only his own gain, is “led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.”
Such metaphors as the Invisible Hand, this mysterious
Attractive Force, Infinite Consciousness, and Divine Providence, are
shorthand terms, so to speak, describing facets of man’s experience with
the workings of his Creator, God. Here we have Source, and it is man’s
highest purpose to seek it and to achieve as near a likeness to it as he
can. This means to become as creative as possible, to grow in
consciousness. Further, it means that man should never, under any
circumstances, individually or collectively, through government or any
other agency, inhibit the flow of creative energies or creative energy
exchanges. To hamper Creative Energy, in any manner, as it attempts to
manifest itself in mankind, is to thwart Creation. Standing against
Creation is no role for little, fallible man! The above convictions must
come under the heading of spiritual faith. It is only in this
faith—only in this belief that man gets his rights, his strength, his
consciousness from his Creator—that freedom among men is possible. For,
individuals with this faith, will never brook men or men-made
authorities as the source of life, liberty, happiness, strength,
consciousness. Faith in the Creator, if its implications be thoroughly
understood, dispenses with all such nonsense. Society-wise, man frees
himself with this spiritual faith. The intellectual and spiritual effort
to achieve such a faith and such an understanding is the very lowest
cost at which freedom comes. Any bids below this will never be heard,
much less attended with success.
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