It must bring Leonard Read a lot of quiet satisfaction to see that the methods he has extolled in his many books have had their effect. He believes in the power of the example—in his new book, The Freedom Freeway (Foundation for Economic Education, $6.00), he quotes Albert Schweitzer: “Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.” The lead example is to work on the perfection of his own understanding and to carry on from there in both writing and speaking. He says our times demand statesmen, but he leaves active politics to others. The average politician is not a prime mover; it is the man of ideas, working for the long pull, who is the final influence on government.
At the recent European regional meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society in Spain, Leonard Read, a thoughtful observer who limited himself to a single succinct speech about private education, had the living endorsement he wanted for his way of exercising social leverage. The final Mont Pelerin session was an impromptu discussion of Margaret Thatcher’s chances for turning England back to the freedom philosophy of Cobden and Bright and Adam Smith. Mrs. Thatcher, who campaigned for the restoration of incentives, has her opportunity to transcend politics for statesmanship. But she would never have become Prime Minister on a freedom philosophy platform if it hadn’t been for four individuals who happen to be Mont Pelerin members and devotees of the Read mode of conduct. They are, respectively, Professor Friedrich Hayek who was the Mont Pelerin founder, Antony Fisher, Ralph—or Lord—Harris, and Arthur Seldon. They were all in the room together at the Madrid and Salamanca sessions in Spain.
Over the years the four had formed a Readean chain. In 1946, when the British were turning their backs on Winston Churchill in favor of adopting the Labor Party socialism of Major Clement Attlee, Antony Fisher, then out of the Royal Air Force, went to Professor Hayek for advice about getting into politics. Hayek, fresh from writing The Road to Serfdom, gave Fisher some things to think about that seemed paradoxical. The way to affect politics, he said, was to stay out of politics. Work on ideas, Hayek told Fisher; get them into the marketplace.
Ideas at Work
So Fisher worked on ideas. He first took the practical precaution of making a considerable sum of money in the chicken business, one of the few businesses that had been overlooked by Attlee’s planners. Then he subsidized an organization called the Institute of Economic Affairs in London, putting the effervescent Ralph Harris in charge to overwork himself until he managed to find a compatible sidekick, Arthur Seldon. For the better part of thirty years Harris and Seldon issued a stream of freedom philosophy publications. The IEA pamphlets often seemed to fall on stony ground. But Margaret Thatcher read them, and so did Sir Keith Joseph, now England’s Secretary of State for Industry. IEA ideas became the new Conservative agenda. And one of the first things Mrs. Thatcher did on attaining office was to make Ralph Harris a Lord.
It was as if four men had acted out the sequence that is suggested in the essay on “Resolution: A Freedom Imperative,” which is one of the many good ones in the new Read book. “In what respect is freedom a problem?” Read asks in this essay. “Personal experience has given me the answer. For 45 years my principal aim has been to understand and explain how freedom works its wonders . . . The dedicated aim—resolution—of many people working for freedom has resulted in thousands of tiny break-throughs. .” And, after some characteristically humble words about how little he knows, Read says what he does know: “Our end—the Blessings of Freedom—is but the flower of good seeds we plant; our objective has no other means of attainment. Your and my role? Exemplarity! ‘Example is the school of mankind; they will learn at no other.’ ”
Like most of us in this benighted twentieth century, Leonard Read had to come by his wisdom the hard way. He seldom gets personal, but once in a while autobiography intrudes in a Read essay. He confesses in “Perseverance: A Key to Freedom,” that in 1929 he was taken in by Herbert Hoover’s demand for wage and price controls. That was Republican doctrine at the time. In the subsequent New Deal days, when Franklin Roosevelt acted on Hoover’s advice, Read, as Manager of the Western Division of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, supported the N.R.A., with its wage and price controls in all the big industries that had enrolled under the banner of General Hugh “Iron Pants” Johnson’s Blue Eagle. It was Fascism of a peculiarly American sort, but the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers accepted it. “Copycat Read!” so the Old Self Read says of the Young Self Read of 1933.
Copycats of Socialism
Leonard Read mentions some of his fellow copycats of the early Thirties. One of them, described as a ‘brilliant economic thinker” in general, advocated rent control—”A naive position he later overcame.” Another, a “so-called conservative President of the United States,” endorsed the Harvard professor, a “mentor” of the younger Read, who wrote: “Government must do for the people that which they cannot do for themselves.” “This specious counsel,” says the mature Read, “spawned countless copycats and made a substantial contribution to the socialistic mess we are now experiencing.” Few people, so Read reflects, can do much of any single thing for themselves. But the division of labor steps in to make government action quite unnecessary. The mature Read wonders how “the 6,000,000 elected or appointed officials—federal, state and local—who doubtless know even less than the rest of us, will do for us what we cannot do for ourselves! If this isn’t politico-economic balderdash, pray tell, what is?”
It is characteristic of Leonard Read that when he quotes an intelligent remark or bit of poetry or pertinent aphorism, he always names the person he is quoting. The name index of The Freedom Freeway would do justice to a Ph.D. in philosophy. But when Read tells us about his fellow copycats of New Deal socialist days, he mercifully fails to identify them. Read doesn’t believe in getting people’s backs up. Good psychology suggests to him that if you attack a person by name, or otherwise subject him to embarrassment of any kind, it is more difficult to convert him to what Russell Kirk calls Right Reason.
So Leonard Read’s books become soft sells. The quality of his phraseology is not strained, it falleth as the gentle rain from heaven. Read follows what is an operationally sound technique, one which, in the hands of his British counterparts, has brought the Conservatives—really, the classical liberals—back into the seats of power. The same technique will, in time, send the necessary signals to Washington, D.C.
When he has finally achieved his aim and no longer has any worries about getting people’s backs up, I hope Leonard Read will write an autobiography that names names. He can tell fascinating stories about people who have made gaudy mistakes in judgment. He tells about keeping a journal. Does he name names in that? For one, I would like to know. Meanwhile, I am quite content to absorb Leonard Read on such subjects as the “socialization” of sin (socialism itself), and the “menace of meddlers.” Read may not name his sinners or his meddlers, but he is surely convincing about the evil of the unnamed culprits’ deeds.
RESTORING THE AMERICAN DREAM
by Robert J. Ringer, with a Foreword by William E. Simon
(Published by QED; distributed by Harper & Row, Publishers: New York) 1979, 320 pages.
Reviewed by Roger R. Ream, Director of Seminars, The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc., Irvington-on-Hudson, New York
Horror stories about waste and fraud in government are nothing new. Proponents of a free market economy have always been the most vocal in explaining the destructive nature of government intervention, be it printing press money, regulation of business, tariffs, or whatever else government does beyond its proper role of protecting every individual’s right to life, liberty, and property. Still, it is always encouraging when someone lucidly exposes the emperor without his clothes.
Recently, we have had several superb accounts warning of the dangerous power the state has amassed during the 200 years since our Founding Fathers created a government of “limited and enumerated powers.” One such warning was A Time For Truth (reviewed in The Freeman, August, 1978), former Treasury Secretary William E. Simon’s candid account of his experiences in Washington.
The latest warning of the threat presented by a concentration of governmental power comes from Robert J. Ringer in his new book, Restoring The American Dream. Ringer, author of two previous bestsellers, sees in today’s government many resemblances to the collectivist states of George Orwell’s 1984, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. “Today one feels the ether of these books in them air,” he writes. “Rational people know that there is something wrong. There is tension and uncertainty. There is ill will. There is fear. . . . Government-inspired nothink and doublethink have desecrated the American Dream.”
The book is frightening, but contains a glimmer of hope. It is frightening when Ringer forcefully describes the grim realities and consequences of the transition from government by the people to government for the benefit of those in power. He exposes the tactics used by government to maintain and expand control over people: “. . . democracy, though it has many disadvantages for powerholders, seems to be the most practical way to maintain control, because it gives the Illusion of consent.”
There are various ways, Ringer points out, by which a democratic government may reinforce its control; the most successful being inflation. Government can hide the costs of the generous benefits it grants potential voters by creating new paper money rather than levying direct taxes. Government officials often blame workers and businessmen for the unpleasant consequences of this inflation—higher prices and a lower standard of living. This enables the politician to have his cake and eat it too—he takes credit for granting benefits to voters (even though consumers are forced to pay for them in the form of higher prices) while continually pointing the finger at business and labor for the painful consequences of inflation. As Ringer says, “. . . inflation is the one government scheme, above all others, that must be demystified if the American Dream is to be restored.”
Ringer’s reason for hope is borrowed in part from Simon’s book. It is the belief that the American people would insist upon positive change “if they understood the situation.” Therefore, Ringer’s objective is to explode the myths of statism in a manner which enables the layman to understand the basic principles of individual liberty and the threat presented by collectivism.
With respect to inflation (although I believe Ringer would assert the same in regard to the whole interventionist mess) he states, “. . . the only hope that remains is that a great majority of Americans will come to understand the colossal inflation swindle for what it is and insist upon reform. To say the least I rate that a long shot. But at least it’s a shot.” We must hope Ringer is wrong on the method, for if our task is to get a majority to understand the situation, it will be a most difficult battle to win. In fact, Ringer calls himself “a pessimist trying hard to be an optimist.” Fortunately, we have writers of Ringer’s ability to state the case in a manner which those outside the intellectual community can comprehend.
By writing for a general audience, however, Ringer has made an unnecessary sacrifice of the philosophical justifications for some of his statements. This is unfortunate, since Ringer has demonstrated an ability to explain complex arguments in a lively and understandable manner. As it is, there are some claims that need either further clarification or additional support to give them legitimacy.
At times Ringer needs to be more precise. It appears as if he has let sentences slip in that cause confusion and seem to be contradicted by passages that follow. For example, Ringer puts great emphasis on what he calls a Natural Law: “each man owns his own life and therefore has the right to do anything he wishes with that life so long as he does not forcibly interfere with the life of any other man” and refers to it throughout the book. However, when first discussing the concept, he develops it as merely “an opinion” which he chose—seemingly out of thin air—as his initial premise. Yet, he goes on from this point and the reader discovers this “opinion” to be a “no-compromise principle.”
Furthermore, this Natural Law involves morality. If we seek an end whose “attainment requires a violation of the rights of even one man, then the end has been achieved through immoral action.” But wait. Upon further reading we find Ringer slipping a sentence into his discussion on welfare that states, “Rational men realize that there is no such thing as absolute morality.” The reader is left asking whether this concept of Natural Law is an absolute moral principle and, if so, how Ringer arrived at it. This confusion is unfortunate, since Natural Law is the foundation for the freedom philosophy Ringer develops Because this concept is so important, Ringer should clarify what he means by “absolute morality” and develop the justification for his “Natural Law” premise. This is particularly important if he hopes the lay audience for which he is writing will grasp this basic premise.
These shortcomings, however, are more than outweighed by the clarity, excitement, and provocative of nature of the book. You wish every government bureaucrat would read it. Ringer offers a variety of suggestions of what can be done to restore the American Dream. The most important is to “. . . be consistent on the issue of human freedom.” In other words, don’t give up freedom for the tempting handouts offered by expedient-minded politicians.
Bill Simon dedicated his book, in part, “to my children, so that they can never say, at some future time, ‘why weren’t we told?’ ” Ringer, like Simon, has cleared away the camouflage disguising government’s true nature. The message is clear. Because we have books like Restoring The American Dream we can never say at some future date, “Why weren’t we told?”
