• CHAPTER 3 • BOOBY TRAPS

FEW IF ANY present-day workers for freedom have achieved effectiveness by relying solely on logical processes. This is to say that they did not begin by first developing a spiritual faith and then acquiring for themselves a fundamental premise or supreme norm. Such preparation has rarely been the means by which they got where they now are. Instead, they have become exasperated with the trends toward omnipotent statism and have plunged thoughtlessly into the fray, stumbling into one booby trap after another, and only if one of the lucky few, learning from their mistakes. It is not necessary, however, to take this costly course provided each aspirant will avoid the blind alleys experienced by those who have pioneered the trail.

When an otherwise preoccupied individual suddenly awakens to the authoritarian mess that increasingly engulfs us, his first impulse is to scream, “Let’s have some action!” Then he begins to wonder what he means by action. Of course, he does not mean physical action, substituting his own physical force for the physical force he already detests. That would amount to no more than swapping one brand of authoritarianism for another. No, he doesn’t mean that.

Educating the Masses

His impulse for action more often than not leads the newcomer into frustrations. One wasteful booby trap is the resolve to “sell the man in the street on free enterprise.” Often it takes some such expression as, “We gotta educate the masses.”

Over and over again the argument is dinned into our ears, “Let’s stop talking to each other and reach out instead for the unconverted. Sell the masses on freedom; they have the votes.” This advice is superficially cogent, with the result that hundreds of millions of dollars and untold man-hours have been expended in an effort to “bring light” to the masses.

But an impartial survey of these efforts fails to turn up even one which lived up to its promises; all have proved dismal failures. Nonetheless, the search for national salvation through “selling the masses” is as persistent today as it ever was.¹

If there is such a thing as “the masses,” there must be such a thing as a mass man. But who in heaven’s name is he, and where’s his hangout? Perhaps he is among those who urge mass reform, for they are so numerous that the remaining population can hardly qualify as “the masses”!

Those who would “sell the masses” don’t give us much of a clue as to the characteristics of the mass man except that he is low grade intellectually. He is always pointed to as one who needs vast improvement, so obviously he is something of an ignoramus.

Within these popular terms of reference, “the masses” who “don’t understand” would seem to include the finger-pointers themselves. For, pray tell, who among us has a monopoly of understanding? Can it be those who insist that someone else be brought to a state of wisdom, especially when nearly everyone is pointing to someone else? Or, could it be that those who point their fingers are unwittingly pointing at their own reflections? Thinking they see someone else, they spend their money and time on the reformation of reflections and shadows, forgetting, as Thackeray put it, that “the world is a looking glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face.” Small wonder that programs for educating the masses have so consistently met with dismal failure!

The ″Mass Man″ Defined

There is, though, a real mass man—millions of him! And he is not necessarily an ignorant fellow. By all the standards we use to measure intelligence, the best intellects among us may be of the mass. The real mass man is likely to be found in a position of leadership—in the church, in business, in the classroom, on the farm, and even more conspicuously in government and all committee-type organizations. This real mass man, I submit, has been escaping our attention because our natural inclination in the face of social problems is to seek the culprit among those whose behavior differs from our own. Using our own behaviors as the norm of righteousness—“our” being the most of us—we find it difficult to discover the mass man in ourselves. It is almost unbelievable that we could be the masses.

How are we to recognize the real mass man—in others, or in ourselves? The mass man is anyone who lives by a double standard of morality, who acts in the mass—the collective, the committee, the organization—in a manner inferior to the way he acts on his own responsibility.

Joe Doakes Qualifies

Take Joe Doakes for example: he wouldn’t kill a fly, let alone take the life of a human being. Yet, Mr. Doakes will join a mob, hang another by the neck till he’s dead, and feel no remorse whatsoever. To his mind, the mob, not he, is responsible. Joe is definitely and definitively a mass man. For, Joe’s moral standard when acting in mass is inferior to his moral standard when acting individually.

Most persons would agree that Joe Doakes fits the definition—but they themselves have never behaved like that! No, there aren’t many lynching parties in this day and age. But, if the definition is accepted, the shoe will come nearer to fitting—and pinching—as we move on to more common examples of mass action.

For instance, suppose the federal government were to decree that all farmers are entitled to $30.00 for every acre of land taken out of production and that each farmer, with the help of an armed officer assigned to him for the purpose, is to call personally on people, rich and poor alike, and forcibly collect the booty. Disregarding the inefficiency of this cumbersome method, how many farmers would take advantage of such a law? Few indeed, for this personal, face-to-face procedure would be as revolting to the farmers as it would be to those from whom the pelf is taken.

Farmers in the Mass

However, let us give the immoral conduct sanctioned by this law the appearance of being depersonalized, rewriting it in conformity with the way it now stands on our statute books. Let the mass agency—government—do the forcible collection for the farmers. Nearly all feeling of guilt disappears. Indeed, in most instances, what would have been a feeling of moral revulsion gives way to an opposite sensation: a right to the property of others. This actually has happened to most of the million and more farmers now receiving such collections for not growing something. The action of farmers in the mass is inferior to the way each one of them would act personally.

Of course, it is not right to single out farmers as typical mass men. They qualify no more than do those of other occupations, such as the producer of steel products who wouldn’t personally raise his hand to stop an exchange between two of his neighbors but who will solicit the help of the mass agency—government —to hinder and penalize certain exchanges in order to improve his own chance of getting that business. He has a moral standard for mass action inferior to his moral standard for personal action.

Depersonalizing the Act

Who in the church or the chamber of commerce would personally take the property of others by force to satisfy his charitable or welfare instincts? Except in rare headlines, such persons simply do not exist. Their personal standards of morality are above such action. Yet, the mere pretense of depersonalizing the act—doing it in mass, in the collective, in the organization—reduces their souls to the level of robbery. From the pulpit and in countless resolutions from every type of organization we hear and read solicitations to the federal pap-wagon, pleas for police grants-in-aids. These individuals—everyone who acts in this manner—are mass men, “the masses,” whether their solicitations be for hospitals or airports or TVA’s or subsidies for non-production or for anything else in the socialistic bag of tricks.

Apparently, it is the appearance of depersonalization that accounts for this destructive, inferior standard of morality. Joe Doakes thinks of the mob as doing the lynching, and so does each of the others. Everyone considers himself absolved of any evil, as if an abstraction—a mere term, “the mob”—could hang a man! But does action by a collective absolve the individuals who compose it of the responsibility for the collective action? An affirmative answer is absurd. The following story illustrates the point:

Saint Peter’s List

A person reputed for his libertarian views was a visiting guest at a chamber of commerce meeting. Favorable action was taken on three committee reports, all of which were pleas for the federal government to use its compulsion to obtain the property of others that the local community might be “benefited.” At the conclusion of the meeting the visitor was invited to “say a word.” This is all he said:

Remus Papwagon passed away and his spirit floated to the Pearly Gates. The spirit knocked. Saint Peter responded and inquired as to the purpose of the visit.

“I crave admittance,” said the spirit.

Saint Peter looked over his list and sadly announced, “Sorry, Mr. Papwagon, I don’t have your name.”

“Don’t have my name? How come?”

“You took money from others, from widows and orphans as well as the rich, in order to satisfy your personal notions of doing good.”

“Saint Peter, you are in error. I had the reputation of an honest man.”

“You may have had that reputation among those who acted in a manner similar to yourself, but it was an undeserved reputation. Specifically, you were a financial supporter and a member of the board of directors of the Opportunity Chamber of Commerce, and that organization sponsored a government golf course, to mention but one of the many irresponsible actions that required the coercive extortion of the earnings of widows and orphans to benefit would-be golfers.”

“Ah, but that was the Opportunity Chamber of Commerce that took those actions, not your humble servant, Remus Papwagon.”

Saint Peter looked over his list again and then said, “Mr. Papwagon, we don’t have any chambers of commerce or labor unions or councils of churches on this list. There is nothing but individual souls.”

Saint Peter closed the Pearly Gates.

Whereupon, the meeting adjourned, but some in attendance that day are still speculating on the whereabouts of the soul of Remus Papwagon and on the prospects for others who similarly deny self-responsibility.

Each of Us Is Guilty

A painful fact to keep in mind is that every living person in the U.S.A. to some extent qualifies as a mass man. Let each take note that any finger of shame points in part at his own reflection. Absolute purity in conduct in response to the dictates of individual conscience is not attainable; it is only approachable.

If one would continue life—an aim this author commends—there is no way to divorce oneself completely from the way of life imposed by men who act in mass, by men who act in some manner inferior to their highest personal standard of morality. Few, if any of us, know how to live except in the market and in society as it is. The very bread we eat is from subsidized wheat. The mail that takes this book to the reader is rank with special privilege, as socialistic as anything in the U.S.S.R. Much of the power and light we use is on the rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul basis. Our economic blood stream—the money we use to exchange our millions of specializations—is shot through with the adulterations which result from the Papwagon way of life. The only alternative to life in this smoggy atmosphere is death itself.

Absolute purity is unattainable. But we can paddle in the direction of purity. So far as the mass agency—government—is concerned, we can refrain from ever standing sponsor for any socialistic activity, and we are free to employ all the persuasion we can muster to explain the fallacies of state ownership and control of any productive and creative activity.

Let Us Stand Personally Responsible

So far as voluntary mass agencies—committees and organizations—are concerned, we can, if we are a part of them, act always in accurate response to our highest individual standard of morality, realizing that there is never any escape from a personal responsibility for any collective action in which the individual participates. And, one more thing: We can refuse to be a member or financial supporter of any voluntary organization that takes action for which we are unwilling to stand personally responsible.

Here is an example of how voluntary collectives all too often misrepresent us: A spokesman for a business organization appeared before a committee of Congress. By reason of what a small committee had resolved, he claimed to speak for several million businessmen. His report made concessions to rent control, concessions that many of the members would disapprove. In short, a lie was told. Many businessmen of libertarian views were represented as advocates of rent control, a socialistic item. Identity with such organizations is no way for a man to reflect accurately that which he believes to be right.

Nonetheless and more or less, we are all of the masses. And what we see as imperfections in others is little else but a reflection of how far we are from our own potential perfections. So, there may be something to “selling the masses” after all—that is, if each of us correctly identifies the individual seen in the looking glass as part of the mass and thus an imperfect man. Here is a fact so dimly appreciated it can be classified as secret: Further enlightenment of the man reflected in one’s own mirror is the sole means he has of bringing more light to others.

″Put the Right Men in Office″

Then there is the booby trap of political action. It is not that there is anything wrong with politics per se, nor is this a suggestion that one should not take part in political activity. Far from it! The booby trap is the notion that vanishing liberty can be restored merely by an increased or stepped-up political activity. Ever so many people, when they finally wake up to what’s going on, insist that there is only one kind of action: put the right men in public office.

The above summarizes a substantial, and perhaps even a growing sentiment. It stems from impatience. The interventionists, it is observed, have “leaders” galore in the political arena. Why, inquire many anti-interventionists, should we tarry any longer? Why not find ourselves some political leaders who will represent our points of view? Plans are then proposed for the organization of citizens down to the precinct level, and likely personalities are sought among renowned generals, businessmen, academicians, and others who have, in their own specialized fields, arrived at acknowledged leadership. It is assumed that the nation will be saved should they be elected to public office.

No Such Easy Solution

If this were the road out of the socialistic wilderness and if these miracle persons were to be found, all of us might consider joining the political actionist parade. To take this route, however, is of no more avail than looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

The reason that the interventionists have so many “leaders” is only because there is throughout our land a very substantial body of influential, interventionist opinion. The ones out front and who are popularly appraised as leaders are, in fact, not the real leaders. They are but echoes of the underlying opinion, and an echo implies an antecedent sound. They did not create the situation in which they find themselves; they are but the products or manifestations of the status quo. They, like actors in a play, merely move out front by reason of the fact that they can better articulate and dramatize the prevailing interventionist thought than can others. The real leaders of interventionism or any other movement, like playwrights, lie more under the surface, are a quieter breed, and not nearly as observable popularly.

First, the Foundation

Anti-interventionists lack “leaders” because there does not exist an influential libertarian opinion substantial enough to create the desired political response. What I wish to suggest here is the futility of attempting to build on a foundation that does not exist. One might as well look for an abundance of flowers where there has been a scarcity of seeds or listen for many echoes where there have been but few prior sounds. The out-front folks in political parties are but thermometers—indicators of the political temperature. Change the temperature and there will be a change in what’s out front—naturally and spontaneously. The only purpose in keeping an eye on the thermometer is to know what the temperature is. If the underlying influential opinion—the temperature—is interventionist, we’ll have interventionists in public office regardless of the party labels they may choose for their adornment and public appeal.

Influential Ideas on Liberty

If the underlying influential opinion—the temperature—is libertarian, we’ll have spokesmen for libertarianism in public office. Nor will all the king’s horses and all the king’s men be able to alter the reading of the political thermometer one whit.

It’s the influential opinion that counts, and nothing else. This is to be distinguished from “public opinion,” there being no such thing. Every significant movement in history—good or bad—has resulted from influential ideas held by comparatively few persons.

Here, then, is the key question: What constitutes an influential opinion? In the context of moral, social, economic, and political philosophy, influential opinion stems from or rests upon (1) depth of understanding, (2) strength of conviction, and (3) the power of attractive exposition. These are the ingredients of self-perfection as relating to a set of ideas. Persons who thus improve their understanding, dedication, and exposition are the leaders of men; the rest of us are followers, including the out-front political personalities.

To illustrate: How many persons today, or even in his own time of the early seventeenth century, ever heard of Hugo Grotius? Few, indeed, then or now! Yet, here is what the eminent historian, Andrew Dickson White, in the year 1910, wrote of this exceptionally important unknown:

Into the very midst of all this welter of evil, at a point in time to all appearance hopeless, at a point in space apparently defenseless, in a nation of which every man, woman, and child was under sentence of death from its sovereign, was born a man who wrought as no other has ever done for a redemption of civilization from the main cause of all that misery; who thought out for Europe the precepts of right reason in international law; who made them heard; who gave a noble change to the course of human affairs; whose thoughts, reasonings, suggestions, and appeals produced an environment in which came an evolution of humanity that still continues.

One man altered the ways of the world. He achieved a degree of perfection that caused others to follow his insights and understanding. He spawned ideas that politicians emphasized and glamorized, and for which they more than Grotius became widely known as “leaders.”

The Educational Way

In this day of our need how are we to find ourselves a Grotius, a Sarpi, a Turgot, or a thousand and one others who have quietly but brilliantly modified the world into better ways? Those of us who would have any part in working out this answer have no recourse except to strive for an increasing perfection of ourselves, that is, conscious personal efforts to become such helpful individuals. It isn’t that you or I, specifically, will make the grade. It is that out of a fairly wide creative effort in which we participate some few will assuredly achieve the competence our time so sorely requires. This is the educational, not the political, way to mankind’s improvement. True, it is slow in terms of one’s life span, but it has the distinct advantage of being the single practical way there is. Let us try this way and witness its fruits!

″Time Is Running Out″

If we continue to exclaim—“I want action. Time is running out”—and persist in the error of trying to reverse cause and effect, the political echo will continue to confirm, “Time is running out.”

Political leadership can only reflect influential opinion. There is no way to improve the quality of political leadership except as we lift the level of influential opinion—and this is an educational task. “Tell me today what the philosopher thinks, the university professor expounds, the schoolmaster teaches, the scholar publishes in his treatises and textbooks, and I shall prophesy the conduct of individuals, the ethics of businessmen, the schemes of political leaders, the plans of economists, the pleadings of lawyers, the decisions of judges, the legislation of lawmakers, the treaties of diplomats, and the decisions of state a generation hence.” The author of this wisdom is unknown, but history bears him out.

Superficial Anticommunism

A third blind alley is a narrowly conceived anticommunism. Contending against communism is to be applauded, but to regard the Moscow apparatus as the sole source of communism is to be led into a first-rate booby trap. Communism is a world-wide phenomenon and originates as much in the minds of Americans as in the minds of any other people. Were we to understand its fallacies and to reject its tenets, we would be impervious to the Kremlin’s propaganda.

This booby trap was never laid better than by one high in our bureaucracy when he said, “The welfare state is the best security against communism.”

This proposed defense against communism is not new, though we now hear it afresh. It has circulated in various shadings since “the cold war” began. A similar excuse was used to finance socialistic governments abroad with American earned income under the give-away programs that by now aggregate more than $78 billion: “Socialism is a good cushion against communism.”

Such terms as communism, socialism, Fabianism, the welfare state, Nazism, fascism, state interventionism, egalitarianism, the planned economy, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Republicanism, the New Frontier are simply different labels for much the same thing. To think that there is any vital distinction between these so-called ideologies is to miss the really important characteristic which all of these labels have in common.

An ideology is a doctrinal concept, a way of thinking, a set of beliefs. Examine the above-mentioned labels and it will be found that each is identified with a belief common to all the others: Organized police force—government—should control the creative and productive actions of the people. Every one of these labels—no exceptions—stands for a philosophy that is opposed to the free market, private property, limited government way of life. The latter holds that the law and its police force should be limited to restraint of violence from within and without the nation, to restraint and punishment of fraud, misrepresentation, predation—in short, to invoke a common justice. According to this way of life—the libertarian ideal—men are free to act creatively as they please.

They All Rest on Force

Under both the welfare state and communism, the responsibility for the welfare, security, and prosperity of the people is presumed to rest with the central government. Coercion is as much the tool of the welfare state as it is of communism. The programs and edicts of both are backed by the police force. All of us know this to be true under communism, but it is equally true under our own brand of welfare statism. Just try to avoid paying your “share” of a TVA deficit or of the farm subsidy program or of federal urban renewal or of social security or of the government’s full employment program.

To appreciate the family likeness of the welfare state and communism, observe what happens to individual freedom of choice. Under either label (the ideology is the same) freedom of choice to individuals as to what they do with the fruits of their labor, how they employ themselves, what wages they receive, what and with whom they exchange their goods or services—such freedoms are forcibly stripped from individuals. The central government, it is claimed, will take over. Full responsibility for ourselves is denied in order to make us dependent on whatever political regime happens to be in control of the government apparatus. Do these labels mean fundamentally the same thing? As an exercise, try to find any meaningful distinction.

Words Without Meaning

Our planners are saying, “The welfare state is the best security against communism.” The Russians could say, with as much sense, “Communism is the best security against the welfare state.”

We call the Russian brand of governmental coercion “communism.” They, however, refer to their collective as the “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.” The Russians call our brand of governmental coercion “capitalism.” In the interest of accuracy and clarity, we, also, should call ours “socialist.”

Socialism in Russia (communism, to our planners) and socialism in the U.S.A. (the welfare state, to our planners) have identical aims: the state ownership and control of the means of production. Further, one as much as the other rests on the use of police force. In Russia the force is more impetuously applied than here. There, they pull the trigger and think later, if at all. Here, the government relies more on the threat of force and acquiescence of the citizen.

Alexis de Tocqueville predicted over a century ago the characteristics of the despotism [the welfare state] which might arise in America: “The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”

There are countless other booby traps, some not so minor, like being drawn into TV, radio, and platform debates with the authoritarians, referred to in a previous chapter. These traps, however, will become apparent to anyone once he sets himself on the right course.

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¹ Success in mass production and sale of commodities—autos, watches, soap, corn flakes, cosmetics—has influenced many to erroneously conclude that ideas can be mass sold. There is, however, an important distinction between marketing products—things that satisfy desires of the flesh—and spreading ideas, the latter being accomplishments of the intellect. Commodities, once produced, are ready for consumption, whereas “selling” an idea requires that each “buyer” reproduce it in his own mind.