Normally, we can adjust our thinking at the winter solstice to peaceful thoughts and a kind acceptance of our fellow man. But the U.S. Senate has made it difficult for us this year.
The Senate has proposed a medical care bill dripping with taxes and penalties, touting it as a valuable gift. Young people stand to be big losers if this bill becomes law. They, at the beginning of their careers, are required to carry a substantial share of the costs so that their more well-to-do elders may enjoy subsidized hypochondria. The senate and house bills do nothing to reshape public medicine towards nutrition, wellness, education, personal responsibility, or finding the actual causes of chronic illness. The bills blindly endorse whatever unhealthy practices the medical establishment has acquired over the forty years since medicare and medicaid funds began to pour into the system. With only a few days left until Christmas, the controversy continues. The message of Christmas is rarely heard this year.
Even non-Christians may appreciate that there was something new in the Christian message. It had roots in various philosophies of the time, but whatever the source, it differed from prior moral teaching. To give one prime example, consider the notion of turning the other cheek. That is, the idea that force need not always be met by equal or greater counter-force. It is hard to see how civilization as we know it could have flourished without this idea. Anyone who has raised children knows that patience and understanding are needed in large quantities; force rarely.
Much the same is true in economics. Most of the time we make and follow contracts, or deals. We try to understand our vendor or our customer. Rarely, when contracts are broken, we need to ask some third party to act. One of those bound by the contract may be constrained to compensate the other.
The voluntary basis of economics is vital to its success. As Ludwig von Mises noted in his critique of socialism, a price is determined by the uncontrained preferences of buyer and seller. To the extent that these preferences are not freely expressed but are subsidized, constrained or prohibited, prices become meaningless. They no longer lead to an allocation of goods and services that is optimal. Prices, the foundation of economics, are swept away. We are left to tyranny, poverty and death.
Voluntary choice is equally the foundation of our leisure culture. So long as each person is free to do those things that interest him most, or at which he excels, culture flourishes. When the state intervenes, we are forced to do or support things that we do not value, even things that we regard as detrimental. Life becomes bleak and meaningless.
Thus peace, the absence of war or force, is the foundation of civilization. Libertarianism, properly understood, advocates peace with at most a minimal use of force. We approve force only to resist a prior use of force or fraud. So as libertarians we endorse the sentiments of the Christmas season.
We may, however, use the civilized substitute for force to further our message. It takes money to keep the flame alive. The organizations listed on
our link page can make good use of your support.
Currently I am listening to some CD's of Dr. Mary Ruwart:
Secrets of Transforming Liberals, Greens, Christians and New Agers into Libertarians. She explains how to peacefully engage others in a discussion that might change their minds, without turning them off in the process. Surely this is a skill that we could all use, if we are to become effective advocates for liberty. Perhaps the peaceful approach toward life and liberty must begin with our everyday individual behavior.
Recently I attended a lecture of CATO's David Boaz at FEE:
The Rebirth of Liberty in which he compared the present with the 1930's under FDR. He is another optimistic speaker, unfazed by our current apparent rush to tyranny.
The major treat of my Fall season was to attend a conference of the
Mises Institute in Salamanca Spain in October. The idea was to expose the roots of some of the ideas behind modern economics. It seems that a number of key ideas were formulated by Spanish scholastic monks, centuries before Adam Smith. Indeed, they got some things right that Adam Smith botched. One of these was the modern theory of value: the just price, echoed by Mises in his critique of socialism and mentioned above.
These people and organizations are there to bring a little Christmas cheer to us libertarians. The public appreciation of liberty may be at a low ebb, but the flame is very much alive. Happy Holidays!
Links:
Senate Health Bill
House Health Bill
Harry Reid Turns Insurance Into a Public Utility
Why the Personal Mandate to Buy Health Insurance Is Unprecedented and Unconstitutional
