361. The Creed of Sacrifice vs. The Land of Liberty
- Author:
- Craig Biddle
- Publication Date:
- 10-2009
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Objective Standard
- Institution:
- The Objective Standard
- Abstract:
- The proper purpose of government, wrote Thomas Jefferson, is to "guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it." The government "shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government." In accordance with this view of the purpose of government, the founders established a republic in which the government was constitutionally limited to the protection of individual rights-the rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. In this new republic, men were free to think, to produce, and to trade in accordance with their own best judgment; thus, they were free to thrive in accordance with their intelligence, their ability, their initiative. The result was astounding. Nineteenth-century America was a land of unparalleled innovation and prosperity-and further political achievement. In addition to countless inventions that sprang up-including the steamboat, the cotton gin, vulcanized rubber, the telephone, the incandescent light, the electric power plant, the skyscraper, and the safety elevator-and in addition to the vital industries that arose or were revolutionized-such as the railroad, oil, and steel industries-19th-century America witnessed the end of slavery, which was recognized as a violation of the basic principle of the land. Between the end of the Civil War and the turn of the century, America came as close to being a fully rights-respecting society as any country has ever come. Men were essentially free to live their own lives, by their own judgment, for their own sake. Unfortunately, although the Land of Liberty was a great success, it would not and could not last. The founders established America on the principle of individual rights, but neither they nor the thinkers who followed them identified the deeper philosophic foundation on which this principle depends, namely, the morality of egoism-the idea that being moral consists in pursuing the values on which one's life and happiness depend. In the absence of this foundation, Americans have embraced philosophical ideas that are contrary to individual rights. Over the past century, Americans have increasingly accepted the morality of altruism-the notion that being moral consists in self-sacrificially serving others-and they have increasingly applied this morality to the realm of politics. Consequently, our government is no longer committed to "restrain men from injuring one another [and] leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement." Rather, our government regularly-and increasingly-"take[s] from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned" and redistributes that bread to those who have not earned it. Consider just a few of the countless altruistically motivated, wealth-redistributing laws and institutions that have been enacted or established over the past hundred years: The Federal Reserve violates the rights of Americans by (among other things) printing fiat money-thus debasing citizens' savings-in order to finance welfare programs, bail out failed banks, "rescue" bankrupt car companies, and the like. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) violates the rights of taxpayers by forcing them to insure the bank deposits of strangers. Social Security violates the rights of younger Americans by forcing them to fund the retirements of older Americans. The National Labor Relations Act (aka the Wagner Act) violates the rights of automakers (and other businessmen) by forcing them to "contract" with labor unions on terms that are detrimental to their businesses. Medicare and Medicaid violate the rights of taxpaying Americans by forcing them to fund the health care of the aged and the (allegedly) destitute. The Community Reinvestment Act violates the rights of bankers by forcing them to provide loans to people whom they regard as too risky for business. The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) violates the rights of taxpayers by forcing them to purchase bad debt from failing financial institutions. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) violates the rights of Americans by expanding the extent to which they are forced to fund welfare programs, unemployment benefits, government-run education, and the health care of others. Of course, federal, state, and municipal governments violate Americans' rights in thousands of other ways as well, but the foregoing indicates the enormity of the problem. The explicit "justification" for all such rights-violating laws and institutions-the principle behind all of them-is altruism: the notion that we have a moral duty to serve others, whether "the poor" or "the public interest" or "society" or "the common good." As Theodore Roosevelt put it, the government must "regulate the use of wealth in the public interest" and "regulate the terms and conditions of labor, which is the chief element of wealth, directly in the interest of the common good"; or as Franklin D. Roosevelt put it, the government must seek "the greater good of the greater number of Americans"; or as John F. Kennedy put it, the individual must "weigh his rights and comforts against his obligations to the common good"; or as Bill Clinton put it, the individual must "give something back" on behalf of "the common good"; or as George W. Bush put it, we must "seek a common good beyond our comfort"; or as Barack Obama puts it, we must heed the "call to sacrifice" and uphold our "core ethical and moral obligation" to "look out for one another" and to "be unified in service to a greater good." A government animated by this principle will increasingly force citizens to serve the so-called "common good"-and with each political success, the government will get bolder and more aggressive in its enforcement of this principle. This is why the U.S. government has graduated over decades from the mere redistribution of wealth via taxation and inflation . . . to the establishment of wealth-redistributing institutions and hubs such as Social Security, Medicare, and TARP . . . to the outright nationalization of businesses, such as American International Group (AIG), General Motors (GM), and Citigroup . . . and to the nullification of private contracts that stand in its way (e.g., employment contracts in the case of AIG bonuses, investment contracts in the case of Chrysler's senior-secured creditors). Under such expanding government control, explains an article in the New York Times: Businesses and private property . . . become not an instrument of private "egoism" but "functions of the people." They remain private wherever and so long as they fulfill their "functions." Wherever and whenever they fall down, the State steps in and either forces them to fulfill the functions or takes them over entirely. That description of what we have witnessed recently, however, was not written recently; it was written in 1938. Nor was the author describing conditions in the United States; he was describing conditions in Germany under the then-burgeoning National Socialist Party.
- Topic:
- Oil and War
- Political Geography:
- America