Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Not Playing By The Rules

I've continued reading Planning for Freedom: A Collection of Essays and Addresses.  Glancing down the table of contents one particular essay caught my attention: "Trends Can Change."  Written in 1951, I suspected the essay would have much to teach us about the current state of freedom in America.

It certainly does.

In the essay Mises quickly goes at one of the most tightly-held underlying dogmas of socialism and central planning devotees: "Man must submit to the irresistible power of historical destiny," so it is argued. 

And what, exactly, is that historical destiny, according to socialist apologists?  Societal organization is progressing toward being centrally planned through government coercion; no more chaotic, uncontrolled, profit-driven capitalism based on individual freedom.  (In The Road to Serfdom, Hayek makes a terrific point on this matter: "It is a revealing fact that few planners are content to say that central planning is desirable." [Emphasis added.])
 
That's the rule by which western society is supposed to obey.

Europe played by the rules and fell into socialism due to this fatalistic capitulation: "It is this mentality of passively accepting defeat that has made socialism triumph in many European countries and very soon may make it conquer in this country too."

But hold on a minute there, professor.  Some matters in America present difficult roadblocks to socialism.   For starters, a lot of Americans have an inherent distrust of "big government."  This does not spring up irrationally, contrary to reflexive progressive fantasies about gun and Bible-clinging.  Americans live in the world's most unique political experiment, a nation founded on ideas, the foremost being liberty and equality.  We have an entirely unique history built into our political genes.  Consequently, most Americans distrust government controlling anything, let alone everything.  We're still hung up on that whole freedom and Constitution thing.

We're not so eager to play by the rules.

Consider the Tea Party movement and the wide resistance to nationalized health care.  We've been taking to the streets to protest excessive government spending, debt, unreasonable entitlement programs, and government encroachment on liberty.  We don't play so nice: we protest against excessive government in our lives.

Now consider the recent protests in Europe.  They've taken to the streets to protest cuts in government spending and entitlement programs.  They play by the rules and protest in favor of excessive government in their lives.

To the chagrin of progressives, yesteryear and today, politically we're just not like Europe, nor do we want to be.

Mises closes his address with this admonishment: "The prevailing trend toward what Hilaire Belloc called the servile state will certainly not be reversed if nobody has the courage to attack its underlying dogmas." The "servile state" lies somewhere between outright socialism and capitalism, what Mises calls the third way of interventionism; it is no less hostile to freedom than socialism.  There is an entire liberty movement  attacking these dogmas, and that movement is not carrying pitchforks and torches.  We're carrying--and reading!--the Constitution, The Road to Serfdom, the Declaration, and a treasure trove of beacons of freedom. 

As Jonah Goldberg rightly put it, the rules have changed and something is afoot.  Either someone changed the rules or we are cheating by not playing by them.

Either case befits Americans.  We like our freedom too much to play by the rules.  We'll keep reading and keep cheating, thank you very much.