"Side by side with the word 'property' in the program of [classical] liberalism one may quite appropriately place the words 'freedom' and 'peace.' "~~~Ludwig von Mises Liberalism: The Classical Tradition
Have you ever wondered if your property is, well, actually your property? Silly question, right? By definition, if something belongs to you that something is your "property"; the word, "property" denotes ownership by someone somewhere. So the phrase "your property" is somewhat redundant, a bit like "wet fish."
All fish are wet so why, then, are you being asked to doubt ownership of your property?
Because pundits and politicians are talking about income and estate taxes! I've found people generally do not think of their income and their estates---the products and fruits of their labor, time, and talents---as their property. Your income is your property; it is the monetary compensation of your time and efforts.
Our vote-fishing representatives in Congress never refer to your income as property. If they were to refer to property as "property," they would have a terribly difficult time explaining why you are being permitted to keep x% of your property versus y% for blah, blah, blah reasons. Chances are their reasons would come across as thinly-veiled demagoguery.
More difficult still would be the job of justifying the noxious and logically flawed premise that underpins the income and estate tax. That premise? If government has a moral right to 1% of your property it has a moral right to 100% of our property. All the public wrangling is simply about numbers and details.
Consider all the political claptrap that orbs around the income tax debates as you view this commentary by Brit Hume. And this holiday season, please don't thank your government for the gift of your own property, whatever the tax schedule for 2011.
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.
"We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive." C. S. Lewis
I've been thinking about MSNBC's new tag line, "Lean Forward" with its progressive political implications and was reminded of a past post here. Progressive policies and moving forward as a society are antithetical, not complimentary. Delving into the topic is a wonderful opportunity to rediscover both the principled and utilitarian reasons for embracing freedom. Below is a Chalk Talk post from July:
Regressive, Not Progressive
Progress is the act of moving forward toward good things. Regress is the act of sliding backwards away from good things already enjoyed.
With this understanding of progress in mind, turn the clock back to 1700. Turn it back further, to the Middle Ages. Keep going backward.
Do we see anywhere in the world economic prosperity, affluent societies, and high standards of living? Do we see sustainable and forward-looking economies? Do we see the flowering of the sciences, arts, and learning?
No, we don’t.
When did social progress begin? Where in history do we see the liberation of millions from hand-to-mouth existences, poverty, and static societies?
Societies progressed by embracing freedom. Progress began wherever there were free markets, free trade, and government policies that allowed for the unplanned progress of society. Regress occurs every time governments suppress freedom and seek to turn the clock back to the mercantile-style government planning of economies, and attempt to shape societies into the image of their choosing.
Back to historical examples.
Prior to the expansion of free market capitalism in19th century Europe, economic activity was dictated by the mercantile policies of a handful of people in governments. InLiberalism, The Classical Tradition, Ludwig von Mises reminds us that for western Europeans in the period between the end of the Napoleonic Wars (1815) and the beginning of the first World War (1914) an unprecedented improvement in the standard of living took place alongside a quickly rising population.
Mises explains that, because of free market capitalism, millions of would-be serfs became the consumers businesses sought to please. Because people wanted a higher standard of living and because other people were free to provide so much for them, society progressed. This “democracy of the market” unleashed the creative and productive power of societies: "By the time of the start of the Great War, the average industrial worker in England and the U.S. lived better and more graciously than the nobleman of not too long before.”
InBasic Economics, Thomas Sowell highlights the rapid progress countries experience when they loosen government restrictions on trade and price controls. India, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, South Korea, and China all experienced progress by permitting more freedom, not less, in their economies. In 1978, for example, “less than 10 percent of China’s agricultural output was sold in open markets, but, by 1990, 80 percent was.”
This increase in output and resulting boon to the living conditions of everyday Chinese citizens was the result of more freedom, not less. From 1978 to 1995 China experienced an annual economic growth rate of 9 percent.
As for aversion to freedom and regressive policies think of the living conditions in Cuba, North Korea, the former eastern European communist countries, and third world countries ruled by authoritarian governments. The contrast could not be sharper. These examples mark a regression to precapitalistic times, that is, before freedom in the market place was tried and embraced.
Listen to Milton Friedman’s summation of the issue:
It is interesting, if not befuddling, then, that the economic and social policies of self-described “progressives” (or, generically, “liberals”) point us backward to the kinds of mercantilistic, central planning authority in governments that predates any real progress in the world. Viewed in light of human progress, their economic solutions and initiatives are regressive.
Returning to Friedman, he bemoans a similar frustration with the term “liberal”:
“In the name of welfare and equality, the twentieth-century liberal has come to favor a revival of the very policies of state intervention and paternalism against which classical liberalism fought. In the very act of turning the clock back to seventeenth-century mercantilism, he is fond of castigating true liberals as reactionary!”
Liberal has come to mean illiberal, and progressive has come to mean regressive.
The more Americans understand that freedom is not an abstraction but at the heart of the only real progress in the world, the closer we’ll come to approximating a reinvigorated belief in freedom into real policy. We still live in a constitutional republic, and when the voice of the people is consistent enough and clear enough, public opinion will echo in the halls of legislatures.
A belief in freedom is a belief in the resourceful, creative, and productive powers of Americans themselves. Insisting on a policy of freedom is our best way of progressing forward.
What does the Red Stripe beer man and Ludwig von Mises have in common?
Freedom movements, their proponents, and many of their adherents are often labeled "anti-government," as if liberty-minded folks only want to boooo everything government does. Sometimes all the rhetorical stops are pulled and the "anarchy" word appears, implying people interested in freedom want no government at all.
True, pro-freedom reformers are against the activities of government that exceed its properly-restrained and legitimate role in society. But this is not an aversion against government as a whole; it could more properly be called "anti-illegitimate government" or "anti-big government."
A serious discussion is evaded if the context of the debate remains merely negative. That is, we are not simply "anti" fill-in-the-blank; we are for the right kind of government. By objecting to excessive and unconstitutional government we are of necessity arguing for returning government to its proper role. We want a government that focuses on the activities that benefit freedom, property, and prosperity.
So, yes, Booooo to creepy excessive burdensome government. But, Hooooray! to good government.
Mises analogizes the classical liberal view like this:
"If I am of the opinion that it is inexpedient to assign to the government the task of operating railroads, hotels, or mines, I am not an 'enemy of the state' any more than I can be called an enemy of sulphuric acid because I am of the opinion that, useful though it may be for many purposes, it is not suitable either for drinking or for washing one's hands." From Liberalism: The Classical Tradition [Emphasis added.]
We should look for every opportunity to stress the very important roles for government, roles indispensable to the preservation of freedom and prosperity. Doing so highlights the ways in which government has far exceeded its proper place and threatens liberty, illustrates the reforms that are needed, and diffuses the silly notion that if one stands for liberty one necessarily opposes all government.
Protection of life, property, and property rights are actions only government can perform. Free civilized society unquestionably require these protections.
What's more, a free competitive market cannot operate without certain functions of government. No market can provide for itself the enforcement of liability laws and legal contracts. Deterrence and punishment of force and fraud of are vital to allowing markets to remain free and competitive, and only government has the lawful coercive authority to exercise these protections.
And proper regulation of the market is a very good thing, so long as it does not exceed regulation and creep into the murky socialist realms of indirectly planning and directing economies, or protect failing companies from competition through bailouts, or establish monopolies through tariffs and by onerous regulations that stamp out pesky little competitors---all subjects of future Chalk Talks.
A desire and public demonstration for freedom, then, requires a healthy balance of opposing bad government and supporting good government. We're boooooing but really want to hooooray!
The New York Times is curious what Tea Party folks are reading. In a recent article they report the movement has provoked a renewed interest in some classic works on freedom such as works by Hayek, Mises, and Bastiat. (Click here for full article.)
Two things in this article are striking:
1) The writer opens by emphasizing the "canon" of the Tea Party is composed of "resurrected" texts written by "dead writers" and "long-dormant ideas." (What would a Hayek or Mises zombie look like, anyway? Would they garble incoherently through Austrian accents while feasting on the flesh of bureaucrats and Keynesian professors?)
2) The not-so subtle conclusion providedfor the reader: "The works are more suited to protest than to policy making..."
Sandwiched between the opening and conclusion are tidbit samplings minus context constructed toward the quietly dismissive statement, "Neither Hayek nor Bastiat were writing with the United States in mind."
So there you go. The intellectual "fodder" of the Tea Party is founded on old, dusty texts whose authors are dead (Do ideas die, too?), who were never thinking of the United States (Really? Hayek wrote Serfdom for proponents of freedom in all free societies, specifically citing the United States several times), suitable only for the rabble-roused hoi-paloi Tea Party masses, not to be taken seriously for substantive policy changes.
If the mere age of texts and their authors is the benchmark for what is to be taken seriously, how new is socialism? Hayek and Mises came along after Marx, Lenin, and Engels. True, classical liberalism, founded on the idea of freedom, is older than socialism, the idea that societies can be planned and perfected through coercion. But if the mere age of ideas sets the bar of legitimacy we would need to re-institute human slavery: that institution predates all written history. Free societies came about much later in the time line of human ideas.
As for serious policy proposals, at the heart of classical liberalism and the economics that emanate from it is the acknowledgment that voluntary exchange between free individuals and the creative and productive capacities of free societies are responsible for lifting the masses out of hand-to-mouth existences. Conversely, attempting to plan and coerce society against the free development of its people leads to the arbitrary ordering of people's lives found in authoritarian regimes. Here you will find the miserable living standards one can expect from the denial of the dignity of the individual and his and her freedom.
Enter Hayek's Road to Serfdom. If his historical presentation is too "dusty" to be relevant, have a look-see at contemporary Cuba, North Korea, and the former Soviet Union.
Given our unsustainable debt and the ongoing growth of government intervention in our lives from everything from our incomes to our shower heads, a reinvigorated love of liberty founded on a sure intellectual footing seems very well suited for our times. It even seems like something free people would want to do for themselves, as opposed for waiting subserviently for their governing authorities to do for them.
So long live the dead guys and whatever grassroots movement that embraces liberty. The ideas they champion certainly do.
For the weekend edition: a lengthy and worthwhile video on Mises and the vital connection between freedom and economics. This is adds to the subject of the last Chalk Talk nicely:
It is safe to say most Americans understand there is a limit to the power of government. There is no consensus, however, on what that limit is or even how that limit is maintained.
There is a limited scope of activities afforded to the federal government in the Constitution itself. Article 1, Section 8 is the touchstone list “delegated” powers afforded to Congress. The “necessary and proper” clause of that same section has historically been the legislative escape clause for Congresses looking beyond its short constitutional charter of powers.
The very structure of the Constitution also affords a restraint on just how much the government can “get done.” James Madison’s prudential observations in Federalist51 highlights how the separation of powers pits one department of the government against the other in an internal struggle to keep each other from encroaching on the other’s authority. Making “ambition to counteract ambition,” results in one more restraint on government power and overreach.
And there is the simple yet overlooked reason why there is a limit on government power: we have a written constitution. If there is little or no restriction on government, why have anything written down? Furthermore, if Congress may pass any law not strictly prohibited in Article 1, why have a handful of permitted powers listed in the first place?
One of the most overlooked and effective checks on the power of the government is the notion and existence of private property and its voluntary exchange among private individuals—what we call the free market capitalism. When there is a clear delineation between what is private and what is public, there is a clear limit on what activities in which the government may and may not engage.
"There is an inherent tendency in all governmental power to recognize no restraints on it operation and to extend the sphere of its dominion as much as possible...If only private property did not stand in the way! Private property creates for the individual a sphere in which he is free of the state. It sets limits to the operation of the authoritarian will. It allows other fores to arise side by side with and in opposition to political power...It is the soil in which the seeds of freedom are nurtured and in which the automony of the individual and ultimaely all intellectual and material progress are rooted." [Emphasis added.]
The recognition of and respect for private property sets a “No Trespassing” sign (or, for you Lord of The Rings geeks—like myself—a Gandolf-like You Shall Not Pass! declaration) between ourselves and our economy and the authoritarian proclivities of government. Hence, the vital importance of insisting on economic freedom: If we are free to voluntarily exchange our property among ourselves, we create forces outside of and in opposition to the power of government. We create one more check on the power of government.
Think of it as an economic checks and balances. We, the People create and maintain the free market economy through the voluntary exchange of our private property, making arbitrary government actions less likely.
In Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman also stresses the importance of private property and its resulting free market as an economic counter force to the power of government: "History suggests only that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom."
Why?: In a free market society economic power is widely dispersed among many millions of hands in which government has a limited role prescribed by law.
If government comes to direct and control the economy by laying claim to too much of our private property, it comes to control both political and economic power over our lives. Economic power is then transferred from millions of hands working through voluntary exchange who hold no coercive power over each other, and concentrated into a few sets of hands in government regulatory agencies who already possess coercive political power.
“By removing the organization of economic activity from the control of political authority, the market eliminates this source of coercive power. It enables economic strength to be a check to political power rather than a reinforcement.” [Emphasis added.]
Thus, the folly of believing we can remain free by being only vigilant about civil rights such as free speech and freedom of religion but neglecting to jealously guard our economic freedom and private property rights. We cannot afford the confluence of political power and economic power in the same hands.
We need to be mindful of our economic contribution to the “checks and balances” on our government.
Three more things need discussed here: the insidious power of government-sponsored monopolies, the 16th Amendment, and what passes for legitimate government regulation. Let’s save those for other Chalk Talks.
Liberal and conservative, Left and Right, Republican and Democrat, Libertarians, Progressives, Klingons, Druids, Hobbits....
What do all the labels mean?
Presently the term "liberalism" is a generic description of a preference of government-run solutions to problems, real and contrived. Government-run health care, for example, is the solution to health care costs and inefficiencies. Government is the primary answer to most any question of policy and social issues. Liberal policies, therefore, are those that place primary importance of government power, government growth, and government involvement in more and more of the lives of Americans.
This wasn't always what a good liberal preferred.
“Classical Liberalism” was a movement of the 18th and early 19th centuries that stressed the primacy of the individual over the state and individual rights secured through limiting the power of government. Competitive free market capitalism and free international trade was the economical fruition of this thought, acknowledging that social welfare and advances in living standards come from freedom in the marketplace, not the dictates of central governments. Furthermore, international peace, it was argued, was more probable through free trade among peoples of respective nations, therefore punitive tariffs damaged whatever degree of both domestic and international tranquility that could otherwise be attained in an imperfect world.
The Founding Fathers are widely viewed as classic liberals. The Constitution, with its limitations on government powers and protections of individual rights, fits the description quite well. Also, the Declaration of Independence, our founding document, states in assertively plain terms a clearly classically liberal view of man, government, and justice. Jefferson’s Declaration—with its insistence that governments derive their legitimate powers from the consent of the people—reads like a footnote to John Locke’s Second Treatise, is another lodestar of classic liberalism.
The term, liberal in today’s sense means the opposite of what it originally meant. Modern defenders and apologists for classical liberalism such as Milton Friedman refused to relinquish the title liberal. From Capitalism and Freedom:
"In the name of welfare and equality, the twentieth-century liberal has come to favor a revival of the very policies of state intervention and paternalism against which classical liberalism fought. In the very act of turning the clock back to seventeenth-century mercantilism, he is fond of castigating true liberals as reactionary!" [Emphasis added.]
Ludwig Von Mises, in the introduction to the English version of his book, Liberalism: The Classical Tradition, explains that liberalism today means the opposite of the liberalism he is setting forth to defend:
"In England the term 'liberal' is mostly used to signify a program that only in details differs from the totalitarianism of the socialists. In the United States 'liberal' means today a set of ideas and political postulates that in every regard are the opposite of all that liberalism meant to the preceding generations."
So here comes the skull cramp: Roundly speaking, people today identified with "conservatism" are actually trying to conserve liberalism. Conserve liberalism, there you go.
Today’s conservatives believe, generally, in the primacy of the individual, individual freedom, and free markets. They are suspicious of government activities beyond national defense and the judicial system, and stress the importance of constitutional limits on government power.
Today’s liberals believe in further government intrusion in the market place, in the affairs of our lives, believe elites in powerful positions are better equipped to order society and our lives than individuals bandying about, willy nilly, in an unplanned free market environment.
How did the term "liberal" come to be interchanged with the opposite of its true meaning?
Discussing that question helps us understand much of the political rhetoric that fills the news. And that we will save for the next Chalk Talk.
And then there are the terms "progressive" and "libertarian"...
President Obama is fond of using (and abusing) an analogy for Democrat economic policy as opposed to Republican economic policy. In his recent trip to Texas, he repeated the analogy again::
“If you have a car and you want to go forward, what do you do? You put it in 'D,'” Obama said. “When you want to go backwards, what do you do? You put it in 'R.' I'm just saying -- that’s no coincidence. We are not going to give them the keys back." (Click here for full article.)
That line gets a hearty chuckle from politically-empathetic crowds, but the larger historical record of leftist economic policy tells a different story.
In the introduction to his book, Capitalism and Freedom (click here for Book Reports), Milton Friedman explains how the modern-day "liberal" has come to favor a resurrection of the paternalistic state policies of seventeenth-century mercantilism
against which proponents of classical liberalism---free market capitalism, that is---fought:
"In the very act of turning the clock back to seventeenth-century mercantilism, he is fond of casting true liberals as reactionary!"
Free market capitalism was a tremendous leap forward out of the economic doldrums of the past. The more people were free to exchange goods and services, the faster the standard of living rose for untold millions of people. When societies fostered freedom in their markets, they set the course of their lives and the lives of their posterity forward into greater prosperity.
"Capitalism deproletarianized the 'common man' and elevated him to the rank of 'bourgeois'...Those underlings who in all the preceding ages of history had formed the herds of slaves and serfs, of paupers and beggars, became the buying public, for whose favor the businessmen canvass."
Increasing government intervention and influence in our lives and liberties in not setting the car that is our society in "Drive." With every increase in the central control of our market and therefore economic lives, the government currently controlled by the Ds are heading in Reverse, turning the clock back to the mercantilistic policies that stalled societal adavance and the elevation of millions from hand-to-mouth existences. Fannie and Freddie control of home mortgages, taking over GM, bank bailouts, and centralizing our health care into the hands of a bureaucratic Leviathan is most certainly putting the car in reverse.
In so far as any of the Rs agree to go along with these backward, regressive economic policies, the president is correct, they are putting the car in reverse. But the ones putting the car in Reverse are hopping along for a ride with you, Mr. President.
One thing Americans take seriously is the privilege of voting. We do it, encourage others to do so, and will not tolerate any infringement of it. We've passed monumental civil rights legislation to ensure all eligible citizens are not barred from voting. As the ongoing New Black Panther Party/Justice Department controversy illustrates, to this day the slightest restriction on voting attracts our attention and ire.
Through voting we assert our sovereignty as citizens. We just won't abide being disenfranchised from the political process.
Oh, that we were just a vigilant in protecting our voting privileges in our economic democracy, the market place.
Every time we make a purchase we are voting with our dollars. For whom are we voting? Those people who best serve our wants and needs, who deliver goods and services to us in the most efficient and cost-effective manner. Businesses large and small compete on a daily basis for our votes. If they ask us too much money, offer products insufficient to our needs and wants, we vote for someone else.
Unlike political elections every two and four years, elections in the market place occur every day and millions of times a day. From the moment we wake and put hot coffee (or tea, or orange juice, or some herbal libation) to our lips, to the moment we put our heads on our down pillows (or foam, or orphopedic), we truly vote early and vote often.
Each of us are what Ludwig von Mises calls the "sovereign consumers" in the "economic democracy of the market." This process first occurred when free market capitalism introduced into the static, hand-to-mouth societies of old a new and dynamic approach to elevating the living standards of the masses:
"Those underlings who in all the preceding ages of history had formed the herds of slaves and serfs, of paupers and beggars, became the buying public, for whose favor the businessmen canvass. They are the customers who are 'always right,' the patrons who have the power to make poor suppliers rich and rich suppliers poor."
As with political elections, those looking for our economic votes--dollars-- look where most votes can be found: the majority. The criticism of capitalism that it favors the few at the cost of the many denies the economic fact that the consumer is sovereign. Businesses that seek profit (how redundant is that?!) seek as many votes as possible. The majority represents volume, not a niche market. As Walter E. Williams puts it, who made more money, the founder of Rolls Royce or Henry Ford?
How, then, can we be disenfranchised in our economic democracy? What would limit or infringe our privilege of voting with our dollars?
Two things: Excessive taxation and excessive government intervention in the market.
Income taxation strips us of the fruits of our labor and leaves us with less of our own property. This confiscation of our property leaves us with less money. Few dollars means fewer votes to cast in the market.
More taxes on goods and services reduces the amount of goods and services Americans can afford. The less we can afford means fewer trips to the cash register, the ballot box of the market.
We have a pending tax increase looming at the turn of the year. This tax increase will deprive us of many economic votes in 2011, in the midst of a dogged recession.
Excessive government intervention in the market is the more prevalent, but less visible, way in which we are disenfranchised in the market.
With each non-essential regulation of economic transactions, government imposes new terms by which the consumers and producers must abide. These new third party terms corrupt what normally would be two parties exchanging money for goods on mutually-beneficial terms. As Thomas Sowell explains in Economic Facts and Fallacies,
"...these new terms preclude some terms that would otherwise be mutally acceptable to the parties themselves. With fewer terms available for making transactions, fewer transactions are likely to be made."
Having fewer available terms for basic economic transactions equates to limiting our range of voting privileges in the marketplace. We are less free to vote for the best possible products and services, therefore more confined to the status quo.
With 2,000+ page legislation on health care, finance reform, and, possibly, cap and trade, there are hundreds of regulatory powers and agencies, and inevitable new taxes, coming our way. With this additional bureaucratic anchor on the economy, there will be a lot of voter suppression and fraud taking place. We will be disenfranchised from the private economic process of bettering our lives.
How outraged will we sovereign consumers be?
Perhaps if we start taking our voting privileges more seriously, we will demand new voting rights legislation and protection from the Justice Department. Maybe we can call it the Sovereign Voters in the Economic Democracy and Freedom in The Market Act.
. 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.
, 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.]) 
highlights how the separation of powers pits one department of the government against the other in an internal struggle to keep each other from encroaching on the other’s authority. Making “ambition to counteract ambition,” results in one more restraint on government power and overreach.
, Milton Friedman also stresses the importance of private property and its resulting free market as an economic counter force to the power of government: "
(click here for 