May 29 marks the 99th birthday of Arthur Seldon, a prolific defender of freedom against government control. His biography’s subtitle, A Life for Liberty, reveals his animating commitment.
Seldon was the editorial director of the London-based Institute of Economic Affairs for over three decades. He penned 28 books and monographs and over 200 articles. He also edited 350 papers, monographs and pamphlets, whose authors included Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. From that outpouring of insight, consider some of the wisdom from his 1990 book, Capitalism, considered his finest.
The market cannot work…as a closely controlled agent of the state and its political motivations…the political process…will want to dominate it, not to liberate it.
In the political process…decisions are made in substantial ignorance and therefore irresponsibly…
Public ownership…destroys the reality of ownership…it creates miniscule incentives, ineffective nominal ownership and no disposable property rights.
Private property is a potent working institution. Public ownership is…a socialist euphemism for political power cornered by handfuls of irresponsible non-ownerships.
The democracy of the market enables the peoples of the world to be left in peace…a more effective form of democracy for enabling all the people…to decide their lives.
There are no democratic safeguards for political irresponsibility because the “other people” whose money is being spent cannot closely approve the reasons, check the calculations or trace individual losses.
Changing private identifiable property into public unidentifiable property is to destroy the incentives to protect, conserve, improve and render it productive by using it profitably in making goods and services for which consumers will pay.
Pricing is the peaceful way of resolving argument and conflict.
The evolutionary spontaneous freedom under capitalism for individuals to act without collective restraint is necessary for some to forge ahead and show the others the way…as the others follow, more can share in the advance…The eventual equality-creating mechanism of the market under capitalism is based on liberty to compete and emulate, and is more enduring than the equality enforced by the political process under socialism.
World practice and experience…show no better, less imperfect, mechanism than capitalism as it has been, still less as it could be with free markets unimpeded by the political process.
The record and history of government failure…[shows] the pervasive repeated destructive inability of government to represent the people, keep its promises, correct its defects, discipline its bureaucracy, cut out waste, respect individual differences among citizens, avoid monopoly, provide choice and purge corruption…
In markets…individuals…do not profess to know the interest of others better than others do themselves. This is the profession of politicians.
Far from being the cause of undesirable or unjust differences, the market, if it is allowed to work, is the most powerful instrument for equalizing incomes the world has known.
Capitalism embraces the self-correcting mechanisms of open discussion in free society to identify error and open competition in free markets to apply the corrections…
Even good people do harm in politics. The market does not require people to be good: it takes people as they are and induces them to do good by using their capabilities to provide what others want.
Wherever it is used, government is so disappointing or worse—inefficient, unaccountable and corrupt—that it is best not to use it at all except for functions where all its faults have to be tolerated to obtain the services required…In short, the price of government is so high that it should be avoided wherever possible.
The state has shown itself the false god of all who have looked to it…
No politician has declared harm, but many have perpetrated it. Businessmen do not declare intentions to do good, but in competitive capitalism…men who have made money by producing objects or creating services for which others voluntarily pay have done good even if their purpose was solely to make money.
The virtue of capitalism is that…it does not require good men or women. The vice of socialism is that men and women who may start with good intentions, but who are skilled in acquiring coercive power, can use it to do harm.
Politics as it has developed acts on balance against the common people in favor of political people.
In their day-to-day lives…[people] misuse their uninformed uncaring vote, but they save themselves and their families by the care they exercise in the market.
The tyranny of the political process is the unnecessary subjection of the individual to the decisions of other individuals…not because their collective judgment is better than his, or because they know more, or are more concerned with his well-being, but solely—solely--because there are more of them.
Though few outside of England now know Arthur Seldon’s name, his defense of freedom and the market mechanisms they enable is worth remembering. As the IEA website put it, “Seldon highlights the improvements of mankind which came about not through some central plan or social organization but through individuals recognizing an opportunity to produce goods and services which met a need expressed by the demand in the market.” His spirited defense of freedom against the unjust and inept coercion of government helped advance the human potential of every individual.
