Introduction

In the summer of 1961, I was returning from a fishing trip with my friend George Vermillion. We were both in our early thirties. George was a pharmacist and I worked for Parke Davis, a pharmaceutical company. We had been fishing in Mexico, and George was driving us back home to Long Beach, California — a trip that would take about three hours. During the drive, I told him (it was more like a confession) I had never registered to vote and was embarrassed about not knowing the difference between a Democrat and a Republican. I thought it was time I learned about politics and joined the crowd, but most of all I wanted to avoid embarrassment when questioned about my political affiliation.

My main interest outside of family affairs was science; politics and economics were too esoteric for my taste. Other than the required courses, my classes in college were in the biological sciences. George was the perfect person to ask about politics, given that his father, George “Red” Vermillion, a Democrat, had been the mayor of Long Beach from 1954 to 1957 and his mother was the president of the Long Beach Republican Club. Imagine growing up in that household! So, George began explaining things to me. He talked nonstop for well over an hour, and I don’t recall asking any questions along the way. When he finished, I told him I should become a Republican because personal responsibility and free enterprise struck a chord with me. I felt relieved that I could now at least call myself something: a Republican. (I should mention George was a Republican; it seems his mother got the best of him.)

A few weeks later, George invited me to a meeting where Assemblyman Joe Shell was speaking about his campaign against Richard Nixon in the California Republican gubernatorial primary race. I went to the meeting where there were twenty or thirty people in attendance. As Shell spoke about what he would do if he were elected governor, he touched upon some of the same thoughts George had expressed to me during our trip. After he spoke, he took time to meet with each of us. When he got to me, he asked where I lived. When I told him, he asked if I would be willing to run his campaign in that part of Orange County. I gulped and said yes. Within minutes, a newspaper reporter and photographer had me shaking hands with Joe, flanked by the California and US flags. That was my introduction to politics, of which I still knew next to nothing. The following day, the picture was in a local newspaper. How proud could I be? Just a few weeks earlier, I hadn’t known the difference between a Democrat and a Republican, and now I was running a local campaign for a conservative Republican. No sooner had I escaped one embarrassment than I found myself right back in another. I didn’t have a clue about what to do as a local campaign manager. I was on a crash course to learn about what it meant to be not just a Republican, but a conservative one.

As a local campaign manager, I had to recruit workers and try to woo voters to our side. Recruiting workers was easy because I only solicited people who already considered themselves conservative Republicans. Most were around my age, and getting together with like-minded people who shared a common agenda — with dinners and cocktail parties thrown in — was a fun and stimulating experience. In the process, I learned from my recruits, who had already read many conservative books and essays, which they either gave me or told me about. After doing some reading and becoming somewhat comfortable with my newly gained knowledge, I was ready to spread the word and persuade voters.

Because the internet and PCs were not yet available, all campaign materials were in print form. We simply delivered the literature door to door. I even commandeered my two sons — ages five and seven at the time — to fill their wagon with literature, which they distributed in the neighborhood. They eventually got to know by precinct number where their friends lived. The campaign went well, with hopes of an upset. However, when the final votes were counted in June 1962, Shell had lost to Nixon, 35 percent to 65 percent. Over the next two years, I became involved in various other conservative Republican campaigns and, in the process, achieved a perfect record of zero to whatever.

At some point while campaigning, someone asked me a question that put me on a different course: “If your free enterprise system is so great, then what about schools, roads, laws, and justice?” I don’t remember my answer, but that question was just too simple and fundamental for me not to have considered it when I first got involved in politics. I would like to think the question was at the back of my mind from the beginning and that I had just hoped no one would ask. More likely, though, I had feared the answers might cause me to doubt, or even reject, the efficacy of free markets. Nevertheless, there I stood, shifting from where I was a few months earlier when I had wondered, “What is the difference between a Republican and a Democrat?” to now wondering, “Is there a difference?” After all, neither party suggested that markets free of government intervention would be able to provide all goods and services more effectively than politically regulated markets could.

Why would nature’s feedback favor the efficacy of free markets for some enterprises and not others? If nature’s feedback favored the efficacy of free (politically unrestricted) enterprises A, B, and C, why would it disfavor the efficacy of free enterprises X, Y, and Z, unless there was something peculiar or unique about them? If a free, unrestricted market was capable of delivering fresh milk to my front door, as was the case when I was a kid, it would seem natural that such a market would also be capable of delivering mail to my front door if allowed to do so, which was and is still not the case. But then, maybe both enterprises would fare better as government-regulated markets.

For nature to be inconsistent seemed implausible. Either a free market is a more efficacious social arrangement than a politically restricted market for all enterprises or no enterprises. Double standards seemed unnatural. I simply adopted the free-market alternative as more universally efficacious because my inherent bias drew me there, which was reinforced by the concern that if regulated markets did lead to greater efficiency and productivity, such would hold true for the most minute market exchanges.

In addition to my free-market bias, I regarded my life as my sole responsibility. Partial responsibility in which others become responsible for part of my life and I responsible for part of theirs was incomprehensible. 

Around 1962, the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) came to my attention with its published collection Clichés of Socialism. The collection consisted of a couple dozen or so essays printed on 8½ x 11 inch sheets, each on a socialist cliché. The essays described the failures of socialist policies and the fallacious reasoning behind the clichés. Although I was excited to find some justification for free markets, the responses to these clichés did not tell me why free markets work better or even why socialism doesn’t work. Nonetheless, Clichés of Socialism and other FEE materials led me to books and essays that kept my search alive. Discovering the why obviates the need to analyze every enterprise by every group of actors in every part of the world at every given time. Scientific truths are universal, necessary, and certain. If applying the free market to food production would lead to better food supplies in Oregon, the same should hold true in Zimbabwe — now, one hundred years from now, or one hundred years ago. There are underlying principles of nature that govern matter in motion, irrespective of the enterprise, actors involved, location of the event, or time of occurrence.

Also around 1962, I learned about the Free Enterprise Institute (FEI), a newly formed, for-profit educational organization headquartered in Los Angeles and directed by Andrew Galambos (1924–97), an astrophysicist. Art Sperry, an anesthesiologist I had met as a Parke Davis representative, organized an FEI course given by Galambos in Long Beach. I signed up for the premier V-100 course, “The Science of Volition,” which was conducted in fifteen weekly three-hour sessions. There were about twenty people in attendance, many of whom were physicians. This was exactly what I had been looking for because it offered a scientific approach to markets and society.

The thrust of the course was about applying the scientific method as an effective means to gain knowledge and truth about nature. We learned about scientific discoveries and how scientists at the forefront of those discoveries were often threatened, imprisoned, tortured, or executed when their claims about the workings of the world ran counter to the dicta of the ruling authorities. With time, however, discoveries that contradicted such dicta eventually became the norm, while the fallacious ideas became viewed as backward thinking. The threat of death did not stop the Earth from moving, nor did the house arrest of Galileo or the burning at the stake of Giordano Bruno. Threats might delay the general acceptance of the actual workings of nature, but they cannot stop it. Using force to gain adherence to a belief is itself evidence that the belief is likely fallacious and will eventually be discarded.

“Truth is the daughter of time, not authority,” noted Francis Bacon (1561–1626). In 1620, he published The New Organon, which outlined a step-by-step method to discover the workings of nature as a way of improving the human condition. This was the birth of modern science, destined to replace our superstitions with observable evidence and inductive reasoning. Today, superstitions that contradict reason and observable evidence continue to linger in the minds of those unwilling to accept the reality of nature. Even when we suspect that a generally held belief is fallacious, we are reluctant to express our doubts for fear of being ridiculed by our peers.

When Galileo (1564–1642) turned his newly made, twenty-power telescope to the moon, he was surprised to see mountains. Church dicta claimed that all celestial bodies were heavenly and therefore perfect spheres orbiting the Earth in perfect circles while the Earth lay still at the center. This geocentric structure of the universe was the generally accepted view for two thousand years.

When Galileo invited Cesare Cremonini (1550–1631), the most renowned philosopher of his time, to look through his telescope and see for himself that the moon had mountains and was not a perfect sphere, he simply refused. Perhaps Cremonini was convinced that it was not possible, or more likely was unwilling to look for fear that if he did see mountains and told others about it, fellow scholars would ridicule him and his standing with Church authorities would be jeopardized. Today, few have heard of Cremonini, who was so famous at one time that his portrait hung on the walls of many European castles. To say there were mountains on the moon and the Earth did not lie motionless at the center of the universe was considered heresy. The populace accepted the Church’s teachings given that this view of the universe had existed far too long for it to be wrong. If it were wrong, surely someone would have proven it long ago.

Today, virtually everyone considers the geocentric view absurd. However, very few have arrived at that conviction through personal observation and calculation because that would require far more than what most of us are capable of doing. We simply accept what others tell us when we sense that dissent would make us look foolish among our peers. This natural fear of peer rejection is exemplified in the well-known Hans Christian Andersen tale The Emperor’s New Clothes. In that story, onlookers, for fear of looking stupid amid their peers, are reluctant to express what they see as the emperor parades down the street showing off his “new clothes” — except for a child, too young to be silenced by peer pressure, who reveals that the emperor is indeed wearing no clothes.

Science simply opens doors to new ideas and views that no one is forced to walk through. There is no final authority to decree a scientific view as “settled.” This volitional acceptance or rejection of ideas is the overwhelming strength of science that will continue to whittle away at the common belief that states with their dicta and force can serve a beneficial purpose. Improvements in the human condition will continue to emerge from volitional interactions led by scientific discoveries and new technologies that political dogma may dampen, but never stop.

The FEI V-100 course I took began by establishing two postulates: All volitional beings live to pursue happiness and All moral pursuits of happiness are equally valid. Underlying the first postulate is the innate driving force of living organisms: self-interest. At that time, the monumental work of evolutionary biologists George Williams and William Hamilton confirming the genetic selfish nature of animals had yet to be published. Adam Smith (1723–90) and others had suggested man’s selfish nature, but rigorous genetic studies confirming such insights would not appear until later. 

If people act in their own self-interest, why would anyone ever act morally or civilly without being forced to do so? This is perhaps the greatest misconception held by those trapped in the political box, wherein selfishness is erroneously understood to be in opposition to morality, cooperation, and social order. Selfishness in fact is the quintessential attribute that leads to cooperation and improvement of the human condition. Without selfishness, morality and cooperation would have no meaning, and life itself would be devoid of value. Selfishness is not, as often characterized, a quantitative attribute subject to degrees, such as too selfish or greedy. The indispensable selfish nature of living matter will be discussed in chapter 3.

The implied notion that political authorities are necessary stems from the general belief that humans, if left to their own devices, will give rise to a society of “all against all,” as Thomas Hobbes asserted. Hobbes was mistaken, as was James Madison, who claimed, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” Hobbes and Madison imply by their statements that governments are needed to curtail man’s worst behavior; however, in actual practice, governments instead encourage man’s worst behavior.

Nature doesn’t care about bringing out the best or the worst in people. The feedback that follows our actions guides us to either repeat or avoid certain acts in the pursuit of well-being. Positive feedback leads us toward repetition, while negative feedback leads us away. However, government provides a political safe harbor for the most abhorrent acts committed on its behalf. When acting within this safe harbor, an actor can avoid the personal negative feedback of rejection and injury that he or she would otherwise face when acting outside it. With the full force of the state behind them, the lowest minion can act with impunity. The personal impunity from the most abhorrent conduct is just one example of how government brings out the worst in people.

The win/lose combative nature of the political world encourages uncivil conduct which is accepted as the social norm. Outside that world is a win/win volitional environment wherein civil conduct is encouraged and accepted as the social norm. As will be discussed in chapters 2 and 8, people, for the most part, conduct themselves consistent with the accepted social norm of the arena in which they are operating. A person acting uncivilly (using dicta and force) when in the political arena will revert naturally to civil conduct (using volition) when operating outside that arena.

There have been more than a hundred political parties in the United States throughout its history, with about thirty still active, and there are a few hundred more governing or trying to govern people’s lives in virtually every other corner of the world. The bickering between and within these ruling groups only concerns how best to rule their designated subjects, with each political group having as its essential common theme the use of dicta and force to gain obedience.

Political schemes have titles that sound appealing because titles that actually describe what they entail would attract few followers. Communism, socialism, liberalism, and democracy are very humanitarian-sounding political names. They connote community, social interaction, liberty, and self-governance, respectively, with an umbrella of human decency and kindness. However, the actions taken by those involved in such schemes can be as ruthless, brutal, and inhumane as the acts committed by those in schemes carrying names that connote what they actually do. In the convoluted world of politics, those who abhor plunder, wars, and the subjugation of their fellowmen by government, while minding their own business, are labeled dangerous and tyrannical. In the world of politics, the clever use of words can twist the minds of even the most thoughtful person into accepting and endorsing schemes that would otherwise defy their basic sense of decency.

I escaped the political box in 1964, and the views expressed here come from outside the world of politics and government.1 I invite you to escape that box as well. If you have already done so, I hope you will find further reinforcement here for having made that decision.

The thrust of this book is not about changing public policies, limiting or abolishing government, “fixing” America, or trying to change the world. Nor is this book about a crisis or the notion that if we don’t do something soon, civilization will collapse. I hope to convey an appreciation of liberty as the natural common sense way to view the social world and interact within it. The inherent moral compass that guides our behavior in private matters can serve us just as well in public matters.

While political governments are constructs of disutility that cannot serve a useful social purpose, I consider political intervention to limit or abolish them as counterproductive since such activity endorses the use of dicta and force, which is the very reason political governments are constructs of disutility in the first place. Advancing social ideas that do not demand obedience or compliance requires far more personal patience than simply forcing others to comply via the political ballot box. Nevertheless, by way of volition, the widely held idea that dicta and force can serve a useful purpose will eventually fade into backward thinking in the so-called public sector as it has in the private sector. Time, nature, reason, and the human spirit will see to that. Irrespective of good intentions or the approval by consensus, nature’s unrelenting feedback will gradually drive ruling political authorities to extinction.

Reason may be a small force, but it is constant, and works always in one direction, while the forces of unreason destroy one another in futile strife. — Bertrand Russell (1872–1970)

Liberty is a self-actualized mindset of seeing and enjoying the grandeur of nature and humanity in a way that is not accessible to those adhering to politics and government. As miraculous as the universe is, it is not beyond the workings of nature, and to expect political governments to be able to defy its laws with dicta and force is to expect the unnatural.

A fundamental yet simple tenet of liberty and life is that no one owes you anything! That includes kindness, food, healthcare, education, and respect. The beauty of this tenet is that others, when left to their own devices, are inclined to respond with kindness, food, healthcare, education, and respect, without even being asked. My endless gratitude goes to all those minding their own business while caring for my every need. The belief that government can force these benefactors to take better care of me (and you) is a deep-seated, fallacious, and detrimental notion that those in the political world embrace.

For the most part, each chapter of this book comprises a stand-alone discussion.

Chapter 1, “The Political Box,” discusses why so many people remain trapped in a political box, holding firmly to the illusion that politics and government serve a beneficial social function.

Chapter 2, “Barbaric Civility,” discusses the duality of standards of conduct in which people condone dastardly conduct in public (political) matters that they would never think of using in their personal affairs.

Chapter 3, “Doing Good: Nice Guys Finish First,” discusses the selfish nature of living organisms and the natural selection of human cooperation over force as a more adaptive behavior for surviving and propagating.

Chapter 4, “Fairness and Equality,” discusses the nonsense and divisiveness of the political use of “fairness” and “equality” to disguise acts of inhumanity as moral in order to gain votes and power, while reducing the potential welfare of all.

Chapter 5, “Discrimination, Beliefs, and Expressions,” discusses the importance of discrimination and how political laws prohibiting selective associations — as well as disassociations — are inhumane. The nonpolitical world is an individual one where relationships are voluntary, joint ventures based on preferences.

Chapter 6, “Tragedy of the Commons and Human Behavior,” discusses how individuals achieve results that are “better than rational” when seeking ways to manage the resources of the commons, and how government intervention only obstructs the process.

Chapter 7, “Obedience to Authority,” discusses the degree to which the most compassionate people can become desensitized and conduct themselves in abhorrent ways when they are obedient to authority.

Chapter 8, “Complexity, Adaption, and Order: Visualizing the Invisible Hand,” discusses the multifaceted, revolutionary new science of complexity theory (also called chaos theory) that shows why the political top-down ordering of society is disruptive to social order.

Chapter 9, “Political Democracy,” explores the inherent inhumanity of political democracy as a social scheme in which common sense and goodwill are scorned and individual predation upon others is praised.

Chapter 10, “A Better Life — A Better World,” concludes the discussion and considers finding purpose in life while trying to make the world a better place.

• 1I use the terms “political government,” “political democracy,” “government,” and “state” interchangeably as entities with various names that use dicta and force as their primary means to gain obedience from people residing within their declared geographic dominions.