Because of its popularity, we may briefly consider the “traffic-manager analogy”—the doctrine that the government must obviously regulate the economy, “just as traffic must be regulated.” It is high time that this flagrant non sequitur be consigned to oblivion. Every owner necessarily regulates his own property. In the same way, every owner of a road will lay down the rules for the use of his road. Far from being an argument for statism, management is simply the attribute of all ownership. Those who own the roads will regulate their use.

Critics often level conflicting charges against the free market. The historicist-minded may concede that the free market is ideal for a certain stage of economic development, but insist that it is unsuited to other stages. Thus, advanced nations have been exhorted to embrace government planning because “the modern economy is too complex” to remain planless, “the frontier is gone,” and “the economy is now mature.” But, on the other hand, the backward countries have been told that they must adopt statist planning methods because of their relatively primitive state.

Since the problem of the nature of man has been raised, we may now turn briefly to an argument that has pervaded Roman Catholic social philosophy, namely, that the State is part of the essential nature of man. This Thomistic view stems from Aristotle and Plato, who, in their quest for a rational ethic, leaped to the assumption that the State was the embodiment of the moral agency for mankind. That man should do such and such quickly became translated into the prescription: The State should do such and such. But nowhere is the nature of the State itself fundamentally examined.

It28 is often asserted by critics of the free-market economy that they are interested in preserving “human rights” rather than property rights.

The uncertainty of the future is already implied in the very notion of action. That man acts and that the future is uncertain are by no means two independent matters. They are only two different modes of establishing one thing.

The treatment of probability has been confused by the mathematicians. From the beginning there was an ambiguity in dealing with the calculus of probability. When the Cehvalier de Mere consulted Pascal on the problems involved in the games of dice, the great mathematician should have frankly told his friend the truth, namely, that mathematics cannot be of any use to the gambler in a game of pure chance. Instead he wrapped his answer in the symbolic language of mathematics.

Class probability means: We know or assume to know, with regard to the problem concerned, everything about the behavior of a whole class of events or phenomena; but about the actual singular events or phenomena we know nothing but that they are elements of this class.

We know, for instance, that there are ninety tickets in a lottery and that five of them will be drawn. Thus we know all about the behavior of the whole class of tickets. But with regard to the singular tickets we do not know anything but that they are elements of this class of tickets.

Case probability means: We know, with regard to a particular event, some of the factors which determine its outcome; but there are other determining factors about which we know nothing.

Case probability has nothing in common with class probability but the incompleteness of our knowledge. In every other regard the two are entirely different.

Case probability is not open to any kind of numerical evaluation. What is commonly considered as such exhibits, when more closely scrutinized, a different character.

On the eve of the 1944 presidential election people could have said:

(a) I am ready to bet three dollars against one that Roosevelt will be elected.

(b) I guess that out of the total amount of electors 45 millions will exercise their franchise, 25 millions of whom will vote for Roosevelt.

(c) I estimate Roosevelt’s chances as 9 to 1.