Comes The Dawn
15. Promises Men Do and Do Not Live By
PROMISES MEN DO AND DO NOT LIVE BY
Every civilization rests on a set of promises. . . . If the promises are broken too often the civilization dies. . . .
—HERBERT AGAR
It would take nothing less than a book to explain the promises men live by. Indeed, Harry Scherman wrote such a book—481 pages—using that very title.1 The set of promises on which civilization rests is rooted in integrity: borrow money, pay it back; make a contract, keep it; offer a good or service, let the representation of it be honest; make an engagement, respect it; title an article or book or sermon in accord with its content—on and on, no falsification whatsoever. These are the promises men live by.
My purpose here, however, is not to reflect on promises which are kept, but on those which are broken. Broken promises are enormously on the increase in the U.S.A. and this bodes ill for our civilization. As a starter, here’s an interesting thought from the Babylonian Talmud:
The righteous promise little and perform much; the wicked promise much and perform not even a little.
There are, of course, numerous yardsticks for measuring those who are righteous and those who are wicked, the yardstick in this instance relating only to promises and performances. This Hebrew observation, written 15 centuries ago, measures men by what they do, not by what they say. Those who promise little and perform much are praised, while those who promise much and perform not even a little are condemned. Such a yardstick, applied to our day and age, makes a lot of sense. Indeed, it made sense to William Graham Sumner who, 14 centuries later—1883—wrote a masterpiece, What Social Classes Owe to Each Other.2
Sumner, a Professor of Political and Social Science at Yale University, clearly perceived an evil way of life taking root, one which has proliferated by leaps and bounds during the last forty years. “The forgotten man” was his label for the righteous. The wicked? Those reformers and social doctors—in and out of office—who advocate and employ the coercive force of government to subsidize nonworkers with the fruits of the forgotten man’s labor.
False promises and the social doctors or reformers labeled as wicked! Performances and the forgotten man identified as righteous! Here is a ray of politico-economic light that has mirrored its way through the ages, seen by a few—our Founding Fathers and other intellectual stalwarts such as Sumner—and encouragingly on the increase. Civilizations rise and fall as the few perceive or fail to perceive this truth.
The masses, those who do no thinking for themselves and who range from paupers to millionaires, have forever been the victims of empty promises—the more extravagant, the greater the allure. Promise “All this and Heaven too!” if one’s ambition be popularity, a mass following, millions genuflecting before the overesteemed self.
It is this mass deception which accounts for the false promisers: witch doctors, dictocrats, do-as-I-say reformers, be-like-me egotists. Nonthinkers—blind followers—constitute the target of these Pied Pipers. Thus the genesis of those who “promise much and perform not even a little.” It is easy to see why they promise much. But why do they perform “not even a little”? It is because the promises they make are absolutely impossible of fulfillment! They promise, for instance, to assure welfare to one and all, not with their substance but with yours and mine. The welfare rolls grow as the sources of funds diminish, until finally—all parasites and no hosts! The poor get poorer, the community goes bankrupt. Promises galore, performance nil!
The Pied Pipers promise more than welfare; they promise to plan the economy. Why, in this planned redistributive nonsense, do they perform “not even a little”? F. A. Hayek suggests the answer:
The chief reason why we cannot hope by central direction [government planning] to achieve anything like the efficiency in the use of resources which the market makes possible is that the economic order of any large society rests on the utilization of the knowledge of particular circumstances widely dispersed among thousands or millions of individuals.3
Even the millions who haven’t the slightest idea of what makes an economy fruitful or unfruitful do, nonetheless, come up with literally trillions of goods and services—all novel and beneficial to millions of us whom they have no intention of benefiting. These unintentional benefactors are nudged into productivity not by politico-economic understanding. Far from it! What then? Adam Smith wrote the answer 200 years ago:
By directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.
Here, again, the promises of the Pied Pipers—government planners—are absolutely impossible of fulfillment. Their coercive input is composed exclusively of errors. If this point were more generally understood, that understanding would put an end to the Command Society. For such understanding, recognize two facts:
1. The productive input for any given year has its origin in literally trillions of ideas, inventions—think-of-thats—by millions of individuals.
2. In not a single instance does any individual know what the next moment will bring forth in the way of a creative idea. New ideas are not foreseen by the innovators themselves—thus, could not possibly be foreseen by self-ordained rulers. How can a Pied Piper see in you that which you have not seen in yourself!
For example, take a “simple” pencil. One of the countless ingredients is a wetting agent: sulphonated tallow—animal fats chemically reacted with sulphuric acid. Imagine the number of individuals, the span of time, the experimental failures and steps forward in bringing sulphuric acid into existence! And who or how many had a hand in chemically reacting this “oil of vitriol” with animal fats to make possible a “simple” pencil? Simple? The creative process, even in the simplest items, baffles the imagination of anyone who will seriously peer below the surface and, by so doing, realize that here indeed are countless miracles at the human level.
Those who promise much and perform absolutely nothing are wicked in the sense that they are motivated by vanity rather than morality. Samuel Butler’s explanation:
Authority intoxicates
And makes sots of magistrates.
The fumes of it invade the brain,
And make men selfish, proud and vain.
False promises intended to advance power over others are clearly immoral. And the same can be said of false promises that are unintentional, those born of ignorance. Falsifying is wicked, regardless of the reason for lying.
Enough of the wicked. What about their opposite, the righteous, the ones who promise little and perform much? Who are they? They are the millions who, year in and year out, have trillions of ideas, seeking their own gain, and who serve all of us with their productive efforts. They are classed by Sumner as forgotten men.
Why forgotten? The knowledge of how freedom works its wonders is so infinitesimal that these unintentional benefactors are not generally recognized as such, which makes it plausible for the Pied Pipers to claim the credit for our welfare.
Forgotten men? They are rarely known to be the source of our well-being in the first place; and further, they do not even think of themselves as such. This explains why they go on playing host to the rapidly growing number of parasites.
A final thought. Take any one of these millions you care to choose, for instance, one of the many who had a hand in a pencil’s wetting agent. Did he promise what he was going to invent or discover prior to the moment an idea flashed into mind? Impossible! His performance alone is the extent of his promise.
We have in these productive millions—so far as promises and performances are concerned—the righteous. They are our unintentional benefactors—miracle workers. They are so little recognized that we might call them the secret agents of the free market. One of these days one or more of us will find a way to replace this secrecy with understanding and clarity—a greatly needed performance. Then? Everyone will win!
