Comes The Dawn

18

WHERE LOOK FOR OUR EMANCIPATORS?

In every epoch of the world, the great event. . . . is it not the arrival of a thinker?

—THOMAS CARLYLE

The greatest epoch in all history, in my estimation, was 2,000 years ago. The next greatest epoch—a flowering of the first—graced this land of ours 200 years ago. However, there is a third in the offing, barely visible but in sight, which may be of even greater importance to Americans than the second.

The second, heralded by the Declaration of Independence, was an example of action and reaction. The action? Old-world tyranny! The reaction? Freedom in a new world on a scale never before experienced!

So what is the action that features the third? A plunge into all-out socialism—not over there but right here! The required reaction? A rebirth of freedom in this once land of the free!

At the outset, I differ with one point in Carlyle’s observation. True, “the great event” in earlier history was brought about by “the arrival of a thinker.” But the Declaration of Independence was brought about not by one but by several thinkers. And several thinkers, not a thinker will, in my humble opinion, bring about the third epoch—the one in the offing. Is this not the way it should be? Is it not the fulfillment of the Second Coming? To me, at least, this does not mean the Coming of another Christ—the Perfect Exemplar—but, rather, the coming, as nearly as possible, of such exemplarity in each individual.

My thesis is that we are to look for our emancipators among the active thinkers. How many are required, and in what walks of life will they be found? Suppose this question had been raised a few years prior to the signing of the Declaration. No one could have answered. Of this we can be certain: only an infinitesimal fraction of the population—signers and others—had at once the wisdom and the courage to bring such a document as the Declaration into existence.

From what walks of life did the signers come? Who could have guessed? Two were physicians, another the son of a clergyman. Included were a lawyer, a merchant, an importer, a musician, a printer, a carpenter, a cobbler, a cooper, and even a millionaire.

I am convinced that the number—“the several thinkers”—who will be responsible for switching our nation from socialism to freedom will, percentage-wise, be no greater than it was 200 years ago—again an infinitesimal fraction. Does not the U.S.A. have more than a tiny fraction of such thinkers today? No, not of the required quality! The best freedom devotees among us have only scratched the surface when it comes to making the case for the free society. Neither I—nor anyone else—can achieve the required understanding short of acknowledging that we all have more—much more—to learn. Why should not each of us accept this seemingly harsh judgment by Simon Ben Azzai? “In seeking wisdom thou art wise; in imagining that thou hast attained it, thou art a fool.”

There are politicians and bureaucrats by the millions who imagine that they have attained wisdom—a foolish notion—or they would not believe that they are more capable of running your life and mine better than we can. This is the darkness which engulfs present-day America. However, it is easily demonstrable that darkness has not the slightest resistance to light and, by the same token, ignorance—foolishness—has no resistance to the seeking of wisdom: enlightenment! Thus, the solution rests with seekers of wisdom, thinkers of extraordinary caliber.

From what walks of life will such thinkers come? Again, who knows! The other day I received a letter from a ten-year-old lad who showed a better grasp of the free market philosophy than is presently evidenced by most Ph.D’s!

To understand the nature of our problem, consider the severe and relentless attacks upon business from every conceivable source, including some businessmen themselves. On the other hand, many businessmen around the nation are frantically attempting to defend business enterprise against these ruthless blows. Are we to expect thinkers of the required quality to emerge from among these distraught persons? Yes, one now and then; but expect no more real thinkers from the ranks of businessmen than from other walks of life—physicians, clergymen, importers, printers, carpenters, cobblers, or whatever profession. No more now than was the case 200 years ago.

A fact rarely suspected, let alone understood, is that businessmen are by no means the chief beneficiaries of the free market, private ownership, limited government way of life. Many business ventures fail entirely. Who then are the beneficiaries? The masses!

Politicians, bureaucrats, editors, news commentators, “economists,” “teachers,” and other word artists who denounce private enterprise and praise socialism are their own worst enemies. By attacking and maligning those who try to out-compete others in order to make as much of a fortune as possible, these attackers are unwittingly destroying the sources of their own livelihood. They kill the geese that lay the golden eggs—and don’t know it!

Nor do businessmen, except in rare instances, have the welfare of the masses at heart. They labor to make money but in doing so they unwittingly serve others!

Here we have one of the explanations for the mess we’re in. When those served know not who their benefactors are, and when those who serve are unaware of the ones whom they serve, we have a know-nothing society—dying on the vine, as we say.

How to be done with this know-nothingness, this unwitting nonsense? From whom the required enlightenment? From a thinker, one who can replace the nonsense with sense! Where look for such a person? The one seen in the mirror but who, if like me, must look around for help. My help came from a Yale professor, the late William Graham Sumner. Let only a few absorb the full meaning of these simple sentences and ours will be a growing, not a dying-on-the-vine society:

Every man and woman in society has one big duty. That is, to take care of his or her own self. This is a social duty. For, fortunately, the matter stands so that the duty of making the best of one’s self is not a separate thing from the duty of filling one’s place in society, but the two are one, and the latter is accomplished when the former is done.1 (Italics mine)

Being one of the masses—not a businessman—and sharing Sumner’s enlightenment, what practices of businessmen do I disapprove or approve? I disapprove of the growing number who “think” that they have a “social responsibility”—looking out for the likes of me. This notion is no less repulsive than that of the political know-it-alls, the ones who foolishly imagine that they can run your life and mine better than we can. Those in either group—one as much as the other—imagine that they have attained wisdom. An interesting aside: the bureaucrats finance their egomania with taxpayer’s money, and these equally foolish businessmen finance their egomania with stockholder’s money! So I ask, with Montaigne: “What more wretched than the man who is the slave of his own imaginings?”

The businessmen I approve? Astonishingly, the ones who are doing their level best to make money! Bless their economic souls! They are my material benefactors, even though they may not have the slightest idea that they are performing such a role. They are taking care of their own selves, and so long as their dealings are open and above board—honest—that’s their main social duty, and their sole duty to me and others of the masses.

Of the ones I approve, who are the highest in my esteem? Those who are the most successful, who get way out ahead of all competitors, the further ahead the better; those who make their fortunes in the market place.

Why this unorthodox way of looking at our economic world? The answer is simple: others like to get out ahead, as in a horse race; they like to make money too. As a consequence, countless others will try to outperform the leading performers. Many will fail, of course. But examine any endeavor in the business world and we find that someone always comes up with a better idea and leapfrogs the one out front. And what does the better idea turn out to be? Some good or service that we of the masses prefer above other available resources. The free market, private ownership, limited government way of life is a game of leapfrog; and all of us, even the avowed socialists, prosper from this little-understood game of serving consumers. And many of those successful businessmen don’t even know what wonderful service they render!

From the foregoing comments, one may wonder why my insistence that our emancipators must be composed of more advanced thinkers than have heretofore graced our society? Suppose there were to emerge among us thinkers on a par with our Founding Fathers. Would not that quality suffice? No, for their problem was in no way comparable to our present dilemma.

Our Founding Fathers, fed up with Old-World tyranny, sought freedom. The essence of their ambition? I wish to be my own man rather than some tyrant’s man! And their thinking was of that high quality which brought fulfillment. However, these ancestors of ours did not—could not—foresee the miracles that would be wrought when, for the first time in history, there was little if any organized force standing against the release of creative human energy. They had no precedent to go by, nor were they oracular. “Oracles, like dreams, can only be judged after the event.”

After the event? After the greatest outburst of creativity ever known to mankind. In all respect for their wisdom, our Founding Fathers did not know that this would be one of freedom’s dividends. And even after the event, few indeed are those who begin to see clearly what happened and why. Merely take note of the followers of this or that ideology who take credit for the American miracle. Today’s tyrants—those who think they can run your life and mine better than we can—resemble the tyrants of old in proclaiming themselves the authors of the American miracle. And they declare freedom to be the enemy of human progress. The opposite of truth is on the rampage.

The problem? I repeat, not a person known to me has more than scratched the surface when it comes to making the case for the free market. The ideological cards are stacked against us. The solution? Let each one of us try his best; and among the thousands who try, several will gain that enlightenment against which tyranny cannot endure. These several, and these alone, will be our emancipators. May you, whoever you are, become an emancipator. Let’s play our own free market game of leapfrogging one another in our understanding and practice of freedom.

• 1In Roman mythology, Aurora is the goddess of dawn.