Freedom in One Lesson

19.

Harmonizing to Each His Own

Change often induces fear—including the fear that our well-being will be eroded due to changes in markets. For instance, the invention of a cheaper way to provide a service that I currently provide could lower my wage. The potential for harm in change makes us risk-averse. But without change, there can be no new ideas, no innovations, no improvement, and no growth. Trying to stop change to lock in our current well-being undermines the process that has provided most of the benefits we have come to enjoy—all of which required improvements in our options—and that will benefit us and increase our economic security in the future if all arrangements remain voluntary.

Such fear is a significant motive force behind all forms of protectionism, including those against domestic rivals, international rivals, potential entrants to an industry, new techniques, and new products. We are all tempted by the thought of limiting the rights and freedoms of others to lock in our current advantages. But it would be unjust if I could limit your rights but you could not limit mine. And if anyone could limit the rights of anyone else, then we would be even worse off. Voluntary exchange benefits rather than harms those whose rights are involved.

In “Harmonizing to Each His Own,” from his 1972 book To Free or Freeze: That Is the Question (Read 1972a), Leonard Read compares the freedom to seek out and offer improvement in willing arrangements with the attempt to freeze out such potential improvements. In opposition to those who seek favors from the government—who, as Henry Hazlitt puts it, hire “the best buyable minds” to argue that favors for themselves are good for everyone—Read explains why freedom for all, when subject to respect for the rights of others, is better than the melee of the favor-seeking competition to restrict the rights of others.

Man could not live, let alone improve his lot, were all static as a rock. Change releases the hidden strength of men. Out of change comes variation and in this diversity are unique potentialities realized. Creative dissimilarities emerge and account for our moral, spiritual, intellectual, and material wealth. Change is of the very essence of life, and freedom to change is both an economic and a biologic necessity.

[But] most persons tend to dislike it. . . . [It is] inevitable and necessary but, nonetheless, much resented. This feature of human nature . . . substantially accounts for the continuing debate over freedom versus coercive collectivism.

The main reason for resenting change . . . originates in a misunderstanding of how security is best obtained. Individuals, with rare exceptions, are interested first and foremost in securing life and livelihood. Security is indeed an objective but, contrary to general belief, it is never more than a dividend of natural change and variation—each pursuing his own uniqueness. There is no security to be found in bringing change and variation to a halt; nothing is so at odds with security as freezing . . . the status quo. Seek first security and there will be neither security nor change. Seek first the dynamic, improving life and such security as is possible is thrown in as a rewarding outcome.

The freedom to direct creative and value-creating efforts is a means to mutually beneficial harmony, but to many it sounds like chaos and requires an authority to prevent meltdown.

[There have been] countless attempts at harmonizing our variations. . . . Not only is there myself to cope with: to grow, emerge, evolve, to become what I am not yet; equally challenging, I must find out how to live in harmony with my fellowmen. My life and welfare depend not only on what I make of me but also on how I associate myself with others upon whom I am also rigorously dependent, a dependence from which there is no escape. Except in association, I perish! . . .

There are, broadly, two opposed theories as to how the sociological maelstrom should be resolved. The first— authoritarian—is steeped in tradition, as aged as humanity, and presently gaining ground all over the world. It is the old, old master-slave arrangement that has always stifled human progress and diverted man’s efforts to fighting, either to force his will on others or to combat the tyrant’s army. The second—freedom—is brand new as history goes, all too seldom understood or accepted. . . .

. . . The authoritarian vision is limited and blurred at best.

What then must be the outcome of the authoritarian’s solution to social problems, assuming that his will is invoked? Simple: all of us compelled to abide by what he sees . . . which, of course, is next to nothing. All of us, if his will prevails, restricted by his oblique view of reality.

Here, Read makes sure we realize that the cost of authoritarian “solutions” is far greater than any imagined benefit.

All that is good—no exception—springs from creative human energy obeying its nature, that is, freely flowing when not squelched. . . .

. . . Only a person deficient in reasoning powers . . . could possibly believe that any scheme can “ bring us out where we want to be.” This is an I posing as we—absurd! The flowering society, the only kind that merits our interest, is one that will not stand in the way of bringing you out where you want to be, while permitting the same opportunities for everyone else. And this is definitely a prospect when millions—yes, trillions—of decisions are made independently of each other, that is, a situation in which freedom of choice prevails.

. . . Instead of chaos there is order and stability—an incomprehensible harmony. . . .

What at first blush appears as utter chaos . . . turns out to be precisely the opposite: a harmonic whole in the absence of I’s trying to play we. You to your knitting, me to mine, each pursuing his unique potential. . . . For only in this manner am I able to draw on your and everyone else’s unique realizations, others possessing countless ideas, enlightenments, goods, services hardly any one of which is within my own potential. When freedom prevails, we can think of our situation as a vast human grid, supplies responding to demands in a perpetual willing exchange. A harmonizing of to each his own!

Finally, Read reminds us that to understand freedom is to undergo a kind of cognitive therapy. One confronts the unfounded fear of change that leads people to support usurpers of freedom whose insufficient abilities (despite their delusions of competence) actually harm us all. “ We need only know (1) that freedom does work wonders—the evidence is commonplace and all about us—and (2) that freedom exists in the absence of man-concocted restraints against the release of creative energy. And observe how simple—and realistic—this is: it does not presuppose a single know-it-all!”