Freedom in One Lesson

62.

The Something-for-Nothing Syndrome

While most of Leonard Read’s writings were published through the Foundation for Economic Education, not all of them were. For instance, his 1937 Romance of Reality predates FEE’s 1946 founding. Another example is a speech Read made to Hillsdale College—“The Something-for-Nothing Syndrome” (Read 1976b), published in its December 1976 issue of Imprimis.

Since the syndrome that Read discusses in his speech seems only to have worsened, with a particularly sharp acceleration in the last few years, it is worth reconsidering now.

The something-for-nothing syndrome . . . is a social malady . . . a vicious one.

Without exception, those devoted to the freedom way of life . . . look with disfavor on those who advocate and participate in something-for-nothing schemes . . . feathering the nest of some at the expense of others. . . .

Most politico-economic policies in our time are in response to the demands of this or that special interest group, while the general interest is ignored. Further, the long-run effect is overlooked in order that short-run “gains” may be achieved. This is the road to disaster, and no turnabout is possible short of a greater reliance on “time-lapse thinking.” Let Walt Disney’s demonstration explain. . . .

Disney planted a rose seedling and made a motion picture of its growth, flicking a single frame every day or so until the plant was mature and the rose had bloomed. When he showed this film on the screen at sixteen frames per second, we then witnessed the whole beautiful phenomenon—the unfolding of a rosebud—in less than a minute.

Disney’s time-lapse photography enabled us . . . to see the long-run effects of short-run causes. This is why I urge some time-lapse thinking.

. . . [Public-policy analysis] requires that time be collapsed as related to future effects of present causes.

. . . The easiest and perhaps the only way to be certain that a short-run action is a gain or loss is to discover what its long-run effects will be. Why? . . . Constructive service of the individual’s purposes or of the general interest can never emerge from destructive means. Thus, we must collapse time, resort to time-lapse thinking. . . .

. . . Most people find it unnecessary to do time-lapse thinking to put thievery in its proper place. However, millions of these same people not only condone but participate in legal plunder, that is, they urge government to do the looting for them. They see nothing wrong with this; indeed, they regard the loot as a gain. Perhaps the only way for them to set their thinking straight is a resort to timelapse thinking. . . .

. . . Project such practices into the future and observe the self-evident consequences. Time-lapse thinking will reveal the fallacy; it will serve as an eye-opener, a needed shock treatment.

Reflect on the businessmen who seek political protection against competition, domestic as well as foreign. Assume the universality of this craving for short-run “gains” and then assess the future. What would be the economic picture? It would look like ancient feudalism or medieval mercantilism or modern communism. . . .

From such thinking stems this helpful conclusion: fret not for the morrow, only for today. Why? Because the morrow is a life-style edifice structured from today’s actions. . . . If today’s actions are as right as one can make them, then the morrow will be as good as possible. . . .

The Good Society is something rare and precious and is taken for granted. That it requires no human input— nothing—is a naive assumption by nearly everyone. . . .

Rising above the prevailing mediocrity requires of the individual that he or she recognize that a good society stems exclusively from the habit of right thinking and doing on the part of its citizens. . . . A decadent society is the penalty of sloppy thinking and careless action. . . . We cannot have this desirable something for an unforgivable nothing. . . .

Simply stated, the vast majority of present-day Americans are the beneficiaries of an enormous momentum in whose rise they have had no part. Thus, they assume that the beneficence which graces their lives is simply their due, a natural blessing.

Stated another way, the victims of this particular something-for-nothing syndrome are . . . unknowingly riding on the coattails of the few who have the intelligence to realize that take-out presupposes input. To rise above mediocrity is . . . participating right now in an input of thoughtful, responsible citizenship that makes an increasing take-out possible not only for self but for generations yet to come. . . .

The Good Society is impossible in the absence of a natural aristocracy as defined by Jefferson: “There is a natural aristocracy among men . . . composed of virtues and talents.” . . . Nonsensical notions are held in abeyance when the natural aristocracy is riding high, when there are standard-setters of excellence. . . .

. . . Given such high exemplarity, people refrain from making fools of themselves before those held in high esteem. . . . But let there be a slump in the aristocracy—as today— . . . and the foolish notions come forth as termites from a rotten stump.

The remedy for this malady? The restoration of a natural aristocracy. . . . This consists of citizen participation in the search for improved ideas, ideals, moral perfection, virtues—integrity being the foremost—and talents. . . .

. . . An absolutely necessary component, if we are to be graced with a good society, is what I have referred to as “organizational common sense.” Our beliefs must consist of this, not only in understanding but in strict observance—day-to-day adherence thereto.

. . . Man is at once a social and an individualistic being. Find out what the social side is, and all else is individualistic—each free to act creatively as he pleases. The individual decides how he shall act creatively. However, when it comes to the social side, neither I nor you nor anyone else should decide for the others. That’s organizational nonsense: dictatorship—the Command Society, not the Good or Free Society.

The spokesman for the social side should be none other than an agency of society which we call “government.” And to keep it in bounds as an agency of a free society—not letting it get out of bounds as now in the U.S.A.—requires an organizational common sense presently lacking. . . .

Government is said to be a necessary evil. The saying appears to be without merit. For can anything be at once necessary and evil? True, all governments have had a history of evil-doing, more or less. However, it does not follow from the experience that their good is indistinguishable from their evil. Their evil begins when they step out of bounds. The only necessity is that their evil actions be discontinued. Such an achievement is unlikely until the principles prescribing the boundary lines are searched for and found.

Very well—how do we draw the line between what government should do, and what government should not do? . . . Find out what the fist [of government force] can and cannot do and we will know what government should and should not do. . . . What, in all good conscience, should be restrained, prohibited, inhibited, penalized? . . . Curb the destructive actions of men—fraud, violence, predation, misrepresentation—thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and the like. This is all that government can do as a helpful agency of society—period.

But it is even more important to recognize what government—a physical force—cannot do. It cannot create. Government is not a creative force, never has been, nor can it ever be. . . .

. . . Limit government to the suppression of destructive actions and leave all creative actions—no exception . . . to men acting freely, voluntarily, cooperatively, competitively, privately. To me, this is the first step in organizational common sense.

The second step, though seldom perceived, is no less important: Responsibility and authority should always be dispensed commensurately. . . .

While this principle often seems to function in private affairs . . . it appears to have no recognition at all in social affairs. . . . The millions of our political dictocrats . . . assume authority over our lives . . . all financed with our earnings and savings . . . all authority and no responsibility. As a result, it is the citizenry who are penalized for the errors of dictocrats. . . .

Were our vision to become a reality, those in government would no longer devote themselves to promoting their inept brand of good with our resources. Instead, they would confine their efforts to removing the bad in order that the truly good might prevail. . . . Everyone would be free to act creatively as he or she pleases—freedom in its ideal sense.

Read covers a lot of ground in “The Something-For-Nothing Syndrome.” He starts with the syndrome itself and how it manifests itself through government policy, represented by an almost uncountable number of more-for-me-at-someone-else’s-expense policies and proposals.

Next, channeling Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson, which recognizes the problems that arise when long-term effects of policies are ignored, he suggests time-lapse thinking to improve our ability to see those effects that take longer to manifest themselves. Long-term effects are no less real or relevant than short-term effects of the same process. When individual firms, for example, attempt to protect themselves from competition, they produce the adverse long-term effect of mercantilism.

This was one of Read’s major themes, and he illustrates it with a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote, cited by him more often than any other: “Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end pre-exists in the means, the fruit in the seed” (Emerson 1841).

Read applies time-lapse thinking to the thievery of government policies that benefit some and largely ignore the costs to others in the present and the often far larger costs in the future. He contrasts such policies with what is necessary to create a good society. “If today’s actions are as right as one can make them [as with avoiding thievery], then the morrow [for society] will be as good as possible.”

In contrast to a good society growing out of improvements made by creativity and wise choices, which Read calls “the habit of right thinking and doing on the part of its citizens,” many Americans who now advance or support thievery policies not only ride on the coattails of earlier generations who thought and acted better but even erode them, undermining both the present and the future.

Read, in a nutshell, argues that “right thinking and doing” lead to a good (or better) society, but “sloppy thinking and careless action” eliminate the possibility of a good society. Furthermore, ignoring the massive burden on society created by the latter increases the burden imposed in the long run.

To prevent such burdens, Read endorses Thomas Jefferson’s call for a renewed “natural aristocracy,” which entails “citizen participation” not in undermining society but “in the search for improved ideas, ideals, moral perfection, virtues—integrity being the foremost—and talents.”

A necessary condition for such efforts to be as productive as possible is what Read calls “organizational common sense,” which grows out of the different comparative advantages of government, on the one hand, and individuals and their voluntary arrangements, on the other. Government’s one comparative advantage is coercion. The question is, “ What should coercion be used for?” Read’s answer: “Curb the destructive actions of men. . . . This is all that government can do as a helpful agency of society—period.” Individuals and their voluntary associations, however, have a comparative advantage in everything creative, so we should “leave all creative actions— no exception— . . . to men acting freely, voluntarily, cooperatively, competitively, privately.”

If we assign to government only the responsibility to inhibit harms and nothing else, along with the necessary authority for the task but nothing more, and leave to individuals everything else, then “everyone would be free to act creatively as he or she pleases—freedom in its ideal sense.” Freedom in its ideal sense is the goal—promising almost unimaginable benefits— that motivates Leonard Read. At a time when the goal of policy seems to be the opposite of freedom, it is worth considering what he has to say.