Freedom in One Lesson

77.

Wishes and Rights

Any careful observer of American politics must be struck by the expanding roster of things people have asserted they have rights to. But when such claimed rights are seriously considered, there is often little substance beyond a shared desire or wish for something and the supposed implication of a right to it. From there, it is but one more step to the legislative or judicial attempt to create such rights, which are promoted as social improvements guaranteed by government.

Few have thought as much or as carefully about this confusion between wishes and rights as Leonard Read. His insights are particularly well developed in “Doctor, Whoever You Are,” from his 1969 book Let Freedom Reign (Read 1969b), and “ When Wishes Become Rights,” from his 1967 book Deeper than You Think (Read 1967). In a world in which wishes are turned into political rights, Read’s views are worth serious consideration.

From “Doctor, Whoever You Are”:

Now in vogue is a fearful combination of wishes and methods, as fanciful as Aladdin’s lamp, and spreading like wildfire: the transmutation of wishes into rights! Do you wish for better housing? Then better housing is a right. Do you wish for a Gateway Arch in St. Louis, a Mall in Fresno, higher returns for goods and services, shorter hours of labor, protection from competition? Then these are rights. Do you wish for free medical care? Then free medical care is a right!

And what is the nature of the jinni called upon to transmute wishes into rights? It is organized police force: government. It extorts from all, allocating the legalized loot to those who effectively make their wishes heard. . . .

How do we go about healing this sickness? We must acquire an understanding that wishes, regardless of how numerous, do not constitute a right. I have no more right to your professional attention than you have a claim on me to wash your dishes. We are dealing with an absurdity. . . .

. . . We live and prosper by specialization and exchange. . . . Others tend to encourage me to specialize at what is of value to them, and I tend to encourage them to specialize at what is of value to me. This is how people in a free society exert their wishes. But note that these wishes do not carry with them any right on my part to command what others shall produce or any right to force on them the terms of exchange.

When the notion that a wish is a right is put into effect by police force—the only way it can be done—then specialization is no longer guided by consumer wishes nor are the terms of exchange. . . . Other citizens are then forced to perform labor for which they receive absolutely nothing in return. Exchange is by coercion rather than by free choice. . . .

. . . The fact that many of us wish more medical attention than we can afford does not give us a right to your services or a right to force others to make up the difference, wishes to the contrary notwithstanding!

From “ When Wishes Become Rights”:

Reflect on [distress]. . . . What a field for the would-be philanthropist if all these wants were within his power to fulfill! . . .

. . . Benjamin Franklin [wrote,] “If man could have Half his Wishes, he would double his Troubles.” . . . If a man’s objectives could be achieved for nothing more than wishes, no good would be served, deterioration would ensue. Struggle, earning one’s spurs, conscious effort, calling on one’s potentialities and bringing them into use are essential to survival—to say nothing of progress. This is crystal clear to a few. But not to the many!

A majority of Americans, today, would accept the magic lamp. For it is obvious that most persons who would gratify a wish at the expense of others would more readily do so at no expense to others. Such wishers are among us by the millions, all in pursuit of something for nothing—effortless wish gratification.

These many Americans have found their magic lamp in the Federal political apparatus, and what a jinni! . . .

Aladdin’s jinni performed only on call; it responded to wishes when requested. This modern American version, on the other hand, displays zealous initiative in that it:

1. invents wishes for people;

2. persuades people that these wishes are their own and, then, actively solicits their gratification;

3. convinces people that these wishes are among their natural rights, and

4. casts itself in the role of “helper.” . . .

Further, the jinni insinuates its golden goals into the minds of people as wishes capable of fulfillment. The jinni appears in nearly every community of the nation and in many countries of the world selling its wishing wares . . . largess is urged upon the citizenry. . . .

But it would hardly do for this jinni to gratify wishes were the performance attended by any sense of guilt on the people’s part. So, how does the jinni dispose of this hazard? Simple! It transmutes wishes into “rights.” . . .

Except in this political never-never land, it would be absurd to labor the point that a mere wish for material betterment does not create a right to its fulfillment; that is, a wish does not, in any moral or ethical sense, establish a claim on someone else’s property. Yet, transparent as is such double-think, this is precisely what is accepted by a majority of our countrymen . . . that the citizen has a claim on the property of others. . . . [These are] false rights. . . .

Rights, in the context under examination, are claims. When we say we have a right to life and liberty, we are staking out our claim to them. We find our sanction for this in the self-evident fact that life and liberty are an endowment of the Creator, not of society or the collective or government.

But, when people say they have a right to a job or to enjoy the arts or to lower power and light rates or to an education or to a decent standard of living, they are staking out a claim to the fruits of the labor of others. Where rests the sanction for this claim? It simply comes from the notion that a wish is a right.

The absurdity of this wish-is-a-right sanction comes clear if we reduce the problem to manageable proportions: a you-and-me situation. Do I have a just or rational or moral or ethical claim to use your income? . . .

Most people victimized by the magic transmutation of wishes into rights will, in this you-and-me situation, answer the above questions in the negative. What escapes them is that the problem is not altered one whit by adding one person or a hundred or a million of them. And, if it be contended that numbers do matter . . . what is the magic number? A majority? Must we not infer from this majoritarian cliche the indefensible proposition that might makes right? . . .

The modern jinni, however, must go on to even greater magic. For it is not adequate merely to dream up wishes for people, to sell them on accepting the wishes, and to solicit the gratification thereof. And more is required than to transmute the wishes into rights. One other bit of abracadabra is a must if the jinni’s image is to remain unassailable: the jinni must cast itself and be popularly accepted in the role of helper. To be thought of as . . . a robber of Peter to pay Paul would destroy the whole illusion.

In any community in the land may be found people pointing with pride to some “necessity” the local citizens could not or would not finance, explaining that it was made possible “with the help of the Federal government.” . . .

The modern American jinni, lacking supernatural powers, cannot bring down manna from heaven. Being earthly, its manna is earthly in origin. Having nothing whatsoever of its own, its “gifts” must, perforce, stem from what is taken by coercion from others. It cannot be otherwise.

. . . Do these “gifts” qualify as help? Is this jinni, in fact, a helper? Are the “ beneficiaries” really helped? If we can answer these questions in the negative, we come out from under the jinni’s spell.

Help is a social term. At least two persons—the helper and the help—are implicit in its meaning. . . . The extent to which one is helped is measured precisely by the nature and amount of the helper’s contribution. What is received by the one is what comes from the other. . . .

Property taken without consent is correctly branded as ill-gotten. If passed on to another, the other receives ill-gotten property. . . . According to moral law, as well as the law of the land, one who takes property without the owner’s consent commits a crime. When such property is passed on to and accepted by another, the other is adjudged an accomplice to the crime.

Property taken without consent cannot be given, for to give is conditioned on and presupposes ownership by the giver. I cannot give that which is not mine. Thus, the jinni’s largess cannot qualify as gifts but only as loot. Citizens who have been pointing with pride at . . . their subsidized this-or-that should modify their exclamations: “See what we have done with the loot of the Federal government!”

Loot is not help, one who loots is not a helper, and one who accepts the loot is not really helped.

. . . However strong the compulsion in most of us to modify or improve the lot of other people, if we would avoid causing more harm than good, we must confine ourselves to those aids that stimulate the renewed exercise of the volitional faculties in others. . . .

I must not, in picking to pieces the notion that wishes are rights, leave the impression that wishes, of and by themselves, are proper objects of scorn. On the contrary, wishes, hopes, aspirations are among the most important forces motivating human progress, evolution, emergence. At issue here is only the means of their gratification.

We who reject illusory schemes are not denying the good life to others but merely pointing out that these political nostrums can lead only to . . . dead ends.

No good end can be reached by choosing a wrong way.

As we uncover more and more wrong ways, the right way begins to take form. It is the greatest gratifier of human wishes ever come upon—when allowed to operate. It is as morally sound as the Golden Rule. It is the way of willing exchange, of common consent, of self-responsibility, of open opportunity. It respects the right of each to the product of his own labor. It limits the police force to keeping the peace. It is the way of the free market, private property, limited government. On its banner is emblazoned Individual Liberty.

But what looms as the right way has, in the minds of many people, emblazoned on its banner only the sign of the dollar . . . and, thus, is largely rejected.

If not for the corrupting lure of getting something for nothing, people would long ago have rejected the idea that wishes imply rights. But as more wishes have been granted, most Americans have stopped thinking about the burdens borne due to these invented rights. Our reasoning has been warped to serve a very narrow view of our self-interest. This makes it particularly important to revisit Leonard Read’s wisdom about wishes and rights; otherwise, our coveting will corrupt us further and further.