Freedom in One Lesson

88.

Our Self-Interest in a Good Society

How much serious thought do people give to what a good society entails? While there have been, and continue to be, utopian thinkers, their visions always require coercing others into a mold. Whenever these visions have managed to become a reality, the results have been abysmal. Other than these utopians and other meddlesome would-be controllers, most people give the matter almost no thought.

Citizens who fail to think carefully about society allow government controllers to assume power and wreak havoc. Particularly in “Shoemaker, Stick to Your Last,” from his 1974 book Having My Way (Read 1974), Leonard Read argues that everyone has an interest in making the good society possible. But some would say that understanding or creating a good society is too complex for those who work for a living. They are both right and wrong: a good society is too complex to plan or create, but we as individuals only have to recognize its essential basis—the golden rule, which is not complicated at all.

There is a matter of transcendent importance that I believe is everybody’s business: the structuring of a good society! Were we to concentrate on this aspect of our own business as much as we are inclined to meddle in what is surely none of our business, a good society would be a viable prospect. Why all of this emphasis on the good society? It is the environmental prerequisite to individual fulfillment. And that is your business—and mine!

The need for a good society . . . is everybody’s business, but relatively few recognize their responsibility. . . .

. . . When people in general are unaware of their personal stake in the good society and have no opinions of their own, when they think this is a matter requiring only the attention of specialists, they cannot tell a wise counselor from a charlatan; they are the easy victims of utopian dreamers, seekers after power, organizational gadgetry designers.

. . . People who insist that it is none of their business and who remain intellectually sterile so far as the good society is concerned, are attracted to political gimmicks, to shortcuts, to promises of rewards that put no demands upon them—none whatsoever! All this and heaven too, and no need to attend to personal virtues!

Why do so many people get the false notion that the structuring of a good society is over their heads? It is simply because the schemes to which they are attracted—promises of the guaranteed life—are so varied, complex, and nonsensical that no one can understand them, not even the authors! . . . Their eyes are cast upon that which cannot be comprehended. They are not blind; they are simply staring at darkness!

. . . You and I give society whatever character it has, and no society can be better than are the individuals who compose it. You cannot make me good, or even better than I am. Nor can all the social planners and schemers in the world. I alone have any control over my goodness or improvement, and you alone over yours. To become aware of this and then to strive for self-improvement is to mind one’s own business—including one’s obligation to promote the good society.

How simple is it to become the good citizen? As simple as to understand and to adhere to the most widely pronounced and the oldest ethical proposition of distinctly universal character: the Golden Rule. . . .

. . . This movement . . . is strictly voluntary, the only way that man can act in a free market society. And the market is automatically free when government is limited to keeping the peace, that is, to restraining destructive actions. Contrast this with the coercive society manifested by people in all walks of life saying, in effect, “I paid for it; I might as well get my share.” Implicit in this latter way of life is dictocratic control of creative activities: “Do as I say, or else!”

In an era in which building upon “the Great Society” and earlier models undermines our potential to achieve a good society, Leonard Read urges citizens to take the issue seriously. The task is not beyond our understanding, because, rather than plan the good society, we need only appreciate, follow, and support long-established moral and ethical concepts, such as the golden rule. While a good society cannot be coerced into existence, voluntary interactions can build the foundation for one.