Having My Way

27

THE RIGHT TO QUIT

Man, proud man! dressed in a little brief authority, plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven as make the angels weep.

—SHAKESPEARE

Were a child not allowed to graduate out of kindergarten he would never know fifth-grade arithmetic. Were the government to freeze you in your present employment, the world of opportunity would forever be closed to you. Am I conjuring up fantasies? Indeed, not! Occurrences similar to these are common, and they are coercively decreed by “man, proud man,” in ways “as make the angels weep.”

The government of Libya has issued a decree expropriating 51 per cent control of all foreign oil companies. Among the provisions:

All employees of the affected concerns are required to continue to work and none “may resign his position” without government permission regardless of the worker’s nationality. Punishment by fine or imprisonment is provided for anyone acting contrary to the decree.1

Several American companies are involved, one having 165 U.S. citizens on their payroll in Libya. Suppose you were one of these and wanted to quit your job in that far-off land and return to your own country. Could you do so? Only with the permission of unsympathetic bureaucrats!

Shocking? Yes, indeed, but it is “par for the course,” in line with the politico-economic trends of our day, here and elsewhere. There may be contractual obligations to fulfill, of course, which mandate a continued association; but beyond that, what is the difference between the forcible denial of the right to quit the job one has and the forcible denial of the right to start a job one wants? It is violence in either case and he who condones the latter cannot logically look unfavorably upon the former. Indeed, the supporters of violence in any area should, if consistent, welcome violence in all areas and places, even the forcible denial of the right to quit a job, whether in Libya, or Russia, or Hometown, USA.

Take an entrepreneur whose business is unionized and who may want your services; you, in turn, wish to work for him. Who has the say-so? Not the businessman, not you, but the union. Or, let us say that you are a member of a union that has gone on strike, whereas you do not wish to quit. Your wish is but a dream!

Let us not, however, confine our criticism to unions and job control. There is no distinction between control of jobs and control of goods. Thus, all who favor wage and price controls are on the side of violence—coercive denial of your right and mine to deal with whomsoever we please in free and willing exchange. Neither they nor coercionists in any other field can make the case against the Libyan decree or against holding children forever in kindergarten. They have disqualified themselves!

The right to quit is fully as important as the right to start. To deny any man either of these rights is to deny him his right to life. It is to freeze him into his position regardless of how ill-chosen it might be and to erect a barrier to opportunities irrespective of the wonderful promises they may hold. It is to immobilize and stop the growth of an erstwhile living human being. Making things out of humans is inhuman!

Who, pray tell, are these makers of things out of human beings? They are those “dressed in a little brief authority,” those who acquire power and then lord it over us. They are the ones who are unaware of how little they know, who know not how to quit their meddlesome intervention.

Use the right phrasing and even these authoritarians would ridicule such behavior. How many of them, for instance, would buy the “Divine Right of Kings” theory that had its heyday during the reign of James I? I have not met one in my time. Yet, in what respect do they differ? They no more question their competency to rule than did that egotistic monarch of an age unenlightened in freedom.

In the preceding chapter, first published as an article, I said: “To imagine I were King is pure fiction, merely suggestive, for my first act would be to abdicate.” This article inspired my friend, Ralph Bradford, to write a satirical verse in which he portrays to my satisfaction the type of mentality that accounts for the authoritarianism now so enormously on the upswing.

If I were king, I’d abdicate,

Or junk the throne, at any rate . . .

Or maybe I would merely doff

The purple mantle, or leave off

The jeweled crown. . . . For as I muse,

It strikes me I can not refuse

This cup. For who, I ask, am I

The call of duty to deny?

Endowed with gifts that others lack,

It seems to me that I must try

To keep them on the proper track—

To teach them how to earn and spend,

And be most useful in the end.

How can I answer Heaven, pray,

Upon that final Judgment Day,

If I have shirked to do my bit

To make the race of man more fit?

So I shall drink this bitter cup;

Yes, I shall take my burden up,

And work to make men fine and free

And good and true and wise—like me!

Is there a remedy for this egomania? In my judgment there is one and one only. It was prescribed in the Declaration of Independence:

that all men are . . . endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

We either accept the idea that our rights to quit or start—our rights to life and liberty—are endowed by the Creator or we submit to the proposition that they are man-given—in which case they may be taken back by the giver. There is no other way!

Once any individual grasps this concept, he will quit thinking of himself as almighty and all-wise; he will quit trying to run the lives of others; he will quit his endorsement of all coercive schemes; he will quit acting as other than a normal human being striving to perfect his own life. These are some of the things everyone has a right to quit, a right over which he alone has full control. If we will simply quit meddling with the lives of others, then no longer will “the angels weep.”

• 1See “The New Science and The New Faith” by Dr. Donald Hatch Andrews, The Freeman, April 1961.