Having My Way

6

THE BLESSINGS OF ADVERSITY

Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.

—HORACE

Many devotees of freedom observe the current plunge into socialism—state interventionism, welfarism—and lament the hard times they see ahead. Full of foreboding, they fail to see that this adversity has its value, its blessings.

Prosperity, as Plutarch reminded us, “puffs up narrow souls, makes them imagine themselves high and mighty.” When millions of people get this way, as today, they are no asset to freedom—the “high and mighty” never are. Thus, freedom loses much of its intellectual sustaining power which makes easy the plunge into socialism. Only common sense can come to the rescue, but the adversity can stimulate this needed quality. For it is an observed fact that the art of becoming consists of acts of overcoming. Without obstacles to overcome, rising to higher levels is out of the question. The adversities now facing us may serve as stepping stones; they are blessings in disguise.

We must seek out the vantage point from which to view the present obstacles as necessary stimulants for better thinking—as did Robert Service:

It’s a different song when everything’s wrong,

When you are feeling infernally mortal;

When it’s ten against one, and hope there is none;

Buck up little soldier, and chortle!

Buck up! What does Service mean? He’s not telling us to grimly get into the fight, but joyously into the play! It means accenting what’s right as distinguished from cursing and berating the wrongdoers and their assertions; it means becoming more productive ourselves. On this point, Goethe observed, “What we agree with leaves us inactive, but contradiction [an obstacle] makes us productive.” A personal experience:

My first book was written 36 years ago under the most trying conditions. It was typed in spare moments while traveling extensively over the western states, lecturing to people many of whom were swayed by the statism then on the upswing. For the most part, these were quarrelsome and contentious rather than cooperative audiences.

The book received enthusiastic approval from several persons whose judgment I respected. And then this silly thought: If I could write this well under such adverse conditions, think what I might produce were I not burdened with overwork among unfriendly people! Free me from adversity and I would rise to new heights!

With this thought in mind, I took a month off in a cottage by the seashore. All was beautiful, quiet, serene. No newspapers or radio; not a soul to bother me; no nonsensical notions to arouse any rebuttals. The outcome? One month and nary an idea! I returned to the world of bustle and conflict, with my typewriter and a ream of paper untouched. And since then, I have remained in this rough and tumble world of bumping ideas back and forth. Productive? In addition to numerous other activities, I have had the temerity to publish 16 books in the intervening period. Score one for Goethe!

But I venture to disagree with the great Goethe on one point. By using “we” and “us” he suggests that his rule has universal application. True, Goethe and many others, who have attained a measure of intellectual manhood, have a lively reaction to notions that contradict freedom—making them more productive thinkers. The more the nonsense, the better their performance and the more determined their search for truth and ways of clear exposition.

However, people by the millions—those lacking understanding, those whose convictions are only “skin deep”—succumb to the slightest opposition. Let “the other side” become rich in cliches, bromides, plausibilities and they subside, throw in the sponge. They go hither and yon as flotsam and jetsam on a stormy sea. Contradictions serve only to deaden their initiative and diminish their productivity. They are as ineffective, as useless to the advancement of freedom, as “the high and mighty.”

These people are on dead center, unhappy with themselves and ineffective in the cause of freedom. There is a joy that attends a life which is successfully overcoming obstacles and adversities; and here are some ways that have helped me get on the productive track.

1. If puffed up and among “the high and mighty,” deflate and escape from that category. The slightest reflection on the contrast between one’s accomplishments and the job ahead assures the required humility, the wisdom of knowing how little one knows.

2. If obstacles and contradictory views fail to stimulate productivity—the search for truth and improved expositions—find out why. The mere search for the answer, if sincere, will turn out to be the answer itself, or a large part of it.

3. The next step—a big one—is to probe into the freedom way of life to the point where faith in its efficacy replaces all doubts. Keep going until an awareness dawns of the miraculous market. How tell when this point has been reached? It is reached when one realizes that the free market—each to his own uniqueness and unfettered exchange—possesses a wisdom unimaginably greater than exists in any discrete individual. For instance, grasp the truth that one need not know how mail would be delivered in the absence of force to be absolutely certain that the market would do it ever so much better than anyone can possibly foresee. The evidence is overwhelming but is hidden under cover of things taken for granted. Merely look under the cover.

4. Well begun, half done! The above is the beginning, the construction of the launching pad, the essential preparation for productivity. How far one will orbit cannot be foretold. Productivity in this realm correlates with improved understanding and wisdom and thus offers infinite possibilities. So far as I know, no person, past or present, has more than scratched the surface in making the case for freedom. The need is as great as the potential rewards, and the field is wide open. Enter with joy and enthusiasm.

Any individual, thus prepared, will be stimulated into productivity by socialistic cliches, bromides, plausibilities—contradictions of freedom whether so intended or not. Such an individual will instantly recognize these fallacies and be able to explain the better ideas that ought to displace them. His explanations, then, are productions—blessings of adversity.

Here, for example, are several of the more common fallacies of socialism:

1. “The more complex the society, the more government control we need.”

2. “The government should do for the people what the people are unable to do for themselves.”

3. “The size of the national debt doesn’t matter because we owe it to ourselves.”

4. “The free market ignores the poor.”

5. “Man is born for cooperation, not for competition.”

6. “Human rights are more important than property rights.”

7. “Consumers ought to be protected by price controls.”

8. “One man’s gain is another man’s loss.”

9. “Rent control protects tenants.”

10. “Government should control prices, not people.”

This is neither the time nor the place to expose each of these fallacies in detail.1 I would simply point out that each of these slogans is but a variation of the Marxian motto: “From each according to ability, to each according to need.” Each implicitly denies the dignity of the individual, denies that he is self-responsible and self-respecting, denies the principles of private ownership and voluntary exchange, denies the virtues of open competition and market pricing, and declares that government is better able than we ourselves to manage our respective lives.

There is an unseen aspect to this umbrella of popularly acclaimed governmental protectionism. What such intervention amounts to is a closing of the market, thus depriving each of us—in his dual role of producer and consumer—of the vital information afforded by market prices. Freely fluctuating prices describe the ever-changing conditions of supply and demand. Lacking the knowledge provided by a flexible price structure, no individual and no government official can reasonably judge whether to buy or sell, produce or consume. The free market is a conservation device, and without it a man will waste his own energies as well as all other valuable and scarce resources. Only as these scarce resources, including manpower, are privately owned and controlled through open competition can there be any hope of economic progress and the general alleviation of poverty.

If these are times of great adversity, then surely this is a time for greater faith in freedom. Adversity, rather than doing us in, should strengthen and refine our thinking to the point where we overcome it.

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