Let Freedom Reign

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CONFESSIONS OF A RICH MAN

True, we are threatened by disaster. But an appreciation of the wonders freedom has made possible cannot help but impress on all of us the importance of doing everything within our power to avert another decline and fall.

What can inspire us to discover and then to exert our utmost powers in this respect? In our work and in our games competition is among the forces that move us toward excellence. Competition, however, appears to have little or no influence in making us better students and expositors of freedom.

The following self-analysis is an attempt to discover what moves me to better understand, explain, defend, and expand freedom. Note that the force at work is not competition—would that it were!—but appreciation.

There are many thousands of persons in America today whose assets exceed a million dollars. I am personally acquainted with numerous millionaires who acknowledge their status and with many more who do not. Some of these men, indeed, give every appearance of trying desperately to keep their heads above water; they put me to shame when it comes to economizing! I may even know a billionaire or two.

No trillionaires are yet known to me, although there are some prospects. Trillionaires, it seems, are not self-made but government-made. In Germany, for instance, following World War I, when the inflation reached the point that 30 million marks wouldn’t buy a loaf of bread, trillionaires were a dime a dozen.

These observations lead me to the conclusion that adding up dollar assets is not necessarily the best way to decide who is rich and who is not. Actually, this is the old-fashioned way of assessing affluence: acres of land, size of castle, number and quality of jewels, how many serfs, slaves, servants, or ducats in the vault. On this basis the legendary Midas, Croesus, kings of England, and German trillionaires would be accounted richer than I am. And I say they are not!

Applying concepts conceived during the past six or seven generations, I may be among the very rich. And bear in mind that I do not have many dollars stashed away; that FEE is not nor has it ever been a part of the social security system; and that I have refused to accept Medicare which, in turn, made me ineligible to continue my Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurance. By the old standards of measurement, I am far from a well-to-do individual. Why, then, do I think of myself as so rich?

First, consider the little I do—not a single thing which, by itself, sustains life. I only read and write and speak abstract stuff—a theoretician of sorts.

Next, observe the goods and services I obtain in exchange for the infinitesimal mite I offer on the market:

Others raise every bit of my food and it comes not only from our fifty states but there’s lamb from New Zealand, cheese from Italy, Switzerland, England, endive from Belgium, fish from the North Sea, snails from France, caviar from Budapest, bananas from Honduras, on and on.

They built my home and the hundred-and-one furnishings which make it livable and attractive.

They extract gas from beneath the surface in Texas and deliver it to me in New York, and they supply me with electricity which I use to cook and to run several dozen household gadgets which they made, and not one of which was more than a dream when I was born.

They educated my children and provide the literature used for my own edification.

They make the cars I drive and the clothes I wear.

They air-condition my home and workroom.

They build airplanes and pay my fare on them all over this nation and to many other countries, permitting me to meet and know the finest thinkers of our times.

After building a fine golf course and adding a curling rink, they allow me membership and pay my dues and expenses.

They mow my lawn and pipe water into its sprinkler system which they concocted—and they provide water for me to drink.

They make my pencils, pens, typewriters, and paper to write on.

They provide a communications system which permits me to talk with countless individuals in our fifty states in a matter of seconds; indeed, to people in many other nations.

They provide me with numerous associates of high libertarian rank and skills and a splendid physical facility complete with library, machinery, and other tools that we may labor on behalf of the freedom philosophy.

Frankly, so numerous are the goods and services and blessings available to me that I am incapable of recounting them. Croesus never came close to having the riches which are mine. And, doubtless, this goes for you, too.1

Who Is Rich?

Richness, in the sense I use the term, is a subjective judgment. It rests on the value one attaches to what he has. Reflect on the many so-called affluent people who take their countless blessings for granted, as if everything were their due. Their appreciation is next to zero. Based on the subjective theory of value—the correct theory—these people, regardless of how high their dollar status, are poor. And they never can become rich except as their appreciation sensitivity increases.

“My cup runneth over.” How can this be explained? It’s not because of my capabilities; they’re minuscule; indeed, I make hardly a thing by which I live. It’s because of a sensitive appreciation of the miraculous: receiving so much in return for so little! When I flick a switch and the music of Beethoven fills the room, a sense of awe is experienced. The tiniest things convey this sense. The use of a pencil or a bite into a piece of toast is accompanied by appreciation. If I value those things which grace my life more than others, then I am richer than others. We are acquainted with “the poor little rich boy”: many dollars, no appreciation, unhappy. Happiness comes to those who highly value what they have; these are the truly rich.

But I must not let this thesis be misinterpreted. Mine is not Thoreau’s argument that “I am rich in the number of things I can do without.” Rather, I am suggesting that richness is determined more by how highly one values what he has than by a mere statistic of possessions. To assess an individual’s richness—one’s own or another’s—requires an appraisal of his subjective evaluation of what he has: if low, poor; if high, rich.

Analyzing richness in this manner leads to an important discovery, at least to a point that has never occurred to me before: Unless an individual is acutely sensitive to all-he-obtains-for-so-little as miracles of the free market—as blessings—he will have no special concern for the free market’s preservation and improvement. One who is unaware that freedom is responsible for his largesse is easy prey for all the socialistic clichés authoritarians can invent. This common insensitivity also solves an annoying puzzle, that is, it explains to me for the first time why countless so-called wealthy people have no interest whatsoever in the freedom philosophy.

In fact, as one reflects on the matter, there isn’t a strong incentive for the person who “has it made” to pursue a way of life that spells opportunity. Getting ahead isn’t any longer a problem; he is ahead—he thinks! The natural incentive working on such a person, unless downed by reason, is to “hole up” with what he has, to preserve the status quo. I must conclude, therefore, that all reputedly affluent individuals who devote thought and energy to preserving and bettering free market processes are uncommonly aware, rational, and more devoted to principle than expediency.

Count Your Blessings

But regardless of one’s largesse, richness is subjectively determined. Determination—evaluation—is governed by an appreciation of conferments as blessings. And only those who are sensitive to this richness can be expected to befriend the free market. Thus, we who believe in this philosophy will lose or win our case as the appreciation of conferments wanes or gains. This is another way of saying that if we knew how to accentuate an appreciation of blessings, we’d have the key to the free market way of life. What do we know of this?

Of one thing I feel reasonably certain: An individual will have a greater appreciation of what he obtains in exchange for what he does if what he does is the very best that’s within him. I will more appreciate that which I get in exchange for what I love to do than for that which I hate to do. Johannes Brahms more appreciated what he received in exchange for a piano concerto than had the same amount been won in a state lottery. A local hospital is more appreciated by members of the community when freely financed by them than when received from the Federal grab bag.

It seems that an individual’s richness grows as he increasingly realizes the best of which he is capable. The extent of this realization among American citizens would also seem to pace the free market’s future.

What can we do about it? This amounts to asking, What can I do about a subjective judgment other than my own? Nothing, for certain. But my own, if exemplary, may rub off on or be caught by others. This is the importance of being rich in the sense I use the term.

• 1The Royal Bank of Canada Monthly Letter, February, 1969.