Liberty

APPENDIX IV

PROGRESS

WE SPEAK GLIBLY of progress. This term can usually be used, in casual conversation, without challenge or without any need to analyze its meaning. Each person thinks of illustrations of what are, to him, instances of progress that give meaning to the term “progress.”

This discussion of liberty is of such a nature, however, that it might be advisable to focus its meaning a little closer. What is progress?

Most everyone accepts a discovery in medicine, like the germ theory of disease and the development of vaccines, as illustrating progress. Not so clearly acceptable as progress is some discovery in a controversial area. Some persons, for instance, hold the faith that if God had intended man to fly, He would have provided him with natural wings; they do not accept the development of the airplane as being progress. Some persons do not accept the automobile as being progress, for various reasons. And some even question whether a medical discovery is progress.

In Appendix I has been given certain concepts essential to this discussion of what is and what is not progress. The faiths defined therein are pertinent to these conclusions.

The first step is to concede that the right of judgment as to what is progress rests with each individual. No one person is deemed qualified to pass judgment for all of us. No one person can, in fact, appraise the matter for any other person (Appendix I, #7).

It might seem from this that there would be no way to label anything as “progress,” because of conflicting views and appraisals. What some accept as progress will be rejected by others, and differences of opinion precludes unanimity in every instance.

A further difficulty is due to the fact that these appraisals are subjective matters. It cannot be known with certainty what any one person thinks about whether or not something deserves the label of “progress.” How, then, could an objective label of “progress” ever be attached to anything?

Despite all these difficulties, it seems possible to speak of progress with an important meaning relevant to this discussion of liberty and its effects on progress.

The first step is to recognize that a person’s acts under liberty offer some objective evidence about his subjective motivations, in the same manner as a mirror or periscope may be used to reflect an object which is not accessible to direct view. Whereas this type of reflection is not of the nature of certain proof, it serves as a basis for useful evidence where nothing better is available.

The free market, in like manner, offers evidence as to what a consumer wants, even thought this too is purely subjective. It serves as a guide to producers — the only available guide, and one that works quite well, it seems. The entire business world, in a liberal economy, rests on this form of evidence as its guide to production.

If these judgments are to be depended upon, however, there must be liberty so that persons may freely express their subjective appraisals. Lacking liberty, reflections will become diluted with an unknown form and amount of misrepresentation. So the first requisite in judging the nature of progress is that there be liberty, so that individuals can express their appraisals freely. It may be assumed that under liberty persons will increasingly accept and approve what, in the universal order of things, may fairly be called progress. The importance of liberty in the test of progress is so close as to suggest that liberty is essentially the same as progress.

Acceptance of truth and an increase in the practices that are harmonious with truth will not, of course, be unanimous or instantaneous once a discovery has been made, for reasons discussed in Appendix I. But it must be assumed that there will be an increasing acceptance of truth under liberty, and so the test of progress is to be found in this degree of acceptance. That is why, based on the faiths expressed in Appendix I, it seems possible to speak of progress with meaning and for an important purpose, as follows:

Progress is any change in belief or in concept, or in their applications into “devices,” which stands up under the tests of time and experience so as to have increasing acceptance among free people. In a word, it is an expression of truth or of applied truth, as tested by the only means at our disposal.

It is not necessary that there be unanimity of opinion before a thing can be termed progress. If it were, there could never be any “progress” at all. It is to be tested, instead, through a sort of continuous vote wherein each person’s opinion is tested, and respected along with that of each other person. The “wisdom” of the egotist is given no more weight than that of any other person.

This concept of progress is one that allows dissenters. A single person may reject what others accept as progress, as his right under liberty. But he is not thereby empowered to cast a vote for another, either.

So when the discoverer peers into the unknown and finds something previously obscure — some new gadget, some new picture, some new symphony, some new idea or concept — the test of acceptance over time by a free people becomes the only available test of its worthiness and acceptibility in terms of human destiny and harmony with natural law and purpose. Thus a decisive change under liberty is what is meant herein by the term “progress.”