Liberty

APPENDIX V

LIMITATIONS OF THE MEASURE OF LIBERTY

THE MEASURE OF LIBERTY given in Part Two of this book has deficiencies. It both overstates and understates the presumed correct figure, for various reasons and by unknown amounts.

Every error in the data on which this measure has been based carries over, of course, into the derived figure.

In all probability the net effect is to err on the low side, so that it understates the loss of liberty in the United States or in any other country where it might be applied. Some of the causes of error will be given so that other persons may make their own guesses as to what might be the figure after correction for these errors.

As has been discussed previously, this measure relates to economic liberty. This is not the only form of liberty and therefore this measure may either overstate or understate the loss of liberty as a whole, depending on the comparative degree of loss of liberty in other realms. But economic liberty pervades the entire problem and is an absolute requisite to liberty in general.

This measure of liberty is one that tests what happens to productive income, according to the concept in the national income from which it is derived. The presence or absence of liberty is, then, weighed according to each person’s contribution to the production of goods and services as represented in the national income. Complete liberty in the spending of money that one may receive as a gift from the government, such as relief grants, is not allowed to affect the level of liberty according to this measure; the test of liberty is made at the point of its payment for something having been produced, and it is a question of whether or not the person who produced the income was allowed liberty in its use. Any other course would result in a test of liberty that would class one as fully free if he had liberty in the use of money received as a result of violated liberty. A dollar of income, once enslaved, was treated as a slavery dollar from there on.

FOR LIBERTY TO BE at a maximum there must be some government, or otherwise have the same functions performed by some other means. Whatever the amount of its necessary costs, that amount should not be considered as a violation of liberalism in society.

How much of the 29 cent part of the dollar, taken for governmental costs in the United States in 1947, would be allowable under liberalism? That question must remain unanswered until much more work has been done to analyze liberty in relation to the many activities of present-day government. Certain functions of government are invaluable to liberty, but these should not be highly expensive to operate; a Supreme Court, for instance, is not very costly and is a small part of the budget of a nation these days. A guess is that only a small part of the 29 cents, perhaps even less than 5 cents of it, would qualify under liberalism, if we ignore the costs of existing contracts which originated in illiberal acts.

Everything which government does in excess of this proper sphere involves a loss of liberty. All this excess drains from the citizen some of the product of their labor — “the sweat of the brow of the working man” — by force or by threat of force. It may be used to finance the costs of further loss of liberty, having a double effect in the destruction of liberty because of both the taking and its use. It may be used to operate governmental monopoly, so that citizens are not allowed to compete on an equal basis. But the fact remains that, with few or no exceptions, the excess taken by government represents a loss of liberty to the citizens of the country.

The excess that the government takes is no longer available for the citizen to spend as he wishes, as required under liberty. It may be said that the people want these services and would buy them anyhow if they were performed by private business instead of by government. But the slave who is given some turnips by his master cannot be called free economically because of the fact that he might have wanted to buy some turnips with some of his wages as a free man, had he been free. The citizen, likewise, is not judged to be free because of the fact that he might have bought, in a free market, services similar to those offered by the governmental monopoly where users and non-users alike are forced to pay the costs in their tax bills.

Acquiescence of the citizens to that part of their taxes in excess of what is necessary to preserve liberty is no evidence that liberty has not been lost thereby. Loss of liberty is not to be measured by the extent of refusal to pay taxes any more than slavery is to be measured by the degree of rebellion of the slaves. Slaves are none the less slaves because they are not always attached to their masters by a chain!

THE LOSSES OF LIBERTY not included in the measure herein explained probably exceed the overstatements.

A prisoner who is allowed 20 cents a day for working in the prison laundry, and who is free to spend all his income as he likes for candy or cigarettes, can hardly be called economically free. He might be able to earn $8 a day if he were free to compete in the economic world outside the prison walls.

A full measure of liberty, if it were available, would also take into account the income that is lost because of a lack of liberty. The income thus lost should be included with that part of a person’s income that is taken away from him by force, in measuring the loss of economic liberty. In one part he is unfree because the income has been taken away from him in violation of liberty, whereas in the other part he is unfree, without liberty, because he never received the income in the first place; there is no difference between the two, so far as a measure of lost liberty is concerned.

The lost opportunities for additional income may result from the monopolies of government. A person is liable, for instance, to a fine of $500 or six months in jail for competing with the government and carrying a message for hire if it comes under the government’s definition of first class mail.

Lost opportunities for income may result from monopolies of private business. Or they may result from the activities of certain trade organizations, or labor unions, or by some other agencies or persons. All of these, however, are possible only because the government fails to perform its proper function of preserving a climate wherein liberty can prevail and where full opportunity exists for the citizens under economic liberty, as previously defined.

Restrictions on free competition include all monopolies and all restrictions of free internal and international trade. All of these violate economic liberty by reducing income.

The administrative costs of handling a certain control operated by the government greatly understates the total loss of liberty which it entails, in most instances. The cost aspect is like that of a slaveholder who may spend no more than the equivalent of one-tenth of what the slave produces as the cost of hiring an overseer to hold the slaves under the yoke of complete slavery; it is not necessary to spend all that the slave produces as the cost of depriving him of his liberty.

The calculated cost of government includes nothing for the free radio time that is allowed to one or another branch of government, used to “explain” something and to advocate that which it advocates. The cost this free time, even at the lowest commercial rates charged to a private citizen, would total to a fantastic amount each year. Not alone that, but the viewpoints of governmental officials are given audience without charge; counter viewpoints, which the citizens may hold, can be aired only by paying the high costs of radio time in most instances.

Stalin has been able to maintain the Russian people in near-complete economic slavery by the use of far less than all of their incomes. We have noted that only 29 cents out of each dollar of income produced was being taken by the Russian government in 1929-1930, yet this amount was sufficient to administer and maintain almost complete slavery of the Russian people.

Is it not possible for a government at a very small cost to enact all the legislation necessary to illegalize essentially all economic liberty? Over-all wage and price controls would do it —even “standby controls,” which is like a standby overseer of a group of prisoners or slaves. The costs of administering and enforcing these edicts, when added to the costs of enacting the laws, far understates the loss of liberty that is involved. All that is necessary is to frighten the subjects into submission, by the cheapest and most “efficient” means available. A horse thoroughly broken to harness seldom feels the whip.