"All that mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books."
-Thomas Carlyle

by Jeff Daiell

When Otto von Bismarck was Chancellor of the German empire, his expansion of the Prussian Army was so expensive that Germans began to complain about how high their taxes were. Being a politician, he decided to pull a fast one.

He went to an actuary — a life insurance statistician. He asked the man about life expectancy in their empire. The actuary told him that most Germans died before reaching their sixty-fifth birthday.

Herr von Bismarck then announced the creation of an Imperial old-age benefit plan for Germans over 65. Not realizing that most of them would never see a penny, Germans quit complaining about their high taxes, thinking those taxes were for their own benefit, and von Bismarck continued his zealous militarization.

It is a reality, which neither left-wingers nor right-wingers like to admit, that expansion of Government's role in our personal and financial lives facilitates militarism and war, and that militarism and war facilitate Government regulation of our economy and our personal lives.

Indeed, as long ago as ancient Greece, the historian Thucydides recognized that imperialism was necessary if Athens was to continue funding its welfare state.

It is also a reality, which, again, neither leftists nor rightists like to admit, that infringements on economic freedom lead to curtailments on civil liberties, and that violations of civil liberties make it easier for Government to trespass on our economic freedom.

Recently, while staffing a Libertarian booth at the Heights Festival, I had two individuals who described themselves as Communists disagree when I pointed out that Communism wasn't tolerant of civil liberties. Having met escapees from Communist countries, I stood my ground, although I am reminded of an old joke from the Cold War.

The American president and the Soviet premier were chatting before a summit meeting. The president said, "In America, anyone is free to stand on a street corner and yell, 'Down with that jerk in the White House!'" The Soviet premier replied, "Vhy, in Soviet Union, also is anyone free to stand on street corner and yell, 'Down vith that jerk in the Vhite House!'"

Anyway, the fact that economic regulation leads to a loss of civil liberties, and vice-versa, is the bad news. The good news is that the converse is also true. Rolling back Government regulation of the economy leads to greater respect for civil liberties, and rolling back transgressions against civil liberties leads to greater economic freedom.

The even better news is: the more we reduce Government control over the economy and our personal and social lives, the less likely war becomes, the more prosperous our society becomes, and the lower the crime rate becomes. As Don Ernsberger once put it: "Liberty works, and Liberty is right."

I'd like to begin by showing how the Constitutional protections most of us hold dear depend on the Right to private property. Then I'll show how most of what we've been taught all our lives about Government regulation of the economy is wrong. Then I'd like to show the connection between such regulation and an interventionist foreign policy.

As noted, this Fourth Amendment security, and other Constitutional guarantees, are rooted in the Human Right to private property. This is so much so that David Friedman, the more consistently pro-free market son of Milton Friedman, declares that private property is "the machinery of freedom"; it is so much so that the old collectivist slogan, "Human Rights over Property Rights" is as illogical as saying "Legs over limbs": legs are limbs, and the Right to private property is a Human Right.

Did you ever wonder why the 1st Amendment forbids the establishment of religion, as well as guaranteeing the free exercise thereof? Especially since there were countries in Europe that had official churches but still respected the right to attend others? It's because the Founders knew it was wrong to force individuals to subsidize beliefs they found objectionable with their money — their property.

The 3rd Amendment protects our homes from being taken over as military quarters in peacetime, and from being arbitrarily taken over even in war, because the Founders respected the sanctity of private homes — private property.

Of course, the 4th Amendment, as I noted earlier, is entirely based on the Right to private property, and is one of the most important civil liberties in our history.

It protects our Right to be secure in our "persons, houses, papers, and effects" — in our property. It bans unreasonable searches and seizures, and lays down strict rules which must be followed for searches and seizures to be considered reasonable. The 5th Amendment guarantees that eminent domain is invoked only with just compensation, as an acknowledgment of our Right to — private property.

Even the courts are required to tread carefully when the possibility of taking someone's money — their property — exists, with the 7th Amendment's guarantee of a jury trial in almost all civil suits, and the 8th Amendment's prohibition on excessive fines.

And then, to tighten the chains on the power of the Federal government to infringe on our Right to peacefully acquire, own, use, and control private property, the 9th and 10th Amendments were passed, protecting Rights not specified and denying the central government any authority it was not granted but might wish to usurp.

The fact is: Liberty is indivisible. We cannot protect any of our Rights while voting away others, even if we are told that such votes would be for a noble purpose — noble, of course, as defined by politicians of either the Right or the Left. An elderly woman walked up to a delegate from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania just after the Federal Constitution had been completed.

She inquired, "Well, Dr. Franklin, what do we have? A Republic or an Empire?"

Benjamin Franklin replied, "You have a Republic, Madam, if you can keep it."

Without respect for the Human Right to private property, we cannot keep it.

Indeed, the history of the last several decades proves that reduced respect for economic freedom makes defending civil liberties more difficult. The willingness of left-wingers to run roughshod over the free market has given right-wingers the intellectual and ideological ammunition they needed to trample our personal and social freedoms. One way that this has happened is the insistence by many leftists that what the Constitution actually says and what it means are irrelevant, and that all that counts is what they feel it should say. Having established transient whims as the standard, they are helpless to stem the onslaught against due process and civil liberties the last few years have brought.

Nor are the United States unique in this connection between economic freedom and civil liberty. Spain, Communist China, and Chile are all examples of societies where moves toward a free market led to greater respect for civil liberties, while Poland and the Soviet Union under Gorbachev show that allowing increased civil liberty leads to greater economic freedom.

At this point, I'm often told, "I don't care about all that. What's a free market going to do for me?" And that's where I'd like to challenge everything you've been taught all your lives about Government regulation of the economy — a polite term for violations of economic freedom. The fact is, Government regulation does not protect consumers, the poor, labor, and small business from being run over by Big Business; it facilitates such abuse.

In fact, the way most truly huge corporations get to be truly huge corporations is through Government interference in the economy. Indeed, corporations per se, as we understand that term, are a violation of the principle of a free market: they are chartered by Government, and are given a huge legal advantage over sole proprietorships and partnerships: limited liability.

Beyond that, contracts, franchises (in the governmental sense), tax favoritism, rights-of-way, corporate welfare, and regulations designed to favor larger companies over smaller ones and prevent or hobble new entrants into a given field all work to favor the Enrons over, if you'll pardon the pun, the Out-rons. As market share is concentrated in fewer and fewer companies in a given field, the reduced competition allows higher prices, shoddier quality, and lower wages than would be possible in a truly free market.

This is why candidates who favor true de-regulation are not supported by Big Business, and why laws proposing true de-regulation are opposed so adamantly by the larger companies in the field in question. This is also why most of the money that megacorporations give to think tanks goes to those favoring more Government domination of the economy, not less.

So: what would a free market do for you? Increase your economic freedom, lower the prices you pay, increase the wages you make, and improve the quality of the goods and services you buy.

As noted, it would also strengthen your civil liberties. As Ayn Rand said, "A free mind and a free market are corollaries."

Another benefit would be a reduction in crime and an increase in public safety.

As law enforcement resources are withdrawn from economic regulation, they will become available to prevent or investigate crimes of violence, theft, and fraud. And as respect for civil liberties increases, and victimless crime laws are repealed, organized crime, which derives its income from supplying outlawed goods and services, will be dealt a death-blow (this is why the Mafia fought so hard against repeal of Prohibition), and the prices on those goods and services will drop to the point where committing crimes to accommodate the use of those goods and services will be unnecessary. This will free up not only police resources, but also jail space, so that murderers and child molesters will not have to be paroled early to allow the incarceration of those guilty only of alternative lifestyles. I speak from personal experience on this — both of my twin daughters were molested several years ago by a man who had been convicted of child molestation before, but had been given probation because the prisons were too full of drug offenders.

Perhaps most importantly of all, it would increase your chances of reaching old age, because a free market works against unnecessary wars, and Government control of the economy makes such wars more likely. The greatest period of peace in Western European history came between the defeat of Napoleon in 1814 and the Franco-Prussian war in 1870. It is no coincidence that those years were the period when Western Europe came closest to having a truly free market.

On this side of the Atlantic, the bloodiest American conflict broke out as a result of the two worst violations of economic freedom of that time: slavery and the protective tariff. In fact, in his 1st Inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln told the seceded States that he would send troops against them only if they failed to pay their taxes and tariffs; as long as payment continued, he said, they could keep their slaves, reject trains carrying the U. S. Mail, and even decline to have Federal officials appointed in their jurisdictions.

Conversely, it has usually been war that has led to massive increases in the power of Government, especially, in the United States, at the Federal level.

Advocates of Government control of the economy realize this connection. That's why H. G. Wells, early in the 20th Century, called for a world war — on the grounds that it would accelerate the acceptance of Socialism. Years later, John Kenneth Galbraith, the pseudo-economist, co-authored a document criticizing peace because it does not allow for Governmental growth as rapidly as war does.

How, then, are we to prevent unnecessary wars? How we can slow, and hopefully even reverse, the trend toward increasing Governmental control over the economy?

The first step is to admit the connection. For left-wingers, the second step must be to abandon support for increased infringement on economic freedom; for right-wingers, the second step must be to abandon support for an interventionist foreign policy.

The welfare state and the warfare state are not opponents of each other. They are, instead, two sides of the same coin.

In both moral and practical terms, that coin is counterfeit. Let's replace it with the currency of a free market, respect for civil liberties, and a non-interventionist foreign policy, each of which depends on the other two. In this case, three's not a crowd — it's a necessity.

© Copyright 2005 by Jeff Daiell. All rights reserved.

JEFF DAIELL is proprietor of Jeff Daiell Communications. He is currently considering seeking the 2010 nomination of the Libertarian Party of Texas for governor.

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