Essay Introduction

In this essay, Leonard E. Read, founder and president of the Foundation for Economic Education, addresses a central question for liberty advocates: "How can a person best prepare himself to combat trends toward statism?" Read defines statism as the use of government coercion to direct the creative activities of the people, a philosophy diametrically opposed to the American idea of individual rights to life, liberty, and property. He argues that the solution is not to be found in non-rational slogans or mass propaganda, but in a "qualitative" approach. Read contends that the only person one can truly improve is oneself; therefore, the most effective way to combat statism is for the individual to achieve self-perfection in understanding and explaining the freedom philosophy, thereby creating a magnetic "source of knowledge" that will attract others to learn.

Combating Statism

by Leonard E. Read

HOW can a person best prepare himself to combat trends toward statism? Finding the right answer to this question became an obsession with me in the early 1930's, and the obsession has in no way abated. I hope it never does.

The answer, it seems to me, can be put in five words: "Know statism and know freedom." That answer, however, is easier to express than it is to accomplish. And it is easier to make this admonishment than it is to prove its correctness.

First, what is statism? It has many names: Fabianism, nazism, fascism, communism, socialism, state-interventionism, the welfare state, the planned economy, and all sorts of "deals"—new, fair, and otherwise. These labels, rather careless generalizations, have a common characteristic that identifies each and everyone as essentially the same thing: the use of government—the organized police force—as the means to direct the creative activities of the people.

A careful examination of these so-called progressive ideologies will reveal that their philosophical justification rests on this use of the legal force of government as an alleged means of doing good. They are founded on and exist by coercion, this alone and nothing else. Any difference in any of them has to do with organization details as to how the coercion shall be administered.

The question that primarily concerns me is the control, or the taking, of life and livelihood without consent; I am only secondarily interested in whether life and livelihood are controlled or taken by a Robin Hood, a Malenkov, or a gang of voters legally ordering the cop into action.

How did statism in America begin? We need to know this in order to identify and to understand it.

The American Idea

The American society originally set up a government founded on the basic premise that each citizen has an inalienable right to life. It follows that if a person has a right to life, he also has a right to defend that life and to sustain that life (livelihood) by his own productive efforts. The right to life without the right to protect that life and without the right to sustain that life is utterly meaningless. Livelihood being only the fruits of one's labor or property, the American premise clearly said that each citizen has an inalienable right to life and property. This fact is proved in the Fifth Amendment to our Constitution where life, liberty, and property are listed in the same phrase on an equal basis.

It is one thing to adopt such a premise. It is quite another matter to put this premise into practice.

Two ways suggest themselves. First, let each citizen carry his own defensive weapons to protect his life and property. This is a risky and unpredictable business, subject to individual moods and capriciousness. Short of a perfect citizenry, this could be the worst possible form of authoritarianism. There would be millions of governments, each one changing as the moods and capriciousness of the individuals changed. Rejected!

Second, why not appoint an agent and, in effect, give the agent all of our weapons—that is, give him a monopolistic control of all defensive powers? Ask of this agent only one thing: Protect or secure the rights to life and property of all citizens, equally. Accepted!

The Constitution and the Bill of Rights were aimed, primarily, at prohibiting our agent from doing more than this. The prohibitions were stipulated because governments had theretofore gotten out of hand.

Well and dandy! The idea worked for a time. And because the American society succeeded better than had any other society in limiting our agent of force—government—there was in this country a greater release of human energy and a wider acceptance of personal responsibility than had been known before. These facts account for the American miracle!

There wasn't, for all practical purposes, much statism in this arrangement. Indeed, there was none except for certain compromises or infractions of the American principle, such as slavery and tariffs, which were admitted into the Constitution. But what happened?

Our agent, government—federal, state, and local, composed of persons not unlike the rest of us—perhaps became tired of performing the merely negative function of defending life and property. Or, perhaps, the citizens reverted to the ideas of their European forebears and called on the agent to do things beyond the defensive function. Regardless of cause, irrespective of whether the agent usurped powers or received additional granted powers, the agent turned the defensive weapons into coercive weapons.

A weapon is a weapon. A gun or a force that can be used to defend life and property can also be used to take life and property. Statism begins at precisely the point where the defensive function is turned to coercive activity of a positive nature. Statism begins, for instance, when the state leaves off protecting one's income and begins taking one's income for others. It begins when the state traffics in coercive or initiated force instead of sticking to defensive or repellent force.

Statism is coercion. Coercion (initiated force) is evil in every instance of its application. There are no exceptions.¹

A Test

If one will relate what aspects of his life he will willingly concede to another's control, it becomes obvious, in logic and equity, what his views on the limit of the state ought to be. Quite likely he will make only one concession because he will want others to make the same concession to him: the right to defend (repellent force) his life and property against the aggression (coercive force) of another. No person on the face of this earth has any moral right to use other than defensive force against any other person on earth. Rights which we as citizens do not possess cannot properly be delegated to any agency—even the state. The state, then, cannot, in good reason, be in possession of rights that do not inhere in the citizens. For the state to go beyond this is to argue that its extracurricular rights come from somewhere else. Where? From God, as the Divine Right of Kings theory argues?

Here is my own radical belief—radical in the sense that it is shared by only a relatively few individuals: I believe that you are better able to control your life than I am. I believe this about every adult person regardless of wealth status or occupational level. I believe you and others are better able to control your lives than is the head of any government, whoever he may be, or than anyone he can appoint.

The above belief is self-evident to the point of appearing silly. Yet, let it be tested against all personally held beliefs. How many can claim that they place no reliance on coercive force, as distinguished from repellent force? The few who can make such a claim are free of statist beliefs.

A Contradiction

Only now and then is there a person who does not advocate coercion in one way or another. A study by Link and Freiberg showed that 75 per cent of the American people believed themselves opposed to socialism (statism). Yet, 66 per cent of them favored governmental actions which fell within their own definitions of socialism! There is not, to my knowledge, a single businessmen's organization—chambers of commerce, manufacturers' associations, or others—whose minutes won't reveal support of statism in their resolutions on public policies.

No person can ever combat statism unless he knows precisely what statism is. Without such understanding, he won't even recognize statism in its numberless forms. This understanding is the first requirement. All other requirements are secondary—by far.

Now, let us assume that one knows and measures statism as a guide for his own actions. Then what? Know also the potentialities of freedom if one is to have any effect on others.

Two Types Of Influence

Influencing others against statism and for freedom is a complex problem. Influence divides into two types, the nonrational and the rational. All we need to know about the nonrational is that it is useless for our purpose.

A slogan, for example, is a nonrational device. It is effective for destructive purposes. "Kill all the Jews" effectively influenced millions of people to follow a madman. Clever cliches and phrases like "Human rights are above property rights" or "What would you do, let them starve?" have effectively influenced Americans to vote for charlatans and to advocate legal thievery.

The solution of the statism problem by those of us who love freedom is not a destructive project. Rather, it is creative. It has to do with the advancement of understanding—just plain learning.

The learning process presupposes the existence of two things:

1. A person with the desire to learn.
2. A source of knowledge from which the learning can be drawn.

No person will ever learn any particular subject or how to make any particular object unless he has the desire to learn. Advancing the cause of freedom requires that thousands of individuals have the desire to learn about freedom and its potentialities.

Source Of Knowledge

The question, then, is how does any general desire to learn about freedom begin? What sets it off? It is the source of knowledge that creates the will to learn.

At this point it might be logically asked: "From whence comes this source?" John Baker, the eminent English scientist, answers the question: "The desire to know is widespread among men: the desire to know specifically that which is not known is on the contrary very rare." The few derive their desire to learn from a source higher than other persons.

It is the source of knowledge that creates the will to learn. For example, only a short time ago there was no general desire to learn about nuclear fission. But the moment that one person discovered how to release atomic energy, the moment that such knowledge existed and was communicated, there was automatically created the desire to learn among tens of thousands of persons all over the world who had an aptitude for that subject. The presence of this knowledge and its existence in the mind of a human being served attractively, magnetically. They created the desire to learn on the part of many.

The Fault

The problem of knowing freedom is, quite obviously, a learning problem. The reason for the growing belief in coercion as a means to direct the creative activities of citizens within society is erroneously laid to "the ignorant masses." We could, with as much logic fifty years ago, have laid the lack of understanding of nuclear fission to "the ignorant masses." The real fault is an inadequacy of source of knowledge about freedom.

Bluntly, there simply is no one today who is making an adequate explanation of liberty—the free market, the voluntary society, and a state limited to defensive functions—to serve sufficiently as an attractive magnetic source, which in turn serves to create the desire to learn in effective proportions.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The proof that source is inadequate is the fact that the belief in coercion continues to grow. It grows because there isn't enough of the freedom philosophy standing as an intellectual bulwark against it. The freedom philosophy is lacking in understanding and acceptance, not because many Americans cannot learn it, but because there isn't any considerable desire to learn it. The shortage of desire derives from a dearth of source.

An Example

To contrast the distinction between the learning approach and the popular propaganda approach—between improving the source of knowledge and disseminating existing knowledge—let me illustrate thusly:

Suppose you belong to a golf club composed of 200 "dubs," among whom you are a distinguished incompetent. Let's assume you become obsessed with the idea that all of the members should become scratch golfers and that you proceed to exhort and admonish your colleagues—you, a "dub," one who doesn't know how to be a scratch golfer! Such action, consistent as it is with popular propaganda techniques, would be obnoxious and, if persisted in, would bring a request for your resignation.

Now then, assume you take the opposite approach—the one here advocated as a method of knowing freedom—and that you go to work on the only person in the world over whom you have control creatively, namely, yourself; that you try desperately to become a scratch golfer. Now make the assumption that you succeed. This action, obviously, would be attractive, magnetic. Many members of the golf club would come to you inquiring how you had made such an achievement. What you could do, they could do. You would have created the desire to learn by reason of your own competency. You would have qualified in their eyes as a teacher, one who could with profit be drawn on.

Explanation

The second item, then, in preparing to combat statism is to understand and learn better how to explain the potentialities of the freedom philosophy.

Explanation is important. For instance, had only one man learned how to release atomic energy and had he been unable to explain what he knew in terms intelligible to others, atomic energy would still remain unreleased. Right principles do not change. But very often, if new generations of people are to understand them, new explanations become necessary.

It may be that some persons at certain periods in history understood all they needed to know about freedom and were able to make proper explanations of what they knew—that is, proper and adequate explanations for their times. But, we are not making proper and adequate explanations for our times. Indeed, one of the faults may be that we are using terms and expressions and explanations useful in a period that has had its end. Our very words have changed their meaning, and new influences have made their mark on our thinking.

The understanding and the explanations of freedom I am arguing for are as yet unknown to me. They have not, to my knowledge, appeared on today's scene. They can be ours only by the processes of invention, imagination, research, probing, discovery. It is as much one person's obligation as it is another's to think through and to write the answers as to why man should be unrestrained, except for infringing on the rights of others. It is as much your obligation as mine to explain why there should be a free, uninhibited flow of all creative human energy. We must invent or discover ways to write this thesis dramatically, scientifically, logically, compellingly, morally—for it is a moral problem.

Any person with a high sense of procedure can readily see the distinction I am arguing—the distinction between the methods used to disseminate existing knowledge and the methods necessary to develop new sources of knowledge.

Actually, the latter calls for a trend toward self-perfection in the understanding of freedom and statism. Another way of saying this is: The problem of combating statism must be approached qualitatively by individual persons in order to find a solution quantitatively. In short, I must improve my own understanding before I can be of any help in improving anyone else's understanding. There is, in my view, no short cut to this process.

Facing The Facts

There are other things one can do, important steps in combating statism. But such activities should be based on the recognition of several facts:

1. There is only one person in the world that one can do something to in the creative sense, namely, one's self;
2. So far as others are concerned, we will be well advised to confine ourselves to what we can do for them in the way of knowledge that they can tap;
3. Combating statism does not necessarily involve getting any substantial percentage of voting citizens to understand the problem. Knowledge is never general on any subject. We are all followers in most respects, leaders only rarely and momentarily, if at all;
4. The leaders in any subject are the ones at "the head of the class" on that subject;
5. All movements in history, good or bad, have had their intellectual leaders, persons who could not have been predicted ahead of time. One, I recall, was born in a manger. Another, the leader of a bad movement, was, only a short time ago, an Austrian paper hanger;
6. The leaders against statism and for freedom, the one or ones who will lay down the intellectual basis for statism's overthrow and the ascendancy of a free society, are unknown to you or me. Keep an eye on everyone as potentially that person. He may well be the machinist rather than the corporation president.

Our Approach

Our approach in the Foundation for Economic Education, based on these ideas, is simple. Nor can I see wherein the approach of any other person or group of persons should differ in principle. We here, as individuals, are searching for a better understanding of this subject and are trying to find refinements in explaining what we uncover in the way of understanding. Not only do we send our own findings to all persons who want them, but also we search for the works of others and pass those on, too.

Stated another way, we are trying to get as many persons as possible to join with us in a search for the answers. The law of probability suggests that there is a better chance of some one or several persons coming up with answers and explanations if many are trying to find them than if only a few are at the task.

An important feature of our approach is that we do not regard the ones who want our studies as objects for our indoctrination. It is not up to me or any of my associates to indoctrinate anyone. Our only task is to develop our own skills as relating to the freedom philosophy. If we know enough, our understanding will be drawn upon. If we don't have anything rather special to offer, what purpose is served so far as others are concerned?

In the case of cancer projects, for example, we citizens do not set up a program where all the doctors tell the people how to cure the disease. To our knowledge, no doctor knows that answer yet. Instead, we citizens set up research efforts, get as many interested as possible, and hope that someone, someday, will make the essential discovery. And only one is required. The knowledge the one gains will never become general, but the benefits will be immediately generalized.

Summary

In preparing ourselves to combat our country's growing trend toward statism, we keep these objects ever in mind, objects that appear as appropriate for others as for ourselves:

1. Know statism.
2. Become better students of the freedom philosophy and personally practice it at all times.
3. Pass on our findings, orally or in writing, to those who can be interested in them—especially to those within our own circles of activity.
4. Pass on the ideas or works of others which in our judgment are free of all statist ideas and which have proved helpful to our own thinking. (The approval of any one statist idea, no matter how minor, is to make the case for the whole kaboodle of statism.)
5. Use such educational means as we possess to identify statist ideas as they arise.

In short, we do everything in our power to create a desire on the part of others to develop an understanding of liberty, knowing that such power can derive only from our own advancement in understanding. We then try, as befits our means, to satisfy whatever desires we succeed in creating.

Some there are who make the pessimistic observation that there is nothing one can do as a lone individual. I should like to counter with the hopeful idea that there is really nothing that can be done except by an individual. Only individuals learn. Only individuals can think creatively. Only individuals can cooperate. Only individuals can combat statism.

About the Author

Leonard E. Read, formerly manager of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and vice-president of National Industrial Conference Board, organized the Foundation for Economic Education in 1946 and has been its president since that time. "Combating Statism" is a condensed version of an address delivered before the Pacific Coast Gas Association at San Francisco, September 10, 1953, and was published by the Foundation later that year.

Attribution

Read, Leonard E. "Combating Statism." In Essays on Liberty, Vol. 2, 9-22. Irvington-on-Hudson, NY: The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc., 1954.