Essay Introduction

In "Two Paths to Collectivism," Russell J. Clinchy compares government announcements from the United States and Great Britain to illustrate the parallel drift toward state socialism in both nations. He contrasts the British admission that subsidies and social services must be funded by crushing taxation with the American tendency to disguise similar programs behind obscure phrasing. Clinchy argues that the payment of subsidies is the foundation of the welfare state, which inevitably leads to socialism and the control of persons. He calls for a return to the moral and natural laws upon which America was founded, urging citizens to become masters of the state rather than selling their souls for a false security.

Two Paths to Collectivism

by Russell J. Clinchy

Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread. THOMAS JEFFERSON

Two announcements were recently made by governments 3,000 miles apart—the United States and England. A study of these communications reveals the frightening rate of speed at which the revolution toward state socialism is taking place in the two great democracies.

Let us study the American announcement first because our government has stated that its aim is not socialism. The gist of the government’s proposal for a long-range agricultural program was a sweeping new system of subsidies that would guarantee a high price to producers and a low price to consumers on the same product at the same time.

This, of course, is one of those promises that bewilder the beholder at first glance, and one asks, “How is it done? How are high prices to be guaranteed to the farmer, and low prices to be guaranteed to the consumer?” The answer is subsidies. A subsidy is money paid by the government, and the only money a government possesses is that raised by taxing the people in one way or another. Apparently the government hoped that the majority of the people would not understand the device that would take their money by taxation to pay the difference between what the farmer would receive and what the public would pay.

The second of these two announcements was made by the British Chancellor, Sir Stafford Cripps, in his presentation of the new budget. In regard to it, he made two statements:

First, he said that the food subsidy program in Britain had grown beyond anything that had been contemplated. The government buys the basic foods from the farmers and producers, and sells them to the people at a loss. The cost of this loss, the subsidy, for the coming year is estimated at two and one-quarter billion dollars. “That,” said Sir Stafford, “just cannot go on.”

An Unpleasant Fact

Second, he pointed out that “social services expenditures will inevitably increase over the next ten years, and we must recognize the unpleasant fact that the services must be paid for by taxation, direct or indirect.” He went on to say, “When I hear people speak of reducing taxation, when at the same time the cost of the social services is rising in response to the demands of these same people, I sometimes wonder whether they understand the old adage that we cannot eat our cake and have it too.”

A Lesson From History

Then Sir Stafford told the British people that because of these facts there would be a rise in prices, and that the tax rate must remain at the same devastating level, 40 per cent of the pay of an average worker. In commenting upon this, The Economist of London stated that no people in history had ever paid out such an amount of their income in taxation and survived.

Two observations can be made about this lesson in economics that was presented to the British people by their Chancellor: First, it is an honest, straightforward statement that subsidies granted from the national treasury must be paid by consumers. Second, it is a forthright affirmation that this program is socialism in action.

The subsidy program of the American government parallels that of the British Labor party in almost every detail, with only this difference: The truth about American subsidies is obscured behind carefully formed phrases which tend to disguise the fact that the subsidy program is, in effect, the creation of national socialism in America as in England.

Truth

It is unfortunate that this issue was not presented to the citizens of America in the same open manner that it was presented to the subjects of Britain. Because of this, it becomes necessary for others to proclaim the truth which is missing from these subsidy pronouncements by the American government: The payment of subsidies is the foundation of the welfare state, and the welfare state is the foundation of socialism.

The American proposal was a request that Congress, in effect, give to the administration absolute power to control the kind of crops and produce, and the amount of them, that could be raised on American farms. Beyond that, it would have allowed the government to dictate whether the land could be used for farming or grazing, or whether it must remain idle.

Control Of Persons

This was a program for a planned economy to an extent never before seriously proposed in America. But it was not merely a plan for the control of farms; it was, of necessity, a plan for the control of persons, the farmers. Nothing was said about this, but it is actually the first consideration. Before the government can control the land and its produce, it must first control the man who lives and works upon the land. That means control over his mind and spirit. That is exactly what the Soviet leaders found when they decided to collectivize the Russian farms; they had to collectivize first the minds and spirits of those who had been independent kulak farmers.

It is also vital for us to remind ourselves that no such plan for the control of farms can stop there. The products of the farms go on to processing and distributing businesses, and so control must be extended to those areas if the plan for the control of farms is not to break down.

This proposed program contained twin evils—the evil of persons receiving unearned benefits, and the evil of attempting to control the minds and wills of men by controlling their actions and property. Both are evils which can ultimately destroy the spirit of man and his basic integrity as a human being. The arrest of a cardinal in Hungary, and of ministers in Bulgaria, are not foolish moves of a perverted official. They are the logical outcome of the granting of increased power to the state as the price for government-guaranteed benefits. For if the actions and wills of men are to be controlled, how can such controls possibly be maintained if the minds of men are allowed to be free?

The Rights Of Man

The American government was founded on moral and natural laws by persons who had a deep understanding of the principles and the philosophy of freedom. The concepts of the Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution were not formed by expediency, but upon the philosophical and religious concepts of the rights of man. Jefferson was a student of the principles of Hobbes, Locke, and Milton; and his writings, such as the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, were founded upon these precepts. He accepted the premise of Hooker that “all authority is derived of God and resides in the free consent of the governed,” and so the rights of man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are not grants of a sovereign or of a state, but are inalienable because they are received of God. Then, as a matter of course, these rights demand the assumption of personal responsibility upon the part of the receiver. And these personal responsibilities cannot be allocated to the ruler or to the state without the loss of the moral and spiritual integrity of the person.

The Day Of Decision

The day of decision is upon us. We must now begin to retrace our way to that place where we missed the road to our destiny. We do not belong on this road to serfdom that leads to a land wherein men sell their souls for what they call security, but which turns out to be a nightmare in which man is a lost soul without a home. Instead, we belong to a land of those who have learned that where the spirit of the Lord is, there also is liberty.

Let us determine that we shall not allow the state to be our master, but that we shall be the masters of the state. The long road of history is lined with the ruins of those states which bought the souls and wills of their peoples by the lure of a granted security, and then led them to ruin by that same mirage. The world does not need one more such ruin. It needs, for the first time in all the twenty-four civilizations, a people who will be really secure and enduring, as far as mortal life is possible—secure and enduring because each member of the society is a person who accepts his and her responsibilities as duties and asks only that the state act to keep the avenues of freedom open. That will come, not by copying the ruins of the past, but by a free people rising to meet the challenge of a free society, putting their trust in freedom because their faith is in God.

About the Author

Russell J. Clinchy, minister in the Congregational Church and former Foundation staff member, is assistant to the chairman of the League to Uphold Congregational Principles. "Two Paths to Collectivism" was published in 1949; "Human Rights and the United Nations" was published in 1952.

Attribution

Clinchy, Russell J. "Two Paths to Collectivism." In Essays on Liberty, Vol. 2, 175-180. Irvington-on-Hudson, NY: The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc., 1954.