THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL PRINCIPLES OF FREEDOM BY G. EDWARD GRIFFIN

G. Edward Griffin is a christian writer and documentary film producer with many successful titles to his credit. He has dealt with such diversified subjects as archaeology and ancient earth history, international banking, internal subversion, terrorism, the history of taxation, U.S. foreign policy, the science and politics of cancer therapy, the Supreme Court, and the United Nations.

Mr. Griffin is a graduate of the University of Michigan, where he majored in speech and communications. He is a recipient of the Telly Award for excellence in television production. He is a Contributing Editor for The New American magazine, president of American Media and founder of the Reality Zone. He is also the creator of The Reality Zone Audio Archives. At the present he is strongly involved in Freedom Force International.

More of three decades ago, in 1972, Mr. Griffin wrote this two brilliant essays about principles of freedom.

Essay I - THE ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES OF FREEDOM

Laissez-faire capitalism is private ownership of property

Introduction

Those of us who advocate less government, hold to certain economic principles which we believe to be in accord with the freedom our Constitution was designed to protect. To describe ourselves accurately in this category, it would be proper to say that we are--are you ready?--laissez-faire capitalists.

I never knew what a laissez-faire capitalist was until I went to college. And then, I learned that it was a big, fat man--with an expensive cigar, a diamond stick-pin in his cravat, spats on his shoes--sitting on a huge bag of money squeezed out of the exploited toil of frail women and starving children. Seriously, if anyone had told me then that he was a capitalist, much less a laissez-faire capitalist, I would have thought that he was the meanest, greediest man in the whole world. It wasn't until many years later that I found out what those words actually meant. And, lo and behold, I was shocked to discover that I was a laissez-faire capitalist!

A minimum of government

Laissez-faire capitalism merely means the private ownership of property--in other words, owned by the people instead of by the politicians--with a minimum of government, interference in the market place. Laissez-faire means, simply, "Let the people do it."

Now, let's get one thing straight right here. There are very few rich people who actively defend economic freedom. I wish we had more, but we don't. Most of us come from the lower and middle economic levels of the nation. In other words, we're part of that broad middle class that still works for a living and pays the taxes. Frankly, we would like to become rich if we could, and I think most of you would, too. Even our socialist friends would like to be rich socialists. They don't object to wealth. It's just the other guy's wealth that bothers them. As a matter of fact, some of the richest people in America are socialists. Millionaires like Cyrus Eaton, Nelson Rockefeller, and others of the same political bent are not capitalists. They're just rich socialists. The amount of money they have means nothing. What makes a person a capitalist or a socialist is what he "thinks", not what he has. We who believe in economic freedom "think" laissez-faire capitalism!

The desire to become rich, of course, is by no means our only motivation for promoting free enterprise, nor even our primary motivation. We're quite aware that, in spite of our best efforts, most of us will never accumulate vast wealth. But it's our firm conviction that laissez-faire capitalism not only makes it possible for some to enjoy the true luxury of riches but, more important than that, it enables all the rest of us to raise our standard of living far in excess of what is possible under any other economic system. And this is the key.

Robin Hood

No one wants to see people go hungry or live in poverty. And the one thing that collectivists and individualists hold in common is their desire to produce a system that will raise the level of the poor. Their differences lie, as always, in how to achieve this goal. The collectivist is not very complicated in his approach. He looks around him. He sees some very rich people living "high on the hog." he sees poor people with barely enough to get by. He remembers the old Robin Hood movies and, eureka, he's got the solution! Take it from the rich and give it to the poor. What could be simpler than that? It's the perfect solution, except for one minor detail. It doesn't work!

One reason why it doesn't work, never has worked, and never can work. is that the rich just don't have enough to go all the way around. for instance, on the international scene, we know that the United States, by comparison to the rest of the world is a very rich uncle. Yet, if we had some magic device for converting everything of value in this country into cash and then dividing it equally among the people of the world; if we could tear down every building brick-by-brick and cash them in--including the value of the labor, if we could cash in all the machines, roads, automobiles, TV sets--everything except the clothes on our backs, do you have any idea to what extent we would raise the standard of living of the people of the world? They would be allowed to eat and dress and live like we do in this country for about one week. And then it would all be gone.

If all the millionaires in America were taxed 100% of their incomes each year--not a single penny left for themselves--it would run the federal government for less than thirty-nine hours. In fact, if all the income were taken from those making only $25,000 a year or more, if they were allowed to keep nothing for themselves, it would still run the government for less than seventy-two hours.

Now, when you consider these facts, several things become rather obvious. First, it's the little guy who's paying most of the taxes. And, secondly, it always will be the little guy who pays most of the taxes, because, even if we take it all away from the rich man, there just isn't enough to do the job.

The point is simply this. You cannot help the poor by pulling down the rich. It may make you feel better to do so. You may envy the wealth of others. You may resent the attitude and behavior of those with wealth. You may feel that they don't deserve it. You may be a politician who knows you can always get votes by promising to soak the rich, but if your concern really is only for the poor, then you're wasting your time. You cannot help the poor by pulling down the rich.

How, then do you help the poor?

Well, first of all, individualists recognize that there is no utopia. There will always be those who, for a variety of reasons, will be unable to produce: infants, the sick, the lame, the mentally retarded. And we also recognize that the only way for these unproductive individuals to live at all is off the surplus of those who do produce. That's basic. The problem before us, then, is how to expand the surplus. Unless we can do that, the poor shall stay poor, no matter how much we wish to help them.

Following this in sequence then, how do we expand the surplus? How do we achieve a situation in which each productive human being becomes increasingly more productive? The answer, of course, is that the productive individual must be given some incentive for making an increased effort, for working harder, or longer, or for investing in tools. Few people choose to work unless they are motivated by some incentive outside of the work itself.

Slaves, victims, philosophers and each of us

There are four kinds of human incentive: fear (the motivation of the slave), hate (the motivation of the victim), altruism (the motivation of the philosopher), and fourthly, desire for reward (the motivation of everyone). Of the four, the desire for material reward is, by far, the most powerful and sustaining incentive for most people.

It follows therefore--and please note this carefully-- the degree to which government taxes away the material rewards from those who produce in order to give to those who do not produce, is the degree to which government destroys the incentive to continue producing; and, hence, is the degree to which it reduces the surplus and hurts those who must live off that surplus, the very people, supposedly, it's trying to help.

We all know of cases where the progressive income tax, for instance, has discouraged a wealthy businessman from expanding his business. The man says to himself, "Why should I take on a new business venture? It would only mean more work and more headaches. And why should I risk my capital? I could lose everything. On the other hand, if I did everying right, made no mistakes at all, the government would only take most of my profits anyway, so why do it?" And he doesn't do it. Which means there's one more business never begun, one more factory never built, thousands of jobs never created, millions of dollars never added to the surplus. And who is hurt by this process, the rich man? Of course not. True, he may not become quite as wealthy as he would otherwise, but he continues to live very well, indeed. In the final analysis, government manipulation of the market place always hurts the poor far more than the rich. And this is a fact of life the collectivist never seems to understand. Minimum wage laws are a classic example of this phenomenon. Every time Congress raises the minimum hourly wage rate, untold thousands of marginal workers--the handicapped, the very old, the unskilled--lose their jobs. In 1967, for instance, when the government raised the minimum wage to $1.40 per hour to help those in the lower wage brackets, over a half million such workers lost their jobs. Their employers simply couldn't afford to pay the new rate. As a matter of fact, thousands of small businesses were forced to close down and go out of business altogether because of the government's action. Thus, not only did those in the lower income brackets lose their jobs, but some of those in the higher brackets, as well. But since they were skilled workers, they had little difficulty finding new jobs. As always, it is the marginal worker, the poor, the handicapped, that are always hurt most by the very government programs which, supposedly, are for their benefit.

The pie and the pieces

The collectivist approach always is to divide up the existing economic pie into equal shares, to make sure that no one gets any larger or smaller piece than anyone else. Of course, you may have noticed that those in charge of dividing the pie usually wind up with a larger piece for their "equal" share. This, by the way, is one of the great contradictions between Marxist theory and practice. In theory, Communism is a classless society. Everyone, supposedly, belongs to the same class with no economic differences or privileges. Yet, in practice, in every country where Communism has come to power, the Commissars and cadre of the Communist Party live like kings, while the workers and peasants continue to struggle for the bare necessities of life.

The individualist recognizes the fact that, under any system, someone is going to have more pie than others. The only question is, who is it going to be? Should it be the politicians and bureaucrats who divide the pie? Or should it be the people who have worked to make the pie? If the dividers of the pie get the larger piece, then the producers slow down and there's less pie for everyone. But, if the producers are allowed to keep what they produce and dispense the surplus as they see fit, then they'll invent, they'll invest, and there'll be more for everyone. And then, those who have even the smallest pieces out of the larger pie, will end up with more pie than those who are stuck with equal pieces, so-called, out of the smaller pie.

The collectivist Old World

Now, that's a lot of pie for an analogy, but it's an accurate summary of the humanitarian function of the free enterprise system and the reason why, in less than 150 years. This nation sprang up from a hostile wilderness and became the envy of the collectivist Old World.

Of course, the free enterprise systemposition: form-data; nam no longer functions in America. We're kidding ourselves if we say it does. We've returned to the womb of the Old World concept. We're traveling now almost entirely on momentum. Daily we see an expanding government destroying the incentive of its citizens to continue producing. And daily we approach the end of the line.

But the voter of today is told nothing of this. He is told that we are living in a free enterprise system, that all the economic problems and failures are traceable to that. Capitalism is in crisis, he's told and the only solution is to replace it with socialism. Good grief, it was replaced with socialism years ago! The failures of today are socialist failures. Not capitalism, but socialism is in crisis, as it always has been.

Frederic Bastiat, the anti-Marx

Over a hundred and twenty years ago a French economist by the name of Frederic Bastiat wrote an essay entitled The Law. It contains one of the clearest and most compelling statements of political philosophy that you'll ever find. In straight-forward language and logic Bastiat proves beyond all doubt that the proper function of government is to protect the lives, liberty, and property of its citizens, but not to provide for them. TO PROTECT AND NOT TO PROVIDE. For in order to provide for some, it must first take from others. And once it has been granted the power to take from some and give to others, then it becomes a potential mechanism for legalized plunder. The control of that mechanism becomes highly coveted by individuals and groups who wish to line their own pockets out of the taxes taken from someone else. They attempt to bribe politicans, or buy their own way into office, or form into pressure groups with powerful lobbies at the seat of government. Everybody wants in on the "take." Businessmen clamor for tariffs and price-fixing laws so they can charge higher prices. And when the consumers discover what's going on, instead of calling for the elimination of all such government favoritism, they merely start demanding that they get theirs, too. Labor unions clamor for minimum wage laws, farmers nuzzle up to the trough and demand price supports, the unemployed want benefits, families want apartments, students want grants, colleges want subsidies. The entire process spirals around and around until, finally, everyone is plundering everyone! And in the end, when taxes skyrocket to the point where there's nothing left to plunder, the whole system collapses, and the game is over. All that left is the plundering mechanism, itself--total government--and freedom is lost.

This process described by Bastiat over 120 years ago is exactly what's happening in America today. And his warning about the end result of that process constitutes still a third reason why we champion the free enterprise concept. Even if collectivism were not morally wrong, even if it did produce a higher standard of living, we would still oppose it, because freedom is more important than prosperity.

Resistence and Independence

To resist a tyranny, you must be independent of that tyranny for your subsistence. If the government provides your food, your clothing, your shelter, your education, your job, your medical, your retirement, then the government controls you most effectively, indeed. If that government should ever become tyrannical--and they have a way of doing that in history--then, you've had it, my friends.

We believe that one of the greatest lessons history that so desperately needs to be re-learned by the American people--our forefathers knew it well--is this: Anytime a government is powerful enough to give the people everything they want, it is also powerful enough to take from the people everything they have. You cannot have one without the other.

We believe, therefore, that government is too big! That's the problem. If we really want to preserve freedom, we need to talk about ways and means to reduce the size and reach of government, itself. This goal is summarized very concisely by the motto: Less government, more individual responsibility, and, with God's help, a better world.

Essay II - THE POLITICAL PRINCIPLES OF FREEDOM

Individualism, collectivism and the meaning of word ‘democracy’

Introduction

Those of us who advocate less government, are usually described as conservatives. We don't particularly like the word "conservative," because it sounds rather miserly and stingy - especially when compared to the word "liberal" which sounds so much more generous and humane. But the shading of the word isn't our only objection to it. We could live with that so long as it accurately described the beliefs this country was founded upon, but it does not. Many who are presently labeled "conservatives" wish only to conserve and expand the present programs that now dominate our government and our nation. We are not among those ranks, I can assure you. We do not want to conserve the present system of high taxes, deficit spending, expanding welfare programs, foreign aid, leniency to criminals, no-win wars, and ever-increasing government controls. These are the jealously guarded bastions of liberalism. Yesterday's liberals are all to often the conservatives of today.

The debate--or the dialogue, as it is now called--is not between conservatives and liberals. It goes back in history long before those words were ever invented. The opposing points of view properly are identified as individualism versus collectivism, and their champions are called individualists and collectivists. These words have meaning. They accurately identify the political thoughts they represent. Like the founders of this nation we regard ourselves as individualists, and here are the differences between the two, as we see them.

Individualism vs. collectivism, differences

First of all, the individualist believes that the rights of the individual must not be obliterated by the desires of the collective or the group. The collectivist, on the other hand, believes that the group is more important than the single person within it, and that the individual must be sacrificed, if necessary, for the greater good of the greater number.

The individualist believes that with rights, come responsibilities. And, since we insist on individual rights, therefore, we accept the principle of individual responsibility rather than group responsibility. We believe that every man has a personal and direct responsibility to provide, first for himself and for his family, and then for those outside his family who may be in need.

The collectivist, on the other hand, declares that the individual is not personally responsible for charity, for raising his own children, providing for his aging parents, or even providing for himself, for that matter. This is a group function of the state, of government itself. As a matter of fact, this is always one sure way to spot who is an individualist and who is a collectivist. The individualist wants to be free to do it himself. The collectivist wants the government to do it for him. He is enamored by government. He idolizes government. he has a fixation on government as the ultimate group mechanism to solve all problems. The reason is that government is the one group that can legally force everyone to participate. It has the power of taxation, backed by jails and force of arms, if necessary, to compel everyone to fall in line.

And this leads to the third difference between the two groups. Simply stated, the individualist believes in freedom; the collectivist believes in compulsion. Let me give a few illustrations.

Freedom vs. force

As stated a moment ago, we believe that every man has a personal responsibility to provide for himself, if he can, and for his dependents. This means that, routinely, we should all set aside a portion of our current earnings for the inevitability of unemployment through sickness, accident, or retirement. But, as individualists, we also believe that we should be free not to do this, if, for whatever reasons, we prefer to act in some other manner. If we wish to live to the full extent of our income and plan to depend on our children or other relatives in our old age, or if we choose to take our chance on a greater income in later years, or even if we choose, consciously, to fall back on charity as a way of life, for whatever reason, we believe that a person should be free to choose his own course. We have no right to force him to comply with our ideas of what he should do.

By contrast, the collectivist says that, since some people don't have the brains or the will-power or the desire to save on their own, let us pass a law and use government to force them. There must be no freedom of choice in this matter, otherwise there'll be many who won't do what we know they should do.

Ethics and Charity

This same contrast can be seen in the area of charity. We believe that every man has a personal responsibility to be generous to those in need. But, as individualists, we also believe that a man should be free not to be charitable if he doesn't want to. If he prefers to give to a different charity than the one we urge on him, if he prefers to give a smaller amount than what we think he should give, or if he prefers not to give at all, we believe we do not have any right to gang up on him and force him. We may try to persuade him to do so. We may appeal to his conscience to do so. But we may not force him to do so, either directly by mob violence, or indirectly by the ballot box. In either case, the principle is the same. It's called stealing. True charity is the voluntary giving of your own money. Government charity is the giving of someone else's money, which, of course, is why it's so popular.

And so, the individualist believes that every man should be charitable, but that compulsory charity is not really charity at all. It's merely legalized theft. Therefore, he believes that every man must be free in this matter to act or not to act, as he sees fit.

The collectivist believes just the reverse. He proclaims that, because there are some who will not be charitable as we think they should be, let us pass a law and use government to force them. Let's not call it stealing, though, Let's call it welfare.

Unions

For one additional illustration to round out the point, individualists believe that every man should be free to join a union in order to gain bargaining power and be more effectively represented with his employer. But we also believe that he should be free not to join a union if he doesn't want to. If he feels that a particular union doesn't represent his best interests, or that the union leadership is corrupt, or that it's spending his dues money to promote political programs contrary to his choice, or, for whatever reason, he should be free not to join a union if he doesn't want to.

The collectivist, of course, replies that unions are good. Therefore, let us pass a law making it illegal for an employer to hire a non-union man. In this way, we will use the power of government to force any man who wants a good job to join the union. He must not be given freedom of choice.

And so it goes, on almost every conceivable issue in which the end result generally is conceded to be desirable. As individualists, we believe in freedom of choice. The collectivist, inevitably, turns to the coercion of government force.

We hear a lot of talk today about right-wingers, left-wingers, extremists and moderates. So let's turn now, to the question of the political spectrum.

Is there such thing as ‘the political spectrum’

The political spectrum concept, if it has any meaning at all, is a measurement scale showing all the variations in government, ranging from zero at one end to 100% at the other. The extremists at the zero end would be those who advocate no government at all, the anarchists. The extremists at the other end would be those who advocate total government. And who are they? The Communists, of course, but also the Nazis, the Fascists, and any others, no matter what they may call themselves; if they advocate total government control over the people, they are all, by definition, totalitarians. Communism and Nazism are not opposites.

As you recall, the official name of the Nazi Party really was the National Socialist Party. So, whereas Nazism advocated national socialism, Communism advocates international socialism. Whereas Nazism promoted race hatred, Communism promotes class hatred. Whereas Nazism directed all industry and commerce by government controls over the managers, Communism controls all industry and commerce by confiscating it first and then appointing the managers. And that is the total difference between the two systems. Call it Right or Left, it makes no difference, they're both at the same totalitarian end of the political spectrum.

Our Constitution

But where do Constitutionalists fit into this picture? Aren't we supposed to be the extremists? That's what we hear constantly. Well, the truth of the matter is, we turn out to be the real middle of the roaders. Not that we think that's any particular virtue in itself, but we are just as opposed to the extreme of anarchy as we are to the extreme of totalitarianism.

In essence, anarchy and totalitarianism, also, are the same. Under anarchy, the strongest individuals inevitably will rule over the weak with all the ruthlessness of the totalitarian. The only difference is the size of the dominion. Under anarchy, instead of one large despotism, there are many small ones. Freedom is dead in either case.

Because of this fact, the "linear" concept of the political spectrum gives way to a "circular" concept in which both extremes, anarchy and totalitarianism, join together. Regardless of which concept is used, however, as Individualists we believe in the principles of limited government and oppose any movement which tends to polarize in the extremes, be they separate or joined.

We recognize that government is absolutely necessary for any orderly society. But following the dictum that government, like fire, is both beneficial and dangerous, we believe in the concept of limited government. And we believe that the Constitutional Republic created by our Founding Fathers is the best form of limited government that has yet been devised by man.

Republic not necessarily means democracy

To understand why we feel this way, it will be necessary to define the word "republic" and to point out the differences between a republic and a democracy.

The word "democracy" has two meanings. As commonly used today, it's generally accepted to describe our American concept of free elections and representative government. But it has a classic definition which is not nearly so flattering. During the debates surrounding the Constitutional Convention, the framers of that document made it very clear that democracy was the worst possible form of government, leading always to mob rule and anarchy, and then to despotism and dictatorship. They said, in no mistakable terms, that they were not establishing a democracy in America, but a republic. As a result the word "democracy" doesn't appear anywhere in our Constitution. And when we pledge allegiance to our flag, it's to the Republic for which it stands, not the democracy.

All of this was clearly known to students of American history until fairly recently. The big change came when we were thrown into what was called "the war to make the world safe for Democracy." And ever since, Americans have been increasingly accepting the new meaning for democracy and forgetting the old meaning for republic.

We would be quite content to accept the new definitions and forget the old except for the fact that nowhere in the new vocabulary are there words which can be used to convey the old meanings. If we wish to discuss the differences between a republic and a democracy at all, we simply have no choice but to return to the older definitions that existed prior to World War 1.

Majority rule

Democracy is a form of government based upon the principle of majority rule. Period. End of discussion. Now, that's not very complicated. Majority rule. It's easy to understand, easy to sell to the masses, and, I might add, deadly! For example, what would you call a lynch-mob? That's majority rule. There's only dissenting vote, and he's at the end of the rope. That's pure democracy in action!

"Ah, but wait a minute," you say. "The majority should rule. Yes, but not to the extent of destroying the rights of the minority." And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, we are no longer describing a democracy, we are speaking of a republic.

A republic is a limited democracy. It's a form of government based on the principle of limited majority rule, limited so that the minority--can be protected against the whims and passions of the majority.

How do you protect the minority from the majority? You write down a set of rules on a piece of paper. You say "This we can do. That we cannot." At the top of the paper you write the word "Constitution." Then everyone agrees to follow the rules no matter what the temptation. And when you're finished, you've created a Constitutional Republic.

Our Bill of Rights

Notice that the entire function of our Bill of Rights is to spell out in detail the many ways in which the majority acting through government, must not be allowed to infringe on the rights of the minority. The First Amendment sets the pace with the words: "Congress shall pass no law," and then the document proceeds to explain that Congress, even though it expresses the will of the majority, shall not deny the minority the right of free exercise of religion, freedom of speech, peaceful assembly, the right to bear arms, and others. congress shall not. The majority shall not. This is the meaning of a republic.

And it didn't just happen that way accidentally. Our Founding Fathers knew exactly what they were doing. Remember that interesting exchange of letters between Thomas Jefferson and a friend who had criticized him for being distrustful of men with political power? Using the same argument we hear so often today, the friend asked, "Have you no faith in the men we elect? have you no confidence in our government? And remember that beautiful reply? Jefferson said" "Confidence is everywhere the parents of despotism.... In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." There, in a single phrase, is the best summary you'll ever find of a republic: Binding men down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution. And this is the concept of limited government in which the we believe.

To translate this general concept of limited government into something specific and tangible, it follows that the we do NOT think that taxes are too high. That's right. Taxes are merely the price of government, and you have to pay for what you get. Every year the American people apparently want more government. They clamor for more services, more benefits, but, oh, how they complain when the bill comes in the mail. Actually, taxes aren't high enough. for years the government has been spending more than it takes in. this deficit spending has caused inflation. Inflation has undermined the value of our money. it has decreased the incentive to save, and has shifted a heavy portion of the cost of government onto our senior citizens and others on fixed incomes. So, taxes really should be higher to pay for the government we have.

We believe, therefore, that taxes are not too high, but that government is too big! That's the problem. If we ever really want to reduce taxes, we'd better get the horse back in front of the cart and begin to talk about ways and means to reduce the size and reach of government, itself. This goal is summarized very concisely by the motto:

Less government, more individual responsibility, and, with God's help, a better world.