The Obstacles to a Free Society

I credit Murray Rothbard with identifying two types of conspiracies, viz., “capitalist ploys” or conspiracies designed to promote someone’s narrow self-interest at the expense of the general public; and “communist plots” which he further subdivides into conspiracies set up with the goal of promoting an ideology and the goal of acquiring political power. These seem to cover all the relevant cases. Indeed, the most successful conspiracies are those that attack on all three fronts; witness, for example, the combined forces of idealistic but naïve anti-private-gun-ownership do-gooders, government regulators, and trial lawyers who want to loot gun manufacturers. These correspond neatly to the 3 sources of sin: ignorance, weakness, and malice.

The first type of conspiracy is so ubiquitous, varied, and natural in a semi-free society that we will not be discussing it here. It is enough to note that politically connected companies seek freedom from consumer sovereignty through favorable regulations, anti-trust laws, exemptions from liability, and so forth. Their competitors, realizing that they have to play the game if they want to survive, defend themselves with greater or lesser success. The artificial obstacles also deter some entrepreneurs who would otherwise have challenged the vested interests from even trying. The result is that huge amounts of money are wasted financing projects that are not in the best interests of the consumers. Then there are the resources spent on lobbying (i.e., loot or privilege seeking) which, too, could be employed productively. We are all poorer because of it. Because there is no ideological pressure on the part of the elites to stop this kind of thing, the political landscape becomes a battlefield where only the ruthless survive. Indeed, some economists have expressed astonishment that so little money is spent on lobbying given that the federal government has almost three trillion dollars in stolen money and possesses vast discretionary powers. What a contrast to the harmony of interests in the market!

Now Mises objected to focusing overmuch on such conspiracies as follows: “… where there are selfish interests pro there must necessarily be selfish interests contra too. It is by no means a satisfactory explanation of any event that it favored a special class. The question to be answered is why the rest of the population whose interests it injured did not succeed in frustrating the endeavors of those favored by it.” (Human Action, 82) Special interests will always exist; as the arch-leftist William Blum has written cynically, people “don’t want more government, or less government; they don’t want big government, or small government; they want government on their side.” The idea is that people no longer support the government; the government supports numerous individuals, thereby promoting a minority’s private good instead of the public good it is supposed to be protecting. Of course, special interests are concentrated, while the general interest is dispersed and has influence only through ideology and public opinion. The question is, can ideology counteract and defeat special interests? I think history shows that it certainly can. Ideological “conspiracies,” therefore, are normal in any society and can be either good or bad depending on the ideology and the means used to promote it, viz., truthful persuasion vs. deception or violence.

But ideology is a little tricky. Mises has written in The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality that those who object to free markets often do so out of frustrated ambition and failed lives. Why, under socialism they would have done much better, they think. It is not we who are at fault, it is “society”; if we remake society, especially in such a way that our own central “plan” would be supreme, then we will be successful. And he examines the various forms of this prejudice. But Mises’s condemnation of the socialists of all parties is a double-edged sword. Given our interventionist mixed economy, one could accuse those who long for freedom of failing to adjust themselves successfully to reality. “If a Soviet peon enjoys a low standard of living, it is exclusively his fault that he failed to claw his way into the Politburo,” a defender of the status quo might say. We can respond to this tu quoque in two ways. First, let us point out that Mises was inveighing specifically against a caste society in which one’s destiny is already predetermined by the circumstances of one’s birth – in such a society no matter how capable you are, you are prevented by the social order from advancing or acquiring wealth. Second, we can say that we are motivated not by personal failure but by a commitment to the genuine common good. As Thomas Jefferson advised, “Love your neighbor as yourself, and your country more than yourself.” For example, we may be utilitarians and seek to further the greatest happiness for the greatest number.

There is, therefore, nothing shameful in our commitment to liberty, property, and peace.

February 4, 2008

Dmitry Chernikov [send him mail] is a graduate student in philosophy at Kent State University. See his website.

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