The Measure of Growth

A correspondent from Pakistan asked: “How can one tell whether a nation is experiencing economic growth?” Really, a nation experiences nothing; only individuals have experiences. So, if we would measure growth or progress, it must be with respect to the individual human being, not a nation.

  I here lay myself open to an argument no less contentious than Galileo’s when he affirmed that the solar system does not revolve around the earth. He was up against the established faith; I find myself up against Hegel, Comte, and others who have held that only society is real and that the individual is the abstraction. Today these philosophers have followers by the millions—collectivists who have no inkling of the origin of their ideas—those who favor an intervening political apparatus, the planned economy, the welfare state.

  Thus, the argument is between those who pose society, the nation, the over-all economy as the prime unit and the small minority who insist that all meaningful comparisons in progress must be made in terms of the individual.

  First, let us ask, how would a bureaucracy, with its numerous interventions in the market place, go about measuring economic progress? The task is greatly hampered by the fact that economic calculation, which is founded on market data automatically supplied in a system of free competitive pricing, is denied in socialism; it is impossible.1 Leading communist “economists” concede the point.2 Yet, the interventionists are faced with decision-making. And in the absence of economic calculation, they have but one recourse: statistics! “Statistics are, in a crucial sense, critical to all interventionist and socialistic activities of government. . . . Only by statistics can the Federal government make even a fitful attempt to plan, regulate, control, or reform various industries—or impose central planning and socialization on the entire economic system.”3

  When an economy is controlled by government, prices are not established by competitive forces but by bureaucratic edict. Edicts are written, modified, repealed in accord with bureaucratic judgments. Thus it is that they are compelled to form judgments from their readings of the statistical data they compile. While the ups and downs in employment, standard of living, and many other data are contrived for their use, the usual statistic for measuring economic growth or progress is gross national product (GNP).

  The GNP idea is subject to several obvious flaws:

  1. If I divorce my wife and hire her as a cook at $50 a week, the GNP will increase by $2,600 annually. How, pray tell, is there any economic growth or progress in that maneuver?

  2. If the Defense Department spends $50 billion instead of $1 billion on war and its hardware, the GNP will rise by $49 billion. The larger expenditure may or may not increase our security but, assuredly, it represents no economic progress for you or me. We have a lower, not a higher, freedom of choice by reason of such outlays. To what economic use can a citizen put a battleship, or a nuclear warhead, or a dead “enemy”?4

  3. Were we to spend $40 billion to tear down New York City, the GNP would rise by that amount, the same as if we were to spend $40 billion to build a new city.5

  4. The dollars we pay farmers not to grow wheat, or peanuts or whatever, boost the GNP just as do the dollars paid farmers for things produced.

  5. GNP—expressed in the monetary unit—enlarges whenever the medium of exchange is diluted, that is, it gets bigger in an inflationary period.6 Contemplate what Germany’s GNP would have been in 1923 when 30 million marks wouldn’t buy a loaf of bread.

  The Case Against the GNP

  What an inaccurate device is GNP, the so-called measuring rod of economic progress employed by intervening governments and so heartily endorsed by many economists!

  Why, then, is GNP used at all? Probably, there is no better statistical guide available to an intervening bureaucracy; that is, none more consistent with their gross-economy—as distinguished from individualistic—assumptions. Further, they have come to believe that spending, rather than productive effort, is the key to growth or progress. Were this true, then Germany achieved its peak of growth immediately prior to complete economic collapse. Were this true, we could experience enormous progress by the simple expedient of repealing all laws against counterfeiting! The fact is, exploding expenditures no more measure economic growth than does exploding population!

  I repeat, GNP is purely an invention and a device of an intervening government and/or its intellectual supporters. In an ideal free market society, with government limited to invoking a common justice and keeping the peace, GNP is inconceivable. Try to find a GNP figure in Hong Kong, the nearest approach to a free economy in today’s world. There simply is no use for a GNP figure by the voluntary participants in a free market. Market data is related to one’s goods or services, yes; but definitely not a generality like GNP related neither to specific markets nor to individual progress.

  GNP is, of course, subject to manipulation, as explained above. Merely spend more, regardless of what for, and up it goes. Thus, the prevailing bureaucracy is enabled to “prove” that it is doing better each year, or better than the Establishment it succeeded.

  Now, here is where the mischief enters: If the majority of the citizenry can be sold on the merit of government spending and made to believe that GNP is a reliable measuring rod, then we can easily be led by the nose into the total state—the free market wiped out completely.

  Again, why is GNP used at all? Bureaucracies that intervene in the market will never use a valid definition of economic growth or progress for the simple reason that the real thing cannot be measured in mathematical or statistical terms and, thus, is utterly useless for bureaucratic procedure.

  Measuring Personal Progress

  The real thing—individual economic progress—cannot be measured by objective standards. This is to say that the individual’s economic progress cannot be reckoned by the number of chickens in the pot, by cars in the garage, by cash in. the bank or statements of net worth, or by any or all other standard-of-living measurements.7

  This is not to say that the individual can have no idea of his own economic growth; it is only to argue that growth cannot be judged by any set of objective standards.

  For instance, I am aware of personal economic growth, which is to say, I can now obtain more of what I want in exchange for what I want to do than was the case thirty years ago. Further, the Pilgrim, or an eighteenth-century Englishman, or my father, had nowhere near the choices of employment I have, or what could be received in exchange for the fruits thereof. My choices are abundant compared to theirs.

  But please note that what I want to do is forever changing, and that what I want in exchange is in perpetual flux. Like a bird on the wing, I don’t “stay put,” as we say. Even more to the point, I have no carbon copy on this earth; we are all in flux relative to each other.

  Perhaps one man’s highest aspiration is to write and lecture on behalf of freedom. He prefers this to other employments, even though the other jobs available to him pay twice or ten times as much. And in exchange he desires above all else a working acquaintance with the best libertarian minds in the world, along with the economic means—food, transportation, and the like—for realization. To him this is the ultimate in economic progress. Who, pray tell, has any right to set a standard for him other than these unusual but, nonetheless, self-chosen goals?

  But here’s another fellow who, above all else, prefers to strum a guitar. And in exchange his heart’s desire is “a Loaf of Bread . . . a Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse—and Thou.” To him this is the ultimate in economic progress. Where is the superman who has any logical, moral, or ethical basis for decreeing otherwise?

  The above gets at the crux of the matter: gain or economic progress is individual and subjective; gain cannot be objectively measured, that is, neither I nor anyone else can devise a standard that can accurately assess what is or isn’t a gain to you.8 It’s difficult enough to know one’s own choice in such matters.

  What economic progress is to one individual may very well be regress to another. Examples: There are persons who would prefer an audience with the President of the United States to $10,000, and vice versa; a hoola hoop to $5, and vice versa; a can of imported snails to $2, and vice versa; a Ph.D. or a mink coat to $5,000, and vice versa; a Sammy Davis performance to one by Roberta Peters, and vice versa; a Jeep to a Cadillac, and vice versa; and so on ad infinitum. Objective standards simply cannot be used to measure subjective judgments.

  Measuring and determining the total value of these trillions of complex, ever-changing whims, fancies, desires—subjectively recorded only in the minds of individuals mostly unknown to one another—is not humanly possible.


The individual can, if he so elects, generally assess his own economic progress, but he can no more express this growth statistically or mathematically than he can his intellectual, moral, or spiritual gain. Indeed, in these latter categories, no one makes any attempt at such measurement. Unlike the single dimensions of height, weight, girth, bushels of wheat, and population, these other forms of growth, including economic, are multidimensional and—to top it off—in never-ending flux. And suppose one had an accurate measure of his own economic growth; what could he possibly do with the statistic that he could not do as well without it?

  Opportunities to Choose

  Far more important than fruitlessly trying to measure individual economic growth is understanding what it is that increases the possibilities for progress. Were we searching for a single phrase to express what has to be understood, we could well settle for a freeing of choices. This, however, is as big as “all outdoors.” Reflect on the enormity of what’s involved:

 
    First, freeing the choices—increasing the alternatives and opportunities—for profitably (subjective) employing one’s abilities and properties.

    Second, freeing the choices—increasing the alternatives—of the desirable (subjective) goods and services that can be obtained in willing exchange for the fruits of said employment.

    Third, freeing the capacities of self in order to partake of the increasing alternatives. To what advantage is a proliferation of opportunities to an oyster, or to a human who can’t get off dead center?
 

  All three of the above developments are founded on exchange—production as much as distribution. And this is true even of self-development, for man grows by exchanging ideas with his contemporaries or drawing on his heritage; he is incapable of going it alone. Thus, exchange is the key economic term.

  As set forth in Chapter V, there are two kinds of exchange, broadly speaking: forced exchange as in state interventionism (socialism) and willing exchange as in a free market economy. No society ever has had exclusively one or the other; every society has more or less one or the other.

  To repeat what is already implied, economic progress may be judged only by the extent to which an individual becomes capable of taking advantage of an increase in opportunities for productive activity and an increase in what he can obtain for his goods or services in willing exchange.

  Such progress, let it be emphasized, originates only in willing as distinguished from forced or coerced exchange. For example, when a robber takes $100 from you, there is no net gain; his gain is canceled out by your loss; this exchange is no more than a coercive swap. Precisely the same holds true when the government forcibly takes the fruits of your labors as a contribution toward any project which does not fall within the principled scope of government.10 Parenthetically, an intervening government, to be consistent, should tabulate robberies and include the total figure in GNP!

  It is clear that there is no gain or progress in forced or coerced exchange. But, as I attempt to explain in Chapter X, all parties gain in willing exchange—in the only way that gain makes sense.

  The Discovery and Use of Talent

  Let us now ask, why is individual economic progress so important? What, really, is its deep significance? For, surely, it transcends sensual pleasures and satisfactions.

  Assume I am a Russian whose employment alternatives may be limited to working in the sputnik factory or on a collective farm and where the things that can be obtained in exchange approximate the contents of Mother Hubbard’s cupboard. Or a Chinese who, employment-wise, has no choice beyond sloshing around a rice paddy, in exchange for which he gets rice and little else.

  Next, grant this: I—the Russian or the Chinese, it matters not—possess a potential talent, hidden, latent, untapped. Mine is distinctively unique, unlike that of any other living being. I don’t know what it is myself. I only know that it isn’t making sputniks or transplanting rice. If I understand life’s purpose, one aim must be to see how close I can come during my earthly days to realizing those creative potentialities uniquely mine. Under the conditions outlined above, I should go to my grave—in this respect unborn!

  Now, let the alternatives for employment greatly proliferate. They pop into existence every day, one might say. Undeniably, the greater the proliferation the greater is the probability that some one alternative will coincide with that latent, undiscovered talent uniquely mine. In short, self-realization!

  It is now appropriate to consider what type of political economy is most conducive to a maximum of alternatives for the employment of abilities and properties and of opportunities for profitable exchange. In what socio-economic climate is there the greatest freeing of choices?

  To Defend Life and Property

  At the risk of repetition, I believe the first requirement to be a societal agency—government—devoted to keeping the peace, that is, to inhibiting and minimizing all violence, fraud, misrepresentation, predation. Though fully aware of the tendency of governments to get out of hand—the policeman turned plunderer—I’m nonetheless convinced that society requires an organized agency of defensive force to keep the market free of coercion, to secure to each citizen his life and the fruits of his labor. Private property is the outcome of such security, this institution being a basic foundation for any growth in economic alternatives.

  Only when life and property are respected is capital formation possible, labor and capital being the tools of production.

  When the societal agency is limited to keeping the peace—assuming it does so—there remains no organized force standing against the freeing of creative human energy, a potential always seeking release to some extent in everyone.

  When the societal agency keeps the peace, that is, when no one is permitted to lord it over others, there is free entry, free and willing exchange; in short, the free market.

  It is under these conditions—never under authoritarian arrangements—that alternatives proliferate, both as to opportunities for the employment of one’s abilities and properties and as to what one can obtain in willing exchange.11 The flower of freedom!

  The flower of freedom, I say. But how, many will ask, can this proliferation of alternatives be taking place coincidentally with a rapidly advancing state intervention into the market? Isn’t there a contradiction here?

  While no societal agency has ever been strictly limited in practice to keeping the peace, invoking a common justice, and securing the rights of life and livelihood, and no market has ever been ideally free, the U.S.A. has afforded the nearest approximation to these ideals. This practice of freedom brought an unprecedented outburst of creative activity, and through the persons of self-reliant individuals. What’s going on today can partly be accounted for as a momentum, a mighty thrust from decades when sound principles were generally practiced. The traditions, the ways of dealing with each other, the will to improve, the incentives, and numerous other virtues born in that era combined into a fabric too tough for easy destruction.

  But more than momentum: our impressions of what is happening are greatly colored and distorted because, to a marked extent, they derive from what we read in the press or hear over TV and radio. Public media—our eyes for seeing much of the world around us—highlight the news. And what’s news? Not the commonplace—never! But, rather, the exceptional events. A new intervention or control (restriction of the market) is always an exception; it is a break with tradition, with our ways of doing things and dealing with each other. So, it is the substitution of force for willing exchange that is taken to be news nowadays.

  Commonplace Constructive Forces

  Let’s reflect on the commonplace which mostly we overlook. For instance, the exchange of 30 cents for a can of beans. We take no more note of this than we do the important air we breathe. Yet these commonplace, unnoted actions occur daily in billions of unpublicized voluntary exchanges, with a constructive effect that tends to overcome many destructive, intervening forces.

  I repeat, we are keenly conscious of the exceptional destructive forces and only dimly aware of the commonplace constructive forces. This, of course, is very dangerous, for we tend to accept these glaring interventions as causes of the proliferation of economic alternatives for the individual. This type of mistaken correlation leads labor union officials to believe that their coercive tactics raise the wage level,12 or bureaucrats to believe that their price controls curb inflation. The fact is that coercion is an inhibitive force, never creative. It precludes creative activity by the person doing the coercing as well as by the one being coerced.

  Free and willing exchange, on the other hand, can be likened to a world-wide electric grid into which flow the infinitesimal and varied creativities of several billion individuals, resulting in a magnificent total available to all.


Freedom Finds a Way

  As a bolt of lightning zigs and zags along the line of least resistance, so has free action found its way through the porosity of governmental restraints. It is the free action, not the restraints, that accounts for all that’s good in the economic situation. In short, free action is stronger than you think, and the interveners are weaker than they think.

  True, the tides of unreason and political intervention are on the march; their forces are appalling, and we shudder at the news of them. But we should take stock of the commonplace. Why, 99 per cent of all actions are as honest, as fair, as complimentary to all parties concerned as are the actions between you and your best friend. In a word, the constructive forces are enormous. Were this not true the destructive forces would have done us in ere this, a happier picture than most people conjure up.

  Yet, there is a sobering thought: a small amount of coercion wreaks a havoc out of all proportion to its quantity. Imagine, for example, a church social of a hundred people, and all the friendly, constructive, cooperative energy used in its preparation. Now visualize say 1/10,000th of the total energy turned to coercion, a deacon slapping the pastor in the face. Contemplate the ensuing chaos and the effects of coercion are clear. A single drop of some deadly poisons will kill!

 
 
    Even those of us who think of ourselves as free of coercive tendencies have our moments of falling from grace. We are prone to see such failures only in others. Let us now do a bit of self-assessment. . . .

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The Robot Explosion

Again, using our collapsed calendar, the population in this country, during the last three seconds, has increased from an estimated 5 million to an approximate 197 million. The significant increase had its beginning with the Industrial Revolution. There are now about 40 times as many human beings in the U.S.A. as then.

  Far more startling is what has happened to the robot population. During this same period robots have increased at least 135 times! That the robot explosion has had something to do with the lesser population explosion is incontestable. But let us begin by putting the robots in their customary frame of reference: the employment-unemployment problem.

  Means are often confused with ends. Thus, when we focus on the employment-unemployment picture, as I do in this chapter, the tendency is to overlook the fact that job-holding by itself is, as a rule, but a means to the satisfaction of wants. The growth of any individual’s physical and mental faculties does, of course, demand exercise, but having a “job” isn’t always necessary for that; these faculties can be and often are more exercised by the jobless—coupon clippers, for instance—than by job holders.

  So, we’re not seeking employment merely for the exercise. Human labor for its own sake is seldom our aim; we labor in order to enjoy its fruits in the form of food, clothing, and shelter, or to satisfy other physical and spiritual hungers. And one of the most essential qualities of being human is the urge to be relieved of burdensome effort and freed to pursue more desirable objectives. It is this urge, when men are free, that causes the invention of mechanical slaves—our tools and machines; they free us for something hopefully better. This is also why we specialize and trade.

  In a world which has an infinite amount of work to be done, involuntary unemployment is inconceivable—provided the market is free. Unemployment is always the result of price (wage) and other coercive controls. Automation, as I shall attempt to demonstrate, has nothing whatsoever to do with it. Our mechanical slaves—labor-saving devices of all kinds—stem from the recognition and pursuit of higher wants than mere survival; they are the means toward such ends. Let us therefore try to clear away some of the confusion that attends the employment-unemployment problem as related to automation.

  Shall Our Robots Rule Us?

  Whenever we come into possession of a source of mechanical energy equivalent to one man’s energy, we have added to the work force a mechanical slave, an automaton, a robot.

  No question about it, the robots, at first blush, appear to cause unemployment. Take the automobile, for instance. It disemployed buggy and wagon workers, whip and harness makers, stable hands, and a host of others. True, some went to work for the auto makers but, nonetheless, the automobile—automated travel, the product of automation—made for unemployment. So goes the chant.

  Regardless of that first impression, we know that robots do not, in fact, cause unemployment. For instance, we have experienced an enormous outburst of automation, yet a high percentage of the population—about 80,000,000—is on the work force; today’s many areas of acute labor shortage refute the notion that automation causes unemployment.

  Quite possibly we could settle the whole question in our own minds by merely reflecting on primitive automation: the wheel and a domesticated animal. The ox-drawn cart, instead of putting the owner out of work, gave him higher level work and multiplied what he could produce and thus consume.

  Or, consider the story of two men who were watching a huge steam shovel removing earth in preparation for the building of Hoover Dam. Said one, “Think of all the men that shovel is putting out of work!” Replied the better economist of the two, “There wouldn’t be a single person working on this project if all that earth had to be removed by men with their hands.”

  Yes, the automobile disemployed buggy workers, but in the same sense that the ox-drawn cart relieved primitive man from doing everything by hand. Failure to see this point leads many people to believe that automation causes unemployment.

  If robots are the cause of unemployment, then the telephone—automated communication—must have wrought havoc. The fact? The operating companies employ over 700,000 people, and several hundred thousand are employed by the suppliers. But surely, some will contend, automatic dialing disemployed a great number of switchboard operators. The fact? There are nearly 50 per cent more operators today than in 1940. Why? Because automatic dialing made possible so much more use of the telephone than before. If the present volume of conversations had to be connected manually, at least 1,000,000 switchboard operators would be required. Of course, this is a fictitious “if.” The manual operation would be so inefficient relative to automatic dialing that the volume would require no such number.

  If automation caused unemployment, then it would follow that an addition to the work force of any mechanical energy equivalent to one man’s energy—one robot—would disemploy one man. However, this is contrary to observed fact. Today in the U.S.A. each worker has perhaps 135 mechanical slaves—helpers or robots—working for him, each contributing energy equivalent to the energy of one human worker.1 If each robot displaced one worker, the unemployment figure would be 135 times the present work force—10,800,000,000—an utter absurdity.

  If these robots do not displace workers, then where does all this extra energy go? Should we discover the right answer, we will know whether they are the workers’ friends or foes and whether we should try to encourage or discourage their proliferation. Let’s try to find the answer.

  My grandfather, recalling the 1850’s, used to repeat, “Many times have I walked thirty miles in a day.” His boast recently came to mind as I flew from New York City to Kansas City (1,100 miles) in two hours. It would have taken grandfather about 280 hours of walking to negotiate that distance. He would have been on his way to Kansas City for thirty-seven days. Only 365 round trips would have taken every day of his long life.

  Grandfather, in his early days, had only his own energy at his disposal—just one manpower. Now assume that he had walked to Kansas City, taking 280 hours. I made it in two hours by jet. Isn’t it clear that something has to account for that 278 hours miraculously, one might say, put at my disposal? What made this possible? It was, among other factors, the billions upon billions of robot days that assisted in the construction and the operation of that jet!2

  But these robots did more than give me 278 hours unavailable to Grandfather. There were 100 passengers on that flight, a freeing for other use of 27,800 hours. Further, that very same jet may be good for 25,000 such flights or a total freeing of 695,000,000 hours. And that jet is only one of hundreds of commercial jets. Add all the commercial prop jobs and all the private planes, and the liberated hours become astronomical. Anyway, that’s where some of the robots’ energy went, without putting anyone out of work.

  The Uses of Leisure

  We must, of course, keep in mind that the energy of robots going into airplanes is but some very small fraction of all automated energy. But the statistics do not matter; what is important is that we understand what these robots do for us and, also, to us. For one thing, they multiply our opportunities for unique, enriching experiences. When taking the family for a drive at 60 miles per hour, speculate on why the trip is possible and what is propelling you at this speed! Think of the situation were only shank’s mare available. Or why you can read a book instead of washing the dishes, or write a poem instead of foraging for food. You will, perhaps, stand in awe of and give some credit to the robots for relieving you of the necessity of sloshing around in the rice paddies or scrounging for rabbits so you won’t starve or, yes, from making buggy whips.

  Or even more: perhaps these robots have something to do with your very existence. Less than 400 years ago this land we call the U.S.A. had only an Indian population of perhaps 250,000, certainly not many more. Why so small? It was not because of the Indians’ inability to breed, nor because of unfriendly climate or infertile soils, nor for any lack of natural resources. It was because a foraging economy would not support more than then existed. Assuming no improvement over that type of economy—no robots except some horses—the chances are at least 800 to 1 that you would never have known adult life.

  But back to Grandfather: he never saw Kansas City; indeed, through his teen years, he never went beyond his walking orbit. I, on the other hand, have visited Hong Kong, as far from home as I can get; my air mileage alone is now equal to eighty loops around the world. Grandfather didn’t have time enough to do very many things. I have the time to do a thousand times as many things, and by reason of your and my mechanical helpers, the robots. This, of course, explains why timesavers multiply busy-ness—there are so many more things we can do. For good or ill, we are far busier than our ancestors ever were.


Grandfather never talked over a telephone in his life. I reach my son—2,600 miles away—in 10 seconds; I have talked across the Pacific, to Buenos Aires, Gander, London, Mexico, and to every nook and cranny of the U.S.A. If the robots have disemployed me, it is from the limited opportunities Grandfather experienced. There is a better way to put it: the robots have liberated, not disemployed, humans.

  Automation Follows Labor Shortages

  Robots put people out of work? On the contrary, robots become economically feasible and appear in our lives only as the result of a scarcity of human labor to accomplish all the tasks we want done. It doesn’t pay to do by machine what can be done more cheaply by hand. Businessmen tend to mechanize or automate after, rather than before, laborers have moved away from a particular job.

  For example, our operation at FEE calls for three large mailings every two months, requiring 20 workers for two days on each occasion. When we began two decades ago, we trained local housewives for this part-time work and paid the hourly minimum wage of 80 cents. Afterward, the minimum was raised to $1.00 and later to $1.25. Now assume that FEE was on the brink of bankruptcy, that is, at that critical point where a few hundred dollars would tip the scales toward institutional survival or closing, and that the latest minimum wage raised our costs to that point. What to do? We bought some robots in the form of a machine: press a button and it automatically collates, stuffs, seals, and stamps, doing the work of the women, quicker and at lower cost. True, the part-time women lost their “pin money” jobs but the rest of us were saved from losing ours.

  Most people will say that the robots disemployed the women, a grave error. The culprit was none other than the minimum wage law—governmental interference with the free market. It was bad law that sent our women back to housework. As these costs of governmental intervention rise year after year, more and more employers are faced with failure. The robots have performed a remarkable and incalculable rescue mission.

  There isn’t anything wrong with automation per se. The serious problems cropping up are not because of the robots but because of the people who are blessed with them. These problems, as near as I can fathom them, have their origin in an imbalance between technological know-how and economic, political, and moral wisdom. The former is remindful of an explosion; the decline of the latter amounts to apostasy. This is dangerous, for an increase in the robots we command calls for a commensurate increase in understanding and virtue. It isn’t at all promising to put a chimp at the wheel of a truck, a truck driver at the controls of a jet, or a people in command of a powerful system of robots the interworkings of which they but dimly understand. If we aren’t to be done in by our own creations, what then is it we must understand?

  The Fruits of Freedom

  The kind of automation that proliferates opportunities as to varieties of employment and, at the same time, multiplies the kinds of goods and services that may be obtained in exchange for the fruits of one’s labor, is exclusively a free market phenomenon.3 Such automation, as is so often demonstrated, cannot be transplanted into or copied by authoritarian societies. Robots that serve the masses are first the outcroppings of freedom and then of capital formation, and cannot exist where these two absolute essentials are absent. For instance, steel mills have been built in Russia, India, and other socialist countries, the effect on the masses of people being further impoverishment. Automobiles are not being produced for the masses in Russia; only the Commissars can have them. And so it goes. The point of all this is that if we substitute the governmentally planned economy for the free market, the mass-serving robots will tend to disappear until they become as scarce and useless here as they are in the USSR! This is only a part of the understanding that must accompany our increase in technological know-how. There is much more.

  As only casual observation reveals, automation spells specialization—in our own case, to a fantastic degree. This, in turn, increases interdependence. Is it not self-evident that all of us—no exceptions—have become dependent on the robots but also on the free, uninhibited exchanges of our numerous specializations? In a word, we are at a level in interdependence that can only be sustained by a highly intelligent, perceptive, and moral people. It should be plain that when we extravagantly automate and do not at the same time know more about, and practice with increasing scrupulosity, the economic and moral facts of life, disaster lies ahead.

  One can hardly imagine a societal situation more chaotic than one with specialization on the increase as freedom in transactions is on the wane. As robots increase and augment our specialization, so must there be an increase in free and willing exchange, freedom of choice, the free market. As robots appear, coercion—governmental control and rigging of the market, for instance—must correspondingly disappear. Simple reasoning as well as all the evidence attest to this fact. Yet an alarming number of people in all walks of life, even businessmen, are blind to it.

  Unused Minds Deteriorate

  For reasons not easy to explain, understanding appears to be decreasing as robots are increasing. Is there, perhaps, a correlation between struggle and sound thinking and, conversely, between easy affluence and intellectual decadence? Of one thing we are certain: our robots confer more and more material satisfactions with less and less effort on our part.

  The present trend is toward increasing material affluence in return for decreasing effort. Literally millions of individuals are approaching a something-for-nothing way of life. Obviously, it is difficult to keep mentally rigorous when the robots are doing one’s work. Indeed, mental rigor may be impossible unless the individual experiences a cultural growth commensurate with growth in affluence. This is to say that the individual may vegetate unless he realizes that the purpose of wealth is to release him from drudgery so that he may more vigorously pursue those potentialities and aptitudes uniquely his own. If the robots are to induce our getting away from or out of life—vegetating, rather than getting ever deeper into life—growing, then the late Dean Inge’s observation is indeed prophetic, “Nothing fails like success.”

  The struggle to overcome is the genesis of becoming. It is the law of polarity, the tension of the opposites, that spells growth, development, progress; at least this appears to be Nature’s dictum. Men need new frontiers to explore and occupy and transcend, not in the form of politically contrived obstacles—heaven forbid!—but in the form of challenges worthy of the mind of the individual human being striving toward his potential. When the struggle for existence is eased, higher level struggles must be substituted: expanding awareness, perception, consciousness, in a word, difficult, hard-to-achieve, intellectual, moral, and spiritual goals. This is by way of saying that disaster cannot be avoided unless a growth in wisdom be up to and on a parity with a growth in technological know-how.

  Obstacles as Stepping-Stones

  But here is the rub: material hardship, once overcome, does not and cannot serve as the obstacle, the tension, the springboard for this required growth in wisdom, this flexing and expansion of the intellectual and spiritual faculties. Material hardship is an obstacle supplied by Nature, or, if you prefer, by the environment. But once it is overcome, man is on his own; he has to make his own obstacles in the form of rationally constructed goals. And is not this creating of our own obstacles, perhaps, the profound lesson we should learn from the robot explosion?

  The robots presuppose our knowing how to live with them. They, as an auto, TNT, sulphuric acid, a jet plane, are dangerous in the hands of those who do not know their properties, of those who are unaware of automation’s deeply significant meaning. The robot army, in its present dimensions, requires, at a minimum, an understanding of private property, free market, limited government principles—economic and political enlightenment—far superior to any such understanding ever achieved up to this period in history.


 
    Next, we might consider the point of reference we should use to determine whether this explosion has us on or off course. How are we to tell? Growth we are having, but is it healthy or unhealthy? Should we measure our progress by so-called national growth or by individual growth? . . .

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Saying What You Really Mean

This bears repeating: there is no respect in which any two persons are identical—physiologically, psychologically, philosophically, ideologically. Nature decrees variation in everything—no exceptions. In the animal world it seems that the more advanced the species, the greater the differences. As to man, this rule also holds true: the more advanced the individuals, the more distinctive are their dissimilarities.

  Yet, regardless of this fact, we do generalize about our fellow humans; we attempt to categorize each other, to lump men and women under neat little labels: brilliant, muddled, idealistic, cussed, black, white, religious, inventive, and so on. All generalizations are oversimplifications; nonetheless, we couldn’t get along without them. Communicating one with the other would be out of the question were minute particularization a requirement. Categories are tools of thought and are essential to communicable writing, talking, even to thinking for ourselves.

  We cannot dispense with classifications without doing away with communication; we couldn’t even think without them. But we can aid and abet our own thinking as well as our powers to communicate by dropping loose, sloppy classifications in favor of more refined ones. In short, we can try to say more precisely what it is we really mean.

  For instance, in the politico-economic area, we carry oversimplification to an absurd extreme by putting all of humanity into two categories: (1) those we roughly think of as on “our side,” and (2) those we regard as ideological adversaries. Such, of course, is the ultimate in erroneous classification. And to continue the error is to promote suspicion, misunderstanding, dissension, hate—yes, even wars. We should, insofar as possible, be done with this nonsense!

  The sloppy labels employed depend on which of the two imaginary sides is doing the classifying. Those on one side will call the others collectivists, leftists, statists, communists, interventionists, state planners, welfare staters, Fabians, traitors, nazis—each term used derisively. There is another label—the favorable one these “collectivists” call themselves: “liberals.”

  But those who call themselves “liberals” will, with no less self-righteousness, refer to their so-called adversaries as extremists, reactionaries, rightists, profiteers, enemies of the poor, and even fascists. One also hears muttered epithets such as dog-eat-dog, law of the jungle, and the like. These are some of the ways the “lefties” label the “rightists.”

  Observe, now, how the “rightists” label themselves: conservatives, patriots, libertarians, individualists, constitutionalists; some will say they stand for capitalism, many for private enterprise. There are other favored labels—terms to indicate where they stand: the rule of law, free enterprise, free competitive enterprise, the market economy, the exchange economy, voluntarism, the profit and loss system, the incentive system, limited government.

  What a babel of nondefinitive classifications from both imaginary camps! And who among us is exempt from this looseness? Most—not all—of these labels are meaningless and utterly confusing unless one is aware of the author’s thinking, motivations, prejudices, predilections; they’re no aid to clarity.

  Reflect, for instance, on “capitalism” as used by Karl Marx, a term of opprobrium, and then by Ludwig von Mises, a term of approbation. We do, of course, derive some idea of what is meant when “capitalism” is employed by such well-known authors, but most people who use the term are total strangers and, thus, we haven’t the slightest idea as to what is implied. “Capitalism,” on its own, is nondefinitive. We are at the mercy of the definers, few of whom agree.

  Or, to further illustrate, take “private enterprise.” To some minds this conjures up privately owned businesses honestly competing for consumer favor, an economic ideal. To others, everything from embezzlement to piracy is suggested, both of these enterprises being quite private.

  All politico-economic classifications in current usage have their faults. Nor is it possible to construct a term that is precisely definitive. However, there is one that seems to be an improvement over the others: willing exchange. I have used this term for some years as a means of identifying my own position, and, while little if any adoption by others has been noted, it is significant that no one has taken issue with me for using it. Perhaps if the implications of “willing exchange” were high-lighted, it might be more widely employed. If clarity can be served, it’s worth trying to make the case for its inclusion in our vocabulary.

  The first step is to recognize how deeply exchange extends into human affairs. It goes to the very roots of and is fundamental to earthly existence. This is more or less apparent, as related to goods and services, in a division-of-labor society. As stated earlier, specialists exchange—or perish! But more: man, individualistic as he is, remains a social being. Even were an individual in comparative isolation, he can exist only by reason of his heritage—an exchange process in knowledge and ideas extending back to the harnessing of fire, even to the dawn of human consciousness.

  So far, so good—no argument. In a word, we can declare ourselves in favor of exchange and arouse no more controversy than announcing a favoritism for life. And for good reason: exchange, without any modifiers, isn’t meaningfully definitive.

  Willingly—or Not

  It’s at the next step—when modifiers are introduced—that controversy has its genesis. Shall it be willing or unwilling exchange?

  I wish to suggest that standing for willing exchange, on the one hand, or for unwilling exchange, on the other, more nearly accents our ideological differences than does the employment of the terms in common usage. It is when using these terms to distinguish ourselves that we can openly, honestly, logically part company, and with considerable clarity. Willing or unwilling exchange makes subterfuge not impossible but difficult; to side with one or the other is to declare one’s meaningful position more or less unequivocally and unmasked; there is a minimum of verbal façade to hide behind.

  Willing exchange, uncommon and thus not in the trite or cliché category, immediately provokes reflection, a big mark in its favor. The term has not yet been saddled with emotional connotations, such as those built around free trade, for instance. Further, its antithesis, unwilling exchange, comes to mind, and no one, not even a protagonist, proudly acknowledges he favors that; it does offense to his idealism. Unwilling exchange, at the very least, is a semantic jolter; it suggests to any sensitive sponsor that he take another look at his position.1

  The Many Facets of the Market

  While I use willing exchange and the free market synonymously, the word market, to most people, conjures up no more than a swapping place for produce or the little understood and much maligned stock market; they see in market only crass materialism, no spiritual or cultural qualities, none whatsoever.2 Frederic Bastiat used the term, liberté des transactions, a good-image phrase but, to my way of thinking, not quite as thought-provoking as willing exchange.

  The full antithesis of willing exchange encompasses more than forced or coercive exchange which unwilling so clearly implies. No exchange at all—the absolute prohibition of exchanges—must also be included as the antithesis of willing exchange. One of many examples: the prohibition of exchanging dollars for gold.

  If we cut through all the verbiage used to report and analyze political and economic controversy over the centuries, we find that much of it boils down to a denial of willing and the insistence upon unwilling exchange. What were the Crusades but an attempt forcibly to substitute the “true faith” for the beliefs of the “infidels”! Napoleon attempted to substitute his authoritarianism for someone else’s rule, armies and guns being his method of persuasion. The looting of neighboring nations was only a coercive exchange of some people’s property for the invaders’ satisfactions. Robbery, an exchange device, was the first labor-saving scheme. Feudalism was a coercive exchange of the serfs’ labor for the serfs’ and lord of the manor’s protection. Mercantilism forcibly controlled and/or prohibited exchange.

  However, it is not necessary to draw on ancient history for examples of unwilling exchange. Today, the fruits of one’s labor are forcibly exchanged to put men on the moon, to pay farmers not to grow numerous crops, to rebuild deserted downtowns. The list of coercive activities that go beyond the principled scope of government runs into the thousands.3 Nor does one have to be much of a political economist to see that minimum wage laws, labor union compulsions, social security, medicare, free lunches, foreign aid, and a host of other governmental activities are the antithesis of willing exchange.

  Unwilling exchange has its genesis in an objective theory of value, that is, in the forcible imposition on the individual of a value standard not of his choice but of someone else’s making. It’s Napoleon’s, or a labor union’s, or a bureaucracy’s value judgment—not the individual’s value judgment—that determines how the individual shall employ himself, what his hours and wages shall be, what and with whom he shall exchange, and what shall be the disposition of his income. Throughout the ages, right up to the present moment, unwilling exchange has been conspicuous, and for a simple reason: most people haven’t known any better!

  It was less than 2 seconds ago on our collapsed calendar, not long enough to be widely apprehended, that Austria’s Menger, England’s Jevons, and Switzerland’s Walras, almost simultaneously, made the greatest discovery in economic science: the subjective theory of value, sometimes called the “marginal utility theory of value.” Until this time, no one had ever formulated a valid theory of value. Then these economists, by merely observing how ordinary people exchange when unrestrained, discovered that the value of anything was what others would give for it in willing exchange. The value of a painting, for instance, is whatever others will forego in order to obtain it. That’s marginal utility, pure and simple, which can be only subjectively determined. In short, no one else but you can determine the relative or marginal utility of anything to you.

  Here, for the first time in history, the concept of willing exchange unseats Napoleonic behavior—all forms of authoritarianism—and enthrones the individual. The consumer becomes king. Individual freedom of choice rules economic affairs. Whether I plow the fields or pilot a plane, or whether I exchange the fruits of my labor for some corporation’s stock or for a bungalow by the seashore is for me, and a willing seller, to decide; it is no one else’s business! In good theory this is true; in practice it faces opposition.

  Liberty Is for Others, Too

  Most individuals favor subjective evaluations as applied to self but will, at the same time, insist on objective evaluations as applied to the millions who “don’t know what’s good for them.” In a word, very few will accord that liberty to others which they personally cherish so much. These inconsistent people are the victims of an historical momentum—the darkened millennia of mankind’s past—and thus have not apprehended the newest politico-economic fact on the face of the earth: individual liberty. This slowness to apprehend may, in turn, derive from our poor choice of descriptive terms.

  Admittedly, making the case for the use of willing exchange as a means of identifying one’s position, is going to raise the question, “Well, if I am not to single out as descriptive of myself such terms as conservative, patriot, capitalistic, libertarian, free enterpriser, or some other loosely definitive label, what then? Are you suggesting that I call myself a willing exchanger?” Indeed not!

  The best answer to “What are you?” is your own name. If one be a Marx or a Mises, whose reputations precede them, the name alone suffices. If one be neither infamous nor famous, and another is interested in the details, let him inquire and listen. A personal experience will help with my point:

  I was invited to lecture at a clergymen’s seminar in Texas. Just before the affair got under way, a gentleman proffered his hand, announcing, “I am Charles Hemphill from Cisco.”

  My response, “I am Leonard Read.”

  “Where are you from, Mr. Read?”

  “The Foundation for Economic Education at Irvington-on-Hudson.”

  “Oh! You’re Leonard Read!”

  My ideological position was unknown until identified with FEE. Immediately, Mr. Hemphill knew of my beliefs, and in considerable detail.

  Now, suppose my answer to the question, “Where are you from?” had been, “Right here in Mineral Wells.” That would have given him no tip-off as to my position. This new friend, an inquiring spirit, would have wanted to know how to classify me. My capsule answer, today, would go something like this:

  No man can contrive or blueprint a good society any more than any individual can make such a simple thing as a wooden lead pencil.4 The pencil, or any other artifact, for that matter, is a manifestation of infinitesimal and varied creativities flowing through the minds of men in complex interchange since well before the harnessing of fire. Once the pencil comes into existence, we can, to some extent, observe and write about what took place, the most significant deduction being the unobstructed flow of creativities, that is, creativities in free and willing exchange.

  Similarly, the good society is a manifestation, not of a predesigned blueprint—not of a mass blindly following some person’s scheme of organization—but, rather, the natural out-cropping of the efforts of a goodly number of people in pursuit of Truth. In a word, a good society, like a pencil, is a configuration of the tiny wisdoms men come upon when seeking, above all else, what is right and righteous.

  Whenever a good society shows forth, we can, to some extent, observe and write about what took place, the most significant deduction being the unobstructed flow of millions of individually acquired wisdoms, that is, flashes of enlightenment in free and willing exchange.

  No man set about inventing willing exchange. Instead, some men were in pursuit of Truth. Their numerous findings and insights combined to make of them the kind of men who understood the advantages of willing or free exchange. But whenever the pursuit of Truth has not been uppermost among the aims of a considerable number of people, the understanding recedes to the point where unwilling exchange is believed in and practiced.

  No man preconceived and set about designing and writing the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights as a means of erecting a good society. These political documents were really a configuration of beliefs that achieved dominance through a pursuit of Truth quite extraordinary in its intensity. The seeking of Truth was the seed; a good society, perhaps the best that has existed, was the bloom; these documents were but a recording of the beliefs. To confirm this, merely note that when the beliefs changed, the documents became commensurately meaningless.

  When we entertain the idea that political documents and laws cause a good society, we are wont, in adversity, to repair and revise the documents and laws. This is not only useless but seriously diverting. For nothing counts but Truth, and Truth comes to us only when we are seeking what is right and righteous. This, to my way of thinking, is the most important and practical of all political facts.

  Special Privileges for None

  Reflecting on what the pursuit of Truth has divulged, I believe that no person, or any combination of persons, regardless of numbers, or any agency they may contrive—be it a labor union, trade association, or government—has any right of control over any other person that does not exist or inhere as a moral right in each individual. The only moral right of control by one individual over another or others is a defensive right, that is, the right to fend off aggressive or destructive actions. Governments, therefore, should go no further in controlling people than the individuals who organize it have a moral right to go. For, if government does not obtain its power of control from those who establish it, from where then does its power derive? In short, limit governmental power to codifying the do-nots consonant with the defense of life and livelihood, to the protection of all citizens equally. No special privilege for anyone!

  This is to say that, ideally, government should be limited to inhibiting and penalizing all violence, fraud, predation, misrepresentation—that is, to keeping the peace. Insist that it tolerate no unwilling exchange and that it never indulge in what it is organized to prohibit. Let government do only this; leave all else, including welfare and prosperity, to willing exchange.

  I believe we are fully agreed as to the quality of liberty we cherish for ourselves. The question is, are we agreed to allow this same quality of liberty to all others? If so, the spirit of liberty may be on the move again.

 

 
    Practicing unwilling exchange is clearly a thing not to do. Understanding what not to do, in this instance, makes clear what to do: willingly exchange.

    Since the division of labor, or specialization by human beings, is so intimately involved as both cause and consequence of the exchange process, let us look deeper into the nature and meaning of automation. . . .

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The Human Situation

The current preoccupation with man-made spaceships, orbital flights, putting men on the moon—with all the attendant costs, inflationary and otherwise—may be no more than a childish escapade. Science fiction taken seriously as a means of running away from some very practical problems arising on a remarkable spaceship, Mother Earth! For, after all, our home planet is on the rim of a galactic wheel traveling through space at the rate of 10,000,000 miles a day!


    The danger is that we look away too long from the task at hand, which is to keep our equilibrium in time and space aboard the planet that bears us. After all, we need a clearer view of what is going on, for we are moving at a giddy pace and know not what lies ahead. . . . This is the Earth we have to come to terms with, which has produced us, and where our future lies.1


  Conceivably, Mother Earth is spaceship enough for us. For truly, we “know not what lies ahead.”

  Indeed, we know very little of what has gone on in the past, and perhaps even less of what is going on now. And when it comes to “what lies ahead,” that is pure speculation. The English philosopher, C. E. M. Joad, helps us to a proper perspective:


    There is no reason, at least I know of none, why the universe should necessarily be intelligible to the mind of a twentieth-century human being, and I take leave to remind him how late a comer he is upon the cosmic scene and how recently he has begun to think.2


  Yet, neophytes that we are, we must do our best to “come to terms [with the Earth] which has produced us, and where our future lies.” To ignore these terms is to risk another of those catastrophic declines and falls of nations and societies which have with wearisome regularity punctuated the historic record. There is a human destiny, if we can discern it, which brooks no monkey business; sternly it decrees: Stay on course or start over again! In a word, the more accurately we can fathom Creation’s Design for mankind, the more easily can we keep on course and know the difference between right and wrong. To be practical in a down-to-earth sense, we have no choice, ever, but to make the effort.

  A Theory to Be Tested

  If what lies ahead—our human destiny—is pure speculation, what, then, is speculative man to do? It seems that he has four choices: (1) take somebody else’s word for it, (2) indulge in wild guessing himself, (3) respond to superstition or (4) pose what appears to be a sound hypothesis and then test its validity by whatever reasoning and evidence he can muster. Obviously, it is the last method that I prefer.

  A hypothesis to be sound must not affront reason. Mine, concerning the Cosmic Design for mankind, began with a reflection on immortality. No, not of the Hereafter kind; that has not been revealed to me. I refer to the here-and-now brand, earthly immortality. For we do in fact immortalize certain individuals who, relative to the rest of us, outstandingly distinguish themselves by the light they give: the Socrateses, the Shakespeares, the Beethovens, for instance. The point is, we can come no closer to discerning the Cosmic Design than to observe those exceptional human qualities which we choose to study, revere, esteem—in a word, immortalize.

  As to earthly immortality, few human beings make the grade; only a tiny fraction of the world’s billions ever find mention in the fine print obituary columns. Then there are the much smaller numbers who are granted headlines in the news, most of whom are out of memory by the time tomorrow’s daily is printed. The billions of humanity, with but rare exceptions, return to the good earth no more immortalized than autumn’s fallen leaves.

  But now and then a star appears among us, one who lights the way not merely for his contemporaries but for countless millions in unnumbered centuries to follow. The seeking of their tutorship, the turning to their light, is our way of immortalizing them. It is neither shallow fame nor notoriety that induces us to seek and heed; it is their light—the creative qualities which others might hope to develop and expand as their own.3

  Thus, I infer—hypothesize—that the Design calls for each individual to rise to his potentialities, ardently pursuing those creative qualities which are peculiar to his own person, emerging, evolving, growing, developing, “hatching,” ascending along that distinctive line marked by his uniqueness. The fact that no two of us are remotely similar makes it plain that any enforcement of conformity, sameness, herd-likeness, and the status quo is contrary to the Design. If the emergence of ever and ever higher-type individuals be the Cosmic Design, and if we could see some substantial realization of it, we would get the picture not of a static humanity but of a rapidly expanding variation in talents and virtues. Differentiation!

  So much for the hypothesis. All those who seek light from the human stars of today and yesteryear do, in fact, immortalize them and, by so doing, lend credence to this speculation; or so it seems to me.

  A Calendar of Life on Earth

  But the most convincing support for this concept of human destiny is derived from constructing a calendar of life on this earth, collapsing eons of time into a single year, reducing the life scene to a magnitude most of us can comprehend and mentally manage.


JANUARY THROUGH AUGUST
 

 
      Traces of life

      Local deposits of coal
 

 
      Bacteria

      Traces of worms
 

 
      Crustaceans

      Trilobites
 

 
      SEPTEMBER
 

 
      First Ganoid Fish

      Marine plants
 

 
      Mollusks

   
 

 
      OCTOBER
 

 
      First ferns

      Insects appear
 

 
      NOVEMBER
 

 
      Reptiles

      Dinosaurs
 

 
      Crocodiles

      First mammals
 

 
      DECEMBER, TO 7:00 P.M. OF THE 31st
 

 
      First snakes

      Flowering plants
 

 
      Mastodons

      Elephants
 

 
      Rhinos

      Deer
 

 
      BEGINNING AT 7:00 P.M. OF DECEMBER 31st
 

 
      First man

      Glacial period
 

 
      11:50

      Cro-Magnon man
 

 
      11:58

      Beginning of recorded history
 

 
      11:58:30

      First civilization (Sumer)
 

 
      11:59:15

      Athens in her glory
 

 
      11:59:24

      Christ is born
 

 
      11:59:28

      Fall of Roman Empire
 

 
      11:59:51.5

      Florence in her glory
      Columbus discovers America
 

 
      11:59:56.6

      Declaration of Independence
      The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith appears
      The Industrial Revolution begins
 

 
      11:59:56.85

      Constitution and Bill of Rights
 

 
      11:59:56.86

      Eli Whitney invents cotton gin
 

 
      11:59:57.86

      Bastiat clarifies freedom in transactions
 

 
      11:59:58.27

      Menger and others discover one of the most important points in economic theory: the marginal utility theory of value
 

 
      11:59:58.72

      Radio
 

 
      11:59:59.26

      Commercial aviation
 

 
      11:59:59.63

      Television reaches the market
      The atom bomb
 

 
      11:59:59.86

      Jet air travel begins in the U.S.A.
 

 
      11:59:59.87

      If anything, the giddy pace accelerates during these last 13/100ths of a second.


This calendar, aimed at improving our perspective of the human situation, devotes more space to the last minute than to the previous 525,599 minutes, a diverting factor. But one needs only to think of the twelve months drawing to a close; it’s New Year’s Eve, our TV sets are tuned into the merriment at Times Square; there are only 60 seconds to go!

  It’s in these last 60 seconds of a long year that man has begun to think in abstract terms and that the qualities we regard as distinctively human have shown forth to any significant extent. All of the human qualities we would immortalize have manifested themselves during these moments. The last minute has witnessed the dark ages and the renaissance periods, flare-ups of freedom and human slavery, as well as the decline and fall of empires and civilizations. Viewed in this perspective, these last 60 seconds appear as a veritable explosion. Indeed, “how late a comer on the cosmic scene” is man! Little wonder that his “giddy pace” is presenting problems faster than he can comprehend, let alone solve. Can we not now sense the force in Berrill’s calm observation, “This is the Earth we have to come to terms with, which has produced us, and where our future lies”?

  Man Must Keep Growing

  Countless conclusions can be drawn from a projection such as the above. Two seem particularly relevant to those of us interested in the human situation and political economy.

  First, if the evolutionary thrust is toward an ever-expanding variation, an individual emergence in consciousness, awareness, perception, then it follows that “staying put,” retirement, ease, basking in one’s accomplishments is contrary to the Cosmic Intent. Indeed, such relaxed behavior is at odds with the immortality we earthlings confer. The thrust of life, so conceived, is not comfortable; keep on the move, grow, grow, grow, even if painful, is its dictum.

  Except for those who can find happiness in growth—how else can happiness be found?—the evolutionary thrust is anathema. In a word, the security-seeking man rebels against his own evolution. This accounts, in some measure, for the general tendency to collectivize, to seek the guaranteed life through socialization. It is quite possible that the roots of communism, socialism, authoritarianism are to be found not in the Kremlin or in a political party but in a stunted or arrested concept of human destiny. If this supposition be valid, it suggests that probing deep enough reveals causes to be other than what they seem on the surface.

  For the second conclusion, look again at the collapsed calendar, especially beginning at 11:59:15 P.M., just 45 seconds before midnight. Listed are samples of events that appear to have set the stage for the current giddy pace. The greatest truths of all time were pronounced during these last moments. These truths, together with a remarkable emergence of the intuitive mind, resulted in periods of enlightenment punctuated now and then by the decline and fall of a nation—costly penalties for not heeding the highest moral insights of our seers. Live by the best that is known or start all over again! That seems to be the message.

  But the feature of these moments I wish to highlight has to do with the politico-economic situation. Most of us, had we lived right up until 3 1/2 seconds ago, would have been serfs and vassals. Lords of the manor—special privilege posts—were few and far between simply because there was so little pelf to dispense. Individual liberty was the exception; life at the subsistence level was the rule. While we would have been dependent on others, it would have been far more a political than an economic dependency, for economic survival rested mostly on self-dependence. Specialization and exchange were truly primitive by present standards and, thus, a high percentage of children never reached adulthood; those who survived were condemned to poverty. Economically speaking, humanity, as we know it, hadn’t even moved off the drawing board.5

  To continue the dramatization: from 11:59:15 P.M. to 11:59:56.6 P.M. was but preparation for the politico-economic take-off. During this interval nothing happened in the way of economic betterment because there existed no fuel with sufficient power to put us into economic orbit. Then, 3 1/2 seconds ago, discoveries in fuel improvement began. Specialization was hit upon and, simultaneously, political and economic liberty. The former without the latter would have been wholly lacking in power. But combine specialization with a release of enormous quantities of creative energy—freed by merely removing the political obstacles that had always stood against its release—in a word, liberty, and an unimaginable thrust results. There followed refinements that multiplied the thrust a hundredfold or more: liberté des transactions, as Bastiat phrased it, and, of equal importance, the discovery that the value of any good or service is what others will give for it in willing exchange (liberty). What a fuel! And what a thrust!

  Observe what has happened in the last 3 1/2 seconds as this fuel increased in thrust-power. Beginning with the Industrial Revolution, and at an accelerating pace ever since, has been specialization and technology so great that description is next to impossible. Yet, it is absolutely necessary to appreciate how dependent we now are on the new specializations and on the free, uninhibited exchanges thereof. It is a lack of this understanding that makes the term “giddy pace” relevant to the human situation.

  One among countless examples: man-made electrical energy. Had every last watt of it been stricken from the earth less than two seconds ago, the event would have been no more disastrous than the removal today of electric can openers. We were not then dependent on that bit of technology. But cut it off now—all of it—and every American would perish except the very few who could exist by foraging. Think of it: no telephones, radios, telegraphs, ships, trucks, tractors, planes, automobiles. The horses and wagons have gone; people are urbanized; businesses by the thousands are computerized. There could be no distribution of gas or coal or food or medicine. Factories, farms, stores, schools, hospitals would shut down, and worse, there would be no one around to reopen them. What a blackout!

  Or, take another example of a relatively new specialization: airplanes. Had all aircraft been grounded one second ago, most people would have exclaimed, “good riddance!” But note our growing dependence on this form of transportation and the havoc wrought by the coercive grounding (destruction of liberty) of five airlines. Millions of people were adversely affected.

  We Depend on One Another

  The above examples are sufficient to suggest that specialization and technology are on an enormous scale. While self-reliance has not diminished in importance, a new dependency has been ushered in and added: every individual’s dependency on others. Were I condemned to live on only that which I produce, I would perish! In short, let others go awry and I am lost. Free exchange of our numerous specializations is an absolute must if we are to survive.6

  It is plain enough that technology—specialization—as it grows, puts an ever-increasing load on the transmission line: the free exchange mechanism. And as the load becomes greater, more and more of us are increasingly at the mercy of those who, for whatever reason, interfere with the flow.

  I, for one, would have no concern whatsoever about the extent of specialization could I be certain of free exchange, of economic and political liberty, that is, if willing exchange were allowed full play.

  In a society where self-subsistence predominates, freedom in transactions plays an insignificant role. Plundering—feathering one’s own nest at the expense of others—is as unprofitable as it is mean, for there is nothing to rob beyond the trivia owned by the poor, and the taking has to be from one poor family at a time. The temptation to indulge in this base trade is so minor that few people yield to it, and those who do are confronted by the owners; it’s a person-to-person plunder. If the thief doesn’t pay with his life, he certainly will with his reputation: he’ll be branded a horse thief and a crook!

  The Necessity for Freedom

  But when a society becomes highly specialized, the picture changes so radically that economic liberty is a requisite to survival: self-subsistence disappears, dependence on others dramatically appears, and freedom in transactions (liberty) becomes not only important but absolutely necessary. Why necessary? The choice is simple: exchange or perish. This is self-evident.

  But in this specialized or division-of-labor situation, dependent as it is on exchange, the exchange mechanism can no longer be barter, that is, the direct exchange of goods and services for goods and services. Instead, all goods and services are and must be translated into and committed to an economic circulatory system: money and credit, in a word and in our case, dollars. These dollars, the current in the transmission line, are purchase orders on everyone’s goods and services.

  The wealth that each of us possesses—our services, goods, savings—are inextricably in the current. To repeat, the ingredients of this economic flow—dollars—are real wealth in the sense that they are purchase orders on real wealth. And our possessions, whatever they are, can be extracted from us by anyone who can tap or otherwise impair the current at almost any point in the whole world-wide transmission line. To take our savings, for instance, no longer requires of the taker that he enter our premises and take our horse or pig or whatever. He can now be an unknown a thousand miles from home and take much that we own by merely tapping or impairing the current.


In a division-of-labor society, there is one other ingredient, along with our items of wealth, which we automatically toss into and commit to the current: our liberty. For freedom of speech, of assembly, of the press, of religion is impossible when economic freedom is lacking.8 Thus, any person or combination of persons, in or out of government, who can tap the current or impair its flow, can gain access to our goods and services no less than a successful thief, and also take command of our liberty as effectively as any dictator.

  So here we are in economic flight, well into orbit and at a giddy pace, with all of our wealth and all of our freedom translated into and committed to the economic circulatory system, that is, to the medium of exchange: money! The total wealth and freedom committed to this flowing current is far too great for any mind to comprehend; yet, we must understand how its very magnitude and its easy availability to predators—innocent or malicious—sets up a temptation that few can resist. Let us assess this changed situation.

  Fame! Fortune! Power! “These things,” when achieved ideally, are but aftermaths of excellence. Men with no thought of fortune have enormous wealth freely and willingly conferred upon them for rendering superior services. And others achieve power or positions of influence because their wisdom is sought and their counsel heeded. Fame, fortune, power are, under these circumstances, conferments by others rather than coercive acquisitions by self.

  But note how those with no especial goodness, or who render no distinguished service, or who have no extraordinary wisdom to impart, covet “these things”! To millions of ungifted people fame, fortune, power become ends in themselves as if they were the aims of life rather than the dividends.

  To repeat, in a self-subsistence, barter-type economy, the covetous can do little more than nurse their envy; there is no way of gratifying it. To mix the metaphors, feathering one’s own nest at the expense of others is unrewarding and, if resorted to, ends in disrepute and disrespect. The temptation is, by and large, uninviting and only the weakest characters yield to it.

  Organized Covetousness

  But now, in a highly specialized economy, with all of everyone’s wealth and most of everyone’s liberty in the flowing current, feathering one’s nest at the expense of others dramatically changes in several respects:

  1. That which can be plucked is not merely a hen, pig, or bag of corn but may be an amount of purchase orders good for millions of hens, pigs, bags of corn. And the wealth that’s there for the plucking isn’t all. There’s also power. When the people’s wealth is siphoned off, so is their liberty to use the wealth. The liberties belonging to everyone, when taken, are converted into the power of the plucker. Successful tapping of the current means wealth and power, and with these go fame. The temptation is so powerful that the “best” people yield to it.

  2. This near irresistible temptation has its allies. This process of tapping the current depersonalizes the act of living off the goods and services of others. They who in this manner take our wealth and liberty are unknown to us; they never confront us; they are far away and anonymous and, for this reason, incur no shame as does a small-scale house thief. Further, they have no awareness of having done anything harmful to any one of us personally. We, as they, are hidden in anonymity. Thus, they can carry on their sullen trade with impunity.

  But more than with impunity. So little understood is this tapping of the current that approval attends the hocus-pocus; they become known not only as humanitarians but as the benefactors of mankind.

  It is easy to see how humanity, once in economic orbit, makes undeserved fortunes, fame, power available to manipulators, be they innocent or malicious, and with enhancement rather than loss of reputation. Never has chicanery been so attractive or so universally practiced. Two examples, among thousands, will serve to identify tapping and impairing of the current.

  The head of a corporation and chairman of a private hospital remarked, “But I must appeal for Federal aid; we’re short of beds.” This is how the current is tapped. When asked, “Would you personally use force to collect funds from others?” he replied, “Of course not; I’m no crook.” Here is innocence, for this man thinks of himself as a humanitarian and benefactor.

  Long, drawn-out strikes illustrate both impairment and tapping. The unions, having been granted coercive powers by government, forbid free exchange of purchase orders for services. Their dictum, in effect: “Take only us—no one else—at our price, or shut down.” That’s impairment of the current, pure and simple. And while on strike they often receive unemployment insurance—purchase orders on the goods and services of the rest of us, the ones injured by this impairment. That’s tapping not only our wealth but our liberty as well.

  It should be plain to any thoughtful person that when all of us have committed our lives and livelihood to the flowing current—an exchange device absolutely essential to a specialized economy—everyone’s best interest is served by the protection of the current against all siphoning, plucking, tapping, impairment of flow. This protection is the role of society’s formal, legal agency—government—this and nothing else. This is what is meant by invoking a common justice, inhibiting and penalizing all fraud and violence, keeping the peace. This can be phrased in other terms: let government try, as best it can, to prevent all unwilling exchange. If successful, all then that remains is willing exchange. In a word, do away with all infringements of liberty, and what is released is human liberty.

  Needed, A New Line of Defense

  That’s all there is to the device of liberty. It’s simple; it doesn’t have to be invented; it merely awaits our use of it. We are in economic orbit; specialization proliferates at an unimaginable, giddy pace. Nationally, society-wise, where is this taking us? We can only speculate. But of two things I feel certain:

  1. If we are to avoid becoming “space trash,” man must be at liberty to live and grow, and to engage in uninhibited, willing exchange—as long as it’s peaceful.

  2. As the taking of private property is now far more by anonymous predators than by personal thieves, so must the defenses be altered against predation. A shot gun and a dog, or a good police force, served to scare off horse thieves. But these physical defenses are useless against the new predation. Nothing less than an advanced understanding and practice of difficult human virtues can possibly serve us now. Our exploding specialization and exchange with its increasing interdependence can be protected by nothing less than a pronounced display of sound economic and moral principles. If we are to remain on course, and avoid starting all over again, perfections of the intellect must replace the outmoded physical ramparts. This is the imperative, the price, and the flower of any meaningful growth.




    The reader will note that I repeatedly employ the term willing exchange, though it is not in common use today. Let me now explain, and you also may wish to adopt it as a means of clarifying what you want to say. . . .

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What Seek Ye First?

Over the years I have believed and often said, that the essence of Americanism is the revolutionary concept set forth in the Declaration of Independence: “that all men . . . are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” This belief in divinely endowed personal rights is, in my view, the launching pad of our idea of limited government and the only creditable explanation of the genesis of the American miracle.

  The importance I attach to this idea is not generally shared; it has been understood by a few, and not much contested by the many. The Creator-sovereignty idea was the highest spiritual note struck at the time of our country’s founding; it gave tone to our country’s early days. In no other instance, to my knowledge, have the founders of any political agency heeded so scrupulously the Biblical injunction, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness,” and history reveals no case where the promise, “and these things shall be added unto you,” has been so overwhelmingly verified.

  Today, the spiritual genesis of the real American revolution is all but forgotten; indeed, attempted refutations of the Creator concept assume the proportions of an epidemic. Many are now proudly affirming, as if it were a sign of enlightenment, “I am an atheist,” while a growing number of believers acknowledge their faith as if it were irrelevant to earthly concerns. Even from professors of religion we hear the refrain, “God is dead.” In response to the question, “What seek ye first?” the number is dwindling who will reply, “the Kingdom of God and his righteousness.” Nor need the dissenters reply in explicit terms, for their actions speak louder than words. The answer their actions proclaim is, “We seek first these things,” that is, wealth, affluence, fame, power, and the like. In a word, most people have become addicts of the additives! When the eye is on “these things” and not on the genesis, the priorities are inverted and “these things” might not be long for this world.

  The Question Each Must Answer

  Man has no more important question to answer than, “What seek ye first?”

  Numerous persons have said to me, “I don’t have to believe in God to believe in freedom, do I?” My answer is, “No, you do not have to believe in an Omnipotent Principle, or Infinite Consciousness, or God, to believe in freedom. Yes, you can be an atheist and, at the same time, believe in freedom. But a society of active, militant atheists will not be a free society.” This affirmation, I discover, seems incredible even to believers. Therefore, if it be valid, the reasons should be set forth. Is there a correlation between militant atheism and authoritarianism, on the one hand, and between the Creator concept and freedom, on the other? I think there is.

  Holbach (1723-89), one of the Encyclopedists and an opponent of Christianity, had written a book advocating atheism. The book fell into the hands of Frederick the Great, who asked Voltaire for his views. The book has eloquence but no proof, Voltaire declared, and contains matter pernicious to Prince and people alike. His letter closed with these words: “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him. But all Nature cries aloud that He does exist, that there is a Supreme Intelligence, an Immense Power, an Admirable Order, and everything teaches us our own dependence on it.”

  Voltaire’s statement falls into two distinct parts: (1) If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him, and (2) He does exist. I shall comment on the latter first, and only casually, because it is the former—the necessity of God—that I wish to examine in order to give my answer to “What seek ye first?”

  As to the existence of a Supreme Intelligence, there are atheists on the one side of the question, and theists on the other—with deists, agnostics, and other shades in between. Apparently, The Existence is as unthinkable to the atheist as his tenets of ultimate meaningless are baffling to me.

  I can only suggest that possibly his life thus far may be barren of certain perceptions or spiritual experiences that fall into the noncommunicable category—the kind that no one else’s word can be taken for. The mind barely outruns experience. Or else the would-be atheist is rebelling against a notion of the deity he should have outgrown in boyhood.1

  How Little Each of Us Knows

  Let’s pause for a look at ourselves as related to the Infinite Mystery. How difficult it is to appreciate the littleness of our private wisdom, awareness, perception, consciousness! The tendency is to compare one’s self with one’s fellows which, more often than not, leads to the conclusion, “What a bright boy am I!”

  Infinite time, space, consciousness, or whatever, cannot be fractionalized. However, to help with my point, assume The Infinite to be The Whole—all-there-is. Based on the incontrovertible fact that the more one knows the more is one exposed to the unknown, it would be an exaggeration for me to claim awareness of one trillionth of all-there-is. Now, for the sake of speculation, assume that you are fifty times as richly endowed as I. You would still possess only fifty trillionths of all-there-is!

  I am merely suggesting that no person is any more than an intellectual mite, a spiritual speck in the Cosmic Scheme. The political officeholder who recently intimated that he and his bureaucratic staff now had the will and the power to maintain an ever-expanding economy may be less a speck than you or I, for he doesn’t even know how little he knows. The oft-heard statement, “We have doubled our knowledge in the past decade,” means no more to me than a leap from one trillionth to two trillionths! Why, it is easily demonstrable that no living person knows anything, really, about himself; a few superficial observations are all that any person can rightfully claim.

  Parenthetically, being an intellectual and spiritual speck does not spell insignificance. The atom is significant!

  Three other facts about human beings that are relevant to this analysis: First, while each person is no more than a tiny speck, each is unique; there are no carbon copies; the variation is all-pervasive; no two souls are alike in any respect.2

  Second, we are extremely active specks, each being, to some extent, a self-steering entity. In a word, we have some control over what phases of our personalities will be active and, also, what directions the activities will take.

  And, third, each of us has the potentiality for growth in awareness, perception, consciousness.

  To summarize the above sketchy view of the situation, there are on this earth some three billion comparative know-nothings, not an exception! Each has the potentiality to grow in awareness; each sees but a fragment, but what is seen by any one is not seen precisely the same by any other; each possesses energy, but no two exert or direct it identically.

  Contemplate this host of energetic entities, differing in every respect, and then assume that not one of them is aware of a Creation over and beyond his infinitesimally small mentality. In short, reflect on a world of active, militant atheists; each one completely egocentric, which is to say, believing in his own omniscience—egoism in the saddle! Only I am right; all who do not agree precisely with me are off course; in a word, three billion abysmally ignorant individuals, each preoccupied with his own righteousness.

  We must bear in mind that these three billion energetic entities constitute an enormous force. But, a force to what purpose? Unless a Supreme Intelligence, an Infinite Consciousness, a First Principle be conceded, there is no integrative attracting center.3 These varied entities are propelled by their energies every which way, a societal situation at sixes and sevens; in a word, chaos!

  Man has no affinity for social chaos; as a matter of fact, he will pay about any price for social order, and order there will be.4 But how? All history attests to the answer: The cleverest and most energetic know-nothing will take over, not on a mutual-consent basis, because there is no mutuality of minds; the take-over will be achieved by the use of coercion. Some one know-nothing will forcibly impose his own concept of rightness on all the others. There can be no more freedom in this arrangement than in godless Russia, and for the same reason.

  Man with his built-in variations and lively energies cannot achieve his earthly destiny—his potentiality to grow in awareness, perception, consciousness—where all human energy exerts itself in helter-skelter fashion. Conceded, deviant forces are tolerable—there can be both passive and active atheists—but it is an absolute requirement that there be an integrative force—belief in God—more powerful than the deviant forces. Voltaire could have had no reason, other than this, for repeating the old saying: “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him”! Put another way, it is necessary that there be men, sufficient to establish a prevailing tendency, who are drawn to an Infinite Ideal. Lecomte du Noüy phrased it this way, “To really participate in the divine task, man must place his ideal as high as possible, out of reach if necessary.”5 God—Infinite Consciousness—is assuredly out of reach.


A Goal Worth Pursuing

  In what manner does the recognition of an Infinite Consciousness serve as an integrative force? First, it puts us, the creatures, in proper perspective. It is easily demonstrable that the individual consciousness is potentially expansible. But, regardless of progress, there is no end to achievement, for this Ideal, being infinite, is always and forever out of reach. Thus, humility is induced, the sense of know-it-all-ness demolished. It is axiomatic that the know-it-all cannot grow in knowing; only when one is emptied of such egotism can the individual grow in the direction of his potential uniqueness. The acceptance of God draws the individual toward the highest conceivable Ideal, this attraction being toward a harmony with Being or Natural Law.

  To assess the second way in which a recognition of the Creator concept serves as a harmonizing force, we need only acknowledge the central presupposition of the Infinite Consciousness idea: the immortality of the individual spirit or consciousness. Reduced to its essence, this earthly moment is only the beginning; consciousness, the reality, is eternal, retaining its growth potential. Once this is accepted and lived by, the individual seeks approval of the Eternal Ideal; his prime objective cannot be fame before men. Daily actions have a higher guide than momentary expediency; whatever one does is premised on his highest concept of rightness and righteousness. The accurate reflection, in word and deed, of one’s highest concept of Truth, is integrity in its highest form, this being the cohesive agent without which man in his variation and specialization cannot exist.6 Integrity’s integrative quality is a harmonizing force.

  The third manner in which this spiritual faith serves as a harmonizing force is its cultivation of tolerance.7 Once an individual grasps the idea that he, as all others, is a child of Creation, that each is varied, and is meant to be, all inclination to mastermind others dissolves; the notion becomes absurd. Those with varying systems of thought are no longer condemned but, instead, inspected for what light they may shed. If no light, let them pass; if some light, use it to grow by. To rule or to try to reform others is not to play God; it is to work against God. The Creator does not forcibly impose the Kingdom on anyone. Why, then, should I take unto myself a role that the Creator has spurned? Intolerance is a divisive, driving-away force; tolerance is a harmonizing, ingathering force. Daily experiences confirm this.

  One Nation Under God

  Man, among animals, being both social and individualistic, cannot be too much torn asunder from others. At stake in his relations with others is nothing less than survival, for man’s differences, specializations, variations must be more complementary than antagonistic—an economic fact of life. I repeat, the harmonizing forces must, to avoid disaster, be stronger than the combined divisive forces. This brings me to the fourth, and by far the most important, way that the Creator concept serves as such a force. Reflect on what might be called the intellectual love of God. Love, in this deepest sense, is a process which, in completion, spells enlightenment. The Supreme Intelligence is the source of all creation, of all Truth or enlightenment, even of all the little truths we come upon and call our own. Those of this spiritual faith have their eyes turned ever toward The Light that they may better find their way to enlightenment; it is this that is the love of God, the strongest harmonizing force there is. To the extent that one succeeds in the Divine Venture, to that extent does one share in Creation.

  The question, “I don’t have to believe in God to believe in freedom, do I?” is like asking, “I don’t have to believe in an end to believe in its means, do I?” For freedom is the primary means to the highest end; at best, it is a secondary end. The primary aim of earthly life, in the view of believers, is not “these things,” but “the Kingdom of God and his righteousness.” It is to expand individual consciousness into as near a harmony as possible with Infinite Consciousness. Freedom is the first and absolutely necessary means to this end. Anyone who in any way frustrates the freedom of another to act creatively acts against the Supreme Intelligence, this being the gravest of evils.8

  It is impossible for man to act consistently except as he reasons from a fundamental point of reference, a major premise. This is to be found in the answer to “What seek ye first?” If the answer be wrong, he will act consistently but in error. To act consistently and rationally, his answer must be correct. To act consistently, rationally, and correctly, it is my conviction that his answer must be, “the Kingdom of God and his righteousness.” For I share, unreservedly, what Voltaire observed, “All Nature cries aloud that there is a Supreme Intelligence, an Immense Power, an Admirable Order, and everything teaches us our own dependence on It.”

  Human Destiny

  Conceding the Kingdom to be the major premise, the one from which all lesser premises are deduced, it follows, then, that our dependence on the Kingdom is complete, and that our abiding by It is The Way, the only way. Get off course, as we say, and devolution—another dark age—will assuredly be our lot, this being the Cosmic signal to again get on course. Get back on, and there’ll be another upsurge in evolution—man growing, emerging, evolving in awareness, perception, consciousness. Human destiny!

  Perhaps the separation of Church and State—a necessary break-up of power—has been, in some measure, responsible for the popular fallacy that spiritual faith and earthly concerns belong in two distinctly separate compartments. Many people seem to think that it is enough to doff our hat to God on the Sabbath and ignore him during the work-a-day week; they feel that matters of the spirit are for the churches and matters of the flesh for secular educational efforts, that the Kingdom of God and “these things” are in unrelated realms, that a concern for one’s immortal soul is for the confessional, but not for the market place, that spiritual faith and political economy don’t mix.

  Man may separate or decentralize his organizations, often to advantage. But man’s soul is of a piece and cannot be “worn on the sleeve” without fracturing. One’s soul, the distinctive feature of being human, is exclusively spiritual in content. What else than spiritual are such qualities as integrity, belief, understanding, tolerance, kindness, charity, humility, conscience, perception, thinking, willing, intuiting? As a pool of water cannot be polluted at any point without pollution of the pool, so the soul cannot be corrupted here or there, now or then, without damage to the whole!

  A Spiritual Performance

  All human actions, as well as every artifact by which we live and grow and prosper, are spiritual in their roots.9 “These things” are the fruits; they are dividends, whose nature and abundance will be determined by how the souls of men are structured—not so much on Sundays, or only in the churches, or entirely in the hideaways of privacy but, even more, in the whole scope of every day, and every place, and every thing. Each precious moment gives a living answer to what the soul seeks first, be the firsts fickle, or inconsistent, or expedient—or, happily, the First of all firsts.

  What seek ye first? Actions speak louder than words; therefore, as for me, my daily living must testify before nonbelievers as in my prayers, as much during the week as on the Sabbath, in the market place as in a House of Worship: the Kingdom of God and his righteousness.

 

 
    This view, instead of being shied away from or mumbled apologetically, is announced openly and proudly once we glimpse, if ever so dimly, our place in Creation’s Design, what late-comers we are on the Cosmic Scene, how little we know, and what some of our startling problems are. An awareness of our unawareness helps mightily in recognizing that we are not gods but, instead, Creation’s children, that such consciousness as we possess is but an infinitesimal perception of Infinite Consciousness. So, let me try to view the human situation through that tiny aperture which is mine. . . .
 
 

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