by DOUG BANDOW
Almost everyone is for freedom. At least they
say they’re for freedom. Politicians wax eloquent when talking about America’s
liberties in general. Advocates for free speech and civil liberties aren’t hard
to find. Champions quickly rise up to battle threats against privacy. And most
people intuitively understand that intimate personal and family decisions don’t
belong to government.
But when it comes to economic liberty, a lot of people
suddenly change their tune. It’s as if economic liberty doesn’t count. Indeed,
this facet of freedom seems to stand alone, vulnerable to state regulation and
control. Some of those who fervently declare their devotion to freedom
disappear when property rights, entrepreneurship, or freedom of contract is
under attack.
Running Your Life Through Your Wallet
Today Congress and state legislatures are far too busy
dreaming up new ways to run our lives. Some of those democratic diktats are directed at both our personal and
economic affairs. For instance, healthcare “reform” empowered the national
government to control many more of our medical decisions, as well as how we
must fund those decisions.
So the bulk of what legislators do is manipulate the
economy. They offer high-minded excuses for doing so: to create jobs, to ensure
fairness, to alleviate poverty. The bottom line is that nearly everything they
do requires government to violate economic liberty.
Regulators rarely acknowledge they are abrogating
anyone’s freedom. Often they claim to be protecting the consumer. In effect,
political elites have created two classes of freedoms: important and economic.
If the question is about the freedom to criticize government, have sex, choose
whom to marry, or keep one’s personal life private, most politicians at least
say these are important enough to preserve. Some of the people who most support
intervening in the economy argue that these personal liberties are fundamental,
deserving of respect.
By contrast, if you are is deciding what business to
create, which profession to choose, where to work, how much to earn, what hours
to work, where to advertise, which product to produce, whom to hire, and how to
spend your money—then those in power view these liberties as less important.
Government is not only allowed to regulate various commercial activities, they
say; it ought to.
Higher Pursuits
To most people, the right to protest seems
higher-minded than running a business or making a living. Economic activity
seems mundane in contrast. Choosing a life partner and engaging in sex are more
personal than buying a product or hiring an employee. And the ability to keep
one’s private life private would seem to go to the essence of being a human
being. Buying and selling in the marketplace strikes many as common.
But economic liberty is much more important than first
appearances suggest. We might be inspired by “higher” pursuits, for which
people exercise their personal and political freedoms. But there is perhaps
nothing more fundamental than the freedom to improve our lives and to care for
ourselves and our families in the manner we see fit.
During the 20th century, we decisively answered the
question of whether economic liberty delivers economic prosperity. If you
desire a better future, then you need economic freedom.
But economic liberty delivers more than dollars and
cents. Most people view work as an outgrowth of themselves. It turns out an
open marketplace rewards honesty, hard work, initiative, inspiration, and other
unsung virtues, as well. Economic freedom is also a chance to promote our
beliefs, achieve success, pursue happiness, and to develop as a person. Will
you direct the fruits of your labor to satisfying personal needs, supporting
good causes, or making sound investments?
Indeed, when you graduate from college the most
important freedom probably is to work, in order to earn and save. Other
freedoms—to vote or protest, for instance—are obviously important. But the most
pressing liberty involves choosing a career, or at least landing a job. How
will you earn a living? To what will you devote much of your life? Where will
you spend most of your waking hours? In the economy.
Economic liberty has important spillover effects, too.
Freedom in one area encourages it in others. For example, a dollar you don’t
earn or can’t keep is a dollar you can’t spend on a noble social or political
cause.
Freedom of the press is not just the right to speak
out, but it is also the right to acquire the means of speaking out. In some
countries, government controls the supply of newsprint and access to the
airwaves. In such cases, media freedoms are at risk. Who needs censorship when
one can silence critics through economic means? However, the spread of
computers, fax machines, cell phones, and Internet access makes it more
difficult for authoritarian regimes like China to control their growing
populations.
More broadly, increased economic prosperity encourages
people to embrace political liberty. If your children are starving, you worry
about feeding them. If your children are well-fed and healthy, you have the
luxury of worrying about other things—like supporting a cause, a candidate or a
campaign. In countries that have gotten richer—like Mexico, South Korea, and
Taiwan—growing middle-class populations forced ruling political elites to give
way. That may eventually happen in China.
Economic freedom means more than profits and losses.
Economic freedom fits within a larger free society in which resources are more
freely available for an array of possible pursuits. In the developed world,
many people give up a life of commerce for one of service or contemplation. You
can work for a nonprofit, go to seminary, become a permanent graduate student,
or join a monastery. And in most areas of the economy, anyone can opt out. If
you don’t like the products or services a business is selling you, you can
simply exit. Or you can find another provider, like a local co-op. The richer a
society is, the more these kinds of options are available.
Indivisible
Finally, economic success enables one to more fully
take advantage of other liberties. Earn a little and then travel the world, go
to graduate school, start a newspaper, give to charity, back a Kickstarter
campaign, or support the politician of your choice. Create a new online
service—say Twitter or Facebook—and empower political dissenters and protestors
around the globe. Or rely on a full bank account to switch careers, whether to
contemplate your navel or to help mankind. People with few economic liberties
have fewer options like these.
The punchline? Liberty is indivisible. Economic
freedom is as important as personal or political freedom, because the personal,
the political and the economic are strands of the same braid: liberty. Thus,
the only way to achieve and protect a free society is to defend liberty in all
its forms.
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