Government 1A Lesson 67: The Freedom Philosophy, Part 7

In this lesson I learned about chapter 8 of The Freedom Philosophy, titled, “The Moral Foundation of Freedom.” This was originally an article in the March 1966 Freeman written by Ralph Husted, an Indiana businessman.

Husted begins in 1787 with the Constitutional convention, stating that the Founding Fathers believed in God. Dr. North quickly added that so did their opponents. However both agreed that the Founding Fathers sought independence for the nation, and specifically freedom for its individuals. They strove to preserve individual freedom, the freedom of all men to pursue their purposes as they saw them, and they didn’t think the state should determine those purposes. Husted starkly contrasts society and government, emphasizing that government is not society. Government merely represents society in civil government, and to think they are the same can have disastrous results.

So what is this individual freedom, this individual liberty? Husted thought that individual liberty is composed of freedom of worship, economic freedom, and political freedom. As the freedom of worship is self explanatory (but still important) Dr. North went straight onto economic freedom. What is the importance of economic freedom? Husted answered this question from the spiritual standpoint, that we all were created to be different from each other. He continues saying that our biggest differences are spiritual, and that the number of material things required to express the spirit of mankind is endless.

Property is simply a reflection of of the infinite spirit of man, and economic growth simply allows us to achieve our goals in life. Even if you were just to say that each person has one goal, the amount of economic growth required for each person to achieve their goal is huge. Capitalism allows lots of economic production. Another thing that must be allowed is for man to achieve his goals is for that property to be owned by him, for him to have private property. If we do not own property we cannot mold it and combine it to meet our goals. Getting back to capitalism, it is built on allowing people to make promises, to make deals or contracts. The base of those three things is that they are made voluntarily, that is the free market.

Husted moved onto the meaning of political freedom. He described by saying it means that every man can do whatever he wants to do so long as it does not interfere forcibly on the rights of others. While Husted thought that man’s desire for self expression is good, and the right to self-expression necessary, he thought that without responsibility, or self-government, self-expression may end up in force. With that said, he quoted Edmund Burke, an 18th century philosopher, promoting the idea that making a government is easy, and giving freedom is easier still, but forming a free government requires hard thought.

Currently we face great dangers to our freedom. The political philosophy that men are no longer able to take care of themselves is spreading. Taxes are no longer being used for essential government functions but the redistribution of wealth. The Marxist principles that state “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need” are being accepted. Fiscal immorality is seen as national policy. Governments are robbing their people through inflation. And people are entrusting governments to make plans as if those within the government have superhuman wisdom. Government plans are carried out with the full force of the government at the sacrifice of individual freedom. If we allow government to get too big, we won’t have freedom, coercion will be all we know.

Government 1A Lesson 66: The Freedom Philosophy, Part 6

In this lesson I learned about chapter 7 of The Freedom Philosophy titled, “Think Twice Before You Disparage Capitalism.” This was an article in March 1977 issue of The Freeman, written by Dr. Perry E. Gresham, a minister, educator, and author.

Gresham started by saying that the word “capitalism” has fallen into disrepute. In fact it was originally used as a disreputable word as it was dreampt up by Karl Marx. Marx himself taught that the capitalist system was outmoded and that socialism is inevitable. Gresham didn’t believe this, but raised the question as to whether or not it was true. With that he made his case for capitalism.

Gresham’s approach is vastly different than Benjamin Rogge’s, he focused on the success of capitalism rather than it being morally right as a justification for using it. Capitalism has had the most success in history, meanwhile socialism, its only alternative, while seductive in theory, tends towards tyranny and serfdom. The real problem with implementing capitalism is it needs to be freed from the restraints of unlimited government. This brought him to his points on why government must be limited. With socialistic systems, people are encouraged not to rely on themselves to support themselves, but to live at the expense of others. Big government uses force to take from individuals and limit their choices, in effect telling them what to do.

On the contrary, Gresham writes, capitalism offers equality of opportunity, for those willing to work that is. With capitalism the poor can become rich. They are not restricted from working because people aren’t willing to pay them minimum wage, they can work for a lower price, putting something on the table and moving up. This is because capitalism allows people to work for the price they want, so long as they are worth it, or if a job isn’t working out for them to easily transition to another one. It doesn’t matter if you’re black, white, yellow, or red, or if you’re part of any minority, all that matters is that you’ve got a will to work and to be productive.

Capitalism puts trust in people. It recognizes that one small group of people can’t possibly be able to determine what is better for the people than the people themselves. People know what situation they’re in, and they feel the situation they are in, they should be the ones making decisions about their situations. Now with this power, comes responsibility, and thus people are responsible for their own decisions, positive or negative. How can this be good for anyone? Gresham says that in this system, people acquire capital through thrift, and that they are personally rewarded by it and they are public benefactors at the same time. Think of someone starting a business, if they are successful, and they are personally encouraged to be successful, they get money, they provide jobs and a good product. This is how capitalism benefits everyone.

Within capitalism, there is an importance and an emphasis on the family. Families give capitalism its social and moral strength. Too often we forget that family has its own government, for which its members will work voluntarily. Without this force, the capitalist order falls into disarray. Again we are also not to forget the Christian origins of capitalism, allowing it not only to coexist but also allow churches to thrive.

Capitalism is the voluntary way. It promotes charity, making it more fun and meaningful, and this is because charity is not compelled in any way. This is contrary to the socialist system which takes money by force and bestows it by formula, calling it charity. Forced charity is not charity. Besides that, voluntarism improves society in general, promoting innovation to raise the standard of life. People are free to decide what to make, what to sell, and what to buy without any resistance from bureaucrats and even self-appointed officials. Ultimately Gresham says, capitalism respects the individual. It regards them not as helpless, stupid people vulnerable to all criminals, but as free citizens under the law. It respects the individual as independent not feeding them and babysitting them as a child. And it distributes power to the workers and the consumers, letting them make normal, everyday decisions without interference from the police force.

In the end, Dr. North reports that it has been proven that socialism is not historically inevitable, that capitalism works and can meet the challenges of big government without its restrictions, and that capitalism is a competent and superior alternative to socialism.

Government 1A Lesson 65: The Freedom Philosophy, Review, Parts 1-4

In this lesson I did a review. I also had to write a 250 word essay on the following topics. Is the state the source of human rights?

When all else is gone and you don’t have a home, a job or even a name, you still have rights. I’ll mainly be talking about three rights, the right to life, liberty, and property, though in the last lesson I learned the the right to property is an extension of the right to life. The question at hand is whether or not the state is the source of human rights? My answer is that the state is not.

Let’s start off with what I think is the easiest right to comprehend, life. The right to life is your right to live and your right to control yourself, now again it extends to property but for the sake of simplicity let’s just keep it at that. Do you think that you have the right literally to be alive right now because the government says you do? I don’t think so. I don’t think that I have the right to live because a bunch of people in Washington said so. Also where did those people get their rights? From another group of people when they were born? To say that the state is the source of our rights is to say that humans gave humans rights. That doesn’t make any sense to me. Whoever gave us rights, no matter who you believe the source to be should logically also have the power to take them away. Should the state be able to take our rights away? That’s not the understanding of freedom I grew up with.

The state is not the source of our rights, man cannot give man rights, and man cannot take them away. A higher power endowed us our rights, a higher power than ourselves. So when the state abuses people’s rights, they must answer for their crimes.