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8. Some Difficulties Analyzed
- Liberty Fund
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Law_151-200.indd 3 10/27/09 8:07 AM 8 SOME DIFFICULTIES ANALYZED Let us considec some of the objections that might be raised against a system in which group decisions and decision groups would play a much less important role than is now commonly deemed necessary in political life. No doubt present-day governments and legislatures and a large percentage of the well-educated and of the people in general have gradually grown accustomed, during the last hundred years, to considering interference by the authorities with private activities as much more useful than they would have deemed it in the first half of the nineteenth century. If anyone at present dares to suggest that big governments and paternal legislatures ought to give up in favor of private initiative , the usual criticisms heard are that "we cannot put the clock back," that the times of laissezJaire have gone forever, and so on. We ought to distinguish carefully between what people believe can be done and what it would be possible to do towards restoring the maximum area of free individual choice. Of course, in politics as well as in many other areas, if we try to achieve our ends in accordance with liberal principles, nothing can be done without the consent of our fellow citizens, and this consent depends , in its turn, on what people believe. But it is obviously important to ascertain, if possible, whether people are right or wrong in maintaining any opinion whatever. Public opinion is not everything, not even in a liberal society, although opinion is 153 Law_151-200.indd 4 10/27/09 8:07 AM 154 FREEDOM AND THE LAW certainly a very important thing, especially in a liberal society. I am reminded of what one of my fellow citizens wrote several years ago: "A fool is a fool, two fools are two fools, five hundred fools are five hundred fools, but five thousand, not to say five million, fools are a great historical force." I do not deny the truth of this cynical statement, but a historical force may be contained or modified, and this is the more likely to be so the more the facts turn out to disprove what people believe. What Hippolyte Taine once said, that ten million instances of ignorance do not make knowledge, is true of every kind of ignorance, including that of people belonging to contemporary political societies, with all their appendages of democratic procedures, majority rules, and omnipotent legislatures and governments. The fact that people in general still believe that governmental intervention is suitable or actually necessary even in cases where many economists would deem it useless or dangerous is not an insurmountable obstacle for supporters of a new society. Nor is there anything wrong if that new society in the end resembles many older, successful societies. True, socialistic doctrines, with the more or less overt condemnation , on the part of governments and legislators, of individual freedom from constraint, are still proving to be more palatable to the masses of the present day than the cool reasoning of the economists. The case for freedom under these conditions seems to be hopeless in most countries of the world. Nevertheless, it is doubtful whether or not the masses are actually the protagonists in the contemporary drama of public opinion relating to individual freedom. If I must choose sides among the supporters of the liberal ideal in our time, I should prefer to join Professor Mises rather than the pessimists: The main error of widespread pessimism is the belief that the destructionist ideas and policies of our age sprang from the proletarians and are a "revolt of the masses." In fact, the masses, precisely because they are not creative and do not develop philosophies of their own, follow leaders. The ideologies which produced all the mischiefs and catastrophes of our century are not an achievement of the mob. They are the feats of pseudo scholars and pseudo intellectuals. They were propagated from the chairs of universities and from the pulpits; they were disseminated by the press, by novels, by plays, by [3.235.199.19] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 05:01 GMT) Law_151-200.indd 5 10/27/09 8:07 AM SOME DIFFICULTIES ANALYZED 155 the movies, and the radio. The intellectuals are responsible for converting the masses to socialism and interventionism. What is needed to turn the flood is to change the mentality of the intellectuals. Then the masses will follow suit.1 I would...