Why are
unattainable utopian visions attractive and inspirational to so many while the
promises of liberty, under which a vastly-improved society can actually be
attained, are so often disregarded? Leonard Read, among America’s most
prolific defenders of liberty in the 20th century, considered that question.
In Let Freedom
Reign, Read argued that liberty’s failure to gain more adherents
than utopian statism derived in substantial measure from the fact that the ends
envisioned, rather than the means involved, often motivate people. Unlike the
utopian visions, the freedom philosophy recognizes that a system of free
markets is an “amoral servant” that does not claim to generate no objectionable
results to anyone. For this reason, liberty faces an inspirational disadvantage.
A good
illustration of utopianism’s “advantage” over freedom is the utopian’s
assertion that he can deliver equality of results (implicitly assumed to be
equality at a high level of prosperity). This in turn leads to rationalizations
for cutting freedom off at the knees. Yet some forms of inequality are
inseparable from astounding social benefits, particularly the massive gains
from specialization among people with differing abilities and circumstances,
coordinated through voluntary market arrangements.
As Read noted
in Having My Way,
rather than bemoaning any inequality of results, it would be more accurate to
say, “inequality exists, fortunately!” as long as it is combined with
freedom, which he called our“working handmaiden.”
[F]reedom and equality are ... mutually antagonistic. The equality idea…rests on the antithesis of freedom: raw coercion. It is ... impossible to be free when equality is politically manipulated ...
Not our likenesses, but our differences, give rise to the division of labor and the complex market processes of production and trade ... it is to our advantage to specialize and to trade with other specialists. ... By thus serving others — and becoming ever more skilled and outstanding (unequal) in the process — he best serves his own interest.....To Read More.....
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