We think in words. We communicate in words. Laws are written in
words. So competence at any of those acts requires clarity about what
the words used mean. Consequently, there is always a danger that changes
in how words are used, as with “a postmodern culture…prone to
redefining key terms,” can introduce confusion, with potentially serious consequences.
Such confusion can play out in many places, such as C.S. Lewis’ “The death of words”
discussion of how using words such as gentleman and Christian devolved
from factual descriptions into words for good (I approve) or bad (I
disapprove). And the effects can be dangerous because “when you have
killed a word you have also…blotted from the human mind the thing that
the word originally stood for. Men do not long…continue to think what
they have forgotten how to say.”
Perhaps the most dangerous area of redefinition is with regard to
government, because it is the only institution generally accepted as
allowed to use coercion on others. Changes in the direction that those
in power prefer can expand that power by increasing how much coercion
they can impose on citizens. Further, America’s unique history is
replete with insights about government and liberty, which can be morphed
into very different meanings.
In other words, there was a good reason George Orwell asserted that “the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes,” in his famous, “Politics and the English Language,” celebrating its 75th
anniversary this year. As he put it, “Many political words… democracy,
socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice, have each of them
several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one
another…Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest
way.”
The consequence is strikingly applicable to 2021. “In our time,
political speech and writing are largely the defense of the
indefensible…Thus political language has to consist largely of
euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness,” in service of
“a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.” And the
solution is to re-focus on clarity, as “a necessary first step toward
political regeneration.”
While some apparently have inoculated themselves against recognizing
the hypocrisy and mendacious misrepresentations that are such a large
part of political language, it only takes a little thoughtfulness to see
at least some of the abuses. But such scattershot awareness of one
abuse here and another there still far underestimates the adverse
consequences, because seldom is there only one motivated distortion
involved in promoting a given “more government” argument, and multiple
distortions can make it all but impossible to think clearly about those
issues.
To see just how extensive the rhetorical abuse has become and how
difficult “political language… designed to make lies sound truthful…and
to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind,” as Orwell put it, can
make adequate reasoning, consider just a few of the booby-trapped
words.
Unity
Following tradition, Joe Biden’s Inaugural Address emphasized
unifying America, using unity eight times, if I recall. But given how
Democrats have acted toward electoral opponents, leaving no ad hominem
attack unmade and no implication of evil unsaid or uninsinuated, one
could question whether any unity other than Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” was
ever actually considered.
More importantly, unity in the sense of agreement on the specific
ends that we want is not just absent, but unattainable. Once we expand
our view past vague and aspirational feel-good generalities, Americans
disagree on almost everything, and our goals are often diametrically
opposed.
We all want food, clothing, shelter, health care, etc., etc. But we
want different types and amounts. Further, we do not want them of the
same quality, at the same time, in the same place, or for the same
persons, not to mention financed by different parties. We also vary
widely in the tradeoffs we are willing to make among our desires. Once
we focus on the tradeoffs actually faced, scarcity necessitates that our
ends conflict. And mutually inconsistent ends cannot be magically
unified.
The unity potentially achievable does not, then, typically involve
specific ends we all agree on. That is why wartime, when all of our
often very different lives and circumstances are at risk, is such an
exception in creating national unity, at least in opposing enemies, and
why politicians are so eager to declare supposed “wars” on poverty,
drugs, homelessness, ad infinitum. What we could possibly reach unity on
is how best to reconcile and mutually achieve our different and
conflicting ends. But politics fails spectacularly in that task.
When people pursue their ends through what Franz Oppenheimer
called “the political means,” success routinely consists in taking
others’ resources, in contrast to “the economic means” of voluntary
arrangements. Such “unifying” political initiatives are simply ways to
coerce those who disagree into bearing burdens against their will. But
when I forcibly take your property for purposes you would reject, I
violate your rights and reduce the means you have to achieve any of your
ends. That is why precious little unity inhabits politicians’ calls for
it.
There is one thing we might agree on, however–equal freedom to
peacefully pursue our own goals. All individuals gain from “the mutual
preservation of their lives, liberties and estates,” as John Locke put
it, for our “pursuit of happiness,” in Jefferson’s words. This means
defending everyone’s freedom and property rights, along with the rights
to trade and contract. As David Hume noted long ago, once property
rights are established and uniformly defended, all subsequent
arrangements are voluntary. No one can impose their will by violating
others’ rights. The traditional definition of justice–“to give each his
own”–is met.
But that also means anyone who proposes that government expand
further beyond those very limited ways it could actually improve what
the Constitution described as our general welfare has clearly rejected
seeking any kind of achievable unity. When government overrides people’s
choices instead of protecting them, it imposes domination rather than
allowing voluntary cooperation and mutual consent. Then the rhetoric of
political unity, no matter how seemingly heartfelt the plea or how many
times it is repeated, is nothing more than camouflage for imposing
injustice on some to help others.
We
“We” is a useful adjunct to “unity” in increasing misunderstanding
about government. Even the mere fact that the word is plural suggests
unity exists, whether it does in any way beyond an agreement among some
to rob others.
It also enables the logical error of equivocation–changing the
meaning of something in the middle of a statement. For instance, it has
frequently been asserted that we as Americans pay for Social Security
and we get the benefits. But the “we” who have been net beneficiaries,
primarily those in the startup generations whose benefits were massively
greater than their costs, is quite different from the younger “we” now
left owing the tab. Multitrillion dollar redistribution is hidden by
simply aggregating those treated very differently into a single “we” (as
when, say, minimum wages are advocated to help “the poor” as a group,
even though the poor who lose jobs, hours and opportunities as a result
are harmed).
The connection between “we” and “you” makes the latter term slippery
as well, in part because Americans have moved on from thou (singular)
and ye (plural) to “you” that can be either singular or plural. Someone
could say “this will protect you (singular),” and it could mean “it will
protect the individual I am referring to, and harm others,” or it could
mean “this will protect the individual I am referring to, without
harming others.” You need not refer to everyone affected. And even if
someone said “this will protect you (plural),” it could mean “it will
protect the group I am referring to, and harm others,” or it can mean
“it will protect the group I am referring to, without harming others.”
Again, you need not refer to everyone affected. Unity requires that no
one’s rights are infringed, but the word is routinely used to describe
something very different.
Rights
Both “unity” and “we” have a further connection to abuses of the word
“right,” because its typical use fails to make an absolutely crucial
distinction between “negative rights,” or liberty from coercion, and
“positive rights” for others to be required to give you things.
“Positive” rights to housing, education, health care, etc., provided
or mandated by government, require that someone else must be forced to
pay for them. But that inherent obligation necessarily violates others’
rights by taking their income and property without their consent, i.e.,
violating their negative rights not to be robbed by government. That
stands in direct contrast to our Constitution, with its strictly limited
enumerated powers, and the Bill of Rights, not to mention the
Declaration of Independence’s assertion of unalienable rights, which
focused on protecting our negative rights.
The only rights that can be unalienable for all must be consistent
with the equal rights of others. Every citizen can enjoy negative rights
against government abuse without infringing on anyone else’s equal
rights because they impose on others only the obligation to not
interfere. But when the government creates new positive rights,
extracting the resources to pay for them necessarily takes away others’
inalienable rights and liberty.
Consequently, if a politician promises to create or defend Americans’
rights, for that to refer to the rights all of us have as individuals,
he or she must be speaking of negative rights. But that is almost never
the case today. Now, when a politician promises “new and improved”
rights for some, they are promising to violate the negative rights our
country was created to defend.
Freedom/Liberty
The distortions introduced when promoting positive rights while
ignoring the negative rights that must then be violated also appear when
people speak in terms of freedom or liberty. Freedom is freedom from
having our negative rights violated by anyone, with government typically
tasked as the enforcement agent. Liberty is freedom from having
government itself violate our negative rights. However, the fact that
the government cannot be trusted to keep itself in check is why we have a
Constitution to limit its abusive power, but that citizens must be the
ultimate check on government, which is why our Founders put such a
strong emphasis on watchfulness in defending our liberty.
Perhaps the most famous example can be seen in FDR’s “Four Freedoms”
speech. Two of the four —“freedom of speech and expression” and “freedom
of every person to worship God in his own way”—are negative rights
found in the First Amendment. They can be enjoyed universally, because
the freedom of one does not detract from the same freedoms for others.
The only role they create for government is disallowing others’
intrusions on those rights. They defend liberty for all against
coercion.
FDR’s third freedom—“freedom from want”—cannot be similarly
universal. It commits government to provide some more goods and services
than their voluntary interactions with others would provide, which
infringes on others’ equal freedom to acquire goods and services
voluntarily using their own resources.
Similarly, FDR’s fourth freedom–“freedom from fear…that no nation
will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against
any neighbor” correctly asserts that citizens are to be protected
against other governments’ depredations. Unfortunately, it says nothing
about a nation’s aggressions against its own citizens. And with his
third freedom requiring government aggression to get the resources
required for its “benevolence,” it omits what is often the greatest
threat to citizens’ liberty.
The upshot is that, since the “Four Freedoms” speech, politicians and
those who seek to advance their interests at others’ expense have been
able to use the language of freedom to significantly contract our
liberty.
Fair/Just
Rhetorical subterfuge with respect to rights or freedom is echoed in
fairness or justice claims, probably because in most cases, fairness
translates as “more for me or for those I want someone else to assist”
(if you were willing to provide the resources, you would simply do so,
not call for it to be done by someone named “not you”). In other words,
it amounts to little more than an assertion that the intended
beneficiaries have positive rights to some things, while ignoring the
violation of others’ negative rights inherent in providing them. And
those latter rights are the basis of our self-ownership and the
voluntary arrangements they enable, which comprise the only means of
meeting the traditional definition of justice, which is “to give each
his own.”
Other legitimate unfairness claims also arise from the creation of
additional positive rights. Ending or cutting back on some positive
right created by government policy, once people have come to anticipate
its continuance, is unfair, even if such policies were unjustified,
ineffective or wasteful. In other words, it is often unfair to undo
things that should not be done in the first place.
Gordon Tulluck
illustrated this with taxi “medallions” or permits. If after only a
limited number of medallions were issued, demand for taxi services rose,
taxi earnings would rise. Competition for the medallions would bid up
their prices to capitalize on the higher expected future earnings. If
Bob sells his taxi medallion to Jim at such a price. Jim would only
expect to earn a normal rate of return on his investment. But once this
has happened, the government cannot unwind the program fairly, because
doing so will punish Jim, who never gained from the program, while Bob
keeps the gains the program produced for him. That is clearly unfair to
Jim. And a similar analysis applies to many government supports for
industries, as well as the unsustainable funding promises of Social
Security and Medicare.
Social
Friedrich Hayek commented in The Fatal Conceit
that the adjective “social” “has probably become the most confusing
expression in our entire moral and political vocabulary.” The best
illustration is “social justice.” Since the time of Cicero, justice has
meant “to give each his own.” But social justice requires that justice
as understood for millennia is violated. That is, social justice means
necessary injustice. As Hayek put it, “Much the worst use of ‘social’,
one that wholly destroys the meaning of any word it qualifies, is in the
almost universally used phrase ‘social justice’.” As a result, “people
have come…to call ‘social’ what is the main obstacle to the very
maintenance of
‘society’. ‘Social’ should really be called ‘anti-social’.”
Other warped words
The half-dozen examples above are a far from exhaustive list of words
warped to grow government. There are many others. For instance, when
people describe what is really crony capitalism as capitalism, even
though it violates its principles, they equate “not capitalism” with
capitalism, which is then falsely blamed for nearly everything under the
sun. Similarly, the common deification of democracy ignores the
relevant constraints that constrain it from being “two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner,”
which is very different from the democratic election of those empowered
to do (only) their constitutionally limited jobs, which can reduce the
risk of bloodshed during transitions of political power. That is, what
makes democracy good is that it can potentially defend freedom, which is
always undermined when violence is resorted to, not that democracy is
always inherently good. Every “dog-eat-dog, survival of the fittest
jungle” mischaracterization of voluntary market arrangements plays Twister with meaning, as well.
Smaller words also play supporting roles in warping meanings toward more government power.
For example, voluntary market arrangements are often condemned as
“using” people, followed by some form of “therefore we should restrict
them.” In such arrangements, however, “use” means “utilize” or “employ,”
with no implication of harm to others. In fact, others gain. But most
seem to use the word to imply “abuse” or “harm,” even though the force
or fraud that allows that to happen are inconsistent with voluntary
arrangements. And there is a large difference between trying to sell
exploitation theory’s “You use others in markets, harming them,” and
“You utilized others’ willingly supplied services, therefore you harmed
them.”
Similarly, “need”
is used as a way to imply that someone (other than the one using the
word) must be forced to provide for it (here, “must” or “we have no
choice” language is often erroneously employed as a backup), but that
incantation does not legitimately override people’s rights. Then anyone
who objects to the imposition is tarred as greedy or selfish, even
though the self-interest we all have in common is very different from
selfishness.
The demeaning of those unwilling to accept such impositions extends
to phrases such as “they only do it for the money,” which distorts the
meaning of both “only” and “for.” Those making that accusation use
“only” to mean “sole,” when in most market arrangements it actually
means “but for the fact that”—without some compensation for the efforts
in question, they would not have been forthcoming. “For” is misused
because people don’t do things for money. Money is not an end. It is a
means, complementary to freedom, which enables people to more
effectively advance whatever their ultimate goals are.
Combining warped words
Each of the examples I have used can have serious deleterious effects
on people’s understanding. They can cause confusion that must be fought
through before clarity is even possible. And some of them even
completely reverse the meaning of words, making common usage the
opposite of original meanings, actually ruling out the possibility of
logical accuracy.
If that wasn’t bad enough, the fact is that multiple
misrepresentations are often part of “more government” arguments, which
can make understanding still far more difficult. This can be seen in an
analogy to taxes.
There is a widely known result in public finance that for straight
line supply and demand curves (in which each equal increase in effective
tax rates would reduce trades by the same amount), the welfare cost or
excess burden (costs to society of the reduced production and exchange
created, over and above the revenue raised) is proportional to the
square of the marginal tax rate. Doubling the marginal tax rate
quadruples the welfare cost. Tripling it generates nine times the
welfare cost.
And the relevant tax rate determining incentives is the sum of all
the different taxes imposed, plus the distorting effects of regulation
(which act like taxes). That, in turn, also seems to be of the extent to
which words are warped. Adding more tax or regulatory burdens on
already heavily burdened markets increases the costs to society
dramatically, and multiple language distortions in the direction of ever
more government also increases people’s misunderstanding dramatically,
with potentially even faster rising costs to citizens.
To illustrate, you might, without stretching reality much at all,
imagine someone who favors a particular expansion of statism saying
something like, “We must all unify to maintain all of our rights as the only way to achieve justice and defend our democracy and our freedom.”
Such a sentence is so full of ambiguity and self-contradiction that it
is hard to imagine a conversation that could be productive of clarity
and agreement.
As Orwell noted, the malleability of language has allowed new
iterations of statism to masquerade as means to the good society,
because linguistic misdirection has made foolish thoughts about social
organization more viable. At the same time, it has made it harder to
communicate the benefits that are only achievable through liberty. That
is a daunting impediment to recovering the liberty we have been misled
away from, but improving understanding—ours first, then others–seems to
be the only peaceful way to do so.
Dr. Gary Galles is a Professor of Economics at Pepperdine.
His research focuses on public finance, public choice, the theory of
the firm, the organization of industry and the role of liberty including
the views of many classical liberals and America’s founders.
His books include Pathways to Policy Failure, Faulty Premises, Faulty Policies, Apostle of Peace, and Lines of Liberty.
Books by Gary Galles
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