Machan's Musings - Gradualism Revisited
by Tibor R. Machan
From the time I became convinced that the fully free society is both possible and most just, I’ve also been aware of a dispute among those who shared my conviction. Some held to the idea that any small move in that direction, even if it doesn’t immediately lead to full freedom, is of value, provided care is taken not to accept a greater loss of liberty in return for some little gain. There can certainly be such circumstances to worry about. Others seemed to hold out for all or nothing—no small, incremental progress toward freedom is to be accepted, since then we give the impression that that’s enough, and are made complicit in stalling the move to total liberty.
For example, school vouchers do not take us all the way to a free market in education, but they can create more liberty for parents to avoid coercive, tax funded schooling of their kids. However, there are still strings attached by those in government—they aren’t going to give up all of their regimentation of the education of American kids—so the voucher option has its hazards. Because of this, one must proceed carefully, weigh the plusses and minuses—this is not some a priori principle of either vouchers with full liberty or no vouchers at all. Sometimes a little gain in liberty goes a long way for the individuals who are affected, namely, the parents and the children who may become slightly more free. (Just think, when the people who were captive of the Soviet empire back in those dreadful days—and I was one of them—did manage to escape to a Western country—and here, too, I was one such fortunate person—they didn’t move from a totalitarian regime to a fully free society. Yet, believe me, their gain in liberty was immense!)
The worldwide movement toward more and more experimentation with privatization is a bit like the voucher movement in the U.S. And, indeed, privatization developments in this country are also of this type—murky, unclean, often mixed with government programs. (A good source of information on this is the Reason Foundation’s Privatization Watch magazine. I should say I was involved with the founding of that organization, though these days I have nothing to do with them, and not by my choice either.) There is much in many privatization efforts that those who insist on moving directly to a fully free society will dislike. Privatization does not meet the ideal image of some free market champions whereby one can simply push a button and, pronto, the world is free! Instead it’s a messy process, often moving two steps forward only to be pushed back a step and a half.
When many of the roads in Italy, France and other countries are partially privatized, this is not the same as a system of free market roads, clearly. Yet it is better that the so called “public” roads and “free” ways we have in the United States. Among the advantages achieved by such partial privatization developments is that some people will be able to escape having to pay for other people’s fast travel. Motorists will pay a greater share of the full cost of their transport than they do when the government takes care of all roads.
Many other examples could be given. The major point, though, is that—contrary to those who want it all in one fell swoop—the progression from a messy mixed economy in the direction of a free one is highly unlikely to come about by way of a sudden leap. Indeed, that is very likely never going to happen, because people are very unlikely to get on board the train to liberty all at once, with equal conviction and commitment. To believe otherwise is to perpetuate that very widespread mistake best captured in the motto, “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”
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