I hear today a lot of chatter from my fellow citizens that indicates extreme obliviousness to economics and to the means of governmental programs. They presume that all we need to do to effect all the programs they think good is to soak the rich. I’m pretty sure that in the aggregate, that is not where most of the pie resides, and it’s not a static “pie” anyway. The ability to remain in a fog surrounding one’s ideals is stunning. I think back to my own unconcern as a religious youth with any argument against the existence of God based on all the evil and horror in the world. That argument never mattered a whit to me. Among the motivations for the politics that curtails real liberty mentioned by Tibor and by Steve, I want to underscore motivations from a sense of justice (and fairness, a kin). This is part of the moral thread of motivation already mentioned. By the time I was a senior in high school, in the mid-60’s, I had become a Christian socialist. I staunchly believed in the rights to life and to liberty, but I was opposed to private property. I had not thought this through from an economics standpoint, and I imagine a lot of people continue to think in that sort of fog about the implementation and full consequences of their ideals. My reason for opposing private property was that it allowed people to be selfish, and I thought selfishness was wrong and that concern for and self-sacrifice for others was the essence of moral virtue (and of course dedication to God was also part of that essence). So when Rand persuaded me that a lot of the selfishness people condemned was actually a virtue, my socialism dissolved. (I had already become an atheist, though that left my socialism intact and indeed intensified my benevolence toward humanity.) Others with a socialist impulse stemming from moral considerations are not always so much based in altruism. The character Andrei in We the Living (my favorite character aside from Kira) has some motivations for his communism that are not much based in altruism. I never went over to communism, by the way, because I still believed in the rights to life and liberty and to the peaceful democratic process. At any rate, I think Tibor’s emphasis on the treasure of individual autonomy, however selfish or unselfish, is a crucial part of what must become part of the understood and valued by our fellows for securing real liberty. (Edited by Stephen Boydstun on 9/15, 7:05am)
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