"Freedom, in a political context, means freedom from government coercion. It does not mean freedom from the landlord, or freedom from the employer, or freedom from the laws of nature which do not provide men with automatic prosperity. It means freedom from the coercive power of the state—and nothing else."
-- "Conservatism: An Obituary," Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 192.
"The issue is not slavery for a “good” cause versus slavery for a “bad” cause; the issue is not dictatorship by a “good” gang versus dictatorship by a “bad” gang. The issue is freedom versus dictatorship."
-- "Conservatism: An Obituary," Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 193.
When one is forced to labor for the benefit of someone else under threat of imprisonment for not doing so, for no reason other than that someone else exists, what do we normally call that? We call it slavery. How it is that people convince themselves that the same thing is actually something else just because the proceeds go into government coffers, rather than through a slave owner's hands, is amazing to me. It must be that they think slavery is good, or they convince themselves it's something else so they'll avoid feeling guilt for taking part in it.
4 comments:
I think Ayn Rand escaped Soviet communism, and her stark and dark pictures of government and the state are understandable, but it may be a bit misplaced with respect to a healthy democracy, where there are genuinely healthy ideals of social cooperation.
Monk,
You're correct, she did escape from the Soviet Union. In fact, she was there at the beginning (I think she was around eight years old when her father's pharmacy was seized).
I think there is a tendency for people to equate differences of degree with differences in kind, and I consider that to be a grave error in that something that is not different in kind can increase in degree over time, if allowed. Like the work that I do, the saying "nipping things in the bud" applies - stop the problem early, raise the alarm now, and you frequently avoid greater harm tomorrow.
Anyway, as to the notion of "healthy ideals of social cooperation," I fully agree that that exists in volunteerism, but not under coercion. We have the latter.
I am reminded of the memoirs of a black slave here in the U.S. who was allowed by his master to go seek work by himself in the ship building trade during the day, but who was required to hand over his pay and answer at his master's calling all the same. I need to track down his name and story again.
Unrelated - I had to turn on comment moderation because I got sick of deleting spam comments for venetian blinds. I also tried to get rid of that annoying captcha - did it work?
Yes, it worked. I hate captcha, myself, because it is not unusual for me to get the letters wrong. Maybe it's my poor eyesight. But I definitely like not having to pass a test to post a comment. :D
Monk,
Oh, good. I wish the captcha could be the "three dogs are sitting on a lawn and one dog leaves, how many dogs are left?" variety instead of the stupid letters. You should try the captcha on the Red County Eastern Washington blog sometime. I fail that one almost every time on my first attempt!
Post a Comment