freedom vs. statism

From Arthur Foulkes in the (Terre Haute) Tribune-Star (hat tip: Ryan Cummins)...

Freedom, with as little government as possible, is critical for the prosperity and welfare of our town, our nation and our civilization.

The freest societies on Earth are also the richest, and the richest societies afford the most opportunity for everyone. Greater material prosperity means more opportunity for all people to grow, thrive and enrich their own and others’ time on Earth.

Studies clearly show countries with the fewest restrictions on economic freedom are the most well-off. Not surprisingly, the least-free are the poorest....

Poverty is the natural state of man. Wealth only comes through savings, division of labor, specialization and investment. These things occur rapidly when private property rights are respected and economic freedom is permitted.

Despite the historic example of the Industrial Revolution, which permitted millions to survive and enjoy increasing living standards for the first time in human history, the economic liberalism that permitted this growth is almost universally distrusted.

Even as laissez-faire and free trade were allowing people to live better lives generation after generation for the first time in 6,000 years, a strong counterforce emerged: Worship of the State.

In place of laissez-faire, governments in the late 19th and the entire 20th centuries began to attempt to manage and control economic life.

In the early 20th century, the clearest such examples emerged in Italy, Germany, Russia and, to a lesser extent, the United States. In each of these places, the individual and economic freedom were supplanted by growing governments that subordinated free people to a political abstraction: The State, the Volk, the Party or the “common good.”

Liberalism, in the original sense of the word (meaning laissez-faire and individual rights), while generating unprecedented prosperity for the masses, was a threat to those who would rule those masses. Too much individual freedom is anathema to worshippers of the State.

Worship of the State and distrust of the individual is by no means a recent phenomenon. For most of mankind’s history, the idea that man must be ruled by some outside force (for his own good) has been the most common belief. Laissez-faire and individual rights were a very brief exception.

Nor is worship of the State and distrust of the individual a phenomenon only of the political left. While nearly all varieties of socialists believe man is primarily a social creature and should think first of society, the right is no less determined to subordinate individualism to statism....

The intellectual foundation of State worship and distrust of individual economic rights is the belief that there is permanent conflict between the interests of individuals and the interests of society. This is not true.

In a free society where private property rights, including the right to our own bodies, is guaranteed, there is no conflict between the individual good and the common good. In a free, voluntary-exchange society, for someone to achieve goals beyond pure survival, cooperation with others is needed. This means exchange with others.

Exchange with others only takes place when both parties agree to the exchange, so for me to prosper in a free society, I must find ways to satisfy others by offering them something they desire. This is true for everyone....

Worship of the State is our civic religion. It views additional government control as both inevitable and “progressive.”

Yet only creative and free individuals, working together in voluntary cooperation and respecting the rights of other individuals, can bring about true economic progress and begin to reverse the slow disintegration of Western society.

It is time to resist the growth in government power and the worship of that power before it is too late.