may happen that commands and interdictions emanate from a different source and that this other agency also supplies the power apparatus to enforce its orders. If the authority condones this procedure or even supports it, then the situation is the same as that created by direct governmental orders. If the government does not want to consent and opposes this action with its power apparatus, but without avail, this is evidence that another authority has succeeded in establishing itself and in contesting governmental supremacy.
Undoubtedly the government has the power to issue such commands and interdictions and also has the power to enforce them, through its police force. But the questions with which we are concerned in this essay are: Do these measures enable the government to achieve the aims it seeks? Do not these interventions perhaps produce results which, from the government’s point of view, appear even less desirable than the conditions in the free-market economy which it seeks to change?
Consequently, we shall not concern ourselves with the question whether the government is in the hands of able or ineffectual, noble or ignoble men.5 Even the ablest and noblest man can achieve his aim only if he uses the proper means.
Nor do we have to deal with those interventions of the authority which are immediately aimed at consumption. The authority might, for instance, temporarily or permanently forbid the consumer to eat certain foods—let us say for health or religious reasons. The authority thus assumes the role of a guardian of the individual. It deems the individual incapable of looking out for his own best interests; he is to be protected by his paternal overseer from suffering harm.
The question whether the authority should pursue such a course or not is a political question, not an economic one. If one believes that the authority is God-given and is called upon to play the part of Providence to the individual, or if one thinks that the authority has to represent the interests of society against the conflicting interests of the egoistic individuals, one will find this attitude justified. If the authority is wiser than its subjects with their limited intelligence, if it knows better what furthers the happiness of the individual than he himself pretends to know, or if the authority feels called upon to sacrifice the welfare of the individual to the well-being of the whole, then it should not hesitate to set the aims for the actions of the individuals.
It would be an error, of course, to believe that the guardianship of the authority over the individual could remain confined to the domain of health, that the authority would conceivably be satisfied to forbid or to limit the use of dangerous poisons like opium, morphine, possibly also alcohol and nicotine, but that otherwise the freedom of the individual would remain untouched. Once the principle is acknowledged that the consumption choices of the individual are to be supervised and restricted by the authority, how far this control will expand depends only on the authority and the public opinion which motivates it. It then becomes logically impossible to oppose tendencies which want to subject all activity of the individual to the care of the state. Why only protect the body from the harm caused by poisons or drugs? Why not also protect our minds and souls from dangerous doctrines and opinions imperiling our eternal salvation? Depriving the individual of the freedom of the choice of consumption logically leads to the abolition of all freedom.
We may now turn to the economic side of the problem. When economics deals with the problems of interventionism it has only those measures in mind which primarily affect the means and not the aims of action. And it does not have any other standard by which to judge these measures than the one whether they are or are not able to achieve the aims which the authority seeks. The fact that the authority is in a position to restrict the choice of consumption for the individual and thus to alter the data of the market is beyond the scope of economic discussion.
For these reasons we do not concern ourselves with authoritarian measures immediately aimed at the direction of consumption which actually attain this aim without affecting other fields as well. We accept the action of the consumers in the market and do not take into consideration to what extent, if any, this action is influenced by the authority. We accept the valuations and the demands of the consumers as a fact, and we do not ask whether the consumers buy gas masks on their own initiative or because the government ordered them to do so, nor whether they buy less alcohol because they prefer other goods or because the government penalizes intoxication. Our task, however, is to analyze those interventions of the authority which are directed not at the consumers but at the owners of the means of production and at the entrepreneurs. And we do not ask whether these interventions are justified nor whether they conform to our wishes or to the wishes of the consumers. We merely inquire whether these measures can achieve the aims which the government wishes to attain.
Before we proceed, however, it appears advisable to give consideration to a doctrine which deserves some attention, if for no other reason than because it is backed by some of our most distinguished contemporaries.
We refer to the belief that it does not require the intervention of the government to bring the market economy to ways other than those it takes when it is able to develop unhampered. Christian social reformers and some representatives of an ethically motivated social reform think the religious and moral conscience ought to guide the “good” person in the economic realm as well. If all entrepreneurs would watch not only their profit and their selfish individual interests but would always think also of their religious and social obligations, the orders of the government would not be necessary to bring things into the proper channels. Not reform of the state would be required, but rather a moral purification of mankind, a return to God and to the moral law, an abandonment of the vices of selfishness and egoism. Then, it would not be difficult to bring private property of the means of production in accord with the social welfare. One would have freed the economy of the pernicious consequences of capitalism without having restricted, by governmental intervention, the freedom and initiative of the individual. One would have destroyed the Moloch Capitalism without having it replaced with the Moloch State.
We do not have to deal here with the value judgments underlying this doctrine. What these critics find objectionable in capitalism is irrelevant, and the errors and misunderstandings they expound need not concern us. We are only interested in their suggestion to build a social order on the dual foundation of private ownership of the means of production and of a moral law delimiting the exercise of this property right. This ideal social order supposedly is not socialism because under it the individuals, particularly the entrepreneurs, capitalists, and proprietors, are no longer guided by the profit motive, but by their consciences. Nor is it supposed to be interventionism, because it does not require governmental interventions to secure the working of the economic machine.
In the market economy the individual is free in his actions as far as private property and the market extend. Here, only his valuations count. Whatever he may choose, the choice he makes prevails. His action is, for the other parties in the market, a fact which they have to take into account. The consequences of his action in the market are reflected in profits or losses; they are the one cog fitting his activity into the machinery of social cooperation. Society does not tell the individual what to do and what not to do; nobody gives orders and demands obedience, no force is used unless for the protection of private property and of the market against violence. The cooperation is the result of the workings of the market. Those who do not fit themselves to the best of their ability into the social cooperation feel the consequences of their rebellion, their negligence, their errors and mistakes. This coordination does not require anything more from the individual than acting in his own interest. Therefore, there is no need of orders from an authority telling the individual what to do and what not to do, and there is no need of a power instrument to enforce such orders.
Beyond the realm of private property and market exchange lies the realm of unlawful actions; there society has erected barriers for the protection of private property and of the market against force, fraud, and malice. Here freedom no longer reigns,
