FRAMING THE ISSUE SERIES - 2012 Battle Lines - Part I

Even to the casual observer,  it is apparent that we in the United States are in a time during which national public policy agreement on most substantive issues is difficult to achieve.  Further, we notice that our Federally-elected officials find it impractical to reach agreement on even basic legislation governing the finances of the Government. 

We have submitted in these pages that the reason for this impasse is that a chasm has opened within the electorate between competing visions for the Country and the Federal Government's role in it.  We further assert that between these competing visions compromise is impossible.  We assert that we must choose.  In a several-part series of Framing the Issue, we now explore the Battle Lines.

Freedom vs. Equality

As has been pointed out by many economists and philosophers, Freedom and Equality are in conflict with one another.  Definitions matter.  Freedom is the absence of coercion of the individual by any other person or by the government.  Equality is to make the same. 

Of course, we recognized long ago as individuals that, by granting certain narrowly-specified powers to government (i.e., the ability to coerce in certain matters), we could improve and magnify the beneficial effects of Freedom.  Thus, the Constitution of the United States and those of the several states serve together to establish the rule of law, to protect property rights, to promote commerce, and to defend the citizenry.  Equality is virtually non-existent in the founding documents for good reason.  The framers knew that we had to choose. 

Equality cannot mean to be the same for the simple reason that we are not.  Equality could mean equal opportunity, yet that is no longer the sense in which it is used.  As F.A. Hayek has taught us: "To give different people the same objective opportunities is not to give them the same objective chance."  There, right there, is the chasm.  

It is either:  1.embrace Freedom and its equal opportunity under the rule of law, at the sacrifice of Equality;  2.  seek Equality in which we make the outcomes the same, at the sacrifice of Freedom.  Hayek knew about this choice:  "To produce the same result for different people, it is necessary to treat them differently."  The entity that would thus treat people differently is the government.  The different treatment is coercion (i.e. force).  In order to produce Equality, the targets of the coercion are necessarily the relatively successful.  In order to achieve this unnatural act, power is mandatory and must be employed.  Freedom is the casualty of such a cascade.

The inevitable challenge to these thoughts is that they are "too absolute".  Most of us, at one time or another, have been tempted by the phrase "more equal".   Indeed, the so called "progressive" policies of the Country have attempted this quest (nomenclature:  fair share, equitable, social justice) via taxation and redistribution these past 100 years.  However, we now see that, unmoored from Constitutionally-defined boundaries, these policies attack both Freedom and prosperity.   These policies reward or mitigate the negative effects of behaviors that would be otherwise unsuccessful.  And, the relatively successful will always exist under a "more equal" concept, remaining as never-ending targets for government coercion.  "Progressive" policies perform an amazing feat:  they make us all worse off and fail to produce the stated aim:  Equality.

No middle ground.  We have to choose.  Freedom or Equality.

CFA Choice

Freedom