Two Threats to Liberty

Lew Rockwell reports:

Let us begin with the left. They believe society has fundamental flaws and deep-rooted conflicts that keep it in some sort of structural imbalance. All these conflicts and disequilibria cry out for government fixes, for leftists are certain that there is no social problem that a good dose of power can't solve.

If the conflicts they want are not there, they make them up. They look at what appears to be a happy suburban subdivision and see pathology. They see an apparently happy marriage and imagine that it is a mask for abuse. They see a thriving church and think the people inside are being manipulated by a cynical and corrupt pastor. Their view of the economic system is the same. They see poor peasants in the third world drinking a Coke or making Nikes, and they cry foul. They figure that prices don't reflect reality but instead are set by large players. There is a power imbalance at the heart of every exchange, domestically and internationally. The labor contract is a mere veneer that covers exploitation.

To the brooding leftist, it is inconceivable that people can work out their own problems, that trade can be to people's mutual advantage, that society can be essentially self-managing, or that attempts to use government power to reshape and manage people might backfire. Their faith in government knows few limits; their faith in people is thin or nonexistent. This is why they are a danger to liberty.

The remarkable fact about the conflict theory of society held by the left is that it ends up creating more of the very pathologies that they believe have been there from the beginning. The surest way to drive a wedge between labor and capital is to regulate the labor markets to the point that people cannot make voluntary trades. Both sides begin to fear each other. It is the same with relations between races, sexes, the abled and disabled, and any other groups you can name. It is the same with international relations. A tariff or trade sanction is nothing but war by another means. The best path to creating conflict where none need exist is to put a government bureaucracy in charge.

If you read one thing today read this one.