LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
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When liberty grows, the pie gets bigger. When politics grows, the slices get smaller. Politics is all about promising things to people. “The auction of goods about to be stolen,” as H.L. Mencken famously put it. The promises are lies, of course. But it isn’t just the untruth of a lie that matters. The size of the lie matters, too. When the political system is small, it promises a few things to a few people. Naturally they’re disappointed. But it’s just a few people, just a small number of beggars at the polls looking for political handouts. And if they go away with a dime when they thought they were going to get a dollar, no big deal. (Or should I say, “New Deal”? Or “Fair Deal”? Or “Great Society”?) We survived those growths of the political system... if just barely. But when the political system expands to the truly amazing, incomprehensibly enormous size of our political system... things are different. Our political system has grown to the size where it promises everything to all of us. And everybody is disappointed. Everybody goes away empty-handed. Everybody feels cheated. Does this make us mad at our political system? Yes. But mostly it makes us mad at each other – angry at the other people who are competing for the government’s largess. Because politics is a zero-sum game the way freedom and free markets are not. Zero-sum games are not played for kicks and giggles. Zero-sum games are blood sports.
The promises are lies, of course. But it isn’t just the untruth of a lie that matters. The size of the lie matters, too.
Yes, there’s competition in the freedom of free markets. That’s what makes them work. Competition is the vermouth in the martini. But as it is with martinis, so it is with free markets. For every one part competition vermouth, there are six parts of that top-shelf gin called spontaneous cooperation among free people. (Which always seems to leave politicians “shaken, not stirred.”) Adam Smith pointed it out, 243 years ago: Among free people, in a free market exchange of goods and services, everyone comes out ahead. Each person gives something he or she values less in return for something he or she values more. Both sides win. You’ve got the olives. I’ve got the cocktail shaker. Bottoms up! But in politics, only one side can win. What’s at stake in politics isn’t goods and services – it’s power. Power is always zero-sum. When I sell you goods and services I gain something in return. When I sell you power over myself – and that’s what the political exchange is all about – I lose everything. Under the condition of liberty, if you have a swimming pool and a Bentley, I can get a
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April 2019
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