The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

1972 MORALITY AND· CONTROLS 29tee freedom, since general laws aswell as personal edicts can be tyrannical.But increasing relianceon the rule of law clearly played amajor role in transforming Westernsociety from a world in whichthe ordinary citizen was literally .subject to the arbitrary will of hismaster to a world in which theordinary citizen could regard himselfas his own master.Contract or Status?The ideal·was, of course, neverfully attained. More important, wehave been eroding the rule of lawslowly and steadily for decades, asgovernment has become more andmore a participant in economicaffairs rather than primarily arule-maker, referee, and enforcerof private contracts. It was, afterall, the development of the privatemarket that made possible theoriginal movement from a worldof status to a world of voluntarycontract. As government has. triedto replace the market in one areaafter another, it has inevitablybeen driven to restore a world ofstatus.The freeze and even more thepay board and· price board of thePhase II controls are clearly anothermassive step away from therule of law and back toward· therule of men. True, the rule of menwill be under law but that is a farcry from the rule of law - Stalin,Hitler, Mussolini, and now Kosygin,Mao, and Franco all rule underlaw.The price that you and I maycharge for our goods or our laboror that we may pay others for theirgoods or their labor will now bedetermined, not by any set oflegislated •standards applying toall alike, but by specific orders bya small number of men appointedby the President. And jf governmentaledict is to replace marketcontract, there is no alternative.There are millions of prices, millionsof wage rates arrived at byvoluntary agreements among millionsof people. The collectivisticcountries have been unable in decadesto find simple rules enablingprices and. wages to be establishedby any alternative impersonalmechanism.Politics and PatriotismWe are not likely to succeed.And we are not trying. Instead,the appeal is to the patriotism,civic responsibility, and judgmentof political appointees, must ofwhom represent vested interests.How do patriotism and judgmentdetermine that the price of awidget may rise 2.8 per cent butthe price of a wadget, only 0.3 percent; the wage of a widgeteer by2 per cent but of a wadgeteer, by10 per cent? Clearly they do not.