The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

'"""_''''"~~~h·''''',4!e::::"">,f'''*k;~~~l····'''~''A~t€{:',,",.,",'"Creeping Capitalism:I FrEDWARD COLESONMANY of our disillusioned contemporarieshave given up on thepresent. If they have not "droppedout" so completely that they havequit thinking altogether, they arewont to retreat to the past. Theylike to imagine some golden agelong ago when life was lovely andthings worked out as they should.If they had just lived back then,think what they could have accomplished.But not today! The presentis hopeless. Sad to say, todayis all we have. Sad to say also, yesterdayhad its problems too.Perhaps the classic example ofthe "displaced.person" in historywas Madame Roland who, saysCarl Becker,l often "wept to thinkshe was not born a Spartan or aRoman...." There were no opportunitiesfor heroic action in herlittle world, "the stuffy apartmentDr. Coleson is Professor of Social Science atSpring Arbor College in Michigan.of an engraver doing a small businesson the Pont Neuf" in theParis of 1788. But wait - July 14came next year, the Bastille wastaken and she had an opportunityto be part of as stirring events asthe world has ever seen. She wasunjustly thrown into prison. and,as she awaited her turn at theguillotine, she recalled that Socrateshad also been a martyr. Onher way to the place of execution,as she passed a statue of Liberty,she exclaimed, "Oh Liberty, whatcrimes are committed in thyname!" Let's hope that you and Iare more fortunate than MadameRoland, but the point is obvious:her age was the "best of timesand the worst of times," just asCharles Dickens tells us in theopening lines of his Tale of TlwoCities. So was the age of Socratesand that much-maligned era calledthe present - more precisely, today.