Paul Marks points out that truth is rarely allowed to get in the way of objectives.
Libertarians who study the history of thought are well aware of the power of lies.
To give one example: Generations of people accepted that the labour theory of value was universally accepted (at least in the English speaking world) because J.S. Mill, in his “Principles of Political Economy” (1848), stated that the theory of value was now settled and not disputed. Actually most economists in the Italian, French and German speaking worlds opposed the theory and two of the best known political economists in England also opposed it. These economists were Samuel Bailey and Richard Whately (the work of both men was known to J.S. Mill).
I wonder how many people in the last one and half centuries have been tricked by J.S. Mill’s ‘no one disputes’ tactic. This tactic is deployed whenever wants to pretend that no one opposes a piece of statism he happens to favour. In “Principles of Political Economy” we are told that no one disputes the need for police (in fact hotly disputed and not made compulsory for local communities till 1856), or the need for the government to be engaged in street building, water supply, drainage, rubbish collection etc (all hotly disputed at the time).
If one wishes to make something happen, pretending everyone agrees with it may be a good tactic. However, it does not work for free market reform – as it has always been too obvious that some people oppose liberty, so the lie that no one opposes it is too transparent. We have to be honest whether we like it or not – otherwise we look absurd.
How is this all relevant to the present day? Two points: Firstly, the media is fond of pretending ‘internal markets’, ‘public-private partnerships’, ‘private finance incentives’ (and other wildly expensive and normally corrupt schemes) are what all free market folk believe in. This is in spite of the fact that such schemes were being actively opposed by many leading free market advocates (such as Ludwig Von Mises) as early as the 1920s. Such schemes have their origins way back before the First World War (most often in Vienna) and were certainly not invented by free market people.
Actually the great (and highly successful) effort to smear liberty by associating it with such ‘sleaze’, may not be entirely (or even mainly) the work of liars. Such is the ignorance of most modern ‘opinion formers’ that they may really believe that all free market folk believe in such schemes.
However, whatever the source of the false information the case for private ownership and people spending their own money at their own risk (no ‘per capita funding’ or government backed ‘loans’ to politically connected people) is in danger of going by default – as clearly ‘no one’ believes in it.
The second threat is even worse. One of my central beliefs is that most people are capable of learning if presented with honest information. But what if they are not presented with honest information?
For many years the Conservatives increased government spending on such things as health and education – and yet the people were told (and for the most part believed) that there were endless ‘spending cuts’.
Some people still believe the stuff they are told about ‘spending cuts’ or at least that there has been little real increase in government spending on the ‘public services’ – because “the so called Labour government cheats on the figures and announces the same small increase many times to make it look like a big increase”.
The normal collectivist sources (the universities and so on) spread this stuff (as one would expect), but so does the Conservative Party (with its normal shortsightedness).
Actually the Labour government has greatly increased spending on the public services and is continuing to do so. However, if most people do not believe this one of my pet predictions will not come to pass.
I have long predicted that one day most people would understand that no matter how much money was shoved at them and no matter how many reform plans they were, the public services simply can not work – but this prediction of mine can not come to pass if most people simply do not believe that large sums of extra money have been spent on the public services.
Lies are very powerful – especially if they tell people what they want to hear (you can have a National Health Service that works, you can have an ‘education system’ that works… and so on). People will not give up what they have been taught to believe in without great difficulty.
Do we want people to believe that ‘capitalism’ (i.e. liberty) is simply about politically connected businessmen ripping off the taxpayer via various clever schemes, that it is all about phony “market reform” (i.e. ‘sleaze’)? Certainly not – but the case that liberty is about private ownership and people risking their own money will not make itself.
Do we want people to live in a fantasy world where the ‘public services’ do not work because spending has not really been increased (when spending has gone through the roof)? Of course we do not. But this is what will happen if lies are allowed to defeat truth.
If there was only one country in the world I would despair – as lies (when they fit in with what most people want to believe) are much more powerful than the truth. However, there many nations in the world and it takes only one major nation to follow the path of liberty (instead of the path of phony “market reform”) for such an example to be set that all the lies in the world will not hide it.
As economic life in the world declines (which it will) I believe that some nation somewhere will try liberty.
Paul Marks
