Im glad youre enjoying the read.

I read part of the book when I

first got into economics, and it made enough of an impression on me
that I always intended to read the whole thing, but I got o into
other books about economics and just never finished it. Hazlitt
wrote a number of other books (including one on poverty that is very
well done). The thing that has impressed me most with his writing is
his emphasis on proper or logical thinking. He also tends to treat an
issue fairly; you wont get any hyperbolic or propagandistic
statements from him; he was a very careful writer.

I read the article you sent over. It was a good read. The author
points out some things that should give everyone pause. Like you,
Im not sure that I have the answer as how to best deal with it.

Its an interesting point you made about having human beings stick
to just the most basic of functions without feeling the need to
intervene in every matter both socially and regulatory. One of the
things that opened my eyes as I began to read and think on this
subject was when I defined what a State is (in the political theory
sense). I had been grasping at straws before, but after looking at
what the State is, and what it entails, its powers, and the eects of
its actions, I was able to step back and have some perspective on the
subject. I read a book called The Rise and Fall of Society by Frank
Chodorov about a year ago. Early on in the book he had this to say:

In times past, the disposition was to look upon the State as

something one had to reckon with, but as a complete outsider.
One got along with the State as best one could, feared or admired
it, hoped to be taken in by it and to enjoys its perquisites, or held
it at arms length, as an untouchable think; one hardly thought of
the State as an integral of Society. One had to support the State -
there was no way of avoiding taxes - and one tolerated its
interventions as interventions, not as the warp and woof of life.
And the State itself was proud of its position apart from, and
above, Society.
 The present disposition is to liquidate any distinction between
State and Society, conceptually or institutionally. The State is
Society; the social order is indeed an appendage of the political
establishment, depending on it for sustenance, health, education,
communication, and all other things coming under the head of
the pursuit of happiness. In theory, taking college textbooks on
economics and political science for authority, the integration is
about as complete as words can make it. In the operation of
human aairs, despite the fact that lip services is rendered the
concept of inherent personal rights, the tendency to call upon the
State for the solution of all the problems of life shows how far we
have abandoned the doctrine of rights, with its correlative of self-
reliance, and have accepted the State as the reality of Society. It is
this actual integration, rather than the theory, that marks o the
twentieth century from its predecessors.1

That was essentially the position that I took growing up because of

how Dad and Mom thought about things; but it wasnt until I began
to take an interest in American history that I began to be able to
articulate the reasons why this was the case. As I read more and
more, I saw that the dierences between our world and theirs (from
colonial times up until about 1913) was so vastly dierent. Reading
through what life was like in terms of personal freedom was
astounding; it was like a whole dierent world. I had always
suspected that was the case, but studying history gave me a
perspective that I didnt have before. Maybe thats why I always tend
to come back to the historical record of an event instead of what Ive
heard growing up or what the establishment line is.

After reading what I just quoted from Frank Chodorov, he then had
this to say:

1 Frank Chodorov, The Rise and Fa! of Society

 One indication of how far the integration has gone is the
disappearance of any discussion of the State qua State - a
discussion that engaged the best minds of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. The inadequacies of a particular regime, or
its personnel, are under constant attack, but there is no
faultfinding with the institution itself. The State is all right, by
common agreement, and it would work perfectly if the right
people were at its helm. It does no occur to most critics of the
New Deal that all its deficiencies are inherent in any State, under
anybodys guidance, or that when the political establishment garners
enough power a demagogue will sprout. The idea that this power
apparatus is indeed the enemy of Society, that the interests of
these institutions are in opposition is simply unthinkable. If it is
brought up, it is dismissed as old-fashioned, which it is; until the
modern era, it was an axiom that the State bears constant
watching, that pernicious proclivities are built into it.

Here is the crux of political theory. After all, the State is an

invention of man. Whether it grew out of a society organically or
was imposed upon a society by force, its something that was made up
according the dictums of a group of people. I began studying
economics because I was interested in what explanation there was
for the extraordinary rise of our standard of living in such a short
period of time. I wanted to know what made it possible for any
person to be able to walk into a Safeway and have immediate access
to essentially anything they could want: cherries from Argentina,
cheese from Switzerland, eggs from Kansas. How is it that all those
things got there? Think of the structural framework and technology
that must be in place for that sort of thing to be possible. Think of
the cooperation that has to exist between everyone to allow that
kind of prosperity to be equally available to you, me, Bill Gates, and
that girl mentioned in the article you sent over.

I first went to the Keynesians because that is the model governments

have followed for the last 80 or 90 years. It didnt make sense, and
couldnt explain exactly how these things occur; it seemed the only
thing they were concerned with was how these things can be carried
out through government policies, but governments dont produce
anything, they only intervene by way of regulation, so that couldnt
explain how these things actually came to be in the first place.

Then I found the Austrians. As soon as I began reading their stu, it

hit me almost immediately that this was the correct way to look at
economics. It runs so counter to the establishment line because it
shows that individual freedom, to do what you want and trade with
whomever you want, is ultimately the way a society thrives and
flourishes. An economic model showing that the only way to
economic harmony and prosperity is through individual freedom is
not popular with those who look to the State, directly or indirectly,
for their continued sustenance. As the State grows, so does the
pressure to quash any economic model that runs counter to the
interests of the State. This is the position the Austrians have found
themselves for a long time. Before Keynesianism became all the rage
in the early 1900s, the Austrian model was the accepted economic
model. With the growth of nation-states, and with the onset of
WWI, and the need to fund it, Keynesianism found a soft spot to
land.

After awhile, I came to the same conclusion economically speaking

that Mr. Chodorov came to in Rise and Fall of Society:

Economics is not politics. One is a science, concerned with the

immutable and constant laws of nature that determine the
production and distribution of wealth; the other is the art of
ruling. One is amoral, the other is moral. Economic laws are self-
operating and carry their own sanctions, as do all natural laws,
while politics deals with man-made and man-manipulated
conventions. As a science, economics seeks understanding of
invariable principles; politics is ephemeral, its subject matter being
 the day-to-day relations of associated men. Economics, like
chemistry, has nothing to do with politics.

The intrusion of politics into the field of economics is simply an

evidence of human ignorance or arrogance, and is as fatuous as an
attempt to control the rise and fall of tide. Since the beginning of
political institutions, there have been attempts to fix wages,
control prices, and create capital, all resulting in failure. Such
undertakings must fail because the only competence of politics is
in compelling men to do what they to do not want to do, or to
refrain from doing what they are inclined to do, and the laws of
economics do not come within that scope. They are impervious to
coercion. Wages and prices and capital accumulations have laws of
their own, laws which are beyond the purview of a policeman.

So, coming back to what you were saying about moral decay; I agree
that there is moral decay in this country, but I think its important to
try to figure out the why first. Why are families broken up; why is
there a 50% divorce rate; why do we have some of the stupidest
children of any country in the world? At the risk of being guilty of
the saying if youre a hammer, then everything looks like a nail, I
would say that government intervention not only economically, but
also into other areas of a persons life (the family in particular) go a
long way in explaining why we see some of this degradation. It is a
coincidence that the US finds itself in its most perilous position in
its history at the same time that the moral fibre of its people seems
to be the weakest it has ever been? Is the decline of the US the
result of an amoral populace, or has an ever growing and more
powerful State weakened the moral fibre of its people? Thats an
interesting question. I think history exonerates the latter. After all,
were not the first country to go through this. Every generation
thinks theyre special. We all think that were dierent because of X
or Y, but as Solomon said Theres nothing new under the sun.
As to the question you posed: Im unaware of any point in history
where it could be said a totally free market existed. After studying
political theory and the nature of the State, I dont think human
nature will permit that. The State rises for two reasons: the first is to
protect, and the second is to oppress; but all States end up
oppressing, and eventually all States oppress to the point of killing
the golden goose, or exploiting its citizens to the point that
economically speaking the system collapses of its own weight.
Think Rome and the welfare state. Unfortunately, because the State
ends up with more power than any one individual, the oppressors of
any given society recognize the power in that institution and tend to
ingratiate themselves with it in one way or another. It doesnt take
long before the original intentions of the State become perverted to
an enormous group of special interests whos continued existence
depends on the continued existence, and continued growth of the
State.

As far as any drawbacks of a totally free market: A mistake I made

when I first started studying this was to think that life would be
perfect in a totally free market situation. I realize now that is not
true. I can say though, that it would be vastly better that what we
have now. A totally free society is one in which everyone is free to do
what they want provided they dont violate the rights of others; so it
is a system of peace; far from the dog-eat-dog view that is shoved
down our throats. This could only be true though, if there was no
State powerful enough to oppress its citizens; and here we run right
back into the human nature problem. Ive seen some convincing
arguments for anarchy (absence of the State), but practically
speaking, that would never work; its simply too utopian.