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State
Interference
I
therefore maintain that it is at the present time a
matter of patriotism and civic duty to resist the
extension of State interference. It is one of the
proudest results of political growth that we have
reached the point where individualism is possible.
Nothing could better show the merit and value of the
institutions which we have inherited than the fact
that we can afford to play with all these
socialistic and semi-socialistic absurdities. They have
no great importance until the question arises: Will a
generation which can be led away into this sort of
frivolity
be
able to transmit intact institutions which were made
only by men of sterling thought and power, and
which can be maintained only by men of the same
type?
I am
familiar with the irritation and impatience with which
remonstrances on this matter are
received. Those who know just how the world ought
to
be reconstructed are, of course, angry when they
are
pushed aside as busybodies. A group of people who assail
the legislature with a plan for regulating
their neighbor's mode of living are enraged at the
"dogma" of non-interference.
The
publicist who has
been
struck by some of the superficial roughnesses
in
the collision of interests which must occur in any
time
of great industrial activity, and who has therefore
determined to waive the objections to State
interference, if he can see it brought to bear on his
pet
reform, will object to absolute principles.
For
my
part, I have never seen that public or private
principles were good for anything except when there
seemed to be a motive for breaking them. Anyone
who
has studied a question as to which the solution
is
yet wanting may despair of the power of free contract to
solve it.
I
have examined a great many cases
of
proposed interference with free contract, and the
only
alternative to free contract which I can find is
"heads I win, tails you lose" in favor of one party or
the
other. I am familiar with the criticisms which
some
writers claim to make upon individualism, but
the
worst individualism I can find in history is that
of
the Jacobins, and I believe that it is logically sound
that
the anti-social vices should be most developed
whenever the attempt is made to put socialistic theories
in practice.
The
only question at this point is:
Which may we better trust, the play of free social
forces or legislative and administrative interference?
This question is as pertinent for those who expect to
win by interference as for others, for whenever we try
to get paternalized we only succeed in getting policed.
State Interference,
William Graham Sumner, "The Wisdom of Conservatism," pp
1596-1603, Institute for Western Values, 1971.
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