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Show The Paper That Dares To Take A Stand August 12, 1976 The Utah Independent Page 11 j nrket CLICHES OF SOCIALISM Foundation for Economic freedom in exchange is cast aside, there remains but one other determiner as to who will get how much of what, Education, Inc., New York Irvington-on-Hudso- n, KISSINGERS PANAMA CANAL JOKER government! When property, a devotee of private limited free market, profits, prices, wages, rents, and other aspects of production and exchange, we have socialism, pure and simple. When fairness" is demanded as a substitute for what can be obtained in willing exchange, the aslcer, consciously or not, is insisting on what naturally and follows: a planned logically This means all forms of economy. states his principles government is he inevitably confronted position, with a barrage of socialistic cliches. Failure to answer these has effectively silenced many a spokesman for freedom. Here are suggested answers to some of the most persistent of the O iches of Socialism. These are not the only answers or even the best possible answers; but they may help you or others to develop better explanations of the ideas on liberty that are the only effective displacement for the empty promises of socialism. protectionism, subsidies, maximum hours, minimum wages, acreage allocations, production "Business Is entitled to a schedules imposed by the state, fair profit" rent control, below market interest rates, free lunches, distressed areas This is actually a cliche of designated and financed by socialism, but it often goes ungovernmental confiscation of challenged because the peoples capital, federal urban businessmen who repeat it are renewal, state unemTVA, ideas of rarely suspected endorsing ployment insurance, social with socialistic overtones. security, tax discrimination, inis business The notion that a These flation, and so on. entitled to a fair profit has no more measures socialism are to commend it than does the claim governments only means of that workers are entitled to a fair fairness, and they institutionalize wage, captialists to a fair rate of unfairness! The declaration that business interest, stockholders to a fair dividend, landlords to a fair rent, is entitled to a fair profit connotes farmers to a fair price for their equalitarianism; that is, a coerced Profit (or loss), evenness in reward to the produce. regardless of how big, cannot competent and incompetent alike. properly be described as fair or un- From what does this type of thinfair. king stem? It may very well be a carryTo demonstrate why fair should be used to modify profit as a over from the static society which, right to which someone is entitled, as in a poker game, can award no merely imagine a businessman, gain to anyone without a corresheedless of the market, persisting ponding loss to someone else. It is in making buggy whips. If no one to overlook the economics of the were willing to exchange dollars free market and its willing for whips, the manufacturer would exchange where each party to the fail; not only would he have no exchange gains. If each party did profit but he would lose his capital not believe he gained, there would to boot. Would you have any be no willing exchange. There feeling of guilt or unfairness for couldn't be! Or, this type of thinking may having refused to buy his whips? stem from the labor theory of value Most certainly not! We do not think of ourselves which holds that the worth of a as unfair when we search for good or service is determined not bargains. We have no sense of un- by individual evaluations but by fairness when employing a the amount of effort exerted: if as inmuch effort is used to make a mud competent as against an competent helper, or borrowing pie as to make a mince pie, they are money at the lowest rate offered, or of equal worth! Marx, acting on paying a lowe instead of a high ren- this theory, evolved his system: in tal. The idea of guaranteeing a fair essence, to have the state take from dividend to one who invests in the mince pie makers and give to wildcat schemes never enters our the mud pie makers. After all, goes heads. When we shop around, our the cliche, arent the mud pie choices cause profits to accrue to makers entitled to a fair profit! Assuming the market is free some businessmen, losses to others. We do not relate these from fraud, violence, misrepreseexercises of free choice to fairness ntation, and predation, the or unfairness or consider, that economic failure or success of any is measured by what he anyones rights have been in- individual can fringed. In market-plac-e obtain in parlance, entitled to in the market place, be he businessman or wage earner, is what others will offer in willing exchange. This is the way believers in the free market think it should be. However, when it is claimed that business is entitled to a fair or reasonable profit, the claimers must have something else in mind is all! than what they can obtain in Leonard E Read willing exchange. Otherwise, they wouldn't mention the matter. When you knew that the law something else" wood be enforced, and that your .. While the these businessmen have in mind is safety would be protected. im. When the law meant justice. rarely understood in its full mean and you felt a shiver of awe at sight plications, it must, perforce, something other than individual of a policeman. freedom of choice. In short, it must mean the only alternative to All I have seen teaches choice: of freedom me to trust the Creator for When the authoritarianism. all 1 have not seen. f . . . .. I economic to this countrys and lifeline military defenses. Washington: Secretary of State Henry Kissingers all out effort to negotiate an end to U.S. sovereignty and control over the Panama Canal has taken an ominous new twist. His aides have prepared a highly questionable study on the defense of the strategic waterway, taking a position that can do nothing but bolster the negotiating hand of the pro-Cast- ro government in Panama. If Kissinger's views prevail, the War Powers Act, used in the final days of the Vietnam war to block any effective U.S. military help to South Vietnam, will apply to future deployment of American troops to defend the Panama Canal in case of an attack by a foreign power. In other words, from now on the defense of this sovereign U.S. territory will be treated as if the Panama Qmalis the same asa U.S. base on foreign land rather than a strategic part of this country. Because of the long recognized U.S. sovereignty over the Panama Canal, all military contingency plans for its defense have been based on the legal assumption that the President as Commander-In-Chihas the right force to defend U.S. use to military the strategic waterway without limitations. ef The State Department document, now being circulated in Congress by members supporting the giveaway plan, puts a big cloud over this freedom of action by the President by treating the Canal as a U.S. base on foreign soiL DEFENSE JOKER In addition to interjecting this defense joker" into the Panama Canal issue, what is significant about the State Departments study is that it was prepared by that agency and not the Defense Department. defense force would have to be brought from the U.S. thus invoking the provisions of the War Powers Act under the new State Department policy. The scenario which assumed the introduction of 10,000 outside troops from Cuba was described in the State Department document as a worst case" situation, which would arise only if there were a significant deterioration in U.S. Panamanian relations." The imposition of the War Powers Act is highlighted in the deployment of additional troops to Panama for its defense as follows: congresSupplementary sional appropriations would be sought to support additional forces sent into the Canal Zone to defend it The amount of such appropriations would be determined by the size of the forces deployed and the level and duration of hostilities. If necessary, plans would be implemented to evacuate U.S. citizens from the Canal Zone and Panama. A further consideration in the deployment of military forces to defend the Panama Canal within the above described scenarios would be the. requirements of Public Law 93-1(War Powers Resolution)." non-essent- ial Requested by Senator Dick Gark, (D. Ia.), one of the leading Senate advocates for ending U.S. sovereignty over the Canal, the study is being circulated among members of the Senate as an Opponents of Kissingers efintegral part of a campaign to support Kissingers efforts to negotiate forts to negotiate a new treaty to end U.S. sovereignty over the a new treaty with Panama. Canal chaige that the State The whole thrust of this Department study is designed to study," Gark reported to his create the atmosphere that it is colleagues in circulating it, is the better to turn the Canal over to importance of maintaining a frien- Panama than to defend it. dly relationship with Panama These opponents, led by through the negotiations fo a fair Senator Jesse Helms (R. N.C.), and just new treaty." note that the study contains no inThe study contends that formation on the strategic military upward of 100,000 US soldiers, in- and economic importance of the cluding supporting air and naval Canal to the U.S. forces, would be required to defend The Helms group is now presthe Panama Canal against a White House to determine the sing concerted Cuban-backe- d if President Ford endorses the Panamanian military effort to take State Department findings and it over. whether he is ready to regard the Since there are approximately Panama Canal as just another U.S. 10,000 US military personnel in the base rather than sovereign U.S. Canal Zone, the largest part of the territory. 48 Under this State Department policy, the President would have to notify Congress of the dispatch of any additional troops to defend the strategic waterway should they become necessary in case of an enemy attack. To continue to support the defense action for more than 30 days, the President would then have to receive the approval of Congress or he would be forced by the War Powers Act to terminate the operation. This new policy" of the State Department under Secretary Kissinger would end the long established U.S. policy of regarding the defense of the Panama Canal as the same as other U.S. territories and states. The old policy was considered absolutely necessary by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the NEW ALL AMERICAN MILL A QUALITY MILL AT A PRICE YOU CAR AFFORD willing Exchange fairness being a state of affairs that is presupposed in the assumption. Everyone, according to any moral code I would respect, is entitled to fairness in the sense of no special privilege to anyone and open opportunity for all; no one is entitled to what is implied by a fair price, a fair wage, a fair salary, a fair rent, or a fair profit. In market terms, one is entitled to what others will offer in willing exchange. 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