Simple Truth #1
Freedom does not guarantee results
Freedom guarantees problems, but it does not cause them
Human problems are caused by human corruption
Tyranny removes all restrictions from human corruption
Human nature makes Utopia impossible
Liberty, even with all its problems, is still the best deal going
Freedom guarantees problems
It’s safe to say that most people would like to do away with poverty, disease, corruption1, racism, sexism, and a host of other such unpleasantries. But free societies will never be able to eliminate a single one of these because doing so would come at the expense of freedom.
For example, a society truly committed to ending poverty would have to abandon its commitment to liberty because when people are free, they are free to make choices that result in poverty. The only way to truly end poverty would be to take away a citizen’s right to make his own decisions. In short: we cannot eliminate poverty — or any other social problem — without eliminating liberty.
Similarly, free societies cannot guarantee such things as rates of home ownership or the racial composition of university classrooms. Achieving these results would require government to put its thumb on the scale in favor of some citizens and in opposition to others.
Whether measures like this are moral is debatable, but the fact that they’re tyrannical is not.
Liberty is not the cause of problems
Now, some may conclude that liberty should be eliminated if doing so would bring an end to society’s ailments. But the problem isn’t that we’re free, it’s that we’re corrupt, and this corruption often leads us to abuse our freedom to destructive ends.
Making people less free does not make them less corrupt for the same reason that prison does not make bad men good. All it does is restrict the ways in which their corruption can express itself.
Tyranny only makes things worse
That may sound like an acceptable compromise. After all, if we make the entire society into one big prison (i.e., a tyranny), that will have the effect of suppressing corruption nationwide. In practice, however, the opposite occurs.
When liberty descends into tyranny, the power that was previously distributed throughout the entire population is suddenly concentrated in very few hands. Leaders previously accountable to the people are now unrestricted, allowing them to indulge their corruption to breadths and depths never before possible.
When the people were free, they were able to resist these abuses. They could vote their leaders out of office, expose their corruption through media, hold protests, and, if necessary, take up arms. Under tyranny, however, the people are ripe for abuse as their ability to resist has been stripped from them.
So while freedom enables each of us to indulge our corruption to some extent, it also enables our fellow citizens to oppose and curtail our corruption. The result is a balance of power that prevents the kind of atrocities typical under tyrannical regimes.
There are no solutions
In the end, the corruption inherent in human nature makes utopian visions impossible. We will never be able to excise any form of corruption from within society because we cannot even excise it from within ourselves. In the words of Thomas Sowell:
There are no solutions; there are only trade-offs.
Liberty is simply the best deal available given the reality of human nature. It may not be able to guarantee particular outcomes, but it does guarantee who gets to determine the outcomes. Tyranny may come with more guarantees, but all of them are bad.
About “Simple Truths”
Many beliefs circulating through society are in some way wrong — logically, morally, and/or factually. Once one of these beliefs gains enough acceptance, it is regarded as a fact and no longer questioned. Other beliefs then build on top of that faulty foundation, and the cycle continues, rapidly metastasizing falsehood throughout the entire culture.
“Simple Truths” is a series designed to push back against commonly-held falsehoods by stating fundamental truths in (what I hope will be) a clear and concise manner. Since many false beliefs share a common flawed premise, my goal is to attack the premises rather than every last wrong-headed assertion. As an added bonus, this process may just uncover some of the flaws in my own thinking, thus making the world a better place (if imperceptibly so).
To be more specific: most people want to do away with other people’s corruption. Our own corruption is another matter.