Larry Reed's 3 Lessons of Freedom We Are In Danger of Forgetting

Larry Reed has a long history of being a passionate and articulate spokesman for free market ideas and a society of free and responsible individuals.  He has fought being the Iron Curtain, and he established the leading state-level free market think tank in perhaps the most hostile state for free market ideas in the US -- Michigan.  The man is just a great intellectual warrior.  And I am proud to say he went to Grove City College, and studied with Dr. Hans Sennholz, as did I.

Larry took over FEE and has been putting his stamp on it.  In this Reason.TV interview, Larry discusses the 3 lessons of the freedom philosophy that we are in 2009 in danger of forgetting.  Roughly stated they are:

1. Government can provide you with absolutely nothing except that which it has first taken from somebody else.

2. A government big enough to give you want you want, is big enough to take everything you have.

3. A free people are not economically equal, and an economically equal people are not free.

That would be a pretty good start to an important list of principles we know that our current culture is forgetting.  There are other strictly economic issues that Larry touches upon in the interview as well --- in particular related to the challenge that the 2008-2009 financial crisis.

Check out the interview, attend FEE programs, read The Freeman, and if you are in a position to do support FEE with your contributions.  Since 1946, the Foundation for Economic Education has been a consistent voice in our society and an educational force in getting young people to understand the principles of the free society.

Comments

[Jayson Virissimo]

If value is subjective how does one go about discovering if any two people are "economically equal"?

[John Singleton]

Per revealed preference, if they traded "economic" situations.

[DG Lesvic]

Let's look at each of Mr Reed's lessons and try to anticipate how the Left would respond to them:

"1. Government can provide you with absolutely nothing except that which it has first taken from somebody else."

So what.

"2. A government big enough to give you want you want, is big enough to take everything you have."

And not big enough to give you what you need not big enough to survive.

"3. A free people are not economically equal, and an economically equal people are not free."

And an inordinately unequal people will not be free either.

The challenge of a free people is to find the middle ground upon which their freedom can live.

What we are most in danger of forgetting are our greatest teachers, Mises and Hayek, what to them was the greatest issue, redistribution, and the strongest possible argument against it, that, like any intervention in the market, it was completely counterproductive, not reducing but increasing inequality.

That is the lesson we can least afford to forget.

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I have my country – India – in my mind. Here we enjoy freedom of speech against the Prime Minister of India and the President of India and many at the top and not against Judiciary on certain issues. If you exercise your freedom of speech against any caste projected politician, or a regional party or a Cinema super star, you will lose your limbs. So here freedom of speech is not universal. But here we have freedom to enjoy wants, hunger and starvation and none interferes in it.