Writing Worth Reading
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Writing Worth Reading
‘I chose this book because it expressed best to me the moral underpinnings of free economics, if one starts from the premise that the highest value is the autonomy and dignity and freedom of the individual. Friedman, more than anyone, summarises why that value is best protected and promoted by property rights, by free economic voluntary exchange. The economic analysis is compelling, but you can find it in a lot of other places – what I like is the moral emphasis that runs through it.’
Hayek goes in two directions: one is the value of freedom in and of itself, and the other is freedom as instrumental in creating a dynamic economy. Two of your books are about freedom per se, including Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose. Friedman is one of the few authors who have made it on to multiple lists, so why Free to Choose as opposed to Capitalism and Freedom or A Monetary History of the United States? What is the role of Friedman in your thinking?
I could have flipped a coin and honestly, in my own mind, I wasn’t drawing the neatest of separations between these books. I think that Free to Choose probably is there because it expressed best to me the moral – I hate to say superiority – but the moral underpinnings of free economics, if one starts from the premise that the highest value is the autonomy and dignity and freedom of the individual. I thought it was Friedman who best summarised why that value is best protected and promoted by property rights, by free economic voluntary exchange. I suppose it’s there less for its economic analysis, which is very compelling to me but you can find it in a lot of other places, than for the moral emphasis that runs through it.
It’s a clear, simple, very readable statement of the value of freedom.
Exactly. Most people, I believe, would credit the book – and the preceding television shows maybe even more so – for conveying that profound insight to those of us who are not as brilliant as he.
The book was published in January 1980 concurrent with or just after the TV series you mentioned. This was right at the time the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary were about to start, and the Reagan campaign was just gearing up when this book came out. In some ways it becomes the political manifesto of an era.
Yes. It’s very telling.
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Mitch Daniels is Governor of Indiana. He was director of the Office of Management and Budget under President George W Bush, and former head of pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly. He is often spoken of as a possible 2012 Presidential contender.
That’s a good note to go on to Milton Friedman. Now why Free to Choose as opposed to Capitalism and Freedom or his Monetary History?
With Free to Choose, the title summarises it. He deals with vouchers in education and the whole idea of what we’re promoting. This goes back to the argument on the science stuff. We’re not for freedom because it brings economic growth. We’re not for freedom because it brings technology and improvements in standards of living. We’re for freedom because we’re for people being free. It also happens to be the case that a free people are going to be more financially and economically successful than an un-free people. But the goal is freedom, not that you’re allowed to have a little freedom because it brings more prosperity. That’s the New Economic Policy of Lenin: ‘We’re starving, so we are going to allow a little freedom to have stores operate and people grow food.’ Freedom is a tool that you let people have a little bit in order to get what you want – which is food for the cities. For us, freedom is the goal.
If I’m reading one book to sum up Norquistian philosophy or conservatism is Free To Choose that book?
Leave Us Alone is that book, the book I wrote.
Is the second-best book Free to Choose?
It’s a very good book, yes. It’s a book that deals with freedom in the utilitarian sense as in ‘freedom works’. It’s a refutation of the left’s promise that statism will get you X, Y and Z. I understand the importance of making that argument. The left says that we need to clean up our environment, therefore we have to have statism. We say, ‘Look, actually, freedom and property rights will get you a cleaner environment.’ The left says, ‘We have to have statism to get economic growth and create jobs.’ We say, ‘Actually, freedom does that.’ We must have the government to educate people? Actually, freedom does that. So Friedman makes the case in a practical, pragmatic way. ‘Freedom works’ is, I think, the slogan that Dick Armey likes.
Just for the benefit of our readers who may not know, Freedom Works is the name of a group [www.freedomworks.org] chaired by Dick Armey – a former Republican member of Congress – which has been instrumental in organising or at least mobilising a Tea Party movement. Is that a fair description?
Yeah. It’s been a slogan of his for some time. The idea is freedom is not only a good in and of itself, which is what I believe. When you’re talking to someone else who hasn’t yet bought into the idea that you should be free just because you should be free, we say, ‘Well, tell me what you want. Freedom gets you there faster.’
So you can draw something of a line between Heinlein to Friedman to the current Tea Party kind of sentiments.
I would argue that the Tea Party people are a new addition to the people sitting around the conservative table. Everybody is at the table because, on the issue that moves their vote, they want to be left alone. Taxpayers: ‘Leave my money alone’; businessmen: ‘Leave my business alone’; home-schoolers: ‘Leave my kids alone’; people of faith: ‘Leave my religion alone’; and gun owners: ‘Leave my guns alone.’ And the Tea Party people have this sense that all this spending is going to lead to a threat to their standard of living and their ability to function in a free society. Which is a fairly sophisticated, two-step analysis. The others say, don’t pass a law to steal my guns because then you would steal my guns, don’t raise taxes to take my money, don’t take away my ability to educate my kids, etc. The Tea Party people say, don’t spend too much because it leads to inflation and taxes and statism and crowding out of my decisions and my ability to function in life. So it’s a more sophisticated group.
So when you hear liberals denounce the Tea Party movement as a bunch of know-nothings, you’d argue to the contrary – there’s a lot of iceberg under the water there.
Yes – it’s a self-defence group. It’s people who are worried about people doing things to them. The best news for the conservative movement is that the President refers to them as tea-baggers – in a deliberate effort to be slimy and disgusting and mean. So that’s cheerful. It helps when the other team is stupid.
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Grover Norquist is founder and head of Americans for Tax Reform, an anti-tax group, and author of Leave Us Alone. He is also a leading conservative strategist. Since 1993 he has convened and run the Wednesday Meeting, a weekly gathering of conservative activists, politicians, and group leaders.
