Dr. Roche is Assistant Professor of History and Philosophy at the Colorado School of Mines.
Once, long ago, the most powerful man in the world was Alexander the Great. His dominions stretched across the entire civilized world of his time and penetrated the East as far as India. Bureaucrats and politicians jumped at the slightest expression of his whims. Cities were planned and built to his specifications. Even that most nebulous substance, "culture," was defined and elaborated on the Alexandrian model.
The story is told that once, while Alexander and his entourage were journeying from one part of the empire to another, one of his advisers rushed up to the most powerful man on earth and announced breathlessly, "Sire, just beyond the next hill is one of the greatest philosophers of your empire."
"Quick, take me to this man," commanded Alexander, for "cultural" attainment of all sorts was an interest upon which the ruler especially prided himself. Alexander and his chief ministers hurried over the hill to discover the philosopher lying upon his back in the green, soft grass, gazing at the clouds, and basking in the sun while he apparently pondered some deep question.
"I am Alexander, ruler of the world," the sovereign began. "Name your wish and it shall be granted, for I am a patron of culture and will gladly underwrite any project which you select."
As befitted a man of his calling, the philosopher thought a moment before replying to such a grand offer, then politely responded, "You may do one thing for me, your highness; please step aside — you are standing between me and the sun." Alexander’s reply is not recorded, but it can be assumed that the ruler returned to affairs of state and the philosopher returned to sunning himself amid the consideration of his own thoughts.
In an age when government promises "security" and the satisfaction of every human want, with such assurance of its capacity for beneficence that its agents freely use a growing amount of force to coerce the lucky citizenry into acceptance of this state of affairs, we might wonder what would have happened to the Alexandrian philosopher had he refused the tender, loving care of the Great Society or the communist state in 1966 A.D. instead of refusing Alexander’s offer in 326 B.C. In the more frankly coercive, collective regime of the communist state, our philosopher friend probably would have been shot as an "enemy of the people." In the Great Society, sharing many of the goals of other collectivisms but — so far at least — being a little more reticent in the application of force to achieve those goals, the philosopher merely would have been termed "reactionary" and "antisocial." Had he persisted in his "selfish attitudes," he would have been branded with the ultimate crime, that of being "against progress," i.e., not agreeing with the dominant herd instinct of the age.
Whatever might have happened to our friend had he lived in our times, and however the bureaucrat of collective welfare and coerced beneficence might view such heresy, we can rest assured that the philosopher would have agreed with Samuel Johnson. It is indeed "easier to be beneficent than to be just." In fact, the collectivist in the final analysis finds it impossible to be either beneficent or just. The collective interference with the individual, institutional, private sector of society that characterizes our age is a perfect example of the misplaced, artificial, and coerced type of beneficence that renders justice unattainable within such a system.
The Nature of Justice
Justice in the practical, working sense, after all, is really society’s guarantee to the individual that a definite set of rules and a definite right and wrong are recognized as governing the conduct of that society’s membership. If justice is to prevail, the rules must be universally applicable, giving equal treatment and consistent treatment to any citizen at any time.
Justice for the individual exists only where a fixed value system of right and wrong exists and where the judgments made concerning whether an act is right or wrong are consistent and therefore predictable. The collective ethic cannot provide such conditions. Collective morality is not fixed, but relative. Right and wrong are what the state says they are at the moment. The individual citizen has neither a fixed value system nor a predictable reaction from his society by which to guide his actions.
Lenin’s "all tactics are Bolshevik tactics" expresses the communist version of the collectivist standard of justice quite clearly. Neither fixed standards nor predictability stand in the way of whatever the state might wish to do. In the Western world’s less coercive version of collectivism, many of the same relative standards prevail. The Supreme Court of the United States is making very clear, indeed, its lack of concern for precedent. What has been increasingly substituted is what might be called, "sociological jurisprudence." Law, and therefore justice, are no longer to be determined according to fixed principle, but according to what the current membership of the court views as the proper "social" goals. For another example drawn from contemporary American government, what defense does the individual citizen have against the dictates of various bureaus exercising executive power over his life? These bureaucrats are not elected by the people, not mentioned in the Constitution, yet wield great influence in interpretation and enforcement of law. These men virtually make the law in the process of executing blank legislative checks from Congress. Surely such a system provides neither fixed values nor predictability. Justice for the individual in the collective ethic is indeed "far to seek."
Material Welfare
The student of the free market might well also add that any genuine material benefit to society or to its individual members also goes out the window when justice departs. This is true because the man denied justice is in effect being denied a measure of his freedom. And much of the reason for the material failure of the collective ethic can be exposed in a short question: who produces more, the slave or the free man?
It would be hard to imagine a more basic form of material welfare than the food a society produces for itself. From the very beginning of its regime, the Soviet planned economy in Russia has placed great emphasis upon collective agriculture. Yet, although great amounts of power — virtually unlimited by morality or any humane considerations—have been brought to bear throughout a long and bloody chapter of the collective experiment, success has remained beyond the reach of the planned economy. As one wag expressed it, 1966 can be predicted to produce the Soviet Union’s forty-ninth annual crop failure since 1917, due, according to the Soviet news agency, to "natural causes."
Meanwhile, our planners in the United States have been devoting their efforts to the curtailment of the agricultural production stemming from our relatively free market system. The planners have met with as little success on this side of the world. In fact, we find the American planners who would curtail production faced with such a surplus that they are able to help in feeding the Russian society whose planning to increase production has resulted in starvation conditions. Surely such a total disaster for "planning" would be at least an embarrassment if not a lesson to most men; but unwillingness or inability to learn from experience would seem to be a basic character trait of the modern collectivist.
In societies lacking freedom, neither material well-being nor justice has historically proven possible of attainment. The collective experiments of our age have made abundantly clear how hopelessly lost both prosperity and justice become when freedom is curtailed. Lack of freedom, then, in the end makes both genuine beneficence and justice casualties of the planned society, no matter how "well-intended" the planners may be.
The modern victim of such a double loss might well begin the process of reclaiming his freedom and well-being by following the example of the Alexandrian philosopher. He knew very well what the state could do for him and what the state could do to him; and he told the all-powerful state that its self-proclaimed beneficence was not required; that what was required was not more interference, but less; that it should stand aside and stop blocking the sun. Should modern man follow this example, the warming rays of self-reliance and human dignity thus generated could easily again provide the greatest of boons to man, leaving the individual free to pursue his own well-being and his own moral growth.