FREEDOM MEANS FREEDOM AND PLANNING MEANS PLANNING
LERNER, ABBA P.
Freedom Means Freedom AND Planning Means Planning By Abba P. Lerner IN" hit astonishing article "Freedom Means Planning" (The New Leader, Jan. 4, 1947), Professor Clarence E. Ayres begins by...
...He declares that the protagonists of free enteiprize ate practitioners of magic rather than of science...
...Having thus elevated planning from a means of social organization—which would have to be tested by jrhether it would bring slavery or freedom—to an end Jn itself (which must be prized independently of what It will bring), Professor Ayres apparently began to feel uncomfortable...
...The real danger comes from the greater slavery of our time which decries concern for individual freedom as "bourgeois" and which would undoubtedly claim as a prize exhibition of "social concord" their servile State in which discord is absent by decree of tin- secret police and all its beautiful monolJthism...
...He declares that this reasonableness |s a serious mistake because "it is quite irrelevant to the issue between planning as such and free enterprise as such...
...especially for readers of The New Leader, is the attempt to redefine freedom as "social concord...
...It would be a disservice to freedom and a service to totalitarianism to engender more confusion bv saving, as Professor Ayres does that ''freedom means social concord" or that freedom means planning...
...Nothing that any free enterprise philosopher has ever said throws any doubt on this proposition...
...Since it is possible only to prenent here a fragmentary resume of Professor Aydes' position, we suggest that reference he made to the original article, copies of which are available gratis for as long as the supply lasts...
...There is no such thing as 'natural' freedom...
...The present article, by Professor Abba P. Lerner, is an answer to the position taken by Ayres...
...Ip there is anything that requires more and not less emphasis in the present stage of historical development it is precisely the dignity and the freedom of the individual...
...Professor Lerner is a well-known economist, and is the author of "The Economics of Control...
...The brunt of l*rner'a thesis is conveyed in the title of his article: "Freedom Means Freedom and Planning Means Planning...
...And this remains so even if some theologians like to subscribe to the concept in their own jargon, and even if they try to claim that only they are fully consistent in supporting it...
...I do not think that in all this Professor Ayres is quite fair cither to the free enterprisers like Hayek or to their more reasonable opponents like Barbara (Wootton...
...In their determination to be reasonable, the defenders of planning have insisted on distinguishing between good planning and bad planning...
...But let us not confuse ourselves by mixing up our words...
...As the modern mind has learned to conceive it, freedom meant social concord...
...4, 1947), Professor Clarence E. Ayres begins by coming out against economists who are guilty of the reasonableness -of admitting that planning may be for serfdom as well jas for freedom...
...This is an emphasis on which Hayek and Wootton and I would completely ajiree, whatever differences we might have as to the manner in which free enterprise or planning or monopoly would operate to further it or to limit it...
...We know what has happened to the wind democracy in the phrases "people's democracy" in Eastern Europe and "Soviet Democracy" in llussia...
...For individual freedom and democracy and progress and peace and most of the important things that liberals think good, are not now seriously thieulened by imperialistic Christians or by llilaire Belloc...
...In coming issues, we shall present additional articles on this subject by many well-known authorities in the fields of economics, social psychology, and political science...
...I would even go so far as to say that some measure of planning is necessary for the maximization of freedom...
...But it is serious...
...and even if we find among them such reactionary anti-Semites as llilaire Belloc...
...Freedom does not mean planning and planning does not mean freedom...
...Freedom is a wind 'which still has some of its English meaning...
...It may be because jsf this uneasiness that he resorts to the well-proved tactic of accusing somebody else of his own crime...
...and his humility jj» surrendering all interest in the freedom of the ¦¦dividual to those theological imperialists who claim IJBst only the members of their religious sect rati really truly be concerned for the freedom and the dignity V* the individual...
...Jhil even this is not the worst, for the kidnappers Wp** all are themselves interested in the freedom of BP Individual...
...Others phrases and concepts have been captured and prostituted by the totalitarian and their dupes...
...For to declare that the propriety pf an activity is independent of uhat it might lead to is to evade that subjection to critical test nhich is what distinguishes science from dogma...
...As a thousand better men than 1 have pointed out, no human being is free (or can even exist) in isolation...
...j Professor Ayres claims that concern for the freedom m the individual is derived from and rests upon thco.logical beliefs or even animistic superstitions in a jpure soul coming down from heaven ready-made with #11 its diameter and desires and cultural trails ll>: •ays that concern for the freedom of the individual as % primary social objective betrays an ignorance or ,i 'denial of the social conditioning of the indii idu.-il...
...The \eui Leader, in view of the centra) importance of the issues of freedom and planning for our time, invites comment on both points of view...
...Wnat Is much more serious...
...The philosophers of free enterprise, one and all, are talking about something else which has no more bearing on the ideas and efforts of economic planning than magic has on the science of medicine...
...Social concord may come about by the maximization of freedom, but it fnay also come about by the suppression of dissent...
...REBUTTAL In The New header of January 4, we publishes an article hgr Professor C. E. Ayres ef the University of Texas which baa aroused a treat deal of eoatsaeat both are ami contra...
...Professor Ayres would stand pasW^ly by, if notartively aid and abet, in this kidnap., pBg of the concept of individual freedom and its Vtatoming as respecting the inviolability of an immortal soul...
...It isn't a fatal mistake, sines H can and, I think, will be corrected...
...ih'u ignorance or denial is attributed to all the rlas.-iBal economists who stress the freedom of the individual and the primacy of the objective of satisfyinj...
...Tha following excerpts indicate in part Ayres* thesis in Us article, "Freedom Means PlannJaf...
...He claims that they do not try to uphold their cause by objective evidence but derive their propositions from « metaphysical postulate that government interference Jvtth private enterprise is wicked in its essential nature so that it is bad whatever might be its results for freedom or welfare or anything else...
...That can help only the enemies of freedom who profit by confusion...
...but in doing so they hsve missed the point that is reslly at issue between planning and what is euphemistically called 'free enterprise.' "Socially conceived, freedom is an aspect of social organization...
...y • • » "kidnapping of the Concept of Freedom FIND it difficult to allocate my admiration between "professor Ayres' arrogance and his humility - bis arjrogsnec in declaring all classical economists to be Vfnorflut of the fact that individual* are horn into the prorld as babies and are shaped by it...
...Planning will be of great importance in increasing freedom if we are careful to use it for that purpose and not for the opposite...
...lis wants...
...If that is what Professor Ayres means I have no quarrel with the content of this thought...
...Freedom means freedom and planning means planning...
...Abba P. Lerner In Ihe next issue we shall continue the discussion of this important subject by printing s reply by Professor Ayres...
...lm defending themselves sfatast the enslaughts of the free enterprisers, the advocates of economic planning have been making a mistake...
...I would only quarrel with his prospensity to quarrel with other, and especially classical economists, and with his choice of a formulation which is extremely dangerous at the present time...
...It is of course possible to mean by "social concord" nothing more than that state of social organization in which individual freedom is given the greatest scope, the freedom of each individual being limited only as much as is necessary to protect the equal freedom of the other individuals...
...Hut this would not have moved me to come fo their aid...
...More important in Professor Aires* article is his attack on the emphasis by liberals on the 'freedom of the individual as an objective of social organization...
Vol. 30 • February 1947 • No. 5
