The Common Good, Property, Liberty - united they stand, divided we fall

The Common Good, Property, Liberty - united they stand, divided we fall

Part 7 of 22, from Exiting the Wizard's Circle of Economics

Interestingly enough, despite my xTweeters assertions that 'the common good' justifies unjustly taking from those who successfully earn wealth in order to somehow enhance 'liberty for all', our Founders made it very clear that their understanding of Liberty and their understanding of a Republic, were tightly bound up with upholding and defending every individual citizen's property rights.

I put a few quotations together to clarify the importance of this in a post several years ago, especially for those whose thoughts tend to run along the lines of "It's only property!", to show them the actual meaning of what it is that they're thinking of as being for 'the common good'. These quotations come from three different Founding Fathers of two very different systems, John Adams, James Madison & Karl Marx:

"Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist."
John Adams, 'Discourses on Davila', following his 'A Defense of the Constitutions of the Governments of the United States of America'

"...Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own...."
James Madison, 'Property', 29 Mar. 1792

"In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property."
Karl Marx, 'Communist Manifesto'

The point being that the one principle that the Founders of both America and of modern Communism understood and agreed upon, was that private property was indispensable to securing your individual rights under a government of limited powers, and that when private property is abolished, the doors are thrown wide open to a government of total and unlimited power over its people.

Ben Franklin had further expressed that understanding as early as 1772, in one of his 'Silence Dogood' essays,, and America could not have been born if there hadn't been a sizable number of people who understood this as well,

"Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as publick Liberty, without Freedom of Speech; which is the Right of every Man, as far as by it, he does not hurt or controul the Right of another: And this is the only Check it ought to suffer, and the only Bounds it ought to know.

"This sacred Privilege is so essential to free Governments, that the Security of Property, and the Freedom of Speech always go together; and in those wretched Countries where a Man cannot call his Tongue his own, he can scarce call any Thing else his own."

In that brief passage, Franklin expressed a conceptual integration of the ideas of freedom of speech, property, wisdom, and liberty, which shows Property to be infinitely more than merely a claim to a material possession, and which "...where a Man cannot call his Tongue his own..." is a marvelous illustration of having Property IN speech (read Madison's essay!), and in the very spirit of his life.

Now with that in mind, how do you suppose an 'Economic' proposal to deprive 'rentiers' (AKA: people) of that property which is rightfully theirs, could somehow fit in with an understanding of both liberty and the concept of the 'common good', which our laws are based upon, and are in service to?

Here are just a few questions that such answers deter people from asking:

• Where does what they propose to distribute, re-distribute, or 'more fairly' distribute, come from?
• Where does the authority and power which they advise the taking of 'it' with, come from?
• How do they decide who 'it' should be distributed to?
• And who it should not go to? In what way is this 'more fair' distribution, fair?
• What, beyond their assertion that it would be 'good' to give them that power to 'help you' with, could that be either 'helpful', 'fair', or 'good'?

Why, I wonder, does thinking of such questions remind me of the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: "I'm from the government and I'm here to help"?

One big truth we need to understand is that 'Economic Thinking' equivocates upon two very different meanings of 'good', when speaking of 'fairness' or of a 'common good', and it counts upon the newer sense being able to borrow some 'respectability' from the older sense, so as to garner approval of a new policy they've labeled as 'good'.

To see what these two senses of 'good' are, is not difficult to do, though the traditional sense may require more than one web search to find (or looking in an old printed dictionary), with the result being that the older definition will be something along the lines of: "Morally excellent, Virtuous, Righteous, Pious", and the newer sense will be some variant of 'pleasant', 'useful' and 'acceptable'.

The traditional view reflects a frame of mind that takes the existence of reality and the importance of conforming to what is real and true, and right & wrong, seriously. That's an understanding that presumes that what is good is worthwhile and valuable because it is good, whether or not it also produces other immediately measurable material results.

The newer sense entails a quantitative approach that aims at calculating a cost/benefit ratio of overall 'greater good'ness, as justification for incurring whatever 'negatives' that other groups (rentiers, citizens, biological women, etc.,) might experience, so that 'good' is measured as what outweighs, and so justifies, doing 'bad' to some (rentiers, people, etc.), to balance the scales.

Only when 'good' is used in the quantitative (collective) sense, can 'Economic Thinking' function fully in its role as the 'practical' hand of social engineering, which requires 'economic thinkers' (and all who think through it) to use the moderns' form of 'epistemology' to justify ignoring, subverting, and excluding, traditional concerns of metaphysics, causality, and ethics, from our conscious consideration.

Consequently what 'economic thinkers' mean by the word 'good' cannot be understood to reflect the quality of Good, and what they mean by a 'common good' can be neither common, nor good, but only a quantitative concern for what is useful (to their economy).

The questions that the economic answer is intended to abort, are those that would lead you to understand the uncomfortable fact that 'Economics' can only be taken seriously(!), after traditional philosophical principles have been put safely out of your mind, so as to enable reducing all relevant (!) considerations to quantitative calculations (GDP, CPI, etc.,).

Only after that's done, can they engage in the necessarily arbitrary and utilitarian calculations of n amounts of pleasure, divided amongst x quantities of people, without fear of some traditionalist raising questions about what's right and wrong, or infringing upon individual rights, etc., which are of course the goods we all can and should have in common, which 'Economic Thinking' is designed to put safely out of the common mind.