Tim Carney recently highlighted how Iowaโs important early role in the Republican primaries has produced โa gravitational pull to panderโ on the Renewable Fuel Standard. Its ethanol mandate is โan indefensible subsidyโ to Iowans from othersโ transportation and grocery budgets for, at best, highly questionable environmental benefits.
Carney cited examples of cognitive dissonance, such as between Chris Christieโs โI want the free enterprise system,โ and โwe should enforce the Renewable Fuel Standard,โ and similarly between Carly Fiorinaโs criticism that โgovernment favors โฆ the big, the powerful and the well connected,โ and โI support the Renewable Fuel Standard as it currently stands.โ
How do candidates try to square the circle on such contradictions? Fiorina would let RFS expire in 2022 when the current law sunsets. Jeb Bushโs โWe need to phase that out over the long haulโ echoes her position. Marco Rubio said he would not have voted for RFS, โbut it is now existing law and I think it would be unfair to simply yank it away from people that have made investments based on its existence.โ In each case, they claim principled opposition without requiring them to actually do anything about it, even if elected. The ethanol profiteers attacks on Ted Cruz, for promising to end RFS during his first term, and the warmth they felt for Donald Trumpโs โI love it. Iโm for itโ reveals why.
Injustices Should be Removed Immediately, Not Gradually
But how convincing is the โIโm not really pandering because itโs unfair to change RFS midstreamโ defense for candidates professing inert opposition? In โother things equalโ circumstances, there is clearly an argument for following through on commitments. But other things are not equal with the ethanol mandate. It involvescontinuing to impose harm on those forced to pick up the tab, an ongoing assault that eliminating RFS would stop. Justifying continuing it on the basis of unfairness would require that maintaining the status quo was more important than stopping government from imposing harm on those its most basic duty is to protect. Carney characterized it as, โWeโve been robbing from Peter to pay Paul, and Paulโs taken out a mortgage based on income from the theft. You donโt want Paul to lose his house, do you?โ
If an injustice has been done, should it be maintained or eliminated? The well-worn adage that โjustice delayed is justice deniedโ would seem to make the answer clear. For politicians to endorse free markets, while the government they are part of abuses its own citizens to benefit buyers of political favoritism, then drag their feet forever against rectifying the abuse, fails the hypocrisy test.
Leonard Read, founder of the Foundation for Economic Education, long ago considered governmentโs eagerness to violate rather than enforce citizensโ property rights, but then treat the benefits it transferred to others as inviolable property rights. We could profit from his insights in โCauses of Authoritarianism,โ from his 1958 Why Not Try Freedom? In it he addressed what he called the fallacy that โAuthoritarianism Should Be Removed Gradually.โ
If an act is morally wrong or economically unsound, the quicker it is abolished the better.
Many people seem to hold the view that the beneficiary of special privilege acquires a vested interest in his unique position and should not be deprived of it abruptly. They give little thought to the many persons from whom the plunder has been taken.
[One] privileged โฆ [another] deprived of the fruits of his own labor. Yet, when it comes to the matter of restoring justice, most people will think of the disadvantages suddenly falling upon [the first] rather than the accrued damage done to [the second].
Imagine an habitual and successful thief. For years he has been robbing everybody in the community without their knowledge. โฆ Upon discovering his fraud, should his robbery be diminished gradually or should justice be restored to the community at once? The answer appears too obvious to deserve further comment.
People, when contemplating the removal of authoritarianism, seem to fear that a sudden restoration of justice would too severely disrupt the economy. The fear is groundless.
The fallacy of the theory of gradualism can be illustrated thus: A big, burly ruffian has me on my back, holding me down. My friends, observing my sad plight, agree that the ruffian must be removed. But, believing in the theory of gradualism, they contend that the ruffian must be removed gradually. They fail to see that the only result of the ruffianโs removal would be my going to work suddenly!
There is nothing to fear by any nation of people in the removal of restrictions to creative and productive effort except the release of creative and productive effort. And why should they fear that which they so ardently desire?
Government frequently acts as an agent of theft through the policies it imposes, then treats the prospect of restoring justice as unjust. But this rhetorical inversion of justice as injustice only works if we similarly invert the meanings of logic and illogic. It cannot advance Americansโ shared interests. As Leonard Read argued, every policy reflecting that flawed approach, such as RFS, should be ended as soon as possible. And no one who ducks the issue, disguising their unwillingness to act by supporting phase-outs that are never going to happen, is worthy of Americansโ trust to represent them rather than special interests.
This article appeared at Mises.com at: ย https://mises.org/library/end-injustices-now-not-later