26
PARTISAN REVIEW
those informal economies - doubtless precarious but free - that are in
some way the beginnings of an authentic popular capitalism.
To put an end to mercantile practices is a moral and realistic exi–
gency, as is rectifYing the so-called social and economic "reforms" that
nationalized businesses, collectivized land, and enthroned state interven–
tion in the economy. Mercantilism, collectivism, and statism are different
expressions of the same phenomenon that smothers individual initiative,
makes the bureaucrat and not the businessman or laborer the protagonist
of a productive life, stimulates inefficiency and immorality, legitimizes
discrimination and privilege, and sooner or later brings about the dete–
rioration and dissipation of freedom. To establish a free economy, to put
an end to monopolies and guarantee access for everyone to the market–
place, where people can compete within the framework of clear, simple,
and fair laws, doesn't weaken states. It strengthens them, since it confers
upon them the authority and credibility they lack today; states are big,
but they are weak and impotent when it comes to providing the basic
services one expects from them: health, security, justice, education, a
minimal infrastructure . To refuse the state the right to intervene as a
producer, effectively fulfilling its role as arbiter and promoter of eco–
nomic life, does not excuse the state from its essential responsibilities. For
example, the state has the responsibility to work tirelessly to keep the
marketplace free of the interference and distortions that reduce efficiency
and generate abuse; to perfect without let-up the administration of jus–
tice, because without a clean, strong, and universal judicial system, to
which everyone may apply in defense of their rights, there cannot be a
functioning economy; and also, perhaps most of all, to help and
encourage the spread of private ownership among those who need it.
Private ownership is not theft, as Proudhon believed, but the sustenance
and visible sign ofliberty. A liberal state is inconceivable without a policy
of support for the destitute and vulnerable, those who because of age,
nationality, or misfortune are not in a position to take care of
themselves, those who would be crushed and blotted out if exposed to
the strict laws of the marketplace. When and where would Adam Smith
and the other classic thinkers propose indifference to the weak by the
state? Certainly, it is the liberal democracies that have the most advanced
systems of protection for the elderly, children, the best unemployment,
illness, and work-related accident insurance.
There is a realm, above all, where the liberal state has the obliga–
tion to take initiative and enlarge itself, investing resources and inciting
everyone to action and participation: the cultural. To make
all
cultural
good accessible to everyone, to promote curiosity, interest, and enjoy–
ment in what the human imagination and artistic spirit invent to coun-
