May 6, 2003
HOW THE FREE MARKET CIVILIZES MAN
Prehistoric Images Threatened by Fungi (Benjamin Ivry, OpinionJournal, 5/6/2003)Cave paintings ... in Lascaux, near Montignac in the Dordogne region of France, are among the most celebrated and admired of their kind. Dating back some 17,000 years, they feature over 1,500 pictures of animals, many of unique beauty and dynamism....
[T]he paintings were freshly preserved in vivid yellows, reds, and blacks. But in its April issue, the respected French science magazine La Recherche sounded an alarm, announcing that thanks to bureaucratic incompetence a good part of Lascaux may be permanently destroyed....
In a story headlined "Lascaux, the big mess," it reported that the site has been suffering devastating damage from a reinfestation of fungi and bacteria for almost two years--since September 2001. One hundred fifty of the world-famous paintings have developed mold. Teams of scientists have managed to control its spread, but not eliminate it. This time the culprit isn't throngs of tourists but French bureaucratic waffling over administrative responsibilities.
"No fewer than four people divide up various aspects of managing Lascaux," La Recherche explains.
These cave paintings survived 17,000 years of neglect in superb condition, but are being destroyed by 50 years of French care.
It's no surprise that the troubles are blamed on the inability of four Frenchmen -- four! -- to cooperate. The French are famously unable to cooperate. That is why, whenever they face a social task, they clamor for the appointment of a dictator to tell everyone what to do.
The French have lived for more than four hundred years under powerful centralized governments that permitted no significant voluntary associations to rise up. Under this authority, their culture has been powerfully shaped. The French have not learned how to cooperate with one another. Freedom frightens the French because they know that, were it instituted in France, there would be no end of conflict and screw-ups.
On the other hand, the experience of living in freedom trains people in the cooperative virtues. Francis Fukuyama has made his name as a herald of this phenomenon -- for instance, in The Illusion of Exceptionalism (Journal of Democracy 8, 3 (1997) 146-149):
A growing body of empirical data reinforces the correlation posited decades ago by Seymour Martin Lipset between democracy and development. The work of Adam Przeworski and his colleagues, published last year in the Journal of Democracy, contains the striking conclusion that above a level of about $6,000 in per-capita GDP annually (in 1992 purchasing-power-parity U.S. dollars), there is not a single case of a democracy reverting to authoritarian rule. As Przeworski himself argues, economic development is neither necessary nor sufficient to bring about democratic transitions, since they occur with roughly equal frequency at all levels of per-capita GDP, but industrialization and wealth certainly are helpful in maintaining democracy.
Industrialization facilitates democracy for a number of reasons. Most important, a modern industrial economy creates a complex division of labor that in turn lays the basis for civil society.... The development of a vigorous private sector is important to the development of a strong civil society, as firms provide a locus of social identity and serve to socialize people in certain cooperative habits.
John Stuart Mill was right: "The economical benefits of commerce are surpassed in importance by those of its effects which are intellectual and moral." Until the French liberate their commerce, they will continue to suffer from an intellectual and moral deficit.
We must strive to spread freedom -- especially economic freedom -- around the world. It is heartening that the spread of freedom is now a key part of the country's national security strategy. Thank you, President Bush.