Foreword
It has been 37 years since I met Dr. David Wood when we both attended a lecture series on the societal problems arising out of the conflicting desires of people for both freedom and security.
The author of that lecture series was Andrew J. Galambos. Professor Galambos posed the issue succinctly as follows: The demand for the state to provide security has been met universally by a supply of state coercion limiting human freedom.
Dave’s first book, Who Will Take Care of Me When I Am Sick? (2001), examined this subject within the context of health care, his chosen profession, where as a physician he witnessed first hand the degradation of the noble profession of medicine. Dave wrote that book to illustrate the deterioration of medical care when the needs of patients and the services of physicians are subordinated to the requirements of so-called “third party payers”– insurance companies and state agencies—whose primary activities and objectives are “administering” health care and controlling its cost, rather than allowing patients and physicians the freedom to contract freely with each other.
In this new book Dave examines a broader topic in the same vein; how and why it is that in the freest country that ever was, the United States of America, the trend has swung so decisively from an emphasis on liberty to an emphasis on security, with a concomitant reduction in the liberty of all.
To this study Dave brings a wealth of knowledge, derived from long and diligent study of the subject of his new book, as well as extensive travel in Europe and elsewhere over the past 50 years.
During a long stay in Germany in his college years Dave became fluent in German and also witnessed the leftover devastation wrought there by World War II.
Later, as a specialist in plastic surgery, Dave regularly attended many medical conferences throughout the world, but especially in Europe. He made close European friends in his profession, including a fellow plastic surgeon who was a citizen of Poland.
Under the Polish communist system, as elsewhere behind the “Iron Curtain,” physicians were all state employees who were paid little more than unskilled laborers. This eminent Polish plastic surgeon made far less from his professional activities than he and his wife earned by raising tomatoes in a greenhouse, as small-scale, entrepreneurial farming was one of the few free market activities grudgingly allowed to individuals under Polish communism.
When each of his two sons graduated from high school, Dave took the young man to Europe to visit his European physician colleagues and their families, but also to show his sons first hand the stark contrast between life under communism and life in the West. The contrast between East and West Germany was especially dramatic. This divided country with a common heritage and ethnic identity differed as night and day, with poverty, scarcity of consumer goods and a repressive police state in the east. But as soon as father and son drove across the border into West Germany they found prosperity, a wealth of consumer goods readily available, and a free and open society. It was like seeing a motion picture in dreary black and white that suddenly comes to life in brilliant color.
Dave found this remarkable. He described in fascinating detail his visits behind the Iron Curtain and the conversations he had with his colleagues there who felt safe in talking with their trusted American friend about conditions of life under communist rule.
Two examples illustrate the wealth of knowledge Dave gained by his first-hand investigation of conditions behind the Iron Curtain.
Dave asked a young man who was in the Polish army reserves whether he would obey orders to fight in case of the outbreak of war between the communist countries and the NATO allies. The young man said that he would, but that the Russians so mistrusted the loyalty of the Poles that they allowed the Polish army only enough bullets for one day of combat! When asked if he would fight the Russians to liberate Poland, the young man exclaimed, “gladly!” On another occasion, at a dinner party, glasses of vodka were hoisted to toast their American friend, but the Poles’ second toast was to President Reagan, because the Poles revered him for his stalwart opposition to Communist rule of their country and his denunciation of the Soviet Union as an “Evil Empire.” This was a characterization which the Poles most heartily endorsed as they felt themselves to be subjects of a harsh tyranny centered in Moscow.
The sub-title of this book is What We All Must Know about True Capitalism and Creeping Socialism. This sub-title is our entrée into an informed discussion of the virtues and values of freedom and free enterprise. It is the thesis of the book that it is our relative freedom and the system of free enterprise (“Capitalism”) that transformed America from a small, impoverished backward country to the world’s most powerful nation and the leader of the free world in just 140 years, from 1776 to 1917, when America rescued Europe from the brutal stalemate of World War I.
In a thorough and logical presentation, Dave explains the sources of America’s freedom and prosperity in contrast to the basis and philosophy of an altogether different system, Socialism. He describes the spread of the socialist ideology and its disastrous consequences in a variety of contexts including small-scale and shortlived voluntary socialist experiments, entire countries adopting socialism under a system of parliamentary democracy, and those most unfortunate countries taken over by communist totalitarian rule.
Finally, and most importantly to his fellow Americans, Dave examines the disastrous effects of so-called “Creeping Socialism” whereby socialist policies are gradually undermining the freedom and prosperity that have been built up in America since the founding of our country on principles of freedom. This book is well worth reading by anyone who hopes for a free and prosperous future for America.
Frederic G. Marks