John Steward of Jesus
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Individual responsibility

September 4, 1980

The managed (controlled) society removes from the individual the control of his life, and therefore the responsibility for it. The individual can no longer be credited with his achievements, nor blamed for his failures.

If one found a man suffering economically in a managed society and asked a neighbor why the man was suffering, the answer would likely he that some government manager or agency had mismanaged the economy--the corn crop, the gas allocations, the tractor factory, etc. If one finds a man suffering economically in a free society and asks a neighbor the reason, the answer will sometimes be that the suffering man is lazy, doesn't know how to work, does poor work, is dishonest, etc. This recognition of individual responsibility is absent in managed societies. Thus every individual has a scapegoat within the system. Bitterness and envy can only grow until the system consumes itself.

Bias against individual responsibility is the politician’s heaven, because all of us want to believe that we are not responsible for our own problems, and will vote for the man who mirrors these thoughts of ours.

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