OUR CREDOProgress Foundation’s credo is grounded in observable human experience. As such, it is not absolute but rather encompasses views that always will be subject to modification and must be regarded as tentative to some extent. Nevertheless, we believe that the human record to date provides strong warrant for a number of fundamental propositions. First and foremost, as enunciated in the philosophy of Progress Foundation’s founder E.C. Harwood, human progress and freedom are closely inter-linked. Without freedom of investigation, economic and social improvement is not possible. It is freedom that over the long run has the best chance of promoting open-mindedness, useful change and progress. In this spirit, Progress Foundation aims at further development and propagation of what - in a broad classical sense - are genuinely liberal ideas. Its credo rests on four pillars of a free and liberal order: i.e., Competition, Private Ownership, Responsible Self-Reliance and Social Responsibility. 1. CompetitionWhoever opts for a market-directed economy based on free enterprise, affirms competition too. Competition allows the possibility of selection, from freely selecting goods to choosing one’s job. In particular, competition between several suppliers and customers produces the kind of outstanding efficiency which forms the basis for the wealth of the industrialized world. Even the newly industrialized countries owe their economic progress not least to an increased orientation toward the principle of competition. We agree with Friedrich August von Hayek that competition’s most important function consists in conveying information. Competition is a process of discovery whereby knowledge dispersed throughout society is concentrated and rearranged, thus ensuring a continuous renewal. These beneficial effects of competition spread beyond product markets. Even competition between cultural institutions and political entities, including States, yields similar results. This is why we believe that competition is not a mere economic concept, but a basic principle shaping the coexistence of people.2. Private PropertyWhereas competition is a somewhat abstract concept, everyone knows what private ownership is and what it means. Privately owned property constitutes the fundament ensuring thrifty husbanding of scarce resources as well as the motivation for increasing the "value" of property. The gain in autonomy connected with the power to freely dispose of property is so important that a liberal society is almost inconceivable without the institution of private property. On the other hand, the voluntary decision regarding the usage made of owned goods is threatened by dangers coming from many sides. Not the least of these dangers is the State with its increasingly restrictive regulations and continuously rising tax burden. Among these taxes is the hidden tax of inflation, which in market-directed societies, rates among the most serious attacks on private property. Although its creeping nature often escapes detection, this trait precisely enhances its harmfulness. 3. Responsible Self-RelianceFreedom and responsible self-reliance have to form a pair, otherwise a free society would founder because of abuse and selfishness. This responsible behavior must be rooted in values beyond supply and demand. Since any human being will strongly react to incentives appealing to his personal interests, it is important to organize both economy and society in such a way that the sense of responsibility is aroused and strengthened. In respect of the community of mankind, the State plays a decisive role as bulwark of the law, guarantor of private property and of citizens’ political rights, defender of competition and site of collective endeavors. However, the State’s power and legitimation are derived from the individuals who form it. In terms of historical and methodological aspects as well of material logic, everything starts with these individuals, whose primary responsibility consist in providing for themselves and their kin. The individuals know best what is important to them and what necessities they need. That’s why the utmost skepticism is justified with respect to a paternalistic State which relieves its individual citizens from responsible self-reliance. 4. Social ResponsibilityA liberal conception of man does not exclude care for his family as well as for all other people to whom he feels attached – on the contrary, such care is expressly part of such a conception. Man is a gregarious social being committed to bartering and cooperating with others. Sociability and solidarity should not be decreed from above, but instead should grow naturally from below. Only voluntary solidarity may rightfully be considered as a moral virtue. Moreover, coercion usually entails a reduced disposition to solidarity. This is why the needy may meet with a worse fate in a paternalistic welfare state than they would in a community whose support given to the poor is based on the principle of voluntariness. In the latter case, the foremost principle governing the organization of social assistance consists in subsidiarity, according to which the collectivity only may intervene when individual help fails to materialize.
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