Checkpoint Charlie, the Cold War hot spot at the Berlin Wall

Journal archives

Freedom doesn’t get very good press in America these days. I suspect many more barrels of ink have been depleted over the recent “balloon boy” episode than the 20th anniversary of one of humanity’s greatest moments — the fall of the Berlin Wall, on Nov. 9, 1989.

Even America’s president, who thought it worthwhile to risk his time, taxpayer dollars and his office’s prestige on a fruitless trip to Copenhagen to promote corruption-plagued Chicago for the Olympics, has declined to join fellow leaders of the Free World in Berlin to mark the anniversary.

But the dismantling of the wall is an event that Americans of all party affiliations deserve to celebrate, given the blood and treasure they spent as the leading force in containing the vast evil of communism. Without the great sacrifices of Americans, this cancer would surely have killed many millions more. The most monstrous regimes of the 20th Century (along with Nazi Germany) were the communist dictatorships of the Soviet Union and China, who murdered tens of millions of their own people and sowed untold misery in the daily lives of their enslaved citizens.

Under pressure from the West, which projected strength and refused to crack, the Soviet Union eventually self-destructed, and millions of people were able to break the chains of slavery.

As Matt Welch writes in the November issue of Reason magazine: “In 1988, according to the global liberty watchdog Freedom House, just 36 percent of the world’s 167 independent countries were ‘free,’ 23 percent were ‘partly free,’ and 41 percent were ‘not free.’ By 2008, not only were there 26 additional countries (including such new ‘free’ entities as Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Slovenia), but the ratios had reversed: 46 percent were ‘free,’ 32 percent were ‘partly free,’ and just 22 percent were ‘not free.’ There were only 69 electoral democracies in 1989; by 2008 their ranks had swelled to 119.”

It was not just money and military might that turned the tide. It was that freedom, wherever it is tried, proves to be the system that brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people.

It may seem counter-intuitive that government planners vested with vast power cannot create a more just and flourishing society than one in which millions of individuals have the freedom to pursue selfish interests, but history makes that case.

America is the ultimate example. When it was founded, people used carts pulled by such animals as oxen, as they had for thousands of years. The ordered liberty and constraints on government devised by the founders ignited an incredible burst of innovation. Within 200 years, Americans had walked on the moon and lived in the richest, most powerful country that ever existed.

This was no fluke. The Founders discovered an amazing formula: When people have freedom to make choices (including mistakes) within the bounds of laws that protect the rights of all, they can achieve extraordinary things — among them, dramatically raising the living standards of all. When government unduly robs citizens of their motivation (i.e., the fruits of their labor), or tries to make all of the important decisions for them, tyranny, suffering and deprivation ensue.

“In the long fight between Karl Marx and [free-market enthusiast] Milton Friedman, even the democratic socialists of Europe had to admit that Friedman won in a landslide,” Mr. Welch argues.

European governments, he notes, are encouraging free markets as a way to preserve living standards. They have backed away from state control of industries. (Sweden’s Enterprise Minister Maud Olofsson, asked during the American auto-industry bailout about struggling Saab, declared, “The Swedish state is not prepared to own car factories.”) And, while totalitarians never cease trying to seize power in the name of the “people,” free-market capitalism remains the path to wealth, job creation, happiness and a rule of law strong enough to protect individuals from being crushed by the state.

This is not to say that government is the enemy, or that people should not work together through government for the benefit of all (including expanding health care). Endless fine-tuning is required, and no system of government will ever be perfect in this frighteningly imperfect world. But history argues that ordered liberty is unquestionably the best system yet devised.

Millions of people acting and choosing often prove “smarter” than government planners. They devise ways around difficulties that bureaucrats and politicians never would. The Founders, who were amazingly perceptive about human nature, somehow figured that out. It behooves all of us to better understand their ideas, and the wisdom of solving many problems by protecting the right of individuals to make choices.

The fall of the Berlin Wall, symbolizing the crumbling of faith in the justice and power of communism and the inborn aspiration of human beings for freedom, was a great moment for people everywhere. Nov. 9 — next Monday — is a day well worth celebrating.

Edward Achorn is The Journal’s deputy editorial-pages editor ( eachorn@projo.com).