Ron Manners on his unusual path to libertarianism, creating more effective libertarian publications, and ways of fighting government bureaucracy

“When I was I think about sixteen, after high-school, I was working in my father's engineering business and I was unpacking some big crates that had come from America with some mining equipment. In those days there was no polyurethane, there was no bubble wrap to pack these things, to stop them moving. But in these crates were crumpled up magazines. And the magazines I remember clearly were called “The Freeman” magazine, the monthly magazine produced by this Foundation for Economic Education in New York. As a sixteen year old I smoothed those magazines out and I took them home and read them. I loved the talk of an individual responsibility, of a self sufficiency, and really it was the essence of entrepreneurship - the message of the free market.”

Part 2 of a 3 part interview with Ron Manners, the Chairman of Mannwest Group Australian based mining consultation, international serial entrepreneur and an Australia's mining legend. Ron is also a passionate libertarian activist who made great contributions to the libertarian movement in Australia and beyond. In 1975, Ron helped start and run Australia's first libertarian party. In 1997 he founded and is the acting chairman of the libertarian think tank by the name of Mannkal Economic Education Foundation (http://www.mannkal.org). Finally, he is the author of several books, one of which is "Heroic Misadventures" that highlights his lifetime of business ventures around the world and Australia's economic climate in the past forty years.

Transcript:

Jadranko Brkic, (Sloboda i Prosperitet TV):

Shifting gears towards libertarianism, tell us what was your light-bulb moment that got you into libertarianism?

Ron Manners:

I can remember actually. When I was I think about sixteen, after high-school, I was working in my father's engineering business and I was unpacking some big crates that had come from America with some mining equipment. In those days there was no polyurethane, there was no bubble wrap to pack these things, to stop them moving. But in these crates were crumpled up magazines. And the magazines I remember clearly were called “The Freeman” magazine, the monthly magazine produced by this Foundation for Economic Education in New York. As a sixteen year old I smoothed those magazines out and I took them home and read them. I loved the talk of an individual responsibility, of a self sufficiency, and really it was the essence of entrepreneurship - the message of the free market.

About two years later I got to be the editor of the local school of mines magazine, and I used some of that material. I sort of modified it, Australianized it and used it a bit, and was I in trouble! Because it was a highly labor unionized city in which I lived. People were really aggressively saying to me: “where did you get those ideas? They are all wrong. They will never work. You can't do it, you'll let your brother unionist people down...” you know.

So I wrote a letter to the president of the Foundation for Economic Education, Leonard E. Read. I said: “dear Mr. Read, I don't think your ideas are very good, they are getting me into trouble. Well, Mr. Read wrote back a lovely letter. He called me Mr. Manners, he didn't know I was 16, 18 at that time. He said: “actually our ideas are pretty good. They really stem back from Aristotle and they've been polished up ever since. And we are still polishing them up.” He said: “but what you should remember if you want to take a position on any matter, you have to put yourself into position of knowing more about it than any of your critics. And with that in mind, we've put you on our mailing list and here's a few books to start with, and if you ever have any questions just contact me and I'll give you as much information as I can.” That started a lifelong friendship with Leonard Read, right until his death at age 83. I visited him and I spent time with him. I always learned so much.

Following that, I used to write magazine articles hoping that they might be published in the Freeman magazine, but they never were. And he wrote to me one day and he said: “Dear Mr. Manners,” he said, “I enjoy reading your stuff but of course we can't publish it. So I thought I'd let you know that you must always remember that we only have a license to change ourselves. We don't have a license to change anyone else, all the world around us, it's for them. All we can do is bring an idea to the threshold of someone's consciousness. And then we back away. If they accept that idea, it's theirs, and it's theirs for life. But that's all we can do.” I thought about that and every time - I never got much published until that time. But every time I write something, I re-read it again after I've written it to send it away or let it to the editor, or magazine article, I read it again and say am I sticking with Leonard Read's rules. And I back off a little bit. I don't mind what people think and what conclusions they come to as long as I'm satisfied that they've got all the information they needed to make up their mind. And since I've taken his advice, everything I ever write gets published. It has made a big difference. Just being able to back off, I'm not worrying a bit what other people think, just take that idea to the threshold of their consciousness.

Jadranko Brkic:

Your libertarian activism actually started with those Freeman magazines and you writing in a local paper, that's actually where your activism sort of began.

Ron Manners:

It was interesting, out of that led me to me a lot of very interesting people in the free market, the libertarian economic world out there and then I found that they were all really linked together in some way. Leonard Read actually had introduced Ayn Rand to Ludwig von Mises, because he was introduced to Ayn Rand himself. And he said what a fine novelist she is, but she needs a bit of economic input. So he introduced her to Mises, they got to know each other. Who were the other people? The major player in this thing was John Hospers that was the first libertarian presidential candidate to run in the USA. He was a professor of philosophy, he actually wrote the textbook that I studied at the university of WA. He wrote the textbook, and then I got to know him personally, and then he tells me that he was part of this Ayn Rand private little group with Alan Greenspan. They called themselves jokingly “The Collective.” Of course, Mises had originally had a great influence on Hayek's life. I met Hayek through all this network. I've met Rothbard of course. You meet all these people personally and you realize how incredible bunch of people they are. But they all have the similar... Now they never could agree entirely with each other, that makes the libertarian movement so interesting. Everyone's got a bit of angle, but when you put it all together the message is consistent.

Jadranko Brkic:

You know, now what you just said about them not really agreeing with each others all the time, it kind of makes me feel better because with all the people libertarians that I know - we can never agree on everything, We're always kind of have hard feelings over the few little things that the other side does not agree with. So that really makes me feel much better now, they had their own disagreements.

Ron Manners:

It is interesting, there will always be a little bit, because so many libertarians spin their wheels. They spend so much energy arguing points against each other.

Jadranko Brkic:

Yea, and they are all really like unique individuals and they defend themselves.

Ron Manners:

The enemy is out there for us all to see, let's save our energy for defeating the enemy. The enemy is much better organized than we are.

Jadranko Brkic:

Well, socialists of course!

One of the libertarian ideas that you mentioned in the book, and which I find extremely important is that quote: “no resource is more precious than freedom.” It sort of reminds me of my own homeland, Western Balkans – the region of former Yugoslavia, where we have no freedom whatsoever, but we have plenty of natural resources. So people always wonder how come we cannot be prosperous, we have all these natural resources, how come we can't make it? But then also here in Hong Kong, the only thing that its people really have is abundance of freedom. They have almost no resources whatsoever. So I guess that really ties up to your saying that no resource is more precious than freedom. So …

Ron Manners:

Absolutely. We are here in Hong Kong right now, and as you move around Hong Kong you can feel the energy in the people. You can feel it, they are all going about their business. They are going about their lives. So many countries, and Australia is becoming a little bit like this, when we gather together we talk about what we are doing. Sometimes half of our time is on discussing all the rules and the regulations that prevent us from even getting started. Here there is no such talks like that. They just talk about how to get started, how they got successful, and how they are going to be more successful. The secret is to release that human energy it can only be done in a free society.

Jadranko Brkic:

Because the people back home, they re always just: “oh, we have everything, but you know we cannot succeed because all of these politicians are not doing their job right.” But nobody questions the government, everybody is like: “we need to find the right people who will do all the things that government is supposed to do,” which is basically everything for the people. Nobody asks about freedom, just let me do what I want to do with my life.

Ron Manners:

I've never waited for approvals, I've never waited for government. You step in and you do it. You work it all out later. If you are dealing with bureaucracy, which I've spent so much time in my life dealing with them, I don't spend a lot of time with it, but the occasions on which I've been confronted with the bureaucracy have been numerous. But I have not spent too-much actual time, because to spend time on them only encourages them. The best thing to do is for you to go around them, you find a way around this sort of thing. And then if they are confronting you with breaking rules and regulations … I don't mind breaking rules as long as there is no victim. That's the real measurement. But they always back off if they are prosecuting you, be it the taxation department or the regulatory authorities, they always back off because they cannot afford you to win publicly. Because for you to win publicly will expose them for what they are. So you must look as though you are going to take it right to the wire and then they back off. The risks to them are far more serious than the risks to you. So they back off.

Jadranko Brkic

Wow! That really gave me so many ideas right now. I really wish I knew this sort of information before, when I was trying to do my own business back in my home country.

Ron Manners:

Their case is not sound. What are they trying to do? They are preventing you from what? Earning a living. Employing people. Creating wealth that could be shared amongst so many. They are accusing you of creating prosperity. How dare you! Governments are only good at creating poverty. If you remind them of that, that's their specialty. Your specialty is creating prosperity. Who's going to win in the public arena if it really gets to the front page of the newspapers?
 

End of part 2 of 3 part interview.