April 1978 $1.25

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lACOMANN: ANl R INTERVIEW

LET'S HEAR ITFOR THE

FIRST AMENDMENT

[WHILE WE STILL CAN]

CITY --,STATE----.;----'-ZIP-""-----

ADDRESS -"""',.;...- ------

NAME _

THIS COUPON FIGHTS CENSORSHIP

THE PACIFICA FOUNDATION(a non-profit California Corporation)

WBAI 99.5 FM, New York, N.Y.KPFA 94.1 FM, Berkeley, CA

KPFT 90.1 FM, Houston, TexasWPFW 89.3 FM, Washington, D.C.

KPFK 90.7 FM, Los Angeles, CAKPFB 89.3 FM, Berkeley, CA

What happens in the Carlin Case willnot only affect Pacifica but the entirebroadcast industry as well. And this, ofcourse, affects you.

It's been a tough and expensive battlefor us.... Now we're asking for yourhelp. Your contribution to the PacificaFirst Amendment Fund will help insurethat one of our most basic freedonls­the freedom ofspeech- will reluain in­tact. And, it will help us keep on broad­casting words that the governmentwould rather not hear.

BANNED?The Bible

AristophanesShakespeare

Jonathan SwiftErnest Hemingway

Dylall ThomasChaucer

Margaret MeadGeorge Orwell

Lord ByronThe Nixon/Watergate Tapes

formation and your right to hear it-isPacifica radio. Broadcasting for thirty­two years, Pacifica is known as "FirstAmendment Radio," unrestricted byadvertisers and conullitted to the presen­tation ofall points ofview.

To: THE PACIFICA FIRST AMENDMENT FUNDc/o Pacifica Foundation/Box 8455/Universal City, CA 91608

YES! I want to help save the public airwaves from the obscenity of governmentcontrol. Here's my tax deductible contribution of

___$100 ---$50 ---$25 $10 $ other

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

G·OVERNMENT CENSORSHIP is about totake a great leap forward.

A government agency-The FederalCommunications Commission-be­lieves it has the right to act as our parentsand restrict the broadcast of certainwords at times when children just mightbe listening-regardless ofany literary, ar­tistic, or social value or thefact that this couldseriously limit free expression in the broad­cast medium.

The FCC acted after WBAI-a listen­er sponsored Pacifica radio station inNew York-broadcast a monologue bycomedian George Carlin about "sevenwords you can't say on TV" whichsatirizes how people get uptight by theuse ofcertain words.

Their mailbox clogged with one letterofcomplaint, the FCC ruled Pacifica tobe in violation ofthe Federal Communi­cations Act. In deciding that a govern­mentagency has the right to tell broad­casters what they can or cannot say onthe air, they essentially tranlpled all overthe First Amendment.

When Pacifica challenged this ruling,a U.S. Court of Appeals held that theFCC had overstepped its authority inbanning "indecent language" at certainhours and that it had wrongly entered in­to "the forbidden realm ofcensorship."

Undaunted, the FCC has now takenthe "Carlin Case" to the Supr~meCourtwhich will consider this critically inlpor­tant constitutional question: Do all FirstAmendment rights traditionally enjoyed byfree press also extend to radio and television?

Opposing the FCC-standing up forthe right to broadcast a free flow of in-

LibertarianReliew

ARTICLES DEPARTMENTS

17 EQUALITY, PLANNING, 4 EDITORIALSAND THE MARKETECONOMY: ANINTERVIEW WITH

8 THE PUBLIC TROUGH

April 1978 AUSTRIAN ECONOMISTThe environmental backlash

LUDWIG LACHMANNby Bruce Bartlett

by Richard Ebeling and DonLavoie 9 THE PLUMB LINE

Editor The noted Austrian So, what else is new?

Roy A. Childs, Jr. economist discusses the by Murray N. Rothbard

impossibility of equality, the

Executive Editor economics of Eastern Europe, 11 LIBERTY'S HERITAGEMarshall E. Schwartz the legacy of Keynesianism, Rose Wilder Lane

and the future of Austrian by John Hospers

Associate Editors econimics in this wide-

Walter E. Grinder ranging discussion. 15 CROSSCURRENTSLeonard P. Liggio by Walter GrinderJoan Kennedy Taylor

23 SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY:

Senior Editor A REVISIONIST 37 BOOKS AND THE ARTS

Murray N. Rothbard PERSPECTIVE Notes and Recollectionsby Murray N. Rothbard by Ludwig von Mises

Contributing Editor Since World War II, Reviewed by Murray N.Jeff Riggenbach American foreign policy and Rothbard

arms budgets have beenAutobiography of Values

Administrative Assistant based on the assumption of a

Pat Pope Soviet menace. How realistic by Charles Lindbergh

is this presumption? Reviewed by Justus Doenecke

Democracy as Puritanism

Libertarian Review is publishedby H.L. Mencken

monthly by Libertarian Review, Inc. 29 WHO'S TWISTING NOW? Reviewed by Tom G. PalmerEditorial and business offices, 1620 A RESPONSE TO EDITHMontgomery Street, San Francisco, Six MenCA 94111. ©1978 by Libertarian EFRON by Alistair CookeReview, Inc. All rights reserved. by David Ramsay SteeleOpinions expressed in bylined articles Reviewed by JoAnndo not necessarily reflect the views of In a recent issue of Reason Rothbardthe editor or publisher. magazine, Edith EfronSubscriptions: Single copy, $1.25; 12 launched an assault against The Consciousness of Joyceissues (one year), $15; two years, $25; those who believe by Richard Ellmanthree years, $35. Address Change:

libertarians can and must Reviewed by Jeff RiggenbachWrite new address, city, state and zipcode on sheet of plain paper, attach work with elements of the Man, Economy and Statemailing label from recent issue of LR,and send to Circulation Department, American Left. David by Murray N. RothbardLibertarian Review, 1620 Mont- Ramsay Steele points out the Reviewed by Jack Highgomery Street, San Francisco, CA factual and logical flaws in94111. Second class postage paid atSan Francisco and additional offices. her argument. 46 CLASSIFIED

I Editorials

The night of the bandits

That hated day is upon us again-April 15th.That is the date by which the American peoplemust either pay up or run for cover, thedeadline for payment of their "taxes," thatvenal tribute which robs them of their rightful

earnings day after day, month after month, year afteryear, lifetime after lifetime. Taxation in America today hasreached unpitying proportions, and the people of this na­tion find themselves staggering ever more under its weight.But the cruelty and venality of the tax collectors knows nocivilized limits. Political leaders come before us and pledgeto reduce the awesome burden; no one takes them as any­thing but filthy liars. They are not willing to acknowledgethe right of people to keep what they earn; they are notwilling to cut back on their spurious "programs" which­virtually without a notable exception-are leading to theruin of society and economy alike; they are not willing tostop oppressing the American'people.

To reduce taxation in America today we must beruthless both in describing the ~ctivities of the governmentand in describing the nature of taxation itself. Only whenthe American people understand that the programs drag­ged. before their eyes as the solutions to every conceivableproblem merely make matters worse, while benefitting asmall, privileged elite at the expense of the majority, canwe abolish these destructive functions of government.Only when the brutal truth about taxation itself is under­stood will the American people begin to see that the reduc­tion in the size of government and in taxation must beregarded today as virtually an end in itself. Those whowish to grasp fully the inner essence of taxation can do nobetter than to read and reread the classic passage from NoTreason, by the great libertarian Lysander Spooner, whichcuts through lifetimes of obfuscation and confusion:

"It is true that the theory of our Constitution is, that alltaxes are paid voluntarily; that our government is a mutualinsurance company, voluntarily entered into by the peoplewith each other; that each man makes a free and purelyvoluntary contract with all others who are parties to theConstitution, to pay so much money for so much protec­tion, the same as he does with any other insurance com­pany; and that he is just as free not to be protected, andnot to pay tax, as he is to pay a tax, and be protected.

"But this theory of our government is wholly differentfrom the practical fact. The fact is that the government,like a highwayman, says to a man: "Your money, or yourlife." And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the com­pulsion of that threat.

"The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in alonely place, spring upon him from the roadside, and,

4

holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets.But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account;and it is far more dastardly and shameful.

"The highwayman takes solely upon himself the respon­sibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pre­tend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or thathe intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pre­tend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired im­pudence enough to profess to be merely a "protector," andthat he takes men's money against their will, merely toenable him to "protect" those infatuated travellers, whofeel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not ap­preciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sen­sible a man to make such professions as these. Further­more, having taken your money, he leaves you, as youwish him to do. He does not persist in following you on theroad, against your will; assuming to be your rightful"sovereign," on account of the "protection" he affordsyou. He does not keep "protecting" you, by commandingyou to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to dothis, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you ofmore money as often as he finds it for his interest orpleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, atraitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting youdown without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resisthis demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty ofsuch impostures, and insults, and villainies as these. Inshort, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt tomake you either his dupe or his slave."

When they realize that they have had enough, and thatthere is no reason to suffer the treatment that they get atthe hands of the government, the American people willtake their first step down the road of that rebellion againsttaxation and regimentation which will find, at its end, trueindividual liberty. They have done it before; they must doit again.

Left and Right:The case for an eclectic strategy

In the February issue of Reason magazine, there ap­pears a "Viewpoint" column by Edith Efron whichhas stirred up a storm of controversy: "Warning toConstitutional Republicans." Beneath a pile of "fac­toids," as Norman Mailer used to call them, and an

astonishing degree of selectivity in presenting portraits ofboth the Left and the Right-some of which are analyzedby David Ramsay Steele elsewhere in this issue-there liesa single point which is at the heart of the issue: Because theLeft is anticapitalist, a libertarian "can never rationally allyhimself with the Left." Passing by her most blatant slander­ing of the Left (she claims, for example, that the Left"evades mass murder in Cambodia," when the truth of thematter is that there has been far more in the way of exposesof Cambodia in leftist publications like The New YorkReview than in a whole stack of right-wing publications),let us take up this strategic point in some detail.

April 1978

The fact of the matter is that libertarianism as anideology cuts across the political spectrum. Our principledadherence to the nonagression principle-which opposesthe initiation of physical force to gain ends in society­means that we are principled advocates of private propertyand laissez-faire, civil libertarians opposed to victimlesscrime laws and other violations of civil liberties, and areopposed to militarism and foreign interventionism. Weshare some concerns with elements in the Left, other con­cerns with elements in .the Right. Our opposition to thedraft did not lead us to endorse plans for compulsorynational service; our opposition to the war in Vietnam didnot lead us to take up the call for government-enforcedboycotts of South Africa or Rhodesia; our opposition toOSHA did not lead us to call for pouring more governmentmoney into the arts; our hatred for Communism has notseen us endorsing jingoism or global interventionism; ourdemand that the rights of gays and other cultural minor­ities be respected in full and immediately had not led us toadvocate antidiscrimination ordinances which would pro­hibit private discrimination. We dance to nobody's tune.We are not ashamed of the fact that we are neither Left norRight, but rather represent a radical rethinking of politicalissues. We are proud of our independence and rejection ofincoherent, conventional package deals.

But this very fact that libertarianism is neither Left norRight creates a paradox: because libertarianism is neither,it must seek allies from both. In a complex society, goalsare served in complex ways. That is a fact of reality. Toachieve our purposes, we must be able to incorporate intoour plans the complementary actions of others, necessarilyincluding those who do not share our ultimate ends ormotives. We ought to learn a lesson from Austrianeconomics: In a complex society goals are never achievedonly by the actions of those whose plans are identical. Fortheir achievement, goals require the actions of those forwhom the attainment of our libertarian ends has no im­portance. It is not their intent that we should achieve whatwe strive for; but that consequence may very well be inpart the result, the unintended consequence of their actionsnevertheless. Let us take advantage of that fact; anythingless simply ignores the nature of the market economy, andthe advantages which it brings to us.

In forming alliances with various individuals or evengroups (The Committee to Stop Government Spying,NORML, in supporting the Jarvis tax-limitation initiativein California, or in supporting a group opposing Carter'senergy program, for example), we should do so on specificissues that will advance libertarianism. Moreover, in form­ing such ad hoc alliances, we should focus on our owngoals, not those of others. It is for the very purpose ofunderlining our own independent political position that weought to ally with elements across the political spectrum.In an age of stale, boring, conventional viewpoints, weshould flaunt our own unconventionality. The Americanpeople are crying Out for an alternative. We must advertisethat we are different, working with a great variety of thosewho share our particular positions on specific issues,pressuring divergent groups continually.

Libertarian Review

Moreover, these criss-crossing alliances, on an ad hoc ba­sis, will increase our credibility by showing that we meanwhat we say when we defend individual liberty across theboard.

Above all, we must not be afraid to join hands tem­porarily with those whose other views we find repugnant.We must show that we are unafraid of their errors, andthat we are fully confident that we are right, that we willwin. We must develop and sustain the will to achieve liber­ty, the will to victory. If we continually focus on themotives and goals of others, rather than on how they fit inwith a pursuit of our own goals and values, we shall, quitesimply, never achieve anything.

In a very important and fundamental sense, Edith Efron'sapproach to strategy is profoundly altruistic. Consider, ifshe had her way. We could not march in public against theVietnam War, because someone might hoist a Vietcongflag. We cannot demonstrate against laws that restrict theindividual rights of gays, because fellow demonstratorsmight be egalitarians. We cannot publicly express ouroutrage at the vicious drug laws of this country, becausedrug users are part of the hatred "counter-culture." Wecould not have marched against the draft, against slavery,because some fellow marchers might be communists.

Given such a view, what issues could we not befrightened away from? How could a libertarian ever rise toa position of leadership motivated by such foreboding?Shall we abandon the fight for airline deregulation, justbecause Edward Kennedy has gotten aboard that par­ticular bandwagon? Shall we announce to scoundrels thatthey can paralyze us in our pursuit of liberty at the drop ofa hat?

Anyone who takes Edith Efron's approach is in face be­ing a profound second-hander-motivated not by positivevalues of their own, but by a reaction against the motivesof others-taking the values of others as primary. But it isnot the political alliance which is of prime importance; it isthe political end being sought. In a complex world, some ofour particular ends have to be achieved with the help ofthose who do not share other ends.

Time and again, statism has triumphed in historybecause statists have managed, on issue after bloody issue,to manipulate people, to split what we might call the"natural opposition constituency," that natural constitu­ency which, from across the spectrum, every corner of thenation, might have-had it come together intime-blocked violation after violation of the liberties andrights of the American people. The rulers of this nationwant desperately to keep conventional categories rigid, tokeep Left and Right apart, to prevent any coalition thatmight-just might-begin the long, slow, tedious processof rolling back state power in this once-proud nation.Edith Efron has played into their hands, with a virtuosoperformance. Don't work with the Left to roll back themilitary, she declares! Don't work with the Left to halt cen­sorship! Don't work with the Left to expose the illegalitiesof the FBI and CIA! Don't oppose foreign dictatorshipswhich are "pro-American" (and what a line that is!). Don't

;

work with the counter-culture to abolish the drug laws!Don't work with the Left to expose business-governmentties and corruption, even if you do make it crystal clearthat you are for laissez-faire. How far is it from there toimpassioned cries not to work with those who are forderegulating the American economy, because some are forit in order to wound big business, by restoring free com­petition?

Indeed, is there any issue from which we could not befrightened away on such grounds?

The result of Edith Efron's "strategy" would be toproduce-as it already has among far too many whoalready believe in it-a profound paralysis, a sense ofhelplessness. And that sense would reflect reality precisely,because they would be announcing to the world that theway for anyone to stop them \from achieving their goalswould be to adopt the same end, for reasons they findrepugnant. They would then abandon the battle.

And that, sadly, is precisely how Edith Efron operates.Because her attitude toward the Left is one of repugnance,there is scarcely one key issue that she is not willing togrant to Leftists, abandoning any struggle for real leader­ship in those areas where basic libertarian values are atstake.

Edith Efron paves the way for Leftist victories just becauseshe hates them, paradoxically enough. She acts to create aleadership vacuum in those areas where libertarians agreewith them. But this means nothing less than. that the Leftwill necessarily rise to leadership in any movement orcrusade where libertarian goals that they also share are atstake. Her "strategy" will' produce the opposite of her in­tentions. Beginning with a vision of liberty and capitalism,she will give up precisely to the degree that the Left sideswith her on specific issues. That is the nature of her IIwarn­ing." It is a prescription for revulsion, paralysis, coward­ice, and defeat. It is a confession of emotional exhaustion,of the desire not to have to struggle for our idealsanymore. It is profoundly evasive of the facts·of reality.

If Edith Efron were listened to, the result would be an in­tensifying paralysis in the libertarian movement whichthus would rapidly shrink in size and influence. All theprogress of the past few years would be abandoned. Sheherself is not totally paralyzed only because she manages ahighly selective focus on aspects of the Right, evadingwhole chunks of their beliefs, so that she can continue todeal with them.

But all this does not result from a IIcommitment to af­firmative values." It is not a point reached because ofIIreverence." It is the result of fear, and of a profoundparanoia. The panic results from a fear that if we liber­tarians work with the Left on some issues, our actions willsomehow benefit them. One can almost hear Edith Efronshriek: IIThey're Leftist issuesl"

But they're not Leftist issues, Edith. They're our issues,and we have no right to give them up to the Left. We mustassert proudly our right to those issues, our right to ourown ideology. We must never surrender that right, nevergive it up-not to anyone-for any reason.

And that is why we have a moral obligation to work

6

with both the Left and the Right, and to denounce both.Look at it in reverse: If these are our issues, then they areworking with us. We define our ideology, and work tofulfill our vision; their goals are secondary. We do not ac­cept their "package deals"; we welcome the destruction ofthose package deals.

We have our own ideology. We have our own world towin.

No one is suggesting that we abandon our ideology, tothrow our lot in with the Left. We are adults. We canremember what we are all about. The achievement of afree society requires nothing less.

We dare not give up the world because of the venality­real or imagined-of others. Recognizing that, let us faceup to the real requirements of social causality. Paranoia isself-indulgence.

Let us rather take up the challenge which confronts us.Unafraid of alliances, let us move forward. Moved by areverence for liberty and contempt for those states that areits greatest enemy, let's get to work.

Phyllis Schlafly rides again

Phyllis Schlafly, the Bonnie Parker. of the

. American Right, has recently let 10.ose with abroadside in her column IJFrom the Right"against-are you ready?-drugs and rockmusic. Her theme is really a boiled-down ver­

sion of such right-wing classics as Hippies, Drugs, and Pro-miscuity and The Marxist Minstrels. But for those whosememories stretch back to the early 1960's, it was arefereshing bit of nostalgia reminding one of the tirade ofthe once highly-esteemed preacher, the Rev. Billy JamesHargis. Hargis, for those who do not know, was a reveredfundamentalist on the Right who fell from grace after hav­ing been caught fooling around with young lads anddamsels under his sway, in-how shall we say it?-a mostun-Christian manner. His magnum opus on the subjectsconcerning which Ms. Schlafly waxes eloquent, was thewell-known tome Communism, Hypnotism and theBeatles. Its theme, in a nutshell, was that rock music of theBeatles' sort was in fact a subtle form of hypnosis leadingthe young, drug-crazed, and appropriately mesmerized in­to the camp of the Enemy. Having reduced Americanyouth to a squishy pulp, the Communist armies would cer­tainly march against a vulnerable America.

Ms. Schlafly pulls back a bit from this precipice, but herheart is still with the Rev. Hargis: "Hard rock music hasfostered the great wave of drug addiction among youngpeople in the United States and England," she intones,echoing a lIunion musician" [egads!] correspondent, JackStaulcup. She informs us that "prior to 1964 drug useamong ... students was almost unheard of" [What aboutbooze and "reefer madness," Phyllis?], but since then theentertainment media have IJpeddled the line that drug use,as well as illicit sex, sloppy dress [gasp!] and rebellionagainst authority are the 'in' activities." Not only that, but"a steady diet of rock and roll junk promoted degenerate

April 1978

rebelliousness among teenagers that finds its outlet indrugs, alcohol and illicit sex."

Moreover, it is not even good for dancing: "Teenagersreally do not even dance to it; all they can do is move theirbodies in an obscene motion." Oh, she admits that therewere earlier such fads: the Charleston, the Big Apple, andthe Jitterbug, for example. These might have been "silly"or, ahem, "energetic exercise," but none of these noble fadswere "lewd or obscene." No, today's music is unique: "lt isthe biggest legalized racket that this country has everseen." Ahal Shall we outlaw it? Well, not exactly; but "ifwe value civilization, we cannot afford to ignore anylonger the high correlation between the multibillion-dollarhard-rock racket and the explosion of drug use and illicitsex among their teenage victims." She backs off from cen­sorship and government intervention-which the rest ofher blessed New Right often embraces-in calling for"parents [to] take a more active part in monitoring theirchildren's entertainment." What a letdownl Just whenthings were starting to get interesting, a cop-out. No cen­sorship, no local police swooping down on them, gunsblazing, only good-old-fashioned parental control.

Really, though, there is a racket going on here-thiscontinual scapegoating of those with different culturaltastes and lifestyles, of which Ms. Schlafly is so fond.Anyone who knows anything about history at all knowsthat Ms. Schlafly's complaint is only the latest on a roadextending back through the centuries, with each generationpouncing on the one that follows. She might well go backand read what was said of alcohol or the Jitterbug in daysof old-not to mention the rowdiness of the Charleston,which sent the Phyllis Schlaflys of the day into a tizzy. Ah,but those were the good old days, so different from today.It's an old, old story.

Cloning: menace or promise?

T he science writer David Rorvik has written ajust-published book claiming that an Americanmillionaire has secretly managed to clonehimself and produce a small boy, now 16 monthsold and well. Scientists claim that the

technology for cloning humans is not yet available, andRorvik says he is sworn to secrecy in na-ming themillionaire, the boy, or the scientists who performed thefeat, in order to protect the privacy of all concerned.

Whoever is right on the facts, there is no doubt thatcloning humans will eventually be feasible, that possibilityraises important moral and political issues. Already, inresponse to the news of the Rorvik book, several scientistshave sued the federal government under the Freedom of In­formation Act to try to force disclosure of what researchthe government has sponsored in this area. The statementsissued by the scientists indicate that they are critical of thewhole idea. Thus, Harvard genetics professor JonathanBeckwith refers sweepingly to "medical 'advances' whichallow meddling in the human gene pool." And, as MITgenetics professor Ethan Singer puts it: "What are therights of cloned individuals? What are the ethical andmoral aspects of, cloning humans? Who has the right toclone?"

Libertarian Review

We can expect, in fact, severe opposition to cloningfrom both ends of the political spectrum. Liberals, whoused to be in favor of scientific advance, now tend to beopposed to it for fear of technocratic control of indivi­duals. And conservatives may be expected to raise the crythat cloning is tampering with God's gene pool and God'scontrol over the reproductive process.

To put the problem in perspective, we must first pointout what cloning is not. Cloning is not what we see in sci-fimovies, in which a new person is created whole with theidentical memory and personality of the person beingcloned. Cloning is essentially the creation of a new babywhich will ;he an identical twin of the adult being cloned. Inshort, if John Doakes (or Jane Doakes) is cloned, DoakesJr. will be a baby with the same genes as his father (ormother), and thus will be an identical twin of someone ofthe previous generation.

Putting the point this way should show how the ques­tion of rights can be resolved. Who should have the rightto clone? Whoever has the right to have a baby by ortho­dox means: i.e. everyone. What should be the rights of aclone? The same as every other baby. The parents shouldhave no more right to enslave a cloned baby than theyhave to enslave a baby now. Similarly, parents shouldhave no less right to bring up a cloned baby than parentshave to bring up a baby now. If John Doakes in some waycreated a cloned Doakes Jr., then so did he create (or half­create) the non-cloned Doakes offspring in the world now.

If the man is the one cloned, will the mother's role bedifferent-though still essential-since only the father'sgenes will be passed on to the child? Why should thisalteration of circumstance affect the roles or the rights ofparents or children? After all, we have families withadopted children now where no genes are passed fromparents to child, and yet the legal and moral status of allfamily members remains precisely the same. We shouldalso realize that the clone will in no sense be a puppet of hiscreator; the clone will be as fully human a baby, as en­dowed with the freedom to choose and develop, as anybaby is today.

The lesson here is that we should stop being so afraid ofscience: We should recapture the optimism with whichearlier decades greeted technological advances. But weshould always guard against any abuse of civil libertieswhether using primitive or advanced technology. Thehuman race could not have achieved its millenial climb up­ward from the cave man to civilization and high livingstandards for hundreds of millions without the aid ofscience and technology. To say that we must not tamperwith God's gene pool is as sensible as saying that airplanesare evil because if God wanted us to fly he would havegiven us wings. Every time that men and women mate andproduce children they are engaging in their own kind of"genetic engineering," by deciding which individuals theywill attempt to mix their genes with. Cloning and otherscientific advances will allow individuals to choose freelyand determine their fates with far more knowledge andprecision. Probably few mongoloids and hemophiliacs,and more geniuses, will be produced in the future. Is thissuch a terrible fate?

Mankind has accomplished its remarkable upward climbby using its reason to find out more and more about howthe world works. Let us proceed with a high heart, un­deterred by obscurantists-from whatever end of thepolitical spectrum-who are eager to place shackles onman's mind.-MNR

7

I The Publle Trough

The environmental backlashby Bruce Bartlett

In the fervor generated by the environmen­tal movement in the United States, Con­gress and the state legislatures have enacteda mountain of new rules and regulationsaimed at preserving and improving en­vironmental q.uality, without taking a closelook at the costs of their well-intentionedschemes. But now, recent considerations ofthese expenses is having a major impact onCongress, and may lead to a sudden back­lash against such regulations in the nearfuture.

One of the most significant analyses ofthis issue was presented by Edward Deni­son of the Brookings Institution in a recentarticle in the Survey of Current Business.Calculating the changes in the Americaneconomy over the past 30 years, he dis­,covered that since 1968-when the prolif-eration of legislative strictures began to ac­celerate the growth of productivity has de­clined at an ever-increasing rate, evidentlybecause of environmental and other newregulatory efforts. By 1975, the output foreach unit of input was some one percent

8

smaller than it would have been under 1967regulations. Productivity grew in 1973 by0.2 percent less than it had in 1972; by 0.4percent less in 1974 than the previous year;and by 0.5 percent less in 1975 than in1974.

The reason? Scarce capital resources arebeing diverted from investments which canyield production to investments thatcannot-namely, pollution abatement. Theamount of capital thus shunted aside isenormous. According to the report issuedrecently by the Council on EnvironmentalQuality, cumulative capital investment forpollution abatement will total $252 billionover the next ten years. Yet these figuresare dwarfed by the additional costs of oper­ating and maintenance for this pollutioncontrol equipment and· the cost of thecapital used to acquire it: another $554billion by 1985. Thus more than $800 bil­lion will be diverted over the next decadefrom market-oriented investment whichwould yield higher productivity and out­put, to nonproductive pollution control.

Note also that the historical before-taxreturn on investment in the Untied Stateshas averaged 12 percent per year. Thus, wecan project that this $800 billion could pro­duce additional wealth of approximately$100 billion a year. This is wealth whichwould have produced jobs and well-beingfor all Americans.

Yet there clearly are benefits to the coun­try as a whole from cleaner air and water.But the cost is staggering, and the Ameri­can people have a right to know what thealternatives are, so they will be able tomake intelligent decisions about the alloca­tion of scarce resources in the future.

It has taken nearly a decade for the coststo become apparent. The reaction has beenslow in developing, but it is growing rapid­ly. Recently, Harper's Magazine (Decem­ber 1977) published a brilliant essay byWilliam Tucker on the Storm King Moun­tain controversy called, "Environmen­talism and the Leisure Class." In that essay,Tucker showed rather conclusively thatmost of those opposed to building a newhydroelectric facility at Storm King on theHudson River were not concerned aboutlithe environment" in some abstract sense,but only looking out for their personal in­terests, with no particular regard for thosewho could benefit from a new hydroelectricfacility. The most recent New York Cityblackout probably would not have hap­pened if the Storm King facility had beenbuilt.

Senator Edmund Muskie, perhaps theleading environmentalist in Congress forthe past decade, praised Tucker's articleand noted that he was being attacked vi­ciously by extreme environmentalists forsupporing a hydroelectric. facility, similarto that proposed at Storm King, on the St.John River in Maine. As Muskie argued,the only alternative to clean hydroelectricpower must be new generating facilitiesfueled by coal, oil or nuclear fuel. So thequestion is: Who are the real environmen­talists?

Ultimately, the jobs issue will be thedownfall of the environmentalists. It ap­pears that the north-central states arerapidly turning into a bloc on environmen­tal issues, just as the oil- and gas-producingstates of the Southwest are. This stems pri­marily from the slowdown in older manu­facturing industries, like steel, which aremost heavily hit by pollution-abatementcosts, and which are located largely in thenorth-central states like Pennsylvania andOhio. Evidence of this fact is shown by theestablishment of a Steel Caucus in the Con­gress., which has proposed many measureswhich would free the steel industry fromcompliance with environmental regula-(continued on page 16)

April 1978

I The Plumb Line

So what else is new?by Murray N. Rothbard

One of the fatal flaws in the concept of"limited" government is the judiciary. En­dowed with the compulsory monopoly ofthe vital power of deciding disputes, ofultimately deciding who can wield forceand how much can be wielded, the govern­ment judiciary sits as an unchecked andunlimited tyrant. Pledged to preside overthe rule of law, law that is supposed to ap­ply to everyman, the judges themselves areyet above the law and free from its sanc­tions and limitations. When clothed in therobes of his office, the judge can do no legalwrong and is therefore immune from thelaw itself.

There is a crucial Catch-22 in this grislysituation. For if anyone would like to argueagainst this arrangements, he can do so-inour archist system-only before judgeswho .themselves are part of the problemrather than part of the solution. It is up togovernment judges to rule on whethergovernment judges are immune from thelaw. How do you think they would decide?Well, how do you think a group ofeconomists would decide on the question ofwhether economists should be immune? Orany other group or profession?

Not surprisingly, the United StatesSupreme Court ruled, in 1872, that judgeswere immune from any damage suits forany "judicial acts" that they hadperformed-regardless of how wrong, evil,or unconstitutional those acts may havebeen. When clothed in judicial authority,judges can do no wrong. Period.

Recently a case of an errant judge hascome up again-because his action as ajudge was considered generally to be mon­strous and illegal. In 1971, Mrs. Ora SpitlerMcFarlin petitioned Judge Harold D.Stump of the DeKalb County, Indiana,Circuit Court to engage in a covert, com­pulsory sterilization of her 15-year-olddaughter, Linda Kay Spitler. Although Lin­da was promoted each year with her class,Mrs. McFarlin opined that she wasIIsomewhat retarded" and had begun tostay out overnight with older youths. Andwe all know what that can lead to.

Judge Stump quickly signed the order,and the judge and mamma hustled Lindainto a hospital, telling her it was for an ap­pendicitis operation. Linda was thensterilized without her knowledge. Two

Libertarian Review

years later, Linda married a Leo Sparkmanand discovered that she had been sterilizedwithout her knowledge. The Sparkmansproceeded to sue mamma, mamma's at­torney, the doctors, the hospital, and JudgeStump, alleging a half-dozen constitutionalviolations.

All of these people, in truth, had grosslyviolated Linda's rights and aggressedagainst her. All should have been made topay, and pay dearly, for their monstrousoffense. But the federal district court ruledotherwise. First, it ruled that mamma, herlawyer, and the various members of the"healing professions" were all immune­because everything they did had receivedthe sanction of a certified judge. And sec­ond, Judge Stump was also absolutely im­mune, because he had acted in his capacityas a judge, even though, the district courtacknowledged, he had had lIan erroneousview of the law." So, not only is a judgeimmune, but he can confer his immunity ina king-like fashion even onto lowlycivilians who surround him.

The U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Cir­cuit, unaccountably didn't understand theprogram, and so it reversed the districtcourt, claiming that Judge Stump had for­feited his immunity IIbecause of his failureto comply with elementary principles ofdue process," and had therefore in a senseIInot acted within his jurisdiction." Toallow Stump's action to stand, said the ap­peals court, would be to sanction IItyrannyfrom the bench."

Now this was pretty flimsy stuff, andbesides it opened an entertaining wedgetoward holding judges accountable to thelaw and to the protection of rights likeeveryone else. But this would have shakenthe foundations of our monopoly archistlegal system. And so the U.S. SupremeCourt, on March 28, set the matterstraight. In a 5-3 decision in this il­luminating case of Stump v. Sparkman,Justice 'Byron R. (IIWhizzer") White, speak­ing for the majority, sternly reminded theappellate court of the meaning of the 1872ruling: IIA judge will not be deprived of im­munity because the action he took was inerror, was done rnaliciously or was in ex­cess of his authority. Rather, he will besubject to liability only when he has actedin the 'clear absence of all jurisdiction.'"

Justice White conceded that no state law orcourt ruling anywhere could be said tohave authorized Judge Stump's action; butthe important point, he went on, is thatthere was no statute or ruling which pro­hibited such an action by the judge.Therefore, even though Stump had ap­proved the sterilization order without legalauthorization, without holding a hearing,without notice to the child, or without herbeing represented by a lawyer or guardian,it was still a IIjudicial act" and thereforebeyond the law. Backing Justice Whitewere Justices Warren Burger, HarryBlackmun, William Rehnquist, and JohnStevens.

For the minority, Justice -Potter Stewart,joined by Lewis Powell and T~urgood

Marshall, argued that the judge's unauthor­ized action was "beyond the pale of any­thing that could sensibly be called a judicialact." He pointed out that Stump's action"was in no wayan act 'normally performedby a judge'. Indeed there is no reason tobelieve that such an act has ever been per­formed by any other Indiana judge, beforeor since." In a ringing statement, Stewartconcluded: IIA judge is not free, like a loosecannon, to inflict indiscriminate damagewhenever he announces that he is acting inhis judicial capacity." Ahh, Justice Stewart,but apparently and unfortunately he is sofree.

Stump himself will be free for some timeto come. Apparently the masses of DeKalbCounty were not concerned about Linda'srights, for they reelected him last year toanother six-year term as circuit courtjudge.

Bruce Ennis, legal director of theAmerican Civil Liberties Union, chargedthat the White decision meant that IIjudgescan violate citizens' constitutional rightsand get away with it" and IIcan ignore thelaw with impunity." Ennis said that theACLU would ask for legislation from Con­gress reversing this 1I0utrageous" decision.

Outrage, yes; but why theshock and sur­prise? White and his allies were (1) simplybeing thick as judges, guildsmen defendingtheir guild privileges; and (2) were defend­ing the very cornerstone of our archistsystem: the immunity from the law of theultimate decision-makers. Removing suchimmunity strikes at the very heart of thatsystem, and paves the way for a truly freeAmerica in which rights would be protect­ed fully, in which no man or group of menwould be above the law, or would have acompulsory monopoly of judicial services.We hail Mr. Ennis and the minority judges;but do they know the full implicationswhen we pit citizens' rights against the"loose cannon" of judges and the "tyrannyof the bench"?

9

"Younteanfmnotthe

onlyone 0· tway?"

A few years ago, many liber­tarians thought that they were theonly people who Itthought that way."Now they know that there are thou­sands of libertarians - the visibleedge of a growing movement.

There is no better indicator ofthat growth than the LibertarianParty. We're bigger, better organized,and better equipped to face real-worldchallenges than ever before. In 1978­a non-Presidential election year-over

200 Libertarian Party candidates willreach thousands more Ithidden" liber­tarians in an estimated 35 states.

Sure, we're still pretty small.The Republicans and Democratshaven't folded up and gone home.But no one ever said it would beeasy to combine consistent principleswith political action.

Principled political action. Itkeeps growing, and it's worth sup­porting. Join us in our growth.

IYES! I want to join the Libertarian Party in. the membership categoryI've checkedb:llow. Enclosed is my check or money order for the indicated amount. ~- 1D .Basic ($10) D Patron ($100) D Benefactor ($1000)

ID Sustaining ($20) D Associate ($250) D Student ($5) ID I would like to make a contribution in the following amount: $ _

Contributions up to $100 ($200 for joint returns) are tax deductible.

1111 hereby certify that I do not be.lieve in or advocate the initiation of force as a means Iof achieving political or social goals."

~~~ . . .

I. ~A ccoopp. yy of our report is filed with the Federal Election Commission and is available for purchase from the Federal Election IL.::ission, Washington, D.C.

1516 P Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 232-2003

I Liberty's Heritage

Rose Wilder Laneby John Hospers

She was a Western Union telegrapher, oneof the first female real estate agents inCalifornia, a reporter for the long-defunctSan Francisco Bulletin, a novelist,storyteller, polemecist-and, at the age of79, a correspondent in Vietnam forWomen's Day. But above all, Rose WilderLane was a vigorous, vital, compellingchampion of liberty. As Robert LeFevrewrites in his introduction to the recentrepublication of her 193& opus, Give MeLiberty, "With a passion that alwaysreminded me of the obsession of Joan ofArc, Rose loved liberty. It was a thing initself, a goddess to be adored, a lodestarto pull together the diverse threads ofexistence."

She was born in De Smet in the DakotaTerritory on December 5, 1886; hermother, Laura Ingalls Wilder was theauthor of many children's stories, whichhave retained their popularity throughthese many years. The individualism andliberty inherent in Rose Wilder Lane's earlypioneer years-often accompanied bypoverty, and always accompanied by ever­greater effort and achievement-shapedher entire life. Later, she would draw onher early experiences for numerous novelsof pioneer life, the most famous of whichwas Let the Hurricane Roar (1933). GiveMe Liberty, which was first published as"Credo" in the Saturday Evening Post, ex­erted a strong influence during the GreatDepression. It spelled out in detail thethreats of an American socialist state­threats the author had seen as realities atwork in Eastern Europe in the early 1920s.Mrs. Lane had become a socialist herselffor a time, until her experiences while liv­ing under socialist regimes brought herback to a belief in individual freedom andthe unhampered market. She describesthese experiences, and her rediscovery ofAmerica, in Give Me Liberty.

The Discovery of FreedomThe major work that Mrs. Lane publishedduring her lifetime was The Discovery ofFreedom (1943). It is one long paean ofpraise of the tradition of liberty in Amer­ica. It is full of little-known historical facts,and of incisive comments on contemporaryAmerican life, especially during the Great

Libertarian Review

Depression-which, along with a smallminority of writers at the time, she blameson government intervention and especiallyRoosevelt's policies.

Since her prose style is both trenchantand elegant, always striking the jugularand yet combining incisveness with graceand charm, I shall for the most part quoteher own words: On every issue she dis­cusses, she is indeed the most quotablewriter I know, at one time irresistiblyfocusing the reader's attention on an issuewith slashing sentences of powerful yetchiseled prose, at another time bristlingwith righteous indignation that is highly in­fectious, and at yet other times relating in­cidents that capture the essence of an issueor a period of history, with such elementalpower as to make one cheer before readingon. Who, for example, has ever discussedhuman rights more definitively in a dozenlines than she does in the followingpassage?

"Anyone who says that economic securi­ty is a human right, has been too muchbabied. While he babbles, other men arerisking and losing their lives to protect him.They are fighting the sea, fighting the land,fighting diseases and insects and weatherand space and time, for him, while he chat­ters that all men have a right to securityand that 'The State' must give it to him. Letthe fighting men stop fighting this inhumanearth for one hour and he will learn howmuch security there is.

"Let him get out on the front lines. Lethim bring one slow freight through a snow­storm in the Rockies. Let him drive onerivet to hold his apartment roof over hishead. Let him keep his own electric lightburning through one quiet cozy winterevening when the mist is freezing to thewires. Let him make, from seed to table,just one slice of bread, and we will hear nomore about the human right to security.

"N0 man's security is greater than hisown self-reliance. If every man and womanworth living did not stand up to the job ofliving, did not take risk and danger and ex­haustion beyond exhaustion and go onfighting for one thin hope of victory in thecertainty of death, there would not be ahuman being alive today." (p. 60)

There are hundreds of passages in TheDiscovery of Freedom to match this one; tosay that it makes heady reading is rather anunderstatement. The book opens with aneloquent essay on the use of the varioussources of energy in nature for the enhance­ment of man's life; but since these first fewpages, with certain changes, constitute theopening of Henry Weaver's book TheMainspring of Human Energy and arealready familiar to millions of readers, Ishall not quote them here. (Weaver givesno recognition to Mrs. Lane, though thepages were apparently placed in Weaver'sbook with her permission.) Instead, here isone short paragraph from her long andrevealing section on life in early America:

"A little more than a century ago, here inthis country, American women still cookedover open fires, as women had cookedsince history began, and as more thantwo-thirds of the women on this earth arestill doing. A century ago, in New YorkState, every woman made her household'ssoap and candles. Oil was always in thisearth; men discovered it when Babylon wasyoung; Romans knew it and saw it burn­ing; no European had ever made kerosene.American women still spun thread andwove cloth, with the spindle and the loomthat were older than Egypt. Older thanEgypt were the water-wheel and the mill­stones that still ground the grain thatAmerican farmers still cut with the knifeand threshed with the flail."

But thanks to individual liberty and non­interference from government, the UnitedStates in the first half of the 19th centuryhad the highest standard of living in theworld. Through the use of energy to en­hance human life, a whole new world wascreated. Rather than quote bits and piecesfrom various examples, I shall quote onesingle example in some detail and allow itto represent all the others:

"Some three thousand years ago, theGreeks knew the principle of the steamengine, but they lacked the technology todevelop it. In 1704, a steamboat was run­ning successfully on the river Elbe in Ger­many. It threatened technological unem­ployment of boatmen. The steamboat wasburned; its inventor barely escaped withhis life.

"Englishmen fortunately were not so wellgoverned as that. When Washington waspresident here, some Englishmen weremaking steam engines. All these activities,of course, were more or less under govern­ment control. The British government pro­tected, encouraged, subsidized and con­trolled the manufacture of steam engines.

"The British government did not want tohave an English manufacturer sell a steam

11

engine to Americans .... (Nevertheless,steam engines were built in America.) In1807 the steamboat ran, at 4 miles an hour,from New York City to Clermont on theHudson, and on to Albany. New Eng­landers immediately saw the stupendouspossibilities of steamboats. They applied atonce to their legislatures for protection.Fortunes and workingmen were in peril.Steamboats would ruin the river sloops,the packetlines, all New England's sailing­ship industries. They would throw out ofjobs all the rivermen, sailors, ships'carpenters, ropemakers; they would wreckNew England. So they sought protectionagainst the newcomer, through govern­ment.

"Governments had always protectedtheir subjects in this way. This is the onlyway in which government's use of force canprotect any man's economic welfare-bypreventing other men's economic activities;that is, by stopping economic progress.

The Alllerican clipperships were the finalblow that broughtdown the Britishplanned econolllY.

JlBut such laws could not be enforced in .America. (After all, they were unconstitu­tional here.) And so, a dozen years afterFulton's Clermont steamed up the Hudson,steamboats were scaring Indians in distantNebraska, and the first steamship crossedthe Atlantic-from the New World toEurope.

"The unprotected sailing-ship menfought tooth and nail·for their fortunes andtheir jobs, but they were doomed. Therewere no laws to stop progress, andAmericans wanted speed. Steamboats soonhad the rivers and the Great Lakes, thecoastwise traffic, then the transatlantictraffic. The American ships took theworld's sea trade.

"It was not only that the clipper shipswere faster, the British ships now second­rate and slow; the Yankee captains werequicker in a bargain. They had no rules andregulations, no red tape. Every Yankeecaptain sized up a situation, figured in hishead, made his price, and loaded the cargo.

"Men stood up in Parliament and point­ed to all this. What had created the clipperships? Not the American government. Notprotection-lack of protection. What madethe British marine second-rate? Safety,shelter, protection under the BritishNavigation Acts. And now the Americanclipper ships had run away with the trade.

12

"/fIt was the American clipper ships thatopened the British ports to free trade. Halfa century of American smuggling andrebellion and costly ·ineffectual blockadescould not break down the British plannedeconomy. Seven years of war in America·and the loss of the thirteen colonies did notdo it. All the sound and sensible argumentsof English economists did not do it. TheAmerican clipper ships did it.

"They were the final blow that broughtdown the British planned economy. Thegreat English reform movement of the nine­teenth century consisted wholly in repeal­ing laws. It was a destruction of govern­ment's interference in human affairs, adestruction of the so-called protection thatis actually a restriction of the exercise ofnatural human rights.

"In that mid-nineteenth-century periodof the greatest individual freedom thatEnglishmen have ever known, they madethe prosperity and power of the British em­pire during Victoria's long and peacefulreign. And to that freedom and prosperityand power and peace, the American clh>pership contributed more than any other onething." (pp. 237-9.)

The Lady and the TycoonFrom 1938 on Mrs. Lane lived alone on afarm she had bought near Danbury, Con­necticut. Though her books still enjoyedgreat popularity, after The Discovery ofFreedom she stopped writing for publica­tion in order to emphasize her oppositionto income tax, social security, and otherNew Deal programs. A libertarian beforeher time, she came to be the chief influenceon the life of another prominent liber­tarian, Roger Lea MacBride, who becameher chief protege and intellectual heir. Andit is thanks to him that we have stillanother book from Mrs. Lane's pen, whichhe edited from her letters after her death in1968. This book is The Lady and the Ty­coon published in 1973 by Caxton Pressand kept in print by this company.

Some 400 pages long, this work is an ex­change of letters from 1946 to 1968 be­tween Mrs. Lane and Jasper Crane of theduPont Corporation. These letters were ne­ver intended for publication (all the note­worthy letters in the exchange are Mrs.Lane's), but luckily they were kept by Mr.Crane, but for which we would not havethe benefit of them now. Her letters ex­patiate on a great variety of issues­philosophical, historical, political, andeconomic, as well as on her reactions todomestic and international events of theday as they occurred. Both as literature andas ideas they are as beautiful and insightfulas anything she ever wrote.

When Mr. Crane discourses to her abo

Rose Wilder Lane

"the beauties of our country," she writes tohim, almost sharply:

"I do not go into rhapsodies about 'mycountry,' its rocks and rills, its super­highways and wooded hills . . . This wholeworld is almost unbearably beautiful; whyshould I love Oak Creek Canyon or Cali­fornia's beaches. . . any more than theBocca di Cattaro or Delphi or the Bos­phorous? Because I, me, the Great RWL,was born in Dakota Territory? The logicseems weak, somehow, don't you feel?

"My attachment to these United States iswholly, entirely, absolutely The Revolu­tion, the real world Revolution, which menbegan here and which has, so to speak, afoothold on earth here. If reactionaries suc­ceed in destroying the revolutionary struc­ture of social and political human life here,I care no more about this continent thanabout any other. If I lived long enough Iwould find and join the revival of theRevolution wherever it might be, in Africaor Asia or Europe, the Arctic or Antarc­tic-and let this country go with all theother regimes that collectivism has wreckedand eliminated since history began. Somuch for patriotism, mine." (p. 267)

The greatness of America lies in the in­dependence of the people from the govern­ment:

"Human minds always are logical; thefallacy always is in the premise, the basicunquestioned assumption, upon which theprocess of reasoning is based. So in logicalreturn for The Government's benefits, weare supposed to 'owe a duty' to It. Thecustom of taxation is a remnant of the In­carnate God's ownership of 'his people.'Why do you owe money to Mr. Kennedy?If you need to guard your property, youhire and pay guards, nightwatchmen; if

April 1978

you are a banker you buy and pay for ar­mored cars and hire guards to transport thebank's gold; if you manage an insurancecompany you hire and pay detectives to in­vestigate claims against your company. If aforeign power attacks your country, youdefend it; you man the tanks, fly thebombers, fire the guns. Is there a need, inreason, to compel persons-by force-todefend their property and themselves? Isthere a reason why 'people cannot do forthemselves' in a free market, everythingthat The Government is supposed to be do­ing for them?

"'The people' have in fact done every­thing that is done; they built the houses androads and railroads and telephones andplanes, they organized world-wide cooper­ative institutions-the oil companies, thebanks-and the postal services, and themilitia companies, and the schools-whatdidn't 'the people' do? What happens isthat, after they do it, The Governmenttakes it. The Government takes the roads,the postal service, the systems of com­munication, the banks, the markets, thestock exchanges, the insurance companies,the schools, the militia, the building trades,the telegraph and telephones, the radios,after 'the people' have done all these thingsfor themselves." (pp. 332-3)

But the United States has changed great­ly since the New Deal, and Mrs. Lane neverloses an opportunity to describe vividly thenature of this change, often from her ownpersonal experience. Her descriptions can­not help raising one's blood pressure. Here,for example, is her description of one of herexperiences in the early years of the NewDeal:

"American farmers fought the 'protectivetariff' from 1800 to 1896 ... Even as lateas 1933, when Garet Garrett and I drove allover the Midwest, the farmers in generalwere not wanting AAA or any other fed­eral interference. In Kansas I met a rabble­rousing New Dealer from Washington whotook me to a farmers' meeting where hespoke with real conviction and eloquence.The audience listened absolutely noncom­mittal, until he worked up to an incandes­cent peroration: 'We went down there toWashington and got you all a Ford. Nowwe're going to get you a Cadillac!' Thetemperature suddenly fell below freezing;the silent antagonism was colder than zero.That ended the speech; the whole audiencerose and went out. The orator later said tome, 'Those damned numbskulls! The onlything to use on them is a club!'

"Some time later, in a hotel lobby inBranson, Missouri, I met a young manalmost in tears, totally woebegone anddespairing. He had spent seventy days in

Libertarian Review

Stone County, working day and night, hesaid, house to house, up hill and down,over those horrible roads; he'd gone toevery house, he'd used every persuasion hecould think of, talked himself hoarse, andhe had not got even one man to take a$2,500 loan from the government; andthose wretched people needed everything;why, their children were barefoot, some ofthem lived in log cabins-could I believe it?They needed to be rehabilitated; I had noidea what rural slums they lived in; andhere he offered them a loan from theGovernment-amortized, 25 years to payit, more time if they wanted it; he offeredthem horses, and tools, even a car, any­thing almost and they just wouldn't take it.They didn't talk or act like such foolseither. He couldn't understand it. He had toget some of them to take Government helpor he'd lose his job. What was wrong withthem? could I tell him? could I help him?

"In southern Illinois there was a Terror.The Government men went into that coun­try and took no nonsense; they condemnedthe land-every farm; offered the owners$7 an acre, or nothing. This was a modelproject, tearing down houses, building newroads, surveying a Community Center allblueprinted. The people were frantic andfurious; they hired lawyers, who told themthey could do nothing; they tired to get thefacts printed; no newspaper dared do it.

There is no honestyinvolved in payingtaxes. Taxationis arllled robbery;tax-collectors arearllled robbers.The county was listed as a rural slum, theland as eroded. When I asked to be shownerosion, the answer was, it is 'sheet erosion'That is, the constant effect of rainfall on allearth. There was not an eroded ditch in thecounty. Every farm was well cared for,every house in repair, painted, cared for­simple frame houses, a few without elec­tricity or plumbing, but many with both.. . . None of them wanted to be rehabili­tated. None of them would speak to Garetor to me until we proved that we did notcome from the Government. Garet wasdumbfounded when men surrounded thecar and demanded that proof; luckily hehad it, by chance. And these are the peoplewho are said to be demanding subsidies!That was a story-Communist Terror in Il­linois. (The manager of the project was aParty member.) No editor would print it,

of course. The truth about this countrynever does get into print." (pp. 168-170)

There are dozens of incidents like this,recounted so vividly as to be emblazonedon one's memory forever. So are her de­scriptions of her own entanglements withthe new Leviathan, the federal govern­ment-of which this is one:

"Various authorities have been trying toforce a Social Security number on me.They telephone and tell me I must haveone; since I have none, they are giving meone. I tell them I won't have it. I get forms,my humble request to be entitled to SocialSecurity benefits; with command, Signhere and return to ---. I put them in thewastebasket. I get orders to appear at suchan hour, such a date, at such an office, withall records and receipts to show cause-Ireply that it is not convenient for me to ap­pear-etc., etc. I even get an order to ap­pear and support with documents my claimfor refund of the tax-and-fine that I paid; Ireturn this, writing across it, 'I have madeno such claim.' The telephone rings, and Iam informed that I am being given the ne­cessary Social Security number; I say Ihave none and I shall not have one; I willhave nothing to do with that Ponzi fraudbecause it is treason; it will wreck thiscountry as it wrecked Germany; I won'thave it; you can't make me ...." (pp. 203-4)

She writes Mr. Crane in no uncertainterms that he is mistaken in believing thatone owes the government something inreturn for services rendered; and she isequally eloquent against Robert LeFevre's"no action" attitude toward government:

"Mr. LeFevre and I have engaged inheated, though amiable, controversy,about his attitude to Government. Whenthe students in his Basic course (the one Iattended) asked him, what should we do?his reply was negative. He said: Do not de­pend on Government; do not ask Govern­ment for favors and subsidies and support.I think that a negative is not enough; I saythat if they do not know the right actionthey are too apt to take a wrong one; Ithink that the thing to do is to resist anyfurther extensions and encroachments andusurpations by the Federal Government,by every peaceful legal means while suchmeans exist ...." (p. 213)

"I do not think that any honesty is in­volved in paying taxes. Taxation is plainarmed robbery; tax-collectors are armedrobbers. I will save my property from themin any way that I think I can get away with.If you wake in the night with a flashlightshining in your face and a masked manwith a gun ordering you to tell him whereyour money is, do you feel that you're

13

morally obliged to tell him the truth, thewhole truth, and nothing but the truth? Ithink you might. I don't. I will try to getout of that predicament with as little loss aspossible. In regard to taxes, this means tak­ing advantage of every legality that any at­torney can find in the tax 'laws' so called,and regulations. I have no scruples aboutthis whatever, anything that I want to dowith my money, and that I can in any wayslip under any legality so that the robberswon't find it and rob me of some of it, I do.They make the legalities, trying to be smartabout who gets how much of my property;and to keep as much as possible of myown, I'll outsmart them if I can . . . ." (p.263)

"I am 'law-abiding' purely for expedien­cy, for self-defense, in the main against myconscientious principles, so at bottom I amashamed of not being a conscientious ob­jector practicing Ghandi's or Thoreau'scivil disobedience. I did refuse to be ra­tioned; I do absolutely refuse to be Social­Secured; but I should refuse to pay taxesand be in jail, only what would become ofmy little Maltese puppies? and my own lit­tle area of freedom? and my books and myfriends and correspondents? I shall bereluctantly a martyr, only when backed in­to the last corner of the last resort. Noheroine, alas." (p. 269)

Yet she is surely one of the great heroinesof the Libertarian Revolution. If liber­tarians want to find, not only quotablequotes, but incisive arguments for theirposition, and replies to objections oftenmade to it, there are passages in this bookthat cannot be improved upon. When Mr.Crane suggests that courts should intervenewhen one business acts in "restraint oftrade" by another, she lashes out:

"As to the restraint of trade by business,that is impossible; the notion that money ispower is another lie. There is no possiblemeans by which the duPont Company canstop me (if I have the brains, and not a pen­ny) from starting an enterprise that willeventually totally destroy the duPontCompany. I can be stopped only by vio­lence, by physical force. The duPont Com­pany, desiring to stop me, has two possiblemethods: (1) You can hire and pay a gun­man to kill me or kidnap me, and gangstersto destroy my property; you cannot do thissuccessfully if the State performs its properfunction of protecting human rights (myright to life, liberty, and ownership ofproperty). (2) Or, you can bribe enoughCongressmen to pass an Act of Congresssetting up a commission and requiring thatanyone engaging in any enterprise in thefield of duPont Company's activities mustfirst obtain a permit from the commission

14

and thereafter be 'regulated' by themembers of the commission. This act willbe enforced by police force, which will aseffectually prevent my competing with du­Pont as criminal force would do. You can­not use this second method, either, if theState is restricted to its proper function ofprotecting human rights (my right to life,liberty and ownership); for 'governmentregulation' is an infringement of my libertyand ownership." (p. 2)

Or if someone asks, "How do you stopthe concentration of wealth in this coun­try?" one can invite him to read Mrs.Lane's reply:

"Freedom of enterprise cannot 'produce asociety in which there is great wealth con­centrated in the hands of a few and con­siderable poverty among the many.' Dr.Blake might as well ask, 'What is ourpolitical and Christian duty when waterruns uphill, when the earth turns from eastto west, when air is heavier than lead?'Doesn't he know any facts at all? Does henever look at his country? How can heavoid seeing, if he ever glances at any city,town, highway, or farm, that the salientcharacteristic of this country is distribu­tion, not concentration, of wealth? Doesn'the know that even ownership of capitalwealth is not concentrated?-that, for ex­ample, some 600,000 'among the many'own General Electric? What free enterpriseproduces most unexpectedly, is a society inwhich great economic responsibility is con­centrated and great wealth is distributedamong the many." (p. 81; written in 1952)

And if someone suggests that after allAmerica has produced only materialvalues, whereas other nations pursuenobler ideals, she has this to tell us:

"This scorn of 'materialism' seems to meeither a shallow and thoughtless cliche, oral1 expression of frustration, despair, envy,hate ... Nehru flaunts Indian 'spirituality.'America, they say, has nothing but plumb­ing; how low, how vulgar, how contempti­ble, a country that values bathrooms whileEurope loves art and India has a soul.

"Well, okay, I'll raise right now the flagof the bathroom. What is a bathroom? It iscleanliness, health, and all other values ofhuman life on this earth; leisure, learning,art, culture, because it releases human be­ings from life-wasting drudgery . . . Giveme American bathrooms; give me thecountry where pumps and pipes are theworking class, where 'gadgets' serve thevalues of human life, and human beingshave a life-time to live . ..." (p. 131)

If someone asks, Might it not benecessary sometime to interfere in the

"internal affairs" of another country, e.g.the Soviet Union, she answers:

"I don't want to be misunderstood asever suggesting, or approving, anyone'ssaying to anyone else, 'You do so-and-so,or I will do such-and-such to you.' That is athreat, an attempt to invade another's areaof responsibility, to infringe human rights,to dictate another's decisions and acts. Du­Pont did nothing of that kind when you alldecided not to deal with the Soviet Union.What the company did then was to say, ']do this.' And if asked why, 'Because, theSoviet Union being what it is, this com­pany cannot deal with it.' This is not tryingto dictate to Stalin, nor to destroy hisregime. It is simply acceptance of duPont'sresponsibility for duPont's decisions. Ifevery American corporation's directors didthis, the Soviet Union would collapse. Butthat would not be the responsibility of thedirectors; it would be the responsibility ofthe men who created the Soviet Union sothat it cannot survive if Americancorporation-directors act morally." (p. 21)

One could go on and on-every page isladen with memorable passages. Thesewere letters written to an audience of one,yet they deserve to be shouted from thehousetops more than books that sellmillions of copies. Did Mrs. Lane think shewas influencing many people? Probablynot; but she was an indefatigable letter­writer, especially in her later years whenshe had ceased writing for publication.And sometimes she was heeded:

"I heard a high school'debate' among allpro-New Dealers on the radio, and wroteto each of them. One replied, with all theWelfare State collectivist notions that hadbeen put in his head, but he didn't s,eemwholly unintelligent, so I kept on writing tohim for some months, apparently with noeffect, finally getting no answer. Now heturns up as publisher ...."

Her finest work, excelling even TheDiscovery of Freedom, was never writtenfor publication; yet its publication has in­fluenced many thousands of people. Tenyears after her death, Rose Wilder Lane'sinfluence is again on the rise. While shelived she fought a very lonely battle. Wereshe alive today, ~he would be happy toknow that battle is no longer as lonely asbefore, and that those who have· madecommon cause with her are increasing innumber, every day and every hour.

John Hospers is professor of philosophy atthe University of Southern California andthe author of the widely acclaimed workLibertarianism.

April 1978

I Crosseurrents

by Walter Grinder• Business Moves to WashingtonRecently, a number of libertarians havebeen trying to convince themselves andothers that since government is in publicdisfavor, it is beating a hasty retreat on allfronts. Bloated government, we are led toconclude, is about to crumble under itsown overweight and overextension. Wouldthat it were so. But the facts speak dif­ferently.

The ties that bind government and busi­ness together are multiplying without limit.In fact, the government-business interfaceis growing at a faster pace than at any otherpeacetime period in U.S. history. The per­sistent penchant of Washington to regulateand to legislate has mushroomed so tre­mendously that, in the last year alone,more than 10,000 bills were introduced inthe House of Representatives and almost3,000 in the Senate. Of course, only a frac­tion of these were adopted or even broughtout of committee; but even so, at this rate,the much-vaunted deregulation movementand the so-called retrenchment of govern­ment would not be able even to keep pacewith newly enacted legislation, let alonehave any net liberating effect.

Whether through reform of older regula­tions or because of newly enacted regu­latory programs, government is increasing­ly becoming the (not so silent) partner ofmost businesses. Many businessmen arequite unhappy with this turn of events;some, however, are delighted. And increas­ing numbers of them are becoming moresophisticated and aware of this trend, andare in fact nurturing this relationship ina much more systematic and professionalmanner.

A good indicator of this heightenedawareness is the migration of various tradeassociations to Washington. There are now1,800 such associations headquartered inthe nation's capitol, and their ranks aregrowing at the rate of one a week. AsSteven V. Roberts reports in a very in­formative article, "Trade AssociationsFlocking to Capitol as U. S. Role Rises"(New York Times, March 4, 1978), "thismigration of associations to Washington ispart of a broader trend. Law firms and lob­byists, chain stores and corporate head­quarters are all flooding into the capitol,and all for the same reason. More decisionsaffecting more people are made here than

Libertarian Review

anywhere else in the country, perhaps inthe world."

Roberts goes on to point out that "onekey element of lobbying is simply getting toknow the right people, and this can be doneeffectively only in Washington." He quotesJames P. Low, executive vice president ofthe American Society of Association Ex­ecutives, as saying, "You have to behelpful, be dependable, keep contact. Thegood association executive builds friend­ships, takes people out to lunch, takes themto the ball game, builds trust." Imaginethat-good solid moral standards rightthere in the home of iniquity.

Perhaps a more key sign of the im­portance of statutes regulating Americanbusiness and the consequent interrelation­ships between business and government, isthe amount of time being devoted to thisproblem. by chief executive officers of ma­jor corporations. More and more copora­tion heads are spending time in Washing­ton trying to find their way through themystifying maze and making sure that theirinfluence is felt. In many cases, CEOsspend as much time figuring out thesepolitically imposed procedures and plottingout new corporate responses and initiativesas they spend in determining how to manu­facture and market their companies' prod­ucts. And this shouldn't be surprising.After all, as the editor of Harper's, LewisLapham, so scathingly and cleverly put it,we just can't let people "go around makingthings without permission."

However, as sad (both morally and eco­nomically) as the situation is, I really can­not find .the heart to feel very sorry formost of America's big business leaders. Thecurrent generation of businessmen is mere­ly reaping the harvest of the crop sown bytheir predecessors during the developmentof "political capitalism," throughout mostof this century. Sadly, I see little evidencewhich would lead me to believe that to­day's bUSInessmen are acting any different­ly than those of two, three or four decades,ago. On the contrary, everything I see in­dicates that big business' acceptance andencouragement of closer ties to governmentis going full steam ahead, faster than ever.

The growth of this cozy relationship be­tween business and government could havebeen stopped at any time in the past (andcould be halted even today)-if business-

men had been determined to hold the line.But here lies the rub. Most of them wantedit both ways: They wanted the favors thatcould be bestowed only by government,while at the same time they wanted to beleft alone to run their businesses as theysaw fit. Businessmen are now finding thatthey have trapped themselves in one of themany contradictions of political cap­italism.

But don't count out the American busi­nessman just yet. America's corporate elitestill exert far more influence than any othersector in American society. As Walter Guz­zardi Ir. points out in another very usefularticle, "Business is Learning to Win inWashington" (Fortune, March 27, 1978),"The c.e.o. can always get a hearing: busypoliticians and bureaucrats will juggle their

With few exceptions,Dlost big businessleaders stand firstand foreDlost aDlongthe real opponentsof an unhaDlperedfree Dlarket society.

appointment books to see the head of Gen­eral Motors or of I.B.M.... Frequentlythey meet with the President. One chief ex­ecutive or another is almost always in con­tact with Secretary of the Treasury MichaelBlumenthal, Secretary of Commerce Juan­ita Kreps, Energy Secretary James Schles­inger, and Charles Schultz, chairman of theCouncil of Economic Advisers. When theygo hunting on the Hill, they meet wherepower concentrates: in the offices of HouseSpeaker Tip O'Neill, Ways and MeansChairman Al Ullman, and Senator RussellLong."

No matter how sad-from the point ofview of the libertarian-the state of legisla­tion and regulation has become in Wash­ington, with the exception of a very fewcompetitive and ideologically committedbusinessmen, big business hardly is on therun. Whatever big business is doing, thereis one thing that it certainly is not doing: Itis not defending the free market. Amazing­ly, this fact mystifies many libertarians.But surely it should not. The history of therelationship between business and govern­ment in 20th century America clearlyshows that a significant number of businessleaders have been in the forefront of the

15

move away from the discipline of the freemarket towards the shelter and protectionfrom the rigors of the market offeredwithin the friendly confines of the cor­porate state. What constantly amazes me isthat anyone would find such a course of ac­tion surprising.

The countless incursions into America'smarket mechanism over the past sevendecades have generated innumerable con­fusions and contradictions, and have left intheir wake a morass of bureaucratic redtape. Needless to say, many businessmenfind this state of affairs disconcerting.Most, however, do not seem to be suffi­ciently morally distressed to call for com­plete adoption of the free market to set thesituation aright.

To the contrary, most businessmen seemto be following the lead of the BusinessRoundtable (a prestigious association com­prised of a couple of hundred top CEOs inthe country). The Roundtable is busilybeating down many of the more populistmeasures that have been suggested andcoopting those that cannot be beatenoutright. My bet is that after a couple ofyears (or less) of tough infighting, bigbusiness will once again have stolen the"thunder of the Left" and will haverefashioned each of the new regulatoryagencies to its own best interest. But theother strategy of big business is totransform existing regulatory bodies intoworkable and helpful agencies by introduc­ing "quasi-market" reforms, within thebroader parameters of our regulated socie­ty. Here, it seems clear that big businesshas stolen the "thunder of the Right." Avery clever strategy indeed, and one whichclearly seems to be working.

I say quasi-market reform for a goodreason. Real market prices cannot belegislated or attained by administrativegroping and fiat. Nor can prices developedwithin set parameters, constrained by up­per or lower ranges, be considered realmarket prices. For example, prices such asthose being discussed for natural gas overthe next two, five or ten years are notmarket prices; rather, they are what Lud­wig Mises years ago called "merely quanti­ty relations in the government's orders."

As the aforementioned article in Fortunedemonstrates, the business, lobbying, andtrade association leaders in Washington arestrongly pushing for probusiness legisla­tion and probusiness administrative inter­pretations. Only a cultural lag of majormagnitude, however, could lead one tojump to the conclusion that what they aredoing is battling for the free market. If itwere not so sad (let alone so. historicallynaive), it would be almost laughable toassume that the presidents of the corporate

16

establishment would be pushing for realeconomic liberty (Le., the full discipline ofthe profit and loss system) and against thecomfortable umbrella of neomercantiliststate protection and favored status.

(I am convined the big business wouldfight for the free market system under, andonly under, the following conditions: (1)that the perceived benefits to big business,as a group or class, were greater than theperceived losses that would be incurred byforegoing the favored status; (2) that bigbusiness was no longer essentially inte­grated into the state mechanism, and con­sequently was a self-conscious net recipientof both monetary and psychic income fromthe state transfer system; and (3) that bigbusiness was guided by a strong and deeplyseated ideological conviction that the freemarket is a good, just, and worthwhile ob­jective to achieve, even at the expense ofother political-economic objectives-andthat Big Business leaders felt that thepolitical-economic objectives were, at leastin the medium run, consonant with thedemands of the stockholders. It seems tome that not even one of these three condi­tions is met at this time. Therefore, I do nothesitate to state categorically that most bigbusiness leaders-there are the few ideo­syncratic exceptions which, as always, areneeded to confirm the rule-will stand firstand foremost among the real opponents ofa genuine, unhampered free market socie­ty.)

True, the CEOs are beside themselveswith the petty and pestiferous minutiae ofregulatory red tape, and they quite ob­viously would like to get rid of it. On thismatter I have no doubt that they will bereasonably successful. But once this isachieved, and once profits start slowingmore smoothly, more than likely we willhear Iittle more about market reforms(deregulation). Instead, it would seemprobable that we will be hearing a lot moreabout the New American Ideology and thecontinuing business-government partner­ship, as best articulated by Harvard Pro­fessor George Cabot Lodge.

In the meantime, what about the cause ofliberty? What about the size and scope ofthe American state? What about the greatretreat of government from our lives andlivlihoods? And the crumbling of Levi­athan? As one of my students recently toldme, "Don't hold your breath."

I am convinced that, for reasons I havediscussed previously in these pages, thereare many reasons for libertarians to' be op­timistic in the relatively near future. I am,however, equally concerned that we not belulled into either unachievable expectationsor complacency by the siren song of falseor misplaced optimism. We must examine

and understand the real situation, and thenprocede from there.

To keep alert about the real condition ofboth the growth and power of the state andof the interpenetration of business andgovernment, I would suggest simplyreading about the real world. A good placeto start is with Business Week and Fortune.

Environment(continued from page 8)tions-in order to save jobs. Thus we findmany otherwise-liberal Democrats slowlyabandoning environmentalism in favor ofjobs. As one liberal. Democratic congress­man from Ohio recently put it: "The pri­mary cause of our high unemployment. . .lies with the U.S. Environmental Protec­tion Agency and its overzealous, regula­tion-making bureaucrats."

Environmentalists would be wise to re­alize that this kind of thinking is quite com­mon in the Congress today and it may verywell lead to a backlash against existingenvironmental legislation. The DemocraticParty's coalition of labor unions, minor­ities and environmentalists could easilybreak up if it comes down to a question ofjobs versus the environment.=-------

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April 1978

Eguality,Planning,and theMarketEconomyAn interview with Austrian economist Ludwig Lachmann

by Richard Ebeling and Don Lavoie

Ludwig Lachrnann is one of the most prominentfree-market econom'ists of our time, an 'in-

.

defal'iguable worker z'n the ''Austrian'' econ'im'icstrad'it'ion set forth by such g'iants of econom'icthought as Carl Menger, Ludwz'g von Mz'ses, and

F.A. Hayek. Together w'ith such notables as Israel Kirznerand Murray Rothbard, Ludw'ig Lachmann has been 'in thefront lz'nes of economz'cs, keepz'ng alz've the 4ustrz'an tradz'­l'ion and extend'ing z'ts front'iers among the academ'ic world.He has been act'ive for more than halfa century 'in teachingand wr'itz'ng.

Prof Lachmann entered the Un'iverszty of Berlz'n 'in 1924to study econom'ics. After discovering the works of Ludwigvon Mises and Friedrich Hayek in the 1920s, Lachmannmoved to England 'in 1933, to study economz'cs as a graduatestudent of Hayek at the London School of Economics.Lachmann remaz'ned at the London School throughout the1930s and 1940s, afterwards mov'ing to South Afrz'ca toteach at the Unz'vers'ity of the W'itwatersrand 'in Johan­nesburg. In the 1970s, Prof Lachmann has been v'isz'tz'ngprofessor of economz'cs at New York Universz'ty where,together with Dr. Israel Kz'rzner and a group of graduatestudents, there has been buz'lt a form'idable program for thestudy ofA'ustr'ian econom'ics.

Hz's works span the ent'ire breadth of econom'ic thought,from methodology to questions of publz'c polz'cy, and h'isdefense of the free market economy 'is rigorous and far­reaching. A mong hz's most important books are Capital andIts Structure (1956, to be reprz'nted 'in 1978 by SheedAndrews and McMeel), The Legacy of Max Weber (1971),Macro-economic Thinking and the Market Economy(1973), and a new collect'ion of some of h'is most important

Libertarian Review

essays, Capital, Expectations and the Market Process, editedwz'th an z'ntroduction by LR assoc'iate editor Walter E.Grz'nder (1977).

Prof Lachmann z's presently at work at his home 'inJohannesburg on a treat'ise on the market process. He wasz'nterv'iewed for Libertarian Review by frequent LR con­tributors Don Lavoie and Richard Ebelz'ng, who are bothgraduate students z'n economz'cs at New York Unz'versz'ty.

LR: During the last few years there has been a markedrevival of interest in Austrian economics, after an eclipse ofnearly 40 years. You have been acquainted with orassociated with Austrian economics for nearly half a cen­tury. To what do you attribute this revival of the Austrianschool and its traditions?Lachmann: I think there is now a growing dissatisfcationwith the dominant Keynesian and neoclassical economicsestablishment, which has dominated economic thoughtsince the Second World War. Indeed, if you read the ut­terances of the most prominent neoclassical economists, youcan see that this feeling of general uneasiness is in fact quitearticulate in the minds of leading neoclassical figures. Sosince the paradigm of the neoclassical establishment, whichfor 25 years had dominated Western economics, is on thedecline, this has given the Austrians a chance to regain theinfluence they once had. And there is another reason, ofcourse. As economic problems have gotten worse, and theneoclassical paradigm has failed to solve these problems,there have been a number of people who have kept theAustrian tradition alive. At one university-New YorkUniversity-Austrian economics has never been entirely lost,and that is no doubt due to the efforts and remarkable pa-

17

tiences of Mises' last pupils. There it became possible torevive Austrian economics.

I also imagine that Friedrich Hayek's having won theNobel prize in 1974 has done something to promote interestin Austrian economics. Many people I know would ask,before 1974, "Who is Hayek?" I think that most economistsby now know, or are beginning to find out. I would alsopoint to the contribution to the debate in economics thatJohn Hicks has made with his widely read essay "The HayekStory," which I am sure has done some good.

LR: When did you personally begin to regain hope in theAustrian resurgence?Lachmann: By the 1960s I had become very pessimisticabout the future of Austrian economics. In 1970, I visitedVienna and found little reason for hope or optimism there.My hope for the future really began to revive at aconference - the first in a series - on Austrian economicssponsored by the Institute for Humane Studies, and held atRoyalton College in South Royalton, Vermont. [The mainpapers from this conference are published in a book editedby Edwin Dolan, The Foundatz'ons of Modern Austrz'anEconomz'cs.) There, Murray Rothbard, Israel Kirzner, and Igave several lectures surveying Austrian economics and theneoclasssical orthodoxy. There were more than fifty par­ticipants from all regions of the United States and elsewhere.

I had come to the conclusion before then that Austrianeconomics was on the whole a faith of old men, of which Iwas one, and with us Austrian economics would die. But atSouth Royalton there was a whole house full of youngAustrians, tumbling over each other, very eager to learnabout Austrian economics. That, indeed, gave me greathope for the future.

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LR: How did you come to be interested in both the Austrianschool and Ludwig von Mises in the first place?Lachmann: I grew up in the Germany of the WeimarRepublic, where a kind of a moderate, evolutionarysocialism was the officially accepted doctrine. I grew up inthe midst of fierce disputes between the defendants of it,which meant the adherents on the higher intellectual level ofthe German Social Democratic Party (SPD)-the partywhich again in Germany today is the ruling party-and thetrue Marxists, who were sometimes Communists and some­times belonged to the other, splinter parties of the Left inGermany during the Weimar Republic.

Now, I didn't like all this at all. I hated Marxism and Ididn't think very much of the evolutionary socialists of theSPD. It seemed that the market economy in Germany,which had gone through fearful shocks in the First WorldWar, and then the Great Inflation, had come outremarkably well. I was somewhat distressed that in the worldin which I was growing up, the Germany of the 1920s,nobody seemed to defend the market economy, even thoughthe evolutionary socialists admitted that Germany could nothave existed without it. Yet nobody seemed to either identifywhat the market economy was, or to defend it. And since theteaching of economics, in particular at the University ofBerlin, was very bad, one naturally looked around for some­thing better. I simply don't remember when or where I cameacross one of Ludwig von Mises' writings. I came across oneor two of his articles in the late 1920s, read them, and foundthem fascinating, so I read more of them. It was throughreading Mises that I first came across Hayek in German, too.

LR: You had moved to the London School of Economicsafter the Nazi takeover?Lachmann: Yes, and it was at that time that I came to meetand know Friedrich Hayek in his famous seminar. I hadknown Hayek's name, and had read his bookPrz'ces and Pro­ductz'on in German before coming to London in the springof 1933, so I knew about him. But I first met him in Londonin April, 1933, and then started to work under him as agraduate student.

LR: You say you moved out of Germany when the Naziscame in - would you view that as an escape, or just as amove?Lachmann: At the time it was not an escape. I had a verysmall job in Berlin which I lost when Hitler came to power, asmall job as a research assistant. It was obvious that I had noprospects, so to leave was the obvious thing, and it wasrelatively easy for me to leave because I didn't have to giveup anything.

LR: The Austrian school at that time in the early 1930s wasin a very predominant position in the general economicestablishment, certainly relative to today. To what wouldyou attribute the decline of the Austrian school in the 1930s?Lachmann: When I came to the London School ofEconomics in 1933, I think it's fair to say that, with a few ex"ceptions of certain lecturers who were politically committedto the Labor Party, nearly everybody was an Austrian, andeverybody more or less acknowledged Hayek as the intellec-

April 1978

tualleader. When, six years later, in September 1939, theLondon School of Economics closed down for the SecondWorld War, Hayek and I were the only "Austrians" left.

LR: To what do you attribute that decline?Lachmann: Undoubtedly the rise of Keynesian economics.The situation is also described, as you know, in Hicks' littleessay, "The Hayek Story," where he says the same thing. In1933, the world of economists-certainly the British onesbut I believe also the Americans - was divided between thosewho looked to Keynes and those who looked to Hayek. Bythe end of the 1930s Hayek's audience had dispersed. Wehave to ascribe it in the first place to the rising influence ofKeynes. I think it is also of some significance that later on,when some of the Keynesians began to be afflicted bydoubts, they nevertheless did not return to Hayek. Austrianeconomics has been dogged by a good deal of misfortune, bya sequence of disasters. The very fact that Hayek was soclearly the leader and there was almost nobody who wouldhave been regarded as a second in command brought itabout that when Hayek, at the end of the 40s, went awayfrom economics to political philosophy, feeling as he wellwas entitled to, that problems in political philosophy in the1950s would be more important than any economicproblems, there simply was nobody left.

LR: What type of changes do you see when you look back onthe KeYnesian influence in the 1930s and since then?Lachmann: This is a difficult question: Who today is aKeynesian? In a sense everybody now says he is aKeynesian-you know, Milton Freidman says we are allKeynesians today. On the other hand, there are even schoolsof thought contending for the honor of being the "true"Keynesians. I have never been very much of a Keynesian,though frankly I think more highly of Keynes and his worknow than I did 40 years ago, when I first heard of TheGeneral Theory. I cannot agree with Hayek that the infla­tion with which we've been living in the midst of for 30 yearsis entirely the fault of Keynes. I am quite sure that if Kerneswere living today, he would regard the inflation in which weare living as dangerous. He had a clear idea of the dangersof inflation. But it so happened that in the years in which hewas most successful, in the 1930s, this seemed to be theminor evil.

LR: Did you have an opportunity to meet Keynes?Lachmann: I saw Keynes three times in my life. I once methim in Cambridge in 1931, and then I saw him twice at theLondon School of Economics. Once he came to a meeting ofthe London Economic Club, of which I was a member,when the Swedish economist Professor Heckscher gave a talkon mercantilism, in which he subjected Keynes' "Notes onMercantilism" to some thorough criticism. Keynes had comedown from Cambridge in order to listen. For Keynes, thatwas not a very successful evening, needless to say. The lastoccasion on which I remember meeting Keynes was in thespring of 1937 when he addressed the students of the Lon­don School of Economics on the coming boom. He startedby saying that "you must realize that the situation has nowchanged and many people in this room may be surprised at

Libertarian Review

some of the things I am going to say. The plain fact is thatwe are not in a depression and we seem to be engaged in aboom." Then he recommended certain measures, one ofthem being the reduction of British tariffs. He did say thatthe one thing you should not tinker with was the rate of in­terest. One should not allow interest rates to rise because itwould be so very difficult to get them down again in thefuture.

LR: A number of people, including Hayek and Lord Rob­bins, have commented on the almost irresistable impact oflisten to or talking to Keynes, his way of see-!Jling to totallyconvince you with his personality. Did you find him so?Lachmann: No, I did not. I found him impressive in argu­ment, clever, and he gave the impression of a man who hadthought a lot, the general impression of a thinker. But thestrange sort of almost mesmeric effect that Robbins andothers describe I had never felt. The reason may be that Inever had any intimate contact with him. Of the three occa­sions I described, two were meetings I attended. Hayek andRobbins of course knew Keynes intimately. So far as I amconcerned, I found him impressive, clever, and not muchmore than that.

LR: One of today's most widely held ideals is that of equali­ty. In your analyses of the market economy, you have em­phasized that it is fundamentally impossible to combine amarket economy with egalitarianism, with equality of resultsor of opportunity. Could you explain?Lachmann: Egalitarianism is one of the favorite myths ofour century. No thinking person can fail to see that ashuman societies become more civilized and complex, ine­qualities are bound to increase in various ways. This is simp­ly a corollary of the division of labor, and of the fact thatpeople are different in a great many ways. I· therefore quiteagree with Ludwig von Mises when he claims that the ine­quality of incomes and wealth is an inherent feature of themarket economy. The market economy creates inequalityinevitably because men are not equal.

In the market economy, there are the successful and theunsuccessful. Now, if you have embedded in the politicalsystem the notion of interventionism, then we will tend tofind that the economically unsuccessful will try, via theirpolitical influence, to undo the results of the market. If thestate tries to make all its citizens equal- something that isimpossible in any case - then the results are likely to besomewhat unhappy, as we see in the case of the modernwelfare state.

The first thing to point out is that it is impossible to haveboth equality of results and a free market economic system.Suppose, for a moment, that you were to redistribute all in­come and wealth so that everyone started out economicallyequal. If freedom of exchange were allowed, then veryquickly, because people have different value scales, wewould have a spontaneous, voluntary rearrangement ofproperty which would result, by some criterion or another,in "inequality." Only by continual state interferrence inpeople's lives could we keep people "equal."

Moreover, look at the effect that the stock market muusthave on this initial "equality." Perhaps the most important

19

economic function of the stock market or exchange is theredistribution of wealth by means of constant changes incapital values, continual capital gains and losses, in ac­cordance with the market's view about the probable futuresuccess or failure, relatively speaking, of business enter­prises. So devotees of a redistribution of wealth in the nameof "social justice" ought to be aware that, even if the statewere able to use coercion to produce a supposedly "sociallydesirable" mode of distribution of wealth today, if we permitthe market to function - which means if we permit freedomof exchange - we would, because of capital gains and losses,as well as just plain different uses of wealth, arrive at a verydifferent distribution of wealth tomorrow. So there can· beno equality of results on a free market, even if "startingplaces" are the same.

LR Some advocates of the welfare state would reply that it isimportant to give everyone a fair chance to start with; forexample, an equal opportunity for certain training oreducation. They argue that only if there is this equal oppor­tunity in the beginning is it then appropriate to let peopleface whatever happens in the marketplace.Lachmann: But this is an impossibility, giving everybodythe same opportunity. Even if you made sure that everyschool in the country is an exact replica of every other schoolit would still remain impossible. And even if you hadmanaged to obtain this unlikely result, the fact would still bethat the products of the various schools would have differentoccasions to apply what they have learned. They would usewhat they learned differently. The reason for this is simplythat every man's life is different from every other man's life.The opportunities, literally speaking, that come along oneman's way and another man's way are simply not the same,and it is not given to any power on earth to make these op­portunities even or equal.

In fact, if one thinks about it, one sees what a fantasticworld it would have to be in which all people have the sameopportunities. It would have to be a world in whicheverybody has the same experz'ence. It is absurd.

LR: It is often said that it is possible to make incomeredistribution compatible with the market economy.Resources would be directed according to market processes.But after the income has been received, it could then beredz'strz'buted to help those who are in need. Now, does thismake egalitarianism and the market economy compatible?Lachmann: No, because the more successful members ofsociety know that they will only be able to retain a portz'on ofwhat they can gain. Since the high incomes and profits in amarket economy require human effort, plus a peculiar constellation of luck and favorable circumstances, it is quiteobvious that high taxation will naturally act as a disincentiveto those who have to take considerable risks. So the morerisky chances will not be taken, and people will reduce theeffort they spend on their economic action to the level thatseems, to the people concerned, worthwhile.

LR: Couldn't we also argue that egalitarianism is just as in­compatible with central planning because attempts to createsuch central planning, in the Soviet Union and other places,have resulted in even more striking examples of inequality?

20

Lachmann: You are quite right. In fact, this is FriedrichHayek's main argument; in order to create the supposedlyegalitarian socialist society, you have to create the artz'cifz'alz'nequalz'ty between the planners andthe planned. You haveto divide the population between the small number of plan­ners, who presumably are planners by appointment or bysome kind of ad hoc procedure, and the rest of society that isbeing planned by them. One of the arguments in favor ofthe market econ9my and the socie'ty on which it rests is thatanybody has a ,chance of improving himself. A nybody cantry when opportunities come his way. Or, to put it the otherway, there is, from the beginning, no such thing as a processby which the leaders of society are designated. In otherwords, what you typically find in a lazssezjaz're, free-marketsociety, as Pareto said, is that the rise and fall of elites ischaracteristic of that kind of free society. In a free societythe circulation of elites takes place in the form of a naturalprocess; whereas in a socialist society this would be an ar­tifz'cz'al process, determined by the state.

LR: In what sense is the circulation of the elites a naturalprocess in the unhampered market economy?Lachmann: Because the children of successful people willnot necessarily be successful. The unsuccessful, on the otherhand, may well have children who are most talented. Thetalented children will then rise and the others will fall.

LR: Some people aruge for socialism by claiming that withsocialism we can minimize best the uncertainty that peopleface in a free-market economy. They claim that centraleconomic planning provides for some element of stability inpeople's lives. How would you answer that?Lachmann: The future is uncertain whether we have amarket society or a socialist society. The difference is that inthe market society, at least some of the consequences of theuncertainty fall on the uncertainty bearers; whereas in asocialist society it is by no means clear where it falls - itprobably falls on the majority of the people. You see, the

April 1978

world is always uncertain, but the market society permitssome people to specialize in bearing uncertainty. This seemsto me a very desirable device to which, in a socialist society,there is no counterpart - and can be no counterpart.

LR: Those who advocate central, national economic plan­ning often claim, however, that in a centrally plannedeconomy you can eliminate a lot of the uncertainty, by co­ordinating a multitude of individual plans by one over-allnational plan.Lachmann: The older form of central planning tried toachieve some sort of stability by substituting an overall na­tional plan for the individual plans of the members of socie­ty. This sort of "plan" broke down basically for the reasonsset forth by Mises and Hayek: It could not attain the resultssought. Economic calculation was impossible without amarket for capital goods-and the resulting prices for pro­ductive factors - and, in addition, it became impossible tomake use of decentralized bits of knowledge, of particularfacts scattered throughout society. As I say, this sort of planfailed to achieve the results aimed at.

The newer form of planning - such as the "indicativeplanning" advocated in recent years - tries to coordinatecentrally various individual plans.

But the central plan can, at best, only coordinate thoseplans which the various economic agents have available atthe moment. The central plan cannot prevent events fromhappening that would make economic agents want tochange their plans. Such events will happen. They aretypical of a society in which people learn, in whch scientificand technical knowledge increases rapidly. So, while it istrue that the central plan might theoretically coordinate theplans of various economic agents at any given moment,there is no protection against the unexpected happening.The fact that the unexpected can and will happen sets limitsto any possiblility of planning the future.

LR: Well then, how would you view the development inEastern Europe of what is called "market socialism," whereyou try to have managers directing the factories in responseto market forces, yet the factors of production remainowned by the state?Lachmann: Firstly, the factory managers are not appointedor demoted in accordance with their success. They are simp­ly there, and though their promotion may depend on theirsuccess, you can't suddenly appoint new managers. Quiteclearly, modern managerial bureaucracy, like any otherbureaucracy, requires an element of continuity. As regardsthe socialist market economy, the arguments that Ludwigvon Mises used are surely applicable., There can be aneconomy in which there are markets for consumption, andin which the managers of the enterprise of the consumptiongoods sectors-,--factories, stores, and so on-are instructed toact as though they were in the market, presumably raisingprices when there is an excess demand, lowering prices whenthere is an excess supply. All this in no way satisfies the re­quirement of the market economy, since there is no marketin capital goods. Here Mises was quite right: Without amarket in capital goods, which would allow for rationalpricing of capital goods - without. a stock exchange - you

Libertarian Review

cannot have a market economy. And it is clear to all of uswhy in Eastern Europe you can't have a stock exchange:because there the state owns the means of production. Thatis the vital matter.

You have a real market economy only when it is possibleto trade in titles to productive assets, to capital goods, andyou have a stock exchange. However many industries may besocialized, as long as you have a stock exchange, you stillhave essentially a market economy. On the other hand, it isthe absence of a market for capital resources that identifies asocialist economy.

LR: Isn't it difficult to say that the Eastern Europeaneconomies have either a market economy or a centrallyplanned economy? There are prices for consumer goods andan immense black market for trading resources in thecapital market. Is there a difficulty in categorizing theseeconomic systems?Lachmann: It depends on where we want to draw the line.I've just said that a market economy requires a stock ex­change, a market for capital goods and the titles to them.Now, in an economy in which you have not got a stock ex­change, you presumably can get all kinds of forms oforganization. But it seems to me that in this mixed approachthere is the danger of chaos. On the one hand, you have amarket economy in which productive activity is geared towhat consumers want based upon the profit-and-Ioss expec­tations of the capital owners who produce consumer goods.On the other hand, you get central planning. In between,you get the danger of syndicalism, of producers who couldnot do something else or go into some other kind of businesseven if they wanted to. The workers in a certain kind of in­dustry, say a glue factory, happen to "own" that factory. Butthey are still not in the position of the factory owner in amarket economy because they cannot sell their titles toownership to others. This means that in a market economy,if there's a decline in the demand for glue, and some gluefactories have to go out of business, their owners would haveto try and do something else. But in an economy organizedon syndicalistic lines, with workers' control, how do you dothat? Who decides how many workers leave the glue industryand learn to do something else? And besides, what happensto those who disagree with decisions made by the majorityunder "workers' control?"

LR: A number of years ago, you wrote an article in whichyou talked about the peculiar situation of unions, having asthey do one foot in the market economy and one foot in thepolitical arena. I was wondering if you could elaborate onthat.Lachmann: It should be clear by now, to anyone who haslived through the last 50 years with his eyes open, that theWestern world would be a better world if trade unions hadnever been invented. However, they are now there and forobvious reasons we have to live with them. Now I think whatwe should do is encourage trade union members to exercisestrict control over their officials. In general it is a matter ofdisabusing the public mind of the idea that much is to be ex­pected from trade unions. A good deal of educational workremains to be done. The ordinary trade union members

21

should learn that whether he or she can expect an improve­ment in his or her real income depends on a number of cir­cumstances that union membership has little to do with.The problem involves the spreading of some enlightenmentand education among union members and encouragingthem to exercise some control over their leaders. Since unionleaders are often more afraid of their own membership thanof public opinion, we should somehow persuade unionmembers to make it clear to their leaders that they are atleast as intelligent and as enlightened as public opinion is.

Partly it's a matter of simply undermining some of thedogmas that public opinion has accepted in the last 50years. For instance, now it seems to be universally acceptedin the West that no money wage rate must ever fall. Peoplemust be told that sometimes it is in the interest of wageearners that their wages should fall, because if they do fallthey may get employment opportunities that they wouldotherwise not have. Every businessman in the centuries thatthe market economy has lasted has known that sometimes itpays him to reduce the prices of the goods he sells. Whyshould workers be exempt from that? This I regard as one ofthe most insidious dogmas that we must now live with, thedogma that no money wage rate must ever be allowed tofall. The implication, of course, is that if real wages are toohigh-uneconomically so, causing significantunemployment - then they should be lowered by means ofz"njlatz"on, by reducing the real value of money wages. Thealternative would be a straightforward reduction of wagerates whenever the value of work does not justify the con­tinuedpayment of the former wage. This would lead to

22

needed economic readjustments and to a realistically­conceived "full employment. "

LR: Are you happy with the experience and the success ofyour three years here at NYU?Lachmann: Yes, I certainly am. I don't know how muchgood I have done. Of course, it was clear to me from thestart that this would be an uphill job. I do think we nowhave the kernal of an elite group of young "Austrian"thinkers and I think the time has come when some of usolder ones should hand the reins over to them.

LR: Well, we hope you are not ready to hand over the reinsentirely yet. We're hoping for a few more good years of pro­duction out of you.Lachmann: I hope to come to New York University fromtime to time and have a look at the way things are going. Yetit is a fact that from now onwards, what progress is made byAustrian economics will depend largely on the efforts andachievements of the young Austrians who will gradually takeover as time passes. I really think now we have got a base;how much use will be made of it and with what success, onlythe future can show.

LR: What are you planning to work on when you return toSouth Africa?Lachmann: I intend to write . .I intend to study the wholeproblem of the market process. We Austrians say we have abetter paradigm than the neoclassical economists. We op­pose neoclassical general equilibrium theory. But so doother people. If we are asked what we have got to offer if weare against neoclassical general equilibrium, what are wefor? What is the paradigm we propose? We must have ananswer. And of course the Austrian answer is the marketprocess. I've come to think that we should explain in somedetail what we mean by the market process-how the mar­ket process would work as between the different markets, asI think we Austrians should insist that not all markets arethe same. There are certain markets in which expectationsare very important and are very different from ordinaryproduct markets. And secondly, after studying the effect ofthe market process on the capital structure-I try to do thatin my book Capz"tal and Its Structure, which will soon bereprinted - there is finally the problem of distribution ofwealth. You mentioned earlier in the interview that thereare people who say they are in favor of the market economy,but· only after redistribution of wealth which will give allpeople an equal chance-and then we let the market do itsbest. The most important point, which I made 20 years agoin the first Mises Festschrift-On Freedom and Free Enter­przse, edited by Mary Sennholz-is that the distribution ofwealth at any point of time is itself the result of market proc­esses, so long as the state doesn't intervene. MurryRothbard, of course, had made this point, but I don't thinkanyone else has. In a market society, the distribution ofwealth at any moment is the cumulative result of the marketprocesses of the past, and this is one of the things in which Ipropose to take an interest when I retire to spend most of mytime thinking.

LR: Thank you, Professor Lachmann.

April 1978

Sf)'TII~rl' l~f)lll~If_N l)f)I~I(~Y

ARevisionist

Perspective

by Murray N.When Murray Rothbard's For a New Liberty was firstpublished in 1973, it was immediately hailed as one of thebest book-length treatments of the libertarian ideology for ageneral audience. Now, five years later, Rothbard has com­pletely revised the work, adding a host of new material andinformation, to broaden and update it. This second edition,containing entire new chapters, will be published this yearin a quality paperback edition by MacMillan & Co. This ex­cerpt, published here for the first time, zs a small part of theadditions to the foreign pol£cy chapter. LR zs thankful toDr. Rothbard for permzssion to publzsh the selection in thzsissue of Libertarian Review. Copyright © 1978 by MurrayN. Rothbard.

Since World War II, American military andforeign policy, at least rhetorically, has been basedupon the assumption of a looming threat of Rus­sian attack - an assumption that has managed togain public approval for global American interven­

tion and for scores of billions in military expenditures. Buthow realistic, how well grounded, zs this assumption?

First, there is no doubt that the Soviets, along with allother Marxist-Leninists, would like to replace all existingsocial systems by Communist regimes. But such a sentiment,of course, scarcely implies any sort of realistic threat ofattack-just as an ill wish in private life can hardly begrounds for realistic expectation of imminent aggression.On the contrary, Marxism-Leninism itself believes that vic­tory of Communism is inevitable-not on the wings of out­side force, but rather from accumulating tensions and "con­tradictions" within each society. So that Marxism-Leninismconsiders internal revolution (or, in the current "Eurocom­munist" version, democratic change) for installing Com­munism to be inevitable. At the same time, it holds anycoercive external imposition of Communism to be at bestsuspect, and at worst disruptive and counter-productive ofgenuine organic social change. Any idea of "exporting"Communism to other countries on the back of the Sovietmilitary is totally contradictory to Marxist-Leninist theory.

We are not saying, of course, that Soviet leaders will neverdo anything contrary to Marxist- Leninist theory. But to the Murray N. Rothbard

Rothbard

Libertarian Review 23

extent that they act as ordinary rulers of a strong Russiannation-state, the case for an imminent Soviet threat to theU.S. is gravely weakened. For the sole alleged basis of such athreat, as conjured up by our Cold Warriors, is the SovietUnion alleged devotion to Marxist-Leninist theory and to itsultimate goal of world Communist triumph. If the Sovietrulers were simply to act as Russian dictators consulting onlytheir own nation-state interests, then the entire basis fortreating the Soviets as a uniquely diabolic source of immi­nent military assault crumbles to the ground.

When the Bolsheviks took power in Russia in 1917, theyhad given little thought to a future Soviet foreign policy, forthey were convinced that Communist revolution would soonfollow in the advanced industrial countries of WesternEurope. When such hopes were dashed after the end ofWorld War I, Lenin and his fellow Bolsheviks adopted thetheory of "peaceful coexistence" as the basic foreign policyfor a Communist state. The idea was this: as the first suc­cessful Communist movement, Soviet Russia would serve asa beaconlight and supporter of other Communist partiesthroughout the world. But the Soviet state qua state woulddevote itself to peaceful relations with all other countries',and would not attempt to export Communism through in­terstate warfare. The idea here was not just to followMarxist-Leninist theory, but the highly practical course ofholding the survival of the existing Communist state as theforemost goal of foreign policy: that is, never to endangerthe Soviet State by courting interstate warfare. Other coun­tries would be expected to become Communits by their owninternal processes.

Thus, fortuitiously, from a mixture of theoretical andpractical grounds of their own, the Soviets arrived early atwhat libertarians consider to be the only proper and prin­cipled foreign policy. As time went on, furthermore, thispolicy was reinforced by a "conservatism" that comes uponall movements after they have acquired and retained powerfor a length of time, in which the interests of keeping powerover one's nation-state begins to take more and moreprecedence over the initial ideal of world revolution. Thisincreasing conservatism under Stalin and his successorsstrengthened· and reinforced the nonaggressive , "peacefulcoexistence" policy.

The Bolsheviks,· indeed, began their success story by beingliterally the only political party in Russia to clamor, fromthe beginning of World· War I, for an immediate Russianpullout from the war. Indeed, they went further, andcourted enormous unpopularity by calling for the defeat of"their own" government ("revolutionary defeatism"). WhenRussia began to suffer enormous losses, accompanied bymassive military desertions from the front, the Bolsheviks,guided by Lenin, continued to be the only party to call foran immediate end to the war-the other parties still vowingto fight the Germans to the end. When the Bolsheviks cameto power, Lenin,· over the hysterical opposition of even themajority of the Bolshevik central committee itself, insistedon concluding the "appeasement" peace of Brest-Litovsk inMarch 1918. Here,Lenin succeeded in taking Russia out ofthe war, even at the price of granting to the victorious Ger­man army all the parts of the Russian Empire which it then

24

occupied (including White Russia and the Ukraine.) Thus,Lenin and the Bolsheviks began their reign by being notsimply a peace party, but virtually a "peace-at-any-price"party.

After World War I and Germany's defeat, the new Polishstate attacked Russia nd succeeded in grabbing for itself alarge chunk of White Russia and the Ukraine. Taking ad­vantage of the turmoil and civil war within Russia at the endof the world war, various other national groups-Finland,Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania-decided to break away

Lenin and the Bolsheviks begantheir reign by being Dot siznplya peace party, but virtually a"peace-at-any-price" party.

from the pre-World War I Russian Empire and declarenational independence. While Leninism pays lip-service tonational self-determination, it was clear to Soviet rulersfrom the very beginning that the boundaries of the old Rus­sian state were supposed to remain intact. The Red Armyreconquered the Ukraine, not only from the Whites, butalso from the Ukrainian nationalists and from the in­digenously Ukrainian anarchist army of Nestor Makhno.For the rest, it was clear that Russia, like Germany in the1920s and 1930s, was a "revisionist" country vzs a vzs thepost-war settlement at Versailles: Le., the lodestar of bothRussian and German foreign policy was to recapture theirpre-World War I borders-what they both considered the"true" borders of their respective states. It should be notedthat every political party or tendency in Russia andGer­many, whether ruling the state or in opposition, agreed withthis aim of full restoration of national territory.

But, it should be emphasized, while Germany underHitler took strong measures to recapture the lost lands, thecautious and conservative Soviet rulers did absolutelynothing. Only after the Stalin-Hitler pact and the Germanconquest of Poland, did the Soviets, now facing no danger indoing so, recapture their lost territories. Specifically, theRussians repossessed Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as wellas the old Russian lands of White Russia and the Ukrainethat had been Eastern Poland. And they were able to do sowithout a fight. The old, pre-World War I Russia had nowbeen restored with the exception of Finland. But Finlandwas prepared to fight. Here, the Russians demanded, notthe reincorporation of Finland as a whole, but only of partsof the Karelian Isthmus which were ethnically Russian.When the Finns refused this demand, the "Winter War"(1939-40) between Russia and Finland ensued, which endedwith the Finns victorious and conceding nothing.

On June 22, 1941, Germany, triumphant over everyonebut England in the West, launched a sudden massive, andunprovoked assault on Soviet Russia, an act of aggressionaided and abetted by the other pro-German states in EasternEurope-Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, and Fin-

April 1978

land. This German and allied invasion of Russia soon be­came one of the pivotal facts in the history of Eu:ropesincethat date. So unprepared was Stalin for the assault, sotrusting was he in the rationality of the German-Russian ac­cord for peace in Eastern Europe, that he had allowed theRussian army to fall into disrepair. So unwarlike was Stalin,in fact, that Germany was almost able to conquer Russia inthe face of enormous odds. Since Germany otherwise wouldhave been able to retain control of Europe indefinitely, itwas Hitler who was led by the siren call of anti-Communistideology to throwaway a rational and prudent course andlaunch what was to be the beginning of his ultimatedefe(it.

World War II and the SovietsThe mythology of the Cold Warriors often concedes thatthe Soviets were not internationally aggressiveuntt'l W orIdWar II - indeed, they are compelled to assert this point,since most Cold Warriors heartily approve the World War IIalliance of the United States with Russia against Germany.It was during and immediately after the war, they assert,that Russia became expansionist and drove its way intoEastern Europe.

What this charge overlooks is the central fact of theGerman and associated assault upon Russia in June 1941.There is no doubt about the fact that Germany and herallies launched this war. Hence, in order to defeat the in­vaders, it was obviously necessary for the Russians to rollback the invading armies and conquer Germany and theother warring countries of Eastern Europe. It is easier tomake out a case for the United States being expansionist forconquering and occupying Italy and part. of Germany thanit is for Russia doing so-after all, the United States wasnever directly attacked by the Germans.

During World War II, the United States, Britain,andRussia-the three major Allies-had agreed on joint three­power military occupation of all the conquered territories.The United States was the first to break the agreement dur­ing the war by allowing Russia no role whatever in themilitary occupation of Italy. Despite this serious breach ofagreement, Stalin displayed his consistent preference for theconservative interests of the Russian nation-state over cleav­ing to revolutionary ideology by repeatedly betraying in­digenous Communist movements. In order to preservepeaceful relations between Russia and the West, Stalin con­sistently tried to hold back the success of various Communistmovements. He was successful in France and Italy, whereCommunist partisan groups might easily have seized powerin the wake of the German military retreat; but Stalinordered them not to do so, and instead persuaded them tojoin coalition regimes headed by anti-Communist parties. Inboth countries, the Communists were soon ousted from thecoalition. In Greece, where the Communist partisans almostdid seize power, Stalin irretrievably weakened them byabandoning them and urging them to turn over power tonewly invading British troops.

In other countries, particularly ones where Communistpartisan groups were strong, the Communists flatly refusedStalin's requests. In Yugoslavia, the victorious Tito refused

Libertarian Review

Stalin's demand that Tito subordinate himself to the anti­Communist Mihailovich in a governing coalition; and Maorefused a similar ~talin demand that he subordinate himselfto Chiang kai-Shek.There is no doubt that these rejectionswere the beginning of the later extraordinarily importantschisms within the world Communist movement.

R.ussia, therefore, governed Eastern Europe as militaryoccupier after winning a war launched against her. Russia'sinitial goal was not to Communize Eastern Europe on thebacks of the Soviet Army. Her goal was to gain assurancesthat Eastern Europe would not be the broad highway for anassault on Russia, as it had been three times in half acentury - the last time in a war in which over twenty millionRussians· had been slaughtered. In short, Russia wantedcountries on her border which would not be anti­Communist in a military sense, and which would not be usedasa springboard for another invasion. Political conditions inEastern Europe were such that· only in more modernizedFinland did non-Communist politicians exist whom Russiacould trust to pursue a peaceful line in foreign affairs. Andin Finland, this situation was the work of one far-seeingstatesman, the agrarian leader Julio Paasikivi. It wasbecause Finland, then and since, has firmly followed the"Paasikivi line" that Russia was willing to pull its troops outof Finland and not to insist on the Communization of thatcountry-even though it had fought two wars with Finlandin the previous six years.

Even in the other Eastern European countries, Russiaclung to coalition governments for several years after thewar, and only fully Communized them in 1948- after threeyears of unrelenting American Cold War pressure to try tooust Russia from these countries. In other areas, Russiareadily pulled its troops out of Austria and out of Azer­baijan.

The Cold Warriors find it difficult to explain Russian ac­tions in Finland. If Russia is always hellbent to impose Com­munist rule wherever it can, why the "soft line" on Finland?The only plausible explanation is that its motivation issecurity for the Russian nation-stat~ against attack, with thesuccess of world Communism playing a very minor role iq itsscale of priorities.

Schisms and world communismIn fact, the Cold Warriors have never been able either toexplain or absorb the fact of deep schisms in the world Com­mumst movement. For if all Communists are governed by acommon ideology, then every Communist everywhereshould be part of one unified monolith, and one which,given the early success of the Bolsheviks, would make themsubordinates or "agents" of Moscow. If Communists aremainly motivated by their bond of Marxism-Leninism, whydo we have the deep China-Russia spli~, in which Russia, forexample, keeps one million troops at the ready on theChina-Russia frontier? Why is there such enmity betweenthe Yugoslav Communist and the Albanian Communiststates? How can there be an actual military conflict betweenthe Cambodian and Vietnamese Communists? The answer,of course, is that once a revolutionary movement seizes state

25

power, it very quickly begins to take on the attributes of aruling class, with a class interest in retaining state power.The world revolution begins to pale, in their outlook, to in­significance. And since state elites can. and do have con­flicting interests in power and wealth, it is not surprisingthat inter-Communist conflicts have become endemic.

Since their victory over German military aggression inWorld War II, the Soviets have continued to be conserva~ive

in their military policy. Their only use of troops has been todefend their territory in the Communist bloc, rather than toextend it further. Thus, when Hungary threatened to leavethe Soviet block in 1956, or Czechoslovakia in 1968, theSoviets intervened with troops - reprehensibly, to be sure,but still acting in a conservative and defensive, rather thanexpansionist, manner. (The Soviets apparently gave con-

There is no correlation betweendegrees of internal freedolD in acountry and how lDuch externalaggressiveness it displays.

siderable thought to invading Yugoslavia when Tito tookthat country out of the Soviet bloc, but were deterred by theformidable qualities for guerrilla fighting of the Yugoslavarmy.) In no case has Russia used troops to extend its bloc orto conquer more territories.

Professor Stephen F. Cohen, director of the program inRussian studies at Princeton, has delineated the nature ofSoviet conservatism in foreign affairs in a recent issue ofInquiry:That a system born in revolution and still professing revolutionaryideas should have become one of the most conservative in the worldmay seem preposterous. But all those factors variously said to bemost important in Soviet politics have contributed to this conser­vatism: the bureaucratic tradition of Russian government beforethe revolution; the subsequent bureaucratization of Soviet life,which proliferated conservative norms and created an entrenchedclass of zealous defenders of bureaucratic privilege; the geriatricnature of the present-day elite; and even the official idology, whosethrust turned many years ago from the creation of a new socialorder to extolling the exisitng one ...

In other words, the main thrust of Soviet conservatism today is topreserve what it already has at home and abroad, not to jeopardizeit. A conservative government is, of course, capable of dangerousmilitaristic actions, as we saw in Czechoslovakia ... but these areacts of imperial protectionism, a kind of defensive militarism, nota revolutionary or aggrandizing one. It is certainly true that formost Soviet leaders, as presumably for most American leaders,detente is not an altruistic endeavor but the pursuit of national in­terests. In one sense, this is sad. But it is probably also true thatmutual self-interest provides a more durable basis for detente thanlofty, and finally empty, altruism. ("Why Detente Can Work,"December 19, 1977)

Similarly, as impeccable an anti-Soviet source as formerCIA Director William Colby finds the overwhelming con­cern of the Soviets in the defensive goal of avoiding anothercatastrophic invasion of their territory. As Colby testifiedbefore the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:

26

You will find a concern, even a paranoia, over their (the Soviets')own security. You will find the determination that they shall neveragain be invaded and put through the kinds of turmoil that theyhave been under and many different invasions ... I think thatthey ... want to overprotect themselves to make certain that thatdoes not happen . . .

Even the Chinese, for all their bluster, have pursued aconservative and pacific foreign policy. Not only have theyfailed to invade Taiwan, recognized internationally as partof China, but they have even allowed the small offshoreislands of Quemoy and Matsu to remain in Chiang kai­Shek's hands. No moves have been made against the British­and Portuguese-occupied exclaves of Hong Kong andMacao. And China even took the unusual step of declaring aunilateral cease-fire and withdrawal of forces to its borderafter having triumphed easily over Indian arms in theirescalated border war. (See Neville Maxwell, India's ChinaWar [New York: Pantheon Books, 1970]. Neither is China'sreconquest and suppression of national rebellion in Tibet avalid point against our thesis. For Chiang kai -Shek as well asall other Chinse have for many generations considered Tibetas part of Greater China, and Chia was here acting in thesame conservative, nation-state manner as we have seen hasguided the Soviets.)

Avoiding a priori historyThere is still one thesis common to Americans and even tosome libertarians that may prevent them from absorbing theanalysis of this chapter: the myth propounded by WoodrowWilson that democracies must inevitably be peace-lovingwhile dictatorships are inevitably warlike. This thesis was ofcourse highly convenient for covering Wilson's ownculpability for dragging America into a needless and mon­strous war. But, there is simply no evidence for this assump­tion. Many dictatorships have turned inward, cautiouslyconfining themselves to preying on their own people. Ex­amples range from pre-modern Japan to Communist Alba­nia to innumerable dictatorships in the Third World today.Uganda's Idi Amin, perhaps the most brutal and repressivedictator in today's world, shows no signs whatever of jeo­pardizing his regime by invading neighboring countries. Onthe other hand, such an indubitable democracy as GreatBritain spread its coercive imperialism across the globe dur­ing the nineteenth and earlier centuries.

The theoretical reason why focusing on democracy or dic­tatorship misses the point is that states-all states - ruletheir population and decide whether or not to make war.And all states, whether formally a democracy or dictator­ship or some other brand of rule, are run by a ruling elite.Whether or not these elites, in any particular case, will makewar upon another state, is a function of a complex inter­weaving web of causes, including the temperament of therulers, the strength of their enemies, the inducements forwar, public opinion, etc. While public opinion has to begauged in either case, .the only real difference between ademocracy and a dictatorship on making war is that in theformer, more propaganda must be beamed at one's subjectsto engineer their approval. Intensive propaganda isnecessary in any case - as we can see by the zealous opinion-

April 1978

moulding behavior of all modern warring states. But thedemocratic state must work harder and faster. And also thedemocratic state must be more hypocritical in using rhetoricdesigned to appeal to the values of the masses: justice,freedom, national interest, patriotism, world peace, etc. Sothat in democratic states, the art of propaganda the eliteuses over its subjects must be a bit more sophisticated andrefined. But this, as we have seen, is true of all governmentaldecisions, not just war or peace. For all governments-butespecially democratic governments - must work hard at per­suading their subjects that all of their deeds of oppressionare really in their subjects best interests.

What we have said about democracy and dictatorship ap­plies equally to the lack of correlation between degrees of in­ternal freedom in a country and its external aggressiveness.Some states have proved themselves perfectly capable ofallowing a considerable degree of freedom internally, whilemaking aggressive war abroad, while others have shownthemselves capable of totalitarian rule internally while pur­suing a pacific foreign policy. The examples of Idi Amin,Albania, China, Great Britain, etc. apply equally well inthis comparison.

In short, libertarians and other Americans must guardagainst a priori history: in this case, against the assumption

that, in any conflict, that state which is more democratic orallows more internal freedom is necessarily or even presump­tively the victim of aggression by the more dictatorial ortotalitarian state. There is simply no historical evidencewhatever for such a presumption. In deciding on relativerights and wrongs, on relative degrees of aggression, in anydispute in foreign affairs, there is no substitute for adetailed, empirical, historical investigation of the disputeitself. It should occasion no great surprise, the, if such an in­vestigation concludes that a democratic and relatively farfreer United States has been more aggressive and im­perialistic in foreign affairs than a relatively totalitarianRussia or China. Conversely, hailing a state for being lessaggressive in foreign affairs in no way implies that theobserver is in any way sympathetic to that state's internalrecord. It is vital-indeed, it is literally a life-and-deathmatter - that Americans be able to look as coolly and clear­sightedly, as free from myth, at their government's record inforeign affairs as they increasingly are able to do in domesticpolitics. For war and a phony "external threat" ,have longbeen the chief means by which the state wins back the loyal­ty of its subjects. War and militarism were the gravediggersof classical liberalism; we must nnt allow the state to getaway with this ruse ever again.

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Libertarian Review

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If ther.e ~'s ~ malady . . . . , it z's the intellectual crudityand rzgzdzty of these stereotyped selective and exclu­sionary processes.

-Edith Efron, The News Twisters

Edith Efron's chief claim to fame is The News

.

T.wisters (1972), .a.scathing indictment of unfairbIas by the teleVIsIon networks during the 1968presidential election. Now, she has aimed herfire not at the mighty triumvirate ABC-NBC­

CBS, but at certain individuals and groups within the veryunmighty libertarian movement.

In an article entitled "Warning to Constitutional~epublicans" in the February issue of Reason, Efron raisesIssues of tremendous import for all libertarians. Un­fortunately, there is so much unfairness, misrepresentation,and twisting in her account that rational discussion of thesevery issues is endangered. Her inaccuracies and distortionsare as bizarre and audacious as the choicest examples sheslammed in The News Twisters.

Aha! A contextual blunder? Not in the least. It is true thatEfron's piece appeared in the Viewpoint column in Reason,and no one can reasonably apply standards appropriate toTV news, operating under the Fairness Doctrine, to a per­sonal column in a libertarian periodical. All the same, thereare standards. A measure of respect for the truth is one.Some degree of critical discrimination is another. By thesestandards, her piece must be judged careless, untidy, andwell below what she is capable of when she tries.

I begin with questions of fact. It is astonishing how manypalp~ble untruths are crammed into this single article. Aswe wIll see, the errors of fact are themselves inspired by slop­py lack of discrimination, and there are borderline cases:

April 1978

falsehoods which are not stated but very clearly implied. Butlet us begin with plain factual inaccuracies - statements shemakes that are demonstrably such to anyone who can seethat A is A and 1 plus 1 is equal to 2.

First untruth: "Libertarians running for office haveblindly supported every 'liberation' movement-Gay Lib,Transvestite Lib, Women's Lib, etc.-although each ofthese movements actually advocate coerciveegalitarianism, collectivism and statism.". No ~ibertarian running for office has supported everyl~berat~on movement, and none has blz'ndly supported anylIberatIon movement.

The inaccuracy here is threefold. First, there is no move­ment called Transvestite Lib. Second, Gay Lib and~omen's Lib are (or were) rather broad and composed ofdIsparate elements, not all of which advocate the statedpolicies. (Compare 'Ch~istians advocate progressive taxa­tion.' 'Objectivists advocate Zionism.' etc.) Third, whatever"blindly supported" may be taken to mean exactly, it cer­tainly cannot be applied to people who have taken pains toseparate themselves, emphatically and publicly, from thecoercive egalitarianism, collectivism and statism in Gay Liband Women's Lib.

Ralph Rai~o's pamphlet, Gay Rights, A Libertarian A p­proach, publIshed for the last election by the LibertarianParty, does not refer to "Gay Lib," argues that libertariansare more likely than others to defend homosexuals againstgovernment persecution, points out that gays stand to gainby the general antist.atist measures favored by libertarians,

David Ramsay. Steele ~as been a fellow at the Institute forHumane Studzes and zs presently completing a book calledThe Impossibility of Communism.

29

and rejects antidiscrimination laws which would forceemployers to hire homosexuals. Again and again, liber­tarians who have addressed themselves publicly to the gayquestion have pointed out scrupulously that on the originalDade County referendum question, libertarians would havehad to vote (if they voted at all) on the same side as AnitaBryant - in defense of private property.

Most recent activity linking libertarianisIll with the ques­tion of women's rights has emanated from the Association ofLibertarian Feminists, which has produced a broad range ofliterature largely devoted to excorz'atz'ng the coerciveegalitarianism, collectivism and statism of the majority ofcontemporary feminists.

No one has been irresponsibleenough to lDake the saIDe sort ofhysterical attack on libertarianswho cultivate the 'right' as Efronhas lDade on those libertarianswho cultivate the 'left.'

I mention these points to show that Efron's claim is notmerely lz'terally false, but false also in spirit and implication.The suggestion is that libertarians have been so keen to getthe support of trendy lefties that they have sold out on thedistinctively anti-trendy-Iefty portions of libertariandoctrine. This is not only unfounded, but the opposite of thetruth. (There are, of course, conspicuous examples of liber­tarians who play down libertarian views on such embarrass­ing matters as drugs, prostitution, and pornography inorder to get the ears of conservatives and other conventionalsupporters of "free enterprise." Actually, libertariansgenerally are sensible enough to realize that heresy-huntingwould be sterile. No one has been irresponsible enough tomake the same sort of hysterical attack on those libertarianswho cultivate the "right"as Miss Efron has made on thosewho cultivate the "left," even though the record plainlyshows that the latter have been far more principled and un­compromising than the former.)

Second untruth: Libertarians "have absorbed thecounter-culture's notion that nothing has higher priorityfor lovers of liberty than the right to take dope, to con­template pornography and to enact the full repertoire ofKraft-Ebing." (sic) ,}

None of us thinks there are no higher priorities, and verylikely none of the counter-culture people think that either.My own highest priority happens to be to prevent the humanspecies being fried in a thermonuclear holocaust; the mostimportant means to that end open to libertarians in this partof the world is to press for a noninterventionist U.s. foreignpolicy. And, to fan opposition to protectionism and otherinterventions which lead to war. And to oppose nationalismin all its forms.

30

Third untruth: Many "libertarians have joined theLeft in propagating the myth that the United States is thesole source of international evil . . . ."

Name a single libertarian who says it is the sole source!Fourth untruth: Libertarians say "that the USSR is an

innocent, peace-loving nation ..."No libertarian thinks that any nation is innocent. Any

libertarian will acknowledge that the USSR is one of theworst regimes in human history, and not a few would agreewith me that it is the worst. It is true that many libertariansbelieve that the USSR's foreign policy has been generallydefensive and opportunistic, rather than consistently expan­sionist, and that the Cold War was launched by the West.No one has suggested that, if true, this was due to any "in­nocence" on the part of the Russian Empire. Rather itwould have been due to (a) the overwhelming U.S. militarysuperiority, and (b) the unfortunate fact that the U.S. rulingclass has chosen to ally itself with foredoomed, reactionary,and anticapitalist forces around the world.

Libertarians reject the hero-villain mythology of the ColdWar, not because they view the Soviet Empire through rose­colored glasses, but because they think the Soviet regime isso horrendous that it is no great virtue of the West thatthings here are substantially better than in Russia. It is alsoa mark of some sophistication to recognize that there is nonecessary correlation between a comparatively vicious inter­nal regime tl:nd a comparatively vicious foreign policy.Democratically-governed mixed economies are not bynature peace-loving. This sophisticated view has been borneout by such recent works as Hedrik Smith's The Russz"ans,and the even-more illuminating Russz'a, the People and thePower, by Robert Kaiser. Both of these fine books simul­taneously present a view of life in Russia as appalling andargue that ruling circles in the West have persistentlyoverestimated the threat from Russia, an inefficient, in­secure and hidebound despotism.

Fifth untruth: "By now, there is scarcely a counter­culture crusade or a leftist ideological bastion that liber­tarians have not embraced."

Wages for housework; compulsory racial integration;common ownership of the means of production; anti­discrimination ordinances; divestitute; affirmatice actionand anti-Bakke; prohibiting nuclear power; socializedmedicine; "urban renewal"; free tax-suppported abortion ondemand.

I leave it to the reader to add another thousand or soexamples. "Counter-culture crusade" is somewhat in­definite. In the main sense in which Efron employs the term"leftist," the vast majorz"ty of leftist ideological bastions (evenmaking allowances for that clumsily obscure term) havenever been embraced by a single libertarian.

Sixth untruth: "The Left has screamed for liberty onlyfor its allies."

There is no monolithic "left", and it is certainly true thatsome "leftists" are selective in this way- but certainly nomore so than some rightists. The "leftist" Nat Hentoff hasconsistently and effectively campaigned on behalf offreedom of speech, singling out those (such as Anita Bryantand the Nazis) furthest from his own views for' de fense.

April 1978

Most "leftists" with roots in the anarchist (e.g., Chomsky)or pre-Bolshevik Marxist (e.g., Harrington) traditions favorgeneral liberty of speech, assembly and the press for all par­ties.

Numerous "leftists" have given solid support to organiza­tions like the American Civil Liberties Union and AmnestyInternational, which, for all their shortcomings, have"screamed" for particular liberties for all, including theenemies of the "left." Would that more libertarians hadbeen shoulder to shoulder with them in such organizationsas these!

Seventh untruth: "It is only since Hayek and Friedmanhave received Nobel prizes that some libertarian publica­tions have deigned to say a civil word about either man."

GasplEighth untruth: " ... the proponents of a constitu­

tional republic ... agreed to suspend their endless quar­rel with the anarchists . . . ."

There are further references to an "agreement," a "com­promise," and a "taboo." The impression is given thatvarious segments of the libertarian movement have enteredinto an understanding not to continue discussion and debateover the concept of the minimal state, or limited, govern­ment.

The fact of the matter is that the debate has been con­tinued precisely where it ought to be continued: in scholarlybooks and articles, such as Robert Nozick's Anarchy, Stateand Utopia and the Journal of Libertarian Studies. Therehave been nearly a score of contributions to the debate,from every conceivable angle, over the past few years. Moreimportantly, the libertarian movement has sufficientlymatured in recent years so that people with a wide diversityof viewpoints find it possible to work together for commonlyheld political goals. That is not a silencing of discussion ordebate; if anything, debate is more sophisticated and diversethan ever before.

Ninth untruth: "Karl Hess ... now calls himself aMaoist."

He does not. He never did.Tenth untruth: "[We are] facing the grotesque public

fact of a libertarian-leftist alliance."Efron repeatedly uses the word "alliance," at one point

making it even clearer by the phrase "political alliance."There is no alliance, much less a political alliance, be­tween libertarians and "leftists" in the United Statestoday. (I follow Efron's nomenclature. In a less confusedterminology, libertarians are leftists p~r excellence.)

This particular allegation, virtually the kernel of herargument, is very strange. There is today less collaborationbetween libertarians and "the Left" than at any time formore than a decade. When libertarians entered and sup­ported the then substantially "leftist" Peace and FreedomParty, that was a political alliance. There are two perfectlygood reasons for the strategic change: (a) At that time, theU. S. government was enslaving the youth of the country inorder to massacre innocent pheasants, with whom theAmerican people had no quarrel, on the other side of theworld. (b) At that time there was something called "the NewLeft," inchoate and muddled, but with many positive

Libertarian Review

features. The New Left could not last. Libertarians pickedup some of the pieces but most went to the Bolsheviks, whowere bigger and better organized.

The supposed "alliance" which Edith Efron denounces issimply the fact that some libertarian publications carry ar­ticles by "leftists" on issues where the latter are in broadagreement with libertarianism. Whatever one may think ofthe wisdom of such tactics, this is no alliance.

Implicit falsificationsBoldly to advance a demonstrable factual inexactitude isunfortunate. To present two in the same work would becarelessness. To assert no less than ten howling falsities infour pages betokens creative inventiveness bordering ongenius.

With very little interpretation of the text, the list couldeasily be extended. There are some statements we mayreasonably pass over, such as the allegation that Sidney Lens"blames the United States for every evil in the world."Hyperbole, naturally.

The contention that the libertarian movement has "insome important measure" degenerated into a hippie move­ment might also be questioned, until we remember that itoriginally emanated from the same scrupulOUS and balancedsource which pronounced Immanuel Kant the first hippie.It is therefore a sort of unintended compliment.

The libertarian 1D0veIDent haslDatured sufficiently in recentyears so that people with a widediversity of viewpoints can worktogether to achieve cOIDDlonlyheld political goals.

,The horrible truth is, though, that explicit falsehoods areonly the tip of the iceberg. The most profound misrepresen­tations do not take the form of statemetns so straightfor­wardly untrue that demonstrating their untruth is likeshooting fish in a barrel. They are, therefore, more insidiousand potentially more effective.

One of the tried and tested implements of falsification isthe amalgam. "Trotsky-fascism" was one such, utilized bythe Stalinists. ''Jewish Bolshevism" was another, utilized bythe National Socialists. The great efficacy of the amalgamas a technique of deception (sometimes including self­deception) is that it insists upon the combination or allianceof individuals or ideas which are not, or logically need not,be connected at all.

A less extreme case is the label "right-wing" as conceivedby many "liberals": To them it inextricably associates con­servative ideas with racism, despite the fact that most con-

31

servatives are not racists and most racists are not conser­vatives.

There are two crude, crass, and wildly misleading amal­gams which Edith Efron has absorbed-which condition herown thinking-and which she tries to persuade her readersto adopt. One is the "Left." and the other is the "anarchist"wing of the libertarian movement. The· former is perhapsmore crucial.

An amalgam often functions to reassure the believer thatall the forces of evil (all the things he doesn't like) are acting

You would think that Efron wouldhave heard by now that China ispreparing for war against theSoviet EIDpire, and that Maoistsare the IDost IDilitantly, activelyanti-Russian force in the world.

in concert. To embrace one is thus to fall into an "alliance"with them all. The only safe course is to spurn each andeveryone of them.Efron has a concept of the "left" which lumps together anumber of doctrines and practices. For Efron, to be con­taminated with anyone of them is to be dangerously com­promised, because it will tend to lead (it seems so obvious) tothe others.

But Efron is amazingly ignorant of the actual "left", theone that exists in the real political world. She has neversystematically studied the "left," and attributes to it proper­ties which it doesn't possess.

Edith Efron's "Left"The first thing to notice about Efron's employment of theterm "Left" is that it is wildly inconsistent and self­contradictory. She herself doesn't know what she means bythe term.

She tells us that "on both the Right and the Left there areindeed allies for any defender of a free society." It turns outthat the allies on "the Left" are the "neo-liberals," the utter­ly commonplace right-wing statists headed by Irving Kristol."These, today, are the genuine culture heroes of the Left."

But this passage is sandwiched between two references to"the Left" tout court, as irredeemably, entirely, and withoutqualification, evil. The left is determined to destroyeconomic freedom, therefore a libertarian can never ra­tionally ally himself with the left. The left is motivated byhatred, and hates capitalism more than it hates the state.

It is this utterly depraved "Left" which Efron normallyhas in mind, it seems, when she uses the term. Apparently,she uses this word interchangeably with "New Left," and

32

gives it the same, or nearly the same, coverage as "counter­culture", as well as colorful epithets like "the Termite Left"and "the anti-American Left."

This puzzling ambiguity goes back to The News Tw'isters,wherein Edith Efron wrote:In the best sense, an emerging intellectual rebellion was takingplace against the corporate-welfare state .... Such rebellious in­tellectuals as Tom Hayden and Paul Goodman-to cite but two­had, and still have, profoundly serious, interesting and challeng­ing things to say .... their analysis of American symptomatologyis often penetrating and brilliant. (p. 159)

This is in a section on the New Left, and if anyone was"New Left," then Hayden and Goodman, of whom EdithEfron had such a favorable opinion, certainly were. Afterthis glowing tribute, a change comes over her references tothe "left." For a few pages, she qualifies and distinguishes:New Left intellectuals are "dominantly" (not all of them)students of Marxists, Maoist and Marcusian doctrines. The"major" (not all of them) New Left intellectuals aretotalitarians. There is even, m'irab'ile d'ictu, a "segment" ofthe New Left which is more "rational" than the others. (Notall of them are totally irrational.)

But before long, it seems, the intellectual effort ofmakingthese fine distinctions becomes too much, and they areabandoned. Edith Efron relapses into the same mode asprior to the above quotation: It is simply "the Left" which istotalitarian, violent, at war with society, exploiting theliberals, and so forth-not just segments or factions within"the Left."

And what is this wholly evil left? It has been constructedby Efron. The tool she uses is that old trusty of illogicalargumentation, ambiguity between all and some. It isperfectly true that "leftists are motivated by hatred" just as itis irrefutable that "objectivists are heavily into Sand M." In­sert the word "some" and the statements are undeniable,though hardly consequential. Insert the word "all" and theyare patently false, and quite ludicrous. Who can deny thatleftists fawn on Mao Tse-tung, that Southerners hate blacks,or that neoconservatives are fools? Or that leftists want to letmurderers out of jail, just as conservatives want to castratesex offenders and Christians demand big increases in foreignaid? Some, not all.

Although Edith Efron repeatedly makes statements about"leftists" with the manifest implication that they apply to allleftists, if one makes' a list of the characteristics which shethus ascribes to leftists in general (I've done it-it's a longlist), he finds a bizarre mosaic indeed.

You would think Edith Efron would have heard by nowthat China is preparing for war against the Soviet Empire,that Maoists are without exception the most militantly andactively anti-Russian force in the world, forever warning ofthe dangers of Soviet expansionism, and calling upon theWest to arm yet further (ye gods!) against Russia. There isno one who both fawns on Mao Tse-tung and believes thatthe USSR is an innocent, peace-loving nation. It cannot bedone.

You would think that Efron would know that most of theBolshevik so-called left is at one with her in hating thecounter-culture, deviant drug-taking, sexual heresy and

April 1978

pornography, and that preponderantly (there are excep­tions; it's complicated) those who cover up the Cambodianatrocities are not those who give a damn about the rights ofLarry Flynt.

You would think she would know that the heirs ofWomen's Lib are as overwhelmingly in favor of censorshipof pornography (including Playboy, Penthouse and otherpillars of the national culture) as they are in favor of censor­ing commercial "sexist" advertising, and that indeed they(quite correctly) see no difference in principle between thetwo forms of censorship.

The socialist "left" is heterogeneous and disunited - evenmore so than the "right." Efron picks out all the worst as­pects that happen to have caught. her eye, lumps themtogether to make an amalgam of beliefs which-in itstotality-no one has ever held, and calls the resulting strawman "the Left."

Among the motivations which cause people to become"leftists", there are many with which libertarians can sym­pathize. Some people become "leftists" because they believethey are being ripped off by the ruling class, some becausethey suspect the CIA and FBI threaten their security, somebecause they feel the real communities are being reduced toatoms by remote, uncontrollable bureaucracies; somebecause they fear the threat to their survival posed by the"military-industrial complex," some because they despisethe superstitious nonsense of nationalism; some because theyhave deviant lifestyles and object to being terrorized by tax­supported thuggery; and some because they harbor humanefeelings towards the poor, the unemployed, the dispossessed,and the helpless, and feel that big changes are required inmodern society to give these people a better deal.

Edith Efron has other notions about the motivations ofthe "left." They are propelled - every man Jack and womanJill of them, it would appear- by hatred. So are the liber­tarian anarchists. This explains the "alliance" betweenthem. "Hatred is the real bond between them and the Left.Hatred is the ulthnate determinant of their positions."Simple, isn't it? In contrast to that malicious crew, the"constitutional republicans" are motivated by reverence.

Remember what The News Twisters had to say aboutsuch telepathic pretensions?The newsman pretends to be reporting authoritatively on the viewsof various human beings .... he "reports" on the inner feelings,the buried emotions, the concealed thoughts and goals and the un­conscious psychological motivations of: single persons, smallgroups, crowds ... , entire socio-economic classes .... And in­variably the reporter draws vast political generalizations from this"reporting." (pp. 105-6)

There, Edith Efron scornfully dismissed this practice as"mind reading" and "telepathy. " But it is even moreludicrous that someone who has given ample proof of herchildish ignorance of left-wing doctrines should be in posses­sion of intimate knowledge of the leftists' hidden souls.

Actually, libertarians and many "leftists" make no bonesabout the fact that they hate the state precisely because oftheir reverence for human£ty.

Efron points out that the "leftists" hate "capitalism" morethan they do the state, but she overlooks the fact that what

Libertarian Review

"capitalism" means to a "leftist" is very similar to what"socialism" means to a "rightist": the rule of a privilegedclass, concentration of power in the hands of a few, the ex­tinction of personal freedom, imperialist aggression andwar-mongering.

The libertarian movementEdith Efron's picture of the libertarian movement is asmisleading as her picture of the "left." The impression isgiven that there is a monolithic libertarian factioncharacterized by its youth, its opposition to limited govern­ment' its alliance with the "left," its support for Women'sLib and Gay Lib, its softness towards Russia and China, itscounter-culture line on sex and drugs, and its disdain forFriedman, Mises and Hayek.

The reality of the libertarian movement is much morecomplex. There is Murray Rothbard, critic of Women's Lib,student and passionate admirer of Mises, denigrator of thecounter-culture, and celebrant of traditional Americanlibertarian values. There is theorist David Friedman, son ofMilton Friedman and Chicagoite economist himself. Thereis the limited government, Jeffersonian liberal ThomasSzasz, a fierce defender of the rights of drug-takers, por-

Efron overlooks the fact thatwhat 'capitalisDl' Dleans to aleftist is very silDilar to what'socialislD'lDeans to a rightist:the rule of a privileged class andextinction of personal freedoDl.

nographers and sexual deviants, and personally disdainfulof the counter-culture. There is Nathaniel Branden, well­known in the world of psychology, a defender of at leastsome of the tenets of the women's and gay "movements," ad­vocate of a minimal state, and sympathetic to the idea of in­teracting and working with elements in the American liberaland .left-wing camps. There are value-free economists andhistorians, dedicated moralists, and political theorists.There are those who, like Robert Nozick, see a libertariansociety as essentially a framework for various, individuallychosen utopias. Each of these denounces the Russian andChinese despotisms in no uncertain terms. Similar combina­tions of ideas are common among the rank-and-file of therest of the libertarian movement, too. And in no case is aparticular position of a specific person obviously predictablefrom some more general framework; the great variety ofviews in the libertarian movement cannot be so easilypigeonholed. Edith Efron's crude stereotype in fact deniesthe actual rich diversity of libertarian views. Edith Efron has

JJ

merely selected the things which most annoy her, andlumped them together, to make factions which do not exist.

Libertarian Review and Inquiry are Miss Efron's twopieces of evidence for the "alliance" between libertariansand "the Left." I cannot make head or tail of her contentionthat LR is "dependent on the counter-culture for its socialthemes." I can only conclude (though the conclusion isastounding) that any discussion of topics like pornographyand drugs, from a tolerant viewpoint, is taken by Efron to beassociated with the counter-culture.

Here we need clarification of just how Edith Efron seesthings. The fact is that many thousands of people are setupon by government thugs, beaten up, imprisoned, theirhomes and business premises entered and wrecked, becauseof (a) their consumption of currently disapproved drugs, (b)their sexual preferences, and (c) their connection with whatthe government currently deems pornographic. Evidently,Edith Efron despises these people. On the other hand, she isa libertarian, and therefore does not dispute that they arevictims, and that their persecution is unjust. But given thatmillions of Americans share the tastes of one or more ofthese three categories, and millions more take a view of theiractivities more tolerant than that of Efron, how does shepropose that we handle these issues? By ignoring themaltogether? ~y a curt reference every six years or so? By aunited campaign on behalf of the lifestyle favored by thetiny minority of libertarians who agree with Efron'sPuritanism?

Continuing the attack on Libertarian Review, Efroncites Walter Grinder's recommendations of the revisionistworks of Sidney Lens, and lists Lens' anticapitalist sins.However, it was not for those sins that Grinder "pushed"Lens, but for his analysis of U.S. foreign policy, an analysiswhich Edith Efron does not attempt to refute, or even state.

It is true that LR has carried articles on foreign policy bynonlibertarians. The majority of libertarians favor an enor­mous reduction in the military apparatus of the UnitedStates. Efron may deplore that fact, and she is free to com­bat this preponderant view from within the movement, asothers do. She may also think it is mistaken to get nonliber­tarians to write articles for libertarian publications on issueswhere they agree with libertarians, a curiously narrowstandpoint. At any rate, that practice is not an "alliance"and it is not "support" for the nonlibertarian views of thosewriters.

Edith Efron's prize exhibit, of course, is Inquiry, but sinceshe penned her furious attack before Inquiry was born,perhaps she now feels that the infant is not as monstrous asher prenatal x-rays suggested (although since she proposes atotal boycott of Inquiry, perhaps she hasn't taken a peek).There can be scarcely any argument that the bulk ofmaterial in Inquiry is consonant with libertarian principles.Inquiry does not pretend to be a libertarian magazine, butattempts to emphasize the considerable common groundwhich libertarians share with some leftists and some liberals,and to introduce them to other libertarian ideas in a waywhich gets around their prejudices. It is therefore judiciousin its use of politi~allabelsand catch-phrases. Efron believesthis is a deceitful "con game." We can all make up our own

34

minds on that. For example, is it true, as Efron claims, thatit is culpably misleading to describe Inquiry's 'philosophy as'Jeffersonian liberal"?

Ominous signsNone of the above remarks should be taken to imply thatthe policies of LR or Inquiry, or the general strategy of ap­pealing to the "left," are necessarily flawless. Propaganda isan entrepreneurial activity. No one can be sure in advancewhat line of activity will payoff. It is trial and error. Thereshould be, of course, and there is, continuous discussion ofalternative approaches.

But Edith Efron's ill-considered remarks do not help suchdiscussion along. She has gone out of her way to employ theentire arsenal of distortion and falsification which she un­covered in the network news reports (mind-reading, omis­sion, evasion, suppression, euphemism, attacking opponentsas immoral, double-standard attack, guilt by association,false prototype, etc., etc., etc.). In this way she obfuscatesthe real issues, provokes rancor and is unnecessarily divisive.

Apart from Efron's cavalier way with facts and logic,some of her utterances are disturbing in themselves. Whatare we to make of Efron's "value of nation" and "necessity ofa national culture"? Surely that is something totally new,and unheard of, in libertarian circles. Even class~calliberals

were always averse to nationalism. Some of them, like LordActon, specifically advocated the subsumption of several"national" entities under one state, counting on the counter­vailing interests to help preserve liberty, and for that reasondreading the homogeneity of culture as a threat to liberty.

This mystical talk of "national culture" is ominous. Whatdoes it mean in practice? Could it be used, for instance, tosupport government immigration controls, to save theEnglish-speaking, Protestant, Northern European culture ofthe United States from the Spanish-speaking, Catholic,Amerindian culture of the Mexican immigrants? One hopesnot, but it is best to take nothing for granted.

Other worries arise from Edith Efron's defense of the CIAand FBI as "major security institutions" and her apparentview that the names of CIA agents should not have beenpublished by Counterspy; her dismissive reference to "ourallegedly [sid] continuously imperilled First Amendment";her evident opinion that the United States should be pre­pared to go to war in the Middle East to protect the state ofIsrael from "the Arabs"; and her apparent belittling of therights of pornographers, drug-takers, and sexual heretics.

The libertarian movement is an alliance between classicalliberals and those who do not see government as necessary.Efron's article presents itself as criticism of the latter, inbehalf of the former; but on close examination, it suppliesgrounds for thinking that it is really an attack on both wingsfrom a third position. Her generally slapdash approachmakes it impossible to be sure of this. To help clarify whatshe feels are the points at issue, Efron ought to spell out herpositions on nationalism, the rights of drug-users and por­nographers, the proper limits of state action, and America'smorally valid obligations to the state of Israel.

We hope that would dispel our worst suspicions.

April 1978

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The Mises we never knelVby Murray N. Rothbard

I Books and the Arts

Notes and Recollections, by Ludwig vonMises, translated by Hans Sennholtz.Libertarian Press (South Holland, Ill.), 181pp., $9.95.

When Ludwig von Mises was in his haleand hearty 70's, those of us who wereprivileged to attend his graduate seminar atNew York University used to gather withhim after class for a snack at a localrestaurant. One evening, after Mises-asso often happened-regaled us with mar­velous anecdotes of life in old Vienna, one

Ludwig von Mises

Libertarian Review

student urged him to write an autobio­graphy to preserve his impressions in bookform. It was the only time I ever saw thisgentle man bristle, if ever so slightly."Please, I am not yet old enough to writean autobiography." So much for that topic.No one had the temerity to point out toMises that, in our current culture, manypeople, with absolutely nothing to say,publish their "autobiographies" in theirearly 20's.

Imagine my surprise and delight when Idiscovered that Mises, unbeknownst to

anyone, had written an autobiography in1940, as soon as he arrived in the UnitedStates, and had entrusted it to the care ofhis devoted wife, Margit. Thirty yearslater, when Margit suggested that he writean autobiography, he replied: "You havemy two handwritten folders. That is allpeople need to know about me." AfterMises died in October 1973, at the age of92, Margit remembered the folders. As theresult of her diligence, the book has nowbeen translated by his student Hans Senn­holz, and published with loving care byanother devoted Misesian, FrederickNymyer, of the Libertarian Press.

This is the sort of autobiography wewould expect from a private person ofgreat courtesy and Old World reserve: It isan intellectual autobiography, explaininghis ideological struggles and how he ar­rived at his ideas. There is no Instant In­timacy here, nor is there any fodder foremotional voyeurs.

And yet this is a bitter book, andunderstandably so. These memoirs werewritten at the wreckage of his once-greatEuropean career. It was not only that Misesfound himself driven out of Europe by theNazis and World War II, cast on the shoresof the United States and forced to begin anew career at the age of 59. For Mises wasexperiencing the bitter consequences of thestatism and collectivism that he had foughtfor two decades in Austria and the rest ofEurope. He had fought collectivism gallant­ly and virtually alone, and now he was tosee innumerable socialist and communistrefugees, driven out by another variant oftheir own statist doctrine, welcomed andaccorded the highest academic honors inthe United States, while he himself was tobe neglected and scorned by Americanacademia.

In particularly moving passages, Misessuggests that the drying up of the produc­tivity of Carl Menger, the founder ofAustrian economics; the early death ofMenger's great disciple (and Mises' teacher)Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk; as well as thedeath of the eminent sociologist MaxWeber and even the suicide of ArchdukeRudolf at Mayerling, were all basically dueto individual despair at ever-encroachingstatism and the end of the classical liberalworld they knew and loved.

But is is dear that Mises was not the per­son to despair and give up. Despite adver­sity far beyond what his mentors had ex­perienced, the doughty Mises decided tofight. As Mises writes:

It is a matter of temperament how we shape livesin the knowledge of an inescapable catastrophe.In high school I had chosen a verse by Virgil asmy motto: Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior

37

ito ("Do not yield to the bad, but always opposeit with courage.") In the darkest hours of thewar, I recalled this dictum . . . . I would not losecourage even now. I would do everything aneconomist could do. I would not tire in profess­ing what I knew to be right. (p. 70).

Even for devoted Misesians there aremany fascinating revelations about Mises'life and thought. There are devastating vi­gnettes of German economists and sociolo­gists, such as Werner Sombart. Friedrichvon Wieser, Bohm-Bawerk's; brother-in­law (who is usually considered a co-leaderof the Austrian School of Economics), istreated more kindly, but Mises ultimately(and, I believe, correctly) dismisses Wieseras more a Walrasian than an AustrianSchool theorist. It is also fascinating to seethat Mises was treated almost as shabbilyby the Austrian academic world as by theAmerican. Mises' famous "private sem­inar,-"' which taught so many famous stu­dents and followers, turns out to be strictlyhis own, unconnected with the Universityof Vienna, at which he taught othercourses. And never did Mises receive asalary from the university for his teachingthere (in the tradition of the "privateteacher" in Europe).

Most surprising to me was the great ex­tent to which Mises had plunged into theworld of applied economics and of politics.I knew that Mises' salary was always paidby the Austrian Chamber of Commerce,but I had no idea that how much empiricalwork he had done, ranging from studies ofhousing problems, to customs relationswith Hungary, to problems of public debt.Particularly fascinating was Mises' role inpolitics, and the influence which he wasable to exert against overwhelming odds.Thus, almost single-handedly, Mises man­aged to slow down and halt the post-WorldWar I inflation in Austria short of therunaway destruction of the currency thatGermany experienced at the same time. Bycombatting cheap credit policies, Mises anda few colleagues managed to delay, but nothalt, the inflationary credit expansion thatled to the collapse of the Austrian and theremainder of the European banking systemin 1931.

But particularly fascinating is the storyof Mises' crucial influence on his friend andfellow-student in Bohm-Bawerk's seminar,the leading Austrian Marxist and head ofthe Social-Democratic party, Otto Bauer.First, Bohm-Bawerk managed to convince

Bauer, at least privately, of the untenabili­ty of Marx's crucial concept of the labortheory of value. But more fatefully, in thewinter of 1918-19, in the chaotic aftermathof World War I when Bauer could easilyhave imposed Bolshevism upon Vienna,Mises personally convinced Bauer, after

38

numerous conversations, that the resultwould be starvation and collapse becauseof the Allied control of the food supply.

, Ironically, Bauer never forgave Mises forinducing him to betray his Bolshevik prin­ciples, and they never spoke to each otheragain.

Personal vignettes and recollections areby no means the sole content of Notes andRecollections. There are also brief discus­sions of Mises' leading economic andmethodological ideas, how he arrived atthem, and how they are linked together.Whatever is unclear is explained fully andin detail by the editor. Mises' Americanstudent Hans F. Sennholz has not only pro­vided a clear and faithful translation, buthe has also added a postscript on Mises'post-1940 career in the United States.

All in all, Notes and Recollections sup­plies a fascinating companion volume tohis widow Margit's lovely valentine to theirlife together, My Years with Ludwig vonMises. Friends and students of Mises nowknow far more than they ever did aboutMises' long and remarkably productivelife, and younger generations of economistsand libertarians, who never had theprivilege of meeting Mises, now have thesetwo volumes to read and ponder as the nextbest substitute.

There is no more fitting way to end thisreview than to pay tribute to the remark­able integrity and fighting spirit of Ludwigvon Mises. In the 1910s and 1920s, as to­day, there were small-minded men whocriticized Mises' consistency and candor. Ifonly he had been willing to bend principle abitl Mises charmingly refers to such crit­icisms:Occasionally I was reproached because I mademy point too bluntly and intransigently, and Iwas told that I could have achieved more if I hadshown more willingness to compromise . . . . Ifelt the criticism was unjustified; I could be effec­tive only if I presented the situation truthfully asI saw it. As I look back today at my activity withthe Chamber I regret only my willingness tocompromise, not my intransigence. (p. 74).

Only such a spirit could succeed inbuilding a movement, Austrian and liber­tarian, twice in his distinguished career.More important, it is because of his greatspirit, his unflinching integrity, that Mises'name will be honored so long as men shallreverence freedom.

Murray N. Rothbard is Senior Editor atLibertarian Review, the author of hundredsof articles and a dozen books, includingConceived in Liberty· (five volumes), Man,Economy and State, Power and Market,and For a New Liberty. He is editor ofLibertarian Forum.

The flight ofthe Lone Eagleby Justus Doenecke

Autobiography of Values, by Charles Lind­bergh. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 423pp., $12.95.

Even today, the life of the Lone Eagle,Charles Lindberg-"the last Americanhero" and foremost pioneer of flight-isshrouded in controversy. Conflict over hisideas clung to him throughout his life, andhis story is, in a very real sense, the story ofan initiation, indeed a baptism in which hisvalues became so completely altered thatwhat one really witnesses is a radical trans­formation.

Now, with the arrival of Lindbergh'sown autobiography, we can clarify some­though by no means all-of his views andvalues. Thanks to publisher William Jova­novich and Yale archivist Judith Schiff,2000 pages of loose manuscript have beenorganized into the outline of an auto­biography. Thus the book is not a unifiedaccount but rather a series of sketches andreflections, all mixed into a narrative thatoften takes sharp chronological jumps.

Like many Americans, Lindbergh at firstthought that mechanical genius would con­vert the rough wilderness into a. bucolicutopia, that (using the terms of Leo Marx)the "machine" would create the "garden."The grandchild of pioneers who foughtSioux chief Little Crow on the Minnesotaplains, Lindbergh grew up with his father'sstories of Indian wars, log cabins, andrudimentary farming.

Lindbergh made his spectacular trip toParis in 1927 in part to publicize the prom­ise of aviation. ("A lens focused on thefuture," he called the Spirit of St. Louis.)For much of his life, he continued to pro­mote the cause of flight, even turning downa half-million-dollar contract with Hearstfilms so as not to cheapen his experience.Only on the eve of World War II did hefind the "amorality of science" symbolizedin aviation's power.

His experiences as a test pilot in thePacific, flying on combat missions, simplyreinforced his awareness that the airplanehad helped to brutalize modern warfare,making it clinically and coldly impersonal.("My thumb moved ever so slightly againsta small red button on the stick and deathwent hurtling earthward.") He later'"recallssitting in a briefing room of the StrategicAir Command, for whom he did consultingwork, watching prospective target citiespinpointed on a map. He found himself, he

April 1978

said, "a demonic god," and as such hesensed the "easefulness and irresponsibilitythat can precede an act of atomic destruc­tion."

To understand this work, one must focuson the continual tension between instinctand intellect, primitive and civilized,simplicity and complexity-focus on whathe calls "the wisdom of wildness" and "theknowledge of our mind." Indeed, "real free­dom," he writes, "lies in wildness, not incivilization." As he hunts with Masaitribesmen, he developes a new appreciationof the "primitive and sensate qualities" of"instinct, intuition, and genetic memory."Through these qualities, he continues, "awisdom is imparted to the intellect essentialto the very existence of human life." "Iscivilization progress?" he is forced to ask,and he asks this question continually. Thescientist finally becomes a mystic, seeingtechnology as "trivial in the face of theunknowable."

Yet Lindbergh finds himself unable to re­nounce his own culture, for he could notsacrifice art and literature to remain livingin what he calls "God's greatest gift toman."

Several of Lindbergh's themes, of course,are predictable. First, there was his strongDarwinism. To Lindbergh, the struggle for

Charles Lindbergh

Libertarian Review

existence and natural selection were notmere textbook phrases; rather, they lay atthe basis of all existence. "Life is lived," hewrote, "by devouring other life at one mo­ment and, at the next, escaping from beingdevoured."

Second, he maintains his lifelong interestin genetics, although-as with his Darwin­ism-it is doubtful how fully he under­stood this science. He depicts himself, forexample, as "the culmination of worldy lifeto date after billions of years of evolution,the result of design, of chance, of mating,and of selection through epochs." Indeed hesees within himself "the concentration ofmillions of ancestors," and writes that"within each generation I cycle from adultto sperm to ovum to child." Watching hisown sperm cells under a microscope, henotes "thousands of living beings, each oneof them myself, my life stream, capable ofspreading my existence throughout the hu­man race, of reincarnating me in all eterni­ty."

In other ways too, the autobiography isquite revealing. Lindbergh presents hisviews on death, and discusses his earlyreligious skepticism, latter-day pantheism,facination with dreams and visions, friend­ship with physiologist Alexis Carrel, andrespect for rocket expert Robert H. God­dard. One learns that Lindbergh designedheart pumps, saw the lowering of bodytemperature as a way of prolonging life,and experimented with divining rods.

His indictment of modern war is an ableone, and one account, dealing with hisrefusal to shoot a lone Japanese walking ona beach in New Ireland, is particularly no­ble. "We were neither American nor Japan­ese, but two atoms of the human species,touching briefly, strangely, or maybe justrandomly through our field of forces." Heconfirms rumors that, in certain Pacificengagements, Americans took no prison­ers. And it is difficult to see how a reviewercould write that "Lindbergh thought NaziGermany was swell" (Walter Clemons,Newsweek, February 13, 1978, p. 92). Forwhile Lindbergh had written. that he "wasstirred by the spirit of Germany," he alsowrote, "But for me the ideology, theregimentation, the intolerance and thefanaticism of Hitler's Third Reich were in­tolerable. . .." Clemons is only one ofcountless critics who would rather smearthan understand this complicated man.

As far as his foreign policy views went,after World War II Lindbergh was an ar­dent Cold Warrior, one ever seeking mili­tary superiority over the Russians. In acomment that could well have been madeby General Curtis LeMay, he says that in"overwhelming striking power" lies thebest way to prevent "atomic aggression."

He adds that "American commercial andmilitary bases increased prosperity as wellas security in many countries during an ex­tremely critical period" (although he doesfind that "ideals easily lose their groundingin such a struggle").

To the historian of isolationism, Lind.;.bergh remains most puzzling. Our ig­norance, in some ways, .is a bit surprising,for we have more readily available materi­al on the Lone Eagle than on any othernotable anti-interventionist. Lindbergh'sWartime Journals (1970) extend for morethan a thousand pages, and Wayne Cole'sstudy of Lindbergh's battle against FDR'sforeign policy (1974) modifies the long-held

His indictntentof ntodern war isan able one, and oneaccount, dealing withhis refusal to shoota lone Japanese,is particularly noble.stereotypes of his supposed racism,fascism, and anti-Semitism. (One shouldforget Leonard Mosley's Lindbergh: ABiography [1976], a book whose taste­lessness and distortion should make it anembarrassment to the author).

Because he was the one isolationistwhose charisma could match that of Roose­velt, attacks on him were particularly abu­sive. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickescalled him "the No.1 Nazi fellow traveler,"while the president himself accused him ofbeing a "Copperhead,'" One could thereforehope that Lindbergh would have, at somepoint, used this autobiographical frame­work to explain his behavior and views.

Autobiography of Values, however,does not do this. Lindbergh tells us that theState Department, as well as Army In­telligence, approved of his trips to NaziGermany, and he stresses his belief thatHitler served as a buffer against Sovietpenetration. "Hitler's destruction," hewrites, "would lay Europe open to the rape,loot, and barbarism of Soviet Russia'sforces, causing possibly the fatal woundingof Western civilization." He further claimsthat the German peoples were "European,"not "Asiatic"; that Germany would even­tually "moderate Nazi excesses"; and thatin 1939, the year Lindbergh began his isola­tionist crusade, the Soviets had committedfar more liquidations and atrocities thanhad the Nazis.

39

Still and all, despite such revelations ofhis isolationist views, so much remainscloudy. A few of the pertinent issues wereraised at; the time. Socialist leader andanti-interventionist Norman Thomas,noting (in 1940) the vehemence·of the at­tacks on Lindbergh, suggested that theprominent aviator articulate his personalopposition to fascism, make it clear thatBritain and her dominions must survive asabsolutely independent nations, and clarifyhis pb§ition on American "cooperation"with.ariY victor, be it Britain or Germany.(In an address given on August 4, 1940,Lindbergh had claimed that. IIcooperation"with Germany IIcould maintain civilizationand peace throughout the world as far intothe future as we can see.")

This reviewer has additional questions.Why did Lindbergh never clarify his DesMoines speech of September 19, 1941, inwhich he publicly mentioned· IIJewishgroups" as among those lIagitating forwar"? In all fairness, he didexptess sym­pathy for persecuted Jews. The speech as awhole, however, was so ambivalent thatone prominent anti-interventionist, Ster­ling' Morton of Chicago, asked a speechprofessor at Northwestern University toanalyse its contents. Lindbergh himself hadpremonitions that the speech would brandhim as anti-Semitic, and the repercussionsit brought weakened the isolationists sup­port when they sought to preserve theNeutrality Acts in November 1941. Onewishes Lindbergh had discussed his tela...Hons with such noted ariti-interventiol'tistsas Verne Marshall, General Robert E.Wood, Herbert Hoover, and LawrenceDennis. If, as Leonard Mosely.claims, theFBI and Secret Service :monitored isola­tionist activities, one wonders if Lindberghfaced any harassment. Curiously enough,there is no reference to the notoriousAmerica First Committee, much less to theNo Foreign War Committee that attemptedto get Lindbergh's endorsement.

On all these topics, the autobiography issilent.

The Lone Eagle is likely to· remain puz­zling.. Hi$, mysticism, genetic obsessions,and elitism all can jolt a modern reader.There is enough of substance. in the auto­biography, however, to prove that Lind­bergh deserves more than either patron­izing or cavalier dismissal. His hook shouldbe read and reread, particularly by thoseconcerned with the technological revolu­tion that Lindbergh helped foster.

Justus Doenecke is the author of TheLiterature of Isolationism: A Guide to Non­Interventionist Scholarship, 1930-1972,and the forthcoming Not to the .Swift: TheOld Isolationists in the Cold War Era.

40

Democracyas PuritanisTnby Tom G. Palmer

Notes on Democracy, by H.L. Mencken.Octagon Books, 212 pp., $11.50.

Mencken was never a man to mince words,and his classic Notes on Democracy pro­vides them in twelve-pound bricks. No­where was Mencken more· free-swingingthan in this frontal assault. on .the mostsacred of all sacred cows, the fraud of de­mocracy.

Two things should be noteda'bout·Mencken's political philOsophy: First, hedidnot advocate adoption of any other systemof government to replace the obvious in­anities of democracy. He held all govern­ments and all statist ideologies in ... con­tempt-although not, as this book demon..strates, in equal contempt. "Is it(democracy) inordinately wasteful, ex­travagant, dishonest?" Mencken asked.uThen so is every other form of govern­ment; all alike are enemies to·laborious andvirtuous men." Second, in the face ofalmost unanimous faith in the virtues·of the"average guy" and his great ability to rulenot only himself, ·but his .betters as well,Mencken found it necessary to resort tostrong statements· and harsh language· inorder to debW'tkthis rldiculotlS canard. Attimes his incendiary' ptosealmost sears the·eyeballs of the reader. One should not,however,take· a great deal of his atisto~

cratic blustering in all seriousness,al...though it is one of the great charms of his·'book; no one was more artful at ladling itout than he was. Mencken believed in boththe potential nobility of free men and thenecessity of freedom for noble men, andstated on·many an occasion thal' the only'thing he really· believed' in unflinchinglyand consistently throughout. hisBfe wasliberty, for the masses and for the"naturalaristocracy."

Let us, then, <take this· book as thebrilliant polemical· spleen-venting of anenraged intellectual, not one cutftom thecommon mold which seeks to regulate andmanipulate the masses, but one who· seesthe good1'1e$s which .exceptional men canaccomplish .being dragged down·. by a­fraudulent, egalitarian philosophy. Thisphilosophy is one, moreover, which fails toelevate hoi .polloi and· only manages .tobring the superior specimens of humankinddown to their level. Menckenwasnot, asthe contents .of this bo.ok reveal, a systembuilder; but then few men are. His virtuelay in his style and in his brilliant criticism

of what he saw around him, and not in anysystematic program or Weltanschauung.

Liberty and democray were incompatiblefor Mencken because of the simple fact thatwhile many men may exercise their free­dom, few understand it. "When the citymob fights it isrtot for liberty, but for hamand cabbage. When it wins, its first act is todestroy every form of freedom that is notdirected wholly to that end. And its secondis to Qutcher all professional libertarians."Further, Mencken expounds, "The fact isthat liberty, in any true sense, is a conceptthat lies quite beyond the reach of the in­ferior man's mind. He can image and evenesteem, in his way, certain false forms ofliberty-for example, the right to choosebetween two political mountebanks, and toyell for the more obviously dishonest-butthe reality is incomprehensible to him. Andno wonder, for genuine liberty demands ofits votaries a quality he lacks completely,and that is courage. The man who loves itmust be willing to fight for it; blood, saidJefferson, is its natural manure."

Perhaps echoing the sixteenth centuryFrench libertarian Etienne de la 8oetie,Mencken goes on to state that this "inferiorman" can "no more comprehend it [liberty]than he can comprehend honor. What hemistakes for it, nine times out of ten, issimply the banal right to empty hallelujahsupon his oppressors. He is an ox whose lastproud, defiant gesture is to lick the butcherbehind the ear." However, whereas de laBoetie thought that .the •masses .were hood-

,winked· and fooled by a clever network ofautomatic and systematic oppression,Mencken thought their oppression by thestate so obVious that. only. stupidity couldexplain theiracq~iescence. After all, heasks, "Have they no means of resistance?Obviously they have. The worst tyrant,even under democratic plutocracy, has butone throat to slit. The moment the majoritydecided to overthrow him he would beoverthrown. But the majority ... cannotimagine taking the risk."

While the masses· are robbed and ex­ploited by their supposedly self-chosentuler(s), the superior men of culture, in­tellect, and virtue are prevented from exer­cising these attributes by that most basic ofguiding forces in democracy, envy. "Theaim of democracy is to break all . . . freespirits to the common, harness. It tries toiron them· out,· to .pump them dry of self­respect, to make docile John Does of them.The rneasureof its success is the extent towhich 'such .men are brought down, andmade common. The measure of civilizationis the extent to which they resist and sur­vive."· Herein Mencken finds "the identityof democracy and Puritanism."

1iPuritan legislation, especially in the

April 1978

The Puritan operates by making thevictims of his meddling designs footthe bill for their own railroading.

field of public law," we are informed, "is athing of many grandiose pretensions and afew simple and ignoble realities. ThePuritan, discussing it voluptuously, alwaystries to convince himself (and the rest of us)that it is grounded upon altruistic andevangelical motives-that its aim is towork the other fellow's benefit against theother fellow's will. Such is the theorybehind Prohibition, comstockery, vicecrusading and all its other familiar devicesof oppression. The theory, of course, isfalse. The Puritan's actual motives are (a)to punish the other fellow for having a bet­ter time in the world, and (b) to bring theother fellow down to his unhappy level.. . . Primarily, he is against every humanact that he is incapable of himself-safely."

This desire to make sure that everyone is asunhappy as the Puritan would be largelyimpotent were it not for the state. For, asthe economists would say, the Puritan isable to socialize his costs through the agen­cy of the state, by making the very victimsof his meddling designs foot the bill fortheir own railroading, and by using thisrobbery to hire armed thugs to enforce hisintentions. "It is this freedom from per­sonal risk that is the secret of the Prohibi­tionists' continued frenzy. . . . If they hadto meet their victims face to face, therewould be a different story to tell. But, liketheir brethren, the comstocks and the pro­fessional patriots, they seldom encounterthis embarrassment. Instead, they turn theofficers of the law to the uses of theirmania. More, they reinforce the officers ofthe law with an army of bravos sworn totake their orders and do their bidding-thearmy of so-called Prohibition enforcementofficers, mainly made up of professionalcriminals."

The most elevated of statesmen under de­mocracy, while "ostensibily ... an altruistdevoted whole-heartedly to the service ofhis fellow-men, and so abjectly public­spirited that his private interest is nothingto him," is in fact "a sturdy rogue whoseprincipal, and often sole aim in life is tobutter his parsnips." To the democraticpolitician, "anything is moral that furthersthe main concern of his soul, which is tokeep a place at the public trough. Thatplace is one of public honor, and publichonor is the thing that caresses him and

Libertarian Review

makes him happy. It is also one of power,and power is the commodity that he has forsale."

A policeman is "a charlatan who offers,in return for obedience, to protect him(mass man) (a) from his superior~, (b) fromhis equals, and (c) from himself. This lastservice, under democracy, is commonly themost esteemed of them all. In the UnitedStates, at least theoretically, it is the onlything that keeps ice-wagon drivers, YMCAs,ecretaries, insurance collectors and othersuch human camels from smoking opium,ruining themselves in the night clubs, andgoing to Palm Beach with Follies girls. It isa democractic invention."

Mencken hammers at the reader againand again with the incontestable truths of

the iron law of oligarchy. Rational deci­sions, in the anthropomorphic sense, can­not be arrived at by more than a handful ofpeople. It is an illusion to believe that themasses choose this or that public policyqua masses; they are manipulated throughthe state by unscrupulous men for theirown purposes, purposes which rarely, ifever, coincide with any supposed JJpublicinterest." Of public opinion Mencken tellsus that JJWalter Lippmann, searching for it,could not find it. A century before himFichte said 'es gar nicht existirte.' Publicopinion, in its raw state, gushes out in theimmemorial form of the mob's fears. It ispiped to central factories, where it isflavoured and coloured, and put intocans." Now that's writing!

It is tempting to go on and on quoting inthis fashion. The problem is that one endsup putting quote marks around the entirebook and simply prefixing and appendingintroductory and concluding paragraphs.Unfortunately, the editors rejected that no­tion due to the constraints of space. Allthat I can suggest is that you buy and readthis book, one in a long series of Menckenreprints issued by Octagon. While many ofhis statements are harsher than what onemight say oneself, they are expressed in soexhilirating a manner as to delight the mindof any libertarian or free spirit.

Tom G. Palmer is former head of theYoung Libertarian Alliance and is afrequent contributor to LR.

One man's worldby JoAnn Rothbard

Six Men, by Alistair Cooke. Alfred A.Knopf, 205 pp., $8.95.

Alistair Cooke first came to the UnitedStates in 1932 as a Commonwealth fel­low-a sort of Rhodes scholar in reverse­and ever since he has been explainingAmericans to the British public. And sincehe began to introduce BBC dramatic pro­ductions on public television, he has beenexplaining the habits and foibles of theBritish to American audiences.

Now, the urbane Mr. Cooke has writtenpersonal profiles of six men, three British(Charles Chaplin, Bertrand Russell, andEdward VIII) and three American (H.L.Mencken, Humphrey Bogart, and Adlai E.Stevenson). With the exception of the kingwho ruled such a short time, these menwere all friends of Cooke. He explains thatalthough he met them ,in different ways,they were all men who took to him andwith whom he felt JJsympat." (Cooke pre­fers the term sympat to empathy.) Thebook is gracefully written, but the essaysare uneven in their interest and in theoriginality of their content.

Cooke calls Charles Chaplin the first in­ternational celebrity, thanks to his interna­tionally known films. At first, Chaplindidn't realize how well known he was, buthe began to be aware of it in 1916: He wascaught in a washroom in his underwear, asthe train on which he was traveling to NewYork pulled into the station of Amarillo,Texas, and seemingly the whole populationof Amarillo came out to see him.

By the time Cooke met Chaplin (duringthe author's first summer in the UnitedStates), Chaplin was cut off from access bythe press, except for Cooke himself. Hedescribes Chaplin as incredibly handsome(though of very small stature, with tinyhands and feet), attractive and susceptibleto women, and having an open, spontane­ous personality. He writes that one of thegreatest pleasures in being in Chaplin'spresence was to watch the grace and deft­ness of all of his movements.

Cooke was invited back to Hollywoodthe following summer by Chaplin to re­search a movie on Napoleon on St. Helenathat Chaplin planned, but never made. Hegives us reminiscences of what Chaplin waslike in private, and how films were made athis studio. However, there are some con­tradictions in the portrait: On one hand,Chaplin foresaw the crash of 1929 and senthis money out of the United States before itoccurred; on the other, Chaplin was sur-

41

prised when his brother pointed out to himthat he had $900,000 in a checking account.

Edward VIII appears to Cooke as abubble-headed playboy who didn't growup to his responsibilities, and who neverunderstood the importance and signifi­cance of his abdication. He began his exilethinking he was still a king, and his wife thewife of a king. His life ended 35 years laterin bewilderment that the world and eventssuch as a world war, the beginning of thenuclear age, and the spread of communismcould have passed by, without a glance, aman who had been heir to the throne of theBritish Empire. He acted as if he were aking in exile and thought it mean of Britonsabroad not to pay obeisance.

Cooke understands, as Edward neverdid, the constitutional reasons why, giventhe king's infatuation with Mrs. Simpson,abdication was inevitable, and gives a cap­sule account of the government crisis.

This scandal had a more personal im­portance for Cooke, as well. There was acomplete silence in Britain on the radio andin the press about the whole affair untilonly ten days before the abdication. Untilthen most Britons had never head of Mrs.Simpson. At the same time, the crisis wasbig news in the United States. The Londoncorrespondent of NBC was vacationing inAmerica; since it took five days to cross theAtlantic at the time, Cooke suddenlybecame NBC correspondent. He broadcastacross the ocean six and seven times a day."I found myself putting New York to bed atfour in the morining, London time, doingthe same for California three hours later,then waking New York at our noon, theMountain States at two, California atthree, and so on." When he got an infec­tion, NBC had a telephone line andmicrophone installed in his living room.

The scandal broke in the British pressaround the first of December, and onDecember 10, 1936, the king abdicated.The money Cooke received for his broad­casting stint allowed him to return to theUnited States, which is where he met theother men portrayed in this book.

Cooke met Humphrey Bogart in 1952while Bogart was campaigning for Steven­son and Cooke was covering the campaignfor the Manchester Guardian. He portraysBogart's life, career, and death, but it ismostly familiar material.

More interesting are the two politicians,Stevenson and Bertrand Russell, who sharea certain head-in-the-clouds quality. (Ofcourse, most people consider Russell ascientific rather than a political figure, butCooke only reports on his political ac­tivities.) The essay on Stevenson beginswith a description of a parade and rallyheld in Los Banos, California, on Mother's

42

On the train, Russelldiscussed Shaw(cruel), H.G. Wells(vain), Tennyson (anexhibitionist), Lenin(evil), and QueenVicto\ria (cosy).

Day, 1956, attended by Stevenson andEstes Kefauver, then both candidates forthe Democratic party nomination for presi­dent. Cooke evokes the heat, dust, andprovinciality of that San Joaquin Valleytown (which still prevails today), andshows Stevenson as a candidate unable tofit in Los Banos. Most of the rest of theessay concerns Stevenson's relationshipwith the Kennedy administration. Hereagain, he didn't fit in. He really expected tobe named secretary of state, and after hewas sent to the United Nations instead, hecompletely believed the briefings he gotfrom Washington, claiming the UnitedStates would not and did not intervene inCuba. Cooke calls Stevenson "The FailedSaint"; but from the portrait he paints ofthis ambitious man, it is hard to discern aman who had been governor of a statewhich had Richard Daley as its majorpolitical force, and who ran for Presidenttwice-and therefore must have been morehard-headed and ruthless than Cooke's"Saint."

As anyone who has made the trip knows,the train ride from New York to Washing­ton can be dreary; but obviously it can befascinating with a traveling companion likeBertrand Russell. During this four-plushour trip with Cooke, Russell read twopaperback whodunits almost as fast as hecould turn the pages, and discarded eachon the floor. He then launched into a con­versation that covered, in his precise wayof speaking, such topics as Russell's firstwife's relatives, his difficulties withAmerican academic bureaucrats and cler­gymen, Geroge Bernard Shaw (cruel),H.G. Wells (vain), Tennyson (an exhibi­tionist), Browning (a bore), Lenin (evil),Gladstone (unsympathetic) and Queen Vic­toria (cosy). He then napped until the trainreached Washington.

Cooke presents a public view of Russellin an absorbing account of a speech Russellgave in support of a Labour candidate inGlasgow in 1954, in which he went on andon with vague generalties about war, pov-

erty, the hydrogen bomb, and the UnitedNations. What the elderly Scottish audi­ence was interested in were local retailprices. The candidate lost the election.

Saving the best (it appears third in thebook), Cooke's piece on H.L. Menckencontains a gem of a description of thepolitical conventions of 1948. (Menckenadmirers will also be interested in the pair'searly acquaintance, based on their com­mon interest in the English language, andespecially in the differences in British andAmerican English usage.) Mencken caughta cold thanks to the air conditioning of hishotel, and missed most of the Republicanconvention. But he was back and in rareform for the Democratic convention, andespecially for the Progressive Party Con­vention, which Mencken declared thatwhile it "produced a 'surprisingly goodcrop, they have nothing so bizarre' as theeccentrics he swore he had seen at the BullMoose Convention of 1912." Cooke is athis best in describing the rank-and-filers forWallace, and Mencken was at his agingbest in poking fun at them-groaning attheir syntax, bulging his eyes at prettyfemales, and hailing the men as "Com­rade." Mencken almost had the signalhonor of being .censured by the Progres­sives, when a resolution was introducedcalling him a red-baiter and racist (thiswhile he was describing a Negro delegate as"having the complexion of a good ten-centcigar"). The fun was cut short, however,when the chairman threw out the resolu­tion as a dangerous precedent.

When the convention ended, the Sunpapers gave a farewell party, which waspicketed by a detachment from the Youthfor Wallace. The picketers were invited tojoin the party, and Mencken had a bit offun: He introduced Cooke as the reporterfor the London Daily Worker, urged theProgressives to sing some of their partysongs, then started them off on the nationalanthem on a note high enough to guaranteethey'd break down in the middle-andfinally tried to get them to sing "God Savethe King" in Cooke's honor, even thoughWallace had only that night described Bri­tain as an "imperialist beast." This mayhave been the last bit of horseplay Menck­en ever indulged in, for he had an incapaci­tating stroke three months later.

Even though this book is well written,libertarian readers will find the constantliberal tone irritating. There is hardly anessay in which Joseph McCarthy or AlgerHiss are not dragged in, and he even tries toapologize for Mencken's attitude on WorldWar II. But leaving these objections aside,there are some interesting nuggets in theseessays on people who have. shaped Qurpolitics and culture during the last 45 years.

April 1978

James Joyce, a'llarchistby Jeff Riggenbach

The Consciousness of Joyce, by RichardEllman. Oxford University Press, 150 pp.,$10.95.

Herbert Read once lamented that when hemet with fellow anarchists during the 1920sand 1930s, and "wanted to discuss, notonly Sorel and Lenin, but also Picasso andJoyce, . . . no one saw the connection.Each isolated on his separate prong deniedthe relevance of the force animating theother prongs. To me it seemed elementary. . . that the development of art sinceCezanne should interest the completelyrevolutionary mind as much as the devel­opment of socialist theory since Proudhon.To me it seemed just as important to .des­troy the established bourgeois ideals inliterature, painting and architecture as itwas to destroy the established bourgeoisideals in economics."

To James Joyce as well the connectionseemed equally elementary and equally im­portant, at least in his early years. Foralthough Richard Ellmann tells us thatJoyce "maintained a lifelong interest inanarchism," the fact that he supported Ar­thur Griffith, who became the president ofIreland shortly before Joyce's 48th birth­day, speaks for itself. Although he was atone time an admirer of the American indi­vidualist-anarchist Benjamin R. Tucker,read Proudhon and Bakunin under Tuck­er's influence (the latter in Tucker's transla­tion), and acquired copies of Qu'est-ce quela propriete?, God and the State, andTucker's own Instead of a Book for the per­sonal library he b~ilt between 1900 and1920, the fact remains that he turned thislibrary over to his brother Stanislaus intactwhen he left Trieste for Paris-apparentlywithout a backwards glance at any of hisonce-beloved volumes. And though hewrote of his fictional counterpart, StephenDedalus (in Stephen Hero, 1904) that "hefelt the need to express himself such anurgent need, such a real need, that he wasdetermined no conventions of a society,however plausibly mingling pity with itstyranny, should be allowed to stand in hisway"; even though he wrote a bit of satiricdoggerel in about 1915, including the lines:JlWho is the tranquil gentleman who won'tsalute the State ... But thinks that everyson of man has quite enough to do/To pad­dle down the stream of life his personalcanoe?"; still, it is a deep-delving analystindeed who can locate any radical politicsin either of Joyce's last works, Ulysses orFinnegans Wake. As the Great Artificer

Libertarian Review

NowAvaIlable:The Servile StateBy Hilaire Belloe

A perceptive warning, first published in 1913, of theconsequences of statism and the effect of socialistdoctrine on capitalist society. With an introduction byRobert Nisbet. IIA landmark of political thought inthis century" - Walter Lippmann. Hardcover $8.00}Softcover $2.00.

Popular GovernmentBy Sir Henry Sumner Maine

A classic inquiry into the conditions necessary for thesuccess of representative government, by the author ofAncient Law. This edition includes Maine's famousessay on liThe Constitution of the United States."Hardcover $7.95, Softcover $1.95.

AratorBy John TaylorThe most popular and influential work by JohnTaylor of Caroline} foremost philosopher of theconservative Jeffersonians. This edition includes sixty­four essays} practical and politicaL on farming and thesocial order of an agricultural republic. Edited andwith an introduction by M. E. Bradford.Hardcover $9.00} Softcover $3.00.

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43

wrote of himself in the same passage inStephen Hero, "it was not part of his life toattempt an extensive alteration of society."

Instead it was Joyce's life to attempt­and realize-an extensive alteration of Eng­lish prose fiction. And his last two books,while they contain no quotable anarchistsentiments and are generally quite apoliti­cal in their IJsubject-matter", are none­theless profoundly anarchic in the spiritwith which they overthrow the authority of150 years of literary tradition, dispensingwith plot, narrative continuity, consistentpoint of view, conventional syntax, gram­mar, punctuation-but not with order.

Joyce had learned from Proudhon thatan anarchist may also be IJa firm friend oforder"; from Bakunin that organizationmay be "free and spontaneous", "by meansof free associations"; and from Tucker that"where freedom prevails, competition andcooperation are identical." And he com­posed fiction based on the "free associa­tion" of ideas and images in the closelyobserved minds of his characters, provingin the process that such fiction may be fullyas ordered and elaborate as the most in­tricate and ambitious of plot-novels. Or­ganization is no more absent from Ulyssesthan it is from a society without govern­ment. In each case, it is only necessary forthe observer to open his mind and expectthe unusual in order to find the coherentstructure beneath the chaotic surface.

Edmund Wilson's essay on Joyce in Ax­el's Castle (1931) is still probably the bestintroduction to this structure for the genealreader, although Harry Levin's James Joyceand Anthony Burgess's Here Comes Every­body (available in this country under thetitle Re: Joyce) are also excellent. Ellmann'slatest book on Joyce is neither an introduc­tion, nor really a book for the generalreader. It is a catalogue of Joyce's 1920library of more than 600 books and pam­phlets, along with three essays (originallydelivered as the Alexander Lectures at theUniversity of Toronto in 1974) on how thissource material-lumped under the fourheadings of Homer, Shakespeare, aesthetictheory and political theory-found its wayinto his writings. Ellmann has devotedmost of his enormously productive careeras a critic and scholar to Joyce, and hiserudition is both impressive and useful-aswhen he unearths the youthful fling withanarchism profiled above. But his style­heavy, pedantic, abstract in the worstsense-is, alas, enough to put off all but themost determined of readers.

Jeff Riggenbach teaches criticism at UCLAand practices it in a number of magazines,including LR, where he is contributingeditor.

44

Rothbard revisitedby Jack High

Man, Economy, and State, by Murray N.Rothbard. Sheed, Andrews, and McMeel,984 pp., $12.

Certain works in economics demand the at­tention of all economists. Some books, likeSmith's Wealth ot ·Nations and Menger'sPrinciples, require attention because theycontribute something new and importantto the science. Others, like Marshall's Prin­ciples and Keynes's General Theory, de­mand it because they exercised such greatinfluence on economists; still others, likeWicksteed's Common Sense and Wieser'sSocial Economics, because of their unityand scope.

In Man, Economy, and State, MurrayRothbard has given us a book that falls intothis third category. He has given us, in fact,a beautifully integrated treatise coveringthe whole of economics. This one-volumeedition, just reprinted by Sheed, Andrews,and McMeel, follows prior printings in1962 and 1970.

Rothbard begins his work by consideringthe fundamentals of human action, by ask-

ing what we mean by action and what canbe universally predicated of action. Thushe derives the staples of the economist­choice, ends, means, consumption, produc­tion, utility, cost, exchange, and price. Healso derives some ideas that are not usuallystocked by economists, but should be­ideas like uncertainty, time-preference, andentrepreneurship.

Rothbard builds and illustrates his ideasby working from the simple to the com­plex. He first considers man acting in isola­tion, then in direct exchange markets, andfinally in the complicated world of a mon­etary economy. All along the way, there isa careful, step-by-step construction of prin­ciples.

But Rothbard not only builds, he alsodissects, criticizes, and compares. Thisbook, more than any other in economics,gives careful consideration to opponents'ideas. It is the work of a man who hasmastered not only the principles of hisscience, but its literature, past and present.

Two parts of Rothbard's work deservespecial mention. The first is his utilitytheory. Ever since John Hick's claim thatmarginal utility rests on cardinal measure­ment of utility, economists have explicitlyrejected the notion of marginal utility whileimplicitly retaining it in the derivatives oftheir utility functions. Rothbard convinc­ingly refutes Hick's claim that marginalutility depends on the actual measurementof utility. He derives a concept of marginalutility that is purely ordinal, and restoresthe law of diminishing marginal utility toits rightful place in economic theory.

The other part of Rothbard's work thatshould be singled out is his theory of com­petitive price. Like many economists,Rothbard spurns the notion of perfect com­petition in favor of competition as a pro­cess whereby producers and consumersstrive to satisfy their wants better. Butunlike. other economists, Rothbard main­tains that all prices formed on the un­hampered market are competitive prices.Under laissez-faire, there are no monopolyprices. This claim has obvious importancefor antitrust policy, and economists shouldgive it careful attention.

But more important than these particu­lars, it is the grand scope and striking unityof this work that needs to be stressed. Man,Economy, and State is an impressive edi­fice, a palace on an economic landscapedotted with huts. It brings together whatthe student too often sees as disconnectedfragments. It is what science is supposed tobe, a systematic body of knowledge.

Jack High is a graduate student ineconomics at UCLA.

April 1978

•Announcing:

A plan to COtDbat theneW" threat to your tibert~

A short time ago, America entered a newera of statism. It may prove to be unlike anythingwe've seen before.

Over the corning years, you can expect tosee a massive increase in government power,more blatant violations of the rights of proper­ty and production, and an expansion of liberal"social experimentation" with our lives.

In short, we are rapidly being transported tothe totalitarian world of "1984."

You've probably been asking yourself:"Can anything be done to reverse this ominoustrend?"

The answer-fortunately-yes.There is an organization that is working ac­

tively right now to combat the tide of statismand restore our liberties. An organization de­signed to actually accomplish what, until now,has been only dreamed about by other found­ations, political parties and activist groups.

That organization is the Center for Liber­tarian Studies.

One fundamental principle guides the Cen­ter: the principle that ideas are the key to socialchange. The Center's founders are convincedt..hat a free society can be created only if theideas of freedom are preserved, developed, andcommunicated to the widest possible audience.

These are precisely the tasks of the Center forLibertarian Studies.

Advising and directing the Center are someof the world's best-known libertarians. Amongthem are Nobel Prize-winner Friedrich A.Hayek, Pulitzer Prize-winner Felix Morley, andNational Book Award-winner Robert Nozick.Plus Mrs. Ludwig von Mises, Henry Hazlitt,Robert D. Kephart, Arthur A. Ekirch, YaleBrozen, Robert Nisbet, Thomas Szasz andmany others.

• Summer Fellows Program. An intensivethree-month program for young scholarswho are supported by a full-time academicdirector and byexperts in their field ofstudy.

• Seminars. At the Center groups meet to ex­plore topics like American foreign policy,health and liberty, and education and theState, The Lawyer's Workshop, the Liber­tarian Heritage Series, and the Human Ac­tion Seminar are on-going programs.

Directed from the Center's national head­quarters in New York City, these activitiescombine to form a strategic program to createa free society.

It should be evident that there is no otherorganization of any kind like the Center forLibertarian Studies. It is the truly indispensableelement in the counterattack against statist op­pression.

HOW YOU CAN HELPTo continue this vital program in defense of

freedom, the Center needs your support. Andwe need it now.

The conferences and seminars, the publi­cations, grants to the fellows, the headquartersand staff-all of these cost money.

By supporting the Center with a contri­bution, you'll be taking the single most im­portant step in the struggle to restore indivi­dual liberty and establish a truly free society.

The Center for Libertarian Studies-longonly a vision of a small group of dedicatedscholars-is now a reality. We have the facili­ties. We have the people. We have the deter­mination to win. Now all we need is you. Yoursupport is the final link that will make it allpossible.

WHAT'S IN IT FOR YOU?Frankly, we think you should join and sup­

port the Center for Libertarian Studies becauseit's one of the best ways for you to help build afree society.

The next few years will prove decisive. ForAmerica-and for the world. For your life­and that of your children.

Certainly, it will take time to create a societybased on individual liberty. In the meantime,we'd like to offer you some more immediateand tangible rewards in return for becoming a"Friend of the Center for Libertarian Studies."

Your contribution of $100 or more qualifiesyou as a "Friend of the Center." In returnyou'll receive this special package of benefits:

• A one-year subscription to the Journal ofLibertarian Studies.

• One-year subscriptions to both our news­letters, "In Pursuit of Liberty" and the"Austrian Economics Newsletter."

• All of the Center's Occasional Papers pub­lished during your yearly membership.

• Invitations to exclusive receptions fea­turing prominent libertarians, and to re­gional conferences held in various parts ofthe country.

• A handsome card identifying you as a"Friend of the Center for LibertarianStudies."

So, all things considered, you've .got anumber of very selfish reasons to support theCenter for Libertarian Studies. Not least ofwhich is the possibility of achieving freedom inour time.

Don't let that chance pass you by. Join us inthe battle of ideas for liberty. Clip the coupon,and write a check for your maximum contri­bution today.

THE CENTER'S PROGRAMAll the Center's activities are directed toward

a single goal: to provide ideas that will serve asthe basis for a free society.

• The Journal of Libertarian Studies. Editedby renowned economist Murray N.Rothbard, the Journal is a forum for the bestin libertarian scholarship. Jt.provides an al­ternative-finally-to the seemingly end­less stream of collectivist publications fil­ling college library shelves.

• The Occasional Papers. Seminal essays onfreedom, either original, brought back intoprint, or newly translated into English.

• Newsletters. "In Pursuit of Liberty" keepsour supporters informed about the Center'sactivities and special events. The"AustrianEconomics Newsletter" keeps readers intouch with the mQdern resurgence of thisgreat free market tradition in economics.

• The Libertarian Scholars Conference. Anannual event that significantly helps to shiftthe climate of intellectual opinion in the di­rection of freedom.

• The Research Fellows Program. Nurturesand sustains promising graduate studentsand young professors who will become to­morrow's foremost scholars of liberty.

Join the battle of ideas for liberty.

r------------------------,: 1.1~~~~e~~!?c~~~!~~t~!~~>r~~~~!~~ :I YESl Iwant to join the battle of ideas for liberty. Enclosed is my tax-deductible contribution of: II D $1000 D $500 D $250 D $100 D Other $ I II 0 My contribution is at least $100, qualifying me as a "Friend ot the Center." Send me the II package of benefits described above. II D I want to know more about the Center. Send me your Information Packet. (Enclosed is one II dollar to cover postage and handling.) 478LR II ~~ II Address II II City State Zip II Contributions to the Center are tax-deductible to the full extent provided by law. II A copy of the most recent Center for Libertarian Studies annual financial report may be obtained by writing II to either the New York State Board of Social Welfare, Office Tower, Empire State Plaza, Albany, New York I• .12223, or the Center for Libertarian Studies, 200 Park Avenue South, New York, N.Y. 10003. •

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46 April 1978

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Libertarian Review 47

Announcingthe libertarian movement's

first magazine of events.

Announcing the new Libertarian Review.Get in on the excitement­from the beginning.

The new LR will soon be in the fore­front of the most exciting intellectual­political movement in two centuries. Asthe first and only libertarian magazineof events, we'll be shaking things upissue after issue--both inside and out­side the libertarian movement.

Here's your invitation to get in on theaction-by becoming a charter' sub­scriber to the new Libertarian Review.(Already a subscriber? Then renewnow, so you'll be sure not to miss a sing­gle thought-provoking issue.) Subscribe _now and get 12 monthly issues for $15.Your satisfaction is guaranteed. If weever let you down, just tell us and we'llsend you a prompt refund for the bal­ance of your subscription.

The new Libertarian Review will becharting the course of America's sec­ond libertarian revolution. Don't getleft behind. Join us today.

After all, the debut of the first liber­tarian magazine of events is somethingof a~n event in itself. '

partments. In our new format with itssharp, modern graphics.

As for coming issues, you can lookforward to provocative essays on thesupression of political ideas in Amer­ica, the decline of New York City, por­nography and the law, American for­eign policy, the "energy crisis," thelibertarian movement and many more.Plus regular columns and features like"Crosscurrents" and "WashingtonWatch," hard-hitting editorials, andcrisp, in-depth reviews of books and thearts.

LR will continue to boast a roster ofcontributors that includes the topnames of libertarianism. People likeMurray N. Rothbard, Roger MacBride,Ralph Raico, Joan Kennedy Taylor,Walter Grinder and Earl Ravenal andmany others.

As always, LR guarantees to aggra­vate, stimulate and infuriate. It willraise questions you've wondered aboutfor years-'-and some you'd never dreamof considering. It may challenge manyof your most firmly held beliefs. But­and this is a promise--it will never boreyou.

Use this coupon to subscribe or rene,w. ~(you prefer not to cut the page. please supp~v thefollowing infor­mation on a plain sheet ofpaper. lntlude your old mailing label {(you are renewing your subscription_

The story behind the new LR.

What youlll find in our pages.Of course, LR' will continue to pro­

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But the new LR will be far more thanjust another "movement" publication.By systematically translating principlesinto practice, we will bring libertarian­ism to the real world, and the real worldto libertarianism.

This editorial philosophy, this ani­mating spirit, is reflected in the issueyou're reading right now. In timely, rel­evant articles. In the columns· and de-

What makes a political movementsuccessful?

Many things, of course, but success­ful political movements have one thingin common: each has its independent.respected publication devoted to eventsand issues.

Now the libertarian movement hassuch a publication: the new LibertarianReview.

The libertarian movement desperate­ly needed a publication focused onevents. A magazine that would subjectnational and international develop­ments to careful, probing libertariananalysis.

The new LR will be precisely that. Itwill be a magazine that consistentlycomes to grips with the key issues of ourtime. A magazine willing tofight for in­dividualliberty. A magazine that servesas a forum for lively debate, thoughtfulcommentary, fresh ideas, and occasion­al whimsy.

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