July 1989 Vo12,No6

((Lean Libert is better than :ratS[ave ." - Jolin 1\g "Perhaps the most important economic treatise 0/our time" - WALL STREET JOURNAL

Human Action is the most compelling case for economic freedom ever made. It is the free­ market answer to Marx's Das Kapital and Keynes's General Theory. And it is fascinating. Mises is a cool logician, our greatest economic scholar, a passionate lover of freedom - and a 'passionate hater of those who would take it away from us. Thus Human Action is the economic masterwork of our age - and, at the same time, a soaring hymn to human freedom. Mises 'has nothing but scorn for the phony "compassion" of the Marxians and Keynesians - because he sees how their theories actually breed. suffering. One by one, he sweeps away the dangerous fallacies of liberalism and socialism.

Finally, this book is a warning. Just as man ignores the law of gravity at HUMAN ACTION his peril, so too the immutable laws of economics. Triggers an Explosion of Critical Acclaim As Mises aptly puts it: "I think that Human Action is unquestionably the "It rests with men whether they will make most powerful product of the human mind in our proper use of the rich treasure with which time, and I believe it will change human life for the this knowledge [of economics] provides better during the coming centuries as profoundly as them or whether they will leave it unused. Marxism has changed all our lives for the worse in this century." - Rose Wilder Lane But if they fail to take the best advantage of it and disregard its teachings and warn­ "If any single book can turn the ideological tide that ings, they will not annul economics; they has been running in recent years so heavily toward will stamp our society and the human statism, socialism, and totalitarianism, Human Action race." is that book. It should become the leading text of everyone who believes in freedom, in individualism, and in a free-market economy." - Henry Hazlitt

The economic masterpiece of the "An arsenal of felct and logic for those at war with the century - in an edition worthy Marxists and Fabians." - Chicago Daily News of its contents "Dr. von Mises has made a tremendous contribution to economic thinking ina world that thinks only Revised and updated by the author himself D economics." - Vermont Royster Massive 924 pages 0 Comprehensive 21-page "[Mises] offers a combination of great scholarship index D Entirely reset - NOT to be and the rare ability to make an abstruse'economic sub­ confused with any previous edition ject interesting." - Lawrence Fertig

"The finest economic treatise of this generation." ­ Raymond Moley How to get this $49.95 masterwork FREE I~------_...._------I a•• How the Club Works CONSERVATIVE IIIBOOK CLUB Every 4' weeks (13 times a year) you get a free copy of the Club Bulletin. which offers you the Featured Selection plus a good choice of Alternates - all of interest to conservatives. * 15 OAKLAND AVENUE. HARRISON, N.V. 10528 If you want the Featured Selection, do nothing. It will come automatically. * If you don't want the Featured Selection. or you do want an Alternate, indicate your wishes on the handy Please accept my membership in the Club and send me, free and card enclosed with your Bulletin and return it by the deadline postpaid, Ludwig von Mises' magnum opus, Human Action, in the date. * The majority of Club books will be offered at 20-50% $49.95 Third Edition. I agree to buy 4 additional books at regUlar Club discounts, plus a charge for shipping and handling. * As soon as you buy and pay for 4 books at regular Club prices, prices over the next 2 years. I also agree to the Club rules spelled out your membership may be ended at any time. either by you or in this coupon. LIB - 3 by the Club. * If you ever receive a Featured Selection without having had 10 days to decide if you want it, you may Name _ return it at Club expense for full credit. * Good service. No computers! * The Club will offer regular Superbargains, mostly at 70-90% discounts plus shipping and hand:ing. Address. _ Superbargains do NOT count toward fulfilling your Club obligation, but do enable you to buy fine books at giveaway Zip _ prices. * Only one membership per household. City _ State _ ~------~------Liberty Contents July 1989 Volume 2, Number 6 R. W. Bradford publisher & editor The Myth of the Rights of Mental Patients Stephen Cox Karl Hess by Thomas S. Szasz, page 19 Murray N. Rothbard Open vs Closed Libertarianism David Ramsay Steele by John Hospers, page 29 senior editors Douglas Casey Viking Iceland: Anarchy That Worked Mike Holmes by David Friedman, page 37 John Hospers RexF.May Ecology and Economy William P. Moulton by Ron Courtney, page 41 Ross Overbeek by Jane S. Shaw, page 42 Ralph Raico Sheldon Richman The Political and Demographic Dimensions James S. Robbins Jane S. Shaw of Contemporary Libertarianism Ethan O. Waters analysis by John M. Scheb, page 45 contributing editors comment by James S. Robbins, page 47 Timothy Virkkala Nude Dancing in Memphis assistant editor by Michael Williams, page 49 Rodney Mood editorial assistant Fetal Rights and Women's Rights by Tibor R. Machan, page 51 Kathleen Bradford copy editor The New Soviet "Democracy" by James S. Robbins, page 53 The Campaign of '88 A Report from the Political Trenches Liberty (lSSN 0894-1408) is a by Jamie Potter, page 55 review of libertarian and classi­ cal liberal thought/ culture and politics, published bi-monthly by Liberty Publishing, 1532 Sims Way, #1/ Port Townsend, WA 98368 (Mailing Address: PO Box Departments 1167/ Port Townsend, WA 98368). Subscriptions are $19.50 • for one year, $35.00 for two years. Foreign subscriptions are Reflections $22.00 for one year, $40.00 for two years. Recent single issues The Editors "Editorialize," page 7 are $4.00 each, plus $1.00 for postage & handling. Reviews Second-Class Postage Paid at Port Townsend, WA 98368. R. W. Bradford judges the Rand/Branden Affair, page 57 POSTMASTER: Send address Leland B. Yeager on Narveson's "The Libertarian Idea," page 66 changes to Liberty, PO Box 1167/ Mike Holmes on Tax Resistance, page 68 Port Townsend, WA 98368. Manuscripts are welcome, but Jeremy Shearmur on Evolutionary Epistemology, page 70 will be returned only if accom­ Jeffrey Tucker on Christian Reconstructionism, page 72 panied by SASE. Queries are en­ couraged. A Writer's Introduc­ Letters, page 4 tion is available: enclose SASE and send to the address given Bob Ortin's "Burons," page 28 above. Contributors, page 77 Copyright © 1989/ by Liberty Publishing. Terra Incognita, page 78 about atrocities committed by Marxist states, since such criticism retards the spread of socialism: "Honest people will [ L etters ] have to face the fact that they are morally responsible for the predictable human ~======-"consequences oftheir acts. One of these acts is accurate criticism, accurate critical Agnostic Commies for expressed his disagreement with Adam analysis of authoritarian state socialism Freedom Smith's suggestion that ground rent was in North Vietnam or in Cuba or in other Murray Rothbard ("The End of The an especially suitable thing to tax. countries that the United States is trying Secular Century," May 1989) says"it is Ricardo's argument ends with the fol- to subvert. The consequences of accurate atheism for which burial rights must be , lowing sentence: "And if it be consid­ critical analysis will be to buttress these conducted." I have great respect for ered that land, regarded as a fit subject efforts, thus contributing to suffering and Murray's grasp of history, and just about for exclusive taxation, would not only be oppression." In other words, we should everything else, but I question his sourc­ reduced in price, to compensate for the only speak the truth if it advocates the es here. In Europe, including the once risk of that taxation, but in proportion to cause of Marxist socialism. rabidly Dutch Reformed Holland, the indefinite nature and uncertain value Given that Chomsky elevates men­ Catholic France, England, and in much of of the risk would become a fit subject for dacity to a moral principle, why should the rest of the world, religion is rapidly speculation, partaking more of the na­ we believe anything that he says about ture of gambling than of sober trade, it losing adherents anQ influence, while lib­ the CIA or American foreign policy? will appear probable that the hands into erty seems to be making strides mainly Robert Sheaffer which land would in that case be most in communist countries, where the lead­ SanJose, Calif. apt to fall would be the hands of those ers, coincidentally or not, are not who possess more of the qualities of the Just Another Voice of religious. gamblerthan ofthe qualities of the so­ Bitterness Tom Palven ber-minded proprietor, who is likely to liThe Voice of Bitterness" was an ap­ Farmingdale, N.J. employ his land to the greatest advantage" propriate title for Justin Raimondo's re­ Beardless Economists (Italics mine). I do not understand how view (May 1989). He begins recognizing I would like to take issue with some the last part of that sentence could be the amazing Ayn Rand, the greatest pop­ of the points made by Murray Rothbard written by someone who failed "to un­ ular champion ofreason since Jefferson, in his recent critique of public choice eco­ derstand that landlords perform the and ends with bitter, backbiting, unsup­ nomics ("Public Choice: A Misshapen highly important function of allocating portable statements. Tool," May 1989). Rothbard argues that scarce lands to their most productive Upon first reading, it appeared that the public choice school is merely redo­ uses." tne flow ofthe article (matter-of-fact to ing-badly~whathad already been An economist taking issue with a bitterness) may have been a clever writ­ done by Charles Beard and his followers. criticism of his work by Gordon Tullock ing technique; a subtle means of commu­ I know Beard's work only at second once remarked that the amount Tullock nicating the trend he was describing in hand, but it was my impression that his had written was even more impressive Ayn Rand's life. analysis, like that of Marx, was in terms considering that he apparently did not Nope. I don't buy it. It looks like of the economic interest of classes, not in­ know how to read. The same might be Raimondo is just comfortable slinging dividuals. What the public choice school said of Rothbard. mud. As to "What has Peikoff ever creat­ attempts to do is to deduce political out­ David Friedman ed on his own?" I would say plenty. My comes from the assumption that individu­ Chicago, Ill. favorite is Ominous Parallels (Stein and als act rationally in their own interest. Anarchy and Accuracy Day, 1982). This tightly written begin­ ner's philosophy lesson does an excellent That is a very different project, and one So now Noam Chomsky is supposed job of relating the components of a coher­ that I would expect most libertarians and to be a hero to libertarians (Jeffrey ent philosophy to world events that have most economists to find more plausible Tucker, "An Anarchist's Appraisal," troubled us all. and more attractive. Rothbard's assertion March 1989)? The same Chomsky who Hey Raimondo, I had not heard of that public choice economists deny "any has been an admirer and apologist for you before; what have you ever done? If motivation in human history except every totalitarian Marxist state for the I hear ofyou in the future I will think monetary gain" is of course utter non­ last two decades? Chomsky's major po­ "Bitterness." sense, as any curious reader can deter­ litical crusade in recent years has been to Randy Paulsen mine by actually reading the works try to convince the world that the thou­ Litchfield Park, Ariz. Rothbard is criticizing. sands of Cambodian refugees who fled Rothbard refers to "David Ricardo's in horror from the genocide of the Adding Outrage to Insult bitter opposition to land rent, which Khmer Rouge are all lying when they tell I was outraged when I first read the stemmed from his failure to understand of millions having been slaughtered by comment by "SLR" entitled "Holiday re­ that landlords perform the highly impor­ the Communists; such accounts reflect visions" in the Reflections section of the tant function of allocating scarce lands to badly on Socialism, therefore they must January 1989 issue. I immediately reread their most productive uses." In Chapter not be true. it in the hope that the writer did not real­ XIV of The Principles of Political Economy In fact, Chomsky has proclaimed that ly intend to insult those of us who served and Taxation, his principal work, Ricardo intellectuals have a moral duty to lie continued on page 6 4 Liberty same... experience the new vitality that Rise and Shine can bring you... and do it with absolutely no-risk! VITALITYl How Well Does It Work? Try It With Our No-Risk, Scientific breakthrough by scientists Durk Pearson 100% Money Back Guarantee and Sandy Shaw gives you an easy and natural way Call the toll-free number below, or write today and order your one month to dramatically boost your energy level... increase trial supply ofRise and Shine. You pay alertness... and counter the mind wearying just $21.00, plus $2.25 postage and fatigue of modern times. handling. Take it as directed. 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He also There are people who have lost every­ our comrades-in-arms who sacrificed suggested that we contact the thing: business bankrupt, wife in an asy­ their minds, physical capabilities, and International Human Rights Law Group, lum, kids run away and few friends left; even their very lives in the service of their Elections Monitoring Division, at 733 all because of some petty bureaucrat's country. Fifteenth Street NW, Washington, DC vindictiveness. There are other people Those of us who did serve are pain-­ 20005, for additional help. with a low tolerance for harassment, who fully aware of how our government mis­ Sally Anne Moore make mountains out ofevery bureaucrat­ used that service and many of us are Cincinnati, Ohio ic molehill. When we tell them there's no justification for the wrong that's been now engaged in the fight to restore Walter Williams: Pro and Con liberty. done to them, one of them might seek I agree with Chester A. Arthur revenge. It's hard enough convincing most (IlWho votes for third party candidates?" people of the libertarian concept without Ifthis ever happened, within hours March 1989) that Walter Williams should the media would find "Radical alienating our most valiant potential be considered to head the LP ticket in allies. Libertarians" to justify it, glory in it, and 1992. explain on the evening news how such Richard Partridge The man is witty and thoroughlyen­ assassinations are inherent in "true" Brigham City, Utah gaging. What's more, he has a gift for ex­ libertarianism. International Standards plaining libertarian principles and the To the media, the LP is officialliber­ Shortly after the November elections, predatory nature of govemment in terms tarianism. With the oath, the LP can ei­ I happened to hear an N.P.R. broadcast anyone can grasp. At our convention, ther say, "He wasn't one of us" or, "He of an interview with an English fellow which drew a large number of outsiders, renounced violence in writing when he named Kevin Boyle. Mr. Boyle is the di­ Williams had leather-clad bikers and joined us." Either way his violence clear­ rector of the London-based organization three-piece Republican types alike eating ly does not represent other libertarians. I known as "Article 19"-the International from his hand. for one appreciate this protection. Centre on Censorship. Williams' strongest point, to my Tom Porter I wrote a letter to Mr. Boyle and ex­ mind, is his ability-fortified by his own Reseda, Calif. plained the N.E.S. problem to him. I impressive work on the subject-to col­ wrote that Ron Paul's vote totals had lapse the entire house-of-eards case for Popeye the Libertarian Man been excluded on election night, and that the welfare state in about 10 seconds flat. In one of my recent dreams, the legen­ the N.E.S. effectively falsified the vote to­ The fact that he is black and from a "dis­ dary Popeye is seen wandering the corri­ tals, much as Margaret Fries reported advantaged" background (I don't know dQrs of a libertarian convention. He is ("A Conspiracy of Silence," May 1989). if he would use that word) gives him a muttering, "1 yam what I yam and that's Then, in early February, I received a very credibility no white candidate can hope all what I yam." Soon he attracts a crowd encouraging response from Mr. Boyle on to climate. of libertarian hallway philosophers (ever on the lookout for a celebrity to run for IIArticle 19" letterhead. He told me that Now the caveats. Although he pulled the International Centre on Censorship no punches in his description of taxation president) who are fascinated by the im­ planned to contact the N.E.S. to begin an as legalized robbery, Williams said he plications of his musings. investigation. He wrote that in his corre­ thinks a tax of around 10 percent would One ofthem says, "That's very inter­ spondence with the N.E.S. he would in­ be necessary and acceptable for funding esting Popeye, but let's clarify a few form them that they had fallen short of what he sees as government's legitimate points. Are you saying something like A international standards for unbiased me­ functions of protecting lives, property is A, I exist therefore I is, or do you mean dia reporting of election coverage and and individual rights. On defense mat­ simply that you think you're a yam?" that their omissions and falsifications ters he is not the pure non-interven­ "The Great Oath Debate" (May 1989) constituted intolerable bias in contraven­ tionist many or most libertarians are; al­ had that kind of effect on me. It was, like tion of the international standards which though the specific issue did not arise, the discussion in the above dream, kind my impression was he would support of silly. /IArticle 19" uses to assess fair and demo­ cratic elections. He also wrote that mem- Grenada-type military actions. EOW is clearly a good and intelligent Steve Smith man. But like many libertarians (it's hap­ Birmingham, Ala. pened to me too) he has gotten himself mired in the consideration of hypotheti­ Letters Policy Bullet-Proofing the LP cal possibilities that have little or nothing We invite readers to comment on The LP Oath has one function your to do with the real world. These bizarre articles that have appeared in Liberty. writers (Johnny Fargo, "The Oath of "what if" problems are no different from We reserve the right to edit for length Purity," and Ethan O. Waters, "Taking some of the wacko questions we have all and clarity. All letters are assumed to the oath," May 1989) have neglected: it been asked by non-libertarians. "What if be intended for publication unless protects the party, and the rest of us, you open the borders and the Mexican otherwise stated. Succinct, typewrit­ from the backlash of a political Army decides to immigrate to Calif­ ten letters are preferred. Please in­ assassination. ornia?" Or, "What if one half ofa viable clude your phone number so that we All around us, governments are Siamese twin wants to commit suicide?" can verify your identity. pushing people around; generally their continued on page 48 ~ ~ victims submit, believing the govern- revenue yield." Apparently, the IRS intends to begin yanking Calling Ronald Reagan - Ok. So I spent the bet­ out the gold teeth of their former fellow citizens, who'll be easy ter part of the last eight years badmouthing Ronald Reagan. He to spot in the dark anyway, glowing brightly for a few wasn't cutting back government, I said. Taxes are actually ris­ ing. Restrictions on individual liberty are increasing. The heavy centuries. It is comforting to know that the IRS is prepared for the Big hand of the State is getting heavier. Even so, sometimes I feel a nostalgia for the old boy. Like One. Irradiated taxpayers can expect to confront newly minted when President Bush changed his mind about gun control in re­ sponse to the deranged murder of 5 school children in IRS form 8741, "Claim for Losses in the Event of a Near California. At first, Bush stood fast, refusing to fall victim to the Groundburst," and Form 2558, "Request for a Three Month hysteria. His standing firm against hysteria only lasted a few Extension in the Event of Taxpayer Records Incineration" (re­ member, an extension to file is not an extension to pay!), and days. Quicker than the Prez can get Lee Atwater on the phone, Bush relented, using his extraordinary powers to prohibit fur­ handy IRS Form 9433, "Documentation of Extraordinary ther importation of so called "assault weapons." The next thing Medical Expenses in the Event of Severe Radiation Burns" I knew, he was bragging up his war on "assault weapons." (please keep your peeling fingers from sticking to the form!) I also feel nostalgia for the Actor when I hear reports about According to news accounts, the government's emergency Bush's plan for a new minimum wage. The Democrats want a planners expect the IRS to resume tax collections within 30 days minimum of $4.65, with a lower minimum for the first 2 months or so, after the pocket change has cooled off a few hundred at a new job. This is more than Bush can stomach. Much better, megarads. -MH he says, is $4.25 per hour, with a lower minimum for six months. This despite the fact that raising minimum wage will The Panamanian Shuffle - I heard a report on not benefit low income Americans. One needn't even under­ the radio that President Bush announced that he was ordering stand the economics of the free market to grasp this: according troops into Panama to "protect the American civilians and sol­ to Department of Labor figures, only one poverty-struck person diers" there. The implications of this presidential action are fas­ in seventy is actually working at minimum wage, and only one cinating: if troops are needed to protect the soldiers, who will person of every thirteen earning minimum wage is poverty protect the troops? stricken. Apparently, the arguments against giving aid to opponents But raising the minimum wage is politically popular. of the socialist dictatorship of Nicaragua don't apply to the Apparently most people fall prey to the logic of "How can any­ right-wing dictatorship in Panama. So the U.S. government is one support a family on $134 per week?" The fact that the over­ busily trying to organize opposition to Noriega's dictatorship whelming majority of minimum wage earners are young and and even willing to back up that offer with U.S. troops. have no family, work part time or have other sources of income Ironically, Bush's anti-Noriega campaign is the one course of is lost on them. In Washington last year, voters passed a 71 % in­ action that promises to strengthen Panamanians support of their crease in the state minimum wage by a margin of 4 to 1. dictator. Now all elements of Panamanian society can unite un­ Bush probably understands economics and almost certainly derthe slogan: Yanqui go home! -RWB knows that raising the minimum wage won't help relieve pover­ ty. But he also knows a popular issue when he runs into one. Why not feel sorry for Exxon? - To say that Reagan's faults were many~ But he stood fast: he opposed in­ the oil spill has been blown up to hysterical dimensions is a creasing gun control, even after he was shot by a Jodie Foster grave understatement. Hysteria abounds everywhere, and eve­ groupie. In fact, he did much to dissipate the post­ rywhere the term "disaster" is freely used. Even Pat Buchanan, assassination-attempt hysteria. And his firm opposition to an in­ who of all the media commentators I thought would be most re­ creased minimum wage kept the issue off the Congressional sistant to the wiles of environmentalism, used that term. The agenda for eight years. Idiotic Overstatement Award of the Year goes to Alaska Judge At last I have found what it takes to make Ronald Reagan Kenneth Rohl, who opined about the oil spill, "We have a man­ look good: George Bush as President. -RWB made destruction that has not been equalled, probably, since Hiroshima." Death and taxes update - You may have thought Hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese were massa­ that one of the few side benefits to an all-out nuclear holocaust cred at Hiroshima; that's a disaster. Over the last several was that at least you got to stop filling out IRS forms. Think months, the Ayatollah's government has murdered thousands again. of political prisoners; a million Iranians and Iraqis were killed in According to a March addition to the Internal Revenue their late monstrous war; the Pol Pot regime, in the mid-1970s, Manual, as the nuclear dust settles, "IRS operations will be con­ genocidally massacred one-third of the Cambodian population. centrated on collecting the taxes which will produce the greater Those are disasters. That's "man-made destruction." In the Liberty 7 Volume 2, Number 6 July 1989 Valdez oil spill, not a single human life was lost. Not a single moral high ground, and arrogate to themselves the good of the person was even injured. cosmos while the rest of us are portrayed as narrow, selfish, Furthermore, those disasters were.intentional; the oil spill short-sighted, and immoral. There is no greater immorality than was, quite obviously, an accident. Who suffered the loss of the oil deep opposition to mankind per se, and environmentalism must spill? None other than the Exxon Corporation, which lost ten be exposed as that kind of immoral and destructive creed. Only million gallons of crude oil; in addition to the $5 million this loss then will the party of mankind be able to take back our culture. represents, Exxon will be forced to pay cleanup costs, as well as -MNR compensation to the economic losses incurred by the fishing in­ dustry in Alaska. And so the only loser is Exxon, suffering from Motown Mysticism - For the past two years, the negligence of its allegedly drunken sea captain. So is Detroit has enjoyed the dubious blessings of an urban transport everyone feeling sorry for Exxon, as I do? Hell no; to the con­ system known as People Mover. Recently, it has become the cen­ trary, Exxon has been reviled every day by virtually everyone in ter of a scandal of sufficient moment to generate shrill editorials the media and in public life. Contrary to government when it from both of the city's newspapers, official outrage from the commits an accident or similar "externality," Exxon, as a private mayor's office, and a bevy of pronouncements from both real corporation, must pay the costs it inflicts on others. So what's and self-appointed community leaders. Has all this moral pas­ sion arisen from the fact that this boondoggle costs four times the highest preconstruction estimate? BI?cause it is crime-ridden, What's the problem? Once in a while, an acci­ unreliable and little-used? Or perhaps f:~om a realization that the dent happens. Are we to ban all oil tankers be­ promised rejuvenation of the neighborhoods which it "serves" has not occurred? Nope. None of the above. It seems that some­ cause once in a long while a tanker runs one discovered that a small portion of the steel used in the sup­ aground? Are we to outlaw all shipping because porting frames for the track was proces~.ed in S***h A****a. some ships sink? Are we to prohibit all air flights When this news first broke, a friend remarked to me, as a joke, that the contractor would probably be made to identify the because once in a while a plane crashes? exact portion of the steel that came front the Bad Place and yank it out. Ah, but in this age of synthetic political rage such things the problem? Once in a while, accidents happen. Are we to ban are not jokes. The contractor did in fact have to remove the of­ all oil tankers, because once in a long while, a tanker runs fending girders and put in moral replacements. (The nationality aground? Are we to outlaw all shipping because some ships of the new beams was never disclosed. Probably Albanian). sink? Are we to prohibit all air flight because once in a while a I have two questions about all this. First, can steel be exor­ plane crashes? cised? If you melt down bad steel and reshape it into new sec­ The problem, of course, is that environmentalists don't give a tions, does it become good steel? Is th? evil therein part of its tinker's dam about paying for external costs. They have their essentia or merely of its 1lccidens? I'm going to have to pore over own agenda, scarcely hidden any more. Look at all their bel­ the Summa Theologiae on this one. Second, doesn't this whole lyaching about the poor birds, and the sea otters, and the sal­ matter represent a belief in witchcraft? mon, etc. Look at their whining, too, about the beauty of the The entire episode is totemistic and puerile. To reduce moral pristine blue water now befouled with black or brown oil slicks. dudgeon to such an imbecilic and patt.etic level robs it of any (Well, hell, maybe a coating of black on blue waters provides an general power and makes all concerned seem like canting hypo- interesting new esthetic experience; after all, once you've seen crites. -WPM one chunk ·of blue water, you've seen them all.) The environ­ mentalists are in pursuit of their own perverse and anti-human The times they are a chal1gin' - Free expres­ value-scale, in which every creature, animal, fish, or bird, heck sion on college campuses is coming under increasing attack, not even blue water, ranks higher than the wants and needs of hu­ from a reactionary faculty, but often frc·m students themselves. man beings. The environmentalists welcome this trumped up To add irony to injury, the tool they are using to restrict the ex­ "crisis," because they want to shut down the Alaska pipeline, pression of their peers is the ancient enemy of student speech" which supplies a large chunk of domestic American oil; they "community standards." Stanford, the lJniversity of Michigan, want to reverse the Industrial Revolution, and get back to pris­ Emory, the University of Wisconsin and the University of tine "nature," with its chronic starvation, rampant disease, and Massachusetts at Amherst have taken or are about to take action short, ugly, and brutish life span. to restrict forms of expression considered offensive, in an at­ Note the difference between the beserker reaction to the tempt to promote, of all things, tolerance. Valdez oil spill, and the response to the last great oil spill in A draft amendment to the code of student conduct at 1978, off the French coast, when the Amoco Cadiz let loose no Stanford seeks to ban any remarks "dirEctly addressed" to peo­ less than 60 million gallons of crude oil into the Atlantic-the ple "expressed in words, pictures or symbols that are commonly worst oil spill in history. There was no hysteria, no screaming understood to convey, in a direct and visceral way, hatred or headlines, no bellyaching on television. The courts quietly forced contempt for human beings of the sex, race, color, handicap, re­ Amoco to pay $115 million to compensate for costs of the acci­ ligion, sexual orientation or national and ethnic origin in ques­ dent, and that was that. The reactions were different because, in tion." (This was revised from an earlier, more virulent version.) the meantime, the virus of environmentalism has deeply infect­ CanettaIvy, a Stanford junior serving on the three-member ed our culture. Arguing on the basis of private firms paying the Council of Presidents that heads the university student govern­ costs of liabilities they impose upon others is all very well, but, ment, illustrates the audacity of the anti·,free-speech movement. as we see in the smears against Exxon, it is not enough. We must 'We don't put as many restrictions on freedom of speech as we no longer allow the environmentalists to seize, undisturbed, the should," she claimed. "What we are proposing is not completely 8 Liberty Volume 2, Number 6 July 1989 in line with the First Amendment ... I'm not sure it should be. knows it instinctively" and "Maybe one particular guy hasn't ac­ We at Stanford are trying to set a standard different from what tually committed this crime yet, but you know he's headed in society at large is trying to accomplish." (The proposal is meet­ that direction" abound. There seems to be no cognizance of the ingsome resistance from the Stanford faculty and the ACLU.) broader world of criminological scholarship, no recognition of The notion that through restrictions one finds tolerance is in any other possible point of view. The exchange of ideas remains the tradition of Orwellian "double-think." The measure is de­ at the barroom level. signed to keep hate-groups like the Klan and the Neo-Nazis The second characteristic that impressed me is the total lack away from campuses. Since far-right crazies rarely venture onto in these discussions of any idea of the legitimacy of civil liberties campuses anyway, the real victims of this sort of regulation will and procedural safeguards. Instead, there is a chilling hostility to be those students who have an alternative viewpoint that may all constitutional restraints. The attitude is comparable to that of be branded as "hateful" by those who wish to prevent them a burglar toward burglar alarms-they are seen simply as obsta­ from speaking or going to press. Is opposition to affirmative ac­ cles to overcome. The difference, of course, is that a burglar's tion a position that expresses "hatred" or "contempt?" Some goals are quite limited; he does not typically claim to be acting might think so. The results of such measures will be a classic as the moral guardian of the community. chilling effect on students who would rather play it safe than What I'm trying to convey is my sense of shock that all of court retribution. these high-level discussions about important issues affecting our In a related case, a student at Tufts University faced discipli­ lives and our liberties seem to have taken place on such a medio- nary charges for selling a T-shirt on campus that offered "Ten Reasons Why Beer is Better Than Women at Tufts." The student had offended community standards, according to campus femi­ All manner of myths and folk beliefs float like nists:--though the fact that he had sold over five dozen shirts a miasma over the lucubrations of these federal before he was apprehended brings that claim into question. After consultation with legal authorities, the charges were policemen. All of them seem to just know that changed. The content of the shirt was no longer a factor. pot leads to heroin, that child pornography leads Instead, the administration charged the vendor with selling T­ to child molestation, and pictures of naked wom­ shirts "for profit" without permission. If community standards are to have any meaning, they must en lead to rape and murder. be open to challenge. Campus reactionaries seek to institute an administrative status-quo based on what they currently believe cre level. It is as if the whole Anglo-Saxon classical liberal tradi­ to be accepted norms. They ignore the questions: Accepted by tion does not exist. The operational viewpoint is purely that of whom? If the community believes something, why must it be statism and positive law. Or, to put it more crudely, we don't protected from those who dissent? Presumably the standards like these people and we don't like what they do and read and can defend themselves. smoke, and we're going to crush them. In fact, those who would restrict free expression, whether Can anything be done about this situation? Should those of they come from the left (like today's advocates of intolerance) us who value liberty start an "outreach" program to "educate" or the right (like McCarthyites of the 1950s), see freedom as a such people? Now you tell me one. No, I am merely giving process that is desirable only for attaining their own goals. Once warning that, should you find yourself in a confrontational situ­ their goals are met, freedom becomes a potential threat. Perhaps ation with a typical federal officer, don't expect to be dealing it is the purveyors of this sort of thinking who need a lesson in with Thomas Jefferson. -WPM tolerance. -JSR Inexhaustible fusion energy and the envi­ Customary mediocrity - A few weeks ago, I came ronmentalists - The scientific world has been set agog upon a group of shelves labelled "Government Publications" at by the biggest scientific news in years: the possibility that nucle­ my local library. Mostly they were filled with goodies like ar fusion energy has been produced at room temperatures-as "Biannual Report of the President's Select Commission on has been reported by two University of Utah chemists. Teams of Salmon Canning" and "The Radish-New Perspectives." One scientists all over the globe have been rushing to try to replicate item, however, seemed more promising. Customs Today is the the experiment, because, if true, it means a virtually inexhausti- official quarterly magazine of the United States Customs Service. Although CT is obviously available to the public, its contents are clearly intended to be read almost exclusively by I:--U--Id customs officers. My curiosity piqued, I perused the last few issues. The most interesting portion consisted of round-table ~ discussions among customs.officials and U.S. attorneys. They dealt mostly with drugs and pornography. In one case, then L/V Attorney General Edwin Meese III was a participant. These seminars had two common characteristics. On the one hand, the intellectual quality is quite low. All manner of myths and folk beliefs float like a miasma over the lucubra­ tions of these federal policemen. All of them seem to just know that pot leads to heroin, that child pornography leads to child molestation, and pictures of naked women lead to rape and murder. Phrases such as "We can't prove this, but everyone "My necktie violated local community standards!" Liberty 9 Volume 2, Number 6 July 1989 ble supply of cheap energy. The resource is sea water, and the source most efficiently in supplying people's wants. equipment is no more complex or expensive than a kitchen la­ Environmentalists are not interested in supplying people's boratory. The prospect is joyous for mankind, for this means an wants-quite the contrary. enormously higher standard of living for all, and an end to the In fact, as Mr. Ciotti puts it, "worst of all" about the possibili­ spectre of the disappearance of energy that has been highly ty of fusion power, to the environmentalists, is that "cheap inex­ touted in recent decades. haustible energy would let the planet support many more You would think that the environmentalists would be hap­ people than its current population of 5.2 billion." There we have py, too, especially because nuclear fusion, unlike fossil fuels, is it: the environmentalist creed is fundamentally animated by a virtually pollution free, and, unlike nuclear fission, causes no hatred of people, by hostility to the human race. -MNR toxic waste that is difficult to dispose of. But, shockingly, you A minor complaint - I kind of like the slogan of Libertarian International: "A United Nations without the Paul Ehrlich, long-time worrier about the Nations." Only trouble is/it still leaves the "United" part in. I/population bomb," complains that the prospect -EOW of cheap, inexhaustible power is I/like giving a My Congress, Wright or Wrong - It was 1973 machine gun to an idiot child." The fact that and things were looking grim for John Paul Mack. He was the such power is clean, we are told, is I/beside the manager of a discount store when Pamela Small, a 20 year-old black college student, came in to buy some window blinds. He poinf."Ifonly means that man, dammit, will use told her to follow him into the storeroom, where he grabbed a more rubber tires and employ I/non-polluting" hammer and bludgeoned her with it five times, exposing her skull in several places. He then stabbed her repeatedly in the bulldozers to knock down trees. chest and shoulder with a steak knife and slit her throat. He hauled her body into her car and, believing her dead, went to a movie. Ms Small recovered and identified John Paul Mack. At would be wrong. Instead, our beloved left-environmentalist first he denied everything, but after failing a lie-detector test, he leaders are, as usual, wringing. their hands in anguish. confessed to what he called a "mistake," explaining that, "I blew Washington author Jeremy Rifkin laments: "It'sthe worst thing my cool for a second." He plea-bargained the charge to "mali­ that could happen to our planet." And Stanford biologist Paul cious wounding" and was sentenced to 15 years in jail. Ehrlich, long-time worrier about the "population bomb," com­ But John Paul Mack was lucky. His brother was married to plains that the prospect of cheap, inexhaustible fusion power is the daughter of Congressman Jim Wright of Texas. In 1975, "like giving a machine gun to an idiot child"-that's us, folks. Wright pulled a few strings, entirely legally, and got Mr. Mack [Paul Ciotti, "Some Find Research Troubling," LA Times/ released to a job as a file clerk in Mr. Wright's office. So John Washington Post, April 23.] The fact that such fusion power is Paul Mack never served a day of hard time for the brutal assault clean, charges Rifkin, is "beside the point." For this only means he committed. ' that man, dammit, will use more rubber tires, and employ "non­ Instead, he served the public. As Jim Wright's career ad­ polluting" bulldozers to knock down trees or "build housing vanced so did Mr. Mack's. Congressman Wright's staff has al­ developments on farmland." ways been characterized by high turnover, probably the result of This latter point is an interesting one: somehow, farmland, Mr. Wright'S unwillingness to trust even his most loyal staffers. because it is, I suppose, closer to nature, is good, at least vis a But Mr. Mack stayed on the job, and gained the confidence and vis housing, which provides shelter for people (Ugh!) The fact trust of Mr. Wright. According to The Wall St Journal, he "became that farmland, as productivity increases, becomes increasingly almost a son" to the Hon. Mr. Wright, who takes considerable more useful for urban or suburban activities is, of course, disre­ pride in Mr. Mack's achievements as a public servant. When garded by environmentalists. Environmentalists cannot be ex­ Congressman Wright ascended to the position of Speaker of the pected to be interested in whether a resource is used House he named Mr. Mack Chief of Staff of the House economically or not, for what is "economic" is using that re- , Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, where he earns $89,500 per year. "He's my best friend," Mr. Wright says, "he's really my brother." The story of Mack's brutal assualt first surfaced two years ago. But an aid to Wright called in several influential reporters and convinced them that run­ ning the story would only hurt the rehabilitated Mack. Tony Cuelho, House Democratic Whip and a golfing buddy of Mack's explained that he had done his penance: besides serving 27 months in the county jail before Wright sprung him, '~e had worked to pass some very caring bills." John Paul Mack's luck ran out the first week in May. The Washington Post ran a story on his back­ ground, including an interview with the victim. The "We're not talking corruption here, Your Honor­ brutal nature of the attack was underscored with We're talking state-ofthe-art corruption." photographs of the wounds. Several Democratic 10 Liberty EVERY YEAR OR so IT DOES 1011 GOOD TOREAD ING THAT WILL MAKE 1OIIt ...BOIL.

«The Tedrows make it abundantly clear that the facts ofthe case were bottled up from the begin- ning to end, in the interests ofprotecting Teddy Kennedy." -M. Stanton Evans Los Angeles Times

«If you are going to read only one book about Chappaquiddick, the

<~ttorney Richard Tedrow and his son Thomas <~ spate ofbooks on the Chappaquiddick devastatingly dissect Kennedy's testimony and that of incident have recently appeared. By for the most others following the event and counter with contradictory devastating for the Senator is the book by the statements made by those involved." Tedrows." -Ralph Hollenbeck, King Features -Saturday Evening Post THIS WILL DO IT. ~?O-426-1357 Ads to sell books are supposed to go into enormous r--:J=n:::5. , detail, lavish praise, long descriptions. We'll merely say ~O. Box 738. Ottawa. IL 61350 that Thomas and Richard Tedrow have done an exhaus­ I tive job of research, their book is well written, carefully Yes. Send me the hard-cover Death at Chappaquiddick I for lO-day examination. Check or Money Order for presented, and what you've suspected all along is true. $12.95 post paid plus 95e postage and handling is I The 220 pages contain facts never before disclosed. It's a enclosed, or please charge my book you must have on your own bookshelf, preferably I o MasterCard rell 0 VISA IZJ toward the front. We don't, of course, expect you to take our word I Account no ------Ex";,,"on date I for that. You're invited to examine "Death at Chappa­ name quiddick" for 10 days on an absolute,no-strings-attached money-back guarantee. If you decide the book is not an I add'ess ------invaluable investment, just return it within the 10 days, city state zip _ I and we'll refund your money in full, no questions asked. I Illinois residents add 6% state sales tax LXDACXl I P.S. Mary Jo Kopechne did not die from drowning. .... _-----_ ..... Volume 2, Number 6 July 1989 Congresswomen called for Mr. Mack's resignation. Mr. Mack was investigating the financial shenanigans of Mr. Wright's again acknowledged that it had been a "mistake" to bludgeon friend and benefactor.) -RWB and stab the woman and leave her for dead, and resigned his of­ fice to save future embarrassment for the Hon. Mr. Wright, who Finders, Keepers? - If animal-rights militants get accepted his resignation with regret. their way, bacon double cheeseburgers and vellum editions of Ultimately, the Mack revelations and resignation will be a Atlas Shrugged will soon become endangered species. Animals minor footnote in the career of Congressman Wright. His critics have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to have a much larger fish to fry than John Paul Mack. them (without violating their rights). Presumably these things The Ethics Committee's investigation of Mr. Wright has un­ include killing an animal solely in order to make use of its body covered substantial evidence that Mr. Wright has taken specific parts. actions to transfer money from the pockets of taxpayers to the But what if the animal in question just happens to have a fa­ pockets of his friends, and that these friends have generously tal accident? If I come along at a lucky moment (lucky for me, given Mr. Wright substantial campaign contributions, a job for that is), I'm surely in the clear if I allocate the deceased's mortal his wife at which she is not required to work, a condominium, a remains to the satisfaction of my wants, even my animal wants. Cadillac, huge loans, large sums of money channeled to him Although a few philosophers believe that human cadavers have through corrupt business deals, purchases of huge quantities of the ''book'' the Hon. Mr. Wright had written as a means of get­ ting around legal limits on the payments to Congressmen, etc. Stopping the killing of animals won't mean Further examples of the corruption of the Honorable Speaker of that we have to give up Rhogan Jhosh or Boeuf the House are in the newspapers almost every day, and there is no need to recapitulate them here. Bourguignonne, or even black leather straps and For a variety of political reasons, the Hon. Mr. Wright won't rhinoceros-hide whips, though it will mean that likely survive. But in the meantime, three observations are in the prices of these necessities of elegant living order: 1. If evidence of a corrupt bargain is required to remove the will rise dramatically. Hon. from the Hon. Mr. Wright's name, then the chances are good that he will be Hon. for a long time. Contemporary politi­ rights (such as the right not to be desecrated), no one, as far as I cians have long since learned to avoid making specific deals. know, has extended this to animal cadavers. Instead, they make their transactions in a primitive way: you do But why wait for the lucky chance? Some far-sighted entre­ me a favor (say, enable real estate developers to buy 5&Ls and preneur should get ready for the era of animal rights by estab­ loot them leaving the taxpayers to make up the depositors' loss­ lishing computer-monitored game reserves. These would be like es) and I'll do you a favor (give your wife a job at which she is regular nature reserves, except that every square meter would paid without working), without any explicit arrangement. So be kept under close observation by TV cameras. Within seconds the Hon. Mr. Wright wastes a few billions of taxpayers' dollars of an antelope choking on a thistle, a gnu falling over a cliff, or a because, he says, he thinks it is good public policy, and his en­ wombat being struck by lightning, robot paramedics would riched pal gives Mrs. Wright a job for $18,000 a year and a zoom up to certify brain death, then robot butchers and robot Cadillac to drive because, he says, it is smart business to hire furriers-or perhaps at first just a robot refrigeration unit­ people and not require any work. would move into action. 2. The reason that Congress is so corrupt and so corruptible So stopping the killing of animals won't mean that we have is that it has so much power. So long as voters grant vast pow­ to give up Rhogan Jhosh or Boeuf Bourguignonne, or even black ers to Congress, powers to tax, to spend, to control people and leather straps and rhinoceros-hide whips, though it will mean their property, it will be in the interest of some to buy influence that the prices of these necessities of elegant living will rise dra­ over individual Congresspeople. These deals will be made on matically. Possibly the moralists will decide that we may help a an explicit, businesslike manner, if the law allows. But if not, few mortally wounded or incurably sick beasts on their way out they will be made with the terms not spoken. The deals may be of this vale of tears, just as we do with humans, which would disguised, but so long as Congress has power to give or with­ somewhat enhance the supply of meat, fur, leather, bonemeal, hold vast benefits, the deals will be made. insulin, goose down, and so forth. A century ago, Lord Acton's observation that power cor­ There's one serious complication. Most animals who die nat­ rupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely was profound. urally don't fracture their skulls running into trees. They die at Today it is obvious and even trite. The reason is simple: the the claws of other animals. At the point where they step out of growth of the power of government has increased the payoff for time and into eternity, they are someone's brunch, and that corruption. someone is salivating as copiously as Professor Rothbard con­ 3. There is a cruel irony in Speaker Wright's defense that in templating the prospect of an agnostic novelist . having his hiring Mr. Mack he was giving a second chance to a man who brains blown out. Isn't it an infringement of the predator's has made a mistake. "There's a meanness out there, a feeding rights to filch the prey with which that predator has mixed her frenzy," Mr. Wright commented upon accepting Mr. Mack's res­ labor? ignation. If calling for the resignation from high public office of It would be feasible to keep a supply of surrogate cadavers a man who committed a particularly brutal and vicious act is ready, cunningly confected out of soybeans and chickpeas. The motivated by "meanness," then what is the proper way to char­ robots could swipe the real corpses and swiftly substitute fake acterize the motives of the Hon. Mr. Wright when he tried to get ones. They could even do something to hypnotize the thwarted the Federal Home Loan Bank to fire an attorney because he was predator so that she didn't know what she was missing. But is homosexual? (It was, of course, only incidental that the attorney any of this morally defensible? It is heartless to feed a naturally 12 Liberty After 21 years, Nathaniel Branden tells the story ofhis years with AynRand.

or eighteen years, Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden had an Fintimate relationship thatwas professional, ideological, and personal. JUDGMENT DAY is the dramatic story oftheir years together and their shattering breakup. And itis more. Itpowerfully traces the origins and growth ofthe Objectivist movement. Until now, Nathaniel Branden has never told his side ofthe story. His bookis a no-holds-barred, unvarnished portrait that spares no o"ne- least ofall Branden himself. Itis a disturbing book, bound to provoke controversy and even anger. Here's a briefpreview ofwhat awaits you: On Ayn Rand's View ofthe World. Nathaniel Branden analyzes in detail Ayn Rand's philosophy and the measure ofher extraordinary achievements. • He examines her ideas as she developed them in The Fountainhead andAtlas Shrugged. • He describes the qualities that made her unique. • Branden recalls private, spirited conversations with Rand on literature, philosophy, capitalism, and many other topics. On Their Personal Relationship During the most productive period ofAyn Rand's life, she was perhaps closer to Nathaniel Branden than to anyone else.

• You'll learn why and how their affair began: II 'I'm afraid ofwhat's happening,' Ayn confided. 'This could change our lives in a far more radical way than we had projected. Are you sure-are you absolutely sure- you want to proceed?' 'Absolutely,' I said cheerfully:' Later he was tortured by doubts. • You'll read Branden's portrayal ofAyn Rand as a brilliant, innovative thinker and at the same time "an exalted and tortured woman:' • He writes later, "Whatis obvious to me today and was not obvious to me then was that if Ayn was a genius at reasoning, she was no less a genius at rationalizing:' • You'll read Nathaniel Branden's firsthand account ofthe cataclysmic break and its searing aftermath. Don't Miss This Revealing Book The above list just scratches the surface ofthis dazzling tour de force! For anyone whose life has been touched by Ayn Rand and Objectivism, JUDGMENT DAY demands to be read. Order your copy today at our spedal price! NB5139 (hardcover. 438 pages) Publisher's Price $21.95 95 Call 1-800-238-2200, ext. 500 OUR PRICE ONLY $17 or send your order to lAISSEZ FAiRE B(])KS IDept. HDFR, 532 Broadway, New York, NY 10012 Include $2.50 postage ($3.50 UPS). You may pay by check, money order, MasterCard or Visa. Volume 2, Number 6 July 1989 meat-eating animal on leguminous mush (except of course when Emperor, you know. That would have been dangerous, you that animal is human). Surely not even-an animal-lover could be say? No more dangerous than it would have been for your such a brute as to force his cat to be a vegetarian, for instance. German kid to turn down the opportunity to join the The problem may one day be partially solved by genetic en­ Wehrmacht.) gineering. We might be able to raise cows, pigs, bears, and Interestingly, all this took place without a trace of outrage minks, entirely without nervous systems. It would then be OK from the press or anybody else. There's a double standard at to use the fur and the meat, since "cultured" flesh, without con­ work here or something. It's more or less all right, it seems, to sciousness and without the capacity for pain or pleasure, is, I be hostile to Japan in general, or at least to the businessmen and guess, bereft of rights. As bacon, a cultured pig really might go workers there who are competing with us, most of whom were to meet its maker. Even a taste for human flesh could ethically born after the war and can bear no blame for it. But there's a be catered for in this manner. sort of perception that it would be dirty pool to hang any of this But since meat is muscle, and no doubt requires at least a blame on Hirohito. The only way I can explain it is that the gov­ spot of occasional exercise to develop the appropriate bouquet, a ernment-media-academia establishment can't get over its rap­ two-tier pricing system may develop, with "cultured meat" un­ ture in the presence of political power. Thus, Hirohito is held derselling "found wild meat." Snobbery being what it is, you blameless, not in spite of the fact of his political responsibility, would be able to buy cultured meat treated to appear as found but because of it. The poor grunts in the German army, I sup­ wild meat, and perhaps a carefully crafted imitation pelt could pose, should be denied all human compassion, let alone honor, be left lying by the kitchen door, to give the guests a favorable while the carcass of a murdering hereditary emperor is laid hon­ impression. -DRS orably to rest in the presence of giddy worshipfulness from heads of state and other pimps and parasites from all over the Son ofHeaven, or whatever - Did you ever no­ civilized world. -RFM tice that the only time Reagan ever got into trouble with the press was when he did something right? Two occasions, one Artifactual Catch 22 - In the March issue of trivial and one profound, spring to mind. The first was when he National Geographic, Harvey Arden makes an interesting point said that without women, men would still be wearing animal about private trade in Indian artifacts: "Most of these pieces are skins and clubbing each other over the heads. Could anything what archaeologists call 'without provenance'-no record of the be more self-evidently true than that? Nevertheless, he was physical context from which they were dug. Hence, they are widely criticized, not so much by feminists, I imagine, as by the nearly useless for the interpretation of history. Literally, pieces lickspittles thereof. lifted from the puzzle of our common past, never to be fitted." But to the more profound ... Reagan went to Bitburg, and The solution, Mr Arden argues, is to increase the penalties honored the memory of a bunch of poor fall guys who got draft­ for unearthing artifacts without authorization of the govern­ ed into the German Army and blown away in the war. Reagan ment, pointing to a recent case in Kentucky where "public out­ said that they were victims of Nazism. They sure as hell were, as rage" over private archeology had resulted in a new law anybody who has gotten that cute little "Greetings" notice from making searching one's own land for artifacts a felony. Uncle Sugar can substantiate. Of course, that statement caused a Curiously, it apparently did not occur to Mr Arden that the lot of people to froth at the mouth, despite its undisputable reason artifact collectors and traders do not label the prove­ truth. The German draftees, unlike some Vice Presidents I could nance of their artifacts is that by doing so, they would risk con­ name, didn't have any choice in the matter ... which leads me fiscation of their artifacts and possible imprisonment, under the to another Vice President (he'll always be Vice President Bush to same laws that Mr Arden advocates strengthening. -RWB me) and another funeral: Atlas Schwartzed - I recently had the pleasure of witnessing a public performance by Peter Schwartz, an official Reagan went to Bitburg, and honored a bunch spokesman for the Objectivist Rump. "The Virtue of of poor fall guys who got drafted into the Selfishness" was the topic of his performance, according to the advertisements placed by the Harvard Students of Objectivism. German Army and blown away. He said they But the ads skimped on details, so I didn't know what to were victims of Nazism. They sure as hell were, expect. as anybody who has gotten that cute little Perhaps it would be a free-wheeling discussion of Objectivist topics, I thought. Or a confrontational experience "Greetings" notice from Uncle Sugar can with an audience half-filled with Harvard Marxists denouncing substantiate. Capitalism, Property and Aristotle himself. It turned out to be something quite different-a dry rehash of Ayn Rand's thoughts read from notes and presented in excru­ Whereas Reagan honored some dead soldiers who were nev­ ciatingly precise terms. The deat,hly dullness of his monologue er in a position to make any choices about their fate, Bush has, was enlivened only by its irony: the selfish person, he advised, by his attendance at a funeral, legitimatized the bloody reign of "lives not by looting nor by mooching off of others ... He pro­ Hirohito. Yes, I've heard all about how it wasn't Hirohito who duces his own values ... As Ayn Rand says...." planned the war and the atrocities and so forth, but the fact re­ And so his defence of the importance of thinking for oneself mains that he endorsed it all, approved it all, sent congratulato­ wore on, consisting almost entirely of quotations cribbed from ry .. telegrams to victorious admirals, and never, to my Ayn Rand's writing. There was nothing that a perusal of Rand's knowledge, made the slightest gesture to ameliorate the brutali­ writings would not reveal. Schwartz's performance under­ ty of the Japanese war machine. (He could have resigned as scored the stagnation of Objectivist thinking since Rand's death. 14 Liberty "I all1 cOll1ll1itted to a ll10re successful Libertarian Party." -Matt Monroe

"The growth the LP has achieved has been the result ofthe dedication, gen­ erosity and hard work ofour members, and the vision ofour ideas. But for far too long, LP nClembers have tolerated conditions that hinder the growth ofour movement. The National LP has been characterized by in-fighting, bureaucrat­ ic waste, and outright incompetence. It is time for the members to take control of the National LP, to use it as a tool for furthering our goal ofLiberty. The LP needs sound management, com.. petence and professionalism. That is why I am running for LP Chairman. There is work to do, and I want to see it done. Here is a briefsummary ofwhat I believe the LP can accomplish: • Increase membership from its current level of6,800 to 10,000 by 1991. • Increase revenues to $40,000 per month from the current level of$25,000 per month. • Obtain ballot status in nearly all states prior to 1992, so we can concen­ trate our efforts on the campaign. • Reform the National Office so that it provides assistance to state and lo­ cal parties in a competent and cost-efficient manner. To achieve these goals, I think we should do the fol­ lowing: A Record of Achievement 1. Management for Growth: Hire the best people As Texas LP Finance Chairman (1980-82): we can find to manage the LP National Office, with a high priority on efficiency, competence, and reliability, 1981: developed Independence Pledge program. so that we can achieve our goals. Result: raised more than $200,000 for Texas LP since 1981. 2. Reduce the size of the National Committee As National LP Finance Chairman (1982-85): to no more than 15, and encourage it to act as a Board 1982: developed Liberty Pledge program, modeled after ofDirectors overseeing LP activities, rather than a program in Texas. mini-legislature complete with bickering and infight­ 1983: implemented professional telephone fundraising ing. efforts. 3. The LP 2000 Program: In the next century, the LP will be led and run by the people we recruit in the 1983: implemented regular, profitable direct mail next few years. Now is the time for us to begin an ac­ fundraising campaigns, financing initial efforts out ofhis tive student organization, to develop recruiting cam­ own pocket. paigns, and to organize student conferences. 1984: developed the Torch Club for $1,000 donors to attract 4. The Permanent Campaign: full-time profes­ and honor those who make larger gifts to the LP. sionals doing the work so-far done only in election 1984: instituted regular program of postpaid inserts in the years: ballot access, lobbying, public speaking, candi­ LP News for fundraising. date development, etc. Result: LP revenues increased 24% by 1984, reaching Achieving our goal ofLiberty requires a lot. I am all-time high, excluding Koch-influenced 1980. (Since convinced that we can make substantial progress. To Monroe's tenure, revenues have fallen by 23%.) achieve that goal, I am committed to work with every As National LP Membership Chairman (1987-89): element within the LP and the libertarian movement." -Matt Monroe 1987: implemented the "instant membership" program advocated by Russell Means, printed and paid for 30,000 r------, I want to help build a more successful Libertarian instant membership cards for prospective members; Yes! Party. Send me information on your program for the Liber­ resulting in nearly 3,000 instant members. tarian Party and your race for Chairman. 1988: personally financed membership programs when Name _ National LP failed to provide promised funding. Address~ _ 1988-89: organized and mailed lists of prospects and new members to state organizations, co-ordinated and City State, Zip _ facilitated membership activities at the state level. Phone (day) (evening) _ IL ~I Result: National LP membership up 23% since 1987. Dr. Matt Monroe 1213 Hermann Dr, #655 Houston, TX 77004 Wanted: One helluva good writer, new or used...... to share the load in writing the·Silver & Gold Report. Ifyou get the job, you'll be working for the toughest, most demanding editor you've ever seen. You'll work hours you wouldn't believe-and you'll learn things about writing and the silver and gold industry you wouldn't believe. Ifyou do a good job, you'll probably be hated by half of the hard-money industry. And you'll be proud of it, because so many of them are sleazeballs it's an honor to be hated by people like them. I'm leaning towards a heavyweight writer whose ego is still smaller than his or her typewriter. But I'm not unwilling to take a chance on a bright trainee. Age means nothing to me. The two best writers I've ever had came to me, the one as a twerpy teenager, the other as a 70-year­ old retiree. Likewise, race etc. are totally irrelevant. It's what's between your ears that counts! Good pay, good incentives, and a congenial working atmos­ phere. No moonlighters, no freelancers, please. Ifyou really want the job, write me a letter at 251 Lafayette Circle,Suite 310, Lafayette, CA 94549. Explain what you're looking for from the job and convince me you're the person for the job.-D. Rosenthal Volume 2, Number 6 July 1989 We were not there to hear Peter Schwartz. We were there to a full and sufficient response to the complexities of international hear Ayn Rand, as narrated by Schwartz. He delivered the gos­ relations? Has libertarian foreign policy made any advances in pel in clear monotones, enlivened only by sporadic attempts at the past 96 years? -SC sarcasm; occasionally he stumbled over the notes, but quickly recovered. He showed nothing approaching joy in his task; his Lies my allies told me - On March 9th, The visage held the hard edge of an ideal Randist hero or Soviet IndePendent, London's latest quality daily and, it seems, worthy politruk. of its name, published an article under the headline, "Churchill 'knew of Japanese plan to attack Pearl Harbour.'" The writer, Nick Cohen, reported on a new book, Codebreaker Extraordinary, The deathly dullness of Schwartz's monologue the memoirs of Eric Nave, written with James Rusbridger. Nave was enlivened only by its irony: the truly selfish was an officer at the British Code and Cipher School, based first in Hong Kong, later in Singapore. After the war, Nave served as person, he advised, "lives not by looting or director of Australian counter-intelligence. Rusbridger was an mooching off of others. He produces his own val­ officer with MI6, in Britain. ues. As Ayn Rand says . .. " What Nave and Rusbridger reveal is that by 1940, the British had broken Japanese naval code, IN-25. According to the au­ thors, ''The [British] Far East bureau knew that the [Japanese] During the question and answer period the tone switched task force had sailed from the Kuriles on 26 November, re­ from intellectual pedantry to downright indoctrination. His fuelled at sea eight days later, so a little work with the relevant style was abrasive, didactic-not surprising, I guess. He began charts placed the task force off Hawaii on 7 December." All in­ most answers with an instructive comment or two-''You have formation received was of course immediately and continually made two flaws," ''You proceed from an incorrect concrete," forwarded to London. Capt. Nave writes: "I naturally assumed ''You must define your terms"- and proceeded to define the that Churchill had ensured that all these vital decrypts were be­ questioner's terms or to correct his flaws or concretes before pro­ ing shared with his great friend and ally Roosevelt and that by viding the proper response from the Gospel according to Ayn. now [December 1] the Americans were well aware that a I don't want to be hostile. This was a group of well-meaning Japanese task force had been in the Pacific for over a week and people, even down to the fellow in the back who offered some that an attack was planned for 7 December either against Marxist criticism (which Schwartz was quick to label gratuitous­ Hawaii or the Philippines .... [Upon hearing of the attack], ly). I'll bet that the Harvard Students of Objectivism have inter­ what I could not understand was how the Americans could be esting, open and informative meetings. But I saw or heard so unprepared when the British had such a wealth of accurate nothing from Schwartz to convince me that the criticisms of the intelligence available about Japan's plans." Rand inner-circle are anything but true; in other words, they Nave and Rusbridger raise the question: "Did Churchill flow from correct premises, and affirm that A is A. -JSR want to bring America into the war so badly that he deliberately concealed from Roosevelt the news that the task force had sailed Hungary for change - Zita, Empress of Austria, and that an attack would be launched on 7 December 1941? Is Queen of Hungary, died this spring at the age of 96, last of the [this] the reason why to this day the British government will not European rulers swept away by the Great War. I used to be fond pennit any official disclosure about FECB's abilities against IN­ of mentioning Zita to students in my early-twentieth-century lit­ 25 prior to December 1941?" erature courses. Naturally, they had never heard of her, but the mere fact of her continued existence was a lesson in historical consciousness.. It demonstrated how close we still were to that "Did Churchill want to bring America into strange pre-war world, the world of The Wasteland, Part 1, the the war so badly that he deliberately concealed world in which admirals wore ostrich plumes and to be a grand duchess meant something and my midwestern grandfather from Roosevelt the news that the task force had bought pictures of imperial coronations for his stereoscope. sailed and that an attack would be launched on 7 One world ended in 1918; another may be ending now. If the December 1941?" Soviets withdraw from the fractured zone of Europe where Zita once ruled (and it is by no means certain that they have started to withdraw), a number of things may happen. A de-NATO'd According to The Independent, posing that question has led to and de-Warsaw'd Europe may fall under the hegemony of a re­ the suppression of the book. A prominent British publisher, constituted Germany, or be abjectly Finlandized. Revivals of na­ Bodley Head, cancelled publication plans after being informed tional independence may set Hungary at the throat of Rumania, by the authorities that revealing signals intelligence, even after Yugoslavia at the throat of Albania, Poland at the throat of all fifty years, would be a violation of the Official Secrets Act. To her neighbors. A literal application of Solidarity's economic have ignored the government warning would have meant an ex­ principles may keep eastern Europeans as poor as they have pensive law suit for the publishing house. As The Independent been under Stalinism, or invite military dictatorships. Or a free notes, "when the new Official Secrets Bill becomes law," such a Europe may once again lead the world in cultural and economic law suit will be "unwinnable" for the defendants. progress. The reason for this is that in Margaret Thatcher's new ver­ Do North American libertarians have anything interesting to sion of the notorious law, according to The Economist (March 11), say about these interesting possibilities, or are we content sim­ criminal sanctions will now apply to current or former civil ser­ ply to wish that the U.S. would desist from entangling allianc­ vants who release information that "damages the interests of the es-a wish still older and more honorable than Zita, but hardly United Kingdom abroad"; such sanctions will also apply to cur- Liberty 17 Volume 2, Number 6 July 1989 rent or former members of the secret services who release even This seemed amazing to me, so I checked it out. I was sur­ information that damages no party at all; and, most important, prised to learn that my friend had been right. In fact, out of eve­ the defense of acting in the public interest will in all cases be ry dollar given to the national Libertarian Party, only 16¢ is abolished. Thus, all the dirty secrets, little and big, of the bu­ spent on outreach or politics. The remainder goes for fund rais­ reaucrats will be safe from the public, presumably forever. ing expenses and national office overhead. I hope that Codebreaker Extraordinary finds a publisher in the Now I realize some overhead expenses are quite high, and United States, and soon. In the Soviet Union glasnost is produc­ that in a small organization such fixed overhead expenses are ing amazing historical revelations by the authorities; for in­ bound to be a largerpercentage of expenses than in a large or­ stance, the admission that the estimated 200,000 to 300,000 ganization. It is simply a matter of economics of scale. persons killed at Bykovnia, outside of Kiev, were the victims But even so: when only 16¢ of every dollar goes toward the not of the Nazis, as previously maintained, but of Stalin's secur­ stated purpose of the organization, I think something is wrong. ity forces (New York Times, March 25). Isn't it time for some glas­ I don't know exactly what the problem with the National LP is, nost in the West on Pearl Harbor, British and American war­ but I suspect it involves inefficiency, political in-fighting, bu­ crimes, and other hitherto taboo questions? One possibility that reaucratism and just plain waste. Other libertarian organiza­ Nave and Rusbridger do not canvass and that could be dis­ tions are much more efficient. For example, the chart below cussed once their book is available is, of course, that Churchill shows the breakdown of the Institute for Humane Studies did inform Roosevelt of the impending attack. -RR spending for 1988, compared with the Libertarian Party. Providing for the General Welfare Dept. LP IHS - Effective January 1, 1989, the federal government ordered all nursing homes to turn away mentally ill and retarded patients or risk losing their government certification. This edict applies not only to federal-state Medicaid patients, but also to private patients who are paying their own bills to the nursing homes. According to tax funded humanitarian Terry Coleman, Deputy Administrator of the Federal Health Care Financing Administration, the measure was promulgated because our car­ ing government does not approve of housing the.mentally ill There may not be much I can do about the problems with and retarded in nursing homes; by prohibiting them from nurs­ the National LP, but one thing I can do is take the course of ac­ ing homes, the Feds hope to force the States to provide other tion that my friend follows: channel my cash contributions to facilities. organizations that get more bang for their buck. In the mean­ Great. time, I think that if the LP is ever going to be an effective organ- The federal government is kicking helpless people out of ization, it needs a radicafchange in its management. -CAA places where they are cared for, sometimes at their own ex­ pense, in order to force other levels of government to provide But at least they unplugged Dan Rather- care according to the specifications of our caring federal gov­ Some provisional lessons of Tian An Men Square: ernment. The legions of mentally ill and. retarded roaming the 1. A tyranny that cannot control everything is remarkably streets will presumably spur the states into action. Asked about close to controlling nothing. what happens to the unfortunates who are kicked out into the 2. When a tyranny goes to seed, it becomes a committee. cold bureaucrat Coleman said, lithe law doesn't answer it." China is a billion-member committee. Coming next: The federal government shuts down grocery 3. The committee of the Peoples Republic of China closely stores and restaurants to force the states to feed the hungry ... resembles that of a large American university. Making changes the federal government shuts down hospitals to force the states in a large American university is like moving a cemetery. to provide medical care for the indigent ... that's the ticket! 4. What people are willing to fight about is not the same as -MH what they are willing to acquiesce in. The gap between acquies­ cence and violence is the space in which political maneuvering Investing in freedom - A few days ago, I was talk­ takes place. In China, the space broadened, then narrowed. This ing to an old friend about politics. He brought up the subject of is a pre-revolutionary situation. the Libertarian Party. He expressed annoyance at those who 5. Revolutions occur when expectations have grown great, support liberty but are not involved in the LP. He told me how not when conditions have grown worse. he had worked in various LP campaigns and how he believed 6. Mao was right to be scared. -SC that his work was effective in advancing libertarian ideas. I was surprised to hear him say, as our conversation pro­ That was then, this is now - "Drop Ayn Rand, ceeded, that he never makes financial contributions to the LP. leave Objectivism alone. We do not want you." With those "This seems very strange," I said. "Why don't you put your words, Leonard Peikoff has expelled philosopher David Kelley money where your mouth is?" from the Objectivist movement. Kelley was found guilty of con­ "I work hard for my money," he replied. "And I don't want sorting with libertarians. Among the crimes cited by Peikoff is to waste it. The national LP spends practically nothing on out­ that Kelley autographed copies of his book The Evidence of the reach or political activity. Almost all the money it raises is used Senses for Laissez-Faire Books. Curiously, Peikoff himself auto­ to pay the overhead. I give my money to specific campaigns graphed copies of his book, The Ominous Parallels, at an auto­ and to other libertarian activities where I feel it is better spent." graph party at Laissez-Faire Books in 1982. -RWB 18 Liberty Polemic

The Myth of the Rights of Mental Patients by Thomas Szasz

"Permit me then ... to tell you what the freedom is that I love, and that to which I think all men are entitled.... It is a state of things in which liberty is secured by the equality of restraint." -Edmund Burke 1

During the past quarter of a century, Uthe rights of mental patients" has be­ come a frequently discussed subject in the medical, psychiatric, psychological, and legal literature as well as the popular press; indeed, it has even attracted the attention of the United Nations as an area where human rights and ostensibly therapeutic practices appear to be on a collision course. 2 Somewhere down the line, the phrase persons, presumed competent and inno­ Whence comes the idea of giving underwent an Orwellian metamorpho­ cent until proven otherwise, who ought rights to, or guaranteeing the rights of, sis and came to mean the moral to be treated by the law with the same mental patients? It comes from two legitimacy of a special interest group­ disregard for their psychiatric status as sources: the long legal-psychiatric tradi­ such as blacks and women-to use the they are for their religious status. tion of depriving mental patients of power of the State to impose its de­ What has actually happened since rights; and the recent-ostensibly civil mands on the rest of the people. then is nearly the opposite. Rallying to libertarian, but actually bureaucratic­ Although this metamorphosis has had the battle cry of "civil rights for mental statist-fashion of giving rights to undesirable effects on blacks and patients," professional civil libertarians, members of special "oppressed" women, its most seriously injured vic­ special-interest-mongering attorneys, groups, such as blacks, women, and tims, not surprisingly, have been and the relatives of mental patients homosexuals. mental patients. joined conventional psychiatrists de­ I say "not surprisingly" because, ac­ manding rights for mental patients-qua On Liberty and Rights cording to conventional wisdom, the mental patients. The result has been a We must keep in mind that individ­ insane are irrational and hence do not perverse sort of affirmative action pro­ ual liberty is a matter of political know, and cannot properly articulate, gram: since mental patients are ill, they philosophy and law-not mental their own needs and rights. Which rais­ have a right to treatment; since many health; that (literal) illness is a matter of es the question of who is entitled to­ are homeless, they have a right to hous­ pathology-not psychopathology; that who should-speak for them? When, ing; and so it goes, generating even a the connection between rights and dis­ some thirty years ago, I began to ad­ special right to reject treatment (a right eases is a matter of social convention­ dress the problem of the rights of every non-mental patient has without not science; and that, in the American persons called mentally ill, I emphasized special dispensation). In short, the political tradition, human beings are that I speak for myself only; and noted phrase "rights of mental patients" has considered to possess civil rights not be­ that inasmuch as many different kinds meant everything but according per­ cause they are men or women, of persons are called "mental patients," sons called "mental patients" the same Christians or Jews, healthy or sick, but they cannot all have the same inter­ rights (and duties) as are accorded all because they are persons. ests--and that, in any case, they can and adults qua citizens or persons. Prior to this century the term civil should speak for themselves. As for rights meant the protection of the indi­ what is now called "mental health advo­ The Rights of Mental Patients vidual against coercion by the State. It cacy," I have stood firmly for the policy A recent British study, titled ''The stood for limits on State power. of viewing so-called mental patients as Rights of Mentally III People," exempli- Liberty 19 Volume 2, Number 6 Jul 1989 fiesboth the futility of trying to secure suggests that at any time no less than 40 way its rhetoric fits so perfectly the col­ rights for mental patients qua mental pa­ million people-perhaps as many as 100 lectivistic-paternalistic spirit of tients and the uncomprehending million-in the world are suffering from traditional Oriental despotism and con­ stubbornness with which this quest is the most serious mental disorders as de­ temporary Communism. Indeed the now pursued throughout the English­ fined by WHO." 6 So much for what is Russians--always a soft touch for the speaking world. Prepared by Chris mental illness. With that problem out of statist mentality that eagerly relinquish­ Heginbotham-the National Director of the way, the Report proceeds to concen­ es real freedoms in return for fictitious MIND (the National Association for trate on what to do about mental illness rights-have now joined the parade of Mental Health of England and Wales) and comes down squarely in support of giving persons defamed as mental pa­ and a Board Member of the World conventional psychiatric interventions, tients rights, the better to justify taking Federation for Mental Health-the re­ as the following sentence illustrates: away their liberties. In January 1988, port also illustrates that the professional "The release of these people Tass reported the enactment of a set of protectors of the rights of mental pa­ [involuntarily hospitalized patients], ad­ psychiatric reforms, among them a law tients are just as great a threat to their mirable in theory, has often been making it a crime "to lock up a patently rights as the psychiatrists against whom disastrous in practice. A recent sample healthy person in a mental hospita1." 8 these self-appointed guardians propose survey of New York's homeless found No psychiatrist engaging in this practice to guard them. Contradicting the title of that 96% had at one time been in a psy­ prior to the enactment of the new law his report Heginbotham begins by as­ chiatric hospital." 7 This is a hopelessly was named, much less punished. After serting that "People with mental sloppy way to talk about so complex and all, no bureaucrat-political or psychiat­ illnesses are a disadvantaged ... minori­ controversial a policy as deinstitutionali­ ric-is ever guilty of· anything. In any ty in every country" and then, in zation. Does Heginbotham contend that case, the important thing is not worry­ characteristic collectivistic-statist style, deinstitutionalization has been disas- ing about past psychiatric abuses but confuses and equates proclaiming future needs and rights: "This guarantees against Report concentrates Prior to this century the term civil rights meant them, enshrined in primarily on the needs new rights. American [sic] of people defined the protection of the individual against coercion by the politicians, lawyers, as having a diagnosa­ State. Somewhere down the line, the phrase· under­ and even civil ble mental disorder."3 libertarians are proud But ignoring a per- went an Orwellian metamorphosis and came to mean that American pa­ son's-especially an the moral legitimacy of a special interest group to use tients, qua mental adult's-wants .and the power of the State to impose its demands, on the patients, have rights; pontificating about his henceforth Russian needs renders attend­ rest of the people. mental patients, qua ing to his rights ------_. mental patients, will virtually impossible. have exactly the same No matter: When Heginbotham uses the trous for the patients (even if they prefer rights: "People receiving psychiatric as­ word right, he means not the legal right to be out of the hospital at any cost)? For sistance ... are guaranteed legal aid by a to be left alone but, on the contrary, the the patients' families (especially if they lawyer with a view to ensuring their moral right to make a justifiable de­ prefer to keep the patients in the hospital rights," Tass said. 9 mand on others. "It can reasonably be at any cost)? For the people in the cities No doubt, mental patients in the argued," he writes, "that every person whom they annoy and disturb (and. who Soviet Union need all the rights they can has the right to be treated according to have nothing tangible to gain by deinsti­ get, and then some. Emboldened byglas­ the following principles," and then enu­ tutionalization)? All of the above? In nost, Sergei Grigoryants, chief editor of merates the goods and services that whose judgment has this policy been the magazine Glasnost, writes: certain persons "ought" to be given, disastrous? In the judgment of the pa­ "According to official data, nearly five psychiatric treatment among them: "To tients who prefer to be out of mental million people are listed on the psychiat­ a large extent this Report is concerned hospitals (at any cost)? Of the patients ric register in the Soviet Union.... To be with rights-the right of people with di­ who prefer to be in mental hospitals (at on it officially permits a healthy person agnosable mental illnesses to be treated any cost)? Of the patients' families? Of to be placed in a psychiatric prison at any with 'equal concern and respect' ... This the people in the city? All of the above? time and to be deprived of all rights" (em­ must include the right to receive proper Obviously, the answers vary, if for no phasis added). 10 Of course, like all care, support, and treatment for any ill­ other reason than because these parties conventional critics of psychiatry, ness, physical or menta1." 4 often have conflicting interests, which Grigoryants protests only against After contemptuously dismissing the Heginbotham systematically fails to ''healthy people" being forced to become view "that the term 'mental illness' is ... acknowledge. the patients of psychiatrists he himself a myth," 5 Heginbotham proceeds to opt characterizes as "crimina1[s] ... defend­ for accepting, without further discus­ Psychiatric Rights ing [their] right to murder." 11 It is sion, the World Health Organization's in the Soviet Union? mysterious, as I remarked elsewhere, 12 definition of mental illness and its esti­ One of the many ironies of the "men­ what on earth about mental illness ren­ mate of frequency: "A rough estimate tal patients' rights movement" is the ders a person suffering from it a fit 20 Liberty Volume 2, Number 6 Jul 1989 subject for compulsory care by only temporarily and to a very limited Nothing hinders one act from hav- murderers. extent), the very idea of the rights of ing two effects, only one of which is I regard all this sound and fury as a mental patients is a patent absurdity: intended, while the other is beside collective exercise in deception and self- How could a person be allowed to the intention. Now moral acts take deception. 13 How can one Soviet state enjoy the privileges of individual liber- their species according to what is in- agency protect the rights of a person ty without any corresponding tended, and not according to what is beside the intention. Accordingly whose rights have been abrogated, pre- responsibility to obey the law? Because the act of self-defense may have two sumably rightfully, by another state rights and responsibilities cannot-and, effects, one is the saving of one's agency? And, most importantly, when a in fact, are not-so disjoined, I maintain life, the other is the slaying of the ag- so-called mental patient's right to liberty that the words mental patient and right gressor. Therefore this act, since conflicts with his right to treatment- contradict each other and are mutually one's intention is to save one's own whether in the USSR or in the U.S.- exclusive, just as Rousseau maintained life, is not unlawful ... 16 what official, on the basis of what crite- that "The words slave and right contra- The New Catholic Encyclopedia defines ria, decides which right should prevail? dicteach other and are mutually the Principle of Double Effect as: "A rule We cannot escape from r------. of conduct frequently this psychiatric trap of used in moral our own making: The The ostensible aim of every psychiatric reform is theology to determine ostensible aim of every to make the mental health system less susceptible to when a person may involuntary psychiatric lawfully perform an intervention is to treat abuse; its actual result is that the system and its abus- action from which two a person for his mental es become more resistant to criticism. effects follow, one bad, illness; its actual result the other good." 17 For is that the person is de- example, it is consid- prived of liberty. Similarly, the exclusive." 14 It is ironic, however, that ered permissable for a physician to give ostensible aim of every psychiatric re- while no one in Rousseau's day would an aged patient a painkiller, provided form is .to make the mental health have disagreed with his assertion about the aim is to relieve pain, even though system less susceptible to abuse; its actu- the oxymoronic character of attributing the effect may also be to hasten death. al result is that the system and its abuses rights to slaves, hardly anyone today This principle is often applied in the become more resistant to criticism. agrees with my assertion about the oxy- contemporary Catholic analyses of such Ironically, the promoters of psychiatric moronic character of attributing rights topics as abortion, contraception, and slavery-both in the U.S. and in the to involuntarily hospitalized mental pa- suicide. USSR-now employ the identical rheto- tients. Why is this so? How can people Obviously, this mode of reasoning is ric of "dangerousness to self and others" not see that the mental patient's right to in no sense peculiarly Catholic or re­ to identify certain individuals as mental treatment is, in fact, a hypocritical dis- stricted to Catholics. Anyone intent on patients, and the identical justification of guise for the psychiatrist's right to rationalizing his own morally complex the patients' "special rights" to legiti- assault the patient-physically, chemi- and conflicting choices can make use of mize incarcerating them. cally, electrically, and in every other it-and many people do. For example, way-and call it "treatment"? 15 After Paul Ramsey-said to be "the most in­ Rights and Responsibilities pondering this question for some time, fluential American Protestant writer on An important corollary of the notion I have concluded that the answer prob- medical ethics of his generation"-has that civil rights adhere to individuals ably lies in the secularization of a applied it to the problem of abortion. qua persons, as against individuals qua fundamental Roman Catholic principle David Smith, a professor of religious members of one or another special of ethics, namely, the Principle of studies at the University of Indiana, con­ group, is the conjoining of rights and Double Effect. Without ever mentioning denses and explains Ramsey's position responsibilities, liberties and duties. this principle, perhaps even without as follows: This is why, for hundreds of years, being fully aware of it, many people­ direct abortions are justified in situa­ Anglo-American political philosophers in and outside of the mental health pro­ tions where a nonviable fetus exempted three groups of human be­ fessions-now support psychiatric threatens its mother's life. In that ings from the class of .full-fledged slavery by falling back on a therapeutic case: the intention of the action, and persons: .infants, idiots, and the insane. (in)version of this classic, Thomistic in this sense its direction, is not upon the death of the fetus ... [but Because children, retarded persons, and idea. is] directed toward the incapacitation psychotics are considered to be unable The Principle of Double Effect of the fetus from doing what it is to fulfill the social duties of normal doing to the life of the mother .... adults (which some of them are indeed Clearly articulating this particular This distinction between incapacita­ incapable of fulfilling), individuals as­ form of moral reasoning in his Summa tion and direct killing solves the signed to these categories are deprived Theologica, St Thomas Aquinas is credit­ problem of explaining how love can of rights and exempted from ed with its authorship. In a chapter justify abortion. If justifiable abor­ responsibilities. titled "Whether it is lawful to kill a man tions are properly described as Mutatis mutandis, because the rights in self-defense?" Aquinas justified the incapacitating rather than killing, and responsibilities of an individual otherwise illicit act of killing a man as then one can say that such actions are justifiable actions of love to the cannot be disjoined (or can be disjoined follows: aborted fetus. One has not done Liberty 21 Volume 2, Number 6 Jul 1989 something unloving to the fetus than to liberate my patients from the of 1987, Luis Marcos, a psychiatrist and itself. 18 shackles of their mental illness. vice president for mental health of the Amen. Truly, the human mind is an Besides, I don't incarcerate anyone; city's Health and Hospitals Corporation, organ of self-justification. But if this is you use that term only to humiliate declared: the way prominent theologians reason, me. I hospitalize patients to enable We are dealing with people who are is it any wonder they support psychiat­ them to recover from their illnesses. severely mentally and physically ill. ric coercions of all kinds, and that Critic: Regardless of what you say, the And people have a right to be treat­ jurists, physicians, and lay persons sup­ effect of your intervention is that ed and cared for .... The civil port them as well? your patient is deprived of liberty. liberties unions believe people Psychiatrist: That may be. But, I swear should be free to live in the street The Principle (and Practice) by Hippocrates, that is not my inten­ and to deteriorate. We believe peo­ of Double Effect in Psychiatry . tion. Anyway, the patient will soon ple should be free from Such, then, is the evidence that has hallucinations and mental illness. be discharged. And it is not certain­ She [Joyce Brown] was not hospital­ persuaded me that the Principle of as you very well know-that the pa­ ized because she was living on the Double Effect offers the right angle from tient objects to such a temporary loss streets-she was hospitalized be­ which to view the antithetical argu­ of liberty. cause in the judgment of at least ments of the three psychiatrists conventional psychia- she needed medi­ trist supporting I maintain that the words mental patient and right cal psychiatric psychiatric depriva- contradict each other and are mutually exclusive. The help. 19 tions of individual mental patient's right to treatment is, in fact, a hypo­ Does anyone real­ liberty, and his critic ly believe this? Or is (such as myself) oppos­ critical disguise for the psychiatrist's right to assault this merely psychiat­ ing such deprivations. I the patient-physically, chemically, electrically, and ric ceremonial present herewith, in chanting which, like schematic forms, two in every other way-and call it "treatment." religious incantation, dialogues that exempli- ... _ it is in bad taste to fy the standoff. scrutinize? Does Concerning contraception: Although these dialogues are imagi­ Marcos really believe that had Joyce Brown been living in a multi-million­ Critic: You say you are a good Catholic nary, the situations they describe are dollar condominium on Park Avenue on and yet you take birth control pills. not. It is important to note here that a tax-free annual income of $500,000, Your behavior proves that you are while the Catholic and Psychiatric she woul~ have ever come to the atten­ not a good Catholic. You are a Principles of Double Effect appear to be tion of his roving psychiatrists cruising hypocrite. similar, they are by no means identi­ the streets looking for patients, much Catholic woman: You are wrong and cal-the latter, in fact, being an less that she would have been forcibly unfair to me. There is nothing I want inversion of the former. In Catholic the­ hospitalized in a public mental more than to have a baby. Besides, I ology the initial act cannot be morally institution? don't take birth control pills; you use evil albeit some of its consequences Marcos's assertion is troubling on that term only to humiliate me. I take might be: for example, self-defense is a another count as well. His insistence a medicine prescribed for me by a right even though it may cause the as­ that Joyce Brown "was not hospitalized physician to regulate my irregular sailant's death, which is wrong. In the because she was living on the streets" and painful menstrual periods. psychiatric ethic, the initial act can be implies that she has a right to live on the Critic: Regardless of what you say, the evil, so long as its consequence is not: streets. But does she? This question effect of the medicine you take is that for example, it is wrong to deprive a brings to mind Anatole France's famous you are less likely to become person of liberty, but if it cures him of anti-libertarian cry that "The law, in its pregnant. mental illness then it is all right. In majestic equality, forbids the rich as well Catholic woman: That may be. But, I short, whereas in Catholicism the means as the poor to sleep under bridges, to swear to God, that is not my inten­ cannot be evil, although some of its con­ beg in the streets, and to steal bread." 20 tion. And I may get pregnant. It is not sequences might be-in psychiatry, With this phrase-made immortal by certain-as you very well know­ good ends justify evil means. generation after generation of socialists that the medicine will prevent it. This mode of reasoning, more than any other, is now used to justify the in­ and statists-France in effect mocked Concerning commitment: carceration and involuntary treatment precisely the sort of equality before the Critic: You say you are a humanist and of street persons. According to current law extolled by Edmund Burke and love liberty and yet you incarcerate psychiatric doctrine, homeless mentally every adherent to the rule of law before innocent persons. Your behavior ill persons are hospitalized against their and since then. Did France really advo­ proves that you are neither a human­ will solely because they are ill and not be­ cate or believe that the poor should be ist nor do you love liberty. You are a cause they are homeless. For example, allowed to steal bread? Surely, he must hypocrite. apropos of the forcible hospitalization of have known that such a rule would Psychiatrist: You are wrong and unfair Joyce Brown, the New York bag lady annul any rational person's decision to to me. There is nothing I want more who attracted much attention in the fall operate a bakery. The same principle ap-

22 Liberty Un­ common policysense.

Assessing the Reagan Years edited by The High Cost ofFarm Welfare by Clif­ David Boaz. Thirty-one leading policy analysts ton B. Luttrell. The author, an agricultural econo­ look at the successes and failures of the Reagan mist, traces the history of federal intervention administration in tax policy, spending, foreign in agriculture, then provides a comprehensive and military policy, trade, education, regulation, analysis of current programs, concluding that they civil rights, entitlements, and other areas. 1988/ benefit a few rich landowners at the expense of 431 pp./$29.95 cloth/$14.95 paper consumers and taxpayers. 1989/149 pp./$19.95 cloth/$9.95 paper Collective Defense or Strategic Indepen­ dence? edited by Ted Galen Carpenter. The Generating Failure by David L .. Shapiro. contributors to this volume take a new look at The author exposes the policy disasters caused by NATO and other U. S. alliances and suggest alter­ the Washington Public Power Supply System. natives, including selective containment, burden­ His solution is to privatize WPPSS and restore sharing, and strategic independence. Among the responsibility for energy provision in the the contributors are Eugene V. Rostow, A. James Northwest- and throughout the nation- to the Gregor, Earl C. Ravenal, Aaron Wildavsky, private sector. 1989/113 pp./$17.50 cloth Melvyn Krauss, Christopher Layne, and Alan An American Vision edited by Edward H. Tonelson. 1989/310 pp./$14.95 paper Crane and David Boaz. Twenty-one distinguished Dollars, Deficits, and Trade edited by analysts step back from the day-to-day Washing­ James A. Dom and William A. Niskanen. Lead­ ton debates to address the systemic defects that ing economists discuss the link between inter­ are at the root of many public policy problems. national and domestic economic instability and Contributors include such noted scholars as George explore new arrangements for disciplining mone­ Gilder, William A. Niskanen, Earl C. Ravenal, tary authorities. Among' the contributors are Pete du Pont, Peter J. Ferrara, Catherine England, Manuel H. Johnson, Allan H. Meltzer, Richard N. and S. David Young. 1989/358 pp./$26.95 cloth! Cooper, Lawrence H. White, and Paul Craig Rob­ $15.95 paper ;1- -" ..,,- erts. 1989/424 pp./$19.95 paper Cato Institute, Dept. L ~ 224 Second Street, S.E.:~Y" ~ ;,.. ., .. ~.'.' ~ Washington, D.C. 20003 llNs r~ riUl11 Volume 2, Number 6 Jul 1989 plies to sleeping under bridges or on hot criminal because he has no other choice ordered more psychiatric examinations: air grates: Allowing the poor to sleep on and hence no criminal intent to act ille­ '1 just want a pure strain of psychiatric the sidewalks of New York would inevi­ gally is no more convincing than the judgement," he said. 23 Note that all of tably lead to no one-poor or rich­ argument that we should view and ex­ the players in this drama-including having the cultural and social amenities cuse a poor person's stealing as non­ Miss Brown, her lawyers, and their psy­ and protections everyone needs for criminal because he has no other choice chiatrists-validate the fiction that her sleeping at night. and hence no criminal intent to act confinement has, or may have, two ef­ I therefore defend what France ridi­ illegally. fects: IQss of her liberty and treatment of cwes-namely, that the law would her mental illness; and that aiming at forbid rich and poor equally from sleep­ Psychiatric Rights: the latter target justifies hitting the ing on the sidewalk. But, as we saw, Double Effect or Double Talk? former. Marcos and the majority of psychiatrists Regardless of whether the mental It is bad enough that the terms men­ whose point of view he clearly repre­ patient is given rights or deprived of tal patient and right contradict each sents evidently believe that Joyce Brown rights, the bottom line for his relation­ other, just as the terms slave and right and other street people should be al­ ship with society is the latter's contradict each other. What makes the lowed to sleep on the sidewalks. Why? legitimate power to incarcerate him. It is current debate concerning the civil Because the proposition, proudly sup­ important to re-emphasize that long ago rights of mental patients even more ported by psychiatrists and pseudo­ the need therapeutically to justify psy­ mindless is the utterly false idea that civil-libertarians, that mental patients chiatric confinement has become an mental illness itself is a condition that have a right to reject treatment has be­ autonomous cultural belief. Months deprives a person of liberty and that come extended to mean that they also after picking her off the sidewalk on anti-psychotic drugs are treatments that have a right to sleep on the sidewalks. October 28, 1987, and taking her to restore the lost liberty. In the psychiatric This strikes me as an absurd non sequi­ Bellevue against her will, psychiatric literature this falsehood is actually treat­ tur. Every medical patient has the right and legal authorities were still deliberat­ ed as if it were fact. "Patients released to reject treatment. However, we do not ing what to do with Joyce Brown. Like from mental institutions refuse to return interpret the fact that arthritics have the medieval theologians trying to deter­ to inpatient care," writes the editor of a right to reject treatment to mean that mine how many angels can dance on the psychiatric journal. 24 Does this mean they have the right to copulate on the head of a pin, mental health experts in that such patients vote with their feet, sidewalks. Surely, husband and wife (or New York in 1988 try to determine how like political refugees who refuse to re­ perhaps any man and any woman) have much, if any, Haldol this allegedly psy­ turn to the oppressive regimes they the right to have sexual intercourse. But chotic woman "needs": have fled? No. For "these misled men­ not anywhere: in private, yes; in public, In testimony over the last two days tallx ill," explains the author, "this kind no. The same reasoning applies, it seems in a courtroom at Bellevue Hospital, of liberty, from any medical or humanis­ to me, to sleeping, eating, urinating or Dr. Maeve Mahon, the psychiatrist tic point of view, is worse than any form defecating. Assuredly, we have a basic who had been treating Miss Brown of imprisonment." 25 human right to engage in these acts at the hospital, said Miss Brown re­ These comments, and countless oth­ (necessary for survival itself)-but not fused to shower regularly, ers like them, illustrate that, virtually on someone else's property. The street sometimes talked and laughed to person who disrupts the public order by herself, made threatening gestures without exception, psychiatrists are hos­ to staff members and was abusive to sleeping on the sidewalk violates the tile to the idea that the mental patient black men on the hospital staff. Miss showd have a right to reject treatment, rights of others just as surely as does the Brown is black. Dr. Mahon asked person who disrupts traffic by leading a indeed that he should have any rights at the court for permission to adminis­ all that override his (alleged) needs. At a political protest (without permission to ter Haldol, an antipsychotic drug, do so). The argument that we should over a three-week period to test conference in 1987 on involuntary hospi­ view and excuse a homeless person's whether it had a beneficial effect on talization, sponsored by Beth Israel sleeping on the sidewalk as non- Miss Brown's condition. 21 Medical Center in New York, Stephen L. New York Civil Rachlin, chairman of psychiatry at Liberties Union lawyers Nassau County Medical Center, de­ representing Miss Brown clared: "The right to refuse treatment produced psychiatrists illustrates the clash between patients' who testified that she was 'rights' and their 'needs': It's one right not psychotic and hence too many." 26 The issue once again is did not need Haldol. The simply the pros and cons of coercive attorney for New York psychiatric paternalism, to which City countered "that Rachlin's remarks add nothing new. In without medication, Miss any case, neither the reasoning nor the Brown would be forced to rhetoric matter: the inertia of psychiatric remain in the hospital tradition is enough to annul in practice" without receiving any whatever innovation might be intro­ fjaloo benefit from it." 22 Not duced in principle. "The trend to protect "I may be way out of line here, but as far as I'm concerned, surprisingly, the judge psychiatric patients' rights to refuse it's people like you that give welfare recipients a bad name!" treatment by judicial review has meant 24 Liberty Volume 2, Number 6 Jul 1989 little change in outcome, but greater the loss of such liberty, and only its patients in Japan-they are, in effect, expense, delay, and intrusion," 27 added cessation can restore it. pleading for their own right to involun­ Rachlin, and on this score I agree with tarily treat persons they themselves him. Conclusions categorize as mental patients. 32 Since It is worth noting that there was, evi­ My first conclusion and recommen­ the Commission comes down squarely dently, complete unanimity at this dation, then, is that we not chase after in support of psychiatric coercions conference concerning the desirability of every violation of the "rights" of mental when required by what mental health

coercive psychiatric paternalism. 1/A patients-not because helping a single professionals consider to be the best in­ psychiatric patient's refusal to take med­ person out of a single predicament is terests of the patients, the central ication is most often a reflection of not morally meritorious, but because a problem of so-called psychiatric abuses illness, not an autono- remains untouched: mous decision, and How do we make psy­ should be resolved on chiatric treatment clinical, not judicial The very idea of giving rights to the mental pa­ dignified when the pa­ grounds," 28 opined an­ tient expresses society's collective contempt for him; tient rejects the other psychiatrist. The the mental patient's failure to protest against this ritu­ psychiatrist's intrusion validity of this dubious into his life? Antonin claim is also irrelevant, al reinforces society's collective sense of being justified Artaud's complaint, since the courts virtual­ in patronizing him. usually expressed less ly routinely uphold the eloquently, echoes psychiatrists' recom- through the ages in mendations. "In Massachusetts, for coercive-statist psychiatric system can the autobiographical writings of mental instance, 96% of patients' medication re­ create new "abuses" much faster than patients: "I myself spent nine years in fusals were overridden" by the courts. we can abolish the old ones (assuming an insane asylum and I never had the In short, the mentality of giving-rights­ we can do that). Thus, genuine and ra­ obsession of suicide, but I know that to-mental-patients has only added fuel tional concern for human well-being, each conversation with a psychiatrist, to the already brightly burning fires of just as genuine and rational concern for every morning at the time of his visit, what I have called "therapy by the judi­ human rights, must entail, as Roger made me want to hang myself, realizing ciary": the existence (material reality) of Pilon observed, that I would not be able to slit his "mental illness" and its "treatment" is a concern about those systems that throat." 33 Apologists for psychiatric pa­ re-affirmed by judges prescribing the tend to the protection of human ternalism consistently avoid the treatment: rights and those that tend to their vi­ challenge implicit in Artaud's cry-not One judge, having been told that olation. Far from trying to separate for psychiatric help, but for freedom Mellaril produces the least extrapy­ the moral from the political or eco­ from it. ramidal side effects, ruled that all nomic, then, far from trying to avoid Is there a way out of this labyrinth? "politicizing" one's moral concern, patients in such disputes be treated There is-for those looking for an exit. I with Mellaril; another ordered that a those with a deep and abiding inter­ est in human rights must come in the add this caveat because, for perfectly patient be given Cogentin "at the good reasons, many persons are not first sign of any side effect." A third end to the realization that human looking for such an exit. Involuntary, in­ directed the hospital to raise a pa­ rights constitutes precisely that tient's dose of neuroleptic, if nexus between the moral and the po­ stitutional psychiatry, appropriately necessary, "but by no more than 50 litical and economic that theorists of adapted to time and place, serves the in­ mg/week." 29 the 17th and 18th centuries, theorists terests of many individuals and groups: of the classical liberal tradition, rec­ mental health professionals like it be­ This is the kind of absurdity that we ognized so well and articulated so saw happen in the past, when Religion clearly. They must come to realize, cause it legitimizes them not only as and the State were united, and is the in short, that human rights are what healers but as the protectors of society kind of absurdity we see happening political and economic systems at as well; mental patients-for the most now, when Psychiatry and the State are bottom are all about. 30 part, most of the time-like it because it united. Formerly, the State lent its I believe that candor and decency re­ legitimizes them as sick and offers them power to support the proposition that quire us to acknowledge that, because an escape from the day-to-day cares of consecrated bread and wine were, liter­ of its history and social consequences, normal life; and, last but not least, the ally, body and blood; now it lends its the idea of mental illness embodies parents of mental patients, politicians, support to the proposition that misbe­ within itself the notion of diminished or and the legal system like it because it havior is disease and poisoning is absent personal autonomy. When writ­ provides them with a legitimate mecha­ treatment. Hence, the dramatic psychiat­ ers on the rights of mental patients nism for distancing themselves from ric shedding of tears over the mental assert that "Mentally ill persons should mental patients and subjecting the pa­ patient's loss of liberty from a "medical receive humane, dignified, and profes­ tients to the control of the State. 34 To or humanistic point of view" is pure hy­ sional treatment" 31 -as does Timothy paraphrase Voltaire, if there were no pocrisy. The truth is that mental illness W. Harding, the leader of an expert mental illness, it would be necessary to qua illness cannot cause loss of political mission of the International invent it. liberty; but that involuntary mental hos­ Commission of Jurists to investigate al­ But it is not necessary to invent men­ pitalization can and does cause precisely legations of mistreatment of mental tal illness, as it has been handed down Liberty 25 Volume 2, Number 6 July1989 to us by our ancestors, authenticated by and .hence comes the necessity to have a specially identified right to ac­ the most solid scientific credentials stand logic on its head in order to cept or reject Holy Communion. Jews do imaginable: Mental illness is either a get there. 36 not have a specially identified right to proven or a putative disease of the The phrase "and therefore not ill" is accept or reject the Jewish dietary laws. human body as a biological machine. rubbish and has nothing to do with my Patients with arthritis or diabetes do not The ultimate fallacy in this idea is that it insistence that we distinguish the literal have specially identified rights to accept is believed to morally justify the psychi­ meaning and uses of disease from its or reject treatment for their diseases. atrist's domination of the mental patient metaphorical meanings and uses. As for Giving mental patients such specially on the one hand, and the mental pa­ "standing logic on its head," the less identified rights is, in my opinion, sim­ tient's evasion of his responsibility to said the better. I should like to reiterate ply our way of casting them out of the mind his own business on the other that I cannot help but feel that the very human community. In past ages, when hand. By the latter I mean that if mental idea of giving rights to the mental pa­ men did this to their fellow men, at least patients are to be accorded the same they honestly acknowledged what they tient expresses, once again, society's rights as other adults in our society, were doing. Surely, doing the same collective contempt for him; and that the then they must also be expected to as­ thing and denying it is not moral mental patient's failure to protest sume the same responsibilities. In other progress. 0 against this ritual reinforces society's words, they must be seen as moral This paper was first presented at the Wellcome agents who have the duty to take care of collective sense of being justified in pa­ Institute for the History of Medicine, London, July their own biological, personal, and . fi­ tronizing him. After all, Catholics do not 18,1988. nancial needs and the needs of those who depend on them, and to respect the Notes rights of others and the law of the land. Accordingly, if they break the law, they 1. E. Burke, Letter to Mons. Dupont, 1789, in The 1967), Vol. IV, pp. 1020-1022. must be punished in the criminal justice Philosophy of Edmund Burke: A Selection from His 18. D.H. Smith, "On Paul Ramsey: A covenant­ system, not treated in the mental health Speeches and Writings, L.I. Bredvold and RG. Ross, centered ethic for medicine," Second Opinion, 6: eds. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, system. In proportion as we excuse per­ 107-127 (November), 1987; p. 115. 1960),P. 71. 19. L. Marcos, quoted in J. Barbanel, "Woman in suit sons with mental, but not with medical, 2. I.E. Daes, "Draft body of principles and guide­ agrees to stay at residence," The New York Times, illnesses, we join the chorus of hypo­ lines for the protection of the mentally ill" November 24, 1987, pp. Bl & B3, and, in New crites singing the theme song of the (Geneve: UN Commission of Human Rights, York launches effort to remove mentally ill from 1983). streets, Psychiatric News, 23: 8 &: 32 (Jan. 15),1988, mental health industry-"Mental illness 3. C Heginbotham, The Rights of Mentally III People, p.32. is like any other illness"-all the while The Minority Rights Group Report No. 74 20. A. France, quoted in B. Stevenson, ed., The making certain that the phrase "rights of (London: Minority Rights Group, Ltd., 1987), p. 3. Macmillan Book of Proverbs, Maxims, and Famous 4. Ibid. mental patients" continues to serve the Phrases (New York: Macmillan, 1948), p. 1364. 5. Ibid., p. 4. 21. J. Barbane1, "Psychiatric test is ordered for home­ best interests of the singers. 6. Ibid., p. 5. less woman," The New York Times, January 14, Curiously, my insistence that we 7. Ibid., p. 3. 1988, p. 83. view so-called mental patients as per­ 8. B. Keller, "Mental patients in Soviet get new 22. Ibid. rights," The New York Times, January 5, 1988, pp. sons first, and as mentally ill second, has 23. Ibid. Al & AlL 24. J.J. Haber, "The pitfalls of deinstitutionalization," 9. Ibid. led Sir Martin Roth to pay me what I The R.P.c. Medical Staff-The Bulletin, Oct.-Nov.­ 10. S. Grigoryants, "Soviet psychiatric prisoners," The consider to be the highest compliment Dec., 1987, pp.1-2; p. 2. New York Times, February 23,1988, p. A31. 25. Ibid. possible. In the final paragraph of a 11. Ibid. 26. S.L. Rachlin, quoted in "Psychiatric patients' refu­ scathing attack on my work, Roth 12. T.S. Szasz, "Soviet psychiartry: The historical sal to take their medication most often reflection background, Inquiry," December 5,1977, pp. 4-5; writes: of illness," Clinical Psychiatry News, January 11: 1 reprinted in Szasz, T.S., The Terapeutic State: & 18 (January), 1988. He [Szasz] has been a powerful Psychiatry in the Mirror of Current Events (Buffalo: 27. Ibid. fighter for the freedoms, rights and Prometheus Books, 1984), pp. 214-218. 28. Ibid. responsibilities of psychiatric pa­ 13. Whether for his criticisms of psychiatry or other tients. The attitude of the law and reasons, Grigoryants soon bit the Russian dust: 29. Ibid. 30. R Pilon, Human Rights and Politico-Economic the legal profession to psychiatry On May 19, 1988, The New York Times reported that after having spent a week in jail, Grigoryant Systems, Cato's Letter #4

LleVision is the most powerful force in The bottom line is this: until Libertarian In 1990, we will produce as many ads as America today, in terms of shaping the ideas are presented credibly and effectively funds permit, and make them available to social and political agenda. The average on TV; we will continue to lose ground! LP candidates and anyone else who will air American watches nearly five hours of TV them. In 1992, we will attempt to buy spots every day, and gets most of his or her infor­ on national network news shows, during the mation about the world through this We must do two things to meet this election campaign period. medium. challenge. We are asking Libertarians who support And because television is a highly visual. the idea of UBER/TV for "seed money" to The first is to produce and run a series of highly emotional medium, TV news tends begin the fund-raising process. Any amount high quality 30 second ads which address to focus on "human interest" stories, and to is welcome, but to encourage larger con­ key issues from a Libertarian perspective. encourage simplistic thinking. tributions, we make the following pledges: These must be ads with emotional im­ Each time some lunatic shoots up a I) If you contribute $50 or more, you will pact, produced to the same standards of schoolyard or hamburger stand, it's splash­ be sent a Progress Report in the Fall of excellence as commercials for cars, cereal. ed all over the evening news, and the cries 1989, and another in mid-1990, to keep you beer, and other consumer goods. They can't for gun control grow more intense. Every posted on how much has been raised and be the same old shoestring-budget "talking time someone is shown huddling over a spent. If support is insufficient to justify its head" spots that Libertarians have been heat vent to keep warm, the advocates of continuation, we will terminate this project producing and running for years. socialized housing gain ground. and funds on hand will be disbursed to TV does not lend itself well to lengthy, Second, we must start accumulating $50-and-up contributors on a pro-rata basis. funds to buy control of a TV network! This complex, cerebral arguments. The typical 2) Those who contribute $500 or more will take a vast amount of money, but it's TV news story is about 90 seconds long, and will be consulted on an ongoing basis, and, not impossible. Broadcast TV has fallen on relies primarily on visuals. It is the absolute if they wish, will be listed on UBER/TV's hard times in recent years, as viewers are antithesis of the abstract, verbal style that Board of Advisors. most Libertarians are comfortable with. being lost to cable ... while the art of leveraged buyouts has been greatly refined. Your support is needed! Please send We may be five to ten years away from your contribution today. realizing this goal, but if we start now, it's not unattainable. By its nature, TV focuses on the here­ UBER/TV is being established to start and-now. It can show Lee lacocca asking the ball rolling on these two projects. Congress to bail out Chrysler, but it can't During 1989, we will simply accumulate David F. Nolan show the enterprises that don't exist be­ funds; expenses will be kept to a minimum. Chairman, UBER/TV cause the Feds sucked up investment capital to keep inefficient companies in r------, business. LIBER/TV Likewise, TV reporters can interview Suite 101-358 4330 Barranca Parkway Irvine, CA 92714 people who have been harmed by Thalido­ mide, but they can't interview those who Yes! I agree that we need to get our ideas on TV! Enclosed is my contribution died because the drug that would have of $ _ saved them was kept unavailable by the FDA. (Make checks payable to UBER/TV)

And TV news increasingly dominates the NAME ADDRESS _ electoral process. The three major TV net­ works effectively define who is a "real" and CITY _ STATE ZIP _ "serious" candidate. By simply ignoring I would especially like to see ads on the following topics: Libertarians. they shut us out of the nation­ al consciousness. Then, having done so, they can conspire on Election Night to black out any reporting of the Libertarian vote ... L J and get away with it! UNDER '"THE HEELOF'A ~MES THE WAR ON ITJS A BIG GOVERNMENT CAPABLE DRUGS \NORRIES ME: mE PRoBLEM. YOU HAVE TO KEEP IN OFCREATING AND B'U-iONS OF TAX DOLlARS) MIND "THE VISION OF A MA'NTAINING IT? War on TRAMPLING ON R'GHTS" DRUG-FREE SOCIETY: CONFlSCA110N LAWS ZERO Wlffi~ mG.IVE SOMETIiING OY'u.gs- '"TOLERANCE) ARMED FoRAVS.- t TO GET SOMETHING. quid :;7~· ffi Ifj ~ffi ~ ~~ pro ~~ ffi e§f W

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WHAT IS PEACE? NO I MEAN PEACE lA'I Peace­ Ii. PERSONAL LEVEL TIEI~M~ -INNER PEACE. BURONS pLtbUc BETWEEN WARS. ~-~ and ~) ffi ~ €f) I-I«ppy J.(ou,. at private Q IDunge heal' the Capitol IT, W W, fi •••AND ~EN EVERYONE INNER PEACE IS ELSE SiOPS iRVING WHEN EVERYTHING IS 'TO CHANGE Ir. FINAL.LY M( WAY••• I CAN IDENTIFY by Bob Ortin r: WiTIi'THAl: ~) ~ ~ffi ffi ...... ;

~. ~ ~'n ~ ~ Wa.r on DrlAgs -the 3" solutIon tl E, ~ NO SWEAT. 1'00MANY LEG- ALL-rnOSE DEA~S YOU MEAN iOTA\.VICTORY ISLATORS USE100MUCH FROM ILLEGAL DRUGS IN "THE WAR ON DRUGS BUT IFTHIS IS i1-lE 3% AL.COHOl. AND1'OBACCO. -IT'S DEPRESSING. WILl STOP ONLY 3% OF WAR) WHAT'LL THE DRUG-RELATED DEATHS? WAR ON THE OTHER ANDTHEYtLNE~ ~ IT~ ONLY 3%OF~ 97% BE L.IKE?!! WAR ON iliEMSELVES? 1'OTAL DEA'THS FROM ALCOI-OLAAD"TOBACCO. )AcruAllY. IT'S 2.5%. )~y. ~ ~ffi tff) ~ "'-ffi 00 ~ "ffi-- N'n TI IT'n Yl E~ tl R, \ill 28 Liberty Discussion Open vs Closed Libertarianism by John Hospers

No matter how promising the libertarian idea may be, it has yet to yield univer­ sal agreement, even among libertarians. Prof. Hospers explores a fundamental divergence in libertarian thinking.

We have all been involved from time to time in discussions on social and political issues-punishment, welfare, firearms, defense, and countless others. On some of these, but not all, there is a distinctively libertarian position. Sometimes it strikes people as extreme, and they're inclined to reject it out of hand because it contradicts what is vaguely called "common sense." But sometimes they What the open system and closed them without warning-at least we stay with it long enough to see the system libertarians say differs from should wait until the economy is freer rationale of the position. issue to issue, and one could be open on and jobs are more easily available. It's I have found, in trying to present one topic and closed on another. Let me all right to be pure, but don't go pure the libertarian position on various is­ begin with an example. Most libertari­ right away no matter what the circum­ sues, that libertarians do not always ans-open or closed-agree with Ayn stances. And so on for other issues-let speak with one voice; different views Rand's statement that no human foreign aid peter out gradually rather keep emerging under the libertarian being's life should be a non-voluntary than cause huge dislocations by cutting label. mortgage on the life of another. This it off at once, and so on. First, there are those who take cer­ statement has vast implications: for ex­ Neither of these alternatives is a tain principles-not always the same ample, that no one may deal with an­ strict consequence of the Randian prin­ ones-that they believe to be libertari­ other by force, for force is opposed to ciple, which does not entail that the an, and attempt rigidly to deduce con­ voluntariness; and that there should be welfare system must be totally abol­ sequences from them, which they apply no government welfare programs, for ished at once. All that Rand's principle strictly and without exception. This I'll such programs do make one life mort­ implies is that in an ideal system there call closed libertarianism-because it gaged non-voluntarily to another. would be no system of state welfare, treats libertarianism as a system closed Should this principle be implement­ and none would have started. It doesn't to new experience. Its theory is "pure as ed immediately? A closed libertarian tell you specifically what to do to cor­ the driven snow," without any contami­ would likely say that government wel­ rect past errors. It doesn't logically nation from other theories or historic fare payments should simply be imply either that you should put it into events. stopped, period-the sooner evil is practice at once, whatever the condi­ There are also those who either in­ checked the better. An open libertarian, tions, or that you should phase the sys­ terpret the principles more liberally or on the other hand, probably would not tem out gradually. You need other permit a certain latitude in their appli­ put the draconian change into effect premises to derive either of these cation. These libertarians sometimes suddenly: many people would starve, conclusions. find the "closed" libertarian view too there would be riots in the cities that extreme. This view we may call open li­ would take more money to quell than Consent bertarianism, because it is open to expe­ the welfare would cost; or, it would be When you become a member of the rience and external theories. (Open unfair to terminate at once something Libertarian Party you sign a statement libertarianism may still be pure as the on which people's expectations are that you do not advocate the initiation driven snow: it has just drifted a bit.) based, pulling the rug out from under of force in achieving your goals. Besides Liberty 29 Volume 2, Number 6 Jul 1989 being a bit vague (when are you initiat­ think of it, neither did you or 1. We may ing to indicate otherwise. ing? and what kind of force? etc.), the have voted for the candidate who is But unfortunately most cases in statement is negative. A positive one now in office, but there are endless de­ which implicit consent is alleged are would be what we may call the Princi­ tails of the rules that govern us that we not this clear-cut. John Locke thought ple of Consent. Ayn Rand said, "In any didn't consent to, and didn't even know that continued residence in a country enterprise involving more than one per­ about. We may approve having legisla­ constituted consent to its laws. Most son, the voluntary consent of all parties tive, executive, and judicial branches of commentators on Locke, however, have is required." Many persons indeed government, but I don't remember not found this very plausible. The resi­ would say that this is the central tenet of being asked about this, or consenting to dents of East Berlin didn't consent to libertarianism. it. Neither of course did we consent to being there when the wall prevented We often employ this principle in most of the conditions under which we them from moving west. And there are our dealings with others. If you take live-to be born at this place and at this many other cases: did you implicitly someone's belongings without his or her time, of these parents, under these social consent to support your children by the consent, that's theft; if the person volun­ conditions, or indeed to be born at all. It act of having them? If a man and tarily gives it to you, that's a gift. Con­ would be absurd to require consent to woman live together for years unmar­ sent transforms the first into the second. all these things, most of which occurred ried, and ten years later the man finds Consent is what transforms rape into or­ under conditions quite outside our con­ someone else and kicks the woman out, dinary sexual intercourse. Consider also trol. The scope of consent must be nar­ couldn't she claim (though they never the quick answer given (not merely by rowed-at least to the kind of situation discussed such a possibility) that there libertarians) to such questions as the fol­ in which choice is possible. was an implicit agreement that the in­ lowing: Is it all right for someone to play But in whatever way we try to do come they had earned together be­ a tape all night long in your bedroom this, the problem of consent to govern­ longed to them jointly? They shared while you're asleep, without your per­ ment rears its head again: we feel that in their incomes; they had a joint checking mission? No, for you didn't consent. Is it something that affects our lives so con­ account, and there were other pooling all right for someone to try an experi­ stantly and profoundly, we should have arrangements between them. Does all ment on you that involves some risk? a choice; if we shouldn't subject our­ this show that there was an implicit Again, not without your prior voluntary selves to surgery without our prior con­ consent to continue the arrangement, consent. sent, what about the coercive actions of and to make reparations if one of them But now let's consider this case: The government that affect all of us con­ discontinued it? It's not very clear ex­ murderer didn't consent to be tried or stantly? And this of course is the old actly what ifanything was implicitly con­ imprisoned. Perhaps we should put a problem that has divided libertarians sented to, and courts are still divided qualification into the principle such as from the outset. Following the Principle on this. My point is merely that implicit "unless he has violated the rights of oth­ of Consent, it would seem that closed li­ consent is a ticklish business. There are ers," and then we have to enter the for­ bertarians must be anarchists, because plausible cases of implicit consent, but bidding domain of rights in order to even limited government violates the in the critical case, consent to govern­ determine what kinds of acts constitute Principle of Consent. ment itself, implicit consent doesn't rights-violations and why. Or perhaps Let me mention two ways to try to seem very plausible at all. 1 another qualifier will do. (More on this get around this: 2. You can also take another line: in a moment.) 1. We could say that we gave implicit you can agree that government violates This case, however, opens up a consent. There is, surely, such a thing as the Principle of Consent, but contend much larger problem. Not only did the implicit consent. If you knew that your that this is not the only principle with murderer not consent to be punished, he next door neighbor was dropping his ex­ didn't even consent to the government which our moral arsenal should be under which he lives. And come to cess soil onto your yard from his own, stocked-and that one of the things we and you saw him do this and did noth­ have to do is to adjudicate among differ­ ing to stop him, not even saying one ent principles when they come into con­ I LOVE MY COUNTRY BUT word, one might well say that you im­ flict with each other. Possible examples I FEAR MY GOVERNMENT plicitly consented to his doing it, and are: the Harm Principle (do not know­ had no cause to complain about it after­ ingly harm others), the Principle of Jus­ T.;Shirts - $8 Sweatshirts - $16 wards. Or, if you hire someone to mow tice (treat others in accord with their Bumperstickers ­ your lawn every Saturday afternoon, deserts), and the Principle of Fair Play $2 each or 4 for $5 and have paid the person regularly for (mutuality of restrictions: if A may not Also Available: • I. three months each week after he's fin­ do X to B, B in similar circumstances Capitalism • Who is ished, and today he goes ahead and may not do X to A). Following this line, John Galt? • John Galt for President • Escape the fog: Objectivism • mows your lawn when you're not at the Consent Principle is not sufficient by I Think: Therefore I can't be a Socialist • home and then asks for his pay, and you itself, and sometimes one or more of the Silk screened with top quality Materials say '1 didn't consent to your doing it other principles may outweigh it; and Sizes: M,L,XL Blue or Pink this Saturday," he might well say that when it does, the consent of each party Please add $2.50 postage and handling for T-shirts and sweatshirts; 50¢ for stickers you implicitly consented, because a pat­ is not required. When justice transcends For more information and quantity price list, tern has been established for every Sat­ consent, the murderer need not consent send stamped, self addressed envelope to: urday afternoon even though nothing to his own arrest and punishment. Individual Concepts PO Box 40486, Redford, MI48240 was stated explicitly, and you did noth- (There are many, often overlapping, Please allow 2 to 4 weeks for delivery. Volume 2, Number 6 Jul 1989 ways in which to try to handle this kind there might be oil). Had he known he company, which no longer wanted the of situation.) 2 could have sold the land for $10,000 an ties, sued for breach of contract, saying acre. There was concealment of informa­ ''It was in the contract that you had to Consent and Contract tion, but no fraudulent claims. We ship from Glasgow and you didn't do It is not my present purpose to enter might be a bit more uncomfortable it." And according to the explicit terms again the controversy about limited gov­ about this one, because of the conceal­ of the contract, the company was right. ernment and no government. What I ment; still, does the buyer have to dis­ Vet the court decreed that the contract want to do is raise some issues other close all information (all "relevant" had been fulfilled, because the presumed than consent to government, that liber­ information? and what does that in­ intent of the shipper was to get the ties tarians do not seem to discuss very clude?)--even what wasn't asked for? It to their destination as soon as possible, much. I shall assume that there exists a would seem that there is no violation of and this intent was fulfilled. system of law, but will ask in specific contract here. 7. Let's try one with a different cases what it should and shouldn't be. 4. Brown contracts to ship for Green twist. Vou are struggling in the quick­ I'll do this briefly in three areas, de­ a cargo on the ship Peerless, and does. sand, and someone comes with a large signed to bring out the differences be­ But unknown to. either of them there tree branch to get you out; as you grasp tween open and closed libertarians. First are two ships, both with the same for it, he says, "Not so fast; I want you I shall continue with the to sign over to me all concept of consent; your possessions, second, privacy; and and then I'll rescue third, risk and Implicit consent is a ticklish business. There are you." You agree, be­ endangerment. plausible cases of implicit consent, but in the critical lieving it's better to Contract would seem case, consent to government itself, implicit consent be poor than dead. to be the clearest and Vet no court in the simplest example of con­ doesn't seem very plausible at all. land would honor sent: a contract should such a contract; be enforced if both sides why? voluntarily consented to its terms. But name. Brown shipped on the one, and (a) The very fact that such a contract some problems arise even here as we Green expected the shipment on the was agreed to at all could be taken as a progress from the simplest to more com­ other. Nothing in the contract allowed sign of mental impairment: "he'd have plex cases: 3 for such a misunderstanding. Neither to be crazy to do that," "He wasn't in his 1. Smith sells a violin to Jones. Jones party really violated the contract, yet it right mind," etc, and a person who is thinks it's a Stradivarius and pays a con­ was not fulfilled. The court merely tried non compos mentis can't sign valid con­ siderable price for it. Smith makes no to resolve the misunderstanding in a tracts. Courts do sometimes employ this claims for it. Later Jones discovers that way that didn't hurt either party too device. But what if there is no evidence it's not a Stradivarius, and demands his much. of mental impairment, much less of in­ money back. 5. A contractor agreed to build an sanity? The person would just rather be If Smith had made this claim for it, apartment building at a certain location. alive and poor than rich and dead. Isn't the contract would be fraudulent. But He encountered swampy terrain; every that perfectly rational. Let's consider an­ that is not so in this case; Smith is under time he made headway on the building other way: no obligation to return any of Jones' it collapsed in the muck. Finally he left (b) Such a contract could be held to money. the scene and said that the task was im­ be coercive, and coercive contracts are 2. White sells Black a house. Black possible. The owner of the land sued not voluntarily arrived at. If you do buys it because it's next to a vacant lot, him for breach of contract. The judge something in response to a gunman's so he has a nice view. Later White, who went along with the contractor, saying orders while a gun is held at your back, also owns the vacant lot, builds a house that he was excused from the terms of you are not (as a rule) held legally li­ on it. Black claims he wouldn't have the contract because it was simply im­ able for what you were forced to do, bought the house but for the vacant lot. possible to live up to its terms. (Yet this and .any agreement made under such However, Black has no comeback here; wasn't allowed for in the written con­ conditions is not binding. But is the the vacant lot was not part of the agree­ tract, which didn't say "x agrees to present example one of coercion? Coer­ ment. (Even if White said at the time of build unless .. ." But neither did it say cion is a slippery concept. 4 The gun­ sale that· he intended to keep the lot va­ "x agrees to build whatever the condi­ man example is a classic case of cant, and later built on it saying "I've tion of the subsurface ...") coercion, yet some have said of it ''You changed my mind," the va€ant lot was 6. An American railroad company voluntarily agreed to give your money still no part of the contract.) ordered a shipment of railroad ties from rather than your life; that's what you 3. An oil company buys land from a Scotland via the nearest port, Glasgow, willingly agreed to do under the cir­ farmer at $1,000 per acre, and the farmer and the port of shipment was given in cumstances. All the gunman did was willingly sells. Later it turns out that the contract. The shipper couldn't ship limit your choices a bit." Yet there are there was oil under his land. The oil from Glasgow because of a strike, and countless cases of one's choices being company knew this but said nothing; shipped from Aberdeen instead, absorb­ limited which would not usually be the farmer, on the other hand, didn't ask ing the cost of extra transportation and considered coercion. An unemployed about this (it didn't occur to him that delivering the ties on time. The railroad man reluctantly accepts a job at

Liberty 31 Volume 2, Number 6 Jul 1989 starvation wages, because no one else operating on him anyway, for his own a judgment about the disposition of an­ within a thousand miles can use his good, saying that he doesn't realize how other's life is upsetting to libertarians; it skills at the moment; socialists call this much freer and happier he will be after­ strikes at the personal responsibility that a "coercive contract," though libertari­ ward. "The correction of his condition," is central to libertarian thought. The ans deny that it is coercive, claiming writes Dr. Vernon Mark, "will give him show-stopper is that sometimes there that it was voluntary on both sides. more rather than less control over his isn't much of a person left with which to A mother says to her daughter of own behavior. It enhances, and does not make any decision. marriageable age, "If you don't marry diminish, his dignity and his humani­ One constantly does things on behalf this man you'll never get a penny from ty." 5 I think the libertarian position of children, protecting them from dan­ me, and you have no other means of would be, even if we are all sure that he ger, by force if necessary. And many support." Assume that the daughter is would be happier or better off after the elderly people are in the same situation unattractive (unlikely to get other offers) surgery, the operation should not be as children. The old lady has rather lost and somewhat mentally retarded, and performed without his consent: it's for her moorings; sitting alone in her apart­ that there is no public welfare, so she him and him alone to decide. ment, she thinks she is somewhere else; could well starve if she goes against her So far so good. But now consider a she recognizes no one and relies on her mother's wishes. The girl hates and pedestrian who suffered brain damage children to feed and clothe her. On her fears the man. Shall we say that under when the car ran over his head. The in­ own, she would not survive. Perhaps the circumstances she was forced to obey surance company contacted him at once her one strong desire is to remain in her her mother's demand? Or should we and he agreed to settle the case for house of 40 years. But there is no way to say that she voluntarily agreed (and if $1,000. But he didn't have much of a enable her to do this. Ifothers don't tend so isn't this straining the meaning of brain left with which to make the deci­ to her needs, she dies. And she is una­ "voluntary")? In common everyday par­ sion. Would a libertarian be committed ble to consent to (or for that matter to re­ lance we would usually say "Her moth­ to saying, "Well, it was his decision, and ject) the moves necessary to keep her er made her do it." Was it like the he consented, so that's final"? alive. gunman case, enough to be placed As we pursue this line of argument, In a Massachusetts case a few years under the same heading, or not? And we seem to encounter no end of situa­ ago, a man of 60 was terminally ill with should the quicksand case be labeled co­ tions similar to the one just described. leukemia. The question arose whether ercive just because both alternatives are What of a person who literally doesn't he should be given chemotherapy to rather unpleasant? Is it a case of being know what he's doing? What of a per­ halt the disease-treatment involving forced, or of voluntary bargaining? son who is extremely stupid, and can't pain, nausea, and in his case only about We often agree to conditions we dis­ anticipate or control events in his own a 30% chance of success. He was totally like because we see the incapable of under­ alternatives as being standing the situation worse. There is a "slip­ The idea of letting one person make a judgment or making choices. He pery slope" here: if you had no family to make say that a man's agree­ about the disposition of another's life is upsetting to li­ the decision for him. ment to work at semi­ bertarians; it strikes at the personal responsibility that But the judge said that starvation wages (be­ he had the same right cause there are no other is central to libertarian thought. The show-stopper is as a competent person jobs available within a that sometimes there isn't much of a person left with to forego treatment or thousand miles) is which to make any decision. not. So the judge em- coerced, what is to stop ployed "substituted you from saying "I'm judgment"-that is, being coerced into working five days a life? What of someone who suffers from what would a competent person have week at the office" because you share advanced senility or Alzheimer's dis­ chosen if he had understood the situa­ with others the human condition of hav­ ease, and can't make any decisions, and tion? The judge, substituting his judg­ ing to work to stay alive? Wherever we people who don't even know where ment for the patient's, decided that he draw the line with coercion, surely it they are or whom they are with? would not undergo the chemotherapy. 6 should not have the outcome that practi­ People are constantly declared men­ In a subsequent case in the same cally everything we do is coerced. tally incompetent without their consent. state, a girl was born with multiple birth Before concluding with consent, let And libertarians rightly object to the in­ defects, including severe mental retarda­ me consider a few cases that don't in­ justice of this: many people lose their tion and total blindness and deafness. volve contract. bank account, their homes, their rights An operation for removing some of the A man has violent epilepsy caused under the law, because a judge declares defects would have a 40% chance of suc­ by an abnormal brain condition. A brain them non compos mentis. Still, the judge's ceeding. The hospital was afraid of a operation would correct the condition. If pronouncement is not usually an act of lawsuit, and asked a judge to decide. he says yes, you may operate, there is no cruelty or sadism; it is a response to a The judge decided that the operation problem about consent. If he says no, problem. The problem is that the person should be performed, and it was suc­ don't operate, libertarians would say is no longer capable of estimating the cessful-thus saddling the parents with that the operation should not be per­ consequences of her actions. the lifelong job of caring for this child, formed. Some physicians would favor The idea of letting one person make when they already had other children

32 Liberty Volume 2, Number 6 Jul 1989 whom they had a difficult time support­ sent is an invasion of your privacy. But from secret drawers, can reproduce ing. 7 The legal difference between the more usually, privacy is defined in them in court, and by which it will be two cases was: in the first, there was a terms of information about you which enabled to expose to a jury the most inti­ substituted judgment, which applies you may not wish others to possess, as­ mate occurrences of the home. Advanc­ only when the condition is terminal, and pects of your personal life which (it is es in the psychic and related sciences it permits life-sustaining treatment to be felt) you are entitled to keep to yourself may bring means of exploring discontinued; it does not allow life­ if you choose, and which others may not unexpressed beliefs, thoughts, and emo­ saving treatment to be withheld. The sec­ bandy about without your consent. tions ... Can it be that the Constitution ond case was not terminal, and indeed Invasion of privacy must be distin­ affords no protection against such inva­ the baby did survive the operation, guished from defamation (libel and sion ofindividual security?" 10 though with handicaps so enormous slander). In defamation, a person must The life of an astronaut in space has that most of us would rather not be alive intentionally and maliciously say or virtually no privacy: even his bodily than to live in that condition. In either write something false about you, and functions are monitored. But of course case, there is no possibility of choice by thereby cause you damage. In invasion he consents to all this before he decides the person whose life is to become an astro­ at stake. If a closed li­ naut. By contrast, bertarian insists on vol­ We must be quite sure what is to count as being being subjected to elec­ untary consent as defensive and offensive. Very often a person thinks tronic surveillance being necessary in surely is an invasion of every case, the going he's defending himself when everyone around him a person's privacy if gets pretty rough. considers his act to be one of offense. he or she hasn't con- sented to it. Being Privacy bugged is about as What should libertarians say about of privacy, nothing false need be said; clear an invasion of privacy as one could privacy? The Constitution doesn't men­ all that is required is that your privacy cite. Should all such actions therefore be tion it at all, but some of the amend­ be invaded. But there is much disagree­ prohibited by law? Most libertarians ments do protect privacy in different ment about what that comes to in specif­ have the impulse to say yes, and per­ ways. The first amendment permits free ic cases. A millionaire tries to keep his haps they are right. But consider: if your association, protecting your "private wife's suicide out of the newspapers, life hung in the balance, would you still space" against those who would invade but doesn't succeed because "news want to honor the person's privacy? it; the third amendment protects against comes first." A father whose six-year­ What if there was a plot against your life the quartering of soldiers in private old daughter was mangled by a passing and the only way to prevent being mur­ homes; the fourth amendment protects car tried to keep the daughter's picture dered was to get the incriminating evi­ privacy by prohibiting unreasonable out of the paper but didn't succeed; dence by electronic surveillance? Are searches and seizures of persons, hous­ though years later, when an organiza­ you still sure you would oppose the sur­ es, papers, and effects. tion devoted to automotive safety used veillance-under all conditions? Before What is the importance of privacy? the same picture on a poster to warn pe­ accepting a general rule, test it on the Why do we value it? It is intimately destrians, he sued them for invasion of most difficult cases. Isn't the reason the bound up with our dignity as human privacy and won. 9 law admits some cases of invasion of beings, with the respect owed by one Some libertarians allege that privacy privacy-the safety of others-at least person to another. "Privacy," writes requires protection only when there is a sometimes valid? Charles Fried, "provides us the context violation of another right (already pro­ Sometimes the law respects your pri­ for many of our most significant ends, tected by law), property rights. Thus, vacy and sometimes not, and sometimes such as love, trust, friendship, respect; it others can examine your private papers the law in one state is at odds with the is a necessary element in these relations; by breaking into your home, but this ac­ law in another. Everywhere in the Unit­ without privacy they are inconceivable. tion is already prohibited by laws pro­ ed States you can find out who's in jail A threat to privacy is a threat to our in­ tecting property rights. It would seem, by dialing a certain telephone number­ tegrity as persons ... Privacy is the nec­ however, that there are examples of in­ you are told what they're accused of essary atmosphere for these attitudes vasion of privacy that are not violations and when they are to appear in court. and actions, as oxygen is for of property rights: you can hear people's All this is public knowledge, along with combustion." 8 conversations without trespassing on the contents of any trial. The accused There is some disagreement as to their property; you can stand in the has not consented to all this, but it is how privacy should be defined. Some street and with proper equipment can considered important for anyone who philosophers of law contend that what record everything that is said in the liv­ wants it to have this kind of informa­ defines privacy is that there are limits to ing room. Interestingly, this result was tion. Thus people who have knowledge the access which others should have to anticipated more than 150 years ago by of a certain case can come forward and observe or perceive you~ven repre­ John Marshall, first Chief Justice of the testify, and one is guaranteed that there sentations of you: thus, someone may Supreme Court, when he wrote, in a re­ will be no secret trials. not without your consent take a picture markably prescient passage: "Ways may But what a defendant says to his at­ of you and feature it on the cover of a some day be developed by which the torney is legally protected magazine-doing this without your con- Government, without removing papers ("privileged"): he can confess to

Liberty 33 Volume 2, Number 6 Jul 1989 multiple murders and be confident that be." Her apartment was not entered, As a rule we sue people only for damag­ his attorney will never tell a soul. His and the sound-waves were recorded out es or injury when these have occurred, position is rather like that of a priest in in the hall, not in her living room. In any not when they might have occurred but relation to his confessor: no matter what usual sense there appears to be no viola­ didn't. And so the closed libertarian the confessor says, the priest is sworn to tion of property rights. Are we quite says, "No fine and no punishment un­ silence. sure that we want her to have no re­ less the damage has actually been More controversial is the relation be­ course against such snoopers? Or per­ done." But the open libertarian says, tween physician and patient. New York haps that we do want her to· have it? ''Not so fast-it should also be punisha­ was the first state-in 1828-to guaran­ Which shall we decide? ble to engage in very dangerous tee confidentiality in the physician­ And here emerges a curious situa­ activities." patient relationship. The theory was that tion: closed libertarians can take either It may seem that if we make this if a patient was not guaranteed that his of two opposed positions on privacy, move, we are muddying the clear wa­ communication with his physician depending on whose interests they most ters of libertarian thought. Do we want would be kept confidential by the physi­ want to protect. If you have a right to to ban dangerous activities like moun­ cian, the patient would stay away from privacy, then the person who invades tain-climbing? But mountain-climbing is physicians and his something people do health would suffer. I voluntarily in full suspect that this deci­ Though slogans may win quick converts, these knowledge of the dan­ sion was never more ger. What about one's appropriate than in converts may find a principle attractive on Tuesday, actions constituting a today's controversy and drop it for a different one on Wednesday. We must danger to others-<>r about requiring physi­ even being reasonably cians to report AIDS be always inquiring, always probing, testing our most perceived as doing so? cases. satisfying formulations. Only then will our movement A woman is walking In 34 states, physi­ become what Anatole France once described as Ifa mo­ along a city street, and cian-patient communi­ she notices a man be- cations are privileged. ment in the conscience of man." hind her. She turns When a passenger in a into a small empty New York taxicab false- street, but he turns be- ly claimed whiplash, and sued the cab the privacy of the ex-opera star is a hind her also. She would like to call the company, his physician was not permit­ rights-violator; a person's privacy police, but even if they were there what ted to testify in the case, although one should be protected, and wherever ex­ would be the charge? He hasn't harmed sentence from him would have thrown actly the line is, no one may cross it. On h~r. Harassment? He hasn't done even out the whole case. That sentence was, the other hand, you might see the issue that (and libertarians don't like harass­ "I've been treating this man for sciatica from the point of view of the other per­ ment laws anyway). He has the same for two years." son: he can say whatever he likes about right to walk the streets that she has. In New York, communications with the ex-opera star, he can record her de­ Maybe he wasn't going to bother her at physicians, psychologists, and dentists caying voice without her permission all. Nothing has happened yet. Perhaps are privileged. Communications with and even sell the unauthorized record­ it will; but until that happens he's not nurses are privileged in Arkansas. In ings-all these are part of his freedom to guilty of anything. 12 New Jersey communications with physi­ act in accordance with his judgment, Still, let's think about it some more. cians are not privileged-physicians and if her feelings are hurt or her priva­ It's illegal to drive on the left side of the must answer court questions- but com­ cy intruded upon, that's just tough road (in a nation with right-side driving munications with newspaper reporters luck-she would have the same right to laws) with two-way traffic, or to drive are privileged. In Georgia and Tennes­ do it to someone else. 100 miles per hour in a residential zone. see, physicians must tell all about their The open libertarian need not decide To do these things is extremely risky, patients in court, but psychologists may between these polar opposites. He will and a person can be arrested for doing not do so. 11 say, as usual, that there is no simple them even though no injury or damage A politician can't claim invasion of general answer that can be given in ad­ has yet occurred in the particular case. privacy because he sought the job that vance: you have to learn the specific de­ And let's ask: aren't you sort of glad involves the publicity; he can sue for tails of the individual case and then they are prohibited? Would you really libel if falsely accused, but invasion of balance the one general principle prefer it if starting today people could his privacy "goes with the turf." Here, against the other in order to decide. This drive on whatever side of·the street however, is a former opera superstar is a messy and often indecisive proce­ they liked? Aren't you glad that if the whose voice has declined with the years dure, of course, and is one reason bridge is out there has to be a warning and she no longer wants to be listened (though again an inconclusive one) why of this? and that there have to be signs to; she sings only behind closed doors. closed libertarians don't like it. at railroad crossings? and that the use But her neighbor trains an amplifier on of dangerous but necessary chemicals, her apartment door and listens and Risk such as those used in fumigation, is rig­ records and publishes, the general To live at all is a risk. You take a risk idly controlled, and that some, like the theme being "she ain't what she used to when you cross the street or the lawn. plastic explosives that destroyed Pan

34 Liberty Volume 2, Number 6 Jul 1989 Am 103 in December 1988, are prohibit­ small nuclear bombs in your basement, was no doubt that Hal Crane had the ed entirely? Yet all these are cases of or perhaps carry them around in your strength to carry out his fantasies. stopping people from causing damage briefcase, so that if someone bothers "Any people in particular?" Dr. or injury before they have done it. you you can eliminate him with de­ Wolfe asked. And what of attempts that don't suc­ spatch? How about keeping a supply of 'Women. Girls about my age. Maybe their early twenties." poison gas onhand? ceed? Smith plants a bomb in Jones' bed, "But no one you're personally ac­ set to go off at 2am, and it does, but Some libertarians have expressed quainted with." Jones happens to stay away that night. the following view: you can have any "That's right. Just girls I see walking Should Smith be liable only for damage weapon at all provided that you use it down the street or getting off a bus. I to Jones' room? Or: Brown pulls the trig­ only defensively; you may not use any have a tremendous urge to stick a ger, intending to kill Black, but un­ weapon, not even a butcher knife, or knife into them and feel the blood known to Brown someone has your own body as in martial arts, offen­ corne out on my hands." substituted blanks for bullets in the gun, sively. Of course we must be quite sure ''But you've never done anything like that?" so Black is unharmed. Some libertarians what is to count as being defensive and offensive: very often a person thinks Crane shook his head. ''No, but I'm have held that there should be no penal­ afraid I might." he's defending himself when everyone ty for unsuccessful attempts. 13 Do you Dr. Wolfe considered Crane a para­ agree? around him considers his act to be one noid schizophrenic, who might possi­ And then there's conspiracy to com­ of offense. bly act out his fantasies. He was a mit a crime. A man plans a crime with­ In any case, is this view acceptable? walking time-bomb. out actually wielding a knife or a gun, It's rather embarrassing that practically 'Would you be willing to take my ad­ like Charles Manson; he is the mind, the every weapon that can be used for de­ vice and put yourself in a hospital others are his arms and legs. But he fense can also be used for offense, so under my care for a while?" ''1 don't want to do that," Crane said. doesn't take any overt actions. Should every weapon is liable to misuse. This "I don't want to be locked up like an he be legally guilty of anything? Many unfortunate fact makes it much more difficult to stake out a clear legal posi­ animal." libertarians say no. They contend that "But you don't really want to hurt others are free to accept or reject his sug­ tion. Suppose you have an aggressive other people, do you?" gestion-that he only planted ideas in paranoid neighbor who acts first and "I guess not," Crane said. "But I their minds, that it's their responsibility thinks afterwards. He manufactures poi­ haven't done anything yet." alone if they carry them out. Yet, it son gas with which to kill anyone who "But you might," Dr. Wolfe said. would seem, he is as much a cause of might trespass six inches on his side of ''I'm afraid you might let yourself go the crime as the ones who carry it out. the property line. Don't you rather want and kill someone." Crane smiled. "That's just the chance And his intention is just as evil. If you to prevent him from engaging in this ac­ tivity rather than try to stop him after he the world will have to take, isn't it? I were the intended victim ofa conspiracy told you I'm not going to let myself be to kill you, would you not consider it fit­ uses it, if you're still around? Of course, we may say, his behavior is risky to locked up." 14 ting to have your conspiratorial assai­ I daresay that most libertarians, lant arrested, assuming his role in the himself also: depending on how the wind blows, he's as likely to get it back though feeling a certain mental discom­ crime could be proved? fort about this case, would decide that The gun-control issue hinges on the in his face as to kill you with it. But he might not care about that; he might be he shouldn't be incarcerated-he hasn't question of degree of risk. Having guns more interested in getting you than in done anything yet, and he might never is dangerous: you might shoot someone preserving himself; many people de­ do so, and to lock up people for what by accident, a child might get hold of stroy their own lives if in doing so they you think they might do is the hallmark the weapon, and so on. Yet if someone is can destroy the lives of others. Can there of a police state. threatening to use force against you, be defense against this, short of waiting I agree with this, but I would still ask threatening that person with a gun may for the fatal act? Or should we compro­ a couple of questions: (1) Can extremely be the only way to keep him from kill­ mise our purity a bit, and legally pre­ dangerous people and conditions be tol­ ing you. It is for this reason that the vent people from using such vehicles of erated if the result is vastly increased en- founding fathers of the US guaranteed destruction at all? Isn't the use Americans the right to bear arms: no­ of some things just too risky to body should be a sitting duck in the face be tolerated? of another's violence. But that leaves important questions "Sometimes I think that unanswered. You have a right to keep what I really want to do is to kill people and drink their and bear arms-only in your home, or blood." anywhere you may happen to go, in­ Dr. Allen Wolfe looked at cluding someone else's home? And the young man in the chair which arms may you have? Does the across from him. The face Constitution entitle you to a Saturday was round and soft and in­ night special? a semi-automatic? a ma­ nocent looking, like that of a chine gun? or just some means to de­ large baby. But the body fend yourself-perhaps a butcher knife, had the powerful shoulders "Not bad, Betsy, but we wanted something more or a karate chop? Is it all right to make of a college wrestler. There forceful." Liberty 35 Volume 2, Number 6 Jul 1989 dangerment for all of us? Driving on the he creates through his present psycho­ wrong side of the road constitutes ex­ logical condition is extreme. He hasn't treme endangerment for everyone, even been convicted of a crime, so we have no How to if in a given case nobody is hurt. There's right to detain him even for purposes of no hue and cry about arresting people therapy. But if we grant him this, we for driving on the wrong side before an shall be greatly endangering ourselves. Subscribe accident occurs. Suppose now that Hal Isn't his condition his problem? Why Crane and the thousands of violence­ should we make ourselves less safe be­ to prone and hate-filled psychopaths are all cause he won't consent to therapy? freed, with the result that the streets and I raise these questions, not to get you countryside are one-tenth as safe to be in to accept a certain answer, but to get you Liberty as .they are now. Would you still favor in the habit of viewing a problem in its the same policy if the fraction were one­ full complexity before opting for some hundredth? (2) Let's suppose that psy­ neat formula that sounds attractive and Liberty celebrates the chotherapy would resolve Crane's inter­ will make thinking thereafter unneces­ diversity of libertarian nal conflict and cure his condition, but sary. I want us all to feel uncomfortable thought! that he won't consent to psychotherapy. about these cases, and not escape the May it be that we should expose him to discomfort through some easy slogan. Liberty tackles the tough problems. it anyway, for his sake and for ours? If Such a slogan may win quick converts­ Every issue of Liberty presents es­ he's cured he saves himself and who but that only gets us fair-weather says studying current trends in po­ knows how many others who might oth­ friends: they may find an inadequately litical and social thought; erwise be his victims. Closed libertarians comprehended principle attractive on discussions of the strategy and tac­ say no, we may not do it: we can't even Tuesday, and drop it for a different one tics of social change; analyses of offer him a choice, psychotherapy or de­ on Wednesday. We must be always in­ current events and challenges to tention. He'd be foolish to turn down quiring, always probing, testing our popular beliefs. Liberty also offers such a choice, perhaps, but if he does, we most satisfying formulations. Only then lively book reviews, fiction and still have no right to detain him against will our movement become what Ana­ humor. his will, not even for an hour of psycho­ tole France once described as "a moment You won't want to miss a single ­ therapy twice a week, even if the danger in the conscience of man." 0 issue! Money-Back Guarantee A somewhat different version of this article was given as a talk at the California and Nevada Libertarian Party Convention, at Las Vegas, on February 19, 1989. At any time during your subscrip­ tion, we will guarantee a full pro­ rated refund for any unmailed is­ Notes sues. No questions asked! 1. See for example A. John Simmons, Moral Principles and Political Obligation Act Today! (Princeton University Press, 1979), Chapters 3 and 4. Liberty offers you the best in liber­ 2. See Simmons, Ope cit., Chapter 4; also David Gauthier, Morals by Agreement tarian thinking and writing. So (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981). don't hesitate. With our guarantee, 3. Some of the following examples are taken from Charles Fried, Contract as you have nothing to lose, and the Promise (Harvard University Press, 1981). fruits of Liberty to gain! 4. See John Hospers, Introduction to Philosophical Analysis (Prentice-Hall, 3rd edi­ tion 1988), pp. 371-373. 5. Dr. Vernon Mark, "Brain Surgery in Aggressive Epileptics," in Ronald Mun­ .------, son, ed., Intervention and Reflection: Basic Issues in Medical Ethics (Belmont, ,Please enter my subscription Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 2nd edition 1983), Chapter 5. See also John YeS• to Liberty immediately! Kleinig, Ethical Issues in Psychosurgery (London: Allen & Unwin, 1985). 6. Arthur Miller, Miller's Court (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1982), pp. 245­ One Full Year (6 issues) $19.50 o 246. o Two Full years (12 issues) $35.00 7. Ibid., pp. 251 - 252. 8. From Charles Fried, An Anatomy ofValues. Quoted in John Arthur and William name Shaw, eds., Readings in Philosophy of Law (Prentice-Hall, 1984), p. 606. 9. See Charles Gregory and Harry Kalven, eds., Cases and Materials in Torts (Bos­ address ton: Uttle Brown &Co., 1969), p. 925. city, state, zip 10. Quoted in C. Paulsen· and S. Kadish, eds., Criminal Law and Its Processes (Bos- ton: Uttle, Brown, 1962), p. 873. o I enclose my check (payable to Liberty) o Charge my 0 VISA 0 Mastercard 11. Ronald Munson, Ope cit., p.234. 12. Arthur Miller, Ope cit., Chapter 5. 13. Randy Barnett, "A New Paradigm of Criminal Justice," in R. Barnett and J. signature Hagel, eds., Assessing the Criminal (Boston: Ballinger, 1977), Chaper 16. account # expires 14. Ronald Munson, Ope cit., p. 235. Quoted in John Hospers, Human Conduct Send to: Liberty, Dept. L12, (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, rev. ed. 1982), p. 299. L !o:"l~7.:..P~t2o::n..:e~,.:v~9!.3~.J Volume 2, Number 6 Jul 1989 History Private Lavv EnforcelUent, Medieval Iceland, and Libertarianism

The traditional history of many nations starts with a strong leader who put the country togeth­ er-Arthur, Charlemagne, George Wash­ ington. The history of Iceland also starts with a strong ruler. His name was Harald, and he ruled by David Friedman over one of the small kingdoms making up what is now Norway. After being rejected by the woman he wanted to marry on the grounds that he was too small a king, Harald swore that he would nei­ ther wash nor comb his hair until he had made celand is known to men as a land of volcanoes, himself king over all of Norway; for some years I geysers and glaciers. But it ought to be no less they called him Shaggy Harald. When he had com­ interesting to the student of history as the birth- pleted his career of conquest he washed his hair; place of a brilliant literature in poetry and everyone was impressed at how much better he prose, and as the home ofa people who have looked. He went down in Norwegian history as maintained for many centuries a high level of Haraldr inn harfagri-Harald Fairhair. What Harald established was not merely a sin­ intellectual cultivation. It is an almost unique gle monarchy over all of Norway, it was also a example of a community whose culture and monarchy with considerably more power over the creative power flourished independently of any Norwegian populace than its predecessors. The favouring material conditions, and indeed under change was not uniformly popUlar. Norwegians of conditions in the highest degree unfavourable. the ninth century had two major professions­ Nor ought it to be less interesting to the student farming and piracy. Many of those who disap­ ofpolitics and laws as having produced a Con­ proved of the change voted with their feet-or s~itution unlike any other whereof records re­ rather their oars. They loaded their longships with main, and a body of law so elaborate and their families, their retainers, and as much of their complex, that it is hard to believe that it existed stock as would fit and sailed west; by some esti­ among men whose chief occupation was to kill mates as much as ten percent of the population one another. left. Many of them went to Iceland, which had re­ cently been discovered. That is the beginning of -James Bryce, Studies in History the history of Iceland, as the Icelanders tell it. and Jurisprudence (1901), p. 263. The settlement began, according to the Iceland­ ic sources, about 870 AD. In 930 AD, the Icelanders held an assembly at which they agreed on a com­ mon legal system for the whole island. It was based on Norwegian legal traditions, with one major exception. The Icelanders decided they could do very well without a king. Liberty 37 Volume 2, Number 6 Jul 1989 The central figure in the Icelandic from all over Iceland. The Althing was sense if it is clear that the same person system was the chieftain. The Icelandic also where the legislature met and who enforced this claim would do so term was COdi, originally meaning a where cases in the four quarter courts under similar circumstances again. The pagan priest; the first chieftains were ap­ and the fifth court were tried. At each powerful individual who took over such parently entrepreneurs among the set­ Althing the lawspeaker recited a third of claims and enforced them might be a tlers who built temples for the use of the law. If he omitted something and no­ chieftain acting for one of his thingmen themselves and their neighbors and so body objected, that part of the law was or he might be merely a local farmer became local leaders. The bundle of out. Think of it as an early form of sun­ with a lot of friends; both patterns ap­ rights that made up being a chieftain set legislation. pear in the Icelandic sagas. was called a godord. A gOdord was pri­ I have described the legislature and It may help to understand the legal vate property; it could be sold, lent, in­ judicial branch of the government estab­ institutions of medieval Iceland if we herited. If you wanted to be a chieftain, lished by the Icelandic settlers but have look at them as an extreme case of some­ you. found one who was willing to sell omitted the executive. So did they. thing familiar. Our own legal system his godord, and bought it from him. The Aside from the lawspeaker there were has two kinds of law-civil and crimi­ term gOdord was also used for the group no government employees. nal. There is a sense in which civil law is of men who followed a particular You and I are Icelanders; the year is enforced privately and criminal law chieftain. 1050 AD. You cut wood in my forest. I publicly. If someone breaks your arm, What were the rights that made up sue you. The court decides in my favor, you call a policeman; if someone breaks the position of being a chieftain? One, and instructs you to pay ten ounces of a window-or a contract-you call a perhaps the most important, was the silver as damages. You ignore the ver­ lawyer. The lawyer in a civil case does, right to be the link by which ordinary dict. I go back to the court and present as an employee of the plaintiff, the same people were attached to the legal sys­ evidence that you have refused to abide things that the district attorney would tem. If you wanted to sue someone, one bythe verdict. The court declares you an do as an employee of the state. of the first questions you had to ask was outlaw. You have a few weeks to get out In medieval Iceland all law was civil. who his chieftain was. That would de­ of Iceland. When that time is over, I can The victim was responsible for enforc­ termine what court you ended up suing kill you with no legal consequences. If ing his claim, individually or with the him in-just as, in the U.S. at present, your friends try to defend you, they are assistance of others. The victim who the court you are sued in may be deter­ violating the lawand can in turn be sued. transfers his claim to some more power­ mined by what state you are a citizen of. One obvious objection to such a sys­ ful individual in exchange for half what Everyone had to be connected with a tem is that someone sufficiently power­ he is owed is like a plaintiff who agrees chieftain in order to be part of the legal ful-where power is measured by how to split the damages with his lawyer in­ system. But the link between the chief­ many friends and relatives you have, stead of paying him a fee. tain and his thingmen was a voluntary how loyal they are, and how good they It could be argued that even if this one-the chieftain, unlike a feudal lord, are at fighting-can defy the law with provides a workable way of enforcing had no claim over his the law, it is unfair. thingman's land. The Why should the vic­ thingman was free to The chief occupation of Icelanders was not killing tim of an aggressor switch his allegiance to have to give up part any chieftain willing to each other. The chief occupation was suing one anoth­ or all of the damages have him. er; the killings merely provided something to litigate owed to him in order Other rights includ­ about. to win his case? Per- ed in the gOdord were a haps it is unfair-but vote in the legislature less so than the sys­ and a hand in picking the judges (by our impunity, at least when dealing with tem under which we now live. Under standards jurymen-there were 36 on a less powerful individuals. The Icelandic our system, the victim of a civil offense, court) who decided legal cases. The system had a simple and elegant solu­ like the injured Icelander, must pay the court system had several levels, starting tion to that problem. A claim for damag­ cost of proving his case, while the victim at the thing court and going up through es was a piece of transferable property. of a criminal offense gets no damages at the quarter courts to the fifth court. If you had injured me and I was too all unless he files, and pays for, a paral­ Under the legal system set up in 930, weak to enforce my claim, I could sell or lel civil suit. the 'government' of Iceland had one give it to someone stronger. It was then Because the Icelandic system relies part-time employee. He was called the in his interest to enforce the claim in entirely on private enforcement, it can lawspeaker and was elected (by the in­ order both to collect the damages and to be seen as a system of civil law expand­ habitants of one quarter, chosen by lot) establish his own reputation for use in ed to include what we think of as crimi­ for a three-year term. His job was to pre­ future conflicts. nal offenses. It is similar to our civil law side over the legislature, memorize the The victim, in such a situation, gives in another sense as well. Under our sys­ law, give legal advice, and, during the up part or all of the damages, but he tem, the loser of a civil case typically, al­ course of his three years, recite the en­ gets something more important in ex­ though not inevitably, ends up paying tire law code aloud once. The recitation change-a demonstration that anyone money damages to the winner; the loser took place at the Althing-an annual as­ who injures him will pay for it. The of a criminal case typically ends up with sembly, lasting two weeks, of people point is made in a more permanent a non-monetary payment, such as a jail

38 Liberty Volume 2, Number 6 Jul 1989 term or, in extreme cases, execution. all justifications, such as self-defense, kill more men than they can afford. Under the Icelandic system the typical that might make your action legal. Even when the system appears to be settlement was a cash payment to the One question which naturally arises breaking down, it is still assumed that victim or his heirs. The alternative, if in reading a description of the Icelandic every enemy killed must eventually be you lost your case, was outlawry. The system-or anything else very different paid for. The reason is obvious enough; payment for killing someone was called from our own society-is how well it each man killed will have friends and wergeld-man gold. worked in practice. Did powerful chief­ relations who are still neutral-and will Before assuming that such a punish­ tains routinely succeed in defying the remain neutral if and only if the killing ment is obviously insufficient to deter law with impunity? Did the system re­ is made up by an appropriate wergeld. crime, it is worth asking how large the sult in widespread violence? How long Our main sources of information on payment was. My esti- the Icelandic system mate is that the pay­ are the sagas, a group ment for killing an The "government" of medieval Iceland had one of histories and histori­ ordinary man was the part-time employee. He was called the lawspeaker, and cal novels written in equivalent of some­ Iceland, mostly in the thing between 12.5 and during the course of his three years he was required to late thirteenth and 50 years of an ordinary recite the entire law code aloud once. If he omitted early fourteenth centu­ man's wages.* That is a something and nobody objected, that part of the law ries. On first reading, considerably higher they seem to describe punishment than the was out. Think of it as an early form of sunset quite a violent society. average killer receives legislation. That is hardly surpris- today, allowing for un­ ing. At least since certain conviction and Homer, the spectacle probable parole. did it last? What was the society which of people killing each other has been The comparison is even more favora­ developed under that legal system like? one of the principal ways in which writ­ ble to the Icelandic system if one allows A powerful chieftain who wished to ers entertain their audience. The chief for the distinction made under that sys­ defy the law, as some certainly did, innovation of the saga writers was to tem between killing and murder. If you faced two problems. The first has al­ spend as much time on law suits as on were a law-abiding Icelander and hap­ ready been discussed; his victim could the violent conflicts that generated pened to kill someone, the first thing transfer his claim to someone who was them. The one error in the quotation you did after putting down your sword also a powerful chieftain. The second from Bryce with which I started this or your axe was to go to the nearest was that, under the Icelandic system, neighbor, stick your head in the door the party who lost a court case and ig­ and announce "I am Gunnar. I have just nored the verdict was in an inherently killed HeIgL His body is lying out by the weak position. Many of his friends road. I name you as witness." One of the might refuse to support him. Even if he early Norwegian law codes specifies had supporters, every fight would that "The slayer shall not ride past any create a new set of law cases-which three houses, on the day he committed his side would lose. If someone on the the deed, without avowing the deed, un­ other side was killed, his kinsmen less the kinsmen of the slain man, or en­ would expect to collect wergeld; if it emies of the slayer lived there, who was not paid, they would join the coali­ would put his life in danger." By report­ tion against the outlaw. Thus the coali­ Blue with while lettering ing the killing you established yourself tion against someone who defied the as a killer, not a murderer. A murderer law would tend to expand. As long as was a secret killer, someone who killed power was reasonably well distributed, and tried to conceal the deed. The wer­ so that no single faction had anything geld paid for a killing corresponds to approaching half the fighters in Iceland the punishment imposed on a murderer on its side, the system was, in essence, in our system who turns himself in im­ self-enforcing. There is a scene in Njal's Block with spectrum letterinq mediately after the deed. Saga that provides striking evidence of The distinction between killing and this stability. Conflict between two murder was important in two ways. groups has become so intense that open Murder was regarded as shameful; kill­ fighting threatens to break out in the ing, in a society where many people middle of the court. A leader of one $ were armed and where going viking faction asks a benevolent neutral what was a common activity for young men he will do for them in case of a fight. out to see the world, was not. The two He replies that if they start losing he Blade with gold lettering acts also had different legal consequenc­ will help them, and if they are winning es; by committing murder you forfeited he will break up the fight before they Send $12.50 in check or money order to: LAISSEZ FAIRE-WEAR, P.O. Box * See my article, "Private Creation and Enforcement of Law-A Historical Case," Journal of Legal 20234, Tallahassee, Fl32316 Studies, 8 (March 1979),399-415. Be sure to indicate design and size. Volume 2, Number 6 Jul 1989 essay is the claim that the chief occupa­ breakdown was. One possibility is that applied to a much larger and more com­ tion of Icelanders was killing each other. increasing concentration of wealth and plicated society. The chief occupation of the characters of power made the system less stable. An­ In both systems, enforcement of law the sagas appears to be suing each other; other is that Iceland was subverted by is entirely private; neither depends on the killings merely provide something an alien ideology-monarchy. Tradi­ enforcement by an organization with to litigate about. tionally, conflicts involved limited objec­ special rights beyond those possessed A more careful reading of the sagas tives; each party was trying to enforce by all individuals. Private enforcement tells a different story. The violence, un­ what he viewed as his-legal rights. Once agencies are a more formalized version like that in contemporary accounts else­ the conflict was settled, today's enemy of the arrangements by which individu­ where in Europe, is on a very small might well become tomorrow's ally. als and coalitions in Iceland used force scale. The typical encounter in a saga During the final period of breakdown, it to protect their rights. The major differ­ feud involves only a handful of people begins to look more and more as though ence between the two systems is that in on each side; everyone killed or injured the fighting is no longer over who owes Iceland there was a single system of is named. When two such encounters what to whom but over who is going to courts and legislature, whereas under occur in consecutive chapters of a saga it rule Iceland. the institutions described in The Machin­ seems as though the ery of Freedom, for in- feuding is continual­ ...------stance, there could be until you notice that a many independent character not yet born If you were a law-abiding Icelander and happened courts, each using at the time of the first to kill someone, the first thing you did after putting whatever set of laws it encounter is participat­ down your sword was to go to the nearest neighbor and thought would sell. ing in the second as an One more thing adult. The saga writers announce "] am Gunnar. I have just killed Helgi. His should be said about telescope the action, body is lying out by the road. I name you as witness." the Icelandic Com­ skipping over the years By reporting the killing you established yourself as a monwealth. If we that separate the inter­ judge societies by esting parts. killer, not a murderer. A murderer was a secret killer, how much they pro­ The Icelandic sys­ someone who killed and tried to conceal the deed. duced that is still of tem finally collapsed in interest to us, Iceland the thirteenth century, must rank, along with more than three hundred years after it A third possible cause is extemal such better-known societies as Periclean was established. The collapse was pre­ pressure. From Harald Fairhair on, the Athens and Elizabethan England, as one ceded by a period of about fifty years kings of Norway took a special interest of the great successes. It had a popula­ characterized by a relatively high level in Iceland. In the thirteenth century, tion of about 70,OOO-a large suburb by of violence. According to an estimate by after the end of a long period of civil current standards. Of the sagas that it one scholar, deaths from violence dur­ war, Norway had a strong and wealthy produced, there are probably half a ing the final period of collapse (calculat­ monarchy. The Norwegian king in­ dozen or more currently in print in Eng­ ed by going through the relevant volved himself in Icelandic politics, sup­ lish paperback translations, some seven historical sagas and adding up the bod­ porting one side and then another with hundred years after they were written. ies) totalled about 350. That comes to 7 money and prestige. Presumably, his ob­ The best of them-I would recommend deaths a year in a population of about jective was to get one or another of the Egil's Saga and Njal's Saga to start with­ 70,000, or about one death per ten thou­ chieftains to take over Iceland on his be­ are stories better written than the great sand per year. half. That never happened. But in the bulk of what is published today. That is comparable to our highway year 1262, after more than fifty years of I once tried to construct a crude death rate, or to our combined rates for conflict, the Icelanders gave up; three of measure of the importance of Iceland to murder and non-negligent the four quarters voted to ask the king our civilization, in part as a response· to manslaughter. If the calculation is cor­ of Norway to take over the country. In friends who wondered how I could be rect, it suggests that even during what 1263, the north quarter agreed as well. interested in such an obscure place and the Icelanders regarded as the final peri­ That was the end of the Icelandic time. I did it by counting trays in the od of catastrophic breakdown their soci­ commonwealth. card catalogs of two major university li­ ety was not substantially more violent braries, in order to estimate what frac­ than ours. To put the comparison in Anarcho-capitalism and tion of the cards were for books filed terms of contemporary societies, one Civilization under Iceland or the Icelandic language. may note that in three weeks of the year The medieval Icelandic legal system It came to about a tenth of a percent­ 1066 Norway, Normandy, and England comes closer than any other well­ one book in a thousand. That is a very probably lost as large a fraction of their recorded historical society that I know small fraction of a library, but it is a very combined population to violence (in the of to being a real-world example of the large influence for seventy thousand battles of Fulford, Stamford Bridge, and sort of anarcho-eapitalist system I de­ people seven hundred years ago. 0 Hastings) as Iceland did in fifty years of scribed in The Machinery of Freedom. One This article is excerted from the Second Edition of The feuds. might almost describe anarcho­ Machinery of Freedom, which Open Court Books is It is not clear what the reason for the capitalism as the Icelandic legal system scheduled to publish this summer. 40 Liberty Volume 2, Number 6 July 1989 Dispute

Ecology and Economy

Environmental issues are troubling to many libertarians, and-now that social­ ism is dying-are probably the most significant source of (apparent) anti­ libertarian ideas and sentiments. Here the debate continues ...

the Earth's biological clock is ticking cause the marine life within is so con­ Ecological Ostriches along and we are continuing to contami­ taminated that it is dangerously toxic to Libertarians on the Environment nate our planet's ecosystem. humans. Annual yields ofcrabs and oys­ Ron Courtney I'd love to be able to say with com­ ters are a small fraction of what they plete assurance that every threat to the were a few decades ago. Some species of There is an unthinking arrogance in air, water, vegetation, soil, animal and fish that used to be common in the Bay the libertarian movement, a smugness human life of the world can be neatly area have totally disappeared; others are that assumes that the libertarian philoso­ countered by looking in our Junior nearly gone and the few remaining are phy is the supreme answer to every kind Libertarian Guidebook and pulling out often diseased and tumor-ridden. of problem that human beings mayen­ the appropriate property-rights applica­ It is fatuous to suggest that private counter. People who have this attitude tion. But it's just not so. If we lived in an are quick to dismiss any and all ques­ ideal worldwide libertarian culture, tions by serving up the correct libertari­ there would certainly be far less pollu­ an remedy, after which they can stop I'd love to be able to say tion than there is now because of mutual thinking about the problem. There is a respect for each other's right to life and with complete assurance that naive hubris working here, an assump­ property, but we may be hundreds of tion that we have all the answers and every threat to the air, water, years away from that ideal. The world's therefore don't have to worry too much vegetation, soil, animal and about the questions. ecosystem cannot wait that long. A pure­ human life of the world can be I'm not sure whether Jane Shaw be­ ly libertarian solution to environmental longs in this category, though her rather problems will take massive amounts of neatly countered by looking in scanty article on property rights and the education on a worldwide scale to gener­ our Junior Libertarian Guide­ environment ("Private Property: Hope ate enough public support to make it book and pulling out the ap­ for the Environment," Liberty, November work. By the time enough people under­ 1988) brushes off John Hospers' envi­ stand and support our solutions, irrever­ propriate property-rights ap­ ronmental concerns (''Liberty and sible damage will have occurred to the plication. But it's just not so. Ecology," Liberty, September 1988) as if life-sustaining processes of the Earth. they were a few inconsequential ants I live in a rural area close to the that had wandered into our lovely liber­ Chesapeake Bay, the biggest estuary in tarian picnic. The problem with her atti­ the world, a body of water that supports ownership of the Chesapeake Bay tude and that of the few other a great diversity of marine and human would solve all these problems. Who is libertarians who have shown any inter­ life. The Bay is a dying organism. For the going to own it? From whom is a poten­ est in environmental matters is that their past 200 years it has been subjected to tial owner to purchase the Bay? How total reliance on libertarian property­ ever-increasing pollution, and most peo­ would anybody arrive at a reasonable rights theory is very difficult and time­ ple who have studied the problem think monetary value for it? What about all consuming to implement in the real that the Bay will never recover. the rivers that empty into the Bay? world. While they are perched in their Thousands of acres of shellfish grounds Wouldn't they also have to be privately ivory towers tossing out correct theory, have had to be declared unusable be- owned and therefore relatively Liberty 41 Volume 2, Number 6 July 1989 pollution-free in order for this private If there is a workable libertarian so­ maybe if we built a few million cages, property solution to work? Doesn't all ­ lution to this problem, one that can be privately owned, of course ... but then this seem like an enormously complex implemented within a reasonable time, we'd have a monstrous bird poop prob­ and lengthy process to work out, partic­ given the attitudes of the farmers, I'd lem ... Ah ha! I have the solution! We'll ularly given the current educational love to hear it. We simply do not have sell the mountains of bird poop to the and political conditions we'd have to the time to educate people so they will farmers to use in place of chemical ferti­ work with? What's the point in strug­ voluntarily stop poisoning the waters in lizers, thus solving two ecological prob­ gling for decades to develop a purely li­ order to avoid harming the lives of oth­ lems at once. A privately owned bird in bertarian way of preserving the ecology ers. Nor can we rely upon some utopian the cage is worth two in the bush!) of the Chesapeake Bay, only to find that _ scheme of private ownership of the wa­ Despite the incredible complacency there's no life left to preserve? ters. If the poisoning of the Chesapeake of people such as Shaw, there are seri­ Jane Shaw's assertion that "in the and· other bodies of water is to be ous threats to the survival of life on long run, private ownership is an stopped before it's too late, what realis­ Earth. These threats require immediate environment in which nature flourish­ tic alternative is there to passing laws to attention. It's not just a matter of the es" is true in the general sense that most ban the use of chemical fertilizers and death of a few birds or a few fish or of pestiFides? the inconvenience of having to close a In her article, Shaw blithely asserts few beaches because of medical waste What's the point in strug­ that the safe disposal of toxic waste is washing up on the shore. The break­ not a major health problem, though she down of the ozone layer that protects us gling for decades to develop a doesn't offer any information to back from harmful ultraviolet sunlight and purely libertarian way of pre­ up this statement. I don't know how the heating up of the planet because of serving the ecology of the things are in her neighborhood, but the greenhouse effect are problems that herein Virginia there have been numer­ threaten our survival. Political decisions Chesapeake Bay, only to find· ous instances of health hazards caused are going to be .forced upon us, and that there's no life left to by improperly buried toxic waste, virtu­ laws are going to be passed at some preserve? ally all of them by private firms on pri­ point as people demand that their lead­ vate land. In some cases the chemicals ers do something to rescue the ecosys­ were buried or stored years ago and the tem. This could very well lead to an companies went out of business or the resources are managed more efficiently enormous expansion of the power of land was sold, and the new owners the state at the expense of liberty and in private hands rather than in public woke up one morning to find that their ones, but efficient management is often capitalism. Do we as libertarians want property is so toxic as to be unusable. to stick our heads in ideological sands a short-term quest for higher profits to Often the water table has been poisoned the detriment of long-term environmen­ and pretend there is no problem, thus by leaking toxic waste containers that leaVing the field to the collectivists and tal consequences. contaminate the drinking water from There are hundreds of farms in the statists who usually hang around eco­ wells for miles around the site. In one logical issues looking to gulp down rural area where I live, nearly all of well known case, the owner of a toxic­ them fairly close to two large rivers that some power? Or would it be more in waste disposal firm was found to be our interest to realize that in this area flow into the Chesapeake. Farmers pouring a highly toxic chemical into a government action is both inevitable spray large amounts of chemical fertiliz­ stream on his own personal property. and even necessary, and begin to work ers, toxic pesticides and herbicides on He was caught because of the massive out practical solutions to these ecologi­ their fields every year. When it rains, fish kill that occurred just downstream cal problems, solutions that will mini­ tons of these chemicals run off into the from the spot where his privately streams that feed into the rivers that mize and contain the coercive thrust of owned stream emptied into the river. So the state so that we will have maximum empty into the Bay. Each of these farm­ muth for the theory that private owner­ liberty and a healthy environment in ers is pursuing, on his privately owned ship of water resources will cause them which to enjoy it? 0 land, his own immediate rational self­ to be managed in an environmentally interest. By using chemicals he. is sup­ sound manner, and so much for the ab­ porting himself and his. family; without surd idea that the safe disposal of toxic Protect the Environment by them he can't produce a successful waste is not a problem. Protecting Liberty crop. Yet each farmer is also doing sub­ Shaw's suggestion that migratory JaneS. Shaw stantial harm to the rivers and the Bay birds and other·wildlife should be pri­ through the same actions that seem self­ vatelyowned is one of the most bizarre Ron Courtney is willing to throw evidently beneficial to him. Although it ideas I've ever seen in a serious publica­ out his libertarian principles as long as is commonly known that agricultural tion. Ownership implies control, and I'd something is done immediately to keep run-off is a major cause of water pollu­ love to hear Ms. Shaw's solution to the the world from environmental catas­ tion, it is virtually impossible to find a problem of owning and controlling mil­ trophe. He wants action, and govern­ farmer who will admit it; so the inexora­ lions of birds that spend the summers in ment action, he says, is "inevitable and ble poisoning of the waters continues North America and the winters in even necessary." year after year. Central and South America. (Let's see, Instead of burying our heads in 42 Liberty Volume 2, Number 6 July 1989

"ideological sands," he thinks we air as your breathing space, air is so fu­ beaches, if they are injured) to sue for should get on the government band gitive that it's very difficult to prove damages or for injunctions. wagon. that you are harmed by, say, a smoke­ It is true that even with ownership, Considering that pollution has been stack a mile away. The problem is simi­ agricultural runoff or "non-point" pol­ building in Chesapeake Bay for the past lar with water pollution; in the u.s. lution would be a problem. That is be­ 200 years, and the greenhouse effect has there are Virtually no private property cause such emissions are inherently not yet been confirmed (or even rights to water (except for the right to difficult to identify-the defensibility detected), perhaps Courtney could de­ divert it in the West). In England, how­ problem arises here. Even in England, vote a little time to understanding the ever, the lack of property rights is not where fishing rights can be defended, it property rights paradigm he so hastily quite so complete: Fishing rights are pri­ is difficult to identify the cause of harm dismisses. Coming up with "practical vately owned, and owners of these that stems from many small, dispersed solutions" that put the government in rights can and do obtain compensation emissions of pollutants. If property charge when you don't understand the for, and even injunctions against, dam- rights were always easy to defend we source of the problem is the kind of pol­ wouldn't have much of a pollution icy that turned a 1973 increase in the problem. price of crude oil into an eight-year en­ The problem of identifying But keep in mind that the problem ergy crisis. of identifying the polluter (and the Courtney seems to believe that liber­ the polluter (and the damage damage each polluter is responsible for) tarian property rights theory is some each polluter is responsible for) is just as tricky if a government agency mystical idealistic regime in which is just as tricky if a govern­ were in charge! That is why, in spite of everyone owns property and is consid­ 17 years of an increasingly expensive erate of his neighbor. He doesn't seem ment agency were in charge/ Clean Water Act, virtually nothing con­ to realize that private property rights That is why, in spite of 17 structive has been done to reduce non­ are the foundation for most of the pro­ years of an increasingly expen­ point pollution. And even some collecti­ ductivity, civility, and responsibility vists might find Courtney's "realistic al­ that exist in the real world today. sive Clean Water Act, virtual­ ternative" of banning the use of Please bear with me while I outline ly nothing constructive ·has chemical fertilizers on farmland located the theory again briefly. Ownership of near waterways as going a bit far. property makes people accountable for been done to reduce non-point Courtney says it is "fatuous to sug­ their treatment of what they own. A pollution. gest that private ownership of the person who damages his own property Chesapeake Bay" would solve all its en­ suffers a loss of wealth, while someone vironmental problems. Certainly priva­ who improves it--or sells it to someone aging releases into the water. tizing the bay would be difficult, but a who will improve it-gains wealth. Courtney has it backwards when he small aspect of the bay is private al­ What Courtney fails to understand disparages private rights with his story ready, and the evidence indicates that is that a property rights system, backed about the owner who pours a highly the bayis better off in a small way as a by a court system, also holds non-owners toxic chemical into his privately owned result: privately-owned oyster beds pro­ accountable. If you damage my car stream which then kills fish in the river duce higher value per pound than pub­ (whether you are an owner yourself or the stream empties into. The point is not lic ones because they are not over­ not) you must compensate me because I that the polluter's action took place on harvested and they are taken better care have a property right in the car. It his privately owned land but that there of. One of the big problems, though, doesn't matter if you like or respect me was no owner of the river (or of the fish) The Washington Post reports, is that the or not; you have a legal obligation not to go to court to protect the right to government of Maryland fails to en­ to damage my property. In the real clean water. It's the property right of force private ownership and so there is world, recognition of this obligation en­ the person whose land or water is poI­ a lot of poaching. And Courtney wants courages cooperation and a relatively luted that we are concerned with here, us to hand over more power to govern­ peaceful society. not whether the individual who caused ments like this! But property rights aren't always the pollution did so privately or on a Actually, I do not reject government clear. Economist Richard Stroup 1 says public street. action in all cases. Unless property that property rights must be defined In his discussion of agricultural run­ rights can be defined and defended (that is, there isn't doubt about who has off, again Courtney misses the point. If (and this can happen over time, usually the right), defensible (you must be able to the bay were owned, the bay owner through an evolutionary process), gov­ prove that you were damaged and what would have the right to obtain damages ernment action may be required. But it or who caused it), and divestible or or an injunction against the polluter, should be the last resort, not the first re­ transferable. (He calls these the "3-0s"). just as the owner of a car has the right sponse. The history of federal involve­ For the purpose of this response, the to obtain damages from the person who ment in pollution control is a sad one. first two Ds are the most important. hits it. A more practical version of pri­ Superfund (the multi-billion-dollar pro­ Pollution comes about because property vate ownership might be private owner­ gram to clean up "orphan" hazardous rights are either ill-defined or indefensi­ ship of fish, oysters, and other products, waste dumps) is largely recognized as a ble. Even if you can define your right to allOWing the owners (and owners of giant pork barrel; so is the Clean Water Liberty 43 Volume 2, Number 6 July 1989

Act. The Clean Air Act has been used to ogenic hazard in an EPA study, only two Indians of the Labrador peninsula gave promote regional economic rivalry as were of greater possible hazard than or­ families rights to beaver-trapping areas much as (or more than) it has been used dinary tap water ... and the most pollut­ on streams. This prevented the beaver's to achieve clean air. When politicians ed well (2,800 ppb trichloroethylene) is extinction in spite of great demand for have the power that these acts give them, still at least 1,000 times less of a possible beaver pelts from French fur traders.) 4 they have little incentive-t-ouse it for the hazard than an equal volume of cola, Establishing property rights to bison sake of the public, but a great incentive to beer, or wine."3 would have been difficult, just as it was use it for narrow political goals. The above two paragraphs only difficult a few years later for the cow­ There is a lot more to say in response touch on the full picture, but they should boys to establish rights to other nomadic to Courtney's complaints. He claims give you an idea that my statements animals, sheep and cattle. The Great with certitude that toxic wa&te is a "ma­ about toxic waste are based on research, Plains didn't have enough wood to build jor health problem," but he probably not mere hearsay or newspaper reports, fences, and the plains' sparse vegetation doesn't know that almost no harm from as Courtney's seem to be. meant that the animals needed vast existing hazardous waste has been medi­ I didn't actually make the suggestion stretches of land to graze on. Yet proper­ cally verified. Claims of health harms that Courtney calls ''bizarre''-private ty rights and the means to enforce them ownership of migratory birds and other did develop. Branding was adopted and wildlife. My point was that if wild ani­ human "fences" of cowboys patrolled It is foolish to intrude fur­ mals were privately owned, we wouldn't the range to keep the herds separate. ther on property rights when worry about their extinction. This state­ And entrepreneurs invented barbed ment is true for migratory birds, too, but wire, which permitted low-cost fencing the absence or incompleteness as Courtney's attempt at satire makes of vast stretches of the plains. 5 of property rights is the cause clear, private ownership of migratory Courtney may treat private owner­ of the problem in the first birds is difficult. Perhaps it is impossible, ship of migratory birds as a joke but he but I'm not so sure. We've already seen ought to realize that the biggest obstacle place. Private solutions are another migratory species-salmon­ to private ownership is not the character­ working today and we ought to essentially privatized through "salmon istics of birds themselves but the fact try to expand them rather than ranching." Salmon migrate hundreds· of that the state has made private owner­ miles from fresh water to the ocean and ship of wildlife illegal. embrace Upractical" statist so­ then return to spawn. This homing char­ I hope that I have amplified some of lutions that increase the power acteristic enables entrepreneurs to claim the points not thoroughly discussed in ownership to salmon smolts. my article last November. My major of the government without Now consider waterfowl. After mi­ point is that it seems foolish to intrude achieving much that is good. grating south for the winter, millions of further on property rights when the ab­ birds return to the prairies of the north sence or incompleteness of property central United States and Canada to nest rights is the cause of the problem in the from hazardous waste dumps such as and nurture their young. This process is first place. I am convinced that private Love Canal have ended with out-of­ repeated every year. Perhaps property solutions are working today and that li­ court settlements for .which no judicial rights to these nesting grounds is the key bertarians ought to try to expand them standards of proof had to be met, and to survival. Courtney is probably una­ rather than embrace "practical" statist scientific evidence does not so far sup­ ware that private organizations such as solutions that increase the power of the port plaintiffs' claims. A 1985 compila­ Ducks Unlimited do in fact protect nest­ government without achieVing much tion of health studies at 21 well­ ing grounds by obtaining easements on that is good. 0 publicized waste sites (including Love millions of acres of wetlands (his "cag­ Canal) did not find epidemiological evi­ Notes es," I guess) in the United States and 1. Stroup is a Senior Associate of the Political dence of any long-term health effects. Canada. The property owners maintain Economy Research Center. I am indebted. to him Researchers from the Environmental the wetlands rather than drain them for for most of this analysis. Terry Anderson and P. ]. Defense Fund reviewed these and other agriculture. Property rights (in this case, Hill, cited below, are also Associates ofPERc. studies and agreed that no "serious, life­ 2. Amanda M. Phillips and Ellen K. Silbergeld, rights to land rather than birds) are more "Health Effeds Studies of Exposure From threatening" diseases had turned up in powerful than Courtney seems to Hazardous Waste Sites-Where Are We Today?" statistically significant numbers, al­ realize. American Journal of Industrial Medicine 8:1-7 (1985), though they argued that better designed pp.1-7. It was a lack of property rights to 3. Bruce Ames, 'Water Pollution, Pesticide Residues, studies might have revealed "subtle American bison in the 19th century that and Cancer," Water, Vol. 27, No.2 (Summer 1986), effects." 2 nearly led to its extinction. (In addition, p24. Contamination of groundwater can the U.S. government promoted extermi­ 4. See Harold Demsetz, ''I'oward a Theory of be dangerous, but not all claims of con­ Property Rights," American Economic Review (May nation of the bison to help subjugate the 1967), pp. 347-359. This essay has been reprinted tamination warrant anxiety. Bruce Ames, Plains Indians, who were dependent on in Eirik G. Furubotn and Svetozar Pejovich, eds., Chairman of the Department of the bison.) A Plains Indian would proba­ The Economi~ of Property Rights (Cambridge: Biochemistry at the University of bly have been as scornful as Courtney if Ballinger, 1974), pp. 31-42. California at Berkeley, wrote in 1986: "Of 5. See Terry Anderson and P.]. Hill, liThe Evolution someone had proposed private owner­ of Property Rights: A Study of the American 35 private wells shut down in Silicon ship then. (In some areas Indians did de­ West," Journal of Law and Economics 12, (1975), pp. Valley because of their supposed carcin- velop property rights. The Montagnais 163-179). 44 Liberty Survey

The Political and Demographic Dimensions of Contemporary Libertarianism

by John M. Scheb I II

What sort of people are inclined toward libertarian ideas? Last fall, Prof Scheb polled 646 randomly selected citizens to find out.

There can be little doubt that libertarianism is an increas­ telephone survey of 646 adults, contacted through random ingly important force in American political thought. Howev­ digit dialing. The ma.rgin of error for the survey is +/- 4%, at er, libertarianism has received very little attention from those a 95% confidence level. Respondents were asked to evaluate a social scientists who examine political attitudes and behav­ set of statements on current policy issues. They were also ior. In large part, this is a function of habit; libertarianism asked about their political and religious affiliations, and their preferences in the 1988 presidential election. Finally, a stan­ doesn't fit into the established vocabulary of social and politi­ cal analysis. Whatever the causes of this neglect, it is time dard list of demographic questions were asked. Respondents were read several statements on current so­ that academicians, and political scientists in particular, took cial, economic and defense issues. For each statement, they libertarianism seriously. were asked whether they agreed, disagreed, or were not sure. In this study I propose a means of identifying libertarians If they indicated agreement or disagreement, they were asked among a random population sample by using a set of state­ whether they agreed or disagreed strongly. Thus the respons­ ments on contemporary policy issues. After identifying a es for each statement were arrayed along the scale indicated subsample of libertarian respondents, I compare libertarians in Figure 1. to others to determine whether libertarians are distinctive, both in demographic terms and in terms of their political Figure 1. party affiliations and presidential preferences. Respondents to political surveys are often asked to locate Scale of Agreement themselves on the standard liberal-conservative spectrum. 1 234 5 Yet, the liberal-conservative scale is somewhat simplistic. On <------> that scale, libertarians, authoritarians and populists, despite strongly agree not sure disagree strongly their sharply divergent views, are lumped together as "mod­ agree disagree erates" or as "others." However, if we ask everyday folk to Using the responses to policy issues statements, I was able describe their political views using terms other than liberal to identify a subsample whose responses reflected a libertari­ and conservative, they often have difficulty doing so. The an outlook. I did so by constructing two scales, one based on term libertarian is noteven familiar to everyone with libertar­ economic issues; the other based on social issues and de­ ian views. fense/foreign policy issues. I placed the scales at right angles A better ideological classification scheme relies not on intersecting at their means, so that individual respondents self-identification, but instead is based on the views people were arrayed in a two-dimensional field, and thus divided express on a variety of public issues. They may then be the sample into four roughly equivalent groups, designated placed in a typology based on what they think about issues, "populists,"l(- "liberals," "conservatives" and '1ibertarians." rather than their sometimes emotional reactions to labels like The subsample designated "libertarian" constitutes ap­ liberal or conservative. proximately 26% of the sample. While this 26% may not be

The Survey .. In other four-fold models of this type, the "populist" quadrant is Between October 16 and 19, 1988, I conducted a national sometimes referred to as "authoritarian." Liberty 45 Volume 2, Number 6 Jul· 1989 described as "hard core" libertarians, their responses death penalty for convicted drug dealers, and more likely to generally favored the libertarian (i.e., non-interventionist or oppose making homosexual practices criminal. They are, more likely to support legalized abortion, the Supreme Court's ban on school prayer, and the legalization of drugs. Figure 2. On defense issues, libertarians are more likely to oppose Two-dimensional Classification of Respondents American military intervention in Central America, oppose Social and Defense/Foreign Policy Issues "Star Wars," and believe that the national defense budget interventionist anti-interventionist should be reduced. Again, there is some variation within the Economic 26% of the sample classified as libertarians. Some express interventionist populist (26%) liberal (24%) stronger pro-liberty or anti-government positions than oth­ ers. But the comparisons in Table 1 do show that the people Economic here designated as libertarians are statistically distinguisha­ anti-interventionist conservative (24%) libertarian (26%) ble from the rest of the sample in terms of their views on the issues.

anti-government) position on the issues. No doubt some of Political Leanings the respondents placed in this category would balk at being Conventional wisdom holds that libertarians are disen­ labelled libertarians, either because the term is unfamiliar to chanted with the two major parties and, to some extent, my them, because they misunderstand it, or because they dislike data support this argument. As Table 2 (see below) shows, the label altogether. libertarians are more likely than others to be "indepen­ Table 1 (below) compares the mean responses of the li­ dents." Those libertarians who express a preference between bertarian subsample to the mean responses of others in the sampIe. For most of the issues, the differences between the li­ Table 2. bertarians and other groups are statistically significant at an Political Party Identifications: Libertarians vs Others extremely low level of probability. What this means is that entire sample libertarians others for most issues, there is only a very slight chance that the ob­ Democrat 33% 30% 34.5% served differences between groups are statistical flukes. Independent 36% 40% 34.5% Table 1 shows that the 26% subsample identified as liber­ Republican 31% 30% 31.0% tarians are more likely than others to oppose mandatory health insurance, oppose trade protectionism, and oppose in­ the parties are evenly divided between the Democrats and creasing the minimum wage. They are more likely to sup­ the Republicans. This ambivalence is easily understood. Li­ port the abolition of farm subsidies and the privatization of bertarians are at odds ~ith the Democratic Party on the eco­ the post office. They are also more likely to agree that the nomic issues of taxation, regulation and redistribution, but federal government spends too much on welfare programs. they are equally repelled by the Republican Party's interven­ In terms of social issues, the libertarians are more likely to tionist positions on the social and foreign policy/defense is­ oppose the position that public school students be required sues. If the two-party system were not so ingrained in both to say the pledge of allegiance, more likely to oppose the political tradition and law, the Libertarian Party might be able to make substantial inroads into a vast segment of the population that is disenchanted with the two Table 1. Policy Issue major parties. On the other hand, it may well be that Mean Scores-Libertarians, Others, and the Entire Sample libertarians are by nature so individualistic that any party would have difficulty commanding their sup­ libs others all port and loyalty over time. Economic Issues: In terms of preferences in the presidential elec­ Mandatory employer health insurance 2.40 1.62 1.82 tion, libertarians were slightly more likely to sup­ Protectionist import restrictions 3.34 2.26 2.54 port Bush than Dukakis, but considerably less Increased minimum wage 2.48 1.86 2.02 supportive of Bush than others in the sample. The Abolish farm subsidies 2.75 3.46 3.28 most telling statistic in Table 3 (see next page) is that Privatized Post Office 2.68 3.49 3.27 libertarians were, at least at the time of the survey, Welfare payments are too high 2.57 2.92 2.83 much more likely to be undecided than were others Social issues: in the sample. Just as libertarians were most likely Mandatory public school flag pledge 2.89 2.10 2.31 to see themselves as independent voters, they were Death penalty for drug dealers 3.73 2.96 3.17 least likely to be satisfied with the choice between Legalized abortion 1.98 2.91 2.66 Bush and Dukakis. Legalized drugs 3.81 4.41 4.26 School prayer ban 2.68 3.69 3.42 Are Libertarians Demographically Criminalization of homosexuality 3.86 3.07 3.28 Distinguishable? Defense/Foreign Policy Issues: The final question is: How do libertarians differ Use of force in Central America 3.50 3.17 3.26 from others demographically? Without belaboring SOl development 2.97 2.52 2.64 the statistics, suffice it to say that they are, on the Defense budget cuts 2.30 2.58 2.51 whole, younger, wealthier and better educated than 46 Liberty Volume 2, Number 6 Jul 1989 the rest of the sample. They are more likely to be male than Conclusion female, whereas females outnumber males in the rest of the This study has identified 26% of the adult population sample. Not surprisingly, given their individualism on the whose ideological sympathies run generally in the libertari­ social issues, libertarians are much less likely to be affiliated an direction. These people are found to be distinctive demo­ with a particular religious denomination than are others in graphically, in that they tend to wealthier, better educated the sample. Those libertarians who express a religious affilia­ and less religious (in the denominational sense) than others tion are most likely to be "mainline" Protestants, i.e., Episco­ in the sample. Politically, many are independent in terms of palians, Lutherans, Methodists or Presbyterians. party identification. Those who express a preference be­ Demographically, then, libertarians are distinguishable from tween the two major parties are evenly divided between the the general population. Democrats and the Republicans. In the presidential election, they favored Bush slightly more than Dukakis, but were Table 3. likely to be undecided after other voters had made up their Preferences in Presidential Race: Libertarians vs Others minds. Libertarianism is a social and political phenomenon entire sample libertarians others worthy of the attention of social scientists. Perhaps the most Bush 50% 44% 53% interesting question is: Will libertarians, who tend to be Dukakis 39% 41% 38% younger than other people of ideological types, retain their undecided 11% 15% 9% libertarian views as they grow older? Or will they become conservatives? 0

Table 4. Demographic Profiles Comment of Libertarians vs Others Libertarians Others Race Dimensions of Ideology white 90% 85% black 6% 9% by James S. Robbins hispanic 2% 4% other 2% 2% The model Professor Seheb utilizes, an economic dimension, but should not the so-called "Nolan Chart," was intro­ be measured in purely economic terms. Sex duced by James L. Sundquist in Dynam­ Strategy and diplomacy are not eco­ male 55% 45% ics of the Party System (1973), and lately nomic issues, even though foreign poli­ female 45% 55% popularized by the Advocates for Self­ cies have economic effects. The solution Age Government (among others). It is a use­ to the problem may rest in a third di­ ful heuristic for demonstrating the rela­ mension which would consider one's 18-29 34% 25% tionship of libertarianism to other 30-44 35% 34% attitudes towards defense, foreign poli­ 45-64 22% 27% political orientations. There are, howev­ cy, and perhaps "nationalistic feelings." 65 and over 9% 14% er, some aspects of the model that have Such a dimension would be difficult to yet to be clarified. represent graphically, but would show Education One such aspect is the disposition more accurately the striations in politi­ not h.s. grads 8% 10% of Foreign Policy and Defense issues. cal orientation. h.s. graduates 20% 36% Seheb has combined these with Social It would have been interesting to some college 20% 25% issues, but the rationale for this group­ compare the question "Are you a liberal college grads 31% 22% ing is elusive. One's approach to ques­ or conservative" to various issue stanc­ grad-prof degrees 21% 7% tions of external security and inter­ es to see how the traditional self­ state relations need not have a direct identifications relate to the externally Income relationship to one's outlook on mat­ imposed, issue-based group definitions. under $15K 7% 15% ters of internal policy. For example, And this leads to another question alto­ $15-25K 17% 23% one may be opposed to coercive ac­ gether-are people what they say they $25-35K 22% 20% tions taken by the state internally, yet are, or are they what the analyst says $35-45K 20% 16% endorse such actions externally, if one they are? One may be emotionally at­ 11% 9% $45-55K believes that, in absence of such tached to a label, such as "conserva­ $55-65K 6% 5% actions, a foreign power will take more tive," a fact which Professor Scheb over $65K 14% 8% not sure 3% 4% drastic action. Arguments for both iso­ regards as a problem. Yet, one may be lationism and interventionism can be just as emotionally attached to an issue Religion made from a libertarian perspective, position. Some respondents probably mainline Protestant 29% 25% depending on how one perceives exter­ related what they thought about an other Protestant 21% 34% nal threats. issue. Others may have given gut-level Catholic 23% 26% On the other hand, grouping de­ responses about matters which they Jewish 3% 2% fense issues with economic questions is have not given much or any thought. other 7% 7% also questionable. Certainly, the debate There is a large body of literature on the none 17% 6% over the size of the defense budget has question of voter rationality and consis- Liberty 47 Volume 2, Number 6 Jul 1989 tency (know as "constraint" to social sci­ tween this sub-group and others, one and the as yet unpublished poll con­ entists), and while there are no definitive may find clues towards the factors ducted by Liberty at the 1987 Libertarian answers, one should be aware of the which underlie the formation of the Party convention. All three surveys tend debate. sub-group. Yet, while Scheb presented to confirm what has long been observed, The poll omits mention of the Liber­ the percentage differences, he failed to namely that libertarians tend to be tarian Party, the candidacy of Ron Paul test them for significance-that is, he white, male, well-educated, and come or any other party or candidate aside didn't state how much of a difference from non-religious backgrounds. The re­ from the dominant two. Scheb's investi­ really is a difference. For example, spondents to the Liberty Poll and the LP gation of the question of voter disen­ Seheb contends that libertarians tend to poll differed from the libertarian quar­ chantment would have profited from an be "wealthier." The income data seem tile in the Seheb study in one important investigation of whether the "indepen­ to bear this out. Yet, only the difference way: they tended to group at the ends of dents" were satisfied to choose between in the lowest category is significant, the income scale. Scheb's subjects were Republicans and Democrats as situations which means that libertarians are less more likely to have middle incomes. warranted, connected to other parties, or likely to earn under $15,000, but as like­ However, the average libertarian in­ fed up with the system altogether. There ly to earn any other amount. None of come in all polls was above the national are many reasons for being uncommitted the racial differences were significant. average. to a party or candidate besides dissatis­ The gender difference was. The age dif­ Identifying characteristics that liber­ faction. Referring to those who do not ference was significant only in the tarians have in common is useful for ex­ identify themselves as either Republicans youngest cohort (Le., "libertarians" are panding the base of the movement. It is or Democrats as "Independents" is as more likely to be 18-29 than"others" especially important for election strate­ problematic as describing those who call are). Scheb's best supported claims are gy, to ensure that scarce funds are spent themselves neither conservatives or liber­ that libertarians are better educated effectively by targeting those more like­ als as "moderates." (three of the five categories show sig­ ly to cast an LP ballot. Outreach efforts Finally, there is the question of dis­ nificant differences), that they are less aimed at well-educated, white males tinguishing libertarians from others likely to be non-mainline Protestants, from non-religious backgrounds with demographically. This is the most im­ and more likely to have no religion. For higher than average incomes could tap portant part of the piece. If one isolates a the party/ candidate preference data, latent libertarian sentiment. It is also in­ sub-group of libertarian tendency, and differences of 10% are significant, and teresting to note that, according to then finds significant differences be- the closest the data come is 9% Seheb's data, those with more libertari­ ("libertarians" vs. "others" in support an beliefs tend to identify themselves as of Bush). Democrats and to have supported Mi­ These data bear an interesting simi­ chael Dukakis for President in 1988. This larity to the demographic profiles in calls into question those recruitment ef- both the Liberty Poll (Liberty, July 1988) forts aimed at Republicans. a

Letters (continued from page 6) These kinds of questions are interesting, bandwagon? no doubt about it. But they are also ab­ There's still room for radicallibertar­ surdist, and the lack of non-absurdist an­ ians ("No more brute force, ever!"), but I swers to them is insufficient reason for a still suspect that the political spectrum person to refrain from a clear, succinct, has just reorganized itself. It used to re­ and yes, narrow statement of his or her quire a large quantum jump for those ethics. becoming libertarians. Now it's a contin­ Please, Mr. Waters, come in out ofthe uum, with a strong force ofattraction at cold. Join with your brethren in the LP in our end. declaring to the world that which you are The battle, of course, is still not convinced of. won-we must still convince people that And let us all try to save active con­ the policies we advocate actually do rep­ sideration of those un-likely ethical ex­ resent a reduction of brute force. We will ceptions for our hallway conversations at have to deal with ambiguities and with the next LP convention. utilitarians who will want to "increase Perry Willis government force to reduce the aggre­ Santee, Calif. gate of brute force." But these difficulties Not with an Oath, but a Mantra are no greater than before, while our per­ Congratulations to Johnny Fargo for suasiveness may have been multiplied. what may be a marketing breakthrough I'm tempted to repeat ''Fargo's Re­ for libertarians! With a slogan like "Just a quest" like a mantra. little less brute force, please," how can Dave Burns people resist jumping on our Austin, Tex. Historical Sketch

Nude Dancing in Memphis by Michael Williams

The decline of indigenous American art-forms is often decried. The solution, we are told, lies in yet another "National Endowment." But, in some cases the state actually impedes artistic development.

Nude dancing is probably as old as civilization itself. As soon as homo erectus invented clothing, certain individuals discovered the pleasure and profit of taking them off again. Almost immediately, others were outraged by such scandalous behavior and tried to stop it, often enlisting the government to help them. From the e eel :e fertility rites of prehistoric tribes, to the ceremonial temple "Virgins" ofantiqui­ Vegas lounge show. The stages were full of sailors and marines, the take ty, to the biblical Salome, right down to small; the dancers did double duty could be far more; and it was all in cash, the present-day topless bar, the com­ serving drinks; and from the beginning, in small bills, passed hand to hand in mercial skin industry has been in al­ there was the peculiar institution of the dim light. This made it easy to skim most continual conflict, interrupted by "table dance." profits for avoiding taxes and for "tips" usually brief periods of symbiosis, with The table dance may have originat­ to supplement the meager earnings of the law. ed in Memphis, for it was not until public officials charged with enforcing Although it would be morally in­ much later that I observed it elsewhere. the law. In addition, profits from other structive to consider the grand sweep of For a fee, typically $3.00 in the early enterprises could easily be laundered the history of ecdysiasm, I willlimit my days, any dancer in the place would gy­ through the clubs on slow days. survey here to a period of ten years, rate, topless, for one entire number on Curiously, there was no outright from 1973 to 1982, in the city of Mem­ the constantly blaring juke box, right by ban on topless dancing itself in the state phis, Tennessee. Readers may be sur­ your table-or, as the art developed, that gave the world the Scopes Monkey prised to learn that Memphis, often right between your knees. Signs on the Trial, and in the city that banned all derided as the "cultural backwater of walls admonished "positively no touch­ Charlie Chaplin and Ingrid Bergman the Mississippi," developed during this ing"; but the lighting was poor, and no movies because of his leftist politics and period a flourishing nude entertain­ doubt considerable touching went on her loose morals. But conflict between ment industry. The topless, and later anyhow, perhaps for an additional fee the skin industry and the law was inevi­ bottomless, bars of Memphis became fa­ negotiated during the dance. table. In retrospect, it seems likely that mous nationwide, surpassing in quality Table dances were the driving force the fix was in with certain progressive many more well-known entertainment of the business. Out of each $3.00 fee, elements of the city administration. centers such as New Orleans{)r Atlanta, the management retained $1.00 and the For whatever reason, a direct ban and even approaching the level of the dancer $2.00. The dancers also received on nudity was not attempted; instead, world-famous Palomino Club of North commissions on drinks, as well as tips, the enemies of art attempted to exert Las Vegas. and there was usually a not insignifi­ control through alcohol regulation. Ap­ Topless dancing first appeared in cant cover charge; but it was table danc­ parently it was all right to look at bare Memphis in the early 1970s, in small es that really brought home the bacon. breasts as long as you did not drink storefront clubs. Whereas the tradition­ Although precise figures are hard to while doing so. This represented a seri­ al American burlesque show had a come by, a typical club might gross ten ous threat to the industry. Even though theatrical format, these places were thousand dollars on a good night. If it table dances were the major source of more cabaret style, like a very small Las were a military payday with the place income, the profits on drinks were by Liberty 49 Volume 2, Number 6 Jul 1989 no means insignificant; and of course, taking off a bottom as well as a top was more table dancing and serving fewer the customer with a few sheets to the minimal, and the profits had almost drinks. wind was more amenable to the idea of doubled; and since customers willingly Some of the dancers were transients, shelling out three bucks for a table paid the higher prices, everybody in­ working to earn enough money to move dance. No club could prosper without volved was better off-as with all volun­ on; some were divorcees with kids, who some kind of alcohol for sale. tary exchanges. found it difficult to work at a conven­ Now at that time in the State of Ten­ Touching was still theoretically for­ tional job because of the hours, lack of nessee, beer and mixed drinks were con­ bidden; but as before, this rule was not training or whatever; some were "mo­ trolled by different agencies. This always strictly observed. Many dancers torcycle mamas," sometimes with truly separation of powers made it possible were quite willing to perform a "real remarkable tattoos; some were drug ad­ for the club operators to "switch" from good" table dance for $10.00, negotiable dicts or alcoholics; and doubtless many one control board to the other. Thus downwards if business was slow. Un- were perfectly able to find work at a when the beer board "straight" job, but made it illegal to serve found nude dancing beer in establishments more rewarding, ei­ featuring topless danc­ Curiously, there was no outright ban on topless ther financially or ing, the clubs would dancing itself in the state that gave the world the artistically. give up their beer li­ Scopes Monkey Trial, and in the city that banned all Patrons came from censes and obtain all walks of life. The mixed-drink licenses; Charlie Chaplin and Ingrid Bergman movies because largest and most pros­ and vice versa. of his leftist politics and her loose morals. perous establishments Apparently the were located near the anti-nudity forces were airport and did consid­ seldom able to control both boards si­ less the manager noticed the extra effort erable business with salesmen, business­ multaneously: thus, when one board and had to be appeased, the dancer men and others passing through town. ruled against the industry, the other pocketed all the overage (or palmed it, Around the middle and end of each board saw it as an opportunity to collect at least; she normally did not have pock­ month, the ranks would be swelled by the graft the first had rejected. So for ets available). Of course, both dancer large numbers of sailors and marines several years it was all right to watch and customer ran a slight risk of arrest from nearby Millington Naval Air Sta­ topless· dancing in Memphis as long as for public lewdness, and this did actual­ tion. Other customers might be honest one did not drink either (a) hard liquor ly happen a few times, but the general workmen on their way home; a bride­ or (b) beer-depending on the current impression was that the fix was in and groom-to-be out for a last (?) celebration regulatory situation. (Ultimately, the sit­ that the risk was very small. Some danc­ with his buddies; college students tak­ uation~seemed to stabilize in favor of ers refused to appear totally nude, just ing a break from the books; bikers; hus­ beer.) as some (often the same ones) had previ­ tlers of one kind or another; and of The next major advance came in ously refused to appear topless. There course the occasional undercover police 1977, when for the first time, totally was generally no house rule requiring agent. Known boyfriends of the dancers nude dancing appeared in Memphis­ them to disrobe; they simply made were usually barred, in the interest of topless, bottomless, the works: "high much more money if they did. Some domestic tranquility. heels and a smile." This innovation was even refused to go on stage at all and Violence was seldom a problem. The introduced rather casually and precipi­ were actually waitresses, subsisting on announcer or "Disk Jockey" was usually tated a predictable reaction from the tips and drink percentages while the a large and powerful type, and there outraged moralists; but evidently a others stripped down and cleaned up. was also the manager and the bouncer, more favorable atmosphere in the Generally the dancers did not mind the and perhaps a couple of parking-lot courts-and also perhaps a more "sym­ non-performing waitresses; the dancers guards who might be around at peak pathetic" law-enforcement philoso­ could maximize their income by doing continued on page 52 phy-made successful legal challenges unlikely. Some of the clubs (and some of the dancers) were reluctant to change Sex and God over at first, but the free market pre­ One day in late 1977, at the beginning of the "bottomless revolution," I vailed. Those unwilling to satisfy their went to a little hole-in-the-wall club near Memphis State University. This customers' desires soon found them­ place, one of the few in town without a cover charge, was just a short selves with no customers to satisfy. drive from the Liberty Bowl Sports Complex; and that summer, a world­ Within six months there was not an famous television evangelist was holding a week-long revival at the ordinary topless bar left in town; they stadium. had all gone bottomless. Although top­ I was sitting in the bar, sipping a beer, when one of the dancerI less table dances remained on the menu waitresses came over. "If you want another beer, you'd better order now," at $3.00, a new item was far more popu­ she said. lar: the totally nude table dance, priced "Why?" I asked. "Is the price going up?" at $5.00, of which the house retained "No," she replied, "but that revival will be over in a few minutes, and $2.00. The dancer's marginal effort in this place will be packed to the walls." 50 Liberty Argument

Fetal Rights The Implication of a Supposed Ought by Tibor R. Machan

Among the many issues considered in connection with the abortion contro­ versy, there is one that has, unfortunately, received little attention. To wit, if the "pro-life" po­ sition is roughly right-that is, if conception of a human being entails a serious right to life for the conceptus­ then certain radical legal consequences 11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111II 111111111111:1 III mlllllllllllllC follow. If zygotes, embryos, and fetuses mIl I I II I:m I mlm have a serious right to life, then miscar- cient information to determine whether conception were possible for a pregnant riages or spontaneous abortions must be- there is ground for suspecting a crime. woman the situation would be the come subjects of extensive and constant Often there are members of the public same. What is required is public knowl­ police scrutiny. well-acquainted with the deceased, and edge as well as private knowledge. It is Every state has some public policy these friends, family and neighbors can the rights-protecting authorities who regarding police investigation of unex- testify to suspicious circumstances, his­ must be able to know of the existence of plained deaths and homicides. (See, tory, and the like.The same situation, the embryo, zygote or fetus in order to Wayne R. LaFave & Gerold H. Israel, however, does not apply in the case of de­ protect their rights. This requirement is Criminal Procedure [St. Paul, Minnesota: ceased zygotes. not easy to meet. West Publishing Company, 1985], Whatever it is that is created at con­ Of course, one could imagine the Chapter 1.) The authorities must deter- ception-whether it is something that is following: At the moment of any possi­ mine that there is no reasonable ground human or something that is only poten­ ble conception-that is, whenever het­ for suspecting murder or some other tially human-it is often not known to erosexual intercourse takes place variety of illegal killing. Now, if a fetus exist until long after conception. between fertile parties-an extensive or zygote has a right to life, it follows Women do not know that they are preg­ machinery of examination, registration that any activity on the part of the preg- nant immediately after they have con­ and supervision of possible pregnancies nant woman (or even a companion or ceived. The plain fact is that "unborn would be generated. Every woman stranger) that might result in a miscar- children" are hidden for several weeks would have the constant duty to check riage (say, arising from some sport or a from the kind of public exposure that whether she is pregnant. If the answer minor traffic mishap) could constitute even babies enjoy. While in advanced is in the affirmative, the woman would negligent homicide. (See Criminal Law civilizations many of these unborn are immediately have to register the con­ 21 Am Jur 2nd Par. 132; Model Penal monitored by physicians, this usually ception of the new human being. She Code Article 210 Section 210.1 & 210.4 occurs only after having lived and been would then have to submit to constant Criminal and negligent homicide vulnerable to mistreatment for several inspection and supervision, so as not to [1962]; Commonwealth v. Nelansky, 55 weeks. This alone seems to violate the permit the possibility of a neglectful N.E. 2nd 902 [MA. 1944].) "ought implies can" provision of ethics, miscarriage-for example, from sports, In the death of an adult or even a which states that if someone is required recreation, work, or play, or any of a child, the public accessibility of the de- to act in a particular way, it must be pos­ number of other activities. ceased makes it relatively easy to deter- sible for that person to carry out the re­ This kind of "solution," however, mine whether foul play reasonably can sponsibility. The veil of ignorance that conflicts with the existence of the rights be assumed. Innumerable forensic surrounds the early stages of pregnancy of persons to not have their lives unrea­ methods and devices exist for this pur- causes many problems unforeseen by sonably scrutinized by authorities-or, pose. Simply checking the body will the advocate of fetal rights. as the 4th Amendment of the U. S. Con­ usually provide investigators with suffi- Even if immediate knowledge of stitution puts it, "against unreasonable Liberty S1 Volume 2, Number 6 Jul 1989 searches." The threat to the rights of Accordingly, even if all pregnancies add to these considerations the possibil­ possible parents would be enormous~ could be detected immediately upon ity that some alternative theory of when indeed, to do their duty, governments conception, the institutional arrange­ a human being comes into existence must violate human rights on numerous ments required for this would involve makes better sense and does not imply fronts. A veritable police state would extensive rights violations and, thus, the widespread official violation of indi­ have to be established so as to uphold make discovery of negligence and other vidual rights, then the case against the ordinary justice. criminal conduct during pregnancy mo- "pro-life" position seems very strong in­ This extraordinary extension of state . rally impossible. deed. Before it could even be considered power can also be considered a viola­ A .legal policy consistent with .the sound, it would have to be shown that tion of the "ought implies can"provi­ idea that the human being is formed at the widespread intrusion into the lives sion, although in a somewhat conception could not be carried out in a of persons discussed here is not implied complicated sense. Ought not only im­ society that respects the sovereignty of by the "pro-life" doctrine. plies can in a physical sense, but also in­ all of its citizens, including pregnant The normal respect for and protec­ a moral sense: a moral obligation must women. If a law is unenforcible in prin­ tion of individual human rights cannot not require immoral acts. Rights must ciple, it is inoperative. This, in turn, sug­ be extended to the being that is created be compossible-the human right of a gests that the "pro-life" position implies by conception-not, at least, without ab­ fetus cannot contradict .. the equally a set of.legal consequences that are im­ surd invasion of the rights of adult basic human right of anyone else.(al­ possible in the very society that suppos­ human individuals. 0 though some prima facie rights theories edly recognizes the rights of its citizens The author thanks Prof. Cliff Perry for his allow for the ranking of human rights). in all cases other than the unborn. If we helpwith legal data.

Michael Williams, "Nude Dancing in Memphis" (continued from page 50)

hours. These guards carried nightsticks collapse. In the fall of 1982, the mayor, using such slogans as "At least we're openly; and inside, you might some­ who had held office for an unprecedent­ not on welfare!" and

The Spirit of '89 by James S. Robbins

Churchill said that the Soviet Union under Stalin was a Jlriddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." Recent democratic reforms back in the USSR are as puzzling as some of Stalin's plots. In this essay, our Russia watcher unwraps some of the mystery.

On March 26, voters in the Soviet Union went to the polls to participate in the election of delegates to the first ever USSR Congress of People's Deputies. The elections, laud­ ed. as the most free since 1917, were as revolutionary as the body for which they were conducted. Unlike previous elections, with single candidate ballots, little or no campaigning, agitators flush­ II ing out the citizens for the necessary later this month, it will choose the 750 nitely an "issues" election, but consider­ 99.9% turnout, and Communist victo­ delegates who will go on to form the re­ ing the fact that the voters had enjoyed ries by about that margin, these elec­ vitalized Supreme Soviet. no political voice their entire lives, one tions saw multiple candidates, active On a purely mechanical level, there shouldn't read too much into it. The campaigns, and the defeat of CPSU are some interesting comparisons to Party supplied a pro-perestroika plat­ (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) Westem-style(that is, free) elections. form for all ofits candidates, who some­ stalwarts on their home ground. Some Access to mass media was guaranteed times ignored it and campaigned on commentators were absolutely over­ by an equal time provision, which was their own themes-a move that brought whelmed. ''By all means let's get excit­ implemented with a thoroughness befit­ criticism, especially from those who ed," Hendrik Hertzberg wrote in The ting the· age of glasnost. While not all had adhered to the platform and lost. New Republic. "What has happened is candidates received space in major pub­ Opinion polls did playa role in this stupendous, magnificent, stirring-one lications, they were granted local, re­ election, reports to the contrary not­ of the great events of the century ... un­ gional, and, in the case of those running withstanding. In fact, opinion polling is reservedly good, true and beautiful." for All-Union mandates, national expo­ one of the growth industries in the So­ Well-it was an important event, sure. The service was free of charge, viet Union. It is seen by the Party as a but let's not lose our heads. To take naturally. A familiar debate OCCWTed useful means of keeping in touch with these elections at face value and see in over state funding of election posters, public attitudes. While the usual them an expression of freedom for its pamphlets and other materials. Some ''horse-race'' polling did not take place own sake would be premature. They objected to candidates receiving contri­ with the same intensity as in the U.S., offer promise, undoubtedly, but prom­ butions from any sources other than the Party polls were taken regularly, and ise of what is another question. state, which apportioned equal stipends occasionally released to the media. The election chose delegates to a of about 60,000 rubles. Ultimately small Participation was just under 90%, a new state body, the Congress of Peo­ contributions from official groups (not fact which argues for the fairness of the pIe's Deputies, which was proposed at individuals) were allowed, but given process. If participation rates continue the 19th All-Union Party Conference the anti-establishment tenor of the cam­ to drop, it will be a sign that democracy last summer. 2895 candidates ran for paign, a candidate whose presentation has indeed come to the land of the So­ 1500 Congressional seats. A Further 750 came off as too slick was likely to lose viets. A few groups, the Lithuanian seats were reserved for delegates from support, not attract it. Freedom League, the Ukrainian Catho­ various public organizations, including Every candidate had a platform, and lic Church and other dissident organi­ the CPSU, which claimed 100 man­ unlike their U.S. counterparts, these zations, boycotted the election. One dates. When the Congress convenes platforms meant something. It was defi- group, the Lion Society, voted against Liberty 53 Volume 2, Number 6 JuI 1989 everyone, utilizing the option to cross­ would reject and thereby discredit Party rived with "memorials" from their con­ off candidates. As was widely reported, officials who followed the "old" practic­ stituencies, statements of discontent. But even some candidates who ran es, or who were not vocal in their sup­ even these were mild, the most radical unopposed, such as party boss Yuri So­ port of reform. It would be a vengeance of them calling for a written constitu­ lovyev, failed to carry a majority and vote. Gorbachev could then use the re­ tion. Nobody expected the meeting to must run again. The "crossing-off" op­ sults of the election to pressure some of tum into a revolution. However, Louis tion is a novel little innovation. If we these elements out of the ruling circles XIV faced opposition both from disgrun­ could learn anything from the East, this of the Party, which he did at the April tled bourgeoisie and angry nobles. The would be it. 26 Central Committee plenum. About Estates General gathered dissidents and Why were the elections held? This is one third of the CC resigned. reformers of every stripe from around an intriguing question. Gorbachev made Gorbachev took pains to make cer­ France, who, meeting in an atmosphere it dear that the purpose of the elections tain that votes against Party members of ill-defined powers, eventually was to further perestroika. The reason were interpreted as anti-individual, not reached a critical mass, and began to ex­ Gorbachev used elections and is conven­ anti-CPSU votes. The leading role of the ercise power as they wished. The armed ing the Congress of forces mutinied, and People's Deputies is the chaos of the revo­ because he cannot in­ The reason Gorbachev used elections and is con­ lution followed. stitute his reforms vening the Congress of People's Deputies is because he That is the very through other chan­ definition of power­ nels. If he could, he cannot institute his reforms through other channels. If its exercise. Where would have already. he could, he would have already. there are few guide- Attempts to utilize lines, people will seek these other channels to extend power as far have been underway for many years. Party was to remain unquestioned. The as possible. The new Supreme Soviet Restructuring is rooted in the Andropov prospects for a multi-party system were will bring together many disaffected ele­ Secretaryship. Brezhnev put a virtual never entertained by anyone inside the ments, and place in their hands a series stop on Party and state promotions for regime, although the development of of partly-defined powers. The nationali­ about ten years, ruining the economy in "pluralism in one party" was discussed. ties are already making their presence the process. Andropov reacted to the Even media star Boris Yeltsin would not felt, with demonstrations along the rim policy of stagnation by instituting the endorse a new party, though reformers of the Soviet Empire. The Lithuanian largest personnel turnover since the outside the CPSU see it as a necessary Sajudis Movement won 31 of 39 Con­ days of Stalin. Gorbachev oversaw the development for true democracy. gressional seats, the strongest showing process, along with the currently dis­ At the same time that the Party is for a nationality group. When these del­ credited Ligachev. The Chernyenko in­ being cleansed, Gorbachev is shifting egates meet their counterparts from the terregnum slowed but did not stop the more power to the state, and to himself. other Baltic states, the Ukraine, Georgia, turnover, and when Gorbachev took The new Congress is a state body, and Armenia and Central Asia, the effect power he had already reshaped most of though its delegates will be Party mem­ could be synergistic. the lower Party apparatus to his liking. bers, they will not act in their CPSU ca­ The Soviet Union faces other impor­ Over the next few years the personnel pacity. The 750 delegates who enter the tant problems, chief among them being changes reached higher in the appara­ Supreme Soviet will be the new focus of food. Gorbachev assessed the election at tus, and soon the Politburo was purged power. The term of a representative to a March 29 meeting with journalists, but of its most "reactionary" elements. Still, the Supreme Soviet will be one year; one prefaced his remarks with a lengthy dis­ resistance persisted. Attempts to use the fifth of the Congress will rotate through course on food. "Food is the real, funda­ Central Committee to institute reform annually. Gorbachev will undoubtedly mental problem," he stated. He said that were also failing. Gorbachev threatened be selected to lead this body. if it was not resolved, perestroika would to call a Party Conference, a general The question arises, what exactly are be endangered. He extolled some of the meeting at which major internal meas­ the powers of the new Supreme Soviet? reform efforts, especially the workings ures could be carried out swiftly. When The answer is that nobody knows. Its of private plots, but maintained that results were not forthcoming, he acted duties have not yet been explicitly de­ more decentralization was necessary. If on his threat, and the Conference con­ fined, and this could result in problems the public begins to blame perestroika for vened in the summer of 1988. Here the for Gorbachev. I11-defined power is po­ their problems instead of the previous proposal for the new Congress was tentially unlimited power, and not nec­ system, or demands restructuring be im­ hashed out. It was a compromise meas­ essarily something one can control. plemented more swiftly, Gorbachev will ure, one Gorbachev had been holding in Consider the meeting of the Estates Gen­ be faced with a no-win situation. Al­ reserve. Having failed to restructure So­ eral in 1789 France. The assembly had ready Party critics are beginning to viet society through traditional means been called for a specific purpose, name­ point out that it has been four years Ed Clark in 1980. I was still izer for libertarianism. For the first time, I candidate, so I had to organize my liber­ politically homeless at the time, and openly spoke to friends, relatives, and tarian positions into a form that I could eventually voted for John Anderson. But even strangers about libertarian ideas. present to the public with maximum im­ the word and the idea made an impres­ The campaign acted as a convenient start­ pact. What a growing experience that sion on me. ing point for discussion and the Party was! lt was a few years later when I began was the logical organization to direct in­ As for the low vote totals ... this to understand and accept libertarianism terested persons toward. Many people member of the rank and file was not as my political philosophy. After I had showed interest enough in our move­ crushed. Maybe the News Election Ser­ nibbled at the writing of John Hospers ment to ask for more information; several vice blackout (see Margaret Fries, "A Liberty 55 Volume 2, Number 6 Jul 1989 Conspiracy of Silence," Liberty, May without a doubt the single most impor­ good portion of ballot access before the 1989) was a blessing for me, in that I eval­ tant and successful aspect of the 1988 1992 campaign begins, and develop our uated the results of the 1988 campaign campaign was the personal growth and own vote collecting and reporting sys­ personally before the vote totals came commitment I experienced. tem. While we're at it, I would love to out. Whether Ron Paul received 432,000 As I see it, our job now is to refuel see our own television station, economist votes or 1,430,000, I considered the 1988 that vehicle. Locally, I am working to Walter Williams as our candidate, five Libertarian Party campaign a success. maintain contacts with new found liber­ million votes in 1992, a Libertarian presi­ Certainly finding other libertarians who tarians, extend my involvement with dent by the year 2000, a libertarian socie­ lived in my area was good, and getting other libertarian organizations, continue ty within our lifetime, water that runs friends, relatives, and sometimes perfect my personal proselytizing, and organize uphill soon after, an eventual end to en­ strangers, to consider the Libertarian po­ plans for more local activism. Nationally, tropy ... oh, and more realistic goals; sitions enough to vote for Ron Paul or­ I suggest we Libertarians start a cam­ let's not encourage over-optimism even join the Party was worthwhile; but paign war chest now, work to complete a among the rank-and-file! 0

James S. Robbins, "The Spirit of '89" (continued from page 54)

democracy, maintain and extend glas­ was illustrated in the critical Pravda arti­ does not do what the Supreme Soviet nost, and exercise control." cles which followed the recent CC wants, it will be fired." Other Soviet Gorbachev also lashed out against plenum. commentators have called the new sys­ those reporters who felt that perestroika Thus there are many factors which tem the "Dictatorship ofthe People." was too short on redistribution of could contribute to large-scale instabili­ It is far too early to heap praise on wealth. "[T]he press cannot confuse so­ ties. The deciding factor will be the com­ the Soviet leadership. As I have men­ cial justice with levelling," he main­ plexion of the new Parliament. Major tioned before in these pages ("Perestroiko. tained. "They are different things. While changes are sure to be put in place. For and Liberty," November 1988), perestroi­ strengthening social security and justice, his part, Gorbachev is not commenting ka is the Party line. The leadership shows we cannot support an atmosphere of on the specific goals he will pursue. Oth­ tolerance, but only of those who promote levelling. That's fatal, that's a blow ers are not so tight-lipped. Mikhail Pol- restructuring. Those who oppose it are against the entire economic reform, "not above criticism"; in other words, against the society, against its morality." they are targeted. Public discontent is (Why can't our President say things like Where there are few guide­ being used as a tool to the end of elimi­ that?) At the same time, the Soviet nating opposition, and allowing restruc­ Union is introducing a graduated in­ lines, people will seek to ex­ turing to move forward. Once perestroika come tax, to appease rising complaints tend power as far as possible. has been achieved (and nobody seems to about the unequal growth of personal The new Supreme Soviet will know exactly what that entails), glasnost, wealth. the elections and the other manifesta­ Low morale among the armed forces bring together many disaffect­ tions of "liberalism" may disappear or be is a difficult factor. Still stinging from its ed elements, and place in their defanged. The March elections do give defeat in Afghanistan, facing personnel cause for hope. The 1994 elections will cuts and few opportunities for promo­ hands a series of partly-defined give more cause, if they take place. And tion, being used as a scapegoat for politi­ powers. the true indicant of democracy, the cal maneuvering (as shown in the case of peaceful transfer of power from one rul­ the Georgian riots and their aftermath), ing party to another, would be the and losing budget money and prestige, taranin, Boris Yeltsin's journalistic crowning achievement. the Red Army cannot be considered the advisor, made some definitive statements There are many roads open to the So­ most energetic supporter of perestroika. in the April 3 edition of the Viennese viet Union. The situation becomes more Gorbachev has taken steps to ameliorate magazine Profil. Poltaranin was already complex daily. Soon the new Congress these problems, but the MVD, the working on some draft laws for Parlia­ will convene, and the Supreme Soviet internal security police, is also being ment. He stated that the "progressive shortly thereafter. In the fall, Republican built up. forces have the majority" in the People's elections will extend the new system to Finally, there are Party members who Congress, but downplayed the emer­ the regional level, giving more opportu­ will continue to resist Gorbachev's gence of "total opposition." Furthermore, nities for disruption. Nationality groups moves to strip them of power. Their re­ he was ofthe opinion that opponents out­ are growing stronger and more brazen, cent presence in the Soviet media is not side the Congress would not be tolerated. and the Soviet people are tiring of waiF so much a tribute to glasnost-after all, "The most important thing is that Parlia­ ing for results. Both revolution and reac­ they had been there all along, but few ment is above the apparatus," he said. tion simmer beneath the surface. If had made it into the press-as it is an in­ "So far the Supreme Soviet has simply Gorbachev can successfully reform the dication of their gathering organizational been a voting machine. The orders came Soviet system, it will be an impressive strength. They are beginning to learn the from the apparatus. We want things to accomplishment. But even if he does, new rules of the game. These forces are run the other way around: the Supreme what happens next? Will the land of the certain to exploit any discontent that Soviet is to tell the apparatus what it has Russians finally become host to the bless­ could be turned against Gorbachev, as to do. It must be clear. If the apparatus ings of liberty? Let's wait and see. 0 56 Liberty Judgntent Day: My Years With Ayn Rand, by Nathaniel Branden. thought) do away with the cultish as­ Houghton Mifflin, 1989, 438 pp., $21.95. pects of the Objectivist movement. Since the rift, I had followed his ca­ reer only peripherally. I knew he had moved to Los Angeles, continued his psychotherapy, and written a few popu­ lar books on psychology. I did hear the Who Is two lectures on Rand that Branden pro­ duced shortly after her death in 1982, Nathaniel Branden? both of which impressed me as insightful. I had read The Passion of Ayn Rand written by Barbara Branden, his former R. W. Bradford of the strange brew of people and ideas wife and also a former close associate of that resulted in the Ayn Rand cult. For Rand, when it was published three years Nathaniel Branden's Judgment Day this reason alone, it is an important ago. Passion included the first detailed takes its title from the conventional book. In her own peculiar way, Rand account of the rift between Rand and Christian view of the day of reckoning, was the most influential political or phil­ Branden. It left me convinced that Rand at which all scores will be settled amidst osophical novelist of her generation. Her had caused a great deal of harm to many great tribulation. The specific day of novels and philosophy, taken together, of those who admired her novels and her reckoning to which Branden refers oc­ were undoubtedly the largest factor in thinking. She insisted that they toe the curred in 1968, when hyper-individualist the resurgence of libertarian thinking party line; she apotheosized even her novelist Ayn Rand discovered that the during the past quarter century. casual opinions into fundamental philo­ reason Branden was unwilling to renew Branden was there at the beginning sophical principles; she reacted angrily his love affair with her was that he had of the movement-indeed, a good case and viciously toward those who disa­ begun, some years earlier, ,m affair with can be made that he was its planner and greed with her on any matter no matter a woman 35 years her junior. Even be­ chief executive, so his memory of its end­ how peripheral to her thinking. fore he began his affair with a beautiful lessly fascinating, endlessly weird world Nathaniel Branden had been Rand's lieu­ young model, Branden walmed her that is important. As with any memoir, the tenant and had been a party to the nega­ if Rand ever found out about their rela­ truth and value of this book is a function tive things Rand did, but in many ways tionship, "you would see an explosion of the author's candor and credibility. he was her victim as well as her collabo­ such as you cannot even begin to ima­ Those who believe Branden is a genius rator. Rand, it seemed to me, acted crazi­ gine." (p. 328) and a man extraordinarily in touch with ly. She demanded his sexual services as Branden was right: when Rand himself will likely find Judgment Day in­ the price of her support for his activities, learned of his affair, she rE~acted with a sightful, perspicacious and profound. then angrily and bitterly denounced him fury that challenges the imagination. The Those who view Branden as a purveyor for the crime of choosing a younger rift extended far beyond Rand and of psycho-babble who initially gained woman over her. Branden, into the movement that had his reputation by leeching off Ayn Rand But Passion is a biography, not a me­ grown up around Rand and her will find Judgment Day nearly worthless. moir like Judgment Day; Barbara Branden philosophy, most of whose members felt My own inclination, when I began relied only secondarily on her own mem­ the urge to side either with Branden or Judgment Day, was to view Branden as ories of Rand, and she had been neither with Rand. It ended long friendships an extremely intelligent and perceptive as intimately involved with Rand nor the and split love affairs and divided man. I had heard him lecture about Ayn Objectivist movement as had Nathaniel families. Rand's philosophy several times in the Branden. So I hoped that Judgment Day Branden, a prominent psychothera­ 1960s and read his book Who Is Ayn would fill in some of the gaps in the sto­ pist, was intimately involved with Rand Rand? I had read the account (such as it ry of Rand's life, especially in the story both intellectually and sexually, and was) that Rand wrote in The Objectivist of of the cult that grew up around her and played a pivotal role in the political­ her break with him. I had read his re­ of her relationship with him. cultural movment that had grown up sponse. I had reserved judgment on him around her. In Judgment Day, he shares and on Rand, on grounds that I pos­ At the Center of the Circle his memories of his bizarre relationship sessed insufficient information, though I Although subtitled liMy Life with with Rand and presents an intimate view was pleased that their rift would (or so I Ayn Rand," Judgment Day is really a Liberty 57 Volume 2, Number 6 July 1989 narrative of Branden's life, from his spent a year working in his uncle's jew­ keeping their relationship secret from childhood in suburban Toronto virtually elry store. She also was profoundly im­ their spouses. "We must do nothing to to the publication of the book. Butit con­ pressed by The Fountainhead, though not hurt Frank or Barbara," Rand told him. centrates on his years with Rand, which so fanatically as he. Before long, Barbara (155) So she called in her husband and began when he visited her at her home and Nathan (he didn't change his name his wife and explained why it was en­ in the San Fernando Valley on March 2, from Nathan Blumenthal to Nathaniel tirely rational for Nathan and her to 1950, and ended when she expunged Branden until 1954, and he remained have an affair, to meet secretly at her him from her life on August 25, 1968. "Nathan" to his friends) were regular apartment for one afternoon and one During those 18 years, Nathaniel visitors to Rand's household. In August evening per week. "Faking reality does Branden ingratiated himself with Rand, 1951, Barbara and Nathan moved to not work," Rand told them. "What rea­ first as adulatory fan, then successively New York to continue their educations. listic alternative is there to what we're as student, colleague, lover, co-Pope, Only a month later, Rand called to tell proposing?" (159) and Chief Inquisitor of the cult that he them that she and her husband were "This does not mean that Nathan propagated around her ideas. pulling up stakes and would arrive in does not love you," she told Barbara. Branden first encountered Ayn Rand New York in three weeks. "He's your husband and nothing will though The Fountainhead, Rand's extraor­ Nathan continued to have strong ever change that. Look at the age differ­ dinary novel about the importance of sexual feelings for Barbara, which were ence between Nathan and me. We have personal integrity. "Between the ages of not reciprocated. But gradually, under no future, except as friends. I'm not go­ fourteen and eighteen," Branden writes, prodding from both Rand and Nathan, ing to make myself ludicrous with a "I read and reread The Fountainhead al­ Barbara came to accept Rand's view younger man." (158) most continuously, with the dedication that sexual choices reflect a person's (The quotations here are the product and passion of a student of the deepest values, and that because of what Nathan calls his "vividly keen Talmud." (18) At the age of 19, he wrote Nathan was intelligent and agreed with memory ... I am not suggesting that all Rand a letter, in care of her publisher, her about important issues, she should of the words reported are verbatim, but asking her about her political beliefs. desire him. In the summer of 1952, she I am confident they are faithful to the es­ She never answered. He wrote her again agreed to marry him. In January 1953 sence of what was said and to the spirit a few months later, ask- and mood of the occa­ ing whether she had any sion."[vii] It is worth novels that he had not In her own peculiar way, Rand was the most in­ noting that this version yet discovered. This time fluential political or philosophical novelist of her of the conversation dif­ she responded with a fers considerably from short note. Branden generation. the account of the only wrote her a much longer other .living witness of fan letter, asking several the same events, philosophical questions. This time Rand Rand and her husband Frank O'Connor Barbara. In the"Author's Note," Nathan responded with a letter several pages served as matron of honor and best advises that he relies on more than his long. Branden fired off another missive, man at their wedding. "vividly keen memory." He also em­ this time including his phone number. A Nathan recalls the first year of mar­ ploys "a variety of documents and mate­ few days later Rand called and invited riage as "the best in our entire relation­ rials which I talk about in the Epilogue." him to visit her. ship." (127) Even so, he acknowledges Curiously, the only document or materi­ He was fascinated by her logical, that a problem persisted: "the disparity al he refers to in the Epilogue is precise answers to his questions, and in Barbara's and my desire to make Patrecia's diary, from which he had she was fascinated by his quick mind love." (118) Naturally (?!?), he discussed quoted her first impressions of him.) and obvious intellectual infatuation. this problem with Rand, who advised Frank protested, but was over­ When Rand asked him whether man that he stop making passes at Barbara whelmed by the logic of Ayn's and was good or evil by nature, he respond­ while she vacuumed and allow nature Nathan's argument. Barbara rational­ ed that he saw man as neither, but that to take its course. ized that since Nathan and Ayn had as­ he had potential for both. She asked In September 1954, he began an af­ sured them that their relationship whether he saw life as benevolent or as­ fair with Rand, though at first it was not would not be sexual she could accept it. malevolent. "I thought the question consummated: Neither Nathan nor Ayn was strange, that I thought of life as neutral 'We won't have an actual affair," surprised when their relationship be­ and containing both benevolent and ma­ she said. liThe romance will be non­ came overtly sexual a few months later. levolent possibilities." (47) Rand quickly sexual, in the ultimate sense." "I was clearly the initiator," Branden re­ weaned him away from these common­ Part of me felt relieved by this state­ calls. (160) "Having been engaged in sensical notions, and he and Rand were ment; another part, more dominant, the act of penetrating her consciousness "falling in love, not romantically, but felt disappointed. in every way I possibly could, since first intellectually." (46) ''You mean it will be sexual in every­ reading The Fountainhead, the actual sex On his second visit, he brought thing but fact," I answered. (155) act felt almost like a continuation of the along Barbara Weidman, a former girl As advocates of rationality and hon­ same endeavor. The desire to 'know' friend from Winnipeg, where he had esty, he and Rand never considered her in every conceivable sense, includ-

58 Liberty Volume 2, Number 6 July 1989

ing the biblical, was central to my his intellectual vigor, he tells us. His Nathaniel Branden as her "intellec­ interactions with her." (164) sexual relationship with Rand remained tual heir," and has repeatedly pro­ Nor were Barbara .and Frank sur­ a secret from the liThe Collective," claimed him to be an ideal exponent of her philosophy, he is to be accord­ prised when they got the news. In a bi­ Rand's ironically nicknamed body of ed only marginally less reverence zarre passage, Nathan explains how the "individualist" followers. than Ayn Rand herself. affair was almost Barbara's fault, really. • But it is best not to say most of these Looking back, it strikes me that an­ A Cultish ... Aspect things explicitly (excepting, perhaps, other woman in Barbara's place Atlas Shrugged was published in the first two items). One must always might have said, "I understand your 1957. It was an immediate bestseller and maintain that one arrives at one's be­ feelings for each other, and I am not its unapologetic advocacy of capitalism liefs solely by reason. (258-9) going to quarrel with them or try to and selfishness generated considerable Amazingly, immediately after sum­ change them. But just the same, this controversy. Shortly after its publica­ marizing this creed, Branden asserts, is very painful for me, and I need to tion, Nathan began a series of lectures "We were not a cult in the literal, be by myself for a while. I'm going dictionary sense of the word, but away for six months and leave you about Rand's philosophy (by now and Ayn a free certainly there was a cultish aspect to hand, to do what­ our world." (259) ever you wish. I Branden shares his memories of his bizarre relation­ That the Objectivist will not subject movement was in fact a myself to standing ship with Ayn Rand and presents an intimate view of cult is underscored by by as a passive par­ the strange brew of people and ideas that resulted in Branden a few pages ticipant." If the Objectivist movement. Once and for all, he ends later: Barbara had said I looked for ways that, she would any controversy about whether it was a cult. For this to reassure Ayn have refused to be reason alone, it is an important book. of my devotion. I be­ an adversary, I came her "enforcer." would have had If someone in our nothing to fight group did something to offend Ayn against, and I would have had to en­ dubbed "Objectivism"). Thanks to his or "the cause," or was not behaving dure the pain of six months without considerable skill as a lecturer and to as a "good Objectivist," I would in­ her, and I suspect that would have Rand's endorsement and participation, vite that person to lunch and in a ended my romance with Ayn right his lectures were very successful, both quiet but deadly voice I would in­ then. (159) financially and in terms of building a form him or her of the nature of the Alas, Barbara did not follow his ex movement. Before long, he had incorpo­ transgression. If the offense was big post facto advice. She stayed by his side, rated his enterprise as the Nathaniel enough, say, being friendly with someone who had been critical of apparently as both "passive participant" Branden Institute, and was offering his and "adversary." The affair continued Ayn, or gossiping about another lectures to an increasingly wide audi­ Collective member-our whole intensely for a few years until it was in­ ence by means of tape transcription. group convened to hear the charges, terrupted by the depressions of Rand In retrospect, Branden understands a and almost always it was I who took and the deceptions of Branden. great deal about the movement he creat­ the role of prosecutor. (267) Meanwhile, both Rand's and ed and ran. "There were implicit premis­ He describes one such "trial," against Branden's careers were progressing es in our world to which everyone in a young woman who had "wronged" nicely. Branden got a Master's Degree our circle subscribed, and which we Leonard Peikoff: from NYU and began to practice psy­ transmitted to our students at NBI," ... I became an avenging angel, lay­ chotherapy. Rand continued work on Branden observes. ing before her the wrong she had her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged. • Ayn Rand is the greatest human be­ done, with the cold, quiet earnest­ Their social circle expanded, mostly by ing who has ever lived. ness of an inquisitor out of the the addition of Barbara's and Nathan's • Atlas Shrugged is the greatest human Middle Ages-while Frank listened passively, Leonard looked righteous relatives and friends from Canada: achievement in the history of the and wounded, Barbara watched the Leonard Peikoff (Barbara's cousin), world. •Ayn Rand, by virtue of her philo­ frightened girl with gentle sternness Allan Blumenthal (Nathan's cousin), sophical genius, is the supreme arbi­ through circles of smoke rising from Joan Mitchell (Barbara's closest child­ ter of any issue pertaining to what is her cigarette holder, and Ayn lis­ hood friend), Alan Greenspan (Joan's rational, moral, or appropriate to tened eagerly, clapping her hands in husband, briefly), Elayne Blumenthal man's life on earth. appreciation of my theatrically lucid (Nathan's sister) and her husband • Once one is acquainted with A yn formulations. (267) Harry Kalberman, Reva Fox (another of Rand and/or her work, the measure Branden's repentance for his sins as Nathan's sisters), Sholy Fox (Reva's of one's virtue is in trinsically tied to inquisitor is not universal. He has no ap­ husband) and Mary Ann Rukavina (a the position one takes regarding her parent regret for his excommunication of and/or it. economist Murray Rothbard. After ex­ friend of Joan Mitchell's). Ayn was un­ • No one can be a fully consistent in­ plaining that Rothbard had committed doubtedly the mentor of the group, and dividualist who disagrees with Ayn Nathan was undoubtedly number two Rand on any fundamental issue. the crime of independent thinking (he in the chain of command, by virtue of • Since Ayn Rand has designated argued for anarchism because govern- Liberty 59 Volume 2, Number 6 July 1989 ments inherently violate individual a philosophical movement. She told er than Rand and was recruited by rights), Branden explains that "Murray me many times that I was responsi­ Branden. They offered her the same adu­ refuse[d] to acknowledge Ayn as his ble for the existence of what the lation that Branden did. They were in­ source of some of his ideas, having to do press was to call "the Objectivist timidated by Rand's brilliance. She no movement"-which I accomplished with the concept of causality ...I chal':' longer operated within a circle of equals; through Nathaniel Branden Institute. lenged his assertion, on the telephone, So I guess I can say that I was the her relationship with the Collective was and asked him to come over so we could "practical" man in·the situation, so clearly a status relationship. Her inclina­ discuss the situation in person. He re~ far as the cultural spread of tions toward pontificism were rewarded. fused angrily in a way which signaled Objectivism was concerned. (Reason, Bennett Cerf, her publisher, shared this that this matter was far more serious Oct 1971, p. 13) view; in his memoirs, he wrote: "She was than I had supposed." (263) It's hard to Branden, on the other hand, had the not helped by her sycophants . .. These see how Branden's attack on Rothbard skill, the inclination and the psychologi­ people tell her she's a genius and agree differs from his attacks on other trans­ cal sensitivity needed to run a cult. And with everything she says, and she grows gressors, except that Rothbard refused to unlike his mentor, whose stature as a more and more opiniated as she goes accept the jurisdiction of Branden's popular novelist provided her with fame along." (At Random, New York: Random Inquisition. Just like an anarchist! and fortune, he had everything to gain House, 1977, p. 251) It seems unlikely that a cult would from the effort. He craved recognition, Of course, a cult requires both lead­ have grown around Rand had it. not power and money, all of which were ers and. followers; no harm was done to been for Branden. He was clearly its ar­ available from the cult, none of which he those who refused to participate. But chitect and chief executive. However was likely to obtain by other means. thanks to the skill of Rand as a novelist, much Rand might have wanted·a cult, In the same 1971 interview, Branden there never seemed to be a shortage of she had neither the skill nor the tempera­ came very close to acknowledging his followers. ment to design or run one. role in creating the cult: Rand was a genius. She wrote two I played a major role in the Ayn Arrogance and Contempt novels that "changed the lives" of many Rand mystique ...I feel I owe an During the years of their secret sexu­ readers, convincing them that careful apology to every reader of Who Is al relationship, Rand was always extrav­ consideration of philosophical ideas was Ayn Rand? and every student of agant in her praise of Nathan. Shortly an .exciting and necessary activity, and Objectivism who every heard me lec­ after the publication of Atlas, Nathan re­ more: that her own philosophical beliefs ture at NBI-not only for perpetuat­ calls, a journalist asked him, "'Do you were both prerequisites to individual ing the Ayn Rand mystique but also feel entirely worthy of the things Miss happiness and of vital Rand says about you?' I importance to the answered, without ar­ world. She convinced It seems unlikely that a cult would have grown rogance and with total many intelligent. people around Rand had it not been for Branden. However honesty, 'Yes, I feel that she was the proph­ worthy.' It all felt en­ et of a crucially impor­ much Rand might have wanted a cult, she had neither tirely natural; entirely tant new philosophy. the skill nor the temperament to design or run one. right." (230) But Rand was far Branden, on the other hand, had the skill, the inclination It did not, however, too wrapped up in her feel natural or right to own life and far too and the psychological sensitivity needed to run a cult. Nathan to think of his psychologically isolated friends as worthy of to organize and manage praise, or even, for that a cult. Her life revolved around her writ­ for contributing to the dreadful at­ mosphere of intellectual repressive­ matter, a kind word. Practically every ing and a very small circle of friends. She ness that pervades the Objectivist description of others in the Collective is was profoundly isolated from other hu­ movement ... It was I who created cloaked in pejoratives. The following ac­ man beings: she simply could not grasp the Ayn Rand circle in New York. count is typical: the motives of most people. She was no (Reason, Oct 1971, pp. 12-16) One day she (Barbara) suggested we more able to perform the psychological Branden changed Rand's life in im­ visit her sixteen-year-old cousin, manipulations necessary to the manage­ portant ways that better made her more who was very troubled about his life; ment of a cult than she was able to keep eligible for cult worship; and Rand, who perhaps I could help him by support­ her files organized. found his. youthful adulation and fasci­ ing his interest in ideas and encour­ In a 1971 interview, Branden ac­ nation with her philosophy almost ad­ aging his self-confidence. I met a knowledged that Rand had little interest dicting, gradually supplanted her nervous, high strung boy, gloomy in her movement: friendships among her comtemporaries and in doubt about virtually every with more and more and more of aspect of himself. But he had read Question: Was [Rand] ever concerned and liked The Fountainhead, and he Nathan and his circle. Her relationships with building a movement as such. became more animated as we talked Branden: Not really. with intellectuals of similar maturity and about it. He obviously found the Question: Was that your job status (such as Henry Hazlitt and Isabel book inspiring; it seemed to give him primarily? Paterson) died out as well. Branden took hope that he might create a satisfy­ Branden: I think I was the one who control of her social life. Every member ing future for himself. He told me first saw the possibility of generating of the Collective but one was far young- that he was going to study medicine; 60 Liberty Volume 2, Number 6 July 1989

his father was a prominent physician This story, Nathan tells us, is tly self-abnegating, and sycophantic. in Winnipeg; discussing medicine, "hilarious." ''You gave me my career," he was his spirits seem to drop again. I won­ Branden's cousin, Allan Blumenthal, saying. ''You taught me to believe in dered why Barbara's first cousin is treated with contempt from the mo­ myself. You made my marriage to looked so frightened and unhappy ment he is introduced early in the book. Joan possible. You contributed so and what would become of him. His much to our happiness. I hope you Allan was an A student, a model name was Leonard Peikoff. know how appreciative I feel. I can't son, the very essence of decorum in Subsequent mention of Peikoff treats think of a time when, if we asked for just about every conceivable respect help, you weren't right there. Look him virtually as an idiot, unable to keep ... Two years older than I, Allan around this room: think how much the most fundamental ideas straight in would sometimes drop pompous re­ you've given to everyone here. You bukes to the effect that I should be his mind. Judging from Nathan's de­ gave us Ayn's world. You gave us more family-oriented and "more scription, it is difficult to our best selves. Not understand how Peikoff one single person managed to graduate Why didn't Branden transcribe the lectures and would be as happy from high school, let as they are now if it alone earn a Ph.D. from publish them in books so that students could reflect on had not been for NYU for his thesis on the the lecture's content as they studied them, review pas­ you. You must feel very proud. You law of ontology. an~ ~nd Similarly, he remem­ sages they found difficult, s.truggle come to ought to." ... I felt an intense desire bers Alan Greenspan, grips with the complex and difficult subject matt~r? to escape. (358-9) now Chairman of the The reason, I suspect, is that Branden was not tryIng Federal Reserve Board, Branden is con­ as "somberness incar­ to educate. He was trying to build a cult. vinced that Blumenthal was not the only one nate, looking chronically weary, resigned and un- who owed him a great conventional," meaning more com­ deal. In fact, despite his apparent con­ happy ... not a free enterpriser, but a pliant; at such times he would show tempt for virtually all other members of Keynes-ian [and] a logical positivist." puzzling flashes of irritation ... the Collective, he believes all benefited (133) But Nathan was "convinced he had He was now twenty-three years old, from their relationship with him. When a first class mind, his philosophy not­ of medium height and slight build, Alan Greenspan was thinking of quitting withstanding," and proceeded to edu­ with light hair and blue eyes, a bit ef­ his job to form an economic consulting cate him about the error of his ways. The feminate, perhaps, in the manner of firm with a partner, he told Branden highlight of Greenspan's "conversion," an English schoolboy-as Ucorrect" about his worries over the riskiness of Nathan relates, occurred at a party in as ever in demeanor. .. he began the project. Branden encouraged him to Winnipeg: talking with a kind of driven candor about some painful personal prob­ go ahead and take the plunge: "You're I spied Barbara and Alan talking in­ lems. I was on fire with the concept still in your twenties. How can you be tently in a corner, their heads close of ideas being able to explain emo­ worried about security now? Take the together. A long time later they tions and behavior-and with the emerged, and Barbara pulled me leap." The move worked out spectacular­ possibility of changing emotions and aside to declare gleefully, "Guess ly well for Greenspan, who, like behavior by changing the ideas that what? I got him to admit that banks Blumenthal, thanked Branden: gave rise to them. I was able to help should be operated entirely private­ "You believed in me," he said, shak­ him, for which he thanked me ly, that there should be no govern­ ing his head wonderingly. uHow earnestly. (18,108-9) ment-chartered banks." I laughed could you be sure? I would never be incredulously. "How?" I asked. Later Nathan describes how Blu­ sure of such a thing." I said, "What "How did you do it? I didn't know menthal and his wife "reign like kings difference does it make? You've you even knew what a chartered and queens" among their friends, many done it." He laughed, UNathan, I'll bank is." She grinned triumphantly. of whom were former or current therapy never forget what you've given me." "I didn't. But somehow we got talk­ clients of Allan's, leaving Nathan This last statement I had heard, or ing about them. So I led him into ex­ "wonder(ing) about the fact that so would hear, from almost everyone in the Collective. "I'll never forget what plaining what they were and why many of the men in this group were ho­ they were considered to be neces­ you've given me, I'll never forget mosexual." (300) Despite Nathan's ap­ sary-as if I were checking on his what you've done for me." The senti­ ha~ understanding. Then I persuaded parent contempt for him, Allan ment's painful irony was to become him that government shouldn't be gained immeasurably from theIr apparent only many years in the involved, that a free market in bank­ relationship: future. (191) ing is preferable. I sold him on the One evening, at a party... [Allan] merits of a completely unregulated unexpectedly began to talk about Sooner Perish than Publish banking system. Just by arguing on how much I had contributed to his The years following the publication the basis of the information he pro­ andJoan's life, and how much every­ of Atlas Shrugged were prosperous and vided." I shook my head in admira­ one in the Collective had been busy for Nathan. He added new lecture tion ... Back in New York I loved helped by me. I struggled between telling the story of Barbara's victory wanting to appreciate his words and courses, began a publishing operation, a over chartered banks. (134) finding his manner obsequious, sub- movie theater, and a theatrical produc-

Liberty 61 Volume 2, Number 6 July 1989 tion company. Ironically, several of the ings and endorsements, which were in a manner less sympathetic to new lecture courses were the work of his quoted prominently and often in virtual­ Objectivism. contemptible disciples: Mary Ann ly all the advertising and news releases And, not incidentally, the tape tran­ Rukavina on "Esthetics of the Visual of the organization. Branden paid her scription method maximized revenue: Arts," Alan Greenspan on "Economics of nothing for her endorsement. correcting for twenty years of inflation, a Free Society," Leonard Peikoff on Branden's decision to offer his lec­ the fee for listening to a series of approxi­ "Ancient Philosophy," "Modern tures by tape was certainly peculiar. mately 20 hours of taped lectures Philosophy," "Contemporary Philos­ Conventional lectures offer the opportu­ amounts to about $150. ophy," "Objectivism's Theory of nity for those attending to ask questions Knowledge" and "Nazism and and allow the speaker to gauge the re­ The Liar as Hero Contemporary America: The Ominous sponse or comprehension of his audi­ During the years immediately after Parallels". Branden developed other lec­ ence. By offering lectures by tape ture series himself: "Contemporary transcription, Branden lost these advan­ the publication of Atlas, Rand's populari­ Theories of Neurosis," "Basic Principles tages, raising the obvious question: why ty continued to grow. In 1959, Random of Objectivist Psychology," and "The not transcribe the lectures and publish House published a new edition of her Psychology of Mental Illness," but the them in books? novel We The Living, which was original­ last two of these ly published in 1936. Unlike the first edi- included lectures by tion, the 1959 edition Branden's despised sold very well. cousin, Allan Branden's repentence for his sins as Grand Branden gloats about Blumenthal. One won­ Inquisitor of the Objectivist Movement is not univer­ its popularity, but pro­ ders if perhaps in ret­ sal. He has no apparent regret for his excommunication vides little new infor­ rospect Branden might mation. As in his think he owes refunds of economist Murray Rothbard, for instance. ... earlier book on Rand, to those who paid to Branden neglects to hear someone as mo- mention that, contrary ronic (in his opinion) as Leonard Peikoff The reason, I suspect, is that publica­ to her explicit claim in its introduction, lecture on philosophy. In addition, tion would have enabled students to re­ Rand made significant ideological chang­ Barbara lectured on "The Principles of flect on the lectures' content as they es in the second edition. He repeats Efficient Thinking," Nathan's sister Reva studied them, to review passages they Rand's story that the film version of the Fox lectured on "Principles of Child found difficult, to struggle and come to book made in Italy in 1943 had been sup­ Rearing," and Rand supplied three early grips with the complex and difficult pressed by the fascist government, de­ plays for Nathan to read. In 1967, NBI subject matter. Given the tremendous spite the evidence that it had never been advertised a new series, "The Principles demand for the material (as indicated banned. (See "The Search for We The and Practice of Non-Fiction Writing," to by the popularity of the tape sessions), Living", Liberty, Nov 1988.) be given by Edith Efron. Efron, however, the sales of published lectures would be Demand for Rand was so great that was excommunicated from the certain. Why didn't this occur to Random House agreed to publish a book Collective before her lectures began, and Branden, as the president of an educa­ by Nathaniel and Barbara in 1962. Who Is the course was cancelled. tionalorganization? Ayn Rand? .consists of four essays: three The courses were offered live in New But NBI was not an educational or­ by Nathaniel on Rand's novels and a re­ York, and in other cities on audio tape. ganization. It was a cult. The same char­ markably elliptical biographical essay by From coast to coast, in Europe and even acteristics of taped lectures that make Barbara. Since Rand split with Branden, in nuclear submarines, groups of enthu­ them ineffective means of education he has condemned it. It has become a rar­ siastic "students of Objectivism" gath­ make them effective as means of spread­ ity and a curiosity. Its back cover features ered around tape recorders and listened ing a cult's doctrine. The controlled pace a photograph of Barbara, the perfect ice to members of the Collective lecture limits the auditors' chance to reflect or blond, looking like a character from a them. The cost was typically $2.50 to respond to the message and denies them Hitchcock film, and of Nathaniel, looking $3.50 per lecture. NBI's "business repre­ the ability to make a critical review of like the cat that has just eaten the family sentatives" (who received commissions passages they find difficult to under­ canary. as high as 10%) were contractually stand. Discussion (or anything else) that Also in 1962, Branden and Rand be­ bound to allow no discussion of the con­ encourages challenges or disagreement gan to publish The Objectivist Newsletter, a tents. Regularly enrolled students who is detrimental to cult leadership. Cult four-page monthly in which they offered wished to repeat a tape could do so, at leaders have no need for feedback from the official Objectivist view on every­ the option of the business representative, their followers. Caring or paying atten­ thing that mattered. This WClS the first by paying the visitor's fee, or by enroll­ tion to what their followers think can (and only) business venture of Branden's ing for the course again, at a slightly re­ easily be interpreted as evidence of un­ in which Rand profited: she was a full duced fee. certainty or, worse yet, of the humble partner. By 1964, its circulation had All this was, presumably, tremen­ human nature of the leaders. If the lec­ reached "close to 15,000," NBI courses dously profitable for Branden, the sole tures had been published, the audience were offered in 54 cities with "about owner of NBI. The most valuable asset of would have been larger, but the material 3,500 students" enrolled, not counting the NBI was certainly Rand's repeated bless- would have been be read and analyzed "several thousand" who audited individ- 62 Liberty Volume 2, Number 6 July 1989 ual lectures. (The Objectivist Newsletter, great length, seeking a solution. Of Patrecia was young and gorgeous, and, Dec 1964, p. 51) A year later, the course, no solution was found, but the unlike Barbara or Ayn, she worshipped Newsletter announced that its "growing process maintained Rand's support of him in an uncritical fashion. circulation" had enabled it to adopt a his enterprises and kept him out of her Early in 1962, Nathan learned that "magazine format," and that with the bed. she was engaged to be married to Larry format change, its name would be His relationship with Barbara was Scott, another NBI student. Apparently changed to The Objectivist. (The new for­ unenviable: "My fists clenched, in an ag­ Patrecia had concluded that their status mat was actually a 16-page booklet, ony of frustration and loneliness, while difference was too great to overcome. which contained about the same amount Barbara lay beside me reading a book." Nathan attended her wedding on May of writing as the Newsletter.) (363) But his relationship with her had 31, 1962; he recalls thinking "I do not like Although the Objectivist movement never been a source of satisfaction. She this. I do not like Patrecia marrying an­ was prospering, Rand herself was de­ had married him because she believed it other man."(308) Did Rand have similar pressed for several years after publica­ was the rational thing to do and had thoughts at Nathan's wedding to tion of Atlas. According to Branden, her never felt a powerful sexual attraction to Barbara nine years earlier? depression was caused by the fact that him. Branden saw Patrecia and her new public response to her magnum opus had husband occasionally during the next been insufficiently adulatory. Whatever Liberation for the Hell of It year, but he did not see her alone until the explanation of her depression-Rand In February, 1961, a new woman en­ October 1963, when he chanced upon was at an age when many women under­ tered Nathan's life. She was a tall and her in the street and invited her to his go menopause-it affected her sex life slender fashion model, who sat in the office for coffee. Love was apparently in with Branden: Branden tells us he had third row at his lectures in New York the air. He insisted on a ground rule sex with Rand only about a dozen times City. He was attracted to her immediate­ reminiscent of the rule Ayn had im­ during the two years after Atlas's ly; at least that seems a safe inference posed on her affair with him 9 years ear­ publication. from his lengthy and romanticized de­ lier: the affair was to be kept secret. At about the same time that Rand scription of his first noticing her in his au­ Patrecia was to tell no one, not even her was coming out of her depression, dience. He insists that "In the beginning I husband. Ayn must not know because Branden decided that he "I cannot deliver a new did not want to renew blow to her. I can't. their nearly dormant At about the same time Rand was coming out of her And I can't accept los­ sexual relationship. She ing her, either-she's was simply too old for depression, Branden decided that he did not want to too important to me. him. He did not tell renew their nearly dormant sexual relationship. She Since I was fourteen Rand about his change was simply too old for him. He did not tell Rand about years old, this woman of heart. Instead, he has been at the center strung her along, telling his change of heart. Instead, he lied to her. of my thoughts and my her that he had psycho­ values and everything logical problems. He I admire."(328) Nor was upset because of his deteriorating did not think about the young woman­ could they tell Barbara: "I'm still trying relationship with his wife. or not very much/' (281) just prior to his to make the marriage work. I'm not Since Rand's repudiation would cost two page rhapsody about their first meet­ ready to give up and walk away. But Branden his income, the power he exer­ ing. I presume that this is intentional lit­ there's another consideration: if I tell her cised as co-leader of the Objectivist cult, erary irony, not an example of his failure the truth, then I put her in a position of and such reputation as he enjoyed as an to understand his own feelings. having to join me in lying to Ayn. Is it intellectual, one might think that he lied Her name was Patrecia Cullison. Her right to do that?" (328) It occurred to to her to protect his wealth, power and physical beauty gave her an entree into neither of them that having an adulter­ reputation. But one would apparently the world of the Collective, where good ous affair might not be a good way to be wrong. He lied to his lover, he tells looks were always appreciated. "She has "make a marriage work," or that us, out of concern for her, because he the type of looks I like," Rand told Barbara might not want to join the de­ believed that the unpleasant truth Nathan. "You know, long legs, very slen­ ception of Rand. Patrecia agreed to join would be very painful for her. During der, high cheekbones, light eyes. She's in lying and to keep the affair secret the years to follow, he tells us, she often the physical type of my heroines." (293) from her husband. In January, 1964, asked him whether her age was an im­ Patrecia was attracted to him, but Nathan and Patrecia "made love for the pediment to their relationship. But he Nathan tried to keep his distance. first time ... 'Patrecia and Nathan,' I heroically lied and lied and lied, to pro­ Preoccupied by an unhappy marriage said to her exultantly, and she answered tect her from the pain he, as a psycholo­ and the problems of keeping Rand at from somewhere inside her music, gist, knew she would suffer. bay, he was not anxious to get involved 'Nathan and Patrecia.'" (329) Rand made valiant efforts for several in another relationship. Although So he continued to lie to Ayn as he years to help Nathan with his problem. Nathan doesn't speculate about it, I sus­ had for years, only now he had some­ She would ask him probing questions. pect his godlike status within the thing else to lie about. Although the es­ He would make up lies to fend her off; Objectivist cult convinced her that he calation of his lying that his affair with she would analyze his statements at was not really available to her. Still, Patrecia had engendered bothered him Liberty 63 Volume 2, Number 6 July 1989 more than his previous lying, he be~ end Ayn's own rationality would as­ cal problem" had come to naught. Her lieved (or so he claims) that his love of sert itself. But it was imperative that life was ruined. Patrecia would be his salvation: "When I Ayn corne to this conclusion on her She confronted Nathan angrily, as­ thought of the lies and deceptions to own. I wanted her to accept that age saulted him and humiliated him in front which I was now committed, I felt self­ had become an insurmountable bar­ of other members of the Collective. But it rier to our romance, that our time as hatred. When I thought of the man be­ lovers had come and gone. I wanted is difficult to believe that she humiliated ginning to awaken within me, I felt her old benevolence and basic sanity him or hurt him as much as he had hurt pride. The ascent into liberation, the de­ to come back to her. I wanted her to her by his lies and his fraud. scent into hell, had begun." (329) grasp that I had to have a private life When Ayn learned that Barbara had The ascent/ descent took four and a apart from her, and that this life in­ known of his deception, at least for half years. He continued to fend off Ayn, cluded a woman who was my con­ some of that period, she turned on explaining his inability to perform in temporary. And I wanted her to be Barbara as well. In imitation of Nathan's terms of his own psychological prob­ the one to tell me these things. (364) inquisitorial methods, Ayn ordered lems. She continued to expend tremen­ Not much came of this preposterous Barbara to appear for trial before the dous amounts of energy trying to help plan, but it apparently bought some time Collective. Barbara refused the jurisdic­ him. Sometimes she suspected the real for Nathan by placating Patrecia's de­ tion of the court and was problem, but always he fervently denied mand that he tell Rand the truth. The excommunicated. that his desire for her had dimmed. burden of all the lying on both Patrecia Ayn denounced them in The NBI and the Objectivist: "Mrs Objectivist cult contin- Branden suddenly con­ ued to grow and fessed that Mr Branden prosper. New antholo­ Although the escalation of his lying bothered him, had been concealing gies of Ayn's essays he believed that his love of Patrecia would be his salva­ from me certain ugly ac­ were published in 1964 tion: "When I thought of the lies and deceptions . .. I tions and irrational be­ and 1967. Each included havior in his private life, a few entries by felt self-hatred. When I thought of the man beginning which were grossly con­ Nathan, and went to awaken within me, I felt pride. The ascent into lib­ tradictory to Objectivist through many print­ eration, the descent into hell, had begun." morality and which she ings. Circulation of The had known about for Objectivist passed the two years." (May 1969, 21,000 mark in 1966. p. 4. Rand's statement Late in 1966, Nathan told Barbara and Nathan eventually became too .was dated Sept 15, 1968; The Objectivist the truth about his affair with Patrecia. much. In the summer of 1968, the was behind in its publishing schedule.) (This varies from Barbara's account in Judgment Day Nathan had feared was She never specified the content of his her book: she says he told her he was drawing near. In pieces he revealed the "ugly actions." Instead she suggested "about to begin a sexual affair with truth to Rand. He no longer loved her. that there had been financial improprie­ Patrecia"-Passion, 336.) Always willing She was too old. ties and mismanagement at NBI­ to portray Barbara in an ugly light, he She was heartbroken; her worst fear charges hotly contested by Nathan, but describes how she tried to win him had been realized. Even so, she tried to supported in part by his admission that back, in an account strikingly similar to salvage NBI. At first, she considered upon liquidation NBI left him with Rand's fictional description of an event maintaining a professional relationship nothing. in the sex life of the heroic Henry with Nathan, but this was too difficult. Nathan claims that about a third of Reardon and his evil wife Lillian in Atlas So she turned to Barbara, who had com­ NBI students sided with him, a third Shrugged. One wonders: Was life imitat­ forted her, suggesting Barbara might with Rand, and a third, indifferent, with ing art? Or is the master psychologist continue NBI. neither. This is self-flattery, at least if the now recasting his own life in an artistic But Nathan had never told Ayn the circulation figures of The Objectivist are mode? final piece of the truth, that he had been any indication. Between 1968 and 1969, At about the same time, he devised a having an affair with Patrecia for over its average circulation declined by 2,047, plot to get Ayn to accept losing him to four years. When Ayn decided to make or about 11 %. That was less than the de­ Patrccia: Barbara her heir, it was too much. cline of 17% from 1966 to 1967. Ayn was fond of Patrecia, and it was Barbara could no longer stand the deceit. Nathan and Barbara made their sep­ this fondness that I hoped to culti­ She told Nathan that she had to tell Ayn arate ways to Los Angeles. Patrecia and vate. I was convinced that if Ayn about his love of Patrecia. Nathan got married; he published his grew to know Patrecia before discov­ On August 25, 1968, Ayn Rand dis­ book. In 1973, Nathan obtained his Ph.D. ering that my feelings were roman­ covered that the man she had loved and in psychology from the California tic, she would see in Patrecia what I to whom she had dedicated her life had Graduate Institute, an unaccredited saw. My goal was to be with Patrecia been deceiving her systematically for school founded in 1968. Patrecia died in openly and to integrate our relation­ years. All the years she had spent and all a mysterious accident. Nathan ship into my Objectivist life. I was the intellectual energy she had expended convinced that my desire was a ra­ remarried, this time to his business man­ tional one and I hoped that in the trying to help him with his "psychologi- ager. In 1976, Nathan attempted a

64 Liberty Volume 2, Number 6 July 1989 reconciliation with Ayn. She would have whore; in her relations with him, he por­ perceive Rand as the victim of Branden's none of it. trays her as cold and unloving, except deception and power-lust. The full story Ayn grew older and more bitter to­ occasionally when she has an ulterior of Branden's and Rand's relationship ward Nathan. Her attitude toward motive. Nathaniel Branden is the kind of with each other and to the Rand cult will Barbara softened; she began to view man who believes that when a woman never be understood totally. But with the her as a fellow-victim of Nathan. Rand rejects him sexually, she is making a pro­ publication of Judgment Day, we now died in 1982. She left her entire estate, found psychological confession. His have a version of the story by its most both literary and monetary, to Leonard cruelty to his former wife is unremitting. important participant aside from Rand Peikoff, the only member of the It is one of the most repellent aspects of herself. Along with Barbara Branden's Collective she had not turned against. this memoir. perceptive biography and a variety of He also inherited the Objectivist cult secondary sources, it is now possible to that Branden had designed and built. JUdgments come to grips with the life of Ayn Rand But just as Rand seemed to lack the There's more to Judgment Day than and the strange cult that grew up around heart to run a cult, Peikoff seems to lack the story of Branden's relationships with her. the skill. Today, what remains of the women: there are endless speculations An unflattering self-portrait of Objectivist cult appears to be gradually into Branden's and everyone else's psy­ Nathaniel Branden emerges from the but constantly atrophying. chology, romantic claptrap

Liberty 65 Volume 2, Number 6 July 1989 The Libertarian Idea, by Jan Narveson. force in the case of everyone." (131) But Temple University Press,1988, xiv + 367 pp., $34.95. "morality is obviously not the result of a literal contract: and indeed, it cannot be." (131) "What the philosopher would really like is ... an agreement that literal­ ly everyone would find it reasonable to accept" (134). The contractarian ap­ Contractarianism vs proach "hopes to generate moral principles for societies out of the nonmoral values of Utilitarianism individuals" (166). Narveson thus disavows appealing to any explicit social contract. He avoids the reliance on fictions and on the weasel word "conceptual" that mars the con­ Leland B. Yeager Narveson accepts a two-pronged li­ tractarian writings of the Public Choice bertarian thesis: "first, that practically school. He asks what people would find it Jan Narveson, a Professor of everything .done by modern govern­ reasonable to accept. Well, reasonable in Philosophy at the University of ments violates someone or others' rights; view of what? In view of probable effects Waterloo, Ontario, provides a founda­ and second, that likewise practically on the functioning of their society and so tion for doctrines of strictly limited gov­ everything they do is inefficient." (334) ultimately on their happiness-isn't that ernment. In particular, he gives a He finds the libertarian case strong on true? And what would the "nonmoral grounding for personal freedom and such policy issues as political authority, values of individuals" be other than pos­ personal rights, including property law enforcement and punishment, de­ itive attitudes toward utility or happi­ rights, a grounding that Robert Nozick fense, compulsory redistribution, the ness, broadly conceived? merely assumed in his Anarchy, State, welfare state, the treatment of children, As these questions suggest, I wonder and Utopia (1974) but avowedly did not pornography, zoning and other regula­ in what sense Narveson has chosen con­ provide. This grounding is contractarian; tions, and laws against private discrimi­ tractarianism over utilitarianism. His con­ Narveson rejects· the utilitarianism es­ nation. This is not to say that he accepts tractarianism seems to mean an poused in his own Morality and Utility all specific policy positions of the emphasis on the distinctness of individu­ (1967). So we read in the jacket blurbs, in Libertarian Party. Incidentally, he issues als. Each person has a life (only one life) the author's preface, and especially in some advice to libertarian political par­ of his own. He has his own purposes Roy Childs's rave review in the Laissez ties (333): their adherents should empha­ and aspirations and projects. He is no Faire Books catalogue of March 1989. size and participate in efforts by mere processing station for converting This book is indeed a major contribu­ individuals and voluntary associations goods and experiences into contributions tion to the philosophical controversy to handle problems that the welfarist as­ to an impersonal aggregate utility, no over libertarianism. It ranks in impor­ signs to the state. tance with Nozick's book, John Rawls's What made me hurry to buy A Theory of Justice (1971), Robert Narveson's book is its claim, trumpeted The utilitarianism that Axelrod's The Evolution of Cooperation by Roy Childs, to derive personal rights Narveson rejects is almost a (1984), David Gauthier's Morals by and their implications for political phi­ straw-man version. In recog­ Agreement (1986), and Henry Hazlitt's losophy by a contractarian approach, re­ masterly but inadequately appreciated jecting utilitarianism. Narveson gives nizing the advantages and pre­ The Foundations of Morality (1964). I'll as­ ample credit to David Gauthier, whose requisites of social cooperation, sign it and spend class time on it in my Morals by Agreement strikes me, however, he is on the way, if only he seminar in political economy. as an unnecessarily prolix spinning out Narveson argues that libertarianism of a point adequately made by Gordon would realize it, to adopting a is a coherent doctrine, free from internal Tullock in the Quarterly Journal of sounder version. contradiction and capable of being put Economics, 1985, namely, that someone into practice. It accords with morality. who routinely behaves in an exploitative Each person has the right to use his "fun­ rather than cooperative manner will mere branch factory that might properly damental personal resources" (at a mini­ soon run out of other persons to non­ be reconverted or closed down to serve mum, his body and mind) however he cooperate with. some overarching social efficiency. sees fit providing that he does not vio­ The general idea of contractarianism, Individuals can best serve their own di­ late any other person's similar right over according to Narveson, "is that the prin­ verse purposes in a society whose mem­ his own resources. (p. 165) "Rights are ciples of morality are (or should be) bers respect each others' personalities founded on considerations of efficiency, those principles for directing everyone's and rights and appreciate the gains if of a fundamental kind." (334) conduct which is reasonable for every­ available to each through peace and se­ (Narveson rejects other purported one to accept. They are the rules that eve­ curity, specialization, and trade­ groundings of rights, including Alan ryone has good reason for wanting through contract. Social cooperation in the Gewirth's maneuvers with his principle everyone to act on, and thus to internal­ sense just suggested is so nearly indis­ of generic consistency-167-174). ize in himself or herself, and thus to rein- pensable to individuals' effective pursuit 66 Liberty Volume 2, Number 6 July 1989

of happiness in their own diverse ways persons and their happiness as well as the right track, but it is understandable that it counts as a near-ultimate criterion for one's own. It pays no attention to so­ that Narveson might have thought that of moral precepts, institutions, and poli­ cial cooperation as a quasi-ultimate cri­ he could do better now. What he now re­ cies. The concept has this force in the terion of morals, institutions, and so jects is almost a straw-man version of writings of such eminent utilitarians as forth. It pays only slight attention to the utilitarianism. In recognizing the advan­ Ludwig von Mises and Henry Hazlitt. distinction between act and rule utilitari­ tages and prerequisites of social coopera­ Narveson himself, significantly, uses the anism and none to the concept of indirect tion, he is on the way, if only he would very term "'social cooperation" a few utilitarianism subsequently developed realize it, to adopting a sounder version. times. by John Gray. His book of 1967 was on Asking what individuals would agree The utilitarianism that Narveson re­ jects is a peculiarly unacceptable version. He seems to mean the doctrine whose supreme criterion is the maximum ag­ gregate of cardinally measurable and in­ terpersonally comparable utilities, Reason rs implying a willingness to sacrifice the utilities of some persons for bigger incre­ A Journal of Interdisciplinary Normative Studies ments to the utilities of others. The doc­ trine calls on each person to work for this maximum, remaining impartial be­ Special Lomasky Symposium Issue tween his own and other persons' aspira­ tions (150-153 especially). It invokes Articles "equality of the value to anyone of a unit Anarchical Snares: AReading of Locke's Second Treastise Stuart D. Warner of anyone's utility" (92); it requires count­ Radical Social Criticism N. Scott Arnold ing all utility units of all persons equally. Ayn Rand's Critique of Ideology Chris M. Sciabarra (152) (Equal counting by whom-by Will Preserving American Women's Procreative Freedom Adam Smith's impartial benevolent Conflict with Achieving Equality Between the Sexes? George Schedler spectator or by each actual person?) Responsibility and the Requirement ofMens Rea Thomas A. Fay Narveson repeats Nozick's objection: "A rational agent will not make sacrifices Lomasky Symposium simply for the good of others; she will do Against Lomaskyan Welfare Rights Tibor R. Machan so" only if "she" sees the good of others Against Agent-Neutral Value Eric Mack as her own or as instrumental to what Loren Lomasky's Derivation of Basic Rights Christopher W. Morris she deems good. (233) But self-styled contractarians have no The Right to Project Pursuit and the Human Telos Douglas B. Rasmussen monopoly on recognizing facts of reality Response to Four Critics Loren E. Lomasky that any even halfway perceptive utili­ tarian must also recognize. Among them Discussion are these: Individuals have lives and Rorty's Foundationalism Steven Yates purposes of their own and do not regard In My Opinion, That's Your Opinion: Is Rorty aFoundationalist? William H. Davis themselves as mere instruments in the The Skeptic's Dilemma: AReply to Davis Steven Yates service of some higher entity. Individuals are not indifferent between Review Essays their own interests and purposes, those Ethel Spector's Dreams ofLove and Fateful Encounters Mary K. Norton of persons they love, and those of mere Anthony Arblaster's The Rise and Decline ofWestern Liberalism Ralph Raico

acquaintances and strangers. Jan Narveson t s The Libertarian Idea David Gordon Furthermore, trying to impose or culti­ vate any such unnatural impartiality Book Reviews would itself be subversive of human Peter Huber's Liability The Legal Revolution and its Consequence Clifton Perry happiness. What does serve happiness is Benjamin Hart's Faith and Freedom Delos B. Mckown social cooperation, which presupposes Hannes Gissurarson's Hayek's Conservative Liberalism Parth Shah that individuals pursue their own inter­ ests within the rules of ordinary morali­ ty, including, notably, respect for the REASONPAPERSis publish~datthe DepartmentofPhilosophy, AuburnUniver­ rights of others. sity, AL 36849. Send orders ($12.00 per copy in US and Canada, $13.00 elsewhere; Narveson says he has shifted away make checks payable to Reason Papers) to Professor Tibor R. Machan, Reason from his earlier espousal of utilitarian­ Papers, Department of Philosophy, Auburn University, AL 36849. Manuscripts ism. Yet his 1967 book was no straight­ should be accompanied with return postage and envelope. Copyright © 1989 by forward and systematic presentation. It the Department ofPhilosophy, Auburn University. All rights reserved. contains many sensible but scattered re­ marks. It postulates a concern for other No. 14 SPRING 1989 Volume 2, Number 6 July 1989

to-diverse individuals with personali­ site of tight. In that respect it resembles in the form of IRS regulations, forms, ties and purposes of their own-is a several books in political philosophy that and case law citations. His advice ap­ way of both taking into account the facts have recently come to my attention. pears well grounded. of the human condition and also of ap­ Apparently a rambling, essayistic, laid­ I recommend this book over some plying the utilitarian criterion of happi­ back style is acceptable in philosophy more technical works costing considera­ ness, broadly conceived. I cannot nowadays.. It seems acceptable to sweep bly more because of readability, often understand-and Narveson does not together and publish, evidently without laced with Pilla's accounts of his own ex­ help his readers understand-how any­ much pruning, whatever notes one may periences representing clients with the one could seriously avow a grounding have written for oneself in repeated stabs IRS. He doesn't try to convince the read­ of ethics and political philosophy actual­ at figuring out what, if anything, one has er that the IRS is immoral or unconstitu­ ly at loggerheads with a sensible (non­ to say. Perhaps I exaggerate, but I do tional, but he never forgets whose side caricature) version of utilitarianism. miss a crisp attention to the business at he's on. Roy Childs praises Narveson',s writ­ hand. Narveson does not compensate his Of course, one'should remember that ing style extravagantly. Actually, many readers with anything like the delightful IRS rules, court decisions and adminis­ passages string together long quotations quirkiness of Nozick's writing. trative procedures are constantly chang­ from other writers, although without ob~ Still, Narveson's book is an important ing. Even the best information is quickly trusive indentations. Autobiographical contribution to its genre. Readers will dated. Keeping up with the myriad remarks (for example, concerningrelig­ benefit from grappling with its argu­ changes is a major industry all to itself. ion and classical music) make ments, and in particular from pondering So while the November 1988 book is fair­ Narveson's writing charming in spots. whether it has vanquished utilitarianism ly fresh, it will gradually become obso­ Still, Narveson smears his points over in favor of a genuinely distinct contrac­ lete. (Pilla also publishes a monthly too many pages; his writing is the oppo- tarianism. 0 newsletter to update taxpayers on rele­ vant developments.) Pilla's book, I suspect, may lead some readers to be unrealistic in their disputes How Anyone Can Negotiate with the IRS-and Win! with the IRS. It emphasizes positive ele­ Daniel J. Pilla. Winning Publications, 1988,267 pp., $12.95. ments of the administrative process without giving much weight to the grim fact that even the best procedural defens­ es are often not enough to stave off seri­ ous tax problems. Often, the only major benefit of a procedural defense is to buy Guerilla Tax Revolt Tips time. It also overlooks the problem of deal­ ing with the actual IRS personnel. In any particular case, one must deal with par­ ticular IRS agents, a particular IRS of­ fice, a particular IRS district, and a particular federal court district. In any mands for information, documentation Mike Holmes actual tax dispute, these are all impor­ and payments. tant factors. The same course of action Tax help books containing exclama­ Pilla, who is described as a "Tax may have different results in different tion points in their titles should be Litigation Consultant" (presumably not places. avoided, so I had a certain reluctance to an attorney) takes a highly legalistic ap­ This book can be highly useful for read, much less review, How Anyone Can proach to his subject and counters what those facing IRS problems. But like so Negotiate with the IRS-And Win! To my he terms the "IRS Big Bluff" with techni­ many good self-help works, it is at its pleasant surprise, however, this self­ cal references and advice on the internal best providing a helpful overview and help book by Daniel Pilla is an exception procedures and rules the government is insights into particular tactics. This is not to the rule. obliged to follow in serious audit or col­ surprising: if any single book could re­ As is evident from its title, this book lection matters. Much of the contents are place a whole taxpayer representation in­ is directed to taxpayers who intend to straight from IRS regs or administrative dustry, we wouldn't be facing the IRS negotiate with the IRS rather than chal­ procedures, but Pilla nicely condenses problem we have today. lenge the underlying legal foundations this into a short, punchy and readable It is important that this book's read­ of income taxation. This is not a book format designed for specific applications ers avoid the temptation to rely solely on kamikaze tax resistors will find useful. and situations. their own ability to solve their own prob­ Its cover blurb somewhat luridly He gives his chapters catchy titles lems. Personal navigation through IRS promises "a daring espose of the vulner­ ("15 IRS Bluffs and Intimidations-And waters is fraught with peril, just as are ability of the system and the people who How to Counter." "10 Ways to Prove self-medication and self-representation run it," but for the most part it leads tax­ Deductions," "4 Ways to Pay Taxes on in law. Dealing with the IRS is frustrat­ payers through a series of fairly detailed Your Terms-Not Theirs," etc.) and pro­ ing enough, even for the best prepared procedures for responding to IRS de- vides the reader with substantial detail, and experienced tax practitioners. And 68 Liberty Volume 2, Number 6 July 1989 taxpayers are often caught up in the delve into the fascinating history of the Do-it-yourself tax rebellions, in sum, emotional tide of defending previous amendment's ratification, alleging fraud have a dismal history, including chal­ business decisions made or with anger and deception, or that a number of rati­ lenges to the tax system from sincere and over the treatment they've gotten from fying states were not legally admitted heroic litigants (for example, Jim Lewis, the system. Let's face it, it is easier to be into the Union. Other arguments rest on 1984 Libertarian Party vice presidential objective about someone else's problem complex and obscure definitions of "in­ nominee, who recently spent time in fed­ than your own. The temptation to mag­ come," "wages" or "money." The appeal eral prison). nify the tax issues into personal confron­ of nearly all these approaches is simple. The moHvaHons of many in this tation with the unjust tax system is Despite the complicated legalistic rea­ movement are not so pure. They can be lessened when the taxpayer has a buffer soning employed, the practical conse­ summed up by one or both of these two between himself and the government. quences involve immediate cessation of words: greed and cult. I believe that tax payments until the ex-taxpayer is most of those engaged in lone-wolf tax Rebels Without a Clause hauled into court, whereupon these battles do it because they want to keep A brief disclaimer is in order: I am a magic bullet arguments are to be de­ their money, despite the common sense Certified Public Accountant. Along. with ployed against the amassed legal muscle knowledge that the government tax ma­ other "tax practitioners" (lawyers, en­ of the federal government, which has fia will break their legs (and empty their rolled agents, and others), I get income wallets) if they try to hold out. Most of from helping the victims through the tax the purely greedy back down fairly soon maze. It is reasonable to suspect that I Pumped up by an amateur's after the draconian IRS machine revs up am interested in preserving the current worship of empty legal formal­ against them. tax system from radical overhaul. Many But some individuals are so self­ libertarians look suspiciously upon me ism, they pursue their quixotic deluded that even the wrathful power of and my fellow tradesmen because our enterprise until the IRS grabs the IRS cannot dissuade them from their standard of living would drop if the everything they own and quest. Pumped up by an amateur's wor­ "truth" about the tax system became ship of empty legal formalism, they pur­ known. throws them in the hoosegow. sue their quixotic enterprise until the IRS Such libertarians often fall prey to grabs everything they own and throws naive or unscrupulous "tax advisors" them in the hoosegow. Like health, relig­ who expound theories about how you been duping taxpayers for 75 years. ious or political cultists, tax protest cult­ don't really need to file or pay federal in­ For the hundreds, even thousands, ists cling to dogmas perldIed by their come or Social Security taxes, usually be­ who've tried this, the do-it-yourself tax gurus, oblivious to personal hardships cause of some obscure legal loophole revolt process gets even more confusing. or adverse consequences. that the advisor has uncovered. These Sometimes their advisor will serve as· a In fact, the sting of defeat only in­ "tax rebel" advisors will even share their "litigation consultant" (for an additional creases the sense of martyrdom among secrets with the common folk, usually in fee), but usually the tax resistors are the truly faithful, who are endlessly ap­ high priced motel room seminars or via urged to defend themselves pro se (with­ pealing their cases and strategizing over thick, cross-referenced legal "self-help" out benefit of legal counsel) ostensibly how to get their miracle legal arguments sets, on the condition their anti-tax cus­ because real attorneys are "too crooked in front of the right forum. The Holy tomers pledge to stick religiously to their to put the arguments across." (I suspect Grail on this quest is a jury box full of prescribed methodology. Usually, this the real motivation behind the pro se de­ honest citizens who will hear their im­ entails some form of non-filing or non­ fenses is more practical, namely, that no peccable logic and mind-boggling legal­ reporting of income, or employing some intelligent lawyer will usually touch one isms and disregard the instructions of barely legal procedure designed for the of these cases. For one thing, they can be prosecutors and judges. Like other cult­ Amish or hopelessly cloistered monkish disbarred from practice before federal ists, tax rebels seldom lose hope, and are orders. courts for even bringing these arguments quite resentful when others (even ideo­ Perhaps the most famous-and for a up, and can be fined $5,000 to boot!) logically sympathetic libertarians) are time successful--of these advisors was So far, no tax rebel has won a Irwin Schiff, an accountant and insu­ major case employing any of rance salesman who penned the popular these exotic constitutional argu­ How Anyone Can Stop Paying Income ments. A few lower court deci­ Taxes in the late 1970s, and a similar sions have been decided in favor tome about bailing out of the Social of tax rebels by juries, usually on Security system. Even several stints in some technical defect of the pros­ the federal pen hasn't damped his ardor, ecution. The overwhelming ma­ although his experience has served to jority of taxpayers end up discourage his followers, some of whom quitting this game before the le­ have suffered similar fates. galities are played out. Most end Other tax rebels sell multi-volume up paying heavy fines and their treatises on the history of the infamous back taxes plus interest either di­ rectly or via outright govern- 16th Amendment, which authorized the ment confiscation. "I find it very hard to believe, Mr Finnegan, that you income tax. Some of these arguments simply 'forgot' to file." Liberty 69 Volume 2, Number 6 July 1989 less enthusiastic about their self-imposed argument that Ohio didn't really enter pressive tax system in the absence of plights. the Union, or that the 16th Amendment widespread public demand for radical The problem is, even if these tax was not ratified within the prescribed surgery. No government will commit fi­ rebels are right, they'd lose. As Russell time frame, or that the commas were nancial suicide because of empty legal Means is fond of saying, they are practic­ misplaced. formalism. ing the "logic of self-defeat." Serious reform of the tax system will Those inclined to practice do-it­ Suppose some tax rebel were to pre-' come about only when the public is con­ yourself tax rebellion should stick to the vail in court all the way to the top, and vinced that the power of government back roads and dusty procedural corri­ that the income tax were held unconsti­ should be reduced. No miracle court­ dors. These are ably explored by Dan tutional. The American judiciary would room victories, legal "magic bullets" or Pilla and other down-to-earth tax warri­ be shocked, of course. Would courts re­ ritual incantations of constitutional ors, who are fighting the IRS on its own quire the return of every stolen income mumbo jumbo-be it the illegitmacy of turf, one guerilla battle at a time, rather tax dollar collected since 1913? Would a the Federal Reserve, the true nature of than fighting courtroom wars intended vast restitution program immediately re­ money, or amendment ratification nice­ to be the final Armageddon for the in­ quire privatization of all federal govern­ ties-will break the shackles of our op- come tax. 0 ment assets to make' amends? Would libertarian nirvana finally be at hand? Common sense and history tell us Evolutionary Epistemology, otherwise. In the fantastic event that such a victory were to occur, Congress Rationality, and the Sociology ofKnowledge and the Executive branch (and the sever­ G. Radnitzky and W. W. Bartley, III. Open Court, 1987, 475pp., $39.951 $14.95. al states) would undoubtedly rush in, pass whatever ex post facto Constitutional amendments were needed to rectify the legal error, and the IRS would continue harassing the citizenry as if nothing had From Amoeba to ever happened. Even in the highly unlikely event that federal judges would impoverish the Rationalist very system which keeps them em-

Jeremy Shearmur and controversial ideas. Some of the oth­ Serious reform of the tax er essays, however, are pedestrian in con­ system will come about only This is a worthwhile collection of es­ tent and style. Others will be heavy when the public is convinced says. It is not, other than marginally, going even for those who have a strong about political philosophy. And while background in philosophy. that the power of government its philosophical approach is robustly re­ Let's look more closely at the con­ should be reduced. No miracle alistic and rationalistic, it bears the mark tents of the volume. courtroom victories, legal of Karl Popper and, especially, William First, there is "evolutionary episte­ Bartley, rather than of Aristotle and Ayn mology." By this, some writers mean the "magic bullets" or ritual in­ Rand. However, the collection should be attempt to take a biological perspective cantations of constitutional of interest to many readers of Liberty. It on us, our senses, and the way in which mumbo jumbo will break the provides a stimulating introduction to we understand the world, and to see us "evolutionary epistemology," and it ad­ as the product of biological evolution. shackles of our oppressive tax dresses philosophical problems that are One way to get a feel for such an ap­ system. No government will likely to have occurred to intelligent proach is through an example that commit financial suicide be­ people outside the artificial confines of Bartley discusses. Scientists investigated philosophy classes: for example, must a the information that a frog's eye passes cause ofempty legal formalism. rationalist base his rationalism on a non­ to its brain. The frog responds to a limit­ rational commitment to reason? ed range of features of its environment. Bartley, who is the general editor of One can explain the frog's responses if it ployed thereby committing legal hari­ the new Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, is seen as a product of an evolutionary kari, you can rest assured that the other and is also engaged on writing the biog­ process, that has built into it certain hy­ parts of the government would immedi­ raphies of both Hayek and Karl Popper, potheses about its environment. It is as if ately rush to the rescue of the hated in­ provides sizable introductions to each of the frog had been designed so that its come tax. the first two sections of the volume, on food would come in small, moving, fly­ The individual tax rebel is a self­ "evolutionaryepistemology" and ration­ sized shapes; so that danger would come defeating warrior. He virtually always ality. He also contributes an essay to the to it in sudden shadows looming from loses: so far tax rebels have lost every third section, on the sociology of knowl­ above; so that safety would be found by it precedent-setting cases. He will lose edge. He writes clearly and fluently, and in dark areas, and so on. again. Taxes will not be abolished by the he is a good salesman for some exciting The evolutionary epistemologist looks 70 Liberty Volume 2, Number 6 July 1989 at human beings much as scientists look the "foundations" of our knowledge. But indeed, we glory in it-whereas you seem at the frog. He seeks to understand our adoption of this kind of "evolutionary to believe that you are not making it. cognitive processes and our sensory ap­ epistemology" must be explained and A "rationalist" might claim: I only paratus in terms of their biological func­ argued for, and argument brings its sup­ hold views that can be rationally justified. tions, seen as evolutionary products. porters back to old-fashioned philosophi­ But his critic could respond: Justification Several essays in the present volume ex­ cal engagement. amounts to saying that one thing is justi­ plore this approach. Their authors are Second, evolutionary epistemology, as fied in terms of something else; what is broadly sympathetic to Popper's work, represented in this volume, involves a re­ the "something else" in the terms of while some "evolutionary epistemolo­ alistic but fallibilistic interpretation of sci­ which you justified reason? The demand gists" are not. Their essays include an ar­ ence. It takes science as aspiring to tell us for justification simply generates a re­ gument for the reality and the causal the truth about the world, and as explain­ gress. Some rationalists have themselves efficacy of the mind from Popper himself ing the world as we experience it in terms said that rational justification just has to and a hypothesis, from Guenter of the interrelations of entities and laws stop somewhere, and, the critic of ration­ Waechtershaeser, about a connection, in that go beyond what we can experience alism can claim, this is the point at which certain primitive organisms, between directly. On the basis of our (fallible) sci­ rationalists make their non-rational sight and nutrition. Donald Campbell sur­ entific knowledge, the evolutionary epis- commitment. veys the prehistory of evolutionary epis­ This is challenging stuff, something temology within philosophy (although he much closer to debates in the real world does not mention Adam Smith's anticipa­ The evolutionary epistemol­ than is much "academic" philosophy. tion of it). He also defends the view that Discussion of Bartley's solution takes up learning is a process involving blind vari­ ogist looks at human beings the second section of this volume. ation and selective retention. His and the much as scientists look at the It starts from the idea that rationality other essays in this section should interest frog. He seeks to understand is to be understood as a matter not of jus­ those who admire David Kelley's devel­ tification but of holding one's views open opment of Ayn Rand's ideas about per­ our cognitive processes and to criticism. The rational person is not one ception but who have wondered what a our sensory apparatus in terms who claims that he can prove what he is competing approach to the issue might of their biological functions, saying, Bartley argues, but the one whose look like. claims are open to criticism-including Unfortunately, the first part ofthe vol­ seen as evolutionary products. the claim that the rational person is the ume does not include an essay by some­ person whose claims are all open to one informed but skeptical about criticism! evolutionary epistemology. There is an temologist builds tentative explanations The essays in this part of the book rep­ article by Gerhard Vollmer on "Supposed of ourselves and of the way in which we resent the to and fro of academic argu­ Circularities in Evolutionary Epis­ come to know the world. But the scientific ment about such claims. Two related temology" .that defends "evolutionary knowledge invoked is tentative, and arguments are brought against it. First, epistemology" against unnamed critics. many philosophers argue that a realistic suppose that someone could show that But it conveys the impression that critics understanding of the character of scientif­ Bartley was wrong; that, in some sense, of evolutionary epistemology are only ic knowledge is itself highly problematic. his position was dogmatic, not open to such because they fall prey to a variety of In my view, the volume would thus criticism. But look, a defender of Bartley fallacies. This is grossly unfair both to have gained considerably if it offered might then say, you were claiming that critics and proponents, who usually see more explanation and critical discussion my theory is not open to criticism, yet themselves as engaged in a daring intel­ of the philosophical status it claims for you have just produced ... a criticism of lectual enterprise. evolutionary epistemology. it! So my position is vindicated. But this Why might someone object to evolu­ The second part of this volume-on kind of "Heads I win, tails you lose" gam­ tionary epistemology? the theory of rationality-takes off from bit was clearly not intended by Bartley, First, some of its proponents seem to Bartley's The Retreat to Commitment, which and perhaps the fact that it can be gener­ confuse psychology (and all. issues of sub­ explains that a would-be rationalist will ated within Bartley's theory should be stantive scientific knowledge> with episte­ encounter people who are self-confessedly taken as fatal. mology and with arguments about the not rationalists, concerning whom the ra­ The second argument, advanced in character and validity of our knowledge. tionalist may feel smugly self-confident. somewhat ponderous fashion by John Indeed, some proponents of evolutionary He can say to himself: I am rational, while Post, is that Bartley's views are involved epistemology (though not those repre­ these poor benighted souls are irrational­ in a formal paradox, closely akin to the sented in this volume) write as if popular ly-or, at least, non-rationally­ "liar" paradox. The liar paradox is per­ science is to replace philosophy. Even committed to their particular beliefs. haps best known in the follOWing form: such· an idea is perhaps not as crazy as it Bartley, however, has argued that these This statement is false. If this statement is may sound. Interesting philosophical ar­ people may well respond: We are non­ true-then it tells us that it is false. If it is guments have been offered as to why rationally committed, but so are you. We false-then it is false that it is false, so it is epistemology should be "naturalized." are committed to the tenets of our faith; true. Post argues that a similar paradox One may easily argue that it is illegiti­ you are committed to reason. However, can be generated from the statement, mate to make a rigid separation between our position is clearly to be preferred, for "This statement is possibly false," and, common-sense or scientific knowledge we, after all, are open about the fact that further, that this problem infects Bartley's and whatever is supposed to constitute we are making such a commitment- theory of rationality. Liberty 71 Volume 2, Number 6 July 1989

Bartley offers responses, and other es­ Puritan Economic Experiments, by Gary North. says offer responses to hill\. But this part Dominion Press, 1988, 68 pp. of the volume is less than satisfactory. Some important disagreements are not ex­ plored in any detail, and certain writers seem almost to be talking past one anoth­ er. The volume would, in my judgment, have been greatly improved if some of the Puritanism Comes Full Circle discussion had been made more accessi­ ble. The reader who is initially captivated by a fascinating and important problem is likely to end by feeling baffled. The third section of the volume. con­ Jeffrey A. Tucker that the colony be set up as a joint-stock tains essays that relate, in one way or an­ company, wherein the assets of individu­ Puritanism has long fascinated other, to the sociology of knowledge. Peter als were to be equally shared. Since Americans of all political stripes. H.L. Munz contributes an over-long and under­ Governor William Bradford was the chief Mencken thought "there is only one hon­ agent of the company, he had to impose a edited response to Richard Rorty's relativ­ est impulse at the bottom of Puritanism, common storehouse in 1621. Soon the istic Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. and that is the impulse to punish the man Pilgrims were threatened with famine. Much tl,lat Munz says is to the point. But it with a superior capacity for happiness­ After years of bare subsistence, the all could have been said much more brief­ to bring him down to the miserable level Pilgrims bought out their British directors ly and less self-indulgently. Antony Flew of 'good' men, Le., of stupid, cowardly in 1627, and spent 15 years paying back contributes an odd piece, which defends and chronically unhappy men." their debt at interest rates of 30 to 50 per­ the claim that there cannot be a naturalis­ Gary North takes a radically different cent. After the sale, Bradford divided up tic explanation of choice or of language. view. The author of 30 books and. hun­ the livestock, the food, and the housing, He has good points to make, and he in­ dreds of articles, Dr. North was fonnally and placed them in private hands. cludes some interesting discussion of trained as an economic historian. One of Prosperity followed. Locke and of Hume. But he also rides sev­ the New Right's most important intellec­ The Pilgrims made one exception to eral of his favorite hobby horses-from the tuals, he is also co-founder of an privatization, however: meadowland, of politics of British education to a further American school of theological thought which there was an extreme shortage. All episode in his long-running polemic called Reconstruction, which applies a the previous problems continued here: against the Edinburgh School in the sociol­ hard-nosed Calvinism to public policy. free-riding, overutilization, minimal up­ ogy of science. It is all good fun, and he This short book, an excerpt from his keep,and social discord. The Puritans makes some nice points. But it would have Ph.D. dissertation, deals with a forgotten were confused about whether land should been more interesting to see him using his chapter in American history: the 17th­ ever be considered private property. For very considerable analytical talents upon century Puritan policy of economic inter­ decades they tried various forms of ration­ more powerful contemporary naturalistic ventionism in New England. In an excel­ ing (restricting the hours of access, etc.) to writers in the theory of knowledge. lent-and, for him, typical-display of solve the problems inherent in common Indeed, it would have been interesting to research, North assembles letters, diaries, ownership. Finally, they gave up, and a read him on the naturalistic tendencies and other documents from the era to illus­ system of private land ownership devel­ within some writers on "evolutionary trate how and why the Puritans tried in­ oped in Boston and Cambridge between epistemology." terventionism, and why they failed. He 1662 and 1700. Bartley rounds the volume off with an also discusses the philosophical and theo­ Price and wage controls were the major elegant essay about classical liberal logical underpinnings of the Puritan eco­ interventionist measures of the Puritans of political philosophy. It is based on a piece nomic experiments, but here he is less the Massachusetts Bay· Colony, the "City that first appeared ina Hayek festschrift, persuasive, perhaps because of his own on a Hill" under the governance of John but which Bartley has rewritten to tie to­ Puritan-like theological position (about Winthrop. Instead of wage minimums, the gether the various strands in the present which more later). Puritans imposed wage ceilings on produc­ volume. Bartley's contributions bring the ers such as carpenters, bricklayers, and volume alive, and he has a real gift for The Protestant Ethic at Work thatchers. Anyone violating the statutes putting difficult things clearly and making Puritan economic intervention took was fined a day's salary. Once again, the ideas that are not widely appreciated both three forms: common ownership of land, predictable results followed: shortages, ec­ interesting and attractive. price controls, and sumptuary laws. The onomic chaos, and wide-spread law break­ All in all, there is much in this volume consequences of common property ing. Eventually, the statutes were repealed which should interest the reader of Liberty among the early Pilgrims is best known. and wages were left "free and at liberty as who has a taste for philosophy but who Less well known is the origin of that com­ men shall reasonable agree." Later, howev­ does not necessarily have a specialist train­ mon ownership. North shows that the er, the conduct of the Puritan producers ing. True, it would be better if more of the Pilgrims were not 17th-century socialists, was again deemed unreasonable by the au­ contributions had the fluency of Bartley's, as is commonly thought. thorities, and they reimposed the controls. and if there had been more critical inter­ Before the Pilgrims left Holland, a As a result, the 1630s saw price and wage change about matters of substance. But group of British"gentlemen adventurers" controls periodically imposed and re­ perhaps those needs will be met in a sub­ agreed to pay their traveling costs. Upon moved, with each intervention leading to sequent collection. CJ arrival in America, the British insisted shortages of the good or service targeted. 72 Liberty Volume 2, Number 6 July 1989

The excess profits law of 1635 provid­ whether in family, church, or prices and wages. North grants this, but ed imprisonment for those who violated commonwealth." thinks it irrelevant because the Puritans the IItrue intent" of the price and wage As North notes, there is nothing unu­ "were not familiar with the later scholastic controls. Was anyone prosecuted? There is sual (or even unlibertarian) in wanting tradition." Yet St Thomas (1226-1274), the at least one case recorded, that of Capt. class distinctions. The problems stem from most influential early scholastic thinker, Robert Keayne. In 1639, Keayne was con­ enforcing this status through government also thought that the "just" price and victed of economic oppression and price coercion rather than social sanction. Under wage were the market ones. And as gouging in a dispute with a woman over a Puritanism, luxury goods (lace, spice, sug­ Chafuen notes, St. Thomas's works, espe­ pig. He confessed his crime, paid his fine, ar, tobacco, wine, wigs) were fiercely cially the Summa Theologica,' "were the and 15 years later was still trying to clear taxed, restricted, and morally condemned. starting point for most of the schoolmen." his name. In his will, he wrote that his of­ Taverns, brewers, and liquor sellers were fense IIwas so greatly aggravated and with harassed throughout the 17th century in such indignation pursued by some, as if Puritan communities, with licensing used Instead of wage minimums, no censure could be too great or too se­ as the primary means for controlling the Puritans imposed wage vere, as if I had not been worthy to have "drunkenness, excessive drinking, [and] lived upon the earth." Yet his offense is vain expense of money [and] time." Even ceilings on producers such as "not only now common almost in every shuffleboard-as a symbol of leisurely liv­ carpenters, bricklayers, and shop and warehouse but even then and ing-was considered a threat to the ever since with a higher measure of ex­ community. thatchers. The predictable re­ cess." At the time, his accusers "were buy­ In imposing these laws, the Puritans, sults followed: shortages, eco­ ers"; but now "they are turned sellers and however, ran up against a social paradox nomic chaos, and wide-spread pedaling merchants themselves," so that that their own theology created. They the crimes neither "are worthy question­ preached the virtue of work, savings, and law breaking. ing nor taking notice of in others." property, and condemned envy of others' The highwater mark for these controls wealth. But such doctrines, combined with was 1676, but North shows that the final a relatively free market, lead to prosperity At one point in the book, North grants Massachusetts attempt at price controls and social mobility. Yet social mobility is that S1. Thomas's "just" price and wage was made in 1720: an incredibly complex incompatible with the Puritan desire to were market-set. But since St. Thomas set of regulations on the price and size of freeze the status of individuals in society. made a possible exception for times of cri­ a loaf of bread. It is doubtful that anyone (In many ways, this paradox eventually sis, North says his thesis still holds. The was brought to trial under it, and after its confronted the American conservative facts weigh against this contention, how­ failure, controls were abandoned for movement; it split between those happy ever, for the Puritans imposed these laws good. with the flux of free markets and those without reference to crises. The most interesting interventions, who insisted on the frozen social hierarchy Furthermore, North presents no evi­ however, were the sumptuary laws, which of statism.) The second generation of dence to show that the Puritans had the regulated the clothing that different class­ Puritans (1660-1690) abandoned most of slightest interest in what St. Thomas said es of people were allowed to wear. For ex­ these laws, to the horror of the first gener­ about economics. And even if they had ample, in 1651 the Massachusetts civil ation, of course. been familiar with his teachings, the magistrates declared their "utter dislike Confronted with all this, the reader Puritans were famous for their bitter ha­ that men or women of mean condition, ed­ might conclude that Mencken was right: tred of everything Catholic; they would ucations, and callings should take upon these laws were an outgrowth of the have been unlikely to exempt the econom­ them the garb of gentlemen"; they may Puritan desire ·to control the behavior of ic thought of the Church's principle theo­ not wear "gold or silver lace, or buttons, others and restrict the avenues toward the logian. As Lord Acton noted, the bulk of or points at their knees," or "walk in great good life. But North says this is a IIsuperfi­ Puritan theology descended from sects boots." "Women of the same rank" may cial" view. He says the Puritans' instinct to that defined themselves in terms of anti­ not "wear tiffany hoods or scarves, which control prices and wages, own land in Catholicism and their religious zeal large­ though allowable to person of great es­ common, and regulate patterns of dress ly consisted of opposing and crushing tates, or more liberal education, yet we and behavior, was the product of latent anything that smacked of "Romanism." cannot but judge it intolerable in persons medievalism. They were lithe followers of Thus if the Puritans had read S1. Thomas, of such like condition." Thomas Aquinas in the field of econom­ they would have done so only in an at­ The Puritans prided themselves on be­ ics." IIThey carried with them the baggage tempt to refute him. ing People of the Book. But what possible of the early scholastic traditions," which Why then does North advance this ex­ Biblical justification could such laws have? inspired them toward a futile search for a planation for the Puritan economic experi­ It is to be found in the Larger Catechism of lljust pricell and IIjust wage" set by some ments? Some clues are provided in the the Westminster Confession of Faith exogenous moral standard and not by the introduction. He tells. the reader that most (1645), one of the most influential market. of the research was done in the late sixties Protestant theological statements ever There are problems with this position. and is "no doubt out of date in terms of written. Elaborating on the "Fifth" Alejandro Chafuen, Marjorie Grice­ the latest findings, claims, and interpreta­ Commandment to "honor thy father and Hutchinson, Joseph Schumpeter, and tions of professional historians. But who thy mother," the Catechism stresses that Raymond De Roover have shown that the knows? Maybe the professionals are all this means "all superiors in age and gifts; late-scholastic economists (1500-1650) wrong anyway." and especially such as, by God's ordi­ were remarkably free-market oriented, es­ But, then again, maybe not. The bulk nance, are over us in place of authority, pecially as regarding the freedom to set of the evidence proving the free-market Liberty 73 Volume 2, Number 6 July 1989 orientation of scholastic economics ap­ disguise), he decided to, as he says, "get Virginian educator Robert Thoburn, .and peared after North completed his disserta­ this material back into print rather than influential Florida pa~tor James Kennedy tion. In the late sixties, theologians wait until I have spare time to update it are all devoted Reconstructionists. Pat concerned with social and economic mat':' extensively." Robertson, Marvin Olasky, and Herbert ters (and economists and other social sci­ Eventually, however, free-market Schlossberg are all strongly sympathetic. entists concerned with theology) still Calvinist thinkers will have to confront the Howard Philips (Conservative Caucus) accepted Max Weber's celebrated thesis growing body of literature that shows: a) and M. Stanton Evans (Education that the Calvinist ethic inaugurated the rigorous free-market thought follows a di­ Research Institute) are said to have been spirit of capitalism. If we find that the rect ascendance from Aristotle to St. directly influenced by Reconstructionism. Puritans (devoted Calvinists) exhibited Thomas to the late-Scholastics to the Even education secretary William Bennett non-capitalist behavior, it could be reason­ French economists like Turgot and Say to evidenced a commitment to their political ably hypothesized, according to this view, the Austrian economists (whose origins program at one time. In addition, there are that they were still influenced by remnants have alsQ been shown to be Catholic in thousands of mainstream Christian evan­ Smith and Grassl [1986]); and b) that the gelicals who appreciate the victory orien­ radical Calvinist tradition of the Puritans tation of Reconstructionism, if not every Under Puritanism, luxury represented a departure from this tradi­ jot and tittle of its doctrines. The entire goods (lace, spice, sugar, tobac­ tion precisely because it was not Christian Right has learned much from the Scholastic. theology, politics, and strategy of the co, wine, wigs) were fiercely In his introduction, North advances a Reconstructionists. taxed, restricted, and ·morally second thesis for Puritan economic inter­ The status of .Reconstructionism­ vention: "the Puritans never fully broke proper is hard to judge because of its ka­ condemned. Taverns, brewers, with the theory of natural law, and it was leidoscopic factions. Like the New Right, and liquor sellers were ha­ the Scholastics who had imported and the movement was most influential rassed throughout the 17th baptized this humanist myth of ancient around the time of the 1984 Presidential Greece and Rome." On the face of it, this is campaign. There were only two (although century in Puritan communi­ puzzling. After all, it is generally thought very hostile) factions at the time, North's ties. Even shuffleboard was that the free society flows from the tradi­ and Rushdoony's, and explicitly tion of natural law, which led to Lockean Reconstructionist churches and schools considered a threat to the natural rights, liberalism, and finally to were popping up all oyer the country. But community. full-scale capitalism. What's more, his star­ five years later, Reconstructionism-proper tling assertion about natural law is never is in disarray, having gone the way of buttressed or even mentioned elsewhere many·other sectarian enthusiasts since· the of pre-Reformation (Catholic) thought. in the book. Reformation: there are endless factions Since the late-sixties, however, There is much more that lies behind within factions and schisms within Weber's thesis has.been largely under­ the Northian claim than first appears. To schisms. Lift your ear from the ground for mined and, quite possibly, refuted alto­ understand it, and the theology that lies a moment and you lose track of them all. gether, most directly and thoroughly ·bya behind it, we must examine the movement Broadly speaking, Reconstructionism re-confirmation of a thesis advanced by and theology of Christian Recon­ combines Calvinism and New Right politi­ the eminent economist Hector M. structionism. cal activism, but in a particularly radical Robertson in his book Aspects of the Rise of fashion. The New Right wants tax cuts Economic Individualism: A Criticism of Max A Catalog of Isms and traditional ''Judeo-Christian'' values. Weber and His School (1933 and 1950; re­ Together with his father-in-law R.J. Reconstructionists want a totally free mar­ printed Fairfield, N.J.: Agustus·M. Kelley Rushdoony, Gary North is co-founder of ket (no Fed, no income tax, free trade, free Publishers, 1973). Joe Peden, Professor of the theology and movement of Christian immigration) operating under the judicial History at Baruch College, notes that Reconstructionism. Begun in 1973 with the code of Old-Testament theocratic laws. "Weber's thesis is no longer considered publication of the 900-page book The Reconstructionism teaches that the Bible scholarly. Recent literature shows that Institutes of Biblical Law by Rushdoony supplies not only the road to salvation, but Weber misunderstood the nature·of both (Craig Press), the movement's ideology the "marching orders" and the "blueprint" Calvinism and Catholicism. Further, he has made amazing advances. Well over a for every area of public.life, including how overlooked the early development of mar­ hundred books, thousands of articles, and the economy, education, and the state kets so that his explanation doesn't cover dozens of conferences have followed. should be structured. Their books outline the phenomenon he is studying." Christianity Today and The Washington Biblical views of psychology, sociology, Robertson had been correct all along in Post ha ve reported on their activities, Bill mathematics, music, and architecture. saying, "the Jesuits favored enterprise, Moyers directed a· PBS special on them, They have also pioneered a theology of freedom of speculation, and the expansion and they and their devoted followers and Christian resistance to the State-and put of trade as a social benefit.... the religion sympathizers can be found at any major it into practice through homeschooling. which favoured the spirit of capitalism conservative or libertarian gathering. The way they see it, the world and all its was Jesuitry, not Calvinism." In addition to a host of committed pas­ inhabitants are responsible to God and Rather than confront the view that cap­ tors, activists, writers, and academics must act in terms of His commandments. italism may be more. Catholic than around the country, Reconstructionism Reconstructionists have been classified Calvinist in origin, North chooses not to claims the support of some very public as "Puritans" but they want to clarify the treat it. Rather than change his thesis (that names. John Lofton, columnist for the use of that label. "The dynamic Puritanism Puritans were interventionist Thomists in Washington Times, prominent Northern of Governor John Winthrop's 74 Liberty Volume 2, Number 6 July 1989

Massachusetts Bay Colony" became tell, no two theonomists agree on the pre­ commentary on property-rights legislation "stodgy, rationalistic, and almost mechani­ cise applicability of a whole host of laws, in the Old Testament (The Law and the cal," says North. He wants a "new especially those concerning property Covenant, ICE, 1984), has recently taken to Puritanism" that"offers men the hope of a rights, marriage, and the definition of an questioning the theonomic credentials of God-honoring social transformation." "idolater." James Jordon, who wrote a Greg Bahnsen, author of the first widely Their theology is actually a unique hybrid of doctrines that have existed in some form at various times in Christian history. The following four points provide the Classified Advertisements foundation: II II 1) God's Providence, a traditional Calvinist doctrine, which teaches the total Classified Advertising is available for $0.25 per word, plus $1.00 per insertion. 10% off: depravity of man, his complete depen­ six or more insertions. Payment must accompany order. dence on God's grace for redemption, and God's absolute predestination of every in­ Books dering, identify by punch line and/ or subject dividual soul to heaven or hell from before and issue of Liberty. Bob Ortin Baures, 2351 Be Free! is new book to protect your freedom/ the creation of the world. assets/ income against government through tax China Gulch Road, Jacksonville, OR 97530. 2) Presuppositionalism, the teaching of haven trusts. Free information. Asset Haven the late C. Van Til, which says that the Association, PO Box 71, A-5027 Salzburg, Periodicals Bible is not only inerrant, but that all truth Austria. Bigger Print now in The (Libertarian) must be capable of a rigorous Biblical de­ Directory of Libertarian Periodicals, 6th Connection, open-forum magazine since 1968. fense or it isn't truth. The Bible must be edition, lists 162 titles, all believed to be present­ Subscribers may insert one page/issue free, un­ edited. Lots of stimulating conversation. Eight "presupposed" in all intellectual endeav­ ly publishing, all with addresses, much other in­ formation. Includes alphabetical list of issues (one year) $20. Strauss, Box 3343Z, ors. Presuppositionalism tends to mini­ Fairfax, VA 22038. mize the role of reason and it is associated persons. $3 postpaid, $4 overseas. Jim FBI Spying on Libertarians - and other particularly hostile to the tradition of natu­ Stumm, Box 29-LB, Hiler Branch, Buffalo, NY 14223. news about the libertarian movement that you ral law. "The Bible has no such terms as Imagine Freedom from Governments and just won't find anywhere else. Colorful, monthly 'Nature,'" says Rushdoony. "Not Nature Churches. stormy MON, editor. 10th tabloid American Libertarian edited by Mike but God is the source of all natural Anniversary, Revised Edition: illustrated, con­ Holmes. $20 per year, $38 for two years for first phenomena." troversial. 188 pp. $10, international $12 class mail delivery (outside North America add 3) Postmillenniallism, which predicts Libertarian Library, Box 24269-H, Denver, CO $5 per order). American Libertarian, Dept. L12 (and works toward) the triumph of God's 80224. 21715 Park Brook Drive, Katy, TX 77450. kingdom on earth before the return of Make Your Child Really Free. Teach chil­ Freethought Today, newspaper for atheists, Christ. This opposes the dominant view of dren to handle stress early. Delightfully illustrat­ agnostics. $20 annually or send $2.00 for sampie American evangelicalism, which teaches ed, entertaining, humorous, informative, copy. PO Box 750, Madison WI 53701. the decline of civilization prior to the apoc­ effective HB book written for children by Decriminalize Cigarette Smoking National Libertarian psychologist. Don't Pop Your Cork: alypse and Christ's return. This differ­ Drivers Rights Forum The Children's Anti-Stress Book by Dr. A. J. Libertarian Underground Satire Tigers (LUST) ence-the prospect of earthly victory Moser. $12.95 + $2.50 P&H. Landmark editions, instead of "rapture" (when the saved are Writers, artists, cartoonists, humorists who have Dept. L, 1420 Kansas Avenue, Kansas City, MO the red corpuscle. Government and corporate assumed bodily into Heaven to escape the 64127. crimes, frauds, scams and schemes you never tribulations of the final days)-is what in­ Literature dreamed YOU are paying for. $2 sample copy. spires Reconstructionists toward political C. E. Windle, Chief Researcher, 7515 152nd Ave. Don't Procrastinate! The time to stop the action. They have devoted tremendous re­ NE, Redmond, Wash. 98052. anti-drug insanity is now! Send $5 for your per­ sources to promoting this point of view, Living Free newsletter discusses practical which has been responsible for reviving sonal freedom manual before it's too late! Meyer's-7 Box 166979, Irving, TX 75016-6979. methods to increase personal freedom, includ­ this Puriltan doctrine, invisible even twen­ ing self-reliance, alternative lifestyles, guerrilla Free Market Environmentalism offers ways ty years ago. to protect the environment without adding to capitalism, nomadism, ocean freedom. Lively, 4) TheonomyI a social order based on the power of the state. To learn more about it, unique. $8.00 for 6 issues, sample $1.00. Box 29­ the laws that governed Old Testament write Jane Shaw, Political Economy Research LB, Hiler Branch, Buffalo, NY 14223. Israel. As a rule, Reconstructionists say Center, 502 S. 19th Avenue, Bozeman, MT59715. Panarchy: Government by choice, not chance. they accept all Old Testament laws that Libertarian Anti-Abortion arguments: $3.00. People-oriented Government not government­ weren't ,explicitly reversed or amended in (Information only: SASE) Libertarians for Life, oriented people. Idea whose time has come. the Nev~ Testament. In practical terms, 13424 Hathaway Drive, #22, Wheaton, MD Investigate a political system offering both this means strict enforcement of property 20906. Freedom and security. Ultimate Libertarianism rights, freedom of contract, and severe Libertarian Introduction - one pound Newsletter. $8 year or $3 sample. Checks to LeGrand E. Day, Editor, Panarchy Dialectic, Box punishments for offenders of Biblicallaw. mixed bag: pamphlets, newsletters, etc. Free! 353 Reseda, CA 91333. This includes the death penalty for adul­ Libertarian Library, Box 24269-H, Denver, CO 80224. terers, homosexuals, incorrigible children, Personal and idolaters, and replacing prisons with Merchandise 8M, 38, with Bachelors Degree is interested in indentured servitude for non-capital Enlargement of your favorite Burons (as fea­ developing a relationship with woman crimes. tured in Liberty) suitable for framing, $5.00. Any academician, age 27-47. I can do research, cook­ All Reconstructionists say they agree two $7.50, three $10.00. Available in shrink­ ing, etc. Currently have an insurance agency. on these four points. But so far as I can wrapped matte frame, add $5.00 each. When or- Write Box N, Argyle, WI 53504. Liberty 75 Volume 2, Number 6 July 1989 regarded defense of theonomy, Theonomy Tyler, Texas, under the aegis of Gary the Reconstructionist alternative stands in Christian Ethics (P&R, 1984, 2nd ed.). North. It was· to be· the new "City on the alone among Protestant sects. By tailoring The Northians have been battling the Hill" and attracted a huge number of de­ their message to appeal mainly to Rushdoonians for years. The Northians voted followers from around the country. Southern Evangelicals in Baptist and think that the visible church-"the training But their church fell into crisis last year af­ Pentecostal-oriented churches, the ground for Dominion"-should be preemJ­ ter a series of excommunications, defec­ Reconstructionists are continuing to grow nent over all other institutions in society tions, and rumors of scandal. They were despite organizational disasters. (although it should remain organizational­ attacked as a cult by a major Dallas news­ Bill Moyers thought that the ly separate from the state). They also prac­ paper, and their membership fell by three­ Reconstructionistshave been underesti­ tice a form of the high-church Anglican quarters. mated, which is why he taped a show on liturgy (with elements of the Catholic Of late, leaders within Recon­ them for PBS. The Northians refused to Mass) and their ministers wear collars. structionism can't distance themselves participate, and were portrayed as a cult. Once the most highly organized, they are from. each other fast enough. Each seems But those who chose to be interviewed­ now in total disarray. intent on starting his own school of particularly Rushdoony and ex-Northian Rushdoonians, in the anabaptist tradi­ thought. Persistent and bitter infighting David Chilton-came off well. tion, see Virtually no role for the visible has severely damaged all Recon­ Rushdoony, for example, looks and talks church in society, and follow the Puritans structionist organizations. like an Old Testament prophet (and a calm, reasonable, and persuasive one at in their disdain for liturgy. Rushdoony On the scholarly front, there are prob­ that). lems as well. With few exceptions, they Such media appearances are on the in­ are shut out of the academy. Perhaps that crease. So if the last few years are any indi­ Reconstructionists support is to be expected for such a radical school cation of what is to come, the future of strict enforcement of property of thought. But they might have benefited Reconstructionism will be a mixed bag. by taking a different approach in their ma­ rights, freedom of contract, Their organizations will continue to fall terials, perhaps making them more access­ into disarray; their body of thought will and severe punishments for of­ ible to unReconstructed audiences. For remain outside the halls of academia; but example, North's book on Puritan fenders of Biblical law. This in­ within political and popular evangelical Economic Experiments is an excellent empir­ cludes the death penalty for circles, the prominence of ical study of pre-Colonial America. But·he Reconstructionist ideas will continue to ex­ adulterers, homosexuals, incor­ intersperses his lucid prose with unsub­ pand and fill the existing intellectual rigible children, and idolaters. stantiated claims drawn from his theologi­ vacuum. cal position. Recall that he thinks natural Despite the anti-Christian bias of many law is a "humanist myth of ancient Greece libertarians, and the haughty zeal of some himself advocates an adherence to and Rome" that was "baptized" by the Reconstructionists, there is some common Levitical dietary laws and takes a different Scholastics. This view has been given a se­ ground between the groups. There is view of tithing and taxation from the rious-if ultimately unconvincing­ agreement on economic issues, like taxes, Northians. defense in Rushdoony's By What Standard? bureaucracies, the Federal Reserve, public A striking feature of Reconstructionists (1983). But North gives us no footnote or schools, central planning, anti-socialism, is their self-assuredness: they view them­ elaboration to his father-in-Iaw's book. etc. They are generally in favor of much selves and their doctrines as the culmina­ And since the point received no elabora­ smaller government. tion of 2000 years of redemptive and tion, it could have been omitted. The problem is that, in practice, intellectual history. No other Christian On the other hand, North is capable of Reconstructionists don't concentrate their group has had comparable wisdom, they superb work. He contributed an excellent lobbying efforts for these aspects of their say, because none has been given all the article to Man, Economy and Liberty, the social theology. Instead, they tend to grav­ tools they themselves possess; and with festschrift for Murray Rothbard, and his es­ itate toward issues like anti-feminism, their special God-given knowledge, they say on reason and intuition in economics prayer in schools, the right to take off can remake the world. in Foundations of Christian Scholarship work on the sabbath, and a broad enforce­ But this is perhaps too stark a picture; (1979), a book that he edited, is outstand­ ment of the death penalty. Or they focus for the most part they are sincere and. re­ ing. And parts of his continuing economic on symbols, like having the United States sponsible. There are some excellent minds commentary on the Bible show real prom­ declared a "Christian nation." among them-especially North's and ise (Dominion Covenant [Tyler: ICE, 1983], But libertarians shouldn't let the long­ Rushdoony's-and they have to be credit­ Moses and Pharoah [1985], and The Sinai run agenda of Reconstructionists interfere ed for taking religion seriously, which far Strategy [1986]). with the potential for short-run alliances. too few scholars do. Reconstructionism has"" a broad appeal The Reconstructionists aren't likely to be within e"angelical Christianity. Defined as any more successful than their Puritan an­ A nChristian Nation"? a loose body of Christian thought, or per­ cestors in building their version of the An assessment of Reconstructionism haps a religious-based Right-Wing politi­ kingdom of God on earth. And in these must separately examine its formal institu­ cal· program, it is doing very well. darkening days, it is going to take allianc­ tions, its scholarly impact, and its broad Organizations and institutions have never es with other non-mainstreamers to make appeal. mattered much to the mainstream of evan­ the libertarian light shine. Q . The formal Reconstructionist organiza­ gelicals. And for evangelicals looking for The author thanks Llewellyn H. Rockwell of the tions are, however, breaking apart as I an intellectual and Biblical defense of their Mises Institute for helpful comments and write, especially the groups centered at hard-right conservative views of politics, suggestions. 76 Liberty ,. Notes on Contributors

Chester Alan Arthur is Liberty's designated politi­ Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts cal correspondent. University. "Baloo" is the nom de plume of Rex F. May, whose Murray N. Rothbard, a senior editor of Liberty, is cartoons appear in numerous periodicals. the author of numerous books and articles. He is the R. W. Bradford is editor of Liberty. Vice President of Academic Affairs of the Ludwig Ron Courtney lives in a rural area, near von Mises Institute. Chesapeake Bay. John Scheb· is an··· Associate Professor of Political Stephen Cox, a senior editor of Liberty, is Associate Science at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Professor of Literature, University of California, San Jane S. Shaw is Senior Associate of the Political Diego. Economy Research Center of Bozeman, Montana. David Friedman teaches economics in the School of Jeremy Shearmur is Research Associate Professor Law at the University of Chicago. at the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason Mike Holmes is the editor of American Libertarian, a University. He received his formal education at the monthly newspaper. London School of Economics, where he also worked John Hospers was the Libertarian Party's first pres­ for eight years as assistant to Sir Karl Popper. idential candidate, and is the editor of The Monist, an David Ramsay Steele, a senior editor of Liberty, is international journal of philosophy. the Editorial Director of Open Court Books. Tibor Machan is a prolific libertarian philosopher, Thomas S. Szasz is Professor of Psychiatry at the with two new books scheduled for release this sum­ SUNY Health Science Center in Syracuse. He is the mer: Individuals and Their Rights, published by Open author of numerous books and articles, including Court Books, and a collection of essays, Liberty and Insanity, Psychiatric Justice, and Ceremonial Chemistry. Culture: Essays on the Idea of a Free Society, from Jeffrey A. Tucker is managing editor of The Free Prometheus Books. Market, the monthly publication of the Ludwig von William P. Moulton deals in antiques and antiqui­ Mises Institute. ties in northern Michigan. Ethan O. Waters is often seen, but rarely noticed, Bob Ortin lives in southern Oregon, where his in Southern California. "Burons" are regularly featured in a local paper. Michael Williams is a dance critic whose work is Jamie Potter passed up the teaching profession in most often found on cocktail napkins. favor of raising vegetables in upstate New York. Leland B. Yeager is the Ludwig von Mises Ralph Raico teaches history at SUNY, Buffalo. Distinguished Professor of Economics at Auburn James S. Robbins is a doctoral candidate at the University.

Coming in the Next Issue of Liberty ...

"Up From Objectivism" - Murray Rothbard relates his encounter with Ayn Rand and her retinue, and his expulsion from it by Nathaniel Branden. "The 'Dilemmas' of Libertarianism Solved" - David Friedman gives several examples of how "simple statements of libertarian prinCiple lead to unacceptable conclusions," and proposes a solution to these dilemmas. "Avant Garde" - Critic Richard Kostelanetz explains avant garde art and why the politically avant garde (i.e. libertarians) should care about it. "H.L. Mencken's Illegitimate Offspring" - R. W. Bradford criticizes those who imitate Mencken without understanding his thought or approaching his wit. "The Holocaust, State Terrorism and World War II" - Historian Ralph Raico reviews re­ cent thinking on the terrorism of World War II. ,

Hawaii Capetown, South Africa "A well-honed definition of the paniolo cowboy lifestyle," Evidence that God works in mysterious ways, as reported by Die according to F. Newell Bohnett, Hawaiian land developer, as reported Burger (Capetown): in Aloha magazine: A pastor drowned with a young woman he was baptizing in a South "Ranch living to me is living in a place where you can ride horses if African river as scores of worshippers looked on. Nelolitha Mapatsela. you wish or lie by the pool in your backyard ifyou wish." 26, panicked when Pastor Payi, 32 submerged her head and she pulled him under. Hartford, Conn. Advances in the science of highway safety, as reported by The Williston, N. Dak. Rural Oregon Biker: How the state "Department of Education" works to promote its Connecticut SB 412 would require 3 headlights on motorcycles to goal, as reported in the New York Times: . distinguish them from autos with one headlight out. If the measure be­ Department of Education officials banned Cara Transtrom from par­ comes law, the legislature will consider a measure to require 4 head­ ticipating in a privately sponsored spelling bee on grounds that she does lights on cars to distinguish them from motorcycles with one headlight not attend a state-run school. The Department of Education backed down burned out. under pressure from the sponsor of the spelling bee and from the public. Ms Transtrom made it to the final round of the state-wide contest. Salem, Ore. Hollywood, Calif. Trend-setting legislation from the Beaver state, "where the air "An and the politics are pure," as reported by the Associated Press: actress's reach should exceed her grasp, or what's a heaven The hazelnut ... has rolled past the giant chinquapin on the way to for?" illustrated in an interview with Jodi Thelen, who plays Jane Kelly becoming the first official state nut in the country. The Senate Govern­ in Fox-TV's Duet, as reported in TV Guide: ment Operations and Elections Committee voted Monday to pass the "I'd like to play Dagny Taggart in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. She hazelnut on to the full Senate for consideration. was the ideal woman. And I'd like to have bigger breasts."

Washington, D.C. ..Washington, D.C. Progressive notions of public entertainment, advocated by A good reason for an education in classical languages, offered by Howard Cosell on CBS-TV Nightline: Vice President J. Danforth Quayle, as reported in the Providence Congress should create a "Federal Sports Commission" with author­ Journal: ity to regulate matters like "the removal or threat of removal of a sports When Rep Claudine Schneider mentioned to Vice President Quayle franchise" and "boxing, ifboxing is to be allowed to continue." that she is fluent in French, he expressed admiration: "I was recently on Cosell also noted that he is "part and parcel of the 1960s, the whole a tour of Latin America and the only regret I have was that I didn't study 1960s movement." Latin harder in school so I could converse with those people."

Marion, Ill. Los Angeles, Calif. Evidence that tax dollars spent on national defense are an The long ann of the law on America's west coast, as illustrated investment in our nation's security, as reported by the Houston by the Seattle Times: Chronicle: Craig Christopherson reported to local police that he was kidnapped, handcuffed and threatened with a poisonous rattlesnake if he would not "I have to say that K Mart security is better than anything the Navy give his kidnappers $1,000,000. "I was just scared to death," he said. would have," said John Walker, former Navy radioman. "I mean K "They told me ifI went to the cops they would kill everyone in my fami­ Mart protects their toothpaste better than the Navy protects their top se­ ly." crets." Walker was convicted of spying for the Soviets. He made his statement in an interview on British radio from his prison cell. Christopherson didn't have the $1,000,000, but he gave the kidnap­ pers his car, the gold jewelry he was wearing and a check for $1.6 mil­ Shaoshan, China lion. The car was later recovered and the check bounced. The kidnapper turned out to be Robert Hassan, a "collection agent" Most recent monument to collectivism, as reported in The Wall from Renton, Washington. His slogan, displayed on a plaque on his of­ St Journal: fice wall, is: "Living by chance, loving by choice, killing by profession." Mrs. Weng Teng, a relative of Chairman Mao, has opened a restau­ Hassan had been hired by the Washington Attorney General to collect rant called "Mao's Home Cooking." Mrs Teng, who had been a model money owed to Washington citizens, in accordance with a recommenda­ collective farmer when collectivism was the order of the day, says, "I tion by the Drug Enforcement Agency and the IRS, who had used Has­ guess I'm a little like Chairman Mao. We both made some mistakes, san's services several times in the past. but ultimately we're both successful. When Mao died, I cried for days. And if he hadn't died in 1976, he might have introduced market-style economic reforms. Mao, you know, also encouraged people to make (Readers are encouraged to forward newsclippings profits and get rich." or other documents for publication in Terra Incognita.) 78 Liberty THE CASE Haven't we all looked for a book economics," adds Boward PhiDips of that would introduce ourfriends, fam­ the Conservative Caucus. ily, and business associates to our On hundreds ofissues-from the Fed­ ideas? The Free Market Reader eral Reserve to South Mrican sanctions, is it: short, FOR easy-to-under­ stand, convinc­ ing, and­ above all­ principled es­ CAPITALISM says on the economics of liberty; from the gold standard to socialism, from The authors include Murray N. private property to Keynesianism-this Rothbard, Tom Bethell, Walter book gives the right answers. Block, David Gordon, Robert The ideals ofliberty are being trashed Higgs, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, every day in our country. This 400-page, Lawrence Reed, Sheldon Richman, fully-indexed book can help turn the and Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. tide. The FreeMarket Reader•••

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August 1987 (Vol. 1, No.1): $4.00 Plus The Liberty Poll; Also: reviews and articles by Stephen Cox, Mur­ • "The Films of Ayn Rand," by Stephen Cox ray Rothbard, David Ramsay Steele, and others; and an interview • "Witch-Bashing, Book Burning, and Prof. Harold Hill's Lessons in with L. Neil Smith. (80 pages) Practical Politics," by Butler Shaffer September 1988 (Vol. 2, No.1): $5.50 • "Ron Paul and His Critics," by Murray N. Rothbard e "Scrooge McDuck and His Creator," by Phillip Salin Plus reviews and articles by C. A. Arthur, Ida Walters, Ross Overbeek • ''Liberty and Ecology," byJohn Hospers and others; and a short story byJo McIntyre. (48 pages) • "The Ultimate Justification of the Private Property Ethic," by Hans­ October1987 (Vol. 1, No.2): $4.50 Hermann Hoppe • "The Sociology of Libertarians," by J. C. Green and J. L. Guth Plus reviews and articles by Douglas Casey, David Friedman, Karl Hess, • ''Understanding Anti-Corporatism," by Tibor Machan Sandy Shaw, William Moulton, Douglas Rasmussen, Sheldon Rich­ • ''The Rise ofthe Statism," by Murray N. Rothbard man, Murray Rothbard and others; and a short story by Erika Holzer. Plus reviews and articles by Ethan Waters, Mike Holmes, William P. (80 pages) Moulton, Michael Townshend and others; and a short story by November 1988 (Vol. 2, No.2): $4.00 Franklin Sanders. (48 pages) • ''Taking Over the Roads," byJohn Semmens December1987 (Vol. 1, NO.3): $3.00 • ''The Search for We The Living," by R. W. Bradford • "Easy Living in the Bahamas," by Mark Skousen . eo ''The Final Legacy of Ayn Rand," by Stephen Cox • "Libertarians in a State Run World," by Murray N. Rothbard Plus: a symposium on Hoppe's Argumentation Ethics featuring David • ''The Most Unforgettable Libertarian I Ever Knew," by Karl Hess Friedman, Murray Rothbard, Tibor Machan and others; plus writ­ Plus essays and.reviews by Brian Wright, Chester Alan Arthur, Stephen ings byJane Shaw, Allan Levite, John Dentinger, Walter Block and Cox, Walter Block, Erika Holzer and others; and a short story byDa­ others. (80 pages) vid Galland. (56 pages) January 1989 (Vol. 2, No.3): $4.00 March 1988 (Vol. 1, No.4): $4.00 • "High Noon for the Libertarian Party?" by Chester A. Arthur • ''The Crash of '87," perspectives by Douglas Casey, Ron Paul, Murray • ''TV Advertising and Minor Party Campaigns," by R. W. Bradford Rothbard, Karl Hess, Mark Skousen, R.W. Bradford, Adrian Day and • ''Public Choice: A Useful Tool," byJane S. Shaw Harry Browne. Plus: writings by Leland Yeager, William Niskanen, John Hospers and • "The Majority vs The Majoritarian: Robert Bork on Trial," by Sheldon others; and a short story by Jeffrey Olson. (72 pages) Richman March1989 (Vol. 2, No.4): $4.00 • ''Free Speech and the Future of Medicine," by Sandy Shaw & Durk • "Ronald Reagan: An Autopsy," by MurrayN. Rothbard Pearson • "A Kinder, Gentler Nation? Fear and Loathing in Canada's Elections," Plus reviews and articles by Ethan O. Waters, Murray Rothbard, John by Michel I. Krauss Dentinger, Stephen Cox, Mike Holmes and others; and a short story • ''What if Everything You Knew About Safety Was Wrong?" byJohn by Raul Santana. (64 pages) Semmens and Dianne Kresich May 1988 (Vol. 1, No.5): $4.00 Plus: Articles and reviews by Stephen Cox, Jeffrey Friedman, Tibor Ma­ • ''The ACLU: Suspicious Principles, Salutary Effects," by William P. chan, David Ramsay Steele and others. (72 pages) Moulton May 1989 (Vol. 2, No.5): $4.00 • ''Nicaragua: A Front Line Report," by Gary Alexander • "Man, Nature, and State," by Karl Hess, Jr e IIAyn Rand: Still Controversial After All These Years," essays by David • "A Conspiracy of Silence: Uncovering the Media's Election Night Ramsay Steele and David M. Brown 'Coverage' Policy," by Margaret M. Fries Plus reviews and articles by Nathaniel Branden, Stephen Cox, Erika and • "Anti-Imperialism on the Right" by Bobby Taylor Henry MarkHolzer, Jeff Hummel, Sheldon Richman, Ethan Waters Plus: Articles and reviews by Murray N. Rothbard, David Gordon, Ste­ and others. (64 pages) phen Cox, Justin Raimondo, Phillip Salin, Jane S. Shaw and others; July 1988 (Vol. 1, No.6): $4.00 and a short story byJeffrey Olson (72 pages) e "Rebel Without a Clue: Lessons from the Mecham Experience," by "The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult" Matt Kessler Murray Rothbard's trenchant discussion of the Rand Circle in its glory • "Confessions ofan Intractable Individualist," byJerome Tuccille days. This monograph is availiable only from Liberty Publishing. (16 • ''Nicaragua: An End to Intervention," by William Kelsey pages) $4.00 each.