MAY 1978 S1.25 who sees a chance to profit by supporting it; but one might expect a different view­ point among those who stress the signifi­ Letters cance of the "moral principles underlying I self-ownership and individual liberty." Our sense of tolerance must of course ex­ tend to the white South Africans who be­ lieve in the principles of apartheid. But when they translate those beliefs into ac­ The money mess a small college where the ideas of the tion, a truly consistent libertarian ethic Austrian school are prevalent. demands that we denounce those actions, "The Shattered World Economy!' by Grove City College, in Grove City, or at least refuse to support them-no mat­ Christopher Weber is the first article I have Pennsylvania ... , offers a stimulating en­ ter how profitable such support might be. read in this country whereby Americans vironment for the undergraduate follower It seems to me that this might also extend to are shown to be honest with themselves. of the Austrian school. In the classroom, the advertising policy of our publications­ Perhaps I have not read everything that has the economics department, led by Dr. Hans no matter how costly such a policy might been written on the subject, but, in general, F. Sennholz, vividly demonstrates to many be. people here are fed a line, such as, "It is skeptical graduates of the public school How about it, gentlemen? Does LR set good for us because it makes our exports system that there is a viable alternative to itself apart from the conservative press in look better." statism.... Some of the authorities who words alone? Or do you draw a line, When other countries who have been have come to Grove City include the late beyond which you refuse to accept adver­ dealing with us and are holding a certain Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, and tising encouraging the support of repressive amount of U.S. dollars, and the dollar Henry Hazlitt.... Grove City College not institutions? devaluates, those people over there feel the only teaches Austrian economics, but prac­ same as I do when someone gives me a tices it as well. Unlike the tax-supported R.S. Radford check that no one else will take unless you state universities, Grove City receives no Martinez, California would discount it. But then if the maker is government funds. The free market in The Editor replies: even more reluctant to take it back at a dis­ higher education has determined that in the I quite agree with Mr. Radford; I am not a count then the best thing to do, if you can, face of increasing demand for quality, supporter of the South African regime­ is to buy some of his products or property coupled with the dwindling supply of nor am I a supporter of those regimes at a bargain price (if possible) and be sure high-quality private colleges, Grove City's manifesting so-called "black majority that you end up with more than by holding excellent, comprehensive curriculum is still rule," which also violate the rights of his check. available at low cost. Africans. Unfortunately, the ad in question My wife and I had some money in appears in Libertarian Review in virtue of a Holland and last year we figured that the Robert L. Macomber III Phoenix, Arizona contractual agreement arranged before my dollar had devalued perhaps to its lowest tenure as editor of LR, and until the terms point. So we had some of that money sent Advertising policy of the contract expire, little can be done. over. We would have been quite a few hun­ While I think the question of support to dred dollars ahead yet if we had left it there Your January-February editorial, "The various regimes around the world is more till now. Conservative Movement", is an excellent complex than that suggested by Mr. Rad­ So it is not just the other people who are statement of the philosophical morass ford-what about Russian vodka, or oil cheated, but the people in this country as modern conservatives have dredged for from the Arab nations, or raw materials well. For we can be sure that this devalua­ themselves, and of the need for libertarians from any of a number of oppressive na­ tion will seep through to all of us in to shun a right-wing image. But there ap­ tions?-1 think conservatives-as well as everything we buy, .especially in the goods pears to be some inconsistency between libertarians-might do well to give some which are in demand not only here but in your words and your actions. thought to the point of view he expresses. other lands as well. On page 10 of this issue you malign con­ Selective indignation is all too common We have heard it said: Some people servative leaders for not "elevating" their today, with some parts of the political make things happen, some wonder what is constituencies; for not telling them of "the spectrum excusing one form of oppression, happening, and the majority wonder what real need for tolerance"; for not teaching and others excusing other oppressive happened. This is true as to the govern­ them that "scapegoating of minorities is regimes. We must consistently oppose all ments juggling of the money as well as wrong." On page 11, you present a full­ forms of oppression and violations of in­ many other things. page ad hawking a "Krugerrand-A-Month dividual rights. As for the question of what Anyway, thanks for a good magazine. Plan." to do about the Krugerrand-or Polish W. Gerrits One of the distinguishing characteristics hams·(remember the Birch Society cam­ San Jose, California of a conservative is his subordination of paign of the 1960's?), or coffee from sinister moral principles to material gain. Thus it's Latin American regimes, or goods from perfectly reasonable for conservatives to Vietnam, Indonesia, Chile, Uganda, the A'UStrian economics advocate investing in a coin sold and Soviet Union, South Korea, Yugoslavia, ad A recent "Crosscurrents" column by guaranteed by the Republic of South infinitum-I simply do not know. But Mr. Walter Grinder (LR, December 1977) men­ Africa. The sale of Krugerrands is a grow­ Radford is quite right: the least we can do, tioned a few major universities which liber­ ing source of revenue for the South African as a libertarian magazine, is not to adver­ tarians interested in Austrian economics regime. That government's systematic and tise for such things. We will try to adopt ought to know about. To his list of large brutal repression of the freedom of its such a policy as quickly as possible. universities I would like to add the name of citizens is not relevant to the conservative -Roy A. Childs

2 Libertarian Review ARTICLES 8 THE PUBLIC TROUGH Libertarians and the New Right by Bruce Bartlett 17 THE REVOLT OF THE TAXPAYER by Jeff Riggenbach 9 CROSSCURRENTS "A spectre is haunting state and May 1978 by Walter Grinder county bureaucracy," the New Volume 7, No.4 Yark Times' William Safire has written, "the spectre of tax revolt." Jeff Riggenbach looks 11 LIBERTY'S HERITAGE the revolt of the taxpayer and Wilhelm von Humboldt Editor by Ralph Raico Roy A. Childs, Jr. interviews Howard Jarvis, the elder statesman and leading activist of today's tax rebellion. Executive Editor 14 THE PLUMB LINE Marshall E. Schwartz The Efron affair 25 MARTYRS OF THE NEW by Murray N. Rothbard PROHIBITION Associate Editors by Justin Raimondo Walter E. Grinder The "new prohibition"-the 33 BOOKS AND THE ARTS Leonard P. Liggio laws victimizing marijuana Joan Kennedy Taylor and dealers-is producing its own martyrs. Justin Raimondo A Time for Truth Senior Editor defends one of the most prominent and courageous ones. by William E. Simon Murray N. Rothbard Reviewed by Roy A Childs, Jr.

28 IL LIBERTARISMO ARRIVA Contributing Editor The Politics of Propaganda Jeff Riggenbach IN ITALIA by Ralph Raica by Allan M. Winkler A libertarian movement has Reviewed by Justus Doenecke Administrative Assistant been launched in Italy, a Pat Pope country which badly needs Understanding Conflict and liberating from the oppression War, Vol. 1, and Peace of omnipresent government. Endangered: The Reality of Ralph Raico translates two Detente articles by a young Italian Libertarian Review is published by Rudolph J. Rummel libertarian who is challenging monthly by Libertarian Review, Inc. Reviewed by William Marina Editorial and business offices, 1620 his country's intellectual status Montgomery Street, San Francisco, quo. CA 94111. ©1978 by Libertarian Review, Inc. All rights reserved. How to Fight Property Taxes Opinions expressed in bylined articles by Dan Lewolt do not necessarily reflect the views of DEPARTMENTS Reviewed by Tom G. Palmer the editor or publisher.

Subscriptions: Single copy, $1.25; 12 2 LETTERS issues (one year), $15; two years, $25; Capital, Expectations, and the three years, $35. Address Change: Market Process Write new address, city, state and zip by Ludwig Lachmann code on sheet of plain paper, attach 4 EDITORIALS mailing label from recent issue of LR, The new killer weed Reviewed by Lawrence H. and send to Circulation Department, Jarvis and the tax rebellion White Libertarian Review, 1620 Mont­ The Saga of Woody Jenkins gomery Street, San Francisco, CA "Gun-in-the-ribs": The true 94111. Second class postage paid at San Francisco and additional offices. story 46 CLASSIFIED farmers from harvesting the sprayed marijuana plants be­ fore the plants are killed by the poison, and rushing them Editorials to the American market. Here, the marijuana is being I bought by unsuspecting consumers, who are thus exposed to a substance which a scientist at the Environmental Pro­ tection Agency describes as "a potent killer ... one of the few herbicides that affects the lungs directly." A private testing lab in Palo Alto, California has now found para­ quat in 22 percent of the samples submitted, and the pro­ portion is rising. Difficult to believe, isn't it? The "war on drugs" has come to the point where the American govern­ The new killer weed ment is engaged in chemical warfare against millions of Americans, teenagers on up-free-born citizens who are, to add financial to physical injury, themselves forced to rug Enforcement is a slick, expensively­ pay for this murderous assault through taxes for "foreign produced magazine published by the Drug aid." Enforcement Agency of the Department of This outrageous program has been condemned by publi­ Justice. It is filled with helpful advice to narks cations and writers across the board; even the New Yark the nation over, presents the latest news on Times attacked it editorially, and conservative columnist D"the war on drugs" (there's light at the end of the tunnel, it James J. Kilpatrick termed it an "indefensible and abomin­ seems), and-a point hardly worth mentioning-is shot able trick." So far, however, no one has pointed out the through with lies. The December 1977 issue carried "A very precise parallel in America's past. In the 1920s, in the Message from the President to the Congress of the United era of alcohol prohibition, the U. S. government systemati­ States," over the signature that is by now familiar to many cally added poison to alcohol meant for industrial uses. In of us (it accompanies those mindless signs thanking us this way, it tried to prevent the diversion of the alcohol to warmly for riding the Number 38 bus, and thus fighting use as a beverage. (The story is contained in Thomas M. the energy "shortage"). The message is notable, however, Coffey's excellent The Long Thirst: Prohibition in for at least one statement: "Penalties against possession of America, 1920-1933.) It didn't work. In 1925, over 4100 a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than Americans died from the poisoned alcohol; in 1926, at the use of the drug itself." As far as it goes, sensible least 750 persons in New York City alone were killed. Dr. enough. Carter neglected to mention, though, that at the Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia Universi­ moment he sent the message to Congress, the U.S. govern­ ty, correctly identified what ~as occurring. The govern­ ment was involved in poisoning a substantial proportion ment, he said, was committing "legalized murder." of the marijuana consumed by Americans, and, indeed, Just as the fanatical crusade against alcohol in the first has been so involved since 1975. There is little doubt that part of this century led to the final absurdity-a govern­ this part of "the war on drugs" will result in deaths or in ment program that poisoned drinkers-so now the savage serious damage to the health of many persons, if it has not vendetta against drugs has led to a a parallel absurdity: already done so. participation in and funding by the U.S. government of a Since 1975, the American government has provided program that poisons smokers. There is literally no mad­ helicopters, advisors, and millions of dollars for spraying ness, it appears, that the politicians will stop short at in fields in Mexico with paraquat, a herbicide and deadly poi­ their various wars, real or metaphorical. son (which, in small enough doses, may take years to af­ Historically, another metaphorical "war" has often end­ fect those exposed to it). Since the story started to emerge, ed in similar absurdities: the war on inflation. The pattern Dr. Peter Bourne, Carter's director of drug abuse policy, here was brilliantly exposed by the great economist Lud­ has denied that the United States has assisted in the spray­ wig von Mises. First, the government inflates the currency, ing of marijuana fields, maintaining that it was used only thereby producing problems (as it produced problems by against poppy fields (as is well-known, anything done to defining certain drugs as illegal). Then, when prices rise, it heroin users is perfectly acceptable). State Department imposes price controls. Then, when shortages appear, it in­ documents obtained under the Freedom of Information troduces rationing. When a black market emerges, rather Act, however, give the lie to Bourne's claim. In fact, it than go back on its own policies-which have created turns out, it was American negotiators who pressured the these problems one after the other-the government Mexicans into giving up their program of field burnings counters with its ultimate weapons. Prison terms and­ and using instead the more "effective" method of spraying more than once in history-the death penalty are imposed from the air. And DEA spokesman Cornelius Dougherty on the black marketeers and on those who are trying to has admitted that American observers and spotters are sent find some way to feed themselves and their families in the on both poppy and marijuana missions. This year Mexico midst of the government-generated chaos. If the policies of is getting from Washington another $15 million and 18 ad­ the present administration continue, we may live to see a ditional helicopters for the program. comparable sequence in the war for "energy self­ The problem is that there is no way to prevent Mexican sufficiency."

4 Libertarian Review The U.S. government's interference with the right of the view of LR, libertarians ought to give this proposal every individual to take any drug or other substance he whatever support they can. This month, LR is running an wishes is leading our society to catastrophe. The drug interview with Jarvis by Contributing Editor Jeff Riggen­ laws-as New York attorney Gary Greenberg has pointed bach. But there is reason for us to comment on Jarvis's out-are causing the breakdown of our judicial system, as strategy. police officers testifying at marijuana trials perjure them­ Howard Jarvis comes out of the old Liberty Amendment selves wholesale. They have led, in the Drug Enforcement crew. He has all the virtues and flaws of such a right-wing Agency, to the establishment of a government bureau that, group. On the one hand, he is iconoclastic and brutally for its brutality and casual trampling on the rights of the honest about the state government. On the other, he has, innocent, has come to rival the IRS. Organized crime buys unfortunately, linked himself with the worst elements of and sells local police departments and grows rich; unorga­ the Right in California by endorsing John Briggs for nized crime-fueled by the need to buy drugs at prices Governor. driven fantastically high by the new prohibition-turns the Briggs is a Republican who is trying to ride to the guber­ great cities of America into jungles. Meanwhile, our sanc­ natorial mansion by using the issues of the death timonious leaders continue to chatter about lithe eradica­ penalty-which he favors-and homosexuality-which he tion of drugs," in unreal platitudes that would be moronic abhors-as a route to power. A strong supporter of Anita if they were not hypocritical. All Americans-drug users Bryant, he is not only a firm backer of a California death­ and nonusers alike-must tell Carter, Bourne and the rest penalty initiative, but also the author of an initiative likely that the time has come for the farce to end, that we will not to appear on California's November ballot which has the continue to look on while our society is torn apart just intent of banning gay teachers from the public schools, and because some people-in government and out of it-can­ may well prohibit any discussion of the subject by any not tolerate the peaceful habits of others. For they have employee of the state system. (The exact legal implications ended-if this is the end-by poisoning even the young. are unclear.) It would add insult to injury; not only would When the U. S. government was adding methanol to gays continue to be bled by taxes which go to support the alcohol in the 1920s, causing the deaths of thousands of scate educational system, but they would be treated as vir­ Americans every year, the film star-humorist Will Rogers tual pariahs as well. said: "Governments used to murder by bullet only. Now Jarvis's office, in response to questioning from LR, it's by the quart." And now, it seems, it's by the kilo. -RR claimed that he intended to endorse any candidate who endorses the Jarvis initiative. Does that mean he is going to endorse more than one candidate for governor? No answer. Now this is, quite simply, yet one more case of the death Jarois and the Tax Rebellion wish of the American right wing. There are a host of gays in California, particularly in San Francisco, as well as a e are on the edge of a nationwide tax host of opponents of the death penalty. They, like every­ revolt, and nothing better symbolizes it one else, are being sent to the wall by taxation. They too than the Jarvis-Gann tax limitation in­ are being crippled by skyrocketing property taxes. itiative on the California ballot this June. Those who oppose the Jarvi~-Gann initiative realize that Property taxes have increased drastically in they need the support of everyone who agrees with them California over the past few years, and the people have on that issue (every bloody parasite and tax-grabbing had enough. So when Howard Jarvis, 75, head of the group in the state), and have publicly commented on the United Organization of Taxpayers, and Paul Gann, 65, odd, one-issue coalition that they represent in trying to head of People's Advocate, another taxpayer organization, keep property taxes high. Can Howard Jarvis afford to proposed their initiative a few months ago, they struck a alienate anyone who would join in an antiproperty tax nerve. In a few short weeks, they had collected over rebellion? Why then does he throw Briggs-or even Ed 1,500,000 signatures, more than any other ballot initiative Davis, the caveman cum former chief of the Los Angeles ever. Police Department-in the faces of gays and those who op­ The proposal is a tax-limitation plan not just with teeth, pose the death penalty? Why can't he instead-if he is but with fangs. It would limit property taxes to one percent serious about this tax rebellion-swallow some of his of market value, about one-fourth of the current statewide right-wing prejudice and use the same tactic as his op­ average; between $5 and $7 billion a year in property taxes ponents: embrace any group, of whatever cultural or would thus be cut back. Moreover, under the initiative, political orientation, that will side with him in smashing the legislature could not just vote for new taxes to replace high taxes? What kind of suicidal self-indulgence allows that $7 billion. According to the New York Times, "it him to think that he can do anything less and win? could vote new tax increases only by two-thirds vote. Howard Jarvis ought to knock it off and stick to the Special tax elections on the local level would require a two­ issue: Is someone for or against cutting taxes drastically? If thirds majority of the voters." they are for it, he should embrace them; if they are against Libertarians across the board have endorsed the it, then he should assail them continually. But above all initiative, from Murray Rothbard to Milton Friedman. In else, the right wing must stop splitting needlessly the

May 1978 5 "natural opposition constituencies" which, taken together, issues should be enough. That Robert Poole could wax so might make for a real rebellion against government op­ enthusiastic about such a man is indeed indicative of the pression in this country. lack of judgment which so often manifests itself among the As for the taxpayers themselves, they ought to support editors of Reason, which far too often blurs the critical the initiative, come what may. After all, it is a tax limita­ distinction between libertarian and conservative. In the tion initiative which finds itself on the ballot, and not the case of Woody Jenkins, we at LR shall resolve to keep that wisdom or person of Howard Jarvis. • distinction crystal clear. •

The saga of Woody Jenkins "Gun-in-the-ribs" : The truestory oody Jenkins has been something of a con­ troversial figure of late among liber­ s part of its never-ending commitment to the tarians. An interview in Reason magazine tradition of investigative journalism and to the with the Louisiana Democratic state repre­ quest for truth in matters of high politics, Liber­ sentative blithely took his self-proclaimed tarian Review has, we believe, gotten to the "libertarian" credentials for granted, and moved on to ask bottom of the famous "gun-in-the-ribs-of­ him how he, as a "libertarian," fit into Louisiana state ARothbard" story that graced Edith Efron's amusing fable in politics. Former LP national chairman Ed Crane, in the the February issue of Reason. Due to the efforts of a friend March letters column of Reason, pointed out that Jenkins of ours (who shall remain nameless, since he is the editor­ had been a Wallace delegate in 1976; that he criticized the in-chief of a rival publication), we have traced the anec­ efforts of the LP as a third party while working with New dote to what is in all probability its origin. In 1968, a cer­ Right chieftain Richard Viguerie (with whom Jenkins says tain David McReynolds, a white, antiwar activist, was he agrees "on 90 percent of the issues") in attempting to running for U. S. senator from New York on the Peace and take over the American Independent Party; and that he Freedom party ticket, which had Eldridge Cleaver as favored increasing the defense budget. presidential candidate. There was, however, a black Jenkins denied the charges for the most part-dancing radical running for the Senate on the Freedom and Peace around and rationalizing his associations with the hideous­ ticket. It seems (this is from McReynolds) that some Black ly antilibertarian George Wallace and with Richard Panthers were upset that McReynolds was opposing a Viguerie-and claimed openly that"as to the suggestion by radical black candidate. A group of them visited him at the Ed Crane that I favor an increase in the size of the defense time to "urge" him to withdraw. At one point, one of them budget, that is false." Then Robert Poole, an editor at reached into a bag to pull something out, meanwhile Reason, gave Jenkins a glowing, euphoric introduction saying something like, "You'll withdraw or you're a dead when the latter appeared as banquet speaker before the man!" Wiser heads prevailed and things were quickly California Libertarian Party. So much for Woody Jenkins' cooled down. Although no one ever saw a gun, it was libertarianism, right? widely assumed that that was what was involved in the Wrong. A capsule report in National Review confirms threat against McReynolds, (McReynolds, by the way, our worst suspicions concerning this rather weasley "liber­ didn't withdraw.) tarian." In a report on Jenkins' present campaign for U.S. We think it's a safe bet that this incident, perhaps re­ Senate, we learn what Woody Jenkins has latched onto as ported to her by Murray (it was widely mentioned in New issues: "In Louisiana, conservative State Rep. Woody York at the time), was the origin of Efron's "clear" recollec­ Jenkins is challenging incumbent Democrat Bennett tion-in other words, she took a story about McReynolds Johnston. Jenkins is attacking Johnston on his defense and tangled it up in such a confused way that, in the end, it votes (anti B-1, for South Korean pullout) and for various b~came a story about Rothbard instead. If Murray did in high spenderies... " (our emphasis). So Woody Jenkins fact tell her the story, that he doesn't remember is easily supports the B-1 bomber, and opposes pulling American understandable to anyone who has any idea of his capacity troops out of Korea. He has also recently publicly con­ for taking in and giving out information-a capacity firmed his support not only of the B-1, but of the cruise roughly equivalent to that of the wire services of AP, UPI, missile and the neutron bomb. This is being "against and Reuters combined. various high spenderies"? This is not favoring an increase So Efron's hyped-up bit of melodrama takes its rightful in the defense budget? Who is kidding whom? place-a a piece of sloppy journalism, something she could But at least National Review knew enough to call and should have checked out with Murray. Nonetheless, Jenkins by his right name: "conservative." Any former she's taught us all a lesson. You just can't be too careful Wallace delegate who claims to be a "libertarian" ought to with these New Left types. Next time you're having lunch be scrutinized with a microscope. In Jenkins' case, simply with Benjamin Spock or a drink with Carl Oglesby, be sure looking at what he has chosen to make into campaign to watch their every move. •

6 Libertarian Review "How I beat the banks at their own game." By MARK SKOUSEN My name is Mark Skousen. Like you, •A U.S. checking account literally I've dealt with banks all my life. And, backed by 1000/0 gold bullion. like you, whenever I needed a loan, it • How to earn 12 % on a 7* % cer­ seemed as though the banks held all the tificate of deposit. cards. • How to get free life insurance ... "The banks never give the average guy even if you're normally uninsurable! a break," I used to say. • How to conduct your financial af­ Then, about three years ago, things fairs without a U.S. checking ac­ started to change-dramatically. I dis­ count (for those who seek complete covered that increased competition among privacy from government snoop­ banks had opened up dozens of oppor­ ing). tunities for borrowing and making •A Visa center that pays you 1% of money-on amazingly favorable terms. the total purchases you make I learned how to beat the banks-at their using the card. own game. And you can, too! • How to postpone bankruptcy for­ Today, I'm on the highroad to financial sitting down with a loan officer. Every­ ever. success. Using the banking and credit thing could be done by mail! • How to save up to $100 a year on secrets I discovered, I can now borrow Second, I could use the money for any your checking account. $25,000 anytime I please. I earn high re­ purpose I saw fit. I could use the loan for • How to get free travelers checks, turns on my savings, which I can withdraw a down payment on a house, to start a free money orders, and free notary at any time by check. I own a sports car new business, to buy a color TV, or to service. and a sedan free and clear. I live in an purchase stocks. It was completely up to • The advantages of having aU.S. $80,000 home, and I have the time and me. dollar account in Canada. means to travel several times a year. Third, the interest I paid was much less • How some Americans earn 300/0 a How did I do it? With a little investiga­ than what I would pay using my credit year with a Swiss savings account. ting-and some creative thinking. I talked cards. And with some conservative tech­ • How to buy a home with no money with bank officials. I read banking litera­ niques, I found that I was able to reduce down. ture-between the lines. Slowly but the interest charges to less than 100/0­ •A new way to earn high yields surely, I began picking up the "tricks of not bad for a personal loan. when short-term interest rates are the trade" which had previously been Fourth, I discovered, much to my sur­ low. known only to banking insiders. prise, that I was able to borrow this • How to legally avoid the foreign Then one day, I discovered the most money indefinitely! It was completely up bank reporting requirement of the powerful idea in consumer banking his­ to me how much I wanted to pay back. IRS. tory: An unlimited source of overnight By following the insider's techniques I capital at favorable interest rates! I call it developed, I could postpone repayment of To get your copy, print the words "The Perfect Loan. ., the loan for months without any problems "Banking Almanac" on a plain sheet of from the bank. In fact, it gave the ap­ paper, along with your name and address. How To Raise $25,000 Overnight pearance that I was a better credit risk! Enclose a check for $12.95 payable to nlY publisher, Kephart Communications, Inc. I became aware of this new financial Yes, things have worked out very well They pay postage. (Or, charpe your VISA, for me. But one day I thought, "All this opportunity when a friend of mine told AMEX or MC accouni by including me how he got out of some financial is too good to keep to myself. Why not name of card, number and your signature. share my knowledge with others?" And so troubles. He told me about a brand new We· charge $1.50 extra for postage and source of personal loans-and how he I've written a book that tells everything handling on credit card orders.) had been able to borrow tens of thQusands I've learned. It's called THE 1978 IN­ Mail to Kephart Communications, SIDER'S BANKING & CREDIT ALMANAC. of dollars from banks without revealing Inc., Dept. 3278, Box 2599, Landover the purpose of the loans and without The "Perfect Loan" and More Hills, Maryland 20784. putting up any collateral. He didn't have to use the money right away-he could My book covers all the details of "The You're protected by my unconditional let it sit in the bank. And he didn't have Perfect Loan," just as I've described it money-back guarantee: Read the AL­ to pay any interest until he actually used above. But that's only the beginning! The MANAC. Try any-or all-of the techniques it. When he finally needed it, the money ALMANAC opens up a whole universe of I outline. Then, if you're unhappy with was there waiting for hinl. new banking and credit opportunities: the book for any reason whatever, simply This I had to see for myself. To my • Checking accounts that pay in­ return it within three weeks and I'll surprise, my friend was absolutely right. I terest. refund every penny. Fair enough? found that I too could borrow thousands •A new way to earn 100/0 on your You need my book for one excellent of dollars overnight, even though I had savings account. reason. The banks tell you what's good only an average income. But that was • Visa and Master Charge centers for them. I'll tell you what's good for only the beginning. I found that this was that give free cash loans. the world's easiest and best way to raise •A bank that offers a $5,000 line-of­ money! credit on the prestigious American First of all, I could qualify for these Express "gold card" at only 100/0 ~~ instant, unsecured loans without ever interest. money to finance a new kind of conser­ vative political action. His message was simple: The country is overwhelmingly I The PublieTrough conservative, but this fact cannot be effec­ tively exploited by the Old Right because of their dogmatic belief in the free market and antagonism for the welfare state. Libertarians and the "NeuJ Right" What Viguerie and the New Right be­ lieve is that we can make a distinction be­ by Bruce Bartlett tween economic conservatism and social conservatism. The two are basically in­ compatible because people are not willing For approximately two years now, the New not clean the subversives out df govern­ to vote for elimination of the welfare state Right has been a hot topic of conversation ment, etc., etc. Nixon's final betrayal was but will vote against liberal issues such as in Washington. At first it appeared to be a that Watergate destroyed what little good abortion, busing, pornography, progres­ passing phenomenon, connected largely he had accomplished in terms of electing sive education, etc. The New Right hopes with presidential bids by George Wallace conservatives to Congress; they largely to elect its candidates on opposition to and later Ronald Reagan. Since the 1976 were defeated in 1974 and 1976 as a result. these things while not threatening whatever election, however, the New Right has con­ Perhaps the final impetus toward estab­ benefits a person may be getting from the tinued to grow and prosper. Since it now lishment of the New Right as a permanent welfare state. seems that the New Right is something of a fixture was oddly enough, the election of This is a very powerful program and permanent fixture on the political scene, Jimmy Carter. Carter was elected as a con­ everyone knows it, because it strikes at the questions arise: How does it relate to liber­ servative, and his political base lies precise­ base of support for both parties. Moreover, tarianism? Is it a threat or will its existence ly where the New Right sees its future: the Viguerie makes the point that the. New ultimately strengthen libertarianism? rural areas of the South and West where Right is just as happy to elect conservative First off, one should know how the New old values of community and family are Democrats as it is to elect Republicans. The Right differs from the Old Right. The New strongest. New Right also believes in purging those Right is largely a creation of conservative It was Richard Viguerie who finally put who don't toe the line; regardless of their disillusionment with Richard Nixon. Nix­ the pieces together and began to exploit the party or what they have done in the past. on, they believe, was elected as a conser­ vacuum created by the destruction of Nevertheless, the New Right continues to vative but betrayed his constituency. He Richard Nixon, who had been a symbol of operate within the existing party structure, made overtures to Communist China and the Old Right. Viguerie, a direct-mail preferring to make its views felt through the Soviet Union, .vastly increased govern­ advertising wizard who had done work for support for individual candidates and ment spending, did not appoint conser­ the George Wallace campaign, began to use mass-mail campaigns. vatives to high offices in the Administra­ the vast mailing lists of conservatives he Of course, despite all the bickering, it is tion, failed to win the Vietnam War, did had accumulated over the years to raise clear that the New Right and the Old Right have more in common than they have dif­ ferences, at least by comparison to liber­ tarians. For example, the New Right and the Old Right are 100 percent in agreement on foreign policy: They both believe that nuclear war is imminent, or at least that a Soviet invasion of Western Europe is on the way. They believe that the Panama Canal Treaty must be defeated at all cost. And the New Right and the Old Right do not really disagree on social issues. It is more a ques­ tion of emphasis. But all in all one must conclude that the New Right is far more evil than the Old Right. What the New Right wishes todo is jetison precisely those attitudes that libertarians and the Old Right shared toward economic issues. And the New Right wants to emphasize precisely those issues upon which libertarians and conser­ vatives most disagree: national defense and civil liberties. In fact, the New Right is on exactly the opposite side of virtually every issue of concern to libertarians. In this respect, they are certainly worse than run­ of-the-mill liberals, who at least generally believe in such libertarian things as

(continued on page 10)

8 Libertarian Review everyone is entitled to the holdings they possess under the distribution. Compared to prior theories, this concept is I Crosseurrents quite a radical and morally attractive standard by which to judge the actual world. And once this uncompromising en­ titlement theory becomes widely known, it is indeed likely to capture the imagination of the new generation. If it does, it could by Walter Grinder very well replace Marxism as the inter­ national radical ideology. Libertarianism, • Nozick vs. Marx economic or social-thus lies in the justness with this strong moral plank, could thus "Why R. Nozick is Doing Much Better than of the original acquisition and of any assume a position of moral and ideological K. Marx" read the rather unexpected head­ subsequent transfers of ownership. leadership in the international antistatist, line over a column by Oliver Stutchbury in Under Nozick's entitlement theory of anticollectivist liberation movement. the January 25 issue of The Times of Lon­ justice, justice is historically expressed and Just imagine the implications of the liber­ don. A most laudable sentiment, like the objectively embedded in property rights. tarian entitlement theory in confrontation London Bridge Station graffito which in­ He presents the concept as follows: with the neo-feudal, less developed coun­ spired it, "K. Marx is Dead; R. Nozick tries of the world. Or with the "socialist" Lives." Could all this mean that liber­ (1) A person who acquires a holding in ac­ cordance with the principle of justice in acquisi­ state-capitalist block of the USSR and tarianism is on the verge of becoming a tion is entitled to that holding. Eastern Europe. Or the "political capitalist" significant international intellectual move­ (2) A person who acquires a holding in ac­ social economies of the West. The entitle­ ment? cordance with the principle of justice in transfer ment theory of justice is the moral founda­ In more basic terms, what is there about from someone else entitled to the holding is en­ tion of a spectre that should truly haunt the Prof. Nozick and the doctrine of liber­ titled to the holding. statists of the world, and one that should tarianism that could captivate the imagina­ (3) No one is entitled to a holding except by make them tremble. Imagine again, the tion in any way close to that accomplished (repeated) applications of (1) and (2). growth and development of a party based by Marx and Marxism? The complete principle of distributive justice on humanity and justice, that will rise to The Times' writer underscores the key to would say simply that a distribution is just if the defense of victims of aggression, not Nozick's rise in esteem in intellectual circles previously immune to individualist philosophy-namely, Nozick's total destruction of government actions aimed at enforcing "distributive justice," deeds animated by certain "end state" principles. As we all know too well, most govern­ ments are often guided by a political philosophy which honors more egalitarian distribution of wealth as its highest goal. In place of these ideals of quality held up as a standard of justice, Nozick has offered us instead an "historical principle"-the "entitlement" theory of justice. Nozick, in his National Book Award-winning Anarchy, State and Utopia, follows Locke in positing that individuals have certain rights that no person or group of people (especially governments) may violate. Stutchbury makes the significant point that for Nozick, moral philosophy-not utilitarian gimmickry-serves as the basis for political philosophy. Governments should be constrained from doing anything other than protecting their citizens' moral rights from invasion-and that's all. Hence Nozick's advocacy of the minimal state. How, then, does one go about determin­ ing and protecting individuals' rights in the real, political world? The answer is through property-both self-ownership and its material extension to personal and real property (with these latter acquired either directly from an original state of nature, or from an exchange, or from a gift). The key to justice-whether moral, Robert Nozick

May 1978 9 because it is historically determined to do perhaps we should listen and try to deter­ persons are protected, a society in which so, and not because it will increase social mine if there isn't something that we can each individual person receives that to utility, but because it is the right thing to learn from her critique. which he is justly entitled. The aim and the do. There is one point in particular which very reason for the existence of liber­ Yes, the entitlement theory of justice she makes that has been of concern to me tarianism is to protect the rights of in­ should also shake apart the tired and for some time. It involves a label that dividual persons-diverse, unique, sacred, woefully pragmatic doctrines of end-state Classical Liberalism picked up early on and potentially good, creative, and, of course, utilitarianism,-the cursed Benthamism, in one that it was never really able to shake. productive. It is indeed a happy cir­ all its permutations, that has proved the Polsgrove and many other liberals assume cumstance that the seemingly inherent bane of liberty's existence for almost 200 that libertarians are obsessed with the tendency and desire of each individual to years. During the 19th century, utilitarian­ human function of productivity and with improve his or her station in life tends, ism almost singlehandedly short-circuited the much vaunted virtue of work. With without central design or command, to the great classical liberal revolution. What that premise in hand, and with a couple of propel the society and economy towards an Nozick has done in the highest philosophi­ quick jumps in logic, suddenly those who improved material standard of living. But cal circles-and hopefully in popular graf­ would defend the free market are tagged to take this happy byproduct of freedom as fiti circles as well-is to reposition the doc­ both with a materialist fixation and with the defining characteristic of libertarianism trine of individual rights and justice-in­ defending the related assumption that man is to miss the point entirely. property center stage in the discussions and is born first and foremost to toil-which is We canhardly blame Ms. Polsgrove for debates of political philosophy. He has, in thus a person's function and defining not seeing the liberating aspects of private effect, presented a viable alternative both characteristic. property and the free market economy. to Marxism and to neo-Benthamism. In so It is true that, under the combined ideo­ Most libertarian spokesmen have not gone doing he has helped libertarianism take a logical regime of Calvinism and of British very far in trying to make this point clear major step on its way to victory. classical economic doctrine, there was a to those who disagree with them. On the Now it is up to the rest of us to make cer­ dual concentration on both the Protestant contrary, many of the recent spokesmen tain that the libertarian· momentum grows work-ethic and on wealth (the latter as the for libertarianism have gone out of their and ultimately succeeds as an international central focus of both economic study and way to emphasize-almost totally ex­ movement. Let's hope that there are many economic activity). It is also true that, cluding the universal liberating aspect of more Oliver Stutchbury's out there to com­ under this combined regime, man was seen private property and the free market-the ment favorably on more and more Nozick­ primarily as a productive creature or as a cold, harsh, economistic, and Calvinistic ian graffiti. factor of production. This attitude has con­ aspects of utilitarian capitalism.Particular­ tinued down through history both in cer­ ly in this regard, I refer to the unfortunate •A liberal looks at libertarianism tain strands of conservative thought, and influx of the Randian influence on many a A further indication of the growth of liber­ in the forefront of the Marxist branch of libertarian's thought patterns during the tarianism can be found in the January issue classical economics. past two decades. Once we are able to of the left-liberal magazine The In spite of libertarianism's concentration shake off this baggage of economism, liber­ Progressive. Carol Polsgrove, in an article on the spiritual aspects of liberty (following tarianism will, I think, begin to flourish entitled "In Pursuit of 'Liberty'," renders a mainly in the steps of the French Classical among liberals of high moral caliber. Then, fairly evenhanded assessment of the liber.­ Liberals), and in spite of the fact that most those well intentioned liberals like Ms. tarian movement and of libertarian libertarians base their definitions of pro­ Polsgrove will begin to see that liber­ positions on a number of issues such as tax­ ductivity on the subjective approach of the tarianism is the only really consistent ation, gay liberation, national police agen­ Austrian School of economics, we liber­ liberal doctrine and ultimately the only cies, etc. She discusses the state of the tarians still run the risk of being tagged as true party of humanity. • Libertarian Party, quoting ex-National crass and arid materialists unless we can Chairman Ed Crane on a number of mat­ ward off this horrid aura of Calvinism. ters, while mentioning the main intellectual And until we do, we are not likely to make leaders-John Hospers, Murray Rothbard, much headway among American liberals. and Robert Nozick-along with the titles of As long as the concept of the libertarian NeuJRight their books. society is presented in economistic terms, it Ms. Polsgrove appears to be somewhat will be perceived in like terms. As long as (continued from page 8) amused by her subject, but on the other libertarianism is associated in the "think­ hand she seems to be genuinely sympathe­ ing" public's mind (e.g., Ms. Polsgrove) as freedom of speech, civil liberties and free tic with libertarianism until she gets to its a philosophy that both views and presents trade. free-market implications. Like most left­ people merely as means to ends and not This is not to say that libertarianism will liberals, Ms. Polsgrove neither understands also as ends in themselves, libertarians will suffer as a result. So long as the New Right nor appreciates the nature of the market continue to receive the condemnation of is prevented from gaining actual political process; therefore, it seems, she cannot see liberals like Ms. Polsgrove power, its effect will be largely to polarize the intricate and mutually supporting rela­ The libertarian society is not a blueprint and perhaps destroy the Old Right. At this tionship between economic freedom and or program for promoting greater output point, libertarianism may pick up what political liberty. She dusts offseveral of the of goods and services. It clearly is not the support is left for the Old Right, since it old cliches about the freedom to starve and purpose of libertarianism to develop more will have nowhere else to go. And the New the coercion of the marketplace, and she productive agents. Right may scare the liberals into stronger brings them out to play yet one more time. The raison d'etre of libertarianism is to support for those areas where libertarians It would be easy either to dismiss her points work towards the fulfillment of a social are most in agreement with them. The for the hackneyed phrases that they are or system in which justice reigns; that is, a ultimate result may be a strengthening of to strike back in kind, but I think that society in which the rights of all individual support for libertarianism.

10 Libertarian Review must spring from within him, and not be given from without." Liberty's Heritage On his return to Berlin, Humboldt had I been given a minor post at the law court. But the relative freedom of thought which had been enjoyed in Prussia under Fred­ erick the Great was at this time being replaced by persecutions of the press and Wilhelm, von Hum,boldt religious intolerance; Humboldt did not by Ralph Raico find the atmosphere of public life con­ genial. Added to this was the disinclination which he felt to interfere in the lives of When Oswald Spengler, in one of his This little essay, originally intended as a others (a nicety of feeling almost grotesque­ minor books, scornfully characterized Ger­ letter to a friend, is noteworthy for a ly out of place in a "public servant"). Most man classical liberalism as "a bit of the number of reasons. In the first place,Hum­ spirit of England on German soil," he was boldt appears to have arrived at some of merely displaying the willful blindness of the major conclusions of Burke, without at the school of militaristic-statist German that time being familiar with the latter's historians, who refused to acknowledge as work. He states, for instance, that "reason a true compatriot any thinker who did not is capable .to be sure of giving form to 'The Lintits of State form part of the "intellectual bodyguard of material already present, but it has no the House of Hohenzollern." Spengler had power to create new material. ... Con­ Action' is a book apparently forgotten that Germany had stitutions cannot be grafted upon men as had its Enlightenment, and the ideals of sprigs upon trees." For a new political which sets forth, freedom which were conceived and prop­ order to be successful, it is necessary for agated in England, Scotland, and France "time and nature" to have prepared the for the first tinte, towards the end of the eighteenth century ground. Since this has not been the case in had found an echo and a support in the France, historical analogy compelled an the tnajor argutnents works of writers such as Kant, Schiller, and answer of "no" to the question of whether even the young Fichte. Although by 1899, this new constitution will succeed. for freedotn. William Graham Sumner could write that In addition, this essay anticipates an idea "there is today scarcely an institution in central to the thesis of Humboldt's most Germany except the army," it is never­ important work on political theory, which theless true that there existed a native Ger­ was never far from his mind whenever he important of all, perhaps, was the new con­ man tradition of distinguished, libertarian deliberated on the nature of man-the no­ ception which he was beginning to for­ thought, which had, in the course of the tion that, "whatever is to flourish in a man mulate of the legitimate functions of nineteenth century, to some degree at least government, a conception which virtually been translated into action. Of the thinkers compelled him to look on the states of his who contributed to this tradition, Wilhelm time as engines of injustice. In the spring of von Humboldt was unquestionably one of 1791, Humboldt resigned his position. the greatest. The genesis of his major work on politi­ Born in 1767, Humboldt was descended cal theory, and the one of most interest to from a Junker family which had faithfully individualists, is also to be found in discus­ served the rulers of Prussia for genera­ sions with a friend-Karl von Dalberg, tions-a fact which was later to cause sur­ who was a proponent of the "enlightened" prise to some of those who heard young state paternalism then prevalent in Ger­ Humboldt in conversation passionately de­ many. He pressed Humboldt for a written fend personal liberty. He was educated at exposition of his views on the subject, and Frankfurt-am-Oder, and later at Got­ Humboldt responded, in 1792, by compos­ tingen, at that time one of the centers of ing his classic, The Limits of State Action. liberal ideas in Germany. This little book was later to have a good In the summer of 1789, Humboldt under­ deal of influence. It was of importance in took a trip to Paris in the company of his shaping some of John Stuart Mill's ideas in former tutor, Campe, who was a devotee this field, and may even have provided the of the philosophes, and now eager to see immediate occasion for his On Liberty. In with his own eyes, "the funeral rites of France, Laboulaye, the late-nineteenth­ French despotism." His pupil did not share century individualist, owed much to this his enthusiasm for the revolution, how­ work of Humboldt, and in Germany it ex­ ever; for from what Humboldt had wit­ ercised an influence even over such a nessed at Paris and from conversations basically unsympathetic mind as von with Friedrich Gentz (at that time a sup­ Treitschke's. But it is also a book which has porter of the French Revolution) there came an inherent value, because in it are set a brief article, "Ideas on the Constitutions forth-in some cases, I believe, for the first of States, occasioned by the New French time-some of the major arguments for Constitution." Wilhelm von Humboldt freedom.

May 1978 11 Humboldt begins his work by remark­ not enter into his being. It remains foreign could undertake his researches (or if a ing that previous writers on political to him, and he does not really accomplish it government commission had been em­ philosophy have concerned themselves with human energy, but with mechanical powered to pass on Galileo's intended almost exclusively with investigating the address." This is one of the central ideas of work!). But if men like Henry Ford had not divisions of governmental power and what the book, and merits some discussion. been free to put their ideas into operation, part the nation, or certain sectors of it, It is an idea which no one will dispute industrial progress would have been no less ought to have in the exercise of this power. when it involves a question of scientific stanched. We may concede freely that the These writers have neglected the more fun­ progress. No one expects worthwhile scien­ abstract scientific thought of an Einstein is damental questions, "To what end ought tific thought to take place when the scien­ a loftier thing, representing a greater the whole apparatus of the state to aim, tist is compelled or restricted in some im­ achievement of the human mind. But this and what limits ought to be set to its activi­ portant facet of his work. He must be free has no bearing on the argument. ty?" It is this question that Humboldt in­ to develop his ideas, in accordance with the We believe that individual scientists tended to answer. self-imposed standards of his profession, should be unhindered in the pursuit of their "The true end of man-not that which aims, because those who would be in capricious inclination prescribes for him, charge of the central direction of scientific but that which is prescribed by eternally research, or those who had power to re­ immutable reason-is the highest and most In a free nation, strict scientists in essential ways, would not harmonious cultivation of his faculties into know as well as the scientists themselves­ one whole. For this cultivation, freedom is each of whom has an immediate knowledge the first and indispensible condition." each man would of the relevant factors in his particular Humboldt thus begins by placing his argu­ situation-which are the most promising ment within the framework of a particular contribute to the lines to be explored. In addition, a self­ conception of man's nature, but it ought to chosen activity, or one which may be fol­ be noted that the validity of his argument education of other lowed up freely in all of its ramifications, does not depend upon the correctness of his will summon forth energy which will not view of "the true end of man." Of primary men, and, in turn, be available in cases where a task is im­ importance are his ideas in regard to the posed from without, or where the research­ mechanism of individual and social prog­ er meets up against countless frustrations in ress; and here even such a socially-minded learn from them. the pursuit of his goal-the free activity, in utilitarian as John Stuart Mill could find in­ other words, will command greater incen­ struction and inspiration. tive. For the full flourishing of the individual, out of his own originality. But scientIfic But both of these propositions are equal­ Humboldt asserts, there is requisite, be­ knowledge is only one type of knowledge; ly true of activities involving practical sides freedom, a "manifoldness of situa­ there are other types, some at least as knowledge, or knowledge in action, of tions," which, while logically distinct from socially useful. There is the knowledge which techniques of production are an ex­ freedom, has always followed upon it. It is which consists in skills and techniques of ample. The socialist who believes in central only when men are placed in a great variety production, and the type which, as we have direction of economic activity ought, con­ of circumstances that those experiments in seen, is embedded in values and ways of sistently, to believe also in the central plan­ living can take place which expand the life: Besides knowledge which is acquired ning of science; those who favor wide­ range of values with which the human race through abstract thought, there is the sort spread government control of economic is familiar. It is through expanding this of knowledge acquired through practical life, because the state "knows better," range that increasingly better answers can thought and through action. The argument should, if they were consistent, favor a be found to the question, "In exactly what for freedom in the elaboration of scientific return to the system that shackled the ways are men to arrange their lives?" knowledge, therefore, is simply a special scientific enterprise as well. A free nation would, according to Hum­ instance of the argument for freedom in It was partly because force necessarily boldt, be one in which "the continuing general. interferes with individual self-development necessity of association with others would Professor Michael Polanyi has described and the proliferation of new ideas, by urgently impel each gradually to modify the benefits of "individualism in the erecting a barrier between the individual's himself" in the light of his appreciation of cultivation of science'" perception of a situation and the solution the value of the life-patterns others have The pursuit of science can be organized. .. in no he thinks it best to attempt, that Humboldt accepted. In such a society, "no power and other manner than by granting complete in­ wanted to limit the activities of the state as no hand would be lostfor the elevation and dependence, to all mature scientists.. They will severely as possible. Another argument in then distribute themselves over the whole field of favor of this conclusion is that a govern­ enjoyment of human existence." Each man, possible discoveries, each applying his own spe­ in applying his reason to his own life and cial ability to the task. that appears most profit­ ment wishing to supervise to even a modest circumstances, would contribute to the able to him. Thus aSlmany trails as possible will degree such a complex phenomenon as so­ education of other men, and would, in be covered, and science will penetrate most rap­ ciety, simply cannot fit its regulations to turn, learn from their experience. This is idly in every direction towards that kind of hid­ the peculiarities of various concatenations Humboldt's view of the mechanism of den knowledge which is unsuspected by all but of circumstances. But measures which ig­ human progress. its discoverer, the kind of new knowledge on nore such peculiarities will tend to produce It should be clear, however, that this , which the progress ofscience truly depends. uniformity, and contract the "manifoldness progressive refinement of the individual Few will. doubt that scientific progress of situations" which is the spur to all prog­ personality can take place only under a would have been appallingly retarded if, ress. regime of freedom, since "what is not for instance, Einstein had been compelled But what is the indispensible minimum chosen by the individual himself, that in to obtain permission from a board in of government activity? Humboldt finds which he is only restricted and led, does charge of "planning science" before he that the one good which society cannot

12 Libertarian Review provide for itself is security against those The rest of his life he devoted to his who aggress against the person and proper­ studies, of which the researches into ty of others. His answer to the question linguistics were the most important, and which he posed at the beginning of his To put lilllits on the gained for him the reputation of a pioneer work-"What limits ought to be set to the in the field. He died in 1835. activity of the state?"-is "that the provi­ state, HUDlboldt says If we ask what are the primary contribu­ sion of security, against both external "that the provision tions of Humboldt to libertarian thought, enemies and internal dissentions, must con­ we will find the answer in his ideas on the stitute the purpose of the state, and occupy of security, against value of the free, self-sustaining activity of the circle of its activity." the individua.l, and of the importance of the As for the services which it is commonly external eneDlies and unhindered collaboration-often uncon­ held must fall within the scope of govern­ scious-of the members of society. These ment action-as, for instance, charity­ internal dissentions, are ideas which are finding increasing ap­ Humboldt believes that they need not be plication in fields such as psychology, provided by political institutions, but can lllUSt constitute the linguistics, economics, and social theory. safely be entrusted to social ones. "It is on­ (Occasionally, as with F.A. Hayek and ly requisite that freedom of association be purpose of the state, Noam Chomsky, contemporary thinkers in given to individual parts of the nation or to these areas even make the connection to the nation itself," in order for charitable and occupy the circle Humboldt explicit.) That ideas which were ends to be satisfactorily fulfilled. In this, set forth by Humboldt should be proving as, indeed, throughout his whole book, of its activity.ff so relevant to contemporary research into Humboldt shows himself to be a thoughtful man and society is a sign of the clearly but passionate believer in the efficacy of discernible trend towards individualism in truly social forces, in the possibility of present-day thought at the highest levels.• great social ends being achieved without Prussia at the hands of Napoleon. Hum­ any necessity for direction on the part of boldt wished to contribute to the regenera­ Ralph Raico is Senior Editor of Inquiry the state. Humboldt thus allies himself with tion of his country which was being under­ magazine. His essay on Wilhelm von Hum­ the thinkers who rejected the state in order taken by men such as Stein and Harden­ boldt originally appeared in the Spring to affirm society. berg, and the reform of the educational 1961 issue of New Individualist Review, of Parts of Humboldt's book appeared in system fitted his abilities and inclinations. which he was editor-in-chief. two German periodicals in 1792, but dif­ This task completed, Humboldt served ficulties with the Prussian censorship and a in various diplomatic posts for a number of certain apparently innate lack of con­ years, including that of Prussian minister fidence in his own works caused him to put to the Congress of Vienna, and, after peace INTERESTED IN off publication of the book until it could be had been established, as a member of the NEW IDEAS? revised. The day for revision never came, Council of State. But the spirit which now however, and it was only 16 years after the predominated in Berlin, as well as author's death that The Limits of State Ac­ throughout Europe, was the spirit of If you are reading this magazine, ~ tion was published in its entirety. Metternich-who, always able to identify you know all about the theory of freedom. We sell books on accurately the enemies of his system, had the practice of freedom. For ten years after the completion of already (in 1814) termed Humboldt a Books on: survival skills, locksmithing this book, Humboldt devoted himself to "Jacobin." Humboldt's opposition to the and security, self-defense, firearms and traveling and private studies, principally in reactionary policies of his government explosives, crime, police science, black gained him as much ill-will at court as it market activities, money-making op­ aesthetics, the classics, linguistics, and portunities, life extension, health and comparative anthropology. From 1802 to did popularity among the people. He was nutrition, personal applications of high 1808 he served as Prussian minister to hated and intrigued against by the reac­ technology, alternative lifestyles, psy­ chological liberation, self assertion and Rome, a post which involved a minimum tionaries at court; they went so far as to self reliance, bugging and countersur­ of official business and which he accepted open his mail, as if he had in actuality been veillance measures, guerrilla warfare, hiding valuables indoors and out, food chiefly out of his love for that city. Hum­ a Jacobin. When, in 1819, Metternich in­ storage, monopoly and bureaucracy, boldt's real "return to the state" occurs in duced Prussia to agree to the Karlsbad and more, more, more! 1809, wh~n he became director of the Sec­ Decrees, whch attempted to establish a Hundreds of titles in these and other tion for Public Worship and Education, in rigid censorship for all of Germany, Hum­ exciting areas are described in detail in our new illustrated catalog! the Ministry of Interior: In this capacity, he boldt termed the regulations "shameful, Our catalog is an education in itself ­ directed the reorganization of the Prussian unnational and provoking to a great peo­ the best dollar you'll ever spend. Send public education system, and, in par­ pIe," and demanded the impeachment of for it now. ------~ ticular, founded the University of Berlin. Bernstorff, the Prussian minister who had LOOMPANICS UNLIMITED That so unquestionably sincere a man as signed them. P.O. BOX 264 Humboldt could have acted in such dishar­ It was clear that a man like Humboldt MASON, MICHIGAN 48854 mony with the principles set forth in his was an anomaly in a government which Sirs: Enclosed is $1.00. Please rush me only book on political philosophy (includ­ treacherously refused to fulfill its wartime your book catalog. ing the concept that the state should have promises of a constitution, and whose Name _ no connection with education), requires domestic policies were largely dictated by Address _ some explanation. The reason is to be Metternich. In December 1819, Humboldt City _ sought in his patriotism, which had been was dismissed. He refused the pension of­ State Zip __ aroused by the utter defeat suffered by fered him by the king.

May 1978 13 Her implication that we have joined the Left in "evad[ing] mass murder in Cam­ The PlumbLine bodia" is false on two important counts: I first, because much of the information that we have, and that she can self-righteously refer to, on the monstrosity that is Cam­ The Efron affair bodia comes to us from Leftists who staunchly opposed the war in Indochina: by Murray N. Rothbard from James Forest, Jean Lacouture, Father Ponchaud, etc.; and second, because while Libertarians from all over the country have of them will say, "Well-who knows? She I myself, as she well knows, wrote a blister­ been asking me what my response is to may be right." Or, "Who am I 'to ing attack on the Cambodian regime in Edith Efron's attack-on the libertarian judge?"-especially if they are not personal Libertarian Review. Where and when did movement in general and on me per­ friends of either of us. Personal friends of Efron ever write on the subject before she sonally-in her "Viewpoint" column in the mine have no trouble figuring out which penned her broadside attack? February Reason. To give you an idea, one to believe. As one of them said, I'm not Efron's appalling ignorance of the liber­ consider how you would feel if you were the sort of person to hoard stories. It's in­ tarian movement is revealed by her lament well known in your community and conceivable that I would have told a saga that the limited government people have someone, in order to discredit you and as dramatic' as ,the "gun-in-the-ribs" story struck some sort of "deal" with anarcho­ your activities, claimed in print that you only to someone like Efron, who has mere­ capitalists never to engage in discussion or had made certain damaging admissions to ly been an acquaintance, or that among all debate over their ultimate ideological dif­ her-admissions you had never made, but my acquaintances I would have told it only ferences. Efron has apparently not been which were so dramatic they were bound to to her. Surely my friends would have heard reading not only Libertarian Forum or the be repeated from one end of the movement it many times over, and someone else Journal of Libertarian Studies, which has to the other. And all this looked to be done would have heard it sometime, somewhere. published numerous anarchist critiques of out of malice, to destroy what you had The reason they haven't, of course, is that Robert Nozick, but not even Reason itself, spent your life building up. Well, that's Efron created it out of the whole cloth. where John Hospers and I have squared off. about the way I feel. As for the rest of Efron's article, it is The debate continues. It is only the ac­ Everything that Efron wrote about my about on a par with her statements about tivists in the Libertarian Party who wisely alleged disclosures to her is untrue: They me: a farrago of ignorance and malice that concluded that they would get nowhere are either lies or self-deceptions emerging is simply and literally not to be believed. facing concrete political issues if they spent from her own paranoid fantasies. To be David Ramsay Steele's article in last their energies on such theoretical questions. specific: I never tried to "take over" any month's LR barely scratched the surface in These disputes, while ultimately impor­ party of which Eldridge Cleaver.was the listing Efron's "untruths." tant, are hardly relevant at present to con­ head, or do anything like it (a pretty idiotic Her charge that we libertarians are lax in testing the next election or dealing with thing for me to have attempted). In work­ saluting the greatness and importance of current political situations. ing with leftists against the draft and the free-market economists Ludwig von Mises Apparently, Efron had no desire what­ Vietnam War, I never had the absurd no­ and F.A.Hayek (whom she idiotically and ever to remedy her ignorance of the liber­ tion of converting them to capitalism, typically places "on the conservative side") tarian movement before writing about it. either sneakily (as Efron would have it) or is so ridiculous it's embarrassing. I'll just Instead of doing research, she seems to otherwise. Above all, on her most dramatic say that I think what I've done to promote have relied on her imagination for facts. point (which virtually forms the leitmotif Austrian economics and particularly the Her slovenliness extends even to Inquiry, a of her article), no one has ever pulled a gun ideas of the great Mises compares rather publication which is not, strictly speaking, on me, in the ribs or in any other way. favorably' with what Efron has done over libertarian, but rather a general-interest, Nor, of course, did I ever tell her any of the years. political affairs magazine. What can we say this rubbish. It is all preposterous non­ Efron's charge that libertarians such as of an alleged reporter who presumes to de­ sense, every word of it. myself ally ourselves only with the Left is nounce Inquiry without having read any of Efron needed the "gun-in-the-ribs" gam­ ignorant hogwash. We believe in allying it-even thohgh she was offered a gift of bit as a major theme in order to prove to ourselves with whomever has a libertarian the issue thci't had already appeared when everyone's satisfaction that all leftists are position on issues important to us. We hail she wrote her diatribe? thugs and hoodlums, and that a gun in the a Nat Hentoff on civil liberties and a Henry I have before me the 12 issues of Inquiry ribs is all you can expect from any dealings Hazlitt on economics. This is not in­ that have come out so far. Does it exude with them. (Apparently, her pals in the consistency; on the contrary, it means that "sleaze," as Efron would have it? Has the Pentagon are devoid of any lethal we consistently welcome people for the enemy put one over on its editor, Bill weaponry.) The fact that this unlikely libertarian positions they hold on par­ Evers? Hardly. There are attacks on the canard fit in so well with the point she was ticular issues, a welcome which in no sense Panama Canal treaties (by yours truly); the trying to make in her column should have means that we endorse their stand on every American, 'Communist and Third World tipped off the reader to what was going conceivable question. But to libertarians, governments; corruption in the U.S. Con­ on-an exercise in personal fantasy­ this is nothing new. Most of us have known gress; the Therapeutic State; foreign aid; spinning rather than political analysis. for a long time that our position cuts across the post office, and public education (the The outrage I feel stems from the frustra­ the conventional left-right spectrum, that last by "Maoist" Karl,Hess, among others). tion of a victim who has been falsely ac­ we agree with liberals on some issues and There is the moving diary of a Polish dissi­ cused in the public print. Efron makes a with conservatives on others. That is dent, and defenses of competition in the dramatic statement about me; I deny it; because we are consistent upholders of professions and of the rights of real nations What is the average reader to think? Most liberty, and they of course are not. (Le., populations with a common cultural

14 Libertarian Review and linguistic heritage), such as Scotland But this gaffe is of a piece with Efron's land, culture, and country. But not, ye and Catalonia (not of the empires that lord moral horror at the concern that liber­ gods, for the state, which, even in the it over them). And there is Tom Szasz in tarians show for the freedom of speech and limited government lexicon, is at best sim­ every other issue, defending the rights of voluntary activities of all people, even the ply a nightwatchman-a useful servant­ Americans against an American state most disreputable. From her sneering at and not something to be revered and wor­ which he, at least, considers to be tyran­ such freedom, it is obvious that her devo­ shiped. nical. More than anything else, there's tion to civil liberties is minimal. Efron Where have we seen these tantrums, this something called quality. employs the usual conservative trick of hopped-up and wild-swinging disregard of For Efron-who has not had anything to linking civil libertarians with the lifestyles accuracy, this idea that checking a fact is do with the libertarian movement in ten of those whose rights they are defending. If ,beneath one's dignity, this confusion of the years, and who, from the testimony of her one defends the rights of prostitutes or drug libertarian American Revolution with the own article, is scarcely a libertarian at takers, well, that makes one a prostitute or American state apparatus, this childish all-to presume to read people out of that drug taker, too. Attacking people such as idealization of the U.S. Constitution (with movement is unparalleled chutzpah. It's as myself for being hippies and blind adher­ all the abuses inherent in that document), if I should write an article attempting to ents of all aspects of every liberation move­ and this constant protest that she's speak­ dictate theology and ritual to the Greek ment can only reap a horselaugh from any­ ing out of "love" and "reverence" while Orthodox Church, telling it whom it one in the least familiar with my own views every line reeks of bitter hatred? We have should expel for heresy and whom it should and style of life over the years. seen them in the fever swamps of the far revere. What, then, is Miss Efron? From the Right, most specifically of the Randian Sometimes her article is relieved by some evidence of her article, she is certainly a variety. (unconscious) humor; thus, Efron expresses "news twister" par excellence. But where Is this "love," this "reverence," these old horror that a "distinguished laissez-faire have we seen this before, this amalgam of bones of the 1950s and 1960s, this dissocia­ economist," Roger LeRoy Miller, was hysterical smears and red-baiting, joined to tion from reality, really what the liber­ asked to write a review of a book on the an ideology that scorns civil liberties and tarian movement is supposed to crawl back political economy of whorehouses. What calls for love and "reverence" for the state? to? Certainly not, and not at the behest of she fails to realize is that Professor Miller There are not many laissez-faire thinkers of someone like Efron. We are no longer an has written on precisely such topics as the past who, though upholding limited isolated sect. We are now an adult move­ prostitution, as has the eminent free­ government, have actually loved and ment, we are dealing with grown-up market economist George W. Hilton-who revered it. On the contrary-for them, as things, and moving around in the real has even spoken at a convention of for modern libertarians, love and reverence world, where facts are important. We are COYOTE, an organization of prostitutes have been reserved for such values as liber­ making an impact on the mainstream of defending their right to do business. ty and human dignity, and even for one's American life, and we have just begun. • COLLICflYllAliOPIA Through the thick fog ceiling of collective myopia (J)~~ COLLECTI~b1~::::~ pierces the proud Pine Tree of Liberty. The bright rays of reason shine on the rising symbols of \ ~ ::.::;,~~=:.;'::,....:~~ .. ) ~?~5-i' ~S;:~:~:?.:::.:-::: .. numerous Libertarian organizations. e\J. ) Politici.n."..,.lihl,... ofc",",- In contrast to this openly optimistic illustration a pun­ -~-"-;oltm':rJM=~i:'w-=:1hm. gent poem describes the baneful intervention of the ~...... (vUYOH 10•••, bllll nM ,"""Utrl, Peor,ridtyou\tt,old,whne. ~..clt. Wortlo,.blJ.inealll'I!I,COW~HdorbfltYe1 State with its cohort of parasitical politicians and the :r:: ¥~~t~:l~~" ,;: ¥c~;::~ ;:~:Ck collective blindness and apathy that characterize our present culture. Sl.Gti"I:JItlfltal'ldacOtl\!illcutJ'w.public 'b.t polilir,j~JlS f(e l'H!t:tSlarv prottC1n:r1o. Yilt (.1yjl l;ritM$ 3'~ Oily &pQfadic C0ilt1plLlr&dto tttft I1NtdRtlnfto11"tis:lltOflll A great gift to your friends. A great eye-opener for

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An interview with the elder statesman of today's tax rebellion­ Howard Jarvis

z« ~ ~ z -; w W ...J (/) W ...J by Jeff Riggenbach HowardJarvis

spectre is haunting state and county (The current tax rate is closer to three percent.) In case bureaucracy," the New York Times' William politicians try increasing the assessed values, Proposition 13 Safire wrote early this year, "the spectre of also provides a limit of two percent a year on such increases. tax revolt." And there can be little doubt that And in case they try to impose new taxes to replace the old he's right. A 1977 Field Institute poll in­ revenue, Proposition 13 further provides that new state taxes dicatedAthat 70 percent of Americans consider their state may be raised only by an all-but-unprecedented two-thirds taxes too high and 72 percent consider their city and county vote of the legislature, and that new local taxes may be taxes too high. In Massachusetts, a group called Citizens for raised only by an all-but-impossible two-thirds vote of the Limited Taxation is placing a proposal on the ballot to limit electorate. state taxes to nine percent of personal income. A group Not surprisingly, Proposition 13 has politicians running called National Taxpayers United of Illinois has organized a scared. The official estimate is that passage of the measure property tax strike in that state, and is demanding a state­ would cost government around $7 billion a year. That loss, wide referendum on tax rates. Taxpayers are organizing, according to California State Assembly Speaker Leo McCar­ demonstrating, protesting, and refusing to pay in Maine, thy, would be "a disaster." San Francisco Mayor George Oregon, and half-a-dozen other states. Truly, as the Chris­ Moscone agrees. "No matter how you slice it," he says, "our tian Science Monitor reported in February, "discontent with police, our libraries, our fire department and schools would the property tax is heating up all across the United States." be crippled." And Democratic State Chairman Bert Coffee The man who claims (and probably deserves) much of the told the Los A ngeles Times in February that passage of credit for all this uproar is Howard Jarvis, the 75-year-old Proposition 13 would mean "turning the state over to the president of the Apartment House Association of Los current-day anarchists." Angeles, and cosponsor, with retired realtor Paul Gann, of Somehow, though, that description doesn't quite seem to Proposition 13 on the June ballot in California. Proposition fit either Howard Jarvis or his partner in Proposition 13, 13 would amend the state constitution to impose a limit on Paul Gann. Gann is 65 years old. Since retiring from the real the power of local and state government to tax property. If estate business a few years ago, he's been running a North­ Proposition 13 is passed, property taxes in California will be ern California taxpayers' organization called People's Ad­ limited to one percent of the assessed value of the" property. vocate, Inc. "In 1950," he says, "there was one state em-

May 1978 17 ployee for every 160 citizens. Now there is one for every 93." forward to the prospect of 25,000 or 50,000 "public em­ He can also rattle off measurements of government growth ployees" being laid off. "Everybody knows," he told the San in monetary terms: "In the last ten years," he says, "the Francisco Chronicle's Jerry Carroll in February, "public population has increased 14 percent, prices have gone up 68 employees are the best educated, best trained, hardest work­ percent, the state's budget has gone up 161 percent, and the ing, most effective people we have in California." His voice, income tax collected has gone up 295percent." as Carroll described it, dripped with sarcasm. "They'll be Jarvis, too, seems an unlikely candidate for the term able to get jobs in a minute." Then, in case the sarcasm had "anarchist." Howard Jarvis has devoted the last 15 years of been missed, to make sure the point got through, he laid it his life to fighting taxes- as a leader of the campaign for the on the line: He hoped those public employees not only got Liberty Amendment (which would have repealed the 16th laid off but also got denied unemployment compensation. Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and with it the federal Obviously, millions of Californians agree, not only with income tax), and as a tireless worker for state and local tax Jarvis's ideas about taxation, but also with his hatred of reduction in California. bureaucrats. As the San Francisco Examiner's Reg Murphy Jarvis was born in Utah in 1903, one of the six children of puts (perhaps overputs) it, "The Jarvis initiative to make a an impecunious judge. He took to the law briefly himself, dramatic cut in property taxes is not a tax measure at all; it then went into, successively, the newspaper business, the is a way for voters to vent their spleen against a government ship hull demagnetizing business, the electric iron business, that pays more than private enterprise can, that bungles and the gas heater business, and the garbage disposal business. bumbles its way through problems in ten year hitches, that And all along he was active in politics as well, mostly Repub­ creates unbelievable bottlenecks and that promises more lican Party politics. He headed a commission appointed by jobs than it can deliver." the governor to reform the tax laws of the State of Utah. He I went late in March to talk withJarvis. After two weeks of handled press relations for Herbert Hoover in the 1932 pres­ busy signals, overloaded telephone circuits that terminated idential campaign. He took Earl Warren's advice and came preliminary conversations in mid-phrase, and simple old­ west to California, where he worked for Eisenhower in '52 fashioned waiting, a day had arrived when the aged tax and '56 and for Nixon in '60. In 1962, he ran for the GOP radical could spare an entire uninterrupted hour for a talk nomination for the U.S. Senate, came in third, and quit the party. But Jarvis wasn't through with politics. He began cam­ Milton Friedman onJarvis-Gann paigning against L.A. area bond issues and circulating peti­ tions to tack a permanent tax limitation amendment onto ". ..I strongly support Jarvis-Gann. It does cut the state constitution. A few years later, up in Carmichael, taxes. It does raise obstacles to further increases in California, Paul Gann hit on a similar idea, and the rest, as government spending. And it will not have the dire they say, is history. In 1976, when Americans were supposed consequences its opponents threaten. The state gov­ to be celebrating the 200th anniversary of a tax rebellion­ ernment has a surplus of some $3 billion to offset the turned-revolution, Jarvis's United Organization of Tax­ $7 billion revenue reduction. The remaining $4 billion payers and Gann's People's Advocate, Inc. each came within is roughly 10 percent of the state and local spending a hairsbreadth- a paltry few thousand signatures- of col­ now projected for the next fiscal year. Is there a tax­ lecting the half-million signatures necessary to qualify their payer in California (even if he is a government em­ rival propositions for the ballot. In 1977, they joined forces ployee) who can maintain with a straight face that and qualified Proposition 13 for the June 6, 1978 ballot by there is not 10 percent fat that can be cut from govern­ collecting a phenomenal, record-setting 1.5 million signa­ ment spending without reducing essential services? tures. (300,000 of them arrived too late at the Secretary of "A letter to the editor of the San Francisco Chroni­ State's office to legally qualify-but what did that matter?) r;le by Norman I. Arnold stated eloquently the view of And there's every indication the proposition with the un­ many citizens of California: lucky number is very, very popular with middle-income "'... We are saying that we know it [Proposition voters, some of whom have seen their property tax bills dou­ 13J will severely disrupt state and city governments. ble and triple in the past few years-until, in more than a We are also saying that we want it to severely disrupt few cases, their tax payments are higher than their mortgage state and city governments. We are not anarchists, we payments, and it is no longer possible to pay both. are not radicals and we do not think we are irresponsi­ When Jarvis and Gann debated Assembly Speaker Leo ble. We are simply fully sick and tired of having our McCarthy in San Francisco in January, the encounter was pockets picked at every level of government. ... We televised, and viewers were invited to vote: Proposition 13, want an end to the countless layers of useless pro or con? The vote was ten to one in favor of Jarvis and bureaucracies. We refuse to pay any longer for the Gann. parasites who are feathering their own nests directly In early March, the New York Times's Wallace Turner out of our pockets.' " quoted an anonymous member of the California Legis­ -Milton Friedman lature: "When I say I fear for the future of local govern­ "A Progress Report" ment, the audiences break into smiles." Newswee~, April 10, 1978 Jarvis himself does more than smile. He positively looks

18 Libertnrian Review which would get past the surface of the Proposition 13 tax rebellion. We sat down in Jarvis's comfortably cluttered Los Angeles office and began our conversation by talking about how angry taxpayers are, and why. LR: You've told a number of interviewers that voters are "fed up with politicians" and with the high tax bills they've imposed. If voters are so fed up, why haven't they gone to the polls and replaced their .legislators with politicians who won't gouge them? Jarvis: There are several reasons for that. For several years now, the voters generally have felt that it didn't make any difference who they voted for. About a third of the voters have resigned from either the Republican or the Democratic Party and a lot of the rest of them say, "Why should I vote? It doesn't make any difference anyway." The second thing that came about in the last couple or three years is a horrendous raise in property taxes. And then the other thing that I think is the reason for it is that there is a very severe, exploding, total disgust with politicians. The people don't believe a word they say. They don't care who it is. And I think what happened was that all these things sort of came together. I got a call from I think it was the Associated Press, and "The whole issue of government services is a fake. The the fellow asked me about the same question, and he said, people who are demanding government services are the "You must be a genius at timing." My answer to him was special interests who are already living offgovernment." that I know nothing about timing. Timing didn't have any­ cious in this country and is rapidly destroying freedom. thing to do with this amendment. What had to do with this They're rapidly trying to produce a government, of govern­ amendment was the fact that we started on it 15 years ago. ment, by government, and for government, instead of gov­ And I suppose I've done 5,000 interviews, 5,000 television ernment of, by, and for people. interviews and radio, and 5,000 speeches and we've put out And people realize that we have a great system of govern­ millions of pieces of stuff and I think, finally, the message ment, but the people we have been electing for the last 40 started to get through. It takes a long time. years are destroying it rapidly. And I think that all of these And as far as timing is concerned, it's like: If I go fishing things came together to produce what is really a miracle, in the lake and I put some bait on the hook and I sit there because never in history has anybody got 1,500,000 signa­ for three weeks I'll get a bite, but if I keep the hook out of tures in California. And never in history has anybody got the water I won't get a bite. And I think we just happened to signatures from every county in the state. With other tax have the hook in the water when all of these things came reduction proposals that I've been familiar with, it cost in together. That's what I think happened in this country. the neighborhood of $800,000 to qualify them for the ballot. LR: Politicians too are commenting on this issue. They're We qualified this one for about $28,500. saying, "Yes, there's evidence that people are unhappy And now it's going all over the United States. Tennessee about their tax bills; yes, there's evidence that they're has got it and passed it. Washington's got it and passed it. In unhappy with politicians in general; but we don't see any Oregon, it's going before the voters. They're going to in­ drop in the continuing demand for government services." troduce it in Iowa, in Maine, in New Hampshire, in Massa­ Jarvis: I think that whole issue of government services is a chusetts, in Pennsylvania. And the. other night I got an fake. The people who are demanding government services hour-long call from the BBC. And the last thing the fellow are the special interests that are already living off govern­ said to me before he hung up was: "If I have any message to ment. This is where the demand comes from. I would ima­ give to America, it's for God's sake clear this tax thing up gine that in 20 years you wouldn't get 500 demands for more now, and don't do what we're doing in England." service from the average homeowners in this city. Ninety­ So this is very widespread. It's far bigger than we ever five percent of them never call a policeman or have a fire or dreamed. There's no way I could have ever believed it would anything of that nature. The people that are asking for low­ go where it's gone. It's covered now by national television. er taxes are not the people that are asking for more services. Everytime I go out the door, or out the back door, I'm get­ It is the special interest groups that are organized for the ex­ ting more publicity than the Mansons got. I get calls from press purpose of getting more service from the government every state in the nation. This damn thing is sweeping the for nothing: the social workers, the welfare workers, the country. The tremendous disappointment and disgust with food stamp people, the employees' unions, the whole passel Carter and with the Republicans. The disgust with the edu­ of people that are feeding off the public trough. And then cational system, with the racketeering of the "prevailing there's the tax-eating politician, who has become very vora- wage" deal, with the phony behind-the-door deals, with the

May 1978 19 fact that everybody in thecountry works January, February, March, April, and May to the fifteenth just to pay his taxes. Tax revolt coming All of these things are coming together. "There already is a lessening of the sense of respon­ LR: When·you say "it" is sweeping the country, and "it" is sibility for the payment of taxes. Americans are being adopted in Tennessee and New Hampshire, do you patriots and want their country to do well, but they're mean tax limitations like Proposition I3? beginning to ask, 'Am I being taken for a sucker?' I Jarvis: They're pretty much like it. They're not all exactly have always pooh-poohed talk of tax revolts, but I the same. They can't be, really, because there are different don't feel that confident any more." situations. In the State of Oregon, they have no sales tax, so -Mortimer Caplin theirs limits propertytaxes to one-and-a-halfpercent. former IRS chief The purpose of the property tax is to pay for the services that are given property by government. And across this state, on the average, those services cost about $300 a year. are contracting and the tax eaters are expanding. Ten years And it's the same whether it's a $30,000 house or a $70,000 ago Los Angeles County had 42,000 employees. The popula­ house: about $300 a year. And under our amendment, tion has gone up two percent. They now have 98,000 em­ property owners will pay more than that. As it is now, elder­ ployees. ly people with fixed incomes and Social Security are being LR: Do you still oppose the federal income tax? forced out of their houses in droves. The middle class is be­ Jarvis: I never opposed the federal income tax, except that ing squeezed to beat hell. I'm 75 years old and middle class, I worked on the Liberty Amendment, on the Board of Di­ and that's where my sympathies lie. However, I'm realistic rectors for a long time. Unfortunately, I wasn't very active. I enough to know that what's probably more important in the am convinced if we could get the government out of owner­ long run is that we've got a situation in which young people ship of property, if they could sell it all, I do believe that we couldn't build a house no matter what they did. And these could get along without the federal income tax. are the people who are going to be running this country tomorrow. We're not going to be here. And this to me is a LR: You said earlier that 95 percent or better of all residen­ key issue. I think, as one guy, I have the opportunity to do tial property owners never have any need of property-related more good for more people in California than anybody else services like policemen and firemen. Could we get along has ever done. without the property tax? Jarvis: As a matter of fact, I think that one of these days we LR: Some say that what you're doing is leading a tax revolt. will do away with the property tax. There are several Do you like that term? reasons. In the first place, it can't possibly be administered. Jarvis: Well, no, I don't like that term. I think I would There is no way. In Los Angeles County, we've got two mil­ rather call it a ... sad rebellion. A guy wrote me a letter lion pieces of property. We've got 1,800 employees in the ... I wish to the devil I had it with me ... he said he was Assessor's Office. And until they started to get computers old and had worked all his life and had always paid his taxes and contributed, and he said, "I thought I was being a great citizen and was fulfilling the American dream, and now I find that I wasn't. I find now that my family is gone and my wife and I are alone that now we are going to be forced to give up our home. And I find that government doesn't solve any problems. It is the problem." His name was Wicks. Now I've never met the fellow. I don't know who he is. We get thousands of letters. But that was an outstanding one. I spoke recently at a place called the Mogen David Tem­ pIe. They had about 700 or 800 people. They were from 50 up, and, for about half of them, their taxes this year had been raised $1500 a year. And none of them can pay it. I went up to Santa Cruz and talked to a very bright as­ semblyman there, and he says he gets sacks of letters from people who are going without food to pay their property tax. Now, even in Russia they don't do that to people. They don't kick people out of homes, even though the government does own the homes. In California, 70 percent of all the land and buildings belong to government. That leaves only 30 percent on which property taxes are supposed to be paid. A great percentage of those property owners don't pay. They're exempted for "One assemblyman told me he gets sacks of letters from some political reason or another. And that leaves the whole people who are going without food to pay their property tax load on a very small group of people. And the producers taxes. Now} even in Russia they don't do that to people. "

20 Libertarian Review which turned out to be even worse, they could only assess one-fifth of the county every year. And because they can't The tax mess assess it, they've created a fake formula called the Com­ "Uniformly, polls find majorities who think that parable Sales Ratio formula. It means if you have a house their taxes are too high, too complicated and just plain down the street from me and I have one up the street from unfair. Sixteen state legislatures are considering bills you and your house is worth $50,000 and you sell it for promising income-tax relief, and fifteen more states $80,000, they raise my taxes to $80,000. The whole thing is have moves afoot to cut or put limits on property a scam. It really is. Everybody that thinks about it or gets in­ taxes.... [I]t's plain that resentment and cynicism volved in it knows that it's a scam. Now, in a business, you are growing- and that a system that rests on voluntary don't pay any property taxes at all. You get all your taxes compliance is in some danger of losing its base.... from the customer. The customer pays all the taxes of busi­ Cracks are beginning to show in the consent of the ness, whether it's General Motors or Joe's Shoe Store. They governed." don't pay any taxes. We have to restructure the tax system in California, first of all to make it fair so that it applies to all -Newsweek assets to be taxed. Second, we have to make it equal, so that April 10, 1978 if you have twice as much as me and I have half as much as you, you pay twice as much and I pay half as much. You can not at all." What do you think of the proposition that we go all over this state today and find two houses just alike need no taxes, and no government? across the street from one another and the one has to pay Jarvis: I don't buy that at all. You can't have a country with $1200 more than the other guy. Third-and this is basic to no government. My god- who is going to build a road? any free country, including this one- no matter what tax is LR: Can't somebody be hired to build a road? assessed, it's got to be within the ability of the taxpayers to Jarvis: Well, the person that hired him would have to be the pay. And that is not the case in California. Thousands of government. people can't pay their taxes. We've gone away from the prin­ cipal reasons why this country was founded. And we've gone LR: Why? Couldn't it be the people who were going to use away from the other principal reason, which can be de­ the road? scribed in four rather simple words: "Government must be Jarvis: Well, I just can't see no government at all. Look-if limited." Today, we have unlimited government, unlimited we have the right kind of government then we have the right taxation. It will lead, just like this chap from England said, kind of law. We have the wrong kind of government now, either to bankruptcy or to a dictatorship. and it's producing the wrong kind of law-and too much of it. In the State of California we have over 175,000 laws. In LR: You've told more than one recent interviewer that "that the last session of the legislature, they passed 1,004 new government is best which governs least." When Henry David ones. And there's never a law that's been passed that doesn't Thoreau wrote that sentence in Civil Disobedience, he went take freedom away from somebody. And we've gotten into a on to say that "that government which governs least governs disastrous situation in which I suppose 80 percent of the peo­ ple elected to office are lawyers. The chief justice of the Supreme Court the other day said for the second time-I heard him say it a year ago in Chicago- that more than half of the attorneys in the United States are not competent to represent anybody. LR: Let's get into some of the pros and cons of Proposition 13 specifically: First, what's your reaction to the common charge that if Proposition 13 is passed it will necessitate a massive cutback in police, fire, garbage pickup service, public schools, those kinds of things? Jarvis: My answer to that comment is that the most intel­ ligent, nationally recognized tax and economic authority in the country is Neil Jacoby at UCLA. Dr. Jacoby teaches economics and business management. Harry Truman sent him to Korea to help that government set itself up. Eisen­ hower later sent him to Europe to help. He's nationally recognized. He's studied this very thoroughly and he says this: "A one percent limit will furnish revenue far above the amount necessary to pay for property-related services." And he specifies police, fire, streets, lights, garbage, and sewers, as property-related services. I think he's the best authority in "We've gone away from the principal reasons why this coun­ the United States on that. And I think that anybody who try wasfounded. We have unlimited government, unlimited says anything else doesn't know what he's talking about. One taxation. It will lead to bankruptcy or dictatorshzp. " other thing I think is interesting is that Sam Yarty was asked

May 1978 21 on television just recently if this one percent limit would LR: What about the charge that Proposition 13 favors land­ eliminate any essential city services. And he said, "Absolute­ lords and businessmen rather than individual homeowners? ly not." Now he was the mayor of Los Angeles for 12 years. Jarvis: Well, of course, this is probably the biggest lie that And none of these other people who are talking about it has they are trying to tell. For a hundred years the constitution been a tax expert or economist or a mayor. They're just of the State of California has required that all residential blowing off steam into the air, as far as I'm concerned. property and all business and commercial property be ap­ praised and tax~d and assessed on the same basis. Now, for LR: Some of the people who are talking about it have been tha.t they were collecting, say, three and one-half percent. in other positions of responsibility, however. The board ThIS amendment of mine doesn't change that ratio at all. It members and trustees of the Los Angeles Unified School only limits collections to one percent. So the politicians who District and the L.A. Community College District are all are saying such things are actually saying that for a hundred talking about massive cutbacks. years they've been sitting there in Sacramento giving a big Jarvis: I would say that you couldn't find in ten years and a break to business, and they didn't know about it. Of course thousand miles of traveling any group of people who are less it's a monumental lie. competent, more inefficient, and more uneducated than the And no business pays any taxes anyway. When you raise majority of the board members of the Los Angeles Unified the taxes on a business, the businessman raises the pr~ce on School District. I personally think they're the biggest bunch what he sells. But this is a good ploy for politicians. They do of boobs in history. The results of the Los Angeles Unified something to raise the cost ·of doing business at the May School District prove it every day. And these people are Company, and when the shopper goes in to buy a pair of spending something like $3 billion a year. If they were put in shoes and it's fifty cents higher, the politician says, "The char~e of any business in the world, it would be bankrupt in May Company did it; I didn't." He's generally a monumen­ 20 mInutes. We don't have any education in the Los Angeles tal liar. But this is an old scheme in politics. It's a very clever Unified School District. The L.A. County Grand Jury re­ scheme in politics. A couple of good illustrations that are cently investigated, I think, six affluent schools and found easy to understand: If you go buy a gallon of gas for 70 that among high school graduates, 63 percent are function­ cents, and the federal tax is 11 cents and the state tax is ally illiterate. That's what I think of the school board. eight cents, what do you suppose the oil company does with LR: What do you think of the L.A. Community College that 11 and eight cents? In two weeks they send it to Uncle District? Sam. I bought a new Thunderbird for $8,000. And because Jarvis: I talked this morning to a professor at the communi­ I'm interested in taxes I wrote to the Vehicle Foundation in ty colleges. He tells me they buy all-new furniture, type­ New York, and asked them how much tax is levied on that writers and everything, and then at the end of the year when car from the time they dig the ore out of the ground until I it comes to budget time, they junk it all so that they can justify buying new equipment to justify the big budget they had. "Every year," he says, "they tell us to throw everything Jarvis-Gann: An endorsement away and get new to justify an increased budget." And I know that's widespread. "There has been a lot of misguided debate in the But the thing that bothers me mostly is that a lot of peo­ libertarian movement about abolitionism versus ple, adults, go to the community colleges for 20 years. And gradualism. The J arvis-Gann initiative is my kind of the colleges use those students to justify their budgets. I 'gradualism,' a gradualism that is exciting and radical know women and men personally who have been going for and really makes a visible dent in rolling back state ten or 15 years to the community colleges at night because power. And here is the crucial point; for why should they don't have anything else to do, and nothing ever comes anyone work up excitement, and devote energy, to an out ofit that's worth much. amendment that would merely limit the future rate of You've got some very incompetent people in the com­ increase of taxation? The glory ofJarvis-Gann is that munity colleges. You've got people who don't produce any­ here is a measure that means something, that forces a thing, and whose main idea is to stay there long enough to two-third reduction in property taxes and then seals get a pension and then to fly the coop. And the community the hatch by requiring a two-thirds vote of the college system is way overextended. They started out to be legislature for imposing any new taxes to make up the good. They started out to be cheaper than a two-year college loss. course, right? In other words, they set these community col­ "It is also highly instructive to see the forces lined up leges up to operate more cheaply than private colleges, and on both sides ofJarvis-Gann. For it: a real grass-roots now they don't. They operate more expensively than private movement, made up of masses of angry taxpayers with colleges. Now, I'm not an expert on the community college virtually no political or economic clout. Against it: a system; but I do know from long years of experience, how raft of government employees and vested interests, many hundreds of people go to the community colleges year such as investors in government bonds, who are living after year after year arid knit and sew and knit and sew, and offthe taxpayer. The lines are truly drawn." it's a babysitter for them, and I don't think that taxpayers -Murray N. Rothbard ought to be losing their homes to pay money for babysitting.

22 Libertarian Review sudden, all of the busInesses that are going to be helped so much come out against us. Now somebody is a liar. The fact is Leo McCarthy called them all together and told them if they didn't put up $3 million to come out against this amendment, the legislature would kick the hell out of them from now on. He put it together. He put the arm on them. And because business people generally are cowardly, it isn't hard to do- for that little two-bit speaker to do that. LR: You've sometimes argued that the cost of government could be reduced by putting an end to federal-state fund matching. Can you elaborate on that? Jarvis: The League of California Cities and the State Association of Boards of Supervisors have testified for years that 96 percent of all of their costs are federally or state mandated, and that's why local government is in trouble, they say. Just as an illustration, the federal government says, "if you put up a million, we'll put up a million," and ther: they do, and the federal government comes out the n~xt year and leaves them two million dollars. Now the reason the locals go for this, they say, is, "Well, it's federal money, it doesn't cost anybody anything. If we don't do it here, they'll give the money someplace else." But the federal dollar comes from the California taxpayer. The California tax­ payer gets less out of his dollar than the guy from South Dakota, I can tell you that. I got on the plane one time with "Governments take thisfabulous amount ofmoney and blow Karl Mundt the senator from South Dakota, and I said, most of it. And they blow it because they're incompetent, "Gee, Karl, I'm glad to see that they've passed federal aid to selfish, greedy people with two bits worth of political education, and South Dakota will now be pouring money power. " into California." He said, "What the hell are you talking pay the $8,000. And the answer is four thousand, five­ about?" I said, "California needs it worse than South hundred bucks. Dakota." He said, "Are you nuts? We're going to get our Governments in the State of California now take in $40 dough from California, buster." He was right. billion a year. That's $1 ~650 for every man, woman and LR: Will Proposition 13 win? child of the 22 million people that live here. Taking Ed Jarvis: At least five to one. We had a poll yesterday in Roybal's [U.S. Congressman, California] figure that we're Oceanside with a hell of a lot of people, I would guess about going to cut $7 billion of that, which is wrong-but I'm not 1800. They voted "for 13" and "against 13" and we won by going to contend that it's wrong because it doesn't do me any 82 percent. Now I don't think we've ever had a politician good, it's actually about $5 billion-but taking his figure, win with 82 percent. If I were running for governor and I you take seven billion from 40 billion, and where I went to had 82 percent in my pocket already, I'd just go fishing in school you've got 33 billion left. And that's 33 thousand Jackson Hole, because I'd win in a walk. million dollars. And then every man, woman, and child in California will only be paying $1,500 a year. This amount of LR: Do you think you could win the governorship right money will float this state in $50 bills. What is the matter is now? that they take this fabulous amount of money and they blow Jarvis: I could win any office in the State of California right most of it. And they blow it because they're incompetent, now. selfish, greedy people with two bits worth of political power. LR: Do you want one? LR: Though some say businessmen will reap the biggest Jarvis: Hell no. Somebody called my wife, Estelle, the other profits from Proposition 13, a number of large businesses day, and said, "We've got a group of people here, and we're have come out against you. Bank of America, for example, all going to put 50 bucks up for Howard to run for gov­ which is the third largest taxpayer in San Francisco County ernor." And Estelle said, "This conversation is ended." And, and stands to gain 61 percent reduction of its property taxes, by God, it was ended. I wouldn't run if it had not been has come out against you. ended. I wouldn't have the governor's job if you gave it to Jarvis: You know, Leo McCarthy (speaker of the California me. If you get into politics you've got to be a liar. I'd be one Assembly) and Miller of the School Board (Howard Miller of honest guy in a den of thieves and they'd outnumber me, The L.A. Unified School District's Board of Education) and I'd be in a hell of a mess right away. have been peddling that story around that our amendment is a big boon to business, a big windfall. And then all of a LR: Thank you, Mr. Jarvis. •

May 1978 23

MartyIj tithe ~w PJDhibiti°It

byJustin ~ilDondo

ennis Peron had it made. ness records. The narcotics officers led a handcuffed and Not even he knows how much money his San bloody Peron to the paddy wagon under the harsh glare of Francisco Big Top "pot supermarket" took TV spotlights. (The media had been tipped off by someone in- from an estimated 5000 customers- over calling from District Attorney Joe Frietas' office.) A crowd the years. "I made more money in two months had gathered, in the early evening air, to cheer Peron and Dthan my father made in a lifetime," confides Peron. jeer the police. On the night of July 20, 1977, San Francisco "plain­ Although it is unclear why the district attorney's office clothes" police blitzed the Big Top, located in a big Vic­ tipped off the media minutes before the raid (A new dec­ torian house at 715 Castro Street. Dressed like hippies­ laration of war against vice by the forces of morality and although somewhat scruffier- they came busting through decency? Routine behavior for the ambitious Freitas, the the door, guns blazing, minutes after the completion of a photographer's best friend?), all of San Francisco got to see purchase by an undercover policewoman. the SFPD come busting through the door, looking and act­ The half dozen "peronistas" employed by Peron to mind ing like a gang of thugs. the store reacted- under the assumption that the invaders "I thought she (the undercover agent) was just another were yet another gang of ordinary criminals- without the secretary from downtown," says Peron, looking genuinely slightest hesitation. Resistance was designed merely to un­ astonished. Sitting in an overstuffed chair in the middle of nerve the real criminal types who prey on black market his living room, even today he still seems unable to believe businessmen at their leisure. Peron had never even con­ fully in the reality of the big bust. sidered arming himself, in spite of the fact that attacks by Peron's shock is shared by his Castro, Eureka, and Noe local hoodlums were becoming nightmarishly repetitive. It Valley neighbors. The house on Castro is smack in the mid­ was this situation that prompted Peron to heave a heavy dle of what is a predominantly gay enclave- a refugee camp glass container from the top of a long flight of stairs, at what of restored Victorians, swarming with untold numbers of he thought was just your average thug-off-the-street. Easterners who knew that somewhere there had to be a It wasn't until after the thug shot him in the leg that better way. Peron realized the truth- this thug was flashing the badge And more come each year. Five years ago you could have of the SFPD Narcotics Squad. stood on the corner of 18th Street and Castro at 11 p.m. and The officer involved later claimed he saw Peron reach for not seen another soul. These days that corner features a cast a gun. No such gun was ever found on the premises, al­ of hundreds, and is the exact center of a booming business though the police did manage to find and confiscate over community in one of the only cities in the world where gays $30,000 worth of Columbian pot, $8,000 in cash, and busi- can live freely and openly.

May 1978 25 Freely and openly is the perfect description of Peron's types of businessmen have never liked government regula­ marketing technique, as well as his lifestyle. Before the big tion of their activities- and Peron is one of them. He is raid, customers appeared at his door promptly at 3 p.m. proud of the fact that he is able to earn his living, and earn every day except Sunday. Business was conducted on the it well- as proud as any son of working-class parents, who third floor of that big, old house, in a converted attic-of­ made it and made it big. iniquity. Not only does he intend to fight it out in court, he intends Peron was the first pot dealer in San Francisco to ap­ to fight it out at the polls as well. San Francisco election law proach the market in a systematic way. Great emphasis was provides for placing a "statement of policy" - a statement put on the decor of the room, where pot was on display in which, if endorsed by the voters, would not have the force of bowls. Hand-painted signs identified different varieties and law- on the ballot. Peron has already registered his state­ prices. Peron had variety-everything from some Mexican, ment of policy with the registrar of voters, a statement which through all grades of Columbian, on up to Thai and explicitly denounces state suppression of the marijuana in­ Hawaiian- all laid out right there in what the local Hearst dustry as a waste of the taxpayer's money, and which goes on paper, the San Francisco Examiner, called a "marijuana to recommend a policy of nonenforcement of the marijuana supermarket". laws. A campaign organization, led by Libertarian Party ac­ The meteoric rise of the Big Top emboldened Peron- but tivists in cooperation with NORML (the National Organiza­ after a brief fling with the restaurant business and a country tion for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) and the Dennis resort (named, respectively, "Island" and "Islandia"), Peron Peron Defense Committee, is already engaged in a petition quit, disillusioned by a knee-jerk hostility against the very drive in order to get the statement on the June ballot. Ten concept of individual success that some employees and ex­ thousand valid signatures must be submitted by August. employees did not bother to disguise. The Libertarian Party was the first organization to endorse The pot business was Peron's first love, and it was to his Peron's battle to save his business. first love that he returned, with renewed ardor. He estimates The SFLP activists are providing the organizational he had Qver five thousand customers-clearly the biggest muscle behind abroad-based coalition united over a single black market pot outlet in the city. issue. In a city like San Francisco, the chances of a liber­ Half an hour before opening up shop Peron would get tarian victory are better than even. ready for the avalanche. When the pot was in the bowls, the Eric Garris' media efforts immediately catapulted Peron's labels in place, and the peronistas at their posts, the doors plight into the spotlight of public attention. Television, were opened. In less than ten minutes the room would be radio, and print media coverage of Peron's campaign for filled to overflowing. The sheer boldness of the operation free-market pot has been extensive. The Dennis Peron gave him the kind of rapid turnover his business required. Defense Committee intends to dramatize the absurdity of But Peron had been living in a dream world for years. San the marijuana laws through Peron's intransigence in the Francisco is a pleasant place to live, and he didn't really courtroom; by a stroke of sheer luck, the trial is scheduled to believe the dream would ever end. But the dream did end, approximately coincide with the June elections. A series of with the brutal police blitzkrieg and with the fact that the mass demonstrations are planned- the last demonstration San Francisco Police Department gunned him down in his attracted over 2000 participants-as are a series of publica­ own home. Peron is now fighting back. tions, to be released as theJune elections loom closer. Libertarian Party activists have rallied to Peron's defense. Peron maintains that he is a small businessman, entitled Eric Garris- chief architect of the Dennis Peron Defense to all the basic rights such businessmen traditionally have Committee-got involved because it's the sort of issue where demanded and gotten: the right to trade in a free, open libertarian principles can result in activism. "We can win in market; the right to privacy; the right to conduct simple San Francisco," proclaims Garris. If so, the City by the Bay business transactions. Rather than being thrown in jail, is well on its way to becoming the first liberated city in the Peron thinks he ought to be invited to join the Chamber of country-in fact, as well as in spirit. Commerce, as one of its more successful members. District Attorney Joseph Freitas-elected because of his allegedly "permissive" views on victimless "crime"-is quite Free market pot well aware of the political implications of the case, because Peron and his lawyers hope to make his case a landmark P~ron and Garris have made it a hot political issue. In a city in the history of the fight for free-market pot. He is asking where "live and let live" is a way of life, it seems almost a cer­ for a jury trial and hopes to utilize the time-honored defense tainty that one juror 9ut of 12 will uphold Peron's liber­ of jury nullification. This process allows the jury to decide tarian position. In a city that is rightly proud of its diversity, the validity of the law, not just the guilt or innocence of the Peron finds it hard to believe that a jury of his peers will defendant. Peron is asking why California law allows one to send him to jail. After all, it was his peers who made him possess an ounce ofmarijuana without going to jail, but does rich. not allow one to obtain this "miracle ounce." You can't grow His customers were happy-13-year-old girls were not it-Peron can't sell it-where does it come from? "It must be lured up to his den of iniquity, never to be seen or heard a miracle!" says Dennis Peron. from again. All sales were voluntary transactions, engaged Thus, the right to sell marijuana is being proclaimed for in by consenting adults, to mutual profit. Peron's prices the first time by advocates of decriminalization. Certain were fair, if sometimes slightly higher than the going market

26 Libertarian Review z « But the picture sketched in by the preliminary hearings is ~ a...J anything but confused: It is clear, according to the w testimony of at least two of the narcotics squad agents in­ Z z volved' that the police were determined to enter the o .. premises that night by any means necessary. Peron's lawyers argued that the manner in which the representatives of the state made their entry was unreasonable-that, dressed as civilians (and disreputable civilians, at that) the feeble resistance of Peron and peronistas was not ample grounds for bounding up the stairs and shooting Peron. The hearings were conducted in an atmosphere charged with the electrici­ ty of emotion and corridor rhetoric. During breaks in the lengthy proceedings, Peron made a point of confronting the "narks." "Every time I feel the pain in my leg," said Peron, "I remember that we aren't living in a free country. And I get angry. I get angrier and angrier all the time. And I in­ tend to do something about it. You guys aren't going to get away with this." The hearings had the air of a circus, with an occasional sinister note. For example, there is the question of the mysterious "second bullet." Maccaveccas claims he only fired at Dennis in self-defense. But how does this explain the existence of another bullet, fired from the same gun, lodged in the wall? After weeks of legal battling, in early March Judge Roy Wonder ruled against the defense motions to dismiss all charges and dismiss all evidence on the grounds of unreasonable entry, but saw fit to dismiss the assault charges Peron (arms crossed) and supporters on the steps of San against Peron. Francisco City Hall. The narcotics squad took advantage of this legal sanction price. But his customers didn't care, if they noticed at all; it of unlimited search and seizure with terrifying swiftness. was convenient, and it wasn't furtive. They came from every Peron had always been intransigent about a single issue: He walk of life-businesspersons, artists, workers, students, would never give up his business. It was business as usual, in tourists- and they made the dream come true. spite of-or, perhaps, because of-the busts. On Friday, Dennis Peron is the archetypical man-of-action, a distinc­ March 17th, the fist of the state smashed him again, in­ tively American concept. He's the working-class boy who, in vading his new place of business- this tim~ netting 20 love with the idea of unlimited upward mobility, took the customers in the bargain. This time, there were even fewer ideals he had been taught to admire and put them into ac­ amenities. Not only were those on the premises arrested, but tual practice. It is ironic that what he did is what our elders so were people who were simply walking past the house. spent the entire decade of the sixties telling us to do: "Aw, Beatings were accompanied by a stream of antigay epithets. go out and get a job, you hippie!" The raid had an ugly air about it, an air ofgloating. Well, Dennis Peron did better than that. He created his Today, Dennis Peron is an enemy of the state. He learned ownjob. His is an American success story. the lesson of libertarianism the hard way. And now he is lay­ ing his freedom on the line, he's going all the way, taking his Contradictory testimony battle and his message to the people, as well as to the courts. He is an illustration of principled libertarianism in action. If the preliminary hearings-the longest in the history of Community-oriented political action - creating and San Francisco's legal system- were any indication, the trial working through ad hoc organizations- can be the key to of Dennis Peron promises nothing less than pure drama. libertarian success. Activist Eric Garris has succeeded in The conflicting testimony of the narcotics agents, especially building an unusually diverse coalition over this single issue; in regard to the events surrounding the shooting of Peron by the list of over 50 endorsements reads like a Who's Who of Inspector Paul Maccaveccas, showed the narcotics squad in the policital spectrum, and it includes black civil rights an exceedingly bad light. Maccaveccas himself, in a series of leaders, the White Panther Party, Paul Krassner (publisher highly emotional outbursts on the stand, contradicted him­ of Hustler), and Margot St. James (COYOTE), not to men­ self over and over again. For example, he stated that Peron tion the director of the Drug and Alcohol Division of the met him at the top of the stairs with a gun in his belt, pirate­ Berkeley Public Health Service! style. The very next day he contradicted himself, denying that he ever saw Dennis with a gun, claiming he was "con­ fused" . (continued on page 31)

May 1978 27 The Revolution Comes to Italy

by Ralph Raico

he Revolution Was, said Garret Garrett, Tibor Machan, Mary Louise Hanson (the Secretary of the meaning that the irreversible state-socialist National LP), others. Names leapt up at me from the text: transformation of America had already oc­ Rothbard, Ayn Rand, Roy Childs, Thomas Szasz, Robert curred. The Revolution Will Be, some of my Heinlein. Then I noticed that the text was in Italian. What optimistic libertarian friends tell me, meaning is thz's? Tthat libertarianism is truly the idea whose time has come. Claustrofobz'a is a monthly magazine published in One tends to be a little skeptical-on the political level, at Rome by Riccardo La Conca and some friends. The issue I least, things seem mostly to be going the other way. But had in my hands was of February 1978, Year 1, Number 1. perhaps those optimistic friends are on to something. There A 32-page, professional-looking job, it contained an is, after all, the surprisingly favorable response that liber­ editorial, "The Fever of Liberty," which explained the name tarianism encounters from people in all walks of life; there is of the magazine. The name derives-it's obvious when you the individual person one increasingly comes across, who think about it- from the state of mind a libertarian must gives every evidence that this idea has changed his or her experience living in a society such as Italy, where intellectual life. life is dominated by priests, Communists, and a few timid In mid-March I received in the mail a copy of a new liberals. There were other articles by La Conca, and trans­ magazIne. It was entitled Claustrofobz'a and was well-made; lations of Sharon Presley's essay on feminism and of Liber­ I leafed through it. What immediately caught my eye were tarian Party position papers- by Murray Rothbard on infla­ some very familiar faces: Murray Rothbard, Ed Crane at the tion and Dave Nolan on "Pot, Helmets, and Vitamins." The 1977 Libertarian Party National Convention in San Fran­ latter, from what I could make out (I had edited the· ori­ cisco, Dave Bergland, John Hospers, Nathaniel Branden, ginals), were quite good-either La Conca or someone else

28 Libertarian Review out there has a professional translator's knowledge of necessarily brief, but reveals an easy familiarity. The author English. From Reason there was Rollins' "Lucifer's Lexicon" is familiar even with libertarian-oriented science fiction, and Hylkema's comic strip, rendered into Italian. There mentioning, besides Heinlein, Eric Frank Russell and Poul were the classifieds("Signorina libertaria attraente, sim­ Anderson. He even knows Ira Levin's novel, This Perfect patica ..."), an ad for a punk-rock disco in Rome, and a Day. Who is this.'R house ad urging the reader to "Support free trade ... A photo accompanies another essay by La Conca, "Con­ Smuggle!" On the back cover was a notice for a libertarian ceiving the Inconceivable," which I have translated here. It radio station, broadcasting at 88 megahertz FM in Rome. shows him to be young, intense, handsome. The essay itself La Conca's lead article, "Who are the Libertarians?" is well-reasoned, with a particular bent toward philosophy. proved to be intelligent and displayed a truly astonishing There is a really moving part, when La Conca tells of what knowledge of libertarian ideas and of the American liber­ the discovery of the American libertarian movement meant tarian movement. Among the works cited are Karl Hess's ar­ to him: ticle "The Death of Politics," Franz Oppenheimer's The State, Rand's Atlas Shrugged, Rothbard's For a New Liber­ In our country, a libertarian is a Martian, a one-hundred-percent foreigner. His break with his surroundings is so total that he lives ty and Power and Market, Hospers' Libertarianism, Roy always on the borders of psychic disintegration. I myself have ex­ Childs' "An Open Letter to Ayn Rand," Albert Jay Nock's perienced this lacerating experience, in conceiving the in­ Our Enemy the State. La Conca points out that part of conceivable. What removed me from this situation, in part, was Rothbard's achievement is that, to the antistatist philosophy the casual reading of an article on the Libertarian Party of the of 19th century thinkers like Spooner and Tucker, he has United States in an Italian magazine. The article was critical and "united a scientific approach in economic questions ... in­ ironical, but for me reading it constituted a great event. It was like corporating ... the doctrines of the Austrian school of the discovery of a piece of terra firma, of a kind of ideological economics of Hayek and von Mises." La Conca goes on to homeland for a philosophically displaced person. After reading discuss with some sophistication the differences between that article, I know that I was not alone. I knew I had companions Szasz and Branden on psychology. A number of Szasz's in the faith, even if they were across the ocean. I knew that my madness-if that's what it was-was shared by others. works, it turns out, have been translated into Italian, in­ cluding The Manufacture of Madness and Ceremonial Yes, something out of a novel, but sometimes, at least, Chemistry; La Conca's exposition of Szasz's principal ideas is nature does imitate art. So, across the ocean- Hello, friend. Conceiving the Inconceivable

n his article entitled "Why Be Libertarian?" tarianism tends t.o become an inconceivable thing, which Murray N. ~othbard asserts that to be libertarians, cannot be identified through a positioning in "hetero­ in our massively authoritarian world, implies in­ space" - in the space defined in the heterosynthetic lexicon evitably a condition of radical dissent and alienation of left-center-right. ... from the status quo. In the United States, however, the negative influence of II believe that the principle factor making for conflict be­ language in regard to libertarianism is counterbalanced by tween libertarianism and today's world is the "logicidal" use the fact that libertarianism has some roots in that country. of language which prevails in the world. It is these roots which render it at least conceivable in All 'the political forces currently existing in the world, America, despite the fact that language tends to make it in­ despite the apparently abysmal differences among them, are conceivable even there. In Italy, libertarianism has no roots. in reality ,profoundly alike in at least one respect: their in­ It has nothing behind it but scorched earth. But in our coherence. All today speak in the name of liberty, but none country there are many other factors that conspire, together is consistently libertarian. All the existing political forces are with language, to make the formation of libertarian politi­ "heterosynthetic": that is, they are syntheses of heterogene­ cal consciousness impossible. ous elements, contradictory combinations of individualism First and foremost, there is in Italy a profound and deeply and collectivism, ofstatism and antistatism. rooted aversion to free enterprise, a dislike of risk, and a Words like "left" (which connotes "antistatism in civil desire always to be protected by the state. This desire for liberties" and "economic statism") and "right" (which con­ protection is widely diffused among entrepreneurs them­ notes "statism in civil liberties" and "economic antistatism") selves. The result is that just as yesterday Italian business are logicidal because they tend to connect what is logically facilitated the coming of Fascism, so today it supports "tri­ incoherent and to disconnect what is logically coherent. angular corporativism" - the system in which the economy, Heterosynthetic and logicidal language is an extremely instead of being directed by the market, is "programmed" potent factor in inhibiting libertarianism. People tend, in by the three "corporations" of the rulers and the business­ fact, to see reality through the glasses of language. Liber- friends and union-friends of the government.

May 1978 29 Moreover, there prevails in Italy a dogmatic, authoritari­ an mentality and culture. In our country, there has been hardly a trace of an empirical culture of the Anglo-Saxon type. This point seems to me extremely important for its political implications, because there is a profound intercon­ nection, I believe, between philosophical and political in­ dividualism on the one hand, and philosophical and politi­ cal collectivism on the other. A Marxist epistemologist, Ludovico Geymonat, divides contemporary philosophy into two far-reaching tendencies. One, with an individualistic hallmark, derived from David Hume; the other, with a collectivist hallmark, derived from Hegel, and it is symptomatic of the Italian cultural at­ mosphere that in our country, Benedetto Croce, the very guardian deity of liberalism- that is, of a school of thought that elsewhere was intimately connected with a philosophy of the empirical type-was a follower of Hegel, the father of modern philosophical collectivism. It was this idealist and reactionary framework that led Croce to devalue the importance of economic liberty and to uphold, in polemics with Luigi Einaudi, the theory of the divisibility between it and other liberties. Because of this theory, some disciples of Croce seceded from the Liberal Party and founded the Radical Party, which later, under the leadership of Pannelli, was to carry to its furthest logical consequences the division between economic and civil liber­ ty, by resolutely embracing economic collectivism. Thus, a tradition of individualistic libertarianism has ab­ solutely not existed in Italy. Italian anarchism, for instance that of a Malatesta or a Merlino, has always been wholely Riccardo La Conca collectivist in economic matters.

thus is not the contractbetween private property and public Libertarianism and Property or collective property. ... [It is between] the ownership of one's own product ... and ownership of one's own product by others, ... the contrast is between the "economic Since in reality only individuals exi~t, collectivism, means" and the "political m'eans" [of gaining wealth]. ... ~oo, ~ust ~a~e use of individuals in every attempt at apply­ ~he economic means are, as libertarians know, the produc­ Ing Its pnnclples. The abstract collective entities cannot tion and exchange of goods and services, and they are based ~ransform themselves concretely except through individuals, on the principle of mutuality and reciprocity. The political Into certain "privileged carriers" of the abstractions which means are conquest, confiscation, robbery, plunder, etc., in this way descend from the heavens down to earth~ There and they are based on the principle of unilateral aggrandize­ have to be certain individuals, in short, for any collective en­ ment. tity to be incarnated, whether it be Rousseau's general will, On the rretext of substituting an impossible public prop­ the romantics' .Volksgeist, or the proletarian consciousness erty for pnvate property, what the collectivists covertly rein­ of the Marxi~t-Leninists.... The abolition of private prop­ troduce when they get into power is in fact a worse form of erty which the collectivists long for therefore can be only a pr~vate property: ownership based on what Franz Oppen­ formal and nominal abolition. Since, of necessity, it will be heImer called "the political means." And together with this concrete individuals who dispose of the means of production they reintroduce the supremacy of the "warrior" over the and decide their use, individuals who will make up for the "trader," that the National Socialists desired; the supremacy absence of the phantasmal "collective subject," collective of the sword over money, theorized by the French fascist property will in reality be a kind of "black private prop­ Mauri~e Bardeche; and, thanks to the unexpected help of erty" - the covert private property of those individuals. the WItch-doctors of the Marxist intelligentsia, the When we speak of colectivist practice (for example, of supremacy of Attila the predator over Atlas the producer. "collectivist societies") we are using the term "collectivist" in Those who assert that a society left to itself produces a merely metaphorical sense, to designate societies which plutocracy in reality make themselves the advocates of the derive from attempts to apply collectivist principles. In most barbaric form of society: brutocracy. reality, collectivism is a non-operational theory, one that is not susceptible of being translated into practice.... The -Riccardo La Conca real dividing line between libertarians and non-libertarians (translated by Ralph Raico)

JO Libertarian Review Thanks to the provincialism that pervades our culture, anarchism is, at any rate, much purer and more coherent than the great Anglo-American libertarian tradition is complete­ that of the Bakuninist-Kropotkinist tradition, represents an ab­ ly unknown in Italy. A book like Herbert Spencer's Social solute novelty in a country where, incredibly, "libertarianism" is Statics has never been translated into Italian. Neither has conceived in connection with economic collectivism and even only any American individualist-anarchist work whatsoever been in connection with economic collectivism. • translated, with the exception of Thoreau's On Civil Disobe­ From Claustrofobia, February 1978. Via Cadlolo, 90; 00136 dience. Finally, we cannot find selections from Spooner or Rome, Italy. Annual foreign subscription (airmail) 15,000 Tucker in any of the numerous anthologies of anarchist lz're. thought published to this day in our country. * It is my belief that, thanks to this conspiracy of factors, a libertarian in Italy necessarily experiences the state of MarijuntW alienation of which Rothbard speaks- but to a degree that (continued from page 28) cannot be even distantly imagined by an American liber­ tarian. In Italy, libertarianism is something truly in­ A n opportunity for libertarians conceivable. In our country, a libertarian is a Martian, a This is part of the spirit of the new activism among liber­ one-hundred percent foreigner. His break with his sur­ tarians, the new effort to build a political power base by roundings is so total that he lives always on the borders of building coalitions on single issues and targeting particular psychic disintegration. I myself have experienced this lac­ constituencies. erating experience, in conceiving the inconceivable. What It is important to understand here the uncompromising removed me from this situation, in part, was the casual radicalism of Dennis Peron's position, as well as its relevance reading of an article on the Libertarian Party of the United to libertarianism as a movement. Peron is not merely asking States in an Italian magazine. The article was critical and for the decriminalization of marijuana in small amounts, as ironical, but for me reading it constituted a great event. It is the case with so many "liberals" today, who skirt the whole was like the discovery of a piece of terra firma, of a kind of drug issue. He is challenging the absurdity that permits ideological homeland for a philosophically displaced per­ legislative bodies to believe that "small amounts" exist in an son. After reading that article, I knew that I was not alone. I economic vacuum. He is demanding the decriminalization knew I had companions in the faith, even if they were across of the entire marijuana industry-not conversion to a state the ocean. I knew that my madness- if that's what it was­ monopoly, or even a partially controlled distributive system, was shared by others. I knew that my idea of a combination but a fully free market in drugs. Thus, in one stroke, he of civil laissez-faire and economic laissez-faire was not enrages liberals and social democrats (who usually oppose something inconceivable, conceived by me by mistake, who victimless crime laws, but who are, in the final analysis, ut­ knows how or why. I knew it was an idea that many others terly opposed to a free market- not to mention hated had thought of before me, an idea on which even a party has profits) and he alienates conservatives as well, who pay lip been founded. service to private property, competition, and the free That discovery was followed by a series of other delightful market-but not when it comes to drugs. Thus the millions discoveries. I found that the Libertarian Party is not an of Americans who have created an enormous black market historically isolated phenomenon but is, on the contrary, the in pot have been abandoned by both sides of the political landing place of a great cultural tradition. I found that spectrum. there existed an anarchism that was not collectivist but Millions of Americans have been arrested on charges con­ economically liberal [that is, deriving from classical nected with marijuana- hundreds of thousands a year for liberalism]. I began, finally, to read authors like Rothbard, the past several years. The fight against the New Prohibition Rand and Hospers. is a golden opportunity for the libertarian movement. To constitute for all the potential libertarians in Italy Millions of Americans smoke pot regularly, in defiance of what American libertarianism has been for me-that is, a the law. Organizations like NORML are useful, but limited place of anchorage, where shipwreck can be avoided, and by a strict and often timid gradualism. Libertarians must one can "conceive the inconceivable"; to put on record in make their presence felt in mass organizations like NORML Italy the existence of a fundamental current of thought by consistently calling for the creation of a genuinely free which has been surrounded, until now, by a curtain of market in all drugs. silence- these are the fundamental reasons why I have As the mass movement for decriminalization swells and founded, together with a few friends with similar ideas, an grows, it will be the most consistent advocates of decriminal­ Italian libertarian movement. ization who will reap the political benefits. Instead of calling for reforms and spineless half-measures, the decriminaliza­ *However, the publication of an anthology, Il labirinto anarico, tion movement of the future will be libertarian in rhetoric edited by Professor Domenico Settembrini, is imminent. This and in spirit-if libertarians get in on the ground floor. work will give ample space to the literature of American anar­ Here is yet another opportunity to lay low the forces of chism, including selections from contemporary libertarians .like puritanical statism. • Rothbard. I have had the occasion to read Settembrini's introduc­ tion to his anthology, and what emerges from it is an extremely revolutionary approach, at least for our country, in regard to the Justin Raimondo is a libertarian activist and writer living in themes of anarchism. His judgment, that American individualist San Francisco.

May 1978 31 Liberty Is Coming to Boston!

•• .WILL YOU BE THERE? HUBCON '78, the 1978 National Libertarian Party Convention will be held Labor Day Weekend at the .Copley Plaza Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts

ADVERTISING SPACE IS NOW AVAILABLE IN BOTH THE PRECONVENTION FLIER AND THE OFFICIAL HUBCON'78 CONVENTION BOOKLET.

The Flyer, a newsprint ----....~ AD RATES tabloid, will be sent to $200.00 full page all libertarians. 110.00 half page 60.00 quarter page 3.00 column inch

The Convention Booklet ---.....~ AD RATES will be given to all registrants, $200.00 full page speakers, and the press. 120.00 half page 75.00 quarter page 4.00 column inch ..---- r····-··-·----··~" I Yes, I wish to purchase ad space I In pre-convention flyer In convention booklet I t::Jfull Cl full I I t::Jhalf CJ half I Clquarter CJ quarter I .... column inches ....column inches I I Payment enclosed Please bill me (all ads must be pre-paid) I

I I am also interested in reserving exhibit space __ . I I (10 per.cent discount if request received before June 1) I I NAME OF ORGANiZATION I ADDRESS . I PHONE I ...... • SEND TO: HUBCON'78 C/O_-_LPM, BOX 2610, BOSTON, MA 02208..• . .. tray himself as having the stuff to launch a crusade to roll back government power. But portraying is one thing; being is BooksandtheArts another. A few months back, Tom Bethell I wrote in an issue of Harper's that "If the climate of opinion with respect to govern­ ment continues to change, we may soon be Reversing the ratchet ofgovernment on the lookout for someone who can solve the greatest puzzle of representative by Roy A. Chiltb, democracy: how to reverse the ratchet of Jr. government." Simon thinks he has the key: to launch a "powerful counterintellegentsia A Time for Truth, by William E. Simon. Viguerie's "New Right," the Neoconser­ ... to challenge our ruling 'new class' McGraw-Hill, 248 pp., $12.50. vatives, ad nausaum. The lines are not opinion makers-an intelligentsia dedi­ clearly drawn, and no stable leadership has cated consciously to the political value of In a recent column in The New York Times arisen. Nor has any systematic agenda been entitled "Republican Proxy War" (April 10, individual liberty, above all, which agreed on, or strategy. Having pretty much understands its relationship to merit­ 1978), William Safire reported on some of given up the idea of starting a new conser­ the battles being waged today within the ocracy, and which is consciously aware of vative party, the battle is focused largely the value of private property and the free GOP. The struggle for control of the on two elements of an overall approach: Republican Party is being waged by com­ market in generating innovative tech­ promotion, by any means possible, of ideo­ nology, jobs, and wealth. Such an in­ batants like Senator Clifford Case logical allies, and a grass-roots fight for (R.-N.J.), Nelson Rockefeller and Henry telligentsia exists, and an audience awaits control of the Republican Party. its views." Kissinger on the one side, and younger, ag­ William Simon has dived into the middle gressive Rightists on the other, like former This counterrevolution is to be led by of all this with his book A Time For Truth. three broad groups. Reagan aide Jeff Bell (who is challenging His associates know that Simon is a politi­ Case in the New Jersey primary), and Con­ cally ambitious man, and would like a shot The oldest, of course, is the educated pro-free gressman Jack Kemp (R.-N.Y.). enterprise conservative movement. The most at the presidency. (After all, he served as brilliant and dedicated intellectuals of the right One of the differences between these secretary of the treasury under both Nixon younger conservatives and those in the are classical liberals, adherents of limited govern­ and Ford.) This book is really an attempt to ment and a minimally regulated free market older generations is that these younger con­ elevate himself to a position of leadership economy, and are totally aware of the un­ servatives are far more "ideological," and within the Republican Party. All the books breakable link between political and economic are willing to ignore cries of "party unity" which Safire mentioned in his column are liberty. These people have built themselves a for­ in their attempts to seize control of the being Widely read and noted by the tress in the heart of academe, particularly in the Republican Party and to smash the moldy brighter elements in the ranks of both the economics departments of the University of Chicago and UCLA. There are many hundreds of liberalism which has dominated both par­ conservative movement and the Repub­ ties since the New Deal. Another difference such scholars, European and American-Nobel lican Party; but of all the authors, only Laureates Hayek and Friedman being the most is their search for a new agenda or pro'gram Simon is ambitious enough to attempt to with which to appeal to the American peo­ visible in the mass media since their awards­ parlay this tough-minded book into a posi­ and they are the authors of a constantly growing ple over the heads of the dominant tion of political leadership. body of theoretical free market literature. They opinion-molders. Thus, as William Safire Clearly he is tapping into a widespread have kept the torch of economic liberty burning wrote, "the 'new right' is likely to be carry­ disaffection with big government in this and are passing it on to younger generations. ing around new books as different and as book, and just as clearly he is trying to por- The younger generations tend, in fact, to be provocative as Irving Kristol's Two Cheers more militant about the free market than their for Capitalism, Martin Anderson's elders, a good many toqay being laissez-faire Welfare, Robert Bork's The Anti-Trust purists. The most publicly visible are the young Paradox, and William Simon's A Time For libertarians. In 1975 one of their number, Robert Truth." Nozick, a philosophy professor at Harvard, won A few years ago Alan Otten of.the Wall a National Book Award for an exposition of libertarian theory and a challenge to egali­ Street Journal reported a "dearth of tarianism, which was discussed in the major creative new ideas coming from the entire opinion journals in the land. Nozick sent a ripple liberal intellectual community," an absence of laughter through the world of political which has become increasingly apparent theorists with his witty defense of freedom for over the past few years, as liberal programs 'capitalist acts between consenting adults' .... have increasingly been perceived as A tiny fragment of the American body politic, failures. While there is hardly a new en­ the libertarians are so well-furnished with lightenment taking place on the Right, it academic degrees and is intense in their dedica­ should still be said that those books are all tion to freedom that their impact on the intellec­ symbols of at least a growing concern with tual world transcends their numbers. Like all new ideas, new approaches, new policies. radical scholarly groups, they serve as a goad to their elders and attract the liberty-loving young. an upheaval taking There is in fact quite Utopian, idealistic, and immoderate-to them place in the Right wing, both inside and 'extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice'­ outside the Republican Party, as we find a they are the connecting link between America's growing number of battles and skirmishes free enterprise past and future and refute the taking place between various "factions" canard that economic liberty is a value to rich and "camps": the Buckley Right, Richard William E. Simon old men alone.

May 1978 33 Ignore for the moment the fact that nion such as the United States and the edge 'born of long ages of suffering under Simon places libertarianism as some kind Western world much need." man's dominion over man ... that the ex­ of minority subset of the conservative With two such endorsements, both from ercise of unlimited. power by men with movement, which it most assuredly is not. Nobellaureautes in economics, Simon feels limited minds and self-regarding prejudices The second group of his counterrevolu­ ready to take on the dominant intelligentsia is soon oppressive, reactionary and cor­ tionary trilogy is the neoconservatives. in America today, that group which Irving rupt.' They have lost this knowledge These are disillusioned New Dealers who Kristol dubbed "The New Class," and because today-although in their collec­ are beginning to question collectivist, which is equated with what Robert Nisbet tivist 'idealism' they cannot grasp egalitarian and regulatory dogmas. Simon called "the New Despotism." Kristol is this-they are the reactionary, corrupt op­ does not endorse them totally, however: quoted at length on the new class: pressors." The liberals and laborites in this 'neocon­ This 'new class' is not easily defined but may be They do understand one thing perfectly, servative' group are still interventionists to a vaguely described. It consists of a goodly pro­ however: that the greatest threat to their power degree that I myself do not endorse, but they portion of those college-educated people whose is a free market economy which sets stringent have grasped the importance of capitalism, are skills and vocations proliferate in a 'post­ limits on the state. A significant move to free the battling some of the despotic aspects of industrial society.' ... We are talking about market would decimate the 'New Despotism,' egalitarianism, and can be counted as allies on scientists, teachers and educational ad­ and the ruling group would try to destroy any certain crucial fronts of the struggle for in­ ministrators, journalists and others in the com­ politician who proposed such a course. The dividualliberty. munications industries, psychologists, social powerful political intelligentsia that determines The third element, then: workers, those lawyers and doctors who make the trends in social democratic nations today is their careers in the expanding public sector, city as stubborn and ruthless a ruling elite as any in And the third broad movement in opposition to planners, the staffs of the larger foundations, the history and worse than many because it is prevailing trends is to be found in the world of upper levels of government bureaucracy, etc., possessed of delusions of grandeur. business itself, where the most intelligent and etc.... Members of the 'new class' do not 'con­ courageous leaders have faced the fact that they trol' the media, they are the media-just as they There are many such powerful passages must fight for free enterprise before it is too late. are our educational system, our public health as this one in this book, and one is tempted Simon is fairly tough in handling this and welfare system and much else. ... to go on quoting forever. There are even group, too: brilliant strokes throwing the concept of But there is one condition that must be met: they "humanitarianism" back in the faces of must practice [free enterprise]. They cannot be statist intellectuals, bold proclamations hypocritical leeches on the state, who mouth There are lllany that is truly liberty which is progressive, platitudes about the free enterprise system, then and state regimentation reactionary. Its come hat in hand to Washington. This practice powerful passages polemics, slogans, and propagandistic totally destroys their credibility as spokesmen devices often reach grand-scale crescendos. for a principled cause. in this book, but But there are also deep flaws in the book, Thus, Simon sees the possibility of almost structural flaws in Simon's-and organizing a counterrevolutionary move­ there are also deep Efron's-thinking. There are passages of ment out of these broad groups, which flaws, passages of dizzying stupidity and ignorance, for ex­ would have the financial and intellectual ample, which detract from the overall vir­ resources to challenge the shacklers and dizzying stupidity. tues ofthe book in ways which are tragical­ plunderers of the American economy. He ly unnecessary. There is the statement that sees himself as aJeader of these forces, and "the Democratic Party is the primary vehi­ A Time For Truth as a weapon. cle of economic authoritarianism" and a There is no doubt but that the book is What does this 'new class' want, and why belief that the Republican Party really, meant to be taken seriously: Simon enlisted should it be so hostile to the business communi­ down deep, is "the Liberty Party." What the substantial aid of journalist Edith Efron ty? Well, one should understand that members of nonsense this is! Which party was the party in writing the book, and it is adorned with this class are 'idealistic,'· in the 1960's sense of of high protective tariffs, the party which both a preface by Milton Friedman and a that term-Leo they are not much interested in money but are keenly interested in power. Power launched the Civil War, the party of mas­ foreword by F. A. Hayek. "This is a bril­ for what? The power to shape our civilization-a sive grants of subsidies and special privi­ liant and passionate book by a brilliant and power which, in a capitalist system, is supposed leges to business, the party which hurled passionate man," writes Prof. Friedman. to reside in the free market. This 'new class' the first major regulatory agencies at us­ "It is a profound analysis of the suicidal wants to see much of this power redistributed to those alphabet agencies which today are course on which our beloved country is government, where they will then have a major choking the American people? Which party proceeding-so clearly and so simply writ­ say in how it is exercised. was the party of jingoism and imperialism, ten, with such eloquence, such obvious Simon takes off the gloves in dealing the party that brought us the Spanish­ sincerity, such a broad base in recorded with these bastards: They combine a "mor­ American War and its legacy, the party fact and personal experience, that it is hard bid economic ignorance with a driving that saw itself supporting the Federal to see how any reasonable man who wishes power lust," he charges, and combine Reserve System with its continual mone­ his fellow citizens well can fail to be per­ "hostility to democracy with the illusion tary exploitation of the American people, suaded by it." that [they] speak for the People." More­ the party of the income tax, of prohibition, Friedrich Hayek recounts his own reac­ over, "those intellectuals, in Europe, as in of the earliest drug laws? And which the tion to the manuscript: "I dipped into it one the United States, are still in the grip of party of immigration restriction, the party morning and at once got so fascinated that Lippmann's 'heresy' of the 1930's-the of agricultural parities, the party of rail­ I could not stop until I had finished it. ... belief that 'there are no limits to man's road subsidies, the party that launched If this is the lesson which a first-class young capacity to govern others and that public education, the party responsible for brain has learned from bitter experience, therefore no limitation ought to be imposed the Great Depression through its continual we may hope to find in him a leader of opi- on government.' They have lost the knowl- credit expansion during the 1920s? The Re-

34 Libertarian Review publican Party has brought us wars and clearly have. Theodore N. Vail, president no doubt, find this noble and inspiring, ex­ depressions, subsidies and tariffs, cen­ of AT&T in the early part of this century, pecting William E. Simon, given the title of sorship and the income tax, public educa­ put the point bluntly regarding his own the book and his tough-minded approach, tion and the drug laws. This is the party of area: "We believe in and were the first to to mean what he says. Don't hold your liberty? This is "A Time For Truth"? advocate state or government control and breath. Remember that Simon identifies But indeed, that line unfortunately is just regulation of public utilities." And it was himself as a conservative. That says a lot. the beginning; an all-consuming historical not out of some confused sense of "egali­ And we must remember, alas, that deep in ignorance permeates this book, beginning tarianism," either. Major businessmen like the psyche of the American Right lies a pro­ the the unshakable right-wing view that all J. P. Morgan have been in the forefront of found and bottomless intellectual and evil began with FDR and the New Deal. long-run planning to increase state power moral cowardice. That fiction I consider, after the historical for business purposes. When business There is not a word in this book, which work which has been done during the last screams for liberty, it is all too often only claims to love individual liberty, about 20 years, pathetic jibberish of the worst for its own allies, for itself. abolishing our victimless crime laws. Not a sort. Moreover, Simon, while recognizing Moreover, something ought to be said word. It might be answered that that is too that business had perhaps some role in about the bogey of "egalitarianism"- much to expect of a former treasury secre­ launching state regimentation of the Amer­ tary who has, admittedly, made great ican economy-in itself a rather ludicrous strides in the direction of a consistent understatement-paints a picture, in the vision of liberty. I think it must be de­ main, of the "businessman-as-victim." An all-consuDling manded of such a person, as proof of his Now this is a collectivist, holistic half­ sincerity. To claim that such is too much to truth. Simon claims that this view of busi­ historical ignorance expect or demand from a man who would nessman as user of the state for his own posture as a crusading political leader, is to benefit is a contemporary liberal dogma. perDleates this book, place oneself in the camp of hypocritical, But has he really never read Milton Fried­ like the view that all cowardly scoundrels. man on this, let alone Murray Rothbard or The problem is not merely that he largely any of several dozen other thinkers? Some evil began with FOR skirts the issue, but that in the only passage businessmen are clearly victims; others are in the book where freedom of lifestyles is clearly victimizers, numbering among and the New Deal. even raised, it is in the typical right-wing themselves some of the most prominent big manner: scapegoating, smearing, slander­ businesses around. Simon makes his case ing, snarling at the disgusting deviants, and by shifting from a concern with liberty to a which Simon rightly attacks, but then goes bemoaning "license." I shall quote the concern with cash': Businessmen are finan­ further to make it the main force behind the passages only in part, and, in honor of cially hurting, so how could they be run­ growth of statism. That is simply not the Edith Efron, its most flamboyant adherent, ning things? I shall not attempt to unravel case. The main forces behind the growth of I shall call its central theme "The Zoo the problems involved in this canard here. the state are, firstly, war, and Motif": But if we are concerned with liberty, then militarism-look at any almanac to see It is often said by people who receive warnings about declining freedom in America that such a all we have to do is go down the list of when government spending and power shot charge is preposterous, that there is no freer every tyrannical move the government has up most-and secondly, the desire to use society on earth. That is true in one sense, but it taken during the last two hundred years, state power as a means of gaining wealth is immensely deceptive. There has never been from the very first pieces of legislation-a and stomping on competitors, something such freedom before in America to speak freely, tax on whiskey to cripple small farmers, business has been in the forefront of, but indeed, to wag one's tongue in the hearing of an the first protective tariff, and Alexander which has, by now, reached the stage of be­ entire nation; to publish anything and every­ Hamilton's "financial program" with its na­ ing part of mass psychology. thing, including the most scurrilous gossip; to tional bank-to see the heavy hand of ma­ One final objection to the book should take drugs and to prate to children about their jor businessmen at every turn. be made. It completely avoids the issue of alleged pleasures; to progagandize for bizarre sexual practices; to watch bloody and obscene It is businessmen which were the first foreign policy-except for a complaint entertainment. ... The strange fact is that class to use the state apparatus as a tool to about the allegedly shrinking defense Americans are constitutionally free today to do exploit others. When the "new class" came budget (Simon confuses a decline as a per­ almost everything that our cultural tradition has along, it began to take over an apparatus cent of the total budget with a real previously held to be immoral or obscene, while set up by business for its own ends. Efron decline}-and it nearly completely side­ the police powers of the state are being invoked and Simon ought to read Kolko's The steps the issue of civil liberties. Let us skip : against almost every aspect of the productive Triumph of Conservatism, or Railroads over the issue of foreign policy; it may be a process. Even more precisely, Americans today and Regulation, or Weinstein's The Cor­ key, but LR readers have seen that point are left free by the state to engage in activities demonstrated at length over the past eight that could, for the most part, be carried on just porate Ideal in the Liberal State, or as readily in prisons, insane asylums, and zoos. Rothbard and Radosh's A New History of months. It is the issue of civil liberties that Leviathan-or anyone of nearly a hundred bothers me. There is more, but I shall spare the books on these subjects. Businessmen have And with good reason. For Simon's most reader. I shall also spare the reader the not been fumbling around, moaning and fundamental policy prescription is this: words that come to mind when I think about the author of those words, who wringing their hands in anguish as state The overriding principle to be revived in power has been trampling on the liberties American political life is that which sets in­ ought to be sorely ashamed. of the American people. They have been dividual liberty as the highest political value­ The fact of the matter-for those con­ twisting the knife! that value to which all other values are subor­ cerned with facts and for whom personal Now, no one should be stupid enough to dinate and that which, at all times, is to be given prejudices do not get in the way of political claim that all businessmen have had this at­ the highest 'priority' in policy discussions. and cultural analysis-is that a great many titude, but surely most major businessmen The readers of Libertarian Review will, people today are experimenting with dif-

May 1978 35 ferent "lifestyles." And there are objective, The flacks ofwar sons of toil that'll help put those Nazis factual reasons why this should be the case, under tons of soil." The graphics staff pro­ why such activity should "arrive" at this byJustus D. Doenecke duced a poster showing an erect Statue of particular time and place. This is nothing Liberty holding four bottles of Coca Cola. to fear. (Get that through your heads, con­ The Politics of Propaganda: The Office of The caption below read, "The War That servatives!) War Information, 1942-1945, by Allan M. Refreshes: The Four Delicous Freedoms." But the key point is that these people, Winkler. Yale University Press, 230 pp. OWl activities soon became attacked. too, face the same general economic situa­ $11.95. White southerners opposed literature tion as everyone else. For the most part, "I'm not here to write 'em letters. I'm here stressing black achievement, conservatives they participate in the money economy, to kill the S.O.B.s," said General Patton fought publicity supporting withholding they are taxed to death on every level, they when urged to drop more propagandaleaf­ taxes, Republicans criticized the glorifica­ are often the owners of small businesses lets across enemy lines. "Old Blood and tion of FDR. Within the OWl, idealists that are being sent to the wall, inflation is Guts" was expressing a common attitude were discontent, with journalist Henry wrecking their savings and is wreaking among the American military, for it was Pringle and historian Arthur M. Schles­ havoc with their standards of living. They, always suspicious of official progapanda inger, Jr. resigning over high-pressure tac­ too, must be enlisted in the battle against efforts. tics. Harper's editor Bernard De Voto said state oppression, particularly since they The story of these efforts, and of the that, overall, "there has been too God­ contain in their camp some of the most suspicions as well, is the topic of Allan M. damned much exhortation and denuncia­ talented, creative people who exist today. Winkler's valuable book. Winkler notes tion, too God-damned much cleverness, In short, the Zoo Motif must be smashed that when war first broke out in Europe, ... and too God-damned little straight to bits. Scapegoating must come to an end. Americans were suspicous of propaganda. talking over the table at an adult public." If liberty is our first political value, toler­ They believed that the British had duped Congress apparently agreed, and in 1943 it ance must be our second. them into fighting World War I, recalled abolished OWl's Domestic Branch entirely. But we should not give up on the book the brainwashing of the Creel Committee, Often, overseas propaganda was equally and its author. The chapters on the New and were besieged by contemporary studies constraining. Full of liberals who saw the York City fiscal crisis and the energy showing that-in the words of Winkler­ war in messianic terms, the OWl found crunch are terrific. There are brilliant propaganda had "an unlimited force-the itself in the unenviable position of defend­ passages in the rest, too, from the symbolic power to capture men's hearts and to ing Chiang kai-Shek, equivocating over little listing of regulatory contradictions bypass their rational resources." Or, as Vichy, and backing the Darlan deal. It had and oppressions, to the demonstration­ political scientist Harold D. Lasswell put it, to witness censorship in India of its pam­ quite unique-that so-called "welfare" pro­ "progapanda is one of the most powerful phlet The United Nations Fight for the Four grams really have little to do with the poor, instrumentalities in the modern world," Freedoms, because the State Department and much to do with one portion of the "the new dynamic of society." claimed that the leaflet "might incite the In­ middle class subsidizing another. I have Yet, as German panzers drove into dians against the British." When an OWl given only hints of its overall power and Western Europe, such militant interven­ broadcast called Italy's Viotor Emmanuel sweep, and concentrated on its short­ tionists as poet Archibald MacLeish and III a "moronic little king," Roosevelt comings because this is really the only playwright Robert E. Sherwood pushed for publicly ridiculed the agency. Soon the publication in America today where a a government information agency, and the OWl was asking Italians to rally around libertarian critique can be expected. By the president complied by establishing the Of­ the government of Marshal Badoglio, who "new class," it will be torn to shreds-for fice of Facts and Figures. (Its enemies soon had led the Ethiopian campaign in 1935. the wrong reasons referred to it as "the Office of Fun and If the Allies quarrelled, the OWl ignored My advice to libertarians is to buy and Frolic.") A singularly inept organization, it the controversy. And, if, as one OWl read this book, and to learn from it: It is a soon saw Roosevelt shift his support to the memo noted, the United States lacked "a beautiful exercise in propaganda, deals new Office of War Information (OWl). clear political attitude toward the problems with libertarianism fairly, and treats Born in July 1942, the OWl took the lead of Europe and Asia," OWl writers should Hayek and Friedman with the respect they in promoting the war effort at home and "continue to use all available statements by ought to command everywhere. It is a por­ abroad. Despite its blue-ribbon staffing, United Nations' leaders which indicate that trait of our "national crises" that is largely and despite its leadership under the able such an attitude is in the making." Far true to life. It is a courageous, but not fully news commentator Elmer Davis, its story easier than such studied evasion was to consistent, statement by a man who may was a checkered one, for it was soon en­ send overseas packages of seeds with an be a major figure in years to come. It is a tangled in ideological and bureaucratic American flag, matchbooks with the "Four spirited and pas,sionate book. . struggles. The military refused to give out Freedoms" inscribed inside the covers (or, Yet by leaving out both foreign policy battle reports, causing Davis to declare in the Philippines, those noble words, "I and civil liberties, Simon has at best raised later that he "always suspected that Ad­ shall. return"), and soap powder with the the flag of liberty to half-mast. miral King's idea of War Information was inscription, "Wash off the Nazi dirt." Ob­ My only question, when all is said and that there should be just one communique. viously the Administration was fighting done, is, can William E. Simon live up to Some morning we would announce that the quite a different war than its own prop­ it? We can only watch and wait. But there war was over and that we won it." agandists, one that put a premium on a is one piece of his advice that we can follow On the home front, much of OWl prop­ quick and uncomplicated victory. The immediately:. "Support only those [polit­ aganda was sheer boosterism. It printed OWl might claim that the United States ical] candidates who will not waver on the pamphlets defending rationing and in­ sought a "people's peace," but it had no issue of liberty." For us, at least, that creased taxes, made.movies calling for fuel leverage. means the Libertarian Party, and the liber­ conservation, and wrote radio scripts pro­ The OWl had a military message as well, tarian movement which is its backbone. moting war production. As Molly says to and in conveying it American propagan­ There is no real alternative. • Fibber McGee, "Don't forget .... It's your dists met with more success. Despite Pat-

36 Libertarian Review ton's reference to fighting with letters, they The OWl also sought to tell the Japanese sent thousands of leaflets behind German that struggle was futile, doing so in a sensa­ Detente lines, urging Wehrmacht troops to sur­ tionalistic fashion. One leaflet read, "What and its enemies render and guaranteeing safe conduct. is the good of seppuku [slit belly] when it (One incident, however, backfired. At An­ leaves a man without sons to bear his name zio a group of GIs shot leaflets over enemy and carryon his family line? Do you want by William Mari'lUl lines and waited until the Germans picked to be the last of your line, or do you want a Understanding Conflict and War, Vol. 1: them up. As the German troops gathered family too?" The Dynamic Psychological Field, by thern., the Arn.ericans opened fire.) Radio Winkler's story is disturbing, for sim­ Rudolph J. Rummel. Sage Publications, broadcasts reminded Germans of shortages plistic propaganda cannot help but boom­ 342 pp., $17.50. and manpower problems, and told a few erang once a war is over. Americans had jokes in the process. A man would ask in been led to expect a democratic world Peace Endangered: The Reality of Detente, German, "Why did Grandpa join the order and a genuinely "United" Nations; by Rudolph J. Rummel. Sage Publications, Volkssturm?"-to which another man instead they confronted a Cold War that 189 pp., $10. replied, "Because he had no one to take apparently would never end. Given the In recent months, a host of resurrected care of him now that Grandma's in the tragedy that can result from such naive Cold War thinkers have taken aim at Luftwaffe." messianism, perhaps it was Patton who detente, criticizing any attempt to reduce Unconditional surrender demands, how­ was right after all. War, to paraphrase U.S. military commitments and arms ex­ ever, were more embarrassing, with OWl Clemenceau, is too important to leave -to penditures. One who has approached liber­ deputy director James Warburg fearing the brigades of the typewriters. • tarians with this sort of message is R.J. that Allied rigidity might cause enemy Rummel of the University of Hawaii, who populations tofight to the bitter end. Only published an assault on the dominant isola­ when the Joint Chiefs announced that de­ Justus Doenecke is author of The Literature tionist wing of the libertarian movement in struction of Nazism did not mean the con­ of Isolationism: A Guide to Non­ an article in Reason magazine last year; he fiscation of German property did the OWl Interventionist Scholarship, 1930-1972, has recently been quoted as an "expert" in a feel it could assure the Germans of just and the forthcoming Not to the Swift: The number of right-wing publications. In his what lay in store. Old Isolationists in the Cold War Era. Reason article, "Wishful Thinking is No Defense," Rummel cautioned his readers that he could not present his full argument in a single article, and urged them to seek out his full case in his published books, particularly Peace Endangered. It might therefore profit us to pursue the debate over defense policy and armaments budgets here, by looking at two of Prof. Rummel's most recent works, and present­ ing a brief critique of his views. R.J. Rummel began his academic career in the early 1960s, deeply involved in fac­ tor analysis and other such statistical techniques that were becoming the rage in many of the social sciences, including inter­ national relations. Although it is unusual to see a volume dedicated to a quasi­ governmental institution such as the Na­ tional Science Foundation-the research directions of which have not been totally uninvolved with American foreign policy-Rummel at least was candid when he did so in The Dimensions of Nations (1972), for the NSF had very generously supported his research work during the previous decade. In Understanding Con­ flict and War, he again thanked the NSF as well as the Advanced ~esearch Projects Agency of the Department of Defense (Contract Nos. N00014-67-A-0387-0003 and N00014-67-A-0387-0018), and "gratefully acknowledge[d] their continu­ ingaid." This kind of scholarship-tethered to the federal trough-has, of course, become a way of life in the groves of academe. It is nothing new in history. Every state and every empire has always had a coterie of

May 1978 37 court academicians. Tacitus and Lucian of Move over Mises, Hayek, Rand and can people. Can he give us no historical ex­ Samosata offer us marvelous pictures of Rothbard! ample to illustrate his point? One can give the intellectuals fawning around the I have taken the space to quote the plenty of examples of the reverse situa­ Caesars, and seeking appointments to the above, not because of the pomposity and tion.) imperial academies. But to see in what pretentiousness-though goodness knows The focal point of criticism in Rummel's respects R.J. Rummel fits into this mold, let it is there-but for a different reason. The essay is Henry Kissinger and the policy of us consider his case. most common mistake of book reviewer is detente. It is not merely that Rummel be­ Understanding Conflict and War is to demand that a book be what they believe lieves the United States has not insisted on worth scanning as an example of what C. it should, rather than what te author stated the proper safeguards in its efforts at arms Wright Mills used to call the "social was his intention. In Rummel's case, it is control with the Soviet Union; his critique pathology" of academia. Rummel tells us evident that he has promised the reader a is far more fundamental. He is at least ac­ that his work has reached the point where great deal, and the book has to be judged curate in giving the essentials of Kissinger's he linow must deal with the philosophical on those terms. Does he in any way world view: lilt is that hostility, tension, presuppositions, conceptual framework, deliver? overt conflict, and war between adver­ and substantive aspects of field theory" and Apart from his rather turgid, social­ saries are results of unbridled growth in IIcan move to the dominant questions about science style, Rummel's approach at first power and a lack of bonds providing a violence." glance seems almost Aristotelian. Aris- vested interest in peace. Peace equals con­ trolled power and a web of transactions." Rummel will have none of Kissinger's detente: "Detente, then, is a fear of nuclear Rummel simply lurches from war. Fear is its engine. Detente is also a hope and a belief: hope that power can be restrained, and belief that cooperative category to category, all neatly transactions lessen conflict." And, Rummel concludes, IIwhen subjected to computer laid out with numbers, without analysis this equation simply does not hold. Indeed, the computer reveals in detail that arms control has caused a unilateral pulling his ideas together. American reduction while the Soviet Union has driven toward a massive military buildup, quite contrary to detente." One This first volume "deals with man's totle's approach was first to offer a number wonders whether this computer that re­ psychological nature and freedom.... Is of other views on a question, virtually in veals all is the same one the Pentagon was man inherently aggressive? Does he lust for encyclopedic fashion, before giving his using a decade ago when it kept saying that power? Is his perception at the root of con­ own ideas, often a rather subtle synthesis the Vietcong ought to quit because they flict? Most important, does the future lie of what he had touched on earlier. were outgunned-and besides, they should within man's hands?" The same, unfortunately, cannot be said all be dead anyway, according to IIbody Rummel notes that he does IInot bring of Rummel. His book has the encyclopedic counts"! Here, as elsewhere, Rummel is psychology directly to bear here," for this quality, all right, but it never develops simplistically enamored of the trendy social can be done only "after the relevant beyond that point. Certainly he has in­ science methodologies of the 1960s, draw­ sociological, epistemological, ethical and gested a great mass of information, ranging ing a false and misleading IIwisdom" from theoretical problems and aspects of the rom Kant to Eastern thought to recent juggled statistics and computer print-outs. field of man have been considered in future social sciences; but when all is said and In both his book and his Reason article volumes." Along with his two earlier done, there is little evidence that Rummel Rummel acknowledges that we are engaged studies, this book is to be IIperceived as the has digested it into a comprehensive theory primarily in a moral struggle, but then im­ corner of the foundation upon which I in­ of his own. He simply lurches from cate­ mediately chases off to discuss military tend to build a unified speculative­ gory to category, all neatly laid out with responses. But if it is a moral struggle we theoretical-empirical analysis of violence numbers, without pulling the ideas togeth­ fight-particularly as libertarians-it must and war." er. If this cornerstone volume is any in­ be a moral struggle against statism Rummel declares: dication, then Rummel can go on laying everywhere, not merely that of the Com­ blocks forever, with as many additional munist variety. Yet if this also is the case, Future volumes will consider the sociocultural volumes as he is able to churn out, and still Rummel should realize that dwelling on field, the relevant conceptual and substantive nature of inte

38 Libertarian Review There are half a million men and women in prisons around the world for the simple crime of powmiuI---.on disagreeing with their governments. Dds From South Africa to the Soviet Union, c:aalielp free ...... from Brazil to Korea, authoritarian regimes persist in the barbarian practice of jailing, often torturing, of consc:leac:e aU ~ their citizens not for anything they've done, but for what they believe. Ihe...W. These prisoners of conscience have only one hope - that someone outside will care about what is fiappening to them. Amnesty International has helped free over 14,000 political prisoners by marshaling world public.opinion through international letter-writing campaigns. Your pen can become a powerful weapon against repression, injustice and Inhumanity. Join with us today in this important effort. Because if we do not help today's victims, who will help us if we become tomorrow's?

Amnesty International 3618 Sacramento San Francz'sco, 94118 (415) 563-3733 2112 Broadway New York, N. Y. 10023 Prepared by Public Media Center, (212) 787-8906 San Franctsco. (Dues and donations are tax-deductible) earlier "Soviet threats" were indeed exag­ last year, this lead was discussed in Soviet titanium. In 1964 we had a plane similar in gerated: that the "missile gap" of the late and American naval journals, and even performance to it, the YF-12A, but it was 1950s and early 1960s was in reality a made the newspapers. Perhaps it is time never produced because we saw no need for myth-that we were in the lead even Rummel fed this data into his computer. a high altitude interceptor, given our ad­ then-or that, yes, NATO was for years in Soviet ground forces remain large. Given vanced tactics. (The Soviets still lack look­ an offensive strike posture against a Soviet their problem with China, and the internal down radar, which appears beyond their defense. But these facts-and many more discontent within their empire-including technological capacity at present and for like them-are always acknowledged Russia itself-this is unlikely to change. some years to come.) As Congressman without ever asking whether the Soviet While American scholars have demon­ Carr-a pilot and member of the Armed buildup was in any way a response to our strated the low morale in the U.S. military, Services Committee-concluded of the initiatives. Listening to our supposed "ex­ Sovietologists like Prof. Robert Wesson Foxbat: "As a reconnaissance aircraft it is perts," we would have to believe that in the would appear to suggest our military's very good, but we have had better for a 1960s the Russians were apparently able to morale is high by comparison with Russian decade. As an interceptor, it is obsolete and disguise the extent to which they were forces. This opinion is echoed by recent inadequate. As a low-altitude penetration woefully behind us. defectors. aircraft, it is poor. And as a demonstration Yet one wonders if the Pentagon aided a In the light of such recent revelations, of technology it calls into serious question bit on this, since it would have been a even the American military is now strange­ the Pentagon's claims of mushrooming severe blow to American military budgets ly silent when it comes to "warning" us of Soviet military gains.... [Elither of our if it had been admitted how really far ahead Russian air superiority. The Foxbat is a two newer Air Force fighters can out­ we were. As a guide to the above, and as a prime example. In 1973, the Air Force Sec­ climb, out-accelerate, out-turn, out-see, corrective to Rummel, the interested reader retary cautioned that the Soviet Foxbat was out-hide and out-shoot the Foxbat by might consult E.M. Bottom, The Balance of "the best interceptor in the world today margins so wide that our expected kill-ratio Terror (1971); A.M. Cos (a former CIA ... and has a highly capable avionics and advantage is almost incalculable. No U.S. agent), The Dynamics of Detente (1976); missile system." Congressman Robert Carr F-IS or F-16 pilot need fear the Foxbat and Robert Kaiser, Russia (1976). commented that "the Foxbat has been pre- unless he is asleep, radically outnumbered or an utter boob." Which leads us finally to the whole ques­ tions of missiles, a primary factor in a first-strike nuclear war, which Rummel and If it is a moral struggle we fight other Cold Warriors see as the goal of Soviet strategy. First of all, no one can deny that the Russians have been building -particularly as libertarians-it huge rockets, and quite a number of them. The real question is, what does this all must be a moral struggle against mean? How should we interpret this? To do so, we must consider certain facts behind any strategy involving missiles-nuclear or statism everywhere, not merely otherwise. The problem of an aimed nuclear missile is not unlike that involved in firing a gun. that of the Communist variety. The bullet does the lethal damage, but it re­ quires a powder charge and a gun with a barrel that is coordinated to a sight, so that The claims of the new Cold Warriors to sented to the American people as a machine the bullet goes precisely where one wishes the contrary notwithstanding, the which can blow our best combat aircraft it to. The missile's warhead (nuclear or American position remains qualitatively out of the sky." otherwise) is similar to a bullet. The rocket superior in virtually every area, and even In 1976, of course, a defector to Japan in which carries it is much like the powder quantitatively superior in several. A few a Foxbat gave us a chance to examine these charge which pushes the bullet. Finally, the examples will have to suffice here. dire warnings from the military. As· we missile needs a guidance system that will The Russian navy, despite its growth shall see below, the Foxbat is terribly in­ direct it accurately to the target as the bar­ since the humiliation inflicted upon it by ferior. But what of the secretary's 1973 rel and sight on a gun do the bullet. the United States in the 1962 missile crisis, statement? Only two possibilities exist. With the above analogy in mind, let us is still clearly second to our own, without One is that, despite the knowledgeable consider for a moment the cruise missile. adding in NATO. Their only large carrier tone, our intelligence was incredibly bad. I No one, to my knowledge, denies that the is less than half the size of our largest ships. think that was not the case. The second cruise missile puts the United States years Soviet nuclear submarines are so noisy possibility is that we were deliberately lied ahead of the Russians. (The politics of the (gearing down the turbine) that our bottom to. I believe that was the case-as has been IIcruise missile" would make an interesting sonar can read the signature of each in­ so repeatedly demonstrated in this century, piece by itself. In 1975, data on the cruise dividual sub. Thus we know where vir­ especially in the last several decades. If missile was leaked to shoot down the SALT tually all Soviet nuclear subs are (by num­ there is a moral crisis in this society, those talks; in 1976, one service leaked more ber) at all times, because they must cross who have lied repeatedly might consider data, thereby cutting down the B-1 appro­ shallow, monitored exits to blue water. their part in creating such a situation. priation-a "Chicago" economist who And they know where virtually none of The Foxbat was barely equal to our 1S­ studies such items confided to me that the ours are. In a confrontation, we would im­ year-old planes. It used vacuum tubes cut was about $10 billion-and in 1977 this mediately wipe out their subs. During the rather than transistors, steel rather than was done again, finishing off the B-1 once

40 Libertarian Review and for all.) during the last few years may help us to What is it that makes the American understand better the present situation. "cruise" such a fearful weapon? It opens up With our manned bombers, the United a new strategy. How is that possible? Both States very early had a massive lead in we and the Russians have nuclear ability to deliver weapons against an warheads. The rocket itself is not all that enemy. While we were always ahead, there advanced beyond the German "buzz came to be a time, by the late 1960s, when bomb" of World War II fame. The dif­ massive retaliation and mutual assured ference is in the guidance system. The buzz destruction (MAD) prevailed. The number bomb used a small rotor in the nose acting of American rockets and warheads has for as a crude odometer; when it had made so a long time been equal to such a retaliation. many revolutions the motor cut off and the What now changed, while maintaining the bomb plunged earthward. U.S. techno­ rather stable number of American rockets logical ability today is such that we have and warheads, was that our guidance sys­ miniaturized a sophisticated electronic tems began to move far in advance of the guidance system into the small cruise, Soviets. (A hit within twenty yards of a advanced type. European papers discussed which makes it possible to launch it ac­ hardened site is needed to take out the mis­ its implications, and the Herald-Tribune curately from all sorts of places. The sile there, while the Soviet inaccuracy was (June 4, 1977) commented that this system is given a roadmap provided from such as to preclude any such guarantee). development was of far graver concern to earlier satellite photos. Flying at low levels, Given their primitive technology, the the Russians than the potent cruise missile beneath radar, it can take evasive tactics Russians developed about the only tactic as a future system, for it was immediate and return to course, finally launching a open to them: larger numbers of huge mis­ and of far-reaching impact. multi-targeted series of warheads. siles with enormous warheads. These may Some years ago, I would have concluded kill millions with their great inaccuracy, that Rummel and others like him were sim­ but they simply will not take out hardened ply mistaken in their analyses. But after sites; only by accident will they come that listening to their claims, and witnessing close. This is a very good point of reference their selectivity and continual omissions for the layman to use in evaluating a sup­ year after year, one begins to doubt their posedly honest expert on the arms ques­ objectivity and integrity. tion. In stressing the enormous "throw The fact of the matter is that these are ex­ weight" of Russian missiles, does the writer tremely dangerous times, and the milita­ mention that this is actually an admission rists in both the United States and the of weakness? Or does he try to scare the Soviet Union merely increase the threats of reader into believing that "throw weight" is violence and war that we face. Each side something the Russians have which we do claims to be responding to initiatives from not? the other side; yet one must admit that the To imply the latter is a dead giveaway of historical evidence points to far more in the fundamental intellectual dishonesty. Just as way of an interventionist tradition on the in the case of the Foxbat, if the United part of American foreign policy than in States believed such huge vehicles and that of the Soviet Union. We need find warheads desirable, we certainly have the neither side innocent of the sins of empire, technological ability to produce them. however. Clearly, we see them of little strategic Unfolding events offer us an unparalled value. One does not use a meataxe for a opportunity today to replace the current heart operation. "internationalist-interventionist" paradigm The key point, of which our expert, Prof. Here again, the analogy with the gun is that has dominated and confused 20th cen­ Rummel, certainly ought to be aware, is appropriate. One does not use an elephant tury thinking on defense and foregin policy that a first-strike strategy cannot safely be gun to kill a rabbit. The poorer a shot one matters in this country. Libertarians are undertaken unless the country involved is, the more one may need either a large particularly well equipped to lead such a has extremely accurate guided missiles that caliber or a shotgun. But neither of these is rethinking of foreign policy issues, for they can be relied upon to get through and im­ a substitute for accuracy, and less effective are the heirs to an earlier, grand tradition mediately take out the other side's if the animal is in his lair (hardened site). of opposition to imperialism, militarism weaponry before they can launch any of There is a misconception that the United and empire. In the long run, it may be their own weapons. States will have a first-strike capacility libertarians alone who have the ability to Whether the Soviet Union would like to only when the cruise is fully operative and arrive at creative solutions which lie bury us, and move to a first-strike strategy widely dispersed. That is simply not true. beyond the sterile alternatives continually at this time, is really beside the point. They Certainly it will make such a strategy even espoused by Cold War liberals and na­ simply do not have the technology to do more assured, but the guidance systems on tionalistic conservatives alike. • so, nor is there any indication as to when in U. S. high altitude missiles already give this the future they might have it. Quite apart nation the capability to pursue this from the accurate guidance systems needed strategy. This reality makes the present William Marina is professor of business, for such a strategy, even the huge Russian world situation such an unstable one. For communication and history at Florida rockets are rather unsophisticated series of example, although hardly mentioned in Atlantic University. He has written and tied-together engines. this country, the Pentagon this summer taught on the subject of foreign and Tracing the behavior of the two powers replaced warheads in Europe with anew, military policy for over a decade.

May 1978 41 against state power is greater than ever particular, exempt church property stands Duorganizing before. A widely distributed booklet of out as a juicy plum just waiting to be strategies and tactics might do much to plucked by the state. After all, says Lewolt, the antitax 1novernent direct the taxpayer's incoherent rage into "with assets that run well over $100 billion productive channels-i.e., toward the in the United States alone, many churches by Tom G. Palmer reduction of government power. One can hardly plead poverty." Further, if chur­ would expect the National Taxpayers ches were to lose their "tax benefits" (I) How to Fight Property Taxes, by Dan Union, run by libertarians, to take the lead "[ t]hey would have to stop spending money Lewolt. National Taxpayers Union, 34 pp., in supplying this urgent need. One would on unnecessary church structures and begin $2.00. be wrong. to concentrate their plans on community The NTU has published a booklet pur­ usefulness and spiritual g.oals" (emphasis Taxes are skyrocketing. Widespread· and porting to fill this gap, misleadingly en­ added). In short, the argument for looting popular tax strikes have flared up in titled How to Fight Property Taxes. But the one of the few institutions which are large­ Illinois, Oregon, Ohio, California, and political slant of the author is hardly liber­ ly free of political control amounts to an other states. Popular sentiment about taxes tarian or radical; it is an apologia for appeal to malicious envy: "they can hardly consists largely of an incoherent rage establishment statism. One should not plead poverty," they should be forced to against governments which continue to ex­ blame Lewolt, the author, for not being a act in the manner which Lewolt feels prop­ pand their power at the expense of their libertarian; that would hardly be just. er, and they should be made to suffer like productive citizens. The average property However, the libertarians at the National the rest of us. owner, in most communities, feels that his Taxpayers Union should be ashamed for Lewolt tries to escape the charge that tax­ back is to the wall; he is faced with a future putting their sanction on a set of policy ation may lead to government control of that bodes only greater and greater preda­ prescriptions which are so shockingly religion (as it has over so many other social tion upon his property and earned income. statist. institutions) by referring to taxes imposed This is the kind of sentiment that can The book does contain one merit. Nine on churches as "user fees" for government­ give birth to great social change. It is, in pages of the book are devoted to a com­ provided services like fire and police pro­ particular, a prime opportunity for liber­ monsensical discussion of the mechanics of tection. He even goes so far as to state that tarians-the only advocates of a funda­ appealing one's property value assessment. this would "establish a principle for keep­ mental philosophical change, advocates of This useful information, available from ing state control of religious activity at a the rights of the peaceful property owner any walk-in tax advisor, hardly offsets the minimum. If political authorities in the against his rulers. The property owner of great damage which this book may do to future were to seek to favor or destroy any today is the serf of the modern centralized the future of the antitax movement. religion through taxation, the 'user pays' state. He is condemned to toil in order to Lewolt's political prescriptions for concept would keep them in bounds." This pay enormous taxes for the privilege of fighting property taxes include: taxation of is very wrong-headed. If an individual or owning property which he purchased or church property and elimination of exempt group is unable to refuse a service, then it is transformed by his own labor. In return for status for other groups; increases in the in­ not a service, and the involuntary charge this serfdom, the small property owner is come and sales taxes; increases in the made for it is not a fee. It is robbery. I manipulated and controlled; his children budgets of tax collection agencies so that might also mention in passing that the are kidnapped and taken to state-run "edu­ they may "more equitably" gather in the American state has recently given us a clear cational centers," where their values are loot; salary increases and more govern­ demonstration of its willingness to use its warped and their minds are wasted; he ment-financed training for the "underpaid" power to persecute unpopular and un­ must pay for inefficient "services" which he (!) and unprofessional assessors; and adop­ defended religious minorities, namely the has no power to refuse; he must support an tion of the view that "you are not out to eccentric "Moonies," who are presently be­ every-burgeoning and callous bureaucracy defeat the system- you are out to get the ing deported or incarcerated (and "de­ which serves only its own interests-when people who make it run so badly." programmed") for their beliefs. Taxation of it is not service the interests of the mighty I would have expected this sort of thing church property would be a grave blow to and powerful. While the feudal serf was from John Gardner's Common Cause, but the principle of separation of church and forced to relinquish one-quarter of his pro­ not from a libertarian antitax group like state, and hence to the notion that the state duce to his lord, the modern serf must hand NTU. Of course, had I considered NTU's should not automatically exercise control over nearly half of his income to the new previous publication of Robert Poole's Cut over any institution in society. class of rulers and bureaucrats. Local Taxes (reviewed by this author in the Perhaps the most outrageous of the ex­ While all productive members of society January-February 1977 LR), a manual in­ hortations which Lewolt offers us concerns (and many who are not productive-e.g., tended for use by bureaucrats in defusing those justifiably hated agents of state poor people forced onto welfare by govern­ antitax sentiment, I might not have been so power, the tax assessor and the tax collec­ ment regulations) are victims of the preda­ horrified. However, their present release tion agencies. Approvingly citing Senator tion of the state, few are as susceptible to succeeds in the difficult task of making Edmund Muskie, Lewolt declares that "the truly revolutionary sentiment as the op­ Poole's work read, in comparison, like big problem of property tax administration pressed home owner, one of the largest Lysander Spooner's fire-breathing No is that most assessors aren't professionals. segments of American society. As the Treason. They tend to be underpaid and lack train­ political power of the state increases, he Lewolt's book reads like a semi­ ing.... Localities must be willing to invest sees his own economic power to determine egalitarian tract trying to cash in on an in­ more of their resources to guarantee effi­ the course of his life decrease. The connec­ coherent but essentially libertarian hatred cient assessments.... If assessors received tion between cause and effect is too ob­ of taxation. "[O]ne of the causes of soaring more pay and better training, they could vious to be overlooked. property taxes," we are told, "is the in­ serve in a larger role as custodians of a The need, then, for organizational tools creasing amount of property exempted, or property information system." Finally, the to create an effective grass-roots movement excused from paying, property taxes." In angry taxpayer is told: "When arguing for

42 Libertarian Review reform in front of local policy making bodies, ask for more aaequate funding of property tax administration, because re­ form is futile without it." In other words, the ripped-off taxpayers must stand up as champions of the very men who take the money out of their pockets, although they are employees of someone else. I hardly think that creation of a more efficient IRS will lead to a freer society. The American revolutionary leaders, most of whom were Now disgruntled taxpayers fired by the liber­ tarian ideology of Cato's Letters, had a dif­ AvaIlable: ferent attitude toward the tax man. Anyone who accepted the post of tax collector had Adam Smith: his house literally torn down by angry The Man and His Works citizens. No petitions demanding higher shares of the loot for tax collectors were By E. G. West sent to King George. 1776 was a year of momentous events, including publication of The Wealth Many of these-unlibertarian sentiments of Nations-the book that launched the movement for economic liberty. would not be so objectionable if, in fact, we Here is a brisk look at the author of that epic, written for the layman and were "not out to defeat the system," but student. Hardcover $6.95, Paperback $1:45. rather to "get the people who make it run so badly." However, the libertarians at The Wisdom of Adam Smith NTU should be awake enough to realize that this sentiment is hardly in accord with Adam Smith may have been the first great economist, but he was no a libertarian worldview. When states (or dismal scientist. He was instead a man of great philosophical and historical anyone else) rob people, the act is a crime. learning, and his literary style was widely admired. ,The Wisdom of Adam Replacing one gang of administrators or Smith brings together his most incisive and eloquent observations on subjects beneficiaries with another is hardly an im­ ranging from political and economic history to morals, philosophy, art, portant change from a libertarian perspec­ education, war and the American colonies. Compiled by British scriptwriter tive. While a booklet aimed at the angry and playwright John Haggarty, edited and with an introduction by Benjamin taxpayer who has decided that "it is time to A. Rogge. Hardcover $7.95, Paperback $1.95. do something" need not set out the entire libertarian dialectic, it surely should not mislead him into channeling his energies in­ The Theory of Moral Sentiments to a call for taxing "the other guy." The By Adam Smith point of a taxpayers union, national or Adam Smith's first book will startle those who think capitalists are purely otherwise, is to reduce or abolish taxes and selfish, for Smith fully understood that liberty must be based in a moral government controls whenever one can. order. Dr. E. G. West, who writes the introduction, asserts that Ilif The Wealth Extension of taxation to others in order to of Nations had never been written, this previous work would have earned force them to shoulder "their burden" is for him a prominent place in intellectual history." The Theory of Moral hardly appropriate advice for angry tax­ Sentiments was greeted with rapturous praise in its own day. Smith's friend payers who are sincerely interested in tax David Hume wrote to him from London soon after the publication, telling reduction and are susceptible to libertarian him that lithe public seem disposed to applaud it extremely." The Ilmob of influence. literati," Hume added, Il beginning to be very loud in its praise." James Tobin, one of the heroic leaders of are the ongoing tax strike in Chicago, was Hardcover $9.95, Softcover $2.95. asked to write a foreword to the book. He obviously had not seen the manuscript to which his stirring prose wold be prefixed, LIbe~Classl(S for every sentence of Mr. Tobin's introduc­ LtbertyPtPss tion contradicts the material which follows. We pay postage on prepaid orders. How to Fight Property Taxes is, quite To order these books, or for a copy seriously, a grave threat to the future of the of our catalog, write: antitax movement, for it will, if dis­ LibertyPress/LibertyClassics tributed, channel genuinely antigovern­ 7440 North Shadeland, Dept. F7 ment feelings into a disastrous desire to Indianapolis, Indiana 46250 create a "more equitable" tax system-ione in which someone else pays the taxes.•

Tom G. Palmer is former head of Young Libertarian Alliance and a frequent con­ tributor to LR.

May 1978 43 Expectations tllllloulleillg a N@UJ "uarterly Journal and pluralism by Lawrence H. White 01 Pab"e Polley Capital, Expectations, and the Market P"bl'Il"@" by Process, by Ludwig Lachmann. Sheed, Andrews and McMeel, 352 pp., $12 cloth, The Heritage Pou.datl". $4.95 paper.

Professor Ludwig M. Lachmann, who has spent the past two years as visiting pro­ PoRe)! Review fessor of economics at New York Universi­ ty, has now departed the American scene, returning to his home in Johannesburg, South Africa. But before leaving he has given us a compact and indelible record of his remarkably comprehensive tastes. Summer 1977: ROBERT MOSS (The Economist) The Specter of Eurocom- Lachmann's writings over the past 40 • munism; KENNETH W. CLARKSON &. ROGER E. MEINERS (The Law and 1 years have been primarily critical. With a Economics Center, The University of Miami) The Spurious Increase in the Unemployment Rates; PETER BAUER &. JOHN O'SULLIVAN (The London viewpoint unique in the profession and School of Econolnics and The Daily Telegraph) Ordering the World with an erudition all too rare, he has ex­ About: the NIEO; JOHN HOWARD (Rockford College) The Responsibility amined the theoretical and methodological of College Trustees; STEPHEN HASELER (City of London Polytechnic) Visas underpinnings of modern economic doc­ for Soviet "Trade Unionists"?; DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN (U.S. Senate) trines (neoclassical, neo-Ricardian, "neo­ The Most Important Decision-Making Process; ROBERT L. SCHUETTINGER Austrian") to point out how shaky and (Policy Review) The New Foreign Policy Network; ERNEST VAN DEN HAAG how delicately poised are their doctrinal (The New School for Social Research) A Note on the Sentencing of edifices. Lachmann chooses to call his own Criminals. viewpoint IIAustrian," but this label is misleadingly narrow, for it is apt to conceal the breadth of his intellectual roots and in­ terests from the reader. Fall 1977: WALTER E. WILLIAMS (Temple University) Government Sanc- To those schooled in the ultratechnical, 2• tioned Restraints That Reduce Economic Opportunities for Minorities; formalist approach to economics, the es­ COLIN s. GRAY (The Hudson Institute) The End of SALT? U.S.-U.S.S.R. says in this collection may seem not only Negotiations; DANIEL ORR· (University of California, San Diego) Toward broad in scope but diffuse. Lachmann him­ Necessary Reform of Social Security; ROBERT CONQUEST (The HDOver self has commented that the current state of Institution, Stanford University) Why the Soviet Elite is Different from Us; economics is one in which lithe narrower CHARLES LONGSTREET WELTNER (Atlanta Judicial Circuit) The Model the range of one's speciality the higher the Cities: A Sobering Scorecard; JULIAN AMERY, M.P. (House 0/ Commons) The Crisis in Southern Africa. reputation one is able to enjoy." His con­ stant and scrupulous attention to methodo­ logical matters alone is enough to mark him a heretic-even a heathen-in the brotherhood of the economics profession. Winter 1978: ERNEST w. LEFEVER (Ethics and Public Policy Center, Walter E. Grinder' extended introduction 3 • Georgetown University) The Trivialization of Human Rights; T.E. UTLEY to the volume does a fine job in placing 17 (The Daily Telegraph) A Reappraisal of the Human Rights Doctrine; previously-published essays (two newly R. DAVID RANSON (H.C. Wainwright and Co.) Toward A Broader Picture translated) into perspective. Grinder ac­ of the Budget Deficit; ALFRED E. KAHN. (Civil Aeronautics Board) Airline curately identifies Lachmann's "total devo­ Deregulation: Getting From Here to There; E.G. WEST (Carleton Univer­ sity) Tuition Tax Credit Proposals: An Economic Analysis of the 1978 tion to subjectivism in economics" as his Packwood/ Moynihan Bill; KENNETH L. ADELMAN (Stanford Research In­ distinguishing characteristic as an econo­ stitute) The Runner Stumbles: Carter's Foreign Policy in the Year One. mist, and notes that lithe evolution of his understanding and application of subjec­ tive concepts over the past four decades is a coordinating theme for these otherwise disparate essays and lectures." Within the broader theme of the subjec­ tivist approach to economic issues, four Subscriptions: $12 for one year, $21 for two years and $30 for three years; noteworthy lines of thought run through add $5 a year for foreign air-speeded delivery. these essays: 1) an advocacy of the Policy Review, 513 CSt., N.E. Washington, D.C. 20002 (202 546 4400). Weberian verstehende method as a theoretical method of economics; 2) an em­ phasis on the constantly changing, social

44 Libertarian Review pattern of knowledge; 3) an effort to extend Science," the finest essay in the volume, subjectivism from the tastes of economic struggles heroically with a problem that agents to their expectations, or anticipa­ generations of economists have swept un­ tions of future states of affairs; and 4) a der the rug of theoretical abstraction. theoretical pluralism which culminates in Although elsewhere he has caused some institutionalism. confusion by insisting that expectations I have dealt with Lachmann's methodo­ "must be regarded as autonomous, as logical views in my monograph Method­ autonomous as human preferences are," ology of the Austrian School. Here it need here he clearly distinguishes between the only be added that for Lachmann, unlike subjectivism of preference and the sub­ Israel M. Kirzner, Verstehen is a method jectivism of expectation. He notes that ex­ broader in compass than praxeology. pectations "are on a somewhat different Lachmann emphasizes the constantly plane, as they are, while wants and re­ changing pattern of knowledge in his intro'­ sources are not, largely the result of the ex­ ductory essay, "Austrian Economics in the perience of economic processes." Present Crisis of Economic Thought," new­ Nonetheless, expectations of future events ly penned for this collection. In grappling are not uniquely determined by past ex­ with the issues in capital theory raised by perience, for different people-particularly the neo-Ricardian challenge to neoclassical entrepreneurs-may interpret the same re­ orthodoxy, Lachmann emphasizes the ka­ cent history differently and form different leidoscopic nature of the capital structure expectations as a result. of an economy. With one twist of events, a An economic model that specifies expec­ new set of expectations emerges, a new pat­ tations as a function of the past, actions as tern of prices prevails, and "entrepreneurs a function of expectations, and the future have to reshuffle capital combinations." as a function of actions, reduces to a model Dissenting from the orthodox preoccupa­ in which the future is simply a function of Ludwig Lachmann tion with equilibrium states, he views the the past. A model that leaves indeterminate pretation, and believe Austrian business cycle theory, as developed by Mises and Hayek (with perhaps some refinements), fully capable of explaining the Great Depression. There are, however, limits to Lach­ mann's pluralism: At least he is willing to brand inadmissible any macroeconomic theory not founded on individual deci­ sions, and to declare that in some contexts "equilibrium concepts hinder rather than promote understanding." He is less than sufficiently discriminating, however, when he evaluates the compatability of "Culti­ vated Growth and the Market Economy," market economy "as a continuous process, the reVISIon of prior expectations cannot and when he casts about for an explanation in the course of which the knowledge progress beyond day zero. of "Causes and Consequences of the Infla­ possessed by some participants becomes What above has been called "theoretical tion of Our Time." In the former address he diffused to many, while new knowledge is pluralism" is the methodological position takes a rather-tao-sanguine view of the acquired by some, and some earlier knowl­ that no single body of theory (Austrianism usefulness of Prof. Wassily Leontief's edge becomes obsolete." included) can be adequate to all situations. input-output analysis for indicative plan­ The subjectivism of all expectations Now, we might agree with Lachmann that ning. In the latter essay he offers a means, for this author, that the diffusion of theoretical hubris is indisputably dan­ wholeheartedly institutionalist account of knowledge involves "a set of forces the in­ gerous. But where theoretical pluralism contemporary inflation. teraction of which yields no determinate might lead us is no less clear. Lachmann of­ Disagreement with Lachmann over these outcome." Many students of Lachmann's fers, for example, the view that "booms and other points, however, should not be writings have concluded that in his mind may collapse and depressions come to an allowed to eclipse one's sheer delight over no determinate dynamic economic theory, end, for all sorts of reasons" and therefore the critical brilliance he has displayed projecting the real repercussions of a a single theoretical model must "fail to give throughout his long career. He has taught market disturbance, is admissible. Toward an adequate picture of the range of analyt­ us much and has provided invaluable this "nihilistic" interpretation of his views ical tools required to cope with these baf­ weapons for the contests over ideas of the Lachmann exhibits some affinity and yet fling complexities." In particular, he finds present day and for contests yet to come. some reservation. the Austrian theory of industrial fluctua­ Although the weapons Lachmann forges The tension in Lachmann's thoughts on tions adequate only to the Panics of the must be handled with care, that is precisely the possible scope for a dynamic market 19th century, while endorsing the Keyne­ because they are so sharp. • theory grows out of his concern for the sian interpretation of the 1929 crash as "an elusive nature of expectations. "The Role of underconsurn.ption situation." Most Aus­ Lawrence H. White is a graduate student in Expectations in Economics as a Social trians disagree strongly with this inter- economics at UCLA.

May 1978 45 OEHILR2, Box 2586, Tallahassee, FL 32304. Classified UNTIL NOW, NO AUTHOR HAS I DARED TO CHALLENGE THIS ASPECT OF YOUR SELF-DESTRUCTIVE BELIEFS. Dr. Walter Block demonstrates how you pay a burdensome economic and emotional price by not defending such victims as the CLASSIFIED ADVERTISEMENTS are accepted at the discretion of the publisher of Liber­ pimp, prostitute, drug pusher, slanderer, tarian Review. Basic rate: 10 cents per word (minimum $3); six or more insertions: 10 per­ slumlord, profiteer, loan shark and scab. cent discount; 12 or more insertions: 20 percent discount. Payment must accompany Now his book, "Defending the Undefend­ order. Address: Classified Ad Department, Libertarian Review, 1620 Montgomery Street, able," has itself become a victim. 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May 1978 47 Announcing the libertarian movement's first magazine of events.

Announcing the new Libertarian Review.

What makes a political movement partments. In our new format with its Get in on the excitement­ successful? sharp, modern graphics. Many things, of course, but success­ As for coming issues, you can look from the beginning. ful political movements have one thing forward to provocative essays on the in common: each has its independent. supression of political ideas in Amer­ The new LR will soon be in the fore­ respected publica'tion devoted to events ica, the decline of New York City, por­ front of the most exciting intellectual­ and issues. nography and the law, American for­ political movement in two centuries. As Now the libertarian movement has eign policy, the "energy crisis," the the first and only libertarian magazine such a publication: the new Libertarian libertarian movement and many more. of events, we'll be shaking things up Review. Plus regular columns and features like issue after issue-both inside and out­ "Crosscurrents" and "Washington side the libertarian movement. The story behind the new LR. Watch," hard-hitting editorials, and Here's your invitation to get in on the crisp, in-depth reviews ofbooks and the action-by becoming a charter sub­ The libertarian movement desperate­ arts. scriber to the new Libertarian Review. ly needed a publication focused op LR will continue to boast a roster of (Already a subscriber? Then renew events. A magazine that would subject contributors that includes the top now, so you'll be sure not to miss a sing­ national and international develop­ names of libertarianism. People like gle thought-provoking issue.) Subscribe ments to careful. probing libertarian Murray N. Rothbard, Roger MacBride, now and get 12 monthly issues for $15. analysis. Ralph Raico, Joan Kennedy Taylor, Your satisfaction is guaranteed. If we The new LR will be precisely that. It Walter Grinder'and Earl Ravenal and ever let you down, just tell us and we'll will be a magazine that consistently many others. send you a prompt refund for the bal­ comes to grips with the key issues ofour As always, LR guarantees to aggra­ ance ofyour subscription. time. A magazine willing tOjight for in­ vate, stimulate and infuriate. It will The new Libertarian Review will be dividualliberty. A magazine that serves raise questions you've wondered about charting the course of America's sec­ as a forum for lively debate, thoughtful for years-and some you'd never dream ond libertarian revolution. Don't get commentary, fresh ideas, and occasion­ of considering. It may challenge many left behind. Join us today. . al whimsy. of your most firmly held beliefs. But­ After all, the debut of the first liber­ and this is a promise-it will never bore tarian magazine of events is something What you'll find in our pages. you. ofan event in itself. Of course, LR will continue to pro­ Use this coupon to subscribe or rene.»,. ~r.vou prefer not to cut the page, please supp(V thefollowing infor­ vide first-rate coverage of the liber­ mation on a plain sheet ofpaper. Intlude your old mailing label ((you are renewing your subscription. tarian movement itself. Our pages will contain colorful, on-the-scene reports :.------1"1 [e-r-I-ar-I'-a-nb-,;Je['~; :2;::o:g:m:;S~ I of its activities, its organizations, its I~ ".~ ~IW, .. h.. .,! UU! II I in San Francisco, CA 941111 strategies and its people. Llbt'rb,rU'RRt'nt'"~ 1 e~citement But the new LR will be far more than I, Yes! I want to be in on all the of the libertarian 1 just another "movement" publication. 1 C.rter'. Energy 6'r'F\, movement's first magazine ofevents. I I ~o,,::=...rucr1PU-, ~~\, 0 Start my subscription (12 monthly issues) to the new LR today. I By systematically translating principles 1 ')"'" ~ , , hl(\...•· ~.- 0 Renew my present subscription for another 12 monthly issues. • into practice, we will bring libertarian­ 1 cti ',~{P' 1 ism to the real world, and the real world .;);~ :;~:~~e:J~:;;~~~~:.,~r~o::';~1;:;:~ra~~~;t~:.~e:~~~::~ to libertarianism. :1 .- -.! I This, editorial philosophy, this ani­ Ifull refund for all undelivered issues. • mating spirit, is reflected in the issue IName I you're reading right now. In timely, rel­ ; I • I: ;":;.. ~;. JAddress I evant articles. In the columns and de- I ~- .._-' - City State ' Zip 7. L..- .'•• •_------_ ..