The Crash of '97:

J_an_u_ar:.-y1_99_8 ..:..-V_ol_,1_l,_N_o,_3 $4_,_00 Prelude to Disaster?

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4 Letters Everybody's a critic. 7 Reflections Liberty's editors negotiate with the Secret Service, caddy for the president, shoot BBs at dead pigs, poke around in the vein of a hell-bent American writer, and take the logic of the 9th Circuit Court and run with it. 15 Achieving Liberty What can be done, today, to make the world a freer place? Timothy Virkkala and David F. Nolan rethink. Features 19 The Crash That Wasn't The world's equity markets weathered a "gale of creative destruction." Richard Stroup offers a forecast. 21 The Man Who Would Unseat Whitman Mike Buoncristiano tells what went wrong with the most promising Libertarian Party campaign in years. George Reis, Jo Jorgenson, and Vin Suprynowicz offer additional perspectives. 25 Of Rednecks and Caryatids Pierre Lemieux strikes a balance between the cultures of individualist America and individualist France. 29 Mail from Malawi Richard Rieben finds East Africa more exhausted than exotic. 31 The Fight For Medical Marijuana Paul Armentano chronicles the war. 33 Thirty-four Curious Facts About Marijuana Steve Cason provides a list that is, if not definitive, definitely curious. 38 What Am I Doing Here? Rycke Brown finds herself a martyr to the War on Drugs. 39 Free-Market Money Richard Timberlake explains why the best alter­ native to central banking is not the gold standard, but something freer. 45 For Mises' Sake Tom Palmer wonders: is the Ludwig von Mises Institute . worthy of its namesake? 48 Expectations and the End of Central Banking Roger Garrison and Leland Yeager find the expectations that rule society less rational than do some other economists, including Harry Watson and Ida Waiters. 55 The Devil's Reading List It is fashionable, among literary educators, to deny the existence of "great literature." But, as Stephen Cox shows, even college professors know truly bad writing when they see it. Reviews 61 The Unmaking of an Ideology Jane S. Shaw traces the strange evolution of Robert Heilbroner, worldly philosopher. 63 Epistles from the Edge Thomas Knapp reads the early letters of the God of Gonzo. 64 Master Spy, Mister Liar Richard Kostelanetz doubts that Markus Wolf, late of the East German spy network, is all that honest an autobiographer. 66 A Sewer Runs Through It Brien Bartels finds a hologram of Ayn Rand, an Objectivist anti-hero, and a whole new meaning of "marginal utilities." 67 Booknotes on the Apostle Paul, Vaclav Klaus, farmer Lear, the women of the Bauhaus, fires holy and fires unfriendly, and an end to smoking. 68 Classified Advertising 70 Notes on Contributors January 1998

The Unimportance of Ideas Letters It maybe that Alan Greenspan, J deep within himself, believes in liberty. The question is, does he contribute to it? As chairman of the Federal Reserve Educate This! offered John Galt: economic dictator of Board, Greenspan symbolizes govern­ Lawrence Ludlow (Letters, Novem­ the country. ment control over the economy. He ber 1997) makes a very good point on As chairman of the Federal Reserve exercises and wields government the essential injustice of forcing child­ System, Greenspan continues Paul power. less people to subsidize the education Volker's fight against inflation, thereby As an Objectivist, Greenspan is a pf the children of "breeders" like my making the dollar a safe store of value wonderful symbol of the unimportance ~ife. and me. I agree that education again, igniting the stock market, leaving of ideas. You can be an Objectivist and !sh'aUld be a private business. However, more money in the hands of the produc­ the wielder of enormous political he hysterically exaggerates the real tive, and, through reduced inflation, power over the economy at the same value of our "subsidy." I guarantee that less in the hands of the parasites. time. There is no such thing as a contra­ the "education" a youngster in Califor­ Alan's secret ally, former Goldwater diction. A is not A. nia (or here in Georgia) receives is girl Hillary Clinton, thwarts the liberal Greenspan is not an innocent hardly worth $5,400 a year. In reality, it plan for national health care by appoint­ worker doing a legitimate job in a might be negative dollars. Perhaps the ing the most incompetent person she world where there is no reasonable state should be paying us parents for can find to head the Health Care Task alternative to state employment. He the tort damage they are doing to our Force: Ira Magaziner, whose prior job heads an agency which exerts enor­ children: locking them up and indoctri­ was PR flack for cold fusion! (I'm not mous control over people's lives and nating them with 12 years of statist lies. making this up: see pages 49-52 of property, an agency whose power is Mr. Ludlow, I think the damage being "Cold Fusion" by John R. Huizenga, utterly illegitimate and immoral. For done to the minds of three future citi­ Oxford University Press, 1993.) Her that he should be called to account, not zens is easily worth more than the pal­ efforts are amazingly successful: in celebrated. try $200,000 you will pay in your life! 1994, she single-handedly elects a Paul Grant By the way, Lawrence, please don't Republican House, Senate, and majority Parker, Colo. collect any social security benefits of Governors. Every high-level Republi­ when you get old, because my "hide­ can incumbent is re-elected. The Fusionist Who Came in From ous progeny" would then have to pay Meanwhile, Bill Clinton sells out his the Cold the cost of keeping your parasitic ass . liberal allies, brings theboys home from In his mean-spirited attempt to confortable on it's bedpan. Europe, ends federal welfare, balances make Ludwig von Mises look good by Steve Olivier thebudget, and wins re-election over making F. A. Hayek look bad, Ralph Sugar Hill, Ga. statistCold Warrior and political hack Raico ("Mises and Monarchy," Novem­ Alan Greenspan, Call Your Bob Dole andhis federal bureaucratwife. ber 1997) rhetorically inquires "what Psycho-Epistemologist So ther~ you have it: Hillary is really socialist was ever brought over by" The Road to Serfdom? The answer is Frank Let me see if I've got this straight. Francisco d'Anconia in drag, destroying Meyer. See pg. 98 of The Conservative As head of the commission to preserve the welfare state in plain sight; Bill is Intellectual Movement in America (Basic Social Security, Ayn Rand's disciple Ragnar Danneskjold, sending liberal Books, 1976), where Meyer is para­ Alan Greenspan recommends the ideas to the bottom of the ocean; and forced collectivization of the pensions Alan Greenspan is a John Galt who took phrased as saying that he was deeply of millions of American workers Wesley Mouch's job so he could buy influenced by Hayek when he broke ("Deep-Cover Radical for Capitalism?" time for Objectivism to spread through with communism. Larry Floyd November 1997). the culture from its secret bases in His reason? The American people Orange County, California and Pough­ Sherman Oaks, Calif. want Social Security, and we must post­ keepsie, New York. Hot Date pone its collapse so better ideas have It would make a terrific novel. Before Mr. Harry Browne - who time to work their way through the cul­ Excuse me, I have to go now. I have has yet to mention his data processing ture. In effect, it's "too soon" for a cri­ an appointment to get my epistemology credentials - discourses again ("Arma­ sis, since the intellectual correlation of checked. geddon and the Millennium," Novem­ forces is against us now. Craig Franklin ber 1997) on the possibilities of any His reward? The same job they Santa Barbara, Calif. problems arising just after midnight on

We invite readers to comment on articles that have appeared in the pages of Liberty. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity. All letters are assumed to be intended for publication unless otherwise stated. Succinct, typewrit­ ten letters are preferred. Please include your phone number so that we can verify your identity. Send letters to: Liberty, P.O. Box 1181, Port Townsend, WA98368. Or e-mail usfromourpagesontheWorldWideWeb.at http://www.LibertySoft.comlliberty/ Volume 11, Number 3 January 1998

Thursday, January 1,2000, I ask that he libertarian movement in general. Ran­ tion: out of every aspect of our lives, no find some people with strong business dal O'Toole illustrated this mentality in matter how trivial a step. The approach programming backgrounds and discuss his blip "If a bureaucrat falls in the is gradual but it has worked. the matter with them. woods ..." (November 1997). Mr. Keith Terranova A single industry-wide solution is a O'Toole states that "planners" came New York, N.Y. possibility so slight as to be negligible. closer to "true evil" than even lawyers. Resisting Totalitarianism The reality is the uniqueness of most Lawyering is the most "libertarian" Much as I agree with Gary Alexan­ logic throughout business program­ ofprofessions in modern-day America. der's conclusion ("America's China, ming. Various individuals (such as Itis a profession that arose over 600 China's America," November 1997) that Gerald Weinberg) have written fasci­ hundred years of evolution and truly free trade will help make China freer, his nating books about the unlikelihood of represents private government in an age discussion of genuine human rights programmers using general subrou­ ofstatism. I theorize that one of the rea­ abuses inChina is atbest insensitive. I tines for any large fraction of program­ sons that lawyers are especially hated am reminded ofEugene Lyons's pointed ming. The rule is: If I didn't write it, I today is the very fact that you have to observations: . pay for the service rather than have it ain't gonna use it. In a few sites, here Certain of my colleagues, hav­ and there, this has been gradually provided to you by the nanny state. ing lived in Nazi Germany and changing, a bit at a time, year by year Libertarians shoulp. notbebashing law­ learned to recognize Hitler's meth­ - but the finest programmers don't yers, but should be taking up their ods, have written books exposing wind up in the more conservative insti­ cause. A person has a right to institute the Nazi regime and its intrigues "a civil governmental action" privately on American soil. As far as I am tutions - such as government agencies aware they have not been repri­ (who have generally admitted that they and have the matter heard in court is an manded for not saving the South­ have a snowball's chance in Hell of anachronism from a prior age, and one ern share-croppers instead. No being ready in time), banks, and insu­ that has been hard fought and wonby book reviewer or liberal commenta­ rance companies. Libertarian Freedom Fighters. Itis also tor has sneered at them, "Why interesting to note that most ofthe great must you carry on about concentra­ I don't really know the full, detailed tion camps and political murder in extent of the problem. No one does. As libertarian thinkers and advocates for Germany? What about Sacco and a privately employed programmer of freedom were also attorneys. Vanzetti and Negro lynchings?" It 25 years' experience, I don't know Libertarians who "hate" attorneys is assumed, sensibly, that they hap­ pen to know more about Germany. whether to laugh hysterically or dig a should dig deep and go to their motives. They might find that they But this gracious leeway is hole and pull it in after me. denied to writers hostile to Stalinist Eric C. Sanders have some deep-seeded envy for the Russia and its foreign conspirato­ Sterling Heights, Mich. last remaining rugged individualist rial empire. When they mention fighting for justice in modern day col­ millions of corpses in a Ukrainian Bank Run! lectivist America. famine, they are told off neatly Harry Browne did your readers a William L. Voorhies with a scathing reference to the Okies in California. Should they great disservice with his reflection on Platte Woods, Mo. the Millennium Bug. If the Federal allude to the Soviet purges, they are hit over the head with Mooney Reserve System and any of the 13,000 One Small Step for Gradualism R.W. Bradford ("Strategy Debate," and Billings. Until the Soviet-Nazi communicating banks are not ready for Pact made the procedure a bit awk­ Nov. 1997) asks"if [the Libertarian the millennium, the banking system ward, their indictment of terror in Party] merely asks [people], in a gen­ will be in trouble. When this problem is Soviet Russia was instantly can­ eral way, to join them in an effort to celed out by reference to Nazi ter­ perceived by the general public, deposi­ reduce the size of government" will it ror in Germany. (The Red Decade, tors may want their cash. Will the still be the "Party of Principle"? The LP 1941) banks be closed, or will large amounts could still be the party of principle as The point is twofold. First, the com­ of paper money be issued to payoff long as each legislative proposal it pro­ parisons between u.s. abuses and those depositors? poses moves in the direction of less of China are frequently strained and R. Bruce Hopkins government, no matter how small the implausible. Second, the sensible Cedar Falls, Iowa step. Current American liberals use the response is to "level up" and condemn Lawyers and Liberty nuts and bolts of day-to-day policy to - not minimize - human rights I wish to lodge a generalized com­ advance their goals of forcing govern­ abuses everywhere. plaint against what seems to be a subtle ment into every aspect of our lives, con­ Alexander's discussion of slave anti-lawyer bias that not only per­ servatives mostly likewise. The LP labor camps and Harry Wu is the low meates your magazine but also the tendency should be the opposite direc- point of the article. True, it is difficult ...... to make any precise estimates of the Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation (required by 39 V.S.c. 3685). Title of Publication: Liberty. Publication Number: 002132. Date of fil­ slave labor camp population. But the ing: Oct. 1, 1997. Frequency of Publication: Bimonthly. Number of issues published annually: 6. Annual Subscription price: $19.50. Complete Mailing Address ofKnown Office ofPublication: 1619 Lincoln Street, First Floor, PortTownsend, WA 98368. Complete mailing address of the Headquarters orGen­ history of China's slave labor camps eral Business Office of the Publishers: P.O. Box 1181, Port Townsend, WA 98368. Full name and complete address of the Publisher, Editor, and Assistant Publisher: R.W. Bradford (publisher & editor), Clark Stooksbury (assistant publisher), Liberty Publishing, P.O. Box 1181, Port Townsend, WA 98368. under Mao, and the use of slave labor Owner: Liberty Foundation. Known Bondholders, Mortgages, and OtherSecurity Holders: None. Total Number ofCopies Printed - (average issue during the previous 12 months): 15400; (issue nearest filing date): 16200. Sales through dealers and carriers, street vendors and counter sales - (average): 3171; under Communist regimes in general, (issue nearest filing date): 4607. Mail Subscription - (average): 10052; (issue nearest filing date): 10449. Total Paid and/or Requested - (average): 13223; (issue nearest filing date): 15056. Free Distribution byMail, Carrier, orOther Means - (average): 39; (issue nearest filing date): 40. Free Distribution Outside is alone sufficient for a prima facie case. the Mail-(average): 67; (issue nearest filing date): O. Total Free Distribution - (average): 106; (issue nearest filing date): 40. Total Distribution- (average): 13329; (issue nearest filing date): 15096. Copies Not Distributed: Office use, left over, unaccounted, spoiled after printing- (average): 927; (issue nearest fil­ Wu's works provide a wealth of ing date): 1068. Returns from News Agents - (average): 1044; (issue nearest filing date): 36. Percent Paid and/or Requested CjrculatiOl;·--(averag~):99.2; (issue nearest filing date): 99.8. -Icertify that the statements made by meabove are correct and complete: (signed) ClarkStooksbury (assistant publisher). continued on page 60 Liberty 5 Available inBookstores Now!

"America is a country full ofpeople who feel personal liberty and individual responsibility in their guts. This book puts those guts into words. America is also a country full·of politicians, academics, and self-professed elites who mistrust liberty and responsibility to the bottom of their souls. This book plants a kick in that fundament." -P. J. O'Rourke

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David Boaz's Primer unites history, philosophy, economics, and libertarianism. It shows the and law-spiced with just the right anecdotes-to bring alive a vital historical development of libertarian tradition ofAmerican political thought that deserves to be honored themes-skepticism about power, today in deed as well as in word." individualism, civil society, individual -Richard A. Epstein rights, spontaneous order, free markets, and peace-and reveals "These days, you can'tunderstand politics-and why so many the deep roots libertarianism has in Americans are so unhappy with it-without knowing what our civilization. Aspecial bonus is libertarianism is all about. David Boaz'sclear and often passionate the important and comprehensive book is the place to begin." bibliographical essay-a must for -Jonathan Rauch any serious libertarian scholar or critic of libertarianism. 450 pp. $27.50 300 pp. $23.00 AFree Press Book. Available in Bookstores Now. Iffil~ The process of reform - When politicians vio­ demonstrates not only that a woman can rise through pluck late campaign finance laws, rarely is anyone prosecuted. and luck to a high (albeit not the highest) and honored sta­ Instead, Congress uses the violations as an excuse to pass tion, but moreover that she can do so without relying on so new laws for politicians to violate. -HB much as a scintilla of charm, playfulness or grace. Reno has achieved a status formerly occupied by countless men but Tartar sauce for the goose - The following few women: she has risen to a height demonstrably above story, which emerged from the former Soviet Union, was her level of competence and bids fair to remain there despite conveyed to me by a Russian friend. I interpret it as a para­ repeated episodes of bungling and embarrassment. ble of political correctness, wherever and whenever it occurs. So the packaging of this contretemps is perfection, or at To understand this story, you need to know that the Tartars least as close to perfect as a morality play reduced to CNN invaded Russia during the middle ages and oppressed the headlines can aspire. As for the substance of the fight, truth Russians mightily, so mightily that for centuries they have be told it is no more than the dreary and discrepant arcana of had the saying: "An uninvited guest is worse than a Tartar." which contemporary antitrust procedure is fashioned. Now, in modern times (so goes the story) the Tartars Microsoft wishes to extend the domain of its mastery from grew tired of hearing that proverb, which they regarded, the world's desktops to the cyberstrings connecting them quite understandably, as a relic of chauvinism unworthy of and so has extended first a toe and then a whole leg into the the great Soviet people. They petitioned Moscow for a pond of web browsers. Its current product, Internet Explorer redress of grievances. The Supreme Soviet received their 4, is a wonderful advance on its predecessor and is, I believe, complaint and agreed that the issue was indeed a grave one; better than anything prime competitor Netscape has been something had to be done to re-educate the masses. After able to put up against it. Thus, in this game too Microsoft is lengthy deliberations, orders were given for the proverb to be revised. From now on, people would have to say, "An destined to become the paramount player. That preeminence is speeded up by Microsoft's willingness to include the uninvited guest is better than a Tartar." -SC browser at no additional charge with its Windows operating Shootout at Micro Corral - Americans have system. Can Netscape compete against such an offer? Can always relished in-your-face, don't-tread-on-me confronta­ anyone? Apparently not, and so Ms. Reno pulls on her boots tions. From the Boston Tea Party to the O-K corral to "Go and legal briefs and marches off to battle. ahead and make my day" we have understood that although Who will win? Without any doubt, Microsoft, if not on being slow to anger is a virtue, there are occasions on which this occasion then after a temporary tactical retreat. So the one head-knocking is worth a thousand words. issues at stake are not galvanizing. But who remembers the The current clash between Bill Gates's Microsoft and grounds of combat in Dodge City or the Thrilla in Manilla? Janet Reno's Justice department is not epic, but it is iconic. It Only intellectuals believe that it is ideas that matter most. is Washington (Redmond) v. Washington (D of C), two for­ For reasons hardwired into us (you can't exchange DNA midable competitors for the diamond-studded belt. The one with a syllogism), it is not propositions but rather personali­ represents private enterprise at its most inventive and ties which we find most captivating. And duking it out here dynamic, the other the essence of government as the mecha­ are two of the most intriguing and metaphorically evocative nism par excellence for coercive control. Reno has made a personalities in the public domain, veritably a talisman and career of stolidly enforcing the rules as they have been taliswoman for our times. -LEL handed on to her while Gates has reinvented the rules, first in capturing the high peaks of the operating system world I was a seat-warmerfor Al Gore - Living while its former landlords were dozing, then dancing behe­ in Washington isn't all strawberries and cream, you know. moth IBM silly and off the floor, and now redrawing the Sure, we get lots of free museums and a great subway sys­ computer desktop to his own pattern. tem paid for by the little people, but we do have to live in The disputants also afford us a good look at changes in close proximity to our rulers. I ran into them just the other the contours of the gender frontiers circa the cusp of the 21st night. My significant other and I went to the classic Uptown century. Gates wasn't captain of the high school football theater to see L.A. Confidential. For once we got there quite team, homecoming king, leader of the pack. His haircut is early, and selected excellent seats, front and center in the bal­ rarely seen in the style sections alongside George Clooney's, cony. About ten minutes later two Secret Service men and David Duchovny leads by a comfortable margin in sales approached us and asked if we would mind moving. I said of pin-up posters. Gates is, though, tough and tenacious, a that we had selected our favorite seats, and yes, we would battler who brings to his campaigns verve and imagination. mind moving. They explained that a special guest was com­ For nerds everywhere he is something of a patron saint, ing. I pointed out that there were plenty of empty seats ­ demonstrating that we too can be well-supplied with testos­ like 95 percent of the balcony - but we had gotten there terone and the wherewithal to use it. early and picked the ones we want. Well, you see, it's the Reno also defies, nay obliterates, sexual stereotypes. She vice president, they explained, and this is where he likes to Liberty 7 Volume 11, Number 3 January 1998 sit. Well, you see, it's where we like to sit, and we got here aimed only at the enactment of laws or, more generally, at first, I explained. They persisted. I asked, Are you ordering decisions made by electors in the privacy of the voting us to move? No, no, we can't do that, they said; we're just booth. If the latter is its intent, then by its logic every elected asking if you would mind moving. Well, then, I explained, official who takes any action that he failed to inform voters , we got here first, and we like these seats, and we would of prior to his election would be removed from office. This mind moving (I hope that if they had said it was an order I would, presumably, include all elected officials. (I do not would have had the presence of mind to ask, "What's the recall, for example, that Bill Clinton informed voters prior to controlling legal authority for that order?"). his 1992 election that he intended to appoint an Attorney My companion, who abjures public confrontations, tried General who would authorize a tank assault on a religious to compromise: Give us our money back' and we'll move to community in Texas.) The elimination of elected officials at other seats. A manager arrived and again tried to persuade the moment they first took any action that they hadn't us to move, and we reiterated that compromise. He left, and informed voters of prior to their election would have a salu­ then returned with free passes to a future movie. At that brious effect on the quality of legislation, and of government point we moved to other seats and shortly the Vice President in general. of the United States and Mrs. Gore arrived, happily taking Of course, given the record of judicial activism by the 9th their favorite seats. Knowing the vice president's respect for Circuit Court, I suspect the logic of the ruling will only apply the Constitution, the rule of law, and limited government in to laws that offend the delicate political sensibilities of its a free sociery, I know he'd be just mortified if he knew what judges...... RWB his agents tried to do. For myself, I felt mildly mortified that I sold my rights as a citizen of a republic for a free movie To BB or not to· BB - Is a BB gun a firearm? A pass, until an economist friend pointed out that I didn't sell new study tried to answer that question by shooting BBs into my rights: I stood on my rights and sold my seats. If only I pig eyes. The pigs were ten weeks old and weighed 230 had thought to tell the G-men, "This is a republic, not an pounds before they gave their eyes to science. The pig eyes empire." had roughly the same/size and shape as human eyes. The Meanwhile, I recall that a few months ago Vice President Canadian study, published in the Journal of the International Gore addressed the White House Conference on Character Wound Ballistics Association, tried to find how fast a BB has to Building - and I'm not making that up - and said, "The travel to put out a pig's eye. federal government should never be the baby sitter, the par­ Section 84(1) of Canada's criminal code defines a firearm

ents," but should be "more like the grandparents in the sense as 1/any barreled weapon from which any shot, bullet, or that grandparents perform a nurturing role and are aware of other projectile can be discharged and that is capable of caus­ what parenting was like but no longer exercise that kind of ing serious bodily injury." Eye loss counts as "serious bodily authority." Now it's bad enough that the vice president of injury." So thequestion was whether the common BB guns the United States, a man who holds the job once held by John that many young boys like to play with cross the fuzzy legal Adams and Thomas Jefferson, says the federal government line between firearms and non-firearms. should think of citizens as grandchildren. And it's worse that ,The researchers used a pump-action Model 760 Crossman no RepUblican in Congress challenged his patronizing state­ BB gun. The pump action let them increase the gun's air ment. But what really adds insult to injury is that, I don't pressure and so increase the speed with which the tiny cop­ know about you, but my granddad never asked me to give per-plated steel spheres shot from the barrel. Pump BB guns up my seat at the movies. -DB can propel a BB at well over 600 feet per second. Autopsy reports confirm that BBs moving at this speed can kill an Revolution No.9 - On October 7, the 9th Circuit adult by piercing the chest and then the aorta. Most hand~ Court of Appeals ruled that California's term limits law is guns have muzzle velocities in the range of 1000 ft/sec. void, on grounds that voters who approved it were not told High-powered rifles can have. muzzle velocities that exceed that the measure put a lifetime limit on legislators. 4,000 ft / sec. This marvelous bit of logic could undo a whole raft of The study found that on average a BB had to go 246 ft/ legal mischief. For example, the legislation sec to pierce a cornea. This velocity was the that has been used by environmentalists to nonlinear ballistic threshold. Slower BBs just keep farmers from planting crops in fields Liberty's Editors bounced off the cornea. Piercing BBs cut which have small pools after heavy rains in Reflect through the iris and the lens and lodged the spring would be void if the DB David Boaz against the retina in the back of the eye. A Congresspersons voting on the measure AB Alan Bock similar study in 1994 found that a BB had to had not been informed that it would do so. RWB R.W. Bradford travel about 330 ft/sec to pierce pig skin.The The same fate would await RICO legisla­ HB Harry Browne new Canadian study refutes an earlier claim tion and the Americans with Disabilities SC Stephen Cox (from the October 1996 issue of the Journal of Act - surely no one informed Congress RH Robert Higgs Trauma) that a BB going only 130 ft/sec that the former would apply to anti­ BK Bill Kauffman BtK Bart Kosko could pierce an eye. The new study was con­ abortion demonstrators or that the latter LEL Loren Lomasky sistent with a 1964 study in the American would require a baseball team to use a RR Ralph Raico Journal of Ophthamology that shot BBs at rab­ wheelchair-bound third base coach. JSR James S. Robbins bit eyes. The 1964 study found that a BB had I have only seen press reports of the SS Sandy Shaw to travel about 249 ft/sec to pierce a rabbit TWV decision, so I am not sure whether it is Timothy Virkkala eye. So the piercing thresholds for pig and 8 Liberty Volume 11, Number 3 January 1998

% rabbit eyes differ by little more than 1 • from poverty level. In fact, when members of Congress wax Researchers seem loathe to shoot human corneas despite indignant about the need to tax "the rich," they usually or perhaps because of the gray market in them. A cover mean people with salaries far lower - in the $75,000 range story in the November 2, 1997 issue of the Los Angeles Times - when the robber meets the road. revealed that the LA County coroner's office has cut out and Was the raise outrageous? Maybe not. Was it necessary? sold thousands of corneas from fresh cadavers. The coro­ Probably not. Was it accomplished outrageously? Yes. -AB ner's office did not ask or tell (or pay) the relatives of the deceased in most cases. California's little-known 1983 Fighting fantasies - In the November issue of Coroner's Law makes such morgue-based cornea mills tech­ Liberty, I wrote a Reflection about the FDR Memorial in nically legal. Eye banks resell the corneas at as much as a Washington. But before that Reflection was printed, it devel­ 1,400% markup. oped a disastrous typo. The typo happened in the last word The result is that most BB guns count as legal firearms ­ of the last sentence, which was the word that I planned to at least in Canada. Daisy's Red Ryder lever action BB gun justify the existence of all the other words. seems to be the most common BB gun in the USA. One of the In case you care, the last word was monument, and that study's authors measured the Red Ryder's muzzle velocity word was omitted. and found that it had the mean value of 265 ft/sec. That is 19 Now, I am like everyone else who writes for Liberty, or ft/sec over the mean value for putting out the eyes of pigs any other journal. I respond to the appearance of each new and "thus" for putting out the eyes of humans. issue by dropping everything I am doing so that I can read ... Most gun makers have tried to increase the power of the article that I wrote. There are few greater (or more delu­ their guns. Daisy might want to dampen down the air power sive) pleasures than that of reading one's own printed prose. of their BB guns. This would make BB guns safer and spare But my pleasure on this occasion was short-lived. I arrived them the legal status of firearms. BB guns would survive a soon enough at the intended climax of the Reflection, and 10% loss in muzzle velocity. Heavier BBs would also reduce instead of finding a monument, I found myself staring into a the muzzle velocity. typographical abyss. . The fate of the air gun may depend on such reductions. Immediately I asked myself, "What would Howard BB guns may prove the end of the world for a few hapless Roark do in a case like this?" And just as immediately, an songbirds. But they give many young people their first taste answer came to me: He would blow that Reflection up. In of gun freedom. -BtK The Fountainhead, Roark dynamited a building that he had designed, because it was not built to his specifications. And The wages ofcongress - All right, members of the jury acquitted him. Gazing at my mutilated Reflection, I Congress haven't had a raise in several years. And maybe was sure that if I blew it up, no jury would convict me, $133,673 wasn't all that princely a salary for congressmen; either. after all, the University of California at Irvine just hired a There was only one problem. No matter how hard you new dean of the Graduate School of Management for try, you simply can't blow up a Reflection. $175,000 a year. Congress was criticized when it tried to put the matter of its own pay level into the hands of a suppos­ edly independent commission, and it has been criticized """-t+~ fR~fJt>(N" wWTf C~ILb Pf\OOF LOl1(~ ON AlL ~AND6UN ~ even more when it has voted itself pay raises, which at least showed a semblance of taking responsibility. 1\~t. ~ ,tI\J'1 y, 11,., ,., y' , #J. So a case can be made that the $3,000 stealth pay raise c01"\ E"' 1-/ Elf Yt1t1~ (ME' HEU' 'If) ~ Congress managed to vote itself without so much as men­ 6~N ~A OP~N tr~ tioning the delicate matter during floor debate was some­ 6RAN f4 1H I( what justifiable. Fine. But there are other ways of looking at ~'{ lJO(1Lb'" 1)At1N LaC\( bFF the question of pay for legislators. One way of determining whether the pay for a certain job 4~r~~,N' ~I$ GIJN. is too high, too low, or just about right is to take note of whether there is a plentiful supply of applicants for the job when a position becomes vacant. I haven't noticed that any Congressional seats have gone unfilled. Some incumbents face little or even no opposition when re-election time comes, but that's not because the pay is too low. More often it's because gerrymandering and the tax-subsidized advan­ tages of incumbency make a successful challenge virtually impossible. Truth to tell, hardly anybody runs for Congress for the pay. They run for the power or the opportunity to serve, or some combination of these and other motives. Many mem­ bers of Congress would stay on if the actual salary were cut to zero and other perks were left unchanged. It should also be noted that while other people make more than $136,000 in American society, the salary is far Liberty 9 Volume 11, Number 3 January 1998

That doesn't mean, of course, that there's anything seems to come from that wonderful film, Invasion of the Body wrong with the story of Howard Roark; it just means that Snatchers (I'm talking about the first version of the movie; the there are some problems that·a story cannot solve, at least if second version is just plain silly.) If other people can't agree one insists on interpeting it with complete and naive with me, it's probably because ... they aren't people after all! literalness. They're pods from outer space. Statist pods. They may seem This is true, even when half the fun that one gets out of a friendly, but they're out to steal my soul. story comes from interpreting it that way. When I was in ele­ The role of the last righteous person is a very dramatic mentary school, television seemed to consist largely of west­ role to play. And it's so easy. After all, you don't have to erns. There was something for every taste, from Wyatt Earp worry about an audience; you can make everything up to and Gunsmoke to Davy Crockett and (my personal favorite) suit yourself. But I don't want to reveal too much. Some Spin and Marty. These stories made a big impression. Informal phony pod may be listening. ... -SC surveys indicated that my class was almost entirely composed of future cowboys, future cowgirls, .and other future mon­ Halloweenies - Two decades ago, if someone were archs-of the Wild Frontier. Unfortunately, the market for cow­ aiming to satirize, say, the World Council of Churches, he boys, etc., was rather limited in central lower Michigan. It just might have written something like this: "Yesterday, after wasn't the right context. Ifyou wanted to follow the footsteps meeting to provide aid to Marxist guerrillas in central Africa, of Spin Evans and his horse Sailor, you'd have to start from the board of the WCC took time off to join an interfaith fel­ someplace other than the place you were in. lowship with two covens of witches. The consensus of the Other children of my generation were devoted, with still meeting - at which all participants gathered in a circle and less reason, to the romance of Camelot. Supposing that we held hands - was to declare Halloween a religious holiday, can trust Bill Clinton's memory, which is seldom very and thus inappropriate for observance in public schools." dependable, our president grew up wanting to model his life These days, of course, African guerrillas are out of fash­ on the story of JohnF. Kennedy. In a way, his dream came ion - though African gorillas are an appropriate object for true - but with the loss of its vital element. Clinton became ecumenical support. But the fantasy of an interfaith meeting president, but what he really wanted, as it now appears, was with witches is no longer satire: it is the kind of thing that JFK's ability to do exactly what he pleased, while remaining churches belonging to the World Council of Churches are powerful, popular, and thin. Clinton's fantasy, which proved apt to organize. both acute and chronic, finally incapacitated him for any Indeed, during Halloween week a local paper reported adult occupation. on one such meeting in Kitsap County, Washington, hand­ Conservatives are also afflicted with story ideas that have holding and all. The witches who participated in this been wrenched grotesquely out of context. One of their Interfaith Alliance seemed ebullient - they had gained some favorite inspirations is the book of Exodus, where God respect from the mavens of liberal Christendom. All spoke appoints Moses to lay down the law. Every conservative high-mindedly of the separation of church and state, and the regards himself as a little Moses, planning to end domestic organizer of the event (a minister of the local outlet for the violence by outlawing pornography or cure juvenile delin­ United Church of Christ) appealed for a "oneness that ena­ quency by arresting teenagers for buying smokes. And if lay­ bles us to develop a world that reflects a life that is ing down the law doesn't accomplish the expected purpose, intended." conservatives can console themselves with yet another story. I commend this dedication to the separation of church They can revel in apocalyptic fantasies about the end of this and state. But I wonder: once the druids and practitioners of wicked world. "Wicca" gain enough respect, will they continue to uphold Modern liberals have their own fantasies, derived at the wall between them and political power? I see the future, fourth or fifth hand from all those Victorian novels in which as if in a crystal ball, archly: the united churches of Jesus and the have-nots are saved and uplifted by the social condescen­ Satan and Yahweh and Allah all hold hands at the public sion of the haves. In Dickens, or Horatio Alger, or any of the trough, taking tax funds from the citizenry and distributing rest of them, "compassion" has dependable results. The these funds to the churches/ covens/ synagogues/ mosques modem liberals believe, accordingly, that if you provide by percentage of registered parishioners/acolytes/what­ enough compassion (in monetary form, of course: less fuss have-yous. that way) then all social problems will be solved. And again, And in all this the true .nature of pagan events like if the story doesn't turn out quite the way you'd like, you Halloween gets lost. It's a time to dressup, wear masks, pre­ can amuse yourself with fantasies of a hellish end - race tend to be "evil" or "dangerous" or "beautiful" for the hell of war or global warming, take your pick. it. And the hell of it has little to do with Hell, or with a "day I come now, as you probably expected, to us libertarians. where the veil of consciousness separating the living and the Our fantasies are also based on exciting stories, interpreted dead is at its thinnest," and a whole lot to do with the imp of with dogged naivete. Some of these stories are folkloric ver­ the reverse: Halloween is the other side of the coin of civili­ sions of economic history. Many libertarians believe that zation, which constantly demands that we "behave well." when the economy totally collapses, as it is alwaysjust about And so once a year we pretend to behave"ill." to do, they can take their hoard of double eagles and buy up It is all pretense, and mostly harmless. Halloween is as Manhattan Island. American as the Fourth of July, and as religious as the Easter A lot of libertarians, however, are fighters instead of Bunny. It is commercial, sportive, and one of the few cultural hoarders. They see their lives as part of an epic battle against events left for children to play it up in a big way, and where evil - the evil in other libertarians. Their chief inspiration adults must watch. 10 Liberty Volume 11, Number 3 January 1998

It's a pity that some adults are holding hands aiming to Clinton cheats at everything - cheated at politics, cheated take Halloween away from the kids, and give it to the devout on his wife - his entire life is a violation of the rules. And - even while mouthing the shibboleths of freedom. - TWV because of this, he pays the price. No one respects him. He can announce that he broke 79 during his vacation, but no Babbling Brooks - If there is a more boring politi­ one believes it. He has a score card to prove it, but of course cal magazine than The Weekly Standard, I don't want to know he kept his own score. Short of the Justice Department about it. Unfortunately, with Rupert Murdoch's millions to assigning a Special Caddy to the President I doubt anyone draw on, The Standard will probably be around for a while. would take any of his golf score claims seriously. Since it is quintessentially neo-con, the left liberal media love One wonders if the other golfing Presidents ever behaved it. They can parade editor Bill Kristol all over the place, thus this way. Can one imagine Calvin Coolidge subtracting demonstrating their amazing openness to the "conservative" strokes just to win a bet? Or Dwight Eisenhower facing accu­ point of view. satory questions over alleged practice swings? And one won­ Last September, Kristol, who's a fairly smart cookie, ders why Clinton cheats in the first place - to impress joined with his senior editor, David Brooks, who isn't, to people with his scores? No one believes them. To win publish a major op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal on money? Maybe, he does have all those legal fees to contend "What Ails Conservatism." They spoke out for "national with.... Or perhaps it is just to "win"? After all, that is the greatness conservatism," the conservatism, for instance, of reason why he became President, just to win, just to "be Teddy Roosevelt (of whom Charles Beard noted that he was President," not actually to do anything. the only major figure in American history who ever believed I understand that the President plays solitaire frequently. that war was a good in itself). Libertarians most especially I'll bet he wins a lot too. -JSR disturb Kristol and Brooks: "How can Americans love their nation if they hate its government," they ask, more than a Genocide is up, but so is disposable touch naively. These neo-con intellectuals seem to be as income! - Among those who design and evaluate eco­ ignorant of history as the typical American college student. nomic policies, Herbert Stein has been a fixture for more Evidently, they have neverheard of William Lloyd Garrison, than fifty years. In his popular books and widely read news­ Henry David Thoreau, or Mark Twain - or of H.L. paper articles, he has established himself as knowledgeable, Mencken, who lovingly composed The American Language, professionally competent and, above all, reasonable. Herb and at the same time boasted that there was no American Stein always keeps things in perspective. His intellectual president in his lifetime he did not despise. Kristol's mom, touchstone is balance. the accomplished scholar Gertrude Himmelfarb, ought to My complaint is that Stein sometimes holds in equipoise supply her boy with a mandatory reading list before she lets matters that in reality are far from balanced and should not him shoot off his mouth again. be viewed as if they were. A perfect example of Stein's ten­ As for David Brooks, it's difficult to think of anything dency to balance the unbalanced appears in his October 21,' that could help him in his smug and pretentious stupidity. 1997, article in The Wall Street Journal. There, under the head­ For proof, consider his review, in The New York Times Book ing "A Lifetime of Progress," he reviews some major epi­ Review (October 5), of The Journals of Ayn Rand, edited by sodes and trends of social, political, and economic life since David Harriman. That Brooks produced a mere uninformed his birth in 1916. hatchet job is not surprising. What is laughable is this nud­ Naturally, Stein concludes that notwithstanding the nik's air of easy familiarity with the whole of intellectual his­ deaths of hundreds of millions of people in wars and geno­ tory. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, he informs us, "anticipated cides orchestrated by governments, this bloody century has most of [Rand's] ideas and dismissed them with a flick of his wrist" (the comical pose of sophistication in this idiotic state­ ment is priceless). Marx, too, it turns out, was a precursor of Rand. How is that possible, you ask? Well, Marx had a the­ ory of class struggle - between productive and parasitic people - which Rand took and "stood on its head." But didn't most classical liberals before and after Marx also speak of productive and parasitic classes? Not that Brooks ever heard of. Here's the best part, though (read slowly, pref­ erably sitting down): Brooks condemns Rand as "a woman who could write blithely about human parasites as news of the Holocaust was trickling back from Europe." A statement more breathtaking in its sheer fatuousness would be hard to imagine. With this, Brooks has virtually clinched the prize he's obviously been vying for - the coveted Schmuck of the Year Award. -RR

The President's handicap When the President played a few rounds of golf during his vacation, reports again circulated that he had trimmed his score by a few strokes. There is no reason to be surprised at this. "Incredibly lurid, entirely unnecessary details at eleven." Liberty 11 Janua 1998 Libert Live!

Over four years ofholding Liberty Editors' Conferences, we've accumulated a treasure trove oftapes featuring some of the most brilliant libertarian thinkers and writers. Now, in honor ofour tenth anniversary just past, we've selected some ofthe best-selling and most provocative ofour dozens ofscintillating talks. See and hear Bob Higgs on the Great Depression, David Friedman on anarchy and computers, J. Orlin Grabbe on protecting your money, and much, much more. Why the Great Depression Lasted So Long • Are you Pearson & Sandy Shaw escaped to small towns across tired ofhearing people discourse on how Roosevelt and big America. Hear their thoughts on the blessings and diffi­ government"saved us" from the Depression? Nowyou can culties oflife in small towns from Washington state to hear brilliant economist Robert Higgs debunk this key Nevada to New York. (audio: AI02; video: VI02) myth ofAmerican statism. Not to be missed! (audio: A2I3; video: V2I3) How to Write Op-Eds • Ifyou're puzzled as to why your opinions aren't getting published in your local The N azification ofthe Money Supply • J. Orlin paper, or just want to be able to set down your Grabbe is the author ofthe standard reference on inter­ thoughts accurately and concisely, get this tape from national financial markets. Here he explains how and professional journalist Jane Shaw on the nuts and bolts why the government has seized control ofthe banking ofgetting your point across. (audio: AI36; video: system - and how you can foil their plans and get your V136) privacy back. (audio: AI32; video: VI32) Libertarianism As If (the Other 990/0 of) People Searching for Liberty Around the World • Whether Mattered • Loren Lomasky shows how to communi­ you're fed up with encroachments on your liberty, or just cate effectively with the obstinately anti-freedom popu­ interested in opportunities ranging from Nicaragua {O to lation ofvirtually everywhere. (audio: A204; video: Hong Kong to Zambia, this is the tape for you. Hear v204) Doug Casey, Investment Biker author Jim Rogers, inter­ national journalist Bruce Ramsey, and travellers Scott Do Short-Sighted Corporate Decision-Makers Screw Reid and Ron Lipp - the men who've been there. the Future? • Collectivists claim free markets destroy Includes a special discussion ofthe problems ofescaping society and the environment, because companies only the IRS. (audio: AI03; video: VI03) think on a quarter-to-quarter basis. Economist Richard Stroup takes on this charge. (audio: AI45; video: VI45) Searching for Liberty in Small Town America • Fed up with the impersonality, 'rootlessness, and intrusive regula­ Why Not Hang 'em All? • Everyone's talking about tions ofthe big city, R.W. Bradford, novelist and critic crime and punishment, but few ever take an econo­ Bill Kauffman, and life-extension scientists Durk mist's approach - or approach the topic without an unrealistic trust in government. David Friedman ~------,' Please send me the following selections from the , explains the benefits ofapparently inefficient punish­ I·YeS Liberty Live! and Tenth Anniversary Collections. I ment, with a historian's eye for how different societies _ I'll take all the Tenth Anniversary Conference audios for just have dealt with criminals in the past. (audio: AI49; I $39.95 - a savings of more than 17%! video: VI49) _ I'll take all the Tenth Anniversary Conference videos for just I I $114.95 - a savings of more than 17%! What Libertarians Can Learn from Environmentalists _ Please send me all Liberty Live! audio tapes for only $57.95- 1 • Libertarian Randal O'Toole has worked with envi­ I a savings of more than 17%! ronmentalists for years, observing the strategies ofone _ Please send me all the Liberty Live! video tapes for only I ofthis century's mostsuccessful political movements. I $164.95 - a savings of more than 17%! In this fascinating talk, he applies his insights to the _ Please send me the following tapes for $6.95/audio or $19.95/ I battle for freedom. (audio: AI52; video: VI 52) I video. I Has Environmentalism Run Its Course? • The honey­ moon is over for green giants like the Sierra Club and 1------I the Wilderness Society. But what about the environ­ o I enclose my check (payable to Liberty) mental movement as a whole? And are free-market I 0 Charge my: 0 VISA 0 MasterCard I enviromentalists getting anywhere? Fred Smith, Randal , I name I O'Toole, Jane Shaw, Rick Stroup & R.W. Bradford debate. (audio: AI5?; video: VI5?) I ~~~ I city, state, zip _ Anarchy via Encryption • The days ofthe government snoop are numbered. David Friedman discusses the I signature phone I practical workings ofnew privacy technology - and ~peculates.on its.long-ten? consequences, both inspir­ I account # expires --- I Call (800) 854-6991- or send to: Liberty, Dept. L63, Ing and fnghtenlng. (audIO: AI16; video: yI16) I.-_ ------P.O. Box 1~ Port Townsend, WA 98368 ..I January 1998

been, by and large and nearly everywhere, a time of great progress. People have acquired more schooling; incomes have risen; social and political inequalities have diminished. Tenth We have automobiles, air-conditioning, and VCRs. Count your blessings. Stein recognizes that"there are people Anniversary who see in the present size of the federal gov­ ernment a considerabe abridgment of the freedom Americans enjoyed 81 years ago." But not to worry. Despite the great increases Conference in taxation, after-tax incomes have risen greatly since 1916. II Liberty II,s tenth anniversary conference in Port Townsend, Moreover, Stein asserts that "despite the surrounded by marine vistas and 19th century charm, was a rousing increase of regulations," the average success. We're sorry we can't send you the sun and sea breeze ifyou American "has much more freedom than he did." How can that be? In Stein's view "the missed out - but we saved the best part for you: The Liberty limitations of his freedom are dwarfed by the Tenth Anniversary Editors' Conference Collection! expansions of his freedom resulting from the rise of incomes and education and from the Are We Winning the War of Ideas? • Times have changed, and decline of the constraints that had been liberty is no longer a notion that embarrasses the intelligentsia or is imposed by racial, gender and ethnic honored by voters and politicians only in the breach. Bill Bradford, prejudice." Harry Browne, Sandy Shaw, David Friedman, and Timothy At this point Stein has toppled into error. Virkkala explore what this change means for the future offreedom. He is surely correct to note the improvements (audio: A301; video: V301) in income and education and the wider accep­ Liberty for Sale • How to sell the idea offreedom, in one tance of blacks, women, and Jews in previ­ quick, easy lesson. Harry Browne is at the top ofhis form ously inaccessible institutions and occupations. But these developments did not here: clear, humorous, and insightful. (audio: A302; video: offset the enormous reductions of freedom V302) that all Americans have suffered since.World Will TechnologyAd-yance Liberty or the State? • For every glowing War I. pr~diction of the liberating effects oftechnology, there is a clipper When taxation and regulation increased, chIp, a phone tap, or a spy satellite. Harry Browne presides while the government deprived everyone of rights Ross Overbeek, David Friedman, Bill Bradford and Sandy Shaw previously enjoyed. Stein attempts to balance measure the capabilities ofFreedom and Leviathan. (audio: A303; incommensurables when he argues, for exam­ ple, that we are more regulated and therefore video: V303) less free, but we have higher incomes and The New Libertarianism • Something has changed in libertar­ therefore are more free. He confuses freedom ian discourse over the last decade. Bill Bradford talks about in the negative sense - the absence of gov­ this shift in the foundation ofrights theory and exposes the ernment coercion - with people's capacity to nature ofconsequentialism and the consequences ofnatural acquire goods and services or social accep­ rights. (audio: A304; video: V304) tance. It is not that the latter doesn't matter; it is just that the latter is not, properly speaking, A Positive Account ofProperty Rights • David Friedman takes an a form of freedom at all. economist's-eye view ofthe question "what is a right?" and explains It is one thing to be free, to be unmolested why certain rights keep on coming back to haunt those who would by threats of official violence as we go about like to govern without constraint. (audio: A30S; video: V30S) our lives. It is something else altogether to have the capacity to achieve our ends in this Paper Money, Gold, and Inflation • Bruce Ramsey makes a unmolested environment. People may be free libertarian case for fiat paper money. Here we put him on but poor, free but disliked by their neighbors. the spot, with Richard Timberlake, David Friedman, Bill But they may also be rich but unfree, accepted Bradford) and Harry Browne providing some free-market by their neighbors but unfree. The latter has alternatives. (audio: A306; video: V306) become increasingly the case for Americans in the twentieth century. This point has been In-Group vs. Out-Group/New Frontiers in Biology • Timothy discussed so often that one can only wonder Virkkala explores the darker side ofhuman nature: dumping on how a commentator of Stein's sagacity could make such an elementary blunder. other people with self-righteous gusto. Also, Ross Overbeek explains And when Stein says "Government need what breakthrough discoveries in the life sciences will mean to us in not be the enemy of freedom. There are more the future - and what they should mean to us right now. (audio: important freedoms than freedom from A307; video: V307) Volume 11, Number 3 January 1998 government," one can only respond: How can anyone As government projects go, the Minitel was not terribly whose family name is Stein, of all people, make such a state­ expensive to implement, but it has. proven to be a terribly ment? -RH expensive mistake. Magnificent in defeat. -guest reflection by Michael Christian Edsel on the infonnation superhighway­ A little news blurb in the November 1997 issue of Wired Libertarianish - Last January, having finished magazine described Lionel Jospin, the French prime minis­ writing a report on the free-market revolution in New ter, urging the French to wean themselves off the Minitel. Zealand, I emailed copies of it to some New Zealand libertar­ This veiled admission of failed central planning is the final ians for their comments and fact corrections. They graciously nail in the coffin of the Minitel, the French government's responded, and helped me make th~ report more accurate. information-technology version of the Moscow subway. It One of them wanted to go further. Lindsay Perigo, leader was delivered in a speech to French university students dur­ of New Zealand's LibertariaNz party, was unhappy with part ing which Jospin set the pompous, nationalistic tone by say­ of what I had said. He didn't care for my characterizing ing, "France and French culture must occupy their rightful another, more successful New Zealand political party as liber­ place in the global information society." tarian. And he thought that the situation in New Zealand was Of course that was already the objective when the French far worse than I had indicated. He asked me whether Liberty government ordered, regulated, and subsidized into exis­ would publish a response from him. I enthusiastically agreed tence the Minitel, a now-primitive, French-only computer to. But time passed, and nothing arrived. I was disappointed, network. For many years France and the French touted their as Perigo is a perspicacious observer and a lively writer. Minitel as an example of how Colbertisme was not only alive So I was. delighted to learn that he eventually did a cri­ and well, but kicking ass. For as many years, I told anyone tique, though I was disappointed that he decided against who would listen, including the French among whom I lived, publishing it in Liberty. He chose as his forum the Institute that the Minitel was a dead end. Not long ago Vice President for Objectivist Studies summer meeting in Virginia, and Gore, was citing the Minitel as the sort of infotech industrial eventually reprinted his remarks in his magazine, The Free strategy that America needed. "We (meaning the federal gov­ Radical, a copy of which I received only today. ernment) aren't doing enough," was the apparent plea. I was disappointed. While his lecture made lively read­ I would like to say, "I told you so," but I was wrong. The ing, it was marred by bizarre mischaracterzations of what I Minitelhas not proven to be a dead end;.it has proven to be had written. In one case, he actually misquoted me, while in something even worse, a millstone around the neck of others he dropped the explicit context of what I wrote. France's "information society." First, the misquotation. Three times in his lecture, Perigo With a relatively inexpensive dumb terminal, the Minitel heaps ridicule on me for having written that Sir Roger does well a tiny portion of what the internet does wonder­ Douglas, the Minister of Finance of New Zealand in the fully. And, because of French government policy, everyone 1980s who formulated and implemented the country's free­ in France has and uses it. The French have invested in and market revolution, "slew the statist dragon." This phrase is learned to rely on the Minitel. It performs a few of the func­ not my style, and I looked for it in my article in vain. After tions that unimaginative newbies might first want when failing in my search, I mentioned it to Timothy Virkkala, connecting to the internet, thus discouraging them from Liberty's managing editor. "Didn't that appear on our con­ doing. S9. Also, the Minitel cannot be effectively connected tents page?" he said. to the internet. It must be thrown away. Because of its I checked. On the contents page of our March issue was investment in Minitel, France is among the least connected the following entry: of developed nations. "The Art of the Possible. The key player in New Zealand's Revolution, Sir Roger Douglas, tells how he slew the statist dragon." Now it is certainly true that I sometimes have a hand in writing some of these descriptions that appear on Liberty's contents page. But I didn't write this one, and there's abso­ lutely no reason to believe that I did. It wasn't even a description of my article. This misquotation was only the beginning. The bulk of Perigo's ire is aimed at my suggestion that Douglas and the new political party.he founded are libertarian. This was no surprise to me. Perigo was involved with Douglas's political )~tlrfd"'! FLlff 1HRdUIH A 'BILL 'L ,"'eN party early on, and left it to form his own party. In the last 'K."~L Df '(W!N1'/ff IN 'R EVER, (E~ ItJODNE~14 election, Douglas's ACT party (Association of Consumers -POL./l'/ and Taxpayers) received 126,421 votes, which was 125,794 more votes than Perigo's LibertariaNz party got. I first encountered Perigo's animosity toward Douglas when I interviewed Perigo in New Zealand. As evidence of Douglas's perniciousness, Perigo cited Douglas's call for retaining New Zealand's ubiquitous General Sales Tax (GST); while abolishing its income tax. To punish him for 14 Liberty Volume 11, Number 3 January 1998 this sin, Perigo habitually and very publicly calls Douglas's nized compulsion." So before identifying Perigo and political party the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers Douglas as "libertarians" I was careful to establish the con­ (or"ACT") as the"Association of Compulsion Touters." text: "If by 'libertarian,' we mean a person who favors radi­ Perigo explained to me that his own party, the cally reducing the power of government, then it is safe to say LibertariaNz, calls for the immediate abolition of the GST, that New Zealand has two libertarian political parties: ACT while retaining the income tax, in hopes that the LibertariaNz and the LibertariaNz." But neither his own party's "compul­ might deflect charges that it is a party of rich people, since sion touting" nor my very careful definition of how I was the GST is generally reckoned to hit the poor harder than the using the term "libertarian" has discouraged Perigo from rich. denouncing me for characterizing ACT as libertarian, or dis­ Of course, I recognize that neither of these programs can couraged him from railing at me for calling Douglas "the rightly be called "libertarian" if by "libertarian" one means most effective libertarian politician of this century" and the "advocating the total and immediate elimination of orga- world's "most libertarian politician." Achieving Liberty In the past two issues of Liberty, Harry Browne and Bill him. This jibes well with the Gallup Poll labeling 22% of Bradford have discussed the prospects for advancing the cause of Americans as "libertarian," as we would expect that many freedom via the Libertarian Party. In this issue, Timothy of those 22% would choose not to "waste their vote" once Virkkala and David Nolan join the discussion. they entered the voting booth ... assuming that they both­ ered to vote at all. The fig leaf of public interest - Harry I think the 1/8 ratio can be expected to hold up or even Browne has suggested that the way to win votes is by increase as awareness of the LP and its candidates is appealing directly to the self-interest of voters. I don't think expanded. And, as Harry notes, all that expansion requires this works very well. is money ... lots of it. With $50-$100 million to spend on a People want their interests served, yes, but they want national campaign, I think it's entirely plausible that a their interests served while decently cloaked in the alluring well-chosen, appealing Libertarian ticket could garner an robes of "the public interest." A libertarian policy initiative, eighth of the vote for president and VP ... which would for instance, must sound "good for everybody" - for the put us in Perot/Wallace/LaFollette territory, and within nation, for the world - and must sound good from the first marching distance of victory the next time out. words of the phrasing to the last. But the appeal to the The question, obviously, is: How do we get there? citizen being addressed should be easy to see, easy to Where do we come up with the credible candidates, and the money? - discover. People want to be better off. And they want to appear Averages are meaningless and change is not linear. If a friendly and charitable to their fellow citizens, maybe even national Libertarian campaign is to raise $50 million, it will a bit noble. And that is what any politician must give them: not be by getting 200,000 contributions of $250 apiece. an excuse to profit while everyone cheers. There will have to be at least one "heavy hitter" to prime This should not be too hard a task, since libertarian ideas the pump with $10 million or more (a la Perot) and a thou­ are, by and large, best for most people. If you can't make sand people contributing the legal maximum of $20,000. the case for that, then you should ask yourself why you That's $30 million; the rest will come from the $100-a-pop folks. advocate freedom. Why would you want to advocate poli­ Suppose, for the moment, that the LP builds its mem­ cies that aren't best for the most people? - TWV bership to 50,000 and recruits a ticket like management guru Tom Peters and a $10-million-donor running mate for Winning in 2004 - As one of the founders of the the 2000 election. (That kind of money isn't highly unusual Libertarian Party, I have followed the debate between these days; it took $475 million to make the 1997 Forbes Harry Browne and Bill Bradford with some interest. And 400 List.) while they each make valid points, I feel that both of them Further suppose that the Republicans nominate some­ are myopic in their conclusions. one from the Buchanan wing of the GOP as their"standard­ First, I'd have to agree with Bill that the prospect of a bearer. The mostly-liberal media suddenly "discover" the growth in LP membership to 200,000 over the next two or LP ticket ... a discovery made easier by the fact that we're three years is highly unlikely if it is all to come from stan­ buying ads on the nightly network news. A few prominent dard direct-mail solicitations. As of this writing, the Republicans endorse our ticket; membership triples to national party will be doing well to end 1997 with 25,000 150,000 and the campaign budget swells to $75 million. dues-paying members. Over time, membership has roughly Under those circumstances, an election-day shOWing of doubled every two years, with most of that growth coming 15% to 20% becomes very plausible. A few Libertarians in election years. A membership of 50,000 as of January 1, get elected to Congress, and several Congressional 2000 seems reasonable; a figure of 200,000 does not. Republicans switch their allegiance in 2001. And we're That's the bad news. The good news is that if Harry well on our way to a national victory in 2004 or 2008. received 1/2% of the presidential vote when only 4% of the Fantasy? Perhaps. But there's nothing in the scenario voters even knew of his candidacy (a plausible figure, in I've outlined above that's impossible, or even that "defies my estimation) then simple math suggests that he captured rationality." I'm not saying it will happen, but it certainly roughly one-eighth of the votes of those who had heard of could. -David F. Nolan Volume 11, Number 3 January 1998

Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa: after carefully defining "Evolution" does not care. Human beings are destined to go my use of the term "libertarian," I did indeed characterize extinct sometime, too. In a few tens of. thousands of years or Douglas in those words - though I did not, as Perigo claims whatever, humanity (as we know it) will be gone and what­ at one point, call Douglas "most libertarian politician in the ever we do or don't do today won't make a tad of difference history of the universe." to the creatures then living on Earth. My personal favorite of Perigo's criticisms came early in Myers misrepresents seriously the findings of one of the histalk: "In a fit of ridiculous hyperbole, Mr. Bradford impli­ reports. The report - "Extinction and the Loss of citly likened New Zealand's revolution to the Industrial Evolutionary History" by Nee and May (the same issue of Revolution itself." What had inspired this remark? I had writ­ Science) -:- shows that, even if 95 percent of all species were ten "Will [New Zealand's] Revolution last, as the Industrial lost, approximately 80 percent of the underlying genetic tree Revolution has lasted? Or will itdie and be forgotten, suffer­ would be likely to survive. Further, they state that the pro­ ing the fate ofthe Russian Revolution?" portion surviving is relatively insensitive, on average, to If this be a "fit of ridiculous hyperbole," I say, let us make whether the saved species are chosen randomly or optimally. the most of it! -R.W. Bradford It would appear that central planning of evolution is likely to be about as effective as central planning of economies. Hubris in the name of science - As we These scientistic prophecies are prime specimens of the approach the conference on "global warming" in Kyoto, continuing corruption of science by government induce­ there have been increasingly hysterical rants in Science and ments of money and power. (I am reminded of the scene in Nature masquerading as "analysis." These would be laugha­ the 1965 Beatles' movie HELP!, where the inept scientist ble if the views being paraded about as "science" were not sticks a gun in Ringo's face and says "In the name of Science, picked up and passed on by many (in the media and else­ give me that ring!" It was funny, then.) where) who do not know any better. I think the moral is this: If you like a certain mix of beas­ In "Mass Extinction and Evolution" (Science, October 24), ties, then invest (your own money, please) in that mix. But Norman Myers writes that" ... two reports [in this issue]... don't imagine that you are thereby saving "evolution" itself consider aspects of the mass extinction that is now overtak­ and don't imagine that your preferred mix has any moral ing the world's biodiversity. The new results indirectly superiority to anybody else's. -ss throw light on an overlooked but significant angle of the bio­ tic crisis: its grossly disruptive impact on the future course of Allor nothing at all - Those who hate the evolution.... [this] prompts thoughts about the evolutionary income tax (Le. 990/0 of Americans) cheered when a Senate future. Regrettably the latter remains a black hole of committee paraded victims of IRS abuse before the TV came­ research, even though the next few decades seem set. to ras. The heart-breaking stories even maneuvered Bill Clinton impose a profoundly depletive hiatus on certain basic pro­ into agreeing that the IRS must be reformed. - cesses of evolution." Wow, what arrogance! This guy actu­ So what will come of all this newfound disgust with the ally believes that human beings are now in a position to IRS? control the process ofevolution. But no rrt.atter whatpeople Absolutely nothing. The politicians - especially do to extant populations, the processes of evolution will con­ Republicans - will use it as a campaign issuefor an election tinue on their way merrily. After all, life has survived disas­ or two, but nothing significant will be done to tone down the terafter disaster in the past, and is still going strong. The mix ferocity of the IRS. Nothing can be done. of beasties is undoubtedly different from what it would have An enormous government - one now approaching $2 been in the absence of any particular disaster, but so what? trillion a year - requires an enormous, energetic, pitiless, take-no-prisoners tax-collection agency. If the IRS truly were reined in, tax collections would nose-dive, and the politicians would My Fellow Prison Inmates' have to make real reductions in the size of Top Ten Pet Peeves at Christmastime government. No chance. 10. Sarah Jane Moore celebrates Hanukkah and won't play Santa Claus. Notwithstanding the mutterings of 9. Can't order any of K-Tel's special Christmas records. Steve Forbes, Bill Archer, or Richard 8. Having the guards "Ho, Ho, Ho" as they shakedown your room on Armey, no one is going to "pull the IRS up Christmas eve. by the roots" or "drive a stake through its 7. We're here - and Hillary's not. heart." They might change its name to the 6. Unable to stay up late and watch the "Beavis & Butthead Christmas Internal Benevolent Revenue Service, but Special." its methods won't change. Railing at the 5. The cooks just can't make textured vegetable protein look like Baked IRS is good for fund-raising and votes, but Alaska. changing the IRS doesn't fit in any politi­ 4. Our once-a-year male stripper is really Delores. cian's agenda. 3. The warden always wins the talent show with his Janet Reno - J. The proposed flat tax won't do away Edgar Hoover impersonation. with the IRS. You might be able to file your 2. No chance of receiving a presidential pardon or immediate release return on a postcard, but your friendly IRS in the mail on Christmas or New Year's Day. agent will show up at your door demand­ 1. Sarah Jane Moore won't be out before the State of Union Address. ing that you prove you don't have any ~Dyanne Petersen unreported income and that you really are Volume 11, Number 3 January 1998 entitled to whatever exemptions you took. or development in the campaign finance scandal is the most Replacing the income tax with a sales tax would do away striking or surprising. But certainly among the more striking with the need for the IRS only by replacing it with some new developments is what might be called the White House's agency to browbeat retailers. But by the time medicine, food, "incompetence defense." and other essentials are exempted from the sales tax, a rate After the White House released videotape of the early of 25% or more will be necessary to finance big government moments of some 44 White House "coffees" that might have - a rate that will never fly politically. been fundraising events, President Clinton begged for under­ For the same reason, the flat tax will never be a reality. standing. The fact that congressional investigators had an By the time the politicians provide healthy exemptions, inkling that these tapes existed and had asked for them long retain their favorite deductions, and strike low-income ago shouldn't be held against the poor dears at the White workers from the rolls, the tax rate will have to be over 25%, House. The delay "was just an accident." White House staff­ and will never be approved. ers hadn't figured out the right keyword in querying the The flat tax and sales tax are cons whose time will never computer system. come. Just like IRS reform, they are issues politicians can use It is refreshing when people in government admit they to raise money and gather votes, but they won't be realities are not perfect. And an admission of incompetence is poten­ in our lifetime. tially less damaging than a deliberate cover-up or willful Every suggested tax reform is merely an attempt to redis­ delay, which is what some Republicans are now charging. tribute the awful burden of big government. The only way Let's be fair here. The White House - sprawling through you can get rid of the IRS is to reduce government to the numerous good-sized office buildings - more closely resem­ point where no income tax· is necessary - which would bles an empire than a cottage industry. No president has make the IRS unnecessary. ever known everything that went on in his name. The execu­ So long as we have an income tax, we will have an IRS. tive branch is probably impossible to manage effectively. So And so long as we have an IRS, we will have bureaucrats it is not utterly incredible to imagine that plenty of things abusing taxpayers. have gone on in the White House of which Bill Clinton Only one developed country has both an income tax and knows little or nothing. a gentle tax-collecting agency. In Switzerland, tax evasion On the othe~ hand, responding to subpoenas by search­ isn't a crime; it's a civil matter between the taxpayer and the ing for documents and other material is not all that challeng­ government. ing. And Mr. Clinton is known as something of a micro­ The taxpayer submits his return. If the government manager, taking a particularly intensive interest in campaign doesn't agree with the self-assessment, it has no authority to matters (his real area of expertise), right down to writing or seize property or attach wages; its only recourse is to nego­ editing the copy for radio ads. bla~e tiate the matter with the taxpayer. If no agreement is On balance, then, the plea that you can't us reached, the government can take the taxpayer to civil court because after almost five years in office we just don't have a (not a tax court, as in the U.S.), suing him in the same way handle on how to run the little piece of government over one person sues another over a dispute. which we have direct control is rather pathetic. The fact that If the government wins in court, the court will direct the it can be made so casually reflects on the status of personal taxpayer to pay the government the required amount. If the responsibility in the larger culture. taxpayer doesn't comply, he will be in contempt of court If this bunch can't even run their own shop competently, and subject to criminal sanctions, asset seizure, and other how are we supposed to believe that they can fix day care, types of judicial actions. But this is possible only after he's reform the educational system, improve health care, get us to had his day in court. And the burden of proof is always on stop smoking while still paying tobacco taxes, fix the drug the government. crisis, assure food quality overseas or ... well just about any­ (Although tax evasion isn't a crime, it is illegal in thing on their agenda of lots of little government? -AB Switzerland to falsify documents - invoices or other William S. Burroughs, Beat novelist and records - in order to justify a lower tax bill.) I, needle - exterminator, will not rest in peace, not if there's a God. He The toothless Swiss tax-collection agency isn't able to col­ was (1) an uxoricide who killed his wife in a game of lect as much money as an IRS-like agency can. So the Swiss government has always had to get by with smaller revenues than American politicians are used to. And because American politicians are hooked on big government, there's no chance such a system will be adopted here. And so the IRS we will have with us always - or at least until we can elect libertarians who will reduce government enough to make the income tax unnecessary. Thus, as libertarians, we achieve nothing by working for anything less than the total repeal of the income tax and a massive reduction in the size of the federal government. Anything else is just wheel-spinning. -HB

The keyword is uincompetence" - It "Come on -I need a volunteer to help me practice would be difficult to declare with authority that anyone fact shaving my legs." Liberty 17 Volume 11, Number 3 January 1998

William Tell; (2) a terrible father whose pathetic son prede­ colleagues had thrown it to the wind in their attempt to sep­ ceased dear old dad; and (3) a child molester. But only cads arate "scientific" wheat from "metaphysical" chaff. like William F. Buckley, Jr., speak ill of the dead, so let's Berlin's project rubbed against the grain of his age, with­ remember Bill at his best, as a right-wing anarchist crank. out ever seeming to oppose it wholesale. During the time The Letters of William S. Burroughs 1945-1959 (Oliver Harris, when his reputation was greatest, the British vision of philos­ editor) contain this 1949 gem to Allen Ginsberg: ophy was that of a very stripped-down discipline that could Dear Allen: play the role of. gentleman's gentleman to science. I fear this is going to be a somewhat testy letter. I am not Philosophy, to him, was much more than the clarification of able to share your enthusiasm for the deplorable conditions the methods of inquiry. In his writings there was always a which now obtain in the U.S. at this time. I think the U.S. is sense of the paramount worth of individuals, as well as a heading in the direction of Socialistic police state similar to sense of history - two things that British philosophy of that England, and not too different from Russia. I congratulate time tended to lack. myself on my timely withdrawal. Everything I hear from This is probably best demonstrated by his most famous the U.S. makes me glad I am not there. At least Mexico is essay, "The Hedgehog and the Fox," a study of the mind of no obscenity "Welfare" State, and the more I see of this Leo Tolstoy. Berlin recalled an ancient Greek fragment ­ country the better I like it. It is really possible to relax here "the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one where nobody tries to mind your business for you, and a big thing" - and applied it to human styles of thought. man can walk the streets without being molested by some "Foxes" are people who deal with particulars, have diverse insolent cop swollen with the unwarranted authority bestowed upon him by our stupid and hysterical law­ goals, and see the world piece by piece; "hedgehogs" are sys­ making bodies. Here a cop is on the level of a street-car tem builders for whom no idea can remain separate for long, conductor. He knows his place and stays there. and for whom everything must exist together or not at all. I hope you are not serious about this labor leader idea. My Tolstoy was a fox who wanted, oh so much, to be a hedge­ opinion of labor leaders and unions is very close to the hog, and who tragically twisted his life because of this inter­ views so ably and vigorously expressed by Westbrook nal conflict. Pegler, the only columnist, in my opinion, who possesses a The parlor game "hedgehog and fox" is now a favorite of grain of integrity. intellectuals, and has even contributed an odd moment to a Who knows ... if Burroughs had laid off the junk, he Woody Allen film. Berlin's interest, however, was not in might have been another Leonard Read. -BK games but in conflict. Perhaps that is why he wrote sensible things about free­ The politic philosopher - Sir Isaiah Berlin dom - metaphysical freedom ("free will") as well as per­ died on November 6, 1997, at age 88. He made his mark on sonal and political freedom. Berlin also understood the value philosophy in much the same way as Ronald Coase did in of the obvious. Perhaps that is why, at a time when socialism economics: with cautious, carefully wrought works ­ was in ascendance, he steered clear of the idiocies of collecti­ works of minor length but major significance. I am thinking vism. He knew the value of an ideal, but tried to have no illu­ of "Equality," "Does Political Theory Still Exist?" and a sions about ideals that diverged greatly from our experience handful of other sensible, readable, yet brilliant essays that of ourselves, our neighbors, and our history. made political philosophy respectable again, after Berlin's Much has been written of the seminal essay "Two Concepts of Liberty," in which Berlin dis­ tinguishes "negative liberty" - the free­ Top Ten Cool Things About Being in dom to be left alone - from "positive Women's Prison at Christmastime liberty," the power to do particular things that one wants to do. I see no reason to add 10. Buying special holiday commissary items from Desert Storm to this literature here. I merely note that surplus. though he resisted the libertarian notion of 9. Not having to worry about what you'll wear to the Kwanzaa organizing all of politics around the single Celebration or Christmas Day Bingo. idea of "freedom from" coercion, his influ­ 8. Getting to see the disappointment when Federal Prisons' Industries ence on libertarian thought has been doesn't get Most-Favored Nation trading status under their tree. considerable. 7. Listening to caroling Boy Scouts and disabled veterans from the His mark upon England has been Milken Suite. stronger, however. He was a diplomat as 6. Not having to watch football or to get Uncle Frank another beer. well as a multi-disciplinary Oxford don, 5. Don't have to send phony thank you notes for the gifts of lousy and tales of his formidable presence are fruitcakes. many and amusing. His reputation in phil­ 4. Having a damned good excuse for not responding to IRS notices and osophical circles may be rather low, at the all the year-end direct mail fundraising. moment, but his writings have enduring 3. Can just exchange uniforms for a larger size at laundry after holiday value for anyone who is serious about overeating. developing a humane philosophy, anyone 2. OUf cooks can make textured vegetable protein look like stuffed who prizes individuality and tolerance, Rock Cornish Game hens and strawberry cheesecake. anyone who yearns both for freedom and 1. Jim Guy Tucker and Jim MacDougal can't come here unless they get for truth. -Timothy Virkkala sex change operations. -Dyanne Petersen Explanation

The Crash of '97 by Richard Stroup

For a single day, 1997 looked like 1929 all over again. Was the "meltdown" a mere blip - or a hint of things to come?

On Monday, October 27, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 554.24. It was its' biggest one-day decline in history. Late that night, CNBC reported prices on foreign stock markets that opened as the sun came up in the eastern hemisphere: New Zealand down 110/0, Australia down 10%, Hong Kong down 16%, Taiwan off 6%, Singapore down 6%, Tokyo off worried that a 1929-style crash, last­ their results. The climate for produc­ 4%, Korea down 7%, India down 8% ... ing for years on end, might be near. tion and exchange has improved; an As the world spun through space and After all, there has been what one key improvement reflected in rising stock. morning came to Europe the grim observer has labeled "irrational exu­ prices. news continued: Great Britain down There is reason to expect more 8%, Germany down 5%, Belgium berance" in the market in recent improvements in the future. The costs down 8% ... The Latin American months. Can the unprecedented high and limits of political control are markets opened: Mexico down 130/0, level of stock prices, such as the Dow Brazil down 15%, Venezuela down at near 8000, be sustained? Can it be, becoming clear to more people, 12% ... over time, substantially increased? To increasing demands for further expan­ CNBC's normally optimistic this economist, the answer is "yes!" sions in economic freedom. And as reporters were using words like The real economy - the future fruits James Gwartney and Robert Lawson "meltdown," "collapse," "bloodbath," of which can be obtained by purchas­ show in Economic Freedom of the World and "crash." Around the world, inves­ ing shares in the stock market ­ 1997, greater economic freedom is tors wondered whether they were looks very healthy. Further, there is very strongly connected to greater about to see the stock market crash as still room for much improvement, economic growth. it did in 1929 - and whether the and there is good reason to expect a Are improvements along this line world was on the brink of another long-lived stream of such improve­ nearing their end? Hardly. Economic Great Depression. ments. freedom in much of the world is still The world held its breath awaiting It is no secret that con1puter­ low, and government's fole in econo~ the opening of U.S. stock markets. At related technology is spreading, driv­ mies everywhere is still very large ­ 9:30, the opening bell rang at the New ing down costs, speeding information, far beyond its economic optimum in York Stock Exchange, and stock prices and widening markets. Trade in both even relatively free nations, such as fell like a rock. Within minutes, the goods markets and capital markets, the U.S. and Canada. That is why DJI was down 180 points. across borders, is becoming easier. growth is greater where economies But then buy orders began to flood The cost of artificial governmental are even more free, as Hong Kong has the exchange. By the time the NYSE barriers is becoming more obvious been over recent decades. There is a closed, the DJI was up 337 points. every day, and the reputation of the great deal of room for more improve­ Plainly, no 1929-style stock market political sector is declining. That has ment, even in the U.S. crash was underway. Investors increased economic freedom - that The capital market itself, including heaved a collective sigh of relief. is, more and more, entrepreneurs the stock market, is both an indicator Even so, many investors remain have freedom yet are accountable for of progress and a cause of it. It helps Liberty 19 Volume 11, Number 3 Janu 1998

modify politicians' natural tendency to The constructive impact of capital ing that pays no attention whatever to gather ever more power to themselves markets on governments is a reason to underlying future value of real output in order to do favors for their key con­ be optimistic about productivity. But that, over time, will determine the stituents, expand programs they their beneficial impact on government value of holding stock shares. So there believe in, or augment personal for­ is rather crude compared to their pro­ will be many ups and downs, and tunes. In each jurisdiction, as each pol­ ductivity-increasing (and stock-price some will be dramatic. But they should icy change becomes known, owners of enhancing) impact on private busi­ be short-lived: assets and potential investors" react by nesses. Each firm in the private sector Over time, the central tendency of moving to buy or sell at prices reflect­ receives constant feedback from both stock prices should be determined by ing the newly enhanced or harmed cli­ the product and the capital markets. expectations about the future divi­ mate for production and exchange. The CEO of any publicly traded corpo­ dends paid to holders of each stock Better communication and more effi­ ration is almost instantly informed of share and the sustainable trend in cient capital markets are constraining what investors - people with their those dividends and in their resulting government power all over the world, own money on the line in capital mar­ capitalized value. Those latter factors kets - think of any new strategy or make a long lasting stock market crash policy change. Such signals can be very unlikely. A crash is just the right ignored, if current stockholders are not time to buy stocks if market forces and Can the unprecedented high in revolt, but both the information and the underlying economy continue to be level ofstock prices, such as the the incentive to heed it are strong. strong. And a boom in the market is a Dow at near 8000, be sus­ No such signal or incentive faces chance to lock in gains by selling. So the "firms" that comprise the units of a stock values will gyrate, but each tained? Can it be, over time, government. The Army and the U.S. should gravitate toward the capital­ substantially increased? To Forest Service, for example, receive no ized value of the underlying (and gen­ this economist, the answer is such constant flow of signals. Over erally rising) dividend streams time, capital markets provide rewards received by the stock's owner. "yes! " and punishments to governments, but There is, however, at least one fly in it is not easy to discern just what this ointment: Progress always harms caused those results. Why, exactly, are some partie~"and entails some risks. As while rewarding productive changes in investors fleeing a country or i.ts Schumpeter told us, capitalism causes government - more honest law assets? Aggregate numbers draw a pic­ a "gale of creative destruction." enforcement and courts, and broader ture, but with a very broad brush. The access to both, for example - more value of a company stock, however, quickly than ever before. reacts to each specific change in a way Better communication and One capital market, the bond mar­ that can usually be discerned with ket, almost instantly punishes any gov­ some precision. These highly effective more efficient capital ma"rkets ernment attempt to rapidly create capital markets are becoming better are constraining government more currency. This is an effective con­ informed, and work better, increasing power all over the world, while straint on inflation. James Carville has private productivity everywhere. said that after he dies, he would like to Given these encouraging factors, rewarding productive changes be reincarnated as the bond market, should stockholders assume rapid in government. because it has all the power. growth, say 20 or 25 percent annually, The world market for goods also' for the foreseeable future? Not quite, in disciplines the granting of special priv­ my judgment. Such growth in expected Advances in trade and technologies ilege or protection by governments. profits on a sustained basis for decades always harm some producers, at least Unions and other quasi-monopolists would be nearly an order of magni­ in the short run. Henry Ford's Model are constrained in their demands for tude greater than real economic T, for example, ruined many auto for­ inefficiently high pay and absurdly growth has been here and in other suc­ tunes and put thousands of workers restrictive workrules by growing com­ cessful market economies. Optimism out of jobs, even as it enabled working­ petition here and abroad. High pay is about" higher growth for several dec­ class families to own cars. not a problem when matched by high ades seems warranted. But to bet on Technological advances frequently productivity, of course. New auto sustained 20% growth seems foolish to bring new personal or environmental plants (mostly non-union) are being me. risks, although for cent~ries they have built in the United States rather than in Is another stock market crash on balance made us much richer and Asia or elsewhere precisely because likely? Sure it is! Many investors try to safer. American "high-wage" labor is often outguess temporary price rises and There are always the Pat more productive than "low-wage" price declines. In doing so, they can Buchanans and the Richard Gephardts labor in much of the world. build "irrational exuberance" on the (on trade) and the Al Gores (on the Meanwhile, militant German unions one hand, or promote precipitous environment) to argue that we must see their potential new Mercedes-Benz, declines. Both tendencies, in each short control or stop. such progress. to pre­ BMW and Volkswagen company jobs run, may be increased by "program vent the inevitable harms or risks. Such migrate to other nations. trading" - computer-controlled trad- continued on page 30 20 Liberty Volume 11, Number 3 January 1998 Audit The Intoxication of Murray Sabrin by Mike Buoncristiano

How did the best libertarian campaign in memory end up as an attempt to elect Democrat Jim McGreevey governor of New Jersey?

I couldn't believe my eyes. I read the short Associated work hard on the race. I felt that he was the best candidate Press article three times. Murray Sabrin's chief political guru the New Jersey Libertarian Party had ever fielded for the was quoted in the Election Day morning story. "Whitman is nomination. Of course, I knew the odds of winning the elec­ going to lose. McGreevey is going to win." tion were slim at best. But it looked like we had a real oppor­ "That ought to be worth another point or two for tunity to accomplish what no Libertarian candidate had ever Whitman from Sabrin's shaky following," I thought. The day before achieved, both in terms of advancing the libertarian before Rick Shaftan, his political strategist, told reporters, agenda and building the LP. "Murray's a Republican just like all the Republicans I know. So I enthusiastically embraced Sabrin's candidacy the day Christie Whitman is a Democrat just like all the other he was nominated by the Libertarian Party of New Jersey. I Democrats I know." Those two statements probably was an early donor to his campaign, and worked for months, increased a vote switch of a couple of points from Sabrin to volunteering as much as thirty hours a week on the cam­ Whitman. Libertarians know how it works in a very close paign. My company produced the initial campaign material race. "If I vote for the Libertarian who won't win I will be and coordinated the fundraising activity, and I handled pub­ giving my vote to [fill in the blank, you've heard it before]. lic relations aspects of the campaign. Our efforts paid off. Last-minute contributions poured in Enter Stage Rear from around the country. Dozens of volunteers worked It was an off year on the national political scene with no countless hours to record the contributions and make three real federal activity and only two gubernatorial races. The Xerox copies of every check, deposit ticket, contribution form New Jersey race was sure to attract a lot of attention since it and the final report, producing over forty-five pounds of was generally accepted that Christine Todd Whitman was on documentation which we delivered just minutes before the her way to a possible Presidential or Vice Presidential nomi­ deadline. The ensuing battle with Election Law Enforcement nation in 2000. Commission (ELEC) over its unsuccessful attempt to disqual­ New Jersey law stipulates that if a candidate for governor ify us on a technicality was won through excellent legal work raises and spends $210,000 on his campaign, he can accept and an avalanche of media support that my company matching funds from the state and be included in televised orchestrated. debates. No third party candidate had ever even come close We had won the first battle. But the real campaign lay to doing that in the 20 years that the law had been in effect. I ahead, and we had a lot of work to do if we were to make a thought we could get lots of support from Libertarians good showing. We had no professional staff; we had no suit­ around the country if we could raise about half that amount able headquarters; we had no strategic plan. Exhausted from before we asked for their help. four weeks of working 16-20 hours a day, we set out to win Murray Sabrin was an attractive candidate. His creden­ the second battle - the actual election. The publicity we had tials were impressive: he headed the finance department at already generated, including some very vocal support on key % Ramapo College, hosted his own radio talk show, and was a radio talk shows, had resulted in a 9 .showing in the polls. I popular lecturer and speaker. And he had authored a book knew it was a long shot, but I figured that with a fairly well­ on how to achieve a tax-free society. And he was willing to run campaign, an effective message, the right strategy, and a Liberty 21 Volume 11, Number 3 January 1998 lot of luck we just might pull off a second win. And even if build strong support that wouldn't abandon us in the final we failed in the election, we'd still have a major.impact, days to vote for the lesser of two evils. advance our Libertarian program, and build our movement. I set out to build a staff and develop a campaign plan. It I had been recommending to Murray for months that we was only then that I discovered that the NJLP had not been get a campaign manager who had the ability and time to able to fine-tune its volunteer capabilities and that it also had devote to the campaign. A few days before we filed our a scarcity of full time campaign staffers. We brought in some papers with the (ELEC), Murray asked me to take charge of experienced people from out of state. Jackie Bradbury joined the campaign. I did so. I was confident we could get past the us from Virginia on a temporary basis and later came back few remaining hurdles if we gave it a Herculean effort. full time when it became obvious that we couldn't find a local replacement who could handle the job. Norman Rule of Opening Dialogue Maryland served as volunteer co-ordinator. Enna Wheeler Our initial strategy, something that worked well for us in handled scheduling. the fundraising effort, was to position Murray, the limited We accomplished a lot in a short time. We organized a government candidate, against the two proponents of big, staff, established an effective headquarters, and implemented intrusive and expensive government. We declared the a good plan. We planned to fine tune our message, get it out, Democrat and the Republican to be the same and even identify our support and rally itbehind us to gather more sup­ labeled them "McWhitman." The press loved it. port and then get the vote to the polls. Our campaign resources were no match for the Business McWhitman monster. Both Learning From Failure But something was wrong. I realized we were McGreevey and Whitman Two specific points: spending too much time arguing about strategy and had millions of dollars, thou­ 1. The relationship· between a refining our message. We were ignoring the fact that sands of workers and solid Libertarian Candidate, the Libertarian Sabrin's support had been coming from a wide array party support. But the polls Party, and libertarians. of people who favored smaller government, less reg,.. showed the two leaders very The Sabrin campaign is typical of ulation and lower taxes. Murray's political strategist, closely matched withpercent­ how Libertarians sabotage them­ Rick Shaftan, wanted to focus solely on conservative ages in the high thirties and selves in many ways with these Republicans. I was convinced this focus would alien­ low forties. Considering that three factions working against each ate our broader constituency and cost votes - not to Independent voters outnum­ other. mention the effect it would have on getting our mes­ bered registered Democrats 2. The false hope Libertarians have sage out and building our party. Murray would usu­ and registered Republicans with at least one campaign each season. ally agree with me, but the issue kept coming up, and that New Jersey state­ We in the Party continually fail forcing the same debate again. wide elections are frequently to learn from the past. We continue The campaign was in trouble. The deadly killer of loaded with last-minute sur­ to push for membership growth as if third party campaigns had set in - politica.l intoxica­ prises, I felt that we could get it were the only item we need for tion. Murray's advisors were telling him what he at least 150/0 of the vote. After certain success, yet we have made wanted to hear: that he could be elected. That made all, there was a lot of dissatis­ no inroads in partisan races. Until me reflect briefly on a conversation I'd had with faction with Whitman, and we address the issue of registration, Murray one day in which he told me how much he the Democrats had split dur­ this will continue to be the case. wanted to be governor. "I can serve two terms and ing the primary and were not And the longer we delay in address­ thenbecome president of a college." solidly behind their candi­ ing the registration issue the more Campaign strategy discussion began to focus on date. It was also the first time futile our eventual efforts will be. how Murray was really a conservative Republican that an alternative candidate -George Reis who could unseat Whitman. Murray never really said would have the opportunity much during these discussions, and at times, oddly to debate the major party candidates and receive unparalleled enough, seemed to be a spectator. I knew it was tough on him. media attentionif only for the uniqueness of thesituation. I had counted on Murray to ensure that the Libertarian I insisted that our strategy focus on two very important message would be presented to all who might embrace it goals. With the Democrats and Republicans outspending us and that we would do a good job of party building. I wasn't by a huge margin, Murray had to perform very well in the prepared to see this campaign take on the appearance of a debates. Not only would a lot of voters see the debates, but a conservative Republican campaign. But I could feel the good performance would increase news coverage and help ground shifting beneath my feet. make up for our shortage of funds. Secondly, I knew we had The stuff really hit the fan at a hastily convened staff to foc~s on party building. We needed to build a strong sup­ meeting in early October. We had just celebrated the opening port base, increase party membership and recruit some ener­ of our headquarters and I was busy talking to people from getic activists. If by some chance we won, a· strong base the media who were full of questions for future stories they would help us implement the radical libertarian program; if were planning. I was in and out of the meeting. we lost, it would be a foundation for future victories. Somehow the topic turned to whether we should use our The overall objective was, of course, to get as many votes toll-free telephone number in radio and TV commercials. I as possible without compromising these two important believed this was critical to our success. We had tested the objectives. To do this we had to find strong support for our toll-free number in a one-week ad campaign to raise money message. It would be a very close election and we needed to to qualify for the debates. The campaign produced some 22 Liberty Volume 11, Number 3 January 1998 some contributions, a few new LP members, and responses having the agreement reversed. I chuckled when I reminded from a number of individuals who supported Murray but myself that Yogi Berra was right when he said, "Some people, who didn't join the party. The campaign didn't pay for itself, ya can't teach 'em nothing unless they already know it." primarily because the lower, political advertising rates were A few days before Election Day, in an interview with Gabe not in effect yet. But it had demonstrated that promoting our Pressman, Murray answered the same question the same way toll-free number would help us raise funds, build the party, I had. I just shook my head, knowing that Yogi was right. Yogi and identify people whose support for Murray was always right. About would need reinforcement in the days just playing left field in Yankee prior to the election, when support for third­ Dime's Worth Stadium, where the shadows party and independent candidates usually I am okay with the matching funds. I from the stands were a big weakens. Plus, it provided a good database for was glad that Harry Browne did not problem late in the after­ future party growth. accept them - sometimes the publicity noon, he once said that "It Well, I lost the battle. The toll-free number you get from not taking them is worth gets dark early out there." didn't appear in our radio and television adver­ more than the money you'd get - but my That's what happened next. tising. It appeared on our signs way down at understanding is that Sabrin would not It got dark early for the the bottom, in small type with the "paid for have gotten into the debates without campaign. by" line that nobody reads. accepting them. At one point I returned to the meeting to I was, however, shocked and disap­ Exit Stage Right hear Shaftan that he wanted to defeat pointed when Sabrin issued a press release Well, Max got his agenda Whitman, get as many votes as possible for endorsing Republicans. Just days before and Shaftan got his. The Murray, and bring him back to run again as a this press release, he sent out a fundraising campaign portrayed Murray conservative Republican in a future election, I letter over my name urging folks to contrib­ as a conservative Repub­ blew my stack. ute to the cause of spreading the word to lican, and focused on defeat­ We then had a major argument about pub­ New Jersey residents that there's not a ing Whitman at all costs. lic relations. Shaftan and Murray's brother Max dime's worth of difference between the Ds Shaftan's PR efforts pro­ were expressing dissatisfaction with the public and Rs!!! Either there's a dime's worth of duced some embarrassing relations job my company had performed. It difference or there's not, and if there's not coverage: he blasted Whit­ seemed pretty plain that my days as campaign then there is no reason to endorse them! man for having a Spanish manager were numbered. Worse still, I feared How is a Libertarian candidate going language version on her that the Sabrin campaign was about to aban­ to campaign in the state in future elections website, of all things. don its goals of advancing a libertarian agenda and tell folks that there's no difference I had wanted to get and building the libertarian movement. between a D and an R? Murray to prepare for the That's what we base our campaigns on: debates with some rigorous Getting the Hook "don't waste your vote on the other two training with accomplished The next day sealed my fate and deter­ guys who both want bigger government." Libertarian debaters, but he mined the campaign's new direction. I fielded -Ja Jorgensen and Shaftan resisted. He did a call from an AP reporter who wanted to spend some time with Don know why the Sabrin campaign had not made Gorman, .the Libertarian for­ public the names and addresses of its $300 and under con­ mer state legislator from New Hampshire, who was gracious tributors. I pointed out that the election law did not require enough to give him the better part of a weekend. Don's us to do so. The reporter said that Common Cause was spec­ coaching had a very visible positive effect. But Don was the ulating that too many of our contributors were from out of only Libertarian help Murray sought for the debates. He state. I pointed out that there is no legal requirement that we paid the price for his lack of preparation. He faltered on report small contributions, and said that we were protecting some of the issues both in the debates and in various our valuable contributor list from our opponents. I added interviews. that many of our contributors preferred that we not release I watched the message become diluted. I watched as the information. The article the next day only mentioned that Murray tried to be more of a conservative Republican than Libertarians don't want their contributions made public. I Whitman. I watched as he endorsed Republican candidates didn't like the story and knew I had probably said more than in all but three of New Jersey's State Senate districts. I should have - but I also knew that in a day or so the I cringed at his appeal for the right-to-life vote. The par­ whole issue would be old news. tial birth abortion issue had initially attracted some support I was fired that day. Actually, I was initially informed for Murray. He should have stuck to his position against that that I was not to speak to the press anymore and that Shaftan procedure and stressed his opposition to government fund­ was going to head up the PR effort. Later that day I got a let­ ing for abortion and support for parental involvement when ter from Murray stating he wanted to terminate our agree­ underage young women seek abortion. ment for PR as well my campaign management. I was The final weeks of the campaign brought a further frag­ unhappy, but I still wanted his campaign to do well. I told mentation of Sabrin's message. He jumped from issue to his henchman that I'd be happy to help the campaign on a issue trying to find the key to taking enough votes from volunteer basis in whatever role they needed me to play. Republican Whitman to elect Democrat McGreevey. His I was also somewhat relieved. I was tired of constant argu­ radio and TV spots were almost all Whitman attack ads. ments, tired ofcoming to an agreement on something and then His support shrank as the election approached. Right-to- Liberty 23 Volume 11, Number 3 January 1998 lifers, whose support he had gained by alienating the votes But we Libertarians could have accomplished much of others - fed up with big government and high taxes ­ more: we could have advanced our agenda and helped build abandoned him. But making opposition to all abortions a a foundation for further growth - and for eventual major focus proved to be a mistake. A news report shortly victories. after the election pointed out that Whitman received a The campaign was an education. We learned that the healthy plurality from strongly pro-life Morris County, and textbooks are right. They tell you to develop your message, pointed out that disenchanted right-to-life voters had come identify your support, and get it to the polls. The tenets of through for Whitman after a "dalliance" with Murray Sabrin. grassroots politics tell you to build your organization, moti­ CNN reported that its exit poll asked voters which of a half vate your followers, and consolidate your support. dozen issues were important to them in making a decision. Libertarians cannot depend on negative campaign ads to Only 3% said abortion. win elections or build their party. It doesn't take a genius to Sabrin managed to narrow Whitman's margin and may know that Libertarians can't win elections or build a party have sealed her fate by dashing her hopes for a spot on the appealing only to conservative Republicans. national ticket in 2000. But so what? We learned that the polls are right. Libertarians tend to The purpose of the Libertarian Party is not to teach draw almost equally from Democratic and Republican "lean­ Republicans to be better Republicans, but to show American ers." The exit polls showed that Sabrin pulled no more than voters there is a better way to run our country, a way based 3% of registered Democrats and Republicans but pulled as on voluntary and cooperative interaction rather than coer­ much as 12% of Independent voters who would have other­ cion. This is a message with increasingly broad appeal. wise voted almost equally for the two major partycandidates. When the votes were counted, Murray got 4.7% of the Murray Sabrin is worthy of our gratitude. He made a vote -less than half what he was showing before he aban­ great personal sacrifice. I wish he had· done more to appeal doned his libertarian agenda. to a broader audience and had honored his earlier commit­ Despite its disappointing vote total, the Sabrin campaign ment to party building. He received bad advice but he was had some very positive effects. Party members were stimu­ the one responsible for carefully weighing his options and lated by the campaign and answered the call to arms. The approving the final plan. Libertarian Party is alive and well in New Jersey. From late Will Murray Sabrin run in th~ future as a Republican? If August through early November the L word was everywhere. he does, I won't be involved. I'm more interested in people People will continue to talk about the Libertarians. For a brief who want to create long-lasting change than those who moment, wevaulted over the hurdle of political irrelevance. might just want to be governor. 0

Just Say "No" to Matching Funds ------This summer, Murray Sabrin solicited Libertarians 3) But most important is what accepting a government nationwide to contribute to his campaign. His staff reported benefice does to the recipient. that if he could raise some $210,000 by August 31, the state How many of today's Medicare or Social Security welfare would have no choice but to allow him entry into the tele­ recipients would vote to end those programs tomorrow? vised debates. They can't afford to entertain arguments that their own What Dr. Sabrin's campaign failed to note in some of "contributions" were "borrowed" and spent by the klepto­ these solicitations was that raising that sum would also qual­ crats decades ago, that even if we do assume there was ify Dr. Sabrin for state "matching funds"; that he would be money in their"accounts" upon retirement, simple arithme­ required to accept those funds in order to be allowed into the tic reveals it's all paid back to them (including interest debate; and that he fully intended to accept them. accrued) within two or three years of retirement, due to low The arguments against Libertarians - members of the standard "contribution" rates back in the 40s and 50s, where­ Party of Principle - accepting such looted tax moneys have upon these affluent oldsters shift over to receiving funds been repeated often enough to grow tedious. Briefly: directlylooted and transferred from the paychecks of their 1) All taxation is theft. Accepting such subsidies is own struggling grandchildren. immoral. By now, though, their budgets are built around these Yes, I know, we all drive on roads paved withtax mon­ crutches; the old-timers can no more contemplate going cold eys looted from our neighbors against their will. But this turkey than can any heroin junkie. does not excuse us in the cases where a free choice remains. A Libertarian Party with its coffers swelled with looted We would not much sympathize with the German of 1943 tax funds will require full-time, highly paid executive direc­ who reasoned: "I ride the Nazi-run trains. I use the Nazi-run tors to supervise the endless, detailed accounting required Post Office. So what the heck, I might as well take that new - busily sending in the names and addresses of all contribu­ job as a concentration camp guard; it's all the same." tors, to facilitate their later arrest when circumstances 2) Libertarians offer a true alternative to the existing, cor­ require. Those new party bureaucrats will attend expense­ rupt, collectivist parties only so long as we maintain our paid seminars, put on in posh hotels by the various election principles. Demonstrate that we will compromise them the commissions, teaching them how to apply for further subsi­ first time someone dangles a prize on a stick, and we have dies to publish larger party newsletters with lovely color nothing left to offer but some minor nuances of policy shad­ photos. Thus are the wild pigs gradually taught to enter the ing ... hardly the single candle of rigorous truth in the other­ gated pen in search of the easy pickings. wise all-corrupting darkness. -Vin Suprynowicz 24 Liberty America V5. France Of Rednecks and Caryatids by Pierre Lemieux

Must epicures be servile? Must rednecks be gauche?

An American Reader's Digest editor posted in Paris once reflected to me that there are few distinct civilizations in the West. One, he said, is America; another is France. Any American who knows France will understand. France is the country Even caryatids on public buildings or license by mail, merely by declaring of civilized relations, moral tolerance, park fountains are so sexy that you that I had held one before. We drove formal beauty, sensuousness - the are tempted to jump them. A on private roads, my son with a good life. Canadian girl living in France once loaded shotgun on his knees, and vis­ ited our hosts with handguns on our France remarked that hotel rooms are designed not for sleep but for love. belts. We bought ammunition at the Food, from the simplest to the Ideas, debates, and dissent are grocery store. most sophisticated, somehow tastes We felt we were in the· hills better in France than anywhere else, everywhere present. This is the coun­ Thoreau had described, where "the and there is nothing like a three-hour try of Charles Baudelaire and Ben­ dinner in a Paris restaurant, capped jamin Constant. State was nowhere to be seen." In the with a Havana. Interpersonal rela­ woods, we met a redneck who, tions assume a wide variety and rich­ America harassed by some environmental reg­ ness of forms. Words and stances I spent the Christmas holidays of ulation pertaining to a river on his convey subtle meanings. Youngsters 1995 with my youngest son, hiking farm, had told the feds, "Take your are polite. Living passionately is rec­ and hunting in the hills of North damned water off my land." On the ognized as an art: as the song says, Carolina near the Tennessee border. way back, we visited my friend Alan you live "les aiguilles dans Ie rouge," Our cabin had no electricity and not Kors in a Philadelphia suburb. Alan Le., as if your tachometer's needle much to do with modern America, its and I were photographed together, were always in the red. Motorists wealth and modern conveniences. proclaiming "Long live liberty, long drive fast but religiously yield on the But the cabin did convey some live Spooner, down with tyranny!" right. If you comply with civilized idea of the American tradition. This is We might even have said, "Down expectations, you always know what rugged country, with hard-working, with the state!" After all, this is to expect. self-reliant, and trustworthy people. America, the country of Thomas Women are independent and self­ Nobody locks his car. People trust Jefferson and Lysander Spooner. conscious, but seductive, tender, play­ their local sheriff, up to a line in the France and America, of course, do ful. Girls learn their power over men sand that is visible to anybody. Many not exist as such. These collective early, how to use it, and how to say illegally carry handguns in their cars, words are only shorthand to describe Yes or No gracefully. Clean flirting is and everybody knows that the sheriff patterns of human relations and com­ rampant. In summer months, millions knows but won't interfere. A grand­ plexes of meanings. Sometimes, they of bare-breasted, and sometimes mother lent me her Python .357 are used to identify state apparatuses nude, women invade public beaches. Magnum. I had obtained a hunting that rule over the territories marked Liberty 25 Volume 11, Number 3 January 1998

"France" or "America" on maps - an people, their identity is now defined France is not what it used, or prom­ unfortunate usage that, for some rea­ by the Social Security numbering sys­ ised, to be. Manners are deteriorating. son,' is at least as prevalent in English tem and official documents like Large and decrepit public housing pro­ as in French. In the individualist sense driver's licenses. Pressure-group poli­ jects harbor youth gangs that don't in which I use these concepts, France tics and crooked political mores have make for better company than their and America extend beyond the bor­ infected private relations. A growing American counterparts. An article in Le ders that states draw on maps with underclass idealizes violence and lives Monde recently reported the case of a their hostages' blood; they represent on welfare. A myriad of regulations woman cop who, returning home one cultures: configurations of values, has eviscerated the individual rights night, was attacked by a youth gang on ways of life, and meanings shared by guaranteed by the Constitution. a suburb train, and forced to submit to Powerful administrative and police such degrading abuses that she hid for agencies crisscross the land. America is two days after. Political scandals are Everybody illegally carries a also gun controls, Waco and Ruby on the rise, not because public mores Ridge, the drug war and civil forfei­ are becoming more ethical, but because handgun in his car, and knows tures, witch-hunts against insider trad­ politicos and bureaucrats use suspi­ that the sheriff knows but ers, and parents arrested for taking cions of corruption as weapons to won't interfere. A grand­ nude pictures of their children. advance their careers or harm the A new Puritanism thrives. My careers of their competitors. Even polit­ mother lent me her Python North Carolina refuge was in a dry ical correctness, the antithesis of the .357 Magnum. county, but this strange anachronism is French character, has made inroads in nothing compared with BATF control France. Laws against sexual of alcohol marketing, with the war harassment and regulations against waged on tobacco by government sci­ smoking have recently appeared on individuals. You are French if you the books. enjoy formal beauty and celebrate joie entists, with Janet Reno's opposition to de vivre; you are American if you stand drug liberalization in California and Arizona, with politically correct sexual Incompatible Cultures? up for rugged individualism and self­ Quebec is an interesting case. One reliance. True, it is individuals who behavior, and with the new Comstockery against erotic representa­ might hope that, mixing both cultures, have cultures and not the other way French Canadians would inherit the around, so one can participate in many tions involving young-looking people. cultures. But our ideal types help for­ The state is everywhere to be seen. In mulate an important question: Can we deference to reality, Emma Lazarus's enjoy the advantages of both France inscription on the Statue of Liberty France is characterized by and America? should now read: moral tolerance, formal beauty, Give me your tired, your poor, your politeness, and joie de vivre; Counter-Realities huddled masses Now, America is also more (or less) Yearning for public education, public while America is blemished by than the characterization given above. health care, and government self-righteousness, political Starting with the Civil War, and checks. correctness, vulgarity, and accelerating with the onset of the 20th I lift my lamp beside the quiet tyranny. century, Americans have come to France, on the other hand, is the dullness in everyday life. define themselves in terms of citizen­ land of Colbert (Louis XIV's finance ship, to depend more and more upon minister), with a wide net of detailed the state, and to cave in before anything regulations, prior controls, and French attachment to formal beauty, that bears the name of law. A few years confiscatory taxation. It is an imperial tolerance and joie de vivre, as well as after the end of the Civil War, George republic with well-insulated politicos the American commitment to self­ Ticknor of Harvard wrote: "It does not and bureaucrats who wield wide reliance, rugged individualism, and seem to me as if I were living in the police powers. The French have gotten the spirit of individual liberty. And country in which I was born, or in used to relying on the state for every­ Quebeckers have shared some frontier which I received whatever I got of thing. What economists call "rent­ values, exemplified by the spirit of the political education and principles." seeking" has reached high plateaus: coureur des bois (runner of the forest) ­ Poor George! Although he did fear every organized group can obtain priv­ the 18th century farmer who took to "what is likely to happen hereafter," he ileges from the state if it can marshal the woods each winter to trade furs could not imagine what America enough street power, while the popu­ with the Indians. Large families with would be like today. For many lace naively applauds. Proud of his hard-working fathers and strong moth­ Americans, self-reliance has been free spirit, the individual is often noth­ ers were the rule. Thirty years ago, replaced by squabbles over govern­ ing but a bon-vivant ward of the Quebeckers were still free of public ment handouts, subsidies, and favors. Republic, which keeps him quiet and health insurance, social security num­ Personal responsibility means obeying contented with his wine, cheese, and bers, significant firearm regulations, the cops. Although Americans may not Folies Bergeres. government control of schools yet fill out forms as readily as other There are many indications that (although the more or less official 26 Liberty Volume II, Number 3 Janu 1998

Church filled part of the void), and English Canada, the trend does not poetic TV programs, and take four­ powerful bureaucracies (in peacetime, bode well. course meals with Bordeaux wine. In at least). The typical Quebecker was Parallel to this insidious demise of America, you bump into frustrated probably as sentimentally attached to French culture, the welfare state has teenagers who get dead drunk at the individual liberty as the average grown so much in both Quebec and first opportunity, fat people who roam American. English Canada that self-reliance is non-smoking shopping malls, and bar­ Some of the French spirit is also vis­ probably considered by most people as barians who drink water while gulping ible in Quebec. Stupid laws are not as a contradiction in terms. The pessimis- dinner in half an hour. Berk! strictly enforced in Quebec as One wonders: did the in the u.S. or in the rest of attractive features of French Canada. This is especially civilization develop because apparent with daily pleasures society was tightly regulated and innocent vices. For exam­ by the state, or in spite of it? ple, there is some doubt as to And did the ugly features of whether a ban on smoking in American culture develop restaurants could be enforced because free and self-reliant here. Some large firms flout individuals must end up as smoking regulations as a mat­ rednecks and bigots? ter of routine. Indeed, conterllporary Or consider matters relat­ French sociologist Jean- ing to sex. Although Quebec is William Lapierre has not exactly France, it has not attempted to justify the acti­ yet fallen into U.S.-style, statist vist state along these lines. Puritanism as blindly as Liberty, he points out, English Canada. In Quebec, requires that individuals gen­ you can still have nude pic­ erally obey certain spontane­ tures developed at a chain ous rules of conduct. Now, so drug store without fearing that the argument goes, individu- somebody will call the cops. als cannot voluntarily adhere Actually, if the pictures are to such rules without also spicy enough, the technician submitting blindly to all will probably make a second kinds of social conventions - set of prints for his personal that is, without becoming enjoyment. S.H. Chambers guilt-ridden rule-followers: Quebeckers tend to laugh conservative, dull, and dumb. at political correctness. Thus, a modern, tolerant, Recently, when asked how things are tic scenario is that Quebeckers will end innovative, artistic, fun society is going, I have gotten into the habit of up as collectivist rednecks - the worst inconsistent with the spontaneous answering, "Except for sex, money, of all worlds. order. The state is necessary to liberate and my e-mail software, everything is individual initiative and diversity A-I." The typical reaction is exempli­ An Argument for the State from the tyranny of social conventions. fied by the oldish woman who owns Let's go back to our two polar (and Lapierre has developed this argument my favorite convenience store: she simplified) models, France and by comparing primitive societies with burst out laughing, and replied, "Well, America. On one side, you have a and without states. Anarchy, he Monsieur Lemieux, if that's the only strong administrative state that passed argues, is inconceivable without such thing wrong, there is no problem." Or unchanged from the Old Regime to strong social controls that diversity take the woman librarian on whom I post-1789 society, and abated for only and innovation are impossible - and tried my line. Thinking I was flirting, a few decades in the 19th and early diffuse oppression by the tribe or the she quipped back: "As far as money is 20th centuries. On the other side, you village is more intrusive than coercion concerned, I have no solution, but the have the modern ideal of individual by formal, well-circumscribed political sex issue could be easily dealt with." A liberty that gave rise to America, the processes. girl student standing nearby was bit­ least statist society in the history of Thus, the state was necessary for ing her lips (I mean, of course, her civilization. the development of individual smiling lips), trying not to burst out Yet France is characterized by autonomy. Lapierre applies this line of laughing. moral tolerance, formal beauty, polite­ reasoning in comparing the minimal Yet, the statist establishment has ness, and joie de vivre; while America is state with anarchy, and also in con­ succeeded in imposing some political blemished by self-righteousness, politi­ trasting the the modem administrative correctness with new laws and regula­ cal correctness, vulgarity, and dullness state with the minimal state. By

tions (against "sexual harassment," for in everyday life. In France, you meet 1/administrative state," he means a example). Even if their enforcement is sophisticated individuals who have Tocquevillian political power which, nothing compared with the U.S. or early morning drinks in bistros, watch though limited, is conceived of as soci- Liberty 27 Volume 11, Number 3 Janu 1998

ety's board of directors and is capable spontaneous order from becoming rig­ the 1960s, for example, moral tolerance of regulating the whole complex of idly rule-bound. Given a chance, anar­ and openness in sexual matters grew social relations. The ideal administra­ chy-cum-markets could conceivably in parallel with mounting state power tive state, he argues, remains formal have fostered individual development in other areas. But over the past ten or and circumscribed, arid allows more much better than the state. 15 years the correlation has reversed, liberty than either anarchy or the mini~ Now, suppose that even a market­ and political correctness now goes mal state. based anarchic society would turn out hand in hand with advancing adminis­ If Lapierre is right, it is precisely to be hopelessly rule-bound and con­ trative tyranny. This reversal seems to the absence of a strong state that servative (of course, we can't know show that statism is not a causal factor explains the tyranny of public opinion this until we try). In a market context, a in individual liberation. Nozickian minimal state would then It seems more likely that the admin­ be expected to emerge and combine istrative state actually hampers the ability of French formal beauty to coex­ Food somehow tastes better the advantages of anarchy with the benefits of formalized rules protecting ist with the American spirit of rugged individualism: according to local and in France than anywhere else, individual autonomy and social diver­ historical circumstances, the Moralistic sity. If Lapierre is right that anarchic and there is nothing like a State will attack one or the other more societies are necessarily rule-bound three-hour· dinner in a Paris directly, but in the long run it is the and oppressive, the minimal state restaurant, capped with a enemy of both. And one must realize would seem sufficient to maintain a that all Western democracies are now Havana. general context of market relations, administrative states, with the French individual experimentation, and and American versions differing only autonomy. What can a more powerful by degrees. The first one crushes the state do better? and the poverty of cuIture that American spirit, the second one con­ The theory that individual auton­ Tocqueville observed in 19th-century centrates its fire on what I have called omy increases with state power could America - a condition in marked con­ French culture. be true only up to a point. At some trast with the diversity and brilliance point, government power starts com­ of European societies. His theory The Hedonist Redneck pounding, instead of alleviating, the Why should we care about all this would also explain why France is freer uniformizing tendencies of social rules than it appears at first glance, and why anyway? Would not a libertarian be and norms. Could this optimal point happy to live in the North Carolina hills America is more oppressive than it be the administrative state? or at Walden Pond? Isn't the absence of superficially seems. All we know about political power physical coercion a sufficient condition Do America's voluntarily enforced suggests a negative answer. Political mores and moral rules also allow for power cannot aim at administering the the development of a French level of whole society and regulating individ­ culture? Can people who are, and must uallives without reinforcing social uni­ Can people who are, and be, rednecks when it comes to defend­ formity along some dimension. The must be, rednecks when it ing their .rights, simultaneously be administrative state is bound to comes to defending their rights, intellectually curious, artistically become a Moralistic State. This conclu­ minded, and morally tolerant? Can sion is supported historically by a gen­ simultaneously be intellectu­ American rednecks simultaneously be erally negative correlation between the ally curious/ artistically French aesthetes? To all these ques­ extent of state power on the one hand, minded, and morally tolerant? tions, the theory of the autonomy­ and. economic entrepreneurship and promoting stateanswers No. social diversity, on the other hand. It is reinforced by the tragic experience of for individual liberty and happiness? The Moralistic State Leninist states. Once a certain threshold of state What makes something like French cul­ Lapierre's argument for the state power is reached, it actually strengthens ture desirable for someone who treas­ has a certain charm, but I don't find it social. pressures furthering state con­ ures liberty? I submit that there are two convincing. Consider the transition trol. In authoritarian states, brain­ kinds of reasons. The first can be found from primitive stateless societies to washed individuals rat on their in the economists' concept of subjective state-administered societies. The histor­ neighbors. Even in the U.S., the admin­ preferences; the second, in the realm of ical fact ·that civilization developed in istrative state has passed this thresh­ the philosophers' objective good. the latter, and that the former were old, with corporate whistle-blowers There are a certain number of free selected out by social evolution, does doing the job of the state by wearing individuals who want to have both not prove that the only two alternatives FBI:'provided tape recorders when America and France, and would be are barbarism and the state. The prob­ they meet with business colleagues. willing to trade some America for some lem might just be that the state Ages ago, the Protestant work ethic France. If people who want some appeared before market-based societies and Pilgrim honor no doubt fanned the French culture must transform North had time to develop. We now under­ flames of American freedom. But the Carolina into.Massachusetts, we have stand how markets, decentralization, administrative state also sometimes lost America. And if one has no place to diversity, and entrepreneurship keep a appears to be a liberating force. During live but dry Graham county, the good continued on page 30 28 Liberty Re[Jort

Mail from Malawi by Richard Rieben

What's strange about the fiefdom of Hastings Banda is that there's nothing strange about it.

"Balaka is a small town," the man your own cultural ambience and power brokers - governments, "non­ said. eclipse the native culture (or be totally governmental organizations" (NGOs), "There's nothing to see," I replied, alone), skywatching didn't interest corporations, and missions - and half-hoping to be contradicted. me nearly as much as observing these their local government functionaries, "There's nothing to see," he not-unhappy people and wondering who sustain the mess. The people agreed quite happily, "and there's where all the color went. Colonialism aren't dumb. They see what's going nothing strange." and Hastings Banda's nee-colonial on. "Whoever pays the piper calls the I might doubt his grasp of the dictatorship took a toll of course, but tunes," one schoolteacher told me. English language or wonder at this it's hard to tell if there was any color The aid keeps pouring in, and to choice of words, but, no, I can't con­ here to begin with. reclaim their integrity, dignity, inde­ tradict his observation that, like much The natives of Malawi have been pendence, or sovereignty, they would of the u.s. Midwest, there's nothing disenfranchised in their own country have to reject the aid, kick out the strange - just plain folks and plain and their own culture·by both corpo­ NGO's and foreign missions and cor­ living. Not a bad thing, is it? rate colonialism and foreign aid. porations. It would seem so, well, One evening in Balaka I saw the Malawi's national bus system is ungrateful, you know? most beautiful sunset I've ever seen. owned and operated by a British firm, Most aidworkers are unaware of God made the heavens tremble with as is a national chain of modern con­ their counter-productive role in color and brilliance, and no one both­ venience stores. "Aid" colonialism is Africa. All the aid and other "help" ered to look up. This Malawian indif­ everywhere: America seems to have does is keep the locals impoverished ference affects how the tourists see funded and constructed half of and backward - which seems to be things, too. Malawi is a beautiful Malawi's roads, Germany the other in the interest of the West" (as it country, but you quickly begin to see half. These are displaced people ­ always has been). things through the eyes of the out of control of their destiny, dispirit­ I've been reading Andrew Malawians - it is not drab, it just edly following alien paths, taken care Buckocke's Fishing in Africa: A Guide looks that way because it's unappre­ of, directed ... really not unlike the to War and Corruption. Commenting ciated by the natives themselves. The clients of a Western welfare state or on a United Nations High glories of nature, unsung, sulk captives on a slave plantation. Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) unattractively. The Indians in Malawi have been free-food program in Africa, he wrote: As a foreigner, from a culture that pushed into the few big cities, but no It was at this time that Arthur does appreciate such things as sun­ one bothers to fill their abandoned and I started thinking about putting sets, I could stand and gawk. But why countryside businesses (why do all an I AID KILLS' sticker in the back bother? With no one to share the that work when there are so many window of the car. Here, yet again, experience, I'd just look like a foolish handouts?). It's a mess, one that foolish philanthropy was leading to tourist. Because you have to supply serves the interest of the foreign a dangerous dependence. Many of Liberty 29 Volume 11, Number 3 Janua 1998

these people should have been pre­ asking other travelers what to do. Very and America and they say they're paring their fields for the coming rain different from most countries, where going to send it to the poor in Africa? season, instead of walking for up to the travelers congregate to discuss all Well, it's here! All over Africa, Kenya, three days to collect free food.... the interesting things they've been see­ Malawi, Zimbabwe. You find it in the Local party officials dominated the ing and doing. markets and on the streets - for sale, committees choosing the recipients, Malawi is the kind of place natives of course! Local clothing stores in parts and· it seemed stalwart supporters with brains can't wait to leave, where of Zimbabwe have had to shut their were first in line. missionaries preach religion to a multi­ doors because of the bundles of cheap, A sticky situation. For them. For us, tude that is too unimaginative to sin. used clothing being sold on the side­ however, it's just the status quo, mani­ These are a profoundly not-unhappy walks. It wouldn't help if you person­ fest destiny, all that crap. I'm no longer people, leading colorless lives, lacking ally gave that clothing to people who so irritated by it. I quite enjoyed any style or flair, except for a rare and need it; they would still turn around Malawi's everyday dullness. It's a golden laughter that takes one quite by and sell it. Charity is a ridiculous, crip­ place where people live, not one where surprise. I picture Dorothy and Toto pling, pride-destroying thing that will they live it up or take vacations. I met wishing they were back in Malawi. never workanyway. many travelers here, all of them won­ You know all that used clothing Give them their dignity. Sell them dering what to do with themselves and you give away to charities in Europe the clothes. 0

Stroup, "The Coming Stock Market Crashes," continued from page 18

arguments, to borrow from Edward trade to the service of multi­ above could be smothered by bureau­

Banfield, are 1/the moral basis of a government economic controls. They cracies and their special-interest poli­ backward society." Policies like these, may seek to form a European Union­ tics. Cartel members, though, are widely adopted, could slow progress style compact among all industrialized notoriously difficult to police. The needlessly, or even stop it in its tracks. nations, using economic sanctions ­ more successful a cartel is, the greater They could negate all the growth­ access to trade - to enforce the edicts the incentives for its members to vio­ enhancing factors that currently favor of the cartel of governments. They late its rules. a rising economy by reversing the may, for example, outlaw trade with Personally, I am betting on markets pressures for more economic freedom. nations who refuse to comply with lim­ to triumph, and the stock market to Opponents of economic growth its on the use of fossil fuels. If they suc­ continue broadcasting its encouraging may be able to harness the benefits of ceed, then the positive forces listed message. 0

Lemieux, "Of Caryatids and Rednecks," continued from page 26

life is lost. ways of life are linked; we cannot long that there is more to libertarian values Some philosophers argue that the maintain one without the other. If than merely a formal argument against development of an individual's full rugged individualism and polished physical coercion. A decent society potential is a moral good that tran­ individualism cannot survive indepen­ must be committed both to the value of scends individual preferences. And dently, then the argument for their syn­ human development and to individual there seems to be something to this. thesis mustbe something more than our autonomy; to have a free and pleasura­ Consider: a culture of self-reliance and fancy. This is the objective dimension ble society, we need people who share the flourishing of vibrant, sophisticated thatwecannotignore. This would mean both commitments. In fine, for liberty, we need both France and America. Redneck and hedonist libertarians of the world, unite! 0

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www.e-gold.com Send in this ad, and receive a $14.95 value free of charge with any orckr oU5O or more. (Offer good only while supplies last.) The Fight for Medical Marijuana by Paul Armentano

The wheels of reform grind exceeding slow - and rough.

A year has passed since California and Arizona voters approved the use of mari­ juana as medicine, a year of continuing legal maneuvering at both the federal and state levels. Here is a brief summary of what has happened. November 1996 11/05/96: Voters in Arizona and ment action will be ... decided on a California overwhelmingly approve 12/12/96: McCaffrey and Depart­ case by case basis." initiatives endorsing the legal use of ment of Transportation Secretary marijuana under a doctor's supervi­ 11/14/96: Drug Czar Barry McCaf­ Federico Pena hold a joint press con­ sion. Proposition 215 in California frey holds a closed door meeting with ference to announce that medical mar­ exempts patients using marijuana California law enforcement officials to ijuana users in California and Arizona medicinally from state criminal discuss the federal response to the will not be granted an exemption charges and also authorizes the culti­ passage of Proposition 215. Atten­ from federal drug testing laws. A vation of marijuana for medicinal pur­ dance is restricted to those who oppose press statement announces: "The law poses. Proposition 200 in Arizona the legal use of medical marijuana. is clear. If you are a safety-sensitive ... states that physicians may prescribe worker and you're caught using marijuana to seriously ill patients. December 1996 drugs, these propositions don't mean 11/06/96: Arizona Governor Fife 12/02/96: Senator Orrin Hatch (R­ a thing. You're out of a job." Symington (R) threatens to veto Utah) calls a special hearing of the 12/30/96: The Clinton administra­ Proposition 200. Symington claims Senate Judiciary Committee to tion announces its plan to institute that he has the authority to veto suc­ denounce the passage the California criminal prosecution of physicians cessful ballot initiatives which pass and Arizona initiatives. Thomas who prescribe or recommend with a simple majority of voters, but Constantine, Administrator of the marijuana in California and Arizona, without a majority of all voters. John Drug Enforcement Administration, and to deprive them of their right to MacDonald, government affairs direc­ testifies that the federal government write prescriptions of any kind. The tor for the Arizona Attorney General's could "take both administrative and plan further recommends that such office says that a veto by the governor criminal actions against doctors who physicians be excluded from the would violate the state's constitution. violate the terms of their DEA drug Medicaid and Medicare programs. 11/09/96: The Office of National registrations to prescribe controlled The federal plan also authorizes the Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) issues substances." Hatch lambastes the DEA to "adopt" (take over) a press release reaffirming the propositions as the work of "pothead prosecution of cases resulting from Administration's opposition to pas­ doctors ... [who] want to legalize seizures of marijuana and other sage of the medical marijuana initia­ drugs." Schedule I controlled substances tives. "Federal law is unchanged by 12/09/96: Symington grudgingly made by state and local law en­ the passage of these initiatives.... signs Proposition 200 into law, but forcement officials in cases where The decision to bring appropriate vows not to implement many of its state and local prosecutors cannot criminal or administrative enforce- provisions. prosecute because of state laws. Liberty 31 Volume 11, Number 3 Janua 1998

January 1997 physicians who prescribe or recom­ - join the federal medical marijuana 1/08/97: Citing the passage of mend the medical use of marijuana. lawsuit filed on January 14. Proposition 215, California Superior That same day, Senator Orrin Hatch Court Judge David A. Garcia lifts a includes similar provisions in a March 1997 five-month injunction on the San Republican-backed anti-crime bill (S. 3/06/97: A group of physicians, Francisco Cannabis Buyers' Club, a 3). health organizations, and patients file a 10,ODO-member organization that dis­ 1/22/97: The Massachusetts federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia challeng­ tributes marijuana to seriously ill Department of Health issues regula­ ing the federal government's refusal to patients. Garcia rules that the club may tions to create an affirmative medical allow physicians to prescribe mari­ engage in the not-for-profit cultivation defense for patients who use mari­ juana in states that permit them to do and sale of marijuana for documented juana for a legitimate medical need. so. The lawsuit cites state laws in medical purposes. "The people of The Department also begins develop­ Connecticut, Virginia, and Arizona California have spoken," Garcia ing a blueprint for a state-run medical permitting physicians to prescribe mar­ declares. "I don't think [the California marijuana research project. Governor ijuana for patients suffering from seri­ Attorney General] or I are going to say William Weld endorses the action and ous illnesses. Plaintiffs seek a that the people of California were states that he has "no problem" with declaratory judgment that the federal ineffectual." the use of marijuana as a therapeutic policy prohibiting physicians from rec­ 1/09/97: Responding to public agent. ommending or prescribing marijuana opposition over the Clinton adminis­ 1/30/97: Dr. Jerome Kassirer, edi­ in accordance with state law violates tration's proposal to arrest physicians tor of The New England Journal of the First, Ninth, and Tenth who recommend or prescribe mari­ Medicine, opines that the federal policy Amendments and the Commerce juana, the ONDCP commits nearly one that prohibits physicians from pre­ Clause of the U.S. Constitution. million dollars to fund a comprehen­ scribing marijuana to seriously ill 3/18/97: New guidelines issued by sive review by the National Academy patients is "misguided, heavy-handed, the American Medical Association of Sciences' (NAS) Institute of and inhumane." He argues that the (AMA) and its California affiliate Medicine of the existing scientific liter­ federal government should immedi­ (CMA) support a physician's right to ature regarding marijuana's medical ately reschedule marijuana to allow for discuss freely the use of marijuana as a potential. Many criticize the proposal its legal use by prescription. therapeutic agent with his or her as· a "stalling tactic" and emphasizes patient. that the move fails to authorize any February 1997 research. The NAS conducted a similar 2/14/97: DEA agents question April 1997 review in 1982 and concluded: California family practitioner Dr. 4/03/97: Representative Gerald "Cannabis and its derivatives have Solomon (R-N.Y.) introduces a com­ Robert Mastroianni regarding evi­ shown promise in the treatment of a panion bill to Senator Faircloth's S. 40 dence that he recommended marijuana variety of disorders." in the House of Representatives. The 1/14/97: A group of California to three seriously ill patients. The bill is titled the "Medical Marijuana physicians and patients file a class agents warn Mastroianni that he is Prevention Act of 1997." action suit in federal court in San under formal investigation. 4/15/97: The Arizona Legislature Francisco seeking an injunction to pre­ 2/20/97: A panel of prominent guts medical marijuana provisions vent federal officials from taking any physicians call for clinical trials to included in Proposition 200 by approv­ punitive action against physicians who examine marijuana's therapeutic ing a law mandating that state licensed recommend the medical use of mari­ potential in the treatment of AIDS, physicians may only prescribe mari­ juana to their patients in compliance spasticity disorders, glaucoma, and juana after it has been approved by the with state law. chronic pain, and the side effects of federal Food and Drug Administration 1/21/97: Senator Lauch Faircloth cancer chemotherapy at the close of a (FDA). Backers of Proposition 200 (R-N.C.) introduces legislation in two-day conference organized by the announce that they will file a Congress (S. 40) to sanction severely National Institutes of Health (NIH). referendum to block the Legislature's Panelists announce that a action. full report recommending 4/21/97: Federal agents raid a course of action will be Flower Therapy, a medical marijuana released in four weeks. buyers' club in San Francisco. Officials confiscate 331 marijuana plants, but 2/23/97: Four Califor­ leave dried marijuana that was marked nia medical groups - the for "medicinal purposes." No federal San Francisco Medical charges are filed and the club re-opens Society, the California the following day. Academy of Physicians, 4/24/97: San Jose becomes the first the Gay and Lesbian city in the United States to pass zoning "Ifthey're really for individual choice, why don't they Medical Association, and laws regulating cannabis buyers' clubs. have beer vouchers?" the Marin Medical Society 4/30/97: U.S. District Court Judge 32 Liberty Volume 11, Number 3 January 1998

Fern Smith rules that federal officials for medical use at a conference in Journal of Medicine, Dr. George Annas may not sanction California doctors Scotland. of the Boston University School of "'Tho recommend marijuana to their 7/03/97: Drug reform activists in Medicine demands that seriously ill patients in compliance with state law. Washington state submit more than patients be given immediate legal Plaintiffs' attorney Graham Boyd hails 242,000 signatures to the Secretary of access to medical marijuana. Annas the ruling as a "tremendous victory." State to place the "Drug Medical­ writes: "Research should go on, and ization and Prevention Act of 1997" on while it does, marijuana should be May 1997 the November 1997 ballot. Initiative available to all patients who need it to 5/01/97: Dr. Donald Abrams of the 685 would allow physicians to "recom­ help them undergo treatment for life­ University of California at San mend" the use of marijuana or any threatening illnesses." Francisco submits a research proposal other Schedule I drug to a seriously ill 8/08/97: After an almost five to NIH to study.the short-term effects patient. The initiative also calls for sub­ month delay, the NIH releases a of smoked marijuana on individuals stantive criminal justice reforms. promised report on the therapeutic suffering from AIDS. 7/17/97: Medical marijuana propo­ 5/22/97: The California Medical nents in Arizona turn in twice the nec­ potential of marijuana. The NIH Association (CMA) publicly endorses essary number of signatures to report concludes that marijuana state legislationintroduced bySen. John resurrect a Proposition 200 provision "looks promising enough [in the treat­ Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara) to estab­ allowing doctors to prescribe mari­ ment of certain serious illnesses] to lish a medical marijuana research pro­ juana to seriously ill patients. recommend that there be new con­ gram ata major California university. trolled studies done," and urges the 5/27/ 97: A group of researchers August 1997 federal government to play an active from The Montana Clinic in Missoula 8/07/97: In The New England role in facilitating clinical evaluations submit a research proposal to the NIH regarding the use of marijuana in acute migraine treatment. 34 Curious Fact~ About Marijuana June 1997 compiled by Steve Cason 6/01/97: The Florida Medical Association, one of the largest state FACT 1: People who smoke pot don't people who smoke pot are not hard­ medical associations in the nation, care about the facts. ened criminals who will do. anything passes resolution #97-61 urging state FACT 2: People who don't smoke pot for a joint. and federal governments to allow legal don't care about the facts. FACT 12: The last thing in the world a access to marijuana for medical FACT 3: An estimated 150 million responsible adult high on marijuana purposes. Americans (nearly 60 percent) have wants to do is commit a crime. It's too 6/03/97: Representative Barney tried marijuana. (Scientific American much hassle. Pot smokers would Frank (D-Mass.) introduces H.R. 1782 Medicine). rather listen to good music and mel­ in Congress to provide for the medici­ low out. nal use of marijuana in the states. The FACT 4: An estimated 20 million Americans smoke pot regularly. FACT 13: No one uses the term "mellow legislation eliminates the federal out" anymore. restrictions which currently interfere (Substance Abuse and Mentall-Iealth with an individual state's decision to Administration). FACT 14: All the War on Drugs has permit the medical use of marijuana, FACT 5: The president ofthe United done is drive up the price ofmari­ and mandates the federal government States, Bill Clinton, smoked pot. juana. Twenty five years ago, an ounce ofmarijuana cost $15. Today, a quar... to provide marijuana for medical FACT 6: But he did not inhale. research purposes to all FDA approved ter-ounce costs $40. Crack on the FACT 7: My parents would never smoke other hand, you can buy for $5. I've scientific protocols. pot. 6/16/97: Nevada state prosecutors never smoked crack so 1'm not in a FACT 8: It's a waste oftime to try and drop felony marijuana possession position to say whether it's worth it. charges against a California cancer explain to someone who's never FACT 15: People who smoke pot don't patient after the district attorney con­ smoked pot that simply taking a few do the stupid kinds of things people cedes that the marijuana was pur­ tokes now and then won't turn you who smoke crack do. Police will verify chased in San Francisco and was for into a hippie. this. medicinal purposes only. Legal ana­ FACT 9: The 1960s turned people into FACT 16: Smoking marijuana doesn't lysts claim that this is the first inter­ hippies. make you sick. state proceeding involving medical FACT 10: I have in the past smoked pot FACT 17: You don't throw up ifyou marijuana imported from California. with a Republican mayoral candidate, smoke too much pot. a kid who grew up to be a policemen, a FACT 18: Marijuana isn't addictive. July 1997 school teacher, a pilot, a girl who's 7/02/97: The British Medical now a doctor, a judge's son, and once, FACT 19: Smoking marijuana doesn't Association (BMA) overwhelmingly with a guy who wore tie-dyed T-shirts. make you crazy. calls for the legalization of marijuana FACT 11: Contrary to popular belief, all , continued on page 35 Volume 11, Number 3 January 1998

of medical marijuana. White House establish a Medical Marijuana $170,000 grant to Washington state spokesman Mike McCurry tells the Research Center at a campus of the anti-drug coordinators to fund a full, Associated Press that the administra­ University of California. Backers of state-wide anti-marijuana effort. tion continues to oppose the use of the research proposal included the Proponents of Initiative 685 immedi­ marijuana to treat sick people despite American Cancer Society, Attorney ately file a complaint with the Public the NIH findings. General Dan Lungren, the California Disclosure Commission and state Narcotics Officers Association, the Ethics Board alleging that .the federal September 1997 California Medical Association, and funds are being used illegally to cam­ 9/12/97: The California the California District Attorney's paign against the "Drug Legislature fails to act on legislation Office. Medicalization and Prevention Act of introduced by Sen. John Vascocellos to 9/16/97: Federal officials provide a 1997." Federal and state laws prohibit

"Open" To Medical Marijuana Research? One Doctor's Struggle Tells a Different Story

This August, amidst fanfare gener­ marijuana research. may only take food intake because of marijuana might ated by a National Institute of Health place if approved by the National raise their cholesterol levels and put (NIH) report endorsing medical mari­ Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) (the themselves at risk of developing hard­ juana research, NIH Director Harold only legal U.S. supply source for mari­ ening of the arteries. Varmus announced that the agency "is juana) or an importation license is This past May, Dr. Abrams revised open to receiving research grant appli­ secured from the Drug Enforcement his protocol yet again. Rather than cations for studies of the medical effi­ Administration (DEA). Abrams soon attempting to compare marijuana's cacy of marijuana. ... We want to learned that neither agency was inter­ medical potential with that of synthetic make clear what has always been the ested in permitting research that THC, Abrams' latest version instead case." sought to determine whether mari­ focused on determining· the potential Dr. Donald Abrams, a noted AIDS juana was anything other than the short-term harmful effects of marijuana researcher and a professor at the "Devil's Weed." on HIV-positive patients. Specifically, University of California San Francisco In 1994, the DEA denied Abrams' the study will examine whether mari­ School of Medicine, would most likely request to import Dutch-grown mari­ juana interferes with the effectiveness disagree. juana and advised Abrams to secure of new protease inhibitor drugs fre­ In 1992, Abrams designed a pilot the marijuana from NIDA. In August quently prescribed in AIDS cases. study comparing the effectiveness of 1994, Abrams wrote NIDA asking the Abrams requested nearly $1 million inhaled marijuana with that of syn­ agency to supply him 5.7 kilograms of dollars to complete the 18 month thetic THC as a treatment for the government-grown marijuana. After study. NIH approved the study on weight loss associated with the AIDS waiting nine months for a response, September 18. wasting syndrome. Abrams quickly NIDA flatly rejected Abrams' request Allen St. Pierre, Executive Director secured private funding for the and attacked his methodology. of The NORML Foundation in endeavor and later gained approval Abrams later wrote NIDA head Alan Washington, D.C., said the Abrams from the Scientific Advisory Board of Leshner and informed him that saga is representative of federal gov­ the San Francisco Community "Dealing with your Institute has been ernment's attitude toward medical Consortiurn, the California Research the worst experience of my career." marijuana research. "In 1992, Dr. Advisory Panel, and the FDA to move Unbowed, Abrams spent the next Abrams embarked on a simple pilot ahead with the study. Five years later, year revising his protocol to address study to determine whether marijuana Abrams is still trying to get his compar­ many of NIDA's concerns. His 1996 stimulates weight gain in HIV-positive ative research study off the ground. protocol called for an in-patient study patients. That protocol, although FDA "When we first embarked on this, at a local hospital, and measured approved, was rejected by both NIDA all the medical marijuana advocates details such as caloric intake, weight and the DEA on three separate occa­ were weaving this government con­ change, energy expenditure, immune sions. Only after Abrams revised the spiracy business, and I just told them, function, viral load and hormone lev­ study to limit its scope to determining 'God, you are so paranoid!'" Abrams els. The NIH denied this protocol as if there are risk factors associated with' told the Los Angeles Times in 1996. "But well. the use of marijuana by HIV-positive now, after butting my head on this "Two of the reviewers questioned humans did NIH allow the trial to go thing for four years, I'm just as para­ why in the world we would ever con­ forward. This approved protocol is a noid and just as convinced that there sider studying [the medical potential] far cry from what Abrams proposed are politics being played." of such a toxic [sic] substance," five years ago and gives evidence that The politics inherent to medical Abrams told the Washington Post. He Washington's definition of 'open' to marijuana research involve the drug's noted that a third reviewer worried research is far different from anyone illegality. As a Schedule I substance, that AIDS patients who boosted their else's." -Paul Armentano 34 Liberty Volume 11, Number 3 Janu 1998

tax dollars from being used to fund a California, announces that it will coor­ reformers, but medical marijuana pro­ political campaign. dinate medical marijuana initiatives ponents say that public support for 9/18/97: NIDA officially for 1998 in Colorado and Maine. medical marijuana remains strong. announces on September 18 that Dr. Colorado's reform effort seeks to "The defeat of 1-685 was not a defeat for Donald Abrams of DC-San Francisco amend the state's constitution to allow medical marijuana," NORML Director will receive his full grant request of anyone holding a state-issued identifi­ R. Keith Stroup, Esq., says, citing exit $978,000 .for a study of the use of cation card to legally possess up to an poll results indicating 46 percent of smoked marijuana, oral dronabinol, ounce of marijuana for medical use those opposed to the initiative would and a placebo, in HIV-positive with a physician's recommendation. support a measure dealing only with patients. The aim of the revised proto­ Cultivation limits are set at six plants, medical marijuana. "It further supports col is to determine whether marijuana with no more than three plants pro­ our belief that a majority of Americans has serious short-term side effects on ducing usable marijuana at anyone favor focused legislation allowing a the health of HIV-positive patients. time. A similar proposal filed in Maine patient to use marijuana medicinally Only if the findings of this initial study would limit the use of marijuana to under a physician's supervision." - scheduled to take nearly 18 months patients suffering from AIDS, glau­ to complete - are negative, would coma, multiple sclerosis, or undergo­ The Outlook Abrams then be permitted to research ing cancer chemotherapy. As in It is apparent that the federal gov­ safety and efficacy of the chronic use of Colorado, the proposal allows patients ernment is not about to relent in its marijuana for HIV-associated anorexia to grow up to six marijuana plants. opposition to the use of marijuana as a and weight loss. 11/02/97: The NIH rejects a medicine. Threats by Washington to October 1997 research proposal to study the use of severely sanction doctors in California 10/01/97: Witnesses on both sides marijuana in acute migraine treatment. who recommended marijuana to a of the medical marijuana issue testify 11/04/97: Initiative 685, the "Drug patient ceased only after a federal before Congress at a hearing before the Medicalization and Prevention Act of court ruling. No federal agency has yet House Judiciary Committee, Subcom­ 1997" receives only 40 percent support to begin clinical trials involving the mittee on Crime. Proponents liken mar­ from Washington state voters. The effectiveness of medical marijuana. As ijuana's medical utility and safety to defeat comes as a disappointment to approved by the National Institute of drugs such as penicillin and urged the federal government to supportlegislative 34 Curious Facts About Marijuana continuedfromp. 33

FACT 20: Marijuana's most dangerous don't think inhaling smoke from a The federal government is side effect is jail. plant that grows wild on five conti­ not about to relent in its oppo­ FACT 21: While I was researching this nents should be against the law. story - cough, cough - I discovered a FACT 26: Civilization as we know it sition to the use of marijuana fact conspiracy theorists might find would not cease to exist ifmarijuana as a medicine. intriguing. were suddenly legal. FACT 22: In 1937, the year duPont pat­ FACT 27: People probably wouldn't ented Nylon - the first 100 percent notice. Ofcourse, they might suspect man-made fiber - the federal govern­ something ifin the middle ofa crowd, efforts to allow physicians to prescribe ment outlawed the cultivation of some fool blurts, "Wow! That cloud the drug, while opponents urge federal marijuana, the source ofhemp. looks just like a dog with a top hat officials to take a more vocal stance Remember hemp? The miracle fiber smoking a cigar." . opposing pending state marijuana ini­ our grandparents used to make doth, tiatives. Republican anti-drug zealot FACT 28: It's impossible to explain to rope, and all kinds ofother wonderful Bob Barr (R-Ga.) vocally attacks libertar­ someone who's never smoked pot natural products. ian witness Roger Pilon of the Cato what it's like to be stoned. Institute and calls spectators "walking FACT 23: It's amazing what you can do FACT 29: Ever wonder what the Indians testimonials to drug use." with facts. smoked in their peace pipes? 10/08/97: Federal law enforcement FACT 24: I smoked pot for more than FACT 30: Marijuana is an effective treat­ officials raid a Cannabis Buyers' Club 20 years. It didn't turn me into a ment for glaucoma, asthma, and nau­ in Sacramento. For the first time since chicken-wing liberal, a communist, a sea associated with chemotherapy. thief, a deranged killer, or even a the passage of Proposition 215, federal FACT 31: Fact 29 was a question. arrests are issued against a California closed-minded conservative. I grcvl up CBC. to be a reasonably responsible adult. I FACT 32: Thomas Jefferson, George have a job, a house. I pay taxes. I'm Washington, and Benjamin Franklin November 1997 faithful to my wife. And I try my all grew marijuana. 11/01/97: Americans for Medical damnedest to believe in God. FACT 33: There's no proofthe one who Rights (AMR), the California-based FACT 25: I'm not advocating every one flew the kite in the lightning storm group that spearheaded the successful smoke pot like John Lennon once did was high at the time. passage of Proposition 215 in at the end ofa Beatles' song. I just FACT 34: This is the last fact. 0 Volume11, Number 3 Janu 1998

Health (NIH), the much-anticipated tive Director R. Keith Stroup called the campaign in Washington. protocol submitted by Dr. Donald hearing a positive step toward reform. Recently, McCaffrey told reporters Abrams will only determine the safety "The good news for the medical mari­ that his office would limit involvement or toxicity profile of cannabinoids in juana movement is that McCaffrey and campaigning against future initiatives. persons with HIV. It will not evaluate other federal officials no longer claim "I'm not in charge of America," marijuana's medical potential in allevi­ that there is no currently available med­ McCaffrey told Reuters News Service ating the weight loss associated with ical marijuana research or refer to our on October 1 in response to the AIDS. NIH flatly rejected a propo­ position as 'Cheech and Chong medi­ Congressional criticism that he has not sal submitted by researchers from The cine,'" Stroup said. "Now they have fal­ been vocal enough in his denunciation Montana Clinic in Missoula to study len back to the position that physicians of state medical marijuana initiatives. the use of marijuana in acute migraine and scientists should decide this issue, "I'll provide information for the treatment, and hasn't acceded to a a position NORML also favors. This debate.... I'll inform [the public] of Massachusetts Board of Health request change represents a step in the right federal law. [But] I'm not America's direction, and we are accustomed to nanny. The American people are per­ making progress in small increments fectly capable ... of making up their So when the final goal is changing dec­ own minds." Statements like these sug­ far, threats from the fed­ ades-old ideologies onCapitol Hill." gest that federal drug policy wonks eral government to arrest Legislation in Congress punishing will stop interfering with state initia­ patients who use marijuana physicians who recommend or pre­ tives. But Congress seems determined and physicians who recom­ scribe marijuana under the authority of to continue to pressure the ONDCP state law emerged as a backlash to the into the arena. mend it as authorized by successful California and' Arizona ini­ Since November 1996, physicians California's or Arizona's new tiatives, but much of the language and medical organizations have laws have proved hollow. included in these bills appears too increased their public support for med­ extreme for most members of Congress. ical marijuana research and, in some In addition, U.S. District Judge Fern cases, legal access. No doubt, much of Smith's ruling makes clear that the First this outpouring of support from the to provide government grown mari­ Amendment protects physician-patient medical community comes as a juana to state certified patients. communications and that the govern­ response to the heavy-handed remarks Increased public scrutiny may ment has no authority to determine the made by federal officials. Both federal finally encourage the NIH to approve a content of physicians' speech. lawsuits challenging the government's limited number of medical marijuana Therefore, it is unlikely that Congress stance against medical marijuana were research studies, but there is no indica­ will support either the Faircloth or spearheaded by physicians and local tion that the federal government will Hatch provisions. A more likely tactic medical groups. In addition, calls for stop arresting and jailing current medi­ Congressional opponents may pursue research and legal protections for phy- cal marijuana users while these studies would be to encourage state representa­ take place. Recent statements by the tives to introduce legislation repealing White House indicate that medical mar­ several active state laws endorsing mar­ Local and state law enforce­ ijuana users will still be punished to the ijuana's medical use. In 1997, Ohio law­ fullest extent of federal law regardless makers repealed a seldom-used ment will. most likely continue of whether medical marijuana research medical marijuana defense law. But leg­ to be the primary enforcers and is scheduled to take place. islators in Virginia refused to annul an interpreters of state medical For the second session in a row, IS-year-old law allowing doctors to Congressman Barney Frank intro­ prescribe marijuana to patients suffer­ marijuana laws. duced legislation to make marijuana ing from glaucoma or undergoing can­ legally available as a medicine. Frank's cer chemotherapy. bill emphasizes Congressional senti­ Today, federal officials from the slclans by the California Medical ment in favor of states' rights ,and Drug Czar's office seem to be taking a Association, The New England Journal of seizes on momentum created by the decidedly lower profile in their opposi­ Medicine, and others further legitimize Arizona and California initiatives. tion to pending state marijuana initia­ the medical marijuana issue. In hind-' On October 1, Congress allowed tives than they did last year. Barry sight, it appears that the government's testimony from medical marijuana McCaffrey only voiced minor opposi­ threats to sanction physicians was a proponents for the first time since the tion to the "Drug Medicalization and strategic miscalculation. Not only did passage of last year's initiatives. Not Prevention Act of 1997" in Washington it inspire public furor, but more impor­ surprisingly, proponents found little state and potential initiatives in tantly it encouraged medical groups support among Congressional Florida, the District of Columbia, like the AMA - who may have other­ Republicans and were outnumbered Arkansas and elsewhere. Overall, fed­ wise remained sHenton the medical two-to-one by witnesses opposed to eral opposition has appeared disorga­ marijuana issue - to come forward in the medical use of marijuana. Even so, nized. However, there is evidence that support of its members. In the last year National Organization for the Reform federal funds may have been used to alone, the British Medical Association, of Marijuana Laws (NORML) Execu- help fund an anti-medical marijuana the Florida Medical Association, the 36 Liberty Volume 11, Number 3

American Cancer Society, AIDS Action Council, the California Academy of Physicians, the San Francisco Medical Society endorsed medical marijuana use or research. In California, even unlikely organizations such as the California Narcotics Officers Association and the California District Attorney's Association pledged their support to legislation proposed to establish a "medical marijuana research center" at a campus of the University of California. Continued support from these prestigious and high-profile groups could inspire a relaxation of federal policy. California and Arizona have taken different paths since November 1996. While some California legislators and law enforcement agencies voiced oppo­ sition to Proposition 215 before the election, most now accept the decision of the voters and cooperate with propo­ nents in implementing and interpreting the law. Guidelines to state police offi­ cers from the Attorney General advise law enforcement to "use common Do you believe in individual liberty? sense when applying the Free market solutions? Limited·government? Compassionate Use Act of 1996 and abide by the spirit of the voters' ... CClt)s a free country. The ACLUcan do whatever it wants to do. They intention." This discretion in enforce­ just won)t be doing it with my money. Ifyou want to support individ­ ment led police to return marijuana ual rights, consider the Institute for Justice.)) plants and grow equipment to an AIDS Terry Dwyer patient after he produced a framed Columnist and doctor's statement supporting use of Institute jor Justice Contributor the drug. In another case, the Sacramento County District Attorney's Once people turned first to the ACLU whenever government violated Office dropped charges against an their rights. No longer. As that group has fought in recent years to AIDS patient who was cited after create a right to welfare, to preserve racial preferences, and to kill smoking marijuana in public. school choice, people have increasingly sought a principled alternative Most judges interpret Proposition that will protect individual rights rather than expand government. 215 broadly. In significant trial court rulings, judges have declared that That alternative is the Institute for Justice. Proposition 215 is a valid affirmative defense for qualified· patients, the ini­ The Institute for Justice is America's premier libertarian law firm. The tiative may be applied retroactively, Wall Street Journal calls IJ "the new civil rights activists." We are in cannabis buyers' clubs may qualify as courts of law and the court of public opinion nationwide litigating on "primary caregivers" and operate behalf of individuals whose most basic rights are denied by the State. legally under state law; the amount of marijuana allowable per patient under The Institute for Justice is what a civil liberties law firm should be. the initiative depends on the medical Isn't it time you took a look at an organization that's in court on facts of the case; and that transporta­ behalf of your rights? tion of medical marijuana is legal in some instances. Ongoing legislative developments will keep California on the cutting edge of the medical mari­ juana movement and spearhead the growing national debate. IJ In Arizona, the legislature has Institute for Justice refused to implement Proposition 200. 1717 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. Suite 200 Washington, DC 20006 Recently, a referendum submitted by Phone: (202) 955-1300 Fax: (202) 955-1329 continued on page 54 www.instituteforjustice.org Lament

What Am I Doing Here? by Rycke Brown

OnJune 18, 1996, Rycke Brown was arrested at her home near Kingman, Arizona, and charged with felonious production and distribution of mari­ juana. She was convicted, and is currently serving a sentence of three years in the Arizona Center for Women, in Phoenix.

What am I doing here? I didn't hurt anyone. All I did ourselves. When it is no longer accepted, the anger will was grow a little weed. All I did was contribute to the still be there, but will have turned outward and redou­ enjoyment of myself and my fellow man, and make a little bled, explosive in its intensity for having been held in so profit thereby. I didn't hurt anyone. Why are they hurting long. I shudder for those it will be turned on. Some will me? not deserve it. What am I doing here? That is the question asked every What am I doing here? I, at least, have a partial answer day by thousands upon thousands of captives across the to that question. I am here to challenge "the law," to give land. Many of them, like battered wives, figure that the them the argument that could end the Holy War on Drugs fault has to lie in themselves, that they couldn't be pun­ and bring down the State Church. Of course, I would be ished unless they were guilty - of something. "God must here even without the argument, as bewildered as the rest. have a reason for me to be here," they say, forgetting that So it is good to have a mission, a sense of purpose to lend there are forces of evil in the world, too. "I would've died if some sense to the senseless. I'd kept going the way I was," some say, or "the state But my opening· brief, which seemed so eloquent a saved my life by throwing me in jail" - forgetting that one week ago, now seems pitifully inadequate, naive in its sin­ reason they never sought help was that to do so would cerity, desperate in its supporting citations. Yet, I know incriminate them. There is an urge to make sense of the that sincerity, logic, and justice are all I've got going for senseless, to find some good in the evil being done to them. me, that those who are not naive refused to touch this In doing so, they take the guilt of their oppressors on their argument, considering it too radical, too ambitious, own shoulders. Some break under the weight of it. doomed. I also know that the argument itself is what Some accept just a little of the guilt for their ruined counts, that if the justices like it, they will find the cita­ lives, knowing that they broke "the law," however unjust, tions to support it. If they don't, all the citations in the for profit and pleasure, accepting their captivity as the world won't make them accept it. price they pay for being caught. Some are even happy to The other thing I have going for me is the unsustaina­ be freed of the strain of living in fear of the law, though bility of what is, the growing debt of the State Church, as they hate every moment behind these walls and fear what well as the growing anger against it, for injustice on this they face when they leave: the lowered employment pros­ scale is ruinously expensive. But the anger works against pects; the scorn of society for the ex-con; the continued me, too, for in accepting my argument, the justices must captivity of parole and fear of returning here. accept their share of the guilt for what is. But the guilt is And some, like me, refuse to accept any guilt, knowing theirs, nonetheless. In accepting it, they would simultane­ that an unjust law is a contradiction in terms, is no law at ously repent and cleanse themselves of it. They would be all. We know that we have been kidnapped and stolen hailed as saviors by those they had previously oppressed. from. If We carry any guilt at all, it is the guilt of having Of course, they would also be reviled as traitors by their given in to extortion and knowing that we will give in to fellow oppressors. But if they do not accept the guilt, it more when we leave. What we carry is anger for our ruined will sooner or later be thrust upon them when it will be lives, anger at our captors and our fellow citizens who col­ too late to repent. When the State Church collapses laborate with themby their silence and cooperation. through debt or popular revolt, they will fall with it, and Guilt accepted is anger, too -'- anger turned inward, at great will be the fall of it. 0 38 Liberty Proposal

Free-Market Money by Richard Timberlake

The best alternative to the central banking by the Federal Reserve is not the "gold standard," but something much freer.

Anyone in the United States who wishes to do so can set up an enterprise to produce ballpoint pens, desk calendars, computers, gardening equipment, and myriads of other con­ ventional and well-known products and services. Many other lines of human endeavor, such as the production of pharmaceuticals and drugs, while not prohibited to private enterprise, payment. (In other ficient condition for are strictly regulated by self­ words, no one would be insuring that the mone­ interested government agencies. legally obliged to accept tary system will not be Federal laws, however, completely private money in pay­ ravished by statist plun­ proscribe the private production of ment of debts.) Assume derings. Joseph Schum­ one otherwise perfectly legal com­ also that state and local peter, the well-known modity: money. governments would not Austrian economist, elo­ The. Federal Reserve central bank be allowed to occupy quently stated this prin­ has the only legal authority to create the monetary turf that ciple around 1940: #IAn money. It can generate as much or as the federal government 'automatic' gold cur­ little money as it wishes through its had just vacated. $20.00 Gold rency," Schumpeter (or Double Eagle) Federal Open-Market Committee What would hap- declared, #lis part and (FOMC). It also licenses commercial pen? Would monetary chaos result, as parcel of a laissez-faire free-trade banks, and some other financial insti­ sophomores and statists all too read­ economy.... It is both the badge and tutions, to produce additional money ily exclaim? Would industrial disrup­ the guarantee of bourgeois freedom." in the form of deposit-checking tion devastate the economy? Would A gold (or gold and silver) stan­ accounts. For all practical purposes, interest rates soar to the heavens with­ dard becomes operational when a the production of money is a com­ out the applied wisdom of the Fed? government formally decrees by law plete governmental monopoly. Would hyperinflation spiral prices an equality between units of money So let us begin with a thought into the next galaxy? For suggestive - dollars in the United States - and experiment. Ask yourself what would answers to these questions, let us some precise weight of the precious happen if Congress suddenly briefly explore the complex of events metal. Between 1834 and 1934 in the announced that the Federal Reserve and institutional developments that United States, for example, a ten­ System would no longer manage the have summed up to the totally discre­ dollar gold piece - a gold Eagle ­ U.S. monetary system; that the exist­ tionary and almost opaque monetary was defined by law to contain at least ing stock of Federal Reserve money system we have with us in the United 232.2 grains of pure gold, which is would be fixed at its current dollar States today. slightly less than half an ounce, and value; and that banks and business Libertarians often declare stub­ 10 per cent base metal to make the firms would henceforth be free to pro­ bornly that lithe" gold standard is the coins 90% pure and suitabIe for duce money without constraint of any only monetary policy consistent with hand-to-hand use. kind, except that no private money a free society. liThe" gold standard, Governments, however, did not would be legal tender for any kind of they hold, is both a necessary and suf- invent. gold or silver coins, or money Liberty 39 Volume 11, Number 3 Janua 1998

itself, for that matter. In fact, primitive The "significant improvement" that mon thinking on this subject - both moneys came into existence as market­ the state could make in the character of by the layman and by the trained pro­ ing expedients long before the precious money, in Menger's view, was to fessional. However, this common metals appeared on the scene. Gold impress upon the money already circu­ notion has been disproved innumera­ and silver were the ultimate commod­ lating the additional quality of legal ble times in practice. In virtually no ity moneys - the stablest in value, the tender so that everyone would be case has any government ever most durable, the most recognizable, forced to accept it. The state cannot improved an existing monetary sys­ and the most serviceable. Their former make private money legal tender tem. Giving government control of prominence, however, does not mean because such a privilege would give money is clearly a case of the fox that they were necessarily the best for private money producers inordinate guarding the chicken house. I dare say all time. powers. So, once the state has won its that many respectable foxes could do Primitive moneys serve as excellent case for the "necessity".of legal tender, much good guarding chicken houses examples of how economic devices it must become the sole producer of from possums and rats and such. The may emerge spontaneously in the such money. Governments have trouble is that foxes have a taste for always claimed that monetary systems chickens, and different incentives than "need" the legal tender feature - that to do good deeds for farmers. Governments did not invent legal tender gilds the gold. However, Likewise, the human beings who oper­ note the contradiction: Money is ate government monetary systems gold or silver coins, or money already circulating as far as private have other agenda that they wish to itself, for that matter. In virtu­ volition will take it. Nonetheless, the further. ally no case has any govern­ state, in order to make the money "bet­ Anything that develops spontane­ ter," forces everyone to accept it. ously in markets must be humanly use­ ment ever improved an Money in the Mengerian world was an ful because spontaneity implies mutual existing monetary system. unusual product: When forced upon benefits to both buyers and sellers. society, its quality improved! When a money appears as a market In his section on coinage, Menger device, it must be extremely good found yet another monetary·function because money by its very nature must presence of a pronounced need. Carl for the state. "The best guarantee of do its work in all markets. Traders in Menger, another famous Austrian full weight and assured fineness of the markets, therefore, all have the incen­ economist, drew three conclusions coins," he claimed, "can be given by tive to insure that whatever passes as from his extensive research on the evo­ the government itself, since it [the gov­ money is universally acceptable. lution of money. First, the appearance ernment] is known to and recognized Anyone who is a seller in one market of money "was not the product of an by everyone and has the is, perforce, a purchaser in agreement on the part of economizing power to punish crimes many other markets. So men nor the product of legislative acts. against the coinage. every seller and every No one invented it." Second, "the spe­ Governments have there­ buyer must be assured cific forms in which [money] has fore usually accepted the that the money he and she appeared were everywhere and at all obligation of minting the use will be accepted by times the result of specific and chang­ coins necessary for trade. other buyers and sellers. ing economic situations." Third, gov­ But," he despaired, "they No other economic article ernments, whether benign or have so often and so is so carefully monitored oppressive, had nothing to do with the greatly misused their by its users. evolution of money from barter. power that economizing $10.00 Gold (or Eagle) The obvious question "Money," Menger emphasized, "is not individuals ... almost then follows: How can a an invention of the state. It is not the forgot the fact that a coin is nothing government improve on an economic product of a legislative act. Even the but a piece of precious metal of fixed device that market processes have ini­ sanction of political authority is not fineness and weight." tiated, tempered, and accepted? In par­ necessary for its existence." At this point, Menger signed off on ticular, of what value is the Having made himself a hero by the subject, offering no explanation of government's coercive device of legal denying the necessity of government why governments that could do so tender? If people use a money because for initiating and developing a viable much good ended up doing so much they find it superior to any other monetary system, Menger then entered harm. Public choice economics that means for exchanging goods and ser­ another argument that dulled some of would explain this seeming contradic­ vices, legal tender does nothing for the the luster of his previous insights. "The tion was not to appear until 70 years quality of the money that has not sanction of the state," he wrote, "gives a later. already been done by the actual particular good the attribute of being a I quote Menger's musings in some emergence of the money into common universal [medium] in exchange; and detail because his. analysis of the evo­ use. although the state is not responsible for lution of money from barter is so con­ William Brough, an astute nine­ the money-character of the [money], it vincing, and because his presumption teenth century commentator on mone­ is responsible for a significant improve­ about the role of the state in making a tary affairs, said it best in his ment ofits money-character." good thing.better reflects -so well com- scintillating work, The Natural Law of 40 Liberty Volume 11, Number 3 Janu 1998

Tender: "There is no more use for a spe­ States were well aware of the devasta­ during the Civil War. The Court's last cial law to compel the receiving of tion that could result from the uncon­ greenback decision, Juilliard v. money than there is for one to compel strained issue of government paper Greenman, 1884, stated that Congress the receiving of wheat or of cotton.... money. Some thought that such issues had the power to declare the U.S. Under this natural law [that allows had been useful in carrying on the Treasury's paper money a legal tender money to develop competitively in the struggle against England, but they all in time of peace as well as war, and for private sector], it is no more necessary realized how dangerous such a power all debts, including those entered into for the government to prescribe the would be in the hands of any republi­ before the enactment of the laws. Justice kind of money that shall be used, than can government in time of peace. They may have been blind, but it was not it is to prescribe to the housekeeper therefore included in the U.S. deaf to the rustle of greenbacks. the use of the lucifer match in place of Constitution, a provision that "The This record does not speak highly the flint and tinder-box, or to the rail­ Congress shall have power ... To coin for the restraining effect of a gold road man the use of steel rails in place money, regulate the value thereof, and of iron, or to the farmer the use of the of foreign coin, and fix the standard of plowshare in place of the forked weights and measures" (Section 8) and stick." prohibited any state, including all the Ofwhat value is the govern­ Once within its legal tender pow­ states together, from emitting "bills of ment's coercive device of legal ers, however, the state can extract the credit," or making"any thing but gold tax known as seigniorage, the practice and silver coin a tender in payment of tender? of issuing coins whose face value debts" (Section 10). The Constitution exceeds the value of their metallic con­ thereby set forth the conditions for a tent. Ancient Roman emperors, and gold, silver, or bimetallic monetary standard. If the world's most notable also many other despots through the standard that limited the role of both constitutional republic could not pre­ ages, realized enormous revenues from the states and the United States to vent the growth of a state that success­ this practice. They would call in all the nothing more than coinage operations. fully assumed complete discretionary outstanding coinage, debase it with Nor did it prohibit private coinage of control over the monetary system, zinc and copper, perhaps coat it with a gold and silver. Indeed, private coin­ what hope is there that a revived gold "wash" of silver, and reissue the nomi­ age was well known before the Civil standard could constrain the monetary nal amount they had called in. They War. As one would expect (at least this rapacity of the current government? one) private coins often had a few Gold standards were put in place more grains of gold or silver in them by governments, and, in all but a very than government coins of the same few cases, they have been managed by Giving government control denomination. governments. Even today, the call for ofmoney is clearly a case ofthe As if to flout the provisions of the "the" gold standard by political candi­ fox guarding the chicken house. u.s. Constitution, the present-day dates, such as Steve Forbes, by some Congress through its Federal Reserve Austrian economists, and other propo­ central bank does make other things nents of "sound" money, envision besides gold and silver coin a tender in Congress and the U.S. Treasury setting would then spend back into circulation payment of debt. The other things it a price for gold in dollars. The the excess coin they had extracted from makes legal tender are Federal Reserve Treasury's gold stock would then serve their coinage "reform." Tyrannical "bills of credit," which dearly violate as the supposed limit to the govern­ Roman emperors used this inflationary the prohibition in Section 10. Finally, ment's creation of money. taxing device for centuries. gold and silver coins are nowhere to be The best way of getting from here In the United States and all other seen. Indeed, for forty years ­ to there - "there" being a viable mon­ countries today, central banks similarly between 1933 and 1973 - the federal etary system free of governmental create new paper money and bank government forbade by law the use of manipulation, exploitation, and uncer­ reserves at almost no cost. Their gov­ gold for monetary purposes, and even tainty - requires a blueprint that ernment overseers then spend the new the private ownership of gold beyond incorporates the useful trappings of money into circulation on their multi­ a trivial amount. The Supreme Court the present-day monetary system into tudinous boondoggles. The seigniorage in the mid-30s, bowing to the political a new institutional framework. Based tax in the United States, which the pressures it was supposed to shun, on the lessons of history, the new mon­ Federal Reserve central bank levies supinely sanctioned this topsy-turvy etary framework must feature free pri­ without any due process or legal sanc­ "interpretation" of the Constitution vate competitive enterprise in the tion, brings in approximately $30 bil­ that the Roosevelt Administration production of money, and complete lion per year to the federal imposed upon it. autonomy from any government government. The Fed creates this much Earlier Supreme Courts, in the influence. new "base" money at almost no cost in 1870s and 1880s, had handed down A gold standard, especially "the" its open-market purchases, and subse­ decisions that were even more atro­ gold standard administered by a cen­ quent monetization, of federal cious, when they were called upon to tral bank, is not an answer at all; it is government debt. decide the constitutionality of the fed­ just as subject to government tamper­ The founding fathers of the United eral government's greenbacks issued ing as any other institution managed Liberty 41 Volume 11, Number 3 Januar 1998

by the state. Many interventionist cen­ The Treasury's gold stock since money on the basis of political tral bankers embrace a "gold stan.. then has dwindled to "only" 260 mil­ expediency. dard" because it serves as a respectable lion ounces, or 8,125 tons (15 miles of What is needed is the separation of cover for their traditional hands-on trucks). The gold has no current mone­ this gold hoard from the state just as control. tary or fiscal function for its govern­ law and precedent has separated One need not despair, however. ment owners. It provides no income or church and state. Such a program Gold can better be a money and a com­ benefit of any sort. It can have no psy­ could begin as an economizing meas­ mon standard without being officially chological value in soothing the ure, but it would also privatize the crowned. Federal Reserve Banks can be masses because no one, not even a gold and atone in part for the privatized, and the commercial bank­ member of the U.S. Congress, is Roosevelt expropriation. Here are all ing system can (and should) be cut allowed to examine it or otherwise ver­ those thousands of tons of gold lying loose from governmental controls so ify that it is there. Furthermore, it costs there absorbing taxpayer resources and a significant quantity of real resources doing no one any good. Give the gold to keep it secure in the vaults at Ft. back to the people in the private sector Knox and other places. Even disregard­ from whom it was unconstitutionally A gold standard, adminis­ ing the maintenance costs, just the cap­ requisitioned in 1934. tered by a central bank, is just ital costs on this $80-plus billion To get this gold back into private as subject to government tam­ stockpile, at 6 percent, come to more hands expediently, the Secretary of the than $5 billion per year. In the hands of Treasury should issue one one-ounce pering as any other institution the state, government gold has become gold certificate for each listed depen­ managed by the state. the "barbarous relic" that John dent on every 1040 income tax form Maynard Keynes characterized it in filed in the current tax year.* For one 1923. The role that it could playas a year, say 1999, everyone would file a that banks compete freely in furnishing viable money or a usable commodity is return whether he owed any taxes or the economy with money. completely precluded by its govern­ not in order to provide a means of dis­ What must be done is technically ment ownership. tributing the new gold certificates. very little, but politically enormous. No U.S. government under any These certificates would be redeemable The first order of business is to get president is going to reestablish a gold in gold at the Treasury when presented the gold out of the U.S. Treasury and standard along traditional lines. in the proper quantities. into the hands of the American people. Treasury spokesmen in the typical Most of the Treasury's gold is in the The Gold Reserve Act of 1934 author­ administration claim with some valid­ form of ingots, each of which weighs ized President Franklin Roosevelt to ity that estimating the gold value of the nationalize all domestically owned contemporary Federal Reserve dollar is gold. By his edict, all private citizens impossible. They argue that the inabil­ were required to sell their gold to the ity to determine gold's monetary Here are all those thousands U.S. Treasury, which paid for it at the value, and other uncertainties, are of tons of gold lying there official mint price of $20.67 per ounce. good excuses for doing nothing. So the absorbing taxpayer resources Then, with the fiat power vested in gold continues to be a useless and inac­ him by that same Gold Reserve Act, cessible heap, similar in its non-use to and doing no one any good. Roosevelt devalued the gold dollar by other "surplus" commodities in gov­ raising the mint price of gold 59 per­ ernment stockpiles. cent - from $20.67 to $35 per ounce. Even if the Treasury went through 27-plus pounds and is worth about Since the government now owned all the formality of giving the dollar a $140,000 at the current market price of the monetary gold, it realized all of the fixed gold value, Treasury managers gold. The Treasury would sell these net gain from its revaluation of the would insist on keeping the gold in gold bars freely to any private firm. or gold it had expropriated. This "profit" Treasury vaults in order to "back" the individual tendering the certificates in amounted to $2.8 billion, which then existing monetary aggregates that the necessary quantities. It would leave was almost equal to one year's federal would now be "based" on gold. the disposition of the gold entirely to tax revenues. None of this "profit" Central bank policies would not private wholesalers, brokers, and went to the private sector where it was change, but would have an unde­ bankers. desperately needed. It simply served aura of respectability behind Taxpayers who received the certifi­ increased the dollar value of the which central bank managers would cates would be elated. After all these bloated hoard of gold already in the conduct business as usual. Sound decades of paying taxes, they were U.S. Treasury - from $4.033 billion in money advocates, therefore, should finally getting something back from January 1934 to $7.438 billion in not waste their time and energy lobby­ the IRS that was not their own wealth February 1934. By 1940 the Treasury's ing for an official state-run gold "stan­ to begin with - and gold at that! The stockpile of gold had reached more dard." Their "success" would simply than 20,000 tons, or 2,000 ten-ton truck see the state become the overseer, * Here I assume, of course, that the IRS is loads, which, given 100 feet per truck, manager and custodian of the out-of­ not abolished altogether. In the event of would form a convoy stretching 38 sight gold stock, while continuing to IRS abolition, a similar program could be miles! manipulate a central-bank paper devised. 42 Liberty Volume II, Number 3

Consumer Confidence Index would paper money. This value would The Stance OfAtlas by Peter F. take a quantum leap upward. The gold quickly become very stable. Erickson Examines Ayn Rand's would be only a pittance in value com­ Gold price stability would be rein­ Philosophy ofObjectivism pared to the trillions of dollars taxpay­ forced by a complementary policy that ers had paid in. The gesture, however, would simultaneously freeze the exist­ would reflect the good will of a grate­ ing quantity of Federal Reserve money ful government that rewarded its cOQ­ at its present dollar level. Federal stituents by returning to them some Reserve monetary policy, from now Ayn Rand's major teachings are real wealth that it cannot use and cost on, would be nothing more than a considered in detail. In addition to this, it nothing in the first place. housekeeping function that would special attention is given to the relation What would the "unwashed maintain constant the total dollar value of her philosophy of Objectivism to masses" do with their new windfalls? of Federal Reserve money. Einstein's theory ofrelativity and also to Some people would deposit their cer­ Federal Reserve paper money Dialectical Materialism (the intellectual tificates as gold checking accounts in would not be called in and destroyed. basis of Marxism). banks, and the banks would accommo­ Such a move would solve nothing and Ayn Rand's rejection of collectivism is date these gold depositors by creating would cause a great deal of consterna­ not disputed. Her position OD the efficacy accounts that used only gold for clear­ tion, and even panic. The damage of reason remains--also her acceptance ings and transactions. The banks from the government's irresponsible of freewill. would duly claim the gold from the and unconstitutional printing of Ayn Rand's epistemological and U.S. treasury. The gold would then money in the past has long since been metaphysical teachings are subjected to become a true reserve backing the gold done. It cannot possibly be undone by extensive criticism. Her attempt to solve deposits of bank customers, who a scorched earth policy now. Federal the problem of universals is shown to be would write checks redeemable only in Reserve money is a part of the whole a failure. The Stance OfAtlas actually some specified quantity of gold. Gold economic system's capital, and it is provides the correct solution. She balances would then move from bank used confidently throughout the believed, incorrectly, that Objectivism has the key to answering the problem of to bank just as in the old days, even if world. Freezing the existing quantity, induction. The Stance OfAtlas shows very little gold passed from hand to however, besides encouraging the that this problem was basically solved by hand as currency. (In practice, the development of private gold money, a forgotten English logician early in this banks would also economize the trans­ would verify the paper dollar's century. Contrary to Rand's Objectivism, port of gold by various means.) present value and credibility, and it is established that reason is open to the Some certificate holders would would preclude any further govern­ possibility of God's existence. exchange their certificates for gold mental tampering with the monetary Ayn Rand's attempt to found a new coins produced by private coin smiths, system. morality is shown to be less than what who would redeem the certificates at Proper reform would not, and she took it to be. The defense of the Treasury for some quantity of gold could not, stop here. The full legal ten­ fractional reserve banking made by Alan ingots. Many people would undoubt­ der feature of Federal Reserve cur­ Greenspan in Rand's book on capitalism edly sell their certificates in the gold rency should be reduced to: "Legal is refuted. Other important issues are market for Federal Reserve dollars, tender only for government dues and discussed. which would in no way be depreciated payments." Since private households Considerably less relativistic than by the presence of the new gold. Much and business firms could now use or Objectivism, The Stance OfAtlas is also to the contrary; the traffic in gold and refuse government money, private implicitly more individualistic. If read conventional Federal Reserve paper money based on gold or other media with care, this book is capable of money would enhance the quality of would not be crowded out by the providing a portion of the deep the paper. forced acceptability of the govern­ intellectual improvement promised, but Even if many people, businesses ment's Federal Reserve money. not delivered, by Objectivism. 364 pages, including index. Paperback. and institutions used gold as money, Throughout the period before the gold would not become "the" official Civil War, issues of Treasury notes to monetary standard. It would not have cover minor fiscal deficits had this lim­ a mint price set by Congress. No gov­ ited legal tender feature, and the notes PRICE: $19.95 + $4.00 for postage and ernment bureau, agency, or office circulated with no loss of public handling.- would hold gold, manage it, coin it, or acceptability. It was only during that CHECKS, CREDIT CARDS (Visa, regulate it. At most, the U.S. Treasury terrible War that Republican Master, Amex) would prescribe the denominations of Congresses forced the greenbacks into TOLL FREE: 1-888-492-2001 coins by weight. Federal Reserve notes circulation by making them full legal and Federal Reserve Bank deposit tender. Postwar RepUblican Supreme OR MAIL TO: accounts for commercial banks would Courts then declared shamelessly that still be conventional money. The new the Constitution provided for this HERAKLES PRESS, INC. gold, however, would be available for outrage! P.O. BOX 8725 monetary purposes if people so Since the Federal Reserve Banks Portland, OR 97207 desired. Its dollar value, of course, would have no further monetary pol­ (Credit card buyers also include card #, expiration date, and telephone #) would be its price in Federal Reserve iey functions, their management could Volume 11, Number 3 Janu 1998

be conveniently returned to their titu­ without any power to make such Many economists and others have lar owners - the private sector banks money legal tender. What would hap­ vilified banks as inherently unstable and financial institutions. Regional pen? Chaos? Hyperinflation? fractional reserve institutions. On banking associations would then oper­ Unlike the suppliers of government closer examination, however, the per­ ate them much as they did their clear­ legal tender money, which is forced ceived instability has been more the inghouse associations in the nineteenth into circulation and therefore has no result of governmental regulations that century. (The Federal Reserve Banks check-and-balance from the demand h~ve hamstrung the banks than of any took over much of commercial bank side, private producers of money intrinsic faults. The legal restrictions clearing operations after their creation would have to redeem their money have been crippling, ,especially· in the in 1913; so this change would simply with something that had commonly United States. They have included a transfer the payment system's clearing recognized value. Furthermore, issuers host of .constraints that have kept functions from government manage­ of money would force each other to banks small and weak, have often ment back to private management.) maintain the integrity of their curren­ immobilized their reserves at critical Finally, what should be done about cies by constantly presenting each times, and have prevented them from the closely regulated 13,000 banks and other's notes and deposits for redemp­ arranging their own defenses when other private financial institutions? tion in the time-honored manner, so pressed. Being rendered so impotent Should they be treated any differently that no overissue could result. Private by government policies, the banks than other private firms? Suppose, as I money issues, if not regulated or man­ "naturally" needed a central bank to suggested earlier, that any individual aged by the state, would be of as high sustain them. Left to their own devices, or any business firm or bank were quality as privately produced foods, however, banks have shown a credible allowed to create money at will, but clothing, and houses. ability to keep their houses in order. And why shouldn't they? No banker has an incentive to become an ex­ banker. He has too much at stake. Poetry No, chaos would not accompany free private competitive enterprise in the production of money. Frivolously printed money could not appear. You Nostrums for a Nap would no more take the paper money I ran off from my computer than I Fold the hands. would take yours. We both would use the money of reputable firms who spe­ Breathe deeply. cialize in the production of money ­ Wear shoes­ Any Elephant who verified· by word and deed their pretend to wink willingness and ability to redeem and you'll tunnel, Any elephant's the same issued money in some valuable final without trying, elephant. As any dog's medium. The redemption medium into sleep. would not necessarily be gold, the identical, dirty dog. although it could be if the gold were Breathe deeply. Platonic robins, ones privatized in the manner suggested Ifthe phone with a weight problem, above. But it might also be slices of a rings, it's over. return you to youth. mutual fund, or sections of real estate, What's allowed The clock is stopped or claims to bundles of easily valued is the small plane by fixed form, the narrow commodities. It would also very likely include some of the now-frozen stock droning a mile leeway ofgenes coded of government paper money. high, the dog for hunting or hope, We must be careful not to allow in the distance. so that whole species ourselves to make the mistake of think­ Breathe deeply. follow over and over ing that an ironclad model of a private Rumple the sheets -. the exact acid dance. monetary system is thwarted simply find faces. because we cannot conjure up all of its Moths land on a white details at this moment. We can no Breathe deeply. wall thinking it's light. more foresee all of the innovations that It's 1950 and Mr. A beetle, washed down, creative capitalism might employ to Linkletter's on T.V.: drowning in the swirl expedite the transactions of goods and "What will you be?" ofa sink, will lock services than we can imagine what The dog's asleep. its fierce jaws on water. those goods and services might be. Reflect for a moment, as my contempo­ In the piper plane raries do at fifty-year reunions, on the your mother's back -John] Ronan things in our daily experience today for her one visit. that are common to· the point of being continued on page 54 44 Liberty For Mises' Sake by Tom G. Palmer

Is the Ludwig von Mises Institute worthy of its namesake? The continuing saga ...

If anyone could defend the acts of Llewellyn Rockwell, president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, it would have to be Ralph Raico. Ralph is an outstanding scholar and a fine writer. Indeed,·in his well-written essay (IiMises and Monarchy," November1997) I found only a few trifling points of clear disagreement. For example, while I certainly have no "Eure Hoheit" or "Eure Majestat," hardly cuts against my claim that quarrel with Raico's praise of Ludwig and instead addressed only factual Mises was a republican. von Mises, I find him a bit harsh on questions. (Though it might be noted I should add that Ralph's praise of F.A. Hayek. (Of Hayek's dedication of that Mr. Habsburg described the the reign of Franz Joseph - on the The Road to Serfdom to IIthe socialists European Union as the fulfillment of grounds that Jews were treated better of all parties," Raico asks rhetorically the "Great Austrian Idea" of under his nearly seventy-year reign "but what socialist was ever brought European unity in one political sys­ than they were under the National over by it?" To judge from the influ­ tem; the old "Austrian idea;" of Socialism that was imposed in Austria ence of the book, it must have been a couple of decades after the end of many thousands: I have even met a course, was for that political unity to the Habsburg regime - is only made number of them. Hayek may have be ruled by one family.) Despite my demonstrated the truth of the old say­ differences on the wisdom of the plausible because he sets the standard ing, IIYou can catch more flies with "Austrian Idea," I found the elder Mr. so low. When compared to Hitler, vir­ honey than with vinegar.") Habsburg quite likable. I suspect that tually anyone could be made to look My disagreement is with what is his son may be an equally fine fellow. good; even Franco, Mussolini, or the implied in Raico's essay. For example, But that doesn't mean that I want to post-war communist rulers seem rela­ I certainly bear no ill will toward be ruled by them, unless, of course, tively benign when the standard of either Mr. Otto Habsburg or toward the alternative were Hitler. I take it comparison is Adolf Hitler. As Ralph his son, Mr. Karl Habsburg, and that that was what Otto Habsburg wrote in The Libertarian Forum of would never argue that either is had discussed with Mises in 1942. August 1975, in a critical review of the obliged to apologize for the misdeeds Had I been alive then, I might well life of Winston Churchill: "This may of his ancestors. Not only do I not have been a strong supporter of well turn out to be the most enduring believe in inherited guilt, but I have replacing Hitler with a constitutional injury Hitler inflicted on humanity; much respect and admiration for the monarchy under Otto. Just as good that, besides causing the slaughter of elder Mr. Habsburg, whom I heard republicans should be happy that so many, he permanently lowered the some years ago in Vienna speaking on ' Juan Carlos was King of Spain at the standards by which political conduct behalf of Austrian entry into the time of Franco's death, and therefore is judged, so that, compared to him European Union. Mr. Habsburg quite able to keep the country from plung­ virtually any other mass-murderer ­ gracefully ignored the bowing and ing into civil war, good republicans except maybe Stalin - is seen to be as scraping from the fawning monar­ would certainly have preferred a con­ white as the driven snow." Franz chists in attendance, who preceded stitutional monarchy under anyone to Joseph was by no means the worst their questions with such terms as National Socialist dictatorship. This ruler Europe has ever seen, but point- Liberty 45 Volume 11, Number 3 Janua 1998

ing out that he was better than Hitler is fodder) for battlefield bravery are, which required extensive rewriting by pretty faint praise. well, utterly risible. when offered as Hoppe's friends at the Mises Institute, On the issue of republicanism I evidence of a commitment to either as well as to Hoppe's failure to under­ would consider as a republican anyone classical liberalism or Austrian stand fundamental Austrian economic who advocates constitutionally lim­ economics. principles, such as the role of time in ited, representative government and And why was I moved to spend economic adjustment. "As the editor of who did not append to that any role twenty minutes writing about some­ this volume, I have to admit that I do for a monarch. I have been unable to thing that is merely absurd and risi­ not agree with everything Professor find in any of Mises' writings evidence ble? Perhaps it has something to do Hoppe presents as Misesian econom­ that he was a monarchist. Considering with a lecture I gave some years ago at ics, even in this significantly revised Washington State University, after chapter. For example, I have serious which I was introduced by the chair­ doubts about his claim that market When compared to Hitler, man of the department of economics unemployment is 'always voluntary.' to some graduate students whom he Certainly, permanent unemployment virtually anyone could be made termed "our former Austrians." One is always voluntary in the unhampered to look good; even Franco, might ask why the graduate students market, but a dynamic market is con­ Mussolini, or the post-war there called themselves "former stantly generating temporary unem­ Austrians." One name suffices to ployment that requires time to communist rulers seem rela­ answer the question: Hans-Hermann correct." Skousen included the chapter tively benign. Hoppe. Dr. Hoppe, leading light of the by Hoppe only because he was threat­ Ludwig von Mises Institute, had pre­ ened with legal action by Llewellyn sented such a loopy, absurd and Rockwell if he did not. One could go a constitutional monarchy to be super­ utterly unhinged picture of Austrian on with examples of how Hoppe and ior to a murderous dictatorship hardly economics at a public lecture there, the Mises Institute have proven embar­ counts as evidence that Mises was not under the sponsorship of the Ludwig rassing to the Austrian economists by a republican. von Mises Institute, that those gradu­ whom they claim to be inspired but Nor would I deny the role of certain ate students felt obliged to distinguish what would be the point? Those who members of the Habsburg family in themselves publicly from such a staving off Turkish invasion of Central strange and incomprehensible set of Europe after the collapse of the views. And I can certainly understand Dr. Hans-Hermann Hoppe Hungarian monarchy at the Battle of why they would feel compelled to do Mohacs in 1526 and the dynastic con­ that. If Hoppe is the leading light of had presented such a loopy pic­ nection of the traditional Habsburg Austrian economics as the Mises ture of Austrian economics lands with the crown lands of St. Institute presents him, then Austrian that the "Austrian" graduate Stephen. But as I recall, the last siege of economics should prepare for a long Vienna was in 1683, and neither Otto dark age. At George Mason University students felt obliged publicly to nor Karl was there. Indeed the I saw Hoppe present a lecture in distance themselves from him. Emperor who drew Rockwell's praise which he claimed that Ludwig von - the autocratic Franz Joseph - came Mises had set the intellectual founda­ to power in December 1848, just in time tion for not only economics, but for have had contact with him know that to invite the Russian Tsar to invade ethics, geometry, and optics, as well. Hoppe is an intellectual bully and an Hungary, to annihilate the This bizarre claim turned a serious academic disgrace. constitutional Hungarian republic, to scholar and profound thinker into a I was cautioned by a friend not to undertake mass executions of the comical cult figure, a sort of Euro Kim criticize Hoppe, on the grounds that Hungarian leadership (rejecting even II Sung. one should never wrestle with a pig. I the Tsar's request for clemency for the Hoppe's scholarship is so pitiful have not followed that advice. That brave Hungarian liberals) and to insti­ that one of his own colleagues - who may turn out to be unwise especially tute a period of foreign (Austrian) is still involved in the Mises Institute considering- Hoppe's record for heap­ occupation that did not end until the - once remarked to me that Hoppe's ing abuse on those with whom he disa­ Compromise of 1867 instituted the book on ethics was a truly remarkable grees. I recall with great distaste dual monarchy and restored a measure achievement; it was the only book he witnessing Hoppe quite savagely of constitutional rule to Hungary. had ever read in which every step of attack Professor Don Lavoie of George I was moved to ridicule Rockwell's the argument was a logical fallacy. Mason University at a meeting of the articles, letters, and essays by his truly And Mark Skousen, in his introduction Mont Pelerin Society; in Hoppe's sus­ ridiculous claims about the Emperor to Dissent on Keynes: A Critical Appraisal tained rant, he said "I don't know what Franz Joseph's being a patron of classi­ (New York; of Keynesian Economics the world looks like when you're on cal liberalism and of the Austrian Praeger Publishers, 1992), felt obliged LSD, but it doesn't look that way to school of economics. Ennobling the to single out and strongly disavow me," with the clear insinuation that father of a future Austrian economist Hoppe's cranky economic views. Don was a drug fiend, and that his and decorating that economist (along Skousen made subtle reference to the paper was the result of a drug trip. My with thousands of other human cannon unreadability of Hoppe's screed, continued on page 54 46 Liberty ~. TRYFREEDOM DAIL1: a\ Ihe mosl uncompromising, lP'fltllcrfi;Jl)())lYJ --:.!V4:!J..;..,.-J.:S:.!lDl/i,\ ?lll')tY' harllest.hm-Ing, ,...... ",...,.,.,.",.,...,..."..",x"~..,.."...,,.,.""""

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Gty/State/Zip _ We Don't Compromise. Volume 11, Number 3 January 1998 Debate Reasonable Expectations?

All things wise and wonderful, all creatures great and small, all expectations right and rational- did Robert Lucas remake them all?

America's sixteenth president. story of the children who made a wall The Flight of the Cuckoo Here the famous dictum of Lincoln across the valley to keep the cuckoo in. holds true: You can't fool all the peo­ They raised the wall just over the level by Roger W. Garrison ple all the time. Eventually, the of the bird's usual flight, and when they masses come to understand the found that it just skimmed over the top schemes of their rulers. Then· the they thought that if they had laid only "Business Cycles Aren't What They cleverly concocted plans of inflation another row of stones it would have Used to Be - and Never Were." This collapse. ... [I]nflationism is not a been kept in." Although Senior's article, penned by Gerald Sirkin a quar­ monetary policy that can be consid­ immediate concern was poor-relief leg- ter of a century ago (Lloyd's Bank ered as an· alternative to a sound Review, April 1972), recognizes the money policy. It is at best a tempo­ uniqueness of each cyclical episode as rary makeshift. The main problem of well as the evolving ability of market an inflationary policy is how to stop By making much of the dis­ participants to learn and to cope with it before the masses have seen tinction between information change. Sirkin, an unsung precursor of through their rulers'. artifices. It is a that is and isn't "available" to the now-fashionable new classicism, display of considerable naivete to draws conclusions similar to - though recommend openly a monetary sys­ market participants, rational­ less sweeping than - those drawn by J. tem that can work only if its essential expectations theorists have W. Henry Watson and Ida Walters in features are ignored by the public. smuggled in by the back door their "The New Economics and the Modern defenders of the Austrian the­ Death of Central Banking" (Liberty, July ory of the business cycle have what they had ejected through 1997). According to Sirkin, "It is time embraced Lincoln's dictum. But in light the front. for a major re-examination and rewrit­ of the complexity of the market system, ing of business-cycle analysis. ... The the Austrians have stopped short of the eventual benefits will include redirect­ new classical conclusion that to antici­ islation, his story applies equally well ing our attention from the minor prob­ pate monetary policy is to neutralize it. to monetary policy. The message is lem of government as a stabilizer to the Central to Robert Lucas's new clas­ clear: people - like cuckoos - can major problem of government as a sicism is the proposition that changes adapt to a changed environment. destabilizer, and the saving of the effort in the money supply have no system­ The newness of Lucas's new classi­ now expended on the hunt for the lost atic effect on the economy's perfor­ cism consists largely in the extremes to business cycle." mance - or, more broadly, that which he and others are willing to push Ludwig von Mises was in print as government economic policy simply this old idea. If expectations are suffi­ early as 1953 with the kernel of truth in has no important effect. This basic idea ciently rational, so the argument goes, rational expectations (the idea that in was an integral part of old classicism as then the central bank has no power ­ making decisions, people use all read­ well. One of the more rhetorically effec­ except the power to create chaos. ily available information). In the 1953 tive expressions of it takes the form of During periods of monetary expansions edition of The Theory of Money and the parable of the cuckoo bird, as or contractions, resources will be allo­ Credit, he credited this important related in a letter from Nassau Senior to cated just as they always have been. insight not to an economist but to Lord Melbourne in 1852: "It is the old From the outset, policy-induced distor- 48 Liberty Volume 11, Number 3 January 1998 tions in prices, wages, and interest (unperceived) misallocations is the cycles by explaining why they don't rates are remedied on the basis of the boom; the eventual discovery of the exist. "information" that market participants misallocations precipitates the bust; supposedly have. and the subsequent reallocations consti­ The New Interventionists Now, if new classical economists tute the recovery. Remember that rational expecta­ had actually shown that market partici­ By making much of the distinction tions is not a macroeconomic theory in pants have ready access to the informa­ between information that is and isn't its own right; it is rather an assumption tion needed to neutralize government "available" to market participants, about expectations that takes on a spe­ policies, their brand of economics rational-expectations theorists have cific meaning only within the context of would indeed constitute a "quantum smuggled in by the back door what a particular macroeconomic theory. advance." But rational expectations they had ejected through the front. For And though Watson and Walters insist scholars merely assume that people's example, Lucas's "monetary­ that "rational expectations scholars expectations are consistent with the misperception" theory of the business have utterly demolished business cycle models themselves. Lucas himself has cycle is similar to both monetarist and theories used to promote government characterized rational expectations as a Austrian theories. All three theories 'fine tuning' of the economy," a resur­ "consistency axiom for economics." hold that people initially respond to gent "New Keynesian" school now In instances where this assumption combines faith in rational expectations (and the model in which it is embed­ with acceptance of the business cycle. ded) actually reflects reality, new clas­ According to this school, unemploy­ sicists can find some empirical support Our politically attuned Federal Reserve will continue ment is caused by "rational" rigidity of for their views. However, the claim wages and prices - and can be allevi­ that the assumption is always justified to exploit its power to fool into ated by government intervention in the is supported by neither theory nor his­ economy. New Keynesians can take tory. New classicism, for one example the foreseeable future. rational expectations as an axiom, yet (and there are many others), has not argue, for instance, that a monetary and cannot offer a rational­ stimulant can drive a slack economy to expectations account of the stock mar­ inflated prices as if market demands full employment in short order. ket crash of 1987. had actually increased, but eventually (Rational expectations simply cause Like Lucas, Watson and Walters take inflation into account and adjust what were once considered long-run hedge their assumption about the their behavior accordingly. But the consequences - in this example, the information people have with the sequence of boom and bust in Lucas's consequences of an increase in the terms "available information" or even theory hinges on the distinction money supply - to be realized virtu­ "readily available information." But between "local" information (instanta­ ally instantaneously.) Watson and hedged or unhedged, the proposition neously available, consisting of actual Walters claim that Lucas's version of that monetary policy has no real effects prices that market participants face) is either trivially true or demonstrably and "global" information (available but "rational expectations" has cleared the false. To understand this point, only with a lag, consisting of informa­ field of all competitors, but the remember that monetary policy influ­ tion about changes in the money sup­ unhappy truth is that New ences the "price for money" - for ply). Lucas claimed that as soon as Keynesianism has dominated scholarly example, by printing more money, cen­ people had access to the delayed infor­ discussion for several years now. tral banks can (temporarily) lower mation, the market would immediately Although Lucas respectfully interest rates, which in turn affect neutralize the effects of changes in cen­ acknowledges Hayek's writings on the prices for all sorts of things. In the tral bank policies. But this claim has price system as a communications net­ Austrian model, this is important pre­ failed numerous empirical tests. work, he overlooks Hayek's critical dis­ cisely because prices are held to convey Although not all information about the tinction between "two kinds of important information. most recent actions of the Federal knowledge" - the kind that is commu­ Now, new classical economists Reserve is instantaneously available, nicated by prices and hence is "availa­ argue that the central bank is power­ the actual information lag (a few weeks ble to market participants" and the less because market participants have at most) is not nearly long enough to kind that isn't. The "particular circum­ sufficient information to anticipate its account for subsequent changes in the stances of time and place," known first­ moves and act accordingly. But this can economy. New increases in the money hand by one or a few. market partici­ be true only if the Austrians are wrong, supply have consequences that persist pants, are communicated to others and prices don't convey any important well beyond the time that all the rele­ through price signals. This entrepre­ information. If, however, the Austrians vant information about Fed policy neurial knowledge stands in contrast to are right, and market participants do becomes available. theoretical knowledge, or knowledge indeed get important information from Because of its inability to account about the structure of the economy. prices, then distorted prices will con­ for this persistence, the monetary­ Hayek would concede that the two vey misinformation, and the misinfor­ misperception theory has given way to kinds of knowledge are not wholly sep­ mation will result in misallocations of so-called real business cycle theory, a arate. For instance, the development of resources. When it is credit expansion theory in which money plays little or markets for derivatives, such as that is distorting prices, the period of no role - and which tries to explain options, owes much to the blending of Liberty 49 Volume 11, Number 3 January 1998

entrepreneurial and theoretical knowl­ rational market participant can ,be Federal funds rate as its immediate edge. If Watson and Walters's point fooled - as the full statement of guide to injecting'and withdrawing the were merely that financial markets are Lincoln's dictum recognizes. Mises rec­ "base" money that it itselfcreates. better developed now than before the ognized it; Hayek recognized it; and W&W make much, properly, of the advent of modern portfolio theory, Friedman recognizes it. "The Death of "discipline" that financial markets then there would be little objection. Central Banking" is not imminent. Our impose on governments nowadays. But From a macroeconomic perspective, politically attuned Federal Reserve will free-floating discipline is not enough. however, there is a fundamental objec­ continue to exploit its power to fool Discipline requires a point of applica­ tion. In Watson and Walters's view, to into the foreseeable future. It would not tion. How can it work, then, if the neutralize central banks' power, people be rational for Alan Greenspan to abdi­ Federal Reserve has become, impotent have to understand and implement the cate on the basis of new classical mus­ and irrelevant? W&W suggest it has by correct monetary theory. But Watson ings. To believe it wouldn't matter if he likening the Federal Reserve to a little and Walters's self-assured assessment did - or to believe that new classicism girl exulting in her control ofa toy car notwithstanding, opinion as to what might otherwise euthanize the central even though its steering wheel is theory is correct remains divided. bank - is evidence that the believer unconnected to the drive train. A car­ Moreover, the price system itself does himself is the one being fooled. 0 toon on Liberty's cover shows Alan not tell market participants which the­ Greenspan in just that position. ory (say, Austrianism, monetarism, or True enough, the Federal Reserve Keynesianism) is correct. It doesn't The Dollar Unanchored, lacks the ,powers over production, even tell economists which theory is employment, and real economic correct (hence the continuing debates). Free-Marketry Amok growth that ill-informed kibitzers ima­ And if different market participants are gine. It can, however, either guard or attempting to compensate for central by Leland B. Yeager neglect the value of the dollar. It can banks' actions on the basis of mutually either avoid or carelessly inflict severe contradictory theories, the collective In Liberty's July issue, J. W. Henry monetary disturbances, as it has in the effect of their actions could hardly be Watson and Ida Walters announce "the past, with serious consequences for the expected to nullify policy-induced death of central banking." They mock real economy. W&W's caricature distortions. the Federal Reserve. Though it is fairly denies or trivializes this power. It is true, of course, that the more easy to imagine alternatives 'to the Fed, Suppose, though, that their carica­ government meddles with the money Alan Greenspan and his colleagues ture is valid. What, then, does give supply, the more worthwhile it is for at have been doing a pretty good job in determinacy to the dollar's value? least some market participants to try to recent years. In their paean to "rational Have W&W forgotten this question? learn something about macroeconomics expectations," W&W missed the crucial and monetary theory. The increase in (As trained economists, they can hardly point of monetary theory and policy. have failed to encounter it.) theoretical knowledge possessed by Every monetary system needs a "nominal anchor" for its unit of account to be determinate. This means What Kind of Monetary System? By their dismissal of central bank~ that our dollar, for example, should Even a rational market par­ ing,W&W raise the question, whether have a constant value or purchasing ticipant can be fooled. power, instead of a value that drifts they realize it or not, of what type of down (or up) unchecked, or, worse, monetary system we want. Separately that drifts in a self-reinforcing way. in the same July issue of Liberty, Bruce entrepreneurs (with different ones Either of two broad approaches can Ramsey and Robert Higgs do face that learning different things) helps to make provide an anchor. question. Ramsey slides from a correct each cyclical episode different from the First, the dollar could be defined as understanding ofgold-standard history one before. In no case, however, will a definite amount of some commodity into actual contentment with today's the level of knowledge be so complete or basket of commodities, with two­ managed but undefined fiat money. as to preclude the possibility of further way convertibility giving this definition Higgs evidently feels nostalgia for the cyclical variation. teeth. Before 1933, the government in gold standard, but he doubts the possi­ For some time now, new classicism effect stood ready to buy and sell gold bility of either instituting a full-fledged has sustained itself on the basis of its at $20.67 an ounce. gold standard or restoring the historical "rhetoric of rationality." Dissenters are The second approach fixes or man­ standard. seemingly put in a position of arguing ages the dollar size of some aggregate So what do we do? Ideas and tech­ that market participants are irrational magnitude, most plausibly the total nology are available nowadays for a or, at least, non-rational. Bolstering this quantity of money (somehow defined). private-enterprise system that would rhetoric is the notion that "being The Federal Reserve tries to keep the provide money of stable purchasing fooled," say, by a distorted rate of inter­ quantity of money nearly equal' to power and avoid the monetary distur­ est, implies "being a fooL" Lucas is por­ demanded holdings of money at a stable bances of the past. Free banking is pos­ trayed as standing up for the common or not-too-rapidly rising price level. sible on the basis of a dollar defined by market participant and proclaiming Nowadays it tries to accomplish this feat a broad basket of goods and services. him rational and no fool. But even a indirectly, using a target level of the Competition would compel issuers of 50 Liberty Volume 11, Number 3 January 1998 banknotes and deposits to keep their keep on demanding, taking seriously, dies. (Seeing no way to remedy some issues redeemable, indirectly, in what­ and paying for forecasts of interest condition, however, does not imply its ever quantities of some convenient rates, exchange rates, and the stock unreality. Compare a physician coun­ redemption medium were actually market. How does all this square with seling a patient to "learn to live with" worth, at free-market prices, as many the postulate of extreme rationality? some chronic ailment.) Referring to standard baskets as the number of dol­ improved opportunities to hedge and lars denominating the money pre­ Macroeconomics in General otherwise protect oneself against mac­ sented for redemption. Supplies of The ideas praised by W&W have roeconomic disturbances, W&W come money would accommodate them­ spread from finance into macroeconom­ close to implying that the business cycle selves to demands to hold money at ics more broadly. "New classical" econ­ is no longer anything to worry about. the stable price level corresponding to omists ("Lucasians," as critics With rational-expectations researchers, the dollar's definition. Here is not the sometimes call them) slide from rational they "see business cycles as the mar­ place to explain further. My point is expectations to the notion that markets ket's efficient way of coping with that W& W, in mocking the Federal are always in equilibrium, supply and changed circumstances." What look like Reserve, raise an issue - determinacy demand always in balance, and the cycles are optimal adjustments to - that they show no sign of under­ plans of transactors and technological or other real standing. would-be transactors per­ developments. fectly meshed. Well, mar­ W&W even speak Financial Innovations and kets are balanced enough respectfully of the Economic Theory to require analysis as if theory of "real business But there are deeper problems. they were always in cycles," which has evolved W&W hail innovations in financial equilibriurn. After from Lucasian ideas. This instruments and markets that have cut all, if supply and kind of theory, as I read the lit­ transactions costs and improved oppor­ demand in some erature, has tunities for shifting risks of price, inter­ market were to go unmatched it also passed the est-rate, and exchange-rate fluctuations would mean that peak of its onto specialists most willing and com­ people are irra­ vogue, degener­ petent to bear them (and even for mak­ tionally throwing ating into an "epi­ ing opposite risks cancel each other away gains from cycles" stage out). Economic theory and high­ trade! reminiscent of powered mathematics contribute to This view Ptolemaic these innovations. So far so good. disregards the astronomy. Not so good is Watson and Walters's complex inter­ Even if - implau­ emphasis on "rational expectations." In dependence of sibly - no future its most acceptable version, this is the myriad separ­ recessions will need idea that in making decisions and form­ ately deter­ explaining, episodes of ing expectations, people use all informa­ mined prices, the past remain. Yet tion available at costs worth incurring. including "even trying to explain the causes of They learn from experience and will not wages. It disregards this individual booms or recessions is with­ persist in the same old mistakes. They and other reasons why individually out value" for W&W. Do they really see learn, for example, to anticipate what rational behavior leaves many prices no point in trying to explain the Great the government will do in a recession, "sticky," and sometimes stuck at dis­ Depression of the 193Os, the serious thereby keeping its measures from hav­ equilibriurn levels. When necessary to economic relapse of 1937-38, or the so­ ing the effects intended. This idea, defend their claims, new classical theo­ called Volker recession of 1981-82? Do applied to government antirecession rists shift from the standard concept of they agree with Henry Ford that his­ policy in particular, is called the "invari­ equilibrium as market-clearing to what tory is bunk? But if past episodes are to ance proposition." Thomas Sargent admiringly called be understood and lessons perhaps All this has implications for how "fancier" and "much more compli­ drawn, shouldn't we try to get the mac­ markets work and whether forecasts cated" notions of equilibrium. Some roeconomics straight? are possible. Since an asset's price Lucasians profess not even to under­ already incorporates all the information stand what involuntary unemployment Major Defects people think is worth acquiring, the means. (Unlike W&W, I thought that W&W overwork the idea of rational price moves unpredictably, in a "ran­ the vogue of this equilibrium-always expectations. People do tend to learn dom walk," as unpredictable new bits macroeconomics had peaked by now, from their past mistakes, sure, but how of information arrive. Perhaps so. Yet and even before Robert Lucas won his fast and after how much repetition of the information relevant to traders in Nobel prize.) error? "Eventually" is not soon enough financial markets includes even infor­ W&W call received approaches to to be meaningful. How fast do people mation about other traders' changeable business-cycle theory obsolete. Lucas's learn and make allowance for the pat­ moods, moods that sometimes give rise invariance proposition guts theories of terns, if there are any, in government to herd behavior. Furthermore, people the cycle and of governmental reme- policymaking? How definite does the Liberty 51 January 1998

Learn at concept of using all available .informa­ observe that a couple of its component tion remain after provisos are tacked on ideas are profitable in the world of Liberty about the pecuniary and nonpecuniary finance. They invoke the names of costs of acquiring, absorbing, and Nobel prize-winners. Their favorite Liberty Foundation, the publisher of employing information? The proposi­ ideas have become "a part of the core liberty magazine, offers full-time, tion about people's behaving and form­ curriculum at top graduate economics paid internships at all times ofthe ing expectations rationally threatens to and business schools." They engage in year. For more information, contact: dissolve into tautology. name-calling, likening their macroeco­ A whiff of tautology also hovers nomics to a Dodge Viper and rivals to a R.W. Bradford around describing markets as "effi­ Ford Model T. Their favorite ideas help Liberty cient" and even as "fair." These are tech- cause the "ultimate frustration for the P.O. Box 1181 aging Keynesian." Port Townsend, WA 98368 Not only the academic game but also a desire for particular policy conclusions Watson and Walters do not sometimes drives new-classical analy­ squarely argue that their brand sis. The ideologies in vogue in depart­ of macroeconomics best fits the ments of economics have changed Moving? real world. Instead, they trum­ dramatically since 1began teaching sev­ We need to know four weeks in advance. Warn us! eral decades ago. Nowadays, in certain The U.S. Postal Service does not forward "periodi­ pet a "revolution in economic circles, doubting the near-perfection of cals" mail without a written request. Liberty does not replace subscription copies that do not reach their theory," observe that a couple markets is thoughtbackward and ignor­ addressee because offailure of the subscriber to ant. Free-marketry runs amok. W&W notify us ofan address change. ofits component ideas are prof­ repeatedly sneer at "statist critics" of New Address: (Attach old address label) itable in the world of finance, their favorite macroeconomics. Name _ and invoke the names of Nobel But the final analysis is that W&W Address, _ prize-winners. and the other new classicals argue the City .State_Zip. _ case for open markets and a free society badly. Their flawed economics·impedes understanding of how the world really Attention nical terms, associated with notions of works and might possibly be reformed prices incorporating all available infor­ to work better. 0 Liberty mation and moving in a random walk. Yet W&W use these technical terms Subscribers: with overtones of evaluation and praise. The Ends and Means of You can easily tell when your sub­ The strands of "new classical" eco­ Central Banking scription ends: nomics that they admire are partly the (1) Ifyour subscription runs out with products of academic gamesmanship by J. W. Henry Watson & Ida Walters the current issue or the next issue, we will and frontiersmanship self­ enclose a renewal notice with your copy. congratulation on working at the sup­ The lengthy responses to our article by (2) Ifyou do not have an enclosed posed frontiers of scientific research. (I Roger W. Garrison and Leland B. renewal notice, take a look at the address doubt, though, that W&Whave them­ Yeager are most remarkable for the label on your magazine. To the right of selves been so motivated.) An academic issues they don't address. The first your name should be the number of issues left in your subscription, followed field can acquire a dynamic of its own issue, of course, is the implications of by the word "left," as in "3 left" (fol­ that promotes what Peter Bauer has the "Lucas critique" for Austrian and lowed by your subscriber i.d. number). called "the disregard of reality." other traditional macroeconomic theo­ Any questions about your subscrip­ Reliable facts and well-supported· theo­ ries. (Macroeconomic theories that tion, and ... ries offer an ambitious academic little assume irrational or unchanging expec­ scope for demonstrating his own clev­ tations "fail" the Lucas critique.) All subscription problems erness; he must move on to what is Garrison and Yeager dance around this should be addressed to: new and fashionable and amenable to debate, but never join it. And for good Liberty Circulation embroidery. Methodological preaching reason. The traditional theories assume P.O. Box 1181 enters into pursuing and vaunting sup­ that all the people are fooled all the time Port Townsend, WA 98368 posed prestige. In this vein, W&W say and in exactly the same way. Even Please provide a written description that critics of rational expectations find Garrison, in his retelling of the"flight of of the problem you are having; please themselves left "largely without even the cuckoo" story, recognizes that this include your phone number and current the tools required to participate in the really isn't plausible. Garrison and address. discussion." Yeager are in the position of a home­ or telephone W&W do not squarely argue that owner who responds to his house col­ (360) 379-0242 their brand of macroeconomics best fits lapsing by admiring the utility of ... with a complete description of your the real world. Instead, they trumpet a problem including information from random bricks plucked from the rubble. your mailing label. "revolution. in economic theory." They New classical economist Tom Volume 11, Number 3 January 1998

Sargent's work on hyperinflations sort of predictable result. In other their models on rational expectations. (referred to in our article) provides words, the central bank cannot "fine Of course, the so-called "New powerful support for the importance of tune" monetary policy to achieve tar­ Keynesians" didn't come to this hap­ expectations. His study finds that end­ geted rates of growth, production, pily. It's simply that the case for ing hyperinflations varies greatly unemployment, exchange rates, or rational expectations has proven so depending on the credibility of the interest rates. Of course, Austrian and powerful that interventionists can't monetary authority. There is simply no monetarist theories would support this even get a hearing if their models fail predictable relationship between conclusion. The Austrian and monetar­ the Lucas critique. Actually, history's changes in the money supply and eco­ ist theories differ in that they claim that repeating itself here. Mises' work in the nomic activity - absent an understand­ the central bank does have the power "socialist calculation" debate forced the ing of expectations. to create predictable responses in the socialists to acknowledge that an effi­ The second topic which Garrison economy through various changes in ciently functioning free economy is the and Yeager do not address is the monetary policy. As our article noted, standard by which all economies remarkable success of efficient markets however, there is a new element in the should be judged, and it should be the theories in both advancing our under­ increasing impotence of central banks standard used in making socialist cal­ standing of financial markets and to reap "benefits" from unanticipated culations. In both cases, the socialists improving their operation. Given the changes in the money supply. In years had to effect a major retreat. success of these theories, a major point past, a rapid increase in the money sup­ Yeager seeks to refute new classical of our article is the inevitability of ply might have produced some short­ economics by noting that some of its rational expectations business cycle the­ term benefits (revenue from printing practitioners may be more interested in ory. The closest either author gets to a money, a temporary increase in eco­ advancing their academic careers than criticism of the efficient markets litera­ nomic growth, a temporary reduction in the pursuit of truth. Oh? What has ture is Yeager's comment that traders in unemployment) that lasted two to the motivation of the scientist to do use all kinds of information in deter­ three years. Now, the benefits of gun­ with the truth of his findings? Actually mining prices. The same could be said ning the money supply, if any, last two this criterion would consign every field of the orange market, but does that or three months. of research to oblivion. Then there is make it inefficient? We certainly agree with Yeager that the inconvenient fact that many of the Garrison and Yeager totally misrep­ the central bank "can either guard or new classical and finance scholars are resent the invariance proposition. neglect the value of the dollar" and dedicated supporters of free markets Garrison claims that Lucas maintains "either avoid or carelessly inflict severe and free people. "that changes in the money supply have monetary disturbances." In fact, not­ He then goes over the top by derid­ no systematic effect on the economy's withstanding the cartoon of him that ing those who believe in the "near per­ performance" and "that government accompanied the article, we are great fection of markets" as devotees of "free economic policy simply has no impor­ admirers of Alan Greenspan and markets run amok." Does he believe tant effect." In fact, Lucas and his fellow deeply doubt that he views his job as that free markets work poorly? Didn't new classical economists say nothing of "steering" the economy in one direc­ we hear similar attacks on Mises and the sort. What they say is that unantici­ tion or another. He is the first Fed Hayek by their socialist critics? pated changes in the money supply are chairman to see his main (and virtually Actually, Yeager's response is both dis­ likely to have significant effects on the his sole) job as preventing the Fed from tressing and familiar: adherence to the economy's performance and that those making unanticipated changes to the old order by those who'd rather stick effects will be systematically related to money supply and thereby creating with their repudiated ideas than expectations. In fact, Lucas and many of economic disruptions. We also under­ advance the understanding of econom­ his colleagues are greatly concerned stand that the dollar is not about to dis­ ics or the cause of liberty. 0 about government power precisely appear and that this because unanticipated government means that it serves as actions can cause serious business cycle the "nominal anchor" fluctuations. And, ofcourse, it goes with­ of the monetary out saying that taxes, regulations, and system. other government actions can, quite As far as their criti­ apart from business cycles, seriously cisms go, both damage the economy. Garrison and Yeager Garrison and Yeager also appear seem to be intent on bent on misunderstanding the article's committing as many title. liThe End of Central Banking" is logical errors as possi­ not a phrase we would have used in the ble. For example, title (but we were sympathetic to Garrison seems to Liberty'S choice as we watched the mag­ think it's a criticism of azine fly off the shelf at the local the new classical eco­ Borders). However, the title is abso­ nomics that the latest lutely accurate in that the central bank breed of intervention­ is unable to steer the economy with any ist economists base SHCl--lAMBERS Liberty 53 Volume 11, Number 3 anuary 1998 Palmer, "For Mises' Sake," continued from page 46

own little note in Liberty was described The implicit comparison with Lenin, Hoppe and Rockwell must be prepar­ as follows in the Mises Institute news­ Wilson, and Hitler was bad enough, ing for me, as well as for anyone else letter: "Few writers today can match but what is a "D.C. partisan"? Does who might voice doubts about their the anti-Habsburg rantings of Lenin, that mean that I lunch regularly with bizarre cult. Wilson, and Hitler, but just by renew­ Hillary Clinton, or that I spend my Poor Ludwig von Mises. He was a ing the ties between the Austrian time at the World Bank, plotting the great man and a profound thinker. To School and the Habsburgs we drew a world's financial ruin? I can only guess have the likes of Hoppe and Rockwell hysterical attack from a D.C. partisan." at the vituperation and slander that as disciples is a sad fate. 0

Timberlake, "Free-Market Money," continued from page 44

banal, but were unheard of and unan­ to continue to use conventional money; changes I have suggested are techni­ ticipated just a few decades ago. Why third, free private competitive enterprise cally simple and could be put in place should we think that we must ever banking for the production of common by any political body without any know where freedom in the market­ money, which would be redeemable in undue stress in financial markets. place will take us? All we need to whatever was mutually acceptable to Money came into the ancient world know is that the freedom is there, that banker and client; and fourth, priva­ through individual initiatives 3,000 individuals can choose - can accept tized Federal Reserve Banks that operate years ago and has been abused and or reject without question the things a clearinghouse system. The quality of debased by state- management ever offered in markets. If this option money in use, if not perfect, would since. Surely we can learn from this included money, we would have become as good as innovative man and experience that the state and money money of as good quality as comput­ woman could devise. are a combination toxic to stable ers. and automobiles, and even more The reforms outlined here are sim­ money, private property rights, and important we would have freedom ply a free market solution to the uncer­ individual freedoms. So let's do at least itself. tainty and chaos that today's statist as well as our primitive forbears by A secure and viable monetary sys­ systems have engendered. They reflect fostering the rules and conditions for a tem must include, first, readily available the practical wisdom from experiences viable monetary system that finally gold for those who want it; second, a with gold money and free banking, gets the state out of an activity that frozen stock oflimited legal tender govern­ and retain a frozen stock of govern­ was none of its business in the first ment paper money, for those who wish ment- issued paper currency. All of the place. 0

Armentano, "The Fight for Medical Marijuana," continued from page 37

drug-law reform proponents resur­ the October 8 bust of a Sacramento club. medical marijuana an issue of national rected a provision allowing doctors to The latter raid and subsequent arrests importance. Depending on the number prescribe marijuana pending a public of the proprietor and two employees of successful initiatives in 1998 and vote in November 1998. However, may signify a shift in federal policy ­ 1999, the government may take a seri­ because this provision is in direct con­ from rhetoric to action - but only time ous look at rescheduling marijuana -to flict with federal law, it is unlikely that will tell. At this point, it still remains Schedule II to legally allow for its med­ Arizona patients will have legal access unlikely that federal officials will inten­ ical use by the year 2000. Until then, to the drug. Proposition 200 may allow tionally target specific medical mari­ states, medical marijuana activists, and patients to make an affirmative juana patients or physicians. Local and medical organizations will continue to defense of "medical necessity" if they state law enforcement will most likely lead the charge toward additional are facing state marijuana charges. continue to be the primary enforcers research and limited legal access. 0 So far, threats from the federal gov­ and interpreters of state medical mari­ ernment to arrest patients who use juanalaws. ....------..... marijuana and physicians who recom­ State voters and legislatures con­ No More Wacos mend it as authorized by California's tinue to address the issue of medical or Arizona's new laws have proved marijuana and move the topic forward. Whats Wrong with Federal Law hollow. Federal officials did question at In 1997, ten states introduced laws Enforcement andHow to Fix It least one physician for allegedly recom­ endorsing medical marijuana. Medical by David B. Kopel & Paul H. Blackman Winner of 1997 Thomas S. Szasz Award mending his patients use marijuana marijuana proponents anticipate more for Outstanding Contributions to the medicinally, but so far have taken no endorsements in 1998. Signatures are Cause ofCivil Liberties further action. Raids on at least two currently being gathered to place nar­ Main Selection, Conservative Book Club above-ground California Buyer's Clubs rowly focused medical marijuana ini­ http://i2i.org/Waco.htm were executed by federal officials in the tiatives on the 1998 ballot in at least The website offers afree copy ofthe first chapter. past year. No arrests were made in the seven states. The passage of future ini­ Availablefrom: Prometheus Books (the pub­ first raid, but charges are pending after lisher) 800-421-0351; Laissez-Faire tiatives is crucial to keep the battle for Books; Amazon.com; and fine bookstores everywhere. $26.95 54 Llberty Criticism The Devil's Reading List by Stephen Cox

In the opening pages of Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita, two Soviet hack writers are discussing religion. An irritating stranger interrupts them. This man is a foreign "professor" of some kind, and he is amused by their naive atheism. After brief discussion of six old­ fashioned proofs of the reality of the supernatural world, the stranger Colonel Archibald Gracie. Colonel reveals a seventh proof - his own and seemingly many hopeless con­ Gracie survived the but he did ditions soon prevailed, and unex­ identity. The professor is, in fact, the Titanic, pected ones, too, when I felt that Devil; and if the Devil exists, then not succeed in rescuing his prose style. Consider his way of evoking the "any moment might be my last," I God must also. This seventh proof had no time to contemplate danger turns out to be conclusive. moment when it occurred to him that he was about to be drowned: when there was continuous need of Bulgakov's story has some rele­ quick thought, action and compo­ vance to current disputes among crit­ When I first saw and realized that sure withaI. ics (or, more accurately, professors) of every lifeboat had left the ship, the literature. The believers are at war sensation felt was not an agreeable By this point, there can be no with the atheists. The believers affirm one. doubt. Colonel Gracie is not a master the existence of a world of literary ironist. He is, quite simply, a dreadful A charitable reader will want to miracles, of Sophocles and writer. He has tempted his readers construe that strangely understated Shakespeare, Beowulf and Virginia with a magnificent story, the agony of sentence as a daring display of irony, Woolf; a world of literary genius, to a great ship and the multitudes of peo­ an attempt at using black humor to use the old, semireligious term. The ple who trusted their lives to her, and emphasize the existential horror of atheists - who are, just now, in the he has betrayed those readers basely. the human condition. If you have this ascendant - do not agree. For them, Colonel Gracie is an almost supernatu­ charitable impulse, read on. there is no sacred realm of "litera­ ral revelation of how bad a writer can ture." There is only "writing," and No thought of fear entered my be - a literary Devil incarnate. Let any claim that some of it should be head, but I experienced a feeling fashionable theorists argue that liter­ "canonized" or even "privileged" which others may recall when hold­ ary judgments are social constructions above other products of "cultural ing the breath in the face of some that can never attain universality; the work" and "social construction" is frightful emergency and when "vox theory is irrelevant to the experience of faucibus haesit," as frequently hap­ evidence that the claimant is unso­ Colonel Gracie's work. No one, of any phisticated at best, bigoted at worst. pened to the old Trojan hero of our school days. This was the nearest race, class, gender, political persua­ But atheism always reckons with­ approach to fear, if it can be so sion, or sexual orientation, can possi­ out the Devil. characterized, that is discernible in bly regard Gracie's sentences as The Devil recently appeared to an analysis of my actions or feel­ appropriate to their subject. The me, disguised as an author. It hap­ ings while in the midst of the many achievement of his writing transcends pened while I was reading a book dangers which beset me during that every social context and expectation. It called The Truth about the Titanic, by night of terror. Though still worse is a miracle of incompetence. Liberty 55 Volume 11, Number 3 Janua 1998

Of course, Colonel Gracie's accom­ It is fair to emphasize the fact that tries, with a series of pompous phrases, plishment is not unique. Many similar arguments like this originate with aca­ to make something out of it. The differ­ miracles have been seen, each one a demics, people whose own reading ence between Shakespeare and Colonel sign and element of something larger habits are strongly influenced by the Gracie is signally important, butitman­ and more menacing: a Devil's reading membership requirements of their ifests itself as nothing more than a list of transcendent literary failures, an social and professional group. When slight, purely literary distinction - a assemblage of verbal horrors intruded one's daily work consists of wading distinction that is far too fine to be upon our world to desolate the very through nineteenth-century texts in stamped on them by the enormous dies act of reading. The existence of such a search of genderings and hegemonies, of "history" and"class." Satanic library, once demonstrated, one can easily begin to regard all writ­ History cannot explain why' the would suggest that the believers in a ing as a form of social discipline. subject that wrecked Archibald Gracie canon of transcendent literary great­ Enmeshed in the solemn business of should have enabled Thomas Hardy to ness were right after all. If we can iden­ making a living, one can easily lose write his greatest poem, "The tify a countercanon, why should we one's sense of how very bad, how terri- Convergence of the Twain." Nor can doubt our ability to identify a canon? history explain all the strange ways in But there are two ways of reacting which authors differ from themselves; to a miracle. One is to grant it the full Like the canon ofgreat writ­ it cannot fathom the diabolical ingenu­ force of evidence, to receive it as proof ity with which people who have once of a supernatural or at least a supernor­ ing, the countercanon of illus­ attained the Valhalla of the canon con­ mal realm. Ever since the Greeks can­ triously bad writing is trive to escape from it. onized Homer, this has been the more immense and free; it knows no History cannot explain why Babbitt or less established view of literary gen­ remains alive in'almost every sentence, ius. The second way of reacting to a boundaries of social class or while Gideon Planish (another Sinclair miracle is to deny that it is one, to historical period. Lewis satire of the bourgeoisie, and describe it as an illusion that can be just as loaded'with social "textuality," sufficiently explained by investigation for those who like such things) can lie of all the wires, smoke, and mirrors ble, in fact, some writing can be, how as quiet as ,the tomb from page one that can be detected in its vicinity. far it can lie from anything that might onward. History may suggest some This is the work of demystification deserve a better name like reasons why William Wordsworth got pursued by today's cultural theorists "literature." interested in capital punishment, but.it - neo-Marxists, New Historicists, and The usefulness of this sense is too cannot come to grips with the miracu­ practitioners of "cultural studies." often neglected, even by academic lous wrongness of his decision to'write They have little trouble discovering the exponents of canonical literature. In a series of poems in favor of it - a social machinery out of which literary series of sonnets, of all things, and bad The Western Canon, Harold Bloom, a gods are made to appear. Every author sonnets, too: comes from some social class and has stalwart exponent, argues that demys­ tifiers of literary greatness ought to be See the Condemned alone within his cell some kind of sexuality and ethnicity; And prostrate at some moment when every reader does, too. Demystifiers daunted by the example of Shakespeare: remorse can therefore argue that judgments of Stings to the quick, and, with resistless high literary quality are determined by Either they must deny Shakespeare's force, the barely hidden influences of such unique eminence (a painful and dif­ Assaults the pride she strove in vain to factors as these. ficult matter) or they must show quell. According to this plausible expla­ why and how history and class Then mark him, him who could so long nation, texts that get to enter the liter­ struggle produced just those aspects rebel, ary canon are those that succeed in of his plays that have generated his The crime confessed, a kneeling Penitent performing, or usefully obscuring, the centrality in the Western Canon. Before the Altar, where the Sacrament, ideological work of some dominant Bloom might have argued even and so forth. No politics will distort group. These texts become the stuff of more effectively that the demystifiers our judgment;'these are verses that not syllabi and are imposed upon the ought to be daunted by Colonel Gracie. even a friend of capital punishment young as devices of discipline and Professional readers are no longer sur­ could love. Nor is there any reason internalized moral surveillance. Other prised by Shakespeare; they are no why even reactionary politics should texts are "marginalized." A very little longer surprised by his ability to use be incapable of inventing a few pun­ research can reveal the ways in which such simple tools as "Nothing will gent phrases. Well, Wordsworth's Uncle Vanya ministered to the needs of come of nothing" to make the whole powers IIdecayed." No doubt; but that one cultural group, and Uncle Tom's problem of existence materialize out of is just another way of saying that Cabin to the needs of another. Both the mists of an imaginary domestic dis­ Wordsworth started making ridicu­ works pleased, and both endure (if pute. Such achievements are taken for lously bad literary choices, choices that endurance is the point). Why should granted. But Colonel Gracie does some­ fell unerringly on trite and cumber­ one be exalted as an expression of uni­ thing more startling than Shakespeare: some expressions. versalliterary values, and the oth~r be having actually witnessed one of the Like the canon of great writing, the slighted as a mere social document? world's most interesting events, he countercanon of illustriously bad writ- 56 Liberty Volume 11, Number 3 Janua 1998

ing is immense and free; it knows no orous material than the lives of the without conveying any zen or dadaist boundaries of social class or historical Confederate upper-bourgeoisie. intimations that might register favora­ period. Its existence was recognized Warhol's diary, as originally dictated, bly in the genre of theory. almost as soon as the existence of the was 20,000 pages long, but his editor The fundamental requirement of canon itself. It was studied by has obliged posterity by cutting it to a horror literature (to cite the example of Aristophanes in The Frogs; its further mere 800. In reading these pages, one one genre) is scary words in scary progress was analyzed by Alexander constantly has to remind oneself that places. In Dracula, or parts of Dracula, Pope in Peri Bathous, subtitled Of the the editor was looking for the best four Bram Stoker managed to provide such Art of Sinking in Poetry. Among Pope's percent, not the worst. words. But in The Lair of the White many splendid samples of this art we True, Warhol deserves some credit Worm, he produced a book that is as find: for his complete lack of pretentious­ Ye Gods! annihilate but Space and Time, ness, even in his loftiest moments of And make two Lovers happy. speculation: The diary's most memorable Critics were slow to realize, how­ How do these doctors really feel feature is Warhol's constant ever, that both the canon and the about sick people? Do they care countercanon are open to every kind of about you and really want you to get ability to turn something inter­ authorial enterprise, not just attempts better or is it just a business? I mean, esting into something boring at Olympian poetry. Canonical I think about doing portraits and do and trivial. achievements can be found in every lit­ I really care if they look good or is it just a job? And that's just a superfi­ erary genre, their stature always cial thing - it's not life and death. emphasized by the deep, contrasting shadow of the countercanon. But the most memorable feature of unscary as a book can be, unless you Mary Chesnut, the diarist of the the diary is Warhol's constant ability to are frightened by horrible writing. The Civil War, wrote in what scholars used turn something interesting into some­ plot idea is provocative, though daft: to call a minor genre, but she trans­ thing boring and trivial. No subject the hero, Adam Salton, discovers that formed everything she touched into escapes: his neighbor, Lady Arabella March, is Leonard Bernstein was there, and he actually a very large, very ancient, and cried. He always cries. He's such a very ill-tempered snake, a snake that Really bad writing usually weirdo. would just as soon kill you as look at Poor Earl Wilson must have had a you. Oddly, this situation inspires little results from perfectly innocent stroke. He was there and he can more dramatic action than would the motives. One of the most disas­ hardly walk, he just sort of scratches discovery that Lady Arabella was a is his feet along the ground, so I guess Christian Scientist. Adam complains trous the desire to achieve that's why he's not doing his column that the serpent's "want of principle" true literary distinction. so much anymore. reminds him of "a suffragette," but he Something strange happened, I is willing to take friendly strolls with thought Jon was trying to kill me. her and visit her for tea. Ah well; as he something major - even other people's We were on a snowmobile and he says, who would have "thought this bad, bad writing. "Today," she writes, pushed me over a cliff. I thought he fighting an antediluvian monster was did it on purpose. But somehow such a complicated job"? The novel ­ I saw a letter from a girl crossed in there were trees there and I fell off so long, so dull, so insupportably prig­ love. It was shown to me and my into a deep snow. We rode to the advice asked. Her parents object to gish - is hard to explain except on the house, that was fun, but I didn't real­ the social position of her fiance, in hypothesis that Stoker was obsessed ize till I got back how scary going off point of fact forbid the banns. with a Satanic desire to make nothing the cliff was. Then it sunk in what She writes, "I am missereablle." Her come of something. had happened. So I confronted Jon, sister she calls a "mean retch." Really bad writing, however, usu­ and he told me I was just being For such a speller I said a man of ally results from perfectly innocent crazy and I was relieved. any social status would do. They motives. One of the most disastrous is ought not to expect so much for her. So much for the mysteries and dan­ the desire to achieve true Iiterary dis­ If she wrote her "pah" a note, I am gers of life. tinction. The canon of great writing is, sure that "stern parient" would give Since Aristotle's time, works have indeed, a dangerous thing; it has in. been admitted to the canon because tempted many a hapless victim to self­ I am miserable, too, today - with they brilliantly fulfill the potential of destruction. one s and one 1. their genres. What is looked for in the A particularly sad instance is Give Chesnut a few misspellings, countercanon, however, is reckless Frances Newman, a once-prominent and she will give you back the entire defiance of a genre's demands and novelist who is now ignominiously social comedy, including her own per­ expectations. Authors worthy of coun­ disregarded. Newman was witty and formance as ironic self-observer. tercanonical recognition are the kind of well-read, she had a wide acquaintance Contrast Mrs. Chesnut with a con­ carpenters who insist on making chairs among other writers, she was ambi­ temporary diarist, Andy Warhol, who that you can't sit in and tables that you tious for literary achievement, and she had access to considerably more glam- can't put objects on; and they do so knew exactly what she wanted to do. Liberty 57 Volume 11, Number 3 Januar 1998

She intended, as she told her publisher, going away from it with a spinster lished another novel, Dead Lovers Are Horace Liveright, to create "the first who had rigid fingers and who liked Faithful Lovers. But despite its refresh­ novel in which a woman ever told the to look at small objects, and she per­ ingly aphoristic title, this one is more truth about how women feel." (That suaded Catherine Robinson to feel of the same. Soon after its publication, was 1926.) She also intended to tell the an interest in the modem German Newman died, and her works were truth about the way in which women theatre which could only be satisfied remembered no more. There was noth­ by a month in Berlin and a month in are educated, about the ignorance and ing to remember. For all her trying, her Salzburg. vanity of provincial America (espe­ books were not literature, by any quali­ cially the "aristocratic" South), and And that is one of the most interest­ tative definition of that term. They about the defects of American culture ing sentences in the novel. The phrase were justI'writing," and not very good in general. Last but not least, she about having "rigid fingers" and liking writing, either. would tell the truth about sex. "to look at small objects" almost sug­ Regrettably, not every piece of bad Her material was certainly promis­ gests a character. Unfortunately, no writing is' bad enough to gain full ing, and her literary attitude - self- character succeeds in emerging from membership in the countercanon, any of the book's 277 pages of hide­ which welcomes only the degree zero ously mannered prose. Even James of literary accomplishment. Some very Branch Cabell, Newman's literary bad writing approaches that standard, Colonel Gracie has tempted buddy (at least supposedly: "I can but misses it, just as some very good his readers with a magnificent think. of no book ever written by any literature narrowly misses the canon. story, and he has betrayed those woman which I like better"), com­ The scale of values is very long. Like plained of the "atrocities" she commit­ Jacob's ladder, it ends in heaven, but it readers basely. Colonel Gracie ted with pronoun reference. begins with bare rock, the kind of rock is an almost supernatural reve­ Newman's major contribution to that is difficult to use for anything lation of how bad a writer can the avant-garde is a Byzantine opaque­ except a headrest while you snooze. ness, which she often mistakes for Difficult, though not impossible. On be - a literary Devil incarnate. philosophy: his visionary ladder Jacob saw "the At the .age of twelve, Katharine angels of God ascending and descend­ Faraday could not be expected· to ing"; and he said, "this is the gate of heaven." Great authors have felt free to consciously avant-garde, yet deeply know what a great many celebrated novelists and a·great many cele­ travel up and down the literary ladder, respectful of what can be learned from brated dramatists have died without tradition - seemed practically to guar­ learning, and when she left the row antee success. Her novel would tell the of expectant heads and walked scandalous truth, but tell it with deli­ across the hard red clay yard to pick History cannot explain why cate literary art. Everything had to be up a rusty dipper, she did not sus­ "Babbitt" remains alive in precisely right. She bothered pect that character was condescend­ Liveright's office about "the brackets ing to allow chance its usual small almost every sentence, while around the page numbers" and the share in the union which becomes "Gideon Planish" can lie as printer's substitution of "Webster's fate. quiet as the tomb from page one standards" for "the spelling of the Among Newman's other bright onward. Oxford Concise Dictionary." She sent ideas are her exclusion of all conversa­ in a sketch for the dust jacket, fearing tion from her novel; her replacement of that the one Liveright had in mind chapters with "episodes," each of would "endanger the book's dignity." which is one vast, tedious paragraph; parodying or improving the methods of With her fastidious craftsmanship her insistence on beginning every epi­ the not-so-great, thereby confirming and her racy subject, it's hard to see how sode with a sentence that includes her that there is a scale of values and that Newman could have failed. But she did. heroine's name; her refusal to call her they themselves have the heavenly title. Her book, The Hard-Boiled Virgin, is a heroine anything except "Katharine Jane Austen found much of the fic­ miserable flop. The brassy title con­ Faraday"; and her refusal to end with tion of her day quite inferior, but not trasts, not very ironically, with the mer­ the words "The End." What she too inferior to mine for elements of her ciless archness of thebook's narration: thought these methods accomplished comic art. Emily Dickinson found When Marian Faraday was unable to remains largely unknown, although something useful for her own purposes consider her sister's sudden distaste she did confide something about try­ in the pomposities of bad Christian for America a reason why she ing to get "a perfect sequence of the writing. In nature, she says, should keep her ten-year-old daugh­ reader's attention." She also admitted God preaches, a noted Clergyman ­ ter in a land where she had already discovered that men are not made that her episodes would leave readers And the sermon is never long. precisely like women and that all "badly in need of ... relief." She appar­ As seen from a certain perspective, women do not dislike being kissed, ently thought that was a good thing. God is indeed "a noted clergyman." Katharine Faraday decided that stay­ The Hard-Boiled Virgin went over The phrase is valuable; it can be paro­ ing in a town where she had been so well in the bookstores. It was even died and thus redeemed. unhappy was less bearable than banned in Boston. Newman soon pub- Perhaps there is nothing to parody 58 Liberty Volume 11, Number 3 Janu 1998

in The Lair of the White Worm or The psychology!" He goes on to mention it right, to distinguish literary effects Hard-Boiled Virgin; they are just that "the truth and nature of things, con­ from all the other "cultural work" that empty of merit. But Sinclair Lewis firmed by the authority of works, a text may do? knew that he had found the base of whose fame is not of one country, nor Here again, we need the help of Jacob's ladder when he read'such syn­ of one age." some great exemplar of the counter­ dicated poet-philosophers as Eddie No claim need be made that these canon. This is a job for Albert Payson Guest and Uncle Walt of Emporia principles operate uniformly in peo­ Terhune. ("Where the Sunflower Grows"). In ple's literary judgments. The claim is Terhune was a hack writer. It seems Babbitt, he embodied them in the won­ only that where they do operate, they to have been an hereditary condition; derful figure of T. Cholmondeley his mother and his daughter were also ("Chum") Frink, author of "poemula­ hack writers. In his autobiography, tions" like this: Terhune cheerfully confesses to writ­ History may suggest some ing that "was a billion miles from any­ I sat alone and groused and thunk, reasons why William Words­ and scratched my head and sighed thing approaching literature." (He and wunk, and groaned, "There still worth got interested in capital believed that he could tell the differ­ are boobs, alack, who'd like the old­ punishment, but it cannot come ence.) But whatever the quality of his time gin-mill back; that den that writing may have been, he kept at it makes a sage a loon, the vile and to grips with the miraculous until the end, and after the end. His smelly old saloon!" I'll never miss wrongness of his decision to last published book, Across the Line, their poison booze, whilst I the bub­ write a series of poems in favor was allegedly created after his death bling spring can use, that leaves my and communicated to this world by head at merry morn as clear as any ofit. means of automatic writing - an art babe new-born! that he had practiced, in one form or It is not a social but a literary con­ another, throughout his career. struction, this double vision that are decisive, and they are no respecters Terhune's most famous works are allows us to see that Frink is a fool but of period, genre, gender, race, or class. his many stories of dogs, beginning Lewis (who is, right now, the same as One principle that· Coleridge identifies with Lad: A Dog (1919). Interest in his Frink) is a genius. - a principle, basically, of literary books about collies has been intense There may be writers who are "logic" and "psychology" - is that a and long-lasting; pockets of enthu­ worse than Chum Frink. There are cer­ "legitimate" poem "propos[es] to itself siasm still exist. When I was a child, I tainly writers who are a little bit better such delight from the whole, as is com­ loved Terhune's books and pestered than he is, writers who stand a little patible with a distinct gratification my parents to keep buying them, until higher up the ladder. Others stand a from each component part." In other I had 10 or 15 of the cheap, squishy, little higher still. ... Lewis, standing words, the whole and the parts should Grosset & Dunlap "hardbacks" for near the top, makes Chum Frink see be consonant. You shouldn't try to ele­ kids. Years later, long after my treas­ this, once he's drunk: vate your readers' thoughts with some ured copies had somehow found their general message about capital punish­ way to Goodwill Industries, I came Know what I could've been? ment while you are putting them to across Lad: A Dog on a bookstore shelf. could've been a Gene Field or a My heart barely had time to soften James Whitcomb Riley. Maybe a sleep with a series of fatuous cliches. Stevenson. I could've. Such principles of "taste" and with nostalgia before I opened the "good sense" (Coleridge again) are sub­ book and discovered thatAlbert No, he couldn't've. But the momen­ ject to every error of application that Payson Terhune was a very poor tary ability to realize how bad he is bad taste and lack of sense can possibly writer, after all. gives him a glimpse of the ladder's make. But it is by appeal to universal His books do have action; the dogs ascent and upward reaches. "Maybe a standards that King Lear lives and get to save some good guys and rough Stevenson." Gorboduc continues dead, that Emily up some bad guys. But his principal Grant that there is some writing Dickinson has been resurrected while concern is the dogs' moral character. that is just plain bad; and grant, there­ Ella Wheeler Wilcox remains buried in Everyone of these "gallant" dogs is a fore, that there are principles that the ruins of her literary experiments. "dog with a Soul"; everyone of them allow us to make that judgment. I will There are people - my professional is, in Terhune's opinion, about a thou­ then suggest that by using the same colleagues, chiefly - who would not sand times nicer, braver, and smarter principles we can distinguish a canon spend one moment defending the liter­ than any human being you are ever of writing that is great in every way in ary value of The Hard-Boiled Virgin or likely to meet. The word "animal" just which the countercanon is terrible. If The Lair of the White Worm but who doesn't seem to fit. What the dogs are, you demand to know by which princi­ have great difficulty accepting the in fact, is a pack of self-complacent ples that highly discriminatory judg­ abstract idea that distinctions ought to New Jersey gentlemen like "the ment is to be made, I will answer in the be made between literature and mere Master," Terhune himself. You've general yet sufficient terms with which "writing," or between writing that has guessed that Terhune's sentences are Coleridge, in his Biographia Literaria, some local and partial value and writ­ insufferably stilted and hammy. They answers essentially the same question: ing that represents a canon of great­ also have a tendency to wander off on "By the principles of grammar, logic, ness. Is it possible, they wonder, and is long romps with his personal obses- Liberty 59 Volume 11, Number 3 January 1998

sions. He was chronically upset, for can possibly call literary, so long as My contention is supported by A Call to instance, by a paved road that there are other words in the dictionary. Character, a newly published anthology encroached on his property at The real determinant was the audi­ of moral writing for children, compiled Pompton Lakes - the "pus-hued con­ ence's desire to have a collie dog. by Colin Greer and Herbert Kohl. Kohl crete highroad," as he termed it. That That's "cultural work" for you. is the progressive educator who was first adjective catches him at the height When I visited "The Place," as Terhune responsible for The Open Classroom and, of his evocative power. always calls his estate, my emotions more recently, Should We Burn Babar? I The question of why so many peo­ also were fully engaged, although they am pleased to report that in the intro­ ple, adults as well as children, have required no immediate assistance from ductory essay of A Call to Character, my really and honestly enjoyed Terhune's old friend Lad wins best of show. The books is answered in two different climax of the essay sends readers off to ways - one explicit and weak, one The main reason why we this novel to learn "valuable advice" implicit and powerful - by Irving about "moral issues." know that "The Call of the The issue of whether is litera­ Litvag, Terhune's engagingbiographer. Lad ture, or merely a very odd kind of writ­ Litvag recognizes his subject's sins as a Wild" is literature, while "Lad: ing, does not arise for Greer and Kohl, writer. He asserts, nevertheless, that A Dog" is not, is that only one any more than it arises for English the explanation for Terhune's popular­ of those works depends for its Department theorists of race-class­ ity lies in his "storytelling skill." This gender. Why should it? For some pur­ would be a good explanation, if there effect on the reader's need for a poses (to paraphrase Mrs. Chesnut), were some positive evidence of that household pet. any kind of words will do. There is no skill. There. being none, I proceed to reason to insist, is there, on taste or good Litvag's second answer, which has judgment when you're simply theoriz­ much more to do with Terhune's audi­ Terhune's writing. Such movements of ing in the classroom, or sharing moral ence than withTerhune. the heart are well worth analyzing, lessons with your children? I should Litvag admits that he found himself from a "cultural" point of view. But the mention that even The Truth about the crying, like many other visitors, when clues won't lead you anywhere close to Titanic suggests a lot of moral lessons, he drove out to Terhune's former home literature. The main reason why we and it has a lot to tell us about early­ and discovered the grave of Lad, a know that King Lear (or, for that matter, twentieth-century class structures, too. quadruped "whose only real interest in The Call of the Wild) is literature, while But a question keeps coming back, life," Litvag concedes, "probably was Lad: A Dog is not, is that only one of as persistent and as haunting as the his next bowl of hamburger." Yet some­ those works depends for its effect on evidence that the countercanon offers how Lad "became the dog we always the reader's need for a household pet. for the existence of the canon: Isn't wanted to have and never did. Maybe This point is naturally lost on every­ there something that the kids could get even more than that - maybe he one who is not concerned todistinguish out of Robert Louis Stevenson's writ­ became the friend we always waited to literature from socially interesting ing that they can't get out of Albert find, or even the brother, or the father." words; and "everyone," in this sen­ Payson Terhune's? I think that there Terhune's writing helped to produce tence, embraces both stylish theorists of is, and that the something would be that effect, but the effect didn't result writing and old-fashioned preachers of literature. 0 from any aspects of the writing that we morality (two overlapping categories).

Letters, continuedfrom page 5

specific evidence on the persistence of tarians and all people of good will, ofloyaltyis wortha pound of statistics. slave labor camps, and further discuss they are heroes. In any case, to imply Ifyoumusteternallydisparage, vilify the mixed blessings Deng's reforms that former inmates of Communist and condemnfellow libertarians, resign have brought to the wretched inmates slave labor camps like Harry Wu share from Liberty and whenonthe outside of Laogai, the Chinese Gulag. (There is Americans' "victim's rights mentality" damntill yourheart's content. far less deliberate brutality and brain­ is to lose all sense of the difference If you do not, you areloosening the washing than under Mao, but far more between phony oppression and the tendrils that draw new libertarians to opportunity for apparatchiks to get rich real thing. her Torch, so that at the first high wind off of slave labor). Bryan Caplan they are up-rooted and blown away, Regarding Harry Wu himself: McLean, Va. never to become Libertarians, and Alexander may be right that most you'll never know the reason why! Chinese don't respect him. The same Friendly Advice We all must fight the dragon, not could be said of Russians and Ifyouworkfor Liberty, for the Lady's each other. Solzhenitsyn. It should come as no sur­ sake, workfor liberty. IfLiberty pays Wishing you peace love and free­ prise that the nations of Stalin and yourwageandbuysyourbread,write dom in our lifetime! Mao still lack widespread appreciation for Liberty, workfor liberty, andstandby Scott A. Wilson for courageous dissidents. But to liber- fellowlibertarians. Ina pinch, anounce Concord, Calif. 60 Liberty The Making ofEconomic Society, by Robert Heilbroner and William Even so, a lot has changed over the Milberg. Prentice Hall, 1998, 190 pp. years. The new edition is much shorter (190 pages, compared with the original 241 pages and 300 in 1980). I suspect the book was shortened as a concession to today's poorly prepared college stu­ dents. But whether this is the case or The Unmaking of not, it is interesting to identify the top­ ics that Heilbroner and his co-author have removed. These include details of the composition of the Gross National an Ideology Product, exhaustive analysis of the early-20th century claims that American industry was too concen­ trated, and a debate over the social looking back at the earlier editions, I reponsibility of business (which pops Jane S. Shaw found that Heilbroner always respected up in the 1980 edition). capitalism. (Perhaps I shouldn't be sur­ What has been completely trans­ Throughout his career, economist prised. Marx did, too.) formed is the treatment of international Robert Heilbroner sympathized with In all three editions I reviewed, economics. Soviet communism, which socialism. Because of his appealing Heilbroner introduces the market econ­ took up more than nine pages in the writing style (introduced to young peo­ omy with an anecdote illustrating the 1962 edition, has shrunk to less than a ple through his popular book The "puzzling - indeed, almost paradoxi­ page. The glOWing encomiums have Worldly Philosophers) and because of his cal - nature of the market solution to disappeared. In 1962, Heilbroner grudging respect for the market sys­ the economic problem." tem, he has been regarded as a member He quotes a hypotheti­ ~EIL8RONER )5 PUZZLE of the economic mainstream (which is, cal adviser as saying of course, left-leaning). However, he "Oh, nobody runs the never hid the fact that he thought that market .... It runs the United States should move closer to itself. In fact there socialism. really isn't any such With the fall of communism, his thing as 'the market.' views changed. In a memorable New It's just a word we use Yorker article in 1990 he candidly to describe the way admitted his shock at the economic col­ people behave." With lapse of the Soviet Union. The shock such language, he does led him to reconsider the calculation a good job of differen- debate of the 1930s, and he concluded tiating capitalism from that, after all, "Mises was right." "tradition" and "com­ A. B. When the tenth edition of his eco­ mand" economies. nomic history text, The Making of Furthermore, in all Economic Society, appeared recently, I three editions, Heil­ INSERT FlGURE A. INTO OPENING- B. naturally wanted to know how this edi­ broner tempers criticism of the wrote: "Can economic command sig­ tion (co-written with William Milberg) Industrial Revolution with statements nificantly compress and accelerate the treated communism. I was even more that the hardships seemingly caused by growth process? The remarkable per­ curious to learn whether Heilbroner's capitalism (child labor, long working formance of the Soviet Union is proof views about capitalism had changed. hours, dangerous factory conditions) enough that it can." In 1980, he wrote: So I compared it with two earlier edi­ should be placed in context. For exam­ "Central planning is not impossible for tions - the original 1962 book and the ple, he points out that the urban pov­ certain kinds of economic tasks: For sixth edition, published in 1980. erty so visible to contemporary 'forcing' growth, in particular, it may Heilbroner's book has, indeed, historians did not necessarily represent be more effective than any other means changed over the past 35 years, but not a deterioration of life for the masses. of bringing about the needed allocation quite the way I expected. For one thing, For many, it was an improvement. of resources" (p. 215). In the latest Liberty 61 January 1998

edition, he says: "Whatever the outcome, the outlook -for ~hat we used to call Soviet socialism seems very bleak" (170). Speculate! What really blew me away, though, was the disappearance of the Third World. The "underdeveloped world" was granted 25 pages in 1962, and in Save! 1980 it had its own 23-page chapter. (True, there were signs of retreat. The Fun first steps to figuring it all out... "crucial avenue of aid" in 1962 was just the "avenue of foreign aid" in 1980.) By The Economy ofthe Twenty-First Century • Sparks fly when world-famous 1998, this part of the world is given commodity speculators Victor Niederhoffer and Jim Rogers join investment only a few paragraphs. Instead, we advisors DoUglas Casey and Harry Browne, economists David Friedman have a chapter onthe "globalization of and Leland Yeager, and Liberty publisher R.W. Bradford on a voyage into economic life." the fascinating future! (audio, AI05: $6.95; video, VI05: $19.95) Heilbroner says that some of these countries have joined the world econ­ Investment Advice: Bonanza or BS? • Do investment advisors have anything omy, while others arellcenters of disas­ to offer their customers, or are their newsletters just expensive hot air? ter," areas of "ever-worsening poverty, Newsletter authors Harry Browne, Douglas Casey, and R.W. Bradford disorder, hopelessness." Whether these debate David Friedman and speculator Victor Niederhoffer. Provocative will ever become part of the "global­ and valuable! (audio, A143: $6.95; video, V143: $19.95) ized" world "is beyond our knowl­ The Best - and Worst - Places to Invest and Live • World traveler and edge." So much. for those struggling wit Douglas Casey has scrambled through Third World backwaters and economies .whose future was so pains­ chatted with dictators from Cuba to Central Asia. Here he recounts his most takingly assessed in earlier editions. recent adventures - and reveals profitable secrets for protecting your wealth. Heilbroner's reversal on the under­ (audio, A142: $6.95; video, V142: $19.95) developed nations can help us under­ stand why he once thought that socialism would work. In the earlier parts of the' book, which have changed 'i Books 'i little over the years, Heilbroner recog­ The Education ofa Speculator. • Victor Niederhoffer's amazing combina­ nizes that capital investment is critical tion ofmemoir, how-to-manual' and credo is perhaps the only book we've to economic growth, but he sees no fun­ ever sold whose purchasers have telephoned to thank us personally for such a damental difference between the way fascinating read. So get your copy of The Education ofa Speculator today. A that capital investment was accumu­ wealth ofindispensable and fascinating knowledge! lated in the Industrial Revolution and the way it was accumulated by the "A compelling and entertaining read.... Readers interested Soviet state. in learning the connection between music and speculation Both societies restricted consump­ or, better yet, sex and trading, will find this treatise an tion to provide investment, he says. eye-opener. Read it."- Wall StreetJournal /lEngland had to hold down the level of its working class consumption in order "There is far more original thought in the pages of The to free its productive effort for the accu­ Education ofa Speculator than in many libraries offinancial mulation of capital goods," he says in tomes." - Financial Times (London) the first edition (1962, p. 97), a state­ You won't be disappointed! (444 pp., $26.95 - 100/0 offpublisher's price) ment repeated almost word-for-word in 1998. Back in 1962, he viewed the I Investment Biker· Jim Rogers went on a world tour unlike any other, and Soviet process as simply a more intense wrote a travel book and investment book all in one - with a libertarian version of the Industrial Revolution ­ twist. Rogers motorcycled around the world, with an individualist's eye for the same transformation, just Soviet­ the politics ofthe countries visited, and a keen investor's eye for economc style: "What was new about the Soviet opportunities. Provocative and engaging, utterly unique. (402 pp., auto­ program was that totalitarian control graphed by the author, $25.00) over the citizenry enabled the planners to carry out this transformation at a much faster tempo than would have Call 1·800·854·6991 been possible had protests been permit­ or send your order to Liberty Book Club, Dept. BC63, P.O. Box 1181, Port ted" (1962, p. 195). Townsend, WA 98368. Add $3.00 s&h for the first book and the first tape, $1.00 The Third World, too, needed to extra for each additional book (nothing extra for additional tapes). (Foreign orders make this transformation, he wrote add $S.OO-s&h for single orders, $1.00 extra for each additional book.) back then. If it was to leapfrog to indus-

~. ----J Volume 11, Number 3 January 1998 trialization without either communism The Proud Highway: Saga ofa Desperate Southern Gentleman,byHunter or the "lengthy and arduous" process that had characterized economic devel­ S. Thompson (DouglasBrinkley,editor). VillardBooks,1997. opment in the West, some other method of capital accumulation was needed. Capital had to come from out­ side, either through foreign trade, for­ eign investment, or foreign aid. While Heilbroner discussed many problems Epistles from in the Third World, from inefficient agriculture to the legacy of imperial­ ism, they all had one thing in common: They were obstacles to the accumula­ the Edge tion of capital. But, as we all know now, the Third World did get capital, plenty of it. The Thomas Knapp writer, a short and ill-fated attempt to Third World is littered with rusting hold down a "real" newspaper job, and factories, wasteful dams, and out­ his sojourns in New York, Puerto Rico, moded power plants, many of them "Facts are lies when they're added South America, California, and produced with money poured into the up ... you have to add up the facts in Colorado, culminating in the release of underdeveloped countries by foreign your own fuzzy way, and to hell with Hell's Angels. The collection of aid. the hired swine who use adding Thompson's correspondence, edited by What Heilbroner didn't recognize, machines," wrote Hunter S. Thompson Douglas Brinkley, may be the ultimate apparently, is that prosperity depends in a 1965 letter to Knopf editor Angus validation of Thompson's real writing not just on capital investment but on Cameron. Since then, Thompson kept ability and political acumen. It is also well-targeted and well-managed invest­ accounts his own way in Hell's Angels the reading public's first real chance to ment. The experience of history sug­ and the eight books that followed it. He examine the early development of gests that the most productive capital wrote two of the seminal works on the Thompson's trademark style. investment decisions come from a politics of the late twentieth century Included in the volume are some of myriad of individuals acting on their (Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign the pieces that made Thompson the own impulses, responding to a myriad Trail '72 and Better Than Sex), eye­ inspiration for the "Duke" character in of signals conveyed through the opening "studies" of the drug and Doonesbury: a self-penned "news marketplace. motorcycle cultures (in Fear and release" that mysteriously appeared in "Underdeveloped" countries re­ Loathing in Las Vegas and Hell's Angels), the Eglin Air Force Base Command main that way because their govern­ and reams of salient political and social Courier, identifying Thompson as the ments do not grant individuals the commentary ranging from his early suspect in a fictional attack on the gate­ freedom to gain by creatively respond­ South American articles for the National house guard ("Thompson was ... ing to demand expressed through mar­ Observer to his "national correspon­ described by a recent arrival in the base kets. (This fact is luminously clear in dence" in Rolling Stone. A film version sanatorium as 'just the type of bastard the correlations between prosperity of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is in who would do a thing like that"'), the and economic freedom made by James production, featuring Johnny Depp in correspondence surrounding his "appli­ Gwartney and Robert Lawson in their the role of the angst-ridden, drug­ cation" for the governorship of recently released study, Economic addled journalist. His new piece in American Samoa ("Immediately upon Freedom of the World 1997.) Without Time ("Fear and Loathing in receipt of [your letter1I went to Brooks markets, capital investment often ends Hollywood: Doomed Love at the Taco Brothers and purchased several white up as waste. Heilbroner missed this in Stand"), putatively about the movie, linen suits and other equipment befit­ his earlier editions. His decision to marks Thompson's triumphant return ting the Governor ..."), and his attempt drop discussion of the Third World to the publication where he once to cajole the CEO of American Motors suggests that he may understand it worked as a copy boy. into giving him a new Rambler (liThe now. The Proud Highway: Saga of a nut of my argument is that I'm driving Whatever its omissions, the latest Desperate Southern Gentleman, covers around in something that I- in your edition of The Making of Economic Thompson's formative period of 1955­ position - would go to great lengths to Society does indeed give capitalism its 67, and is the first volume in a pro­ hide from the general public"). due. A chapter about the period from jected trilogy of the God of Gonzo's let­ Functioning as a writer in a world 1945 to 1973 is labeled the "Golden ters. The correspondence spans a of feel-good liberals, militant leftists, Age of Capitalism." As most people period encompassing the last days of and crank conservatives, Thompson get older, the past looks better and bet­ Thompson's high school career (he has always managed to project a vis­ ter. This seems to be true even for spends graduation day cooling his ceral libertarianism, a frank and savage Robert Heilbroner, who dreamed of a heels in a Louisville jail cell, charged objection to the signs of the times and socialist workers' paradise, but, with armed robbery), his first forays the people and processes that make instead, got a capitalist one. 0 into journalism as an Air Force sports- them what they are. If he's generally Liberty 63 Volume 11, Number 3 January 1998

regarded as leaning to the left, it has frustrated violence." group in his own Author's Note to The never prevented him from recognizing And yet Thompson's entire body of Proud Highway: "Their work and their - and skewering with a sharp polemic work might be classified as "sudden lives and their long-range professional - the systemic problems of the state as outbursts of frustrated violence" ­ Fate would be a lot easier if I went out such: "My position is and always has directed with deadly aim against the on a slick Ducati motorcycle one night been that I distrust power and author­ killers of the American dream, those and never came back." ity, together with all those who come to who are "heroes first, and punks later, It won't be necessary for some it by conventional means - whether it and then heroes again when people future generation to exhume the corpse is guns, votes, or outright bribery. have forgotten what real punks they of the Great American Dream for There are two main evils in the world were" (on Jean-Paul Sartre and autopsy purposes. The coroner's report today: one is Poverty, the other is Norman Mailer, to Semonin in 1964). is already in, and it's signed: Hunter S. Governments. And frankly I see no And he seems to refer to the same Thompson. 0 hope of getting rid of either. So it will have to be a matter of degrees, and that's where we quarrel," Thompson Man Without a Face, by Markus Wolf, with Anne McElvoy. Times wrote to his Marxist friend Paul Books, 1997, 368 pp. Semonin in early 1964. He also said that "the 'civilized' nations of this earth have created in the 'underdeveloped' lands nothing more or less than a cheap and ragged imitation of their own Big System that has gone by the name of 'government' since man invented the The Man From Stasi word." Thompson feels in his gut the wrongness of the over-protective, manic-depressive bitch that is modem society and the modern state. And it is on the "gut level" that the reader agrees (or disagrees). Richard Kostelanetz intelligence as well as the assistant The young Thompson apparently chief, and various prominent nuclear benefited from exposure to the ideas of scientists. In retrospect, you rightly Ayn Rand. The editor's notes preceding I first heard the name of Lt. General wonder how many of similar promi­ Markus Wolf (b. 1923) when I lived in nence did not .blow their covers or West Berlin in the early 1980s. Already defect and continued living in (West) the veteran chief of that department of Germany undetected and unsuspected It is down in our guts that the East German (DDR) Stasi devoted after the Wall came down. It was com­ Thompson makes us feel the to external spying, he was a legendary monly said at the time that the East wrongness of the over- character at once feared and admired German external spy service ranked on both sides of the Berlin Wall. second only to the Israeli Mossad. (The protective, manic-depressive (Remember it?) The fact that no one for fact that both were run by Jews was not bitch that is modern society many years had a photograph of him lost on people who keep track of such and the modern state. contributed to his mythic status and details.) I remember an East German provides a title to his recent memoir. friend once telling me the identity of The son of the prominent Communist Markus Wolf's mistress, as though this writer and philandering physician information would indicate that he a 1957 missive to high school friend Joe Friedrich Wolf, who took his family wanted me to believe I could trusthim. Bell indicate that he considered her a during the Nazi times not to It was, so to speak, his secret to top·all "kindred spirit" and often loaned out Hollywood but to Moscow, Markus secrets he could share with me. Since copies of her books. "To discuss The Wolf was also the older brother of the my friend is mentioned in Wolf's book, Fountainhead would be useless -" he distinguished East German filmmaker I later came to regret failing to write cautions Bell, "even more so with a per­ Konrad Wolf, who headed the East down the lady's name. son who understands it than one who Germany Academy of the Arts until his Living in West Berlin, often going doesn't ... although I don't feel that it's early death in 1982. (Imagine if the through or under the Wall to another at all necessary to tell you how I feel brother of Steven Spielberg were head­ world that was so antagonistic to my about the concept of individuality, I ing our CIA.) own, made me more aware of spies know that I'm going to have to spend The first truth you learned in West than I was before. With some eighty the rest of my life expressing it in one Berlin was that Wolf was a supremely separate intelligence agencies operating way or another, and I think that I'll effective spymaster. Among those West here, West Berlin was Undercover accomplish more by expressing it on Germans discovered to be DDR infor­ Heaven. While minding my own busi­ the keys of a typewriter than by letting mants were Willy Brandt's right-hand ness as an artist-guest of the city, I was it express itself in sudden outbursts of man, the chief of West German counter- constantly running into people whose 64 Liberty Volume 11, Number 3 January 1998 activities could not be wholly We remember that Soviet spies were his book he writes with pride of just a explained, whose sources of income arrested here; so were Czech spies, few months before "joining the writers were mysterious; and a girlfriend who working out of the UN in the late Christa Wolf, Stephan Heym [sic; it's had spent her entire adult life within 1960s. However, not until late 1997, to "Stefan"], and Heiner Muller and the the walled city made me yet more my recollection, was anyone allegedly leaders of the New Forum opposition watchful. We once met a female "jour­ reporting to East Germany ever group Barbal Bohley and Jens Reich" as nalist" from New York, a Jew arrested in the U.S. Given that West though he were just another dutiful (another!) who had lived for many Germany at the time eagerly accepted member of Berlin PEN. years on the main street in a neighbor­ "refugees" from East Germany, it With all these thoughts in mind I hood favored by young radicals. Since would have been quite easy for Wolf's approached Markus Wolf's first she didn't seem to publish much, our operation to send agents west and then English-language memoir, Man Without first question to each other after we left instruct them, once they obtained West a Face, "The Autobiography of her was, "I wonder whom she's work­ German identity, to apply for a tourist Communism's Greatest Spymaster," ing for?" Our educated guess was that visa for America. Since our police don't written with Anne McElvoy (an unfa­ she snooped for Israeli intelligence ­ track tourists here, it would have been miliar name who doesn't merit a bio- or perhaps New York City's. Hell, the quite easy for such spies to overstay organization inviting me to Berlin, the their visas and, if they already had DAAD Kunstlerprogramm, had been enough American money in their pock­ founded in the early 1960s with ets, to establish a presence here and An East German friend once American money by the late Shepherd then do some mischief. told me the identity ofMarkus Stone, whom Wolf thinks "was After I returned home to New York, Wolf's mistress at the time, as involved with the CIA," to contribute I met at least one young woman born in to the East-West cultural competition East Germany whose insufficient though this information would that was thought to be serious accounting of how her family "went indicate that he wanted me to business. West" and then her description of her believe I could trust him. For all his celebrity in West parents' activities in America made me Germany, Wolf was unknown in feel like a suspicious West Berliner America at the time. His name did not again. (Merely from the details I out­ appear in Thomas Powers' biography lined, my West Berlin girlfriend imme­ graphical note), hoping for some new diately agreed with me.) My hunch is intelligence about DDR operations in that once the DDR disintegrated, the America. After all, when a news­ DDR agents here simply disappeared hungry American publisher pays an Wolf's narrative reflects into whatever front they were pursuing advance and hires a ghost to help a genuine literary ability, begin­ in America and, more important, that new celebrity who hasn't written an ning with the illusion of Stasi files about American agents were English-language book before, it among the first to be destroyed. That expects to get a good story, which, in revealing confidences and the means that information about the iden­ this case, should have included new generation of provocative tity and purposes of DDR spies in information of interest to us all. Forget America now exists only in the mind of it. We hear only about two German ideas. Markus Wolf. Jewish refugees, both now deceased, The lack of visible arrests of East who sent information to his office, and German agents here indicates that two Americans stationed in West of Richard Helms and the CIA, The Man either there were none or, more likely, Berlin. To my mind, that is not and Who Kept the Secrets (1979), though that the U.S. never caught any. The fact can't possibly be enough. (He also Wolf's West German counterpart is that few people here appreciated claims that the Stasi had no agents in mentioned several times. I can remem­ Wolf's talents (or even knew his name) Israel, even though other arms of the ber proposing to do an extended maga­ became, in the inverse logic typical of DDR were supporting Arab countries zine article on the intellectual Jewish such matters, further evidence of his and sometimes harboring Arab spymaster, gathering what was known effectiveness. Remembering this guy as terrorists.) about him from secondary sources; but a champ spymaster, I would say this It 'is true that Man Without a Face no magazine here wanted a feature on absence becomes an implicit indictment contains lots of details about Stasi suc­ someone at once unfamiliar and so of U.S. spycatching. cess in East Germany, retrospective incredible (and so unavailable for an Wolf was also something of a con regrets about inadvertently deposing sit-down interview). As a veteran mag­ man. I can recall on that Friday after­ Willy Brandt (the West German prime azine writer, I circulated this proposal noon after the Berlin Wall fell that an minister most sympathetic to the East), with the expectation that the apprehen­ eager CNN reporter interviewed Wolf, and some amusing anecdotes about sion of an East German spy in America then identified only as a "dissident," Stasi failure in the early 1970s in East one day might remind editors of me, who didn't divulge his principal previ­ Africa (which Israeli intelligence had but I hoped in vain. ous position - a tag that was in 1989 wisely abandoned a few years before). We speculated at the time about apparently unfamiliar to both the Wolf's narrative reflects genuine liter­ whether Wolf had agents in the U.S. reporter and his editors in Atlanta. In ary ability, beginning with the illusion Liberty 65 Volume 11, Number 3 January 1998 of revealing confidences ("One of the Otherwise, the principal revelation viving Confederate cross-dressing one­ perils ofbeing a spy chief is that you are here is a back jacket photograph where armed combat veteran; and Philo not believed even when you do come Markus Wolf looks like a humorless Dufresne, the Amish/African­ clean") and the generation of provoca­ Mel Brooks and then a folio of black­ American eco-terrorist and improbable tive ideas. In the last respect, consider white photographs that show a man survivor of the great plague. Dufresne this most remarkable historical claim, too tall to disappear into a crowd. On and his submarine crew, in their non­ which appears near the end of the book: further thought, consider that this egre­ violent war for global cleanliness, sink "The intelligence services contributed to giously incomplete book might be the one of Gant's Antarctic-bound ice­ a half century of peace - the longest latest trick of The Man Who Kept the breakers for the amusement of blimp­ Europe has ever known - by giving Secrets, for Lt. General Wolf got truly riding newsmen of CNN, thereby win­ statesman some security that they hard currency out of Times Books, ning the fatal enmity of Gant's fanatical would not be surprised by the other which is a division of Random House, new comptroller of public opinion, side." Now that is a perception worthy which is owned by the Newhouse fam­ Vanna Domingo ... and so on and so of another book that, given Wolf's new ily. Now, that's not only first-rank on. Fortunately, Ruff provides a list of self-description, hewill probablydo. chutzpah but a big-league con. 0 Dramatis Personae ("The Social Register," arranged by income level) to which readers will refer often. Sewer, Gas & Electric, by Matt Ruff. Atlantic Monthly Press, 1997, 450 pp. Sewer, Gas & Electric made me laugh out loud in places. Some of the scenes and passages are sublime. It contains not one but two succinct summaries of Atlas Shrugged. (The shorter one: "The anti-Communist Manifesto ... with chase scenes and heavy petting....") On the downside, by the halfway point I was casting around my apartment for Marginal Utilities another book to read. I pondered the reason for this, even­ tually comparing Sewer, Gas & Electric to two books which Ruff is either pay­ ing homage to or parodying. In Atlas Shrugged and in The Illuminatus! Trilogy the characters react to their overwhelm­ Brien Bartels trial and service jobs but also a void in ing antagonists and situations with the consciousness of the survivors of vigor, determination, and drive. Their the plague: "People didn't seem to Sewer, Gas & Electric offers a com­ mind - in fact seemed strangely com­ plex plot, a menagerie of cartoony forted by - the sudden profusion of characters, and arguments with a holo­ dark skinned Servants, all of them In "Sewer, Gas & Electric," graphic Ayn Rand, but very little phil­ polite and hard-working to a fault." Ruffs actors are so handi­ osophical heft. In Matt Ruff's fevered Hence electric Negroes, an informal imagining of the year 2023, we meet appellation Gant's engineers try to capped by malignant irony Harry Gant, a billionaire industrialist keep out of everyday parlance. Gant that they appear completely and all-around nice guy, who is himself is "as surprised as anyone detached in the face of armies engaged in building the world's tallest when Configuration A204 - your building in Manhattan. A worthy goal Automatic Servant in basic black ­ of mechanized terrorists, geno­ for an Opjectivist hero, but Harry is began outselling all other versions com­ cidal computers, and mutated about as far from John Galt as you can bined by a margin of ten to one." sewer-dwelling sharks. get. Described as having "more enthu­ The main plot of this many-plotted siasm than sense," he invents his way novel centers on the curious fact that, to riches by bamboozling the nation despite the Automatic Servants' behav­ with public opinion engineers, bam­ ioral inhibitors, they are implicated in a drive compels the reader to the denoue­ boozling the banks with creative very strange murder. Someone, or ment of each book. Dagny Taggart's accountants, and selling a billion dol­ something, is using them for nefarious single-minded determination to save lars worth of "neat" products, like purposes outside the manufacturer's her railroad pulls readers through the "electric Negroes." intended use. 65-page speeches. Hagbard Celine's The death and rapid evaporation Into the mix are thrown Joan Fine, war on the Illuminati holds the reader of the entire black race in a plague Harry's ex-wife and former comptroller despite the repellent sex scenes and results in a great void in the world's of public opinion, now a sewer extermi­ cracked conspiracies. In Sewer, Gas & work force. Gant's Automatic Servants nator and investigative journalist's Electric, Ruff's actors are so handi­ not only fill a wide variety of indus- assistant; Kite Edmonds, the oldest sur- capped by malignant irony that they 66 Liberty Volume 11, Number 3 January 1998 appear completely detached in the face If you like to laugh, love to see pop­ her well in starting a new life as a pro­ of armies of mechanized terrorists, gen­ ular culture skewered by a skilled liter­ fessor at the University of Nebraska. ocidal computers, and mutated sewer­ ary sou chef, and don't value your time Searching for Saleem (University of dwelling sharks. That detachment too highly, Sewer, Gas & Electric is Nebraska Press, 1996, 255 pp.) is the transmigrates to the reader after about worth the effort. If you prefer your fic­ story of this journey. It is a frightening 200 pages. tion with ideas and memorable person­ - and inspiring - account of what It is very difficult to stay with a alities, instead of an undistinguished happens when an ordinary person book whose little philosophy goes like mob in a series of skits, wait for the becomes caught in a battle of religions this: "lefties are bad, maniacal comput­ paperback. And if you don't think you and ideologies. -Kathleen Bradford ers are bad, industrialists are not so could stand the sight of a holographic bad, eco-terrorists in a polka dot sub­ simulation of Ayn Rand actually losing Klaus, In His Own Words - In marine are good." And it is more diffi­ an argument with a "Whim­ the film Wild at Heart, a character tells cult when it is apparent the author worshipping muscle mystic," Sewer, of a private detective so skillful "he himself has no strong attachment to Gas & Electric will only interfere with could find an honest man in those simple ideas. your benevolent sense of life. 0 Washington." After reading Renaissance by Vaclav Klaus, I am convinced he could find two, providing Klaus was in town. Klaus is the rare elected politician Booknotes who will freely admit that there are things the government should not and cannot do. Once a creature of libertar­ Lear on the Farm - Jane She had already spent over two ian fantasy, this sort of politician is now Smiley's 1991 novel, A Thousand Acres years searching for her husband the Prime Minister of the Czech (Knopf, 371 pp.), has recently been Saleem, an Air Force officer who disap­ Republic. In Renaissance: The Rebirth released as a movie, and as usual, the peared in April, 1978, when the of Liberty in the Heart of Europe (Cato book is better. It's a version of King Communists took over Kabul. Every Institute, 1997, 177 pp.), a collection of Lear, cunningly updated to the 1970s. Saturday she had waited in line at the twenty-nine essays (all originally deliv­ The disputed bequest is now a mid­ prison to deliver food and clothes for ered in English), he writes of the Czech western farm, and the disputants are him and every Saturday the guards Republic's move from Communism to modern agriculturalists who wear would return her items after saying markets. Unfortunately, a collection of jeans, worry about getting the latest they had searched, but failed to find speeches and essays does not make for model tractor, and play Monopoly in him. the best how-to book. The book is their spare time. The chief interest In fact, he was already dead. But all unavoidably choppy and repetitive. comes from the cleverness with which they ever said was that they couldn't The editor alleviated this problem Shakespeare's story is transferred to find him. Sometimes in the streets somewhat by allowing each essay to this climate, and its symbols reversed: someone would tell her that he had expand upon the previous one, but the the bad guys in Lear turn into the good seen her husband. So she spent count­ repetition mars the book. guys here (well, sort of). But Smiley's less frustrating hours tracking down "Transforming Toward a Free novel is also remarkable in another these stories, only to be disappointed. Society" is by far the best essay. Klaus way. It has something that is rare in During this time she felt that her gun simply points out that free interactions modern "art" novels - a real curiosity was her one protection from the looting are .what remain after coerced interac­ about the way people earn a living, of abandoned homes that had begun. tions are taken away. A civil society is and what that means to them. To my To avoid the metal detectors of the what remains after the state is taken relief, the only politics in this novel is a searching soldiers she hid her gun up away. It is impossible for a state to half-satiric, half-sympathetic view of near her metal roof, but spent anxious create markets or "introduce" civil soci­ environmentalism. There is one really nights while the gun was so far out of ety. The state need only withdraw from damaging artistic error: Smiley uses reach from where she tried to sleep. the scene. one of the farm women as her narrator, Dressed as fundamentalist Klaus also tells of the tactics that he but she sounds like someone who has Moslems, she and her children and used to achieve his reforms. The cur­ spent her life picking up MFAs in crea­ brothers and sisters made their way rent government has largely abolished tive writing. Once you get used to the through the war between Islam and price controls, stabilized the money strangely artificial narrative style, the Socialism - which, like all holy wars, supply, privatized government-run rest works pretty well. -Stephen Cox was particularly vicious. They survived industries and more. A common theme surprise knocks on doors, unprovoked runs though all of these measures. The Out of Afghanistan - Farooki stops on the roads, hours hiding in reforms were not designed to improve Gauhari knew it was time to leave houses while bombs whizzed over­ industrial efficiency. The reforms were Afghanistan when her sons climbed head, and riots in the streets. designed to transfer control from the out their junior high school window to Somehow, she made it to Pakistan, state to individuals and for no other escape the soldiers who had come for then to India and ultimately to Omaha, reason. This method allowed valuable new"enlistees." where her training as a biologist served traditions to be created, and it also lets Liberty 67 Volume 11, Number 3 January 1998

those traditions evolve. the "last major European figure" to be state that he had I a style of great Renaissance differs from most liber­ "executed for heresy" was Spanish edu­ force.'" tarian works because it was written by cator Francisco Ferrer. In 1909, his Many of the quotations are "drawn an actor and not a critic. Most libertar­ "godless schools" were accused of from existing anthologies and collec­ ian authors spend their energy discuss­ fomenting rebellion, and a military tri­ tions" and are not cited properly. With ing goals, and very little on the tactics bunal tried, convicted, and executed a few days in a good library, Haught needed to achieve them. Klaus· spends him by firing squad. Though the could have tracked down the proper little energy on goals, and most on tac­ government soon changed hands sources .for items that he merely lets tics. Libertarians should notice this bal­ because of the scandal, "Pope Pius X stand with a reference to anthologists ance. Perhaps we should shift our sent a gold-handled sword engraved such "Seldes" (The Great Quotations) or attention from perfecting our conceptu­ with his felicitations to the military "Cardiff" (not the giant). alization of Libertopia and more on the prosecutor who had obtained Ferrer's Contrary to its title, Haught chroni­ small details. At the moment we need a death" (p. 224). cles only the last five hundred years of road map more than a globe. Haught's book is full of anecdotes disbelief. "Part One: The Beginnings of While it is true that the Czech like these. It consists mainly of short Rationalism," runs on for a mere eight Republic has not achieved a civil soci­ biographies and a selection of quota­ pages, and consists of nothing more ety, it has moved in that direction, and tions from these men and women. than two brief chapters, one eulogizing Renaissance details the journey. While Unfortunately, the biographies are Omar Khayyam, qnd the other apostro­ the essays overlap too much, they do rarely well thought out and never ele­ phizing "the Ancients." One suspects provide a useful manual· for people in gant. They seem hastily written, with that this was tacked on so the secular other countries. -Stephen French no sure auctorial voice. The entry for humanist publishing house could make H.L. Mencken is especially galling, con­ the book more appealing to its anti­ Don't You Believe It - Accord­ taining pointless sentences like this: Christian readers. ing to James A. Haught in 2000 Years of "Mencken's language was delightful, The Pre-Socratic philosophers, the Disbelief(Prometheus Books, 1996, 334 pp.), prompting author· Marion Rogers to Skeptics and Epicureans of the Hellenistic period certainly merit con­ sideration (the book "exhausts" these thinkers in three. paragraphs and a few scattered quotations). Indeed, an analy­ sis of the relationship between rising Christianity and decaying "paganism" would have focused Haught's attention Classified Advertising is available for 50¢ per word, with a ten-word minimum. 10% to the problems inherent in believing discount for six or more insertions. Payment must accompany order (check or money anything about religious matters - or order only). Please suggest classification. Deadline for next issue: January 1, 1998. political ones, for that matter. -Timothy Virkkala Literature yers, politicians, activists, etc. Includes Clinton, demagogues, dictators, otherassorted anatomical Abortion and Rights: Applying Libertarian parts. $3.00. M.VanHorn, Box 13475L, Pittsburgh, Warriors for Peace - In right­ Principles Correctly, by Doris Gordon. $2.00. PA15243. wing myth, the Vietnam.anti-war pro­ Libertarians for Life, 13424 Hathaway Drive #22, tests were driven exclusively by venal Wheaton, MD 20906. (301) 460-4141. Merchandise and selfish motives. In a recent The LIVING FREE newsletter. Where your personal Ridiculously neat, functional furniture. A web American Enterprise, for example, former freedom is our main concern, since 1979. $12for site worth seeing. http://www.artisans.odc.com/ 6 issues, sample $2. P.O. Box 29-LB, Buffalo, NY tables Navy Secretary and Vietnam veteran James Webb portrays opponents of the 14223. $ Sign Ring - $30 - slmll postage paid (see THE VOLUNTARYIST - $1.00 for sample. Box below). Darwin Fish Bumper Plaque- $5 gold Vietnam war as if they were all pam­ 1275, Gramling, SC 29348. or silver, postage paid. From a Natural History pered, vaguely ridiculous figures like Directory of Libertarian Periodicals updated store (fossils - skulls - insects, etc.). Ask for free Democratic Representative Tom latest edition. Listings include addresses, many price list or visit The Bone Room, 1569 Solano Downey, who at the time of his election other details. All believed to be presently pub­ Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94707. (510) 526-5252 to Congress in 1974 was still living with www.boneroom.com lishing. $3.00 postpaid, $4.00 overseas. Jim his mother. Webb ignores anti-war vet­ Stumm, Box 29-LB, Hiler Branch, Buffalo NY Miscellaneous erans and soldiers, as he must. It is 14223. Prostitution, Dueling, Heroin. Paul David much more difficult to impute cowar­ Imagine Freedom from Governments and Haynie for President in 2008. For details, send dice and naivete to someone who Churches. www.stormy.org Free brochure: $2.00 to Paul Haynie, 318 N. Jackson Street, returned from Vietnam in a wheel­ MON, Box 1167, Bandon, OR 97411 Waukegan, IL 60085-3737. chair, or admit that many of those who [email protected] Is Gulf War Disease Contagious? Write: HPAF, The Thought: bimonthly libertarian journal of POB10088, Tampa,FL33679. vigorously protested u.S. policy in philosophy, politics, social issues, and more. FORBIDDEN FINANCIAL KNOWLEDGE? Vietnam wore the same Marine Corps Diverse viewpoints and intense debate. Sample: Legal proven strategies the super wealthy have uniform that Webb did. $2. Box 10760, Glendale, AZ 85318-0760. known for years! Learn as you earn. Savvy finan­ Unlike Webb's caricatures, the men No Political Correctness! 120 Jokes, Insensitive cial skills, offshore technologies, 90% profit. described by Richard Moser in The New Observations, Liberal Translations aimed at law- LRML (800) 374-6477x9319. Winter Soldiers: GI and Veteran 68 Liberty Volume 11, Number 3 January 1998

Dissent During the Vietnam Era, turkey" some years ago, endured it for at the Bauhaus. Their emphasis was on (Rutgers University Press, 1996, 219 two agonizing years, then could endure the individual and the goal was to com­ pp.), courageously protested the it no longer. I have been to Smoke bine formal, theoretical constructs with Vietnam War while in uniform, or as Enders three times. I have been hypno­ intellect and inner compulsion in creat­ veterans during the 1960s and 1970s. tized. I have worn the patch. ing fabrics and interiors. These women The illustrated book also delves into Several months ago, two friends, viewed weaving not as a craft, but as the racial turmoil of the era and more concerned about my health, sent me a part of an esthetic whole. In their separ­ extreme activities such as "fragging" book entitled Allen Carr's Easy Way to ate workshop they studied design, (assassination of unpopular officers) Stop Smoking. It contains a perspective color, and other aspects associated gen­ which was epidemic during the on smoking and an analysis of it that erally with painting. Vietnam War. -Clark Stooksbury was completely new to me. Women's Work includes biographies Allen Carr suggests that the reader of the weavers - as complete as they A Singular Imagination have one cigarette after finishing the can be, considering the disruptions of Bruce Sterling's latest novel, Holy Fire book, knowing it will be the last he will WorId War II. Also included are discus­ (Bantam, 1996,358 pp.) is a slice of late­ ever have. I finished the book, lit a cig­ sions and biographies of people who twenty-first-century life, filled with arette, smoked half of it - and put it have been strongly influenced by the odd words and old words oddly used. out. I did not want it. I have had not a Bauhaus, such as Jack Lenor Larsen "Mnemonic" is not a trick used as a single withdrawal symptom, a single and Else Riegensteiner. memory aid, but a drug to aid memory. moment of longing for a cigarette in the The text is accompanied by wonder­ "Singularity" is not just a term of math months since then. ful photographs of the weavers and and physics, but a revolutionary The book is not published in this their studios, complete with color plates moment in history. "Vivid" is the word country, but may be purchased for $15 of not only their work but the sketches Sterling's future youths use where by contacting Laura Cattell, 12823 that served as the basis for their work. "hep" or "cool" or "rad" might have Kingsbridge Lane, Houston, TX 77077. -Kathleen Bradford been de rigeur in earlier days. Sterling I can think of no better gift for yourself, writes of "gerontocrats" who live long if you smoke, or for friends who still The Acts of the Epistles - The past man's normal lifespan, and they smoke. -Barbara Branden Apostle Paul (aka Saint Paul, aka Saul refer to themselves as "post-human." of Tarsus) has a rather bad reputation The title term, "holy fire," is a synonym Bauhaus Divided - "Remove the among intellectuals, who see him as the for inspiration. class distinctions that raise an arrogant corruptor of the essentially gentle Though Sterling's book is well­ barrier between the craftsman and art­ teachings of Jesus and the one who written, and his future exquisitely ima­ ist." This was the instruction from turned Christianity into a sexist, violent gined - the future polity is described Walter Gropius, director of the Bauhaus religion. British writer A.N. Wilson, in as a "medical-industrial complex," a School of Design. The Bauhaus was his most recent book, Paul: The Mind of very apt term for a very likely develop­ created to study and teach the unity of the Apostle (W.W. Norton & Co., 1997), ment - it is, as a work of fiction, some­ architecture, design and functionality. argues that this popular notion of Paul thing short of inspired. Sterling tells the In theory, the Bauhaus treated the is just plain wrong. tale of an old gerontocrat who goes for work of all participants equally. There But Wilson's view of Paul will not the makeover-to-end-all-makeovers, was to be, in Gropius's words, "no dif­ really appeal to most Christians, either. and becomes young again. Instead of ference between the beautiful and the According to Wilson, Christianity is the remaining under the supervision of her strong gender, absolute equality, but result of two failures: Jesus' failed medical experimenters, she runs. Wild. also absolute equal duties." But almost rebellion (ending with the crucifixion), But her adventures in Europe's under­ immediately a separate "Women's and Paul's failed prophecy (no Second ground are less than emotionally satis­ Department" was established because Coming within the life of anyone living fying. It is as if Sterling achieved a women were not, in the board's view, during his time). But the failures aside, stylistic mirror to his theme: a staid up to painting walls and metalworking. Paul's own vision of what Jesus did, crone becomes a vapid youth, her fire Women were relegated to traditional and what he (Paul) was up to, does not within never burning into the reader's women's work, which meant weaving. mesh well with the anti-Pauline bent of consciousness. And what weavers they were! They so many moderns. According to them, Sterling's novel ends up a laid-back focused on design rather than the struc­ Paul was sexist, racist, totalitarian, etc., tale of existential crisis, more food for ture of the fabric. Some were very taken etc. But according to Wilson, Paul was,

thought than fuel for emotional fire. with geometries; others with the inter­ instead, 1/a prophet of liberty, whose But I find it hard not to recommend, play of colors; others with the use of visionary sense of the importance of the since as food for thought it is singu­ new materials. They pushed the boun­ inner life anticipates the Romantic larly, well, "vivid." -Timothy Virkkala daries of what can be done with fabric poets more than the rule-books of the in every direction. They changed weav­ Inquisition" (14). Fire Tamed in the Hand - I ing and textile design forever. Or at Wilson makes a pretty good case for have been a cigarette smoker - an least so far. his position, despite a less-than­ increasingly heavy one - since I was Women's Work by Sigrid Wortman­ thorough grappling with Paul's ideas fifteen years old. I have tried to stop in Weltge (Chronicle Books, 1993, 208 pp.) as expressed in his letters. Wilson's every way imaginable. I went "cold is the story of the women who enrolled purpose is to provide not an exhaustive Liberty 69 January 1998

account of Paul's theology, but a sketch of his character and a review of his back­ ground. And Wilson knows his limits: "We cannot write a biography of Paul in Paul Armentano is Publications . Thomas Knapp is presently working the same way that Tacitus or Suetonius Director for the National on a new web/email zine, The has supplied us with colourful, not to Organization for the Reform of Greater Ozarks Bastinado. say sensational, lives of Nero. But we can Marijuana Laws. Bart Kosko is a USC professor of elec­ rediscover Paul's world - and Nero's "Baloo" is the alter ego of cartoonist trical engineering and author of the world - and hope, in so doing, to RexF. May. Avon cyberthriller novel Nanotime. understand something about the origins Brien Bartels is an editorial assistant Richard Koselanetz produced several of Christianity and hence the origins of at Liberty. books in 1997, including Writings on our own world" (p. 13). Perhaps wisely, Glass and A B.B. King Companion. Wilson does not spend much effort elab­ John Bergstrom is a Californian car­ toonist.and animator., Pierre Lemieux is an economist,and orating the provocative theory he floated pamphleteer living in Quebec. in his earlier book, Jesus: A Life: that Paul David Boaz is author of Libertarianism: not only knew Jesus but was one of the A Primer and editor of The Loren E. Lomasky is author of Persons, Rights, and the Moral Community. men responsible for his arrest and cruci­ Libertarian Reader. fixion. Wilson concentrates most of his Alan Bock is the author Ambush at David Nolan founded'the Libertarian effort on setting the stage for the rise of Ruby Ridge. Party way back when. the early Christian movement in the Kathleen Bradford is a weaver of fabric Tom G. Palmer is a freelance writer, Roman empire. living in Port Townsend. political theorist, and D.C. partisan. Wilson's exegetical method might best be seen as a debunking of Luke's R. W. Bradford is editor of Liberty. Dyanne Petersen is currently incarcer­ ated in California. Acts of the Apostles by deciphering the Barbara Branden is the author ofthe Ralph Raico is a historian and transla­ "acts of the epistles." That is, he shows definitive biography, The Passion of tor living in Buffalo, New York. the author of the book of Acts to be unre­ Ayn Rand. liable by contrasting his story with the George Reis ran for the California Rycke Brown is currently incarcerated State Assembly in 1994. stories that Paul tells. The method is not at the Arizona Center for Women. a perfect one, but it certainly has its James S. Robbins is a foreign policy charms. Harry Browne is the author of the clas­ analyst in Massachusetts. sic How I Found Freedom in an Unfree Of Paul's sidekick Timothy's infa­ World and other books. John J. Ronan is a poet living in mous ceremonial surgery, Wilson con­ Massachusetts. cludes a fascinating discussion: Mike Buoncristiano is President of Avanti! Marketing Solutions. Jane S. Shaw is a journalist in The story of. Paul going to the trouble Bozeman, Montana. of having his friend circumcised must, Steve Cason is a writer living in Bean therefore, be one of those passages in Station, Tennessee. Sandy Shaw is co-author with Durk Pearson of Freedom ofInformed Acts which are pure fiction. Famous as S.H. Chambers is a cartoonist and Choice: FDA vs. Nutrient Supplements. Paul is for inconsistencies, and for illustrator whose work has appeared changing his mind - he is the most Clark Stooksbury is assistant publisher in National Review, The Hillary famous convert in ancient history - it of Liberty. Clinton Quarterly, and other journals. is not possible to believe that he could Michael Christian is an American law­ Richard Stroup is an economist and a write so eloquent a denunciation of cir­ yer living in Europe. senior associate of the Political cumcising the Gentiles and then con­ Economy Research Center of sent to the operation being performed Stephen Cox is the author of Love and Bozeman, Montana. on his most trusted lieutenant simply Logic: The Evolution ofBlake's Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant edito­ in order to pacify "the Jews." His own Tho""ght. His article "The Devil's rial page editor of the Las Vegas letters bristle with a desire to antagon­ Reading List" appeared first in the Review-Journal. ise "the Jews." (129) Fall 1996 Raritan. Richard Timberlake is author of The book ends on a rather vague Stephen French is webmaster for the Monetary Policy in the United States. note, appropriately reflecting what we Nockian Society. Timothy Virkkala is managing editor know about Paul's end; that is, precisely Roger W. Garrison is a Professor of of Liberty. nothing. Yes, there are various competing Economics at Auburn University. traditions about what happened to him J. W. Henry Watson is a consultant after his house arrest in Rome, but the Robert Higgs is editor of Independent with New Caledonia Group, Inc. Review. man who gave Christianity its most Ida Waiters is a consultant with New important expression of ideas is, in the Jo Jorgenson was the Libertarian Caledonia Group, Inc. Party's vice presidential nominee in end, a mystery: not "all things to all 1996. Leland B. Yeager is Ludwig von Mises men," as Paul himself said - and cer­ Distinguished Professor Emeritus of tainly only a few things to A.N. Wilson Bill Kauffman is the author of America Economics at Auburn University - but not a closed book, either. First! and a novel, Every Man a King. and author of The Fluttering Veil. -Timothy Virkkala 70 Liberty e-goldtm is not for everybody.

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