Ideas On Liberty July 1999 Vol. 49, No.7

I 8 THOUGHTS on FREEDOM-Outside the Limits by Donald J. Boudreaux 8 Immoral, Unconstitutional War by David N Mayer 1 12 The Kosovo Tangle by Gary Dempsey 16 Remembering and Inventing: A Short History of the Balkans by Peter Mentzel 21 POTOMAC PRINCIPLES-Warmongering for Peace by Doug Bandow 23 Isolationism by Frank Chodorov 26 How War Amplified Federal Power in the Twentieth Century by Robert Higgs 30 Another Place, Another War by Michael Palmer 32 War's Other Casualty by Wendy McElroy

137 Spontaneous Order by Nigel Ashford 43 Storm Trooping to Equality by James Bovard 48 Croaking Frogs by Brian Doherty 81 Noah Smithwick: Pioneer Texan and Monetary Critic by Joseph R. Stromberg

38 IDEAS and CONSEQUENCES-Clinton versus Cleveland and Coolidge on Taxes by Lawrence W. Reed 41 THE THERAPEUTIC STATE-Suicide as a Moral Issue by Thomas Szasz 148 ECONOMIC NOTIONS-In the Absence ofPrivate Property Rights by Dwight R. Lee 54 ECONOMICS on TRIAL-Dismal Scientists Score Another Win by Mark Skousen 63 THE PURSUIT of HAPPINESS-Ignorance Is Bliss-Maybe by Walter Williams

2 Perspective-Operation Legacy by Sheldon Richman 4 Tax Cuts Are Unfair? It Just Ain't So! by David Kelley 58 Book Reviews Overcoming Welfare: Expecting More from the Poor and Ourselves by James L. Payne, reviewed by Robert Batemarco; Coolidge: An American Enigma by Robert Sobel and The Presidency of Calvin Coolidge by Robert Ferrell, reviewed by Raymond 1. Keating; H. L. Mencken Revisited by William H. A. Williams, reviewed by George C. Leef; Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics by P. J. O'Rourke, reviewed by William H. Peterson; Cyber Rights: Defending Free Speech in the Digital Age by Mike Godwin, reviewed by Royce Van Tassell. THE

FJ\EEMAN Operation Legacy Published by The Foundation for Economic Education The Clinton policy in the Balkans can be Irvington-on-Hudson, NY 10533 criticized at many levels: the apparent lack of Phone (914) 591-7230 FAX (914) 591-8910 forethought, the misapprehension of the con­ E-mail: [email protected] FEE Home Page: http://www.fee.org flict and the region's history, the likely dishon­ President: Donald 1. Boudreaux esty about the intention to use ground troops, the law of unintended consequences (the Editor: Sheldon Richman boost to Greater Albania, for example), and Managing Editor: Beth A. Hoffman so on. That all has been much commented on. Editor Emeritus Paul L. Poirot What's most neglected is the domestic reason Book Review Editor for forswearing such foreign adventurism, George C. Leef no matter how heart-wrenching the CNN Editorial Assistant coverage. Mary Ann Murphy I can do no better than to quote James Columnists Charles W. Baird Madison on this subj ect. Doug Bandow "Of all the enemies to public liberty," he Dwight R. Lee said, "war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, Lawrence W. Reed because it comprises and develops the germ of Russell Roberts every other. War is the parent ofarmies; from Mark Skousen Thomas Szasz these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, Walter Williams and debts, and taxes are the known instru­ Contributing Editors ments for bringing the many under the domi­ Peter J. Boettke nation of the few. ... No nation could pre­ Clarence B. Carson serve its freedom in the midst of continual Thomas J. DiLorenzo warfare." Burton W. Folsom, Jr. Joseph S. Fulda The reader is referred to Robert Higgs's Bettina Bien Greaves Crisis andLeviathan for documentation ofthe Robert Higgs Madisonian principle. John Hospers Mr. Madison proceeded to describe the Raymond J. Keating bloated executive that war produces. Could he Daniel B. Klein have foreseen the day when a president makes Wendy McElroy Tibor R. Machan war without a congressional declaration? Andrew P. Morriss (These days we have "consultation" or, at best, Ronald Nash debate after the president has committed the Edmund A. Opitz country to war.) James L. Payne "War," Madison continued, "is in fact the William H. Peterson true nurse of executive aggrandizement. In Jane S. Shaw Richard H. Timberlake war, a physical force is to be created; and it is Lawrence H. White the executive will, which is to direct it. In The Freeman is the monthly publication of The Foundation for Eco­ war, the public treasuries are to be unlocked; nomic Education, Inc., Irvington-on-Hudson, NY 10533. FEE, established in 1946 by Leonard E. Read, is a non-political, educational and it is the executive hand which is to dis­ champion of private property, the free market, and limited government. pense them. In war, the honors and emolu­ FEE is classified as a 26 USC S01(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Copyright © 1999 by The Foundation for Economic Education. Per­ ments of office are to be multiplied; and it is mission is granted to reprint any article in this issue, except "Isolation­ ism," provided credit is given and two copies of the reprinted material the executive patronage under which they are are sent to FEE. The costs of Foundation projects and services are met through dona­ to be enjoyed; and it is the executive brow tions, which are invited in any amount. Donors of $30.00 or more they are to encircle. The strongest passions receive a subscription to The Freeman. For delivery outside the United States: $45.00 to Canada; $55.00 to all other countries. Student sub­ and most dangerous weaknesses of the scriptions are $10.00 for the nine-month academic year; $S.OO per semester. Additional copies ofthis issue ofThe Freeman are $3.00 each. human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the Bound volumes of The Freeman are available from The Foundation for calendar years 1972 to date. The Freeman is available in microform from University Microfilms, 300 N. Zeeb Rd., Ann Arbor, MI 48106. 2 Cover: Bombing damage in Kosovo. (APIWIDE WORLD PHOTOS). honorable or venal love of fame, are all in Two of our columnists also focus on the conspiracy against the desire and duty of war. Donald Boudreaux explains that govern­ peace." ment doesn't have the competence to impose Milosevic takes his place beside a long list itself on other people's conflicts. And Doug of state-wielding butchers. He's caused the Bandow tries heroically to make sense of a burial of thousands of ethnic Albanians. The foreign policy that defies explanation. president of the United States didn't have to No idea is more important to the freedom let that tragedy dump more dirt on the philosophy than that ofunplanned, or sponta­ gravesite oflimited government here. neous, order. Yet it is counterintuitive and therefore hard for many people to accept. *** Nigel Ashford explores the products of human action but not human design. We devote a major portion of this issue of When the government sets out to create The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty to the U.S.-led equality in any sense other than equality war against Yugoslavia. David Mayer argues before the law, all manner of mischief is pos­ that the war is an act of aggression that vio­ sible. James Bovard reports that "tyranny" is lates the U.S. Constitution, not to mention the not too strong a word for what egalitarian offi­ charters ofthe United Nations and NATO. He cials are capable ofinflicting. also points out that events in Serbia and Koso­ Why are frog populations declining and vo bear no relation to any vital interest ofthe deformities increasing? Does it portend an American people. environmental cataclysm? Some officials Gary Dempsey outlines the history of would have us believe so. Brian Doherty says Kosovo, beginning about 2000 B.C., and its the real meaning may be less worthy ofhead­ importance to both the Serbs and Albanians, lines. showing that brutality is not unknown to Americans of the nineteenth century knew either side. something about the nature ofmoney that has Peter Mentzel adds to the historical analysis, long since escaped citizens of today. Joseph emphasizing the modem roots ofthe conflict. Stromberg demonstrates this through the Next we reprint a classic from the autobi­ memoirs ofan obscure but classic pioneer and ography of Frank Chodorov in which he jack-of-alI-trades. defends isolationism as a sensible human Lawrence Reed's column points out that impulse to mind one's own business and to Bill Clinton could have learned a thing or two avoid far-off conflicts that one likely doesn't about taxes from Grover Cleveland and understand. Calvin Coolidge. Dwight Lee finds it ironic Robert Higgs summarizes America's that property rights are blamed for problems involvement in two world wars and the cold caused by the lack of defined property. war to illustrate how foreign adventurism bol­ Thomas Szasz says suicide is a moral, not a sters the power ofgovernment and shrinks the medical, issue. Mark Skousen explains "eco­ sphere ofliberty. nomic value added." Walter Williams wonders Michael Palmer finds himselfthinking back when people will stop blaming others. And to 1969, when he was dispatched to the barren David Kelley examines the claim that tax pol­ and perilous Ashau Valley in South Vietnam, icy should make "winners" compensate and fears for the young Americans facing "losers," concluding, It Just Ain't So! combat in the Balkans today. In the book review section, volumes on Wendy McElroy takes a close look at Ran­ welfare, Calvin Coolidge, H.L. Mencken, the dolph Bourne's famous sentence-"War is the rich, and freedom of speech on the Net get a health of the State"-and shows that he had going over. more in mind than taxes and spending. -SHELDON RICHMAN

3 Tax Cuts Are Unfair? ics but of morality, and their standard ofjus­ tice is warped. Let's begin with two obvious points. First, a tax cut does not confer a "benefit" on taxpay­ ers, as if the money belonged to the govern­ It Just Ain't Sol ment, which was generously conferring gifts on its citizens. If you follow that conception to its logical conclusion, all income belongs to the state, and any tax rate below 100 per­ cent constitutes a gift. But that conception is wrong. It is the taxpayers who earn the ederal tax revenues last year were nearly income by producing it; it belongs to them. A F 22 percent of GDP-the highest level in portion is taken in taxes, and when govern­ American history. With federal coffers ment lowers the tax rate it is simply refraining swollen, the government is enjoying a surplus from taking as much as it used to. that, until recently, no one would have expect­ The second point is that the wealthy save ed. It is obviously time for a tax cut to return the most from a lower tax rate because they some ofthis largess to its rightful owners, the pay the most in taxes. Levy and Lav complain taxpayers. that with a 10 percent rate cut, the upper tenth Republicans have been pushing for a 10 would receive 55 percent of the tax-cut total. percent cut in income-tax rates. This proposal But those people are currently paying 62.4 has encountered the usual protests that it percent ofall income taxes. The bottom three­ would favor the rich. A typical comment quarters of all earners pay less than a fifth of appeared in a New York Times op-ed, "The all income taxes, while the upper tiers pay a Trouble with Tax Cuts" (February 24, 1999) vastly disproportionate share. So ofcourse the by Frank Levy, an economist at MIT, and Iris wealthy would save the most from a rate cut­ 1. Lav, deputy director of the Center on Bud­ and they should. get and Policy Priorities. Levy and Lav argue that "the economy heavily favors the better educated" at the Deeper Flaws expense of less-educated and semi-skilled Beyond these obvious points, the argument workers. "Since good times don't automati­ is flawed at a deeper level. It rests on a false cally benefit everyone," they claim, "winners conception of how an economy works and of need to use some of their extra income to how people earn their incomes. compensate losers." A rate cut of 10 percent, The implicit premise of Levy and Lav's they assert, would "work in the opposite argument is that the U.S. economy is a collec­ direction: it would increase income inequali­ tive enterprise in which income is distributed ty." The upper tenth of the income distribu­ to individuals who are more or less passive tion, with earnings above $90,000, would recipients ofwhat they get. The distribution is receive 55 percent of the tax cut. The bottom determined by various factors: the level of 60 percent would receive only 10 percent. skill and training an individual gets from the And the 35 million households that pay no educational system, the level of technology, income taxes would receive no benefits at all! market forces (including foreign competi­ In their view it's just not fair. tion), and government tax and spending poli­ Or is it? The case that Levy and Lav make cies, among others. The government, on this against the tax cut is not a matter of econom- conception, has the responsibility of counter- 4 5 ing the effect of the nongovernmental factors Winners and Losers? so as to produce a fairer overall distribution The most offensive aspect of Levy and than a free market would achieve. Levy and Lav's argument, morally speaking, is the Lav assume that greater equality is good, less notion that people with lower incomes are equality is bad. "losers" who must be compensated by the But this whole outlook is misconceived. "winners." An economy is not a competitive People are not passive recipients ofan income scramble for shares of a fixed pool of wealth, "distribution." They acquire money by trading but a process of cooperation in producing with others, earning income in diverse ways. wealth on an ever-increasing scale. And those Some people form long-term relationships at the bottom benefit the most, not the least. with employers, trading their time, effort, and They are able to enjoy a standard of living skill for a salary; others operate solo, selling made possible by those who created the indus­ goods or services directly to customers. Some tries they work in and the products they buy. trade the use of their property for a rent pay­ As Ayn Rand observed, there's a pyramid of ment, or the use oftheir savings for interest. ability in which benefits flow downward, from What determine a person's income are his the most to the least able. "When you work in own choices and the choices of individuals a modem factory, you are paid, not only for who trade with him. People differ in their your labor, but for all the productive genius desire for money, as opposed to leisure, time which has made that factory possible," the with the family, or other goods. They differ in industrialists, financiers, engineers, scientists, the kind ofwork they find meaningful, and the and other creators without whom the unskilled kinds of working conditions they prefer. The worker would not have ajob in the first place. market-which is just a sum of individuals Bill Gates's billions are but a fraction ofthe who produce and trade-values some work value he has showered on the office workers more highly than others and pays more for it. who use his software and earn higher wages And of course people differ in ability, knowl­ because they can produce more efficiently; edge, and skill-sometimes because ofinnate the home users who can track their finances capacity or the environment in which they and surf the Net; the retailers who sell the grew up, sometimes because of previous software or the computers that use it; the pro­ choices they have made in their lives. grammers whose software runs under Win­ Each of us is an entrepreneur in his own dows; and on and on. life, with the capacity-and the responsibili­ Are the "winners" in economic growth ty-to find ways of acquiring money through morally obliged to pay compensation to the trade, each in accordance with his talents and "losers"? It just ain't so. There are no real preferences. Each of us is an active agent, losers-and that's because the "winners" have constantly making choices about how to already spread the prodigious benefits oftheir exploit the opportunities we have-and how productive ability to everyone with whom to create new opportunities for ourselves. And they trade. Let's cut taxes, and allow everyone over time, virtually everyone increases the to reap more of the benefits of their place in income he can earn as he acquires experience, the pyramid ofability. training, knowledge, contacts, savings, and -DAVID KELLEY other productive assets. Institute for Objectivist Studies

The apple icon , identifies Freeman articles that are appropriate for teaching stu­ dents several major subjects-including economics, history, government, philosophy, and current issues. We also provide sample lesson plans for these articles on our Web site www.fee.org and in written form. Professors, teachers, and homeschooling parents need only to visit our Web site or request written lesson plans to take advantage ofthis unique service. e>nFreedC>1Il by Donald J. Boudreaux

Outside the Limits

"810bodan Milosevic is hideous. If tomor­ fact, even democratic governments are driven row he is run over by a beer truck the overwhelmingly by pressures from special­ world will be a better place." interest groups. These groups routinely get That was my response to the bright woman government to do their bidding at the expense who was simultaneously cutting my hair and of innocent citizens whose only political seeking my opinion of U.S. military involve­ access is an occasional trip to the voting ment in Kosovo. booth. And don't forget that government itself "So you agree that NATO s bombing mis­ is a special-interest group. Politicians and sion is justified? " she asked. bureaucrats have potent incentives to stay in "Well, no. I think it's atrocious. Milosevic power even if this means doing things that is no threat to the United States. As I see it, if aren't in the best interest of the country as a the U.S. military has a legitimate role it is to whole. It happens all the time. The govern­ protect Americans from foreign coercion. ment isn't us." That should be its only function." "I really, really disagree with your cynical "How can you say that?! The Serbs are view ofour political system. NATO s current slaughtering the Kosovars and driving them air strikes against Milosevic prove you wrong. from their homes by the hundreds of thou­ America has nothing to gain by interfering in sands! We have a moral obligation to help Kosovo. we're there to right a wrong, not to those poorpeople." help some special-interest group." "Who's the 'we'?" I asked. "You and I I could tell she was worked up. aren't in Kosovo, and I have no plans to go "And further, even ifyour cynical view is there; I bet that you don't either. You must correct, what can be wrong with helping the mean that this obligation is owed by the U.S. Kosovars escape ethnic cleansing? " government-not by 'we'." "Look, it's naive to suppose that bureau­ "But our government IS us. Because it rep­ crats in the Department of Agriculture, resents us, it is our tool for doing what we H.D.D., the P.T.C., and other domestic agen­ Americansfeel is just and necessary." cies are pawns of.interest groups while "I couldn't disagree more. Despite elec­ bureaucrats in the military and diplomatic tions to decide which particular people occu­ corps are saintly patrons ofthe public interest. py various government offices, the govern­ But even if I concede that government offi­ ment is not us. Don't be deceived by the high­ cials are forever selfless when it comes to school-civics fantasy that a wide franchise diplomatic and military relations with foreign and regular elections ensure that government countries I would still oppose U.S. military does only what is willed by The People. In involvement in Kosovo." "On what basis?" Donald J. Boudreaux is president ofFEE. "Institutional competence. The fact that the 6 American military possesses vast firepower "But this good judgment about the institu­ doesn't mean that those in charge possess vast tional limitations of government disappears wisdom. Even if such people are immune to when it comes to military adventures. These interest-group pressures, they can never be same conservative friends innocently trust not immune to vanity, ignorance, and error. only the motives of politicians who get us They're human. Given this fact, it's unwise in involved in foreign military campaigns, but the extreme to entrust military power to any­ also their abilities. one for any purpose other than national "I ask why? If we can't trust Bill Clin­ defense." ton and his appointees to craft a worth­ "Why just national defense?" while statute to restrict access to guns or to "Because it's a relatively easy goal to define reduce greenhouse gases, why can we trust and one that enjoys nearly universal approval. him to deploy in another region of the world It's within the confines ofwhat a government the most powerful military machine is institutionally able to do-protect its citi­ humankind has ever known? Why should zens from foreign military invasion. such government actions be trusted not to "But Americans today suffer the dreadful breed larger problems than those that they are misconception that because our country is meant to solve? Are politicians wiser on the wealthy and our government powerful, our foreign front than on the domestic front? government can right all wrongs-that our Hardly." government can create an earthly -paradise; My hairdresser thought for a moment. "But that our government is superhuman; that ifyou're right, we shouldn't trust government our government should address every evil, to use the military to defend even our own big and small. Did the Mississippi River shores against aggressors." flood into your home? No problem. Uncle "Entrusting anyone, for any reason, with Sam will cover your losses and fix the river. the power to coerce others is inherently dan­ Did crazed teenagers shoot and kill innocent gerous. But, again, if our armed forces are children in a school library? Don't worry. charged only with defending Americans from More gun-control legislation will ensure foreign aggression, it's far easier for citizens that such massacres never happen again. to tell if the military is being used appropri­ Did you get sick on some tainted turkey? Can ately. All we need to ask is 'Have we been your children access porn sites on the Inter­ attacked or are we on the verge of being net? Did a waiter in some restaurant take too attacked?' If the answer is 'yes,' then-and long to serve a Latino family? Is there a nasty only then-should our military swing into ethnic conflict in the Balkans? Not to worry. action. Of course, reasonable people can dis­ Uncle Sam and his minions will solve all agree about whether or not, in some instances, problems." we are on the verge ofbeing attacked. But at I looked up to chart the progress ofmy cut, least the goal is clear and unambiguously just. then continued: "But social engineering is That goal is national defense. By sticking to impossible, no less so on the international than this goal, we mind our business, make far on the domestic front. Many of my conserva­ fewer enemies, and avoid unexpectedly open­ tive friends don't grasp this fact. They gener­ ing cans ofworms. Also, we citizens can bet­ ally agree that government isn't to be trusted ter monitor the appropriateness ofour govern­ to interfere in economic matters because they ment's use ofits most potent weapon, the mil­ recognize rightly that government is institu­ itary. In an imperfect world, these are stellar tionally incapable of making things better. achievements." Politicians and government regulators are too I don't know ifI persuaded my hairdresser. ham-fisted and detached from the countless But I do know that NATO bombs and ground details and nuances ofthe markets to do any­ troops will not create a civil and peaceful thing but make matters worse. society in Kosovo. D 7 WAR IN THE BALKANS

Immoral, Unconstitutional War by David N. Mayer

he United States has no vital interests at it can be argued that the bombing of Kosovo T stake in Yugoslavia; the conflict there is worsened the so-called "ethnic cleansing" and the kind of European war that Americans other atrocities being committed by Serbian should avoid if we follow the advice of the orYugoslav forces in that province.) Critics of early American presidents, beginning with the United States and of the West generally George Washington in his famous Farewell can point to the bombings as clear evidence of Address. The situation in Yugoslavia has been Western "imperialism." Undoubtedly, many ably summarized by journalist Philip Terzian: communists and other leftists in the new "We are bombing a sovereign nation, not a NATO member nations of Poland, Hungary, member ofNATO, which is not disturbing its and the Czech Republic are doing just that­ neighbors but seeking, instead, to prevent one possibly setting back for decades whatever of its provinces from seceding. Bear in mind progress in foreign relations the United States that the United States fought a bloody, four­ has made in eastern Europe since the fall of year civil war, on the issue ofsecession (we're the Soviet Union. against it) and that NATO, in its action against Regardless ofthe outcome ofthe war itself the Serbs, now proposes to invade a European politically-whether it will bring about the state-in the Balkans, no less-to resolve an demise of Slobodan Milosevic, and at what internal ethnic dispute. For the first time since price-the lasting importance of the war to 1945, the German air force is in action against Americans will be its significance constitu­ another European country. And everyone tionally. What it reveals is that the actual bal­ agrees that air assaults are not conclusive. In ance ofpower in matters offoreign policy has order to achieve what we want, it might well shifted decisively toward the President, and be necessary to introduce ground troops." that Congress has failed utterly to function as The Clinton administration's decision to the institution the Framers ofthe Constitution bomb Yugoslavia, under the rubric of NATO, intended it to be. What that signifies, in terms is an incredible foreign policy blunder. Not of the concentration of unchecked power in only is the situation there none ofthe United the White House, should be a matter of pro­ States' business, but our participation in the found concern to all Americans. NATO bombings also threatens to destabilize eastern Europe far more than anything done The Wisdom of the Framers by Slobodan Milosevic's government. (Indeed, The Framers of the Constitution gave the David Mayer is professor oflaw and history at Cap­ ital University in Columbus, Ohio. He is the author of power to declare war to Congress, and not to The Constitutional Thought of Thomas Jefferson the President, because they recognized that (University ofVirginia Press). the people have a vital stake in war: it 8 9 ~

involves the expenditure ofAmerican tax dol­ enter into war) that in fact usurps Congress's lars as well as the loss ofAmerican lives. For legitimate authority. that reason, Congress·must be involved in Some legal scholars have advanced the making the initial decision to commit Ameri­ extraordinary argument that Congress has can forces abroad. As James Madison neither a constitutional obligation nor a right explained in 1793, the momentous questions to declare war before the United States joins ofwar and peace properly belong to the legis­ in a "police action" sanctioned by either the lature, where they can be publicly debated by United Nations or NATO. They argue that the people's representatives. U.S. ratification ofthe U.N. Charter and ofthe The decision to declare war-that is to say, NorthAtlantic Treaty after World War II made the decision to initiate the use offorce aggres­ us part ofa "new world order" in which mem­ sively and not in self-defense-is a decision ber nations can no longer "make war," in the that only the Congress can make. The debate classic sense. The implication of this argu­ over war-indeed, the debate not only over ment is that the Article I, Section 8, grant of strategy (war versus economic sanctions) but the war-making power to Congress has been also whether any American intervention is rendered obsolete since 1945. Even with con­ justified, as a matter of policy-should have currence ofthe Senate, however, the President taken. place publicly in both houses of Con­ cannot amend the Constitution; only the peo­ gress, not in the Oval Office among a clique ple can do that, according to the amendment of presidential advisers. By committing the procedures prescribed by the Constitution United States to a course that led inevitably to itself. Until that happens, the Constitution war without the explicit authorization ofCon­ binds all the branches of government, espe­ gress, President Clinton committed an act that cially the President, who has no higher oblig­ violates the Constitution. ation than his duty to adhere to the oath he Congress's exclusive power to declare war swore, to "preserve, protect, and defend" the under Article I, Section 8, is not the only pro­ Constitution. vision of the Constitution violated by Bill Clinton's war in Yugoslavia. Arguably, the Charter Violations Yugoslav war also violates the first clause of Article I, Section 8, which limits Congress's NATO's attack on Yugoslavia, moreover, taxing power-and hence, the U.S. govern­ violates both the United Nations Charter and ment's spending power-to matters that con­ NATO's basic charter, the North Atlantic cern "the common Defence and general Wel­ Treaty. Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter fare of the United States." Nothing in the requires that members "refrain in their inter­ Constitution authorizes the President, even national relations from the threat or use of with Congress's consent, to use the military force against the territorial integrity or politi­ forces of the United States not for national cal independence of any state." Similarly, defense, but for offensive military actions in Article 2(3) states, "Members shall settle their Europe-in effect to transform the U.S. mili­ international disputes by peaceful means." No tary into a kind of Peace Corps with guns. matter how great a thug Slobodan Milosevic Moreover, Article II, Section 2, provides, may be-no matter what atrocities the Ser­ "The President shall be Commander in Chief bians commit in Kosovo-no member of the of the Army and Navy of the United States." United Nations has a right, under the U.N. By committing U.S. troops to a NATO opera­ Charter, to initiate the use of force against tion, under NATO command (whether or not Yugoslavia. Article 51 of the Charter does the NATO commander is an American), Clin­ recognize the "inherent right of individual or ton has abdicated his legitimate power as collective self-defense" for all members, but commander-in-chief (the power to actually the bombing of Belgrade is not self-defense; wage war) in the name ofasserting a fictitious it is an act of aggression. Similarly, Article 5 power as commander-in-chief (the power to ofthe North Atlantic Treaty contemplates use 10 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY • WAR IN THE BALKANS • JULY 1999 ~ ;)t( )( ~ ;)t( )( >< )( ~ ofmilitary power only defensively, not offen­ president in whatever actions he should sively; it provides, "an armed attack on one or decide to take-resolutions that reveal the more [members] ... shall be considered an degree to which Congress has failed to fulfill attack against them all," clearly a defensive its constitutional obligation to act as a check provision. Needless to say, Yugoslavia has not on presidential power. Nothing could be far­ attacked any NATO member. ther from the intent of the Framers. As NATO was created for the purposes of Thomas Jefferson explained it in 1798, "Free mutual defense (by the United States and government is founded in jealousy, and not in western European nations) against a hostile confidence; it is jealousy and not confidence Soviet Union. With the Soviet Union no which prescribes limited constitutions, to longer existing, one might ask whether NATO bind down those whom we are obliged to trust itself is today obsolete. Even if we assume with power. ... In questions of power, then, that Russia poses a great threat, NATO's legit­ let no more be heard of confidence in man, imacy still rests on its fundamental purpose as but bind him down from mischief by the a defensive alliance. Nothing in NATO's char­ chains ofthe Constitution." ter allows it to become a general European police force, which is what it has now become. Advocates of presidential war power The Other Costs ofWar (whether defending George Bush's war in the American involvement in war is too impor­ Persian Gulf or the various actions in which tant a matter to be left to the private delibera­ Bill Clinton has committed U.S. military tions of the president and a small group of forces in such places as Haiti, Bosnia, and advisers. Surely the lives oftens ofthousands now Kosovo) also have asserted that the need of Americans lost in Korea and Vietnam­ for an international consensus prior to a wars in which other presidents unilaterally NATO- or U.N.-sanctioned "police action" embroiled the country-bear eloquent wit­ provides a sufficient check on presidential ness to the other, noneconomic costs of war. power. The validity of that argument, howev­ Just as surely, the domestic turmoil that er, is belied by these presidential military resulted from those conflicts, particularly actions themselves. It is not surprising that Vietnam, illustrates the danger of presidents' both Presidents Bush and Clinton bypassed making commitments that the American peo­ Congress and the American people, choosing ple do not wholeheartedly support. instead to first assemble international support. Bill Clinton and his apologists (who Of course other nations will approve "police include many conservatives as well as so­ actions" staffed almost entirely by U.S. troops called "liberals") defend U.S. involvement in and funded almost entirely by U.S. taxpayers. Yugoslavia with the argument that the United To be effective, the check on presidential States, as the world's only superpower, has a powers must be given to Congress because duty to use its military force for "humanitari­ Congress is directly representative of the an" purposes. The argument assumes that American people, who must pay for these Americans should take the responsibility for "police actions" with their taxes and their the world's troubles simply because their blood. International politics cannot adequate­ country is a superpower. But the United States ly substitute for the checks and balances of is a superpower-and, indeed, also is the the Constitution. world's richest nation-because its legal and The Framers of the Constitution carefully constitutional system more fully protects free­ devised a scheme ofseparation ofpowers and market capitalism and the rights of the indi­ checks and balances to minimize the dangers vidual than any other system anywhere in the ofconcentrating too much power in the hands world. Americans should not feel guilty about of anyone person, or group ofpersons. They their wealth or power; they've earned it. And would be appalled at the resolutions in Con­ simply being successful does not make a gress expressing unqualified support of the nation responsible for the problems of other IMMORAL, UNCONSTITUTIONAL WAR 11 )r< )()( )r< )( nations, just as being successful as an individ­ of the collective; and their accomplices were ual does not make one responsible for the the priests, who appealed to superstition and problems ofother individuals. The fundamen­ mysticism-the supposed will of the one or tal rules of morality apply equally to nation­ more gods-to convince the people that it was states as to individuals; and the basic rule of a "sin" not to sacrifice their well-being to the morality-the only rule of morality based on thugs who ran the government. reason rather than emotion or mysticism-is In more recent times, totalitarian dictators the precept "do no harm to others." Rather on both the "left" and "right"-Lenin, Stalin, than following that basic rule of good behav­ and Mao, as well as Hitler, Mussolini, and ior (for nation-states as well as for individu­ Peron-similarly have preached that the indi­ als), Bill Clinton has led the United States vidual is nothing, that the collective is every­ into acts ofaggression that violate the princi­ thing. They too have been supported by ple. And our so-called "humanitarian" priests of sorts, namely, so-called "intellectu­ effort-like similar assumed "humanitarian" als" who preach either a sectarian or secular policies domestically-is in fact exacerbating form of civic religion that also condemns as the problem, for the NATO bombing com­ sinful the individual's pursuit ofhis own hap­ pounds the atrocities being committed on the piness or self-interest and extol a "duty" to people ofKosovo. serve the state. As F. A. Hayek has shown, "the road to serfdom" has taken many paths in Altruism Makes Bad Policy the twentieth century. The call for "national service" that Bill Clinton and like-minded Morally, the essential flaw in Clinton's war collectivists (again, both on the left and the on Yugoslavia is the principle ofaltruism that right) made at the President's Conference on underlies it. By "altruism," I mean the moral America's Future in April 1997 differs from code that asserts that people should sacrifice the philosophy of other twentieth-century their own happiness or well-being to the hap­ totalitarians only in degree, not in kind. piness or well-being ofothers; the moral code The principle ofaltruism makes bad policy, that preaches that self-interest is bad but that whether in domestic law or in foreign rela­ self-sacrifice is noble, that the proper ethical tions. In domestic law, it has made possible posture of human beings is that of sacrificial the welfare state and all the problems associ­ animals to the supposed "good" ofsociety, or ated with it-not only economically but some other collective. This moral code of socially and morally-as David Kelley ably altruism is a very old, traditional moral code shows in his excellent new book, A Life of that has been responsible for virtually all the One s Own. In foreign relations, it has made evil, all the suffering, that has occurred possible a series ofwars in the twentieth cen­ throughout human history. It is the same tury, beginning with World War I (and moral code that underlies the atrocities being Woodrow Wilson's campaign to "make the committed in Kosovo itself, where people on world safe for democracy"), in which young both sides of the ethnic conflict (Serbian and Americans were told it was their duty to sac­ Albanian alike) ignore the rights of individu­ rifice their lives not for their own country's als and instead regard people as significant freedom or security, but for some fancy ofthe only as members of a collective (in this case, foreign-policy wonks who advise the Presi­ an ethnic group). dent. It's time that those ofus who truly "sup­ Tyrants throughout human history have jus­ port ourtroops"-those ofus who believe that tified their tyranny by appealing to some form the lives ofyoung Americans are too precious ofcollectivism. The pharaohs ofancient Egypt, to waste on the follies of presidential advis­ the emperors ofImperial Rome, and the kings ers-show our support for them by calling for ofmedieval Europe all called upon their people the immediate end ofthis immoral and uncon­ to sacrifice their individual well-being to that stitutional war. 0 WAR IN THE BALKANS • History

The Kosovo Tangle by Gary Dempsey

ordering Albania and Macedonia, Kosovo centuries. In fact, virtually all of the oldest Bis the southernmost province of present­ monuments in Kosovo are Serbian and most day Serbia, which, together with Montenegro, names of places have a Serbian-language makes up what remains ofthe Socialist Feder­ root. But in 1389 the Serb dynasty fell to the al Republic ofYugoslavia. Kosovo was origi­ Ottoman Empire at the battle ofKosovo Polje. nally populated by the Illyrians, an ancient Although they fought alongside Serbs during people who inhabited the western part of the the battle, the vast majority of ethnic Albani­ Balkans from about 2000 B.C. The earliest ans in the area converted to Islam in the fif­ known Illyrian king was Hyllus, who died in teenth and sixteenth centuries and participat­ 1225 B.C., and the last was Gentius, who was ed in the Ottoman administration ofKosovo. defeated by the Romans in 165 B.C.l As the Ottoman Empire declined in the Although it is a point of anthropological eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Kosovo debate, many modern Albanians contend that became the focus of competing Serbian and they are the direct descendants of the ancient Albanian independence movements. In 1878, Illyrians and thus the original inhabitants of the League ofPrizren, which sought to create Kosovo. an independent Albanian state, was founded The first Slavs appeared around Kosovo in in Kosovo. But when the Ottoman Empire the late fourth century A.D. as marauders who finally buckled under the weight of the First raided Roman settlements. By the end of the Balkan War in 1912, Kosovo was granted to eighth century, the Slavs had colonized most Serbia pursuant to the Conference ofAmbas­ of the area of modern Yugoslavia, including sadors held in London. By that time, however, Kosovo. Serbs are not identified until the Serbs comprised only about 20 to 25 percent tenth-century writings of Byzantine emperor ofKosovo's population.2 Constantine VII. There they are described as Slavs residing in the area of present-day Kosovo, Montenegro, and Bosnia, who con­ Kosovo After World War I verted to Eastern Christianity in the ninth cen­ At the end of World War I, Croatia and tury. In the twelfth century, Serbs successful­ Slovenia joined with Serbia to form the King­ ly fought against the Byzantine Empire to dom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, with establish an independent Serbian kingdom. Kosovo remaining a constituent part of Ser­ Kosovo was crucial to that kingdom and to the bia. During the 1920s, Serbian authorities Serbian Orthodox Church for the next two attempted to repopulate Kosovo with Serbs. By 1928, the Serb population in Kosovo Gary Dempsey is aforeign policy analyst at the Cato was increased to about 38 percent, mainly Institute. because of state-organized immigration from 12 inner Serbia.3 In 1929, the Kingdom ofSerbs, in the Yugoslav federation. In the course of Croats, and Slovenes was renamedYugoslavia. the violence, Serbs and Montenegrins in During World War II, following Yugoslavia's Kosovo were beaten, their homes and busi­ defeat by the Axis Powers in April 1941, the nesses burned, and their shops 100ted.7 population trend lines in Kosovo were Also, a mysterious fire was set at one of reversed. Fascist Italy ceded the province to Serbia's most cherished religious shrines, the neighboring Albania, which had been under Pec Patriarchate in Kosovo, a complex of Axis occupation since 1939, and Kosovo was medieval churches and the historical seat of ruled as part of Italian-occupied Albania for the patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox the remainder of the war. Between 1941 and Church.8 The civil unrest was eventually 1945, more than 70,000 Serbs fled Kosovo quashed by the communist authorities, but while 75,000 Albanians migrated there.4 thousands of Serbs fled Kosovo following the After World War II, Kosovo was returned to violence. Serbia. But, wanting to forge a Balkan com­ Throughout the rest of the 1980s the Ser­ munist federation with Albania and Bulgaria, bian Orthodox Church in Kosovo and Serbian the new Yugoslav government under Josip civic groups documented numerous cases of Broz Tito hoped that the prospect ofreacquir­ harassment, intimidation, vandalism, destruc­ ing Kosovo would draw Albania into the pact. tion ofSerbian monuments and churches, and Tito, therefore, wanted Kosovo to remain pre­ attacks on Serbian priests, nuns, and civilians dominantly Albanian. On March 6, 1945, he by ethnic Albanians. As historian Noel Mal­ issued a decree forbidding Serbs displaced by colm reports, the war from returning to their homes in Kosovo. 5 The following year, Kosovo was In the mid-1980s the Serbian Academy of made an "autonomous region" within Serbia. Sciences commissioned a survey of 500 Tito's plan to create a Balkan communist fed­ households of Serbs who had migrated to eration, however, collapsed in 1948 when inner Serbia from Kosovo. Many of the Yugoslavia broke with the Soviet-led Comin­ people interviewed thought that there was form. a political dimension to the deterioration of Nevertheless, the ethnic Albanian popula­ conditions for the Slavs in Kosovo.... tion in Kosovo continued to grow and to push When giving the reasons for their migra­ for greater autonomy. In 1963, Kosovo was tion, 41 percent mentioned "indirect pres­ made an "autonomous province," and under sure" from the Albanians, and 21 percent Yugoslavia's 1974 constitution it was granted referred to direct pressure: that last catego­ separate federal representation and was only ry was composed ofverbal abuse (8.5 per­ formally linked with Serbia. During that peri­ cent), material damage (7.5 percent) and od of enhanced autonomy, ethnic Albanians personal injury (5 percent).9 exercised almost complete control over Koso­ vo's provincial administration, but many While the number ofcases ofabuse against Serbs complained ofpervasive discrimination Serbs varies by source, historian Miranda in employment and housing, and of the Vickers has concluded that "many Serbs and authorities' unwillingness to protect them Montenegrins who decided to leave Kosovo from anti-Serb violence. [in the 1980s] had experienced intimidation, pressure, violence, and other severe abuses of Kosovo After Tito their human rights because of their ethnici­ ty."lO Similarly, historian Richard West notes By 1981, official census data pegged Koso­ that while ethnic Albanians from Kosovo were vo's ethnic Albanian population at 77.5 per­ "always ready to tell sympathetic journalists cent.6 The same year, in the wake of Tito's an account of their suffering under the Ser­ death, riots broke out in Kosovo as ethnic bian regime ... foreign observers failed to Albanians demanded full republic status with- notice that, although the Serbs were supposed 14 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY. WAR IN THE BALKANS. JULY 1999 ~ >< )()( >< )(;.: )( ~ to be the oppressors, they themselves were dent, a parliament, a tax system, and schools. departing from Kosovo, complaining about Shadow president Ibrahim Rugova thereafter the destruction ofproperty, the desecration of worked for Kosovo's independence through graves, and many assaults and rapes."11 peaceful means, but a more militant group soon emerged. Enter Slobodan Milosevic In April 1987, over 60,000 Serbs from The Kosovo Liberation Army Kosovo signed a petition calling on the gov­ By the mid-1990s, the ethnic Albanian pop­ ernment in Belgrade to stop the ethnic vio­ ulation in Kosovo had grown to between 85 lence and intimidation aimed at them. 12 In an and 90 percent, and the human rights condi­ opportunistic attempt to raise his political tions in the province continued to deterio­ profile, then Serbian Communist Party presi­ rate)7 As Human Rights Watch, a New York­ dent Slobodan Milosevic traveled to Kosovo based rights organization, reported, and played the nationalist card, proclaiming to Serbs everywhere, "Noone should dare Since the revocation of Kosovo's autono­ beat you again."13 By October 1987, federal my, the human rights abuses against ethnic riot police and army troops were deployed in Albanians by the Serbian and Yugoslav Kosovo following demonstrations by thou­ governments have been constant. The sands ofSerbs protesting an alleged comment names of the victims change, but the fre­ by a Kosovar Albanian leader that "the inci­ quency and the manner ofbeatings, harass­ dents of [ethnic] Albanians raping Serbian ment, and political trials remain the same. women could be reduced if more Serbian It is a status quo ofrepression.... The bru­ women worked as prostitutes."14 In 1989, Bel­ tality of the police continues against the grade downgraded Kosovo's autonomy to its population. Random harassment and beat­ pre-1974 level, and Milosevic was elected ings are a daily reality for ethnic Albanians president of Serbia with 65 percent of the in Kosovo, especially those in villages and vote. As Aleksa Djilas later noted in Foreign smaller towns. 18 Affairs, Milosevic "succeeded because he understood the power offear and knew how to In 1996, a shadowy separatist organization use it for his own purposes."15 called the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) Following the reduction ofKosovo's auton­ surfaced for the first time, claiming responsi­ omy, Belgrade imposed "emergency mea­ bility for a series ofbombings in Kosovo. By sures" in Kosovo, summarily dismissing thou­ its own admission, the KLA killed more than sands of ethnic Albanians from state-sector 50 government officials and ethnic Albanian jobs. No part of Kosovo's society was left "collaborators" over the next two years. The untouched. Even the provincial theater in KLA's intention: to trigger the secession of Pristina was placed under "emergency man­ Kosovo from the Yugoslav state. Pursuing a agement" and the theater manager removed textbook strategy, the KLA carried'out attacks by police officers and replaced by a Serb. The on police and civilians aimed at provoking a greatest changes, however, occurred in educa­ government crackdown that would radicalize tion. The teaching ofAlbanian history, litera­ the ethnic Albanian population in Kosovo. In ture, and language was reduced to a mini­ February 1998, the KLA intensified its mum. Also, ethnic Albanian students were attacks against Yugoslav authorities and Serb forbidden from enrolling in secondary school civilians. Armed KLA guerrillas attacked unless they could pass Serbian literature and Serb houses in the villages of Klina, Decani, language examinations, which few could dO. 16 and Djakovica, and a Serb refugee camp in In 1991, ethnic Albanians responded to Babaloc. KLA guerrillas also ambushed and their diminished autonomy by forming a killed two Serb policemen patrolling on the shadow government, complete with a presi- road between Glogovac and Srbica. THE Kosovo TANGLE 15 )(.. ?< ~ A government crackdown on the KLA sworn that they will not stop fighting the Ser­ immediately followed, and the world soon bian government until they achieved the "total learned that nearly 80 Kosovar Albanians, liberation" ofthe province.21 including many women and children, were The conflict in Kosovo is thus not simply a killed by Serbian internal security forces in matter ofKosovar Albanians suffering under a Kosovo's central Drenica region. The brutal and repressive regime-which they Yugoslav Interior Ministry claimed that the were and are-but a complex clash of mutu­ action was directed against Adem Jashari, ally exclusive political claims that are aggra­ whose family clan allegedly constituted the vated by conflicting historical grievances. As core of the KLA organization. On a closely former U.S. ambassador to Yugoslavia Warren supervised trip to the village of Prekaz, for­ Zimmerman correctly observes, eign reporters were told that government security forces had killed Jashari and The competing claims ofSerbs and Albani­ destroyed the power base ofthe KLA organi­ ans have been hopelessly tangled in the zation. "We have struck at their heart and we webs of history and myth. In its essence, have dealt terrorists a lethal blow," a police however, the main issue is as simple as it is spokesman said. 19 The spokesman was intractable. The Serbian claim ... is based wrong. Government-versus-guerrilla clashes primarily on the historical-cultural princi­ continued in Kosovo, leaving more than 2,000 ple-the Jerusalem argument. The Albanian dead over the ensuing 14 months. claim to independence is based largely on the demographic principle-the majority Tying the Balkan Knot argument. Since these claims are mutually incompatible, there is little reason to believe For Serbs, Kosovo is widely considered the that Kosovo will be easy to solve. 22 D cradle oftheir culture, history, and religion. In 1. See John Wilkes, The Illyrians (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992). fact, over 75 percent of all Serbian cultural 2. Noel Malcolm, "The Violent History of Kosovo Doesn't Jus­ and national monuments are located in Koso­ tify 'Ethnic Cleansing,'" Washington Times, April 14, 1998, p. A16. vo, including the historic fourteenth-century 3. Noel Malcolm, Kosovo: A Short History (New York: New York University Press, 1998), p. 282. monastery of Samodrezi, where the Serbian 4. Alex Dragnich and Slavko Todorovich, The Saga ofKosovo: Focus on Serbian-Albanian Relations (Boulder, Colo.: East Euro­ king blessed his army just before their defeat pean Monographs, 1984), p. 138; and Dusan Batakovic, The Kosovo at the hands ofthe Ottoman Turks in 1389 and Chronicles (Belgrade: Plato Publishers, 1992), p. 14. 5. Branko Mikasinovich, Yugoslavia: Crisis and Disintegration the famous Kosovo Polje battlefield-the Ser­ (Milwaukee: Plyroma Publishing, 1994), p. 63. bian equivalent of the Alamo. Accordingly, 6. Miranda Vickers, Between Serb and Albanian: A History of Kosovo (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), p. 318. Yugoslav Army General Dusan Samardzic 7. Vickers, p. 197. recently told a group ofnew officers, 8. Ibid. 9. Malcolm, Kosovo: A Short History, p. 331. 10. Vickers, p. 220. This is a turning point for Yugoslavia, 11. Richard West, Tito and the Rise andFall ofYugoslavia (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1994), p. 223. when we need to show the world our mili­ 12. Ibid., p. 343. tary ability and might. Kosovo's integrity 13. Laura Silber and Allan Little, The Death ofYugoslavia (Lon­ don: Penguin Books, 1995), p. 37. has been threatened by [ethnic] Albanian 14. Vickers, p. 226. secessionists, with assistance from abroad. 15. Aleksa Djilas, "Profile of Slobodan Milosevic," Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993, p. 84. Our ancestry and posterity would never 16. Vickers, pp. 246-48. forgive us if we surrendered the cradle of 17. Ibid., p. 320; and International Crisis Group, Kosovo Spring: Serb culture to someone else.20 The International Crisis Group Guide to Kosovo (Brussels: Interna­ tional Crisis Group, 1998), pp. 13-14. 18. International Crisis Group, p. 13. 19. "Only One Option: A War for National Liberation, UCK," On the other side ofthe dispute, ethnic Alba­ RFE/RL Newsline, March 9,1998. nians outnumbered Serbs in Kosovo nearly 9 to 20. Quoted in Vickers, p. 300. 21. Quoted in International Crisis Group, p. 72. 1 before NATO's air strikes began on March 22. Warren Zimmerman, "The Demons ofKosovo," The Nation­ 24, 1999, and representatives ofthe KLA have al Interest, Summer 1998, p 10. WAR IN THE BALKANS

Remembering and Inventing: A Short History ofthe Balkans by Peter Mentzel

ince the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia marily on interpretations ofimported Franco­ Sdescended into bloodshed and mayhem German notions of nationalism. In their most during the summer of 1991 a number of dif­ basic articulations, these theories had two ferent historical explanations for the conflict's aspects in common. First were the quasi­ origins and ferocity have been written. While mystical organic roots of nations. They were these accounts differ in their details, in gener­ deemed to have been always-existing, at least al they paint two different pictures of Balkan very ancient, entities with their own distinct history. One argues that the wars of the characteristics. The second common aspect of Yugoslav succession are the result of"ancient this kind of nationalism was its emphasis on tribal hatreds." That is, the violence in the the state as the embodiment, or at least modern Balkans is the result ofhatreds dating expression, ofthe nation's will. back hundreds, ifnot thousands, ofyears. The As a result of these principles, the new second picture of Balkan history takes issue states of the Balkans devoted considerable with this argument and offers instead a story energy to the creation and!or inculcation of a oftolerance where each community coexisted nationalist history. These histories varied in peace, if not harmony. This entire conver­ from place to place but were remarkably sim­ sation is closely tied to the history of the ilar in their outlines. They all resembled the development ofBalkan nation-states. following model: in the Middle Ages our nations had strong and wealthy states (often Nations and States empires). Then the Turk destroyed our states and subjected our nations to centuries ofslav­ In an attempt to address these historio­ ery and oppression. Finally, our national graphical points, this article will take one heroes rose and reclaimed our states. This simple starting point: the Balkan nations and outline is very basic and most serious histori­ Balkan nation-states are all very young. None ans, even those ofBalkan origin, qualify these is more than 200 years old. Thus the hatreds points with numerous caveats. However, the there cannot be "ancient." In fact, the current official "schoolbook" national histories taught ethnic hatreds in the Balkans, while unfortu­ in the educational systems ofthese states fol­ nately very real indeed, all have their roots in lowed, and for the most part still follow, these the statist nationalism of the nineteenth and basic points.! twentieth centuries. There are two serious problems with these Balkan national ideologies were based pri- official nationalist histories. First, they are Peter Mentzel is an assistant professor ofhistory at anachronistic, and second, their implications Utah State University. are extremely destabilizing. 16 17 .><:. '* Origin Myths Small-Power Imperialism Most of the work on nationalism and The other effect ofthese Balkan nationalist national identity over the past three or four histories was to foster, perhaps unavoidably, decades has argued for their constructed, an irredentist and militaristic foreign policy subjective nature. That is, in contrast to that some historians have called "small-power older concepts, nations are not organic, imperialism." Since all the modem Balkan objectively existing entities, but have a high­ national states self-consciously base their ly subjective nature. They exist insofar as a existence on medieval dynastic ones, the bor­ sufficient number of people believe they ders of those medieval states have become, exist. Also widely argued in the current liter­ quite consistently, the borders desired by the ature is the modernity of nations and (the nationalist leadership of the new states. The more controversial contention) that nations problem is that the borders of all of the are the creation of states, not the other way medieval states fluctuated widely over the around. In other words, the modern state cre­ years and always overlapped each other. The ated nations, or· at least nationalism, as a best example of this problem is Macedonia. means of raising and maintaining large con­ Historically, Macedonia was a geographical script armies and, especially, of legitimizing term that described the area encompassed by itself. the modem Republic of Macedonia, south­ Ifthese arguments are valid, then it is clear western Bulgaria, and most of northern that the medieval Balkan kingdoms (or any Greece (the Greek province of Macedonia). medieval kingdoms for that matter) were not At one time or another, this area, or at least "nation-states" and that the people who lived substantial parts of it, was ruled by the King­ in them did not constitute "nations" in the. dom of Serbia, the Bulgarian Empire, or the post-nineteenth-century sense of that word. Byzantine Empire (taken by Greek national­ An important example ofBalkan national ori­ ists as the antecedent of the Greek nation­ gin stories is the Battle of Kosovo. Serb state). Thus, during the late nineteenth centu­ nationalist history uses this event as the defin­ ry, the newly formed Serb, Bulgar, and Greek ing moment in the history of the Serbian nation-states claimed the area on historical nation. But it is clear that although a feudal grounds. state known as the Kingdom of Serbia was As if the problem of overlapping "histori­ defeated there, it is anachronistic to say that cal" claims were not daunting enough, each of this kingdom was a Serbian nation-state. the new national states also claimed territory Indeed, only a few years after the battle, Ser­ on the basis of national identity. Again, the bian knights fought (by most accounts example of Macedonia is illustrative of the valiantly) as vassals of their new imperial broader phenomenon. The small Serb, Bulgar, overlord, the Ottoman Sultan, against Timur and Greek national states wanted to incorpo­ Lenk (a.k.a. TamerIane) in central Anatolia. rate Macedonia (still part of the Ottoman Likewise, it is a back-projection of modem Empire until 1912) into their own realms. In national ideas to argue (as Serb nationalist addition to their supposed historical titles to histories do) that the Ottoman armies at the the territory, agents of these states also Battle of Kosovo were "Turks." They were, attempted to foster in the population of the like their enemies at that battle, soldiers in the region a sense ofnationalism friendly to their army of a dynastic state. There were, in fact, own states. So Serb, Bulgar, and Greek Christian vassals ofthe Sultan fighting on the nationalists, usually working with at least the Ottoman side.2 The Balkan nationalist histo­ tacit approval of their governments, tried to ries, however, portray the Balkan dynastic set up schools, clubs, and associations in medieval kingdoms as nation-states and as the Macedonia in an effort to convince the mem­ direct antecedents of the modern Balkan bers ofthese institutions oftheir Serb, Bulgar, states. or Greek identity. A more pernicious side of 18 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY • WAR IN THE BALKANS • JULY 1999 ~ ;>( )I()( ;>( )()IE: )I( )It( this process was the use of terror by armed Powers were very worried, correctly as it bands ofeach ofthese nationalities when edu­ turned out, that the disintegration of the cation and argument did not succeed.3 Ottoman Empire could provoke a crisis that The objective ofthese activities in Macedo­ would lead to a general European war. Such a nia (and in other highly contested regions war indeed almost broke out in 1878, averted such as the Dobruja, Thrace, and the Vojvodi­ only by Prince Otto von Bismarck's cynical, na) was to convince the local population to yet effective, diplomacy. Unfortunately, declare themselves members of one of the another Balkan crisis in the summer of 1914 nations on offer. Occasionally, as in the case spun rapidly out ofcontrol with results famil­ ofMacedonia, or in the region that eventually iar to all ofus. was to become Albania, some of the locals responded by developing their own national Nationalism, Genocide, and identities (in this case Macedonian or Alban­ ian) and, subsequently, nationalist move­ "Brotherhood and Unity" ments. With the end ofthe Ottoman and Habsburg Empires in the last days of World War I, the Great-Power Imperialism Eastern Question effectively ended. The polit­ ical map of the Balkans took on the shape it Besides nationalism, another major factor was to hold,except for a few years during in the establishment of the Balkan national World War II, until the disintegration of the states was the influence of the Great Powers. Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia From the late eighteenth century until the end beginning in 1991. ofWorld War I, much of European diplomat­ The map ofthe Balkans in 1918 represent­ ic thinking was dominated by the so-called ed the triumph ofnationalism. The consolida­ "Eastern Question." In its most basic form, tion of the nation-state system, however, far this term referred to the set of problems sur­ from ushering in a period ofpeace and coop­ rounding the apparent weakness of the eration among the Balkan states, only created Ottoman Empire and the centripetal tenden­ renewed tensions. The problems were caused cies of many of its parts, especially those by exactly the same factors that had led to coming under the influence of nationalist violence during the prewar period. That is, intellectuals. none of the nationalists in the new Balkan Of the European Great Powers, the British states (with the important exception of the were, until the end of the nineteenth century, Republic of Turkey) accepted the political the strongest supporters of the continued borders as final. Quite the contrary, the maintenance of the Ottoman Empire, while Balkan nationalists saw on the maps of the the Russian government was probably the Balkans drawn up at Ste. Germaine, Trianon, biggest external threat to the Empire. The and Neuilly terrae irredenta, territories and British government wanted to maintain the populations of their co-nationals crying for Ottoman Empire as a buffer against Russian freedom and union with the "Motherland." In expansion in the Near East, which British particular, Bulgarian and Greek nationalists diplomats and military men saw as a threat felt that their states had been cheated out of against British India. Russian imperialists, Macedonia. Bulgaria also had lost territory to in turn, were animated by the ideas of Pan­ Romania (the southern Dobruja) and to Slavism or the ability to break out of the Greece (Western Thrace). Albanian national­ Black Sea basin. ists wanted a Greater Albania that included During the nineteenth century, however, the province of Kosovo and swaths of Mace­ most of the diplomacy surrounding the East­ donia (both Serbian after 1912 and part of ern Question focused on how the Ottoman Yugoslavia after 1918). The Vojvodina was Empire could be maintained, or at least divid­ disputed among Hungary, Yugoslavia, and ed up in as peaceful a way as possible. The Romania. REMEMBERING AND INVENTING: A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BALKANS 19 ~ ).( >< ~ J< ).()( J< 3*r The territorial claims of the Balkan states same time considering them to be "Croats of against each other were paralleled by the the Muslim religion." Pavelic even ordered internal problems caused by the presence of the construction of a mosque in Zagreb sizable minority populations. Nowhere was (called the Poglavnik's Mosque after his offi­ this problem more acute than in the Kingdom cial title) in his efforts to secure the loyalty of of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, renamed the Muslim Slavs. Many, but certainly by no the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929. While means all, of the Muslims of Bosnia-Herze­ ostensibly the national state ofthe Yugoslavs, govina responded to the fascist Croat authori­ many of its citizens, perhaps the majority ties, as they had responded to all outside even in 1918, did not have a "Yugoslav" occupiers since 1878, with cautious coopera­ national identity at all, but thought of them­ tion or at least passivity. Some ofthe Muslim selves as members of different nations, for population actively supported the Ustasha example, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedo­ regime. There were 11 Muslim deputies in the nians, and so on. NDH's parliament (the Sabor) and there was Yugoslavism, the idea that all ofthe South even a Bosnian Muslim division (called Slavs constituted. one nation, was popular "Handzar" or scimitar) within the Waffen SS.5 mainly among Slovene and Croat intellectu­ Under the leadership of the Ustashas, hun­ als. There were also, however, Croat (and a dreds of thousands of Serbs, Gypsies, Jews, much smaller number ofSlovene) nationalists and "enemies of the state" were murdered. who thought in terms of independent or The Ustashas even had their own concentra­ autonomous Croat or Slovene nation-states. tion camp at Jasenovac in northern Bosnia. Very few Serbs or Muslim Slavs showed Most of the rest of Yugoslavia was parti­ much interest in Yugoslavism. Most Serbs tioned among the Axis powers and their allies. preferred to think in terms ofthe creation ofa Most of Slovenia was incorporated into the Greater Serbia, while the Muslims were most­ Third Reich. Much of the Vojvodina went to ly concerned with maintaining good relations Hungary. Macedonia was occupied by Bul­ with their rulers (whoever they might be) so garia, and most of Kosovo was joined to as to secure the free practice oftheir religion Italian-occupied Albania. and the maintenance oftheir religious schools The Ustasha and the Axis occupation and socio-economic institutions. armies were opposed by two main armed The story ofthe formation ofthe Yugoslav guerrilla groups, commonly called the Parti­ state and its constitutional and national crises sans and the Chetniks. The former group was are beyond the scope of this short essay.4 A ostensibly a broad coalition ofindividuals and generalization about this period is that the parties from all the nationalities ofYugoslavia tensions between the different nationalities of that were united against the NDH and the for­ Yugoslavia, and especially between the Croats eign occupiers of the country. In practice the and Serbs, intensified steadily during the organization became dominated by the Com­ 1920s and 1930s. The Croat fascist Ustasha munist Party ofYugoslavia led by Josip Broz, organization, aided by Italy, emerged and pur­ better known by the nom de guerre "Tito." sued a campaign of terror against the The Chetniks were originally made up of Yugoslav state. Following the Nazi invasion mostly Serb units of the Royal Yugoslavian of Yugoslavia in 1941 (preceded by an air Army that had avoided destruction or capture attack on Belgrade by the Luftwaffe), the by the invading Axis powers and had re-estab­ Ustasha leader, Ante Pavelic (1889-1959), lished themselves as guerrillas. Their leader, became the ruler ofthe "Independent State of Colonel Draza Mihailovic, was a supporter of Croatia" (often referred to by its Croatian ini­ King Peter and the Yugoslav government in tials NDH). The Nazis granted their puppet exile in London. state generous borders, including most of During the course ofthe war, the Partisans Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Ustashas actively and the Chetniks began to regard each other courted the Bosnian Muslims, while at the as enemies and in fact spent much of their 20 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY • WAR IN THE BALKANS • JULY 1999 ~ )t( )()( )t( )( i)( )( ~ time fighting each other. The Chetniks even­ ent republics, each ofwhich (with the impor­ tually became de facto collaborators with the tant exception of Bosnia-Herzegovina) corre­ Nazis and Ustashas against the Partisans. Par­ sponded to a particular constituent nationali­ tially because of this development, the Allies ty. These different nationally based republics eventually decided to back the Partisans and were bound together by the monolithic con­ Tito instead ofKing Peter and the Chetniks. trol ofthe LCY (the only legal political party) With the end ofthe war, the Partisans took and its slogan of"Brotherhood and Unity." control ofthe entire country and exacted swift revenge against collaborators, suspects ofcol­ Not So Ancient laboration, and all enemies ofthe Communist Party ofYugoslavia. Mihailovic was captured With this very brief history in mind, the and hanged. Pavelic managed to escape to events in the Balkans, and especially in the Argentina, but most ofhis followers and their former Yugoslavia, since 1991 acquire a sympathizers were not so lucky: they were rather different complexion from "ancient executed. tribal hatreds." It is certainly no accident that One of the most notorious events of this Croats and Serbs routinely call each other period occurred at the Austrian-Yugoslav bor­ "Ustashas" and "Chetniks," respectively. der near the village of Bleiburg. A group of Likewise, the Serb opposition to the indepen­ over 100,000 Croat men, women, and chil­ dence ofthe Republic ofBosnia-Herzegovina dren fled before the advancing Partisans into must have been tinged with memories of the southern Austria, at the time under the occu­ links between Croat and Bosnian Muslim fas­ pation of the British Army. Some of these cists during World War II. refugees were indeed former Ustasha mem­ The extraordinary violence that has accom­ bers, but many certainly were not. The Parti­ panied the disintegration ofthe Socialist Fed­ sans demanded that they be sent back to eral Republic ofYugoslavia is therefore based Yugoslavia. The British commander on the on the very real recollections, just within liv­ scene was bound by agreements and treaties ing memory, of the horrors of World War II. to comply, and they were sent back into Those actions themselves, however, grew out Yugoslav territory into the custody ofthe Par­ ofthe invention and perpetuation of chauvin­ tisan forces. Over the next weeks between istic and expansionist national ideologies of 40,000 and 100,000 of them died.6 Overall, the nationalists and especially the national the war and its immediate aftermath were states ofthe late nineteenth century. D tremendously destructive. Some 1,014,000 1. Maria Todorova, "The Ottoman Legacy in the Balkans" and people, almost six percent of the population F.A.K. Yasamee, "Nationality in the Balkans: The Case ofthe Mace­ donians," both in Gunay Goksu Ozdogan and Kemal Saybasili, eds., ofYugoslavia, perished, many of them at the Balkans: A Mirror ofthe New International Order (Istanbul: Eren hands oftheir fellow Yugoslavs. 7 Yayincilik ve Kitapcilik, 1995), pp. 73, 125. 2. Peter Sugar, Southeastern Europe under Ottoman Rule (Seat­ After the Partisans had secured their victo­ tle: University ofWashington Press, 1977), p. 21. ry, Yugoslavia was reorganized as a federal 3. Charles and Barbara Jelavich, The Establishment ofthe Balkan National States, 1804-1920 (Seattle: University of Washington "peoples' republic." The Communist Party, Press, 1977), p. 211. renamed the League of Communists of 4. For a more detailed discussion of this period see Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univer­ Yugoslavia (LCY), at first tried to foster an sity Press, 1984). interpretation ofYugoslavism that would sub­ 5. Barbara Je1avich, History ofthe Balkans, vol. II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 264. Aydin Babuna, Die sume the country's different nationalities. But nationale Entwicklung der bosnischen Muslime (Frankfurt aIM: by the early 1960s the LCY had abandoned Peter Lang, 1996), pp. 291-292. 6. Jelavich, History ofthe Balkans, p. 272. this policy in favor of an increasingly decen­ 7. Ivo Banac, "Nationalism in Serbia," in Ozdogan and Saybasili, tralized federal structure based on the differ- p.143. Potomac Principles by Doug Bandow ?( )( ~ ~ )(: .)(. )(: )* \NAR IN THE BALKANS

Warmongering for Peace

he United States bestrides the world as a responded to the charge that they failed to T military colossus. By far the dominant foresee the risks of their strategy by saying, global power, it is allied with every other essentially, yes we did. If true, the President major advanced industrialized state. Ameri­ was criminally negligent: he expected further ca's adversaries are poor, isolated, and attacks on Kosovars, massive refugee flows, pitiable: Cuba, Iraq, North Korea, and and Serb intransigence, but did nothing to Yugoslavia. prepare for those consequences. Even he, one But apparently Washington policymakers would hope, could not be so irresponsible. can't stand the thought ofliving in peace. Tra­ It has oft been said that the world is a dan­ ditionally, war has been considered a last gerous place, and it certainly is. But not par­ resort. Yet this administration is implementing ticularly to the United States. Unfortunately, the most militaristic program in at least two however, conflict does wrack many other decades. The President used U.S. troops to try countries around the world. There have been to rebuild Somali society, bombed Serbian mass murders in Burundi, Cambodia, Rwan­ insurgents in Bosnia, warned ofpossible mil­ da, Sudan, and Uganda; brutal insurgencies in itary action against North Korea, occupied Angola, Congo, Ethiopia, Liberia, Mozam­ Haiti, sent troops to Macedonia and Bosnia, bique, Sierra Leone, and Sri Lanka; bloody has undertaken military exercises around the wars between Armenia and Azerbaijan, world, is conducting regular attacks on Iraq, Ethiopia and Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia, and inaugurated aggressive war against India and Pakistan; endless civil war in Yugoslavia. Afghanistan; violent separatist campaigns in Obviously the administration, filled with Iraq (Kurds), Mexico (Chiapans), Northern high hubris, believed Belgrade to be an easy Ireland (Catholics), Russia (Chechens), Spain target. Washington was apparently convinced (Basques), and Turkey (Kurds); and varying that it could impose an outside solution on an strife in Burma, Georgia, India, Indonesia, ancient ethnic conflict, micromanage a guer­ Tajikistan, and elsewhere. rilla insurgency, and unleash the dogs of war Then there is Kosovo. Without doubt, the without their running wild. situation is tragic. Yet the one constant of The result was a disastrous miscalculation: guerrilla insurgencies and civil wars is their the administration simultaneously magnified brutality-by both sides. The Serbian govern­ violence against ethnic Albanians and desta­ ment has caused many civilian casualties in bilized neighboring states. Yet U.S. officials Kosovo, but its conduct does not exist in a vacuum. Last June a U.S. diplomat in Bel­ Doug Bandow, a nationally syndicated columnist, is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. This article grade told me: "Ifyou're a Serb, hell yes, the draws on his testimony before the House Internation­ KLA [Kosova Liberation Army] is a terrorist al Relations Committee in early March. organization." Even ethnic Albanians admit 21 22 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY • WAR IN THE BALKANS • JULY 1999 '" >( )( ~ >( )(;.: )( )( that the KLA had targeted Serb policemen thizers. Some 37,000 Kurds have died over and other government employees, Serbs the last decade. viewed as abusing Kosovars, as well as Alban­ But the administration has voiced no out­ ian "collaborators." Each cycle of violence rage, proposed no bombing, demanded no spawned another. occupation. To the contrary, Washington sup­ The resulting suffering of Kosovars was plies the weapons Turkey uses to repress Kur­ obvious. Yet at least until NATO intervened, dish separatists and apparently helped Ankara the fighting in Kosovo barely rose to the sta­ capture rebel head Abdullah Ocalan. There is tus ofatrocity in today's world. It certainly did much to criticize about Ocalan's Kurdistan not constitute genocide, a term now tossed Workers' Party, ofcourse, but one could make around with wild abandon. At least three similar judgments regarding the KLA. Hypo­ times as many people died in January alone in critical is perhaps the most charitable charac­ Sierra Leone as in Kosovo last year. Nearly as terization of the administration's policy. many people died in one three-day battle Although Washington need not act every­ between Tamil guerrillas and the Sri Lankan where if it desires to implement a policy of government last fall as in Kosovo in all of humanitarianintervention, surely some objec­ 1998. By any normal standard, events in tive standards are necessary. The administra­ Kosovo are less important than those in many tion has articulated none. In practice, Wash­ other nations around the world, where tens of ington seems prepared to use military force thousands, hundreds of thousands, and even under three conditions: millions have died. In 1991 the West encouraged the breakup • those being killed are white Europeans; of Yugoslavia. Then the United States and • the perceived aggressor is not a U. S. ally; Europeans decided that Serbs were not enti­ and tled likewise to secede from Croatia and • there is saturation media coverage of the Bosnia, the latter of which burgeoned into a conflict. particularly bloody conflict. NATO eventually lent its air force to Muslims in Bosnia and This makes a mockery ofthe humanitarian helped impose the bizarre Dayton accord, pretensions advanced by Western leaders. Nor under which three antagonistic groups are is there anything compassionate about send­ supposed to live together in an artificial state ing others off to fight. It's one thing to ask ruled by international bureaucrats. The same young men (and now young women) to risk hypocrisy is being played out in Kosovo­ their lives for their own political community. Washington unreservedly supports Britain, It is quite different for armchair warriors to Spain, and Turkey, for instance, in combating treat them like gambit pawns to be sacrificed violent separatists, has placed no pressure on in some international chess game. Macedonia to offer autonomy to its ethnic The administration's faux humanitarianism Albanians, and ignored massive ethnic creates severe practical problems as well. In cleansing of Serbs by Croats in 1995. particular, it encourages intensification of Indeed, contrast U. S. policy toward local conflict. Guerrillas like the KLA often Turkey. Slobodan Milosevic is a demagogic undertake strikes in order to spark retaliatory thug. But the behavior of his government atrocities that might bring outside interven­ toward Albanians looks a lot like that of tion. Kosovar leaders long sought to influence Turkey, a NATO member and U.S. ally par­ media coverage. One activist admitted to me ticipating in the assault on Yugoslavia, last summer that the prospect ofNATO inter­ toward the Kurds. An oppressed people, the vention "depends on how we look on CNN." Kurds are seeking the right of self-determi­ Washington needs to return to the foreign nation. In response, Ankara destroys Kurdish policy of a republic, not an empire. It should villages and ruthlessly restricts civil liberties be a shining city on a hill, an example to oth­ and political freedoms of Kurdish sympa- ers, not the dictatress to the world. D VVAR IN THE BALKANS

Isolationism by Frank Chodorov

solationism has been turned (by our politi­ the name of their congressman or take the I cians, our bureaucracy and its henchmen, slightest interest in how he votes on given the professorial idealists) into a bad word. issues? And yet, isolationism is inherent in the It has become standard procedure for soci­ human makeup. It is in the nature of the 010gists and politicians to take opinion polls human being to be interested first in himself, and to deduce behavior patterns from such and second in his neighbors. His primary con­ data. Yet, it is a fact that the subject matters of cern is with his bread-and-butter problems, to these polls do not touch on matters in which begin with, and then in the other things that the questionees are vitally interested, but are living implies: his health, his pleasures, the topics in which the pollsters have a concern. education of his children, wiping out the Putting aside the possibility ofso framing the mortgage on the old homestead, and getting questions as to elicit replies the pollsters along with his neighbors. If he has the time want, the fact is that the pride ofthe question­ and inclination for it, he takes a hand in local ees can well influence their answers. Thus, a charities and local politics. If something hap­ housewife who has been asked for her opinion pens in his state capital that arouses his ire or on South African apartheid, for instance, will his imagination, he may talk to his neighbors feel flattered that she has been singled out for about the necessity of reform; that is, if the the honor and will feel impelled to give some reform happens to engage his interests. Taxa­ answer, usually a predigested opinion taken tion always interests him. But events and from a newspaper editorial; she will not say movements that occur far away from his honestly that she knows nothing about immediate circumstances or that affect him apartheid and cares less. On the other hand, if only tangentially (like inflation or debates in she were asked about the baking of an apple the U.N.) either pass him by completely or, if pie, she would come up with an intelligent he reads about them in the newspapers, con­ answer; but the sociologists are not interested cern him only academically. A Minnesotan in knowing how to bake an apple pie. may take notice ofa headline event in Florida, The scientist immersed in the laboratory as a conversation piece, but he is vitally inter­ will weigh carefully any question put to him ested in what has happened in his community: regarding the subject matter of his science a fire, a divorce case, or the new road that and will probably not come up with a yes-or­ will pass through. How many people know no answer; but he is positive that the nation ought to recognize the Chinese communist Frank Chodorov (1887-1966) was editor ofThe Free­ man in 1954 and 1955. This is excerpted from his regime, because he heard another scientist say autobiography Out of Step (Devin-Adair, 1962). so. The baseball fan who knows the batting Reprinted with permission. average of every member of his team, on the 23 24 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY • WAR IN THE BALKANS • JULY 1999 ~ >'( )I( ~ >'( )I()( )< )( other hand, will denounce the recognition of lecturers who came here to decry our lack of the regime because he has heard that the manners. We certainly enjoyed the bananas "Reds" are no good. The student whose and coffee imported from Latin American grades are just about passing will speak out countries, and, while we might deplore their boldly on the U.N., reflecting the opinion of habit of setting up dictatorships, we felt no his professor on that organization. Everybody obligation to inject ourselves into their politi­ has opinions on international subjects, cal affairs; that was their business, not ours. because the newspapers have opinions on This was the general attitude ofthe Ameri­ them, and the readers like to be "in the swim." can people before the experiment in interven­ That is to say, interventionism is a fad stimu­ tionism known as World War I. Before that lated by the public press, and like a fad, had event, Woodrow Wilson had taken leave ofhis no real substance behind it. If a poll were to senses in backing one revolutionary leader be taken on the subject of our going to war, against another in Mexico, and had even sent the probability is that very few would vote for the marines to support his choice; his excuse the proposition; yet, war is the ultimate of for opposing Huerta was that that leader had interventionism, and the opposition to it is not been "democratically" elected, overlook­ proof enough that we are isolationist in our ing the fact that 80 percent of the Mexicans sympathies. A poll on the subject ofisolation­ were simply incapable ofmaking a choice, or ism-something like "Do you believe we of caring about it.. From that interventionary ought to keep out of. the politics of other exploit we garnered a mistrust of American nations and ought to let them work out their intentions vis-a-vis Mexico which haunts us problems without our interference?"-might to this day. But, Wilson's urgency to introduce bring out some interesting conclusions; but "democracy" in Mexico was purely a person­ the politicians and the energumens of inter­ al idiosyncrasy, shared by his political ventionism would prefer not to conduct such entourage but not by the American people. We a poll. Our "foreign-aid" program has never cared little about which brigand, Huerta or been subjected to a plebiscite. Carranza, got to the top, and were stirred up only by the fact that a number of American boys were killed in Wilson's invasion. A Natural Attitude When World War II got going in Europe and Isolationism is not a political policy, it is a it became evident that Roosevelt was intent on natural attitude ofa people. It is adjustment to getting us into it, a group ofAmericans orga­ the prevailing culture within a country, and a nized the America First Committee for the feeling ofsecurity within that adjustment. The purpose of arousing the native spirit of isola­ traditions, the political and social institutions, tionism to the point of frustrating his intent. and the moral values that obtain seem good, They were for keeping the nation neutral. For the people do not wish them to be disturbed by various reasons (particularly Pearl Harbor) peoples with other backgrounds and, what is their plan failed, eventhough at the beginning more, they do not feel any call to impose their they gained the adherence ofmanyAmericans. own customs and values on strangers. This One flaw in their program was a tendency does not mean that they will not voluntarily toward protectionism; the anti-involvement borrow from other cultures or that they will became identified with "Buy American" slo­ surround themselves with parochial walls. gans and with high tariffs; that is, with eco­ Long before interventionism became a fixed nomic, rather than political, isolationism. Eco­ policy of the government, American students nomic isolationism-tariffs, quotas, embar­ went to Europe to complete their education goes, and general governmental interference and immigrants introduced their exotic foods with international trade-is an irritant that can to the American table. But these were volun­ well lead to war, or political interventionism. tary adoptions, even as we welcomed German To build a trade wall around a country is to and Italian operas and applauded the British invite reprisals, which in tum make for misun- ISOLATIONISM 25 1'<: '* derstanding and mistrust. Besides, free trade establishment and an adequate bureaucracy, carries with it an appreciation of the cultures his sights are lifted beyond the borders. To be ofthe trading countries, and a feeling ofgood­ sure, his interest is.always the enlightenment will among the peoples engaged. Free trade is or the betterment ofthe people over whom he natural, protectionism is political. seeks to extend his dominion or influence, The America First Committee's opposition never to exploit them. Thus, Alexander the to our entry into the war was based on politi­ Great offered the benefits ofHellenic civiliza­ cal and economic considerations. It is a well­ tion to the people ofAsia, the Roman legions known fact that during a war the state carried Pax Romana at the tip oftheir spears, acquires powers which it does not relinquish and Napoleon imposed French "liberte, fra­ when hostilities are over. When the enemy is ternite, egalite" on the peoples of Europe, at the city gates, or the illusion that he is com­ whether they wanted it or not. Hitler tried to ing can be put into people's minds, the ten­ extend the influence ofAryanism and the late dency is to tum over to the captain all the British Empire was built on the premise that a powers he deems necessary to keep the enemy taste of English civilization would do the away. Liberty is downgraded in favor of pro­ natives good. tection. But, when the enemy is driven away, "Foreign policy" is the euphemism which the state finds reason enough to hold onto its covers up this inclination toward intervention­ acquired powers. Thus, conscription, which ism. About the only foreign· policy consistent Roosevelt reintroduced at the beginning ofthe with the natural isolationism of a people war, has become the permanent policy of the would be one designed to prevent interference government, and militarism, which is the ofa foreign power in the internal affairs ofthe opposite of freedom, has been incorporated country; that is, protection from invasion. But into our mores. Whether or not this eventual­ that is too limited in scope to satisfy the crav­ ity was in Roosevelt's mind is not germane; it ings ofthe government ofa powerful country. is inherent in the character ofthe state. Taxes Theodore Roosevelt's foreign policy was imposed ostensibly "for the duration" have avowedly designed to spread among other become permanent, the bureaucracy built up peoples the benefits of American civiliza­ during the war has not been dismantled, and tion-even at the end ofa Big Stick. Without interventions in the economy necessary for an income tax, he could do very little beyond the prosecution ofwar are now held to be;nec­ the display ofnaval might to execute this pur­ essary for the welfare ofthe people.... ' pose, and the job was undertaken by Woodrow Wilson. It is interesting to note that Fatal Conceit Wilson was by persuasion an antimilitarist and an isolationist; yet the exigencies ofoffice As isolationism is a natural attitude of the induced him to lead the country into war and people, so interventionism is a conceit ofthe into the missionary purpose of spreading political leader. There does not seem to be American democracy far and wide. He failed, area enough in the world to satiate his desire partly because the peoples of the world were to exercise his power or, at least, his influence. not willing to adopt the American tradition Just as the mayor of a town hopes to become and partly because he could not break down governor ofhis state, a congressman, or even American resistance to interventionism. It president, so does the president or the king of remained for Franklin D. Roosevelt, aided and a country deem it his duty to look beyond the abetted by the Great Depression and a great immediate job ofrunning his country. Neces­ war, to do that. And now that a monstrous sity limits the interventionary inclination of bureaucracy with a vested interest in inter­ the head ofa small country, unless, indeed, he ventionism is in control of our "foreign poli­ finds a neighboring small country incapable cy," the nation is committed to a program of ofresisting his advances. But, given a nation interference in the affairs of every country in opulent enough to maintain a sizable military the world. D WAR IN THE BALKANS

How War Amplified Federal Power in the Twentieth Century by Robert Higgs

fter surveying the Western world in the a handful of unlucky firms, it was for most Apast six centuries, Bruce Porter conclud­ citizens remote and unimportant. ed: "a government at war is a juggernaut of With U.S. entry into the Great War, the fed­ centralization determined to crush any inter­ eral government expanded enormously in size, nal opposition that impedes the mobilization scope, and power. It virtually nationalized the ofmilitarily vital resources. This centralizing ocean shipping industry. It did nationalize the tendency ofwar has made the rise ofthe state railroad, telephone, domestic telegraph, and throughout much of history a disaster for international telegraphic cable industries. It human liberty and rights."l As a cause ofthe became deeply engaged in manipulating development ofbig government in the United labor-management relations, securities sales, States, however, war seldom receives its due. agricultural production and marketing, the dis­ tribution of coal and oil, international com­ World War I merce, and markets for raw materials and manufactured products. Its Liberty Bond Despite expansion during Woodrow Wil­ drives dominated the financial capital markets. son's first term as president, the federal gov­ It turned the newly created Federal Reserve ernment on the eve ofWorld War I remained System into a powerful engine of monetary small. In 1914, federal spending totaled less inflation to help satisfy the government's vora­ than 2 percent of GN~ The top rate of the cious appetite for money and credit. In view of recently enacted federal individual-income the more than 5,000 mobilization agencies of tax was 7 percent, on income over $500,000, various sorts-boards, committees, corpora­ and 99 percent of the population owed no tions, administrations--eontemporaries who income tax. The 402,000 federal civilian described the 1918 government as "war social­ employees, most ofwhom worked for the Post ism" were well justified.2 Office, constituted about 1 percent of the During the war the government built up the labor force. The armed forces comprised armed forces to a strength offour million offi­ fewer than 166,000 men on active duty. cers and men, drawn from a prewar labor force Although the federal government meddled in of 40 million persons. Of those added to the a few areas ofeconomic life, prescribing rail­ armed forces after the U.S. declaration ofwar, road rates and bringing antitrust suits against more than 2.8 million, or 72 percent, were drafted.3 Men alone, however, did not make an Robert Higgs is editor ofThe Independent Review army. They required barracks and training and author ofCrisis and Leviathan (1987). facilities, transportation, food, clothing, and 26 27 ~ health care. They had to be equipped with arrests of suspected draft evaders, and other modern arms and great stocks ofammunition. outrages too numerous to catalog here. In As the mobilization began, the requisite California the police arrested Upton Sinclair resources remained in the possession of pri­ for reading the Bill of Rights at a rally. In vate citizens. Although manpower could be New Jersey the police arrested Roger Bald­ obtained by conscription, public .opinion win for publicly reading the Constitution.4 would not tolerate the outright confiscation of The government also employed a massive all the property required to turn the men into propaganda machine to whip up what can a well-equipped fighting force. Still, ordinary only be described as public hysteria. The market mechanisms threatened to operate too result was countless incidents ofintimidation, slowly and at too great an expense to facilitate physical abuse, and even lynching ofpersons the government's plans. The Wilson adminis­ suspected ofdisloyalty or insufficient enthusi­ tration therefore resorted to the vast array of asm for the war. People of German ancestry interventions mentioned earlier. All may be suffered disproportionately. 5 seen as devices to hasten the delivery of the When the war ended, the government aban­ requisite resources and to diminish the fiscal doned most, but not all, ofits wartime control burden of equipping the huge conscript army measures. The draft itself ended when the for effective service in France. armistice took effect on November 11, 1918. Notwithstanding those contrivances to keep By the end of 1920 the bulk ofthe economic the Treasury's expenses down, taxes still had regulatory apparatus had been scrapped, to be increased enormously-federal rev­ including the Food Administration, the Fuel enues rose by nearly 400 percent between fis­ Administration, the Railroad Administration, cal 191 7 and fiscal 1919-and even greater the War Industries Board, and the War Labor amounts had to be borrowed. The national Board. Some emergency powers migrated debt swelled from $1.2 billion in 1916 to into regular government departments such as $25.5 billion in 1919. State, Labor, and Treasury and continued in To ensure that the conscription-based force. The Espionage Act and the Trading mobilization could proceed without obstruc­ with the Enemy Act remained on the statute tion, critics had to be silenced. The Espionage books. Congressional enactments in 1920 Act of June 15, 1917, penalized those con­ preserved much of the federal government's victed of willfully obstructing the enlistment wartime involvement in the railroad and services by fines up to $10,000 and imprison­ ocean shipping industries. The War Finance ment as long as 20 years. An amendment, the Corporation shifted missions, subsidizing Sedition Act ofMay 16, 1918, went much fur­ exporters and farmers until the mid-1920s. ther, imposing the same severe criminal Wartime prohibition ofalcoholic beverages, a penalties on all forms of expression in any purported conservation measure, transmogri­ way critical ofthe government, its symbols, or fied into the ill-fated Eighteenth Amendment. its mobilization of resources for the war. Most important, the dominant contempo­ Those suppressions of free speech, subse­ rary interpretation of the war mobilization, quently upheld by the Supreme Court, estab­ including the belief that federal economic lished dangerous precedents that derogated controls had been instrumental in achieving from the rights previously enjoyed by citizens the victory, persisted, especially among the under the First Amendment. elites who had played leading roles in the The government further subverted the Bill wartime economic management. It was hard­ of Rights by censoring all printed materials, ly surprising that 15 years later, in the depths peremptorily deporting hundreds of aliens of the Great Depression, the federal govern­ without due process of law, and conduct­ ment employed the wartime measures as ing-and encouraging state and local gov­ models for dealing with what Franklin D. ernments and vigilante groups to conduct­ Roosevelt called "a crisis in our national life warrantless searches and seizures, blanket comparable to war."6 28 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY • WAR IN THE BALKANS • JULY 1999 ~ )M( )( ~ )M( .)( /)( )( ~ World War II and 1945, most war expenses still had to be financed by borrowing. The publicly held When World War II began in Europe in national debt rose by $200 billion, or more 1939, the size and scope of the federal gov­ than fivefold. The Federal Reserve System ernment were much greater than they had itself bought some $20 billion of government been 25 years earlier, owing mainly to World debt, thereby serving as a de facto printing War I and its peacetime progeny, the New press for the Treasury. Between 1940 and Deal. Federal spending now equaled 10 per­ 1948 the money stock (M1) increased by cent of GN~ Of a labor force of 56 million, 183 percent, and the dollar lost nearly half its the federal government employed about 1.3 purchasing power. million persons (2.2 percent) in regular civil­ The authorities resorted to a vast system of ian and military jobs and another 3.3 million controls and market interventions to get (5.9 percent) in emergency work-relief pro­ resources without having to bid them away grams. The national debt held outside the gov­ from competing buyers in free markets. By ernment had grown to nearly $40 billion. fixing prices, directly allocating physical and Most important, the scope of federal regula­ human resources, establishing official priori­ tion had increased immensely to embrace ties, prohibitions, and set-asides, then agricultural production and marketing, labor­ rationing the civilian consumer goods in short management relations, wages, hours, and supply, the war planners steered raw materi­ working conditions, securities markets and als, intermediate goods, and finished products investment institutions, petroleum and coal into the uses they valued most. Markets no marketing, trucking, radio broadcasting, air­ longer functioned freely; in many areas they line operation, provision for income during did not function at all. 1O retirement and unemployment, and many World War II witnessed massive violations other objects'? Notwithstanding those prodi­ of human rights in the United States, apart gious developments, during the next six years from the involuntary servitude ofthe military the federal government would assume vastly conscripts. Most egregiously, about 112,000 greater dimensions-in some respects its blameless persons of Japanese ancestry, most greatest size, scope, and power ever. 8 of them U.S. citizens, were uprooted from During the war the conscript-based armed their homes and confined in concentration force, which ultimately comprised more than camps without due process oflaw. Those sub­ 12 million men and women, required enor­ sequently released as civilians during the war mous amounts of complementary resources remained under parole-like surveillance. The for its housing, subsistence, clothing, medical government also imprisoned nearly 6,000 care, training, and transportation, not to men­ conscientious objectors-three-fourths of tion the special equipment, arms, ammuni­ them Jehovah's Witnesses-who would not tion, and expensive weapons platforms that comply with the service requirements of the now included tanks, fighter and bomber air­ draft laws. 11 Signaling the enlarged federal craft, and naval aircraft carriers. capacity for repression, the number of FBI For the Treasury, World War II was ten special agents increased from 785 in 1939 to times more expensive than World War I. 4,370 in 1945.1 2 Many new taxes were levied. Income taxes Scores ofnewspapers were denied the priv­ were raised repeatedly, until the personal ilege of the mails under the authority of the income-tax rates extended from a low of 23 191 7 Espionage Act, which remained in percent to a high of 94 percent. The income effect. Some newspapers were banned alto­ tax, previously a "class tax," became a gether. 13 The Office of Censorship restricted "mass tax," as the number of returns grew the content of press reports and radio broad­ from 15 million in 1940 to 50 million in casts and censored personal mail entering or 1945.9 Even though federal revenues soared leaving the country. The Office ofWar Infor­ from $7 billion to $50 billion between 1940 mation put the government's spin on what- How WAR AMPLIFIED FEDERAL POWER IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 29 )I()< J< ;.<)«, J< ;.< ever it deigned to tell the public, and the many, it seemed that a federal government military authorities censored news from the capable of leading the nation to victory in a battlefields, sometimes for merely political global war had a similar capacity to remedy reasons. peacetime economic and social ills. Accord­ The government seized more than 60 ingly, in 1946 Congress passed the Employ­ industrial facilities-sometimes entire indus­ ment Act, pledging the federal government to tries (for example, railroads, bituminous coal act as America's permanent macroeconomic mines, meatpacking firms)-most of them in warden. order to impose employment conditions favorable to labor unions engaged in disputes The Cold War with the management. 14 At the end ofthe war most ofthe econom­ The end of World War II blended into the ic control agencies shut down. But some pow­ beginning of the Cold War. In 1948 the gov­ ers persisted, either lodged at the local level, ernment reimposed the military draft, and like New York City's rent controls, or shifted over the next 25 years conscription was from emergency agencies to regular depart­ extended time and again. After 1950 the ments, like the international trade controls military-industrial-congressional complex moved from the Foreign Economic Adminis­ achieved renewed vigor, sapping 7.7 percent tration to the State Department. of GNP on average during the next four Federal tax revenues remained high by decades-cumulatively some $11 trillion dol­ prewar standards. In the late 1940s the lars of 1999 purchasing power. 15 IRS's annual take averaged four times During the Cold War the government's greater in constant dollars than in the late operatives committed crimes against the 1930s. In 1949, federal outlays amounted American people too numerous to catalog to 15 percent of GN:g up from 10 percent here, ranging from surveillance ofmillions of in 1939. The national debt stood at what would innocuous citizens and mass arrests of politi­ have been an unthinkable figure before the cal protesters to harassment and even murder war, $214 billion-in constant dollars, rough­ of persons considered especially threaten­ ly a hundred times the national debt in 1916. ing. 16 C'est la guerre. The government's rep­ The prevailing interpretation of the rehensible actions, which many citizens wartime experience gave unprecedented ideo­ viewed only as abuses, we can apprehend logical support to those who desired a big fed­ more plausibly as intrinsic to its constant eral government actively engaged in a wide preparation for and episodic engagement in range of domestic and international tasks. To warfare. D

1. Bruce D. Porter, War and the Rise ofthe State: The Military 6. Quoted by Porter, War and the Rise ofthe State, p. 277. Foundations of Modern Politics (New York: Free Press, 1994), 7. Higgs, Crisis and Leviathan, pp. 159-95. p. xv. 8. Abrahamson, American Home Front, pp. 131, 142. 2. Robert Higgs, Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the 9. Carolyn C. Jones, "Class Tax to Mass Tax: The Role of Pro­ Growth ofAmerican Government (New York: Oxford University paganda in the Expansion ofthe Income Tax during World War II," Press, 1987), pp. 123-58; James L. Abrahamson, The American Buffalo Law Review, Fa111988/89, pp. 685-737. Home Front (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 10. Higgs, Crisis and Leviathan, pp. 196-236. 1983), pp. 101-12. 11. Abrahamson, American Home Front, p. 159. 3. John Whiteclay Chambers, III, To Raise An Army: The Draft 12. Porter, War and the Rise ofthe State, p. 284. Comes to Modern America (New York: Free Press, 1987), p. 338, n. 68. 13. Linfield, Freedom Under Fire, p. 73. 4. Michael Linfield, Freedom Under Fire: U.S. Civil Liberties in 14. Ibid., pp. 102-103. Times ofWar (Boston: South End Press, 1990), p. 65. 15. Robert Higgs, "The Cold War Economy: Opportunity Costs, 5. Ronald Schaffer, America in the Great War: The Rise ofthe Ideology, and the Politics ofCrisis," Explorations in Economic His­ War Welfare State (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), tory, July 1994, pp. 9-10. pp.3-30. 16. Linfield, Freedom Under Fire, pp. 113-67. WAR IN THE BALKANS Another Place, Another War

by Michael Palmer

ebruary 2, 1969: I step off the back of a CH-34, a helicopter that looks like a Fflying apartment building complete with side-mounted machine guns. It is so muggy you can't catch your breath. I'm at Camp Eagle, just north of Hue, South Vietnam. It's the year after the Tet offensive of 1968. Eagle had been a holding of the 1st Cav. until the Vietcong and North Vietnamese regular army overran it. Over 3,800 Americans were killed during the 12-week offensive. Camp Eagle looks as though it's been through a war. Nothing of value is left. The ground is strewn with trash; barbed wire is everywhere littered with blown paper, rags, and plastic sheeting. The place smells dirty, dusty, and rotten. Half­ crouching, not knowing what to expect but knowing this is a place where no one likes you and everyone wants to hurt you, you make for some kind of cover. The remains of a set of hooches (wooden, screen-sided, tin-roofed sheds) will suffice. Little do we know they will be our home for the next year. Once we get inside, the choppers take off, leaving us in a frightening silence. This is a real "what have I gotten myself into?" predicament. The realization is that whatever happens from here on out, all you will have you have now. As we pull together to organize a cleanup and planning session, the bleakness of the situation hits. This is really it. We have nothing: no toilet paper, no pop, no sheets, no light, no power. What we do have is mud, wet, mildew, nightly sapper raids (Vietcong running through our hooches throwing bags of explo­ sives). We eventually have" 122 mm" rocket attacks, where the 'Cong makes a bamboo fork large enough to hold a six-foot-Iong bottle rocket and tries to hit you with it. From a couple of miles away they are surprisingly accurate-though accuracy doesn't matter. The fear they generate is the real intent. Being in an assault helicopter unit with the 101 st Airborne has its rewards. There is a certain military prestige to such an assignment. Reality is less glam­ orous. Our assignment is the Ashau Valley. We are to support the various fire­ bases and LZs (landing zones) strung out up and down the valley. The Vietcong uses the valley as a highway to supply the south from the north and China. The firebases are small artillery outposts positioned with fire zones to control any traffic. The living conditions at these firebases are the most primitive any of us have ever seen. Imagine a mountaintop blasted bare of any vegetation, a rough circle of mud ringed with concertina wire and sandbagged bunkers. In the center of this circle is a large sandbagged depression. Artillery of any variety will be found there: eight-inch track-mounted guns, old twin-barreled anti-aircraft guns. What­ ever. Everything that goes on here is to protect those guns. 30 You live in a hole in the ground-mud walls, insects, snakes, and rats. When it is wet it is mud, when dry, red dust. You seldom get to eat hot food, and never get to take a shower. You sleep in a wet sleeping bag night after night, week after week. Everything you own is wet, muddy, and moldy: clothes, food, and equipment. When you can, you toast your bread. That way you don't notice the weevils. You try to think of it as whole wheat. Your water is always Kool-Aid so you don't see how brown it is. If something doesn't come out of a sealed can you don't trust it. And you live like this until somebody decides you need to move. Doesn't mat­ ter-the terrain will be different but the situation the same.

hirty years later, are we doing this again? For what? We lost 58,000 of my Tgeneration. For what? I lost friends; you lost sons, brothers, husbands. We went where our government sent us. And we learned; learned not to trust, learned that politicians, out of ignorance and vainglory, can get us into situations they will not allow us to leave for fear of losing face. Who has to clean it up? Our kids, our military, who cannot question their orders. I have three sons. The oldest is 26 and in the army. The next is 20, and the youngest is 16. My grandfather was in WWI, my dad in WWII; I was in Vietnam. Will my sons end up in the Balkans-even if "only" in a peacekeeping force? Americans will undoubtedly be in Kosovo for a long time. The politicians wax eloquent about the humanitarian war against Serbia. Where's the humanitarianism in sending Americans to the backwater of Europe while taking sides in a bloody conflict over land? Have they nothing better to do with their lives than become fodder for a president's legacy or an obsolete alliance's credibility? George Washington, in his Farewell Address in 1796, said that"Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none or a very remote relation." He wondered: "Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?" As a father, as a citizen, I ask, why indeed? 0

Michael Palmer lives in Colorado. WAR IN THE BALKANS

War's Other Casualty by Wendy McElroy

"war is the health of the State." function, such as postal workers .. and grade­ Those famous words are contained in school teachers, have no sense of sanctity Randolph Bourne's essay "The State," written about them. They are what Bourne describes in response to America's participation in as "common and unsanctified men." Even World War I, but left unfinished because of those elected to political office do not gener­ his death from influenza in 1918. ally inspire admiration, but are usually "indis­ In the introduction to War and the Intellec­ tinguishable from the mass." This egalitarian tuals: Collected Essays 1915-1919-an attitude is part of the American republican anthology of Bourne's writings-editor Carl heritage. Thus in times ofpeace, "the sense of Resek explains the phrase: "In its proper the State almost fades out of the conscious­ place it meant that mindless power thrived on ness of men." People may rise to honor the war because war corrupted a nation's moral flag at ball games but they have few practical fabric and especially corrupted its intellectu­ reasons to contemplate the State. als." Those seven words contain a complexity The American State is more of a concept of meaning that is often overlooked by those than a physical reality. It is the political struc­ who use them. To grasp this complexity, it is ture established by the American Revolution, necessary to explore the theoretical context the Constitution, and the Bill ofRights. Gov­ within which Bourne, a left-wing writer with ernments come and go, but the State remains individualist sensibilities, wrote. essentially the same. It is the State, not Gov­ Bourne argued that in times of peace, the ernment, that inspires emotions such as awe majority of people do not give much thought or patriotism within its citizenry because the to the State, but deal instead with the Govern­ State is considered to be sanctified by history ment, which may be viewed as the practical and by the popular will. It is to the concept of day-to-day "offices and functions" of a State. the American State-not to any particular He defined "Government" as "a framework of Government, Republican or Democratic­ the administration of laws, and the carrying that people pledge allegiance with hands out of the public force. Government is the placed over their hearts. idea ofthe State put into practical operation in Another key to understanding America is the hands of definite, concrete, fallible men." the concept of "Society," which Bourne The people whose jobs make Government referred to as "nation" or "country." Society is the collection ofnonpolitical factors that con­ stitute life in America, including: characteris­ Wendy McElroy is the author of The Reasonable Woman: A Guide to Intellectual Survival tic attitudes, common lore and literature, a (Prometheus Books, 1998) and a contributing editor shared history, a unique ethnic mix, the pre­ ofThe Freeman. vailing cultural norms. These nonpolitical 32 factors are what make the American society disloyalty to the State. For example, different from Chinese or French society. although criticizing the president is a right They constitute "the American way." In times regularly exercised by almost every Ameri­ of peace, most people identify more with can, such criticism becomes an act oftreason Society than they do with Government. For when the president has just declared war. example, most define themselves more in Bourne explained that "objections to the relation to a community, religion, or ethnic war, luke-warm opinions concerning the heritage than in relation to a political party. necessity or the beauty of conscription, are For Bourne, Society, unlike Government, is made subject to ferocious penalties, far not an expression of the State, nor can it exceeding in severity those affixed to actual peacefully co-exist with the State because pragmatic crimes." the two concepts are antagonistic. Bourne The impact ofwar on Society is even more observed that "Country [society] is a concept dramatic. Bourne wrote that "in general, the of peace, tolerance, of living and letting live. nation in war-time attains a uniformity of But State is essentially a concept ofpower, of feeling, a hierarchy of values culminating at competition; it signifies a group in its aggres­ the undisputed apex ofthe State ideal, which sive aspects. And we have the misfortune of could not possibly be produced through any being born not only into a country but into a other agency than war." Instead of its peace­ State, and as we grow up we learn to mingle time principle-live and let live-Society the two feelings into a hopeless confusion." adopts the State's principle of a group acting "in its aggressive aspects." This is the theoretical meaning of "war is The Impact ofWar the health of the State." In peace, people are Bourne defined war as the ultimate act of largely defined by their Society and they statehood. "Waris a function ... ofStates," he interact with Government, giving little wrote, "and could not occur except in such a thought to the State. In times ofwar, the hier­ system." archy and the power of these concepts are He argued that war so blurs the lines sepa­ inverted. The Government virtually becomes rating the State from Government and from the State, and Society is subordinated to both. Society that the lines virtually disappear in the minds of most people. Filled with emo­ The Individual in Wartime tion, the patriot loses "all sense ofthe distinc­ tion between State, nation and government." What happens to the individual when Soci­ As Bourne described the process, "Patriotism ety and Government are dominated by the becomes the dominant feeling, and produces State? In times of peace an individual acts immediately that intense and hopeless confu­ according to his own conscience to secure sion between the relations which the individ­ what he believes to be in his self-interest, ual bears and should bear towards the society which usually includes pursuing prosperity of which he is a part." Thus, "Every individ­ and security for the family, engaging in ual citizen who in peacetimes had no function leisure, and the like. Individuals interact to perform by which he could imagine him­ peacefully in Society without any imposed self an expression or living fragment of the coordination because the interactions are State becomes an active amateur agent ofthe sparked by a common desire (such as attend­ Government in reporting spies and disloyal­ ing a football game or exchanging goods for ists, in raising Government funds, or in prop­ money) without any loss ofindividual choice. agating such measures as are considered nec­ In times of war, individuals become what essary by officialdom." Bourne refers to as "the herd." "The State is In times ofwar, the State and Government the organization ofthe herd to act offensively become virtually identical so that to oppose or defensively against another herd similarly the Government is considered to be an act of organized." Members of the herd may have a 34 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY • WAR IN THE BALKANS • JULY 1999 ~ ;w( )I()( ;w( )I( i)( )I( ~ wide range ofemotional and intellectual reac­ Thus, a "people at war become in the most tions to wartime events and to the war itself. literal sense obedient, respectful, trustful chil­ Nevertheless, "by an ingenious mixture of dren again, full of that naive faith in the all­ cajolery, agitation, intimidation, the herd is wisdom and all-power ofthe adult who takes licked into shape, into an effective mechanical care of them." "[T]his great herd-machine" unity, ifnot into a spiritual whole." functions under "a most indescribable confu­ Just as the line between the State and Soci­ sion of democratic pride and personal fear" ety blurs, so, too, does the line between the that makes the individuals "submit to the State and the individual. The State attempts to destruction of their livelihood if not their draw upon the powerful force of individual lives, in a way that would formerly have choice by appealing to the patriotism ofpeo­ seemed to them so obnoxious as to be incred­ ple and asking them to make the "choice" to ible." The individual became a "child on the enlist and otherwise support the war effort. back ofa mad elephant" that he could neither Usually, the individual obliges because in "a control nor abandon, but was compelled to nation at war, every citizen identifies himself ride until the elephant decided to halt. with the whole, and feels immensely strength­ This, too, is the meaning of "war is the ened in that identification." But ifthe individ­ health of the State": war is the death of indi­ ual makes the wrong choice-the choice to vidualism. not volunteer, to not cooperate with wartime Bourne's. essays, written while he was on measures-the State reveals that choice was the editorial staffofthe New Republic, are not never the real issue. "Men are told simultane­ typical ofantiwar literature. He did not dwell ously that they will enter the military estab­ on the "butcher's bill" of dead soldiers and lishment oftheir own volition, as their splen­ civilians. He did not rail against the profits did sacrifice for their country's welfare, and reaped by the military-industrial complex, that if they do not enter they will be hunted which was collectively called "the munitions down and punished with the most horrid makers" in his day. The thrust of Bourne's penalties...." essays is how war leads to the moral collapse Usually, the individual does not rebel of society by kicking out the props ofpeace­ against war's massive violation of rights ful interaction. because he feels what Bourne called "a large In essence, Bourne addressed the moral element of pure filial mysticism" toward the consequences ofwar on a postwar society that State, especially the wartime State. Bourne had abandoned individualism in favor of"the likened this mysticism to the response often herd-machinery." He eloquently argued that offered to religion. "As the Church is the postwar America would be morally, intellec­ medium for the spiritual salvation ofmen, so tually, and psychologically impoverished. By the State is thought of as the medium for his this observation, Bourne did not mean that political salvation." The same feeling ofpatri­ peacetime America would struggle under the otism that brings tears to the eyes of those increased bureaucracy that never seems to roll saluting the flag at ball games is magnified back to prewar levels. Many historians have by-some would say distorted and exploited made this point. Bourne addressed the less by-the wartime State to make individuals tangible, though arguably more significant, conform. Feeling strengthened by "identify­ costs of war. Post-1918 America, he predict­ ing with the whole," people cease to be indi­ ed, would be burdened by intellectuals who viduals and become, instead, citizens of the had "forgotten that the real enemy is War State. The man who dissents and remains an rather than imperial Germany." In converting individual feels "forlorn and helpless," while World War I into a holy war, the intellectual those who think and feel as the others in the and psychological groundwork was being laid herd have "the warm feeling ofobedience, the for future instances of what he termed "the soothing irresponsibility ofprotection." sport ofthe upper class"-global conflict. 0 Ideas and Consequences by Lawrence W. Reed

Clinton versus Cleveland and Coolidge on Taxes

n a post-State ofthe Union speech in Buf­ question back to the audience: "I want every I falo, New York, on January 20,1999, Pres­ parent here to look at the young people here ident William Jefferson Clinton was asked and ask yourself, 'Do you really want to run why Americans shouldn't get a tax cut since the risk ofsquandering this surplus?' " the federal budget is in surplus and the share Bill Clinton is not the only American pres­ of personal income· taken by the federal· gov­ ident who couldn't trust the people with their ernment is at a post-World War II high. Is this own money. Nor is Grover Cleveland the only what he said in response? president among the 41 we've had who want­ ed the people to keep more of what they When more ofthe people's sustenance is earned. Clinton's audacious remarks harshly exacted through the form of taxation than contrast with the perspective of another chief is necessary to meet the just obligations of executive more recent than Cleveland: Calvin government and the expense of its eco­ Coolidge. "Silent Cal" is one of my favorites nomical administration, such exaction and a man who would undoubtedly spurn becomes ruthless extortion and a violation Clinton as a mouthpiece for an arrogant, sta­ of the fundamental principles of a free tist elite. Let me use this opportunity to share government. with readers what America's 30th president thought about taxes and the people who No, unfortunately, Bill Clinton didn't say worked hard to pay them. that-but how refreshing it would have been "I want the people ofAmerica to be able to if he had! Another Democratic president of work less for the government and more for long ago, Grover Cleveland (who, ironically, themselves," declared Coolidge in his inau­ got his start in politics in Buffalo) said it in gural address on March 4, 1925. "I want them his second annual message to Congress in to have the rewards oftheir own industry. That December 1886. What Bill Clinton did say is the chiefmeaning offreedom. Until we can was this: re-establish a condition under which the earn­ "We could give it all back to you and hope ings of the people can be kept by the people, you spend it right." we are bound to suffer a very distinct curtail­ He went on to say he wanted to keep the ment of our liberty." surplus for such government programs as This flinty, frugal New Englander, who Social Security, and he concluded by tossing a grew up respecting the hard-earned property of others, believed that the strength of the American nation was not centered in Wash­ Lawrence Reed is president ofthe Mackinac Center for Public Policy (www.mackinac.org), afree market ington, D.C. Once, as governor ofMassachu­ research and educational organization in Midland, setts, he asserted, "In a free republic a great Michigan, and chairman ofFEE's Board ofTrustees. government is the product of a great people. 35 36 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY • JULY 1999

They will look to themselves rather than gov­ If we had a tax whereby on the first work­ ernment for success. The destiny, the great­ ing day the government took 5 percent of ness ofAmerica lies around the hearthstone. your wages, on the second day 10 percent, ... Look well to the hearthstone; therein all on the third day 20 percent, on the fourth hope for America lies." day 30 percent, on the fifth day 50 percent, Bill Clinton has raised taxes in many forms, and on the sixth day 60 percent, how many several times, and once called taxes "contri­ of you would continue to work on the last butions." As one wag put it, "Clinton never two days of the week? It is the same with saw a tax he didn't like-and hike." capital. Surplus income will go into tax­ Not Calvin Coolidge. As vice president, he exempt securities. It will refuse to take the strongly supported the steep reductions in risk incidental to embarking in business. income tax rates proposed by President War­ This will raise the rate which established ren Harding's treasury secretary, Andrew businesses will have to pay for new capital, Mellon. From the time he became president and result in a marked increase in the cost after Harding's untimely death in August ofliving. 1923 until he left office in March 1929, Coolidge kept Mellon on the job and Coolidge told a press conference on Octo­ strengthened his own reputation as a commit­ ber 11, 1927, that he and others "interested in ted tax cutter by urging Congress to enact tax reduction ought to be first of all bending further reductions. In the 1920s, the top their energies to see that no unwise expendi­ income-tax rate fell from 73 percent to 24 tures are authorized by the government, and percent. Americans with the lowest incomes that every possible effort is put forth to keep benefited even more when the rate at the our expenditures down, and payoff our debt, other end fell from 4 percent to one-half so that we can have tax reduction." There percent. was no Coolidge counterpart to Clinton's call Between 1921 and 1929, the economy for tens of billions of dollars of additional grew by nearly 60 percent, the national debt spending in his State ofthe Union speech last was reduced by a quarter, and the federal January. budget was consistently in the black. The According to Americans for Tax Reform depression that came later resulted not from (ATR), the average family today pays more in tax cuts, but from unwise monetary policies taxes than it spends on food, clothing, shelter, of the Federal Reserve and destructive inter­ and transportation combined. The Census ventions by Congress, particularly in the Bureau reports that the average household years 1930-33. pays $9,445 in federal income taxes alone­ Moreover, Coolidge understood that people twice what it paid just 14 years ago in 1985. respond positively to incentives, and negative­ The federal tax code is made up of four huge ly to disincentives. He knew that marginal volumes that are each thicker than the Bible, rates oftaxation made all the difference in the and the tax code is over seven million words world in terms of economic behavior. In that long. And ATR reports that if Congress were sense, he was an early supply-sider-with an to adopt the fiscal 2000 budget President important difference. While today's supply­ Clinton proposed in January, federal bureau­ siders support tax cuts as a means to increase crats will spend more in one second ($56,000) government revenue, Coolidge wanted to than the average taxpayer earns in a year leverage tax cuts into major spending reduc­ ($28,000). tions. Here's what he told an audience on Feb­ Where is Calvin Coolidge when we really ruary 12, 1924: need him?! D • Philosophy

Spontaneous Order by Nigel Ashford

"Many human institutions are the result ofhuman action, but not ofhuman design." -ADAM FERGUSON

rder has been a central preoccupation of that "private vices" such as individual self­ Opolitical thinkers and philosophers interest could lead to "public benefits" from throughout the ages. It is widely understood which the whole community benefited. He today as a state of harmony between people, observed that the sum of individuals acting or social peace. In the premodern era, howev­ from separate motives produced a commer­ er, the concept was understood as the mainte­ cial society that was no part of anyone per­ nance of a stable, hierarchical order that was son's intention. This idea that the evolution of pre-ordained by God or nature or both. Order human institutions allowed individuals to can also be seen as the existence ofregularity serve others, even though their motive might and predictability in human affairs, the be self-interest, was at the core ofthe Scottish absence of chaos. Although no longer associ­ Enlightenment that grew up around Adam ated with a rigid society ranked by privilege Smith, David Hume, and Adam Ferguson. and power, the idea oforder is still highly val­ They sought to apply this idea to a whole ued. This is because it allows people with dif­ range of human·institutions, including com­ ferent interests and values to live together in merce, law, language, human morality, and society without resorting to discord, conflict, even mores and customs. Far from a narrow or civil war. This is the modern idea of spon­ theory ofeconomics, Smith's Theory ofMoral taneous order. Sentiments (1759) argued that morals evolved The first thinker to articulate this modern slowly. The principles that enabled humanity concept ofspontaneous order was Bernard de to flourish and prosper were eventually Mandeville, in a book called The Fable ofthe accepted by the community. They stood the Bees (1714). This work discussed the paradox test oftime. Smith, Hume, and Ferguson were fascinat­ Nigel Ashford is senior lecturer in politics at the Uni­ ed at how these values and institutions grew versity ofStaffordshire in England and coauthor ofA up to greatly benefit mankind despite their Dictionary of Conservative and Libertarian Thought being the product of no single mind. Adam (Routledge, 1991). This article is adapted from his paper "Principles for a Free Society, " a primer for Ferguson's observation that human action former communist countries. Reprinted bypermission produced a form of social order superior to ofthe Jarl Hjalmarson Foundation ofStockholm. that conceived by human design was to echo 37 38 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY • JULY 1999 in the thoughts of an Austrian thinker, F. A. worked to get us to the stage society has Hayek, two centuries later. Hayek took on the reached, but innovation and trial and error are ancient idea that institutions were divided required ifwe are to continue to discover new, between those that are "natural" and those effective rules ofwhich we are currently igno­ that are "artificial." A third group existed, rant. Social institutions that keep society Hayek said, and these were social institutions. orderly-customs, traditions, and values-are As these are regular and orderly, people sup­ like tools. They contain the knowledge ofgen­ pose that they have been invented by humani­ erations before us about how to behave and ty and can therefore be altered or restructured will be modified by the rising generation and at will. Hayek pointed out that this notion was then passed on to the next. Groups that adopt mistaken because the human mind and soci­ these rules benefit from having done so, with­ ety had evolved together. Tearing down the out necessarily knowing why. The institutions institutions that kept society together and that transmit information about the rules are building anew, as socialists advocated, would the product of human action, but not neces­ destroy the order that made society work. sarily the result ofhuman design. There are three categories of social rules, Order Without Commands according to Hayek. The first consists ofthose that we design ourselves, such as parliamen­ Spontaneous order keeps the wheels of tary legislation. The second, which has· been society turning without the need to issue com­ called "tacit knowledge," consists of things mands from the center. A free society is order­ like a sense offair play or injustice that we all ly not because people are told what to do but understand but cannot put into words. Finally, because the evolving traditions and inherited there is a third group of rules of beneficial institutions of human society allow individu­ behavior that we can observe and write down, als to pursue their own ends and by so doing, but our attempts at codification onlyapproxi­ meet the needs of others. People's behavior mate the principles. The Anglo-Saxon system follows certain patterns because they have of common law is an example of this third been accepted by society initially as they type ofrule; it evolved through and was grad­ allowed the groups that adopted them to pros­ ually refined over centuries by different cases per. It is no accident, said Hayek, that the and judgments, and it is open to modification sharpest differences in material welfare can in the future. We learn from these rules and be seen throughout the Third World where the contribute to them even though we often can­ city meets the countryside and complex rule­ not fully explain them. It is the second and guided societies meet intimate communities third categories that have the power to create in which the rules are different. a complex order that uses more knowledge The rules that allow a complex social order than can ever be known by a single human like a city or the global economy to function mind. are not orders in the sense that term is usual­ ly understood. Rules that prevent individuals' We Need Freedom injuring others or engaging in theft or fraud or Why breaking promises in fact give people a great Complex social orders require freedom deal of latitude in their behavior. They tell because the information and knowledge that people how to do things, but they do not tell make them work can· never be amassed by a them what they should do. central authority. Attempting to use the first The moral framework for human society is category ofrules-legislation-to change the not set in stone, but rather is constantly second and third categories will fail because changing as new rules are discovered that the sum total of human knowledge has allow the social order to function better. The allowed people in society to live with one problem is that we do not know in advance another and brought us to the levels of pros­ which rules will work and which will not. Our perity and population that we now enjoy. This existing laws and customs show us what has was seen in the old socialist states ofthe Sovi- SPONTANEOUS ORDER 39 et empire, in which government attacked and 1831, he heard what he described as "a con­ undermined traditional morality, justice, and fused hum." That great chronicler of Ameri­ fair play while relying on the economies of can society wrote, "No sooner do you set foot the West to keep living standards from falling upon American ground than you are stunned below subsistence levels. Freedom is critical by a kind of tumult; a confused clamor is to the process ofachieving spontaneous order heard on every side, and a thousand simulta­ in society because we do not know in advance neous voices demand the satisfaction oftheir which rules will work, because liberty is social wants." Simply trying to work out how essential to the trial-and-error process, and society works by watching it and listening to because the creative powers of man can only it tells us little. It would be like trying to be expressed in a society in which power and understand how a clock works by telling the knowledge are widely dispersed. To impose a time. It is how people must interact with one pre-designed pattern on society would make another that allows the clockwork of society society cease to function as a creative force. to keep ticking. Progress cannot be commanded. The hum of commerce eases the path of Essential to the progress ofan orderly soci­ social cooperation in a free society, in part ety is the distribution ofpower among its cit­ because it offers man opportunities that are izens, as opposed to the concentration of simply not available when acting alone or in a power in the hands of the state. This allows state ofwar ofall against all. Incentives allow society to experiment in the rules and mores us to cooperate with others even though our that govern people's behavior. The process of views on political issues or our religious trial and error limits the impact ofmistakes to beliefs may radically differ. When people sup­ a small segment of society. Rules that work ply goods and services or buy them from oth­ will be observed, imitated, and absorbed into ers, they may not know with whom they deal. the social framework. Risk-taking and rule­ Protestant, Catholic, Jew, and Muslim all ben­ breaking are virtually impossible in small, efit from the commercial activity of a free intimate rural societies, yet these activities are society without altering their fundamental essential to maintaining the large populations beliefs. Their security and prosperity are that live in the vast impersonal societies of interdependent and in free societies far sur­ modern life. pass those of nations where conflict marks differences of faith. These differences are resolved peaceably and profitably in a free The Role of Incentives society, because the benefits of these values Life in a free society can be hard because it have been passed down through society and forces individuals to adjust to the needs of have become part of the moral framework. others. The free society works because it The absence of this mechanism for transmit­ coordinates conflicting desires by creating ting moral values is one of the reasons that incentives for people to satisfy their own religious strife and social discord mark soci­ wants by satisfying those ofothers. This is the eties that have never known freedom. opposite of a state in which one can only achieve one's aims at the expense ofoth­ The Law ers. As if by an invisible hand, Adam Smith suggested, we are moved to serve the needs of One key institution that makes the coordi­ others while pursuing our own self-interest. nation ofa free society possible is the law. In a This complex order that harmonizes and free society, law is not the same as the arbi­ synchronizes the conflicting desires ofpeople trary government decrees of totalitarian and who are different from one another can be autocratic societies or the legislation ofWest­ confusing at first. But it is essential to look ern congresses and parliaments. It is, as we beyond that initial confusion if we are to see have seen, a code that has evolved not at the how a free society works. When Alexis de hands of politicians but in the decisions of Tocqueville first disembarked in New York in judges. Tocqueville in Democracy in America 40 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY • JULY 1999

(1840) described how laws keep order in a free is based on rules that have grown up and society. He observed that "the spirit ofthe law been tested in real1ife, and because the values which is produced in the schools and courts of and the spirit ofthe law are closely connected justice, gradually penetrates beyond their to the moral values ofthe civilization. walls into the bosom of society, where it Over-government undermines that respect descends to the lowest classes, so that at last by imposing controls on society that do not the whole people contract the habits and tastes conform to people's inherited sense of right ofthe judicial magistrate." The law is respect­ and wrong. Freedom creates order in society. ed in a free society not by the use of force The institutions of a free society give people (although governments do reserve the right to an interest in keeping the peace, better than use force to protect freedom), but because it any police state or concentration camp. D

The Freeman-Reaching Out to N e-w Readers

If you. know of a friend· or coll~ague who might appreciate a free sample issue of The Freeman, please fill out the following form and return it to us in the postpaid envelope. Make sure to include your own name-we will mention you in the covering letter we send to the potential subscriber. We appreciate your assistance in finding new friends for liberty! The Therapeutic State by Thomas Szasz

Suicide as a Moral Issue

"Suicide is an event that is a part ofhuman nature. However much may have been said and done about it in the past, every person must confront it for himself anew, and every age must come to its own terms with it." -JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE (1749-1832)

ehind Goethe's simple statement lies a To accomplish this, we must de-medicalize Bprofound truth: dying voluntarily is a and destigmatize voluntary death and accept choice intrinsic to human existence. It is our it as a behavior that has always been and will ultimate, fatal freedom. That is not how the always be a part of the human condition. right-thinking person today sees voluntary Wanting to die or killing oneselfis sometimes death: he believes that no one in his right blameworthy, sometimes praiseworthy, and mind kills himself, that suicide is a mental sometimes neither; it is not a disease; it can­ health problem. Behind that belieflies a trans­ not be a bona fide medical treatment; and it parent evasion: relying on physicians to pre­ can never justify deprivation ofliberty. vent suicide as well as to provide suicide­ and thus avoid the subject of suicide-is an Death Transformed evasion of personal responsibility fatal to freedom. Increasing life expectancy, advances in Not long ago the right-thinking person medical technology, and radical changes in believed that masturbation, oral sex, homo­ the regulation of drug use and the economics sexuality, and other "unnatural acts" were of health care have transformed how we die. medical problems whose solution was dele­ Formerly, most people died at home. Today, gated to doctors. It took us a surprisingly long most people die in a hospital. Formerly, time to take these behaviors back from physi­ patients who could not breathe or whose kid­ cians, accept them comfortably, and speak neys or livers or hearts failed to function died. about them calmly. Perhaps the time is ripe to Now, they can be kept alive by machines, rethink our attitude toward suicide and its transplanted organs, and immunosuppressive relation to the medical profession, accept sui­ drugs. These developments have created cide comfortably, and speak about it calmly. choices not only about whether to live or die but also about when and how to die. Thomas Szasz, MD., professor ofpsychiatry emeritus at SUNY Health Science Center in Syracuse, New Birth and death are unique phenomena. York, is the author of Fatal Freedom (forthcoming Absent celibacy or infertility, practicing birth from Praeger), from which this article is adapted. control-that is, procreating voluntarily-is a 41 42 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY. JULY 1999 personal decision. Absent accidental or sud­ cide just as surely as he would preclude den death, practicing death control-that is, understanding a Japanese speaker if he dying voluntarily-is also a personal deci­ assumed that he is hearing garbled English. sion. The state and the medical profession no For the person who kills himself or plans to longer interfere with birth control. They ought kill himself, suicide is, eo ipso, an action. to stop interfering with death control. Psychiatrists, however, maintain that suicide As individuals, we can choose to die active­ is a happening, the result ofa disease. Against ly or passively, practicing death control or this mindset, the view that, a priori, suicide dying of disease or old age. As a society, we has nothing to do with illness or medicine, can choose to let people die on their own which is my view, risks being dismissed as an terms or force them to die on terms decreed act of intellectual know-nothingness, akin to by the dominant ethic. Camus maintained that asserting that cancer has nothing to do with suicide is the only "truly serious philosophi­ illness or medicine. cal problem." It would be more accurate to We are proud that suicide is no longer a say that suicide is our foremost moral and crime, yet it is plainly not legal; if it were, it political problem, logically anterior to such would be illegal to use force to prevent sui­ closely related problems as the right to reject cide and it would be legal to help a person kill treatment or the right to physician-assisted himself. Instead, coercive suicide prevention suicide. is considered a life-saving treatment and help­ Faced with a particular personal conduct, ing a person kill himself is (in most jurisdic­ we can approve, facilitate, and reward it; dis­ tions) a felony. approve, hinder, and penalize it; or accept, Supporters and opponents of policies con­ tolerate, and ignore it. Over time, social atti­ cerning troubling social issues-such as slav­ tudes toward many behaviors have changed. ery, pornography, abortion-have always Suicide began as a sin, became a crime, then invoked a sacred authority or creed to justify became a mental illness, and now some peo­ the policies they favored. Formerly, God, the ple propose transferring it into the category Bible, the Church; now, the Constitution, called "treatment," provided the cure is under Law, Medicine. It is an unpersuasive tactic: the control ofdoctors. too many deplorable social policies have been justified by appeals to Scriptural, Constitu­ Crucial Questions tional, and Medical sanctions. The question of who should control when Is killing oneself a voluntary act or the and how we die is one of the most troubling product of mental illness? Should physicians issues we face today. The debate is in full be permitted to use force to prevent suicide? swing. Once again, the participants invoke the Should they be authorized to prescribe a authority of the Bible, the Constitution, and lethal dose of a drug for the purpose of sui­ Medicine to cast the decisive ballot in favor of cide? Personal careers, professional identities, their particular program. It is a spineless gam­ multibillion-dollar industries, legal doctrines, bit: persons who promote particular social judicial procedures, and the life and liberty of policies do so because they believe that their every American hang on how we answer these policies are superior to the policies of their questions. Answering such questions requires adversaries. Accordingly, they ought to defend no specialized knowledge ofmedicine or law. their position on the grounds of their own It requires only a willingness to open our eyes moral vision, instead oftrying to disarm oppo­ and look life-and death-in the eye. Evad­ nents by appealing to a sanctified authority. ing that challenge is tantamount to denying For a long time, suicide was the business of that we are just as responsible for how we die the Church and the priest. Now it is the busi­ as we are for how we live. ness of the State and the doctor. Eventually The person who kills himself sees suicide we will make it our own business, regardless as a solution. If the observer views it as a ofwhat the Bible or the Constitution or Med­ problem, he precludes understanding the sui- icine supposedly tells us about it. 0 Storm Trooping to Equality by James Bovard

oliticians have long enjoyed promising to the law permits." Not equality of opportuni­ Pdeliver equality to the American people. In ty-not equal chances for equal talent-but a January speech, President Clinton equality, plain and simple. The passion for announced that he is seeking a budget increase quick results far exceeds OFCCP's devotion to hire more federal agents to penalize more to the law. In some parts of the south in the companies for alleged inequalities in their early 1900s, any company hiring a black for wage and salary structures. Clinton declared, certain positions was presumed guilty of "We have an opportunity now, and an obliga­ breaking a law. Nowadays, thanks to the tion, to make sure every American fairly ben­ OFCC~ any federal contractor who does not efits from this moment ofprosperity." Howev­ hire or promote a black, Hispanic, or woman er, as usual, Clinton's idea of "fairness" con­ can routinely be presumed guilty ofbreaking sists merely of politicians and bureaucrats the law. tightening their grip over everyone else. The OFCCP is legendary for the pretexts it Clinton is asking for a $14 million increase concocts to accuse private companies of vio­ in enforcement budgets for the Equal lating its regulations. One manager at a Wash­ Employment Opportunity Commission and ington, D.C.-area company summarized the the Labor Department's Office of Federal attitude ofthe OFCCP official who descended Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP). upon her firm: "We don't need no stinking While these are small amounts, the feds are statistical significance!" As long as there are certain to use the money to extort far greater disparities between male and female salaries, sums from private companies. or between the salaries of different races, the The OFCCP has jurisdiction over the jobs company can be proclaimed guilty. of25 million people who work for companies, The OFCCP routinely comes in, looks at universities, and other entities with federal the median pay rate for a certain job grade, contracts. The agency has already announced and then fines the company if women or plans to almost double the number ofcompa­ minorities make less than that amount. But nies it investigates this year. this essentially ignores workers' experience, OFCCP Director Shirley Wilcher declared prOductivity, and a dozen other factors. As in 1995, "Enforcement ofequality in the work American Enterprise Institute economist place includes penalties to deter violations Diana Furchtgott-Roth told the Los Angeles and to get results as quickly and efficiently as Times, "Measuring so-called discrimination by comparing women's wages to the median James Bovard is the author of Freedom in Chains: wage is like saying there's something wrong The Rise ofthe State & the Demise ofthe Citizen (St. with oranges because they are smaller than Martin's Press). grapefruits." 43 44 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY • JULY 1999 Judging Performance never hired and never did a day's work for them. The Equal Employment Advisory Commit­ One district director in a large western state tee, an organization oflarge government con­ has achieved notoriety for his heavy-handed tractors, reports that OFCCP auditors consid­ methods. According to one lawyer, the direc­ ered compensation decisions based on "per­ tor shows up at site visits and warns the con­ formance ratings history" and "promotion, tractor: "If you get a lawyer, I will make it demotion, or downgrades" might be unac­ more difficult for you." The director has pro­ ceptable to the OFCCP "because these may be claimed to harrowed employees during audits: seen as 'subjective' factors over which the "You won't have a job around here much employer has some control." Further, "The longer unless you cooperate with us because federal pay system with which compliance you are in deep trouble." Contractor employ­ officers are most familiar is a very rigid one ees have been left in tears at the OFCCP dis­ consisting of 15 grades and 10 steps within trict director's bullying. This director's meth­ each grade. Over time, everyone progresses ods have been so successful at racking up set­ through the same series of within-grade step tlement numbers that he has reportedly been increases and/or promotion-related grade invited to other OFCCP districts to lecture increases." The fact that a private company about his "enforcement model." does not treat its employees like government Jennifer Taylor, personnel director of City workers-that is, paying them largely accord­ Utilities of Springfield, Missouri, testified to ing to how long they have loitered around the Congress in 1996 of the nightmare OFCCP office-can be interpreted by some compli­ audit her company experienced. An OFCCP ance officers as foul play. compliance officer visited the company and Because the rules that the OFCCP uses are spent almost an entire year going through files vague and convoluted, compliance officers and documentation. After he examined the exercise arbitrary power over those whom company's 250-page affirmative action plan they investigate. Expert after expert whom I and found no violations, he ordered the utility interviewed stated that officers routinely to completely recalculate its analyses, hoping grossly abuse their power. (Few people I that the revised version would produce some spoke to were willing to allow their names to numbers with which he could condemn its be used, since there is pervasive fear of hiring and promotion policies. The official agency retaliation.) One Midwest human­ demanded "documentation and reasons why resources director complained of officers virtually every minority and female consid­ "just coming on site and scaring everyone to ered for promotion and new hire was not death and costing them thousands of dollars selected for nearly every opening," Taylor tes­ in time and effort." She observed that the tified. Though the company had roughly the OFCCP official who monitored her company same proportion ofminorities on payroll as in for ten months "felt that he was on a cru­ the local labor market, the OFCCP demanded sade-and therefore the ends justified the that the company in the future recruit from means." Another human-resources profes­ the Kansas City area-170 miles away. Taylor sional noted that OFCCP agents "wield a lot observed, "We must ignore a readily obtain­ ofpower and they know it and they very often able source of local labor, which is more don't act in compliance with the law and they motivated to remain with us because of our attempt to coerce and intimidate employers geographical preference, simply because of into doing what they think what they should their race." Though the OFCCP inspector do." A female lawyer with over a quarter cen­ could not even gin up enough evidence to file tury's experience with OFCCP efforts said a notice of violation, the inspection cost the that browbeating, intimidation, and lying company over $26,000 and tied up key per­ about the law happens "all the time." In many sonnel throughout 1995. cases, the OFCCP arm-twists companies into Despite the absurdities in OFCCP compen- \ paying "compensation" to people who were sation analyses, many companies settle the STORM TROOPING TO EQUALITY 45 charges by paying the money the agency Labor Department can hold hostage any com­ demands. This is because the agency has the plaints or accusations against the OFCCP for power to debar companies from getting any years. Companies cannot gain access to a fed­ federal contracts-a power described as a eral court until it has run the gauntlet of "nuclear bomb" by Assistant Secretary of pseudo-remedies within the agency itself. Labor Bernard Anderson. Company officials Even if a company wins before a Labor routinely complain that there was nojustice in Department administrative-law judge, a polit­ the OFCCP charges but that the company can­ ical appointee can simply write a memo and not afford to fight the federal government and overturn the judge's decision-thus thrusting lose all its government contracts. the company back in legal purgatory. Clinton justified the new crackdowns last Lawyers estimate that legal fees in OFCCP January as part of his plan "to prepare our cases can easily exceed half a million dollars nation for the 21 st century." But if Labor before companies reach a federal court. Department bureaucrats are in charge oflead­ Because ofthe high costs ofreaching a feder­ ing us into the new. millennium, Americans al judge, there have been few court rulings should get ready for some thin gruel in the limiting the agency's power. As a result, future. OFCCP officials have free rein to twist the Many OFCCP officials are both lazy and law to suit their purposes. incompetent. One private lawyer who has The issue of OFCCP's power cuts to the dealt with the agency for over 25 years com­ heart ofthe coerciveness ofthe welfare state. plained that OFCCP investigators "show up to The essence ofthe OFCCP's concept ofsocial do an onsite review at lOin the morning and justice is compelling companies to pay people leave at 2 in the afternoon to pick up their for work they never did-based on secret grandkids from school. There is absolutely no rules the agency continually changes. control or monitoring of the kinds of hours This nation does not need a cadre of that people are allegedly working. You can go employment commissars running around months without catching up with someone" at inflicting political correctness on American the agency. businesses. The methods of the OFCCP Many private lawyers and personnel experts should be repulsive to anyone who respects who deal with the OFCCP complain of the legal rights and due process. As Justice extremely poor training of some of the com­ Clarence Thomas wrote in a 1995 Supreme pliance officers. The OFCCP has apparently Court opinion, "Government-sponsored racial been careful not to commit the same crime it discrimination based on benign prejudice is accuses private companies of committing: just as noxious as discrimination inspired by requiring excessive literacy or intelligence in malicious prejudice. In each instance, it is the people hired. One lawyer complained, "We racial discrimination, plain and simple. Racial have had OFCCP investigators who had dis­ paternalism and its unintended consequences abilities who can't read. We had one case sev­ can be as poisonous and pernicious as any eral years ago in which the investigator ruled other form ofdiscrimination." that the company violated OFCCP policy Clinton, in his announcement ofthe expand­ because an individual was not paid the same ed crackdown on private pay, declared that "it's amount as someone else working for the com­ a matter ofprinciple-a question ofwhat kind pany-but the person who allegedly was of country we want America to be today, and underpaid never worked for the company. It into the 21 st century." Unfortunately, Clinton is took forever to straighten out that mess." making this a country in which petty bureau­ crats have more and more power to punish Legal Redress Impeded other Americans on more and more pretexts. And since the process by which OFCCP settle­ Unfortunately, it is very difficult to fight the ments are imposed is fundamentally unfair, the OFCCP in court. Because of the doctrine of larger the settlements, the greater the likely "exhaustion of administrative remedies," the injustice by the government. D Economic Notions by Dwight R. Lee 'Economies

In the Absence of Private Property Rights

e commonly benefit from things we rights should be restricted to. prevent firms W. neither understand nor appreciate. and individuals from putting their private gain Obviously there are advantages in benefiting ahead of the public's interest in a clean envi­ from a wide range ofthings without having to ronment. But pollution is actually a problem give them much thought. But the danger is caused by too little reliance on property that such neglect can often cause us great rights, not too much. Pollution problems harm. Good health is an example. For most should teach us how much we benefit from people, good health is easy to take. for grant­ private property by. illustrating the inevitable ed, and this often results in harmful patterns breakdown in social cooperation in its of behavior. In the case of health, however, absence. most people know something about the risks Pollution problems would not exist if we of unhealthy behavior, and recognize the could divide up the atmosphere, rivers, and advantage ofhealthy habits even ifthey don't oceans into separate units owned and con­ practice them. trolled as private property. There would still Unfortunately, this is not true for maintain­ be pollution, but not excessive pollution. If I ing a healthy economy. The productivity and wanted to discharge pollutants into the air that cooperation essential to economic progress belonged to others, they would prevent me depend on things that are not only easily from doing so unless I paid them a price that neglected, but also commonly denounced. covered the cost my pollution imposed on Private property is a good example. Instead them. So I would pollute only as long as the ofrecognizing private property as the foun­ value I realized from discharging an addition­ dation of economic cooperation and al unit ofpollutant was at least as great as the progress, people commonly see it .as the cost to others. Private property and the market source ofeconomic problems actually caused prices that result would motivate people to by the lack ofwell-defined and enforced pri­ take into consideration the environmental vate-property rights. concerns of others. Pollution problems exist because without private property in air sheds and waterways Pollution and Private Property there are no market prices to make polluters Pollution is widely blamed on capitalism, mindful of the cost of their polluting activi­ with its emphasis on profits and private prop­ ties. The result is that people pollute exces­ erty. According to this view, private property sively; pollution continues even though the benefits from additional pollution are less than the costs. Dwight Lee is Ramsey Professor ofEconomics in the Although we cannot easily imagine treating Terry Business School at the University ofGeorgia. the atmosphere and waterways as private 46 47 property, the lack of cooperation that under­ whales within a few months. Will the captain lies pollution problems would extend to all save the whale on hearing this information? aspects of human action if private property Not likely. He will correctly conclude that were absent. Instead ofseeing pollution prob­ since he has no property right in the whale, if lems as an indictment of private property, he doesn't kill it today someone else soon these problems should give us an appreciation will. Being patient and allowing the whale to of the wonderful advantages we realize from give birth requires an immediate sacrifice, private property. And once the power of pri­ without permitting him to benefit from that vate property to promote cooperation is real­ sacrifice in the future. If somehow whales ized, one can see how pollution policy can be were privately owned, it would then pay the improved through the creative establishment captain to take the future value of the whale ofprivate property. and her offspring into consideration, since Instead of having political authorities dic­ that future value would be his opportunity tate how, and how much, polluters have to cost ofkilling the whale today. reduce their discharges (as they do now), it It is no wonder that many species of wild would be far better to create a form ofprivate animals are overexploited, and in some cases property in the use of the environment for threatened with extinction. The situation is waste disposal. This private property would very different with domestic animals that are take the form oftransferable pollution permits privately owned. There is no worry that chick­ specifying how much their owners could ens, pigs, cows, or goats will be driven to legally pollute. These permits would establish extinction. The future value of these animals the total allowable pollution, but not how is fully considered by owners who can profit much each polluter reduces his discharges or from maintaining them. Indeed, the more of how he does so. With transferable permits, these animals we kill, the more of them we market prices would emerge that force pol­ have. In the United States alone, approxi­ luters to consider much of the cost of their mately 25 million chickens are killed and discharges. Those who could reduce dis­ eaten every day. It has been said that the dif­ charges cheaply would reduce a lot, releasing ference between chicken hawks and people is permits to be used by those facing higher that when chicken hawks eat more chickens cleanup costs. The result would be a pattern of there are fewer chickens, but when people eat pollution reduction that yields any given level more chickens there are more chickens. The of environmental quality at far less cost than more fundamental difference is that people the command-and-control approach that dom­ establish private property rights and, as a inates current policy. (A more detailed discus­ result, take the future into consideration; sion ofthe advantages ofsuch a market-based chicken hawks don't. approach to pollution control has to await a Unfortunately, legislation such as the future column.) Endangered Species Act attempts to protect species by undermining private property rights, thereby reducing the motivation of Private Property and Patience land owners to provide suitable habitat for Another common misconception is that the wildlife, endangered or not. profits from private property motivate people Private property allows us to solve prob­ to ignore the long-run consequences of their lems by taking into consideration the pre­ actions. Actually, the lack ofprivate property sent and future concerns of others. Unfortu­ is the biggest threat to future concerns. Con­ nately, people with good intentions but little sider the captain of a whaling ship who has a economic understanding often call for solv­ whale in the cross hairs of his harpoon. The ing problems stemming from inadequate captain is about to pull the trigger when his private property by subverting rights to pri­ first officer points out that the whale is preg­ vate property with political restrictions and nant and if they let it live there will be two mandates. 0 Croaking Frogs by Brian Doherty

t's the kind of story that doesn't often get The frog situation has gotten just enough I reported in the media-even though it is media attention-stories in Newsweek, largely the media's creation. In February, Inte­ episodes of "Nightline"-and is just bizarre rior Secretary Bruce Babbitt made a stirring and frightening enough that the average man call for an extra $8.1 million in other people's in the street knows there's something funny money-your money and mine-for fiscal going on with frogs. There are two potential 2000 to research yet another potentially earth­ problems-probably unrelated, but conflated shaking environmental crisis: declining and in· both media and government-with deformed frogs. amphibians: die-offs (frogs no longer appear­ It's tiny by federal standards. Still, the fed­ ing in customary numbers in certain habitats) eral agency umbrella group created last year and deformities. for which Babbitt is seeking this new cash That frogs are disappearing in numbers infusion, the Taskforce of Amphibian larger than what herpetologists have come to Declines and Deformities (TADD), could consider normal is not controversial in the portend something big. It certainly seems as if field now; what these observations mean, and the government is prepared for anything and what might be causing them, are. A recently everything to come out of the issue of unex­ discovered chytrid fungus has been found pectedly disappearing and deformed amphib­ killing frogs in Australia, Central America, ians: TADD, in an almost archetypal example and the United States; it is moving to the fore­ of federal overkill, has representatives from front as a convincing explanation in the scien­ the departments of state, justice, and defense tific debate. Also, there is the possibility that on the team. natural fluctuations occur in frog populations While the Department ofthe Interior posits that scientists don't understand because they this program as an example of pure science, haven't been looking at trend lines long enough. research into a vital issue that only govern­ Even the government's own Web site devoted ment force can supply, Babbitt's science to the nascent frog crisis acknowledges that adviser William Brown let slip the real score one ofthe frog species whose diminution con­ to a reporter from RNA Daily Environment: cerns us now, the Northern leopard frog, cre­ "There are a whole set of regulatory initia­ ated an earlier alarm in the Midwest in the tives" waiting in the wings for when they find 1960s and '70s, and "initiated our concern what they set out to find. about amphibian declines, but many of these original declines have stopped and popula­ Brian Doherty is the Warren Brookes Fellow in Envi­ tions have recovered to some extent." These ronmental Journalism at the Competitive Enterprise population fluctuations happen in nature, and Institute. the workings ofnature, like that ofthe human 48 49 economy, are so multicausal and complex that banning more pesti­ we don't always know why certain things cides to stop man's occur. Our intimate knowledge of long-term mad, unchecked lust population trends is so poor that we can't even for food' not infested be sure we are seeing an alarmingly unnatur­ with (or eaten by) al diminution. insects. Also, there are a couple ofvery likely man­ The frog deformi­ caused, though prosaic, problems that could ty problem is the be killing offfrogs: general encroachment on more grotesque and habitat and stocking non-native fish in large disturbing-freakish numbers in frog ponds. Indeed, man's desire frogs with eyes in Captain Ribbitt for trout fishing could be hurting young tad­ their mouths, multi­ Young visitors to the poles-but this is a matter of tradeoffs, not ple sets of limbs, FrogWeb are unquestionable bads. missing limbs, miss­ encouraged to "find ing jaws, appearing out how you can SAVE Favored Explanations (or being noticed) THE FROGS!" in unusually large However, the government frog effort numbers. Consequently, it has gotten the most prefers other controversial explanations. Not attention and money so far. The state ofMin­ coincidentally, these explanations-while nesota alone-where the crisis first hit the government researchers admit they have media in 1995 after a school field trip found found no causal smoking gun-are those for an unusual number of deformed frogs in one which industrial society can be blamed: pesti­ pond-has spent around a million dollars cides and ultraviolet radiation. These are the investigating the matter, and has already cre­ sort of explanations that would inspire the ated a public scare on scant evidence. The "whole set ofregulatory initiatives" Babbitt's Minnesota Pollution Control Agency in Sep­ science adviser crowed about. It's true that tember 1997 announced that local well water UV radiation can cause problems for frog was definitely causing frog deformities (pres­ eggs in labs, but no one has shown that suring scientists to go public with studies amphibian eggs in nature are actually being before they felt they were ready), and began exposed to too much of it. (The UV thesis is giving out bottled water to frightened resi­ thought to have more to do with the problem dents. The agency later admitted it was mis­ of deformed frogs rather than dying ones, taken. One ofthe leading researchers of frog though even there the evidence of real-world deformity, who thinks that naturally occurring exposure is lacking.) Two herpetologists, from parasites and cannibalism among tadpoles are Stanford and the Smithsonian Institution, most likely the main culprits, complains that wrote in the journal Froglog that "what fund­ the information presented to Babbitt was ing is available tends to be directed toward the biased in the direction of scary man-caused most high-profile factors, regardless of explanations. whether or not they are the most likely The feds are pulling out the whole panoply causative agencies." And when government ofmodern devices to create a scare about this bureaucrats pay the scientific piper, the issue. They set up a Web site and created a bureaucrats call the tune-and they tend to cute mascot to encourage children ofall ages love the sweet sound of more regulation. to get scared and get active-and, perhaps Thus, while even such potential causes as coincidentally, to become a public constituen­ chytrid fungus might have man to blame, in cy for more federal money •on matters the sense that herpetologists themselves amphibian. might be spreading the fungus cross­ Captain Ribbitt, a cartoon frog in a space­ continent, advising scientists to wash their suit presented as "Earth's Ambassador from boots more carefully just doesn't pack the reg­ the Planet Amphibian" tells "earthlings" that ulatory punch of stopping UV radiation or they "must join Frog Force now, get involved 50 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY • JULY 1999 in finding the cause, and become a friend cycles, function as a sort of canary-in-the­ to frogs everywhere." Some amphibian scien­ coal-mine early warning system for the bio­ tists shudder at the thought of thousands of sphere. But herpetologists Joseph H. K. Pech­ eager kids recruited by this cartoon comman­ mann and Henry M. Wilbur, writing in the do tromping heedlessly through the habitat of academic journal Herpetologica, write that possibly endangered frogs, but you can't get "we are not aware ofany evidence available to a good environmental scare story rolling substantiate it. The toxicological literature without starting a Children's Crusade. One does not support a general statement that wonders how much of last year's frog bud­ amphibians are a relatively sensitive group." get-your tax dollars at work-went to But because that idea, false as it may be, is cutesy absurdities such as this. widespread, the frog problem could be anoth­ When Babbitt first heard about the frog er global warming in the making-media problem, he told the Washington Post that it hype and government science in alliance· to "illuminated a landscape of potential extinc­ condemn industrial society and justify mas­ tion that extends all the way round the world." sive government intervention-on question­ This is rhetoric ofthe sort that herpetologists able evidence. don't necessarily agree with. The govern­ In federal terms, $9 million makes for a ment's and media's panic over frog disappear­ mere tadpole of a program. But tadpoles ances is based on the oft-repeated rhetorical become frogs. And little government pro­ notion that frogs, because of their permeable grams have been known to metamorphose skin and water-based and land-based life into regulatory monsters. 0

"With his masterful grasp of history and his ingenious insight into economics, phi­ losophy, politics, and human nature, Dr. Faria has pronded us with an enormous contribution to the recent literature on health care reform, and an important weapon in our Iife-or-death struggle to preserve private medicine." - Jerome C. Arnett, Jr., M.D. Medical Sentinel Miguel A. Faria, Jr., M.D. argues that managed care and HMOs are not "free market" alternatives, but rather an unholy partnership of government and corporate interests seeking monopolistic government protection to eliminate competition... Miguel A. Faria, Jr., M.D. Editor-in-Chief of the Medical Sentinel of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), and author of Vandals at tlw Gates of Medicine - II~toric Perspectives on the Battle Over IIealdl Care Reform.

> Order Direct OaII1-800-737-9873 $23.95 • Hacienda Publishing ISBN: 0-9641077-2-4 Fax: 1-912-757-9725 • ~O. Box 13648 • Macon, GA 31208-3648 Noah Smithwick: Pioneer Texan and Monetary Critic by Joseph R. Stromberg

n 1931 F. A. Hayek wrote that although the New Orleans. He immediately became the I quantity theory of money as such is an object of resentment on the part of the older, oversimplification, "it would be one of the established workers for being too productive. worst things which could befall us ifthe gen­ Cautioned to go slower, he responded, "Our eral public should ever again cease to believe employer pays me for my time: do I not owe in the elementary propositions ofthe quantity him all that I am capable of doing in that theory." His point was that the fundamental time?" The other workers' attitude was that idea-that any increase in the supply of "'No sprig of a boy must presume to set the money will raise commodity prices in gener­ pace for us,' and so I was forced to slow down al-is good enough to guide the voting and drift with the tide. This was Labour publics of Western nations, even if the unal­ Unionism in its incipiency." loyed quantity theory lacks important Austri­ Smithwick, born in 1808 in North Carolina, an insights into the behavior ofrelative prices. went on to Texas-then part of Mexico-as If only the voters understood even that much soon as he could save enough money in New today! Orleans. He lived through the tumultuous The lively and colorful memoirs of Noah days of the Texan Revolution, the Texas Smithwick, nonagenarian, ex-North Carolin­ Republic, the Mexican-American War, and ian, early Texas pioneer, and eventual Cali­ the secession crisis of 1861. At that time, the fornian, take us back to a time when Ameri­ "integral nationalism" that he shared with cans could grasp essential truths about the Governor Sam Houston led him to leave Texas nature of money. His book, The Evolution of for the more favorable climate of California, a State or Recollections of Old Texas Days, where he remained. His eyesight failing him, reflects the original value system of the he dictated his recollections to his daughter in mobile and ambitious Americans ofthe early 1899. Smithwick died the next year. nineteenth century. Sometime in 1827 Smith­ wick set offdown the Mississippi River on his way to Texas. Owing to some complication Willingness to Work arising on the riverboat, he lost his grubstake Noah Smithwick's life may well stand as an and had to take a temporary job as a "mechan­ example ofwhat is rapidly disappearing from ic" or "finisher" in an industrial concern in the American character. Willing to work hard and with a natural mechanical ability, he tried numerous enterprises: blacksmith, gunsmith, Joseph Stromberg is a part-time college lecturer in history who has contributed to the Journal of Liber­ soldier, mill owner, critic of land fraud (per­ tarian Studies, Reason, Independent Review, and haps the first big "industry" in Texas), inde­ other publications. pendent inventor of the circular saw, and 51 52 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY • JULY 1999 diplomat. (He negotiated an Indian treaty, promptly violated by both sides.) He would undertake any kind of honest work, which probably explains why he was never much of a politician. As an active and ambitious pioneer, Smith­ wick calls to mind the "venturesome conserv­ atives" ofthe Jacksonian period (to use Mar­ vin Meyer's phrase). A canny observer of, and participant in, the economic life of early (Anglo) Texas, he makes sharp comments on many of its aspects. Alongside his interesting passages on ethnic and cultural groups he came to know of (Mexicans, Indians, blacks, Germans, and Mormons), some of his best material and most amusing stories focus on the nature ofmoney. Smithwick describes the crisis caused in the Texas Republic by the government's issue ofinflationary "scrip" (a sort ofconstant with new regimes). In a textbook demonstration of Gresham's Law, coin (that is, real money) dis­ Noah Smithwick appeared. He recalls: "I received a hatful of new, crisp, one-dollar bills in payment for a horse lost in the San Saba Indian fight, which 1831 he ran afoul of the law in San Felipe. I immediately turned over to a creditor [!], Texas was still part ofMexico, and Smithwick without ever having folded them. People thought it best to shove off to the Redlands, would almost rather have anything else than which bordered on the American state of the commonwealth paper." Louisiana. There he came to know the local In Travis County, people came up with an counterfeiter, on whose premises he worked, alternative: "Under those circumstances, we although he never took part himself in the established a currency of our own, a kind of counterfeiting portion of "John Doe's" busi­ banking system as it were, which though ness. Doe's product was a copper-sandwich unauthorized by law, met the local require­ version of the Mexican silver dollar, calling ments. Horses were generally considered vividly to mind the "Lyndon Johnson" dimes legal tender: but owing to the constant drain and quarters introduced sometime in the mid­ on the public treasury by the horse-loving 1960s. Indian, that kind of currency became scarce, Smithwick says of Doe: "There was noth­ so we settled on the cow as the least liable to ing of the desperado about him. On the con­ fluctuation." Private bills were written against trary, he was pleasant and peaceable and gen­ cows (valued at $10 per animal in real erally liked, and, so far from being looked money). The system apparently worked well upon as a malefactor, was considered a public enough as long as it was needed. (Yearlings benefactor, in that he furnished the only cur­ were also used as a medium ofexchange.) rency to which the people had access. The country could not be said to be on either a Meet "John Doe" gold or silver basis, copper being the basis of Doe's coinage...." An even better example of Smithwick's Doe would occasionally call in his worn empirical Texan monetary views is found in sandwich dollars and restamp them with a his discussion of counterfeiting in the Red­ veneer of silver. He made doubloons as well. lands just before Texan independence. In Clearly in touch with the policy debates ofhis NOAH SMITHWICK: PIONEER TEXAN AND MONETARY CRITIC 53 last years, Smithwick remarks: "Doe's curren­ colonies ... by restamping the old ham­ cy furnishes a good example of the practical mered dollars, a single blow of the hammer working ofthe populist idea: it was all right in adding 25 cents to the value of each. There domestic transactions, but when they attempt­ were thousands of them thus rehabilitated." ed to discharge foreign [that is, non-East (There was apparently no debasing with Texan] obligations with it, it got them into copper in this operation.) Doe was finally trouble." put out of business by counterfeiters in Doe did not do well when he extended his Louisiana, who printed up fake U. S. bank­ operations into western Louisiana. On one notes and floated them in East Texas. Smith­ occasion, however, he won a sizeable bet by wick observes: "Paper and ink being cheap­ stamping a pure silver coin with the same er even than copper, Doe's currency was cracked die he used for his copper-sandwich given the go-by." Copper, after all, was fair­ coins and sending a crony into a saloon to ly valuable and Doe, at one time, had to spend it. A skeptical bartender announced that break up a still to keep his copper-sandwich the coin was clearly counterfeit, but put to the undertaking going. test, this coin of course proved to be unadul­ Smithwick's experience with the counter­ terated silver. (Doe won $500 on the bet.) feiter suggests a corollary to Gresham's Law: With this windfall, Doe removed himselfwest worse money drives out merely bad money. It ofthe Sabine River, where, as Smithwick puts is refreshing to read the memoirs ofa pioneer it, "his efforts were more appreciated." who could grasp an essential point about the As a moneysmith, says Smithwick, Doe nature ofmoney and use it to cast light on his "added materially to the wealth of the times. 0 r------, I Super-selleron economic liberty-updated! I Announcing The Incredible Bread Machine, updated &. expanded, I about how laws backfire and how free people work wonders. I Reason's Robert Poole says, "This is one of the all-time classics of I liberty. The new, revised edition is even better than the original." I lAISSEZ FAlRE Dn\'\I/C LI7939 (pbk) 297p. $14.95* postpaid I D\..X.A\.V LI7938 (autographed hardcover) I 938 Howard Street, #202 $24.95* postpaid San Francisco, CA 94103 Ordertoll-free: I .. . .. 800-126-0996,Dept.IBM3 IL VISIt our websIte- http://laIssezfaIre.org*CaliforniareSidentSaddsaleStax~ Economics on Trial by Mark Skousen FI\~!~~THE JULY 1999

Dismal Scientists Score Another Win

"Until a business returns a profit that is greater than its cost ofcapital, it operates at a loss." -PETER F. DRUCKER

he English essayist (and economist) Wal­ Are Accounting Profits T ter Bagehot once remarked, "N0 real for Real? Englishman in his secret soul was ever sorry for the death ofan economist." For years, economists have complained that Quite a few security analysts and fund man­ conventional accounting distorts the true eco­ agers on American shores probably feel that nomics of the firm by not including a charge way about the economists who came up with for common equity in its earnings reports and the efficient market hypothesis and proved balance sheets. Generally accepted account­ that 95 percent of professionals can't beat a ing principles treat equity as if it were free. blindfolded monkey in picking stocks. Highly Thus, publicly traded corporations release paid Wall Street analysts don't like being quarterly reports showing substantial earnings compared to sightless apes. Yet after decades that in fact are losses. "True profits don't of heated exchange between Wall Street and begin until corporations have covered a nor­ academia, the eggheads are winning the argu­ mal return on investment," declares Al ment. Today index funds-the professors' Ehrbar, senior vice president of consultants favorite investment vehicle-are the fastest Stem Stewart & Co., specialists in EVA-a growing sector on Wall Street. new performance technique for business) The latest group to sympathize with the What is EVA? It stands for "economic words ofWalter Bagehot are the accountants. value added" (also called economic profit or Over the past decade, ivory-tower economists residual income). Essentially, EVA is a pre­ (mainly professors teaching modem finance cise measurement of the opportunity cost of theory at MBA schools) have taken on the capital. For years, opportunity cost was a neb­ accounting departments, damning them for ulous concept known only to professors. The not taking into account the full opportunity term, coined by Austrian economist Friedrich cost ofcapital. Wieser in the early twentieth century, refers to the universal principle that all human action involves giving up other opportunities. When Mark Skousen (http://www.mskousen.com; mskousen you invest in a stock, lend money, or create a @aol.com) is an economist at Rollins College, Department ofEconomics, Winter Park, FL 32789, new product, you give up the chance to invest a Forbes columnist, and editor of Forecasts & elsewhere. Ifyou invest in a high-flying com­ Strategies. puter stock, you can't buy T-bills. Ifyou build 54 55 a new office building, your money is tied up ing Coca-Cola, Eli Lilly, and Sprint, use EVA for years in concrete and can't be invested in as a capital accountability tool to reinforce the AT&T. idea that profits don't begin until corporations EVA is a practical application of classical have covered their normal return. Wall Street economics and modem finance theory. The analysts at Goldman Sachs and First Boston, Austrians elucidated the concept of opportu­ among others, use EVA to evaluate stocks. nity cost, and Nobel laureates Merton H. According to Ehrbar, EVA explains stock per­ Miller and Franco Modigliani used it in their formance and market value better than any model ofthe firm to determine its true value. other accounting measure, including return on In the 1980s, G. Bennett Stewart III created equity, cash flow, earnings per share, or sales. EVA as a financial yardstick to measure EVA makes company officers focus more opportunity costs in business. clearly on creating shareholder value and a EVA is fairly simple to determine: it is higher stock price. Stern Stewart issues an after-tax operating profits minus the appropri­ annual EVA report on the top 1,000 U. S. cor­ ate capital charge for both debt and equity. If porations. For several years now, Intel has had a company issues debt, the opportunity cost is the highest EVA ranking and GM the lowest. linked to the Treasury rate (currently 5-6 per­ cent), plus the credit risk of the issuer. If the EVA Wins the Battle company issues stock, the opportunity cost is measured by the long-term annualized return Accountants still have a dominant grip on on the stock market, approximately 12 per­ the way corporate financial statements are cent. In short, EVA recognizes that investors submitted, but the popularity of EVA has must earn enough to compensate for risk of forced them to take notice. All five accounting their investment capital. firms offer an EVA-type statistic to their Ifa firm earns more than these opportunity clients. Most accounting textbooks now costs, it has "added value" to its shareholders include a significant section on economic and created wealth in the world economy. value added, economic profit, or residual Hence, the phrase "economic value added." If income. Previous editions did not mention EVA is positive, shareholders and the econo­ EVA or opportunity cost. my are making real contributions to the bot­ Want more? Check out Al Ehrbar's highly tom line. Otherwise, the business should shut readable EVA or John Kay's brilliant Why down and invest shareholders' funds in Trea­ Firms Succeed. See also www.eva.com. suries or an index fund. As British economist I like EVA. Companies adopting it appear John Kay declares, "In the long run, firms that to perform better in creating wealth and fail to add value in a competitive market will shareholder value. But it may have potential not survive, nor do they deserve to."2 drawbacks. EVA puts enormous pressure on Okay, so what good is EVA to corporate managers to overachieve and to create con­ managers? EVA analysis helps identify poten­ stant above-average profit centers. Imagine tial acquisitions, expansion plans, and non­ not earning a true profit unless your company performing assets and assists in eliminating or division beats last year's Dow Jones Indus­ low-profit-margin operations that are clearly trial Average. It could be depressing. Wonder unprofitable when full costs are taken into what your company's EVA will look like in account. EVA is also being used as an incen­ the next recession? Heads could roll tive system for managers and employees. Some managers may want to join Wall Bonuses are linked to economic earnings, not Street analysts and accountants in shooting just accounting earnings, and EVA has proven those dismal scientists. 0 effective in boosting productivity. EVA makes a lot ofsense and has made sig­ 1. Al Ehrbar, EVA: The RealKey to Creating Wealth (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998), p. viii. nificant inroads into the financial world. 2. John Kay, Why Firms Succeed (New York: Oxford University Already over 300 major corporations, includ- Press, 1995), p. 19. 56

Payne not only shows that expectant giving can work, but also cites much evidence that BOOKS it has worked. Britain's unjustly maligned Reform Act of 1834 actually was a rare gov­ Overcoming Welfare: Expecting ernmental effort to replace sympathetic giv­ More from the Poor and Ourselves ing (home relief) with expectant giving (the workhouse). Even more important were the by James L. Payne "charity theorists"-most notably Octavia Basic Books • 1998 • 243 pages. $26.50 Hill-who not only preached the virtues of expectant giving, but also practiced them. By Reviewed by Robert Batemarco treating the poor as responsible people with problems to overcome, Hill and her fellow hen free-market advocates criticize poverty fighters were able to elicit construc­ W welfare they are commonly accused of tive responses from them, turning many ofthe having nothing to put in its place. James indigent into productive members ofsociety. Payne meets this objection head-on in Over­ Payne's analysis ofhow we moved from the coming Welfare by making a crucial distinc­ sound expectant approach to the bankrupt tion between "sympathetic giving" and sympathetic approach is equally interesting. "expectant giving." In so doing, he provides He implicates many factors, most important an alternative that is consistent with free-mar­ the spread ofthe idea that income redistribu­ ket principles and keeps defenders ofthe sta­ tion is an appropriate function ofgovernment. tus quo from occupying the moral high Once government programs were in place, ground. whatever lip service was paid to expectant Sympathetic giving means giving out of giving was always superseded in practice with pity and seeking nothing in return from the government handouts. The political incentives recipient. It characterizes all twentieth­ that virtually guarantee this result are well­ century government "anti-poverty" programs. charted territory in the public choice litera­ Payne echoes the views ofnumerous scholars ture, but Payne presents them with great clar­ that those programs not only fail to reduce ity and force. poverty (indeed, by rewarding irresponsible He also blames the elite classes' acceptance behavior, they generate more), but also lead to ofmoral relativism (the notion that no choice resentment on the part of givers, receivers, or lifestyle should be judged as any better or and intermediaries alike. worse than any other) and what I call infantile Expectant giving means that the giver leftism (that no act, however irresponsible, expects that the receiver will give something should have any negative consequences for the back. The quid pro quo, however, is usually actor). Both ideas have exacerbated the prob­ not something that directly benefits the donor. lems inherent in government programs and What the recipient most often "contributes" is infected many privately funded efforts as well. some action that will eventually lead him to It is usually easier to diagnose problems overcome his state ofneed. than to propose solutions, and this book's less It is the demand ofsomething in return that convincing sections are those offering political makes expectant giving superior to its alterna­ escapes from our welfare trap. Payne suggests tive. The specific demand-whether swearing attaching a taxpayer representative to each off drugs, keeping a curfew, or rendering welfare program to expose the flaws in it. some useful service-is less important than (Admittedly, he does not consider this to be a that the act symbolizes that the recipient is panacea.) This is a worthwhile objective, but it ultimately responsible for himself. That's a is hard to imagine that legislators would heretical idea in an age when everyone is appoint people who would take on the task encouraged to label himself a victim to whom with the requisite seriousness. Besides, the society owes a living. But it's an .idea that flaws in our welfare system have already been must be revived. exposed for all who care to inform themselves. BOOKS 57

Another imperfection in the book is that, as because he supposedly did "nothing." (See the important as the distinction between sympa­ review in The Freeman, March 1999.) That's thetic and expectant giving is, there is a paral­ the ultimate source of the discontent regard­ lel distinction the author fails to make. That is ing Coolidge-he actually accomplished the distinction between self-esteem and self­ much, but not the government activism respect. The former refers to feeling good desired by so-called liberal observers. about oneself, regardless of whether those During the Coolidge administration federal feelings are merited. The latter, on the other expenditures fell from $5.06 billion in 1921 hand, must be earned. Self-esteem is (under President Warren Harding) to $3.12 bestowed on a something-for-nothing (sym­ billion in 1929. Along the way, Coolidge pathetic) basis, while self-respect results from stopped various government boondoggles, constructive effort to better oneself. Payne most prominently the McNary-Haugen bill, uses the term "self-esteem" exclusively, when which would have had the federal government "self-respect" is often what he really means. buy up farm surpluses to sell abroad and hike Those qualifications aside, Overcoming prices domestically. The federal debt fell by Welfare is an outstanding book. In writing it, 30 percent between 1921 and 1929. James Payne has made a valuable contribu­ At the same time, tax rates were slashed. tion to the debate over welfare policy. 0 The top personal income tax rate dropped Robert Batemarco is director ofana/ytics at a mar­ from 73 percent to 25 percent, and the capital keting research firm in New York City and teaches gains tax from 73 percent to 12.5 percent. economics at Marymount College in Tarrytown, New Coolidge got Congress to eliminate the recent­ York. ly imposed gift tax and to reduce the estate tax. The corporate income tax was also cut. The consequences of these policies were Coolidge: An American Enigma positive. Real annual economic growth aver­ by Robert Sobel aged 6.2 percent from 1922 to 1929 and con­ Regnery Publishing. 1998 • 462 pages. $34.95 sumer prices fell. Coolidge's record was not perfect. He The Presidency of Calvin Coolidge favored high tariffs and supported limitations on immigration, although he fought unsuccess­ by Robert Ferrell fully against an anti-Japanese provision in the University Press ofKansas • 1998 • 272 pages Immigration Act of 1924. Initially he opposed • $29.95 federal relief for the Mississippi flood of 1927, but eventually relented under massive congres­ Reviewed by Raymond 1. Keating sional pressure. Coolidge downsized the relief plan, but it set an expensive precedent. ew u.s. presidents have suffered more at Taken as a whole, however, Coolidge's Fthe hands ofstatist historians than Calvin record was admirable, and these two new Coolidge. The reason for the nearly unani­ books take major steps toward a far more just mous scorn directed at the 30th president was historical assessment. Coolidge's generally limited government Robert Ferrell's effort is the more work­ philosophy, which he quietly brandished manlike ofthe two. He has a formidable grasp while in the White House. of the period and the key events of the time. Those historians love to criticize Coolidge Many ofhis interpretations, however, suggest because he presided over peace and prosperi­ a strong faith in government action. For ty and had no interest in federal programs to example, Ferrell declares that "something had "manage"· the economy and "solve" social to be done" regarding farmers' woes during problems. Recently, for example, Nathan the 1920s-the implication being that govern­ Miller, author of Star-Spangled Men: Ameri­ ment had to do something. ca s Ten Worst Presidents, ranked Coolidge Nonetheless, he manages to restrain such among the worst not for anything he did, but leanings and provides sound historical report- 58 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY • JULY 1999 ing on Coolidge, his career, and his adminis­ corporate-welfare expenditures, his philoso­ tration. Of note, Ferrell observes about phy looks very sound. Coolidge's stint as governor of Massachu­ My sole complaint with Sobel's book again setts: "Crowning his accomplishments as gov­ lies with his understanding of economics. ernor was consolidation of the common­ While Sobel gets much of Coolidge's eco­ wealth's 118 separate government depart­ nomics and its effects right, he asserts that ments into 18, a courageous thing to do, for Coolidge was "not a 'supply-sider.' " many people lost lucrative posts." He also However, this statement seems to grow writes that "Regulation in the Coolidge era from the standard misunderstanding of was thin to the point of invisibility." And he supply-side economics. Coolidge, after all, honestly summarizes Coolidge's fiscal record: showed a consistent understanding of how "During the 1920s, the Coolidge administra­ high tax rates dulled incentives for working, tion reduced the debt, kept the budget flat, and investing, and risk taking, and thereby brought in sufficient revenues through restrained the economy's productive capacity. markedly reduced tax rates, both personal and Ferrell and Sobel manage to grasp the com­ corporate." plete Coolidge. While most historians have Where Ferrell falls far short is in his offered a caricature ofa president completely understanding of economics. He breaks into beholden to business interests, both authors Keynesian rhetoric, for example, in declaring understand that at Coolidge's core were his that Coolidge failed to see the problem of religious beliefs. As Sobel points out, during "underconsumption." Based on this Keyne­ the same speech in which Coolidge noted in sian model, Ferrell concludes: "The economy passing that the "chiefbusiness ofthe Ameri­ was the greatest problem ofthe moment, and can people is business," he also declared: Coolidge understood it less than some of his "The things ofthe spirit come first." contemporaries. Ifhe failed in the presidency, In another speech, Coolidge sagaciously this was the major failure." In reality, aside observed: "Prosperity is only an instrument to from his failure to understand the benefits of be used, not a deity to be worshiped." free trade, Coolidge may have had the best Despite certain weaknesses in both books, grasp of how the economy works among all they go far toward setting straight the histori­ twentieth-century presidents. cal record on Calvin Coolidge. D Robert Sobel's book is a highly readable Raymond J. Keating is chief economist for the popular biography. It is largely based on sec­ Small Business Survival Committee, a columnist with ondary sources, but the author's interpreta­ Newsday, and a contributing editor to The Freeman. tions are fresh. Among the many interesting issues Sobel touches on is Coolidge's request "for legisla­ tion to abolish the rights ofstates and munic­ H. L. Mencken Revisited ipalities to issue tax-exempt securities, argu­ ing that new investment funneled into these by William H. A. Williams securities could be better employed in the pri­ Twayne Publishers • 1998 • 195 pages • $35.00 vate sector." Coolidge's argument holds even greater validity today, given the tremendous Reviewed by George C. Leef waste that has been financed by such instru­ ments over the past seven decades. enry Louis Mencken is known to many Sobel also reports that Coolidge believed H. lovers of freedom as a sharp-tongued that "government should remain out of the satirist who lampooned politicians, crusading economy, and businessmen should not inter­ moralists, overstuffed intellectuals, and any­ fere with the proper functions of govern­ one else he thought was a public menace. He ment." Again, given today's convoluted tax is well appreciated for his acidic barbs (FDR, system, web-like regulatory regime, cam­ for example, was "King Roosevelt II"), but paign-finance controversies, and extensive most people who think well ofMencken do so BOOKS 59 just because he disliked big government and self-serving attempts to manipulate the its champions. Not many are familiar with his "booboisie" for their own gain. For instance, life and career as a journalist. he denounced Woodrow Wilson's last attorney William H. A. Williams's H L. Mencken general, A. Mitchell Palmer, for his "medieval Revisited admirably supplies the details of attempts to get into the White House by Mencken's life and career. The book is not a pumping up the Bolshevik issue." detailed biography, but covers the main fea­ Many people at the time, and perhaps to this tures of the great Baltimorean's life, with the day, regarded the incessantly satirical Menck­ primary focus on his thought, writings, and en as simply a nihilist. Williams argues other­ battles with the many people he believed were wise: "Beneath the surface of his satire, ruining the United States. Mencken was a very different figure from the One of Mencken's virtues was his consis­ cynical nihilist depicted by so many ofhis crit­ tency. He was a man of principle, and ics. He never denied the importance ofvalues Williams's book makes this very clear. or their necessity in society. He never sought Williams often refers to Mencken's "libertari­ to destroy those values in which he believed. anism" and quotes him as saying, "My liter­ He did attack, sometimes ignorantly and intol­ ary theory, like my politics, is based chiefly erantly, ideals that seemed to him hypocritical upon one idea, to wit, the idea of freedom. I or false. Even then, he usually produced his am, in brief, a libertarian ofthe most extreme condemnation by juxtaposing the qualities he variety, and can imagine no human right that admired against those he rejected.... He was is half as valuable as the simple right to pur­ in his own way a moralist, angrily decrying the sue the truth at discretion and utter it when erosion ofthose values necessary to a humane found." Instances of his commitment to the and civilized society." philosophy abound in the book. Williams also defends Mencken against For example, he vigorously opposed all other attacks by leftists who feel compelled attempts to silence free speech, even for those to besmirch the name of anyone who dis­ with whom he was in complete disagreement. agrees with them. Mencken died in 1956, but During the Red Scare of the 1920s, he not in recent years he has been subjected to only wrote to condemn the arrest and depor­ charges of racism and anti-Semitism. The tation of anarchist Emma Goldman, but also "racist label is based on nothing more than tried to get the Justice Department to return snippets of Mencken's colorful writing and her papers seized in a raid on the office ofher hardly squares with a man who helped many magazine and urged the Bureau of Immigra­ black authors, had black friends, testified in tion to allow her to return to the United States favor of an anti-lynching bill, and repeatedly to visit relatives. He even contributed money slammed the Ku Klux Klan." As to alleged to the Emma Goldman Recovery Committee. anti-Semitism, Williams quotes Sheldon Why worry about the treatment of a leftist Richman's observation that Mencken never radical? Because, Mencken knew, preserva­ blamed Jews for anything. Moreover, he had tion of the marketplace of ideas supersedes numerous Jewish friends, and denounced the disagreement with particular ideas. Williams Roosevelt administration's policy of refusing writes, "Mencken belonged to no political admittance to Jews seeking to flee Germany, organizations, and he invariably had little condemning "political mountebanks who fill sympathy for the liberal or radical goals of the air with hollow denunciations of Hitler, those he defended. He was motivated by lib­ and yet never lift a hand to help an actual ertarian principles and basic human sympa­ Jew." thy." Mencken thought little of most politi­ Ifyou are among that group ofpeople who cians. He subscribed to the beliefthat "public are fond of H.L. Mencken's flamboyant writ­ officials, under democracy, were predomi­ ing but know little about the man, this is a nantly frauds, and hence did not deserve to be book you would do well to acquire. D taken seriously." He blasted most for what he saw to be their George Leefis book review editor ofThe Freeman. 60 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY. JULY 1999

Yet ~1. 's Chinese escort could brag in the Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics face of this monumental office real-estate by ~ 1. O'Rourke glut, rolling his eyes slightly: "The floor space Atlantic Monthly Press. 1998 • 265 pages. $24.00 of high-rises in Pudong exceeds New York City." That was in 1997. Office space in Reviewed by William H. Peterson Pudong was set to grow by a third more in 1998. The Chinese communists, according to at the rich. Why not? Everyone knows the Asian Wall Street Journal, had literally E that they're responsible for the poverty of ordered Shanghai to be a world-class city­ victimized masses. To their rescue comes apparently regardless of cost. The beneficia­ Compassionate Government selflessly trans­ ries? Certainly not the poor Chinese peasant. ferring wealth from the rich to the poor. The O'Rourke, a roving editor for Rolling Stone, transfer, however, comes at a steep price to has covered such official misdeeds in previous society in terms ofdisincentives to the rich (as books such as Give War a Chance and Parlia­ well as the middle class) but more so to the ment ofWhores (in which he held that the whores poor whose plight is compounded by the law include anyone who is on the take from the wel­ of unintended consequences. The poor, you fare state). His winking cynicism and irreverence see, get to be truly victimized by the "com­ can lift a reader's sense ofgloom, on surveying passion" oftheir own government. political shenanigans at home and abroad, into This is the theme that P. 1. O'Rourke plays, laughter at the follies of government. Often, a grandly, in this lighthearted work with the good horselaugh is a more effective refutation of tongue-in-cheek subtitle of "A Treatise on statist pomposities than a lengthy article, and ~J. Economics." Economics then is taught via lampoons with a Menckenesque verve. numerous examples of official mismanage­ Continuing his economics lessons, ~J. plugs ment and unscrupulousness. Adam Smith's Invisible Hand idea, quoting the One of the foremost lessons concerns the famous passage: "It is not from the benevo­ consequences of living under the rule ofmen lence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, rather than the rule of law. The rule of men, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard says our hardy world traveler, is the pits. to their own interest." He rejects the cliche that O'Rourke wittily cites his experiences in in free societies the rich get richer and the poor Albania, Sweden, Cuba, Russia, Tanzania, get poorer. He amends that line with a punch China, and elsewhere to make his point. line: "The rich are getting richer. The poor are There, men in power seem bent on building getting richer. And we're all getting older." monuments to themselves-funded mainly With anecdotes and humor he demonstrates by, naturally, the poor. that economic liberty makes for the creation One such monument is seen in Shanghai's ofwealth and that economic repression makes giant new gleaming Pudong business district. for poverty. Thousands of people who would The only catch: no business, even though the otherwise shun a conventional treatise on eco­ place boasts of regional headquarters for the nomics may learn the fundamentals ofhuman likes of Hewlett-Packard, Siemens, Sharp, action from this unconventional one. Coca-Cola, SmithKline Beecham, and Sony. Lastly, ~1. finds economic virtue in the O'Rourke writes: Tenth Commandment condemning covetous­ ness. He says that if you want a donkey or a Nobody seemed to be there at all. In the pot roast or a cleaning lady every week, middle ofa Tuesday afternoon, nothing was "don't bitch about what the people across the going on. We drove up and down empty street have. Go get your own." streets along concrete fences decorated with Great message. D those international cross-out silhouettes William Peterson is an adjunct scholar at the Her­ indicating prohibition of this or that: No itage Foundation in Washington and Distinguished spitting. No martial arts. No cutting trees. Lundy Professor Emeritus ofBusiness Philosophy at No firecrackers. No breaking the phone. Campbell University in North Carolina. BOOKS 61

hurt me." When we tell children this, we know Cyber Rights: Defending Free Speech in that the reason some people want to restrict the Digital Age certain kinds of speech is precisely because by Mike Godwin words can hurt. But just as children must Times Books • 1998 • 305 pages. $27.50 learn to rise above adversity and learn to cope with the power of words, so must adults­ Reviewed by Royce Van Tassell even when the words hurt or offend. Cyber Rights is not without its flaws. God­ n June 26, 1995, Time magazine started win makes the claim that libel law may be Othe "Great Cyberporn Panic of 1995" coming to an end, but it is rather difficult to with a story legitimizing Martin Rimm's take that seriously. Furthermore, his passion scaremongering study ofpornography online. for the Net sometimes colors his judgment. Three weeks later, after Mike Godwin and He states at one point that, "the Net [is] reduc­ others in the online community had complete­ ing and perhaps erasing the imbalance of ly discredited Rimm's study, Time realized power between mass media and private indi­ that Rimm had duped them and issued what viduals. The power of the Net allows anyone amounts to the only full-page retraction in its with a will and the energy to write the oppor­ 70-year history. tunity to publish their ideas." While the sec­ In his book Cyber Rights, Mike Godwin, ond half of that statement is true, I am not chiefcounsel for the Electronic Frontier Foun­ convinced ofthe first. Earning a voice in pub­ dation, uses that and other cases to show how lic discourse comparable to the current posi­ important full free speech rights on the Net tion of, say, the New York Times or Tom are. Without them, Godwin maintains, the Net Brokaw is as much a product ofluck as it is of could not help the rest of America hold the effort or knowledge. mainstream press accountable and facilitate Godwin's writing is for the most part clear the vigorous, uninhibited exchange of ideas and succinct. He distills the legalese ofspeech we find there. This book is a passionate argu­ law into simple prose, and then illustrates the ment that speech in cyberspace must enjoy the application and importance of those princi­ same protection as "ink on dead trees." ples in cyberspace with well-told stories. On Godwin believes that the Net represents the occasion, his transition between the explana­ most complete extension of the American tion ofa principle and the ensuing illustration experiment in democracy. It permits every­ jarred me, but it was not difficult to pick up one, "not just lawyers or journalists or policy­ the trail again. makers, or the rich and well-connected ... to Cyber Rights is an enjoyable and impor­ level the playing field, to hold media and tant book. For lawyers conversant in First political institutions accountable, and to tell Amendment law, Godwin dispels some of the truth." It makes everyone with a computer the preconceptions that have led many of and a modem a modern "pamphleteer." Any­ them to segregate speech on the Net from one who recently logged onto the seattle.gen­ speech in the traditional media. For legisla­ eral newsgroup saw how vibrant the discus­ tors and policymakers, it is an excellent sion of racial preferences and affirmative primer on why they must not rashly alter the action can be, as opposed to the staid, often rules of speech in new media. Lastly, God­ redundant discourse found in the traditional win helps the average citizen understand media. Without the Net's anonymity, such how the Net can improve society and per­ frankness would never have emerged. haps re-establish some of the community Freedom of speech must be more than a lost in our increasingly distant society-if it notion to which we sometimes pay lip service. is left free. D Godwin tells adults to relearn a lesson we've Royce Van Tassell is an analyst with Citygate Asso­ all tried to teach children: "Sticks and stones ciates, a policy and management consulting firm in may break my bones, but words will never Sacramento, California. LEVIATHAN alWAI

"Many men desire peace; but not many desire the things that make for peace." - Thomas if Kempis

This issue's special section on the war in the Balkans falls squarely within FEE's 53-year tradition of exploring the ideas that make for freedom and peace. As Leonard E. Read, FEE's founder and longtime president, once explained: "War is liberty's greatest enemy, and the deadly foe of economic progress. If war be evil there must be a way to avoid it; there must be a rationale,.a type of thinking, patterns for living, that lead to peace." In 1995, FEE published Leviathan at War, an anthology of articles from The Freeman and other FEE releases. Edited by Edmund A. Opitz, Leviathan at War includes more than 20 essays on the causes and economics of war, free trade as a foundation for peace, war's effect on individual liberty, and related topics.

What makes Leviathan at War such a valuable collection?

• Leonard Read's classic "Conscience on the Battlefield," penned during the Korean War to debunk the popular notion of war "as a means to peace among nations"

• Daniel Webster and S.H. Liddell Hart's historic essays on conscription, along with Dean Russell's "The Conscription Idea," written in 1953

• Essays by Ludwig von Mises, Ayn Rand, Hans Sennholz, Samuel H. Husbands, and Edmund A. Opitz, along with fresh ideas from a younger generation of writers

• "The War Prayer" by Mark Twain

192 pages, indexed, paperback Specially priced this month: $10.95, postpaid (3 copies to a single address: $25.95, postpaid)

To order, caI/800-452-3518, or fax 914-591-8910. Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover orders welcomed. Or send your check or money order to: FEE, 30 S. Broadway, Irvington-an-Hudson, NY 10533. Offer ends August 31, 1999. The Pursuit of Happiness by Walter E. Williams

Ignorance Is Bliss-Maybe

ot having experienced much ofthe past is the inanimate object, while incapable of act­ N a mixed blessing. What's grotesque, ing, that is responsible. That is, a gun is shocking, and unheard of to older Americans responsible for murder, not the gun's user. A might seem normal, perhaps just a bit curious, cigarette is responsible for a fire, not the care­ to younger Americans. For example, last year less smoker. That being the case, it "logically" New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial brought suit follows that manufacturers of the offending against gun manufacturers to recover carnage inanimate object are culpable. After all, had costs in his city. This January, Philadelphia the manufacturer not produced the gun or Mayor Ed Rendell met with his advisers to cigarette there would be fewer homicides, consider whether the city should sue gun man­ smoking-related illnesses, and fires caused by ufacturers for creating a public nuisance since careless smoking. guns were used in its 400-plus homicides. The city would seek to recover the cost of every­ thing from cleanup after bloody murders to "It's Not My Fault" court and social workers for victims. Mayor This it's-not-my-fault principle can be Rendell's imagination has also led him to dis­ broadened to include just about anything. Ifa cover a new liability for tobacco companies: scantily clad young lady prancing along the since some ofPhiladelphia's fires have careless street distracts my attention, and I have an smoking as their origin, why not sue tobacco automobile collision, the it's-not-my-fault companies to recover the city's fire losses? principle would hold the young lady liable for Decades ago anyone suggesting bringing my accident. But she might make the case that lawsuits against gun manufacturers for homi­ it is the manufacturer ofher miniskirt who is cides, or tobacco companies for fires caused really liable. If we Americans were to carry by careless smoking would have been consid­ the it's-not-my-fault principle to its logical ered a prime candidate for a lunatic asylum. If conclusion, we would virtually guarantee one generalizes from the lawsuits brought poverty. There would be little production. against gun manufacturers because people use Why should I manufacture irons ifI could be their product to commit murder and mayhem, held liable for anything a person might do and against tobacco companies for smoking with the iron, including assault or leaving the illnesses and fires caused by careless smok­ iron unattended and thereby causing a fire. ing, one would conclude that people are not to Suppose by some mi~acle a person who be held responsible for anything they do. It is died as recently as 1950 were to come back to visit today's America. How might we explain Walter Williams is the John M Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics and chairman of the eco­ all this to him? At first blush we might tell nomics department at George Mason University in him that Americans and their leaders have Fairfax, Virginia. taken complete leave oftheir senses and wish 63 64 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY. JULY 1999 to abandon all notions of personal responsi­ Michael Jacobson, CSPI's director, also bility. But there is a more flattering explana­ thinks Mexican and Chinese restaurants offer tion though nonetheless still troubling: Amer­ servings much too large and says, "It's high icans simply want other people's money, and time the [restaurant] industry begins to bear the courts and the legislature have provided some responsibility for its contribution to them with a mechanism for getting it. I do not obesity, heart disease and cancer." believe we have reached a point where the courts would countenance legislatures' brazenly picking out a corporation and say­ Got Milk? ing, "You look as ifyou have a lot ofmoney; Since obesity impacts heavily on health­ give it to us." Thus, we have to create an aura care costs, why not bring lawsuits against the of legitimacy to extortion. We do it with pro­ food industry like those against the tobacco paganda impugning the company's moral industry? Yale University's Professor Kelley character and with bogus science. Health and D. Brownell, director ofthe Center for Eating professed concern about the nation's children and Weight Disorders, proposes that foods have been two successful strategies. After all, high in fat or with little nutritional content be who can be against health and the welfare of taxed. He recommends that the tax proceeds America's children? be used to build bike and hiking trails. He Where it all ends is difficult to predict but also says that since the average child sees there are some signs on the horizon. "Caffeine 10,000 food commercials each year, 95 per­ is the new drug ofchoice among kids," warns cent ofthem for junk food and sugared cere­ Helen Cordes writing in The Nation magazine als, Congress ought to regulate junk-food (April 27, 1998), adding, "Caffeine Inc. [soda commercials. The cigarette tyrants got "Joe manufacturers] is raking it in, often targeting Camel" advertisements banned. Why not go teens and younger kids.... The major caf­ after Rice Krispies' "Snap, Crackle, and feine suppliers to kids have been throwing Pop"? millions into advertising and give-aways." In New York City, Anti-Dairy Coalition The Center for Science in the Public Interest Executive Director Robert Cohen, author of (CSPI) agrees and wants the FDA to regulate the book Milk: The Deadly Poison, says that caffeine content of soda, coffee, tea, and "Milk products, like tobacco, are an enor­ chocolate. Roland Griffiths ofJohns Hopkins mous threat to the health ofboth children and University is also concerned about coffee's adults, yet we see the dairy industry protected addictive qualities and says, "If health risks by constitutionally questionable laws while are well-documented, caffeine could be cata­ the tobacco industry is held accountable." pulted in public perception from a pleasant If there is a blessing to being at an age habit to a possibly harmful drug of abuse." when one contemplates the arrival ofthe grim That vision, along with bogus science, might reaper, it is the knowledge that one will not become justification for lawsuits and FDA be around to witness the end of sanity in regulation. America. D