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4 Letters Our readers take Liberty into their own hands. 7 Reflections Liberty's editors on Presidents, living and dead; voters, active and inactive; breasts, implanted and deflated; taxes, cut and uncut; Russians, powerful and powerless; and other images, tightly focused. Features 17 Patrick J. Buchanan James Robbins talked with Bush's right-wing challenger about America, Japan, illegal immigrants, drugs, the names of sports teams, and libertarian should support him. 21 Inside Pat Buchanan Chester Alan Arthur explores the mindscape of America's pre-eminent "paleo-conservative," looking for something even remotely libertarian. 29 Acid Rain and the Corrosion of Science Edward C. Krug, a scientist on the Reagan Administration's infamous "acid rain" commission, explains the real nature of the political pressure bearing down on science. 31 P.C. or B.S.? Meredith McGhan finds herself caught between the fascism of Political Correctness and the Stalinism of the Right. 33 America's Experiment In Sylvan Socialism John Baden has prepared an environmental impact statement on the u.S. Forest Service. The agency runs about as well as you can expect a government boondoggle to run. 31 No Accounting for Waste RandalO'Toole audits the U. S. Forest Service's accounting system: the bottom line is pork. 39 Albert Jay Nock: Prophet of Libertarianism? The great libertarian writer was a riddle wrapped inside a mystery wrapped inside an enigma. Stephen Cox unveils the genius behind the nut beneath the master. 47 Hong Kong After Tlananmen Kin-ming Liu examines the prospects for the future of his hometown. 51 The Ghost In the Little House Books William Holtz examines the professional relationship between Rose Wilder Lane, libertarian novelist, and her mother, Laura Ingalls Wilder, the official author of The Little House on the Prairie books. 55 Economics vs Bionomics? Ross Overbeek explains why he is not impressed with "bionomics." Michael Rothschild, bionomics' originator, explains why he isn't impressed with Overbeek. Reviews 59 JFK, Conspiracies, and Me Oliver Stone made a movie. Lee Harvey Oswald shot a preSident. Sheldon Richman wrote this review. Where's the controversy? Read on . .. 61 A Paradigm Shifts Gears Jane S. Shaw puts the latest model of Public Choice through a test drive. Behind all the fancy new features lies a very practical development - constitutional politics - that means one thing: economics has gone into overdrive. 63 The illusions of a Technique Lawrence White enumerates the benefits and hazards of cost-benefit analysis. 65 Booknotes on feminists, strangers, puns, lawyers, sports. Departments 69 Notes on Contributors 70 Terra Incognita Excerpts from the real and unreal worlds of the media, the state, and the booboisie. what the Objectivist movement is about. Mr Steele is in~ppropriately angry a,nd vi- tuperative, whIch are usually sure sIgns ( et t erS ]] L of a case without merit. Mr Veatch, b======::;.o whether intentionally or not, is a master Steele's Aborted Argument P.C. in the Sixties at concealing the meaning of his sentenc­ That David Ramsay Steele ("Peikoff's Henry Veatch, though mostly right, is es and paragraphs. Objectivism: An Autopsy," January 1992) a little wrong when he says that, some 25 Robert J. O'Donnell gave a critical review of Peikoff's latest years ago, Rand's objectivism "was a cult San Rafael, Calif. book is an understatement. But do that touched only the students and not Clue Steele's ideas (e.g., "a fetus is pro­ the professors - at least not those pro­ grammed withtheories ... we are born R.W. Bradford ("Happy Anniversary, fessors whose calling was 'academic phi­ National Park Service," January 1992) has theorizing ... we are all born into the losophy'" ("Might 'Objectivism' Ever Be­ sha~pened the horns of the dilemma of world holding theories....") improve come Academically Respectable?" purpose faced by the National Park Ser­ any on those ideas of Peikoff that he January 1992). vice and by U.S. citizens. He illustrates characterizes as "barely coherent"? I Leonard Peikoff, for one, was ex­ the anguish caused by the impalement on doubt it; in fact, one of my fetal theories pounding Rand's Objectivism at that first one horn and then the other. They that I've never seen fit to revise is that time as an academic philosopher (at Den­ "Steele is full of shit." (Just for a brief in­ can't rest on either point - that of permit­ ver University), and so was I at the Uni­ ted public access to, or absolute preserva­ kind review. So, sue my grandfather!) versity of Colorado. From 1962 onwards, Steele sounds more like an abortion clin­ tion of, National Park property. My moth­ I assigned various works of Rand in my er, Lena Fletcher, daughter of the John ic picketer than a critic of philosophy. classes in social and political philosophy. Huelsdonk mentioned in the article, once Not by way of defending Peikoff, I even had an article published in Rand's Steele is no better for "(stopping) ... wrote that the ideal National Park would Objectivist. be on the other side of the moon, hidden where the interesting questions start." This is not to say that I did not suffer from view of the vulgar, and untracked or Like: How is a fetus so programmed? By for my temerity in certain ways at the trodden by the feet of the elite. whom? or what? Is every fetus conscious hands of my department. Students were My own characterization of "natural" of its theories? Starting when? What theo­ told by the chairman of the department National Parks comes from myexperi­ ries does a fetus have? What meaning can (a great exponent of non-eonformity of ence and training in the administration of a theory have to, and how can it be under­ thought) not to take my courses. There public zoos. The popular National Parks stood by, an embryo with no language or was even hostility to my getting salary are oversized public zoological gardens, concepts? What happened to adults who raises. In 1964 I had eleven articles pub­ run by Park police rangers instead of zoo wouldn't recognize a theory ifone bit lished in various philosophical journals, directors. them? Will my revised theories be passed some of the highest repute (e.g.: Phil. & John A. Fletcher on to any eggs I fertilize? What embryo Phenomena Research; American Phil. Quar­ St Paul, Minn. would not reject pro-choice theories? terly; Phil. Studies; Analysis; The Phil. Re­ Lesion: The Unkindest Cut Did Steele have his super-theory ever view; October; Dialogue, The Canadian Phil­ since he was conceived? Why didn't the It's nice to see that Liberty's commen­ osophical Quarterly; Ratio; The Review of tary on "Magic" Johnson treats him as an rest of us get that theory? Perhaps the Metaphysics). This was a time when publi­ embryonic Steele was just so much better individual and not as a symbol. However, cation was being touted as the sine qua as former host couple of several swing than me at reviewing, comprehending, non of and most meritorious of scholarly testing, invalidating, and revising the en­ clubs, and with one of us trained in epi­ endeavors. On the recommendation of demiology, we find Kostelanetz's as­ tire phylogenetic universe of innate theo­ the department - most of whose mem­ sumptions (''Lesion lessons," January ries, and now he's on a higher level; a bers had no publications that year, but 1992) about sexual transmission of HIV normal person would have been mental­ did have correct thoughts -I received dubious. lyexhausted before birth! Perhaps, again, the lowest salary raise of anyone. First, his notion of "lesions" is too sim­ I mistakenly place excessive value on my So I know from first hand, let me say, ple. HIV may well be transmissible concept of "theory" and the role it plays the penalties of advocating unpopular through unbroken mucus membranes of in human learning and achievement. causes in Academe, where as nowhere the vagina, penis or rectum; even if not, a David A. Braatz else is P.C. comparably mandated. But, penile "lesion" may be no more than a Mt. Mourne, N.C. let me add, I am happy that I stuck by roughened or abraded area, not particu­ my ideological guns and in retrospect larly painful, especially during sexual ex­ Letters Policy would, given the chance, do exactly as I citement, when pain sensitivity is much did then. I guess what I mean is: honesty We invite readers to comment on reduced. Vigorous intercourse with some­ articles that have appeared in Liber­ does pay, in the noblest coinage of them one with coarse pubic hair, or with insuf­ ty. We reserve the right to edit for all- self-respect. ficient lubrication, can easily produce length and clarity. All letters are as­ John O. Nelson such abrasions without either party's sumed to be intended for publication Boulder, Colo. awareness. unless otherwise stated. Succinct, No Clue Second, Kostelanetz must not be very typewritten letters are preferred. Neither David Ramsay Steele nor promiscuous himself, or he would know Please include your phone number Henry B. Veatch seem to have a clue as to continued on page 6 so that we can verify your identity. ~ ~ The International Societ~ for Individual Libert~ IJresents: THE ROAD BACK FROM SERFDOM A WORLD CONFERENCE ON FREEDOM AND PEACE Poprad, Czechoslovakia - Aug. 9-14/1992

A host of international exrerts' from across Eastern Europe and the world will meet this August at the beautiful Tatra mountain resort community of Poprad in eastern Czechoslovakia (near the Polish border) to debate issues of privatization, deregulation and devolution of state power. Solutions to the problems of ethnic violence in Yugoslavia and the new Soviet Republics will be aebated and panels will discuss ways and means of creating the business and legal environment necessary to bring about prosperity and social harmony. You are invited to attend and participate in this historic event. A Partial Listing of Speakers Includes: • VACLAV KLAUS, Czech Finance Minister (often referred to as the "Milton Friedmanu of Czechoslovakia) • LEON LOUW and FRANCES KENDALL of The Free Market Foundation & Groundswell (South Africa) • TOM GREY, Political & Economic advisor to the Prime Minister of the Slovakian Republic. • ROBERT POOLE, JR., President of the Reason Foundation & leading authority on privatization • DR. SVETOZAR PEJOVICH, of Texas A & M (authority on Yugoslavia and member of ISIL's Board) • VICTOR DAVIDOFF, of the Free Market Foundation in Moscow -- also ISIL Rep for Russia • KEN SCHOOLLAND, a former special advisor to the White House & current ISIL Board Member. • PROF. RICHARD EBELING of Hillsdale College and the Von Mises Institute. 1·_·_·_·_·_'-'-'-'_·_'-'_·_'-' BUMPER HORNBERGER, president of the • Future of Freedom Foundation. I 0 Yes! I would definitely like to attend the Poprad World Conference. I enclose _ A Special Seminar on starting new capitalist • ventures in Eastern Europe by free-market o I'm interested -- please send me more entrepreneurs from Krakow Industrial Society information on ISIL and the Poprad Con­ Plus many more to be announced later. ference. I understand that I will receive a • complimentary copy of the Freedom Network REGISTRATION INFORMATION News world newsletter & book catalog -- plus Poprad Conference: Full accommodations -- 5 nights, all a selection of hard-hitting position papers. meals (including banquet), full program, lectures, sight- Name _ seeing tour of ,medieval castle, etc $490.00 US Address _ Prague Supplement: Sightseeing tour of Prague on 9th of August (the day before conference), meal, 2-Star hotel (double rooms, breakfast & round trip charter flight to L._._._._._._._._._._._._._._. J Poprad). Highly recommended $125.00 US International Society For Individual Liberty, 1800 Market St., San Francisco, CA 94102 Tel: (415) 864-0952 Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992

Letters, continued from page 4 supported assertion ofa single witness. ence Thomas~ and not a single voice is that among people with several hundred The evidence thatHiss wasguiltyconsist­ heard defending Anita Hill. Indeed, Virk­ sex partners, remembering more than a ed ofthetestimonyofWhittaker Cham­ kala compares her to Tawana Brawley, few dozen is very unlikely. Given the bers plusextensive physical evidence. and Kostelanetz suggests that Hill sub­ sports groupie scene in which Mr John­ Whether Mr Thomas was rude to consciously "craved this week of celebri­ son was probably participating, he is un­ Miss Hill we do not know, and I doubt ty." (This quickness to attribute Hill's tes­ likely to remember many of his sex part­ we ever will. That is one ofthe problems timony to psychological problems is not ners at all, much less recall a single act of one faces when making accusations matched by any tendency to raise similar vaginal intercourse as unusual. years later without any evidence. questions about Thomas.) Gracie & Zarkov How Friedman could equate Thom­ Thomas' support in the libertarian Berkeley, ,Calif. as, whose guilt was never proven, with community is presumably due to the Ominous Non-parallels Hiss, who was proven guilty beyond widespread perception that he is a closet reasonable doubt, is beyond my ken. Is libertarian. Of this I am skeptical; Thom­ How could David Friedman (liThe Liberty finding it necessary to present as' record suggests that he is a traditional­ New Alger Hiss," January 1992) equate both sides on major controversies even Clarence Thomas with Alger Hiss? Any ist patriarchal conservative with some when the case is as clear-cut as this one? mildly libertarian views; his confirmation similarity is drowned by two major dif­ hearing suggests that he is a Bush-style ferences: Pat Williams pragmatist with no principled commit­ 1. The specific offense Thomas was New York, N.Y. ments. Neither prospect is heartening for accused of was bad manners in asking A Question of Principle defenders of liberty. But even if Thomas out a woman who didn't want to date I am disappointed by Liberty's treat­ were the crypto-libertarian many take him and using ribald language in her ment ofthe Thomas-Hill hearings. Liber­ him to be, this would hardly warrant the presence. The offense Hiss was accused tarianism is supposed to stand for the unhesitating support he has received in of was turning over American secrets~to rights of the oppressed, the whistle­ the pages ofLiberty. Shaw goes so far as a foreign power whose stated goal was blowers, the courageous victims of irre­ to assert that even if Thomas is guilty of the destruction of America. sponsible authority. Yet in the premiere harassment, he was justified in denying it 2. The evidence thatThomas was journal ofthe libertarian movement, ll - and calling Hill's integrity in question guilty of his IIcrime consisted ofthe un- four voices are raised in defense of Clar- - in order to win the nomination! And here I thought that as libertarians we were supposed to pride ourselves on not r------., subordinating principle to expediency. Roderick T. Long 1 The Sound of Liberty 1 Bowling Green, Oh. We captured the voices ofLiberty's editors and guests at the top of th~ir form at a conference we held some time back, and offer their wise words on No Cheers for Coase tape. Here is some of the excitement: I have not done any concentrated if 1 • Liberty and the Environment, with Jane S. Shaw, Richard Stroup, John 1 study in the ideas of Ronald Coase, but Hospers, R.W. Bradford and David Friedman (A-l07, V-107) David Friedman's elucidation of them • Making Sense ofRights, with David Friedman, John Hospers,Timothy ("How to Think About Pollution," Janu­ 1 . Virkkala, R.W. Bradford, Loren Lomasky and David Ramsay Steele (A­ 1 ary 1992) is accurate, I cannot concur in 108, V-l08) Friedman's cheer at his being awarded a • The Economic Case for and against Anarchy, by David Friedman (A-I09, Nobel. V-l09) Coase's notion of "least cost avoider" 1 • Does Economics Make Sense? by David Friedman (A-l12, V-112) 1 and Friedman's statement that "It is the • The Poverty ofLibertarian Fiction,/ by Stephen Cox (A-114, V-114) joint decision - yours to pollute and mine to live where you are polluting that 1------1 produces the cost" might seem strange to Yes! Send me the tapes I have circled above! a libertarian. Ifyou rewrite the sentence to read "It is the joint decision - yours to 1 Total Audio Cassettes _ @ $ 7.50 1 fire the gun and mine to be in the way of Total Video Cassettes _ @ $19.50 = the bullet - that produces the murder," perhaps the problem becomes more clear. Postage & Handling ($5 per order *) Coase's ideas completely evade the 1 * $2.50 per tape, for~ign 1 notion of rights that should not be violat­

(Jl My check is enclosed (payable to Liberty) Total ed no matter what the cost of avoiding vi­ olating them is. He seems to imply that 1 OJ Charge: OJ VISA OJ M/C Card # _ 1 anyone has the right to anything he Exp __ Signature Send order to: wants as long as he can convince a judge Liberty - who has no way, even theoretically, of 1 Name ------­ DeptT28 1 calculating such a thing objectively- Address PO Box 1167 Port Townsend, WA 98368 ----11 continued on page 50 Happy Bicentennial - On the two-hundredth Wall St Journal calls Bush the "Reregulation President." anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights, the So while there is no doubt that the moratorium is a good American Bar Association sponsored a poll in which respon­ thing, why stop at 90 days? And why not abolish some of the dents were asked to identify the Bill of Rights among four other regulations that cost the average household $4,300 this possibilities in an absurdly easy multiple-choice question. year? According to the New York Times (Dec. IS, 1991), just one­ If the president wants a moratorium to goose the econo­ third identified the right answer. Only nine percent knew my, here's one that will work a lot better than this wimpy 90­ that the Bill of Rights was intended to protect citizens against day holiday from new regulation: a moratorium on federal abuses by the federal government, while 33 percent thought taxes. Let's see how hard people will work, how much they it was intended to ensure equality for all citizens. Almost will invest, how prudent they will be if they can actually three-fourths of the respondents said they would like the keep the fruits of their efforts. Constitution to guarantee adequate health care for every­ Now there's a moratorium worth getting excited about! body. -RWB Maybe some people really do get the government they My breasts, my choice - Expect the FDA's re­ deserve. - RH cent decision to ban silicone breast implants to lead to a trag­ State of the union - As we begin another presi­ ic rise in fatalities associated with unlicensed, back alley breast implants. - BD dential election campaign, it's time perhaps to consider what this display of a "democratic people in action" actually The plastic age of comedy - As a hobby, I means in America. Less than one-half of the eligible voters enjoy watching the various historic fantasies produced (as bother to vote at all. Of these, the winning candidate general­ "documentaries") by the Public Broadcasting System. They Iy garners a bit more than half of the votes. He wins these by offer some of the most hilarious entertainment on television. routinely lying ("Read my lips"), by shamelessly lavishing Case in point: LB], a television biography. the wealth of productive people on every kind of mooching The idea, as I understand it, was to present a revisionist special interest, and by a brainless barrage of thirty-second interpretation of Johnson to try to dispel the portrait that television spots - paid for with money looted from the tax­ emerges from Robert Caro's meticulously researched multi­ payer. Those who do bother to vote know virtually nothing volume biography. Although Caro is a left-liberal himself, he about the issues: they bask in what economists call "rational is no fool. He sees Johnson for what he was: a vain, cruel, ignorance" (hence the brainless commercials). This, in es­ nasty person, who sought to enhance his own power and sence, is the much vaunted "democratic process." How it wealth by advocating and enacting massive increases in the could conceivably bestow the slightest shred of moral legiti­ size and power of goverI1ment. This view scandalizes most macy on the victor is beyond me. left-liberals about as much as a fundamentalist is scandalized Meanwhile, Pat Buchanan's entry into the Republican by evolution. After all, under Johnson, government grew at contest is welcome news. It's unlikely that even the pugna­ its fastest, with conventional left-liberal ideology holding cious Pat can force the supremely banal Bush to engage in near-monopoly power in the academy and the media. real debate. But at least he can make the campaign fun to The problem for left-liberals is that LBJ sunk us into watch.' -RR Vietnam, a war we lost at considerable cost in men and mon­ ey. But from the liberal perspective, Vietnam exacted a far No old taxes - In an effort to get the economy going more terrible cost: it destroyed people's faith in government, again, President Bush has announced a 90-day moratorium their confidence that if government tackled a problem it on new federal regulations. No doubt this is a great idea, but could solve it. it raises an interesting question: if Bush's regulations are So the general thesis of PBS's LBJseemed easy to predict: hurting the economy, why does he promulgate them in the LBJ was a larger-than-life statesman who accomplished su­ first place? perhuman feats (the War on Poverty, the Great Society, civil But promulgate them he has. As of October, the adminis­ rights legislation), but who had a tragic'flaw (Vietnam). tration was working on 4,863 regulations. According to a So when my local PBS station ran LB] in two three-hour study by National Chamber Foundation, the cost of regula­ blocks on two consecutive evenings, I taped the whole orgy tion fell under Carter and Reagan from $5,800 per household for future enjoyment. Since then, whenever I need a boost in per year in 1977 to $4,100 in 1988. Under Bush, the cost of spirits of the sort that can only come from fantasy, I put a regulation has already increased to $4,300. No wonder The videocassette into my VCR and chuckle at LBI's antics - Liberty 7 Voluxne 5, Nuxnber 4 March 1992

they are genuinely funny, from our perspective a quarter cen­ the floor from Eisenhower's golf shoes. He finally looked at tury later - and roll in the aisles over the attempts of the me and said, 'Look what that son of a bitch Eisenhower did "documentary" to portray him as a tragic hero. to my floor!' That was his way of apologizing. Very human, I The other night I finally got to the show's last episode. thought." And what a show it was! The story begins with film of the The climax came when the narrator solemnly intoned an wedding of one of LBJ's ugly daughters. The narrator pom­ account ofJohnson's four-day around-the-world tour in 1966. pously intones, "It was August 6, 1966. There was war in After visiting the troops in Vietnam and stopping in Vietnam and riots in the streets. But there was still more Pakistan, the President went on to Rome: "It was like a cam­ Johnson hoped to do." What else, I wondered. War abroad paign tour of old. Johnson paid a surprise visit to the Vatican and riots at home are pretty impressive accomplishments. where he assured Pope Paul of his desire for peace. His Nt;aybe a plague ... Holiness presented the President with a fourteenth century . During the next 30 minutes, I was treated to perhaps the funniest television ever. Consider: . Several Johnson associates explain that he wasn't lying to Several Johnson associates explain that he the American people when he told them the war was going well. He wasn't lying because, for him, as a successful politi­ wasn't lying to the American people when he told cian, the concept of truth had lost all meaning. All he cared them the war was going well. He wasn't lying be­ about was saying things that would get people to do what he cause, for him, as a successful politician, the con­ wanted them to do. cept of truth had lost all meaning. A black Johnson aide explained that Johnson met with him and other aides before dispatching them to Detroit to oversee the troops and tanks that Johnson was sending in to quell the race riots. LBJ delivered a histrionic little speech: "I don't painting. The President reciprocated with a foot-high plastic bust of himself." want any bullets in those guns," he said softly. "I don't want This, I submit, is humor of the absurd carried to its limit. any bullets in those guns!" he repeated a bit louder. "You The only thing more absurdly funny is that there are millions hear me," he shouted, "I don't want any bullets in those guns! of PBS viewers who don't get the joke. - RWB "I don't want it known that anyone of my men are shooting pregnant nig ..." Johnson stopped. "He was clearly embar­ Bushwhacked - What can you say when the high rassed, and everybody in the room was embarrassed," the point of President Bush's trip to Japan was when he deposit­ aide recalls. When the meeting ended, he asked the aide into ed his semi-digested lunch on the Prime Minister's fine table­ his office. "He didn't say anything. I knew he wanted to say 1 cloth and suit? He spent most of the trip trying to force the didn't mean to say nigger.' But he meant to say nigger. And I Japanese government to force the Japanese private sector to knew he wanted to apologize. So he walked me over to the buy more American products, especially cars and auto parts. french doors that go out to the rose garden, the area where In other words, America is now an exporter of economic fas­ Eisenhower had had his putting green. He looked out, and cism. His traveling companions were a bunch of corpulent looked at me, and looked down. There were pock marks on corporate CEOs, including those of the Big Three automak- ers. (Where are the antitrust people when you need The "rnan-on-the-streef'gQ'ts dum don... them?) I can see how the auto-parts deal might work; ~...... the head of MITI (the Ministry of International Trade SIR, DO YOU THINK ruE RE.CENT WHATJS------and Industry) will call in the Japanese auto executives !RAPE MISSION TO ~PAN WILL. 'pUMPING"'? STOP 'THE DUMPING OF and order them to buy more American parts. But how ;JAPANESE-MADE CARS SELLING THEIR CARS R>R IN tHE U.S.? LESS IN THE U.S. THAN will Japan's consumers be convinced to buy AT HOME IN ~PAN. Chryslers, Fords, Buicks, and the rest? (It's hard ~ ~­ l enough to convince Americans to buy more of the rn "'-e same.) Since Bush's return, the Prime Minister has ~G7 been saying that he made no promises. I hope he sticks to this line. When Bush got home, he decided it was time to make a fool of himself in New Hampshire, where Pat (/) REALLY?IJ HOW'S 1:,1r> LlKE 1D THANK THE Buchanan is hounding him. Doing his best impres­ 'THAT R)SSIBlE? ~PANESE -rnxPAVERS ~PANESE FOR MAKI~G MY NEW sion of Daffy Duck, Bush sputtered that he was "sick Z GOVERNME.NT J()N1>A AFFORDABLE. SUBSU)'(. DO YOU HAve so and tired" of the Democrats hectoring him. (Coming o ( ANYTHING mSAY ABOUT JT? from Mr Bush, this is an ominous phrase.) He said cl m) that when he wanted to go to war, he didn't need :::l ffi "'-6§ Senator Kennedy's permission; he just did it. (Anyone remember something called "the dl Constitution"?) In a burst of hysteria, he said that had he listened to the war opponents, we'd be pay­ ing $20 a gallon for gasoline. I'll save you the math: ·8 Liberty 11,200% ~ The Deadly 1-1,000% ~ 800% Anomaly J-? 600% I 400% Federal Debt I 1 _ !- Consumer Prices ~ 200% I J 0% 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 How this economic time-bomb points to the profit opportunity of the century.

300% IN 24 MONTHS 1981 to about $4 trillion today. Injust 10 years profit objectives and the risk level that suits risks and opportunities that are invisible to Treasury debt has more than quadrupled! your temperament. Big investor or small, con­ conventional analysis. Just twenty-four months ago the remark­ servative or speculative, this idea should be The most fundamental economic laws say As his loyal readers have acclaimed for able anomaly presented by the above graph part of every financial plan. These mecha­ that as the quantity of anything increases, the two decades, nothing in the entire field of gave birth to a brilliant investment idea. The nisms are'ideally suited to protect holders of price shouldfall, not rise. Yet, in the face ofan economic and financial publications ap­ idea was first disclosed to readers of John bonds, savings accounts, trust deeds, and pen­ unprecedented deluge offederal IODs, T-bond proaches the clarity, consistency, and logic of Pugsley's Journal, a privately-circulatednews­ sion plans against losses due to rising interest prices have soared. It flies in the face of John Pugsley's work. Reading it will dramati­ letter. Those who acted have already multi­ rates and bond market turmoil. plied their money by an astonishing 300%-at reason, logic, and economic law. cally improve your understanding ofthe pow­ near-zero risk! Some investors have worried that the im­ erful forces at work in the age you live in. INVESTOR MYOPIA mense gains ofthe past few months mean that The strategy they followed required no Now in The Interest-Rate Strategy John Investors are oblivious. In their euphoria they have missed the opportunity. Far from it. has once again used common sense economics trading. Just one call to a broker. Those gains have occurred in justone segment they see only the bait: these bonds are assets. to uncover what could be the investment op­ A lucky call? A fluke? Not on your life. They fail to recognize the trap: these "assets" of the plan. Two parts of this easy-to-imple­ portunity of the century. This was no guess. This was a certainty. are also liabilities. Liabilities that can never be ment strategy are now at ideal entry points, repaid. and even the 300% jump in the third part is no ACT QUICKLY This remarkable investment call resulted more than one-fourth ofthe anticipated move! from 20 years ofresearch and analysis that has Supporting his premises with detailed Even as you read this, world bond markets uncovered one ofthe biggest economic distor­ graphs and historical comparisons, Pugsley THE AUTHOR have begun to sense and react to the distortion, tions in history! makes a sobering and incontestable case-a so we strongly urge you to read The Interest­ John Pugsley is an correction must oc­ Rate Strategy immediately. The great majority of economists are internationally re­ cur, and the evidence oblivious to the link between inflation and spected economistand The regular price is $49. However, as part is mounting that the government debt, and have not noticed this financial author. His of a special offer, respond immediately, and correction is already ominous divergence in the growth ofthese two 1974 best-selling your cost is only $35 plus $3 shipping. underway. The anxi­ key measures. book, Common Sense ety over the Treasury Or, better yet, receive The Interest-Rate Economics, accurately One observer, however, has watched it bond auctions, fluc­ Strategy FREEwith a 12-issue subscription to predictedthe inflation­ with increasing alarm. Economist and author tuating interest rates, John Pugsley's Journal at the special intro­ ary explosion that fol­ John A. Pugsley, who discovered the diver­ a stalled stock mar­ ductory rate of $95. (Regular price: $125) lowed the demise of gence, calls it, "The Deadly Anomaly." ket, a crisis in the the Bretton-Woods banking system...all NO RISK Why "deadly?" Because it is dramatic agreement. Many are only tiny hints of readers made fortunes Ourconfidence in The Interest-Rate Strat­ evidence that the U.S. is in the middle of an the dramatic upheav­ economic bubble of historic proportions, and following his advice. egy and in John Pugsley' s Journal is absolute. als that lie just ahead. We'll take the risk. Ifin your opinion what you the collapse of that bubble will have lethal In 1980, when effects on the fortunes of most savers and Because the ma­ learn isn't worth many times your cost, return most economists were investors. jority ofinvestors are the items within 30 days for a full refund. But convinced that oblivious of this ap­ don't procrastinate! Reagan's tax reform proaching storm, A CLASSIC MANIA would balance the fed­ those who understand The greatinvestmentbubbles ofhistory­ eral budget by the end Call 800-528-0559 for what is happening the Tulip-Bulb mania of17th century Holland, of his first term, have a virtual license MasterCard/Visa Orders the Mississippi bubble, the Roaring Twen­ Pugsley's book, The to steal over the next ties-allhave one thing incommon: they were Alpha Strategy (8 weeks on the New York never seen as bubbles at the time. Infected by three years. Times best-seller list), boldly warned that the r-/PhoenlX-:- -;0. Box 368'\ the virus of soaring asset prices, the public U.S. would experience "the largest deficits in =Hyattsville~ Bond-marketpositions entered 24 months CO.ffi.ffiunicati..o.. ns MD -'==c1n~o.rporat~t I became blind to fundamental principles of ago have quadrupled. They could double again the history ofthe nation in the next five years," I -- 20781-994/j value. Amateurand professionalinvestors alike within weeks. And positions held for the next and showed small investors how to protect fell victim to a euphoria that led to disaster. two to three years could result in gains of themselves. o YES! Rush me The Interest-Rate I 1,000%, 2,000% or more. That's right, we Strategy. Here is my check for $35 plus It is happening again. Only this time the His unique application ofeconomic theory mean potential returns of 1O-to-l, 20-to-l, or $3 shipping. I potential consequences are even greater. to commodity markets resulted in publication even greater. Rush The Interest-Rate Strategy While manias historically have occurred ofThe Copper Play, in which he predicted the o I in relatively small asset markets (tulips, re­ 3 WAYS TO PROFIT price of copper had to double, and his original FREE. Enter my 12-month subscription to strategy resulted in dramatic profits for those John Pugsley's Journal. Here is $95. I gional real estate, stocks, etc.), this time the To capitalize on the coming change, The bubble is in the biggest asset market in the who followed his system. Interest-Rate Strategy outlines a simple plan o I like big savings! Enter my two­ world: U.S. Treasury bonds. I that uses three independent bond-market For 10 years John wrote and published year (24-issue) subscription to John In a landmark new work, The Interest­ mechanisms. Each has dramatic potential on Common Sense Viewpoint, a unique financial Pugsley's Journal for only $171. Rush I Rate Strategy, John Pugsley exposes the key its own, and each can be entered separately. newsletter enjoyed by tens of thousands of the Interest-Rate Strategy FREE! elements thathaveledto this world-wide bond­ Together they are an unbeatable combination. devoted readers. I market distortion. You don't need to be a sophisticated in­ After a three-year vacation from financial NAME I The underlying problem is debt. More vestor to understand and profit from these writing, John has returned with fresh insights COMPANY I specifically, it is an avalanche ofirredeemable ideas. The Interest-Rate Strategy sets out a 1­ born of careful, systematic research. His new STREET _ government debt. 2-3 formula thatanyonecanfollow. Bestofall, flagship publication, John Pugsley's Journal, there is no trading. This is a long-term, low­ focuses the powerful lens ofscience and simple I CITY ST ZIP_ I During this past decade the nation has risk, buy-and-hold concept. common sense on world events. Like radar in been on the worst credit binge in history. Total the fog, these principles illuminate unseen ~7~ ~ federal debt has grown from $800 billion in You can tailor the strategy to your own Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992 that's $840 per barrel. helped fuel American anger against the Iraqi invasion of the George. I think you need a rest. A very long rest. - SLR distant emirate. After the war, reporters were unable to find a single other jContract sf, Pledge no! - Pat Buchanan's witness to the atrocity. It has now been revealed that Nayirah challenge to George Bush to take Bush's 1988 no-new-taxes is the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United pledge seems silly. Having broken his pledge before, why States and that her appearance before the Congressional would anyone believe Bush would keep it this time? Why Hum(in Rights Caucus was arranged by the public relations would we believe Buchanan's pledge, either, for that matter? firm Hill and Knowlton, which had a multi-million dollar con­ After all, Buchanan has "changed his mind" on issues rang­ tract to represent Kuwait after the Iraqi invasion. According to ing from free trade to American military intervention; in the John R. MacArthur, the publisher of Harper's Magazine and odd event that he was elected President, why should we be­ source of these revelations, Hill and Knowlton contributes lieve he wouldn't change his mind on taxes? money to the chairmen of the Human Rights Caucus and sup­ The pledge is a contract without any provision for en­ ports their congressional Human Rights Foundation. forcement. But why not write the pledge in a way that it has Nayirah's testimony may have been instrumental in swaying teeth? Something like this: a significant number of votes to President Bush's war policy in The undersigned pledges that if he is elected President, the Persian Gulf. Seven U.S. Senators cited the atrocity story in he will oppose in good faith all efforts to increase taxes, in­ floor speeches before voting for a resolution to authorize the cluding but not limited to increases in direct taxes, indirect use of force. That resolution passed by only six votes. The taxes, user fees, and any other form of payment exacted from Human Rights Caucus knew their witness's identity but did individuals or corporations by threat of fines, imprisonment, not reveal it. No reporter pressed to find out who the girl was or civil action by the federal government. He further pledges or how credible her testimony was.· In other words: We the to veto any such measure enacted by the Congress. people were suckered by the state and its boosters. That's how In the event that the undersigned fails in his above foreign policy gets made in the real world. - SLR pledge, he agrees that: 1. He will immediately resign his office. Owning organs - Being on the· waiting list for a 2. He will publicly apologize to the American people for heart transplant, I am understandably fixated on the harvest­ his transgression. ing of organs from people who, having assumed ambient 3. He will turn over all his property, along with any in­ temperature, no longer need them. First of all, there are, liter­ come he might earn from any source whatever for a period ally, tons of organs which go to waste by going to burial of seven years, to a committee consisting of those members grounds. Even when someone has signed an organ donor of the Senate who voted against said tax increase for the pur­ card, there is a common reluctance of relatives to let the con­ pose of financing electoral campaigns of challengers to mem­ tract stand after the donor dies. This rather mean-spirited bers of the Senate who voted for the tax increase. possessiveness is a major factor in keeping the supply of or­ In our present situation, a politician's word means noth­ gans far below demand. ing. Part of the reason is that most politicians are habitual Lack of a free market for organs is the overall problem, of liars. But so are members of other professions. The reason course. H volunteer organ donors could sign contracts with that politicians are able to lie with impunity is that they nev­ organ harvesting companies, and be paid for it, it would be er accept contractual obligations. Now is the time to remedy far more difficult for fussy relatives to get in the way. this. But my wife, Therese, has come up with a variation on the HMessrs Buchanan, Bush, Marrou and so forth want the idea that strikes me as immediately practical. Why not, she voters to take seriously their opposition to future tax increas­ asks, have life insurance policies specify that, after death, the es, then they should sign the contract. -RWB remains of the insurance holder become the property of the insurance company. The company could then donate or sell Witness for the persecution- It has taken a the organs according to their own policy. Organs and other year for it to happen, but at least it is happening. In October body parts for transplantation, from corneas to hearts, livers, 1990 the American people and the U.S. Congress were ap­ and lungs are greatly important in sustaining life for hun­ palled by the tearful testimony of a IS-year-old Kuwaiti girl v - known only as dreds of thousands of people. What a waste to just throw them away in what amount to neatly landscaped land fills. W ~ .'-1.J "Nayirah" to pro- -KH , tvJ (\(). tect her family - 3 ~ r'") who said she had Magic - This not being a sports magazine, I won't trou­ ~ ~. witnessed invad- ble you with my disagreement's with Bill Bradford's assess­ '"2 ~ ing Iraqi soldiers ment of Magic Johnson's impact on basketball (''The tragedy ~~ .J tear IS infants of Earvin Johnson," January 1992). Still, Bill's overall point is ---fl b' from incubators in sound; Magic was a unique presence who transcended, if not :::= -j a Kuwait City hos- transformed, the game he played. The comparison to Babe '1111" pital and leave Ruth is, in that regard, entirely apposite. But let me offer an­ ~ ~~ '=~ them "on the cold other comparison, one at which I fear some people will take r Git/OD floor to die." The offense. "Because a watched pot never boils." horrifying report Magic Johnson is to basketball much like what Jack 10 Liberty ------Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992

Kennedy was to the politics of the early 1960s. Like Kennedy, claim to fame is his role in Camelot as a Kennedy advisor, Johnson brought enormous zest and energy to his calling. joined Stone's fantasy world. In an article in The Wall St The one dispensed "Magic," the other "Camelot." Each un­ Journal, the famous historian cited the following evidence furled a radiant smile wide enough to encompass a battle­ that JFK had had a remarkable change of heart: ship. I was not politically precocious, but like others of my 1. In June 1963, Kennedy gave a speech in which he called generation I somehow intuited that the world post­ for an end to the "vicious and dangerous cycle in which sus­ inauguration day was a new one. We were "Kennedy's kids" picion on one side breeds suspicion of the other." and remained such even once we came of age and began to 2. At some point (Schlesinger doesn't say when), JFK au­ scrutinize the darker side of his politics, even once we thorized his UN ambassador to explore the possibility of re­ learned that paying any price and bearing any burden led in­ establishing relations with Cuba. Kennedy had broken off all eluctably to jungles in Vietnam. relations in 1961. The source Schlesinger cites is a quotation I will not say that Kennedy was as gifted a president as Magic Johnson was a basketball player. That isn't the point of the analogy. Rather, it is that each in his way defined an age. Both partook of greatness, but neither was without vices. JFK was the most militantly anti-communist of Indeed, one vice they conspicuously shared. In Kennedy's any American president in history, enamored case the craving for a continuous procession of fresh female with military solutions and the notion of restor­ flesh amounted to colossal imprudence partially redeemed ing America's fighting tradition. by luck: for Johnson the luck has been terribly bad. Yet some­ how what we now know about their appetites does not de­ mean them as it does lesser men, as it surely does the youngest Kennedy brother. They - and Babe Ruth too, an­ from something Bobby Kennedy said the following year. other conspicuously Dionysian figure - lusted as they did 3. According to a statement made "later" by a deputy sec­ all else, with vitality and verve and a fullness of being that retary of defense, JFK planned to withdraw from Vietnam by could not be confined within conventional limits, not as balm the end of 1965 (2 years later!), although for some reason to middle-aged bloat. (Schlesinger doesn't tell us) he continued to send additional Anyone of my generation will recall down to the small troops to Vietnam while he was planning the withdrawal. details just what he or she was doing on one awful 4. Sometime in 1962, Kennedy told Senator Mansfield, November afternoon in 1963. For many of us another who had been critical of Kennedy's buildup of U.S. military November day of sadness and loss is now to be indelibly forces in Vietnam, that he planned to withdraw in 1965. etched in our consciousness. - LEL 5. In October 1963, JFK ordered the return of 1,000 American advisors. What was the CIA doing in Camelot? - That's it. A platitudinous speech, a recollection from his I haven't yet seen Oliver Stone's JFK, and I am not sure when brother a year after the fact, a statement from a minor under­ I will. Living 50 miles from the nearest first-run movie thea­ ling made some time later, a statement made to a powerful tre has a marvelous way of helping one set priorities about U.S. Senator who opposed Kennedy's policy, and an order to which films to see. bring home 6% of the U.S. forces in Vietnam. But I've read enough about it to know that the premise of The January 18 Economist tells another story. Its book re­ its whole argument is wrong. I refer to Stone's contention view section leads with a review of Foreign Relations of the that JFK was murdered by a conspiracy of the CIA and other United States 1961-1963: Volume III, Vietnam, January-August military-industrialist baddies who were upset that JFK was 1963; Volume IV, Vietnam, August-December 1963. These two about to make peace with the communists and end the cold volumes include virtually all documents from within the war. The fact is that JFK was the most militantly anti­ Kennedy Administration from 1963 relating to Vietnam. communist of any American president in history, enamored They were gathered from the JFK Library, the State of military solutions and the notion of restoring America's Department, the National Security Council, the Defense fighting tradition. The man who was elected by arguing that Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Secretary of Eisenhower had let the Reds surpass the U.S. militarily (re­ Defense. member the "missile gap"?) and who founded the Green The Economist's reviewer actually read all 1499 pages of Berets would be the last man to want to make peace with the this stuff. What he found was repeated rejections by commies. Kennedy of any suggestion that the U.S. withdraw or scale The etiology of Stone's fantasy is simple enough to under­ back its military activity in Vietnam, even in the face of de­ stand. When Kennedy was assassinated, he was transformed mands that he do so from his allies. Kennedy maintained the in the minds of most people into a man of incredible virtue, same position "in public and in private." The closest thing to almost a saint. His administration, which was beset with con­ a hint that a general withdrawal was contemplated is the troversy and not particularly popular, became Camelot. If October memo Schlesinger referred to. It ordered the return only Kennedy had been spared the assassin's bullet, then of 1,000 out of the 16,000 U.S. troops within the next 3 everything would have been okay. We'd have been spared months, specifying that "no formal announcement should be the agony of Vietnam, the student demonstrations, the elec­ made" of the minor withdrawal, probably to avoid anyone's tion of Richard Nixon ... misinterpreting the move as any sort of backing down. On Jan 10, Professor Arthur Schlesinger, whose great "All through that difficult year," the reviewer writes, Liberty 11 Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992

"there is no evidence whatever of an 'independent' CIA poli­ Most of us want to be affiliated, to have friends, feel part cy, at odds with the president's, that might have served as of a shared culture or enterprise. And most of us want to be the basis for an assassination conspiracy. Both before and af­ engaged actively in the construction of our future, rather than ter the coup [against the South Vietnamese government], the being mere victims of any untouchable determinism. president had no discernible plans for a substantial with­ More recently, I have found in the writing of Albert drawal of American forces from Vietnam." Camus a single sentence that strikes to the heart of my own The reviewer quotes JFK's reiterating a policy of continu­ thinking about the unintelligibility of so much new art and ing American military presence in Vietnam, right up until his music. last statement on the subject a week before he was killed. Camus, who earlier had clarified something else for me "Did President Kennedy - as Oliver Stone contends in his by saying, in The Myth of Sisyphus, that the only important controversial film ]FK - plan to get out of Vietnam at an ear­ philosophical question is suicide, is now revealed to me as ly date? This superb new two-volume documentary collec­ having once said, "Art cannot be a monologue." In his view, tion makes the answer clear; and it is no." it should communicate what the artist wants to say about the I enjoy a good conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, but c'mon. Let's keep them plausible. - RWB I look at Jackson Pollack paintings and I see li­ GNPap - In this current milieu of defense cut propo­ noleum designs. Only later do I discover ·that sals prompted by the disappearance of the only power po­ tentially able to challenge the U.S. militarily, you can be sure there is deeper meaning because while spilling to hear in the coming weeks (l have already) this absurd ca­ cigarette ashes on the canvas, Pollack was in­ nard from defenders of more, or at least the same, defense volved in some sort of psychic crisis which, when spending: "Defense spending as a percentage of GNP is low­ er than during the Kennedy presidency." understood, should elevate his otherwise plain Even stifling the usual cavils about the validity of GNP as painting to master status. a measurement, one is left with an argument standing on pure air. The cost of a nation's defense needs do not grow in lockstep with its economic productivity. In fact, why world of mind and materialism that we all share. shouldn't they decrease over time like most other costs, par­ Well, that sums it up for me. I look at Jackson Pollack ticularly ones based on new technologies? paintings and I see linoleum designs. Only after reading an Apparently the "learning curve" in providing defense essay bySam Hunter do I discover that there is deeper mean­ works only in calculating new ways to mulct the taxpayer. ing because, at this or that moment, while spilling cigarette -BD ashes on the canvas, Pollack was involved in some sort of psychic crisis which, when understood, should elevate his Engaging art - There are times when a single otherwise plain painting to master status. Right. phrase clarifies things for me as effectively as an entire book. Atonal music strikes me the same way. It is absolutely It happens when I've been thinking about something for a boring. But there again, the composer is said to be stretching long time but still feel uncomfortable that I'm not able to put the envelope, going where no ears have gone before and so it all in place. forth. No wonder. Five minutes of listening to the same note, Until now, the most notable example came in two words or no note, or a non-melodic, discordant and seemingly ran­ among the many thousands of superb ones in Charles dom array of notes, simply cannot engage most people Murray's masterwork In Pursuit of Happiness and Good whom I know. (This is not to say that the people who find Government. He sought and found the two words that exactly high meaning in all this should not go ahead and feel superi­ sum up, in my view, what most people want in their lives, or about their sensitive natures. Maybe I and my friends are the things that mean happiness. The words are "affiliation clods. So what? When you prick one of us clods do we not and engagement." bleed?) Listening or looking at something that is an expression of an artist's secret, unknowable angst is exactly the thing that drives me from the gallery or the concert hall. I do not go to such places to see or hear some secret Rorschach puzzle. As a registered clod I go to be enlightened, edified, exalted. I do not want to be caught in a monologue. I want to be affiliated and engaged. - KH Live long and prosper - As a long-time member of the Consumers Union, I always look forward to its maga­ zine, Consumer Reports. As a human being I am interested in living a longer and healthier life. So naturally, I was pleased when my January CR arrived with "Can You Live Longer?" 8"1IIJI) emblazoned on the cover. "I got a paper cut slashing the budget!" Inside I found a report entitled "Can Vitamins Help?" It 12 Liberty Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992 summarized the research that suggests that anti-oxidants (vi­ diovascular disease, cataracts, and rheumatoid arthritis. tamin E, vitamin C and beta-earotene) "may offer protection b) CR doesn't recommend taking supplements because against cancer, cataracts, Parkinson's disease and other disor­ the vitamin industry is completely unregulated. ders ... Anti-oxidants are thought to be protective largely be­ If you guessed (b), you win. CR recommends against tak­ cause they can inactivate free radicals, destructive molecules ing supplemental anti-oxidants, "although evidence is that can damage cells.... High levels of anti-oxidants ­ mounting" that they "slow aging and fight disease by pro­ measured both in the diet and in the blood - have been asso­ tecting the body from free radicals." Why? "The nagging fact ciated with lower rates of [cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, cata­ that the vitamin industry remains completely unregulated." racts, and cardiovascular disease] ... it appears that the higher Personally, I'll take my chances on the unregulated mar­ the anti-oxidant level, the lower the risk of disease, and vice ketplace, while loyal Consumers Union members are getting versa. In some studies of diet and cancer, for instance, people cancer, cataracts, rheumatoid arthritis, and cardiovascular with the lowest intake of beta-earotene had up to seven times disease, waiting for government regulation. - RWB the lung-cancer risk of those with the highest intake. In other reports, people with the diets richest in vitamin C were at the Creeping anarchism? - Anarcho-libertarianism lowest risk for cancer of the stomach, oral cavity, and esopha­ is not for the faint of heart. Perhaps the hardest thing for gus. And in a large study of 16 European populations, there most people to swallow is the idea that we need not have a was a strong correlation between high blood levels of vitamin government to provide police protection; the market could E and a lower risk of death from coronary disease." supply that service, too. After citing more studies with similar results, the article Remarkably, however, the United States has already notes that researchers believe the amounts of these anti­ moved far toward privatizing police services. According to oxidants that one can get from changing his diet to maximize the Justice Department's National Institute of Justice, as cited his intake "are too low to afford optimal protection from dis­ in The Wall Street Journal (November 15, 1991), "security com­ ease" and that "it's Virtually impossible to get what appears panies spend $52 billion annually and employ 1.5 million to be an optimal dose of vitamin E by diet alone." They note people, compared to a budget of just $30 billion and a work that "even the relatively high doses recommended by these force of 600,000 for public law enforcement agencies. scientists [who recommend taking supplements of anti­ Projections are that the balance will tip much further toward oxidants in pill form] appear to be safe; the levels of vitamin the private agencies by the turn of the century." C, vitamin E, and beta-carotene they consider optimal have Unfortunately, responding to serious and violent crime not been associated with adverse effects." Finally they advise continues to be mainly a government police responsibility. that the cost of the supplements, including government­ Are escalating rates of serious and violent crime any sur­ recommended levels of other vitamins and minerals, is ~~? -RH "about a quarter a day." The unkindest cut - A common construction used To sum up, there is a growing body of evidence that tak­ by politicians these days is to say that if taxes are lowered, ing supplemental vitamin C, vitamin E and beta-carotene will some way must be found to "pay for the cut." But they mean help prevent a whole variety of horrible diseases; there is no pay for state programs, not the tax reduction. Personally, I've evidence of any risk associated with taking the supplements; never had any problems paying a tax cut - it's the tax hikes and the cost is very low. that have strained my finances. - JSR What does Consumer Reports recommend based on this evidence? Taking care - In a recent issue of The New Republic, a) CR recommends spending the few cents and few sec­ Michael Kinsley takes journalistic note of the legal concept of onds needed to take supplements of vitamin C, vitamin E "takings," developed by University of Chicago law professor and beta-carotene in order to reduce your risk of cancer, car- Richard Epstein. Epstein argues that the provision of the Fifth Amendment that says "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation" effectively re­ quires the government to pay just compensation when it takes away the right to use property while leaving nominal ti­ tle untouched. Case in point. In South Carolina, a man paid $975,000 for two beachfront lots on which he intended to build houses. ~ Before he started building, the state passed a law making it il­ legal for him to do so, thereby rendering his property effec­ ·...··fI· tively worthless, or at any rate, worth far less than the $975,000 he paid for it. He has sued, and the case will be de­ cided by the Supreme Court later this year. The possibility that the Court may decide in favor of the victim has a lot of advocates of a more powerful government "gaIN upset. If the government had to pay for the property it takes, "I tried to mug Lee Iacocca, and he talked me then it would have to raise taxes, which would make taking into loaning him my gun!" property a lot less popular with voters. Liberty 13 Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992

Kinsley acknowledges that "good liberals must take the Europe. And all throughout, there were the lies, lies on an un­ Bill of Rights seriously, including parts that are inconven­ fathomable scale, lies that plague us still today. What a pity ient." Nevertheless, he has little sympathy for the victims or that so many of those who welcomed the lies are not with us for this particular provision of the Bill of Rights: ''My liberal to see how it all turned out. I would give a lot to observe Jean­ heart does not bleed much for the 'victims' of democratically Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Lillian Hellman, Paul enacted government regulations ... Is the man whose land is Robeson, Owen Lattimore, and all the rest as they tried to reduced through zoning more to be pitied than the man who cope with the shabby end of their cherished dream. Or Kim has no land fo begin with?" Philby and his ilk, who sold out England for its sake. Or, most Kinsley concludes with that question, leaving it unan­ of all (for these are matters of personal taste), Bertolt Brecht. swered. Thank God, I am among readers of The New Republic. The Communist Brecht, the most celebrated German play­ Here is the answer: No, the victim of a taking is no more to wright of the century, made a career out of willing the death be pitied than a man with no land to begin with, no more of the business classes and private property through his hate­ than the victim of a "democratically enacted government filled, biting sarcasms. I have the feeling that right now his regulation" against freedom of the press is to be pitied more clever sarcasms would be sticking in his throat. - RR than a man who has no press to begin with. Or than a victim of a "democratically enacted government regulation" against Goodbye Gorby - What a spectacle: mighty freedom of religion is to be pitied more than a man with no Mikhail Gorbachev, leader of the fearsome USSR, owner of religion to begin with. the dreaded black suitcase with the codes to launch those I've got news for you, Mike. Pity is not the basis of law. thousands of nuclear rockets that could incinerate and poison -RWB the earth, mighty Mikhail - whiling away his final days in office on makework tasks, reduced to political nothingness Hmmm ... Isn't it interesting that the same people who by the simple withdrawal of the subjects he had once ruled. did their best to destroy the so-called junk bond market, The leaders of the republics simply declared that the USSR no lynch Michael Milken, and generally abolish the market for longer existed and - pool - it didn't. corporate management now rail against CEOs who make At the risk of making more of these political relabellings millions of dollars a year running lousy companies? - SLR than they deserve, I cannot help feeling elated by this extraor­ dinary denouement. The idea that people need not make a End of a killer state - And so, at last, the bitch is bloody revolution, that they might be rid of their glorious dead. The Soviet Union is no more. From atop the Kremlin leader just by withdrawing his country from him - it's sim­ towers, the Red Flag, with its deeply ironic hammer and sick­ pIy a thrilling event. le - a hammer and sickle as the symbols of progress on the Now, in a completely novel way, perhaps the downtrod­ verge of the twenty-first century! - has been furled for the den people of the United States can begin to ask themselves, final time. "Can it happen here?" - RH It was, while it lasted, quite a story, the premier example of Richard Weaver's maxim that ideas have consequences. A A new year to celebrate? .- January 1 is re­ group of ignorant but invincibly willful Marxist revolution­ served by tradition and necessity for the nursing of hango­ aries seized control of a great country and set about realizing vers. Most notable about this occurrence, however, is what did not hang over. The dawning of 1992 marked the first new year in seventy-five without the banner of the hammer and sickle waving over the heads of subject populations. What All throughout, there were the lies, lies on an few of us believed we would see during our lifetimes has unfathomable scale, lies that plague us still to­ come to fruition. It is a new world that 1992 brings. But is it day. What a pity that so many of those who wel­ one in which we can lodge optimistic hopes? The vanishing of the Soviet Union has not brought a van­ comed the lies are not with us to see how it all ishing of threats to peace and security. Some 27,000 nuclear turned out. weapons are lodged within the confines of the erstwhile em­ pire. Although nominal central control over these has been established, four newly independent republics assert sove­ the Marxist dream. They soon discovered, in the period of reign rights to their possession. Even before Gorbachev had "war communism," that it fell afoul of certain laws of reality, vacated the presidential office, jockeying for position and as Ludwig von Mises could have told them. Then, for the power among the successor states had begun. Both borders next six decades, they and their successors lurched from one and battleships became bones of contention. Civil war broke expedient to another, dependent on bits of private property, out in Georgia, and Armenians and Azerbaijanis evidenced black markets,Western prices and technology, and slave la­ their continued allegiance to mutual massacre. Shops are bor to survive. In the meantime, they established the model emptier than ever, and months of the long Russian winter killer-state of the century, wiping out some 25 million of loom ominously ahead. Increased civil unrest is certain. The their compatriots, and terrifying millions of Europeans into world is understandably apprehensive. fascism. Their errors and crimes blighted three generations The collapse of communism in its first home is, then, not of their own subjects and two generations of Poles, the coming of the millennium. This should surprise no one. It Hungarians, and others of the gifted peoples of eastern is inconceivable that so momentous a shift of political forces 14 Liberty Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992

could occur without substantial ancillary shocks. Three quar­ tent central apparatus (as had been urged by Gorbachev) and ters of a century of despotism and economic dislocation are fragmentation into jealously contending rump states. The not erased by substituting the initials CIS for USSR. loose confederal structure that has emerged promotes trade Movement to markets and the rule of law have barely com­ across borders without which economic survival is impossi­ menced, and their costs will be felt before their benefits are ble, but it simultaneously encourages experimentation and enjoyed. The media, attuned as always to what could/has/ emulation of those quicker off the mark by their stodgier will go wrong, reports with breathless excitement every por­ brethren. Russia, under the direction of Boris Yeltsin's cadre tent of problems. It is more than a little ironic that the over­ of bright young economists who would more easily find riding theme of commentaries about the first days of the themselves at home in the Libertarian Party than the post-Soviet era is Danger, Dismay and Doubt. Republican, has taken the lead in liberalization. It has institut­ Perhaps the glum mood of American observers is encour­ ed a bold program of price decontrol and privatization that aged by a recession that doesn't seem to know how to go will compel the institution of similar policies elsewhere. away and an Administration whose only consistent concern Ukraine, for example, is grumpily contemplating hordes of is that the electorate not compel it to go away. Whatever the Russian shoppers descending on their shops and walking off cause, this outpouring of uneasiness about the demise of the Soviet Union is misguided. The years ahead will be challeng­ ing - when have they not been? - but by any reasonable ac­ That human beings ought to be allowed to live, counting the change is overwhelmingly for the better. think, and work freely is no longer opposed by any The foremost reason for optimism is, of course, that there serious ideology. The decrepitude of communism no longer exists a great power whose chief industry is the manufacture and export of oppression. That human beings has been so thoroughly underscored that the mes­ ought to be allowed to live, think, and work freely is no long­ sage has gotten through even .to our university er opposed by any serious ideology. The decrepitude of com­ departments. munism has been so thoroughly underscored that the message has gotten through even to our university depart­ ments. Weapons of destruction that survive the demise of the with bushel baskets of subsidized goods. Politicos who Soviet empire are, admittedly, a grave concern. But is the prepped under Brezhnev may, for a time, attempt to send .threat they pose greater·than was the case, say, a decade ago? them packing. Eventually, though, they will be forced to con­ These devices, after all, had not been pointed at some obscure cede that the only way to resist their incursions is by allow­ spot in the Indian Ocean. They were the prized assets of a re­ ing prices to reach market-clearing levels. gime that took seriously the goal of world domination This is a busy year for centennials: Columbus, the Bill of through military and other means. It is, to be sure, worrisome Rights. Nothing in human affairs is inevitable, but it is not that they now reside in several hands rather than one, but a impossible that our great-great-grandchildren will have an­ crucial saving grace is that none of the inheritors possesses other '92 to commemorate. In the meantime, only amnesiacs the will or ability to join the Great Dance of international will fail to remember that a world with a Soviet Union was a power politics. It is their own houses that need fixing - des­ considerably more chilling place than one without. - LEL perately. Whatever leverage the West held over the Soviet I'm not sure Boris Union to restrain its power-flexing ambitions was much less Economics, Russian style- Yeltsin has got the hang of free markets yet. In January, he than now obtains vis a vis the independent republics. We can de-controlled prices, without privatizing enterprises. And I realistically conjecture that they will be willing to pay for the thought Richard Gephart's understanding of economics was aid they so urgently need through progressive dismantling of thin! -RWB destructive forces that can do them no real good. There is, it goes without saying, much political and eco­ The Liberty scoop - On June 8, 1967, three days nomic work for the repUblics to do. We should not lose sight, after the Six-Day War started, the Israeli Defense Forces however, of just how promising their initial strides have launched a two-hour air and sea assault on the USS Liberty, been. They have avoided both reconstitution of an omnipo- an unarmed but clearly marked American intelligence ship in the Mediterranean Sea. Thirty-four crewnlen were killed and 171 were injured in the brutal attack, during which even the life rafts were shot up as sailors tried to leave the ship. The Israelis claimed they thought it was an Egyptian ship. The Johnson administration minimized the episode, publicly accepting Israel's explanation and offer to pay damages. No investigation was ordered and heavy suspicion that the Israelis knew exactly what they were doing festered. The Israelis reportedly warned the United States that pressing the issue would lead it to reveal details of long-time Israeli-CIA cooperation. The hush-up was so effective that until this year "This is a great place to ride it out, but how will we know the crew and ship were not publicly honored the way they when the recession is over?" normally would have been. Over the years, some authors Liberty 15 Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992 have ventured into the realm of revisionist history in at­ recently told Mr. Evans and Mr. Novak were the same.... I tempts to turn the public's attention to the incident. Among can have 12 crew members who were there ... confirm what the motives proposed for the attack was the Liberty's having we heard." He also noted that "we the crew were told two learned of Israel's plan to attack Syria the following day. hours after the attack never to speak of the attack, and that Israel presumably feared that the United States would for­ order remains in effect to this day." ward the information to the United Nations, which was try­ Oh, yes. There was another letter to the editor that day, ing to arrange a cease fire. It has also been written that the sandwiched between the columnists' and Hrankowski's. It Joint Chiefs of Staff knew of the plan to attack the ship but was from Seth Mintz. "1 want to thank A.M. Rosenthal," he delayed sending an order to move. The most complete ac­ wrote, "for his accurate account of the events of 24 years ago count is James M. Ennes, Jr.'s 1979 Random House book involving the sinking [sic; the ship was not sunk] of the United Assault on the Liberty. Ennes was an ensign on the Liberty. States intelligence ship Liberty exactly asI gave them." - SLR Now, 24 years later, syndicated columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak have published revelations that Warren Brooks, RIP - The cause of liberty lost a seem to show conclusively that Israel knew the ship was good and highly effective friend when Warren Brooks, the American. In their Nov. 6 Washington Post column they syndicated columnist, died of pneumonia December 28 at the wrote that according to Dwight Porter, U.S. ambassador to age of 62. Lebanon at the time, the American embassy in Beirut inter­ Warren started out in the business world and did not cepted a message from an Israeli pilot to Tel Aviv stating, move into journalism until 1975. His flagship newspaper was "It's an American ship!" Tel Aviv ordered the pilot to carry the Detroit News, though he was based in the Washington, out the assault anyway. That Israel knew the nationality of D.C. area. He devoted his column to investigating the many the ship was confirmed by an Israeli officer (now an ways the government makes us worse off. No one was better American citizen), Maj. Seth Mintz, who was in the war at this. His columns were always jammed with data and oth­ room when the Liberty was identified. "Everyone in that er juicy information. His most memorable and important room was convinced it was an American ship," Evans and work was in exposing the environmental movement for the Novak quote Mintz as saying. (The U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv, sham it is. He was unequalled in his ability to scour the data, per standard procedure, said at the time that it knew of no find the real story, and show that the environmental emperor American ship in the area.) had no clothes. He repeatedly demolished the claims about This is a great scoop, but it is not the end of it. Two days global warming, acid rain, radon, ozone, etc. He was a one­ after the column, New York Times columnist A.M. Rosenthal man debunker of the Clean Air Act and other hokum. accused Evans and Novak of inventing the story by distorting Perhaps his greatest tribute was that "60 Minutes," a pro­ what Mintz had said. Rosenthal had called Mintz and"got a gram not noted for sympathy to the free market, looked to furious denial that he had ever 'corroborated' that the Israelis him as a source of information. knew. He said he had told the reverse to Mr Evans.... 'I was That was Warren Brooks the newspaperman. Warren misquoted, quoted out of context, used, abused and Brooks the man was first-rate too. - SLR screwed,' he [Mintz] said;" In a letter to the Washington Post, I knew Nobel Laureate Mintz repeated his charge, a serious allegation against two George Stigler, RIP -- George Stigler (1911-1991) only through his books, so, unlike experienced journalists. his students, friends and family, my sense of loss at his death In a subsequent column, Evans and Novak stood by what is not personal. Moreover, what I have had of him will al­ they had written and surmised that the Israeli Mossad must ways remain, in the books of his I hoard in my library and in have gotten to Mintz. Then in a letter to the New York Times the words of his I cannot forget. A leader of the "Chicago they wrote that "a June 1991 videotape in our possession has School," and an eminent advocate of free markets, he was Mr Mintz saying of the Israeli Defense Forces to a reunion of also that rarity, a master of wit and irony. The world is a rich­ Liberty veterans in Washington: 'They knew ... even when it er place for George Stigler haVing lived in it. - TWV was happening ... pilots in the Mirage attack planes were saying it was an American ship.'" On the same page there Two good friends - Two friends of liberty and was also a let­ contributors to this magazine have fallen to horrible diseases. ter from John Phillip Salin, who wrote a wonderful scholarly explora­ M. Hrankow­ tion of the life and 'times of Scrooge McDuck and a fine sur­ ski, a survivor vey of Nevil Shute's writings, fell victim to liver cancer in of the attack. early December. Phil was a successful entrepreneur with a He wrote: lively intellect, whose interest in liberty never flagged. 'We met Robert O'Boyle, who wrote about the use marijuana to re­ [Mintz] again lieve the daily horror of AIDS with which he had been living last June 8 in for several years, finally lost his battle. His courage in the face Washington at of his fate was heroic: he took upon himself the task of writ­ our U.S.S. Lib- ing a regular newspaper column, "Living With AIDS," help­ ~~ ~ B ~IIJ' erty reunion. ing raise people's awareness at the cost of torrents of hate What he told mail and telephone calls. "Beats me -I haven't seen any Democrats or us then and Republicans up here." We shall miss them both. 0 16 Liberty Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992 The Liberty Interview

Patrick J. Buchanan

Pat Buchanan has made headlines lately with his challenge to George Bush. He has gained the support of some libertarians with his call for no new taxes and a non-interventionist foreign policy, while alienating others with his call for trade restrictions. He explains why he thinks he merits your support.

On December 30, I made an appointment with Pat Bucha­ table. A waitress appeared with a pot of coffee. We got down to the nan's New Hampshire press attache for an interview the follow­ - business. ing evening, at his hotel in Manchester, New Hampshire, at an - James S. Robbins unspecified time after his last press appearance. New Year's Eve Liberty: You have used the term "America First" to describe with Pat Buchanan. Out with the old, in with the new. your foreign policy views. Are you influenced in any way by After hunting up a parking space some distance from Bu­ the original America First Committee? chanan's Ramada Inn (a performance of Peter Pan had fiZZed its Buchanan: The original America First Committee's argument parking lot), I hiked to the hotel and hunted up Buchanan's aide. on the isolationist/interventionist issue is not really relevant "I have bad news," she said. "Pat isn't feeling well. It must be today. That was over whether America should stay out of the the flu." The interview was off, but I would be able to see him be­ war when Hitler was at the gates of Moscow and the Japa­ fore he went to Mass and flew back to Washington ifI could wait nese were storming around China. I think that argument was until morning. really settled at Pearl Harbor. Great, I thought. It was after ten, I was a long way from A lot of the assaults on the people who supported America home, and I hadn't brought cash or credit card to pay for a room. First are unfair. I think 83% of the American people wanted It looked like 1'd be spending the next 8 hours in a donut shop. I to stay out of the war before Pearl Harbor, and afterwards asked the aide if she knew of a 24-hour restaurant nearby. She 99% said all the way to victory. It has been suggested that the didn't know of any, but Buchanan's national press attache of­ phrase goes back to isolationism, and that's how Mr Bush is fered to help. He apologized for my having to wait all night and using it. What I mean by it is that Americans have got to start offered me the extra bed in his room. Good idea. He gave me a putting their own country, America, first. You have to make room key and I went up to his room. America first again, keep America first. It has to do with the As I was reviewing my notes, the door opened. It was anoth­ struggles of the future that I see as shaping up between a dy­ er Buchanan operative, who invited me down to the bar. Why namic Asian capitalism which wants to be dominant, and a European socialist super-state that's going to be headquar­ not? "I don't know how libertarian you are/' he said as we head­ tered in Brussels. In my view the phrase "economic national­ ed to the elevator, "but there's a young blonde from the local ism," while inexact, comes closer to what I believe than the campaign who'd like to take you home. She likes intelligent old term isolationist. men." I graciously turned down this courteous hospitality. Had Liberty: What do you consider to be America's proper role in this guy confused libertarianism with libertinism? I guess I the international community, particularly in regards military was more enamored with "family values" than was the Bucha­ force? nan campaign. Buchanan: I like Jeane Kirkpatrick's phrase that America We joined the party of Buchanan staffers in the rear of the ought to become again a normal country in a normal time. I bar. I had hoped for some interesting political discussion, but the think that because we are a great, powerful nation that is en­ closest I got was a graphic description by one aide of how he had vied by many other nations and in some cases despised by beaten up a homosexual who had disrupted a Buchanan appear­ hostile dictators or hostile ideologies, we have to be the ance, and warned him to tell friends they could expect the same if strongest nation in the world militarily -land, sea, air and they tried anything. I whiled away the night, imbibing their space. I think we need a missile defense. But I don't think we champagne. Midnight, with its obligatory shouting, party hats, are now in the same global struggle against Soviet Commu­ noisemakers, and more champagne. One of Buchanan's aides em­ nism that we were in when I was a boy, when I was growing braced me. "Libertarians/' he said. "I love you guys!" up and when I was in the White House. I think our enemy I arose early, got dressed, went over my notes, and went has collapsed in front of us. Its army has disintegrated and is down to the dining room. An aide waved me over to Buchanan's walking home. While I think they were needed, our own ar- Liberty 17 Volume 5, Number 4 The Liberty Interview March 1992 mies can start coming home. And I thinkthe burden of de­ desire for hard work, their family structure, their belief in fense ofcountries like Japan and Germany can now rest al­ their country and society. But there are a lot of things inJa­ most fully on the shoulders of the Germans and the panwe don't want in our country. We don't want their type Japanese. To me that's not isolationism, it is common sense. of organizations and hierarchical structure and the banzai at­ Itis not normal for a country like the United States, protected titude, if you will. We are a free people. I think we want to by two oceans, with twobasically friendly neighbors north win our battle while preserving our way of life. They have and south, to have huge land armies permanently on other these people liVing in these little houses, they have no space continents. We are not an empire, we are a Republic. My idea compared to Americans, and we don't want that. is to try to restore the AmericanRepublic before it is lost in This is where I run into trouble with my free trading some globalist conglomerate called the NewWorld Order. friends. I don't doubt that one black worker in South Caroli­ Liberty: You were generally critical of the Gulf War effort, be­ na making eight dollars an hour in a textile mill and sup­ fore and dUring. Do you have any criticisms given the after­ porting his family is probably not as efficient as say sixteen math of the war? Chinese making fifty cents an hour. But the question is, why Buchanan: I thought a policy of containment would have shouldn't we protect the job of that one black worker who is worked with Saddam Hussein. I never saw him as Adolph a fellow American, rather than opt for super-efficiency and Hitler or the Iraqi army as the all-conquering Wehrmacht. I buy the prison-made products of Deng XioPeng? didn't think Saddam represented a threat to the United This gets into the heart of my disagreement with the free­ States of America. Secondly, Saddam Hussein is obviously a traders. I would not get into an argument withMilton Fried­ thug and a killer. But I don't see any great moral distinction man over what is a more efficient allocation of goods. But to between his regime and that ofHaffez el Assad and Rafsan­ me there are values higher than efficiency. So I think the poli­ jani in Teheran. It seems to be that the long-term threat, the cy that applied in this country between 1865 and 1914, that greater threat to the Gulf and to the regimes which we sup­ made us the greatest industrial power in the world, when the port there, is going to come out of Teheran, not out of Bagh­ standard of living ofthe average worker went up faster than dad. Iran is larger, it is driven by ideology and religious at any time in our history -I think growthin the U.S. was fanaticism, and it is virulently anti-American. Whereas Sad­ something like average 4% per year. There were a lot of in­ dam Hussein is a single dictator who is one day going to justices in the Age ofthe Robber Barons, but America pass from the scene. The single dictators have never im­ emerged from that the greatest industrial power in the pressed me as being as threatening to us as countries that world. Ifyou are a new America Firster like me, that's not a are driven by an ideology that succeeds in one regime after bad thing. Mygood. friend Murray Rothbard is going to have another. to come down here and instruct me on free trade pretty soon. Liberty: Such as Islamic fundamentalism? Liberty: So you would seek both to open markets abroad and Buchanan: I thought the war would trigger an outbreak of protect them at home? anti-Americanism in the region, and while it was being Buchanan: I believe in reciprocity. For example, we don't call fought it did, but it clearly subsided. But I think the long the Brits and say if you want to fly British Air around the range danger in the Middle East doesn't come from Saddam United States that's your privilege, lowest price, good com­ petition. What we say is, look, if you guys want to fly to Chicago and Houston, that's fine, but we want to fly to The original America First Committee's argu­ Glasgow and Manchester. You give us so many stalls there, ment on the isolationist/interventionist issue is we give you so many stalls here. That's the way you deal with them. George Bush has abdicated his role, in a sense. not really relevant today. I think that argument The American President has to be on the side of American was really settled at Pearl Harbor. business and industry and concerned that we do be number one, because the country that is number one in manufactur­ ing is going to be number one in technological innovation, Hussein marching all over that part of the world. You have and eventually number one economically and I think that the Turks, the Iranians, the Israelis, all very powerful, tough eventually translates into military power. And do I think countries. The Saudis the United States can provide a de­ that if the Japanese became number one economically they fense for. So the way that region is going to change is inter­ could become a problem? Yes, in the long run. nally, the way it is changing in Algeria. Liberty: What sort of immigration reform would you favor? Liberty: Getting back to trade policy. Do you think that, cor­ Do you see a cultural component to immigration? responding to America First, other countries are practicing, Buchanan: I sure do. I think you enforce the country's law. for example, Japan First, Europe First? You could halt 90% of illegal immigration in the southwest. Buchanan: I don't think there's any doubt the Japanese prac­ There's only about 200 miles where they come across, and in tice JapanFirst. Do you think that when the head of the Su­ one four-mile area some 300,000 were apprehended in one mitomo Bank gets together with the head of Mm and the year. You can stop that with a depression in the ground, boys from the twenty-four Keiretsu cartels that somebody' and if the President of Mexico doesn't like it, he doesn't like gets up and says "all we want is a level playing field," and it. So I think you could halt illegal immigration. "we must not violate the spirit of anti-trust?" I think the Jap­ And yes, I do see a cultural component here. The institu­ anese are a different country and a different society than tions of assimilation in the United States are really collaps­ ours. They have a lot of things to emulate, in terms of their ing. The ones we used to have - say school, family, home, 18 Liberty Volume 5, Number 4 The Liberty Interview March 1992 church - that used to take the "refuse of Europe" and turn I don't think they're going to break away and set up pass­ them into Americans in a generation or two, aren't working port control and immigration control between Quebec and as they used to. At the same time we have an assault, a hos­ Canada, but I do see them telling the British speaking folk, if tility, in the intelligentsia to western culture. It's manifest­ you want to leave, goodbye and good luck. ing itself in public schools and universities, attacks on the Liberty: Two months ago there was a controversy in the myth of heroes of the past, from trashing Christopher Co­ White House over Executive Order 11246 which established lumbus to taking the Confederate soldier out of the chair, affirmative action in the Federal Bureaucracy. laking lhe name off of Cusler Nalional BaHlefield, "Hey Buchanan~ I was involved in the fight over changing 11246 in hey, ho ho, western culture's got to go." You see it in the 1986. I was on the side of Meese and Bennett and Linda Cha- black community which was very Protestant Christian, pa­ triotic, traditionalist in the '30s, '40s and even '50s. There's a new militance and radicalism and a desire to secede from I would continue the present drug policy. ... western culture. We are a multi-ethnic country, but multi­ cultural countries are in deep trouble. The truth is that the American people want the Liberty: Do you see a similarity with the Austrian Empire? war on drugs prosecuted. Buchanan: Well that, of course, was smashed down. World War I was just a horrific, stupid disaster on all sides. But the way they were working the Austrian Empire - the dual vez, and we were opposed by Bill Brock and, some said, by monarchy and granting autonomies - to grow organically Vice President Bush. was the way to do it. But it was smashed apart. Theyen­ Liberty: Ifyou were President, what would you do? larged these nations far beyond what they ought to have Buchanan: I would rewrite 11246 to specifically rule out ra­ been, they took the Germans and carved them all up and cial or sex-based quotas in hiring and promotion. You have gave them to various places and set the stage for World to get back to the idea of justice - justice and merit. These War II. It was just utter insanity. Utter insanity, the Treaty are arbitrary and invidious forms of discrimination. For ex­ of Versailles. ample, when you give four points on a test to a veteran Liberty: Do you see the United States being carved up in any who has served his country, that is not invidious. If you are similar fashion? of a certain race, color or religion, and you get or lose points Buchanan: I want to keep America one. Maybe it's far down because of that, I think that is just patently un-American. the road, what with some of these movements in the south­ You have to get back to the idea of excellence and merit. It's west, the militants in the Hispanic community. I think a problem in the whole country. Up here I went down to a they're probably wrong, because I think most of the Hispan­ plant I won't name and I asked some guy ''What do you ic immigrants want to become Americans. They want to do?" and he said "I'm in human relations." I said, "Do the learn English, and they want to be part of America. Most of employees have problems with drugs?" and he said, "Yeah, them are Catholic, of the Catholic Spanish culture. Puerto but we also have to find out what the proper racial ratio is Rico is of the Catholic Spanish culture and they said "we in this area." I said, "What do you need racial ratios for?" It are a Spanish-speaking people of the Spanish culture." They was quite obvious. They wanted to make sure a certain voted that themselves. I think you can have an excellent re­ number of employees are this and that color. lationship with Puerto Rico but it would be a mistake to Liberty: Some libertarians have been mentioned in connec­ make it a state. tion with your campaign. I'm thinking of Ron Paul, Murray Liberty: On the other hand, Canada seems to be carving itself Rothbard, Lew Rockwell.... up. The government recently gave half of the Northwest Buchanan: Ron Paul has been very helpful. He dropped out Territories to the Inuit, and the Quebecois are always threat­ when I indicated I had an interest in running. He's been ening to leave. helping. Lew Rockwell is a good friend of mine. He's been Buchanan: I followed the Meech Lake Accord very closely, very helpful. Murray Rothbard wrote me a wonderful let­ andI wrote a number of columns about Canada breaking ter. He's not 100% in agreement with me but he's 100% be­ apart. I was on television up there, and in a light vein I sug­ hind me. gested we take over the Maritime Provinces and the rest of Liberty: Do you have any disagreements with them? it. The Canadians went bonkers. The English-speaking Ca­ Buchanan: Yes, but I'm sure they're with me. Theyre in the nadians have been leaving Quebec for a long time because John Randolph Club of which I'm a member, which is a pa­ there is sort of a cultural chauvinism in Quebec, but I un­ leo-eonservative/paleo-libertarian alliance. I was trying to derstand the desire of the French Canadians to preserve get down to their meeting in January, but I'm afraid they their culture and heritage, and if more and more people are have me on a fund-raising trip to California. So I'm going to becoming more and more militant about this it's no prob­ miss it. lem for me. I think we ought to have a free-trade agreement Liberty: In the past you have supported Bush's war on drugs. with Canada. We ought to tell them whatever you decide If you were President would you continue the drug war, or up there is your business; we want free trade agreements would you take a different approach? with everybody to our north. If Quebec goes free we'll Buchanan: I would continue the present policy. maintain the free-trade agreement with them. I think what's Liberty: What do you think of legalizing soft drugs such as going to happen though is that Quebec is going to try to marijuana? maintain its cultural identity sort of like the dual monarchy. Buchanan: I'm against it. Liberty 19 Volume 5, Number 4 The Liberty Interview March 1992 Liberty: How about a Federally controlled program such as here and he was attending all the meetings and he suddenly the English had for heroin addicts? disappeared for three or four years. When he comes back Buchanan: That failed, didn't it? My understanding is that you know where he's been, but he'll take the pledge again. most of the heroin programs in Britain have not succeeded. Liberty: The issue of multiculturalism was highlighted during I wrote on it about fifteen years ago and haven't followed it the World Series with the Atlanta Braves tomahawk chop. closely, but my understanding is that they haven't succeed­ Are you offended by the Boston Celtics? ed. The truth is that the American people want the war on Buchanan: Of course not. The San Diego Padres. For heav­ drugs prosecuted. en's sakes! Look, you have to take a look at peoples' mo- Liberty: What do you think about the Ninth Amendment? Do tives. I'm a Washington Redskins fan. The reason they call citizens possess rights not enumerated in the Constitution, themselves Redskins is because they want to say they have and if they do, what are they and where do they come from? the ferocity and bravery and perseverance associated with Buchanan: Of course the Ninth Amendment is the one in the fighting tribes. It's not a term of insult. You don't picka whose penumbra they found the right to an abortion. I name like that because it's derogatory about your favorite don't think there's any right to an abortion under the Con­ team. I think the trouble is that a number of these militant stitution. There's a right to privacy inherent in a number of groups are looking for some way to make out credentials as the Amendments, but I don't think it includes the right to victims, that they are being harrassed and abused, when the an abortion. American people are an extraordinarily tolerant people. Liberty: Do you take a positivist approach to rights? Do you Liberty: What do you think of Reagan as president? believe that the rights written in the Constitution are the Buchanan: I think Reagan was an excellent President border­ only rights? or are there natural or God-given rights that the ing on great. Constitution only reflects? Liberty: Nixon? Buchanan: I think there is a natural law which is consistent Buchanan: Nixon is the most interesting man I ever met, a with Biblical Christianity, which tells you about man's mo­ pivotal figure in American history. He carried us through a ral obligations and moral rights. I don't think you can trans­ terrible decade, and was a casualty of it. fer those into the Constitution of the United States. Liberty: Teddy Roosevelt. Let's get back to abortion, because that's the area where Buchanan: There are lots of things about Teddy I admire, lots it's easiest to discuss it. There is no right to an abortion in of them. In terms of the personality of the man. A good the Constitution of the United States. Abortion is regulated President. by the states, some being liberal on abortion laws even in Liberty: Abe Lincoln. the '50s and '60s, and some being deeply restrictive. The Su­ Buchanan: Lincoln, huh? A subject of controversy. My great preme Court had said that these are matters to be consid­ grandfathers fought on the other side. There's no doubt he's ered by the states themselves, and it was not a matter of probably the most influential president in American history. Constitutional rights and prerogatives. There's no definition Liberty: Jefferson. Buchanan: Jefferson was a tremendous man. I think Wash­ ington was the greatest figure in American history. Liberty: What would you say ifGeorge Bush were sitting I think there is a natural law which is consis­ here? What would be your biggest complaint, or the thing tent with Biblical Christianity I which tells you you'd most want to say? about man's moral obligations and moral rights. Buchanan: I don't have any personal quarrels with George Bush. Liberty: Policy quarrels? Buchanan: I like George Bush, even with policy quarrels. I of how you deal with abortion in the Constitution of the think George Bush is aNew World Order man, he's a big­ United States prior to 1973. government Republican, and he is a man of his times, a Liberty: Do you find it ironic that the emanation of a penum­ moderate Republican. I like him. It's simply that we are on bra resulted in Roe v. Wade, but the Supreme Court cannot the other side of a political divide, and the country is mov­ get an emanation from the Second Amendment, which at ing off in a new direction. I think he is yesterday, and we least mentions the right to bear arms? are tomorrow. But there's nothing personal about my quar­ Buchanan: That's rank hypocrisy. I think the gun folks are rel with George Bush. He's never said - of course he did exactly right that they ought to address the whole Constitu­ break the pledge on no new taxes - he's never said "I am tional issue. I'm surprised it hasn't come up before the Su­ Mr Conservative," and after the Cold War, which was a preme Court. My guess is that some of these Federal laws huge area where we agreed 100%, and in Reagan's adminis­ are going to be tested before the Supreme Court. It seems to tration we, agreed 100%, we got all these new issues, and we me that the right to keep and bear arms is clear. found out that he's simply ort the other side, and I'm on this Liberty: This is a "New Hampshire" question. Have you tak­ side of the river. Our tribe's moving off in our direction, and en the Manchester Union Leader pledge not to raise taxes? his is moving in the other direction. Bob Dole didn't in 1988 and got into a bit of a pickle. Liberty: Any final thoughts for libertarians? Buchanan: Don't worry, I'll take it. I will keep the promises Buchanan: My friends, there are only two trains, and neither that George Bush broke. Ask George Bush if he will retake of them is going exactly to your destination, but mine is it. It's sort of like Alcoholics Anonymous. George was up closer. So get aboard. 0 20 Liberty Exploration Inside Pat Buchanan by Chester Alan Arthur

What's inside Pat Buchanan? Blood and guts and ... a love of liberty? Or au­ thority? A brilliant mind ... or an anti-intellectual's set of knee jerks? A heart ... or a ticking time bomb?

Just when you thought the 1992 political race would amount to a showdown be­ tween Superwimp George Bush and some undistinguished (and indistinguishable) Democratic moron, Pat Buchanan jumped into the race and began to look as if he might mount a real challenge. Happily for Buchanan, the nation's first primary is in New Hampshire. Granite state voters are different from 1964; they embarrassed LBJ in 1968; remembered better by future genera­ voters elsewhere. For one thing, they they humiliated Ed Muskie in 1972. tions if he withdrew to help the peace are arguably the most anti-tax in the They are independent and not afraid to talks. His power over the nomination nation. Bush won their hearts in 1988 rub a bigshot's nose in dog dirt if they was undiminished: he passed it on to by promising no new taxes, a promise think it might be fun. his clownish vice president, Hubert he cavalierly broke two years later, up­ By all accounts, Buchanan is dead Humphrey, so weak a candidate that setting many New Hampshire people. serious in his race. People close to him he was trounced by the unlovable (A naive lot, apparently: the promise say he intends to be President. Of Nixon. of a politician is so worthless as to course, his chances of wresting the The most unpopUlar Republican in­ mean nothing.) Buchanan promises no nomination away from George Bush cumbents of the century all wanted new taxes, and invites Bush to take the are just about nil, and he surely knows their party's nomination and all got it. same pledge. Bush is damned if he it. The power of the Presidency is such Taft in 1912 was so unpopular that does and damned if he doesn't. Sign­ that it is virtually impossible to deny when his challenger Teddy Roosevelt ing the pledge focuses attention on his him his party's nomination. ran on a third party ticket, Roosevelt broken pledge of 1988; refusing to sign Only two incumbent presidents in clobbered Taft in both the popular and opens him to charges of favoring high­ this century have failed to win their electoral vote. In 1932, the Depression er taxes. party's nomination; in both cases, they had reduced Republicans from the na­ An extraordinarily high percentage withdrew. In 1952, the immensely un­ tion's overwhelming majority party to of New Hampshire voters are Roman popular Harry Truman, having a pathetic minority. Yet they were una­ Catholic, like Buchanan. And like Bu­ botched the Korean War, lost China ble to dump Herbert Hoover, the man chanan they are not your big city, left­ and eastern Europe to Stalin, and al­ most Americans held responsible for liberal Catholics: most are conservative lowed Communists to infiltrate the their plight. In 1976, Gerald Ford easily economic refugees from feudal Quebec U.S. government, dropped out early. won his party's nomination, despite who find Buchanan's right-wing Ca­ In 1968, Lyndon Johnson, a man who the following handicaps: (1) he had tholicism far preferable to George truly loved the exercise of power, with­ never run for office in a constituency Bush's elitist Episcopalianism. drew after having his nose bloodied in other than his own Congressional dis­ Best of all for Buchanan, New the primaries. But what really forced trict; (2) he had been appointed to his Hampshire voters are not at all reluc­ him from the race was the weariness job by a President who by common tant to slap a front-runner or even an engendered by his increasing aware­ consent was a crook; (3) he was a com­ incumbent President in the face. They ness that he was losing the Vietnam plete boob, whose only endearing char­ almost knocked off Barry Goldwater in War and a mad hope that he would be acteristic was his physical klutziness; Liberty 21 Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992

(4) his challenger, Ronald Reagan, was conservative movement, which could Buchanan to be an anti-Semite and in­ the clear favorite of his party and in turn lead to his capturing the Repub­ dUcing most office-holding conserva­ would soon prove to be the most popu­ lican presidential nomination in 1996. tives to rally round Bush in hopes of lar Republican in history. The hopes of those American con­ future rewards. In a contest with Buchanan, Bush servatives who mistook Bush for one of All this plays into Buchanan's has more than the power of the incum­ their own have been dashed during his hands. As a lifelong resident of Wash­ bency in his favor. Buchanan has never occupation of the Oval Office. Bush ington whose life has been inextricably run for any office. His closest brush quickly backed down on gun control bound up in presidential politics, Bu­ with running for office came in 1988 and the minimum wage law. Worst of chanan has used the opposition of es­ when he considered running for presi­ all, -he broke his "no-new-taxes-read­ tablishment conservatives as evidence dent. The last time voters elected a my-lips" promise, giving Congression­ that he is "outside the Beltway," a pre­ president who had never before held al Democrats the tax increase they requisite of conservative leadership. high office was ... never. The last time wanted in exchange for a compromise And so Pat Buchanan finds himself a political virgin was nominated for on spending that the Democrats imme­ in New Hampshire, hectoring Bush for president was in 1940, when Republi­ diately backed out on. For a while, he breaking his promise against new taxes cans nominated Wendell Willkie, a big­ overcame his wimp image by invading and pandering to blue-collar voters business internationalist. Iraq. But he quickly lost it when for with his nativism and opposition to What Buchanan is seeking is not the some reason he decided to leave the de­ free trade. 1992 Republican nomination. He is too monized Saddam in power and the sit­ smart to believe he can capture that. uation in the Mideast as messed up as A Head Newly Buried ever. Like most libertarians, I welcomed In the wake of Bush's surging popu­ Buchanan's challenge to Bush. Bucha­ larity after the immensely popular in­ nan's tough stand on taxes is reminis­ Pat Buchanan is not your vasion of Iraq, Buchanan put his cent of Bush's own 1988 stand. typical conservative Republi­ presidential ambitions on hold. But as Buchanan's willingness to consider a Bush's popularity plunged with the less adventuresome foreign policy is re­ can. For one thing, he is a good economy and it became increasingly freshing. And best of all, Buchanan is deal smarter and more articu­ clear Bush didn't have a clue about the antithesis of Bush in matters of late than most. what to do about it, Buchanan saw his style: Bush is almost the platonic form opportunity for a respectable showing of mush-mouthed wimp; Buchanan is and the prized leadership of conserva­ articulate and forthright. tive Republicans. On the other hand, I wasn't about to What he is after is the role of leader of Pat Buchanan is not your typical join his crusade without learning a bit conservatives, far and away the most conservative Republican. For one thing, more about the man. For one thing, I powerful constituency within the Re­ he is a good deal smarter and more ar­ didn't much care for his support of the publican Party and arguably the most ticulate than most. But he also differs war on drugs or his misgivings about important political group in presiden­ from most conservatives on several freedom of speech. tial elections. The "office" of conserva­ issues: Buchanan's isolationism also wor­ tive leader has been vacant since • Buchanan opposes free trade, ried me. Traditionally, many libertari­ Reagan left the Presidency and began which he thinks creates unemploy­ ans argue against diplomatic his well-earned senility. Bush managed ment. (''I don't want a level playing entanglements and military interven­ to capture the Republican nomination field," he told Meet the Press. "1 want tion. At the same time, they support by bribing the votes of conservatives America to win."*) open immigration and free trade: "If with his no-new-taxes pledge and in • He worries that liberal immigra­ goods don't cross borders, armies wil1." the absence of any really exciting con­ tion problems will ultimately result in Critics of this position often caricature servative challenger. But Bush is no white people becoming a minority in it as "let's bury our heads in the sand conservative, and conservatives know the U.S. and isolate ourselves completely from this. For one thing, he is a scion of the • He is critical of Israel, and of the rest of the world." That's a cheap Eastern Establishment. For another, he "Jewish influence" on American for­ shot against the isolationism that liber­ came by such conservative views as he eign policy. tarians traditionally advocate. But it espouses only after he became part of • He has on occasion expressed iso­ seems a fairly reasonable way to char­ the Reagan Administration. lationist arguments. acterize Buchanan's anti-trade, anti­ What's at stake in the Buchanan These views have earned him the immigration, anti-intervention view. campaign is important. A good show­ enmity of many conservatives, inspir­ Prior to Pat Buchanan's conversion to ing in the primaries could have many ing William Buckley, for example, to this odd form of isolationism, the only effects. It might pull Bush toward Bu­ devote virtually an entire issue of his political figure I knew of who advocat­ chanan's positions on taxes and trade. magazine to a futile attempt to prove ed this sort or extremely literal isola­ It might embarrass Bush, and increase tionism was Jose Rodriguez Francia, public support for lower taxes. And Bu­ ,. One wonders: Is America so badly off that it dictator of Paraguay from 1816 to 1840, chanan might win the leadership of the cannot win on a level playing field? who cut off all diplomatic relations 22 Liberty Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992

with other countries and outlawed for­ ophy. So I got hold of a copy of Right D.C. His father taught him to accept eign trade, immigration and From the Beginning, his autobiography. and obey the teachings of the Church, emigration. Written in 1987, it was the work of a to obey his parents, to have good man­ Buchanan's isolationism is quite re­ Buchanan more mature than the public ners toward women, and to fight cent. During the cold war, he was a vo­ relations man who had written The New whenever he or a relative or a friend ciferous hawk, but when the Gulf crisis Majority or the fledgling political col­ was insulted or thought he was insult­ erupted in August 1990, Buchanan was umnist who had written Conservative ed. "To Pop, fighting was a concomi­ articulate in opposition to U.S. inter­ Votes, Liberal Victories. tant of man's existence." From the age vention, and he remained opposed for Right From the Beginning is vastly of seven, young Pat and his brothers several weeks before he flip-flopped different from his earlier books. For a were required to work out at the and got on the bandwagon for the war. start, its jacket is covered with praise punching bags. "While other boys And he is not terribly consistent: cur­ from a variety of individuals ranging were being punished for getting into rently, he calls for U.S. military inter­ from George Bush to Diane Sawyer, fights as toddlers," he said at the grave vention in Yugoslavia. from publications ranging from Human Events to Catholic Standard. On its cover, Far Right from the Start Buchanan smiles wryly at the camera, What sort of man is Buchanan? dressed in a well-tailored conservative His story is of life in a very Does Buchanan have libertarian incli­ suit, arms folded across his chest. This authoritarian Roman Catholic nations of the sort that stirred the souls contrasts considerably from Conserva­ of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Rea­ tive Votes, whose cover is bereft of re­ family: childhood filled with dis­ gan? I had followed his career as viewers' praise and shows a fat cipline, sports, and fighting; speechwriter and public relations flack Buchanan with long greasy hair pulled teenage years filled with drink­ for Nixon, Agnew and Reagan. I had back gesturing. broadly as he speaks ing, driving, and fighting; a col­ read The New Majority, his rather silly into a barrage of microphones. 1973 apologia for Nixon (sample of his It's a different book inside too. For lege career filled with drinking, silliness: the first element of Nixon's the autobiography of a political figure, partying, fighting, and a grow­ legacy to America would be "an honor­ it is peculiar, detailing his childhood, ing realization that he was a po­ able end to American involvement in puberty, college days, and the begin­ the war in Vietnam, a peace that does ning of his writing career all along em­ litical conservative. not disgrace the sacrifices of a dec­ phasizing his political and social ade"). I had read his Conservative Votes, views, but mostly ignoring his politi­ Liberal Victories (1975), but about all I cal career. of his father, "we were punished when could remember about it was its call His story is of life in a very authori­ we failed to hit a punching bag 400 for a more powerful military and ag­ tarian Roman Catholic family: child­ times a day." gressive foreign policy, and its argu­ hood filled with discipline, sports, and Not surprisingly, young Pat got ment that conservatives should fighting; teenage years filled with into fights. With his training and the drinking, driving, and fighting; a col­ aid of his well-trained brothers, he lege career filled with drinking, party­ fared better than most, and it is evident ing, fighting, and a growing realization that he continues to take special pride Buchanan is the antithesis of that he was a political conservative; a in his fighting, especially his ability to Bush in matters of style: Bush very brief career (6 weeks) as a reporter "sucker punch" an unsuspecting vic­ and 3 years as an editorial writer, dur­ tim, an ability he boasts of several is almost the platonic form of ing which time he continued to drink times in his book. mush-mouthed wimp; Bucha­ and party heavily, though he apparent­ His most serious brush with the nan is articulate and forthright. ly gave up assaulting people he didn't law occurred in 1959 while he was a like. His family was well enough off to senior in college. Driving home his have servants, vacation at the seashore, date, "a tall blonde from Virginia," he attend private schools and regularly got stuck in traffic behind a slow­ concentrate their efforts· on capturing buy new Oldsmobiles, which Buchanan moving police van. He honked the the presidency and increasing its and his brothers wrecked with drunken horn to get it to speed up, but it didn't. power. I had read a fair sampling of his abandon.* So he honked some more and decided syndicated columns. I hadn't seen He was the third son in a family of to pass. Not surprisingly, the police much of Crossfire, the television show nine children of an upper middle class signaled him to pull over and began to that had earned him stardom, but I had Roman Catholic family in Washington, write him a speeding ticket. Buchanan seen a fair amount of him as a member of The MclAughlin Group. ,. In his biography, Buchanan says his brothers wrecked six cars, but that he was only ever in­ From all this, I had a reasonable volved in one minor accident. Elsewhere in his biography, however, he tells of his involve­ handle on Buchanan's views. But 1 had ment in other accidents, and The Wall St Journal reports that he "revels even now in talking only a vague impression of his charac­ about the 11 cars he and his three older brothers totaled in 24 months in a kind of juvenile ter and his underlying political philos- demolition derby." Liberty 23 Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992

responded with a barrage of "X-rated While our hell-raising in the '50s might cowardly ... I was acting editorial edi­ language." He was ordered out of the appear of a piece with that done -by the tor - the man to whom all phone calls car, at which time, he writes, "I can radicals in the 60s, there was more than a were transferred. By the score, state leg­ fairly be said to have been resisting ar­ small difference. Some of the 60s young islators, businessmen, conservative openly despise the government and the rest ... I put a size ten-and-a-half cor­ "system"; they regularly reviled the cops leaders, and common folk telephoned dovan where I thought it might do as "pigs." We weren't in the least unhap­ all day long, to tell me we were a pack some good." Buchanan was finally sub­ py with the "system." We loved the of gutless cowards. The men were dued by the two cops and a passing cit­ world as we found it. We didn't want to choking with rage; some of the women izen and tossed 'into the patrol wagon. change anything. were crying. All day long I took the Still feeling his oats, he "hammered Of course, it's not difficult to fath­ abuse. For the first time, I was genuine­ with [his] fist on the thick glass pane om Buchanan's good relations with po­ ly ashamed of the St Louis Globe­ separating the back of the truck from lice. As the son of a wealthy, well­ Democrat." the front seat where the two cops were connected family, his punishment At other times he seems cold­ now observing the caged beast they never amounted to more than a slap on hearted. As a supporter of capital pun­ had just apprehended." The two cops ishment, he thought he ought to attend he had assaulted ended up in the hos­ an execution. So he and his roommate pital, and Buchanan was hauled to the (a reporter for the Globe) arranged for police station where he continued to "No one wounds me with tickets to a gassing, which he coldly "mouth off." impunity. ... I sucker-punched describes in intimate detail. Still not Happily, Buchanan's father was sure whether he himself "could have well-eonnected, the appropriate lawyer him." Buchanan relates the pulled the lever and put a fellow was hired, the charges were reduced story with detail, celebrating es­ human being to death," he returned to and he walked away with a $25 fine. pecially that he had literally the execution chamber six months That was less, he notes with evident "beat the shit" out of his victim. later, this time alone, and stood next to satisfaction, than he customarily paid the executioner as he killed the prison­ to Montgomery County "for a routine er, apparently imagining himself pull­ disorderly conduct." His adventure ing the lever that released the deadly cost him more than $25, however: he the hand. And shortly after graduation gas. 'Watching a man's life taken away lost his scholarship to Georgetown and from him is not pleasant ..." he writes, from college, even hand-slaps were a was suspended for a year. and moves on to a defense of capital thing of the past. At the St Louis Globe­ During his year away from school, punishment. Democrat, where Buchanan wrote edito­ he worked for his father's accounting rials, "we supported and defended the By 1965, he began "to feel as though firm and worried about his future. police and the FBI; and they, in turn, I had achieved all I was going to "Never again would I get arrested, and achieve." As the Globe's assistant edito­ depended on us and fed us. They had a only once would I get into something rial editor, he "got no by-line. Human friend at the Globe-Democrat and knew that could remotely be called a fight. In Events and other conservative publica­ it." The police reciprocated that friend­ that year, I grew up half a decade." ship by granting Buchanan immunity: tions might be reprinting my editorials, Twelve pages later, he recounts the but nobody knew who had written when stopped late one night for driv­ last episode "that could remotely be ing "suspiciously" (he provides no de­ them." He tried for a scholarship to called a fight." It seems another student tails, though he elsewhere explains he Harvard, but blew it by getting into an had insulted Buchanan's friend, Oliver. spent his evenings drinking heavily at emotional argument on capital punish­ "While I had nothing against [him], I ment with his interviewer. Early in a variety of bars and nightclubs), he had nothing for him either. However, simply "handed my Globe-Democrat 1966, he figured another path to fame. Oliver was my best friend at school and press card to the officer, along with my He had "followed the tremendous I now recalled darkly" an episode driver's license. He straightened up: press coverage of JFK's Special Assist­ where this person had made a sarcastic "Mr Buchanan, can you make it home; ants - men like Ted Sorenson and remark to him as well. "No one wounds or do you want one of us to drive Kenny O'Donnell. To me they had the most glamorous jobs in national poli­ me with impunity." Later that night he you?" ran into his new found adversary in the tics I could ever aspire to." He finagled library and directed "some caustic The End of the Beginning an introduction to Richard Nixon, words" athim. When he responded in At times, Buchanan seems extreme­ whom he believed would capture the kind, "I sucker-punched him." Bucha­ Iy emotional. His eulogy for his father Republican nomination for the Presi­ nan relates the story with detail, cele­ and his account of his oldest brother's dency, and convinced Nixon to hire brating especially that he had literally sudden death, for example, are power­ him. "beat the shit" out of his victim. fully written, heavy with emotion. He At this point his account of his life Despite his tendency toward illegal writes with fiery emotion about his dis­ stops, though the book goes on for an­ behavior· and his frequent arrests, Bu­ gust at being prohibited from endors­ other 66 pages, consisting of a chapter chanan is proud that he was different ing Barry Goldwater: "The fighting detailing the tragic death by cancer of from the '60s radicals who followed Globe-Democrat was taking a.dive, going his oldest brother, two chapters on his him: to the tank ... this seemed craven and political beliefs and his agenda for 24 Liberty Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992

America, and his eulogy for his father. sion and salvation; when the u.S. was soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen, rich and the rest of the world could go and the magnanimity and statesman­ The Beginning of the End to hell. ship of the postwar leadership of the As one might expect from the title, This is as close as he comes to dis­ United States and General MacArthur. he also relates the development of his To squander all that in an absurd I/trade cussing his fundamental philosophy: political thinking. "Development" war" because we cannot compete with Kore­ What we [of the right] believe, rather, might be too strong a word. I guess an cars or Japanese computer chips would be is that faith precedes reason, that affec­ that's evident from the title too: his an act of almost terminal stupidity. [em­ tion precedes understanding; that before phasis added] views were inherited from his father, we come to know, we first believe. What are America's other prob­ not really developed at all. "I got my Growing up, we did not have to have it lems? Too much freedom of speech, for political education at a dining room explained to us that we should stand by one thing: table, at the head of which sat an au­ brothers and sisters and family and thoritarian figure whose political he­ friends. That came naturally. To us, the Since Rachel Carson wrote Silent roes were Douglas MacArthur, Joe right and honorable duty of men of Spring a quarter century ago, Americans words and men of thought is not simply have shown a robust determination to McCarthy, and General Franco." preserve our natural environment, to His explains his father's admiration to seek and record abstract truth, but to deploy our talents, the arguments of the clear lakes, rivers, and streams of the of Franco: "In 1935 and '36, reports mind, to defend the treasures of the raw sewage of industrial society. No poured in of the burning of churches heart: family, faith and country. commensurate concem,however, has and monasteries and the murder of The anti-intellectualism implicit been manifest over the raw sewage that, simultaneously, began to flow through priests and nuns for practicing the faith here is a theme repeated throughout in which my parents believed. When America's culture, courtesy of the Su­ the book. For example, in his introduc­ preme Court. In the Secular City, what Franco and his nationalist troops land­ tion (an explanation of why he decided ed and marched on Madrid, they be­ enters the mind seems of less concern against running for president in 1988), than what enters the stomach. came the armed champions of millions he explains that the reason he objected And something better be done of American Catholics." to George Bush's calling Reagan's eco­ about homosexuals, who are the cause To this day, he admires his father's nomic policies "voodoo economics" of AIDS: choice of heroes, even in the case of was not that he didn't like the word Franco, the dictator of Spain from 1939 Promiscuous sodomy - unnatural, "voodoo," it was because "we thought unsanitary sexual relations between it was redundant." The Wall St Journal males, which every great religion teach­ reports that he dismisses economics to­ es is immoral - is the cause of AIDS. tally, saying 'We don't believe in that Five years ago, when I wrote that New To this day, he admires his stuff./I York City, on the eve of that celebration father'S choice of heroes, even in The Buchanan platform of 1992 is of sodomy known as "Gay Pride Week," should shut down the squalid little not discernible in this 1990 edition of the case of Franco, Spain's dic­ ''love'' nests called bathhouses, the incu­ tator from 1939 to 1975. HFran­ his 1987 book. He is not an isolationist; bators of the disease, I was denounced instead he advocates increased military as a ''homophobe'' by the Governor and co didn't see himself as a spending, a more powerful army, and a Mayor of New York. Because these men dictator," Buchanan explained. willingness to confront our enemies were morally confused, men and bays HHe saw himself as the Catholic wherever they are. continued infecting one another in bath­ His confidence in the U.S. economy houses, and continued killing one anoth­ savior of his nation. He did a is almost infinite ("Materially, we have er. And, today, nine-year-olds are being educated in the use of condoms. But, it better job for his country than never been better off; the United States is not nine-year-olds who are buggering some of the communist crowd." is the most vibrant, energetic society one another with abandon, spreading on earth./I) Keeping it strong depends this deadly virus; it is not nine-year-alds on maintaining free trade, which re­ who threaten doctors, dentists, health quires (surprise!) a more powerful workers, hemophiliacs, and the rest of to 1975. "Franco didn't see himself as a president: society by their refusal to curb their las­ civious appetites. dictator," Buchanan explains. "He saw In the fight to maintain open markets, himself as the Catholic savior of his na­ worldwide, a strong President, again, is A conservative president, he advis­ tion. He did a better job for his country indispensable. Congress, composed of es, should propose a second constitu­ than some of the communist crowd." 535 moving parts, is incapable of resist­ tional convention, with amendments to Despite the openly political tone of ing the concerted pressures of American outlaw abortion, to authorize capital Right From the Beginning, there is pre­ corporations and unions. punishment, to make English the offi­ cious little talk of first principles. Rath­ Among the great American achieve­ ciallanguage of the U.S., to fix terms of ments of the twentieth century is free er .he seems a reactionary, yearning judges and allow Congress, with the Asia, democratic and capitalist, which President's approval, to overturn deci­ back to the 1950s, when he and his pals arose out of the ashes of World War II drank, partied and got into fights with and Korea. Hundreds of millions of the sions of the Supreme Court, to abolish Protestants, with his father supplying most capable and energetic people in the the constitutional provision limiting cars and money; when the Catholic was world are prospering, on the side of free­ the President to two terms, to allow re­ concerned only with obedience, confes- dom, because of the bravery of American ligion in the public schools, to outlaw Liberty 25 Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992

discrimination and affirmative action, those who are paying them, and peo­ was informed that their main interest is and to allow the people to invalidate ple don't much notice a sales tax. It's liberty and that in thatcause I am doing or make laws by initiative or hidden in the price of what they buy." the very best I can. referendurn. "How can you say that?" Buchanan re­ Or Ronald Reagan's paean to liber­ sponded. ''When I bought my Mer­ ty in the speech that thrust him onto Mansions and Mercedes cedes the sales tax was $5,000 and I the national political stage: How well will Buchanan do with sure remember that!" Similarly, Bu­ We are told we must choose between a the voters? It's really too early to tell, chanan's mansion (nicknamed '7ara" left and right or, as others suggest, a although his two big issues (his will­ by his friends) seems more like the third alternative, a kind of safe middle ingness to take the Bush pledge home of a wealthy celebrity than the ground. I suggest to you there is no left or right, only an up or down. Up to the sort of thing Joe Sixpack can identify maximum of individual freedom consis­ with. tent with law, or down to the ant heap of His Mercedes, by the way, has be­ totalitarianism. Regardless· of their hu­ No matter how much he tries come a minor campaign issue. Bucha­ manitarian purpose, those who would to gain sympathy from the "lit­ nan's cdtics have suggested that it is sacrifice freedom have, whether they tle guys" by portraying himself hypocritical of Buchanan to advocate know it or not, chosen the downward restrictions on imports while driving path. as one of them, Buchanan is, an imported luxury car. Buchanan I could find no such corresponding and has always been, a wealthy now claims that the Mercedes is his homage to freedom from the pen or individual. No matter how wife's car, which came as news to his mouth of Pat Buchanan. In Right From much he tries to play the role of friends. ("You seem to drive around a the Beginning, I found the word "free­ lot in your wife's car," said his Cross­ dom"mentioned only twice. Once is someone from outside the halls fire co-host Michael Kinsley when Bu­ his mention of "enemy of freedom" in of power, his entire career has chanan tried that line on him.) his description of libertarians quoted above. Here is the only other mention been within the Washington po­ Illiberal from the Beginning that I found: litical establishment. Aside from Buchanan's newfound If we Americans no longer share the isolationism and opposition to tax in­ same religious creed, the same code of creases, his views seem either indiffer­ morality, and manifestly we do not, the ent or hostile to liberty. In his view, day is not far off when we will no longer against tax increases, his opposition to libertarians are a small segment of the share the same idea of virtue or freedom free trade) seem to be working pretty conservative movement: or patriotism, because, ultimately, these, well so far. But Bush has just put his too, are rooted in one/s deepest beliefs, There is also a libertarian annex in our one's "religious" beliefs. campaign in gear, and he has a very in­ conservative house now; its occupants Half a century of life has only persuad­ telligent, well-seasoned staff, so I see as the ultimate enemy of freedom the ed me of the truth of what I was taught, wouldn't necessarily count on Bucha­ inexorable growth of government, which even before I knew how to think. Coun­ taxes away one in every three dollars nan doing terribly well nationally, try, family, and faith, these are the things America earns, and spends two in five. though I think he will do well in New worth dying for; these are the things Hampshire. Dining with the social conservatives and worth fighting for; these are the things the Religious Right, our libertarian cou­ One obvious area of vulnerability is worth living for. sins often appear ill at ease. Buchanan's elitism. No matter how It would be far easier for libertari­ In a sense, Buchanan is correct. much he tries to gain sympathy from ans to make common cause with a con­ Many who value liberty do consider the "little guy" by portraying himself servative movement led by Pat themselves as part of the political as one of them, the fact remains that he Buchanan if Buchanan showed some right. And many conservatives have is, and has always been, a wealthy in­ hint of a love of liberty, if Buchanan strong libertarian impulses. Although dividual. No matter how much he tries had employed his considerable talent they did not always live up to their to.play the. role of someone from out­ as a writer and speaker articulating a rhetoric, the two most recent leaders of side the halls of power,his entire ca­ love of liberty. the American right were plainly in­ reer has been within the Washington spired by libertarian ideas. Who can political establishment, mostly in the Something About the Sixties forget Barry Goldwater's stirring call halls of power. The libertarian movement, as dis­ to arms in The Conscience .of a A couple months ago, a libertarian tinct from the conservative movement, Conservative? journalist told me a story that illus­ was born in the cauldron of the 1960s, trates his problem. Over dinner, Bu­ I have little interest in streamlining when many libertarians discovered government or in making it more effi­ chanan and he were discussing that they didn't really belong in a cient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do movement that insisted on support for taxation. Buchanan suggested that a not undertake to promote welfare, for I the Vietnam War, Richard Nixon, and national sales tax·might be a good re­ propose to extend freedom. My aim is placement for the income tax. "The not to pass laws, but to repeal them. And especially the military draft. At the problem with that idea," the journalist if I am attacked for neglecting my con­ time, Pat Buchanan stood firmly said, "is that taxes should be felt by stituents' "interest," I shall reply that I against the libertarian position on all 26 Liberty liThe high-beta think tank of the '90s will be the free-market libertarians at the Cato Institute." - Lawrence Kudlow, "Money Politics," March 25, 1990

ince its founding in 1977, the Cato Instimte has been in the forefront of the growing worldwide movement toward political and economic Sliberty. Through its studies and conferences, the Institute seeks to develop policy options consistent with the traditional American values of individual liberty, peaceful relations among nations, and capitalism. Recent Cato studies have dealt with rent control and homelessness, educational choice, protectionism, the economic benefits of immigration, privatization of the Postal Service, the cost and obsolescence of NATO, South Africa's anti-capitalist policies, farm subsidies, and federal spending restraint. The Cato Institute accepts no government funding and depends on the support of foundations, corporations, and individuals. We invite you to join the Cato Sponsors Program and help the Cato Institute offer intelligent free­ market alternatives to the status quo. Benefactors ($2,500) receive all Cato publications and invitations to all major events, including the annual Benefactor Summit. Patrons ($1,000) receive all Cato publications and invitations to major events. Sustaining Sponsors ($250) receive all Policy Analysis smdies, Regulation magazine, and Cato Policy Report. Regular Sponsors ($100) receive all Policy Analysis studies and Cato Policy Report. Introductory Sponsors ($50) receive Cato Policy Report. Every new Cato Sponsor will receive a free copy of An American Vision, which the Washington Post called "a new book aimed at policy makers and calling for the most radical reduction of U.S. government activities at home and abroad yet suggested by any serious policy organization."

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CAT () S P 0 N S 0 R E N R () LL MEN T F () R \1 Please enroll me as a Cato Sponsor at the following level of support: o Benefactor ($2,500) 0 Patron ($1,000) 0 Sustaining ($250) o Regular ($100) 0 Introductory ($50) D Please send me information on corporate/foundation support. o My check is enclosed (payable to Cato Institute). o Charge my 0 VISA 0 MasterCard Account# _ Signature. _ Name -'- _ Address _ City State Zip _ INsr.flITUTE 224 Second Street S.E., Washington, D.C. 20003 (202) 546-0200 Fax (202) 546-0728 ------Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992

these issues. And there is no indication our country. When JFK declared in his ers that we could hardly expect to be that he has changed his position. Inaugural, "Ask not what your country taken seriously in our attempt to artic­ Richard Nixon was Buchanan's can do for you. Ask what you can do for ulate and realize the ideals of political "mentor," and for Buchanan Vietnam your country," he was speaking out of a freedom under the aegis of an organi­ tradition in which we, too, had been was a righteous cause; we lost it only raised. zation that honors dictators. This argu­ because (you guessed it) those damn My own break with conservatism ment, I believe, was critical. Shortly liberals were running the country: came earlier, and over different issues. thereafter, what had been a YAF chap­ The American military did not lose By 1965, I was trying to convince my ter was the Agorian Society, complete that war inSoutheast Asia; the American college's chapter of Young Americans with a statement of principles that em­ soldiers fighting there never lost a major for Freedom to withdraw from the na­ bodied radical libertarianism. military engagement in seven years. When President Nixon approved the tional organization of young conserva­ Paris Peace Accords in 1973, every single tives and to state boldly our own provincial capital was in South Vietna­ radical libertarian ideas. I heard that a I doubt that libertarians mese hands. No, the Vietnam War was new YAF chapter in a nearby city had not lost in the Mekong Delta, it was lost named itself the "Francisco Franco want to be led by a man who in Washingto~ D.C., in the corridors of Chapter" of Young Americans for considers Nixon his mentor and our capital city, because the Establish­ Freedom. ment that had marched this country into Franco a hero, who supported Southeast Asia in the early and middle My first reaction was that it was a the War in Vietnam and sup­ 60s lacked the mental stamina and moral joke. After all, Francisco Franco was a courage to see that war through to victo­ dictator. True enough, he had defeated ports the War on Drugs, who ry. Vietnam was liberalism's last great a Spanish government that had sub­ questions freedom of speech and adventure, and greatest debacle. stantial communist influence, and waxes nostalgically about the Buchanan has no sympathy for communism was a bad thing. But he those who opposed the war or the was also a dictator, complete with se­ draft· draft. The demonstrators at the 1968 cret police, and he ruled over a coun­ Democratic convention in Chicago, try with no free speech, no free press, who were beaten wantonly by the po- no freedom of religion, and no free­ Aside from an occasional rerun of dom of contract. By no stretch of imag­ Saturday Night Live from the mid­ ination could he be considered a force 1970s (with Chevy Chase's running for "freedom," the stated goal of joke "Generalissimo Francisco Franco Critics often caricature isola­ Young Americans for Freedom. is still dead" leading his newscast), I tionism as "let's bury our heads Perhaps some of the more right­ hadn't thought about Franco in years. in the/ sand and isolate our­ wing elements of the conservative Until I began to investigate the presi­ movement might want to honor a dic­ dential candidacy of Patrick J. Bucha­ selves completely from the rest tator like Franco, but surely not a nan. Just as I wanted no part of a of the world." Though a cheap chapter of YAF, an organization of conservative movement that honored shot against the isolationism young and apparently rational conser­ the Spanish dictator in 1965, I want no vatives. But my friend who brought part of one now. that libertarians traditionally me the news maintained a straight i Will libertarians support Bucha­ advocate, it seems a fairly rea­ face and assured me he was not spoof­ nan in his campaign for leadership of sonable way to characterize Bu­ ing me. And the story was verified by the conservative movement by means chanan's anti-trade, anti­ others. of making a respectable challenge to This provided me a powerful argu­ George Bush? This is a question that immigration, anti-intervention ment for withdrawing from YAF. The each will have to answer for himself. view. fact that a chapter of YAF would But my guess is that, as libertarians choose to honor a dictator simply be­ get to know him better, their support cause he was anti-communist - and for him will dwindle. Although he that the national organization would agrees with some positions that liber­ lice in an orgy of violence that sick­ accept a chapter named for him ­ tarians advocate, his affinity with li­ ened most Americans, "got what they nicely illustrated the problem that li­ bertarian ideas seems negligible. deserved." bertarians of that era faced when try­ Indeed, there seems to be a pervasive Indeed, he writes nostalgically ing to get along with conservatives. hostility to libertarian ideas. about the draft in the good old days: Conservatives were focused on one Libertarians who feel at home What is remarkable about those years thing, and one thing only: the evil of within the broad conservative move­ is how little protest there was about communism. And anyone who op­ ment) will shudder at the prospect of mandatory military service. While there posed communism was their friend, Buchanan as leader. Libertarians in­ was no martial enthusiasm among no matter how awful he might be in tent on building the libertarian move­ friends or classmates, there were no ment (as distinct from the conservative demonstrations either, on campus or off. other respects. No one doubted we had a duty to serve So I pointed out to my fellow YAF- continued on page 54 28 Liberty Esso')'

The Corrosion of Science by Edward C. Krug

The fears of the age have given rise to a new faith: environmentalism. This faith seeks the mantle of science, but eschews its methods. But science without its method is madness, leaving environmental policy tyrannous and vain.

Skepticism, not advocacy, is the heart of the scientific method. Thus, few human endeavors are so exclusively - and successfully - self-policing as is science. Unfortunately, this is changing. Scientists face increasing incentives to abandon the scientific method as scien­ ing capacity of soils, lakes and streams Under the auspices of Connecticut, I tific hypotheses and conclusions are in­ in extensive areas of eastern North joined NAPAP's efforts in 1981. creasingly used to justify public policy. America and northern Europe. By 1984 political pressure was so Many scientists have become environ­ Evidence was scant. Nevertheless, they great that President Reagan was ready mental advocates, in the process aban­ were able to enroll certain agents with­ to forgo research and accede to the de­ doning scientific method, objectivity, in the scientific community and gov­ mand for an expensive crash program and honest inquiry. ernment in raising their stormy petrel. to stop acid rain. But the President re­ Advocacy disguised as science is In 1980 the EPA asserted that the aver­ quired that the scientific experts·agree this age's most powerful means of per­ age lake in the northeastern United with the accepted belief that the world suasion. But most people are unaware States was acidified 100-fold in the last would not last another five years under that many scientists have subordinated 40 years by acid rain. Not to be out­ this "rain of acid." However, the scien­ their science to political ends, so they done, the National Academy of tists said that the world would not end continue to regard science as being ob­ Sciences claimed that acid rain would within five years, so NAPAP and its re­ jective "Truth." The well-misinformed double again this damage by 1990. search continued. public has been suckered into concen­ The Norwegian national acid rain And the subsequent research results trating authority into the hands of a program of the 1970s was the forerun­ did not turn out as expected. For exam­ "knowing elite." The earth is said to be ner of the national acid rain programs ple, NAPAP researched the lakes of the in crisis. But it is the growth of scientific of the 1980s. The Norwegian parlia­ Adirondacks - the area of the advocacy - be it concerning acid rain, ment's enabling legislation (Nr. 172/ Northeast predicted most likely to have global warming, or any of a number of 1974) stated that the express purpose of the massive lake acidification. We other supposed "catastrophes waiting the program is advocacy disguised as found, however, that the average to happen" - that is the real crisis. science: "to provide material for negoti­ Adirondack lake is no more acidic now Acid Rain ations to limit the emission of S02 in than it was prior to the Industrial I have direct experience with one Europe" (Rosenqvist, 1990). Revolution - not lOa-fold more acidic such creative use of hysteria: the furor President Carter called acid rain as claimed by the EPA. And we found over acid rain. one of the two great environmental cri­ no measurable change in the acidity of Green activists screeched long and ses of the century. Into this we-have­ lakes over the last 10 years, contrary to hard about forests and fish being dev­ our-minds-made-up atmosphere, the the National Academy of Sciences' 1980 astated by acid rain. A "silent spring" 10-year National Acid Precipitation claim that another 100-fold increase in was supposed to occur as acid rain Assessment Program (NAPAP) was acidity would occur by 1990 (Krug and overwhelmed the geochemical buffer- launched with the EPA at its reins. Warnick, 1991). Liberty 29 Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992

The environmental community re­ In the EPA-managed lakes program, trained skeptics, automatically and un­ sponded by charging NAPAP scientists the pressure to show damage was even thinkingly assumed that people asso­ with watering down our research re­ greater. In assessing forest damage, we ciated with the "just cause" of the sults to appease political pressures. Yes, used the full amount of forest on which environment are themselves just. there were political pressures. But the acid rain is falling to come up with the But Jesus warned us of this error pressures were to support the proposi­ 0.1 percent damage estimate. But not so 2,000 years ago: False prophets wrap tion that was the basis of NAPAP's exis- with lakes. Rather than use the full themselves in the "just cause" to get at value of 200,000,000 acres of lakes re­ the just people. They are like the prover­ ceiving acid rain, only the approximate­ bial wolf who wraps himself in sheep's ly 2,000,000 acres of lakes most likely to clothing to get at the sheep. And we Scientists have been ·sam­ be acidic were considered. sharp-eyed Ph.D. sheep watched it pling and analyzing the con­ Statistics were used to exaggerate eat red meat with all of those big sharp taminants that make rain the acid-lake problem 1DO-fold. Only teeth and persisted in calling it a sheep. 35,000 acres of 200,000,000 acres of lakes Ten years later - after watching this acidic for more than one centu­ are too acidic (pH =:; 5) to support sports "sheep" devour innumerable carcasses ry_ But not as contaminants fisheries; and most of this acidity is -I call the wolf by its name. Those but as free fertilizer, "manna natural. who manipulate science as a tool of per­ The EPA's own research (DDRP suasion do not respect the sanctity of heaven~" from Project) showed that the principal effect science. Nor do they respect the sanctity of acid rain was to increase regional lev­ of an individual's right to self­ els of sulfate in water but not the acidity determination. Their belief is that when tence, not to oppose it. The pressure we of water. What sulfate principally did given the truth people do not have the felt was to support the notion that acid. was to increase concentrations of cal­ ability to make the "correct" decisions, rain is an environmental catastrophe. cium and magnesium in surface waters so they must be lied to instead. Only the - the effect of which is to improve fish environmentalist manipulators of sci­ A Rose By Any Other Name survivability in dilute water by increas­ ence have the ability to come to "cor­ "Acid rain" sounds horrible. One ing ionic concentration. Calcium and rect" decisions. envisions corrosive acid falling from the magnesium are also nutrients and their These pseudo-scientific environmen­ sky, burning and killing living objects leaching (along with that of other nutri­ talists view the present world order - below it. However, such acid rain as has ents) may also be improving lake nutri­ been observed is anything but ent (trophic) status and food supply. corrosive. The real crisis of acid rain is its use The nitrogen and sulfur "contami­ as a political weapon of eco-terrorism. What we scientists were nants" that make rain acidic are .essen­ doing was forgiving environ­ tial macronutrients elements Beware the False Prophet required to sustain all forms of life on Since 1981, when I began to study mentalists their sins because of earth. It is a well-kept secret that "acid rain," I have become aware of their name, environmentalists. European and American acid deposi­ how useful sheep's clothing can be. Trained skeptics automatically tion monitoring networks started out of Early on in my studies, I observed the national agricultural experiment sta­ that the forest scientists - their special­ and unthinkingly assumed that tions. Agricultural. experiment stations ty being the above-ground parts of trees people associated with the "just have been sampling and analyzing at­ - knew that acid rain was not harming cause" of the environment are mospheric deposition of nitrogen and the above-ground parts of the trees. themselves just. sulfur for more than one century - not However, they accepted the environ­ as contaminants but as free fertilizer, mental propaganda that acid rain was "manna from heaven." harming trees from below the ground, The world's first national acid rain that is, through soils. which places power in the hands of the program (Sweden) determined the prin­ In my case, I accepted the environ­ people - as resting on bad faith. They cipal effect of acid rain was improve­ mental propaganda that acid raining on must feel ironic validation of their low ment of crop yield and crop protein the above-ground parts of trees was opinion of us scientists in using our content. In the United States, acidrain is damaging the trees. But, as a scientist, I own institutions to force the world fertilizing 300,000,000 acres of eastern could find no evidence that acid rain af­ through a form of boot camp in which forest. But rather than incur fidicule by fects soils,·my area of expertise. they break us down and remake us in a reporting that the fertilizing acid rain We accepted the environmentalist new green image. 0 benefits 99.9 percent of.·the forest, propaganda about areas beyond our ex­ Cited Articles NAPAPemphasized only that acid rain pertise because we believed the motives E. c. Krug and W. L. Warnick, "Sources of may be damaging less than 0.1 percentof of environmentalists justified their con­ Acidity in Surface Waters," Science 253 our forest- fertilization of red spruce clusions. What we scientists were doing (1991): pp. 1334-1335. in high altitude forest by acid rain may was forgiving environmentalists their I. Th. Rosenqvist, ''From Rain to Lake: be increasing cold damage by making sins because of their name - environ­ Pathways and Chemical Changes," T. forest grow too longinto the winter. mentalists. We scientists, who are Hydrol. 116 (1990): pp. 3-10. 30 Liberty Dispatch

p.e. or B.S.? by Meredith MeGhan

"Political Correctness" is more than a reactionary leftist attempt to stifle dis­ sent, as this frontlines report explains.

I first heard the term "Politically Correct" in 1985 as a freshman - excuse me, fresh-womb-moon - at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Then, the phrase seemed to refer to a fashionable collection of ideas, expensive Peruvian sweaters, and drug stories to be trotted out at the aptly named "progressive parties" held in dorms. That year I lived in East Quad, generally known as the ist magazine Against the Current, and whether social reform was really the P.C.. dorm. That meant that if you co-organizer of the conference, pre­ university's job. If it is not, then the walked through the halls at four a.m. sented the event as a challenge to the debate about P.C. is over. you'd smell incense and marijuana, criticism of the Left by atiny, vocifer­ Stephen Balch, of the National and see kids with long hair sitting in ous group of conservatives. In Ann Association of Scholars, has argued the.halls or the lounge discussing the Arbor, these critics are mostly that America's universities are being Grateful Dead or how much they re­ Republican, whose only real means of "harnessed for radical social change," gretted being born too late to experi­ expression is in the pages of the con­ and sometimes it seems like he is ence the sixties. servative bi-weekly, The Michigan right. During my five years at Six years later, the University of Review. An equal or greater number of Michigan I saw a short-lived speech Michigan still seems the best place to left-leaning critics of P.C. exists on code instituted after several incidents hold a conference called ''The P.C. campus, as silent as the conservatives in which white individuals harassed Frame-Up - What's Behind the are loud. (After all, who wants to be black students.* Though the code was Attack?" Last November, a group of vilified by both your own camp and later ruled unconstitutional, it still faculty and graduate students did just the enemy's?) Throughout the confer­ seemed that all whites were being that. ence, it seemed that the loud got loud­ tarred with the racist brush, and inter­ The conference was held in the er while the silent, save for one or two racial hostility continued to grow. wake of Dinesh D'Souza's bestseller brave souls, sank deeper into their Blacks suspected whites of racism and Illiberal Education, which includes a seats. whites suspected blacks of suspecting chapter about racial incidents at Wald and the other organizers, all them of racism. How many of us re­ Michigan, and the May commence­ tenure-track academics, posited that frained from including our pink, ment address at which President Bush the charge of "Political Correctness" is peach, or guilty-liberal red in the new in one breath lambasted P.C.'s attempt a false one,made by right-wingers try­ phrase "people of color?" How many to control free speech and said that ing to stultify the discourse that of us, a few years later, remained si­ "political extremists" were "abusing would lift the oppressed out from lent when P.C. conference participant the powers of free speech" by protest­ under the White Male Establishment Jullianne Malveaux called the debate ing his appearance at the Universit)'. and create a truly multicultural uni­ the /llast gasp of the white malel/ and Alan "Just Call MeAlan"Wald, versity --- and, ultimately, a more said that the black child who was professor of English in Ann Arbor, "equal" society. The first panel contin­ * See Charles Thorne, liThe Orwellian contributor to the Detroit-based social- ued the decades-long debate about University," Liberty, July 1990. Liberty 31 Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992

killed in Crown Heights died because I, as a woman, would be heard. I was male." It was like two six year-olds en­ "Hasidic Jews don't think they have to very uncomfortable, and refused. I gaged in a "your mother" contest. stop at red lights"? wanted to be listened to as an individ­ By Sunday, it was apparent that the It seemed that the anti-P.C. spokes­ ual, not as a token, I told the crowd P.C. Frame-Up "Debate" had clarified folk, glaringly in the minority, had when I reached the mike; several in the nothing and exacerbated much. Wald been brought there to be attacked. audience hissed and booed. recapped the conference at the Plenary Richard Bernstein, writer for the New Later, I caught up with the organiz­ Session, reiterating his original claim, York Times, was roundly hissed when er to explain further. I told him I had with no evidence of irony, that the he said he had "no political axe to felt like I was in kindergarten again, whole P.C. thing was just a paper tiger. grind," and Christina Sommers, a self- my teacher pushing me to the front of Those who made it through the whole the line, saying "Let the little girl go conference seemed even more at odds first." He was polite, though I could with one another than before. One left­ tell that he thought I was misguided. leaning critic, after speaking out Don't worry - prosecution Though "sensitive males" are loath to against the actions of a now-defunct will be under civil, not crimi­ admit it, it seems that paternalistic campus anti-racism group, was told by chivalry is not dead. It has only ex­ an organizer that he evinced "traces of nal law, and that'll make it changed its armor for de rigeur ripped racism" that were in need 'of critical ex­ okay. An Orwellian feminocra­ jeans below a cloak of rhetoric. amination. A young white man with cy, a spike-heeled boot stamp­ It is peculiar that a group of aca­ considered questions about affirmative ing a human face forever. demics and intellectuals sees itself as action, who said he was "'here to learn the definers of the "rights" of the "peo­ and not to be screamed at," was indeed ple," while most of these "people" are screamed at by a black woman about not even part of the university commu­ the endemic oppression of blacks by described liberal feminist from Clark nity. The P.C. debate is irrelevant to society. A Hispanic man was booed University, ended up being lumped the lives of most people and, as one when he said he'd rather be appreciat­ into the right-wing category for criti­ audience member pointed out in the ed for his hard work than his ethnicity. cizing the .extremist positions of cer­ plenary session, merely a source of And so it went. tain female-supremacists. Sommers amusement to most of those who en­ pointed out that many women did not counter it. What does the Left want, anyway? feel oppressed in their chosen roles as I I wife and mother, and that some even This question was posed to law profes­ felt like was in kinder­ enjoyed wearing makeup and fash­ sor Catharine MacKinnon, a proponent garten again, my teacher push­ ionable clothing. "Thanks a lot, of censorship and crony of Andrea ing me to the front of the line, Christina," .Alan Wald later said, roll­ Dworkin. "We just want to make the saying "Let the little girl go ing his eyes, implying that Sommers' government ours," she answered, to comments had done a real disservice the largely approving audience. Under first."Though "sensitive to women everywhere. the dictatorship of Catharine Mac­ males" are loath to admit it, it This sort of ironic disingenuous­ Kinnon, the Constitution would be seems that paternalistic chival­ ness appeared elsewhere as well. revised to preclude the First Amend­ During the panel on affirmative action, ment; "hate speech" (which does not, ry is not dead. I fell into line at the microphone to ask by the way, encompass the phrase "I David Horowitz, ex-Marxist co-author hate you," but does include. derogato­ of Destructive Generation, to clarify his ry and epithetic words, even out of As the conference ended, people views on preferential politics. When he context), would be punishable. filed out of the auditorium. Many of equated affirmative action with apart­ Government censorship of govern­ them looked· as drained as I felt. I heid, I was appalled, as was most of ment-defined pornography would pre­ wondered how many others were in the audience. He was trivializing the vail. But don't worry - prosecution my position: respectful of the educa­ condition of black South Africans and will be und~r civil, not criminal law, tional offerings of a multitude of cul­ overdramatizing the misfortunes of a and that'll make it okay. An Orwellian tures but repulsed by speech codes few whites and men. feminocracy, a spike-heeled boot and preferential admissions. I won­ Unfortunately, the mediator had stamping a human face forever. dered how many others, like me, had just told Horowitz, whose presentation And speaking of epithets, "white once thought of themselves as on the of his ideas in person is not nearly as male," once a purely descriptive term, Left, but now were sympathetic to the cogent as on paper, that he would not is now a phrase as loaded as conservatives - if only because, in be allowed to answer any more ques­ "Communist" used to be, at least at this one· instance, conservatives were tions; time was running out. One of this conference. The Right charged the· civil libertarian underdogs. I won­ the grad student organizers, a white everything they disagreed with as dered how many were leaving the male, came up to me and told me to being "P.C.," but the Left was sure to conference more alienated than cut in front of two men to ensure that come back with that phrase "white before. 0 32 Liberty Diagnosis

America's Experiment in Sylvan Socialism by John Baden

More than two decades before the Soviets took over Russia, they took over the forests of America. John Baden shows how socialist management in America has fared no better than in Russia.

N early twenty years ago I debated Milton Friedman at the University ofMontana on the issue of the ownership and management of the public forestlands. I argued that the ex­ ternalities inherent to commercial forestry are so large and so pervasive that continued public management by the federal government, though seriously flawed, was preferable to private ownership. tional forest and rangeland - an area made by bureaucratic entrepreneurs, I took this position reluctantly. I nearly equal to Texas and Louisiana and budgets made with a political cal­ recognized the extent to which politi­ combined. Like its younger cousin, the culus, we should not be surprised at cal opportunism skewed public man­ National Park Service, the Forest the failure of most reasonable tests of agement during the 1960s; the Service is commonly viewed as a stel­ efficiency, equity and environmental terracing of fragile timberlands in the lar example of Progressive Era com­ quality. Bitterroot National Forest of south­ mitment and creativity in the area of west Montana and the amazingly du­ environmental management. But the A Very Strange Business plicitous efforts of the Helena National common view isan illusion: Imagine a corporation with mar­ Forest's supervisor to develop the sub­ • The Forest Service clearly and re­ ketable assets of over $50 billion, plac­ marginal, high elevation timber lands currently violates the spirit of its ste­ ing it in the top five of the Forbes 500 of what is now the Lincoln Scapegoat wardship responsibilities. measured by assets. Its annual receipts Wilderness were impossible to ignore. • Its self-interest in budget expan­ are over $1.5 billion, placing in the top Nevertheless, I held to my position. sion conflicts both with environmental fifty of the Forbes 500 measured by in­ But over the years, as I worked protection and economic efficiency. come. But for the past two decades it with Rick Stroup, Garrett Hardin and • It significantly injures private has lost several hundred million per others, the evidence mounted: the fail­ forestry. year, something that neither the board ures of political management have be­ • Further, the infamous below-cost of directors nor managers seem in­ come clearer to me, as has the timber sales of the Forest Service are clined to change. A very strange potential of the non-profit and for­ becoming the forestry equivalent of business ... profit sectors to deal with negative ex­ the Valdez oil spill. Originally, the nationalized forests ternalities and provide public goods. Far from being aberrations, these were managed by the Department of The arguments for government owner­ results are the predictable consequenc­ Interior. But that department's contin­ ship and political management vanish. es of the institutional arrangements of ued monetary losses prompted Milton was right all along. the USFS. Not surprisingly, the Forest Gifford Pinchot, an official of the The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) has Service is similar to socialist enterpris­ Department of Agriculture, to con­ custody over 192 million acres of na- es elsewhere. When decisions are vince Congress to transfer the forests Liberty 33 Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992

to his agency. cians and special interests defend con­ dards: it classifies land as 1/commercial Pinchot promised Congress that he tinued support for money-losing and forest" if it produces 20 or more cubic would operate the forests at a profit. enVironmentally destructive practices. feet of wood fiber· per acre per year, But despite the vast wealth represent­ While managing timber for commer­ while the standard for private firms is ed· by the forests, neither Pinchot nor cial harvest is economically feasible in 3 to 5 times that amount. As a conse­ his successors have ever kept that the coastal NQrthwest and Southeast quence of the incentives this low stan­ promise. regions of America, massive subsidies dard provides, the Forest Service The reason is simple. The managers are required throughout the central consistently under-invests in· its most of .the National Forests have over­ and southern Rockies. The 71 forests productive sites and over-invests in looked the first principle of which, by Forest Service calculations, money-losing, often enVironmentally silviculture: lost money in 1987 are located in re­ fragile areas. Trees like to grow, where it'5 wet, gions outside the productive timber This is the predictable consequence warm and low. belts. These forests are environmental­ of good management being hostage to Unhappily for the Forest Service, ly fragile; for example, there is a high political calculations. Decisions made many of the National Forests are locat­ potential damage from sheet erosion. in the political arena use political rath­ ed where it's dry, cold or high. Only.a The obvious solution is for the U.S. er than ecological or economic criteria. few of the National Forests - those in Forest Service to invest more in manag­ As a result of these decisions, compet­ ing the productive forests of Oregon, ing interests have created a budgetary

Washington and the Southeast, while 1/commons" with all the destructive reducing expenditure in the Rockies. competition that this entails.* The re­ When decisions are made by Alternatively, the Forest Service could sults include high environmental, eco­ bureaucratic entrepreneurs, abandon its socialist experiment by ap­ logical and economic costs and skewed plying appropriate environmental safe­ private sector investment decisions in and budgets made with a polit­ guards and then transferring the productive timber lands. Poor manage­ ical calculus, we should not be productive commercial forests to the ment of our public forests also places surprised at the failure of most private sector. greater stress upon our ancient forests and upon rainforests throughout the reasonable tests of efficiency, The World's Largest Socialized world. equity and environmental Road-Building Company While building roads may seem to quality. Although the Forest Service be a productive and harmless activity, presents itself to the public as the be­ the environmental consequences in nevolent manager of the public's fo­ mountainous forests are often far from rests, it is more accurate to see it as the benign. To build roads in mountainous the Pacific Northwest and deep South world's largest socialized road build­ terrain, it is necessary to strip the road --'- are located where it is ideal for fiber ing company. Subsidizing the building site of its trees and then remove vast production. of roads into r,emote areas is the most quantities of earth in order to make Consequently, Forest Service tim­ important way that the Forest Service cuts, fills, and switchbacks, and to in­ ber sales in Alaska, the Rocky subsidizes the harvest of timber other­ stall pipes and culverts. Disturbing soil, Mountains, the Appalachian and wise unprofitable to log because of lo­ sand, and rock destroys the network of Ozark Mountains, the Midwest, and cation (Le., on steep slopes) or because vegetation that held it in place, making New England generally sell for far less of marginal commercial value. the area prone to erosion. Massive ero­ than the cost of simply arranging the The total mileage of roads built by sion and siltation from Forest Service sales. According to forest economist the Forest Service is more than eight roads adversely affect trout and salmon Randal O'Toole, money-losing timber times the total mileage of the U.S. fisheries, farmers' and ranchers'·irriga­ sales cost U.S. taxpayers nearly $400 Interstate System. Almost 342,000 tion systems, and the general quality of million in 1990. miles of roads have been constructed water. Road building entails clear America's 156 national forests are in the national forests and there are tradeoffs between economy and ero­ managed by 120 forest supervisors. plans to nearly double this mileage. sion control. Efforts to reduce erosion According to the government, 76 of Over the next 50 years, the Forest are often expensive. Hence, the Forest these 120 forest supervisors reported Services plans to construct 262,000 Service managers are squeezed be­ that theirunits lost money in 1987. Yet, miles of new roads and to rebuild tween economic costs and environmen­ revenues from areas that produce high­ 319,000 miles ofexisting roads. The total tal demands. Private firms build roads ly valued timber, the Pacific Northwest mileage would go to the moonandback to lower standards but also build far and the Southeast, covered the· losses and then circle the earth four times. fewer miles of road - especially if they reported for the system as a whole. Most of the logging that this mas­ have to pay the full cost. The U.S. Forest Service policies of sive program is designed to expedite is below-cost timber ·sales generally· lead uneconomical and is dependent upon to substantial environmental destruc­ substantial subsidies from the federal ... See Garrett Hardin and John Baden, eds., tion, economic waste and the erosion government. To justify logging low­ Managing the Commons, W. H. Freeman of civic virtue as bureaucrats, politi- yield forests, theUSFS lowers its stan- and Company, 1977. 34 Liberty Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992

In the northern Rockies, some of During that same period, the number 1991 Forest Service budget. Finally, America's finest trout and salmon riv­ of backpackers and other recreationists under a 1976 law, the Forest Service ers have been severely damaged by increased tenfold. Not coincidentally, can keep receipts from the sale of dead more than ten feet of siltation (mud) backpackers contribute little to Forest and dying timber in a salvage sale caused by Forest Service road building Service budgets. fund. This revolving fund started with and logging. And, although some of Idaho's waters are finally recovering Bureaucratic Coffers from road building and logging activi­ Unlike other federal agencies, the ties of the 1950s, the Forest Service is Forest Service is not entirely depen­ Over the next 50 years, the planning new developments on fragile dent upon Congressional appropria­ Forest Services plans to con­ tions for its budget. One-fourth of its soils that are destined to repeat the struct 262,000 miles of new injury. budget comes from user fees, primarily As the timber at lower elevations from timber sales. roads and to rebuild 319,000 and in easily accessible valleys is har­ The Knutson-Vandenberg Act, miles of existing roads. The vested, the Forest Service builds its passed in 1930, allows forest managers total mileage would go to the roads farther into the backcountry, funds for reforestation. Subsequent which means at higher altitudes and amendments authorize managers to moon and back and then circle on steeper slopes. As a general rule, spend timber receipts on wildlife, the earth four times. the steeper the slope, the greater the recreation, watershed, and other forest danger of land slides, slumps, sloughs, "improvements." As a result, every and earth flows from logging and road branch of the agency depends on tim­ building activities. ber sales for a share of its budget. $6 million but now adds well over $100 This increased road access to the What is unique about this arrange­ million to the annual national forest backcountry effectively displaces many ment is that while forest managers are budget. wildlife species. Although the Forest allowed to spend a portion of revenues Together, these four funds contrib­ Service claims to close roads except as they please, they are not accountable ute nearly half a billion dollars to the when used for management or log­ for the expenses used to obtain that national forests' $2 billion budget. ging, they do so by placing a green revenue. The timber sales themselves Candid remarks from forest manag­ steel gate across the road. Often this is are still funded through Congressional ers reveal that they regard timber sales a symbolic action offering a challenge appropriations to the tune of about as a fund-raising tool. "Any money to four-wheel drive enthusiasts and half a billion dollars per year. that we don't keep in the K-V fund is provides no significant impediment to When the Knutson-Vandenberg Act lost," says an Oregon timber sale oHi­ was passed the cost to taxpayers of ar­ cia!. "It goes to the U.S. Treasury." ranging national forest timber sales av­ (Imagine a CEO admitting that he re­ eraged 50¢ per thousand board feet. At gards dividends paid to shareholders that time the Forest Service wrote rules as "losses.") The Forest Service sells tim­ requiring managers to return at least /Ill we don't spend the money," ber in Alaska, the Rocky that amount to the U.S Treasury. says an Idaho manager, "Congress is Mountains, the Appalachian Since then, inflation has driven the likely to waste it on B-2 bombers." A cost of timber sales up to $50 per thou­ manager on the Caribou Forest is more and Ozark Mountains, the sand board feet. But managers are still specific: "If we return money to the Midwest, and New England required to return only 50¢ per thou­ Treasury, we are forgoing opportuni­ for far less than the cost of sim­ sand to the Treasury. In certain circum­ ties to do work that Congress will stances, they don't even have to return probably not fund." ply arranging the sales. that much. Use of timber sales funds is highly The pseudo-profits from Knutson­ discretionary and is subject to little Vandenberg - the K-V fund - added Congressional oversight. While most motorcycles, snowmobiles, and all­ well over $250 million to the Forest of the funds are spent on timber­ terrain vehicles. Thus, areas of back­ Service budget in 1991. But it is only related activities, about 9 percentare country solitude originally intended the largest of four similar funds creat­ spent on wildlife and smaller percent­ for hikers, photographers, and hunters ed over a period of 60 years. The first, ages on recreation, watershed, and are converted into recreational areas known as the brush disposal fund, was range. Thus, bureaucrats involved with for motor vehicles. The wildlife depen­ created in 1916 and is expected to con­ aspect of every national forest manage­ dent upon solitude is effectively tribute over $65 million to the Forest ment stand to gain from timber sales. pushed from these areas. Service's 1991 budget, mostly for pre­ Indeed, as the system is set up, The roads and logging activities scribed burning. every level of the Forest Service bureau­ have also displaced trails. For example, Under a law passed in 1964, man­ cracy benefits from timber sales, there­ in the 1940s, the U.S. National Forest agers can also charge timber purchas­ by providing powerful incentives not had 144,000 miles of trails. By 1984, , ers for road maintenance. This fund is just to sell timber, but to lose money sell­ there were only 98,500 miles of trails. expected to add over $30 million to the ing timber. While most national forests Liberty 35 Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992

return some funds to the Treasury, ditures served a great national eco­ given to the impact upon 1,171 workers after deducting K-V and similar funds nomic interest, this activity might be in the recreation industry whose jobs and payments to counties in lieu of defensible. But when the economic are partially dependent upon a relative­ property taxes, total 1990 timber re­ costs of securing the timber far exceeds ly pristine environment.* turns were only $372 million. This is any commercial value ·of the timber, The slight attention given to the rec­ $177 million less than the $549 million there is no sensible public purpose reation industry is also a predictable that the Forest Service spent out of tax served. In many cases, roads funded at consequence of the institutional ar­ dollars on timber sales and timber taxpayer expense allowed access to rangements and incentives faced by the management. timber that was too sparse, too margi­ Forest Service. Forest Service managers nal, or too slow-growing to justify the are rewarded for selling timber, even high price of the roads and other de­ when the timber they sell loses money. velopment costs. In essence, taxpayers Their discretionary·· budget is largely Forest managers who want a are subsidizing environmentally de­ dependent upon volume of timber sold, structive behavior that no private tim­ not the profitability of the sale. Forest large budget can essentially ap­ ber company or private landowner managers who want a large budget can propriate more money to their could afford. essentially appropriate more money to their unit by selling timber: their agen­ unit by selling timber: their The Politics of the Forest agency keeps a share of the re­ cy keeps a share of the receipts, while Service Congress pays the cost of arranging ceipts, while Congress pays the The political logic ofbelow-cost tim­ sales and building roads. From the per­ cost of arranging sales and ber sales is straightforward. National spective of the district ranger, sales ap- Forests provide jobs and income to building roads. communities in all but ten states. To enhance its budget, the Forest Service provides a timber program in virtually What does the Forest Service do every national forest, regardless of effi­ The managers of the with all of the money it keeps in the ciency considerations. Consequently, National Forests haver over­ K-V fund? Here are a few items: the vast majority of members of the looked the first principle of sil­ • The Sequoia National Forest typi­ Senate and House of Representatives cally spends nearly $2,000 per acre on find it in their interest to vote for ex­ viculture: Trees like to grow, planting trees and other reforestation panding Forest Service road building, where it's wet, warm and low. activities. This is over ten times the logging and timber management. Unhappily for the Forest amount that private landowners spend So communities have become de­ for similar activity. Given the low in­ pendent upon subsidized logging. The Service, many of the National herent productivity of Sequoia Forest politician benefits, the constituent who Forests are located where it's land, it is particularly extravagant. has a job benefits, the timber company dry, cold or high. • National forests in the Rocky that is subsidized benefits. The taxpay­ Mountains hire cowboys to keep sheep er ends up subsidizing the reduction in and cows (which are themselves subsi­ quality of an environment he increas­ dized by taxpayers) out of c1earcuts so ingly values. Further, these subsidies pear to generate profits, not losses, re­ they won't trample seedlings. reduce incentives for private invest­ gardless of the true economics of the • The Helena National Forest set­ ments in good timber growing sites sale. tled a timber sale appeal brought by and they help create an environment On the other hand, most recreation­ environmentalists by promising to hostile to the forest products industry. al activities produce no budgetary re­ spend over $70,000 of the receipts from Politicians use "community stabili­ ward for managers because Congress the timber sale on wildlife and wa­ ty" to justify subsidies. Whether the permits fee collection only for devel­ tershed mitigation measures. communities involved actually benefit oped campgrounds. Also, Congress is • The Caribou National Forest is moot. In many parts of the West, less generous in funding recreation ac­ spent $10,000 to hire a "recreation in­ recreation contributes more to the local tivities than in funding timber-related terpreter," no doubt to explain to re­ economy than timber sales, and clear­ ones. The result is that even if manag­ creationists why their forests were cuts contribute little to environmental ers are more interested in recreation clear-cut at a monetary loss. recreational amenities. than in timber, the only way to fund • The Hoosier National Forest In the Gallatin National Forest, for many of their recreation programs is by planned to spend over $150,000 build­ example, recreation (which involves a selling timber. ing a 10-acre fishing pond. significant area of backcountry) pro­ Subverting Private Forestry • The Gallatin National Forest uses vides more than 16 jobs for every job Below-cost sales, especially those in K-V funds to close the logging roads so produced by the timber industry. Yet the northern Rockies and Alaska, influ- that grizzly bear and other wildlife will the Forest Service plans a massive remain undisturbed by motor vehicles. road-building project to save seven .. Randal O'Toole, Reforming the Forest If the bulk of Forest Service expen- timber-related jobs. Little attention is Service, Island Press, 1988, p. 61. 36 Liberty Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992

ence people's perception of the entire forestry products industry. They have a negative political impact upon the political environment within whicn the industry operates. In the same way 'that the Exxon Valdez spill hurt nearly all domestic oil producers, below-cost timber sales in areas such as the No Accounting Greater Yellowstone portray the indus­ try as environmentally insensitive and dependent upon government largesse. for Waste Over the long run, the timber industry has a stake in eliminating below-cost sales. by Randal O'Toole Inciting public indignation and gen­ erating funds, environmental groups portray the timber industry as a wan­ n 1984, when Congressional for amortizing roads. But the new for­ ton destroyer of wilderness and wild­ hearings were held on money­ mula isn't much of an improvement. It life. However, this characterization losing timber sales, the agency divides road construction costs into should be understood in its institution­ I told Congress that it could not tell four categories: subsurface, surface, al context. Unlike the U.S. Forest whether its sales lost money because culverts, and bridges. The surface will Service, private firms cannot force tax­ its accounting system wasn't good be amortized for 10 years, the culverts payers to subsidize their operations. enough. Congress responded. by giv­ for 30, and the bridges for 50. The sub­ Those that lose money on sales go ing the Forest Service $400,000 to de­ surface costs, which just happen to be ,bankrupt. However, the U.s. Forest velop an accounting system, which is two-thirds of all road construction ex­ Service has no such constraint. Like a sort of like giving a fox access to the penses, are "added. to the capitalized firm in a communist nation, a national chicken coop to find out who is steal­ value of the forest" - that is, not forest cannot go bankrupt. Under exist­ ing the chickens. counted at all. Not one cent of the $4.5 ing institutions, political payoffs trump In 1987, the Forest Service came billion of taxpayer money spent on ecology, equity and efficiency com­ out with its accounting system. They bined. Institutional reform is in order. called it "Timber Sale Program Private companies manage their Information Reporting System" or land for marketable products. They do TSPIRS. This system enables the Top agency officials clearly not build extensive road systems into Forest Service to justify below-cost emphasize timber targets be­ poor quality timber sites or systemati­ timber sales by counting payments by cause of their relationship to cally lose money on timber sales as the timber purchasers as receipts even National Forest Service does. If a pri­ though most of those receipts are not funding. As the Chief of the vate company owns marginal timber retained by the U.S. Treasury. Forest Service says, Uthe Forest land that is de facto wilderness, it is nor­ Many of the costs, whether paid Service is energized by its bud­ mally in their interest to leave it alone, out of the Treasury or timber receipts, to transfer it to a conservation group, are under-reported. Some costs are ig­ get." Congress gives the agen­ or to manage it for its most highly val­ nored altogether. Others, such as road cy money and expects it to ued use, for wildlife habitat or recrea­ construction, are amortized using a bi­ bring home the pork. tion from which they can capture zarre formula that spreads the costs benefits. out over hundreds of years - in some However, if they own a high quality cases, over 2,000 years or more. timber site, it will be logged and man­ Of course, there is nothing wrong subsurface work would be counted aged in such a way as to maximize dis­ with amortizing road costs over sever­ under the TSPIRS system. counted returns. Private timber al years, since roads are likely to be Most new road construction companies do not act primarily to pla­ used for some time. But no road will shouldn't even be considered to be cap­ cate Congress. They are more interested last even 100, much less 2,000, years, ital improvements. To do so, they must in generating profits via market ex­ without major maintenance and re­ add to the revenue-generating ability change. Self interest leads private tim­ construction costs. And road mainte­ of the forest. But timber sales lose ber companies to behave in a more nance (which costs the Treasury $96 money, and building new roads economically responsible manner than million per year) is left out of the doesn't make them profitable. And does the Forest Service. This generally equation altogether. there is> already a surplus of roads for results in far less environmental dam­ Embarrassed. by the reports of recreation. Treating new road construc­ age, for they rarely remove timber that 2,000-year amortization periods, the tion as a capital expense makes as will not pay its wayout of the woods. 0 Forest Service is changing its formula much sense as would my filling in my Liberty 37 March 1992 backyard swimming pool with con­ been 35 percent of the National Forest Learn at Liberty crete at a cost of $10,000 - and ex­ System budget for the last 20 years Liberty offers full-time internships pecting to be able to sell my house while recreation, fish and wildlife, and to students of all majors interested in for $10,000 more. soil and water have been 2 to 3 per­ journalism, writing, political philosophy The Forest Service will continue cent." Partly as a result of this imbal­ or public policy. Positions are available to amortize reforestation and other ance, the supervisors said, "the at all times ofthe year. costs over hundreds to thousands of allowable sale quantity [ASQ] issue ,For further information, write years. The net effect of changing the will continue to be a problem for us Liberty, PO Box 1167 and some supervisors feel our ASQs Port Townsend, WA 98368. road amortization formula is to actu­ ally reduce the total claimed costs of are unrealistic even "Yith full funding." the annual timber program. r------, Despite these subterfuges, TSPIRS The Liberty Poll still shows that a majority - about 65 What Libertarians Think out of 120 - of national forests lose The USFS amortizes the The first detailed study of what libertari­ money. Virtually all observers agree costs of its road construction ans think about life, government, God, sex, that about 20 forests operate at a heroes ... and how they would deal with profit, leaving just 35 in dispute. Yet using a bizarre formula that some serious moral problems. $4.00 each, ppd.; the Forest Service has promised to spreads the costs out over hun­ $3.00 each for 5 or more copies. take action reducing timber sales in dreds of years - in some cases, Liberty Publishing only 22 or 23 forests - those that lose over 2,000 years or more. PO Box 1167 the most money. And under the L Port Townsend, WA 98368 ~ agency's proposal, these forests will reduce their planned timber sales, "The point is not that but salvage and firewood sales will In response to these' communica­ plundering the rich is immoral, be exempt. Not surprisin8ly, most of but that it doesn't pay, doesn't tions, the Chief created a "New reduce but increases inequality... " the 22 forests sell timber mainly in Perspectives" program that was sup­ salvage and firewood sales. posed to give local people more say The Continuing Commitment in how their forests were managed. UP from LlBERTARIANI!M But it is now apparent that New to Pork by D. G. Lesvic Perspectives was really nothing more Although top agency officials ap­ ...offers a new economic argument for than a way to identify and dispose of freedom, and answers its foremost pear committed to the timber pro­ dissenters. In the past few months, critics, Rothbard, White, Hazlett, and gram, those on the bottom are not so Friedman, with their own words! one regional forester and several for­ sure. est supervisors have been forced to The Political Economy Club of Los Angeles To maintain funding, the agency 5668 Cahuenga Blvd., #313 retire or transfer because they failed North Hollywood, CA 91601 places a huge emphasis on Soviet­ to meet their ASQs. $4.00 ppd. style targets, the most important of Meanwhile, the supervisor of the which is the timber target, or the "al­ Lewis & Clark Forest, a Montana for­ lowable sale quantity." This"ASQ" is est whose timber program cost tax­ supposed to be a maximum level that payers $1.25 million in 1990, was the forest can sustain, but Congress given a pay raise and a cash bonus for and the Washington, D.C. office of meeting his timber target. His superi­ the Forest Service increasingly see it or was quoted as saying "I just wish I as the minimum level that forest had twelve other supervisors like managers will be allowed to cut. him," an obvious reference to the fact In 1988, the supervisors of the that, the other supervisors in the re­ Pacific Coast national forests sent the gion failed to meet their targets. Chief of the Forest Service a video Top agency officials clearly empha­ tape saying that they felt current tim­ size timber targets because of their re­ ber targets were incompatible with lationship to funding. As the Chief of other environmental values. Unless the Forest Service says, "the Forest the targets were reduced, said one, "I Service is energized by its budget." can't be the steward of the public Congress gives the agency money and lands that you depend on me to be." expects it to bring home the pork. Inspired by the video, the super­ Local forest officials who won'tbringit visors of the Rocky Mountain nation­ home will be replaced lest they threat­ Dr. Robert B. Clarkson al forests sent a letter to the Chief en the entireagency's funding base. 515 Concord Avenue echoing this problem. The memo America's Soviet-style bureaucra- Anderson, SC 29621 noted that "our timber program has cy rumbles along. 0 (803) 225-3061 Origins

Albert Jay Nock: Prophet of Libertarianisll1? by Stephen Cox

What matters is that/ for life to be truly fruitful, life must be felt as a joy; and that where freedom is not, there can be no joy. - Albert Jay Nock 1

Albert Jay Nock (1870-1945) was a writer, famous in the time of his flourishing - the 1920s and 1930s - who is still revered by a devoted following. ''Writer'' in this case is not just a generic term. Nock was a writer in the firmest, most intransigent sense of the word. He made himself known by the armies of words he commanded, while he kept himself, the general behind the words, as elu­ Among the details of his private ualist's remarkable skill at keeping the sive as any other personality in twenti­ life that Nock preferred to leave in the facts of his "private activities" out of eth-century American literature. shade, and that remain in the shade the hands of biographers, Charles H. Nock wrote for the American even after the publication of an autobi­ Hamilton, the editor of a new and sub­ Magazine, a "muckraking" journal. He ography and two intellectual biogra­ stantial collection of Nock's essays, ob­ wrote for the liberal journal The phies,3 are his reasons for becoming serves that we don't even know if Nation. He edited the radical journal an Episcopal priest, his reasons for Nock was once, as has been claimed, a The Freeman. He wrote volurnes of es­ leaving the ministry, his reasons for minor-league baseball player.6 In a says. He wrote a book about Jefferson, marrying, his reasons for leaVing his late "Autobiographical Sketch," Nock two books about Rabelais, a book wife,4 his relations with other mem­ blandly avouched that "like Prince about education, a book about politi­ bers of his family, any romantic in­ von Bismarck in diplomacy, I have no cal theory (Our Enemy, The State, 1935), volvements he may have had after he secrets. There is nothing in my history a book about Henry George, the radi­ left his wife, the nature and extent of that for precautionary reasons I cal economist, and finally a book some of his sources of income, and the should have any wish to cover up."7 about himself (Memoirs of a Superfluous purpose of much of his restless travel­ Notwithstanding this disingenuous as­ Man, 1943) which is famous for its ling in America and Europe. sertion, the private Nock may never be richness and diversity of opinions and Apparently, no one knows why Nock adequately known. for its reluctance to expose the person­ travelled to Eastern Europe in 1911, or Clearly, however, the most impor­ al experience out of which those opin­ just what he meant when he said that tant question is the one that Nock him­ ions grew. A lifelong advocate of he journeyed to various American cit­ self would ask: What was this man's individualism, Nock paradoxically in­ ies doing "little job[s] ... in regard to significance in his major public role sisted that the biographer should ig­ taxation," or just what happened on and profession, his career as a writer? nore the individual "subject's private his "frequent Washington visits," or To many people, the obvious an­ activities, his character, and his rela­ any details of his visit to "the German swer has seemed to be that Nock is tions of whatever kind," except insofar High Command" during the period significant as a writer of the libertarian as they are directly relevant to the sub­ before the U.s. entered World War 1. 5 tradition. During the 1930s, his out­ ject's public role and profession. 2 Commenting on the great individ- spoken advocacy of individualism ad- Liberty 39 Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992

vertised the fact that alternatives to the and intersecting "isms." I'll begin by to do anything that he or she didn't collectivist mentality were still availa­ making a basic distinction between want to do. As Nock saw it, libertarian­ ble within the republic of American let­ philosophical libertarianism and psy­ ism transcends specific historical con­ ters. He revived and intensified the chological libertarianism. This sort of ditions. That is the assumption behind distinction between state and society distinction has probably been made be­ his declaration that Rabelais, the six­ that had been important in the fore, but if it has, it is worth remaking. teenth-century satirist, "was one of the American revolutionary period but By philosophical libertarianism I world's great libertarians." That is why that had slipped the memory of many mean a system of moral and political Nock could say that he himself "could twentieth-century intellectuals. "Every ideas grounded in a conscious belief in not possibly have got through with­ assumption of State power," he said, the right of all individuals to do as out" Rabelais.10 The spiritof liberty in "whether by gift or seizure, leaves soci­ they please so long as they refrain from one era speaks freely to the spirit of lib­ ety" - and therefore the individuals coercing any other individuals. The erty in another. Such is the nature and on whom sOciety's life depends ­ particular ideas associated with this be­ persistence of psychological liber­ "with so much less power; there is lief may be wise or foolish. They may tarianism. never, nor can be, any strengthening of be influenced by values and attitudes This idea allows me to notice anoth­ State power without a corresponding as diverse as those of Henry David er distinction between isms. There is a and roughly equivalent depletion of Thoreau, Ludwig von Mises, and libertarianism of doctrine, and a liber­ social power." 8 Milton Friedman; they may even repre­ tarianism of inspiration. One mayor sent (as in the case of Ayn Rand, who may not agree with the teaching of roundly denied that she was a "liber­ Rabelais, Nock, or any other historical tarian") a political love that dares not figure; one mayor may not recover A lifelong advocate of indi­ speak its name. from their works any coherent libertar­ vidualism, Nock paradoxically Of course, every reader of this jour­ ian doctrines, or believe that any such insisted that the biographer nal will find some reason to quarrel doctrines, once recovered, amount to should ignore the individual with the terms of my definition of li­ philosophy; but one may nevertheless bertarianism. It is intended to be sug­ be inspired by their libertarian im­ 1/subject's private activities, his gestive, not scientific; and I reserve the pulse. A libertarianism that is very character, and his relations of right to revise it whenever I want. Its poor in doctrine can be very rich in the whatever kind." only purpose is to identify the kind of spirit that calls its audience to thought libertarianism that takes as a very high and action; and the spirit can be found, priority the systematic application of a as Nock found it, in many places and far-reaching principle. The "move­ times. Nock's frequent use of the term "li­ ment" libertarianism of the current era But philosophical libertarianism is, bertarian" to denote .a radical ideologi­ is just that kind of libertarianism, the in a fundamental sense, an historical cal position helped to popularize this kind that easily provokes quarrels phenomenon: there have been times sense of the word. His works, which among its adherents about its own when it existed and times when it did were admired by conservative as well proper definition. not. The libertarian attempt to con­ as classical-liberal opponents of the Psychological libertarianism, on the struct a consistent ideological opposi­ Inodern state, were an important medi­ other hand, may never rise (or sink) to tion to all economic and political um through which American conserva­ the level of philosophical dispute. coercion is a response to - the tism absorbed specifically libertarian System is not its first priority. :f\1arxists would say a rationalization of ideas.9 In large part, Nock's writing Psychological libertarianism is an in­ - the growth of a capitalist social survives because his readers see him as stinct~al revulsion against the coercion order. It appeared only when there a libertarian and, indeed, as a major of individuals. It mayor may not be re­ was some considerable evidence that figure in the libertarian intellectual lated to any definite or coherent politi­ society might be more orderly and pro­ movement of the twentieth century. cal philosophy. When associated with ductive if no central authority decreed Hamilton's collection of Nock's essays political positions, it often appears, not its shape. This was once a counterintui­ - well-introduced, well-edited, and as their basis, but as one of their attrib­ tive idea, an idea that needed the sup­ remarkably well-chosen to represent utes, and not necessarily as a logically port of clear practical evidence if it both the force and the variety of appropriate attribute. People some­ were ever to be taken seriously. Nock's ideas - provides a welcome times speak, in this way, of a "libertari­ The evidence appeared at a particu­ occasion to consider some of the things an socialism." lar place and time: the late seventeenth that "libertarianism" rnay mean, in its The libertarian impulse may, per­ and eighteenth centuries, in northwest­ historical context and in its reference to haps, have lurked in human minds as ern Europe and America, where a long such highly individual thinkers as series of unplanned and often unwel­ Nock. long as there have been human minds. Probably some Hittites and Sumerians come events had produced conditions Dissecting Some Isms became furious at the oppression of favorable to liberty. Philosophers of To discuss this 'topic, I will need to local laws and customs and ended up the Enlightenment were enabled to try dividing several pairs of related wondering if anyone should be forced construct systematic defenses of politi- 40 Liberty Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992

cal and economic freedom - of liberal­ seem so inconsistent to contemporary 1960s, on the different political identi­ ism, in the classical meaning of that libertarians, might not seem inconsis­ ties of the people who call themselves term - and their ideas, once institu­ tent to people born a few generations "conservatives" and "libertarians." tionalized in European and especially before us. Their inconsistency might But this is not the time to map every in American society, promoted further begin to seem remarkable only when feature of the ideological landscape. I expansions of liberty. the state's interventions in pursuit of need to return to the libertarian who But this does not mean that the general welfare became extensive prompted my attempt to separate "Thomas Jefferson was a libertarian" or enough to make limited government various kinds of libertarianism. What that "the United States Constitution is Albert Jay Nock contributed to the a libertarian document," in quite the libertarian movement was a powerful sense that libertarian activists usually A libertarianism that is very impulse. and inspiration, not a seminal intend when they say these things. doctrine or a systematic philosophy. His Libertarianism is only one branch of poor in doctrine can be very contribution was nonetheless dis­ the great tree of liberalism planted by rich in the spirit that calls its tinguished. the Enlightenment. The branch grew audience to thought and ac­ The Progressive Libertarian slowly and unevenly; it is still growing Nock had been writing for more - and, unlike most other organic tion; and the spirit can be than thirty years as an impassioned growths, it reacts well to severe adver­ found, as Nock found it, in psychological libertarian when he sity. It often grows best when its parent many places and times. praised Rose Wilder Lane's The tree is threatened with destruction. Discovery of Freedom and Isabel When the tree basks in the sunlight of Paterson's The God of the Machine (both power, the results are not uniformly appear almost a thing of the past. At published in 1943, along with Rand's inspiring. that point, intellectuals who valued the The Fountainhead and Nock's own Thomas Jefferson, the idol of Nock American tradition of liberty had ur­ Memoirs) as "the only intelligible and many another libertarian, was ca­ gent reasons for sharpening their theo­ books on the philosophy of individual­ pable of emploYing coercion in ways ries about the relationship of the state ism that have been written in America that would have knocked the breath to the individual, for inventing forms this century." He declared that "Rose out of Lyndon Johnson. In a peculiarly of libertarianism more radical than and old Isabel [Nock was nearly 73, costly attempt to protect America from anything that could simply be appro­ Paterson only 57] have shown the war, President Jefferson convinced priated from the founding fathers. male world of this period how to think Congress to embargo all shipping to or This happened in the 1930s and fundamentally. They make all of us from foreign countries. Many other 1940s, the period to which today's phil­ male writers look like Confederate methods and institutions of the early osophicallibertarianism can most con­ money."11 RepubliC would wring the heart of a fidently be dated. Two major But why wasn't it Nock who made modern movement libertarian. But this subspecies of libertarianism arose and a fundamental addition to libertarian is merely a sign that the liberal tradi­ eventually intersected. One was the ideas? tion varies with its responses to histori­ classical liberalism of such Continental One reasori was the peculiar pres­ cal conditions and with the higher or emigres as Ludwig von Mises and sures of the era in which he came to lower priorities that individuals assign, Friedrich Hayek. Theirs was a liberal­ full political awareness. Intellectually, at various times, to the various princi- ' ism that derived its greatest persuasive he was a product not of the New Deal pIes associated with it. power from utilitarian analysis of the era but of the preceding Progressive The doctrinal libertarianism of economic effects of modern unlimited era. He began writing when the great­ modern America descends, indeed, government. The other subspecies of li­ est threat to individualism seemed, to from only one of many lines of reason­ bertarianism appeared in the individu­ most intellectuals, to arise more from ing engendered by Enlightenment prin­ alist philosophies of such writers as the unprecedented growth of corpo­ ciples. From the Enlightenment belief Isabel Paterson, Ayn Rand, and Rose rate economic power than from any in the natural rights of individuals one Wilder Lane, a systematic but often new growth of state restrictions on the can easily derive the libertarian idea primarily moral individualism that ar­ economy. that government should always be jeal­ ticulated itself in reaction to the New When Nock st~rted writing about ously and severely limited. But from Deal at home and bolshevism and fas­ politics, around 1910, he wrote as a the utilitarian attitudes of the cism abroad. modern liberal much concerned with Enlightenment one can derive a very One can follow these two streams the "obstinate inequalities" of indus­ different idea - the idea that natural of modern libertarianism down the in­ trial society.12 He developed excellent rights need to be protected by strong tellectual canyons of the 1940s and working relationships with Progres­ republican institutions, institutions ac­ 1950s, noting their effects on "conser­ sive journalists and politicians; al­ tive in promoting what the vatism" and "libertarianism" as we though he was apparently not pre­ Constitution calls the "general know them now in America, and pared to go all the way with their welfare." marking the influence of that other cri­ projects for the redemption of society, These two lines of thought, which sis-period of the state's expansion, the he was enthusiastic about going part Liberty 41 Volume 5, Number 4 March·1992

of the way. His opposition to the state in their affection for popular initiatives as they now devour what the liberals was therefore by no means simple and as means of advancing liberty; ironical­ call capitalistic industry."18 straightforward. He suggested that ly, they would use campaigns for tax Although Nock's indebtedness to every boy and girl be drafted to serve limitations, legislative term limitations, the liberal tradition made him a fer­ in an agricultural army devoted to the and school vouchers as means of undo­ vent proponent of free trade, his.in­ fight. against insects, droughts, and ing social programs for which the debtedness to his favorite Progres­ floods. He called for "the labouring Progressives campaigned. And liber­ sivism left him confused about the no­ tarians who abandoned faith in such tion of property rights, the first princi­ measures would often turn to anar­ ple of traditional liberalism. Georgite chism, as did Nock, the erstwhile ideas are very prominent in Nock's sa­ Thomas Jefferson, the idol of Progressive liberal, around 1914. lient work of libertarian theory, .Our Nock .and many another liber­ But none of this means that Nock, Enemy, The State, which suggests that tarian,. was capable of employ­ in his opposition to the state, ever ar­ "confiscation of economic rent" is es­ ing coercion in ways that rived at consistent, or consistently li­ sential to a free society. Nock believed bertarian, political principles. He that if all the value of land were confis­ would have knocked the breath retained his devotion .to one of the cated except the value "accruing from out of Lyndon Johnson. most ingenious good-government the­ the application of labour," everyone ories of the Progressive era, the "single would have access to land, and "obvi­ tax" idea of Henry George, author of ously the reason for the State's exis­ (1879), who class" to "revolt" and to "outgrow gov­ Progress and Poverty tence would disappear, (1nd the State claimed to have shown "that laissez itself would disappear with it."19 ernments," but he wanted to replace "the old idea of government" with "the faire (in its full true meaning) opens the For some reason, Nock was unable new idea of administration." 13 As way to a realization of the noble to see the inconsistency. between his Michael Wreszin has observed, Nock dreams of socialism." The idea, as idea of confiscating economic rent (a was far from the only Progressive who Nock explained it, is that the rental project that would, as one may ima­ nursed such illusions.14 value of natural resources is property gine, require a strong and continuous... Nock would gradually perfect a created by law, not by labor, and ly active government) and his other principled suspicion of reformism. He should therefore not be the subject of idea of .maintaining a government observed the way in which sincere private "monopoly." Government "which should make no positive inter­ pleas for· reform, when coupled with should finance itself solely by local ventions of any kind upon the individ­ "faith in political action," encourage confiscation of this "economic rent."17 ual." At one point in his book .. OIl the growth of a restrictive state and One might think that George's the~ Henry George, he recognizes the thus play into the hands of collecti­ ory could seem formidable only in the strangeness of George's proposal to let vists: "Every governmental measure of toy republics of conceptually innocent, "the monstrously evil" national state 'social reform' meant more laws, more single-issue activists. Yet it was the confiscate "economic rent" and admin­ boards and bureaux, more coercions, kind of theory capable of exerting a ister it "for social purposes." But "this controls, supervisions, surveillances, strong appeal to sophisticated but es­ advocacy of a national, rather tha,n a more taxes, and less freedom for the in­ sentially .self-educated people. Nock, local, confiscation of rent ... was not dividual."15 In this respect, the later who lived as a boy in a small town in close enough" to collectivism "to be Nock is clearly in the mainstream of northern Michigan and studied at a disturbing."20 modern libertarian thought. small Episcopal college in which no In his Jefferson, Nock depicts "eco­ But however suspicious of social modern subjects were taught, had to nomic causes" and "the·economic ex­ reform movements he may have be­ put contemporary issues together pret­ ploitation of one class by another" as come, Nock never abandoned his ty much by himself. In such circum­ the engine of American history; and Progressive-era suspicions of business. stances, the tendency is either to create the "exploitation" is largely that of Late in life, he remarked, with fair ac­ one's own grand theory (as would the "speculation" and the "monopoly" of curacy, that "our business men do not even more literally self-educated Isabel economic rents. He remarks elsewhere want a government that will let busi­ Paterson), or to attach oneself to a col­ that "there is actually no such thing as ness alone. They want a government lection of little theories with large pre­ a tariff-problem, any more than there is that they can use.,,16 It is interesting tensions ---" like the theory of Henry actually such a thing as a labour­ that in this respect, too, his feelings co­ George, of which Nock was intensely problem; the only actual problem is the incide with those of many libertarians fond. Georgite phrases like "monopo­ land-problem, and if that were solved, of later generations. Even in Rand's ly-interest in natural resources" (a syn­ these two apparent problems· would Atlas Shrugged, that apotheosis of com­ onym for the conventional system of immediately disappear."·Nock was ca­ merce, corporate leaders are almost private land ownership) came easily to pable of enumerating, among "various without ~xception portrayed as ex­ his· pen, and he liked to utter mysteri­ delegations of the taxing power,which ploiters, in league with corrupt politi­ 0us Georgite oracles, declaring, for in­ have no vestige of support in natural cians. Some libertarians of the future stance, that "monopoly-values will as right," both "tariffs" and "private would also coincide with Progressives inevitably devour socialized industry land-ownership."21 This sort of thing 42 Liberty Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992

makes one wonder exactly what he disgust with his fellow-citizens' state­ and an inspiring statement of a charac­ had in mind when he paid tribute to worship that made him wonder if they teristic libertarian idea - the idea of "the magnificent tradition of economic were not somehow lacking in humani­ the good person, the free individual freedom," or when he declared that ty, but his philosophical skepticism on distinguished not by membership in "without economic freedom no other this score never stopped him from pro­ an economic class but by personal at- freedom is significant or lasting."22 testing the state's insults to their indi­ Nock sounds like a modern doctrinal vidual rights. libertarian. ... but just what does he As it turned out, Nock's protests mean by "economic freedom"? were capable of inspiring a good many Although Nock's indebted­ In the last phase of his·intellectual people, in both the conservative and ness to the liberal tradition life, Nock added another theory to his the libertarian camp, who agreed very made him a fervent proponent stock, the notion of Ralph Adams halfheartedly with his specific doc­ Cram, an important architect, that the trines. Nock resembles, in this way, his of free trade, his indebtedness majority of people are not "psychically friend H. L. Mencken. Mencken called to his favorite Progressivism human"; evolution has left them men­ himself "an extreme libertarian," but left him confused about the no­ tally "neolithic." Nock claimed that few of his libertarian or conservative tion of property rights, the this idea eased his mind and made him (or modern liberal) admirers could list more tolerant. Why be disappointed by the articles of his political creed, much first principle of traditional the human failings of people who are less signify their agreement to them. liberalism. not quite people?23 But the new addi­ Nock, like Mencken, offered not a co­ tion to his collection of theories seems herent ideology but a gift of individual not to have jostled the others very far style, insight, and culture. He offered tributes, not by wealth or power or out of their niches. He still regarded gifts more appropriate to the eye and even education but by the quality of himself as a proponent of human heart than to the calculating brain; he clear perception from which all of a so­ rights for everyone, despite the fact offered the gift of joy in a special type ciety's wealth or power or education that his idea of the "human" had un­ of vision, a vision that endured and must ultimately be derived. dergone a curious readjustment. scorned the intellectual deformations Consistent with Nock's idea of the Nock's easy tolerance of his own of George and Cram and all the rest of good person is his idea of good art. contradictions becomes le~s surprising his specific influences. when one sees him as a psychological Art, for him, was inseparably associat­ The Quality of Vision ed with a directness and transparency In one of the essays in the new col­ of character and intention. That was lection, some remarks on the American why he was happy to think that he Nock began writing when humorist Artemus Ward, Nock refers wrote good, plain, idiomatic American to the kind of vision that he himself English, and why he declared that the greatest threat to individu­ possessed. Here he is concerned not so "when art becomes self-conscious it alism seemed, to most intellec­ much with analyzing Ward as with isn't art any 10nger."25 tuals, to arise from the evoking the spirit that responds to One must concede'that Nock often works like Ward's, and with identify­ violates this rule. In his defects, as in unprecedented growth of cor­ ing the possessors of that spirit. This his strengths, he is a true American. porate economic power. "order" of people, he explains, are liv­ Every nation has its characteristic ingamongus forms of literary affectation, and the af­ fectation to which Americans take sing!y or near!y so, and more or less as aliens, in all classes of our society - an most easily is a false innocence, a pre­ rather than a philosophical libertarian. order which I have characterized by tense that complex issues are in fact True, his libertarianism always ex­ using the term intelligence. IfI may sub­ childishly simple. Like Mark Twain, presses itself in ideas and·arguments; stitute the German word Intelligenz, it Henry Adams, and other very complex he enjoys using the word "fundamen­ will be seen at once that I have no idea personalities, Nock is most gratingly tal"; he insists on the importance of of drawing any supercilious discrimi­ self-conscious when he pretends to be "theory" and complains about the ten­ nation as between, say, the clever and struck by the simplicity of everything dency of Americans to do without it. the stupid, or the educated and the un­ he is thinking about. educated. Intelligenz is the power in­ But this does not imply that systematic In his essay "Anarchist's Progress," variably, in Plato's phrase, to see argument and coherent philosophy things as they are.... Those who have for instance, Nock claims to have stum­ stand higher among his priorities than this power are everywhere; every­ bled upon "a very odd fact. All the cur­ does his impulse to revolt against con­ where they are not so much resisting rent popular assumptions about the ditions that he regards as purely, sim­ as quietly eluding and disregarding all origin of the State rest upon sheer ply, and "obviously" repellent to social pressure which tends to mecha­ guesswork; none of them upon actual individualism, and to do so without nize their[rocesses of observation and investigation." No one, he has found to 2 caring how ideologically ungainly his thought. his surprise, has "taken the plain revolt may seem. It was doubtless his This, as I take it, is both a precise course of going back upon the record Liberty 43 Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992

as far as possible to ascertain how [the lies which I had found so trouble­ this suspicion about his own works, state] actually had been formed." Odd some." 26 Of Nock's argument for but Nock is the only author that I can indeed - until one reflects that states anarchism, one can say pretty much recall expressing it honestly. He enjoys were first formed before "records" ex­ what Jefferson said about Plato's argu­ his ability to be honest in that way. He isted, or until one reflects that even ment for the immortality of the soul: is equally capable of seeing things as conscientious "investigation" of a "were there no better arguments than they are in the curious moments when problem like this may have to include his in proof of it, not a man in the he anticipates his death: a certain amount of "guesswork." world would believe it."27 The reflection that one is doing some­ But Nock leaves himself in his af­ In Our Enemy, The State, Nock thing, - anything, - for the last time fected puzzlement no longer than one argues that the state, which is merely gives one an odd sensation. The other the agent of "continuous economic ex­ day, for instance, when I was looking ploitation," is entirely different from over a lot of shirts it struck me that in "government," which provides justice all probability I shall never have to buy another shirt.30 In the last phase of his intel­ and protection of rights. But don't lectuallife, Nock added another bother to look around for govern­ In his discussions of other people's ments; in Nock's view, no society that histories, Nock often delights one with theory to his stock, the notion has passed the hunter-gatherer stage the appearance of an unselfconscious that the majority of people are has a government; they are all attached vision. He does this, for example, in his not "psychically human"; evo­ to states. Still: What about those state portrait of General Kutusov, victor officials who, from time to time, have over Napoleon in the Russian lution has left them mentally appeared to be interested in "govern­ campaign and himself a distinguished "neolithic." But he still regard­ ment" rather than simple exploitation? exemplar of unselfconscious under­ ed himself as a proponent of Perhaps the functions of "the state" standing: human rights for everyone, de­ and the functions of "government" are He attended to routine, watching sometimes exercised by the same, peo­ everything, putting everything in its spite the fact that his idea of the ple, thus blurring Nock's distinction place, holding everything up to the ILhuman" had undergone a cu­ between the two political forms. mark; but beyond that he kept his To preempt such plausible objec­ mind as far off the actual course of the rious readjustment. campaign as he could. He read French tions, Nock (who has been quoting novels, corresponded with his lady­ such state officials as Madison, Jay, friends, meditated on all sorts of non­ and Jefferson whenever he finds their military matters; and, most effective paragraph. He soon "discover[s]" that, support useful) simply declares, as if and rewarding of all conceivable relax­ notwithstanding the absence of early recalling a self-evident fact: ations, he snored. Like nearly all old records, "all the scholars of the Taking the State wherever found, persons, he dropped off to sleep easily, Continent" (by which he means striking into its history at any point, almost at will; and being big and fat, "Professor Franz Oppenheimer, of the one sees no way to differentiate the ac­ he snored; and when a person is snor­ University of Frankfort") have now tivities of its founders, administrators ing he is about as inaccessible and un­ and beneficiaries from those of a suggestible and. selfless as a living agreed on a "scientific" explanation of human being can become.... Possibly, the origin of the state: professional-criminal class [emphasis addedl.28 under certain circumstances, snoring should be regarded as a fine art and re­ The State did not originate in any There is a certain charm in Nock's form of social agreement [so much, in spected accordingly.31 delight in discovering that complicated one phrase, for the social-contract lib­ "Being big and fat, he snored": this is eralism of the Enlightenment].... The issues are astoundingly simple. It's fun State originated in conquest and confis­ - but it's not philosophy. Nockian true simplicity. cation, as a device for maintaining the theory will take one only a short way But Nock's simplicity always has stratification of .society permanently toward understanding the operations an undercurrent of earnestness, and into two classes - an owning and ex­ of the state. sometimes it is in deadly earnest. His ploiting class, relatively small, and a But Nock very often achieves a coldly impassioned essay on the lynch­ propertyless dependent class.... No truer and more charming simplicity, es­ ing at Coatesville deserves to be better State known to history originated in known: any other manner, or for any other pecially when he is not writing directly purpose than to enable the continuous about political theory (a subject that, On Sunday evening, August 13, 1911, economic exploitation of one class by perhaps, anarchists would do better to at the hour when churches dismiss another. avoid, if only for the sake of their style>. their congregations, a human being named Zack Walker was taken hy vio­ But how, one might ask, does Nock, In his letters, he engagingly concedes that he was astonished at the commer­ lence out of the hospital at Coatesville, or Professor Oppenheimer himself, Pennsylvania, where he lay chained to know any of this? No historical facts cial'success of Memoirs of a Superfluous an iron bedstead, in the custody of the are marshalled, no counterarguments Man - "astonished and a little uneasy, law, suffering from a shot-wound, ap­ assessed; Nock, perplexed no longer, for I suspected there must be a screw . parently self-inflicted. merely declares himself convinced: loose in it somewhere."29 Nock is far The bedstead was broken in half, and "This at once cleared up all the anoma- from the only author who has harbored the man, still chained to the lower half, 44 Liberty Volume 5, Number 4

was dragged half a mile along the age, that he could not be of much help ground, thrown upon a pile of wood, to specific political causes. Partial re­ drenched with oil, and burned alive. sponsibility for this, unfortunately, Stored Other human beings to the number of must be assigned to inconsistencies several hundred looked on in approval. and futilities in his own ideas, and to his sometimes haughty aversion to Labor: Zack Walker was a black man who people who might actually have been had killed a white man, perhaps in able to do something in politics.34 But A New Theory self-defense. But Nock finds his mur­ it wasn't all his fault. He rightly felt der a proof that towns like Coatesville that he had been born at the wrong of Money shelter something even more repellent time, that he was an individualist in a than race-hatred: social conditions in cultural milieu that was veering fur­ This startling and highly original work which civilization is impossible, which ther and further away from individu­ sets forth the philosophical principles prevent people from seeing such acts alism, and that his real job was to keep that underlie the nature of money. It as the lynching of Zack Walker as up the spirits of the "remnant" of un­ shows how the surface definition of money as being the "medium of ex­ "wholly alien, unnatural, and known people in every walk of life frightful."32 change" has misdirected thought on one who were trying to preserve their indi­ At this distance, it matters little if of the· most important aspects of vidual ability to see things as they are. Capitalism. This work demonstrates how Nock's theories about anarchism or the Nock called it Isaiah's job. God, as single tax or the effects of social condi­ the current definitions and understand­ Nock told the Biblical story, informed ings of money are incompatible with tions in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, the prophet Isaiah that he should keep freedom. It builds a foundation that may were accurate or not. The things that preaching despite the fact that be fully integrated with the ideas of lib­ really matter are (to borrow Joseph erty, property rights and reason. Conrad's phrase) the "vibrating note of the official class and their intelligent­ sia will turnup their noses at you, and revolt" beneath Nock's level journalis­ Send $8.00 plus $2.00 postage and the masses will not even listen. ... handling to: tic tone, and the passion that he there­ [Butl there is a Remnant there that by displayed for the type of civilization you know nothing about. They are ob­ Hugh Thomas without which human life may seem scure, unorganized, inarticulate, each 17238 Tribune St., nearly worthless. And what gives life one rubbing along as best he can. Granada Hills, CA 91344. to Nock's writing is, again, his ability They need to be encouraged and to see something simply as it is. braced,up, because when everything has gone completely to the dogs, they Often this ability makes Nock an are the ones who will come back and outsider even among his partisan build up a new society. friends. A person of strong pacifist in­ Objectivity Nock said that Isaiah's job was the clinations, he nevertheless rebelled best one around, because the only -A journal of metaphysics, thing such prophets need to do is to epistemology, and theory of "keep forking out [their] very best," value informed by modern What gIves life to Nock's knowing it will be appreciated by science. those for whose sake it was produced. writing is his ability to see Charles Hamilton, Nock's perceptive Topics something simply as it is. editor, is correct in remarking that the Ontology ofRelations and Theory of sadness of Nock's later writing can be Universals - Categories, Language, overemphasized.35 Nock sees Isaiah's and Abstraction - Infinities ­ job as free and joyful and inspiring to Philosophy of Mathematics - Ide'!­ against the tepid rationalism and mo­ both the prophet and his audience. tities and Invariants - Observers In ralism of his fellow pacifists and urged Nock did not prove to be a proph­ Relativity andin Quantum Measl;lre­ them to see, for once, that many "com­ ments - Reality of Spacetime et in the most literal sense. He Geometry - Chaos - Causality ­ mon" people greet warfare as "the first couldn't predict the future. Every­ glad sense of great definite purpose Representationalism and Computa­ thing didn't have to go completely to tional Minds - Psychology ofHumor dawning into stagnant and unillu­ the dogs before a large-scale revival of - Why Man Needs Appro.val-1scent mined lives," as the opportunity to do individualist thought could begin. The to Volitional Consciousness ­ something that might shed an "inter­ individualist libertarianism of the Hierarchies of Nature, Cognition, pretative light" upon eXistences other­ present time derived comparatively and Value - From Fact to Value ­ 33 wise apparently without significance. few of its formative ideas from Nock. Organism, Machine, and Value - One wonders how many of Nock's pac­ Nevertheless, Nock was a prophet. He Subscription $18, by vol (6 issues). ifistfriends welcomed this insight into was a seer; he saw things, and he psychological phenomena so alien to Free sample issue upon request. often saw them as, indeed, they are. Write: their own way of thinking. He sketched, as clearly as any of the Objectivity, 3023 N. Clark St. Nock was probably correct in the alienated and marginalized individu- Suite 238, Chicago, II, 60657 impression, which grew on him with Volume 5 Number 4 March 1992

alists of his time, something like the mere economic, gender, or racial class­ "class analysis" that has become in­ es. He saw the potential of the ob­ How to stinctive with modern libertarians. He scure, unorganized, inarticulate saw the world in terms ofintellectual "remnant," and he prophesied to and, if you will, spiritual classes, them, helping them to see themselves Subscribe which are of more importance for the as significant and potentially power­ way the world actually runs than ful. That was a good job. 0

to Notes Albert Jay Nock, "Our Pastors and 14 Wreszin, pp. 29-32. Liberty Masters" (1921), The State of the Union: 15 Nock, Henry George (New York: William Essays in Social Criticism, ed. Charles H. Morrow, 1939), p. 173. Hamilton (Indianapolis: LibertyPress, 16 Nock to Ellen Winsor, 22 August 1938, Liberty celebrates the 1991), p. 156. Letters, p. 105. diversity of libertarian 2 Nock, 'The Purpose of Biography" 17 Henry George, Progress and Poverty (1940), State of the Union, p. 8. (New York: Robert Schalkenbach thought! 3 Nock, Memoirs ofa Superfluous Man Foundation, 1942), p. xvii; Nock, Our Liberty tackles the tough problems. (New York: Harper, 1943); Robert M. Enemy, The State, pp. 104-08. Every issue of Liberty presents es­ Crunden, The Mind and Art of Albert Jay 18 Nock, "In the Vein of Intimacy" (1920), says studying current trends in Nock (Chicago: Regnery, 1964); Michael State of the Union, p. 217. Wreszin, The Superfluous Anarchist political and social thought; discus­ 19 Nock, Our Enemy, The State, pp. 104-b8. (Providence: Brown University Press, sions of the strategy and tactics of 20 Nock, Our Enemy, The State, pp. 131-32; 1972). social change; analyses of current Henry George, pp. 174, 150. 4 A friend of a friend of Nock's tells me a 21 Nock, Jefferson (1926), reprint (New events and challenges to popular story that seems in character: During a York: Hill and Wang, 1960), pp. 162, beliefs. Liberty also offers lively voyage across the Atlantic, Nock's 163, 188, etc.; Henry George, p. 187; book reviews, fiction and humor. friend screwed up his courage and "Anarchist's Progress" (1927), State of asked him why he had left his wife. You won't want to miss a single the Union, p. 48. issue! What was wrong with her? ''Nothing was wrong with her," Nock answered. 22 Nock, "Anglo-American Relations" Act Today! "She was perfect, perfect in every way. (1920), State of the Union, p. 88. Liberty offers you the best in liber­ That's why I left her." 23 Nock, Memoirs ofa Superfluous Man, p. 138. tarian thinking and writing. So 5 Nock, letters to Ruth Robinson, 13 October 1911 and 30 September 1916, 24 Nock, "Artemus Ward" (1924), State of don't hesitate. You have nothing to the Union, pp. 112-13. lose, and the fruits of Liberty to Selected Letters ofAlbert Jay Nock, collect­ ed and edited by Francis J. Nock, with 25 Nock to Lincoln Colcord, 1 September gain! Memories of Albert Jay Nock by Ruth 1944, Selected Letters, p. 166. Robinson (Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton, 26 Nock, "Anarchist's Progress" (1927), Use the coupon below or call: 1962), pp. 19-21,86; Robinson, State of the Union, pp. 46-47. ''Memories of Albert Jay Nock," Selected 27 Thomas Jefferson- to John Adams,S July Letters, p. 188. 1814, The Adams-Jefferson Letters, ed. 6 Hamilton, ed., State of the Union, p. xvi; Lester J. Cappon (Chapel Hill: 1-800-321-1542 Wreszin, pp. 13, 159. University of North Carolina Press, 7 Nock, "Autobiographical Sketch" (1944 1959), p. 433. or 1945), State of the Union, p. 28. 28 Nock, Our Enemy, The State, pp. 37, 50. 8 Nock, Our Enemy, The State (New York: 29 Nock to J. Howard Rhoades, 30 January r------,,Please enter my subscription William Morrow, 1935), p. 4. 1944, Selected Letters, p. 155. to L£berty immediately! YeS. 9 George H. Nash, The Conservative 30 Nock to George P. Bissell, 2 September 1944, Selected Letters, p. 167. o One Full Year (6 issues) $19.50 Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 (New York: Basic Books, 1976), 31 Nock, "Snoring as a Fine Art" (1938), o Two Full Years (12 issues) $35.00 esp. pp. 14-18. State ofthe Union, pp. 195, 197-98. Add $5 per year for foreign subscriptions. 10 Nock to Mrs. Edmund C. Evans, 29 32 Nock, ''What We All Stand For" (1913), September 1929, Letters from Albert Jay State of the Union, pp. 139-41. name Nock, 1924-1945, To Edmund C. Evans, 33 Nock, "Peace the Aristocrat" (1915), address Mrs. Edmund C. Evans, and Ellen Winsor State of the Union, pp. 70-71. (Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton, 1949), p. 40. 34 I am thinking especially of Nock's sharp city, state, zip+4 11 Nock to Mrs. Edmund C. Evans and remarks about wealthy anti-Roosevelt I enclose my check (payable to o Liberty) Ellen Winsor, August 1943; to Mrs. people who dared to "make themselves o Charge my 0 VISA 0 Mastercard Edmund C. Evans, 7 August 1943; most agreeable [to him], evidently on Letters, 181, 183. account of [his] opposition to the New 12 Nock, 'What We All Stand For" (1913), Deal": Nock to Mrs. Edmund C. Evans, signature State of the Union, p. 147. November 1937, Letters, p. 95. 35 Nock, "Isaiah's Job" (1936), State of the account # expires 13 Wreszin, pp. 36-38; Nock to Ruth Send to: Liberty, Dept. L28, Robinson, 11 June 1915, 2 August 1914, Union, pp. 125, 130; Hamilton, ed., State Selected Letters, pp. 79, 63. of the Union, p. xxiv. L Box 1167, Port Townsend, WA 98368 .1 Foreign ReRort

Hong Kong After Tiananmen by Kin-ming Liu

The world's only surviving classical liberal polity is being given "back" to a tyranny. Can the polity - or the people - survive?

The bloody crackdown of the 1989 uprising in Peking by the Chinese Communist Party not only pushed mainland China over the edge of an abyss, but threatens to send Hong Kong reeling. What happened in Peking on June 4, 1989, emasculated the Joint Declaration signed by Britain and the People's Republic of China on December 19, 1984, which promised to hand Hong Kong over to China in cies. The British Government once vative businessmen or professionals 1997. After the blood flowed in again bowed to Peking without a fight. anxious to avoid offending Communist Tiananmen Square, all those beautiful With abandonment on one side and China. They might represent the elite slogans such as "a high degree of au­ brutality on the other, Hong Kong is establishment in Hong Kong, but defi­ tonomy," "one country, two systems," doomed. nitely not the masses. and "Hong Kong ruled by Hong Kong The people of Hong Kong vigor­ people" seem nonsensical. Peking's Trump Card ously supported the 1989 uprising in The Tiananmen Massacre hastened In the early 1980s, Britain and the mainland China. Consequently, the the exodus from Hong Kong, leaving it People's Republic of China started ne­ Chinese Communist Party condemned a city of panic and despair. The British gotiations on the future of Hong Kong. Hong Kong as the base of "counter­ Government, which had kowtowed to According to the Joint Declaration of revolutionary activities" and increased Peking during negotiations over Hong 1984, Hong Kong will become a its control of the Drafting Committee. Kong, tried to res,tore confidence in Chinese Special Administration Region Peking controlled the Drafting Com­ post-Tiananmen Hong Kong by (SAR) in 1997, with the Basic Law serv­ mittee and thus the Basic Law was launching a four-prong package: ing as a mini-eonstitution for Hong built to the specifications of the 1) the British nationality program; Kong. Peking had firm control of the Communist Party. No one had really 2) a bill of rights; Basic Law Drafting Committee which believed that the Basic Law could offer 3) direct election in the Legislative was established on April 10, 1985. The genuine, long-term constitutional pro­ Council; and first draft of the Basic Law was re­ tections for Hong Kong. Even so, the 4) an airport project. leased in Apri11988 and the final form final form of the future mini­ This rescue package provoked a was endorsed by the Chinese legisla­ constitution gave Hong Kong people a swift and angry response from Hong ture in Pekingin March 1990. big chill. Kong's future sovereign..Peking de­ The Drafting Committee consisted Peking had broken its promise of manded the British Government grant of 59 members appointed by the "one country, two systems" in a num­ it the power to veto measures prior to People's Republic - only 23 of them ber of ways in the Basic Law: 1997 so that all pre-1997 measures from Hong Kong. Most, if not all, of a) The power to declare a state of would be consistent with Chinese poli- the Hong Kong members were conser- emergency in Hong Kong would rest Liberty 47 Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992

with Peking, not with the Chief Since the Joint Declaration was an been theirs. Executive of the SAR. The presence of international agreement and the Basic Most people in Hong Kong thought the Army and the power to declare Law grossly violated it, the British the number allowed was far too few to martial law would no doubt guarantee Government could have invited the do much good. The authority, however, the absolute control of post-1997 Hong opinion of international jurists on the expected to receive a lot of applica­ Kong by Peking. issue. But the British Government did tions. One million application forms b) The Hong Kong government not stand up and fight for one of its last were printed and 400,000 people were would enact laws to prohibit activities colonies. expected to apply. When the deadline that subvert the central government. Even if the Basic Law were well for application came at the end of Since Peking can interpret freely what conceived, there would not have Ibeen February 1991, only 65,674 people had kind of activities are "subversive," it much confidence in Hong Kong. With applied, sending an embarrassing sig­ can outlaw Virtually any activity in the Basic Law in its current form, confi­ nal to Britain: few people wanted to set­ Hong Kong that it does not like. dence in Hong Kong is practically nil. tle in Britain. c) Hong Kong political organiza­ The main reason, however, was in­ tions are prohibited from having any The British Nationality timidation from Peking, which had de­ links with foreign groups. Peking want­ Package nounced the Package as a ploy aimed ed to make sure that no "counter­ Emigration from Hong Kong has at perpetuating colonial rule beyond revolutionary activities" would be or- been rising ever since Britain decided 1997 and as an unacceptable attempt to to turn Hong Kong over to China. internationalize the Hong Kong issue. According to the Hong Kong Govern­ In addition, Peking stated it would not ment Secretariat, the number of emi­ recognize the British Nationality con­ The people of Hong Kong grants were 30,000 in 1987, 45,800 in ferred by the measure. Only Hong vigorously supported the 1989 1988, 42,000 in 1989. The Tiananmen Kong Chinese who have settled abroad Massacre in June 1989 triggered a and have successfully applied to re­ uprising in mainland China. bigger wave of exodus from Hong nounce their Chinese citizenship will Consequently, the Party con­ Kong. In 1990, 62,000 people left. 1991 be regarded as foreign nationals. Those demned Hong Kong as the base figures are not yet available, but the who remain in Hong Kong after 1997 government projected a rate of more will be treated as Chinese nationals of 1/counter-revolutionary ac­ than 1,200 people per week. whether or not they hold foreign tivities. /I In hopes of slowing emigration and citizenship. restoring confidence in Hong Kong in This did more than uproot the origi­ the aftermath of the Tiananmen nal intention of the British Nationality ganized in Hong Kong. Massacre, the British Government in­ Package. It had a devastating impact on d) The most crucial blow was that troduced the British Nationality those Hong Kong people who had al­ the final interpretation of the Basic Law Package, granting the right of abode in ready secured or were in the process of would rest with the Chinese National Britain to 50,000 key Hong Kong peo­ securing passports from Australia, People's Congress Standing Committee, . ple and their families (adding up to a Canada, the United States, or other not with the final court of appeal in rough total of 225,000 people). If these countries. They feared that, whatever Hong Kong. This is clearly a violation 50,000 people were given this right, the the right of access to their adopted of the Joint Declaration, which stated British Government thought they country overseas, they would still be that the final power of adjudication would stay in Hong Kong. British pass­ denied permission to leave Hong Kong shall be vested in Hong Kong. No mat­ ports would be their insurance. - just as mainland Chinese are pres­ ter how nicely the Basic Law was put The main attraction of the British ently compelled to seek clearance be­ together, it would become totally irrele­ Nationality Package was that, unlike fore travelling abroad. All of a sudden, vant through Peking's interpretation. other countries' schemes that require foreign passports were no longer All these elements in the Basic Law emigrants to satisfy residence require­ insurance. undermine the Joint Declaration's ments, successful applicants to the Then Peking added another punch. promises to keep Hong Kong "un­ British scheme would get nationality Using its power in the Drafting changed for 50 years," to exercise "one for themselves and· their families with­ Committee, Peking reformed the Basic country, two systems," and to grant out having to leave Hong Kong at all. Law to require that all senior Hong Hong Kong "a high degree of Ironically, the rights it conferred to the Kong government officials be Chinese autonomy." select group of "key" people were held nationals, with no right of abode else­ When absolute power lies in the by all Hong Kong British passport where. This requirement went beyond hands .of the Peking government, and holders until the British Government the Joint Declaration which only stipu­ not with the Hong Kong people, there passed the British Nationality Act, by lated that the Hong Kong chief execu­ is no guarantee whatsoever that Hong which the British government prevent­ tive and heads of major governmental Kong will not share the fa te of ed a potential influx of Hong Kong resi­ departments be Chinese nationals. This Shanghai, Le., become another dull and dents. The British Nationality Package was a serious blow to those senior civil uncolorful city, absorbed into the vast was asking Hong Kong people to apply servants who would like to stay in totalitarian systemof mainland China. for something that should have already Hong Kong but also want to secure an 48 Liberty Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992

"exit route" should things go bad after human rights in Hong Kong before Peking's interests. 1997. Peking's position forces those 1997. But after that, there is no Hong Kong people who have the abili­ guarantee. The New Airport Project ty to move to face the dilemma: to The final and most important step leave now or lose the right to leave. Direct Election In The the British government took in their There is no middle way. Legislative Council hope of restoring confidence in Hong According to the Joint Declaration, A Bill Of Rights when the British leave Hong Kong in The British government tried anoth­ 1997, they are to hand the power to the er way to restore confidence in Hong people of Hong Kong. As a result, after Since the Joint Declaration Kong: it attempted to enact a bill of the signing of the Declaration, the was an international agree­ rights based on international' human British government planned the first di­ ment and the Basic Law gross­ rights covenants. rect elections to Hong Kong's law mak­ According to the Joint Declaration, ing body, the Legislative Council ly violated it, the British Hong Kong's current system will be (Legco). The present Legco consists of Government could have invited kept unchanged for 50 years. The 57 members - 31 government appoint­ the opinion of international Declaration also states that the relevant ees, 14 from functional constituencies, provisions of the International and 12 from an electoral college. The jurists on the issue. But the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights latter two groups are indirectly elected. British Government did not will also be maintained. By establishing The original plan of the British gov­ stand up and fight for one of its a bill of rights, the British government ernment was to launch direct elections sought to guarantee the bulk of those in 1988, but it dropped this plan in the last colonies. rights into the laws of Hong Kong, face of strong opposition from Peking. thereby insuring they would also re­ After considerable negotiation between main the law of Hong Kong for the liberal groups in Hong Kong and the Kong was to launch an ambitious next 50 years. government in Peking, a compromise Peking's reaction, as expected, was multi-billion dollar airport and port was reached. Legco would have 10 project. The current Kai Tak Airport hostile. Peking said that the bill of seats for direct election in 1991. rights could not have a superior status has long been overloaded; proposals to The Tiananmen Massacre shocked build a new airport have been dis­ even those conservatives in Hong Kong cussed for years. The British govern­ who usually side with Peking against ment decided to construct a new No one had really believed any democratization attempt. They international airport at Chek Lap Kok joined the broad movement to increase on Lantau Island. The project was that the Basic Law could offer the pace of democratization. Omelco, a named the ''Rose Garden" project. genuine, long-term constitu­ body comprising members from Legco The new project was intended to tional protections for Hong and Hong Kong's policy making stimulate Hong Kong's confidence in Executive Council (Exco), decided to its economy. At first, it appeared more Kong. Even so, the final form push for a legislature of 60 seats: 20 promising and straightforward than of the future mini-constitution chosen by voters, 20 chosen by func­ the other programs intended to restore gave Hong Kong people a big tional constituencies, and 20 appointed confidence in Hong Kong. Peking gave by the government. It would start in words of approval at the beginning, but chill. 1991, and would gradually increase the quickly changed its tune, announcing percentage of directly elected members that it was infuriated that the British until 2003 in which all members would government had not"consulted" it con­ to other laws since there was no such be selected by direct elections. cerning the airport project. provision in the Basic Law. It also In the aftermath of the "turmoil" at One factor in the conflict over the warned that Hong Kong laws that con­ Tiananmen, Peking voiced strong dis­ airport project was money. Peking was travened the Basic Law would be re­ approval of the Omelco model and ma­ worried that the British government, by pealed after 1997. nipulated the Drafting Committee to launching such an expensive project, The bill of rights was passed in the form. amodel more to its liking, keep­ would empty Hong Kong's financial re­ Hong Kong Legislative Council and ing directly elected members in the mi­ serves by 1997. Peking demanded that came into operation in June 1991. nority until 2003 when they would as much as US$ 6.4 billion (HK$ 50 bil­ Peking announced that the measure increase to 30 of 60 seats. In order to lion) should be set aside from the re­ would adversely affect the Basic Law further tighten the control of Legco, the serves for the new SAR government. It and reserved the right to examine (after Basic Law stated that a maximum of seemed that this was one of the condi­ 1997) all the laws currently in force in 15% of the Legco members can hold tions the British government had to Hong Kong, including the bill of rights, foreign passports. meet if it wanted to have Peking's in accordance with the relevant provi­ With this makeup Peking can be as­ blessing on the project. sions of the Basic law. sured that the Hong Kong Legco In addition, a Hong Kong business­ The bill of rights may uphold would not pass any law contrary to man, Gordon Wu, claimed that he Liberty 49 Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992

could build the new airport with only cial turnover date. This is, once again, a selves. Most Hong Kong people naively half the money the British Government clear violation of the Joint Declaration. believe that if they do not offendPeking, said was needed. Wu's suggestion As a matter of fact, the memorandum Peking will let them continue business added weight to Peking's bargaining of understanding could be seen as the as usual in the future. Peking may let position with the British Government. second Joint Declaration between themhave enough roomto make money Wu is one of the conservatives in Hong Britain and Peking. The second though some of their freedom would be Kong who believe that they can contin­ Declaration declares that Peking be..; gone. In other words, as longas they can ue their big business after 1997 if they comes the de facto ruler of Hong Kong still make money, Hong Kong people do not offend Peking. before 1997. would not mind too muchif they cannot British Foreign Secretary Douglas speak freely or have to change their cur­ Hurd visited Peking in early April Before and Beyond 1997 rent ways of living. However, this is 1991, hoping to receive Peking's ap­ Trapped between Chinese recalci­ only wishful thinking. proval of the project. Hurd was the trance and British spinelessness, the With such an attitude, it is no sur­ most senior minister from an EC nation people of Hong Kong face a difficult fu­ prise that many Hong Kong people are to visit China since the Tiananmen ture. The threat from Peking, of course, neither fighting for their own rights nor Massacre and he expected that Peking is the ultimate source of hopelessness urging the British government to stand would show some appreciation for his in Hong Kong. However, several devel­ up for them, and even stand on the side helping end their diplomatic isolation. opments suggest that the British colony of Peking whenever any conflict arises Nevertheless, Hurd left Peking without may face turbulence before 1997 as a re­ between London and Peking. any blessing from the Communist sult of the cowardice and shortsighted­ How can Hong Kong people contin­ Party on the airport project. ness of Hong Kong residents. ue to have business as usual if they let On July 4, 1991, the British Many Hong Kong people seem not Peking take away the present key ele­ Government and Peking reached an to mind the British government's ongo­ ments of a capitalistic society? How can agreement to build the airport. The key ing subservience to Peking. Of course, it Hong Kong people have business as phrase in the agreement was, "Any de­ would be good if Britain did stand up usual if Peking replaces Britain's cision will give full weight to the for them. But why should Britain do laissez1aire policy with tremendous re­ Chinese Government's views." In other anything but seek a "glorious retreat" strictions? By letting Peking erode the words, Peking would officially enjoy a from Hong Kong? Better not to do any­ Joint Declaration and create a repres­ form of veto power over all major is­ thing to irritate or offend Peking. Doing sive Basic Law without voicing a strong sues in Hong Kong. Peking has already whatever Peking demands is the best protest, Hong Kong people hasten the started its rule, well ahead of the offi- course of action to safeguard them- death of their own society. 0

Letters,continued from page 6

that it would "cost" him less not to have that those trying to learn about the phi­ actually trying to get the word out to it than it would "cost" the owner to give losophy shouldn't see it. He even wants the voters, and Liberty will be off my it up. to make sure they never see it by telling bookshelf. Meanwhile, here is $19.50 for Coase also evades subjectivity of you to "close up shop." a further, single year. cost and posits a world where property Perhaps Dr Borland needs to learn A. J. Davies rights are constantly floating and reas­ how to discriminate. I recommend some Ridgefield, Conn. signed based on judicial decisions about Liberty articles to friends, and refrain A Question of Balance "least cost avoiders" in the pursuit of from recommending others. I applaud After I read theJanuaryletters from the chimera of "zero transaction costs." some articles, and seriously question Mr Hickman and Dr Borland I went back I was surprised to see the cheering of others. But I never presupposed (as the and reread C. A. Arthur's article on the such ideas in Liberty. good doctor does) that I could tell you Libertarian Party's National Convention J. Mark Hardy "Your magazine should be a profession­ ("My Kind ofTown," November 1991). I Ft. Still, Okla. al forum of ideas that will make the have come to the conclusion that there is reader want to learn more about the phi­ Sheltering the Libertarians some truth on all sides. losophy." I don't remember being given know that magazine was I always argue that libertarians don't I Liberty such a vote, and I don't recall seeing the originally conceived as a forum in need to be sheltered from the rantings good doctor's name on your editorial which libertarians could hash out the of our opponents - or of our friends. board. Keep up the good work. finer points of our ideology. In short, it We can decide for ourselves, and if new Steve Buckstein was intended to be written by libertari­ information turns us away from our Portland, Ore. ans for libertarians, not as an outreach principles, so be it. That's why I react so The Word Out periodical. However, I can now find strongly to the letter from R. Michael Liberty in a local bookstore. This means Borland, M.D., Ph.D. ("That's Not I wholly agree with the letter from that outsiders can now read it. While I Libertarian, That's Sick," January 1992). Dr Borland. This letter puts you on no­ don't wish to read puff pieces, I also Dr Borland concluded that articles in tice: just one more snide remark about li­ Liberty are "hurting libertarianism," and bertarians who, with all our faults, are continued on page 67 50 Liberty Literary Archeology-

The Ghost in the Little House Books by William Holtz

Rose Wilder Lane was more than pioneer of libertarian thinking. She was the novelist who turned her mother's stories into the hugely successful Little House novels. And along the way, she infused them with libertarian thinking ...

The "Little House" books by Laura Ingalls Wilder have earned the admiration of many readers, parents as well as children, for their moving portraits of pioneer life. And some thoughtful readers have paused to acknowledge the extraordinary artistry that lies beneath their apparently sim­ ple surface. It is, of course, the art that makes them moving, that engages us in the life of the child Laura and her reer as a journalist and free-lance writ­ days. Her skill also lay behind the best­ family. It is the art that carries us from er carried her around the world in the selling White Shadows on the South Seas the evocations of hearth and home, pa- years 1915-1968. And fewer still have by Frederick O'Brien, and she later rental love and family security, in Little thought to inquire into the connection ghosted material for Lowell Thomas. House in the Big Woods, through Laura's between mother and daughter as au­ In the 1920s she also rewrote several growth toward adolescence and the thors. The story is a complex one, to be articles for women's magazines that family's trials in their successive filtered out of Lane's diaries, journals, appeared under her mother's name. So homes in the later books, to her hope- and letters, and out of several surviv­ that when in the 1930s Laura Ingalls filled entry into mature married life in _ing manuscripts in her mother's hand; Wilder began a project of writing These Happy Golden Years. Embedded in but its essence can be simply told. Rose down her earliest memories of life in her life are fundamental lessons in cou- Wilder Lane was the ghost-writer be­ the woods of Wisconsin, it was entirely rage, honesty, loyalty, har,d work, opti- hind her mother's books. The books natural that she would turn her efforts mism, and self-reliance - all, we unfold the story of Laura Ingalls over to her daughter for the revisions would like to say, essentially American Wilder, but the art that makes them that would make a manuscript into a­ values. And the books stand on an au- move us comes from Rose Wilder book. The result was Little House in the tobiographical presumption: the hero- Lane. Big Woods, and what followed was ine carries the author's name, the Lane was an accomplished popular more of the same. Laura Ingalls Wilder whose life story biographer before her mother's books We can trace Lane's hand in her was published only when she was in ever appeared. She wrote early biogra­ mother's work in three veins. First, her sixties. She stands fixed in her phies for newspaper and magazine Lane's diaries record the weeks and readers' minds as a literary Grandma readers of Henry Ford, Jack London, months she spent over her mother's Moses, writing to the world out of the Charlie Chaplin, and Herbert Hoover. manuscripts during a decade filled obscurity of her Ozark country home. She was also an accomplished ghost- with her own writing: "have to finish Only a few readers, and those only writer, well respected for her ability to my mother's goddam juvenile," she in recent years, have taken particular make the manuscripts of less gifted wrote of On the Banks of Plum Creek, note that Laura Ingalls Wilder had a writers publishable. She began this "which has me stopped flat." Second, a daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, whose ca- kind of work early in her newspaper number of letters between mother and Liberty 51 Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992

daughter discuss in detail some of their dents as well. She suppressed much emerging political ideology. It is worth disagreements over the final shape of that was tedious or irrelevant or incon­ noting at this point that Rose Wilder the stories, in which Lane generally sistent. Almost everything we admire Lane is an important link in the preser­ had her way: "Change the beginning of about the Little House books - the de­ vation and transmission of the persis- story if you want," her mother conced­ ceptively simple style, the carefully nu­ ed in one instance. "Do anything you anced flow of feeling, the muted drama please with damn stuff if you will fix it of daily life - are Lane's contribution, up." And finally, we have manuscripts: fiction made from her mother's tangle Lane made her mother not an early composite story, "Pioneer of fact. Laura Ingalls Wilder remained a merely a romantic but also an Girl," out of which several of the later determined but hopelessly amateurish stories were quarried; and fair-copy writer to the end. ideological heroine. Not that manuscripts in Wilder's own hand of The curious reader can get some her mother minded: she shared several of the later novels, which we sense of Lane's work on her mother's her daughter's political senti­ can compare line-by-line with the pub­ books simply by turning to the opening lished versions containing her daugh­ chapter of Little Town on the Prairie. In ments, and she was content to ter's final ones. Out of this comparison the manuscript, this is what Laura have the work that bore her comes an appreciation of Lane's artful Ingalls Wilder wrote: name shaped ideologically as hand in converting her mother's rudi- It was springtime and the Dakota prairie lay so warm and bright under well as artistically by her the shining sun, it did not seem possi­ daughter's hand. ble it ever was swept by the winds and Few have thought to inquire snows of the long, hard winter just into the connection between past. Laura was glad to be on the home­ tent strain of radical individualism in Laura Ingalls Wilder and her stead. She liked the spring wind and American political culture that has daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, as the sunshine. It seemed as though she most recently been called libertarian. authors. The story can be sim­ could never get sunshine enough Her Discovery of Freedom is an admired soaked into her bones. handbook of libertarian thought, and ply told: Rose Wilder Lane was However, in the published version, her novel Free Land dramatizes many the ghost-writer behind her these words do not appear until the of the principles she worked out more mother's books. middle of the second chapter. Assessing abstractly in Discovery of Freedom. Thus the potential of the manuscript, Lane it is not surprising to find that she also saw the need for a preliminary chapter took the opportunity to dramatize to foreshadow Laura's introduction to these same principles as she worked mentary manuscripts into compelling town society and the world of work and through her mother's manuscripts. tales. to prepare the thematic conflict be­ Such themes began to emerge inciden­ What Lane accomplished was noth­ tween home and society, country and tally as early as Little House on the ing less than a complete rewriting of la­ town. Further needed was a retrospec­ Prairie, as the resentful Ingalls family is bored and under-developed narratives. tive summary of the previous book to moved off their homestead by an in­ Her mother would deliver her own best justify Laura's delight in springtime on truding government, as the later set­ efforts, elementary in grammar and the homestead. Three carefully worked tlers on the Dakota prairie routinely punctuation and uncertain in spelling, pages lead finally into a few lines from flout absurd homesteading restrictions, in full expectation that her daughter her mother's original version, and these and as Laura is schooled by her farrlily would work. her own magic on it. The too are subtly improved: in independence and self-sufficiency. manuscripts are replete with parenthet­ Now it was springtime. The Dakota "I hope you don't expect to depend on ical asides and relentlessly factual di­ prairie lay so warm and bright under anybody else, Laura," her mother says rectives. ''The shumac a don't know the shining sun that it did not seem at one crucial point in The Long Winter. how it is spelled and my dictionary possible that it had ever been swept by "A body can't do that." the winds and snows of that hard win­ don't tell) ..." "Ellen [the cow] was Other changes were more deliber­ ter. How wonderful it was to be on the bred the first of September, before the ately ideological. Always hewing close October blizzard. It takes 9 months. The claim again! Laura wanted nothing more than just being outdoors. She felt to biographical fact, Laura Ingalls calf would come the last of Mayor first she could never get enough sunshine Wilder had written truthfully that her of June. We didn't get this straightened soaked into her bones. blind sister Mary was eligible for a out in Hard Winter." From the manu­ state subsidy for her education, and scripts Lane would· retain the story-line The Ideas of the Ideal Ghost that it would be accepted: and many of the incidents, but little of It would be simple enough to multi­ Dakota Territory still had no school ply examples of this kind. What is more her mother's original language. She re­ where the blind could be educated, arranged material freely to achieve interesting, however, is to trace but the territory would pay tuition, to foreshadowing and thematic clarity. through the manuscripts the changes the state of Iowa, for all Dakota blind She added much exposition, dialogue, Lane made to incorporate into her children. And Mary could go to the and description, often inventing inci- mother's stories a version of her own Iowa College for the Blind at Vinton. 52 Liberty Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992

Tuition included board and room and ways to be afternoon the sailors turned up. Don't you hear the cannon?" books. out to be no good. They seemed to Breakfast was soon over, because This passage was excised from the think they were entitled to live in that everyone was in a hurry to go to the published version, which shifted the magic land and lie around complain­ celebration. whole burden of Mary's college costs ing. When they thought about bestir­ While Laura and Carrie washed the to the family, primarily to Laura. A ring themselves, they only whined, dishes and Mary made the beds, Ma "Why should we ever labor up the la­ similar change was made in the inci­ packed the picnic basket. boring wave?" Why, indeed! Laura "I wish" she said, "that I had some of dent in which Laura accidentally finds thought indignantly. Wasn't that a our chickens from Plum Creek." a book intended for her Christmas sailor's job, to ever labor up the labor­ This brief introduction Lane converted present. Originally, in the "Pioneer ing wave? But no, they wanted dream­ to the following: Girl" manuscript, this book had been ful ease. Laura slammed the book identified as the poems of Sir Walter shut. BOOM! Laura was jerked out of sleep. The Scott. But in Little Town on the Prairie, Finally, we might look at Lane's re­ bedroom was dark. Carrie asked in a this book becomes a volume of working of one of her mother's chap­ thin, scared whisper, 'What was that?" Tennyson's poems, and Laura gets just ters that will let us appreciate both the "Don't be scared," Laura answered. a glimpse of some heroic lines that tan­ craft that makes a scene vivid in the They listened. The window was hardly talize her as she waits for Christmas: imagination and the political con­ gray in the dark, but Laura could feel "Courage!" he said, and pointed to sciousness that moved Lane to seize a that the middle of the night was past. the land, remarkable opportunity to move her BOOM! The air seemed to shake. "This mounting wave will roll us young heroine to her own dawning po­ "Great guns!" Pa exclaimed sleepily. shoreward soon." litical awareness. In Little Town on the "Why? Why?" Grace demanded. "Pa, Ma,why?" A disappointing Christmas comes, but Prairie, in a chapter called "Fourth of she gets her book, and is able finally to Carrie asked, ''Who is it? What are July," Laura Ingalls Wilder had written they shooting?" read the whole of Tennyson's ''The this: Lotos-Eaters," in which Ulysses' sail­ "What time is it?" Ma wanted to ors loll in a drugged euphoria, lost to Laura'was wakened in the morning know. by the "Boom! Boom! Boom!" from the Through the partition Pa answered, all sense of responsibility: anvil at the blacksmith shop in town. It "It's Fourth of July, Carrie." The air Even that poem was a disappoint­ sounded like a great gun. shook again. BOOM! ment, for in the land that seemed al- "Come girls!" Ma called. "Time to get It was not great guns. It was gunpow-

WHY SHOULDYOUBE READINGFREEDOMDAILY?* ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ "The solution to the United States government's failed War on Racism lies in freedom and the market process." - Jacob G. Hornberger, founder and president, The Future of Freedom Foundation: March 1992 Freedom Daily. "Nor is there a cure for Europe today other than a return to classical liberalism." - Richard M. Ebeling, Ludwig von Mises Professor of Economics, Hillsdale College, Michigan, and academic vice president, TIle Future of Freedom Foundation: March 1992 Freedom Daily. "The Second Amendment is not about duck hunting. It is about the right and the ability of a free people to defend themselves against tyranny." - David F. Nolan, co-founder, national Libertarian Party: March 1992 Freedom Daily. *WE DON'T COMPROMISE.

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der exploded under the blacksmith's dissolve the political bands which have self be good. anvil, in town. The noise was like the connected them with another"- Her whole mind seemed to be lighted noise of battles that American's fought Then another speaker talked about up by that thought. This is what it for independence. Fourth of July was "our glorious country" and how our means to be free. It means, you have to the day when the first Americans de­ ancestors fought, bled and died that we be good. "Our father's God, author of clared that all men are born free and might be free as the Declaration said liberty -" The laws of Nature and of equal. BOOMf we should be. How they, a mere hand­ Nature's God endow you with a right "Come, girls, we might as well get ful of ragged patriots, had beaten the to life and liberty. Then you have to upf" Ma called. whole British army and won our keep the laws of God, for God's law is Pa sang, lilah, say, can you see, by the independence. I the only thing that gives you a right to dawn's early light?'" Lane took this passage in hand and be free. "Charlesf" Ma protested, but she was created a scene in which Laura listens The passage is wholly Lane's creation, laughing, because it really was too dark to a speaker give a short history of the and in it she has made her mother not to see. "It's nothing to be solemn aboutf" Pa nation's wars and recite the Declaration merely a romantic but also an ideologi­ jumped out of bed. "Hurray! We're of Independence - most of which ap­ cal heroine. Not that her mother mind­ Americans!" He sang, pears in the text. In a clearly sacred mo­ ed: she shared her daughter's political Hurray! Hurray! We'll sing the jubilee! ment, Laura, with "a solemn, glorious sentiments, and she was content to Hurray! Hurray! The flag that sets men feeling," listens to the words she knows have the work that bore her name free! already by heart. At the end, "No one shaped ideologically as well as artisti­ Even the sun, as itrose shining into the cheered. It was more like a moment to cally by her daughter's hand. clearest of skies, seemed to know this say, 'Amen.' But no one quite knew Neither woman ever acknowledged day was the glorious Fourth. At break­ what to do." publicly the ghost that lurked in the fast, Ma said, "This would be a perfect Then Pa began to sing. All at once eve- Little House books. Lane even worked day for a Fourth of July picnic." ryone was singing. out elaborate strategies to preserve the "Maybe the town'll be far enough along to have one, come next July," said My country, 'tis of thee, appearance of her mother's autonomy, Pa. Sweet land of liberty, writing letters to her mother's agent 'We couldn't hardly have a picnic this Of thee I sing. and publisher that her mother re­ year, anyway," Ma admitted. "It Long may our land be bright copied and sent on in her own hand. In wouldn't seem like a picnic, without With Freedom's holy light. later years, after the death of Laura fried chicken." Protect us by Thy might, Great God, our King! Ingalls Wilder, Lane carefully support­ Once the Ingalls family reaches the ed the idea that her mother had simply The crowd was scattering away then, Fourth of July celebration, the manu­ written the facts of her life; and she script furnishes just a hint that Lane but Laura stood stock still. Suddenly she had a completely new thought. The protested vigorously any suggestion seized upon to raise Laura to her mo­ Declaration and the song came togeth­ that any impulse toward fictional arti­ ment of political illumination. Laura er in her mind, and she thought: God is flce, even on her mother's part, had Ingalls Wilder wrote: America's king. shaped the narratives. For Lane's ulti­ ... the speakers were coming onto the She. thought: Americans won't obey mate commitment was to the moral platform. any king on earth. Americans are free. truth that lay behind the stories; and to They were all strangers to Laura. She That means they have to obey their doubt the simple autonomy of the au­ listened carefully while one read the own consciences. No king bosses Pa; he thor, or to doubt the literal truth of the Declaration of Independence. He was a has to bC?ss himself. Why (she thought), tall man with a grand manner, and his when I am a little older, Pa and Ma will "autobiography" thus told, would be to voice boomed out strongly as he read- stop telling me what to do, and there cast doubt on the deeper truth that the ''When in the course of human events isn't anyone else who has a right to life of Laura Ingalls Wilder was intend­ [it] becomes necessary for one people to give me orders. I will have to make my- ed to unfold. 0

Arthur, "Inside Pat Buchanan," continued from page 28

movement) may support Buchanan on who supported the War in Vietnam and trains Buchanan talked about are. One the theory that he will drive libertari­ supports the War on Drugs, who ques­ is plainly his candidacy, but what is the ans from conservatism, rather in the tions freedom of speech and waxes nos­ other? George Bush? The Democrats? way many Republicans supported talgically about the draft. David Duke? I don't know for certain, Wallace in 1972 in hopes of driving In his interview with Jim Robbins but I doubt he was thinking about the Democrats to the Republican party. But (see pp. 17-20), Buchanan concluded Libertarian Party's nominee, Andre I doubt it: such Machiavellian machina­ his pitch for libertarian support with Marrou. I have never been crazy about tions are foreign to most libertarians' these words: "My friends, there are Marrou, but if I have to hop onto a thinking. only two trains, and neither of them is presidential train, his is the one I shall In the end, I doubt that libertarians going exactly to your destination, but get aboard. It may not have the biggest want to be led by a man who considers mine is closer. So get aboard." locomotive, but at least it's on the right Nixon his mentor and Franco a hero, I am not really sure what the two track. 0 54 Liberty Critique

Economics vs. Bionomics? by Ross Overbeek

Michael Rothschild's "Bionomics" has been widely hailed as a brilliant new approach to economics. Ross Overbeek explains why he doesn't share that opinion.

As a computer scientist, currently doing research in biology and genetics, but with a background in economics, the relation between coded information, genetics and eco­ nomics has always fascinated me. So naturally I was intrigued by Michael Rothschild's "Beyond Austrian Economics" (Liberty, January 1992). I III I I :I I ; Wanting to investigate his thinking fur­ 1:1 II I: I ther, I read his book Bionomics. into economic processes. Insights that a coherent defense of the market As I make it out, Rothschild's basic gained by observing biological com­ process is needed but has not been pro­ approach can be summarized as munities should be explored when try­ vided might reasonably be expected to follows: ing to understand how the market search for such a defense. It is hard to 1. An economy is a complex, hierar­ functions. believe that anyone could search very chically organized system. As such, it The similarity between Rothschild's hard without running into the works is analagous to biological systems. The theory and Austrian economics is strik­ of Mises, Hayek, and Rothbard. processes of natural selection, muta­ ing. Indeed, it seems to me that virtual­ Having encountered Austrian eco­ tion, recombination, specialization, ly all of value in Rothschild's theory nomics, thereby discovering that many and competition that are observed in can be found in Austrian economics. of his conclusions concerning the body nature carry lessons that should be And most of what remains of of economic literature were simply studied if one is to come to an accurate Rothschild is either misleading or wrong, one might expect Rothschild to understanding of a functioning eco­ irrelevant. examine carefully the corpus of Aus­ nomy. That is not to say that Bionomics is trian thinking. Rothschild, however, 2. The focus of conventional eco­ without value. It is certainly provoca­ seems to be more intent on maintaining nomics on equilibrium is a mistake. tive (else I would not write this essay). the significance of his own work than Life is made up of constant change. And its analogy between biology and coming to grips with the rich tradition Increases in learning and technological economics is at the very least a useful of Austrian economics. Rothschild innovation lead to rapidly changing device for coming to understand and quotes, and then criticizes, Hayek: environments. Any understanding of appreciate Austrian economics. Interestingly, in his famous essay "The economic life must focus on adaptation Use of Knowledge in Society," Fried­ to change, not on equilibrium. Rothschild vs Economics rich Hayek describes the workings of 3. Spontaneous evolutionary pro­ Rothschild admits that he wrote price signals by relying on an "econo­ cesses in the marketplace have direct Bionomics without ever studying my as machine" analogy. It is more than a metaphor to de­ analogies to evolutionary processes: Austrian economics. That someone overlooked Austrian economics in the scribe the price system as a kind of Evolution Market intellectual environment of modern machinery for registering change, organism organization or a system of telecommunications America is certainly comprehensible, genes technological data which enables individual produc­ mutations modest but it is strange that anyone seeking to ers to watch merely the movement improvements understand the intellectual underpin­ of a few pointers, as an engineer recombination major inventions nings of capitalism would overlook might watch the hands of a few These analogies can provide insights such a body of work. One who argues dials, in order to adjust their activi- Liberty 55 Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992

ties to changes of which they may "invisible hand" metaphor was mere­ cion, violence, and parasitism. He never know more than is reflected lya way of calling the readers' atten­ seems to be on no surer ground than in the price movement. tion to an important aspect of market the Social Darwinists, whom he unfair­ Two decades later, however, in "The interaction: that is, how human be­ ly maligns (simply by oversimplifica­ Theory of Complex Phenomena," ings with limited knowledge and tion). Hayek begins to shift his position concern can adapt to changing cir­ when he describes organic and eco­ cumstances and serve each others' To What Extent are the nomic phenomena as examples of the needs, forming orderly arrangements Analogies to Biology Helpful? kind of complex systems that do not The most intriguing aspect of operate by simple mechanical rules. despite their obvious lack of omnis­ Rothschild's approach is his use of anal­ Rothschild criticizes Hayek for cience or universal benevolence. The ogy between economic and biological using a mechanistic metaphor. Had "invisible hand" terminology, wheth­ systems. The analogies he draws must Hayek instead chosen neural systems er used by classical economists or the be examined carefully, since he derives that integrate a variety of complex Austrians, was a literary way of stat­ ing the very kind of idea that so many of his insights from them. Rothschild himself insists upon: the Biological adaptation is driven by "unintended" order arising from the evolution. The central characteristics of Rothschild blithely con­ evolutionary, adaptive processes of this process are natural selection and demns economists past and capitalism. Of course Smith's use of replication. Natural selection in the bio­ logical world clearly has an analogy in present, apparently because the term was not fully satisfactory, but to interpret it as a sign of evasion the economic arena. But, as Rothschild they fail to employ his choice of is uncalled for: the "biological," evo­ is fully aware, the notion of replication terminology. lutionary standpoint of economic sci­ does not. That is, a biological organism ence in the first half of the 19th derives the fundamental aspects of its century is widely recognized, at least makeup from its genes, which are de­ among most historians of evolution­ termined by its parents. The technologi­ phenomena into a single variable as his ary theory. Contrary to Rothschild, cal data available to an organization is analogy, the intellectual content of his Darwin and Russell were more influ­ not the product of its parentage. As point would have been identical, and I enced by economics than the econo­ Rothschild states: expect Rothschild would grasp his mists of the Austrian school learned a firm's future "corporate genes" are, point immediately. It is plain that from the evolutionists (Menger's evo­ at least in part, a result of conscious Hayek chose a mechanistic metaphor lutionary approach merely carried on choice. What does this mean? The assertion only because it was most familiar to his the Smithian insight into the margin­ that a corporation's "unique technical readers and that his choice of metaphor alist revolution). know-how" constitutes its genes, cou­ is irrelevant to the validity of his point. To Rothschild, technical informa­ pled with Rothschild's later insistence Rothschild's pre-occupation with root­ tion is of fundamental significance. In ing out mechanistic thinking has led his view, a society is fundamentally him away from understanding and ap­ shaped ''by its acc;umulated technical preciating Hayek's insights. knowledge." This raises the question: This sort of superficiality leads why is it that one society is prosper­ Why is it that one society is Rothschild to miss what other authors ous while another is poverty-stricken, prosperous while another is were saying. Consider the following despite having essentially identical poverty-stricken, despite hav­ passage from Bionomics: technical knowledge available. Why, ing essentially identical techni­ The sad truth is that two centuries for example, doesn't India do just as after Adam Smith launched the study well as Japan? Indians have excellent cal knowledge available. Why, of economics, we still cannot explain libraries, they have access to most of for example, doesn't India do how markets work. Trading and ex­ the "linear sequences of symbols that just as well as Japan? change - the most persistent features encode knowledge" (Rothschild's no­ of the human economy - remain an tion of "information"), and their stu­ enigma. Perhaps this is why Smith's celebrated phrase, "invisible hand," re­ dents include some of the brightest in tains its broad appeal. Frustrated by the world. Yet Japan is prosperous that technical information should be our profound ignorance, we find such while India is poor. thought of as "a linear string of sym­ an expression soothing, even though it Rothschild's overemphasis on bols," and not as knowledge about the sheds no light. technical knowledge leads to him to state of the world, is at best confusing. This passage typifies not only Roth­ fail to appreciate the importance of The notion that one should view an schild's condescending attitude but his other factors, like capital accumula­ economy as made up of organisms wondrous ability to miss the point. tion, the organization of production, (called organizations) that can alter Rothschild blithely condemns econo­ and the destructive nature of inter­ their genetic makeup at will strikes me mists past and present, apparently be­ vention. Indeed, the biological sys­ as bizarre. It has no analogy in the bio­ cause they fail to employ his choice of tems that Rothschild goes to for logical world. Surely, whatever in­ terminology. He does not see that the guidance are characterized by coer- sights are to be gained by comparison 56 Liberty Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992

to ecosystems must be examined very groups will drift away from the main loans to private Soviet businesses.... carefully given such a fundamental dis­ population, either by getting lost dur­ These arguments for the welfare state crepancy between the- analagous ing an annual migration or by simply show not only a lack of appreciation of objects. wandering off in search of less crowd­ the many arguments against such insti­ To illustrate the level of confusion ed, greener pastures. If such a group tutions (they are not limited to "the these analogies can produce, let us con­ is fortunate enough to find an accepta­ hidden costs of income redistribu­ it will sider the following argument from ble place to live, survive in re­ tion"), but also show the irrelevance of productive isolation. Over several Rothschild's biological analogies. Bionomics: generations, mutations will modify For the past60 years, economic histori­ the physical characteristics of the However you may argue for welfare ans have pummeled each other with ar­ group transforming the parent species state provisions, you must do so in guments about the inherent pattern of into a new daughter species. completely economic terms: as men­ economic change. Joseph Schumpeter, a This is an accurate summary of tioned earlier, adaptation in the biolog­ prominent twentieth-century econo­ Eldredge's views, and the trilobite in­ ical world occurs in contexts of mist, claimed that innovation was dis­ vestigation certainly did generate a predation and parasitism as well as continuous, causing massive and symbiosis and commensalism, thereby sudden destruction of old industries by fair amount of interest for those inter­ the new. Schumpeter saw this "creative ested in evolutionary biology. But, rendering fundamental criticisms destruction of capital" as the central what does it mean for an organization based on a parallelism between biolo­ process of capitalism. Others, led by to "live in reproductive isolation"? gy and economics vacuous. A.P. Usher, pointed out that old indus­ What insights would a study of repro­ In these brief comments, I have tries usually prosper alongside new duction of organizations bring to our been more harshly critical than I had competitors for long periods of time. analysis of biological systems? None at expected I would be. There are serious Usher stressed that when the great in­ all, so far as I can fathorn. Rothschild's shortcomings in Rothschild's thinking, ventions are studied in detail, sudden recounting of the development of the but there is also considerable value. "breakthroughs" are revealed to be lit­ tle more than the final steps in a long theory of punctuated equilibrium is in­ Rothschild is a stimulating writer, his chain of gradual technical refinements teresting to biologists, but I find the writing is occasionally insightful, often stretching over decades. analogy strained, and at best merely provocative and sometimes outra­ Today, the experts are still choosing suggestive. geous. up sides in this debate between techno­ But do not forget that he is a man logic catastrophists and gradualists. Rothschild and Capitalism who defines profits as "the savings Never having studied biology, they re­ Rothschild argues for capitalism on achieved through learning" and capi­ main unaware that punctuated equilib­ the basis of a vague correspondence be­ talism as "simply the process by which rium has resolved the 200-year-old tween the spontaneous organization debate over the pace of evolution by coded technological information evident in biological systems and with­ evolves." Don't expect precision, accu­ showing that sudden and gradual in a free market. To say the least, this is change coexist. racy, or consistency; just enjoy the not a completely solid foundation. So it This follows a fairly lengthy chapter sparks from an unusual mind. 0 is not surprising that in Bionomics the which covers the work of r~Jiles sort of capitalism that Rothschild envi­ Eldredge (see "Time Frames: the sions is far less consistent than that of Evolution of Punctuated Equilibria" for the Austrians. Here are a few speci­ the popular account) and Stephen Jay Response mens ofRothschild's inability to under­ Gould relating to the evolution of trilo­ stand the logic of the free market: bites. Rothschild summarizes these Contra Overbeek ideas thusly: Of course, to recognize the hidden costs of income redistribution is not to Michael Rothschild Essentially, punctuated equilibrium argue against the need for a safety net. by says that evolutionary change happens It is painfully obvious that many peo­ neither overnight nor over millions of ple cannot possibly support them­ Anyone who proposes a world­ years, but rather in bursts that stretch selves. Basic human decency demands for a few hundred or a few thousand view that departs from the received that we assist the needy. No rational wisdom had better be ready for a good years. It is pulsating evolution, a surge person disputes this.... of relatively rapid change followed by jolt of criticism. But along with the ego a long period of stability or equilibri­ Providing every American child ac­ bruises, thoughtful, well-reasoned crit­ um. Punctuated equilibrium contends cess to a high-quality education icism offers its own intellectual re­ that once established, a species does would be the single most powerful wards. Knowing the sophistication of antipoverty program ever launched. If not change. As long as it fits its ecologi­ Liberty's readership, I had tho~ght cal niche, there is no reason to change. this were supplemented with a com­ prehensive, lifelong system of govern­ Ross Overbeek would offer a stimulat­ If the environment changes, the species ing response. But sadly, he failed to de­ will migrate in an attempt to regain the ment-backed loans for higher ecological setting it needs. If the envi­ education, vocational training, and job liver the goods. ronmental shift is too extreme and mi­ retraining, America's weakening com­ Upon careful reading, his remarks gration fails, the species becomes petitive position surely would be don't really amount to a serious critical extinct. resurrected.... essay, one that challenges the funda­ But well before a species dies off in Financially, if for no other reason, mental argument of Bionomics. Instead, the normal course of events, small this logic supports federally backed Liberty 57 Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992

his piece is more a disjointed series of hit powerwith market skeptics. prosperity it brings. and run attacks. For the Liberty reader, Though I have immense admiration Breaking his normal pattern, this is complicated by the fact that Dr for Adam Smith, and make that fact Overbeek tries to level one serious Overbeek chose to critique my book abundantly clear in Chapter 2, even he charge at the basic bionomic argument. rather the Liberty article. Unless you didn't get it all right. Smith wrote at the He claims that the economy/ecosystem have read Bionomics itself, you cannot very dawn of the Industrial Revolution; analogy fails because organisms repli­ know the full depth and power of the ar­ James Watt, inventor of the steam en­ cate and pass on to their offspring the gument on which Overbeek launches his gine, was a personal friend. And yet, genetic information that they them­ puny raids. Smith never imagined that the econo­ selves inherited, while organizations Again and again, Overbeek uses the my was about to be transformed from consciously change their technological same disingenuous technique. He ab­ agricultural to industrial. As great as code. The way Overbeek puts my argu­ stracts one or two sentences - those he was, Smith didn't have all the an­ ment, the reader would believe that I bearing the surprising conclusions swers. No one who treats economics as hadn't myself elaborated on the differ­ drawn after several pages of well­ a science ever will pretend that he ences between organisms and organiza­ supported argument - and holds them does. tions, between genetic and technological up as if they were bald assertions. It's only in religions and political information. But again and again, Another technique is to rely on a ideologies that the sacred texts must re­ Bionomics makes the point that although reader's tendency to regard as sacred main forever unchanged. Science, by the analogy is incredibly illuminating, it every phrase a great economist ever contrast, is an endless process of testing is not (and does not need to be) perfect. wrote. In one instance, he attacks me for old ideas against newly discovered As the Postscript argues, just because a pointing out that Hayek, in his earlier facts. I, for one, think that modern evo­ road map isn't perfectly analogous to writing, had relied on the machine meta­ lutionary biology has inadvertently the configuration of a city's streets does phor. As any reader of my article can given us enough new facts, and con­ not mean that we should throw the map see, I made no criticism of Hayek's larg­ cepts to make a far more compelling ex­ away. Like any othertool, you must use er argument in "The Use of Knowledge planation of market action than the it intelligently. It is simply irresponsible, in Society." In fact, I wrote that Hayek's phrase "invisible hand." Chapter 23 in if not downright intellectually dishon­ basic point was "entirely correct," mere­ Bionomics makes that case, and I believe est, to make it appear that the author ly showing that even Hayek could fall makes it convincingly. But Overbeek claimed· something he never claimed into the neoclassical trap of machine never even attempts to directly chal­ and then attack him for doing so. thinking. lenge this or any other link in the bio­ With his last wild punch, Overbeek In a time when we still hear endless­ nomic argument. Apparently, he thinks tells us "that in Bionomics the sort of ly about "pump-priming," "jump­ it more prudent to hide behind the capitalism that Rothschild envisions is starting" and "revving up" the "eco­ names of the giants of economics. far less consistent than that of the nomic engine," I think it is absolutely Toward the end of his remarks, Austrians." He then cites as evidence of crucial that thoughtful people expunge Overbeek begins to lose touch altogeth­ such inconsistency my support for a so­ such powerful but misleading meta­ er and drifts away into outright misrep­ cial safety net for the helpless, tax­ phors from their economic vocabulary. resentation. Yes, it is true that I believe supported public education (with Like it or not, reliance on the "economy that an economy's potential is deter­ school choice), and partial federal guar­ as machine" metaphor leads inexorably mined by the current state of "its accu­ antees to reduce the risk of private in­ to "command-and-eontrol" politics. My mulated technical knowledge." But vestment in private businesses in "preoccupation with rooting out me­ Overbeek's claim that I must therefore Russia. Well, I do support these gov­ chanistic thinking" is essential for any­ conclude that India and Japan should ernment activities. And Bionomics ex­ one genuinely committed to dismantling have equally robust economies is ab­ plains why the appropriate use of a the ideology of state economic control surd.As I take extreme pains to point limited government for specific com­ and rebuilding a free society. For far too out in Chapter 28 - Soviet Capitalism munity purposes (as intended by long, lovers of liberty have unwittingly - a society, to achieve the prosperity Amerka's founding fathers) is not in­ put themselves at a massive rhetorical latent in a given state of technology, consistent with bionomic thinking. (See disadvantage by failing to recognize the must first create a political environment especially pp. 113-14.) inescapable political implications of the of private property and free prices. And this, in the end, seems to be "economy as machine" analogy. India still has a socialist economy. what really bothers Overbeek. Overbeekblended his two techniques Japan, in case Overbeek hasn't noticed, Bionomics is a serious effort to shift the - taking a few lines out oftheir larger ar­ is an awesomely competitive capitalist fundamental paradigm of economic gumentative context and ridiculing any society. If, all by itself, technology thought. The consequence of its success questioning of a great economist's words drove everything, economic thinkers will be to move economics from the - when he rebuked me for finding fault wouldn't have to worry about politics. realm of ideology - with its eternal ab­ with Adam's Smith's most famous In part, Bionomics makes its contribu­ solutes - to the domain of scientific in­ phrase "invisible hand." But again, I tion by showing why a political envi­ quiry - where every answer generates stand by my point. "Invisible hand" sim­ ronment that guarantees private more fascinating questions. What is an ply doesn't tell us anything, and it cer­ property and free prices is so crucial to ideologue to do when someone threat­ tainly hasn't wielded much persuasive robust technological evolution and the ens to take away his plaything? 0 58 Liberty Warner Bros. Written by Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar, directed by JFK, expert, have a few things to get off my Oliver Stone. Actors include: Kevin Costner, Sissy Spacek, Joe Pesci, Tom­ chest. my Lee Jones, Kevin Bacon, Donald Sutherland, and others. Unlike Clarence Thomas and Roe v. Wade, over the years I did think about the controversy and I even had a few casual discussions about it. As a libertar­ ian, I was never appalled by suggestions JFK, Conspiracies, and Me that high reaches of the U.S. govern­ ment might have been in on the assassi­ nation and coverup. But my enduring hunch, based on no research, was that the Warren Commission probably was right that Oswald was a "lone nut." (That hunch has been strengthened by November 22, 1963. Unfortunately, he Sheldon L. Richman subsequent reading.) My feeling was also plays loose with the facts to make never that the government wouldn't do his case more persuasive. He inter­ it. Rather, it was that the government Damn Oliver Stone! weaves real footage and photos (includ­ I remember exactly where I was couldn't do it. Let's face it, some CIA ing the famous 8mm Zapruder film) types couldn't pull off a "third-rate bur­ when I first learned that John F. Kenne­ with his own creations; it is hard to dy had been shot in Dallas. Big deal. I glary" at the Watergate without getting know which is which. What's more, he caught. (Of course, as Oglesby thinks, don't remember where I was when I re­ shamelessly concocts events, such as the burglar James McCord might have been solved to ignore the controversy that placement (presumably by the CIA) of a double agent out to get Nixon.) The grew out of the assassination. I did not stories about Lee Harvey Oswald in for­ Iran-Contra story was broken by a little read the Warren Commission Report. I eign newspapers within hours of the as­ newspaper in Lebanon. The government did not read the growing library of sassination. I would not object to is not efficient. And a conspiracy of this books alleging a conspiracy. My feeling Stone's showing his (weak) theory in sort, including coverup, would require a was that unless I had lots of time to de­ the best possible light. Fabrication is high degree of efficiency and many peo­ vote to the mass of facts and allegations, something else entirely. Nevertheless, ple. Why has no one talked - on his it wasn't worth getting into it at all. I the movie is worth seeing. deathbed or after signing a million­ had lunch with Mark Lane once and did At any rate, after seeing it, I read dollar publishing contract including not even bring up the subject. (Amaz­ some more articles and pulled out my plastic surgery and a new identity? ingly, neither did he.) old copy of Carl Oglesby's Yankee and Where are the leaks? The documents? Damn Oliver Stone! Thanks to him I Cowboy War. (Okay, technically I had Something! And yet, while there is this have been sucked into the morass of read a book on the assassination. But presumed high efficiency, the Warren conspirology. It started when I read the Oglesby's thesis is larger than that, so it critics kept "finding" physical evidence newspaper articles and op-ed columns doesn't count.) Finally, I did what I said that indicate conspiratorial incompe­ about JFK, most of them accusing Stone I'd never do: I bought a book specifical­ tence: a dented shell casing, "obviously" of distorting history and undermining ly about the Kennedy assassination. My doctored photos of Oswald, a grassy­ confidence in the government. (One out defense is that it was written by a life­ knoll assassin who would have been of two ain't bad.) Then I went to see the long conspiracy buff and investigator easily spotted. movie. who has changed his mind and con­ My suspicion of the conspirologists JFK is great cinema but lousy histo­ cluded that Oswald acted alone. (Con­ was also bas~d on misgivings about ry. The story is gripping and the three spiracy of One, by Jim Moore; highly their methods. (I had heard enough hours fly by. The acting is mostly su­ recommended.) about those methods to be uneasy.) perb. (The exception, for me, is Kevin Luckily, I am fickle enough that First, some of the writers rely heavily on Costner as prosecutor Jim Garrison. I within a short time I will move ·on to purported eyewitness accounts. As a re­ am not a Costner fan. He has the pas­ something else (perhaps the explosion porter, I covered criminal courts for sion and excitement of lentil soup.) on the Maine) and it will be impossible three years, long enough to learn that Stone effectively portrays what he be­ to get me to talk about the assassina­ eyewitness testimony can be the weak­ lieves happened in Dealey Plaza on tion. But until then, I, admittedly a non- est form of evidence. It is notoriously Liberty 59 Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992 unreliable. Circumstantial evidence, de­ have argued that the first option would the attitude that when Kennedy was spite its bad reputation with the lay have been preferable because it was killed, our last chance for radical reform public, can be the strongest kind of easier. But, they continue, Dealey Plaza, of American society was cruelly evidence. which the motorcade turned into, was snatched from us. This seems to account Second, it is obvious to me that if perfect for stationing three shooters. for their anger and their persistence in one searches for indications of a conspir­ This so-called triangulation set-up in­ the face of a paucity of evidence for acy in an event as big as a presidential creased the odds of a successful hit and their theories. Central to many of those assassination one is bound to find some. made things so confusing for witnesses theories is a romanticizing of John F. As sure as the vice president succeeds that it facilitated the cover-up. Ergo, the Kennedy as a peacenik ready to with­ the president on his death, a conspiracy fact that Kennedy was shot while mov­ draw from Vietnam and call off the ing ,away from the book depository Cold War. That is ridiculous, and the re­ supports if not proves the conspiracy cently released Cuban Missile Crisis theory. documents show how ridiculous it is. My feeling was never that Note the reverse logic. Decision X At least the Mafia-centered theories the government wouldn't do it. would be useful in a conspiracy. There­ don't depend on such absurd romanti­ Rather, it was that the govern­ fore, Decision X shows that there was a cizing. They have their own problems. conspiracy. Nonsense. What if Decision I resist the temptation of going into ment couldn't do it. Let's face X also made sense without a conspira­ specifics. Suffice it to say there are per­ it, some CIA types couldn't cy? Oswald could have chosen to shoot fectly reasonable explanations for the pull off a Hthird-rate burglary" while the car moved away because if he single-bullet theory, the backward mo­ shot while it was moving toward him, tion of Kennedy's head, and other sup­ at the Watergate without get­ he could have been spotted more easily. posed mysteries. And contrary to what ting caught. Everyone in the motorcade and along the Warren Commission members and that part of the route would have been the conspirologists think, Oswald had looking in his general direction; they more than 5.5 seconds to fire his three would only have had to look up. If the shots. (On all of this, see Conspiracy of investigation will beckon all kinds of One). I know, I know. Oswald was a car was moving away, most people nuts and attention-seekers claiming to would have had their backs to his posi­ have seen this or heard that. Besides, tion. Or maybe he intended to shoot at coincidences do happen. the approaching car, but dust blew into Third, there is the problem of falsifi­ Next time you talk to a con­ his eye. ability. A theory that can explain every­ Even if we can't think of a reason spiracy advocate, ask him what thing explains nothing. If every conceivable state of affairs neatly fits for the decision, that cannot be used to piece of evidence would change into the conspiracy picture something is support a conspiracy theory. People can his mind. If you get an answer, wrong. Are there three shell casings ly­ have all sorts of reasons for things that let me know. ing neatly at the window sill where Os­ don't·readily occur to someone examin­ wald (or whoever) shot? Ah ha! ing a decision after the fact. A void is Evidence of a conspiracy. Are there no not proof. While independent, direct casings on the grassy knoll where a co­ evidence of a conspiracy (bullets from Marine at a U-2 base in Japan. He (ap­ conspirator allegedly shot? Ah ha! different guns and different directions; parently) defected to the Soviet Union More evidence of a conspiracy. Notice such were never found) could shed and while he was there Gary Powers' also that the conspiracy must grow ever light on a decision such as waiting until U-2 was shot down. The State Depart­ bigger. If the Kennedy x-rays and au­ the car turned the corner, the reasoning ment lent Oswald money to return to topsy photos support the lone-gunman cannot go in the opposite direction. the United States. He was the only theory, someone will claim they were Purported pieces of indirect evidence member of a pro-Castro organization doctored or switched. Or that the body are bootstraps; the theory cannot pull it­ that shared a New Orleans address was. Next time you talk to a conspiracy self up by them. with an anti-Castro organization. He advocate, ask him what piece of evi­ Implicit in the above is a plea for ap­ had connections with the Mafia, the dence would change his mind. If you plication of good old Occam's razor. FBI, and the CIA. 0'11 assume these get an answer, let me know. Whenever two theories can explain the things are true.) And on and on. In an Fourth, I sense a serious procedural same phenomenon, taking into account event such as this,.there are likely to be problem in at least some conspiracy the rnaterial facts, one should favor the strang~, inexplicable details and coinci­ theorists. They work bass ackward. simpler. Many conspirologists seem un­ dences. In themselves, they no more Here's an example. From Oswald's six­ familiar with William of Occam. If you prove a conspiracy than the remarka­ floor vantage in the Texas School Book strip away the obfuscation and extrane­ ble parallels between Kennedy and Depository, he could have shot either ous matter and apply the razor, the as­ Abraham Lincoln prove a mystical while the motorcade approached him sassination ends up looking like the act connection between the two or while it moved away from him. (He of the solitary Oswald. assassinations. did the latter, of course.) Some people Fifth, many conspirologists display I am open to evidence that I am 60 Liberty Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992 wrong. Whether Kennedy was the vic­ have had nearly 30 years to produce political players (politicians and voters), tim of a conspiracy is a purely factual some hard evidence. Where is it? I cer­ and then identifies some of the results matter. I have nothing at stake in this, tainly do not deny there are loose ends. of their interaction in the political pro­ and I am not wedded to my conclusion They are all at the margin. And I for cess. These include the ignorance of the beyond its seeming fit with the facts. one will not be losing any sleep over voter about most issues and thus the On the other hand, the conspirologists them. 0 poor monitoring of government; the shortsighted pressures inherent in polit­ Public Choice and Constitutional Economics, edited by James D. ical institutions; and bureaucratic waste. Gwartney and Richard E. Wagner. JAI Press, Inc., 1988,422 pp., $56.50. The essay identifies what the au­ thors believe to be the fundamental problem with democracy-the ability of "a winning majority to enrich itself at the expense of a losing minority" (17). In American history this has meant the A Paradigm Shifts Gears growth of fiscal discrimination, that is, taxation and regulation of some people to benefit others. The second chapter picks up on the constitutional theme, pointing out that the U.S. Constitution did, in fact, have such restraints when it was written, but Jane S. Shaw handle on the volume. Although all writers reflect conservative or libertari­ those restraints have eroded. The au­ an views, the scope of a single essay in thors indicate that many substantive In effect, this book launches consti­ this book can encompass history, phi­ tutional economics (or constitutional losophy, economics, and law. Even es­ political economy), a discipline that has says that address similar issues draw on emerged from public choice theory. vastly different bodies of knowledge Constitutional economics deals with The fundamental problem (they may include ethics, economic his­ the rules that govern politics, the "rules with democracy is the ability of of the game" that are established be­ tory, and legal history, to name a few). 1/a winning majority to enrich fore political exchange occurs. This Roger Pilon's admission that he will subject matter was introduced in the step into some "fairly abstract and even itself at the expense of a losing 1962 book, The Calculus of Consent, by arid regions, into the province of the minority." In American histo­ James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, philosopher, the better to get a picture ry this has meant the growth one of the landmarks of public choice. of the larger issues before us" (p. 153) is But Public Choice and Constitutional not atypical. Each author establishes his of taxation and regulation of Economics isn't the result of a deliberate or her own intellectual framework, so some people to benefit others. application of constitutional econom­ the reader is continually shifting focus. ics. Rather, it's a precursor, a collection Although the same themes recur (such of essays that deal with constitutional as substantive versus procedural re­ issues written by authors who perceive straints, the role of Lockean rights theo­ protections of the Constitution, such as that key protections of the u.s. Consti­ ry in the founding of the nation, and the requirement that taxes were to be public taking of private property), they tution have eroded. It offers such a diz­ uniform and used for 1/common de­ zying array of perspectives and ways pop up unexpectedly. The eclecticism of fense" and "general welfare," have been of looking at constitutional issues that the book may explain why I have taken removed by political forces (such as the it defeats easy summary. a year and a half to review this book inability of the Supreme Court to act in­ In his foreword, William Niskanen and perhaps why it has not been widely dependently of the legislative branch). says that the book brings to bear three commented on; even Public Choice has Procedural restraints, such as re­ new perspectives: public choice, consti­ yet to review it. quirements that laws be passed by two tutional economics, and law and eco­ That said, there is much that is quite dissimilar legislative chambers (a nomics. He could have included at worthwhile in this volume. The first correct description of the House and least two others: property rights and two essays, written by the editors, Senate in the early days of the Republic), the new institutional economics. All James .Gwartney and Richard Wagner, have eroded as well, though sometimes five are included by James Buchanan in layout the theme and scope of the book through technological changes, the au­ his description of the "new political and are probably worthy of a review in thors say, rather than deliberate action. economy" in The New Palgrave Diction­ themselves. The first essay is a readable Wagner and Gwartney think that chang­ ary .of Economics, and all apply to this introduction to public choice. It begins es in procedural rules (such as requiring book. with the underlying assumption of pub­ "supramajority" decisions instead of ma­ But even that list of perspectives lic choice, the self-interested individual, jority rule) are the best hope for restor­ understates the difficulty of getting a then summarizes the interests of the key ing constraints on Congress. Liberty 61 Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992

The editors have consciously made ing intellectual moments of my career ation to be just, its goal and design the current volume a historical docu­ was my 1948 discovery of Wicksell's un­ should be unanimously supported by ment. The book includes James Bucha­ known and untranslated dissertation, Fi­ voters. This discovery, which corre­ nan's speech upon his acceptance of the nanztheoretische Untersuchungen (1896), sponded with Buchanan's own think­ Nobel Prize. This contains a historical buried in the dusty stacks of Chicago's ing, set himonthe road to public choice. nugget that should please inveterate Ii­ old Harper Library." In this essay, Knut The editors include an abridged brary browsers: "One of the most excit- Wicksell introduced the idea that for tax- version of that essay (which Buchanan The Paradigm Shift: A User's Guide

Public choice, which emerged in the the paradigm was first offered in books Downs introduced the basic precepts in late 1950s from public finance econom­ such as The Calculus of Consent and An An Economic Theory of Democracy; in 1960 ics, offers a very far-reaching revision of Economic Theory of Democracy. OnIy in a he wrote an article entitled, "Why the our understanding of government activ­ pre-paradigmatic era, says Kuhn, are Government Budget is Too Small in a ity. Thomas Kuhn's 1962 book, The books rather than specialized articles a Democracy." Others, more interested in Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Univer­ chief source of knowledge, and only at the application of game theory to poli­ sity of Chicago Press, 2nd ed., 1970), that time is it possible for a layperson to tics, don't seem to have any ideology at may help illustrate its current status. easily follow the progress of a disci­ all. Kuhn shattered the traditional con­ pline. As the paradigm takes hold, says In Kuhn's view, once a paradigm is cept of scientific progress by arguing Kuhn, "specialized journals" and "spe­ accepted, it becomes the guide for what that a shared understanding of reality cialists' societies" form (19). Public he calls "normal science," the steady, shapes the insights, investigations, and choice already has such a society and unidirectional problem-solving that we discoveries of any scientific field. He usually think of as scientific progress. argued that every once in a while this Public choice principles may not be "paradigm" falters and a new one takes Kuhn shattered the tradi­ comprehensive enough yet to offer that its place. When the new paradigm takes research guidance, except in narrow are­ hold, a scientific revolution has tional concept of scientific as. One sign is the fact that some impor­ occurred. progress by arguing that a tant issues simply haven't been Kuhn's book is about physical sci­ shared understanding of reali­ addressed. While public choice theory ences, not social sciences, and he casts can explain "capture" of regulatory doubt on the ability of social sciences to ty shapes the insights, investi­ agencies, for example, it hasn't so far ex­ accept paradigms. Economics, for exam­ gations, and discoveries of any plained why industry fails to capture ple, would be a pre-paradigmatic field scientific field. He argued that others such as public service commis­ in Kuhn's view because it has so many sions. It seems to explain the role of spe­ competing schools. Nevertheless, each every once in a while this "par­ cial interests in a system with a variety economic school does offer a view of the adigm" falters and a new one of checks and balances (like the U.S.'s) world that, rightly or wrongly, guides a takes its place. When the new but doesn't explain them so well in a body of research. The adoption of Key­ parliamentary system (like the United nesianism in the late 1940s and the disil­ paradigm takes hold, a scientif­ Kingdom's). And it nearly always focus­ lusionment with it in the 1970s illustrate ic revolution has occurred. es on narrow self-interest as the only the course of a major but relatively motivator of public officials; only re­ short-lived economic paradigm. cently has it begun to include ideology Public choice is one of these para­ such a journal (Public Choice), and a nar­ in its analysis. digms, but it is still in the early stages of rower journal, Constitutional Political Over time I believe that these lacunae acceptance. It is certainly farther along Economy, has begun publication. will be filled. Public choice theory will than it was when James Buchanan stum­ But there is still much debate within expand its explanatory power and gain bled across Knut Wicksell's book in the public choice itself, as indicated by adherents (perhaps more from political stacks of Harper Library, confirming Charles Rowley and Richard Wagner, science, which has been languishing Kuhn's view of pre-paradigmatic re­ who began an essay in Liberty (January without a paradigm, than from econom­ search: "[E]arly fact-gathering is a far 1990) with: ''Public choice scholars are a ics). It will eventually achieve the goal more nearly random activity than the more diverse lot than the recent debate Kuhn establishes for a governing para­ one that subsequent scientific develop­ in Liberty ... would seem to suggest." digm: "a reconstruction of the field from rnent makes familiar ... early fact­ Not all public choice scholars even ad­ new fundamentals, a reconstruction that gathering is usually restricted to the vocate limited government. Some of the changes some of the field's most ele­ wealth of data that lie ready to hand" leading early theorists, e.g. Kenneth Ar­ mentary theoretical generalizations as (15). row and Anthony Downs, are quite well as many of its paradigm methods It's farther along than it was when comfortable with a large state role. and applications" (85). -Jane S. Shaw 62 Liberty Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992 first translated into English). And they The Myth ofScientific Public Policy, by Robert Fonnaini. include Gordon Tullock's comments Transaction Publishers, 1990, ix + 129 pp., $14.95 (paper). twenty-five years after the publication ofc;alculus, in which he observes that since its publication there has been "substantially no work on constitutions per se" (140), in spite of much work on post-constitutional rules and processes. The Illusions of This may well be true, but it is a bit ironic; with the 1990 introduction of his a Technique new journal, Constitutional Political Economy, James Buchanan indicates that he believes such research can and risks (requiring new drugs to pass FDA­ will be done. Lawrence H. White approval tests; requiring infants 'to fly In his "Postscript" on Calculus, Tul­ in protective seats rather than on par­ lock goes on to address one of the un­ The pretensions of policy experts are ents' laps) can backfire by increasing answered questions of the book: Why worthy targets, and readers of Liberty less obvious risks (people die for lack of did the economic protections of the will find it easy to agree with many of the drugs awaiting FDA approval; in­ u.s. Constitution last for more than 100 the conclusions of Robert Formaini's fants die on the highways when parents years and then weaken? Earlier, Wag­ The Myth of Scientific Public Policy. For­ ner and Gwartney argued that the faced with buying additional airplane maini, a veteran of the public policy are­ tickets take the family to grandma's cause was the advent of activist judges na through stints at the Cato Institute house by car). This insight reflects the and willful legislators. But Tullock sug­ and the National Center for Policy emphasis of Austrian economists on the gests that a key cause may be the ex­ Analysis, targets the techniques by unintended consequences of interven­ pansion of civil service rules which experts claim to evaluate govern­ tionary policies. throughout the federal government (re­ ment policies scientifically - namely In the last section of the chapter For­ placing patronage). He terms this the techniques of comparative risk as­ maini seems to advocate deliberately expansion a "quasi-constitutional revi­ sessment and cost-benefit analysis. The biasing probability judgments so as to sion in the terms of employment of the book's style of argumentation falls overstate the likelihood of ''bad'' events federal bureaucracy" (144). Job protec­ somewhere between being colorful and to understate the probability of tion for federal employees increased enough to interest the educated layman federal government power and re­ and being detailed enough to satisfy the "good" events. Curiously, in light of duced the power of the states. academic economist. Unfortunately, the Formaini's emphasis on the distinction Tullock's proposal is an example of arguments vary in strength and are oc­ between fact and value, he fails to note the kind of interesting idea that gets casionally hard to follow. that your "bad" event may be my somewhat buried in this book, which Formaini begins the book oddly. "good" event. The biasing adjustment contains so much that is disparate. An­ Though he treats cost-benefit analysis he proposes is completely ad hoc, and other example is the observation by oniy after devoting a chapter to the eco­ the figure (2-1) he uses for illustration is Terry Anderson and P. J. Hill that the nomics of the Austrian School, his neither appropriate nor necessary. (The 19th century evolution of corporations "overview" of risk assessment and figure does not show a true normal dis­ (generally viewed by economic histori­ probability theory precedes both discus­ tribution, because a normal distribution ans as a major achievement) occurred sions. One would.have thought that is not truncated at its tails. Though trivi­ because the stability of property rights Austrian ideas could be used to evalu­ al, this is just one of the minor inaccura­ guaranteed by the Constitution al­ ate risk assessment techniques as well. cies that will bother an academic lowed entrepreneurial innovation in Having arranged the chapters as he reader.) It is hard to take the proposal contracts. Today that stability is gone; did, he is unable to examine explicitly seriously. Perhaps Formaini thinks that the federal government and state legis­ the relationship between Austrian sub­ it would raise the burden of proof on latures routinely interfere with the jectivism and subjective probability the­ advocates for new government pro­ innovative contracting that entrepren­ ory, which could have been both grams. But environmentalists, to name eurs have attempted in recent years interesting and instructive. Instead, he just one advocacy group, are already through takeovers and mergers. devotes much of his first chapter to a prone to justify government programs Many gems of this sort are buried rather unclear discussion of the theoreti­ by overstating the risks of bad events if in the book. Some have been or will be cal differences between two schools of government does not intervene. published elsewhere, so that they are thought in probability theory, classical The second chapter, staking out the not really lost; but I'm completely sure frequentists versus Bayesians. He notes subjectivist position, spends half its that the merit of collecting and thus in passing that "counter-intuitive out­ space retelling the history of the Austri­ preserving such a wealth of thoughts comes ... sometimes occur when the an School of economics. His account is about constitutional issues outweighs most obvious course of action is under­ sprinkled with details that seem irrele­ the disadvantage that some will be taken in order to make something saf­ vant. Austrian economists are subjecti­ ignored. 0 er" (11). Attempts to regulate obvious vists in matters of economic method: Liberty 63 Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992 they believe that important social insti­ stituted. They simply assume that At the end of chapter 3, as at the tutions (like money, language, and law) these dollar figures can be added up to end of chapter I, Formaini regrettably and social patterns (like market­ arrive at a measure of net social proposes ad hoc ways of adjusting the clearing prices, positive interest rates, benefits. numbers that policy analysts produce. and the business cycle) are best Formaini rightly insists that such As before, the proposal is difficult to explained in terms of individuals' sub­ toting-up is invalid because benefits are take seriously. (For one thing, it makes jective perspectives (preferences, infor­ subjective. Analysts have neither any no apparent sense to adjust the inter­ mation sets, and expectations). valid way to gauge willingness-to-pay temporal discount rate according to Austrians are not epistemological subjec­ apart from preferences voluntarily how "public" a project's benefits are.) tivists, as Formaini suggests (24). That demonstrated in a market, nor any ba­ is, they do not characteristically deny sis in economic theory for using dollars that there is an objective reality "out as a unit for comparing or summing there." benefits across individuals. There is no Even as it became obvious It is a long way from Austrian sub­ basis for assuming that worth-one­ that the swine flu vaccinations jectivism to the tools of cost-benefit dollar-to-me is equivalent to worth­ analysis, as the third chapter shows. one-dollar-to-you. Costs are also sub­ were killing more people than Cost-benefit analysts attempt, usually jective, because the cost of an action is the flu itself, the federal gov­ on behalf of a government, to tote up the sacrifice of the next-most-(subjec­ ernment was slow to back off an aggregate present-dollar measure of tively)-preferred alternative, so that the costs and benefits 'of a project. costs too are not interpersonally sum­ from its program. (Confusingly, the summation formulas mabIe. Alas, before Formaini reaches Formaini gives on pp. 45 and 50 lack these key points, he detours through a any explicit variable for costs.) The an­ broad-brush critique of neoclassical ec­ That Formaini offers such a band-aid alysts try to gauge how many dollars onomics, and through a long discus­ proposal undercuts his important mes­ you and I and others would each be sion of the difficulties of choosing the sage that the problems with cost­ willing to pay to have the project insti­ correct discount rate to be applied to benefit analysis are deep-rooted. tuted, or would lose from having it in- future costs and benefits. The book's fourth chapter is its most entertaining: it reviews the feder­ al government decisions made during the Swine Flu episode of 1976. In that episode, the personal hunches of feder­ Classified Advertisements al health officials were dressed up as scientific estimates to justify a crash Classified Advertising is available for 25¢ per word, plus $1.00 per insertion. 10% discount program for vaccinating nearly all for six or more insertions. Payment must accompany order. Please specify classification. Americans against a rare strain of in­ fluenza. Even as it became obvious that of stimulating conversation. Eight issues (one swine flu vaccinations were killing Collectibles year) $20. Strauss, Box 3343Z, Fairfax, VA 22038. more people than the flu itself, the fed­ Branden's Basics of Objectivism lecture Thomas Paine Review: newsletter on books eral government was slow to back off phonographs, first edition, autographed, mint for the lover of freedom, reason, and human from its program. The lesson, Formaini $265. Dennis Sherwood, 40604 N. Kenosha Road, achievement. 6 issues $15; sample issue $3. Ad­ hints, is that citizens need to be very Zion, IL 60099-9341. (708) 872-9230. dress: 84 Washington St. #138, Penacook, NH 03303. skeptical of the (possibly self-serving) Literature Living Free newsletter. Forum for debate advocacy of programs by federal CompuServe Users: Interested in discussing among freedom-seekers, survivalists, libertari­ bureaucrats. liberty? GO ISSUES, read Section 3 and Library 3 ans, anarchists, outli)ws, since 1979, now in­ Having attacked the legitimacy of on Individualism. Lively discussions. cludes news summary: limy libertarian mail." the "science" of public policy, in his Multigovemment Governed by choice not $8.00 for 6 issues, sample $1.00. Box 29-LB, Hiler concluding postscript Formaini pon­ Branch, Buffalo, NY 14223. chance. Explore 'New Dimension of Freedom" ders the obvious question of how poli­ with sampling of literature. $6 to LeGrand Day, Do we need God? If you believe that people cy is to be decided, if not on scientific Box 177, Reseda, CA 91337-0177. can lead moral, ethical lives without the fear of grounds. Unfortunately, this discussion Free-Market Environmentalism offers ways eternal damnation Free Inquiry-the secular hu­ to protect the environment without adding to the manist quarterly-is for you. One year $25. Free is a somewhat platitudinous endorse­ power of the state. To learn more about it, write Inquiry, Box 664, Dept C, Buffalo, NY 14226. ment of the American system of consti­ Jane Shaw, Political Economy Research Center, Subscribe to Family Alert and learn how the tutionally constrained democracy. 502 S. 19th Avenue, Bozeman, MT, 59715. unconstitutional acts of child protection agencies Formaini is surely correct when he in­ Periodicals nationwide have become a threat to the security sists that central planning by experts ofchildren and families. Family Alert is a month­ can never successfully replace free mar­ The Voluntaryist. Sample copy for two first­ ly newsletter compiled by people who have kets, but not when he steers close to class stamps. Box 1275, Gramling, SC 29348. learned the cost of state intrusio'n in family af­ identifying a free society with demo­ Bigger print now in The (Libertarian) Connec­ fairs. For a sample issue write to: Chatauqua tion, open-forum magazine since 1968. Subscrib­ County VOCAL, PO Box 85, Cassadaga, NY cratic rule: "Our final appeal, then, is ers may insert one page/issue free, unedited. Lots 14718. not to the judgments of risk authorities 64 Liberty Volume 5, Number 4

or those who claim to speak for the pub­ peds for the Future.) To paraphrase: the lic interest, but to the public itself oper­ important topic of this book deserves ating through its cherished political meticulous criticism, both to enlighten traditions" (97). non-Austrians about our approach, and My overall judgment of the book is to educate fellow Austrians about the de­ similar to the well-considered judgment fects of cost-benefit analysis. Formaini I heard Formaini express concerning a succeeds to some extent in both tasks, paper at an Austrian economics confer­ though without great originality. The ence at Hillsdale College in April 1990. book would have been strengthened by a (His commentary is now published in closer attention to detail, and by a deeper Richard M. Ebeling, ed., Austrian Eco­ and more focused development of its nomics: Perspedives on the Past and Pros- main themes. 0

CAN IT BE Booknotes DONE? SEXUAliTY dERiVES fROM pER'" I Am a Survivor of the Punic A Useless Edition - There's a SONAliTy. JUST AS you MAkE new edition of Stranger in a Strange Wars - The pun is the most over­ PERSONAl CHANGES iN YOUR used form of humor. Perhaps that is Land, by Robert A. Heinlein, expanded granting the pun too high a status. The with material originally cut by its editor lifE, so HETEROSEXUAliTy CAN (Ace/Putnam, 1991, 525 pp., $24.95). As pun is the most overused form of pseu­ bECOME A NUTURAl SElf... do-humor. Yeah, that's more like it. if the original version weren't long, bor­ The problem is that most puns are not ing and pretentious enough. fulfilliNG joyous EXpERiENCE. very clever. In fact, most puns are just -Timothy Virkkala plain dumb. That's why I usually wince How? when I hear a pun. Less is more, more or less ­ Somehow, I got a copy of Don When National Review raised the price of You dON'T NEEd TO bE CON'" a subscription and reduced the number Hauptman's Cruel and Unusual Puns VERTEd OR iNSulTEd. INSTEAd, (Dell, 1991, 137 pp, $5.95). Maybe it of issues published each year, it sent out was a Christmas gift. From someone a letter to subscribers explaining, "You you CAN USE A pROVEN, WEll may be getting less, but remember, who doesn't like me. I d unno. In a mas­ THOUGHT"'OUT, pOSiTiVE ANd ochistic mood, I picked it up. What a you're paying more!" That would be an strange joke book! It's clever. The appropriate advertising slogan for the UNdERSTANdiNG AppROACH. new edition of Freedom, Feminism and punch lines aren't telegraphed. And it's ANy GAy OR biSEXUAl MAN OR funny. Don't ask me how Don Haupt­ the State, edited by Wendy McElroy Gn­ man performed this miracle. dependentInstitute, 1991). WOMAN CAN do iT EVEN if Not only has the price risen to $19.95 If you are in a mood to groan, to ThEy'VE NEVER EXpERiENCE A slap your knee, to laugh out loud, this from $7.95, but about 30% of the earlier is the book for you. More importantly, edition (published in 1982 by the Cato HETEROSEXUAl dESiRE. Institute) has been cut. Alas, the adver­ ifa friend, spouse or co-worker tortures tising that I have seen (Roy Childs' "re­ MANy AlREAdy HAVE. you with elaborate and moronic puns, in Laissez Faire Books' catalog) this is the book for them, and not be­ view" describes the elimination of "a few of cause it has lots of puns for them to the more marginal essays from the first memorize and spring on you at appro­ IT CAN BE edition"* has only partially revealed the priate moments, either. It's a good book extent of the cuts. In all, eight of the for them because it tells the difference original 30 essays (totalling 110 pages) between a good pun and a bad pun. It were eliminated, and a single 6-page es­ presents a general theory of puns. If DONE say added. you are lucky, they will read it, learn I recently read that 60% of American from it, and stop telling you their stu­ CAll: (Jl0)202... 0670 households did not purchase a single pid puns. FOR MORE iNfORMATiON There, I have done the impossible: I All CAlls kEpT cONdifENTiAl have reviewed a joke book without tell­ * "More marginal"? One wonders how many ing you my favorite jokes from it. of the surviving essays are marginal in -R.W. Bradford Childs' view. Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992 book last year. I wonder whether part of abortion by editor McElroy herself. It bate can be. the reason might lie in the escalation of starts out very strong: ''When I was Anyway, this new edition is better book prices. The Cato Institute edition eighteen, I chose to have an abortion. than no edition at all, but the individu­ cost 2.3¢ per page, versus 8.2¢ per page Accordingly, the question I am address­ al seriously interested in the develop­ for the Independent Institute edition. ing here is nothing less than whether I ment of feminist indiVidualism, or That's an increase of 266%, during a pe­ have committed murder." Having put feminism, or individualism, should riod when inflation has totalled some­ herself in the docket charged with scour used-book stores for the first thing like 40%. murder, McElroy defends herself by edition. Nevertheless, it is nice to see Free­ claiming that the basic principle of li­ -R. W. Bradford dom, Feminism and the State back in print. bertarianism is "self-ownership," This anthology is virtually the only col­ (without this principle, "there is no Witness for the Prosecution lection of writing on libertarian femi­ foundation for individual rights or for - Publishers send some unusual nism. This is certainly peculiar, given libertarianism.") She proceeds to argue books to Liberty, hoping we'll review that both had their origins in attempts to that while she is a "self," a fetus isn't, them. When we received a copy of free individuals from the state. so while it's wrong to kill her, it's okay Wilkes: His Life and Crimes (Ballantine And even in its new, abbreviated to kill her fetus. Personally, I find this Books, 1990/1991, 292 pp., $4.95), we form, this is a fine anthology. Although neither convincing nor challenging. For figured it to be of no particular interest its entries from modern libertarian femi­ one thing, it is a very narrow argument, to our readers. But I like mystery books nists are first rate, its particular strength addressed only to libertarians of the and this was billed as a thriller, so I de­ is its wealth of early feminist thinking, natural rights school. Personally, I can cided to read it for my own including very stimulating writing from think of lots of bases for libertarianism amusement. well-known anarcho-feminists like Vol­ other than self-ownership. Even if one A thriller it is not. It is a collection tairine de Cleyre and Emma Goldman, accepts the logic of self-ownership, her of Witty and clever stories about the as well as lesser-knowns like Angelina argument quickly degenerates into the professional trials and travails of a Grimke and Lillian Harman. This mate­ well-known wrangle over when a zy­ New York City lawyer, ostensibly writ­ rial is hard to find, even in a first-rate li­ gote becomes a person. Despite her best ten by his "Dr Watson," Winston brary. Unfortunately, all but one of the efforts, I think the anti-abortionist argu­ Schoonover. This lawyer, John Wilkes, essays eliminated from this new edition ment that conception is the appropriate continually battles with judges who are are from early feminist thinkers. beginning of human life to be as con­ only interested in convicting anyone The single essay added (is it possible vincing (and as unconvincing) as her ar­ appearing in their courts, and with that only one worthwhile piece of femi­ gument for birth as the point at which a lawyers who hang around the court­ nist libertarian writing has appeared in human gets self-ownership. It's amaz­ rooms hoping to be assigned cases that the past nine years?) is a discussion of ing just how long and boring this de- they can plea bargain for a quick buck. He calls them "V-6s" for Violators of the Sixth Amendment. Wilkes has a large bag of tricks. For instance, when during one trial he is unable to get a continuance on the ba­ sis of the merits of the case, his physi­ cian, Dr Simon Comfort, prescribes for him bedrest for an extended period. The ailment? Litigious meticulosis. Many of the characters have strange names such as Dr Y. Knott, Miles Land­ ish, Dr Salvador Tostado. I assumed they were figments of the author's imagination - that is, until I came to a very interesting case. In defending a client accused of murder, Wilkes plans to argue that the man suffered from a dual personality and was not himself when he commit­ ted the crime. He knows the prosecu­ tion will call an expert witness to attack the credibility ofhis claim, sohe decides on a pre-emptive strike: he consults eve­ ry psychiatrist that the prosecution cus­ tomarily uses to refute defense claims of mental illness, so that none will beavail­ able for the prosecution. 66 Liberty Volurne5, Nurnber 4 March 1992

In desperation, the prosecution calls ously. Unable to shake him, Schmidt from competition because of his ram­ in Dr Skuz. "Dr Skuz was an impres­ welcomes the sight of an approaching bunctiousness and fraternization with sive, convincing witness .... (He) said police car and slows down. The police Western athletes, he opined that just there was no such thing as a multiple car pulls around in front of Schmidt maybe he would leave his country for personality. In fact, he said all mental and screeches to a halt, cutting him off. one where he could compete. illness was a myth created by elitist The Volkswagen pulls up from behind After his release from prison, doctors anxious to establish a new psy­ with two more cars in tow. Two other Schmidt still dreamed of getting out chiatric priesthood with an impenetra­ cars move out of a cross street and of the country and competing again. ble jargon. They do it, he said, to lord it block off incoming traffic. After a brief Co-author Anita Verschoth, a New over us and make a fortune doing it." fusillade of slamming car doors, York and Zurich based associate edi­ Wait a minute! I know this man. It's Schmidt emerges from his own vehicle tor of Sports Illustrated, was actually that well-known debunker of psychiat­ to find himself surrounded by no less involved in several cloak and dagger ric gobbledy-gook and an editor of Lib­ than thirteen Stasi agents and uni­ operations designed to get Schmidt erty, Dr Thomas Szasz. Which explains, formed policemen. One of the police­ out of East Germany via Hungary I guess, why we got that review copy. men approaches the six foot six inch, and Austria. After the last attempt This made me wonder: whom are these two hundred and fifty pound blond was foiled because of a bug planted other characters based on? giant. ''You will come with us!" in the Schmidt family home, Vers­ - Kathleen Bradford So begins Thrown Free (which has choth took Schmidt's case to some the long, long subtitle: How the East Ger­ powerful people who carried clout Totalitarian Sports Machine man Sports Machine Molded, Trained, and with the East German authorities. - Wolfgang Schmidt, East Germany's Broke an Olympic Hero and How He Won Tired of all the bad press their treat­ world record holder in the discus His Fight for Freedom) by William Oscar ment of Schmidt was generating, the throw, spots a dark red Volkswagen Johnson and Anita Verschoth with authorities finally relented and al­ tailing him on his way to the gym. He Wolfgang Schmidt (Simon & Schuster, lowed him to leave. floors the accelerator and careens 1991,310 pp., $19.95). The Wall has since come tumbling around several corners, tires squealing. Schmidt spent nearly sixteen down, the Stasi have been disbanded, Just when he thinks he's lost the mys­ months in prison, including several and Wolfgang Schmidt-in spite of terious Volkswagen, an even more omi­ weeks in solitary confinement. He lost having been robbed of the prime nous apparition materializes: A nearly forty pounds of muscular body­ years of his athletic career-has re­ motorcyclist, clad head-to-toe in black weight, and at one point was beaten emerged at age 37 as the world's best leather and wearing a black helmet and with rubber truncheons for balking at discus thrower. Living well is the best dark goggles, roars up from behind and entering the solitary confinement cell. revenge! hangs at his side, glaring at him furi- His crime? After having been barred - George M. Hollenback

Letters, continued from page 50 don't wish to read needlessly critical arti­ ("David Duke and Teddy Kennedy, sep­ 1992). cles in it. arated at birth?") on the recent Louisiana McClarin's main point is that natu­ I assume that the editors want to do Governor's race in your January 1992 is­ ral rights theorists are stubborn ifthey more than simplytalk about liberty, that sue. To say that Duke is better than his fail to take his "exceptional cases" they actually wish to live in a libertarian corrupt opponent - or similar to Teddy seriously. society. Therefore, I question the editorial Kennedy - is a gross inaccuracy. No Yet, McClarin's cases are not excep­ judgment of publishing Mr Arthur's arti­ American politician that I am aware of tional but fantastic. They are imaginary cle, as written. It did nothing to advance has hands bloodied with the deaths of cases at best, assuming a great deal that the cause ofliberty. The Libertarian Par­ more than 6 million Jews and Gypsies. is entirely speculative. Most natural ty, just like anyother human institution, is The only exception that comes to mind rights theorists I know are perfectly made up offallible human beings. Arti­ would be if the HIV/ AIDS virus were willing to address actual cases that ap­ cles that highlight that fact don't help. So, genetically engineered by the U.S. gov­ pear on first inspection not to be han­ give the LP a break. Ifan author must crit­ ernment to depopulate "undesirables" dled by their views. For example, cases icize, then let's attempt a little construc­ from the world. Yet there is no evidence involving in vitro fertilization, surro­ gate mothering, test tube babies, coma­ tive criticism. Also, when selecting of Teddy's culpability in this affair; the tose human lives, mentally retarded articles, please consider theaverageJoe evidence seems to point to Nixon. persons, the criminally insane, adopted who is looking for analternativeto the Kevin Bjornson children, fetuses, etc. are important for traditional parties. Seattle, Wash. natural rights theorists and they have James J. OdIe Taking Exceptions managed to deal with them successful­ Glendale, Ariz. Please allow me to carryon with the ly. There is a lot ofthis that natural In Defense of Teddy Kennedy discussion ofJim McClarin's views on rights theorists actually discuss - e.g., You can well imagine my horror at natural rights, in light ofhis latest obser­ I discuss some of these very issues in reading Chester A. Arthur's reflection vations and claims (Letters, January continued on next page Liberty 67 Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992 my several books - and McClarin Since the fundamental "data" in eco­ nounced "determinatives" that tell the shows no awareness ofthat fact. That is nomics are in principle unobservable, reader that an adjacent word falls into a what I lamented in my November 1991 how is a "testable" hypothesis to be con­ particular category. The remainder are letter. structed? What is to constitute evidence? consonant-vowel and vowel-eonsonant But there is another matter to consid­ What is to constitute proof? syllabic combinations along with sets of er - are ethical and political theories the Orthodox economists who offer this different characters that represent single same as those scientific theories that are criticism, including Chicagoites, follow a vowel sounds. It was a cumbersome in need of periodic alteration? And is methodological practice that violates system that took years to learn. there such an area as "the field of sci­ many of the basic principles laid down Sometime in the first part ofthe sec­ ence"? Is it not the case that there are by Popper. They follow the maxim "If ond millennium B.C., an unknown Se­ different sciences, some with certain you can't measure, measure anyway," mitic genius somewhere in the characteristics that require periodic al­ adopt a multitude of stratagems for in­ Palestine-Sinai area hit upon the idea of teration, others without such characteris­ sulating their "hypotheses" from refuta­ a writing system in which each charac­ tics - e.g., biology and mathematics, tion, and successively narrow the ter stood for a different phoneme. This respectively? In any case, not all scienc­ "hypotheses" under investigation so as first real alphabet consisted of twenty­ es would seem to be equal and, more im­ to render them operationally meaning­ some consonants - a quantum leap in portantly, not all disciplines of human less and irrelevant (though they main­ elegance and economy from the Sume­ inquiry need to conform to those tain the appearance of doing serious ro-Akkadian system that preceded it. McClarin is thinking of when he talks "science"). This is what Hayek has (Although an alphabet consisting solely about test cases. called scientism. of consonants seems strange to us, it Tibor Machan The dichotomy between the social lent itself well to Semitic word struc­ Auburn, Ala. and natural sciences is not fundamental ture; the reader knew from context Tools of the Trade to the Austrians. Their paramount con­ which vowels to pronounce with the written consonants.) The Canaanite dia­ Michael Rothschild ("Beyond Austri­ cern is to practice good, honest science. lects, including Hebrew and Phoenician, an Economics," January 1992) implies In economics, this involves acknowledg­ and other northwest Semitic languages that Austrian economists repudiate alto­ ing that some things we know not by ob­ such as Ugaritic and Aramaic, soon gether the notion of equilibrium. Not so. serving statistics but by introspection adopted this alphabet. They repudiate it as any part ofa de­ and logic. The things we know from ob­ Rothschild is absolutely correct in scription of reality, but certainly not as a serving statistics and other social phe­ his assertion that economic develop­ tool of analyzing it. nomena fall into the realm of history and ment and sophisticated information sys­ Rothschild requires empirical proof are subject to interpretation. We can and do learn from history, biological as well tems are interdependent. This of everything, so he proposes "bionom­ relationship between commerce and ics" - analogy between ecosystems and as social, but not by falsifying unambig­ uous hypotheses. communication was exemplified by two the market economy - as an empirical of the earliest users of the alphabet, the and therefore "scientific" reinforcement Peter Lewin Aramaeans and the Phoenicians. of aprioristic and therefore merely "re­ Irving, Tex. The Ararnaeans were the great in­ ligious" economic theory. No doubt he The ABC's of Information land traders of Mesopotamia. Their lan­ would also propose biomath for what is Although Michael Rothschild's Bio­ guage, Aramaic, written in its own otherwise the mere religion of mathe­ nomics is a marvelous achievement, it distinctive fluid script of the same matics - some kind of ecologically doesn't do justice to the development of name, became the international medium based empirical proof that two plus two the most important invention in the of diplomacy as well as commerce is four. While that might thrill Milton transmission of human knowledge ­ among the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Friedman, I don't think it would have the alphabet. Persians. done much for Ludwig von Mises or Al­ Rothschild credits the Sumerians The Phoenicians were the great mar­ bert Einstein. with being the first to make writing and itime traders of the Mediterranean basin D. G. Lesvic copying "relatively easy" with their cu­ and beyond, who spread their alphabet Pacoima, Calif. neiform writing on clay tablets. From along their trade routes from outpost to Testing the Untestable there, he jumps ahead to the invention outpost. Legend has it that they brought Rothschild argues that, "as long as of better writing materials (papyrus, the alphabet to the Greeks. Austrian economics relies exclusively parchment, paper) as the next important Once the Greeks got the alphabet, upon fundamental concepts that are in­ step in the dissemination of knowledge, they found that some of the letters stood herently unfalsifiable, it cannot expect to and then to Gutenberg' s invention of for consonant sounds they didn't use ­ be regarded as more than a marginal movable type. and began using those letters to repre­ movement. Without a paradigm that The Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform sent vowels instead. The Greek alphabet generates testable hypotheses, Austrian writing that Rothschild loosely refers to therefore has the distinction of being the thinking will never overthrow the reign­ as an "alphabet" is actually a hodge­ world's first complete alphabet with let­ ing orthodoxy." podge of several hundred characters, ters representing both consonants and What pray are the testable hypothe­ many of which retain their earlier ideo­ vowels. Alexander the Great later ses yielded by evolutionary science? Are graphic function of denoting an object or spread the Greek language across the they falsifiable in the Popperian sense? an abstract idea. Others are unpro- known world with his conquests, mak- 68 Liberty Volume 5, Number 4 March 1992 ing it that era's international language. In this role, Greek was replaced by Latin, at least in the western part of the Notes on Contributors Roman Empire, a language written in its own distinctive Roman alphabet. (The Chester Alan Arthur is Liberty's political Dr Edward C. Krug is a soil and water scientist Roman script was based on Etruscan, correspondent. and director of Environmental Projects of John Baden is chairman of the Foundation for the Committee for a Constructive Tomor­ which was based on Greek.) Our own Research on Economics and the Environ­ row. He has appeared on 60 Minutes de­ English, also written in the Roman al­ ment and a rancher from Gallatin Gateway, bunking the conventional doomsday phabet, has since become the intemation­ Montana. wisdom about acid rain. allanguage. "Baloo" is the nom de plume of Rex F. May, a Kin-ming Liu is a native of Hong Kong. It was the alphabet that simplified cartoonist whose works frequently appear Loren E. Lomasky is author of Persons, Rights, Gutenberg's task of inventing movable in The Wall Street Journal and elsewhere. and the Moral Community. type. (What if poor old Johann had to Bob Ortin IBauresl lives in southern Oregon, Meredith McGhan is a writer who lives in Ann mess with several hundred characters in­ far from the madding crowd. He advises Arbor, Michigan. stead of two or three dozen?) It is an elo­ that the word "Burons" ( his cartoon edito­ Randal O'Toole is a forest economist, publish­ quent tribute to the alphabet that the rials) derives from the words "bureaucrat" er of Forest Watch magazine, and the author first book Gutenberg printed was the and "moron." of Reforming the Forest Service. Bible, a book originally written in three Kathleen Bradford, copy editor at Liberty, reads Ross Overbeek is author or co-author of five textbooks and more than 60 articles on of the oldest alphabetic languages - He­ mysteries when she gets the chance. computer science or biology and was a R. W. Bradford is editor of Liberty. brew, Greek, and Aramaic. member of the Joint Informatic Task Force Stephen Cox is Associate Professor of Litera­ George M. Hollenback for the Human Genome Initiative. ture at the University of California, San Houston, Tex. Ralph Raico is Professor of History at the State Diego. University of New York in Buffalo. The Culture of Progress Brian Doherty is a journalist and former musi­ Sheldon L. Richman is Senior Editor with the I believe Michael Rothschild's restric­ cian surviving in the nation's capital. Cato Institute. tion of economic information only to "ac­ is a cartoonist and the pub­ Mark Frauen/elder James S. Robbins is a writer and foreign policy lisher of bOING bOING, a magazine about cumulated technical knowledge" is analyst living in Massachusetts. unnecessary and omits other informa­ brain toys, cyberpunk, psychedelia, etc. Michael Rothschild is the author of Bionomics: tion that motivates technical development Karl Hess is the only editor of Liberty quoted The Inevitability ofCapitalism, and president and provides market incentives to make in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. of the Bionomics Institute of San Rafael, such development "economic." Robert Higgs is Thomas F. Gleed Professor of California. While it is undoubtedlytruethat tech­ Business Administration at the Albers Jane S. Shaw is a senior associate of the Politi­ nical knowledge is the medium that per­ School of Business, Seattle University, and cal Economy Research Center in Bozeman, mits scientific and technological the author of Crisis and Leviathan. Montana. development, they neglect the role ofcul­ George M. Hollenback is a weight training and Timothy Virkkala is assistant editor of Liberty. throwing events enthusiast from Houston. tural knowledge in the motivation of Lawrence White is Associate Professor of Eco­ William Holtz is Professor of English at the technical progress and in the creation of nomics at the University of Georgia, and is University of Missouri in Columbia. the author of Free Banking in Britain. markets for technical goods. Examples are legion, but here are some to consider: It is widely appreciated that the seminal cal knowledge that spurred develop­ service to rap musicians and classical figures in the development of rocketry ments, it was cultural knowledge ... in the composers. The list is endless, and serves (Tsiolkovsky, Goddard, von Braun) were form of literature and political doctrine. to illustrate that it is cultural information inspired bythe fiction ofJules Verne; Nor must we neglect the human that largely creates the economic demand without that inspiration ontheir part needs that give rise to vast markets. We for technological innovation. Ifthe bio­ (and ofothers), it is at least questionable do not need thetelephone to lecture each nomic economists fail to reckon with this ifrocketry would have developed at all otheron principles ofscience; we need phenomenon, they will have divorced or as rapidlyas it has -leadingto the ec­ thetelephone to communicate family human action from its motives and there­ onomic boon ofcommunication and emergencies, arrange appointments, and by may lose the most fundamental of in­ weather satellites, and the radical expan­ a host ofother nontechnical messages es­ sights into the market economy and its sion of our knowledge of the earth and sential to our social survival. We do not development. solar system. In a much different context, watch thetelevision primarilyto absorb After all, the most fundamental phe­ it was fear ofa political ideology- Naz­ scientific lectures, but mainlyto appre­ nomenon in biology is the association be­ ism - that prompted the free world's ciate a new form ofart: the simulation of tween stimulus and response - and the Jewish physicists to unite in the creation life experience thorough acting and the awareness that pleasure and pain elicit ofthe atomic bomb - thereby making technique ofbroadcasting moving pic­ diametrically opposed paths ofaction. available a source ofenergybeyond all tures and sound. The great advance of The analogy of biology cannot work if previous calculation, with yet unknown printing, itself, was not to broaden the un­ we suppose at the outset that the subject economic significance mingled with its derstanding of howto manufacture print­ (the economy and its actors) are influence on the political environment ing presses, butto disseminate the Word anesthetized. within which the market can perform its ofGod ... at least originally. Recording Michael J. Dunn function. In both cases, it was not techni- on magnetic tape and optical diskis in Auburn, Wash. Liberty 69 Omaha New Jersey The thin blue line that separates civilized society from anarchy, Culinary note from the Nutmeg State, as reported in the Bergen as reported by the Associated Press: (N.J.) Record: Tipped off that James Stennis, 48, might be anned, suicidal and New Jersey has banned the sale of soft-cooked eggs. Violators face dangerous, police surrounded his home and telephoned him, but he did fines up to $100. The ban was the first in the country, made in response not answer, so they ordered him to surrender with a bullhorn. The siege to a directive from the Food and Drug Administration. ended six hours later when Stennis, apparently a deep sleeper, woke from a nap and discovered his home was surrounded. Detroit Cultural note from the Motor City, as reported by the Detroit Boston News: Fiscal prudence of legislators in the Bay State, as reported by the Four men were arrested and charged with the murder of a Domino's Associated Press: pizza delivery man. Police apprehended them at the address of the tele­ The General Assembly of Massachusetts has appropriated $75,000 phone number they had given when ordering the pizza. "We were just for restoration of the town of Ripton. It is the first appropriation for plain hungry," one of those arrested explained. They did not rob the de­ Ripton since 1985, when the town received $85,000. liveryman of his cash. The money for Ripton, which does not exist, was apparently added to the state's budget by pranksters. The budget also appropriated Roanoke, Va. $300,000 to study "the precarious activities of the endangered howame Dispatch from the War on Drugs, from the Roanoke Times & antalyst." World-News: Singapore Police searched a room at a local motel after being tipped off that Environmental development in this progressive city-state, as the tenants were suspected drug dealers. The room was occupied by reported by The Asian Wall Street Journal: "Rocken," a group of professional anti-drug crusaders, on the road be­ tween appearances at high school assemblies. The Environmental Ministry has ordered a ban on the manufacture, sale and import of chewing gum, citing an incident last year when pranksters smeared wads of gum on the doors of subway cars, prevent­ Lahore, Pakistan ing the doors from closing properly. Importers face fines up to $10,000 Support for traditional values in the Third World, as reported by and traffickers $2,000. the Associated Press: A government official explained: "I personally consider it rather ob­ Sohaid Roomi has sued a Moslem cleric who allowed Princess Dia­ noxious, seeing very good-looking young boys and girls wandering na of the United Kingdom to enter a mosque with her knees uncovered. about with their jaws moving like cows chewing cud. If those who chew gum did only that, it is all right. But when they start sticking gum China under chairs, on walls, or dropping it on the floor, then it becomes a so­ Latest social advances in the last great bastion of Marxism, as cial problem. reported by the Associated Press: Indiana Chinese authorities have arrested an average of7 people per day for Advance in jurisprudence in the Hoosier State, as reported in the violation ofa new rule prohibiting public "show ofaffection" at Beijing University. In addition, new rules outlaw booing at official speeches, Washington Post: the "unauthorized gathering of a crowd" (which is defined as more than The Supreme Court of Indiana conceded that forcing the inmates of five people), and the breaking of bottles because xiao ping, the Chinese mental hospitals to work. was "coercive" because they "were not free to word for "small bottle" sounds like the name of the Communist Chi­ refuse work," but ruled nevertheless that the forced labor does not con­ nese leader, Deng Xiaoping. stitute "involuntary servitude," which is prohibited by the 13th Amend­ ment, but "instead a 'civic duty' like jury duty or being drafted into the San Jose, Calif Anny." The Court also ruled that even if the forced labor were a viola­ Interesting observation of the mating habits of Americanus tion of the 13th Amendment, its victims would not be entitled to any environmentalis, as reported in the San Jose Metro: damages, and that the workers need not be paid any wage for their labor. The Sierra Club has scheduled a hearing to detennine whether Sacramento, Calif. Richard Bennett should be banned from Sierra Club functions. He is ac­ Commentary on legislative deliberation, from the Hon Dick cused of being "very overt" in asking women for phone numbers while Floyd, member of the California Assembly, as reported by the Sacra­ on an outing ofthe club's "singles chapter." mento Union: "1 don't care what the figures are," Floyd said when asked to com­ Middletown, N.Y. ment on a newspaper report that he had cited fraudulent data in support Sexism and mandatory safety create a hopeless problem, as of a bill that he had sponsored. He had published a report claiming a reported in the Middletown Times-Record: bill forcing motorcycle drivers to wear helmets would save taxpayers Janice DeYoung was convicted of failing to wear a seat belt. Ac­ $65 to $100 million annually for medical cost, citing the National High­ cording to testimony from the arresting officer, she refused to put on way Traffic Safety Administration and the San Francisco Injury Center her seat belt because "her breasts were too large to wear the shoulder as sources of the figures. Both organizations denied having provided strap ... car manufacturers are sexist and they don't design belts to fit such statistics. women." (Readers are invited to forward newsclippings or other items for publication in Terra Incognita.) 70 Liberty Stimulate Your Mind! There is a world of good reading in Liberty! Whether you want to catch up on what you missed, provide intellectual relief to your friends (or enemies!), or complete your collection, now is a good time to buy. Enjoy! The Back Issues of Liberty

August 1987 Karl Hess, Douglas Rasmussen, Murray Rothbard, L. Neil • "The Films of Ayn Rand," by Stephen Cox Smith and others; and a short story by Erika Holzer. (80 pages) • "The Mystery Man of the Libertarian Movement," by Ben Best November 1988 • "Life or Death inSeattle," by Murray N. Rothbard • "Taking Over the Roads," by John Semmens Plus reviews and articles by Ross Overbeek, Butler Shaffer, Timo­ • "The Search for We The Living," by R.W. Bradford thy Virkkala, Ida Walters and others; and a short story by Jo • "Private Property: Hope for the Environment," by Jane S. Shaw McIntyre. (48 pages) Plus articles and reviews by Walter Block, Stephen Cox, John October 1987 Dentinger, James Robbins and others. (80 pages) • "The Sociology of Libertarians," byJ. C. Green & J. L. Guth January 1989 • "The Rise of the State," by Murray N. Rothbard • "AIDS and the FDA," by Sandy Shaw • "The Apostasy of Robert Nozick," by Ethan O. Waters • "Property, Population and the Environment" byJohn Hospers Plus reviews and articles byStephen Cox, William P. Moulton, • "Ronald Reagan's 'Revolution'," by William Niskanen Mike Holmes, JonathanSaville and others; and a short story by Plus articles and reviews by Karen Shabetai, Jane Shaw, Jeffrey Franklin Sanders. (48 pages) Tucker, Leland Yeager, William Wingo and others; and a short December 1987 story by Jeffrey Olson. (72 pages) • "Libertarians in a State-Run World," by Murray N. Rothbard March 1989 • "The Most Unforgettable Libertarian I Ever Knew," by Karl • "Ronald Reagan: An Autopsy," by Murray N. Rothbard Hess • ''What if Everything We Know About Safety Is Wrong?" by • "Easy Living in the Bahamas," by Mark Skousen John Semmens and Dianne Kresich Plus writing by Walter Block, Erika Holzer, Mark Skousen, and • "What Do You Do When Your Mother Asks You to Kill Her?" others; and a short story by David Galland. (56 pages) by Michael Endres March 1988 Plus articles and reviews by Stephen Cox, Jeffrey Friedman, David • "Libertarians & Conservatives: Allies or Enemies?" byJohn Ramsay Steele, Sheldon Richman and others. (72 pages) Dentinger & Murray Rothbard May 1989 • "Free Speech and the Future of Medicine," by Sandy Shaw & • "Man, Nature, and State: Free Market Slogans are not Enough," Durk Pearson by Karl Hess, Jr • "The Majority vs the Majoritarian: Robert Bork on Trial," by • "A Conspiracy of Silence: Uncovering the Media's Election­ Sheldon Richman Night 'Coverage' Policy," by Margaret M. Fries Plus reviews and articles by R.W. Bradford, William Cate, Stephen • "The End of the Secular Century," by Murray N. Rothbard Cox, and others; and a short story by Raul Santana. (64 pages) Plus articles and reviews by Stephen Cox, David Gordon, Justin May 1988 Raimondo, and other. (72 pages) • "Ayn Rand: Still Controversial after All These Years," articles by July 1989 David Ramsay Steele & David Brown • "Viking Iceland: Anarchy That Worked," by David Friedman • "The ACLU: Suspicious Principles, Salutary Effects," by William • "The Myth of the Rights of Mental Patients," by Thomas S. P. Moulton Szasz • "The Two Libertarianisms," by Ethan O. Waters • "Fetal Rights: The Implications of a Supposed Ought," by Tibor Plus reviews and articles by Gary Alexander, Nathaniel Branden, Machan Erika and Henry Mark Holzer, Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, Shel­ Plus articles and reviews by R.W. Bradford, John Hospers, Jane S. don Richman, Franklin Sanders, and others. (64 pages) Shaw, Jeffrey Tucker, Leland Yeager and others. (80 pages) July 1988 September 1989 • "Confessions of an Intractable Individualist," by Jerome Tuccille • "Holocausts and the Historians," by Ralph Rako • "Rebel Without a Clue: Lessons from the Mecham Experience," • "My Break With Branden and the Rand Cult," by Murray by Matt Kesler Rothbard • "Rand-Bashing: Enough is Epough," by Ross Overbeek • "Abortion Without Absurdity," by R.W. Bradford Plus reviews and articles by Stephen Cox, Tibor Machan, Bill Kel­ Plus articles and reviews by Stephen Cox, David Friedman, Loren sey and others; and an interview with L. NeilSmith. (80 pages) Lomasky, Gary North, Jeffrey Tucker and others. (72 pages) September 1988 November1989 • "Scrooge McDuck and His Creator," by Phil Salin • "The Lost War on Drugs," by Joseph Miranda • "Liberty and Ecology," by John Hospers • "Goodbye, Galactic Empire," by J. R. Dunn • "The Ultimate Justification of the Private Property Ethic," by • "A Rustic in New York," by R.W. Bradford Hans-Hermann Hoppe Plus reviews and articles by Douglas Casey, David Friedman, continued on back cover ... Stimulate Your Mind! Liberty's Back Issues continued from previous page November 1989 (continued) July 1990 Plus articles and reviews by Krzysztof Ostaszewski, Murray N. • "Conversations with Ayn Rand (part 1)," by John Hospers Rothbard, Loren Lomasky, William P. Moulton, and others; and • "The Orwellian University: The War on Free Choice on Campus" an interview with Russell Means. (72 pages) by Charles Thorne January 1990 Plus articles and reviews byJohn Baden, David Friedman, Bill • "The Greenhouse Effect: Myth or Danger?" by PatrickJ. Mi­ Kauffman, Mark Skousen and others. (72 pages) chaels September 1990 • "The Case for Paleolibertarianism," by Llewelyn Rockwell • "Conversations with Ayn Rand (part 2)," by John Hospers • "The Death of Socialism: WhatIt Means," by R.W. Bradford, • "Is Environmental Press Coverage Biased?" by Jane S. Shaw Murray Rothbard, Stephen Cox, and William Moulton Plus articles and reviews by Michael Krauss, Ron Paul, Greg John- Plus writing by Sheldon Richman, Stephen Barone, David Gordon son, Ethan Waters, James Robbins, Richard Kostelanetz and oth­ and others; and an interview with Barbara Branden. (80 pages) ers; and a ficci6n by Harvey Segal. (72 pages) March 1990 November 1990 • "The Case against Isolationism," by Stephen Cox • "Smokes, But No Peacepipe," by Scott Reid • "H.L. Mencken: Anti-Semite?" by R.W. Bradford • ''You, Too, Can Be a Junior G-Man," by David Hudson • "Capitalism without Democracy, Hong Kong without Hope," by Plus articles and reviews by Richard Kostelanetz, Robert Higgs, R.K. Lamb Alexander Tabarrok, Sheldon Richman and others; and an inter­ Plus articles and reviews by Sheldon Richman, Loren Lomasky, view with Ed Crane. (80 pages) James Robbins, Leland Yeager and others. (80 pages) January 1991 May 1990 • "Meltdown: The End of the Soviet Empire," by David Boaz, • "Conservativism in Its Latter Days," by William P. Moulton James Robbins, Ralph Rako & Jane S. Shaw • "A Population Crisis?" by Jane S. Shaw • "Gordon Gekko, Mike Milken and Me," by Douglas Casey • "The Death of Thinking in the Schools,'" by Karl Hess Plus articles and reviews by Michael Christian, Loren Lomasky, Plus articles and reviews by Thomas Szasz, Bill Kauffman, Rich- William P. Moulton, Lawrence Person, and others; plus special ard Kostelanetz, Bart Kosko, Loren Lomasky and others; and election coverage. (80 pages) poetry by Brett Rutherford. (72 pages) March 1991 • "The Myth of War Prosperity," by Robert Higgs r------,send me the back issues of Liberty • "The Life of Rose Wilder Lane," by William Holtz I Please I have marked. I Plus articles and reviews by Richard Kostelanetz, Jane Shaw, Jan (foreign orders, add 50~ per issue) Narveson, Krzysztof Ostaszewski and others. 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