The Freeman's Library

THE FREE MAN'S LIBRARY A Descriptive and Critical Bibliography by HENRY HAZLITT D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY, INC. PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY TORONTO LONDON NEW YORK D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY, INC. 120 Alexander St., Princeton, New Jersey 257 Fourth Avenue, New York 10, New York 25 Hollinger Rd., Toronto 16, Canada Macmillan & Co., Ltd., St. Martin's St., London, W.C. 2, England All correspondence should be addressed to the principal office of the company at Princeton, N. J. Copyright, ©, 1956 by D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY, INC. Published simultaneously in Canada by D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY (Canada), LTD. All Rights Reserved This book, or any parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without written per- mission from the author and the publishers. Library of Congress Catalogue Card No.: 56-9010 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 Acknowledgments 18 Arrangement and Abbreviations 19 INDIVIDUALISM IN POLITICS AND ECONOMICS 21 THE FREE MAN'S LIBRARY 33 Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power vested in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things, when the rule prescribes not, and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another man. —JOHN LOCKE It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. —DAVID HUME The common people of England ... so jealous of their liberty, but like the common people of most other countries never rightly understanding wherein it consists. —ADAM SMITH The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion. —EDMUND BURKE The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it. ... A State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes, will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished; and that the perfection of machinery to which it has sacrificed everything will in the end avail it nothing, for want of the vital power which, in order that the machine might work more smoothly, it has preferred to banish. —JOHN STUART MILL INTRODUCTION This book is a descriptive and critical bibliography of works on the philosophy of individualism. I have applied the term "individualism" in a broad sense. The bibliography includes books which explain the processes and advantages of free trade, free enterprise and free markets; which recognize the evils of excessive state power; and which champion the cause of individual freedom of worship, speech and thought. Such a compilation seemed to me to be increasingly urgent because so few writers and speakers on public questions today reveal any idea of the wealth, depth and breadth of the litera ture of freedom. What threatens us today is not merely the outright totalitarian philosophies of fascism and communism, but the increasing drift of thought in the totalitarian direc- tion. Many people today who complacently think of themselves as "middle-of-the-roaders" have no conception of the extent to which they have already taken over statist, socialist, and collectivist assumptions—assumptions which, if logically followed out, must inevitably carry us further and further down the totalitarian road. One of the crowning ironies of the present era, in fact, is that it is precisely, especially in America, the people who flat- teringly refer to themselves as "liberals" who have forgotten or repudiated the essence of the true liberal tradition. The typical butts of their ridicule are such writers as Adam Smith, Bastiat, Cobden ("the Manchester School"), and Herbert Spencer. Whatever errors any of these writers may have been guilty of individually, they were among the chief archi- tects of true liberalism. Yet our modern "progressives" now refer to this whole philosophy contemptuously as "laissez jaire." They present a grotesque caricature of it in order to 1 2 THE FREE MAN'S LIBRARY refute it to their own satisfaction, and then go on to advocate more and more governmental power, more centralization of government in Washington, fewer and fewer powers for the States or localities, more and more power for the President, more and more discretionary power for an appointed bureauc- racy, and less and less power for Congress, which is usually ridiculed by our self-styled "liberals" and given to understand that its sole function is to "support the President"—in other words, to act as a rubber stamp. And none of this group seem to recognize that they differ from the totalitarians only in that the totalitarians want unlimited government power, complete centralization, unlimited power in the President or "Leader," and no legislature at all except as window-dressing, or as sycophants to proclaim the greatness of the Leader. This present-day reversal of the traditional vocabulary in itself sets up great obstacles to the compilation of a bibliography of freedom. But these difficulties and obstacles go much further, of course, than those created by a reversal in the popular meaning of the word "liberalism." "Oh, Lib- erty!" Madame Roland is said to have exclaimed as she passed a statue to that goddess on her way to the guillotine, "what crimes are committed in thy name!" Looking at the world today, we are tempted to stress the intellectual crimes committed in the name of liberty as much as the moral crimes. Never were men more ardent in defense of "liberty" than they are today; but never were there more diverse concepts of what constitutes true liberty. Many of today's writers who are most eloquent in their arguments for liberty in fact preach philosophies that would destroy it. It seems to be typical of the books of our intelligentsia to praise one kind of liberty incessantly while disparaging or ridiculing another kind. The liberty that they so rightly praise is the liberty of thought and expression. But the liberty that they so foolishly denounce is economic liberty. They dismiss this contemptuously as "laissez faire"—a phrase, as I have already pointed out, which they almost always use in a merely invidious rather than in any seriously descriptive sense. In fact, no literature is more soaked in semantics than that concerning freedom. "Free- INTRODUCTION 3 dom" and "liberty" are the honorific terms for the liberties that the particular writer is defending; "laissez faire" or "license" are the disparaging terms for the liberties he is decrying. Unfortunately the authors who have fallen into this prac- tice include some of the finest minds of our generation. (I think particularly of Bertrand Russell and the late Morris Cohen.) Such writers seem to me to be at least in part re- flecting an occupational bias. Being writers and thinkers, they are acutely aware of the importance of liberty of writing and thinking. But they seem to attach scant value to economic liberty because they think of it not as applying to themselves but to businessmen. Such a judgment may be uncharitable; but it is certainly fair to say that they misprize economic liberty because, in spite of their brilliance in some directions, they lack the knowledge or understanding to recognize that when economic liberties are abridged or destroyed all other liberties are abridged or destroyed with them. "Power over a man's subsistence," as Alexander Hamilton reminded us, "is power over his will." And if we wish a more modern author- ity, we can quote no less a one than Leon Trotsky, the colleague of Lenin, who in 1937, in a moment of candor, pointed out clearly that: "In a country where the sole em- ployer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation: The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced by a new one: who does not obey shall not eat." Liberty is a whole, and to deny economic liberty is finally to destroy all liberty. Socialism is irreconcilable with freedom. This is the lesson that most of our modern philosophers and litterateurs have yet to learn. I write all this to explain why certain books which some readers might expect to find in this compilation will not be found here. They may say some eloquent and even true things about liberty; but their net influence is not on the side of liberty. The test I have tried to apply here is whether any book, regardless of the reservations I may personally have on the position it takes on this issue or that, is still on net balance on the side of true liberty. 4 THE FREE MAN'S LIBRARY I have long contemplated a compilation like the present one. But I kept postponing the task because it seemed too formidable. My hesitation was broken at last when a friend informed me of the existence of a 95-page pamphlet published by the Individualist Book Shop of London in 1927, which might be the kind of bibliography I had in mind. I immedi- ately sent to London for this book, and quite as promptly re- ceived a copy from Miss Marjorie Franklin, General Secretary of The Society for Individual Freedom. Miss Franklin warned me, however, that not only had the pamphlet been long out of print, but that I was getting a "precious file copy." I read this pamphlet with satisfaction and delight. If it could not be republished simply as it stood, it was at least the ideal nucleus to build around. It was both scholarly and penetrating; its standards of selection were at once discrimi- nating and catholic; its judgments were sound, and it was written with charm.

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