Is Politics Insoluble?

The Task Confronting Libertarians I 123
porations or individuals, or deprive them of constitutional lib-
erties and legal rights, appeal to the courts is often difficult,
costly, or impossible.
Once again, how can the individual economist, student of
government, journalist, or anyone interested in defending or
preserving liberty, hope to keep abreast of this Niagara of
decisions, regulations, and administrative laws? He may
sometimes consider himself lucky to be able to master in
many months the facts concerning even one of these decisions.
Professor Sylvester Petro of New York University has
written a full book on the Kohler strike and another full book
on the Kingsport strike, and the public lessons to be learned
from them. Professor Martin Anderson has specialized in the
follies of urban renewal programs. But how many are there
among us libertarians who are willing to—or have the time
to—do this specialized and microscopic but indispensable
research?
In July 1967, the Federal Communications Commission
handed down an extremely harmful decision ordering the
American Telephone & Telegraph Company to lower its inter-
state rates—which were already 20 percent lower than in
1940, though the general price level since that time had gone
up 163 percent. In order to write a single editorial or column
on this (and to feel confident he had his facts straight), a con-
scientious journalist had to study, among other material, the
text of the decision. That decision consisted of 114 single-
spaced typewritten pages.
. . . and Schemes for Reform
We libertarians have our work cut out for us.
In order to indicate further the dimensions of this work, it
is not merely the organized bureaucracy that the libertarian