I Chose Liberty - Ludwig von Mises Institute

12 I Chose Liberty: Autobiographies of Contemporary Libertarians
lopsided intellectual battle really, since we had all of the facts, all of the arguments, and all
of the public support, while the other side had only one mantra: We want the money. AND
WE LOST! The General Assembly caved in and rammed the tax down all of our collective
throats. The Governor, the state legislative politicians, the state unions, the teachers and
other interest groups that live off of the state, threw their support to the state income tax
and it became law. John Rowland, Connecticut’s current governor, had pledged to repeal
the monstrosity but it still exists and it still steals property.
Losing the income tax battle was emotionally tough for me. Being a libertarian in this
society is generally rough enough but this tax defeat bordered on the absurd. For here I had
witnessed first-hand the CREATION of government’s most awesome power . . . the power
to tax. I had seen the entire process from start to finish with my own eyes and was terribly
disappointed at our inability—despite the evidence and general public support—to short
circuit the process and kill the creature born from that process. It brought home a painful
message that I really did not want to hear again: We libertarians have a long, long, LONG
way to go in terms of real world political change.
I have certainly seen some modest “progress” in the antitrust area (perhaps my writings
have helped at the margin) but the tax and spending policies of government at every level
(and U.S. foreign policy) are devastatingly irrational and immoral. On my black days it is
difficult to see, given the public choice calculus, how those of us who support liberty can
make any reasonable progress in these areas in the near future. A personal footnote on the
income tax affair. In the early 1990s I had been thinking of an early retirement from teaching
and a move to a warmer climate. When Connecticut adopted its 4.5 percent state income
tax, I decided that they would NOT tax me. I would pack up and leave for a friendlier state
without a state income tax and with a Constitutional Amendment that prohibits one. Hello
Florida! So far so good.
Another factor that led to my move from Connecticut was the increasingly difficult
teaching atmosphere at the University of Hartford and in higher education generally in the
late 1980s and early 1990s. For decades I had been teaching the capstone course in the
MBA program, “Business and Society,” with great student evaluations. The course explored
some business case histories, some regulatory analysis and legal cases, and more and more
over time explored the ETHICS of certain business practices and the government’s attempt
to regulate them. I lectured for roughly half of the course and the graduate students presented
cases (which I evaluated) in the second half. My interest in ethical analysis led me
to publish “The Ethics of Anticompetitive Practices” in the Mid-Atlantic Journal of Business
(March 1991).
“Business and Society” was probably the most popular course in the MBA program.
The students worked hard but they loved the challenges. In the early 1990s, however, a
faculty backlash developed concerning my theoretical and ethical approach to teaching
this course. Some non-economist faculty members in the Barney School of Business began
to object to my free market analysis, to my so-called deregulation “crusade,” and to the
contrasting natural rights vs. utilitarian perspective that I and my students employed to
“analyze” business practices (insider trading, for example) and government regulation.
Having increasing “trouble” with “my” students in their classes, they attempted to strip the