I Chose Liberty - Ludwig von Mises Institute

Anne Wortham 385
I stood on the ideological spectrum. As it was necessary to know myself vis-à-vis those who
share my racial and gender categories, so it was to know my worldview vis-à-vis those who
share my ideology of classical liberalism. Of the two major two variants of classical liberalism,
I am informed by individualist or natural rights liberalism which defends liberty as
the requirement of human nature, in contrast to utilitarian liberalism which does so on the
basis of liberty’s utility for the common good. Among the natural rights liberals I am a
proponent of limited government rather than anarcho-capitalism. Although I find much
that is valuable in the analyses of classical-liberal economists associated with the Austrian
School, public choice theory, and the Chicago School, I consider their value-free interpretations
and conclusions regarding political economy in juxtaposition to my natural rights/
normative perspective.
I never thought of myself as an Objectivist. My association with objectivists was limited
to attending a few NBI lectures held in New York City. I didn’t like Rand’s rudeness toward
people in the audience when they asked questions. She seemed cold, dogmatic, authoritarian,
and lacking the benevolent sense of life that she wrote so eloquently about. As a member
of the audience I felt I was in a congregation of Atlas Shrugged-quoting true believers who
were more interested in quoting chapter and verse of Rand’s novels than thinking for
themselves. I stopped attending the lectures and went my own way, as it were.
The last time I saw Rand was in 1978 at her Ford Hall Forum lecture at Northeastern
University in Boston. During the question and answer period following the lecture, Rand
was asked to comment on why there were so few blacks in the audience. She was rightfully
outraged by the question, but thought her answer was inadequate. In an article entitled
“Individualism: For Whites Only?,” I wrote: “It has indeed, as Rand says, been harder for
blacks (as a group) to preserve their dignity in a system that has denied or restricted their
freedom than it has been for groups who, at the very least, have been guaranteed suffrage.
But doesn’t the philosophy of individualism rest on man’s capacity to resist or transcend
the social influences of a given historical era or of a given culture? The same logic that
supports the possibility of an Ayn Rand rising out of post-Czarist Russia also accounts for
the possibility of a Frederick Douglass rising out of the institution of slavery or an Anne
Wortham rising out of segregationist Tennessee.”
Freedom is not free, and neither is its defense, as I learned most brutally when I began
my search for a university position in 1982. With the exception of Peter Berger, my professors
exerted little effort on my behalf in the belief that as a “two-fer,” possessing the categories
of black and female, I would have no difficulty finding a position. Little did they know.
The doctoral degree certified my eligibility, but I was tainted by negative reviews of The
Other Side of Racism in which I defended the property rights of Georgia segregationist
Lester Maddox who in 1964 said that he would close his restaurant rather than serve blacks,
and 15 years of essays invoking the perspective of natural rights liberalism. The path leading
to an academic career was a trail of ideological prejudice, stigmatization, ridicule and
ostracism.
Evolving toward autonomy—thinking in principles and living by one’s own independent
rational reflection and critical judgment—is not done in isolation from others. Neither is
striving for success in one’s calling. Without my father, Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden