The Libertarian Review July 1978 - Libertarianism.org

LiberlarianARTICLESReviewJuly 1978Vol. 7, No.6EditorRoy A. Childs, Jr.Senior EditorJeff RiggenbachDEPARTMENTS16 VICTORY IN CALIFORNIAby Roy A. Childs, Jr."We, the taxpayers, have2 LETTERSspoken-to ignore us is politicalsuicide," thundered 4 EDITORIALSHoward Jarvis, the elderThe African labyrinthstatesman of the tax revolt, Karl Bray, 1943-1978after the Proposition 13 taxlimitation plan (the Jarvis-7 THE PUBLIC TROUGHGann initiative) won re-The subterranean economysoundingly in California. LRby Bruce BartlettEditor Roy Childs reports onthe nationwide reverberationsof that blast against 8 CROSSCURRENTSmammoth government.by Walter Grinder19 THE COLLAPSE OF THEExecutive EditorPUBLIC SCHOOLS10 THE PLUMB LINEMarshall E. SchwartzGetting tough in Zaireby Jeff Riggenbachby Murray N. RothbardThe American public schoolAssociate Editorssystem is notorious forWalter E. Grinder spending more and more 12 LIBERTY'S HERITAGELeonard P. Liggio money to produce more and The conquest of the UnitedJoan Kennedy Taylor more functional illiterates. States by SpainSenior Editor Jeff Riggenbach by William Graham SumnerContributing Editorsexamines the evidence-bothMurray N. Rothbard documentary and personal- IS THE MOVEMENTTom G. Palmer for the failure of the schools, Greenberg for governorBruce Bartlettand shows how it relates toAmerican education's long33 BOOKS AND THE ARTSEditorial Assistantlove affair with coercion."The schools cannot beJustin Raimondoeducational institutions," heSensous DrugsAdministrative Assistantwrites, "because they areby Helen and Hardin JonesPat Popejails."Agency of Fearby Edward J. Esptein27 RAIDING THE Reviewed by Richard AshleyLibertarian Review is published NEWSROOMmonthly by Libertarian Review, Inc.The Way the World Worksby Marshall E. SchwartzEditorial and business offices, 1620 by Jude WanniskiMontgomery Street, San Francisco, On May 31, the SupremeReviewed by ChristopherCA 94111. ©1978 by Libertarian Court ruled, in the case ofReview, Inc. All rights reserved. WeberZurcher v. The StanfordOpinions expressed in bylined articlesdo not necessarily reflect the views of Daily, that investigators need The Subsidized Musethe editor or publisher. only search warrants to ob- by Dick Netzertain documentary evidence ofSubscriptions: Single copy, $1.25; 12issues (one year), $15; two years, $25;a crime from innocent thirdthree years, $35. Address Change: parties. Executive EditorWrite new address, city, state and zipMarshall Schwartz analyzescode on sheet of plain paper, attachmailing label from recent issue of LR,why this decision damagesand send to Circulation Department,privacy rights even moreLibertarian Review, 1620 Mont- than it does freedom of thegomery Street, San Francisco, CA94111. Second class postage paid atpress, while furthering theSan Francisco and additional offices. growth of the police state. 45 CLASSIFIEDReviewed by John HospersThe Political Economy of theNew Leftby Assar LindbeckReviewed by RobertFormaini

I EditorialsThe African labyrinthIn January, 1976, the Democratic-controlled Congressvoted its opposition to the proposals of PresidentFord and Secretary Kissinger that the UnitedStates intervene further in the Angolan civil war.(Ford had already been making extensive secret useof the CIA in that country). Even more significant,however, was the vote cast against the administration's interventionismby a majority of House republicans. (Theday before the vote, the Libertarian Luncheon Club onCapitol Holl sponsored a talk, mainly to Republicanlegislative aides, on the proposed U. S. intervention inAngola, and acquainted them with some of the history ofU.S. relations with the tribal-political movements there, aswell as the zig-zags of U.S. policies, and the policyreasons against American intervention.)Today, however, President Carter's demand that theCongress repeal its limitations on executive interventionismis being supported by the Republican congressionalleadership. The Republicans are claiming that theoriginal limitation was merely a partisan gesture to embarassa Republican president. They see intervention inAfrica as a crucial issue on which to divide the Democraticparty, and especially to divide the president and Congress.But the issues involved here are much more importantthan mere election year politics. Reversal of the congressionalban on presidential intervention in African tribalpolitics would open the way for more long-term Americanquagmires, for more disasters like the one we experiencedrecently in Southeast Asia.When the United States first began to meddle in centralAfrica in 1960, the objective was to maintain the strengthof the central government of the Congo-a governmentwhich had been created by Western colonialism. Many ofthe major Congolese tribes were unwilling to be ruled fromthe colonial capital, however, notably those in the copperprovince of Katanga and the diamond province of KasaLLike nearby Zambia, these two provinces depend fortransportation on routes which go through Angola. Moreover,the populations of these provinces belong to thesame tribes that inhabit neighboring Angola and Zambia:The dominant Lunda tribe of Katanga also has large elementsin eastern Angola as well as in northwest Zambia.The former Katanga gendarmes who invaded Shabaprovince (the new name for Katanga) this spring, as well aslast spring, are members of the Lunda tribe, and are led bythe National Front for the Liberation of the Congo,founded by Nathanael Mbumba in June 1968. Mbumba, aLunda leader educated by American Methodists, organizedthe Katanga gendarmes (as they still call themselves) aftertheir last exile in 1967. They first went into exile in Angolain 1963 when Moise Tshombe, premier of Katanga, wasforced by the U.N. and the United States to accept centralCongo control of his province. They returned in 1964when Tshombe became premier of the Congo, but were exiledagain in November 1965 when Tshombe (who laterdied in an Algerian prison) was overthrown by JosephMobutu, a protege of CIA Deputy Director FrankCarlucci.Larry Devlin, the CIA station chief in Leopoldville from1960 to 1973, also aided Mobutu in this and other politicalcoups. Five years ago Devlin became Congo representativefor Maurice Tempelsman, the U.S. diamond dealer whohelped Mobutu establish financial control over the rebelliousKasai province and now heads the marketing of Kasaidiamonds. Tempelsman also has copper concessions in Katanga.According to western diplomatic sources, the CIA isstill in charge of Mobutu's personal bodyguard and provideshim with information on his opponents.Mobutu is not the only one receiving foreign assistance.He has claimed that Belgian officials have'encouragedMbumba's Katanga gendarmes and have given recognitionto their representatives. There is some indication thatFrench financial interests are seeking dominance in Zairethrough the Rothschild-controlled Pennaroyo company.The Anglo-Belgian interests which formerly dominated theCongo have now been mainly nationalized. (The 1973"Zaireanization" of foreign owned plantations and commercialcompanies was widely hailed as the beginning ofthe creation of a native capitalist middle class. The propertieswere turned over to friends of Mobutu, and the shortagesand inflation which have followed have createdwidespread public opposition complete with clashes andexecutions.) The Zaire government owes about $4 billionto foreign, mainly American, banks, and has defaulted oninterest payments. American banks are desperate to keepKatanga-whose rich copper mines account for 65 percentof the country's foreign exchange-under Zaire's control.But the situation is still more complicated. Since 1960,the CIA and Mobutu have been aiding Holden Roberto,the head of the Angola Bakongo tribe (which makes itshome in western Zaire, in Congo-Brazzaville, and innorthern Angola) and also of FNLA, the National Front of-the Liberation of Angola. At the same time, Roberto hasalso received aid from Communist China, which once ledsome American journalists to claim he was a communistout to destroy western civilization (more recently, ofcourse, receiving aid from Communist China has beentaken to mean one is a defender of the Free World and aprotector of Western civilization).The Katanga gendarmes view Mobutu and Roberto astheir main enemies-especially since Mobutu's army,trained by the North Koreans, massacred the Katanganswho returned to the Congo under Mobutu's amnesty offer.And in opposing Mobutu, the Katanga gendarmes are alliedwith their traditional associates: the fierce Tshokwe4Libertarian Review

tribe of Katanga, Angola and Zambia, and the Luba andLulua of Kasai and Angola. Such are the tribal complexitiesin the African situation.In 1974, the Portugese governor, Admiral Rosa Coutinho,allied the Katanga gendarmes-trained by thePortugese-with the Popular Movement for the Liberationof Angola, or MPLA (Bangala tribe), which was fightingHolden Roberto's FLNA for control of Angola. Financedby Gulf Oil revenues, the MPLA defeated the FLNA whenthe Katanga gendarmes-who had transferred from Portugeseto Cuban advisors-spearheaded the assault onRoberto's Bakarrgo forces who had seized the Angolacapital of Luanda. The Katangans gave their MPLA alliescontrol of the capitol and then drove the Roberto forces intothe Congo. In return, the Katangans were given virtualcontrol of the Lunda province of Enrique de Carvalho, butthe MPLA was ultimately unable to subsume theKatangans into the Marxist Congo Rally of PopularRevolution. The Katangans refuse to join with Marxist opponentsof the late Tshombe.With a skein as tangled as this one, it is not surprisingthat the foreign interveners are having their own peculiarproblems.China and U.S. policymakers now find themselves in adilemma, because Mobutu's main source of income­Katangan copper-must be moved to the Atlantic over therailway to the Angola port of Benguela. And that givesrevenues to their opponents, the MPLA government inAngola. Also, the most effective means the southernAngolan opponents of the MPLA have devised to showtheir strength is to attack the copper trains from Katangato Benguela.After the withdrawal of the Katanga gendarmes in theface of the U.S.-French supported Moroccan interventionin the spring of 1977, Mobutu sentenced the Congo foreignminister to death for treason. Mobutu's present accusationsagainst Belgian and Congo businessmen suggest thatfurther treason charges may be in the making. Even the introductionof French-trained and American-suppliedAfrican troops to defend the copper mines of Katangaagainst the Katangans has not been sufficient to satisfy theUnited States.The Katanga gendarmes perform a key role in thatregion as a protective force for the Gulf Oil Company's importantconcession in Cabinda, an Angolan enclave northof the Congo river. Mobutu and Roberto have attemptedto seize Cabinda and its oil resources, and Gulf is dependenton the Katanga gendarmes-one of the few effectivefighting groups in the region-to defend its continueduninterrupted operation and ownership. The fact that theKatangans had Cuban advisors or that Gulf's friends-theMPLA-had Cuban advisors does not seem to matter anymore than the fact that the Mobutu and Roberto forces hadNorth Korean advisors and Chinese aid. (The Chineseforeign minister flew to Katanga this June to show China'ssolidarity with Mobutu against the Katanga gendarmes.)-One important aspect of the question of Cuban involvementin Africa has been neglected by American commentators.The lengthy stay in Africa by tens of thousands ofCuban troops has been negatively affecting public opinionin Cuba. The mounting Cuban deaths in Africa have begunto undermine popular support for the Castro regime.And there are signs the popular opposition to Castro'sAfrican intervention might soon join the opposition to thegrowing pressure on the heretofore sacrosanct private farmsector in Cuba. Since 1959, a major base of Castro's popularsupport has been the 200,000 private farm familiesbelonging to the National Association of Small Farmers.These private small landowners provide the coffee, tobacco,vegetable and citrus crops which have made it possiblefor Cuba to withstand the U.S. food blockade. Partly becauseof the wide influence of Jehovah's Witnesses in partsof Cuba, private farmers have resisted coffee growing requirements.But state authorities have recently forced coffeeproduction and in the process have violated the agreementswhereby Castro promised to respect the producingand marketing freedom of the farmers' association. Andthat one breach may be sufficient, in combination with hisadventure in Africa, to end Castro's Communist control ofCuba.Yet it is Cuban involvement which the Carter administrationis seizing upon to justify further U. S. involvementin Angola. Happily, the president's attempts to panic theSenate and House into new executive powers on the basisof claimed Cuban involvement in the Katanga invasionhave raised strong opposition from members of Congressexpert in foreign affairs. After four decades of presidentialmanipulation of foreign affairs to make presidents who areunable to control the domestic economy look good­"strong" or "tough"-in foreign affairs, some congressmenhave awakened to reality. The British and Belgian foreignoffices have both expressed deep concern and doubts aboutWhite House claims of Cuban involvement in the Katangainvasion. And they are the two countries with the longestcontacts and intelligence in the region. They have questionedthe reliability of an old ally who seems to be overreactingwith such vehemence. Prime Minister JamesCallahan has received some conservative support for hiscriticism of Carter's shooting from the hip and threateningconfrontation in Africa. But the American press has playeda mainly negative role by its demands for "presidentialleadership" in the face of the drift in the economy and theresistance of Congress to new major spending programs.Another phony foreign policy crisis would only be thebasis for slipping more grand spending designs over on theAmerican taxpayer. A New York Times editorial (April 9)declared "The atmosphere now is turning sour. Peoplewho snickered whenever Gerry Ford bumped his headwonder whether Jimmy Carter has lost his. He is beratedfor letting the country drift toward an economic fiasco." Inthe face of the public demand to "leave me alone," Congresshas not increased taxes or provided the "moralequivalent of war" to save energy. Only foreign policy remainsan open area for so-called "national unity" and"presidential leadership." Once again, the long-rangedangers to America are less in the quagmires of centralAfrica than in the political swamps of the White House andFoggy Bottom. -LPL •July 19785

Karl]. Bray, 1943-1978"Getting Rid of a Rebel" is the title of an articleonce written about Karl J. Bray. But despiterepeated attempts, the Feds were never ableto "get rid" of this man. Cancer had to dothe job for them. Karl died in a Miamihospital on May 7, 1978 after a year-long illness.Karl Bray had gone to Boston early in 1977 for AynRand's annual appearance at Ford Hall when he becameacutely ill. Earlier tests performed in Utah had shownnegative results, but Karl was informed on April 16, 1977that new tests confirmed a diagnosis of lymphoma.Karl Bray is best remembered as a leading tax protesterof the 1970s, but he was an outspoken activist on a numberof other issues as well. In fact history may place Karl's majorinfluence in an area other than tax protest, once hispapers have been studied and his thoughts more thoroughlypublicized. My own personal favorite among Karl's actsof defiance took place the day after President Nixon'sorder establishing wage and price controls. Karl respondedwith a full page ad in the Salt Lake Tribune, raising theprice of products sold at his company, the Rocky MountainMint and Depository Co., by ten percent, and invitingthe Economic Stabilization Board to take action to curbsuch voluntary exchange between individuals.Many wonder which of Karl's acts precipitated the gethim-at-any-costmentality which became so evident in thegovernment's acts against him. In all likelihood it was thedramatic acceptance of his book, Taxation and Tyranny,which advocated civil disobedience to federal income taxlaws. Five thousand copies had been sold when the IRSswooped down on his bank account, seizing those recordswhich listed the names of those persons purchasing thebook by check. Many of these persons were thensystematically contacted and scheduled for audit.After two trials Karl was finally convicted of "willfulfailure to file," a misdemeanor. Actually he had filed a1972 return, but he had written across the face of his 1040form, "Fifth Amendment. Go to Hell. Go Directly to Hell..Do Not Pass Go. Do not collect $200." The first trial wasin the court of Judge Willis W. Ritter, who made nationalheadlines shortly before his death in early 1978 as theobject of a determined impeachment campaign. Yet Karlreceived little official support five years ago when hepublicly denounced Ritter and collected more than 2000signatures calling for the judge's impeachment. And evenin the face of this seemingly overwhelming prejudicial activityon Karl's part, Ritter refused to disqualify himselffrom hearing the case. When you gotta get rid of a rebel,such niceties apparently don't matter.The guilty verdict in that first trial was overturned. Thesecond trial ended on March 22, 1977, and though an appealis still pending, this was the last confrontation Karlwas to have with the Feds.Karl was convicted in that second trial of violating 18USC 701, by unlawfully possessing an IRS insignia, amisdemeanor. Curiously, this law was originally enactedto prevent persons from wearing military uniforms and impersonatingmilitary officers. And under army regulations,mere possession is not a violation. Direct testimony fromthe arresting FBI agent revealed that he had acted simplybecause he had been told by an assistant U. S. attorney"to arrest Bray." When you gotta get rid of a rebel, constitutionalprotections are overlooked.In October 1975, Karl was confined in the Salt Lake Cityand County Jail for his insignia conviction. He was toserve six months and ten days in satisfaction of this sixmonths sentence. Karl was outspoken even in jail, demandingbetter treatment for all prisoners. The resultcould have been anticipated; he spent some time in solitaryconfinement.Karl was a founder of the Libertarian Party of Utah, apopular seminar leader and speaker an numerous partyfunctions and an LP candidate for Congress in 1974. Hewas so widely known, respected and loved throughout themovement that we all have our private moments with hismemory. However, there is more to Karl than a memory.His books, notes, letters and papers, his ubiquitous 3 X 5cards, his legal briefs and mementos are being preserved atthe Freedom Library, which Karl was establishing at thetime of his fatal illness. The Church of Moral Ethics iscoordinating the receipt of funds which will be used to offsethis enormous medical expenses and to continue thework at Freedom Library. Contributions made to theChurch may be designated as medical or library funds andmailed to Box 674, Hermosa Beach CA 90254.Karl was born June 12, 1943 in Provo, Utah. He was achemistry major at Brigham Young University and WeberState College. He hosted a talk show on radio stationKSXX in Salt Lake. As a youth he became an Eagle Scoutand a highly proficient boxer. He is survived by his father,Kenneth, of Provo; his mother, Lela Guiterrez, of Lancaster,California; his brother, Jerry of Provo; and a sister,Vickie Bray Rossman, of Marblehead, Mass.- Henry J. HohensteinComing next month:A special issue on a strategyfor achieving libertyContributors include: Roy Childs,Murray Rothbard, Charles Koch,Milton Mueller, David Theroux,Williamson Evers, and many others.6Libertarian Review

I The PublieTroughThe subterranean economyby Bruce BartlettWashington policy-makers have becomequite interested in recent monthsin a phenomenon known as the "subterraneaneconomy," and in its implicationsfor a variety of government taxand regulatory policies.This underground activity consists ofthat part of the economy which functionsoutside the reach of governmenttaxation and regulation. This includesnot only criminal activity, but also amassive number of economic transactionsconducted through barter or cash,in order to avoid the payment of taxesor control by government regulators. Itis, in fact, a black market,. just as onefinds,under any form of price control.It is now becoming common practiceamong many workers to demand thattheir wages, or a portion of their wages,be paid in cash- free of federal, state,and social security taxes. Since thesetaxes may take 50 percent or more ofeven a modestly paid worker's marginalincome, both employers and employeesbenefit from the arrangement. A workermay accept wages considerably lowerthan he would otherwise get because heknows that he will get all of the income,not just half. And the employer savesnot only on the lower wages paid, butalso on payroll taxes for social securityand unemployment compensation,which he would otherwise have to payon top of the employee's gross wages. Inshort, everyone benefits except the taxcollector.Such activities have of course gone onas long as we have had taxes. But recentlyestimates have been made on thesize of this subterranean economy whichhave forced legislators to seriously considerthe factors which are leading to itsgrowth.In the November/December issue ofthe Financial Analysts Journal, PeterGutmann of Baruch College in NewYork City attempted to estimate the sizeWe are likely to findthat the subterraneaneconotny is swellingrapidly unless taxesare quickly slashedacross the board.Gutmann makes it clear that this vastsubterranean economy is a creature ofbig government:"The subterranean economy, likeblack markets throughout the world,was created by government rules andrestrictions. It is a creature of the incometax, of limitations on the legalemployment of certain groups and ofprohibitions on certain activities. Itexists because it provides goods and servicesthat are either unavailable elsewhereor obtainable only at higherprices. It also provides employment forthose unemployable in the legal economy;employment for those-like theretired who draw social security, or illegalaliens without resident statuswhosefreedom to work is restricted; andincentive to do additional work for thosewho would not do it if they were taxed."This situation is now leading manypeople to consider the possibility that areduction in tax rates may be needed todraw people out of the subterraneaneconomy. Typical is the attitude ofPeter Passell, an editorial writer for theNew York Times:"Serious tax reform might restore thegood name of the income tax; it wouldat least undercut the rationalizationthat cheating only compensates for theof this subterranean economy, basedupon the increased use of cash in theeconomy since World War II. His researchesled him to believe that there unfairness of the system.may be as much as $200 billion worth ofgross national product being generated,unaccounted for by government statistics.If the usual ratio between jobs andGNP hold, this could mean that thereare as many as nine million more peopleemployed in this country than arecounted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.Needless to say, if this estimate isaccurate it would shave several percentagepoints off the official unemploymentrate.Probably amore effective (and politically morerealistic) means of deterring taxcheating would be to pare personal incometaxes across the board. With Federaltax rates, say, one-third lower, theincentive to break the law would bemuch diminished. Revenues lost therebywould, at least in part, be made upat the expense of the subterraneaneconomy."Passell might have added that lowertax rates would also draw investors outof complicated tax shelters, like cattlefeed lots, and into investments whichwould yield greater output and taxrevenue.Of course liberals recoil from the obviousand continue to attack "loopholes."But slowly they are learning thateliminating deductions and raisingtaxes do not necessarily raise tax revenues.For example, in the Tax ReformAct of 1969 the maximum tax on capitalgains (a well-known tax loophole)was doubled from 25 percent to 50 percent.Since then, tax revenues from capitalgains havefallen roughly by half. Asa result, many liberals now agree thatthe capital gains tax must be reducednotenough, perhaps, from a libertarianperspective, but it would still be anothersmall step in the right direction.But unless taxes are quickly slashedacross the board, we are likely to findthe subterranean economy swellingrapidly as people scramble to loosethemselves from the grasp of government.For more and more Americans,there is no realistic alternative. Governmentpower has gotten totally out ofcontrol. The growth of the subterraneaneconomy, like the blossoming taxrevolt, is yet another sign that peopleare willing to fight back.July 19787

I Crosseurrentsby Walter E. Grinder• Protectionism, jobs, and reliefFor the past decade, the u.s. economyhas been losing its competitive advantagein the world market in a numberof goods, such as color TVs, certainsteels, automobiles, and others. Therehave been a variety of reasons for thesesetbacks: some, simply superior productionmethods used in other countries,but others the result of the raging U.s.inflation. Although a dazzling plethoraof strong-armed, protectionist measureshave been tried to stem the rising tide ofcompetition- tariffs, quotas, triggerprices, etc. -imports to America fromJapan and Western Europe continue toincrease. When an industry is especiallyhard hit, some companies have had toclose their doors entirely, and pockets ofsubstantial unemployment continue tosprout up around the country- Youngstown,Ohio being the most recent highlyvisible example.The passage of the Full EmploymentAct of 1946 charged the U.s. governmentwith the "responsibility" of winningthe war against unemployment.Since then, this responsibility has beenbroadened to include the eradication ofpoverty as well-witness President Johnson'sWar on Poverty and the more recentComprehensive Employment andTraining Act. This peculiar linkage oftwo quite distinct and separate problemshas, incidentally, led to untoldamounts of confusion in the government'sefforts to deal with both of theseproblems. Moreover, the state's selfproclaimedresponsibility has, by itspresence, caused the decline of local,corporate, and individual efforts tocope with unemployment. And aboveall, state intervention has seriouslyhampered the market mechanism, turningshort-run problems of adjustmentinto long-run disasters.Everywhere the call is heard for increasedgovernmental aid for areas thatare economically "distressed" because offaltering industries. We are told to givespecial consideration to those thrownout of work by evil competitors who are"dumping" cheaper goods on the doorstepof the embattled America consumer.Of course, little consideration isgiven to the fact that by taking such action,we lengthen the time that the unemployedAmerican laborer can (readwill) withhold his services from productivetasks by so increasing the costs ofsearching for alternative employmentthat it makes no sense for him to do so.Consequently, the American economyA voluntary solutionto unem.ploym.ent indistressed areas?Whoever heard ofsuch a possibility?becomes even less competitive and lessproductive.Nowhere is the call heard for a voluntarysolution to the problem of unemploymentin "distressed" areas. Whoeverheard of such a possibility? Suchthoughts are beyond the pale in ourenlightened age. And besides, voluntarismcouldn't work anyway. Right?Not only could it work, but it didwork in probably one of the mostdistressed areas in world history. Duringthe years of the American CivilWar, cotton ceased to enter England.The textile industry, an industry thatmade up one half of England's exports,came to a sudden and grinding halt.Tens of thousands of workers in theLancashire cotton industry were thrownout of their jobs. A pitiful plight, forsure. Certainly this should have been agrand reason to mobilize an army ofbureaucrats, yes? In point of fact, no.According to an excellent study recentlypublished in England, The HungryMills (Temple Smith; London), historianNorman Longmate shows thatthis would-be tragedy was indeedthwarted and solved by the voluntarymeans of individual and corporatesubscription, and by letting the freemarket do its work.Rather than tumbling deep into recession,the British economy continuedto flourish and expand. The adjustmentprocess was not always perfectly smooth(it is so only in textbooks), but it didtake place in an orderly, speedy, andhumane fashion- and the shift of unemployedworkers into alternativeemployment in new industries tookplace without the helpful hand of thebenevolent bureaucrat.Liberty and the free market provedundeniably effective under the mostdire circumstances, and could quicklyand efficiently alleviate the relativelyminor (in comparison to those of Englandof 1861-1865) problems of today'sunemployment if only allowed to do so.• Free Life EditionsFree Life Editions (41 Union SquareWest, New York City 10003) is by moststandards a small publishing house, butits service to the recent resurgence oflibertarianism is no small matter. Overthe past few years, publisher ChuckHamilton has given us new editions ofkey libertarian classics such as FranzOppenheimer's The State, a great,libertarian-oriented, sociological explanationfor the origins of the state;Albert Jay Nock's Our Enemy the State,a libertarian interpretation of Americanhistory through the New Deal, producedthrough the practical applicationof Oppenheimer's thesis; Etienne de laBoetie's The Politics of Obedience, astudy which explains how tyranny isbased on the consent of the ruled; andJohn T. Flynn's As We Go Marching,the single best introduction into thenature of the American warfare/welfarestate.Just recently, Free Life has reissuedRonald Radosh's Prophets on the Right,a marvelous study of the so-called OldRight critics of American imperialism.This book and all those listed above areavailable in high quality paperback editions.Every libertarian should have andshould read each of these books verycarefully.8Libertarian Review

Free Life also has published works onanarchist aspects of major 20th centuryevents: Voline's classic study of the RussianRevolution, The Unknown Revolution;and two works on the Spanish Civilwar, Sam Dolgoffs The A narchist Collectivesand Murray Bookchin's TheSpanish Anarchists. These three worksare good studies in "history from below,"and are now being widely used incollege classrooms.Finally, a major coup for Free Lifehas been the recent publication of threevolumes of Paul Goodman's collectedworks: Drawing the Line: Political Essays;Nature Heals: PsychologicalEssays;and Creator Spirit Come: Literary Essays.All are edited and introduced byGoodman's literary executor, TaylorStoehr.Goodman was a complex and oftenconfused thinker. But he was basically awise thinker- able to cut through manyof the mid-20th century myths- whoprovoked his readers to think aboutissues in a way they never had donebefore. The Goodman provocation wasgenerally quite libertarian. Two of myfavorite books are Goodman's People orPersonnel and Community of Scholars,both of which were extremely importantin shaping the libertarian aspects of thegood years of the New Left, in the mid­1960s.Unfortunately, Goodman-like hisspiritual colleague, Ivan Illich-neverdid care much about or understandeconomics very well. Consequently, hislibertarianism is not as thoroughgoingas it might be. Nevertheless, readingGoodman usually stimulates the best inthe reader, as the contents of these threevolumes clearly do. It could only helpthe development of our own movementif Paul Goodman could have as much ofan influence on its growth as he did onthat of the New Left of the 1960s.• The Cold WarNo matter how hard key diplomatsand strategic thinkers work for a relaxationof tensions between East and West,hawks on both sides simply will not letthe Cold War die. Strong vested interestshave developed during the past 30years, whose justification for continuedexistence would cease if the Cold Warstopped. The Cold War has been agrowth industry for three decades, andGeorge Kennanit has lately entered one of its periodicgo-go spurts.One of the chief beneficiaries of andleading cheerleaders for the Cold Warin recent decades is Paul Nitze, nowdirector of policy studies of that superhawkcoalition of conservatives andright-wing social democrats,. the Committeeon the Present Danger. Nitze setsforth his characteristically •aggressiveviews on how to deal with the "Russianthreat" in what serves as a useful summaryof current right-wing. hystericalpropaganda in "A Plea for Action," inthe New York Times Magazine of May7.A calm and reasoned answer to Nitzeand his committee's perfervid pronouncementsis found in that same issue,in Marilyn Berger's "An Appeal forThought" - an interview article whichpresents the reflections of George Ken-,nan on the Cold War and the currentmilitary situation.Kennan was a key architect of America'searly Cold War "containment" policyvis a vis the Soviet Union. UnlikeNitze, Kennan has learned a great dealsince his famous "Mr. X" article firstappeared in Foreign1947.Affairs in JulyKennan is reaching for and has justabout achieved a noninterventionist position.He calls it a semi-isolationistpolicy; it is detailed in his new book,The Cloud of Danger, recently discussedin LR by Bruce Bartlett (March1978).Set side by side- as these two articlesare in the Times - it is clear not onlythat Kennan is the more thoughtful ofthese two key policy makers, but alsothat Kennan's reasoned approach is thefar more libertarian position for theUnited States to follow in dealing withher neighbors and with the Soviet Empire.Kennan's concept of accommodationhas been smeared by Nitze and hisfriends as some sort of appeasement. Onthe contrary, accommodation simplymeans a reduction of conflicts whichotherwise could lead to outright hostilities.Accommodation means peace andtrade, which-as liberals have beenpointing out for several hundredyears- contain the seeds for furthertrade and a more lasting peace. Accommodationmeans dismantling thegarrison-security state and its consequentmassive invasions into Americancitizens' civil liberties. It means whackingaway at the overly centralized executivestate. Accommodation means ademilitarization of the American domesticeconomy- thwarting the majorthrust that is propelling the Americaneconomy into a position exhibiting allthe characteristics of quasi-socialismor,more correctly, crypto-fascism.In short, accommodation means nowwhat nonintervention has meant to trueliberals and libertarians for hundreds ofyears: peace, prosperity, and securityrealsecurity, that which is based on anextension of international trade and theconsequent economic, cultural, andsocial interdependencies that developfrom such trade patterns. This is thegreat tradition that flows from Paineand Jefferson to Cobden and Bright, toBastiat and de Molinari, to Edward Atkinsonand William Graham Sumner,to Albert Jay Nock and John T. Flynn,to Murray Rothbard and Earl Ravenal.Peace and free trade are the libertariantenets in international relations. Peaceand free trade are what the libertariantradition is all about. Peace and free(continued on page 47)July 19789

I The PluUlb LineGetting tough in Zaireby Murray N. RothbardThe Establishment media put it thisway: After shilly-shallying in a weak andindecisive manner, the Carter administrationanything-directly or indirectly-to dowith the invasion. Now, the Cubans areno more above a little deception thanhas at last decided to "get any other government; but the un­tough" in Africa against the Cuban settling point is that, until now, the(and behind them the Soviet) menace.President Carter himself has kept up adrumfire of hysteria about the spectre ofCuban troops in the recent invasions ofthe Shaba province of Zaire from basesin Angola. This bogey was used as theCubans have not been at all shy in proclaimingtheir role in responding to invitationsby friendly left-wing governmentsin Africa. In Angola and in Ethi­0pia they have boasted of their militarysuccess; why the sudden attack of bashfulnesspretext for America's decision to goin Zaire?military in its continuing intervention inAfrica. Paratroopers of the 82nd AirborneFurthermore, the sources of Carter'sinformation on the alleged role of theDivision were kept on the alert Cubans are highly tainted. The in­while American planes were used to flyBelgian and French paratroopers intoformation comes, proximately, from theCIA, which has lied through its teeth toKolwezi, in Shaba province, to successfullyeveryone, especially the American pub­put down the rebellion. The lic and Congress, for many years, not"integrity" of Zaire was, temporarily, the least on its role in the civil war insaved once again, and the Cubans beatenAngola. Senator McGovern has challengedback.Except there are several things verywrong with this picture. For one, theCubans deny vehemently and absolutely,privately and publicly, that they hadthe CIA to prove its contentionsabout the Cubans, so far without success.Reports are that the CIA got its informationfrom the French, who in turngot the charge from Dr. Jonas Savimbi,r~}1rlOYl.----- .the colorful "pro-American" guerrillaleader in Angola, who is hardly the mostsober of reporters.From Carter's whining about Congres&tying his hands on interfering withAngola, it is clear that the real purposeof his getting tough in Zaire was as aprelude to resuming U.S. interventionin the civil war in Angola. Carter isdisplaying unmitigated gall in trying torevive our Angolan adventure, for thewhistle has just been blown on the hiddenand nefarious CIA role in the Angolanconflict of 1975-76 in a new bookby John Stockwell, In Search ofEnemies: A CIA Story. Stockwell, itshould be noted, was· no less than thehead of the CIA operation in Angola. Inhis book, Stockwell confirms what a few"paranoid" antiwar Americans chargedat the time: that at each step escalatingthe Angolan conflict, the Soviets intervenedwith aid only after the UnitedStates did, through the CIA; the Sovietrole was never initiatory but only reactive.Furthermore, the Cuban troopshipment came only after South Africasent its troops into Angola on behalf ofthe "pro-Western" side, an interventionthat was hailed by and coordinated withthe CIA. Moreover, Stockwell revealsthat "after the war we learned thatCuba had not been ordered into actionby the Soviet Union. To the contrary,the Cuban leaders felt compelled to intervenefor their own ideological reasons."Not only was Holden Roberto, the"pro-Western" Angolan leader, on theCIA payroll for years, but dozens of CIAofficers were dispatched to manage allthe branches, military and propaganda,of the Roberto side during the civil war.Furthermore, Stockwell reveals thatFord, Kissinger, the Pentagon, and theCIA were pondering about escalatingthe Angolan intervention into a fullscale,Vietnam-type conflict-this, astoundingly,only months after thedebacle in Vietnam itself! The administrationworking group in chargeof the covert operations in Angolacontemplated sending in Americanarmy units, a show of American navalstrength, and even weighed "the feasibilityof making an overt military feintat Cuba itself to force Castro to recallhis troops and defend the home island."Only one thing stopped these nefar-10Libertarian Review

ious plans of the Ford-Kissinger administration:the solidly antiwar sentimentin Congress and in the Americanpopulation. Alert to some of the CIAshenanigans in Angola, the Congressbarred any use of 1976 defense budgetfunds for intervention in Angola. It isthese restrictions that Carter now yearnsto reverse. He must not be allowed toget away with it.There is irony piled upon irony in theZaire-Shaba story. If they are not "outsideCuban agitators," who are the nastydisturbers of the peace in Shaba province?Are they Commies? Does anyoneremember the "heroic Katanga freedomfighters" of the early 1960s? They werebeloved by the American right wing,because they were the only black liberationistsand independence fighters whoseemed to be right wing and procapitalist.In fact, they fought hard,from 1960 to 1963, for the independenceof Katanga from the centralgovernment of the Congo, now renamedZaire. Katanga has almost all the copperand cobalt, the major export commoditiesof Zaire, and the Katanganswere backed in those days by Belgiancopper-mining interests.The American right wing, however,never really understood the Katangans.In fact, neither the right nor the leftcomprehend the real problem in Africa:the central fact that there is not a singleAfrican "nation" that is truly a nation,that has any coherent or unified language'nationality, or culture. Thefrontiers of the African nations were allinherited from the frontiers establishedby Western imperialism in the late 19thcentury, when Britain, France, Belgium,Portugal, and Spain rushed in tograb as many areas of Africa as theycould. The frontiers established by theimperialists were artificial administrativeboundaries, with no relation tothe true nationalities in Africa- thetribes. The boundaries incorporateddozens of totally separate and even warringtribes into one "nation," while cuttingthrough and artificially dividingareas held by specific tribes. There areno genuine African nations; they aregeographical expressions only.Vitally important to modern Africanhistory was the fact that the imperialpowers trained a small minority ofAfrican natives as a cooperating, or"comprador," elite to administer thecountry under the aegis of the imperialmasters. Generally, this native elite wastrained in universities of the home country.Western universities being whatthey are, the elite imbibed Marxist andFabian socialist ideology. Superficially,one might think that this socialism rancounter to the interests of the imperialpower, but this was only true "externally,"that is, in struggling over whowould rule this centralized nation-state.For internally, the socialist ideologycoexisted very cozily with the imperialists'desire to centralize the country,to "modernize" it under statistdirection, and to exploit the nativepopulation for the benefit of the administrativestate authorities.Generally, this meant the coercionand exploitation of the native ruralpeasantry on behalf of the ruling urbanelite in the capital city. The only realdifference between the Western imperialistsand the native socialists wasover who would constitute the state.As a result, when the weakenedWestern empires began to withdrawfrom Africa after World War II, theartificial, central governmental structurewas simply turned over to the existing,educated, native socialist elite.Thus, imperialism's parting legacy toAfrica was to ensure generations of exploitationof the native rural tribes bythe new power elite in charge of theparasitic urban centers.In the former Belgian Congo, theUnited States and the Communistsopted for competing central governments.The United States favors strongcentral governments everywhere, thebetter to influence and dominate thecountry, so as not to have to worryabout revolution or "destabilization" ofthe status quo anywhere on the globe.The United States' man in the Congowas General (now President) Mobutu,for many years on the CIA payroll, andthe brother-in-law of "Angola's" HoldenRoberto. The reason for this seeminganomaly is that the western Congo andadjoining northern Angola are both thehome of the same Bakongo tribe, ofwhich Mobutu and Roberto are leadingmembers. The Communists, also infavor of centralized government, puttheir hopes on Patrice Lumumba,whose strength was centered on thetribes in the northeastern Congo. In themeanwhile, the Lunda tribe in southernKatanga province, 1500 miles awayfrom the capital city, Kinshasa, tried tobreak away from central governmentalrule. After five years of fighting andmaneuvering, with the help of U.N.troops and the murder of Lumumba byCIA-hired thugs, the United States'man Mobutu took over power in theCongo.Several thousand of the Katanganfreedom fighters refused to give up, andinstead fled westward to Angola, wherethey took up arms for the Portuguese totry to crush Roberto, relative of thehated Mobutu. When the Portugueseleft Angola in 1975, the Katangansnaturally joined forces with the nextgreat enemy of Roberto, the pro­Communist MPLA, which finallycrushed Roberto the following year.The Katangans, their province renamedShaba, were now aided by the newregime to get back to their homeland. Ifwe persist in looking at the Katangans inCold War categories, we could say that,once ultra-capitalists, they have unaccountablyshifted in the past 15 years tobecome "pro-Communitss." But thatwould be absurd. These men are simplyKatangans, fighting again for their oldcause. Outside of that, they are no betterand no worse than the other fightinggroups and tribes in the area.Since Roberto has been smashed, theUnited States now looks longingly at theguerrilla forces of UNITA, headed byDr. Jonas Savimbi. Savimbi's "anti­Communist" forces have indeed seizedcontrol of virtually all of southernAngola. The reason is that Savimbi issolidly based on the Ovimbundu tribe,which populates southern Angola,whereas both the MPLA and the oldRoberto group are strong only amongthe northern tribes.If the United States would only keepits mitts off, there would probably becontinuing Savimbi rule in southernAngola, and the swollen monstrositythat is the "nation" of Zaire wouldcrumble into more workable constituentparts that are based in tribal realities.There would be one less reason for theUnited States to get into a war or to stepup its military spending. Would that besuch a dire fate for central Africa or forourselves?•July 197811

I Liberty's HeritageThe conquest ofthe United Stntes by Spainby William Graham SumnerBorn in 1840, William GrahamSumner was probably the most famousexponent of classical liberal ideas in theUnited States in the last quarter of the19th century, when he was professor ofpolitical and social science at Yale. Hispioneering sociological works-particularlyFolkways and The Science ofSociety-gained him a worldwide reputation.Ever the doggedly determinedadvocate of his deeply cherished politicalideas, Sumner risked dismissalfromYale by insisting on the use of HerbertSpencer's Principles of Sociology as atext, over the opposition of the presidentof the university; and he incurredthe bitter hostility of many influentialRepublican alumni by his life-long attackon protective tariffs (which heviewed as a form of "socialism ''). Hismany popular works, however, includingWhat Social Classes Owe EachOther and especially the essay, "TheForgotten Man," gained him widefollowing.Sumner was an uncompromising supporterof laissezjaire against not onlyprotectionism and socialism, but alsoagainst antitrust legislation, regulationof railroad rates, and the variousschemes current in his time for monetaryinflation. Behind much governmentinterference in the economySumner glimpsed the hands of what hecalled "the plutocrats"- businessmenwho used government privilege, ratherthan the market, to gain wealth.Like his great contemporary, fellowsociologistHerbert Spencer, Sumnerwas an outspoken opponent ofimperialismand war. The war which he had toconfront-and which provoked his polemicalanger-was the Spanish-A mericanWar of 1898, the result, as Sumnerindicated, of a plot by a group of highgovernmental imperialists, includingTheodore Roosevelt. (Spencer was similarlyoutraged by the Boer War, whichhis country began fighting the followingyear.) In a famous speech given in1899, Sumner startled his audience bytaking as his theme, "The Conquest ofthe United States by Spain. " The followingcondensation of that speech (fromThe Conquest of the United States bySpain and Other Essays, edited by MurrayPolner, Gateway Books) sets forththe dangers that Sumner believed werein store for the United States once itbegan to aspire to the role of worldpower.- Ralph Raico.During the last year the public hasbeen familiarized with descriptions ofSpain and of Spanish methods of doingthings until the name of Spain has becomea symbol for a certain welldefinedset of notions and policies. Onthe other hand, the name of the UnitedStates has always been, for all of us, asymbol fora state of things, a set ofideas and traditions, a group of viewsabout social and political affairs.Spain was the first, for a long time thegreatest, of the modern imperialisticstates. The United States, by its historicalorigin, its traditions, and itsprinciples, is the chief representative ofthe revolt and reaction against that kindof state. I intend to show that, by theline of action now proposed to uswhichwe call expansion and imperialism-we are throwing away some of themost important elements of the Americansymbol and are adopting some ofthe most important elements of theSpanish symbol. We have beaten Spainin a military conflict, but we are submittingto be conquered by her on thefield of ideas and policies. Expansionismand imperialism are nothingbut the old philosophies of nationalprosperity which have brought Spain towhere she now is. Those philosophiesappeal to national vanity and nationalcupidity. They are delusions, and theywill lead us to ruin unless we are hardheadedenough to resist them. In anycase, the year 1898 is a great landmarkyear in the history of the United States.The original and prime cause of thewar was that it was a move of partisantactics in the strife of parties at Washington.As soon as it seemed resolvedupon, a number of interests began to seetheir advantage in it and hastened tofurther it. It was necessary to make appealsto the public which would bringquite other motives to the support of theenterprise and win the consent of classeswho would never consent to eitherfinancial or political jobbery. Such appealswere found in sensational assertionswhich we had no means to verify,in phrases of alleged patriotism, instatements about Cuba and the Cubanswhich we now know to have been entirelyuntrue.Where was the statesmanship of allthis? It was unstatesmanlike to publish asolemn declaration that we would notseize any territqry, and especially tocharacterize such action in advance as"criminal aggression," for it was morallycertain that we should come out of anywar with Spain with conquered territoryon our hands, and the people whowanted the war, or who consented to it,hoped that we should do so.[The war] was a gross violation ofself-government. We boast that we are aself-governing people, and in this respect,particularly, we compare ourselveswith pride with older nations.What is the difference after all? TheRussians, whom we always think of asstanding at the opposite pole of politicalinstitutions, have self-government-ifyou mean by it acquiescence in what alittle group of people at the governmentagree to do. The war with Spain wasprecipitated upon us headlong, withoutreflection or deliberation, and withoutany due formulation of public opinion.Whenever a voice was raised in behalf ofdeliberation and the recognized maximsof statesmanship, it was howled down ina storm of vituperation and cant.12Libertarian Review

The perpetuity of self-governmentdepends on the sound political sense ofthe people, and sound political sense is amatter of habit and practice. We cangive it up and we can take instead pompand glory. That is what Spain did.She had as much self-government asany country in Europe at the beginningof the sixteenth century. The union ofthe smaller states into one big one gavean impulse to her national feeling andnational development. The discovery ofAmerica put into her hands the controlof immense territories. National prideand ambition were stimulated. Thencame the struggle with France for worlddominion, which resulted in absolutemonarchy and bankruptcy for Spain.She lost self-government and saw herresources spent on interests which wereforeign to her, but she could talk aboutan empire on which the sun never setand boast of her colonies, her goldmines,her fleets and armies and debts.She had glory and pride, mixed ofcourse with defeat and disaster, such asmust be experienced by any nation onthat course of policy; and she grewweaker in her industry and commerceand poorer in the status of the populationall the time. She has never beenable to recover real self-government yet.If we Americans believe in selfgovernment,why do we let it slip awayfrom us? Why do we barter it away formilitary glory as Spain did?I could bring you passages from peninsularauthors of the first rank aboutthe great role of Spain and Portugal inspreading freedom and truth. Now eachnation laughs at all the others when itobserves these manifestations of nationalvanity. You may rely upon it thatthey are all ridiculous by virtue of thesepretensions, including ourselves. Thepoint is that each repudiates the standardsof the others, and the outlying nations,which are to be civilized, hate allthe standards of civilized men. They liketheir own ways, and if we appearamongst them as rulers, there will besocial discord in all the great departmentsof social interest.The most important thing which weshall inherit from the Spaniards will bethe task of suppressing rebellions.Now, the great reason why all theseenterprises which begin by saying tosomebody else, "We know what is goodfor you better than you know yourself,and we are going to make you do it," arefalse and wrong is that they violateliberty. Or, to turn the same statementinto other words, the reason whyliberty-of which we Americans talk somuch-is a good thing is that it meansleaving people to live out their own livesin their own way, while we do the same.If we believe in liberty as an Americanprinciple, why do we not stand by it?Why are we going to throw it away toenter upon a Spanish policy of dominionand regulation?When Spaniards tortured and burnedProtestants and Jews it was because, intheir minds, Protestants and Jews wereheretics- that is to say, were beyond thepale, were abominable, were not entitledto human consideration. Humanemen and pious women felt no morecompunctions at the sufferings of Protestantsand Jews than we would at theexecution of mad dogs or rattlesnakes.There are plenty of people in theUnited States today who regard Negroesas human beings, but of a differentorder from white men, so that the ideasand social arrangements of white mencannot be applied to them with propriety.Others feel the same way about Indians.This attitude of mind, whereveryou meet with it, is what causes tyrannyand cruelty. It is this disposition todecide offhand that some people are notfit for liberty and self-governmentwhich gives relative truth to the doctrinethat all men are equal. Inasmuch as thehistory of mankind has been one longstory of the abuse of some by others,who, of course, smoothed over theirtyranny by some beautiful doctrines ofreligion or ethics or political philosophy,which proved that it was all forthe best good of the oppressed, thereforethe doctrine that all men are equalhas come to stand as one of the cornerstonesof the temple ofjustice and truth.The Americans have been committedfrom the outset to the doctrine that allmen are equal. In spite of its absoluteform it has always stood in glaring contradictionto the facts about Indiansand Negroes and to our legislationabout Chinamen. But at the first touchof the test we throw the doctrine awayand adopt the Spanish doctrine. Wearetold by all the imperialists that thesepeople are not fit for liberty and selfgovernment;that it is rebellion for themto resist our beneficence; that we mustsend fleets and armies to kill them ifthey do it; that we must devise a governmentfor them and administer it ourselves;that we may buy them or sellthem as we please, and dispose of their"trade" for our own advantage. What isthat but the policy of Spain to her dependencies?What can we expect as aconsequence of it? Nothing but that itwill bring us where Spain is now.The doctrine that we are to take awayfrom other nations any possessions oftheirs which we think that we couldmanage better than they are managingthem, or that we are to take in hand anycountries which we do not think capableof self-government, is one which willlead us very far. With that doctrine inthe background, our politicians willhave no trouble finding a war ready forus the next time that they come aroundto the point where they think that it istime for us to have another. We are toldthat we must have a big army hereafter.What for-unless we propose to doagain, by and by, what we have justdone?Here is another point in regard towhich the conservative elements in thecountry are making a great mistake toallow all this militarism and imperialismto go on without protest. Itwill be established as a rule that,whenever political ascendency isthreatened, it can be established againby a little war, filling the minds of thepeople with glory and diverting their attentionfrom their own interests. Hardheadedold Benjamin Franklin hit thepoint when, referring back to the daysof [the victorious wars of the Duke of]Marlborough, he talked about the "pestof glory." The thirst for glory is anepidemic which robs a people of theirjudgment, seduces their vanity, cheatsthem of their interests, and corruptstheir consciences.The question at stake is nothing lessthan the integrity of this state in its mostessential elements. The expansionistshave recognized this fact by alreadycasting the Constitution aside. Themilitary men, of course, have been thefirst to do this. It is of the essence ofmilitarism that under it military menlearn to despise constitutions, to sneer atparliaments, and to look with contemptJuly 197813

on civilians. Some of the imperialists arenot ready to go quite so fast as yet. Theyhave remonstrated against the militarydoctrine, but that only proves that themilitary men see the point at issue betterthan the others do. The question of imperialism'then, is the question whetherwe are going to give the lie to the originof our own national existence by establishinga colonial system of the oldSpanish type, even if we have to sacrificeour existing civil and political system todo it.Everywhere you go on the continentof Europe at this hour you see the conflictbetween militarism and industrialism.You see the expansion of industrialpower pushed forward by the energy,hope, and thrift of men, and you see thedevelopment arrested, diverted, crippled,and defeated by measures whichare dictated by military considerations.It is militarism which is eating up all theproducts of science and art, defeatingthe energy of the population, andwasting its savings. It is militarismwhich forbids the people to give their attentionto the problems of their ownwelfare and to give their strength to theeducation and comfort of their children.It is militarism which is combattingthe grand efforts of science and artto ameliorate the struggle for existence.Now what will hasten the day whenour present advantages will wear outand when we shall come down to theconditions of the older and denselypopulated nations? The answer is: war,debt, taxation, diplomacy, a grand governmentalsystem, pomp, glory, a bigarmy and navy, lavish expenditures,political jobbery-in a word, imperialism.In the old days, the democraticmasses of this country, who knew littleabout our modern doctrines of socialphilosophy, had a sound instinct onthese matters, and it is no small groundof political disquietude to see it decline.They resisted every appeal to their vanityin the way of pomp and glory, whichthey knew must be paid for. Theydreaded a public debt and a standingarmy.The great foe of democracy now andin the near future is plutocracy. Everyyear that passes brings out this antagonismmore distinctly. It is to be thesocial war of the twentieth century. Inthat war, militarism, expansion, andimperialism will all favor plutocracy.In the first place, war and expansionwill favor jobbery, both in the dependenciesand at home. In the secondplace, they will take away the attentionof the people from what the plutocratsare doing. In the third place, they willcause large expenditures of the people'smoney, the return for which will not gointo the treasury, but into the hands of afew schemers. In the fourth place, theywill call for a large public debt andtaxes, and these things especially tend tomake men unequal, because any socialburdens bear more heavily on the weakthan on the strong, and so make theweak weaker and the strong stronger.Therefore, expansion and imperialismare a grand onslaught on democracy.The people who have led us on to shutourselves in [through protectionism],and now want us to break out [throughimperialism], warn us against the terrorsof "isolation." Our ancestors allcame here to isolate themselves from thesocial burdens and inherited errors ofthe old world. When the others are allover their ears in trouble, who wouldnot be isolated in freedom from care?When the others are crushed under theburden of militarism, who would not beisolated in peace and industry? Whenthe others are all struggling under debtand taxes, who would not be isolated inthe enjoyment of his own earnings forthe benefit of his own family? When therest are all in a quiver of anxiety, lest ata day's notice they may be involved in asocial cataclysm, who would not beisolated out of reach of the disaster?What we are doing is that we are abandoningthis blessed isolation to run aftera share in the trouble.Americans [still] cannot assure life,liberty, and the pursuit of happiness toNegroes inside of the United States.When the Negro postmaster's house wasset on fire in the night in South Carolina,and not only he, but his wife andchildren were murdered as they cameout, and when, moreover, this incidentpassed without legal investigation orpunishment, it was a bad omen for theextension of liberty, etc., to Mayas andTagals by simply setting over them theAmerican flag. Upon a little reflectionwe find that our hands are quite full athome of problems by the solution ofwhich the peace and happiness of theAmerican people could be greatly increased.And yet this scheme of a republicwhich our fathers formed was a gloriousdream which demands more than aword of respect and affection before itpasses away. Their idea was that theywould never allow any of the social andpolitical abuses of the old world to growup here. There should be no manors, nobarons, no ranks, no prelates, no idleclasses, no paupers, no disinherited onesexcept the vicious. There would be nogrand diplomacy, because they intendedto mind their own business andnot be involved in any of the intrigues towhich European statesmen were accustomed.There was to be no balanceof power and no "reason of state" to costthe life and happiness of citizens.Our fathers would have an economicalgovernment, even if grand peoplecalled it a parsimonious one, and taxesshould be no greater than were absolutelynecessary to pay for such agovernment. The citizen here wouldnever be forced to leave his family or togive his sons to shed blood for glory andto leave widows and orphans in miseryfor nothing. Justice and law were toreign in the midst of simplicity, and agovernment which had little to do wasto offer little field for ambition.It is by virtue of this conception of acommonwealth that the United Stateshas stood for something unique andgrand in the history of mankind andthat its people have been happy. It is byvirtue of these ideals that we have been"isolated" - isolated in a position whichthe other nations of the earth have observedin silent envy.And yet there are people who areboasting of their patriotism, becausethey say that we have taken our placenow amongst the nations of the earth byvirtue of this war. My patriotism is ofthe kind which is outraged by the notionthat the United States never was a greatnation until in a petty three months'campaign it knocked to pieces a poor,decrepit, bankrupt old state like Spain.To hold such an opinion as that is toabandon all American standards, to putto shame and scorn all that our ancestorstried to build up here, and to goover to the standards of which Spain is arepresentative.•14Libertarian Review

I The MovementGreenberg for governorOne of the most interesting anddynamic campaigns waged by the LibertarianParty this year will be the campaignof attorney Gary Greenberg forgovernor of New York, a campaignwhich promises to be tough-minded,energetic, and above all, competent.Greenberg's campaign is important fortwo transcendant reasons: first, NewYork State remains the showcase of statismin this country, the media capital ofthe world; second, Greenberg's campaignrepresents the first step back ofthe much-beleaguered Free LibertarianParty, a party racked with dissention,stress, conflict, and incompetence.Greenberg's campaign promises to bethe best thing for the FLP since FranYoungstein ran for mayor of New YorkCity in 1973, gathering 10,000 votes.Since the Youngstein campaign, theFLP has floundered. The campaign ofJerry Tuccille for governor four yearsago was widely considered a disaster: anattempt at media manipulation which,with few notable exceptions, did not payoff; a campaign with no significant discussionof issues; a campaign whichgenerated less and less enthusiasm as itwent along. Tuccille finally brought inonly a few more votes statewide thanYoungstein had in New York City alonethe year before. Campaign workers weredisillusioned and alienated, some evenvillified by other FLP members.In 1976, neither Roger MacBride norU.S. Senate candidate Martin Nixondid very well-nowhere near as well asMacBride did in California- partly becauseof the hostility of many FLPmembers toward MacBride's candidacy,and partly because MacBride had decidedto target western states with mostof his campaign efforts. Differentgroups within the FLP, bitter with eachother, succeeded only in driving eachother out of the party, which continuedto function at all only because of thetireless efforts of a small number of peo-pIe who gave a great deal of their energyto the task of preserving the skeleton ofa political party.But a skeleton was all that there was.When the New York City fiscal crisishad hit in 1975, there was no responseto issues by the FLP, no discussion ofwhat had gone wrong, no response tothe needs of the people of New YorkCity. Those who were left in the partysimply did not have the knowledge ofissues required to do anything about thefiscal crisis, to address the issues raised.The intellectual leaders of the party hadearlier left in bitterness and disgust.The question was, could the FLP berebuilt?The first attempt came in 1977, withthe race for mayor of New York City.Ann Jackson Weill was nominated, butquestions were raised more and more asthe year progressed about whether ornot the FLP would be able to wage aformidable campaign. Several key peopledecided not, and Weill pulled out ofthe race, urging FLP members insteadto devote themselves and their energiesto rebuilding the party. Others urgedthat there had to be a campaign, bothbecause it was a key year, and because acampaign was the only way to build aparty. Neither side won out: WilliamLawry was nominated to run in AnnJackson Weill's place, and others set outto do what they felt best for the party.The party was not rebuilt, nor was thereanything of a campaign. Bill Lawry wasarticulate, but, in his few media exposures,his connection to EST wasfocused on more than his stands onissues - stands which were fragmentaryat best. The campaign was a disaster.The Greenberg campaign this yearpromises to be just what the doctor ordered.Gary Greenberg has always beenone of the most intelligent people in theentire Libertarian Party, a charmingand likeable lawyer who knows theissues cold, and addresses them in an informativeand witty way. He has sentout a fundraising letter signed by RogerMacBride, has worked tirelessly to ironout some of the conflicts in the FLP,and to rebuild the party around a campaignbased on issues. His promotionalmaterial is professionally produced.Gary Greenberg promises to run adynamic campaign. Some of the issueshe will concentrate on in New York includetaxes, transportation (particularlythe controversial Westway system inNew York City), pollution, welfare, theNew York City fiscal crisis (as alivetoday as ever), and victimless crimelaws, which account for more than 50percent of the cases in N. Y. criminalcourt. He is the only candidate opposedto federal bailouts of the city government,calling for massive cutbacks ingovernment programs.In the area of victimless crime laws,Greenberg is at his best, showing theconnection between such laws and theactual crime rate in the city and state.He has said that his first official actas governor- if elected- would be togrant an immediate pardon to everyoneimprisoned in New York State for practicinga victimless crime. The Greenbergcampaign newsletter, Grassroots,emphasized "the repeal of all victimlesscrime laws including those that concerngambling, prostitution (gay or straight),drugs and voluntary sexual behavior(again, straight or gay)." Greenberg hasalso advocated making Manhattan intoan International Free Trade Zone, andof creating alternatives to the crumblingpublic schools. His campaign, in short,promises to be dynamic, dramatic,imaginative, and professionally run.The campaigns' honorary nationalchairpersons are Roger MacBride andFran Youngstein, and a host of prominentNew York libertarians have takenpositions coordinating and planning thecampaign, including the ever-dedicatedTom Avery, Sieglinde Kress, and many,many others. Bill Costello is the FinanceChair; David Grant, John Doswell, andDon Hauptman are his consultants forpublic relations, media, and promotion.The petition drive will begin onAugust 8 and continue for about fiveweeks.Contributions can be sent to: Greenbergfor Governor, 15 West 38th Street,Suite 201, New York, N.Y. 10018. •July 197815

«»n June 6th, the people of California rose up andsmashed the oppressive system of propertytaxes in that state. It was a glorious victory.They let government officials know that theywere no longer listening to the politicians andbureaucrats. They fired a shot heard 'round the world, theopening salvo in the revolt of the taxpayers, and passedProposition 13-a constitutional amendment which cutsproperty taxes by two-thirds and puts tight reins on thelegal authority of the state and local governments to raisenew taxes. If ever there was a "sense-of-life" issue, this wasit. Voters swarmed to the polls in stunning, nearly unprecedentednumbers, swelling with anger and outrage, defyingweeks of apocalyptic forecasts, veiled threats, andnaked blackmail attempts by criminal elements in the government,and gave Proposition 13-the Jarvis-Gann initiative-astunning two-to-one victory. Optimists who hadconfidence in the basic good sense of the voters knew itwas going to happen, but the exhilirated gasps and rousingcheers resounded throughout the state. Victory partieswere everywhere-in the offices of Libertarian Reviewhundreds turned out to celebrate-and the people ofCalifornia swelled with justifiable pride at their16courageous thrashing of the opponents of Proposition 13:every tax-grabbing, parasitic, state-employed and statesupportedgroup in the state, a veritable laundry list ofspecial interests from the Bank of America to the CaliforniaState Employees Union.The valiant leader of the "Yes on 13" forces, the elderstatesman of the tax revolt, Howard Jarvis, said it best:"We the taxpayers have spoken," he thundered. "To ignoreus is political suicide." And indeed he was right. Theheadline writers throughout the state and the nation knewwhat had happened. There was no confusion, nothingcomplex, nothing mysterious. Here was emotional fuel foran exhausted, nation, beaten down by taxation and bygovernment oppression. Here was the greatest libertarianvictory since the end of the draft and the collapse of thewar in Vietnam. But the headlines said it in a nutshell:"PROP 13 WINS BIG"-San Francisco Chronicle, in abold, black banner head."IRATE VOTERS OK PROP. 13; Taxpayers Revolt aReality"-Oakland Tribune.And that was just the beginning. The famous shockwaves of Proposition 13-which ignoble court intellec-Libertarian Review

tuals like Walter Heller kept warning about in his televisionpleas-began to hit, and they were felt across thenation by a grateful populace. NBC, ABC, and CBS allfeatured the tax revolt in lead stories. David Brinkley, inCalifornia for the vote and obviously enjoying the antigovernmentsentiment which reigns there these days,reported on the jubilation, and for once focused a newsstory on who would be helped by drastically slashed taxes.For once, the crocodile tears about the poor, the underprivileged,and the disadvantaged were gone, replaced bysmiling taxpayers. For weeks the California media hasbeen filled with little else but projections of the effects ofthis noble triumph.The people of California had been told-by more than400 economists, by a host of state employees using everydirty trick in the book by their political "leaders," by themedia, by the "new class"-that Proposition 13 wouldloose "anarchy" and "chaos" upon California, that itwould end police and fire protection, close libraries andmuseums and parks, and further cripple a public schoolsystem already regarded by most as doing a poor job. Thepeople of California didn't believe it, or they didn't care.The opponents of tax cuts waged a vicious, well-financed,professional, manipulative campaign on every level. Themore they talked, the more the people flocked to the bannerof Yes ort 13. More than a week before the vote, themorale of No on 13 forces had visibly collapsed; they knewthey were only going through the motions, that their dayswere numbered, that they would lose big. And they did.Bleeding heart liberal Mary McGrory followed GovernorJerry Brown around on his anti-13 campaign, andreported that "Brown was constantly meeting policemenand firemen who told him squarely that they would ratherlose their jobs than their homes. The very people whosejobs we were told were at stake voted Yes on 13." Whenthe Los Angeles Times and KNXT-TV News in L.A. conducteda survey immediately after the election to learnwhy voters had voted as they had, the results indicatedthat nearly 25 percent of the voting public believed"government provides many unnecessary services." Andthose voters had all paid visits to city hall, to the countyhall of administration, to the Department of MotorVehicles, to the Post Office. That is why all the bilge about"essential services" being cut was just so much rot. Theyknew that what few worthwhile "services" were being providedby government were provided only at enormous costand never with the excellence they could expect at least occasionallyfrom private business.The voters in California were fed up when they went tothe polls on June 6th-fed up with politicians and with theaccellerating price of keeping them in the style to whichthey had unaccountably grown accustomed. "With thepassage of Jarvis," The Berkeley Barb editorialized, "Thewhole idea that government provided valuable services tothe people has been called into question, and the publicnow seems to view the civil servant with the same distasteit holds for the tax collector." The vote for Jarvis-Gann,wrote Peter Shrag in the Sacramento Bee of June 11, was a"fundamental declaration of no confidence in public officials,public institutions and, in some respects, in the con-July 1978ventional democratic process itself."And within days of the electorate's decision, its lack ofconfidence was fully vindicated. First the Brown administrationbegan talking about its budget surplus, whichmight be used to aid the financially striken cities andcounties-a surplus of $5.3 billion. But wait a minute, objectedthe Los Angeles Times: Why had the same officialsestimated the same surplus at only $3.4 billion the weekbefore the election?There was the stench of rotten fish inSacramento.Then came the admissions of guilt: State Finance DirectorRoy A. Bell admitted to the Times that Howard Jarvishadn't been far off when he accused the opponents of hisproposition of using scare tactics. For example, Bell said,the Widely publicized UCLA economic forecast-whichhad warned just before the election that nearly half amillion Californians would lose their jobs if Proposition 13passed-wasn't accurate. It had failed-somehow-to takeinto account any state budget surplus at all, even the $3.4billion everyone "knew" was there. And three days afterBell admitted in public that officials had, ahem, "softpeddled"the amount of state aid local governments couldexpect if Jarvis passed, a new UCLA study predicted thatthe economy would grow faster in the next year than itwould have if 13 had not passed. The politicians knew thatlower taxes would mean more economic growth, but toldthe public the exact opposite. But the people of California,at least, had learned not to rely any longer on the honestyof politicians.The tax revolt spreadsThe tidal wave had hit; the California public's disillusionmentand distrust was spreading, and with it the spiritof tax revolt. Time reported (June 26) that a recent NewYork Daily News Poll on the question, "How do you feelabout taxes?", touched off the largest response the paperhas ever seen to any such poll. And the majority of the117,000 replies favored sharp cuts in all taxes: property,sales, and income. A similar poll in the Boston Herald­American found that nearly 80 percent of those respondingfavored a legal ceiling on property taxes. The CharlestonDaily Mail asked its readers if they would approve of majorstate tax cuts accompanied by curtailment of manypublic services; 93 percent of those who responded saidyes.Voters in Cleveland turned out to turn down a taxincrease to benefit Ohio's largest school district. A petitioncampaign is underway in Oregon to put a Jarvis-Gann typemeasure on the November ballot. Another is underway inColorado, an third in Tennessee. And the June 8 ChristianScience Monitor reported the first steps toward similar actionin Utah, Washington, Maine, South Dakota, Illinois,Hawaii, Texas, Georgia, and Florida. Truly, as Californiajournalist Arthur Zich put it in the June 12 issue of NewTimes, "whatever else 1978 has in store, it will go down asthe year of the Great American Tax Rebellion-the beginningof a new, nationwide Boston Tea Party."In California and throughout the nation, governmentemployees and politicians are beginning to react in differentways, neatly dividing into two opposing camps.17

One camp, mostly of unelected officials, wants to let thetaxpayers have it in the teeth. They want to cut wherethings will be hurt the most. They want to wreck things, topunish the taxpayers for their arrogance in voting to keepthe fruits of their labor, to make them crawl and give in togovernment oppression.These are the people who want tobreak the backs of every proud, independent American,bending him to the will of the state. These are the peoplenow attempting to organize the unthinking, to get them tomarch and protest against any and every cutback in governmentexpenditures. These are the people who have theirhands around the throats of the American people, and whowill not let go. They claim to represent the interests of "thepeople." They claim to be advocates of democracy. Butthey are in fact a new elite who would like to bring a fUllfledgeddespotism to America, where they would reign supreme.These are the people who ought to be summarilythrown out of office and socially boycotted by anyoneconcerned with human liberty, with human welfare, withhuman dignity.The other camp is just ,as hypocritical, but less dangerous.These are the more trendy politicians who have alreadybegun changing their philosophy to match the newmandate. As Time put it, "a swelling legion of voteconsciouspoliticians across the U.S." is now busily "tryingto look like fiscal conservatives." And for some of themthe changeover has been so abrupt it must have been dizzying.California's Governor Brown-an almost embarrassinglyobvious example-was calling Jarvis-Gann "expensive,unworkable and crazy" a week before the election,and was promising new state taxes to offset the revenueloss the proposition would bring. Within 24 hours ofJarvis-Gann's victory, Brown was talking about "the spiritof 13" and claiming that he not only endorsed the conceptsof "an end to spiraling taxes and an end to spiralinggovernment spending"-but that he had originated them.Still, he was able to tell Time a bit later in the month whenhe began making cuts in the state budget that "we're cuttinginto the bone and the marrow." "The cuts," Timecommented, "will mean that there will be no repeat of suchpast grants as $1000 for creating an underwater instrumentto serenade whales and dolphins off the coast ... and $700for a group to stage plays in laundromats."Jimmy Carter himself has leapt ponderously onto the taxrevolt bandwagon, calling Proposition 13 "a welcome experiment"of which "I certainly don't have any criticism."These are the people who know that Proposition 13 isthe first step in the antitax revolution, not the last. Theseare the people who would like to dance to the tune of thetax revolt, but really don't know how.Libertarians and the tax revoltLibertarians in California were particularly exultant whenProposition 13 rode to victory. Celebrations in LosAngeles, San Francisco and elsewhere were rapturous; thevictory celebrations found libertarians and those who hadworked for Yes on 13 throughout the state mixing in goodhumor and optimism about the future. There was cheer-ing, singing, cavorting, joking, applauding, revelling in thesmashing of the property tax. Paul Gann, the co-author ofand indefatigable campaigner for 13, joined with libertariansin Los Angeles; in San Francisco the Yes on 13forces joined with libertarians in the LR offices to watchthe returns. Libertarians were proud, and justifiably so, forhere was a cause that they had worked for, a libertariancause that had won. They had written and passed outleaflets, appeared at meetings, debated, asked questions inthe public debates of others, came to rallies, spoken out onradio and television, manned literature tables, and campaignedfor 13 in the streets.Ed Clark, the LP candidate for governor of California,spoke out on 13 constantly, appearing with Paul Gann atrallies and before crowds. Ed Crane, former LP nationalchairman ahd the head of the Cato Institute, appeared indebates and before numerous groups, and spoke outbrilliantly on radio and television, both alone and onpanels. Local libertarian Trevor Pitts mounted an excellentcampaign for Yes on 13 by printing up and distributing-atmeeting after meeting, crowds swarming around-leafletsand other literature defending 13. A local gay groupstarted "Gays for Proposition 13," and printed up leafletsaimed at both gays and straights. I myself spoke on radio,before groups, and debated the California lobbyist forCommon Cause on Jarvis-Gann before a crowd in GrassValley. The only time my opponent got any applause waswhen he tried to scapegoat me: I was a member of theLibertarian Party, he said, and "they are against government!"The audience of several hundred people roared itsapproval.The tax revolt is indeed beginning to get underway. It isa prime opportunity for libertarians to take charge, to doin other states what was done in California, to mount aradical movement to cut all taxes across the board; to cut,cut, and cut again. Today, we are the Sons of Liberty, menand women who are the spiritual ancestors of those whofought and struggled in the American revolution.When the smoke from this opening battle has cleared,hard questions are going to be asked. Both the people ofCalifornia and its opportunistic politicians are going toask: What can we cut? Liberals cannot answer that question.Conservatives cannot answer it. We alone can givethem a list. Let them start with the victimless crime lawsand the vice squads that enforce them. Let them start withour reckless interventionist foreign policy and the bloatedmilitary budget that bankrolls it. Let them start with thosealphabet agencies of intervention and regulation which arepreventing free competition and are strangling the Americaneconomy. And then let them continue dismantling thatsystem of paternalism and regimentation which victimizesthe majority in this country for the sake of ,a vicious,parasitic minority.Then let us take the lead in reversing the ratchet ofgovernment. Let us get involved with all the talent andenergy at our disposal. Let us be the leaders of a newrevolution not only for Americans, but for the rest of theworld as well. We have it in our power to change thecourse of history.•18Libertarian Review

TheCollapseofthePublic SchoolsbyJeffRiggenbachIn Donald Barthelme's libertarian fable The DeadFather (1975), Thomas and Julie and Emma are escortingthe title character to his final resting place,when they encounter two ten-year-old children,Hilda and Lars.Are you in school? Julie asked the children.Of course we are in school, Hilda said. Why does everyonealways ask a child if he or she is in school? We are all in school.There is no way to escape.Do you want to escape?Didn't you?"I think this child is a bit of a smart-ass," the DeadFather comments. "I shall cause her to be sent to a SpecialSchool, and her rusty-mouthed companion there also." "ASpecial School," says the Dead Father, "is the answer.""Is that the kind that looks like a zoo?" Emma asks him."There are cages, yes," the Dead Father tells her. "Butwe have been experimenting with moats."The Dead Father, in this surrealist parable, is a symbolof authority in general (though the authority he exercises isalmost entirely parental and political), and the state ofwhich he is head exists nowhere on the known Earth. Butanyone who has spent much time in the public elementaryand secondary schools of this country lately will have littledifficulty recognizing the sort of Special School the DeadFather must have in mind. It is also known as theAmerican high school.In all too many instances, this institution is surroundedby an eight-foot wall topped with another eighteen inchesof barbed wire. There are bars at the windows. There areJuly 197819

armed guards-and these are not infrequently off-dutymembers of the local police department: The chairman ofthe National Commission on the Reform· of SecondaryEducation, B. Frank Brown, estimated recently that nearlytwo-thirds of America's school systems have police ontheir payrolls.The American high school not only looks like a prison;from the point of view of its inmates (who are incongruouslycalled "students") it is one. When Fortunemagazine editor Charles Silberman investigated Americanpublic education for the Carnegie Corporation nearly adecade ago, he found that "students in most schools cannotleave the classroom (or the library or the study hall)without permission, even to get a drink of water or to go tothe toilet, and the length of time they can spend there isrigidly prescribed. . .. the corridors are usually guardedby teachers and students on patrol duty, whose principalfunction is to check the credentials of any student walkingthrough. In the typical high school, no student may walkdown the corridor without a form, signed by a teacher,telling where he is coming from, where he is going, and thetime, to the minute, during which the pass is valid. Inmany schools, the toilets are kept locked except duringclass breaks, so that a student not only must obtain a passbut must find the custodian and persuade him to unlockthe needed facility. (Crisis in the Classroom, 1970)Or, as one New York high school student put it a yearearlier: liThe main thing that's taught us in school is how tobe good niggers, obey the rules. . .. Not only are weforced to attend school in the first place, we have to carryID cards at all times, walk on the right" side of the hall, andif the teacher doesn't want us to, we can't even take a piss!"(How Old Will You Be in 1984?, Diane Divoky, 1969)And the only thing that seems to have changed in thepast ten years is that the inmates, in growing numbers,have begun striking back. Time magazine reported a fewmonths ago that more than five thousand public secondaryschool teachers are attacked by students every month inthis country-and about a thousand of them are seriouslyinjured. But the public schools' response is not to makeconditions less prison-like in hopes student behavior mightbecome less inmate-like; far from it. Their response is todouble and redouble the size of patrols, to issue walkietalkies,to establish closed circuit TV, emergency phones inclassrooms, and special isolation classrooms for theprivate use of incorrigible IIdisciplinary problems."Moreover, in so doing, they are apparently only carryingout the mandate by the parents of their charges. Educationprofessors and authors Neil Postman and CharlesWeingartner reported five years ago that 65 percent ofAmerican parents feel the schools are Ilgood", Ilfair" orIinot so bad." One year later, the Charles F. KetteringFoundation's annual "Survey of the Public's AttitudesToward the Public Schools" found that 80 percent of thosewho have children in the public schools would rate theschools performance with their children A, B, or C. AsCharles Silberman puts it, ."The UnitedStates has the kindsof schools its citizens have thus far demanded." He citesthe 1969 Louis Harris poll in which the parents of publichigh school students frankly conceded that they believe"maintaining discipline" is more important than allowing(much less encouraging) "student self-inquiry"-the selfmotivated,self-directed learning of those ideas and skillsthe student finds interesting. But the freedom to learnwhat, when and as one wishes must be the first premise ofany program of truly libertarian education. Maintainingdiscipline, it would seem, is more important than liberty.The vocal minorityIf between 65 and 80 percent of public school parents feelthis way, between 20 and 35 percent feel otherwise. And ingrowing, ever more insistent numbers, that minority ismaking itself heard. Its members have recently managed toforce reconsideration by Congress of the idea of tuition taxcredits for parents who pay taxes to support the publicschools but feel compelled, out of regard for their children,to spend further money on private school tuition. The bill,sponsored by Senators Robert Packwood (Rep.-Ore.) andDaniel P. Moynihan (Dem.-N.Y.), calling for credits of upto $250 against college tuition and $100 against privateelementary and secondary school tuition was passed by theHouse on June 1. Although the Senate is even morefavorably disposed than the House to such credits, PresidentCarter has threatened to veto any bill which gives taxcredits for tuition below the college level. Even if themeasure falls by the wayside this year, its message remainsas a reminder to politicians in the future: the middle incomeAmericans who, as Senator Moynihan puts it, "pay20Libertarian Review

most of the taxes in America and get few of the social services,"are increasingly unwilling to pay for the publicschools.They're not only demanding tuition tax credits: In communitieslike Toledo, Ohio, where they can swing elections,they're letting the public schools close rather thanOK another cent in taxes or bonds for them. A proposal toincrease property taxes for the Toledo schools has failedfive times in succession in the last few years, even in theface of certain closures like the ones which struck both thatcity and Cleveland last October. And according toNewsweek (October 31, 1977), experts all over the countryare beginning to recommend that school money be raisedby methods like sales and income taxes that don't dependon local votes.They're not only withdrawing their support from thepublic schools; they're transferring it to the privateschools. Public school enrollments have been decliningthrough the 1970s, but private school enrollments havebeen stabilizing, even climbing of late-with the 693member schools of the National Association of IndependentSchools enrolling record numbers of pupils ineach of the last three years. And this trend has by nomeans been restricted to the wealthy. More than a third ofthe students in private elementary schools in this countrynow come from families with incomes of less than $7500per annum, according to Diane Divoky in an article in theApril 17 Inquiry. Victor Solomon, Director of EducationalAffairs for the Congress of Racial Equality, spoke for thosefamilies early this year in testimony before the senateFinance Subcommittee Hearings on the Packwood­Moynihan Bill: "The capacities of our young people," hesaid, "are being stifled as they fall one, two, three, or moreyears behind grade level in reading and math skills.... Atthe same time we see ... parochial and private schools,often the neighborhood Catholic school, doing an adequatejob, day in and day out, in the same areas as the failingpublic schools."They're not only deserting the public schools for privateones; they're demanding tests to prove graduating seniorsare competent to read Basic English and balance a checkbookbefore they're given their public school diplomas.The IIcompetency movement" as it's been called has wonlaws requiring some sort of proof of "competency" beforegraduation in at least 33 states. And the other 17 willprobably come around soon enough: A 1977 Gallup Pollindicated that 83 percent of elementary and secondaryschool parents favor increased emphasis on the "basics" ofeducation-reading, writing, and arithmetic.In a few cases, when they feel the public schools havefailed to deliver those basics, they're going to court. InJanuary of last year, a Long Island couple sued theCopiague School District for educational malpractice,seeking a $5 million award on grounds their eighteen yearoldson Edward was graduated from high school though hecan neither add nor subtract and cannot read above fourthgrade level. By October, when the Fisher family of Seattle,Washington decided to follow suit, Newsweek reportedthat three other such cases had been filed around the coun-try during the spring and summer. The concept of educationalmalpractice is catching on.Failure upon failureBut while Edward Donohue and Richard Fisher and a fewothers are pursuing judicial redress, thousands of otheryoung Americans are emerging more quietly every yearfrom the public schools, unable to read and figure wellenough to deal with the ordinary demands of daily livingor of higher education. The average scores of high schoolstudents on the College Entrance Examination Board'sScholastic Aptitude Test (which purports to measure basicverbal and mathematical skills) have declined drasticallysince 1962. In the decade between the 1965-66 and 1975-76school years, verbal SAT scores declined, on the average,from 471 to 429 (some 15 percent, when you consider that200 is the lowest score given), while math scores fell froman average of 495 to 471 (some eight percent). During approximatelythe same time period-as an enlighteningcomparison-average per pupil expenditures rose fromabout $830 to $1360 (1963-64 to 1973-74, in constant1973-74 dollars), and the pupil-teacher ratio in elementaryand secondary schools dropped from nearly 25 to about 18(1959-60 to 1974-75).At the Berkeley campus of the University of California,where entering freshmen come from the top one-eighth ofhigh school graduates, nearly half the freshmen of Fall'74-the ones graduating this year-needed remedialEnglish courses. Temple University in Philadelphia reportsJuly 197821

a SO percent increase since the late 1960s in the proportionof freshmen failing a standard English placement test. Andwhen the Association of American Publishers recentlyissued a pamphlet designed to help college freshmen readtheir textbooks more efficiently, they were forced to reviseit for its second printing and adjust its readability to ninthgrade level. It seems the original twelfth grade level texthad been too difficult for most college freshmen.The reading and figuring required by the business worldare proving too difficult for most of those high schoolgraduates who do not go on to college. One Bank ofAmerica executive frankly laments (in a U. S. News andWorld Report article) the paucity of applicants-many ofwhom do hold four-year college degrees-who can spelland punctuate, much less compose intelligible memos andreports. The Wall Street Journal recently led an article onthe competency movement with an anecdote about atypical high school graduate in Gary, Indiana who can'tkeep a secretarial job because of her poor reading comprehension."There seems to be little correlation," Charles Silbermanwrites, "between people's performance on the job andeither the amount of education they have had or the marksthey have received." And according to John Holt, peopleare gradually awakening to this fact. "Almost nothing inexperience," Holt writes in Freedom and Beyond (1972),"supports the widely held idea that by looking at what aperson has done in school we can tell what he will be ableto do outside of school. People understood this once betterthan they do now. To be good at school meant only thatyou were good in school, a scholar, Le., a 'schooler.' Itsuggested that you might do well to spend the rest of yourlife in schools or places like school. Today people seem toassume that being good in school, being able to rememberwhat the teacher or the book says, being able to guess whatthe teacher wants and to give it to him, means that in lifeyou will be good at almost everything.The facts are, however, that these versatile "schoolers"who promise to be "good at almost everything" are littlebetter than anyone else at the real tasks of life. And if theyhappen to be black or brown, the practical consequence ofall their schooling may be as little as $S a week more insalary than a school dropout doing the same work. In suchsituations, we are, it seems to me, entitled to ask, as PaulGoodman asked over a decade ago: "Is this worth the painfuleffort of years of schooling that is intrinsically worthlessand spirit-breaking?"Intrinsically worthless? "If one looks at what actuallygoes on in the classroom," Silberman writes, "the kinds oftexts students read and the kind of homework they areassigned, as well as the nature of classroom discussion andthe kinds of tests teachers give-he will discover that thegreat bulk of students' time is ... devoted to detail, mostof it trivial, much of it factually incorrect, and almost all ofit unrelated to ... anything other than the lesson plan."Studying the American Revolution, Silberman found inthree years of studying public elementary schools "means,of course, memorizing names, dates, places, 'cause' of theRevolution, and so on-a mass of unrelated data." Study-ing literature means summarizing the plots and listing anddescribing the major characters and events in tediousperiod pieces like George Eliot's Silas Marner, whilediscouraging any genuine artistic interest a student may expressin fiction-especially in the fiction of his own time."Much of what is taught is not worth knowing as a child,let alone as an adult," Silberman concludes, "and little willbe remembered. The banality and triviality of the curriculumin most schools has to be experienced to bebelieved."But consider: Does it really take 12 years of schooling,six hours a day, five days a week, 30 or more weeks peryear, to teach a child to read Basic English and balance hischeckbook? These are the goals of the competency movementand, effectively, the skills tested by the various highschool equivalency exams used around the country to certifydropouts who possess the knowledge and skills of highschool graduates. As John Holt has pointed out, almost allstates and territories which employ these tests will administerthem only to applicants whose classes have alreadygraduated. That is, they make sure the tests are notavailable to students who might use them to prove theircompetence and drop out of school "early." But if they arecompetent, why keep them in school? Goodman saw thereason, and identified it in so many words: to break theirspirits.Social controlIt should, in fact, come as little surprise to the militantminority of American parents which regards the publicschools with horror that so little meaningful learning goeson within their walls. It has always been this way, more orless. From the beginning, the American public school hasbeen an educational institution only secondarily if at all. Ithas always been primarily an institution of social control.It was in 1862, Murray Rothbard tells us in his "Education,Free and Compulsory," that "Massachusetts establishedthe first comprehensive, statewide, modern systemof compulsory schooling in the United States." But by thenit had been a long time coming. The first compulsorypublic schools of any kind on the North American continenthad been founded two hundred years before, in thesame place. In 1647, the theocratic state known as theMassachusetts Bay Colony established public schools forthe explicit purpose of inculcating Calvinist-Puritan principlesin the children of the Colony, that they might growup to be devout citizens. And within a century all NewEngland but Rhode Island had imitated Massachusetts's example.After the Revolutionary War, it was again Massachusettswhere vigilance first awakened to the possibility ofdisloyalty and wrong thinking. Just as schools had beennecessary to inculcate the theocratic values of Colonialsociety, so schools would now be necessary to inculcatethe republican values of the new ruling class. A Bostonbasedgroup of Federalist merchants and lawyers called the"Essex Junta" campaigned in the 1780s for an extensivepublic school system to teach the young "proper subor-22Libertarian Review

dination." In 1785, the Reverend Jeremy Balknap counselledneighboring New Hampshire to adopt compulsorypublic schools for all, on the grounds that children belong,not to their parents, but to the state. And as the nineteenthcentury dawned, these ideas began gaining in currency.In 1816, for example, Archibald Murphey called for asystem of public schools similar to the kind he would laterfound in North Carolina-a system in which "the state, inthe warmth of her affection and solicitude for their welfare"would teach all children "the precepts of moralityand religion . . . and habits of subordination and obedience."In 1844, the Newburyport, Massachusetts, SchoolCommittee warned the citizens of that community that"agitation, violence, crime and moral degradation" lay intheir community's future unless they adopted a system ofcompulsory public schools "in which the individual istaught obedience."By 1852, as has been seen, the citizens of Massachusettshad decided on the wisdom of this course of action. And inshort order, under the influence of Horace Mann, foundingsecretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, andsuch other "educationist" reformers as Henry Barnard ofConnecticut, Caleb Mills of Indiana and Samuel Lewis andCalvin Stowe of Ohio, the rest of the country began fallinginto line. By 1917, a New York City public school officialcould state baldly that "Public school teachers are state servants.They have obligations to the state higher than thoseof ordinary citizens. They must discharge these obligationsactively, not passively. Teachers are in a positionanalogous to that of the army and the police force; it istheir business to support organized institutions.... "By 1920, a New York legislator felt it politically prudentto announce that "The prime purpose of the public educationalsystem is to prepare students in the public schools toassume the obligations and duties of citizenship in thisState. The public school teacher is a representative and officerof the State as it now exists. He is employed by thatState to teach loyalty to its institutions and obedience to itslaws."And, as has been seen, nearly four-fifths of present-daypublic school parents believe disciplining students is moreimportant than giving them the freedom to learn. Theirthinking is firmly in the mainstream of American thoughton public education. Once this is understood, the demandsby the remaining one-fifth of parents that the publicschools educate as well as regiment may be seen ashopelessly naive, romantic, and deluded. They are ratherlike the quaintly idealistic demands of "mental patients"that they be given "treatment" for the "mental illnesses"with which they have been "hospitalized.""Mental hospitals" are jails in which certain kinds oftroublesome people may be locked up and got out ofeverybody else's way; the main purpose of the verbalmumbo jumbo around which the thickets of quotationmarks have sprung in my last sentence is to justify andevade this elementary fact. The fact of imprisonment issimultaneously justified and evaded, that is, by calling theimprisonment "hospitalization," the prison a "hospital",the prisoner a "patient", his jailers "doctors" and so on.Similarly, as John Holt has observed, children andyoung people are inherently troublesome and in the way:"Mom doesn't want them hanging around the house, thecitizens do not want them out in the streets, and workersdo not want them in the labor force. What then do we dowith them? How do we get rid of them? We put them inschools. That is an important part of what schools are for.They are a kind of day jail for kids." And this fact of imprisonmentand obedience-training is at once justified andevaded by calling the prison a "school," the jailers"teachers," the prisoners "students," and the obediencetraining"education." What "students" are taught in thepublic "schools" is not reading, writing and arithmetic; it'sdocility, obedience, and the capacity to tolerate a life ofstupefying boredom, monotonously performing meaninglessroutine tasks at the behest of another-the life of a"student" or of the average worker in today's corporatestate.One of the more prominent eighteenth century advocatesof universal compulsory public schooling wasMassachusetts merchant Jonathan Jackson, who argued inhis Thoughts Upon the Political Situation of the UnitedStates (1788) that society was "one large family" in which a"father" should hold supreme authority. This is not so farremoved, I submit, from the nightmare symbolism ofDonald Barthelme's Dead Father and his Special Schools.Turning students offAs I write, the spring semester is drawing to a close atPierce College, the largest and most academically respectableof the eight campuses of the Los Angeles CommunityCollege District, and the one at which I am employedpart-time as an instructor in the Media Arts Department.Pierce was founded 30 years ago as a private agriculturalcollege on several hundred acres of gently rolling farmlandJuly 197823

in the West San Fernando Valley, about 25 miles from theinner city of Los Angeles. Today the campus remainslargely agricultural, and to arrive there at 7:30 in themorning, as I do each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday toteach my writing classes, is to drive through woods andpasture while the sun's first rays lift the dew from the grassand the backs of resting cattle and sheep, and the crowingof a distant cock sweetly pierces the chill air-and all thetime, only blocks away, the faint hum of traffic whizzingthrough suburban Woodland Hills on the Ventura Freewaywhines on.The West San Fernando Valley has become an uppermiddle class suburb in the past 30 years-with, thanks toPierce and the nearby Northridge Campus of CaliforniaState University, a significant academic population. Thepublic high schools in the West Valley are the best in theL.A. Unified School District. The 25,000 students at Pierceare the cream of the L.A. Community College District.These are the first two sentences of a paper submitted tome by one of my students, a graduate of a prestigious WestValley High School: "Every hospital in the United Statesmust be inspected, accredited, and ·licensed every twoyears by varies goverment, state and county agences bylaw. If a hospital is not accredited by these agences it willnot recieve a license to operate, thus causing it to close."Sam is an average student, not a dull one, and his openingsentences, flawed as they are, represent a substantialimprovement over the opening sentences he was submittingthree or four months ago. Sam has been one of thehardest, most dedicated workers in the class-alwaysmeeting assignment deadlines, always attending class,always asking questions, always showing signs, howevergradual, of improvement as a writer. Of the four studentsin the class who are his indisputable superiors, two aregraduates of private schools. (They are also the only privateschool graduates in the class.) What did the publicschools do to extinguish Sam's natural capacity to learn,the capacity which reasserted itself feebly in my class inWriting for Radio and TV?Because there can be no doubt that's what the publicschools did. I'm in the habit of sharing my own professionalassignments with my writing students each semesteror quarter-using the interviews or articles or documentaryscripts I'm working on as examples for class discussionor as the bases for class assignments. And last week, whenI told my eight 0'clock class about this article and asked fortheir comments, they were almost pathetically eager tocontribute, as though no one had ever asked their opinionsof the schools before. And their message was exactly that.Sam laid it on the line."I've never done so much homework and put so muchtime into school before in my life," he said, "because forthe first time I'm learning what I want to learn."The chorus of murmured assent from the class appearedto be universal. Other hands went up; other 18- and 19­year-old students commented: the public schools hadnever allowed them to study what they wanted to study,had never allowed them the freedom of self-inquiry. Now,in junior college, they were getting a first taste of thatfreedom.For some of these students, going to college hadrepresented merely a freer, less authoritarian, continuationof high school, with one subtle difference of emphasis.Where high school had inculcated in them the patient, unquestioninglysubservient character of the ideal corporateassemblyline worker-Joel Spring has argued, in hisEducation and the Rise of the Corporate State (1972) andThe Sorting Machine (1976), that this is the principal functionof public schools-junior college was serving as a kindof half-way house for newly released students, a placewhere they could become used to the slightly, but notradically, freer atmosphere they would later encounter indefense plants and office buildings, while being kept safelyout of competition for jobs with the existing labor force forat least two more years. But for others, college hadrepresented a first opportunity to engage in self-inquiry.And one of the things they had learned by now was thatthe freedom to learn liberated the capacity to learn, andmade them receptive to material they had rejected underforce-feeding.Is it realistic to suppose that an able student would fail tolearn how to write basic English sentences because he wasrefused the opportunity to learn to combine such sentencesinto radio and TV scripts? The supposition seems inescapable.Consider the case of the "remarkable privateeducational system" as Charles Silberman calls it, "that hasbeen developing in Harlem and other depressed neighborhoodsin New York." It consists of "a series of thirteen'street academies' ... sponsored by the Urban League andinitially financed by the Ford Foundation, [now financedmainly by] a group of large corporations, each of whichhas taken responsibility for one academy."Each of these "small storefront schools" is "manned byone or two teachers," Silberman writes, "in addition to astreet worker, who recruits the students from the streetsand acts as 'motivator, counselor, friend, father disciplinarian,and companion.' The schools are quite informal,the purpose being to get the dropouts 'hooked' oneducation, and to provide some skill in the three R's."And to judge not only by Silberman's account but alsoby the account of one of the teachers in the streetacademies, the novelist and critic Samuel R. Delany, thedropouts do get hooked on education.In his recently published collection of essays, The Jewel­Hinged Jaw, Delany recalls his experience as a remedialEnglish teacher working with "sixteen and seventeen-yearolds who had never had any formal education in eitherSpanish or English" but who had decided to learn to readEnglish. "Regardless," Delany writes, "after a student hadbeen in the class six months, I would throw him a full fivehundred and fifty page novel to read, Dmitri Merezhkovsky'sThe Romance of Leonardo da Vinci" in BernardGilbert Gurney's translation. liThe book is full ofRenaissance history, as well as sword play, magic, anddissertations on art and science. It is an extremely literarynovel with several levels of interpretation. It was a favoriteof Sigmund Freud (Rilke, in a letter, found it loathesome)24Libertarian Review

and inspired him to write his own Leonardo de Vinci: AStudy in Psychosexuality. My students loved it, and withit, lost a good deal of their fear of Literature and LongBooks."Public school students, on the other hand, hate SilasMarner, and with it, learn a good deal of their fear ofLiterature and Long Books. And there are two main differencesbetween Delany's students and the public schools'students-two differences which boil down to one. Delany'sstudents are learning what they want to learnthey'refree to do so-and they're being taught by a teacherwho's teaching what and as he wants to teach-he's free todo so. The public school students, on the other hand, arelearning what they're allowed to learn and are being taughtwhat their teachers are allowed to teach. "In a number ofrespects," Silberman writes, "schools resemble 'total institutions'like hopsitals, armed services, and even prisons.In all of these, as Philip Jackson [author of Life inClassrooms, 1968] "one sub-group of their clientele (thestudents) are involuntarily committed to the institution,whereas another sub-group (the staff) has greater freedom"but is still committed (sometimes involuntarily) to carryingout the institution's program."Schools discourage students from developing the capacityto learn by and for themselves," says Silberman. "Enforcedinstruction deadens for most people the will for independentlearning," says arch-education critic Ivan Illich.Yes. The schools cannot be educational institutions becausethey are jails. And the more repressive they become,the less education they dispense. In the schoolroom, itwould appear, as in the polity, coercion achieves nothingin the end.Nothing, that is, except waste, inefficiency andbungling. I am called upon, in my 9:00 class at Pierce College,to instruct 13 young men and women in the dubiousart of writing news for broadcast. This is an art which, inthe real world, is practiced exclusively upon typewriters.In the real world, an applicant for a radio or TV newswritingjob would be rejected out of hand if he were unableto type, irrespective of his mastery of the other aspects ofhis art. In the storage room adjacent to my classroom arefifteen typewriters, some in need of repair, all in need ofuse. In the classroom itself there are none. I am informedby the Media Arts Department that no typewriters areavailable for use in my classroom. The typewriters nextdoor are not available. When attempting in class tosimulate the writing conditions which obtain in abroadcast newsroom, I ask my students to print.And my plight is not unique. The capacity of governmentto bungle and bureaucratize any given thing is almostlegendary-and all but indescribable by any means otherthan the case in point:In New York City, Comptroller Harrison Goldin announcesthat only forty-one percent of the city's $2.9­billion education budget is spent on education; fifty-ninepercent is spent on administration, including salaries fortwelve more principals than there are schools.In a New York classroom, meanwhile, a teacher barterswith the teacher across the hall: coloured chalk, which hedoesn't need for his class, for a new eraser, which he doesneed. If each teacher went to the school system for his supplies,he could expect to wait up to three months fordelivery.An architect is employed to replace a dilapidated schoolin a midwestern city but is forbidden to consult the principaland teachers of the school about their needs, since hisplans must conform to uniform plans drawn up twogenerations ago by somebody at headquarters.And so it goes: the bumbling, incompetent public schoolsystem. Conceived as a prison system; operated as a prisonsystem; incapable of functioning effectively as an educationalinstitution. Yet the men who run this vastpedagogical wasteland, the men who regularly spend two,three, or even four times the average private school expenditureper student for perhaps one-half the result-thesemen presume to regulate and to pass judgment upon thequalifications of those who seek to operate private schoolsor to educate their own children at home. And they seekever greater sums of stolen money every year for their ownpet projects. In February, President Carter asked Congressto increase federal spending on elementary and secondaryeducation from $6-billion a year to $6.9 billion. As Carterexplained it, the money was necessary in 'order to "do abetter job of teaching the basic skills-reading, writing,and arithmetic-to all our children." Unfortunately, it'sbeen shown before that money doe~n't teach basic skills,people do-and only when they're free to teach and tolearn as their own desires move them.•leff Riggenbach, who has now joined the staff of LR asSenior Editor, was imprisoned for eleven years in thepublic schools of Pasadena, Texas. He is sending his sixyear old stepson to private schools.July 197825

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_--1--1Raiding the Newsroom•••and your doctor's, lawyer's,and clergyman's offices will be nextbyMarshall E. SchwartzOne quiet Monday afternoon in April 1971, fourPalo Alto, California, police officers entered theoffices of the Stanford Daily, the studentnewspaper of Stanford University, and presentedthe handful of staff members there with a searchwarrant signed by Municipal Court Judge J. Barton Phelps.They were looking for photographs of a confrontation betweenprotesters and police three days before, at the end ofa sit-in at Stanford University Hospital, which they (erroneously)believed had been taken by Daily photographers.Within minutes, they began their search, and spent nearlyan hour rummaging through photo files, cabinets, wastebaskets,and the desks of several editors and reporters,without success.Although the Daily search was unprecendented at thetime, it was to be just the first of at least 11 searches bywarrant of media offices for documents, photographs, orfilm in the next seven years. The Daily decided to battle fortheir First and Fourth Amendment rights in court, and wontwo battles in Federal District Court and two in the U. S.Court of Appeals.On May 31 the Supreme Court brought down upon itselfthe combined wrath of the entire United States pressestablishment by overturning the lower court decisionsand ruling that all the police need to have to walk into anynewspaper office-or anyone else's home or office, for thatmatter-in search of a supposed piece of evidence, is awarrant from some friendly magistrate.Ed Kohn, a plaintiff in the original suit and a formerDaily managing editor (now a reporter for the St. LouisPost-Dispatch), dubbed the decision "Richard Nixon'sgreatest legacy": The majority in the 5-3 Supreme Courtvote was composed of the four Nixon appointees (WarrenBurger, Harry Blackmun, Lewis Powell, and WilliamRehnquist) and John F. Kennedy's football-playing buddyfrom Harvard, Byron "Whizzer" White.Coming on the heels of the Court's 1967 decision inWarden v. Hayes (which, for the first time, permitted lawJuly 197827

enforcement officials to use warrants to search the home oroffice of someone not even suspected of a crime for "mereevidence"-rather than just for the tools or proceeds of acrime) and its 1972 opinion in Branzburg v. Hayes (which,declared that newsmen, like everyone else, were subject tobeing subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury-althoughsuch a subpoena could be contested on First Amendmentgrounds), Zurcher v. The Stanford Daily may be thestrongest bar yet forged for the prison otherwise known asthe American Police State.The Washington Post called the decision "the right torummage" in its editorial. Bill Thomas, editor of the LosAngeles Times, declared it was "an incredible decision, aterrible decision. I find it hard to believe that a rationalcourt could issue it." Bob Healy, executive editor of theBoston Globe, asked: "What are you going to do? You'regoing to have to keep your notes in your pocket." And thePost's executive editor, Ben Bradlee, asserted that undersuch a ruling "the Pentagon Papers could never have beenpublished. The police would have entered newspaper officesand siezed them, before newspapers could bring thefacts to the people. If this decision were in force duringWatergate, it requires no stretch of the imagination to seepolice in these offices on a regular basis on a fishing expeditionfor Messrs. Nixon, Haldeman, Ehrlichman and company.The requirement of a warrant is no real protection,for the government can always find a judge to issue a warrant.It's just plain awful."The New York Times, among others, correctly identifiedthe attack launched on the Fourth Amendment and the individual'sright to privacy as a more serious assault thanthe Court's new incursions against the First Amendment.In his column of June 8, Anthony Lewis of the Times professedthat it is "a fundamental mistake ... for the press toargue that it is entitled to different and better treatmentunder the Constitution. The First Amendment also protectsthe right of professors and pamphleteers and ordinarycitizens to write and speak freely." He then explained thatany search may be barred as "unreasonable" by the FourthAmendment-"if, for no urgent criminal law need, it damagesother constitutional values: privacy, for example, orFirst Amendment rights." And the Times itselfeditorialized that since the aforementioned Hayden decision,it has become "more probable that searches woulddisrupt the lives of innocent parties who might readilycome into possession of evidence of crime; it was open tothe Court in the Stanford Daily case to require special proceduressafeguarding their interests. Instead, the Courtwould now allow officials to treat the law-abiding likecriminals" (emphasis added).What better description could there be of the way apolice state operates?Subpoenas vs. warrantsThe Stanford Daily's case relied in part on the argumentthat a warrant should never be used against the press, ifnot suspected of a crime, when a subpoena was sufficient.Thus, if there was no reason to believe the third party-inthis case, the press-would destroy the evidence instead ofproducing it in court, a warrant was "unreasonable," andtherefore not permitted under the Fourth Amendment.Justice White, writing for the majority, presented arather restricted view of the history of the Fourth Amendment:Aware of the long struggle between the Crown and the press anddesiring to curb unjustified official intrusions, the Framers tookthe enormously important step of subjecting searches to the testof reasonableness and to the general rule requiring search warrantsissued by neutral magistrates. They nevertheless did notforbid warrants where the press was involved, did not requirespecial showings that subpoenas would be impractical, and didnot insist that the owner of the place to be searched, if the press,must be shown to be implicated in the offense being investigated.Justice John Paul Stevens, in hisdissenting opinion, delvedfurther into the amendment's history (arising from Crownefforts to search press offices for evidence of "seditiouslibel") and thereby showed just how deeply our judicialconcept of privacy has eroded over the last two centuries:The Amendment contains two clauses, one protecting "persons,houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches andseizures," the other regulating the issuance of warrant: "no Warrantsshall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath oraffirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched,and the persons or things to be seized." When these words werewritten, the procedures of the Warrant Clause were not primaryprotection against oppressive searches. It is unlikely that theauthors expected private papers ever to be among the "things"that could be seized with a warrant, for only a few years earlier,in 1765, Lord Camden had delivered his famous opinion denyingthat any magistrate had power to authorize the seizure of privatepapers. Because all such seizures were considered unreasonable,the Warrant Clause was not framed to protect against them.The spirit of Classical Liberalism in eighteenth centuryEngland led Lord Camden to adopt his stand on seizures:"Papers are the owners' goods and chattels; they are hisdearest property; and are so far from enduring a seizure,that they will hardly bear an inspection.... Where is thewritten law that gives any magistrate such a power?"These same principles underlie the libertarian position onsubpoenas and warrants: Nothing is subject to seizure-byeither subpoena or warrant-unless it is directly connectedwith a crime (either the proceeds or products of the crime,or the instruments used to perpetrate it), and no one'sproperty is subject to search unless that person is involvedin the crime.This position implies that just as the seizure of "mereevidence" from unincriminated third parties is prohibited,so is the seizure of verbal evidence from such individuals:i.e., testimony cannot be coerced, so no third party can besubpoenaed to testify. Certainly, they should be asked toappear in court, but there are two key reasons why it is immoralto coerce testimony. First, if we are free to speakwhat we want, why does the principle change if we want tosay nothing? Freedom of speech necessarily includes thefreedom of silence. Secondly, forcing a witness to testifymay jeopardize that person's safety. How many governmentwitnesses have been assassinated before they took thestand? And how many others have developed defective28Libertarian Review

memories after receiving sufficient threats? Evidence usedin criminal proceedings, in short, must be gathered withinthe framework of full respect for individual rights.In fact, this latter point has direct bearing on the Dailycase itself. It is connected to an editorial position printedby the student newspaper in February 1970. The paper'sphotographers had been barred from campus meetingsbecause the participants feared that pictures taken mightprove to be incriminating and would later be subpoenaedas evidence. The Daily then declared that, although itwould "print newsworthy photographs regardless of theirpotential for incrimination," unpublished "negatives whichmay be used to convict protestors will be destroyed. Wefeel that a fine line can and should be drawn at this pointbetween journalistic responsibility and cooperation withgovernment authorities in protests that are often directedagainst the government.... The Daily feels no obligationto help in the prosecution of students for crimes related topolitical activity. Our purpose is to gather information forour readers, not for police files."But the Daily's ability to have its photographers admittedto meetings of campus radical groups who wantedto forestall police retaliation was not the only reason forthe newspapers unique policy: For some time, the paper'sstaff had suffered well-justified anxiety from a variety ofthreats of violence against themselves and the paper's officefrom some of the more physical protesters (of a varietyof left-wing persuasions). During the last "riot season"before the policy was established-spring of 1969-Dailyphotographers refused to take incriminating photos at amassive demonstration at Stanford Research Institute officesin Palo Alto because of threats that had previouslybeen made against them and several editors. (Apparently,one of the defendants in the Daily's original suit, SantaClara County Deputy District Attorney Craig Brown, hadattempted unsuccessfully to subpoena such incriminatingphotographs. In an affidavit, he declared his belief thatthese photos had been"deleted" from files containing shotsthat had been printed.)Protecting the innocentEven if one should grant the state the right to subpoena innocentthird parties-feeling that each individualsomehow has the responsibility to assist in the identification,apprehension, and prosecution of someone who hasinitiated force or fraud-why does this extend to the rightof warrant? And why should it apply to a function-thatof the press-which is the only one given special status bythe Constitution?A subpoena, in effect, requires the recipient to cooperatewith the state in enforcing its laws. A warrant goes muchfurther: it is the ultimate intrusion of the state into theprivacy of the individual, placing either the innocent individualhimself or his property in the hands of the statefor some defined or even indeterminate period of time. AsJustice Stevens pointed out in his dissenting opinion,In the pre-Hayden era, evidence of that kind [documentaryevidence, rather than the "fruits or instrumentalities" of thePalo Alto plainclothes policeman examines netatives in theoffice of The Stanford Daily during the 1971 search.crime] was routinely obtained by procedures that presumed thatthe custodian would respect his obligation to obey subpoenasand to cooperate in the investigation of crime. These procedureshad constitutional dimensions. For the innocent citizen's interestin the privacy of his papers and possessions is an aspect of libertyprotected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.Notice and opportunity to object to the deprivation of thecitizen's liberty are, therefore, the constitutionally ·mandatedgeneral rule. An exception to that rule can only be justified bystrict compliance with the Fourth Amendment. That Amendmentflatly prohibits the issuance of any warrant unless justified byprobable cause.What, then, did the Supreme Court have in mind in 1967when it trimmed away part of this right in the Haydendecision, by allowing the use of warrants to search the personand property of innocent third parties, in some instances,for documentary evidence alone? That decisiondeclared that, for this newly spawned police power to bearthe Court's stamp of approval,There must, of course, be a nexus-automatically provided in thecase of fruits, instrumentalities or contraband-between the itemto be seized and criminal behavior. Thus, in the case of "mereevidence," probable cause must be examined in terms of cause tobelieve that the evidence sought will aid in a particular apprehensionor conviction. In so doing, consideration of police purposeswill be required.Justice Stevens considered "police purposes" in a differentlight than the majority of his colleagues. To him,there was no case for a warrant-no "probable cause" tooutweight the individual's right to privacy guaranteed bythe Fourth Amendment-except in one specific set of conditions:The only conceivable justification for an unannounced search of~»z'T1o::0o o»~July 197829

an innocent citizen is the fear that, if notice were given, he wouldconceal or destroy the object of the search. Probable cause tobelieve that the custodian is a criminal, or that he holds acriminal's weapons, spoils, or the like, justifies that fear, andtherefore such a showing complies with the Clause. But ifnothing said under oath in the warrant application demonstratesthe need for an unannounced search by force, the probable causerequirement is not satisfied.Here, perhaps, the Daily's announced policy of destroyingunused photos that might be incriminating, after theappropriate issue of the paper was published, might havebeen grounds for "probable cause." But this informationwas never even presented to the judge who issued the warrant.Moreover, Palo Alto Police Chief James Zurcher,another defendant, had been informed two days before thesearch of the Daily offices, and only an hour or so after thekey confrontation between demonstrators and police at theStanford Hospital, that the only individual withphotographs of the clash was a Stanford Police photographer,Nick Brunot. (Zurcher had been so informed byBob Beyers, long-time director of the Stanford News Service,who appeared on the scene just as the demonstratorsbroke out from behind barricades that had been erected.)Brunot reports that the Palo Alto police didn't comearound to see his photos until "a week or ten days after theevent."The only other possible justification the police might offerfor invading a person's privacy to obtain "mere evidence"is an urgent need for speed in identification of acriminal. If they could afford to wait so long to seeBrunot's photos, that situation clearly· couldn't have applied.Perhaps a more complete view of the police and districtattorney's philosophy in such matters can be obtainedby considering their action in a separate incident two yearslater. In October 1972, Federal District Court Judge RobertPeckham ruled that the Daily search violated the First andFourteenth Amendments, but had refused to grant an injunctionbecause all the defendants were "respected membersof the community" so he expected "that this decisionwould be honored." Just seven months later, investigatorsfor the DA's office, armed with a search warrant, searchedthe patient files at Stanford Hospital's psychiatry clinic.They were looking for the records of a patient who was thevictim of a sexual assault-despite the fact that a subpoenahad been issued to the patient's doctor for those very records,and was still outstanding!One might take these perversions of justice to be isolatedincidents, were it not for the examples presented in theother ten cases of warranted police searches of media officessince the Daily incident. In few of them could thepolice make even a doubtful case that the newspaper orradio station might destroy or hide the evidence in question,and in none of them could they claim the need for instantidentification for fear the suspects would otherwiseescape their grasp.While the implications of the Supreme Court's decisionin Zurcher v. The Stanford Daily are frightening for theaverage citizen, they have especially dire overtones for themedia.The role of the pressWhen the Branzburg decision first exposed newsmen to thethreat of subpoena, Justice Powell was the key vote;without his support, the decision would have gone theother way. He felt the case was important enough to writea separate concurring opinion, in which he carefullydelineated what he felt was the relationship between FirstAmendment rights and the state's law enforcement needs:The Court does not hold that newsmen, subpoenaed to testify beforea grand jury, are without constitutional rights with respectto the gathering of news or in safe-guarding their sources. Certainly,we do not hold, as suggested in the dissenting opinion,that state and federal authorities are free to "annex" the newsmedia as 'an investigative arm of government'. The solicituderepeatedly shown by this Court for the First Amendment freedomsshould be sufficient assurance against any such effort....Indeed, if the newsman is called upon to give information bearingonly a remote and tenuous relationship to the subject of theinvestigation, or if he has some other reason to believe that histestimony confidential source relationsryips, without a legitimateneed of law enforcement, he will have access to the Court on amotion to quash and an appropriate protective order may beentered. The asserted claim to privilege should be judged on itsfacts by the striking of a proper balance between freedom of thepress and the obligation of all citizens to give relevant testimonywith respect to criminal conduct.Thus, said Mr. Justice Powell, when we grant the powerto subpoena, no blanket exemption is given to the press.But newsmen may contest such subpoenas on the groundsthat their First Amendment rights outweigh government(read "police") needs, through the traditional adversary(read "lawyer vs. lawyer") proceedings before a judgewho,through natural inclination, rates to be more supportiveof the state than of the press. Yet now, in Zurcherv. The Stanford Daily, Justice Powell and his colleagueseem to be saying that even this minimal protection for thepress is no longer required.Justice White's majority opinion did direct any courtpresented with a petition for a warrant to "apply the warrantrequirements with particular exactitude when FirstAmendment interests would be endangered by the search."The Court felt that no adversary proceeding was necessarybecause "properly administered, the preconditions for awarrant . . . should afford sufficient protection against theharms that are assertedly threatened by warrants forsearching newspaper offices." Wouldn't this place confidentialpress sources in greater jeopardy than the priorBranzburg decision? No, wrote Justice White, forif the requirements of specificity and reasonableness are properlyapplied, policed, and observed, will there be any occasion oropportunity for officers to rummage at large in newspaper filesor to intrude into or to deter normal editorial and publicationdecisions. The warrant in this case authorized nothing of thissort. Nor are we convinced, anymore than we were in Branzburg... , that confidential sources will disappear and that the presswill suppress news because of fears of warranted searches.Whatever incremental effect there may be in this regard if searchwarrants, as well as subpoenas, are permissible in proper circumstances,it does not make a constitutional difference in ourjudgement.30Libertarian Review

Justice White's observation appear to be somewhatdivorced from reality. As the federal district courtobserved in deciding the Daily case, a "search for particularphotographs or notes will mean rummagingthrough virtually all the drawers and cabinets in the office."And indeed that's just what happened when the fourPalo Alto officers searched the Daily for nonexistentnegatives. In the process, they admittedly picked up andlooked at confidential notes and papers totally unrelated tothe item they wanted-although they claimed not to haveread any of this material, merely to have examined it closelyenough to see that it wasn't what they were after. (Sincewhen does a typed or handwritten sheet resemble a strip of35-millimeter negatives?)But how well, after all, can a Supreme Court justice beexpected to understand the workings of a newspaper or aradio or TV news operation? Consider instead thetestimony of a few professionals, in affidavits presented inthe case. "The extension of the news office from a newsgathering function to an investigative agency of theauthorities is terrifying," declared Walter Cronkite."Professional news gathering facilities cannot be permittedto be used as evidence gathering agencies in either criminalor civil proceedings without losing all trace of the independenceand integrity on which the journalistic professionis founded." And Fred Mann, a former Daily editorwho is currently director of the California News Bureau,added that "a paper loses all credibility when it acts or iscompelled to act in the express interests of one groupagainst another." This theme was echoed by Los AngelesTimes Managing Editor Frank Haven: "To the extent that anewspaper, its personnel and files are used by defense orprosecution, ... the credibility of the newspaper is lostand it comes to be viewed as simply another agent ofwhichever side has chosen to involve the newspaper."And what of the threat of lost confidential sources? NewYork Times reporter Douglas Kneeland summed up theproblem succinctly:The more sophisticated sources know that newsmen may be subjectto subpoena; but they also know that recent court opinionsprovide a basis for lawful challenge to subpoenas. On the otherhand the intrusion of a search is indiscriminate; its scope andpropriety cannot be judicially tested in advance; and the merepossibility of its use renders vulnerable all confidential materials.Even if, post facto, the warrant is declared illegal by ajudge, whatever confidential information the police ordistrict attorney's men have seen cannot be expunged fromtheir brains.In its essence, the ruling makes all newsmen into policeinvestigators ex officio. This is a bitterly ironic state of affairs.It is perfectly true that a newsman, like any other individual,may see or hear something that can be consideredas evidence in the investigation of or prosecution for acrime. Thus, if one grants the state the power to subpoenatestimony from any innocent third party, it should logicallyfollow that a member of the press-when his or her observationswere made while doing nothing unique to thejournalistic profession, nothing that an ordinary citizenmight not do-should be equally subject to subpoena. Buthere we are dealing with records of events: photographs,notes, film, outtakes, etc.-records which were made solelybecause of the function of the press, a function apparentlyprotected by the First Amendment. If the presshad not been carrying out its role of gathering informationfor dissemination to the public, the records would notexist. If the press clause of the First Amendment is to haveany real meaning, how can such materials be subject towarrant?Privacy and the policestateOf course, why should constitutional guarantees offreedom of the press and freedom of speech be respected ifother, equal guarantees like the right to privacy are nolonger honored, either? And that particular right, proclaimedby the Fourth Amendment and slowly eroded overthe years by other Court decisions, has now been nearlyeradicated by Zurcher v. The Stanford Daily.As the Washington Post trumpeted in its editorial theday after the Court handed down its pronouncement (Incidentalinquiry: Is the phrase "handed down" traditionallyused in reference to the Supreme Court because it conjuresup the image of God handing down the Ten Commandmentsto Moses?), "What the court has said is that ifthe police can convince a judge there is probably cause tobelieve evidence of a crime is contained in your privatefiles-a crime not committed by you but by anyone, anytime,anywhere-they can rummage through your papersand premises until they find it, or choose to abandon thesearch."Privacy is dead. And privacy is the one true enemy ofthe police state: where the interests of the state outweighany private interests; where the first goal of the state is themaintenance of order; and where, to maintain order as efficientlyas possible, the state must know everything thatits citizens (read "prisoners") do. Justice White and his colleaguesput it a different way:[We] are unpersuaded that the District Court's new rule denyingsearch warrants against third parties and insisting on subpoenaswould substantially further privacy interests without undermininglaw enforcement efforts. Because of the fundamental publicinterest in implementing the criminal law, the search warrant, aheretofore effective and constitutionally acceptable enforcementtool, should not be suppressed on the basis of surmise andwithout solid evidence supporting the charge.In other words, law and order supersedes privacy when thetwo come into conflict. Since obtaining a subpoena togather evidence, especially if the person being subpoenaedcontests the court order, may delay the police, slow downthe juggernaut of law and order, that is sufficient reason tosweep privacy and individual liberty aside.•Marshall E. Schwartz is executive editor of LR and aformer editor of The Stanford Daily.July 197831

STUDIES INECONOMICTHEORYIntroducing a Distinguished New Book SeriesECONOMICS AS ACOORDINATION PROBLEM:The Contributions of Friedrich A. Hayekby Gerald :r O'Driscoll, Jr.Foreward by E A. HayekThis first full-length examination ofHayek's work in economics traces hiscontributions from his lectures on thebusiness cycle to his papers on thepricing system. Professor O'Driscollplaces the significance of that work inthe context of current debate. He showsthat in Hayek's considering generalequilibrium theory a mere starting pointfor economic analysis, Hayek rejectedorthodox neoclassical theory asinadequate. To Hayek, the real economicproblem was to describe how millions ofpeople, each of whom knows little. ornothing about the plans and resourcesof others, could remotely approachan equilibrium state. Instead, heapproached the problem bymasterfully describing the distributionof information as a dynamic process,coordinating the otherwise disparateplans of individual agents.240 Pages, Index$15.00 Cloth, $4.95 Paper($5.50 in Canada)THE FOUNDATIONS OFMODERN AUSTRIANECONOMICSEdited with an Introduction byEdwin G. DolanWith many eminent economistsseeking a more thorough explanationof the nature of market phenomena,many serious scholars have increasinglyfocused on analyses in the tradition ofCarl Menger and the Austrian Schoolof economics. Presenting the bestintroduction to the current Austrianparadigm,The Foundations of ModemAustrian Economics includes essaysby Israel Kirzner, Ludwig Lachmann,Gerald O'Driscoll, Murray Rothbard,and others. The selections includepapers on the nature and significanceof praxeology and comparative statics,Austrian and neo-Ricardian capitaltheory, Austrian and neoclassicalmonetary and trade cycle theory, andother areas. This volume examinesthe main gallery of Austrian ideasand contrasts this tradition with moreconventional economic approaches.284 Pages, Index$12.00 Cloth, $4.95 Paper($5.50 in Canada)For free catalogplease write:SHEED ANDREWSS' /I,,~ AIrA I& McMEEL, INC .L7.01 rlfd. rl6700 Squibb Road/Mission, KS 66202

I Books and the ArtsAnti-drug madnessby Richard AshleySensual Drugs, by Hardin and HelenJones. Cambridge University Press, 373pp., $3.95.Agency of Fear: Opiates and PoliticalPower in America, by Edward Jay Epstein.G.P. Putnam's Sons, 352 pp.,$9.95.The war against nonalcoholic drugsgot under way over a century ago withthe passage of the first prohibitionagainst prepared (smoking) opium. Theensuing conflict has been the longestsustained losing effort in American history.We now have prohibitions againsthundreds of drugs, a multi-billion dollardrug-law enforcement program, andlife· sentences for drug sellers. And wehave more drugs available and moredrug users than ever before.The latest light at the end of thetunnel-destroying dope at the sourcewith the highly toxic herbicide paraquat-involves the deliberate poisoningof citizens by their government. Americafinanced and supervised the sprayingof Mexican marijuana fields knowingthat a significant portion of the sprayedweed would be exported to this countryand smoked by Americans. (By the government'sown figures, 20 percent of themarijuana coming in from Mexico iscontaminated by paraquat. As many ashalf of the samples tested in Californiahave contained this herbicide.) As ofthis writing there are no verifiedfatalities from smoking paraquat, butthere are several verified cases of fibrosisof the lungs. Were it not so obscene, theAlice-in-Wonderland logic at work herewould be good for a few laughs. Theprohibitionists, after all, have alwayscontended that marijuana is a dangerousdrug- and now they have fulfilledtheir own prophecy for anyone unfortunateenough to smoke their handiwork.How public policy on psychoactivedrugs could ever have reached suchheights of absurdity is made plain by theexamples of what passes for "expert"knowledge about them, and the enforcementof the prohibitions againstthem, - as evidenced by Sensual Drugsand Agency ofFear."The distinction between medicinesand the sensual drugs," write Hardinand Helen Jones-a team comprising aprofessor of medical physics and physi­010gy at the University of California,Berkeley, and his wife and helpmate­"is simple. Sensual drugs are those thatthe body has no need for, but that givethe user a strong sense of pleasure."Simple, yes; distinctive, no. For if thebody does need medically prescribedtranquilizers, depressants, and stimulants,surely it can equally need suchsubstances when they are selfprescribed.And if they give pleasure inone case, they surely do so in the other.The distinction drawn by the Joneses isEdward]. Epsteinone drawn by moral fiat, not by differencesof kind. The authors simplydon't believe we have the right toprescribe our own medicines. To convinceus that the doctors and thegovernment know what's best for us,they set out to prove that, when left toour own ill-inform.ed choices, we usesubstances - sensual drugs -which"diminish the power of the brain tofunction in a normal, healthy way."Marijuana users, for example, are"susceptible to any sexual invitation andlack the will to resist." And since marijuana"upsets motor coordination, causingunsteady hands, a change in gait,and a lag between thought and facialexpressions," these pushovers are easy tospot, too. Who would be attracted tothem is another question: "Chronic,heavy users of marijuana have dry scalyskin much like that produced by thyroidhormone deficiency." Which, consideringthat "three people in six who usemarijuana are likely to become addicted,"bodes ill for our success in theinternational beauty sweepstakesbodesextremely ill in as much as thestuff is hard to kick: "If the use of marijuanais discontinued after two weeks ofheavy use, the decline in THC levels onabstinence is marked enough to causepronounced withdrawal symptoms."All of these assertions-like most ofthose which fill the pages of SensualDrugs - are contrary to the common experienceof humankind, a species whichincludes drug researchers of all persuasions.Still,.how can you get mad at a coupleso wondrously naive as to believe thatDOM (4 methyl 2,5 dimethoxyamphetamine),otherwise known as STP, was"originally synthesized as a motor oil additive"?Far removed from reality asthey are, the comments by the Joneseson psychedelics saved me from an embarrassingblunder. Had they remainedsilent here, nothing could have persuadedme that the publication date wasanything more than a typographical error.And I would have received thispiece of neo-"reefer madness" as areprint of an original first concoctedduring the prime of Harry Anslinger.A pair of academic vaudevilliansdancing to the myths of the 1930s, theJoneses at any rate provide boffo laughson every page. Only their publisher andJuly 197833

similarly disadvantaged types could takethem seriously. And anyone simpleenough to act on the information theygive is too simple to be warned off by thetruth. Edward Jay Epstein, on the otherhand, is the prototypical establishmentgunslinger who, under the guise of thethinking man's investigative reporter,blinds us with a dazzling array offacts - all of which miraculously missthe heart of the matter.His Agency of Fear persuasivelydocuments how the Nixon administration'after learning that it lacked theconstitutional power to deliver on its lawand order campaign promises, moved tosieze that power by declaring a waragainst heroin and recruiting a nationalsecret police force (the current DrugEnforcement Administration), directlyresponsible to the White House, to fightit. The war was sold to the public by animpressive list of "experts" who declaredthat (1) most street crime was committedby addicts looking for the moneyto supply their habits; (2) that theSPECIAL.OFFERTo get your copy of An EccentricGuide to the United States, speciallyautographed by the author, send$4.95, plus SOc for postage andhandling, to Agora Books, 4611Owensville-Sudley Road, Harwood,Maryland 20776.SATISFACTIONGUARANTEEDIf you are not entirely satisfied, returnthe book within ten days for a promptrefund.IIAGORA BOOKS4611 Owensville-Sudley RoadHarwood, Maryland 20776My check for $5.45 ($4.95 plus 50chandling) is enclosed. Please rush myspecially autographed copy of An EccentricGuide to the United States. Iunderstand that if I am not fullysatisfied, I may return the bookwithin ten days for a prompt refund,no questions asked.PrintNameAddressCityL - ---134IIIIIIIIInumber of addicts was rising daily; (3)that if the heroin traffic was stopped,the crime rate would drop dramatically;and (4) that the heroin traffic could bestopped. And this public relations effortwas continued in the face of mountingevidence that all these assumptions werewoven out of whole cloth.In Epstein's opinion, had Watergatenot sent Nixon scurrying home to SanClemente, the president would haveused his secret police force to establish atotalitarian regime. Good old Watergate.It saved us, and whatever ourfavorite whipping boy intended hisGestapo to be, it simply became, in Epstein'swords, "a protean manifestationof the earlier narcotics agencies." Inshort, apart from the shortcomings inherentin an agency designed to enforcea public policy based on faulty assumptions,there's nothing much wrong withthe DEA. By the same logic, there'snothing much wrong with Epstein'sbook. It does give an accurate accountof how an unscrupulous administrationused the "menace of drugs" for its ownnefarious ends. Yet this account is sosuperficial that it fails to touch thefoundations of the subject it purports toaddress.Agency of Fear, after all, is subtitled"Opiates And Political Power InAmerica" - a promise, at least a stronghint, that the author intends to go to theheart of the matter. Hit a home runanyway. But not only does Epstein strikeout, he doesn't even get the bat off hisshoulder. He fails to see, or flagrantlyomits saying, that we didn't need aNixon to import.totalitarian notions ofdrug law enforcement; that drug lawenforcement is totalitarian- necessarilyso. Its very nature is so quintessentiallyfascistic that to imply it can be reformedis as absurd as proposing reforms forconcentration camps.Consider: The sale and possession ofprohibited drugs are activities by or betweenconsenting parties, none of whomhave an interest in filing a complaintwith the authorities. That is, theyare- by definition- victimless crimes.Moreover, they are private activities,usually conducted behind closed doors.How·then can the police know when,where, and by whom a drug crime hasbeen committed? Well, with a few exceptionslike stumbling across one in thecourse of an unrelated investigation, orseeing one committed right under theirnoses, they can't know. Unless, ofcourse, they have prior information.Which they do. Eighty-five to 90 percentof all drug busts- and there weresome 500,000 last year- are the resultof informer activity. Informers identifytargets for Wiretapping and electronicsurveillance, introduce undercovernarcs to sellers, vouch for their credentials,and, in general, keep theirBy its nature, druglaw enforceDlent isso quintessentiallyfascist that to iDlplyit can be reforDled isas absurd as it is topropose refornts forconcentration cantps.employers in business. As one veterannarc put it, "They're our bread and butter.Without them we'd have to close upshop."Few members of the informer armyvolunteer for duty. They are arrestedand then given the choice of prison orcooperating with the authorities. "Cooperate"is a pleasant word, but there isnothing pleasant about it in this context.Here it means identifying and settingup your friends and associates to bebusted by your narc employer. For whoelse can we betray except those whoknow and trust us? Such cooperation,however, is not hard to induce. TheDraconian sentences imposed on drugoffenders gives the state all the leverageit needs.Coerced informing, in short, is thenecessary foundation of drug law enforcement.Nothing is more antitheticalto democratic principles, nothing morealien to our constitution than the statefrightening citizens into acting as dishonorablyas a person can- saving theirown necks at the price of someone else's.In a land founded as a citadel of pri-Libertarian Review

vate liberty against state power, therecan be no greater denial ofour heritage.For those who have forgotten, the Pilgrimfathers came here to escape the coercedinforming imposed upon them bythe high commission and star chamber,the instruments used by the Englishcrown to root out and repress religiousand political dissent. Witnesses calledbefore them were given the choice ofanswering the questions put them by thecrown's agents or going to jail. Andsince the inquisitors invariably asked forthe names of others who believed as thewitness did, the choice came down tojailor sending one's friends there.Believing neither alternative compatiblewith freedom or survival, the Pilgrimfathers fled England and came toAmerica.We, their decendants, were sparedsuch systematic coercion by the state until1919-20 when the enforcement of theHarrison Narcotics Act got under wayin earnest. And we have suffered thisun-American activity for more thanthree-quarters of a century now, withfew Americans other than the victimshaving any idea of what is happeninghardlysurprising considering the shallownessof those upon whom we dependfor information. Epstein, in his 352­page treatise on the misuse of the druglaws, devotes only a single page to theinformer system. And so minimal is hisawareness that, after noting the corruptrelationship which generally exists betweenagents and informers, he concludesthe discussion by telling us howJohn Ingersoll (then chief of the Bureauof Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, anagency later incorporated by Nixon intothe DEA) "after studying the problem,was determined not only to replace allthe agents who had become entangledwith their informers but also to do awaywith the informer system itself." Doaway, that is, with drug law enforcement.Sure.Put another way, Epstein's understandingof what drug law enforcementis all about is on a par with Nixon'sunderstanding of presidential responsibility.•Taxation andprosperityby Christopher WeberThe Way the World Works, by JudeWanniski. Basic Books, 303 pp.,$12.95.It is an unusual event indeed when thegold standard is advocated on theeditorial pages of a widely-read and influentialdaily. And yet that's just whathappened in the Wall Street Journal afew months back. The editorial, entitled"Barbaric Relic or Golden Anchor?",answered that query decidedlywith the latter alternative. Its author,Jude Wanniski, an associate editor ofthe Journal for several years now, isperhaps the most interesting and originalof all financial writers whose workappears in the establishment press. Topeople with conventional ways of thinking,his efforts are often provocative.Further, he possesses a fine writing style,a rare thing in any financial writer.Finally, and most unusual of all, he is ageneralist, who recoils at the pervasivespecialization of knowledge and, in hiswords, understands "the enormous coststo the world of fragmentation and theenormous benefits that would accruethrough unification." All of thesequalities, particularly the last, aremanifest in his new book, as can easilybe gleaned by the title: The Way theWorld Works.W oven through the book is the ideathat a high tax or tariff rate will causethe level of production to stagnate,along with living standards. Coupledwith this are his ideas that inflationresults when government drops its goldrestraint. Actually, then, the worldworks only when government reduces itscrushing grip on the productive energiesof the people.In the book's strongest suit, Mr. Wanniskigives example after detailed exampIeof how, throughout history and onevery continent, the slashing of taxescaused advancement-economic, political,and cultural. Conversely, massiveRichard Ashley is the author ofCocaine(St. Martin's Press) and Heroin (Griffin).Jude WanniskiJuly 1978 35

tax increases have caused poverty tofester and civilizations to collapse.Before we get on with those graphicexamples, however, a warning is due.Libertarians certainly believe that taxeshave crushed mankind for ages. We seethem as the nourishment of an institution-the state- whose only power is tomangle or destroy the productive energiesof the world's people; destroy whatAlbert Jay Nock called "social power.""State power" can create nothing; it canonly take what individuals have producedand use it to its own ends. Sometimesthose ends are those the individualwould have himself wanted: roads,schools, hospitals, etc. But if the demandfor a service exists, we believe thatthe voluntary actions of the market canprovide it better. To this way of thinking,taxation itself is both morally eviland economically unproductive.Wanniski starts out from a differentpremise. His model on how the worldworks is based on the Laffer Curve.Named after Arthur Laffer of USC'sSchool of Business Administration, thisis a tax-cutting idea beginning to findfavor among some opinion molders,particularly conservatives. Its mostfamous advocate is Rep. Jack Kemp(R-N .Y.), who has successfully negotiatedits adoption by the RepublicanNational Committee.What the proponents of the LafferCurve want is to cut taxes in order tomaximize both productivity, which isadmirable, and government revenues,which is not. Here is the rationale: Laffermaintains that there are always twotax rates which will yield the samerevenues. For instance, say the economyis being taxed at a 100 percent rate-noone is allowed to keep anything theyproduce. It's not hard to see that no onewill produce anything if everything heproduces is confiscated. Since there isno production, the government gets norevenues. Now, continues Laffer, assumethat there are no taxes, none atall. There are thus no state barriers toproduction and production is "maximized."But there is no revenue andhence no government; and without government,Wanniski writes, "the economyis in an anarchic condition." (Apparentlythe Laffer people assume thatwithout taxes people would be producingfar more than ever before in historyand yet have nothing left over for thenecessities of roads, schools, andpolice.) In any case, if taxes are nearconfiscatory,production will manage toeke out only a bit for government revenue,and if taxes are only miniscule,there will likewise be a small amount ofrevenue. So on it goes, with two differentrates rendering the same revenue.Throughout the curve, there's a tradeoff:either more taxes or more production.The ideal point on the curve is thepoint where "revenue plus productionare maximized." Here, "if the governmentlowers the tax rate again, outputwill increase, but revenues will fall. IfLibertarians have nointerest in any planthat tries to ntaxintizegovernntent revenue.Laffer's approach,on the other hand,inherently legitintizestax gathering.the tax rate is raised, both output andrevenue will fall." It is this point, Wanniskiargues, that governments ought tobe searching for.In other words, the Laffer peoplerealize that if taxes are too high the stategets too little revenue. Lower tax rateswould mean more production, moreeconomic production to tax, albeit atthe lower rates, and thus maybe evenmore revenue for the government thanwas possible with the stringentrates.Libertarians' objection to this is thatwe have no interest in any plan thatseeks to maximize government revenue.No genuine libertarian should everargue in terms of the Laffer Curvebecause Laffer's approach inherentlylegitimizes tax gathering, undercuts thefight to roll back government spending,and implicitly endorses any device, suchas withholding, that will on balanceyield more tax revenue to the state.It is undeniably true that lower taxesmean a higher standard of living, andthat higher taxes mean the opposite.And Mr. Wanniski has done an astonishinglyfine job in detailing how taxescrush both the individual spirit as wellas entire civilizations. Just imagine anhistorical and geographical setting, andchances are good that Wanniski has dissectedit. From ancient Greece topresent-day Peru, from Diocletian'sprice-control edict to Carter's capitalgains plan, the scope and detail arebreathtaking. One wonders how he wasable to pack so much into a bare 303pages. Ironically, in none of the examplesdoes Wanniski find .economiesgoing below his optimal point; never hasgovernment been starved for revenues.It's always that progress takes placewhen governments pull themselvesdown from the upper reaches of thecurved toward the optimal point.Conversely, he finds societies whichhave stagnated as they push themselvesup the curve away from the ideal point.Anyway, here are just a few examplesfrom the past that demonstrate-,that theless taxes there are, the greater thewell-being.Wanniski sees the French Revolutionas being sparked by punishing tax rates.By 1789, the French peasant had over80 percent of his income confiscated: 14percent to the lord of the manor, 14percent to the clergy, 53 percent to thestate. He thus kept less than 20 percentfor himself. The revolution came, andwith it, Napoleon, who wrote that"whilst an individual owner, with a personalinterest in his property, is alwayswide awake, and brings his plans tofruition, communal interest is inherentlysleepy and unproductive." Accordingly'a year after he gained power, heinstituted massive tax cuts that almostcompletely reversed the peasant's position:In 1800, the peasant paid nothingto either his lord or to the church; hepaid little to the national state, only 25percent to his city and departement,and kept 70 percent in his own pocket.Napoleon's subsequent downfall wascaused by his moves against themarket-namely his expensive and unsuccessfuleconomic blockade ofEngland- for everyone benefits bytrade. But so much productive powerwas unleashed by the lowered taxes thatit helped Napoleon conquer all of continentalEurope.The rise to world predominance ofEngland during the last century is our36Libertarian Review

second example. After the NapoleonicWars, England abolished outright herwartime income tax, and heavilyslashed most of the others (Unfortunately,after World War I, Englandwould leave all of her wartime taxes onthe books, and add more.) Not surprisingly,the British economy soared duringthat century. "Between 1816 and1875 Britain became the world's workshop,the world's banker, and theworld's trader. ... By 1860 she wassupplying half the world's coal andmanufactured goods. . .. Between1815 and 1851 occurred the most rapideconomic development of domestic resourcesin the whole of British economichistory."Further, "regular" taxes were not theonly ones to be cut. The evil tax knownas the tariff came increasingly under attack.Britain repealed the Corn Laws in1846, with wide popular support. Tariffswere dismantled in other countriesas well. Particularly joyous is the case ofHitler and Roosevelt,quite illlpressed withMussolini's exatnpleof central planning,didn't see that Italy'sstrength was due toher low-tax and hardcurrency policies.the fragmented German states that in1833 abolished tariffs between themselves.As Wanniski puts it, "The peopleof Germany gathered with long wagontrains at the various internal boundariesand waited for the stroke of midnight,January 1, 1834, when the tariff unioncame into being, and then crossed amidcheers."Mussolini's Italy surprised the worldwith her productivity during the 1920s.Even the Depression didn't hurt her asmuch as it did most other nations.Hitler and Roosevelt were so impressedby her example that they incorporatedcentral planning, which they saw as theprime feature of Mussolini's syndicalism,into their own economies. Butthese two dictators didn't see that Italy'sstrength was due to her low-tax andhard-currency policies. Mussolini, fortunately,didn't practice what hepreached, at least not until 1935. For 13years, however, the influence of his firstfinance minister, Albert de Stefani,caused public enterprise to give way toprivate whenever possible, and publiccontrol over production to be abolished.Close to Laffer's heart, government revenuewas increased by "the paradoxicaldevice," as one commentator put it, "ofactually lowering tax rates and simplifyingtax laws."Our last example comes fromAnnouncing an important newcontribution to libertarian scholarshipThe Occasional Papers are essays and monographs on major aspects of libertarian thought. The series includesoriginal works, reprints of libertarian classics and never-before-in-English translations of important essays in theClassical Liberal tradition.Handsomely printed and reasonably priced they make outstanding additions to the library of every libertarian, aswell as excellent introductions to libertarian topics for non-libertarians.The following titles are now available at $1.50 each.#1 Methodology ofthe Austrian School, by Lawrence H. White#2 The Production of Security, by Gustave de Molinari#3 Toward a Reconstruction ofUtility and Welfare Economics,by Murray N. Rothbard#4 The Political Economy of Liberal Corporativism, by JosephR. Stromberg and others.#S Classical Liberal Theory ofIndustrielisme, by AugustinThierry#6 Why the Futile Crusade?, by Leonard P. Liggio#7 The Clash ofGroup Interests and Other Essays, by Ludwigvon Mises (available in June, 1978)#8 The Austrian Theory ofthe Trade Cycle and other Essays,by Ludwig von Mises, Gottfried Haberler, Murray N.Rothbard, Friedrich A. Hayek (available in Sept., 1978)#9 Austrian Economics: An Annotated Bibliography,by Richard M. Ebeling (available in Nov., 1978)~---------------------------~-------------------Send me the following Occasional Papers in the quantitiesI've indicated:...... #1 #2 #3 #4 #5...... #6 #7 #8 #9Enclosed is my check or money order for a total of$ .D I want to know more about the Center for LibertarianStudies. Send me your Information Packet. (Enclosedis one dollar to cover postage and handling.)NameAddressCity~State_____'Zip---For discount rates on 10 or more copies of anyone title, writeto Joanne M. Ebeling at the Center.778-LRItlleenter for Libertarian Studies___~!..ar:..=::.e.=~:!u~!!.1~=~r~~~~3.JJuly 1978 37_

present-day India. In 1975, IndiraGhandi imposed a two-year dictatorshipupon the country. Civil liberties weresuspended and many intellectuals weretossed into prison. During these twoyears, the economy experienced ahealth and growth unprecedented inher history. This puzzled most Westernobservers, some of whom began to questionwhether dictatorship wasn't reallythe best way to make an economy work.This mystery is solved, however, whenwe observe the actions of the financeminister at that time, one C.Subramaniam. He used the suspensionof parliamentary activity to pushthrough his ideas of tax-cutting. The12.5 percent surtax was abolished, aswas a seven percent "urban-property"wealth tax; the "regular" wealth tax wasslashed from eight percent to 2.5 percent;the maximum tax rate waslowered from 85 percent to 77 percent,and then to 66 percent-with lowerbrackets being likewise adjusted. Corporatetaxes were also cut, and the progressivetax system on investment androyalty was scrapped in favor of a proportionalset-up.Not unexpectedly, the rupee rose onexchange markets; price inflation wassliced by two-thirds; bumper cropscame in from the farms; in short, thechronically ill Indian economy enjoyeda respite of health. Mrs. Ghandi'spopularity rose with the economy; butsince she believed that it was by her ownstrong statist fist that improvementcame, she began to trample on individuallibertyright and left. With thecoercive sterilization episode, the electoratefinally rose up against her. Shewent down to defeat, never understandingthat it was her (unwittingly) libertarianactions that gained her popularity'not her dictatorial ones.Wanniski's examples go on and on.For them alone, his book is worthreading. They make up the finest partsof his work.Unfortunately, I believe there to beflawed parts in it as well, flaws quiteapart from his enthusiasm for the LafferCurve. For example, Wanniski has theidea that the electorate is always right,that it understands economics, and thatit knows what it wants-such as lowertaxes - and will wait patiently untilpolitical leaders give it to them. Heholds that great ideas are not "sold" tothe people; rather, they are ideas "thatthe electorate craves even prior to theirconception." I believe the influence ofsuch opinion molders as philosophers,cultural and religious leaders, andmedia men to be much greater thandoes Wanniski. It was, for instance, thepolitical philosophy of John Locke,popularized by the journalists JohnTrenchard and Thomas Gordon, alongwith Thomas Paine, who moved thehearts and minds of the Americancolonists and gave direction torebellious sentiments.It is one thing to saythat higher taxes andtariffs produce ill,but quite another toill1pute All1erica'sGreat Depressionto a tariff. Yet that isjust what Wanniskidoes in his book.theirWanniski has a strange idea ofcapital. He holds that "all 'wealth'capable of producing goods and services"should be counted as capital. Notonly financial wealth is capital, butwhatever makes people feel good andthus makes them produce. "As long aspeople get pleasure from gazing on theMona Lisa, it is capital. Clean air andwater are capital. A Beethoven symphonyand a rock tune are capital.Parks, statues, buildings, houses, sewerlines, waterworks, all are capital." Thisdefinition, however, breaks up theuniversality of the concept of capital.The old view holds that capital is allresources which are not themselves consumed,but used to create goods thatare. They are of at least potential valueto all people. But things like a "rocktune" are not. (There are some peopleto whom this would be entirely withoutvalue.) Further, there are no limits tothis subjective view of capital other thanabsurdity itself. If contemplating mynavel helps me produce, is that navelcapital?This said, Wanniski goes on to makean excellent point: In the various aggregatemeasurements that governmenteconomists make, there are so manyvalues that.can't be measured that theofficial reckonings are never accurate.But here I would draw the distinctionbetween the subjective values of individualsand the objective "capitalgoods." He puts a greater burden on hisanalysis than it can bear. It is one thingto say that higher taxes and tariffs produceill, but quite another to impute theGreat Depression to a tariff. Yet that iswhat he does. The boom was caused bythe lowering of the war-tax rates in1921. The 77 percent maximum taxrate of the war years gave way to a 46percent rate. The excess-profits tax waseliminated. There was explosiveeconomic growth during the 1920s as aresult of this, he claims. And then, "Thestock market crash of 1929 and theGreat Depression ensued because of thepassage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Actof 1930." Specifically it was the market'sexpectation of the tariff bill that causedthe crash, and the evils of the tariff itselfthat dragged it out into the Depression.Admittedly, Smoot-Hawley wasprobably the worst tariff act in anAmerican history filled with tariff acts.But the Depression was not caused bythis. It was caused by the inflation of the1920s, as Murray Rothbard has brilliantlyshown in his America's GreatDepression. Wanniski finds fault withall the conventional explanations of theDepression-and rightly so, for all butthe Austrian view. But when he attacksRothbard's book, he is wrong. Rothbard,he says, "reckons the expansionfrom 1921-1929 as an 'inflationaryboom' [where] the money supply ... increasedby 61.8 percent over the eightyears. His America's Great Depressionseems untroubled by thefall in the consumerprice index over eight years, from53.6 to 51.3." But Rothbard has indeeddealt with this. He begins page 82 ofAmerica's Great Depression with this:"[T]he designation of the 1920s as aperiod of inflationary boom may troublethose who think of inflation as a risein prices. Prices generally remainedstable and even fell slightly over theperiod. But we must realize that twogreat forces were at work on prices duringthe 1920's-the monetary inflation38July 1978

which propelled prices upward and theincrease in productivity which loweredcosts and prices. In a purely free marketsociety, increasing productivity will increasethe supply of goods and lowercosts and prices, spreading the fruits ofa higher standard of living to all consurners.But this tendency was offset bythe monetary inflation which served tostabilize prices. Such stabilization wasand is a goal desired by many, but it (a)prevented the fruits of a higher standardof living from being diffused aswidely as it would have been in a freemarket; and (b) generated the boomand depression of the business cycle. Fora hallmark of the inflationary boom isthat prices are higher than they wouldhave been in a free and unhamperedmarket."The productivity that Rothbard mentionsis backed up by Wanniski's ownfindings. Undoubtedly, those tax cutsgave a major impetus to the decade'stremendous technological advancement.Clearly, Wanniski's "Lafferite" sympathiesand our libertarian ones spring.from two different roots. While his programseeks to "optimize" governmentrevenues, ours seeks to establish anorder that holds inviolate the rights andliberties of the individual and his property.We must therefore push for taxslashes far, far deeper than those whichwill provide the most income to thestate. Indeed, we must slash them out ofexistence.It is certain that Wanniski's "globalelectorate" has long been crushed underthe weight of staggering taxation. Happily,though, we can see signs thathumanity has finally had enough. Butas the hated establishment collapses, towhich of the various alternatives willpeople turn?We cannot answer that with certainty,but we can echo Wanniski's own sentiments,put forth in the last paragraphof his book: "[The world] will, as italways has, ultimately reject all systemsthat do not revolve around the indiviuual."•Christopher Weber writes frequently oneconomic and financial issues for LRand a number ofother publications.Coerced cultureby John HospersThe Subsidized Muse: Public Supportfor the Arts in the United States, byDick Netzer. Cambridge UniversityPress, 272 pp., $14.95.It would probably be helpful to anypotential reader of yet another book extollingthe benefits of State subsidy tothe arts to digest the following dialoguebefore opening the book in question:"When money you've earned is takenaway from you without your consent,wouldn't you call that robbery?""Yes, I suppose I would.""Well, when you are taxed for thesupport of various enterprises, to whichyou never gave your consent, isn't thatrobbery too?""But taxation is different. ... ""If it seems different to you, couldn'tthat be because you don't see anyoneforcibly taking it out of your wallet? Theusual trappings of robbery aren't there,but still, it's done by force or threat offorce, isn't it? You know well enoughwhat would happen if you refused topay, don't you?""Yes, in that way it's like robbery. Butwe need taxation to support variouspublic services.... ""If you need services you can't provideyourself, as we all do, hire someoneto provide them, or cooperate voluntarilywith others and do it together. Thatway, if a person doesn't want the service,he doesn't have to pay for it.Groups of people working together canvoluntarily produce roads, schools,police, telephone services, a medium ofmonetary exchange, and thousands ofother things; historically they have donethis countless times, when left free to doso. The fact that most of these thingsare now done by the state leads you tobelieve that they have to be providedthrough the state.""But some of them are things thateveryone needs. . . . ""Right, and in a condition of freedoma market will arise to meet that need.But people still have the option of doingwithout it. You have no right to forcethem, and they have no right to forceothers to provide the services withoutcost (work for no return is slave labor).If someone wants to do without fire protectionfor his home, let him do so andtake his chances.""But then if the house burns down"Then maybe he'll figure that insuranceis worth the cost next time- justas, now, if you don't have a good creditrating, before you need credit the nexttime you may put your financial housein order and not live beyond yourmeans. But now suppose that it'ssomething that some people don't evenwant; would you still say that theyshould be forced to pay for it?""Of course not - nothing like that.""And if some people want drama oropera and can't pay for the kind of productionthey like to see, should theyforce other people who don't want it topay for it through taxation?""Of course not.""Even though it might be good forthem?"(Pause) "I guess it's for each individualto judge what's good for him.""Yes. And even if he's mistaken andthe other person is correct, the otherperson has no right to use the first person'smoney to make him participate inwhat someone else thinks is good forhim."There is really not much more thatneeds to be said about government subsidyof the arts, or of anything else. Theprinciple is everywhere the same: Youmay not use force upon others to makethem participate in activities that youthink would be beneficial to them. Youhold no mortgage on their lives.Nevertheless, in one book and articleafter another, this fundamental principIeis totally ignored; it does not seemeven to have occurred to most authorson this subject. In a book I reviewed afew months ago (Janet Minihan, TheNationalization of Culture; LR,December 1977), the author desired todraw more and more money from Britain'salready overextended treasury tosupport the artistic activities to whichshe gave her sanction. The author of thepresent book, Dick Netzer, dean of theGraduate School of Public Administrationat New York University, is somewhatmore modest in his aims, preferringa combination of outright subsidyand tax incentives. That as a resultLibertarian Review.39

he desires smaller subsidies than Ms.Minihan may be to his credit, but it israther like the girl who made excuses forhaving an illegitimate baby by sayingthat it was, after all, a very small one."Most people," writes the author,"would agree that the $390 million thatgovernment now provides as direct publicsubsidy of the arts is a very smallevena scandalously small-amount." Ido not dispute that the arts deservemore, but the first question is not howmuch money they deserve but where themoney is to come from.So little, the author complains, isspent· by Americans on the arts, comparedwith "the $40 billion spent onalcoholic beverages and tobacco, the$18 billion spent on toys and sport suppliesand equipment, the $4 billionspent in barber-shops and beauty parlors...." And so on. But these expendituresare voluntarily chosen. Pre-Netzer deploresrising costs, but doesnot even m.ention theunion rules whichsay a m.em.ber of oneunion m.ay dislllantlethe stage scenery,but m.ay not turn offa single light bulb.sumably the author wishes to redirectthe choices of Americans so that theywill spend more on the arts instead; andsince they don't do it now, they must bemade to (via government subsidy). Theyalso would probably spend much moreon the arts if they weren't already taxedto death- a rather obvious point whichthe author never mentions.When I was on a television programsome time ago with the director of asubsidized music-and-drama organization,he was shocked at my "indifferenceto the arts" when I said there should beno state subsidy; in all his years of endeavorhe had never heard anything so"radical," so "cynical." When I mentionedhow much was going into welfarebenefits he said, "Get rid of the welfarebenefits- put it into the arts!" That'sjust the trouble-each one wants to dodifferent things with other people'smoney. By contrast, when I visitedBrigham Young University for a seriesof talks, my host stopped the car on ahilltop overlooking more than $20 millionworth of new campus buildings,and said with some pride, "Not one bitof it was built with stolen money." Idoubt that the author of this bookwould have appreciated the distinction.Still, there is a lesson in the book forlibertarians: Most of the money that sustainsthe arts in America, the authorpoints out, comes not from direct governmentoutlays such as the NationalEndowment for the Humanities (whichaims to quadruple its federal grants by1980), but from private donationswhich are tax-deductible. In this way,"the government does not even determinethe total amount of the support itprovides.... Instead, the aggregate isdetermined by thousands of decisions onthe part of individual donors."This of course sounds much better;indeed, it is much better. But there is acatch here that libertarians should beaware of. When a large foundation getsmoney from the national treasury, libertariansare (quite rightly) indignant atthe policy of robbing Peter to pay Paul;but when that same foundation is taxexempt,libertarians do not voice muchof an objection (except, sometimes, towhat the money is used for). After all,shouldn't we all be tax-exempt-sowouldn't we look strange insisting thatthe foundation in question should notbe? Yes, but what if the billions ofdollars that would have come in but forthese tax exemptions are replaced byhigher taxes on the rest of us? Is it reallyso desirable for some persons or organizationsto be tax-exempt as long as allare not? What right has the governmentto be selective about the organizations itchooses to favor in this manner? It's niceif your neighbor doesn't have to row theboat, but what if the result is that youhave to row twice as hard?The author is not well versed in thespecific arts, a fact which becomesclearer as one reads on. But he doesn'tpretend to be; he is an economist. Whatkind of economist is another question.Certainly he is much too paternalisticallyoriented to have much trust in theoperation of the market. He mentionswith approval, for example, that in thenext decade we can expect a "modest4.5 percent inflation rate." Does he notknow, as an economist, that a generationof that rate of inflation would erodeaway almost the total value of one's savings?He deplores the rising costs of puttingon performances. But why does he notmention the wasteful union regulationswhereby a member of one union maydismantle the stage-scenery but may notturn off a single light bulb? The cost ofmaintaining theaters is deplored, but henever mentions that many city governmentsissue permits for only a limitednumber of theaters, thus increasing therental cost for putting on a production.After deploring how little Americans(voluntarily) spend on the arts, he goeson to say that almost nobody in Americabelieves that the arts are sufficientlysubsidized by government, and that"our society" believes that much moreshould be spent on the arts. What is thisentity, "our society," if not the sum ofthe individuals? Yet according to hisown account, most of the individualsare unwilling to spend much on the arts.The individuals won't spend much, butthey believe that the government shouldspend much more, Netzer seems to say.If this is indeed true, are these same individualsunaware of where "governmentmoney" comes from - that "thegovernment spending it" is tantamountto their spending it, or rather beingforced to spend it- something which bythe author's own account they are unwillingto do voluntarily? Can it be truethat they don't want to spend it voluntarilybut don't mind being forced to doso?Among the things the author does notobject to is the insidious practice of requiring"matching funds," whereby thefederal treasury (financed by taxpayersfrom all the states) withholds funds thatthese same taxpayers have put in unlessthe state or local government (financedby the taxpayers of that state ormunicipality) comes up with an equalamount- thus goading the state intoraising still more taxes, under the threatthat part of the money we have already40Libertarian Review

put into the federal kitty will never bereturned to us unless we fork over stillmore to the state or county. This "doubletaxation by intimidation" ("Give $2or you'll never get your $1 back") is constantlyemployed in extracting money tosubsidize the arts, as well as policedepartments, transport systems, andcountless other "public enterprises."Indeed, the author is often proud ofthe very things he should bewail:"Matching funds" isa double taxationploy used to extractDloney to subsidizethe arts, as well aspolice departlllents,transport systeDls,and countless other"public enterprises.""Government proprietorship," he says,"has obvious monetary advantages.Governments do not ordinarily permitthe complete financial collapse of theirdepartments; nor do they readily firecivil servants. The empire-building proclivitiesof bureaucrats work to expandbudgets.... " Indeed. And this is arecommendation? Apparently it is, forhe says later, "Opera companies can absorbhuge amounts of public subsidy effortlessly...." How about fruitfully?Morally? Noncoercively?Which arts should be supported outof the public till? Opera? Yes-it is expensive,opera needs it. Ballet? Assuredly.Modern dance? Well, yes, with possiblereservations. Country and westernmusic? Rock and roll? Of course not.Why not? Probably (he doesn't discussit) because (1) it already has a largemarket, and (2) it's not as good. Evengranting that it's "not as good," howdoes that justify the state's taking moneyfrom patrons of the one to confer onpatrons of the other?If you want a breakdown by state ofpublic expenditures on each of theNowAVaIlable:Adam Smith:The Man and His WorksBy E. G. West1776 was a year of momentous events, including publication of The Wealthof Nations-the book that launched the movement for economic liberty.Here is a brisk look at the author of that epic, written for the layman andstudent. Hardcover $6.95, Paperback $1.45.The Wisdom of Adam SmithAdam Smith may have been the first great economist, but he was nodismal scientist. He was instead a man of great philosophical and historicallearning, and his literary style was widely admired. The Wisdom of AdamSmith brings together his most incisive and eloquent observations on subjectsranging from political and economic history to morals, philosophy, art,education, war and the American colonies. Compiled by British scriptwriterand playwright John Haggarty, edited and with an introduction by BenjaminA. Rogge. Hardcover $7.95, Paperback $1.95.The Theory of Moral SentimentsBy Adam SmithAdam Smith's first book will startle those who think capitalists are purelyselfish, for Smith fully understood that liberty must be based in a moralorder. Dr. E. G. West, who writes the introduction, asserts that "if The Wealthof Nations had never been written, this previous work would have earnedfor him a prominent place in intellectual history." The Theory of MoralSentiments was greeted with rapturous praise in its own day. Smith's friendDavid Hume wrote to him from London soon after the publication, tellinghim that lithe public seem disposed to applaud it extremely." The "mob ofliterati," Hume added, I'are beginning to be very loud in its praise."Hardcover $9.95, Softcover $2.95.Llbertyfuss Uber~lass1CSWe pay postage on prepaid orders.To order these books, or for a copyof our catalog, write:LibertyPress/LibertyClassies7440 North Shadeland, Dept. FIIIndianapolis, Indiana 46250July 197841

major arts, or if you want to know whatpercentage of performances in theUnited States are free to the public, or ifyou are curious about "the four majortypes of benefits of government subsidyfor the arts," this book may be just thething for you. As a fringe benefit, theauthor even throws in a discussion of"externalities," with the problem of whowould pay for the lighthouse. Every shipprofits by it, but no one shipping companyis going to pay for it as long asother companies have the free use of it.Apparently he has not read his felloweconomist Murray Rothbard's simplesolution to this problem: The insurancecompanies would pay for the lighthouse.The book may interest you if you arefascinated by (1) types of subsidy; (2)John Hospers Z"S professor of phz"losophyat the Unz"versz"ty of Southern Californiaand was the 1972 Libertarian Partypresidential candidate.Colloquy on the leftby Robert FornwiniThe Political Economy of the NewLeft, by Assar Lindbeck. New YorkUniversity Press, 259 pp., $12.00.As one voyages through AssarLindbeck's Polz'tz"cal Economy of theNew Left, compiled from a series of lecturesthe University of Stockholm socialdemocrat delivered on major U.S. campusesin 1968-1969, plus rejoinders fromother "New Leftists," the reader seemsto find a lot of people talking past oneanother.Lindbeck, a capable economist andoften a trenchant expositor of ideas, isalways the model-building neoclassicalempiricist. Armed, in the beginning,with a deep faith in man's rationalityH b · h ld and intellectual good will, he verye rIngs up teo generously communicates the need for aquestion of who pays serious reexamination of "New Left"positions to his colleagues- who, in thisfor the lighthouse. book, include George L. Back, StephenHymer, Frank Roosevelt, Paul M.Apparently, he has Sweezy, Robert Heilbroner, BruceMcFarlane, andJames Tobin.not read his fellowThis compilation is one of several recentbooks containing debates on politieconol11.istMurray N. cal and economic issues between Marx-Rothbard 's answer.. ists and modern liberals (the others,with the notable exception of ModernI · Polz'tz'cal Economy, edited by Jamesnsurance cOntpanIeS Weaver, are cited by Lindbeck). Here,will pay for it.our principal author, in his civil way,iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiij; ever so patiently tries to demonstratethat the New Left is in error on certainvarious arts subsidized and the extent ofpoints and overly vague (Le., "unscientific")on many others.support for each; (3) what is done withpresent subsidies; (4) the probable effectsof hoped-for future subsidies; orFor Lindbeck, superior economictheory is that which yields better empiricalresults. Nowhere is it explainedany of a number of related issues. Ifelaborate tables ofstatistics turn you on,who will decide which results are "better."Lindbeck seems to blithely assumeyou will find the book absolutely impossibleto put down. But you should bethat all reasonable men will agree onforewarned that the author's writingthis question. Reading the responses tostyle is extremely pedestrian; so if youhis book by his critics must have been adon't find these subjects all-consumingsobering experience. The Marxists rejecthis theories "a priori" with cumber­in their fascination, reading the bookwill be a trip through Dullsville. •some and confused philosophical discussionsof "competing paradigms" and"separate realities." Lindbeck's patienceis strained in the rejoinder as he attemptsto deal with the "anti-intellectualism"of his detractors: "How cantwo people not agree on a computerprintout or a mathematical generalequilibrium system?"At times, Lindbeck is laughablynaive. He tells us that there are no comprehensivetheories of regulatory exploitationby affluent interest groups,despite all the work of revisionisthistorians and many economists. Hetells us that Japan and West Germanyare examples of "capitalist" countriesthat don't need large defense budgets tomaintain economic growth and vitality,but he nowhere mentions who actuallypays for their "defense." And what,given his request for more empiricalwork, are we to make of the following?"On a theoretical level, the Marxisttheory of imperialism can be said tohave been made obsolete by the Keynesianrevolution, which taught us how tomaintain a high level of employmentthrough deliberate 'demand management,'mainly by means of monetaryand fiscal policy." Suddenly, empiricalresults give way to a "don't disturb mewith the facts" theoretz"cal dogma!In a lengthy discussion of markets·and bureaucracy, Lindbeck opts formarkets, but with the usual "publicgoods-externalities" exceptions. UsingHayek's well-known arguments aboutdecentralized knowledge and informationcosts, he favors market solutions forcommodity production, but then believesin imposing progressive taxationand welfare statism to counteract theresults of those transactions. In fact,Lindbeck does not even believe that amarket society is capable of achievingstability, not to mention the mysticalcondition he calls "an acceptabledistribution of income." In a trulyamazing passage he posits the theorythat it is decentralization itself that maycause inflation! Lindbeck often leavesthe cruel realities of our Keynesiandominatedwelfare states for the comfortablesurroundings of a neo-classical !wonderland where technicians can arriveat just the right income distribution'optimal tax rates, full employment,externality-correcting taxes, anda plethora of other nonexistent theoreticalconstructs.Much of Lindbeck's analysis is simplisticand contradictory, but his criticsfare much worse. Hymer and Rooseveltexpend considerable energy explainingthat they share a "different paradigm"42 Libertarian Review

than Lindbeck, a position I feel is an erroneousapplication of Kuhn's famousmonograph. This is followed by generalizationsthat are clearly not trueexceptfor Marxists. At the close of theirarticle-when they state, "We hope thatLindbeck's book stimulates a fruitfuldialogue between radical and traditionaleconomists on how to go beyondour present limitations in thought. . ."- they clearly mean the traditionaleconomists' limitations. MarxistsLike other losers inthe ntarketplace ofideas, the Marxistshave fornted newjournals, articulatingrhapsodically about"new paradigllls,"impervious to theiropponents' criticisnt.have no doubts.Sweezy's article, reprinted formMonthly Review, is the worst in thebook. This one response prompts Lindbeckto take off the gloves in his rejoinder.Sweezy begs questions, spurtswith great outpourings of antihistoricalrhetoric, and generally erects a model,ad hominem argument against Lindbeck.Lindbeck "sees a different reality,"is "irrelevant" and "boring," andcannot criticize a position with which heis not empathetic. I think Sweezy underestimatesLindbeck's sympathieswith Marxist criticism; but what Sweezyis attempting to demonstrate is thatLindbeck does not share Marxist meth­0dology and is therefore imcompetentto criticize Marxist conclusions. Lindbeck'sresponse-that to accept Sweezyis to place scientists in different divinityschools- is so~d counterargument.Robert Heilbroner's articles andbooks are generally quite superficial,but this article is better than most of hisefforts. Keeping Heilbroner's unusualbent of mind in view while reading it,one can enjoy a comment by a left-wingeconomist slightly between Lindbeckand his critics. Who can ever forgetHeilbroner's rational for the Sovietstate, offered up in his Commentary articleof December 1969: "Are we tojudge the Russian planning effort afailure (irrational) because it hassacrificed present consumption forfuture growth to a far greater degreethan the sacrificing generation wouldhave voted for, had it been given the opportunity,but not, in all likelihood, to agreater degree than the future generationswould have voted for if they couldhave?" In case you missed the articleand are holding your breath, Heilbroneranswered in the negative. Hebrings this keen logic to bear on Lindbeckwith the result that Lindbeckescapes unscathed. The best Heilbronercan offer the reader in the marketbureaucracydebate is a society of the"utopian self-sufficient 'kibbutz'." Is itpossible to hate markets this much?For McFarlane, Lindbeck representsthe "New Right" - the logical extensionof the Hayekian tradition. Lindbeck isundeserving of this classification, butelsewhere in the book Lindbeck himselferroneously classifies none other thanMurray Rothbard as a New Leftist. Ifthe reader enjoys arguments couched inmystical Marxist terminology (e.g.,"capitalist-caused distortions of socialconsciousness") and detailed expositionsof "what Marx really meant," thisarticle is a gold mine.Upon Lindbeck's examination, theNew Left turns out to be the same oldMarxist slogans dressed up in a "decentralized"gown. Like other losers in themarket of ideas, the Marxists have risen,not to contest marginal analysis again,but to form their own journals andsocieties and articulate rhapsodicallyabout "new paradigms," impervious totheir opponents' criticisms. Theysolemnly agree with each other aboutthe coming "death of capitalism" andcontinue holding the decades-longwake.Faced with the choice, as happily weare not, between neoclassical (read"neo-Keynesian") analysis as presentedby Lindbeck, and New Left mysticismas presented by his critics, the status quonever looked so good. Lindbeck is awarethat he and his critics are grapplingwith the important issues of our time. Inthis argument, he scores repeatedly; butMarx has been kicked around for decades,and we know the arguments byheart. Lindbeck cannot refute Marxismpartially because it is more faith thanscience, but also because neoclassicalanalysis so often is, as the New Leftclaims, irrelevant. Many of these issues,because they are nonquantifiable andconcern fundamental moral relationshipsin society, lie outside the analyticpossibilities of general equilibriumtheory and econometrics. Neoclassicaleconomists are often technicians whosee life as a constrained maximizationproblem with unfortunate pests called"externalities." They are not morallypromarket; they are economically proefficiency.Once you accept this, you can enjoy anew voice that pens the same answers ina refreshing way, and it is just in thisway that Lindbeck's book can be studiedprofitably. He shows us both theglories and weaknesses of contemporaryneoclassical economics- and that ismore than worth the price of admission.Robert Formaini is conference directorfor the Academic Affairs Program ofthe Cato Institute.•Don't wait to beMUGGED or RAPEDPOLICE SIZE PARALYZERBuv Two And Save$6!s52 for $13 plus.75 post S 60 postProtect yourself with this powerful "CS"Tear Gas. Police size Paralyzer Size 6" X1-1/4". It will stop a 300 lb. man, up totwenty minutes With no permanent inJuryFires 70 blasts up to 15 feet. Pocket size ...available at $4.95 plus 60 postage. Tear GasGun Catalog .50COOPER ENT. INC.P. O. BOX 892, DEPT. L ST. CLOUD, Fl 32769Crime IS on the increase l Protect yourself With thispreCision made weapon Easily fits pocket or purseNo Federal Firearms License Required. Revolverwith ten tear gas shells only $12.95 plus $1 25 postageLeather holster $2.50. Package of extra tear gasshells 10 for $250. Extra loud blanks box of 100$395 Catalog 50c Distributors wanted Dept LCooper Enterprise.... 892, Dept. L , St. Cloud, Florid. 32785)July 197843

Letters(continuedfrom page 2)tarian Review has resolved to doeverything it can to contribute to thedebate from a different noninterventionistperspective. We have, in brief,tried to answer, in broad strokes, someof the more prominent argumentsraised in defense of militarz'sm, interventionz'sm,and for drastically increasingour arms budgets. If you wz"ll readeverything publz'shed in LR along theselz"nes, you will see that, although thereare differences among LR's authors,their contributions, taken together,form a coherent view offoreign policyand defense questions. LR's writers arenot confused skeptics: they have a pointofview.There is indeed a disagreementamong many libertarians about thesez'ssues. But here I will make a flat statementwhich I feel z's more than supportedby the facts: Those who are best informedon these z'ssues, those who havestudied them the most, are the onesmost strongly in favor of a thoroughgoingnoninterventionz'st foreign policy,seeing a drastic cutback in U. S. militaryforces as both reasonable and feasible;those most uncomfortable with such aposition are those who have studied suchmatters the least, and who often knownext to nothing about the z'ssues involvedin the defense/foreign policydebate.By all means, let lz"bertarians study allthe different sides to the debate! I havebeen urging libertarians to take thedebate seriously and to read the significantcases for both points of view formany years. I have urged Tibor Machanto study the z'ssues involved. Most ofthem, however, particularly those whotake z'ssue with LR's general approach,are simply not willing to do anythingsubstantial to alter their present statesofignorance or confusion. Thz's I take tobe a shirking of what z's today, forserious intellectuals, a profound moralresponsibility.I am fully convinced that the morelibertarians study the z'ssues, the morethey will agree with positions setforth inLibertarian Review. I urge. ProfMachan to test that hypothesz's with allthe energy and intelligence at hz's command.-Roy A. Childs, Jr.Defense, not offenseAs a member of the "militaryindustrialcomplex" for over 40 years,this writer can confirm the validity ofMr. William Marina's statements [inreviewing R. J. Rummel in the Mayissue]. Yes, we do need a big stick todeter the Russians. But the Cruise(formerly the Polaris) is more than adequateto the purpose. I knew RoyAnderson, inventor of the guidancesystem used in the Cruise and other apparatus.It is an exceedingly simple andeffective weapon~ I believe.As to our present adventures inAfrica: It seems our "statesmen" areunable to learn. Russia can't take overAfrica or any other large part of theglobe- their own experience proves it.Peter the Great was criticized by somefor retreating from Charles of Sweden.He replied, "Yes, it is true; Charles isbeating us now. But in beating us, hewill teach us how to beat him." It happened,and the Swedes were driven outof Russia. They worked the same gametwice since then: once on Napoleon andonce on HitIer. Yet the lesson seemslost - not only to us, but even the Russians!Ever since the time of WoodrowWilson, poor Uncle Sam has been madethe meddler and jackass of the world.When will it stop? I don't know. But Ido know that it will not stop until thevoters rise in their anger and put a stopto it. The Libertarians have the rightformula. I'm 77, and growing very tired.But I hope the younger people will takeover and keep it going. Jarvis-Gann is agood sign. Let's keep it moving.EschClVing ideologyJohnE. ErbNorthville, New YorkDanny Shapiro is to be commendedfor his insightful overview of neoconservatism(Feb. and March 1978).There is one point, however, which wasnot, to my mind, sufficiently addressed.That is the issue of "ideology."Neoconservatives often claim toeschew "ideology" as unrealistic and tooconfining for the world of events inwhich men find themselves. They claimto rise above ideology and lay claim tothe only practical approach to politicalaffairs. All of their ideological opponents(regardless of their place on thespectrum) are brushed aside asideologues, and hence impractical andunrealistic.This is the same canard which theMarxists have tried to foist off on intellectualsfor years. All other viewpointsare biased ideologies (for theMarxists, "bourgeoise" ideologies) andhence invalid. Despite this intellectuallegerdemain, both Marxism and neoconservatismare themselves ideologies.Both accept the state as a legitimate institutionand both advocate state actionof various kinds. In the case of the neoconservatives,a consz'stent worldviewand programm is set aside in favor of anad hoc advocacy of this or that policy.This does not, however, mean that theyhave no worldview, for they must havesome criteria by which to judge themerits of a particular act of state. Thisacceptance of state action plus the (inconsistent)set of criteria which goesalong with it constitutes an ideology.By claiming to eschew ideology perse, neoconservatives downplay the inconsistencyand incoherence of theirown ideology, just as the Marxists foryears forestalled a critique of socialismand the socialist society by tarring allsuch critiques with "bourgeoise sentiments."The neoconservatives aretruer to their socialist origins than theyperhaps would like to admit.Tom G. Palmer5t. John's CollegeAnnapoll's, MarylandViable political philosophyThe two articles by Daniel Shapiro arevery well done- thoughtful, knowledgeable,on the whole temperate. But towrite a reply, one would have to end updiscussing libertarianism as a viablepolitical philosophy (which I think it isnot) and that would talft; a lot of time,which I simply do not have.•Irving KristolEditorThe Publz"c InterestNew York City44Libertarian Review

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Order from Branden Press/221 Columbus Ave./Boston, Mass 02116/USA.PHILOLOGS-Private newsletter of libertariancommentary and satirical speculation.Sample $ .50, 12 issues $5.00.OEHILR2, Box 2586, Tallahassee, FL32304.UNTIL NOW, NO AUTHOR HASDARED TO CHALLENGE THIS ASPECTOF YOUR SELF-DESTRUCTIVE BELIEFS.Dr. Walter Block demonstrates how youpay a burdensome economic and emotionalprice by not defending such victims as thepimp, prostitute, drug pusher, slanderer,slumlord, profiteer, loan shark and scab.Now his book, "Defending the Undefendable,"has itself become a victim. Althoughthis intellectual adventure has receivedrave reviews from Hayek, Szasz, Hazlitt,Rothbard, Hospers, Nozick, and Mac­Bride, it has been virtually banned by thenation's bookstores as too controversial.So order your hardcover copy directlyfrom the publisher. $9.95. 3 week moneybackguarantee. Or send for free brochure.Fleet Press, P.O. Box 2L, Brooklyn, N.Y.11235.MOVEMENT OF THE LIBERTARIANLEFT. For most radical activists. Introductorypamphlet and sample newsletter,STRATEGY, for $1. Order from NewLibertarian Enterprises, Box 1748, LongBeach, CA 90801."VICES ARE NOT CRIME-A VINDICA­TION OF MORAL LIBERTY" by LysanderSpooner. A brilliant defense against thestate's meddling in your life.TANSTAAFL, P.O. BOX 257, Cupertino,CA 95014. $2.95 plus SOc postage. Writefor wholesale discounts.July 197845

DISASTER AHEAD? TERMINALGENERATION? US economic/political!military collapse coming? WHY? Survival?For a fresh, new different approach consideringthese trying questions using theBible and history, send $2.00 to Book, Box7, Pine Ridge, AR 71966.PRACTICAL POLITICS MAGAZINE, thenon-academic journal that reports on campaignactivity, public opinion, and politicalmovements and trends in the ever changinglandscape of political America. Samplecopy $1.50. Center for the Study of PracticalPolitics, Box 2495-L, Springfield, Illinois62705READ THE HOTTEST BOOK IN ·THETAX REVOLT MOVEMENT. The BiggestCon: How the Government is Fleecing You,by Irwin Schiff. "A blockbuster"-JohnChamberlain. Send $6.45 to FreedomBooks, P.O. Box 5303-A, Hamden, CT06518IDEASCOPE-A formula for findingcreative ideas. Be a winner, send $3.00 R.P.OVER-LOOKED MARKET for 300-700word articles about people-places-things.Sell same article for $25-50 many times.Top writer shows "Tricks-Of-Trade." Howeasy it is! 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Lindsey Wholesale, B-13041,Tucson, AZ 85732.Crosscurrents(Continuedfrom page 9)trade are the twin tenets which must remainfirst and foremost in our modernlibertarian movement's ideology andpolitical agenda.I not only recommend reading thesecontrasting views of Nitze and Kennan,but just as vigorously I recommend Kennan'sThe Cloud of Danger: GreatRealities of A merican Foreign Policy(Atlantic-Little Brown, 1977). In thisage of increasingly probable nuclear annihilation'this book is better than mostas a point of orientation to start thinkingseriously about current Americanforeign policy.• The tools of deathTimed to appear in conjunction withthe United Nations Special Session onDisarmament, The Nation publishedits May 27 number as a special issue on"Disarmament: Essays on the History,Politics, Economics, Urgency andFuture of Disarmament".Edited by Princeton's Richard Falk,the issue contains such articles as SidneyLens' historical overview of the troubledattempts at disarmament, "Thirty Yearsof Escalation"; Herbert Scoville, Jr.'s intelligentplea for another strategic armslimitation agreement, "The True Utilityof 'SALT'''; William Sweet's discussionof the role of neutral and Third W orIdcountries in pushing for this special session,"Delhi: A Third World Overture";Daniel Ellsberg's reasons why"There Must Be No Neutron Bomb";and union boss William Winpisinger'sconfused article on "The DefenseWorkers Dilemma." This last piecedoes, however, make the importantpoint that moves toward significantarms reductions will be difficult as longas defense workers cannot see alternativeemployment possibilities. Itseems to me, though, to be a bit of"reconversion blackmail." Finally, thereis an excellent, longer article by theman whom I consider to be the nation'snumber one strategic thinker-Earl C.Ravenal, on "Does Disarmament Havea Future?"Disarmament has for centuries stoodas a key tenet in the libertarian traditionand political program. But as a crucialand necessary as military disarmamentis, libertarians have.known that militarydisarmament alone is not sufficient toattain and maintain a lasting peace.There must also be, as the great liberalFrederic Bastiat pointed out, economicdisarmament. Barriers to trade must bereduced if more natural and peacefulrelations are to grow and prosper.Tariffs, quotas, exchange controls andthe whole apparatus of antitrade barriersin general must be torn downhopefully,with reciprocity; but if not,then unilaterally. In fact, if the militaryhardware were not so frighteningly explosive,unilateral economic disarmamentwould be the best first step towardmilitary disarmament and toward attainingpeace. It might yet be so.Lowering trade barriers necessarilyleads to more commercial and peacefulrelations all the way around. Libertariansshould clearly welcome anymove- reciprocal or unilateral- towardeither military or economic disarmament.•UNTIL NOW, NOAUTHOR HAS DAREDTO CHALLENGE THISASPECT OF YOURSELF-DESTRUCTIVEBELIEFSDr. Walter Block demonstrateshow you pay a burdensome economicand emotional price by notdefending such victims as thepimp, prostitute, drug pusher,slanderer, slumlord, profiteer,loan shark and scab. Now his bookDefending the Undefendable, hasitself become a victim. Althoughthis intellectual adventure hasreceived rave reviews from Hayek,Szasz, Hazlitt, Rothbard, Hospers,Nozick, MacBride, Childs,Palmer and many others, it hasbeen virtually banned by the nation'sbookstores, and by the NationalLibertarian Party,as toocontroversial. So order yourhard-cover copy directly from thepublisher. $9.95. 3 week moneybackguarantee. Or send for freebrochure.Fleet PressP.O. Box2KBrooklyn, NY 11235July 197847

Announcingthe libertarian movement'sfirst magazine of events.Announcing the new Libertarian Review.What makes a political movementsuccessful?Many things, of course, but successfulpolitical movements have one thingin common: each has its independent,respect~dpub(icationdevoted to eventsan.~i:s:~~;~s~.•.• ·~9\W.,::~\~~,I'ibertarian movement hasSUqb.\~,p~J;jli~atjon:the new LibertarianRe~~~W~.,pill.r'~triltindthe new LR.The libertarhln movement desperatelyneeded a pUblication focused onevents. A magazine that would subjectnational and international developmentsto careful, probing libertariananalysis.The new LR will be precisely that. Itwill be a magazine that consistentlycomes to grips with the key issues ofourtime. A magazine willing tOJight for individualliberty.A magazine that servesas a forum for lively debate, thoughtfulcommentary, fresh ideas, and occasionalwhimsy.What you'll find in our pages.Of course, LR will continue to providefirst-rate coverage of the libertarianmovement itself. Our pages willcontain colorful, on-the-scene reportsof its activities, its organizations, itsstrategies and its people.But the new LR will be far more thanjust another "movement" publication.By systematically translating principlesinto practice, we will bring libertarianismto the real world, and the real worldto libertarianism.This editorial philosophy, this animatingspirit, is reflected in the issueyou're reading right now. In timely, relevantarticles. In the columns and de-partments. In our new format with itssharp, modern graphics.As for coming issues, you can lookforward to provocative essays on thesupression of political ideas in America,the decline of New York City, pornographyand the law, American foreignpolicy, the "energy crisis," thelibertarian movement and many more.Plus regular columns and features like"Crosscurrents" and "WashingtonWatch," hard-hitting editorials, andcrisp, in-depth reviews of books and thearts.LR will continue to boast a roster ofcontributors that includes the topnames of libertarianism. People likeMurray N. Rothbard, Roger MacBride,Ralph Raico, Joan Kennedy Taylor,Walter Grinder'and Earl Ravenal andmany others.As always, LR guarantees to aggravate,stimulate and infuriate. It willraise questions you've wondered aboutfor years-and some you'd never dreamof considering. It may challenge manyof your most firmly held beliefs. Butandthis is a promise--it will never boreyou.Ciet in on th.·excitementfromthe beginning.The new LR will soon be ill the forefrontof the most exciting intellectualpoliticalmovement in two centuries. Asthe first and only libertarian magazineof events, we'll be shaking things upissue after issue--both inside. and outsidethe libertarian movement.Here's your invitation to getin on theaction-by becoming a charter subscriberto the new Libertarian Review.(Already a subscriber? Then renewnow, so you'll be sure not to miss a singglethought-provoking issue.) Subscribenow and get 12 monthly issues for $15.Your satisfaction is guaranteed. If weever let you down, just tell us and we'llsend you a prompt .refund for the balanceofyour subscription.The new Libertarian Review will becharting the course of America's secondlibertarian revolution. Don't getleft behind. Join us today. .After all, the debut of the first libertarianmagazine of events is somethingof an event in itself.Use this coupon to subscribe or rene.",. ~rvou prefer not to cut the page. please supply thefollowing informationon a plain sheet ofpaper. Intlude your old mailing label ((you"I~---------are renewing your subscription.,,---------ti -b----i - -tte-I. I erlarlan ITieilT 1620 Montgomery St. II~ .....~ '" ....... T'! I II I 'n San Francisco, CA 941111IllbtTlanaRRt l \ lflIiYes! I wa?t to be in ?n all the excitement of the libertarianCerter'e EnergyI ~~~ movement s first magazme ofevents. Feeclem: Preecrlptlon . . Ifor Power . . .)~. k 0 Start my subscription (12 monthly issues) to the new LR today. obI .. hI'''''· . ~ , 0 Renew my present subscription for another 12 monthly issues. II ~. " ~~r !Enc1osed is my check or money order for SIS. I understand that I I:1 ,/)!,- 'have the right to cancel my subscription at any time and receive a Ifull refund for all undelivered issues.I% .. IName I~'~ ,:IlAddress I__ .._.._.JCity State. Zip 71IL.- - - - - _.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - _ ..