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THE

[eclld

SEPTEMBER 1961

IDEAS ON LIBERTY

The Case for Saying No . . . . . . Joe Hochderffer 3
Exploitation . . . . . . . . . . G.M. SnelGrove 7
Freedom and the Nature of Man. . . . Sylvester Petro 9
Double Jeopardy . . . . . . . . H.P.B. Jenkins 15
What Liberty Is . . . . . . . . . Wendell J. Brown 16
Education for Individualism . . . . . Henry Hazlitt 25
What Can a Banana Tree Do? . . . . Stanley Yankus 29
Miracle of the Market . . . . . . . Leonard E. Read 32
Volunteers for the Peace Corps . . . . HansF. Sennholz 38
Capitalist International . . . . . . Alfred Anderson Kennedy 44
Wilhelm von Humboldt. . . . . . . RalphRaico 46
Books:
Let There Be light! . . . . . . . . John Chamberlain 54
Other Books . . . . . . . . . . 58

THE FOUNDATION

FE FOR ECONOMIC EDUCATION, INC.
Irvington-on-Hudson, New York



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WHY...?

WHY are some people urging the WHY should the federal government
federal government to spend billions spend money needlessly when it can
more on electric power plants when get money instead—through the addi-
the federal budget is already hard tional taxes the investor-owned elec-
pressed to meet the nation’s defense tric companies will produce if they
needs? supply all of the power for the future?

WHY are some people trying to get =~ WHY should the federal government
the government to spend money need- ever waste its effort on jobs American
lessly on federal electric transmission industry can do better, especially
lines instead of using existing and when there are so many other prob-

planned facilities of the investor- lems in the country and the world
owned light and power companies. that only the government can deal
with?

WHY do certain pressure groups keep

pushing for more federal government ~~ The answers to all of these questions
electricity when the electric light and are important to you — because they
power companies can supply all the can help curb further waste of your
additional power the nation will need? tax money.

Investor-Owned Electric Light and Power Companies | foot Amerson wohl.

Company names on request through this magazine


===== PAGE 4 =====

THE

Tecmdn 3 MONTHLY ova AL oF DEAS ON L BERT
SEPTEMBER 1961 Vol. 11 No. 9

LEONARD E. READ President, Foundation for
Economic Education

PAuL L. POIROT Managing Editor

THE FREEMAN is published monthly by the
Foundation for Economic Education, Inc., a non-
political, nonprofit educational champion of private
property, the free market, the profit and loss system,
and limited government, founded in 1946, with offices
at Irvington-on-Hudson, New York. Any interested
person may receive its publications for the asking.
The costs of Foundation projects and services, in-
cluding THE FREEMAN, are met through volun-
tary donations. Total expenses average $12.00 a year
per person on the mailing list. Donations are invited
in any amount—$5.00 to $10,000 —as the means of
maintaining and extending the Foundation’s work.

Copyright, 1961, The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc. Printed
in U.S.A.
Additional copies, postpaid, to one address: Single copy, 50 cents;
3 for $1.00; 25 or more, 20 cents each.
Permission is hereby granted to anyone to reprint any article in whole
or in part, providing customary credit is given, except “What Liberty
Is,” and ‘Wilhelm von Humboldt.”

FVE Any current article will be supplied in reprint form if there are enough

E inquiries to justify the cost of the printing.


===== PAGE 5 =====

JOE HOCHDERFFER

THE CASE FOR SAYING

THE SPEAKER was saying: “And it this noon at a Rotary luncheon.
in conclusion, ladies and gentle- He was saying it before the PTA,
men, let’s be progressive. Let us the Chamber of Commerce, the
shake off our lethargy to meet the AFL-CIO local, the Urban League,
challenges of our time. Let us em- the United Chest Council, and be-
bark upon bold new ventures in fore all the Federations of Pro-
the face of the dark fears of our gressive Dogooders who have been
age. Let us free the world from federated for progressive causes
want, from misery, from need. across the length and breadth of
Let us shun those who would put this nation of ours. “Let us be
their own selfish interests before positive,” he was saying, and say-
the welfare of mankind. Let us ig- ing, and saying.
nore those knaves of negativism A thousand times I have sat
who have become apathetic to the through this speech urging me to
problems of their fellow men and get positive. I have mapped politi-
who wallow in their own wealth cal campaigns where we have spent
and greed. Let us push forward days trying to write a “positive”
into new frontiers. Let us be posi- platform and have ended up say-
tive.” ing, not what we wanted to say,
The speaker was saying this last but something else entirely, simply
night at a meeting of the League because we had to be “positive.” I
of Women Voters. He was saying have labored for days drawing up
- a position for our Chamber of
Mr. Hochderffer is Staff Executive of the Commerce to take on pending leg-

Chamb f Com f Fort W , In. .
diana, merce © ayn, MM jslation, only to have some mem-

3


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4 | THE: FREEMAN September

ber of the board of directors— by the progressive progressives,
who arrived late for the meeting and positively despised by the pos-
— stand up and say: “That’s okay, itive positives. Nevertheless, I

but it's too negative.” take my stand. Let’s get negative.
Co Please note that as I develop my
Positive Disciplinel argument, I shall be on the de-

As a member of a college facul- fensive. That suits me. It states
ty, 1 have been urged to take a my position clearly and classifies
“positive” approach toward the my opponents exactly as I think
discipline problem — whatever the they are.
positive approach toward disci- Maybe our generation of “yes”
pline might be. As a parent I have men would change the rules. In de-
been cautioned not to punish but bates, for example, we would have
to set a “positive” example for my the affirmative side and the more
children. I have been “positived” affirmative side, or the almost af-
sick. Of that you can be positively firmative side. “Give me a straight
positive. answer,” we'd say, “is it yes or

I don’t know when the positive hell, yes?” Yes, we have yes ba-
bug bit us, but we have become a nanas. Baloney!
nation of “yes” men. To be mod- I'm “agin” the “yes” men. With
ern is to be positive. If you're the current definition of progress
against even the wildest govern- being all the high-minded schemes
ment spending scheme, you're op- of godmother government, state
posed to progress. If you take a welfarism, federal aid, gimmicks,
stand against welfare benefits, you handouts, subsidies, and supports,
hate your fellow man. You're un- I am opposed to progress. I am
christian, in fact. If you question anti-big government. I am against
whether the social security sys- Social Security and the progres-
tem is a proper function of gov- sive income tax. I say “no” to price
ernment, you’re a purple people supports or wage controls of any
hater. You've got to be for some- kind. I am not unchristian or anti-
thing. Or else you're an “anti” American. I am not a “yes” man.
You're old-fashioned. You're not And I am not alone.
with it, brother, with it. : Pardon me while I call off the

I am sure I will be shunned by names of the players on my team.
the progressives, ignored by the “Washington, Hamilton, Frank-
positives, treated as a leper by the lin, Madison, Rutledge, Pinckney
progressive positives, ridiculed by ...” They signed the Constitu-
the positive progressives, pitied tion. Remember it? The greatest



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1961 THE CASE FOR SAYING NO 5

document for freedom ever devised Privilege of the Writ of Habeas
by man. It’s negative from the Corpus shall not be suspended, un-
word “no.” less when in Cases of Rebellion or

“Congress shall make no law Invasion the public Safety may
respecting an establishment of re- require it... No Bill of Attainder
ligion or prohibiting the free ex- or ex post facto Law shall be
ercise thereof; or abridging the passed...No Capitation, or other
freedom of speech, or of the press; direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in
or the right of the people peace- Proportion to the Census or Enu-
ably to assemble, and to petition meration herein before directed to
the Government for a redress of be taken.”
grievances.” The Constitution is just one big

In those days the freedom found- loud “no” to all efforts of the State
ers knew you didn’t have to be for to interfere with the God-given
something by spelling out a positive rights of free men.
progressive program. You had to be
suspicious of big government and The Ten Commandments
you limited it by spelling out what Any more support? Some. From
it could not do. Man then was free a fellow named Moses. He carried
to go about his own business in a message from God to the chil-
his own way, so long as he did not dren of Israel. Remember it? It’s
infringe on the rights of his fel- negative, nine to one.
low man. Let’s see what else our “You shall have no other gods
team’s first string said: before me.

“The right of the people to be “You shall not make yourself a
secure in their persons, houses, graven image, or any likeness of
papers, and effects, against unrea- anything that is in heaven above,
sonable searches and seizures, or that is in the earth beneath, or
shall not be violated ...nor shall that is in the water under the
private property be taken for pub- earth; you shall not bow down to
lic use without just compensation them or serve them; for I the
... Excessive bail shall not be re- Lord your God am a jealous God,
quired, nor excessive fines im- visiting the iniquity of the fathers
posed, nor cruel and unusual pun- upon the children to the third and
ishments inflicted . .. The enu- the fourth generation of those
meration in the Constitution, of who hate me, but showing stead-
certain rights, shall not be con- fast love to thousands of those
strued to deny or disparage others who love me and keep my com-
retained by the people... The mandments.


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6 THE FREEMAN September

“You shall not take the name of leaving them a wide latitude of
the Lord your God in vain; for the choice for their “positive” pro-
Lord will not hold him guiltless grams of life, Incidentally, the Ten
who takes his name in vain. Commandments didn’t run into

“Remember the sabbath day, to trouble until the amendments and
keep it holy. Six days you shall court decisions started cluttering
labor, and do all your work; but them up with positive, progres-
the seventh day is a sabbath to sive hogwash.
the Lord your God; in it you shall
not do any work, you, or your son, Some Other Samplings of
or your daughter, your mansery- Christian Negatives
ant, or your maidservant, or your Was it our speaker back at the
cattle, or the sojourner who is beginning who called our negative
within your gates; for in six days attitude “unchristian”? Let us see
the Lord made heaven and earth, what kind of a ‘‘yes” man Christ
the sea, and all that is in them, was.

and rested the seventh day; there- One of his earliest recorded
fore the Lord blessed the sabbath statements was to Satan in the
day and hallowed it. wilderness. “Thou shall not,” he

“Honor your father and your told Satan, “tempt the Lord thy
mother, that your days may be God.”
long in the land which the Lord And through the gospels:

your God gives you. “Man shall not live by bread
“You shall not kill, alone.
“You shall not commit adultery. “I am not come to destroy, but
“You shall not steal. to fulfill.
“You shall not bear false wit- “Take heed that you do not
ness against your neighbor. your alms before men to be seen

“You shall not covet your neigh- of them.
bor’s house; you shall not covet “Let not thy left hand knoweth
your neighbor’s wife, or his man- what thy right hand doeth.

servant, or his maidservant, or his “Be not like the hypocrites.
ox, or his ass, or anything that is “When you pray, use not vain
your neighbor's.” repetitions.

Of the Ten Commandments, only “No man cometh unto the Father
“Honor your father and your but by me.
mother” contains no negatives. “Lay not “up for yourselves

God’s directives spelled out what treasures upon earth.
his people should not do, thus “No man can serve two masters



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1961 THE CASE FOR SAYING NO 7

...you cannot serve God and mam- “Lead us not into temptation,” he

mon too. teaches us in his prayer. We be-
“Judge not that you be not gin married life with his words
judged. ringing in our ears: “What God
“lI am not come to call the has joined together, let not man
righteous. put asunder.” What better golden

“He that taketh mot his cross rule in our family life than “Suf-
and followeth after me, is not fer little children and forbid them

worthy of me, not to come unto me”?
“He that is not with me is “Not as I will,” said Christ in
against me. Gethsemane. And, finally, on the
“There shall be no sign given cross: “Father, forgive them for
unto this generation.” they know not what they do.”
Christ doesn’t lay out any Instead of “No taxation without

planned way of life for his dis- representation” as the freedom
ciples. How humdrum! He cautions clarion of the American colonists
them on what not to do, thus mak- that was louder than the shot
ing them the freest men possible. heard around the world, suppose
The recorded words of Christ they had said: “Let us have taxa-
contain more negative statements. tion as long as you let us have
“Fear not” is one of the most oft- representation.”
repeated quotes of our Saviour. Case rests. ®

EXPLOITATION

G. M. SNELGROVE

WE CONTINUE to use words in a meaning, “an heroic deed,” and
haphazard way without being quite that is as it has always been. But
sure of their entire meaning. Con- the verb means, “to turn to practi-
sider the word “exploit.” It has cal account; utilize for profit; use
acquired an almost felonious im- selfishly for one’s own ends.” Ap-
plication. The American College parently, the last third of the
Dictionary gives it first as a noun meaning has kidnapped its two
Mrs. SnelGrove of Riverside, California, iden- companions. It really isn’t as nasty
tifies herself as “a very average person near- 3a word as I had thought.

ing retirement age, who always has lived with
freedom and wants to keep it that way.” If I should borrow money to


===== PAGE 10 =====

8 THE FREEMAN September

start a small manufacturing busi- ants would be out of work. Their
ness, is the lender exploiting me? lives would be disrupted and they
He certainly isn’t financing me for would lose such security as their
free. He is doing it selfishly to work for me had afforded them.
make money for himself. Assume Any person needing a product like
that my business prospers and I mine would have to pay more for
hire an assistant. I pay him the it. Supply and demand would take
going market wage, but I make care of that.

additional profit by reason of his The banker, who loaned me the
help. Am I exploiting him? The money in the first place, benefited
more people I hire, the more me, my assistants, and all the cus-
money I make. Is there anything tomers for my products. Though
wrong with that? I wouldn’t ex- the banker acted from a selfish
pand if I were not selfish; I can motive, he is a fine fellow, really!
make more money that way. There I, in turn, benefited those I hired
is no point in it otherwise. If I am and those to whom I sold, helping
in business to make money, and myself in the process. My assist-
that would be the only reason, is ants helped the entire community
that too selfish? Since I pay at least by working and trading there. The
the market wage rate, I'm prob- government collected taxes from
ably a benefactor to those I hire. all of us.

What if I should become worried I have persuaded myself that I
about exploiting all these people? ought to continue to exploit these
I could dismiss them and close the people, even if I have enough
place. (This wouldn’t be likely to money for my needs — unless, of
happen, until I" had made enough course, the profits fall so low that
money to keep me comfortably for I can make more by investing my
the rest of my life.) All my assist- property in another way. @®

IDEAS ON LIBERTY

Don’t Blame the System

IF ANY CONTINUE through life in the condition of a hired laborer,
it is not the fault of the system, but because of either a dependent
nature which prefers it, or improvidence, folly, or singular mis-
fortune.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Agricultural Address,
Milwaukee, Wi in, September 30, 1859



===== PAGE 11 =====

SYLVESTER PETRO

|

J
13

“and the Nature of Man /

/

i
{
emer meri neem rf, ya RS |

Ve

FREEDOM in society is necessary to after all the best means of achiev-
man because he can in no other ing their most cherished goals.
way realize himself, or even be If all this is true, a stunning
himself. As the great German conclusion must be drawn: the
thinker, Wilhelm von Humboldt, free society has a much stronger
has said: “The true end of man — claim to inevitability than commu-
not that which capricious inclina- nism can boast. The only alterna-
tion prescribes for him, but that tive is a frustrated mankind
which is prescribed by eternally doomed to a perpetual failure to
immutable reason — is the highest realize itself. Communist Russia
and most harmonious cultivation asserts that it is the society most
of his faculties into one whole. congruent with the nature of man.
For this cultivation, freedom is It asserts a record of fulfillment
the first and indispensable condi- already superior to that of the
tion.” This insight explains much. free society. But in terms of either
Men have painfully and awkwardly the nature of man or of the his-
and courageously built free socie- torical record, Communist Russia
ties because it was only natural and its fundamental ideology,
for them to do so. They have Marxism, are wrong.
found that freedom in society is Consider the nature of man.
This creature has been described
DX, petro is Professor of Law at New York in many ways, but I believe man
adapted from one of a series of lectures de- is essentially described as of all

livered last May in Buenos Aires under the

auspices of Centro de Estudios Sobre la earthly creatures the one with the
Libertad, Dr. Alberto Benegas Lynch, Presi- . .
dent. widest known range of desires

9


===== PAGE 12 =====

10 THE FREEMAN September

and the greatest capacity to Full Use of Potentialities
satisfy a wide range of desires. If the goal of mankind is to real-
Man’s yearning in the spheres ize the potentialities of the species
of the mind, the spirit, and the to the fullest, it becomes necessary
senses is apparently limitless. Men to insure to all men the fullest
differ among themselves in the possible personal freedom. Con-
relative strength of these desires; fining freedom of action to a few,
not all artists are thinkers, not all in the totalitarian way, is simply
priests are artists. But Albert unintelligent —not to mention its
Einstein took much comfort in his immorality; for such a limitation
violin, and the most ignorant arbitrarily confines the quantity
workingman delights in the mov- and quality of service to society
ing pictures or the companionship which might otherwise be forth-
of the tavern, and he finds solace coming.
in religion. The infinite variety John Stuart Mill put the case
which is to be found in all human for personal freedom — and for the
societies is a reflection of the free enterprise system — in its
character of the human being. ultimate form when he said: “The
Within a radius of one mile from only constant and unfailing source
Times Square in New York, or of progress is liberty, for by it
Piccadilly Circus in London, or there are as many centers of im-
Place Vendome in Paris, or Piazza provement as there are individ-
Venezia in Rome, one can find the uals.” Compulsion may force men
empirical evidence of the fantastic to produce as much as their mas-
diversity of the human character. ters insist upon. I say “may,” for
Equally distinctive is man’s it is doubtful that unfree men or
capacity to select, adapt, and even slaves ever produce as much as
create means to serve his diversi- their masters wish, even under the
fied ends. No other creature comes lash. But what is not doubtful at
close to the instrumental dexterity all is this: compulsion will not
of mankind with nature-given make men produce more and
means, let alone the capacity to better things than the masters
create new means. Fitting exist- themselves wish.
ing means and creating new means _ The theoretical maximum of
to serve his ends is as much a dis- production in an unfree society,
tinctive attribute of man as his therefore, is limited by the imagi-
apparently limitless appetite for nation of the few who are in con-
the things of the body, the mind, trol. Since these few are not likely
and the spirit. . to be the most productive or crea-


===== PAGE 13 =====

1961 FREEDOM AND THE NATURE OF MAN 11

tive members of society, that theo- matter. For the truth is that the
retical maximum is undoubtedly Russian performance is disgrace-
far beneath the potential of the ful, even when compared to the
society. In the free society, on the only-partly-free economy of the
other hand, the theoretical maxi- United States. If the economy of
mum is limited only by the pro- the United States were rid of the
ductivity and creativity of the debilitating influence of what is
most fertile persons, acting singly probably the most vexatious struc-
or in combinations with capacities ture of government regulation and
to produce and create which are the most burdensome taxes in the
so prodigious as to defy a priori world — including Russia — we
conception. should probably be out-producing
Quite apart, therefore, from the the USSR by an even greater
insuperable technical economic margin than the present one.
difficulties which Professor Lud- There are in fact no areas in
wig von Mises has demonstrated which Russia, with more people
in his great work, Socialism, a and a larger land area and longer
compulsory, totalitarian society is and harder work, comes even close
doomed to inferiority by a much to the productivity of the United
simpler and more evident fact. Its States. The able economist, Karl
productivity must be low because Brandt, has made a comparison in
it systematically limits creativity agricultural production. Of United
and full productivity to necessarily States agriculture, he says: “It
only a few. It cannot be fully pro- produces in a year with no more
ductive until it is fully free, and than 8.5 per cent of the national
it cannot be fully free till it aban- labor force, or 7.4 million workers,
dons the central socialist principle, over 200 million tons of grain, 3
viz., public ownership and opera- million tons of sugar, over 20 mil-

tion of the means of production. lions tons of meat and eggs, over
60 million tons of milk, 35 million
The Russian Records tons of fruit and vegetables, or 315

We have been hearing a great million tons of edible products,
deal lately about the superior pro- plus 3.5 million tons of cotton, and
ductivity of the Soviet Union, nearly 1 million tons of tobacco.”
especially as measured against the (THE FREEMAN, April 1961. p. 31.)
United States of America. But for Of Russian agriculture, Mr.
the fact that so many people are Brandt notes that “after 40 years
impressed by the Russian claims, of brutal experiment of collectivi-
little time should be spent on this zation, Soviet Russia produces


===== PAGE 14 =====

12 THE FREEMAN September

with 414, times the number of This is the most spurious kind of
farm workers (33 million) one- comparison. For one thing, it pre-
third as much meat (7 million supposes the accuracy of Russian
tons) as do our farmers; and even statistics, something which even
of grain, most of which they eat the Russians themselves periodi-
rather than feed to livestock, they cally disavow. For another, it neg-
produce only 60 per cent as much lects the difference in the rate-
as.our output. This in spite of an base. A child of one multiplies his
abundance of natural resources in years by 100 per cent on his second
Europe and Asia. One American birthday, while his brother of
farmer produces food for himself three multiplies his years by only
and 24 others." A Soviet farmer one-third on his fourth birthday
produces enough for himself and — but both have grown only one
4 others.” In short, the relatively year older on their respective
free United States farmer is six birthdays. Russia claims a steel-
times more productive than the making capacity of some 70,000,-
enslaved Russian farmer. Think 000 tons per year, suggesting
of what the ratio would be if the something like a 500 per cent
farmers of the United States were growth in capacity in the last
freed of all government control! twenty years. The capacity of the

Per capita productivity in the steel industry in the United States
United States exceeds that of has almost ‘doubled in the same
Russia to a similar degree in all twenty. years. But that increase,
other areas — except probably in it should be noted, amounted to as
government, where, as might be much as the total steel capacity
expected, per capita productivity claimed by the Russians today, or
is the same all over the world: about 70,000,000 tons; for the
very low. Perhaps it is just as total steel capacity of the United

well. States today falls just short of
150,000,000 tons, as against 80,-

Deceptive Percentages 000,000 tons in 1939.
But, the Russian apologists say, But even if Russia should ulti-

Russia’s rate of growth exceeds mately produce more steel than.
that of the United States, with the United States, -this would
Russia claiming annual growth prove nothing concerning the rela-
rates of something over 6 per cent, tive desirability or productivity of
while the United States is grow- the free society as against-the un-
ing only at the rate of 3 per cent free society. The excellence of the
or less. free society does not lie in its


===== PAGE 15 =====

1961 FREEDOM AND THE NATURE OF MAN 13

gross production figures in any shortages in public school con-
particular industry. The supreme struction, Yet annual expendi-
excellence of the free society lies tures on school construction have
rather in its axiomatic response to grown more than 500 per cent in
the wishes of its members. The less than ten years, from $411,-
fact that Russia is producing 70,- 598,000 in 1947 to $2,850,984,000
000,000 tons of steel each year in 1956. Again, comparable figures
means only: that its masters have from Russia are unavailable.

brutally directed the people to With private citizens owning
such a rate of production of steel. few if any automobiles in Russia,
Left free, the people might have one could not expect that nation
preferred to direct their efforts to to have enjoyed any growth in the
other areas of production and con- supply of motor hotels. On the
sumption. Had the people of the other hand, even the less observ-
United States expressed the ap- ant motorists in the United States
propriate buying intentions in the are stunned by the fantastic in-
free markets which prevail there, creases each year in the number of
the steel industry would have ex- comfortable, convenient, and even
panded to the degree necessary to beautiful motels which are to be
supply the demand, whatever that found wherever one looks, even

demand might be. on secondary roads. I do not have
exact figures here, but I suspect
Other Measures of Growth that there may be at least fifty

In comparisons between Russia times as many units in the motel
and the United States, no one ever industry as there were fifteen
mentions the aviation industry, or years ago in the United States.
school construction, or the motel The significant point is that a
(motor-hotel) industry. In the ten strictly private, personal desire
years between 1949 and 1959, the has been accorded a royal fulfill-
commercial aviation industry in ment. The average American citi-
the United States more than zen on a motor trip stops his car
trebled in terms of number of within a few minutes of his first
passengers carried — 16,723,000 feeling a desire to rest, and with
passengers in 1949 and 55,875,000 little thought and no effort drives
in 1959. I have been unable to find into a handsome, clean, sanitary,
a comparable set of Russian and air-conditioned motel in which
figures. he and his family may be as com-

Many in the United States are fortable and as private as they are
complaining about the alleged in their own homes.


===== PAGE 16 =====

14 THE FREEMAN September

Commercial aviation, schools, munism has profited from the in-
and motels may not be the most supportable assertion of its histor-
elegant materials to illustrate the ical inevitability. Mr. Khrushchev
congruency of the free society to the contrary notwithstanding,
with the nature of man, but they our grandchildren are not going to
are serviceable. The prodigious live in a communist regime. Rus-
growth in these areas in the rela- sia is not going to bury us. If
tively free United States over the there is any inevitability at all, it
last ten or fifteen years demon- is in favor of freedom. If men sur-
strates that what people want is vive as men, they will survive in
what the free society will deliver. freedom, for they can do nothing
Its gross productivity in every else and remain men. If the Com-
area is limited only by the wishes munists bury us, as they boast of
and the capacities of its members. doing, they will bury themselves,
To say that an unfree society can too. An ultimate victory for com-
out-produce a free society is to munism necessarily involves the
voice a contradiction in terms. To ultimate defeat of the human race.
say that an unfree society will Freedom is the natural condition
produce more of the various for realization of the human po-
things that people want than a tential. It is time for the lovers
free society will is even more ob- of freedom to claim what is right-
viously absurd. fully theirs: the only future which

For far too long a time com- men can have as men. @®

IF WE WORK UPON MARBLE, it will perish. If we work upon brass,
time will efface it. If we rear temples, they will crumble to dust.
But if we work upon men’s immortal minds, if we imbue them
with high principles, with the just fear of God and love of their
fellow men, we engrave on those tablets something which no time
can efface, and which will brighten and brighten to all eternity.

DANIEL WEBSTER


===== PAGE 17 =====

DOUBLE
JEOPARDY

A [ ; 4
or ~ BUSINESS INCENTIVES ON \THE' NEW FRONTIER p,

When shadows cast their velvet cloaks
.. Across the city slums,
Old Kaspar settled in his chair
And idly twirled his thumbs,
While Peterkin and Wilhelmine
Looked at the metaphoric screen.

They watched a line of men advance
Toward a mountain crest,

Where some with scaling ladders placed
Ahead of all the rest

Were straining up the rugged tracks

With double burdens on their backs.

“Is that a mountain-climbing race?”
The little children cried.

“It’s Private Business Enterprise,”
Old Kaspar soon replied.

“They’re off to find the quickest way

To cheaper goods and higher pay.’

{

“What happens if a climber falls?” }
Cried little Wilhelmine.

“His creditors,” Old Kaspar said,
“Will strip his business clean,

While tax collectors gnaw the bones

"Of any property he owns.”

“What's in the loads,” asked Peterkin,
“Upon the climbers’ backs?”
“They're forced to carry,” Kaspar said,

“A double profits tax.
The Planners take the greatest pains
To limit private business gains.”

“Can anyone at all survive
A climb so steep and rough?”
“A few survive,” Old Kaspar sighed, |
“But lately not enough. :
So now the Planners all opine
That Enterprise is in decline.”

H. P. B. JENKINS
Economist, Fayetteville, Arkansas

15


===== PAGE 18 =====

WHAT
LIBERTY IS

WENDELL J. BROWN

In this analysis of the nature of liberty, Mr. Broun
traces the origins of the basic concepts of the “idea”
of liberty which was set forth in the Declaration of
Independence and later embodied in the Constitution.

CULTURALLY, we have reached a lingness to assume that I know
stage in America in which we as- what the full import of liberty is.
sume that we know what liberty . An understanding of the full
“is, could we but say or could we import of the concept of liberty
but take time to say. We take requires that we examine its
liberty for granted in the same source. The words of our Declara-
way that we take electricity for tion of Independence to the effect
granted. Each is common and use- that man is “endowed” by his
ful to us. No one really knows or “Creator” with certain ‘“unalien-
has to know what electricity is able rights” among which are
for it to be and to continue to be “life, liberty, and the pursuit of
" a common and useful product. happiness” were not entirely the

But liberty, different from elec- words of Thomas Jefferson, but
tricity, must come from within were built from the words of
ourselves and to produce it we John Locke and other philoso-
must know what it is — its spirit phers. The insertion of the phrase
and its structure. This short “endowed by his Creator” in Jef-
article is the result of my unwil- ferson’s rough draft resulted from
Mr. Brown, admitted to the Illinois Bar in a suggestion made either by a
1926, practices law in Chicago. This article member of the Committee of Five

first appeared in the American Bar Association
Journal. March 1961. or from the floor of Congress after

16


===== PAGE 19 =====

1961 WHAT LIBERTY IS 17

Jefferson's draft came before it or even sit in pews, and wait for
for debate and adoption. God to bring liberty to them. With
In early America the accept- respect to that basic right they
ance of the thought behind the knew that God acts discernibly
words “endowed by his Creator” through a responsible people.
was much broader in its base They had learned that fact the
than either the acceptance of Jef- hard way. The great paradox in
ferson or the acceptance of the the concept of liberty is that man
Continental Congress. Its accept- is endowed by his Creator with
ance came from the individual the right to liberty, and yet to
convictions of the bulk of the have it he must earn it. This
three millions of people in the paradox, elusive to some, did not
then American colonies. bother our forefathers. Over-
Most of these early Americans, whelmingly, they understood and
our forefathers, had never heard accepted the paradox contained in
of John Locke. But an unusual Paul's comment, “I laboured more
number of them had read their abundantly than they all: yet not
Bibles. In them they had read I, but the grace of God which was
that men should “render... unto with me.” At the end of that first
Caesar the things which are year at Plymouth in 1620 only.
Caesar’s; unto God the things fifty of the original 102 survived.
that are God’s.” The basic idea What the survivors attained
that each individual has the God- thereafter they knew would have
given right to an inner life was to be earned by them, even though
not new to them. Thomas Paine they knew that they could not
merely put their basic thought earn anything save by the grace
into words. This basic thought of their Creator.
was and still is that political Why did our forefathers as-
sovereignty derives from our cribe this unalienable right to
Creator and resides essentially in liberty to their Creator? They
the people. This idea, even then acknowledged that they were “‘en-
more than 1,700 years of age and dowed” by their “Creator” with
still alive, is that each man, be he the ‘“unalienable” right to ‘lib-
a Caesar or a George III, is erty” because they knew they had
equally bound to acknowledge that it and it was their faith, a hard
he must render unto God “the faith that they were willing to
things that are God's.” fight and die for, that there was
Also, our forefathers knew that no other source for it.
they couldn’t sit around on stools, And I venture to think that we


===== PAGE 20 =====

18 THE FREEMAN September

cannot escape the fact that such stituted among men to preserve
hard faith furnishes us with the and protect such individual inner
emotional catalytic element in the lives. Hence, our federal Consti-
concept of liberty which is re- tution declares that it, our Consti-
quired to make it an equally hard tution, is ordained and established
political fact. Emotionally, we ‘to serve the Blessings of Liberty
have to get outside ourselves to to ourselves and our Posterity.”
attain a rational perspective of It is thus that we in America
liberty which shows us what it is. have philosophically and politi-
Once we have done that, we can cally immersed our individual lives
not help but know that there is a in a stream of life which may have
Creator who has endowed us with continuity and which at least
these individual inner lives which makes sense.

we ourselves could not have cre- Liberty, then, is the acceptance
ated and yet which we have. of the idea (1) that there is in

each person a God-given inner life
Egoism and Humility which is worthy of preservation

Paradoxically, egoism and hu- and protection and (2) that a pri-
mility have a place in the concept mary job of government is to pre-
of liberty. Egoism stems from the serve and protect such individual
knowledge that each individual inner lives.
has the power of choice. Humility If all of the “bigs” of our day
stems from (1) the knowledge — big business, big distribution,
that such power of choice must be big agriculture, big labor, big gov-
God-given and (2) the faith that ernment, big foreign powers, big
it is a part and parcel of a divine religion — must continue to pay
purpose. Under the aegis of lib- homage to the idea that each indi-
erty, ego and humility complement vidual has a God-given inner life
each other. They walk hand in and a right to that God-given in-
hand. ner life, we shall continue to have

When Lincoln said that ours is liberty — otherwise not.

a nation ‘conceived in liberty,”

he understood and his audience Its Unique Quality

understood that our nation was Liberty has a unique quality
born of the idea (1) that there is which enables it to avoid the his-
in each individual a God-given in- torical graveyard in which many
ner life which is worthy of pres- dogmas are buried, dogmas for
ervation and protection and (2) which men would once have died.
that governments should be in- Its unique quality is that it seeks


===== PAGE 21 =====

1961 WHAT LIBERTY IS 19

to accomplish no fixed end, but is a public calamity and must be
only seeks to provide a process of dealt with on that basis whether
living by which each man can work he be a too-aggressive foreign dic-
out for himself his own life and tator or a too-aggressive labor
his own conception of his own des- leader or a too-aggressive person
tiny, provided he stays within an or group of persons of any sort.
area which will allow others to The torch of liberty throws its
have such right equally with him. own light, and they who would
Inasmuch as its primary object purport to act in its name imme-
is to furnish a fertile field for diately have the burden of per-
reason to function, reason will suasion thrust upon them by those
never destroy it. It is bound to who understand what liberty is.
survive rational advances in sci- To sustain this burden they must
ence and philosophy. Dogmas die prove more than “pureness of mo-
because all human knowledge is tive.” They must never put down
imperfect, and yet man is a ra- the light of liberty under a prom-
tional being. Liberty lives because ise to pick it up again in futuro.
reason cannot do without it.
Yet reason is not placed on a Is Dual Character

pedestal by liberty. Rather, lib- Liberty is a requirement of a
erty takes man as he is, an emo- complete and functional living
tional, volitional, physical, and ra- which is an inescapable fact
tional entity. It is never embar- where human beings live, want
rassed by man’s imperfection, but, to live, and have to live in rela-
like a patient and understanding tionship with each other. Yet it
friend, is tolerant of those whose must be earned by a people who
thoughts reach beyond their would possess it. It must be
grasp and is just to those whose earned in the same way that the
actions encroach upon the rights of graceful and awe-inspiring free-

others. dom of movement of a skillful ice
skater is earned, by a self-dis-
Its Heroes cipline as sharp and as keen as

It has no heroes save men of the steel upon which the skater
commonplace caliber, men who in relies. Man cannot have liberty
a greater degree than others unless he accepts the moral task
have commonplace virtues, men it imposes. It is a combination of
who are decent, free, and God- self-assertion and self-denial, of
fearing. In the concept of liberty, independence and responsibility.
a great man of Napoleonic stature Inherently, it cannot be a gift


===== PAGE 22 =====

20 THE FREEMAN September

which has no mutuality. When a individuals to make liberty the
man thinks that he alone can make dominant characteristic of a par-
a gift of liberty, he has lost his ticular group’s -way of life. In
sense of liberty and should not practice the idea of liberty must
be allowed to carry its torch. Men always have this dual aspect of
cannot have liberty by the grace independence and responsibility.
of one person alone. To attain independence there is
Liberty recognizes that Dar- always the responsibility to fight
win was a man and therefore had for it and to know it is worth fight-
within himself “the spark of lib- ing for.
erty” which is common “to the
mind and spirit of man.” Liberty The American Ideal
does not accept or reject the In the search for a firm under-
theory of evolution. Rather, it ob- standing of what liberty is, time
serves that each man is endowed and again I have returned to the
with a spark of willfulness which thought that whenever men have
makes him individually different dared to think in terms of a free
from any other person. It observes nation for themselves and their
the ever-living process of change posterity, they have thought in
and hence knows that it must nev- terms of a just and righteous
er cease its fight to preserve that God. We know that there is a
“spark of liberty in the mind and force greater than our own which
spirit of man.” The quotations are created the world in which we
the words of Herbert Hoover, our live and that this world includes
oldest living ex-President, a man human beings endowed with a
who has an unusually high degree power of choice. We cannot un-
of understanding of what liberty derstand the concept of liberty
is. Co without this objective viewpoint
Liberty presupposes an individ- of that which is within ourselves.
ual who has more than an embry- If we are “endowed” with the
onic sense of independence and ‘‘unalienable’” rights which are
more than an embryonic sense of the essence of liberty, then there
responsibility. In fact, liberty in must be a Creator who thus en-
its totality presupposes a nation dowed us. Once we see ourselves
made up of a sufficient number of from the perspective of our Cre-
people who have an individual ator, we see moral values within
sense of independence and sense of ourselves which include the cul-
responsibility to make it work. tural idea of liberty.
There must be enough of these At age 78, Kerensky smiles at


===== PAGE 23 =====

1961 WHAT LIBERTY IS 21

Khrushchev’s reference to God be- lowing them you will reach your
cause he recalled Karl Marx’s say- destiny.
ing that “religion is the opium John Adams, in his eventide
of the people” and that Lenin has correspondence with his friend,
declared “God is a complex of Thomas Jefferson, referred to the
ideas engendered by the igno- fact that the preservation of lib-
rance of mankind. . .religion is a erty by government is a compli-
kind of spiritual vodka in which cated administrative task. Each
the slaves of capital drown their of them had been at the helm of
human shape and their claims to our ship of state and each of them
any decent life.” Yet historical knew the tribulations which the
time, as distinguished from re- gstate “conceived in liberty” must
search laboratory time, has proved perforce undergo.
that if we would have liberty — a
chance for an individual decent Constitutional Background
life — we must appreciate that an Under the American ideal of
individual sense of dignity is best jjberty, we are immediately be-
attained and only attained by a yond the question of whether any
mature faith that we have been government is necessary for the
thus endowed by our Creator. preservation of liberty. By the
We are not hypocrites because time our Constitution was adopt-
we do not always live up to the ed, effective in 1788, by a pro-
American ideal of liberty. There cess of trial and error extending
are limitations inherent in all hu- from the days of John Smith to
man endeavor, and the practical the Articles of Confederation, we
premise of structural liberty is had found that the preservation
that human beings are both good of liberty requires a form of gov-
and bad. Otherwise there would ernment which has coercive power,
be no need for structural liberty one that can deal effectively to pro-
which consists of governmental tect individuals or groups of in-
restraints and governmentally dividuals within its jurisdiction
enforced absence of restraints. In from each other and one which can
the words of Carl Schurz, a sen- effectively protect the legal entity
ator in Lincoln’s day: of the nation from outsiders. We
Ideals are like stars; you will not found that even by fleeing to a
succeed in touching them with your NeW country we could not escape
hands. But like the sea-faring man that fact. Nor could we escape that
on the desert of waters, you will inexorable fact by casting off all
choose them as your guides and fol- ties with all government.


===== PAGE 24 =====

22 THE FREEMAN September

We did not reach this stage mind. For here we are not afraid
in our thinking until we had to to follow truth wherever it may lead,
and we were reluctant to reach it nor to tolerate error so long as
at all. The hard thinking, practi- reason is left free to combat it.

cal, disputatious, idealistic, and More than one hundred years
differently constituted delegates |jter Justice Holmes reiterated
who met in Philadelphia from {he same thought when he wrote
May to September of 1787 and from the bench that our concept
there formulated our federal Con- f liberty is an inspiration to en-
stitution were confronted with the geayor that encourages “the free
fact that the only alternative to i,ade of ideas” and which is based
the granting of power was dis- ,, the rational faith:

solution and loss of their liberty.

These 55 men at Philadelphia that the best test of truth is the
had no use .for any form of gov- De of the thought id get fleet?
ernment except to preserve their 2¢cepted In ihe competiiion OL 11€
individual liberties. The federa. Market, and that truth is the only

. , . . ground upon which their wishes
tion wasn’t working. Accordingly, safely can be carried out. That, at

they had to any rate, is the theory of our Con-
form a more perfect Union, estab- stitution.

lish Justice, insure domestic Tran- } Co
quility, provide for the common Without these individual inner
defence . . . lives and the right to them there

is no market in which truth can

all to “secure the Blessings of pe tested. There is only oblivion.
Liberty” for themselves and for

their posterity. Our Constitutional Heritage
no other, insists upon the right of only for a people of whom the ma-

each individual to seek his OWN jority are individually independ-
answers. It combats the idea of opt and responsible, our forefa-

either a government which would thers have (1) adopted a federal

create a mass hypnosis or one Copstitution; (2) provided there-
which would stifle criticism of the pn that it “shall be the Supreme

government. Many years ago Jef- 71,w of the Land” and a Supreme
ferson stated the ideal of liberty (Court to enforce it; (3) provided
in these words: for the reposing of legislative, ex-

This institution will be based on the ecutive, and judicial powers in
illimitable freedom of the human separate governmental bodies; (4)


===== PAGE 25 =====

1961 WHAT LIBERTY IS 23

provided for a system of checks independent judiciary because the
and balances between these sep- Supreme Court must have a justi-
arate powers; (5) provided for ciable controversy on its docket
the preservation of the idea of before it can act and its actions
“federalism” or state’s rights; may become a colossal futility.
and (6) provided a Bill of Rights. The executive and the legislative
This instrument our forefathers branches are equally the custo-
conceived and made a living doc- dians of liberty. They are equally
ument for themselves and, insofar the active bailees of its owners,
as they could, for us. the people.

But the effective promise of In the desert of time there are
liberty is not contained in our strewn many constitutions whose
Constitution but in the indwelling skeletons remain to tell us that if
spirit of each of those who cher- we, the people, would be free, we
ish it. Each generation must re- cannot merely enact a constitu-
make the promises contained in tion and then rest.

a constitution or it loses its vi- Many sovereignties, now dead,
tality. started with glorious words of

In the process of living, each liberty in their organic laws. In
day is a new day and liberty must 1860 the Argentine nation adopt-
be found there. A constitution ed a constitution for the stated
which in unequivocal language purpose of “securing the benefits
guarantees individual liberty is of liberty to ourselves, our pos-
not enough to assure its preserva- terity, and to all persons who may
tion. No matter how a constitu- desire to inhabit the Argentine
tion is worded, history proves that soil.” The Italian constitution of
it can be lost or become meaning- 1848 provided in Article 26 that
less. Even the three sturdy rules “individual liberty is guaranteed.”
of construction, which provide The constitution of Mexico, adopt-
that to know any part of a consti- ed in 1857, provided that “in the
tution’s meaning it must be read Republic all are born free.” The
(1) in its entirety, (2) giving fundamental laws of the Russian
common speech and common un- Empire, adopted May 6, 1906,
derstanding meanings to the provided, after several bows to
words used, and (3) with the cir- the sacred and inviolable char-
cumstances under which it was acter of the person of the Emper-
made in mind — are not enough or, that “the domicile of every-
to preserve a constitution. one is inviolable” and that ‘“prop-

Nor can we rely solely on an erty is inviolable.” The constitu-


===== PAGE 26 =====

24 THE FREEMAN September

tion of the Spanish monarchy of
1876 provided that “no one shall
be deprived of his property except
by the competent authority, and
for a proved cause of public util-
ity, always after due compensa-
tion.” All of these sovereignties
have been replaced. Words even in
organic laws are not sufficient to
preserve the liberty which the
words espouse.

Liberty Analytically Resolved

There are those who say they
believe there is no God. There are
those who believe there is a God,
a Creator, who has no time for
man. There are those who believe
there is a God, and, like Socrates,
say and believe, “I move not with-
out Thy knowledge.” Man is free
because he has a God-given power
of choice. With that power of
choice he is also given a moral
sense. Inasmuch as we have
learned that government must be
by consent of the governed, the
majority must determine what the
laws of that government shall be.
Inasmuch as the majority has a
God-given moral sense, liberty has
a chance to succeed. Inasmuch as
the majority also has a God-given
choice, liberty has a chance to fail.
Choice and moral sense by the
majority are inseparable if we
would have liberty.

Analytically thus resolved, lib-
erty has no secrets. It is neither
myth nor magic. It is not super-
natural because to have it we must
earn it. It becomes a dynamic
political fact for a particular na-
tion whenever and wherever there
are a sufficient number of individ-
uals within that nation with the
required strength, courage, and
intelligence to make it an ethical
imperative for each of them in
the conduct of their individual
lives.

The basic and grand concept of
liberty does not change. The same
idea which conveyed itself into
the minds of our forefathers is
still there, a universal idea, avail-
able to all, and yet peculiarly our
American heritage.

Children are playing in front
of my house. One of them has a
piece of chalk and is drawing a
circle on the sidewalk. After their
game has been played, rains will
come and wash the circle away.
Yet the geometrical concept of a
circle will remain, and cannot be
destroyed. However, even a na-
tion blessed with a constitution
which guarantees liberty may
lose it. Yet liberty is immutable.
Even after it is gone and only the
hunger for it remains, there will
be the concept of liberty which
can never be destroyed. @®


===== PAGE 27 =====

EDUCATION
for

INDIVIDUALISM

HENRY HAZLITT

WE OFTEN hear it said of a man give the student a thirst for
— and too often, I am afraid, it is knowledge, and an appetite for
said disparagingly — that he is knowledge; he can give him a
self-educated. The disparagement taste of it. But nine-tenths of
is justified only if the man’s edu- what the student finally learns he
cation has been narrow or lop- will learn through his own efforts,
sided. In the last analysis, all edu- through his own enthusiasm for
cation is self-education. Every the subject, through his own de-
teacher knows that he cannot termination to learn.

teach a student anything if the What does it mean to be an edu-
student does not want to learn it. cated man? What does it mean to
But if the student does want to have an education? It means,
learn, he will learn what he wants among other things certainly, to
from many more sources than the have acquired knowledge. Now the
teacher himself. The teacher can greater part of knowledge is nec-
guide; the teacher can point out essarily knowledge of the past,
the direction; the teacher can con- sometimes of the very recent past,
vey something of his enthusiasm and sometimes of the remote past.
for the subject; the teacher can It is astonishing to see to how
Mr. Hazlitt is the well-known economic ana- great an extent this simple fact
lyst, author, and speaker. This article is con-

densed from a Commencement Address deliv. about knowledge is forgotten or

Sree % Bethany College in West Virginia on overlooked today. Again and again

25


===== PAGE 28 =====

26 THE FREEMAN September

people speak disdainfully of the Passion for Originality
past. To know and to respect the There is a passion today for
past is not considered an achieve- originality. Each of us would like
ment; it is treated as something to be considered an original
of which we ought to be ashamed. thinker in his chosen field, an
If we hear one phrase more often original scientist, an original
than any other in present-day economist, an original novelist, an
political and social discussion, it original artist, an original com-
is that the time has come to break poser. There is nothing wrong
the fetters of the past. We are with this ambition. It is a lauda-
urged on to bold new thinking. ble one. No one can make a con-
Now I am all in favor of bold new tribution unless there is some-
thinking — provided it really is thing original in what he says or
original, and provided it leads to does. But originality is most likely
better results than previous think- to come out of a deep knowledge
ing. But such truly useful original of what has been found out in the
thinking is not likely to be past. The idea that we can ignore
achieved by anyone without a pro- or disregard or throw out all that
found knowledge of what we may has been done or learned or
call the previous state of the ques- thought by others gives no reason
tion. Again and again our zealous for the hope that our own work
reformers are unintentionally re- will prove of any lasting value.
minding us of the truth of San- What applies to knowledge and
tayana’s dictum that those who ideas applies as well to conduct
have forgotten the past are con- and action. This, too, is in danger
demned to repeat it. of being overlooked or forgotten.
If we know more than our pre- If there is one figure more lam-
decessors, it is precisely because pooned and derided today than
we have taken the trouble to learn any other, in speeches, articles,
from them what they discovered. and books, it is the Conformist.
A dwarf, as Coleridge reminded The thing to be, we are now told
us, can see much further than a over and over again, is a Noncon-
giant can, .if he stands on the formist.
giant’s shoulders. We can learn Now I sometimes wonder what
more than our predecessors knew, meaning some of the speakers and
if we start from where they left writers who proclaim this doc-
off. If we ignore what they trine attach to their words. Sup-
learned, we will have to learn it pose, for example, we were all,
all over again, as we are being so urgently urged



===== PAGE 29 =====

1961 EDUCATION FOR INDIVIDUALISM 27

to be, complete nonconformists? tion the new dogma. Let us have
Just what would society and the the courage to admit bluntly that
world be like? If you tried to give a certain amount of conformity
a formal prom or a dinner party, is absolutely necessary to social
you could not depend on anybody’s cooperation of any kind; and that
showing up in a black tie; you the whole progress of the modern
could not even depend on any- world is made possible only by
body’s wearing a tie at all. Your social cooperation. The free enter-
party might look like a masquer- prise system, the free market, the
ade ball, division and specialization of
It is not merely social and cere- labor, is a vast and intricate sys-
monial affairs that would be im- tem of economic cooperation.
possible, It would be impossible What is important is that con-
to get people to work together. formity be to the greatest possible
Nobody would arrive at the time extent voluntary. In brief, non-
set for a lecture or a meeting of conformity is nof something to be
any kind. Nobody would be will- sought for its own sake. On the
ing to work regular hours along contrary, it is only the existence
with his fellows, for fear of being of voluntary conformity in some
called an organization man. It basic things — conformity to the
would be impossible even to get a nation’s Constitution and to its
symphony played — neither the laws, conformity to the code of
strings, nor the woodwinds, nor good manners, and above all con-
the brasses, nor the drums would formity to basic moral principles
come in on time or stop on time. —that can create or preserve an
Every instrumentalist would keep atmosphere of social peace, har-
his own tempo and play his own mony, and cooperation, in which
favorite melody. true individuality is free to grow
This picture is a caricature. But and flourish.
we have to imagine theories or
practices carried to their logical
extremes in order to clarify our And this brings us to our final
ideas. The fashionable demand question. What is true individual-
that we defy the conventions has ism? I hope I have made it suffi-
been carried to the point where ciently clear that it is nof mere
the defiance itself has become the nonconformity, not mere queer-
convention. Nonconformity has it- ness or eccentricity. It does not
self become the New Conformity. mean being a crank, or a freak, or
Let us have the courage to ques- a screwball, It does not mean that

True Individualism


===== PAGE 30 =====

28 THE FREEMAN September

each of us should be constantly drift toward disorder and an-
striving and straining to develop archy. In despair people would de-
a so-called “original personality.” mand a dictatorship, with the
True individualism, as F, A. power to impose on society the
Hayek has pointed out in a fine order and cooperation that people
essay, means the strict limitation refused to accept of their own free
of all coercion and compulsion. It will. The demand for this false
is not anarchism. It does not deny individualism, in short, leads
the necessity for a certain amount toward the evils of collectivism
of ultimate coercive power in the and authoritarianism.
hands of government. It merely I have pointed to the necessity,
seeks to limit this coercion to the in the interests of minimizing
minimum amount needed to pre- friction and maximizing social co-
vent coercion by others. Within a operation, of a certain amount of
framework of law and order, of voluntary conformity in behavior.
private property, of general rules We need to emphasize this not only
and understood conventions, in in the field of good manners, but
which the behavior of others is above all, as I have said, in the field
reasonably predicable, true indi- of morals. “Men are qualified for
vidualism favors the maximum of civil liberty,” wrote Edmund
voluntary association and wvolun- Burke, “in exact proportion to
tary cooperation. What it opposes their disposition to put moral
is the use of force or coercion to chains upon their own appetites.”
impose association or “coopera- We can put this.in another form.
tion.” Only to the extent that we are
It is necessary to distinguish willing, as individuals, to impose
this individualism from some- upon ourselves self-discipline and
thing that mistakenly passes under self-restraint, can we hope in the
that name. And this is the Cult of long run to preserve our freedom
Nonconformity — the demand that from restraints imposed on us by
everybody’s thoughts and actions others. A nation is fit for self-
must be “original,” eccentric, and government only to the extent
unpredictable. A society made up that the individuals who compose
of such nonconformists and non- it have learned how to govern
cooperating individuals would themselves. @®



===== PAGE 31 =====

What Can a

Banana Tree Do”?

STANLEY YANKUS

ACTIONISTS for freedom are clam- effort attempting to reform others
oring: “Let’s wake the people up! by making speeches and distribut-
Don’t they know what’s happen- ing literature, I had sincerely be-
ing! There isn’t much time left.” lieved that when the people found

Last week I listened for an hour out the facts and the truth, cor-
to one of the most prominent and rective action would take place
distinguished advocates of free- automatically. Like so many patri-
dom in Australia decrying the evil ots, I had found solace in the
and corruption of the United Na- words: “At least I tried to wake
tions and urging the distribution the people up. That's all I can do.”
of literature to expose the deeds In front of my Australian home
of evil men of this generation. I have a banana tree. What can

As I listened, the path I had a banana tree do? A banana tree
traveled during the past seven can grow. Discovering what I can
years unrolled like a movie before do and what I cannot do is the sim-
my mind's eye. I, too, had exposed ple lesson I learned from the ba-
the evil and corruption inherent nana tree. The path to freedom is
in the United States Department not paved with photographs of evil
of Agriculture and its programs. and corruption. I wanted freedom
I had spent my time, money, and but I did not succeed in attaining

Mr. Yankus, a poultryman from Michigan, re- it. Why? I used the wrong method.
cently moved to Australia in protest against

agricultural Gnd other government interven- In the town of Warrnambool,
tions in the Unit tates. : : . .
Illustration: Ewing Galloway, N. Y. Victoria, there is a clothing manu-

29


===== PAGE 32 =====

30 THE FREEMAN September

facturer, Fletcher Jones, who the United Nations and various
began to beautify the grounds government bureaus seems neces-
around his factory and make the sary, I have observed that people
site one of the most beautiful gar- who constantly read and talk about
dens in Australia. It is perhaps existing evils become depressed.
the most photographed spot on the They soon adopt the attitude:
continent, and even foreigners ‘It’s too late to do anything. The
come to see it, This attractive gar- world is doomed. What’s the use.
den has influenced and inspired The common man is too dumb to
the entire population of Warrnam- understand.” Thus annoyed and
bool to beautify not only their depressed, they are unable to ar-
own gardens and homes, but their rive at wholesome solutions to
lives and characters as well. A their own problems. Moral quali-
gardener is always a student of ties and standards decline to:

the Creator’s handiwork. “Let’s have fun. I'm not paid to
Now let us assume that instead worry.”
of improving his own garden, After one of my first speeches

Fletcher Jones had begun a cam- in Australia, a listener com-
paign of exposure. Suppose that mented, “There are a lot of people
every week, with the threat of who would like to hear you, but
withdrawing ‘his advertising, he you would never be invited to the
had persuaded the local newspaper Australian-American Club.” At
to publish pictures of the worst the time, I thought this was a com-
gardens in Warrnambool. Pictures pliment, meaning that Americans
of rubbish heaps would have couldn’t stand to hear the facts
turned neighbor against neighbor. and the truth exposing the corrup-
Or, suppose he had made reform tion of their government. I think
speeches, deploring the low char- now that it was a just eriticism of
acter of the Warrnambool towns- the wrong methods I employed. If
people, and urging laws to compel Fletcher Jones had exposed the
them to beautify their gardens, facts about the rubbish heaps and
meanwhile neglecting his own fac- unkempt gardens, and if he had
tory grounds on the excuse that he told the truth about the miserable
was a busy businessman, Such a quality of the people who were re-
Fletcher Jones could have had the sponsible, no improvement would
satisfaction of saying, “I tried to have resulted.
wake the people up. That's all I What can a banana tree do? It
can do.” can grow. It can produce some
Although exposing the evils of fruit. Men like Fletcher Jones,


===== PAGE 33 =====

1961 WHAT CAN A BANANA TREE D0? 31

who display the fruits resulting differ as night from day. Gardens
from the best of their efforts, in- are material things; freedom is an
vite others to taste what is good. idea. But, doesn’t a garden begin
My goal is to obtain or practice with an idea? Is the achievement
freedom, and I can only begin by of freedom limited to the realm of
improving myself. Some will say, the mind, or does it extend to the
“I have improved myself.” But everyday affairs of making a liv-
how many of us can give simple, ing? Strife, violence, and wars are
clear answers and reasons to such the result when one man tries to
basic questions as Why is stealing impose his will upon another.
wrong? Can a government give a
gift? Does the law determine What can a banana tree do? It
right and wrong? can grow. It can produce some
The ability to ask questions is fruit. It can send up some new
worth cultivating. It makes a man shoots. By learning to grow in the
grow. The easiest job in the world ideas of freedom and by practic-
is telling others to improve them- ing them, we can attract others to
selves, and the hardest job is im- emulate us. New shoots of free-
proving oneself. If each of us will dom will appear only when this
attend to his own hardest job, simple idea is understood and im-
there will be no need to expose the plemented. If a neighbor admires
failure of the United Nations idea; my banana tree, he may develop
it will die from lack of supporters. the desire to grow one of his own.
Some will argue that improving This is the Fletcher Jones method
gardens and attaining freedom — and I am trying to make it mine.

" Shackling Progress

A BENEVOLENT GOVERNMENT does not help man to solve his prob-
lems; it merely assists him to postpone them or to pass them on
to others. In many cases the one to whom they are passed is less
able to carry the burden. This is but one of the many errors of
authoritarianism which also lessens the development of individ-
ual realization which must come before one can intelligently act

for his own progress.
RALPH E. LYNE, Taylor, Michigan


===== PAGE 34 =====

MIRACLE of

WE HAVE 80 million automobiles miraculous configuration of vary-
in this country, but it is impos- ing creative energies contributed
sible to find anyone who, by him- by literally millions of individ-
self, knows how to make all of the uals, most of whom are unknown
complex parts and assemble them to one another. Yet pencils are
into the finished product. No per- available in profusion, at a price
son knows how to make even so of only a few cents each.
simple an item as a pencil.! That The spontaneous coalescence of
we have so many things in such diverse energies in response to
profusion, without anyone’s know- human necessity and demand is
ing precisely how to make them, indeed a miracle —a gift from the
is a miracle of which we ought to Creator which no human authori-
be aware lest we inadvertently de- tarian has even been able to ap-
stroy its wonder-working powers. proach, let alone duplicate. The
An aspect of this miracle is that nature of this miracle was clearly
no two of some two billion adult spelled out more than a century
human beings on this earth are ago by that remarkable French-
identical. There is striking vari- man, Frederic Bastiat:
ance in such fundamentals as On entering Paris where I came
taste, smell, skin, hair, bone, gas- to visit, I said to myself — Here
tric juice, amino acid and vitamins are a million of human beings who
in blood, and so on. Further, each would all die in a short time if
individual is a tiny islet of unique provisions of every kind ceased to
human energy, differing from all flow toward this great metropolis.
others in skill, knowledge, insight, Imagination is baffled when it tries
creativeness. Thus, the solitary to appreciate the vast multiplicity
energy of even the most gifted of commodities which must enter
person cannot produce a thing as tomorrow through the barriers in
simple as a pencil. A pencil is a order to preserve the inhabitants
"1 This fact is documented in a pam- from falling . prey to the convul-
phlet, I, Pencil, available on request. stons of famine, rebellion, and pil-

32



===== PAGE 35 =====

the MARKET

lage. And yet all sleep at this mo- derstanding.” The principle oper-
ment, and their peaceful slumbers ates as free from any over-all hu-
are not disturbed for a single in- man direction or management as
stant by the prospect of such a does the law of gravitation. Op-
catastrophe. On the other hand, erating beyond the ingenuity of
eighty departments [subdivisions human action, this principle car-
of France] have been laboring to- ries no price for its service —a
day, without concert, and without service not within the ken of man,
any mutual understanding, for the a service without which man could
provisioning of Paris. How can not exist. Indeed, the prime re-
each day bring just what is neces- quirement is that this “secret pow-
sary, nothing less, nothing more, er” be left alone, that is, free of
to this gigantic market? What is any man-attempt to take it over.
the ingenious and secret power Freedom in exchanges, that is,
which presides over the astomish- willing exchanges — the miracu-
ing regularity of such complicated lous mechanism that Adam Smith
movements, a regularity in which termed ‘The Invisible Hand” —
we all have so implicit, though tends to tempt tinkers. There are
thoughtless, a faith; on which our many among us who entertain the
comfort, our very existence de- foolish notion that they could, if
pends? This power ts an absolute given the authority, construct a
principle, the principle of freedom superior mechanism. They would
in exchanges.” put floors under and ceilings over

This “absolute principle” is wages, prices, production. They
what attends to the all-important would subsidize some at the ex-
configuration of varying creative pense of others, and protect the
human energies which takes place ones who complain about compe-
“without concert, and without un- tition. In short, they are the ones
—_— } who would interfere with creative

2 See Sophisms of Protection by Fred- . . ee
eric Bastiat. New York: G. P. Putnam’s ©nergies and violate the principle
Sons, 1874, pp. 122-23, of “freedom in exchanges.”

33


===== PAGE 36 =====

34 THE FREEMAN September

The Sorry Alternative supplies and demands; the polit-
Here is Bastiat’s warning on ically rigged process accomplishes
that score: no more than an obfuscation of the

What would be your conditions, automatic, spontaneous, miracu-
inhabitants of Paris, if a minister, lous market process, and at ever-
however superior his abilities, increasing costs!
should undertake to substitute, in
the place of this power [freedom No One Knows it All
in exchanges], the combinations of The reason? Take any govern-
his own genius? If he should think ment official (a citizen backed by
of subjecting to his own supreme force), however superior his abili-
direction this prodigious mechan- ties, and observe what confronts
ism, taking all of its springs into him when he sets out to rig prices
his own hand, and deciding by and production. It would be diffi-
whom, how, and on what conditions cult to write a fraction small
each article should be produced, enough to express his infinitesimal
transported, exchanged, and con- portion of the required knowledge.
sumed? Ah! although there is For instance, a single company in
much suffering within your walls; the U.S.A.—one among many —
although misery, despair, and per- produces not less than 250,000 com-
haps starvation, may call forth plex items. Not only is there no
more tears than your warmest single individual in the company
charity ean wipe away, it is prob- who knows how to make any one of
able, it is certain, that the arbi- these products, but there is no per-
trary intervention of government son in the company who knows
would definitely multiply these what all of these items are! Yet,
sufferings, and would extend among our government official who prob-
you the evils which now reach but ably has never entered one of the
a small number of your citizens? company’s many plants, who doubt-

It is not necessary, however, to less has no acquaintance with any
revert to nineteenth century member of the company, who more
France for examples of the enor- than likely knows nothing at all
mous costs that accompany the sub- about metallurgy, electronics, mar-
stitution of governmental inter- keting, finance, or hundreds of
vention for freedom in exchanges. other relevant disciplines, would
We can draw on our own Ameri- inflict by force his abysmal igno-
can experiences. The competitive rance on this complex operation!
open market freely coordinates our Even when he realizes the colos-
"3 Ibid., pp. 123-24. sal nature of his undertaking, our


===== PAGE 37 =====

1961 MIRACLE OF THE MARKET 35

official, more often than not, con- have. But we are not here con-
cludes that he could do all of the cerned with the causes, only with
“beneficent” rigging if only he had the costs of interventionism.

enough help and enough facts. Others will argue that wars have
Thus is a bureaucracy pyramided, been largely responsible for these
layer on layer, one division of frus- increased costs. True, they have.
trated labor after another, fact- But wars, in turn — even civil wars

gathering bureaus, governmental — are but the consequence of gov-
research agencies, statistical heaps ernmental interventionism. Free
without end.* peoples do not war with each other.

Take Wisconsin and Illinois, ad-
Mounting Costs of Government joining states. There is no thought

If we concede that the function of armed conflict between the two.
of government is to inhibit, re- Goods and people cross the border
strain, and penalize all fraud, vio- as if it did not exist. Now erect
lence, misrepresentation, preda- trade barriers and exchange con-
tion, in short, to invoke a common trols, requiring a gendarmerie
justice, then we might expect that from each state at the border.
the cost of governing John Doe’s Sooner or later the gendarmes will
grandson should have been no more have a go at it. “When goods do
in 1960 than it cost to govern John not cross borders, soldiers will.”
Doe in 1900 — unless, of course, the
grandson were more a rascal than’ Declining Costs in Free Market
was his grandfather. So much for the mounting costs

Total expenditures of govern- of interventionism.® Now, it would
ment at all levels in these United be both interesting and enlighten-
States in 1900 averaged $56 per ing if we could statistically demon-
person. In 1960, by reason of in- strate the accomplishments in de-
creased interventionism, the aver- clining costs when the free market
age was $615 per person.? performs the coordinating func-

Some will argue that the people tion. But statistical accuracy is out
have asked for more and more gov- of the question. In the first place,
ernmental “services.” True, they there is no example of a product or
"1 See “Statistics: Achilles’ Heel of Service that does not bear the costs
Government” by Dr. Murray N. Roth- "6 State interventionism carries costs

bard, The Freeman. June 1961.

_— that defy measurement, costs far over
5 These figures are expressed in con- and beyond those which can be expressed

stant purchasing power (1947-49 =100). in dollar terms, the stifling of initiative

The unadjusted figures: $19 in 1900; and the enterprising spirit being among

$778 in 1960! them.


===== PAGE 38 =====

36 THE FREEMAN September

of governmental interventionism. stantial producers of kilowatt-
And, second, there are few exam- hours, has not only borne its full
ples of products that were the share of governmental costs but
same in 1900 as in 1960. A 1960 also has suffered an inordinate
automobile, for instance, bore little amount of governmental interfer-
resemblance to the horseless car- ence, all under the heading of “reg-
riage of 1900. Nor was a gallon of ulation.” Despite this handicap-
gas in 1960 like a gallon of the fuel ping, the KWH demonstrates the

used in the carriages of 1900. miraculous economies flowing from
The most comparable example free market processes.
that comes to mind is the kilowatt- In terms of 1947-49 dollars, the

hour (the energy to light ten 100- price per KWH for household use
watt bulbs for one hour). The pri- was 50¢ in 1900. The price in 1960
vate power and light industry, sub- was 2¢!

= oo
Capita
PER CAPITA GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURES --
800 FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL /
1800 - 1960

The amounts shown have been adjusted to dollars
300 of purchasing power in terms of the Cost
of Living index (1947 - 49 = 100).

‘The population of the United States has increased
from 76 million in 1900 to 180 million in 1960, and
government expenditures per person (in terms of
1947 - 489 dollars) have risen from $56 in 1900 to
$615 in 1960.

400

$00

Government Expenditures

A mes
LT
Hn

olla irra Dessau eda pga apa daar yeaa dyer bea aa eat ia
1800 1910 1920 1830 1940 1950

200



===== PAGE 39 =====

1961 MIRACLE OF THE MARKET 37

I am not trying to compare two rent rascality as best it can — this,
wholly different things. Yet, there and nothing more. Otherwise, leave
is a significant fact to be observed these millions of varying creative
in the accompanying charts: one human energies alone, that the “ab-
price line goes up and up; the other solute principle” — freedom in ex-
down and down, changes — may freely, uninterrup-

There is one crystal clear lesson tedly, and without cost configurate
to be drawn from the abundance these energies that they, in turn,
of evidence crying to be heard: may manifest themselves as auto-
With no reservations, free all crea- mobiles, pencils, bread, houses,
tive energies and their exchanges! clothing, heat, light, symphonies,
Let government, society’s formal art, emerging individuals — in-
agency of force, minimize the cur- deed, all the things we live by. @&

Reprints of this article are available at 10 copies for $1.00; 100 for $8.00.

Cents
per
KWH
50 U. S. AVERAGE PRICE PER KWH OF ELECTRICITY FOR HOUSEHOLD USE
1900 - 1960

40 The prices shown have been adjusted to
dollars of constant purchasing power tn
terms of the Cost of Living index
(1947 - 49 = 100).
KWH used per residential t have
increased from 264 in 1913 to 3815 in

30 1960, and the price (in terms of 1947 ~ 49

dollars) has dropped from 50 cents per
KWH tn 1800 to 2 cents in 1860.

| Cents per KWH (In dollars adjusted to cost of living; 1847 - 48 = 100)
F~

Y

oLt ti 11 3t] ENE pyre Lge vr gy lyse ire laryrrryorg i
1600 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960

10



===== PAGE 40 =====

HANS F. SENNHOLZ

FEW GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS, if temporary Peace Corps will be the
any, have caught the imagination source of information and experi-
of the American youth so com- ence to aid us in formulating more
pletely as that of the Peace Corps. effective plans for a permanent or-
Thousands of college boys and girls ganization. In addition, by start-
are dreaming about the thrilling ing the Peace Corps now we will
experience of traveling and work- be able to begin training young
ing in Asia, Africa, and South men and women for overseas duty
America while serving the noble this summer with the objective of
cause of peace and good will placing them in overseas positions
through the Peace Corps. by late fall. This temporary Peace
On March 1 of this year a spe- Corps is being established under
cial message of the President to existing authority in the Mutual
Congress recommended the crea- Security Act and will be located
tion of a permanent “Peace Corps.” in the Department of State. Its
On a temporary pilot basis the initial expenses will be paid from
Corps was established the same appropriations currently available
day by Executive Order. for our foreign aid program,
According to the President, “the “Throughout the world the peo-
Dr. Sennholz heads the Department of Eco- ple of the newly developing na-
nomics at Grove City College, Pennsylvania. tions are struggling for economic

38


===== PAGE 41 =====

1961 VOLUNTEERS FOR THE PEACE CORPS 39

and social progress which reflects (4) through the U.N. and other
their deepest desires. Our own international agencies, and (5)
freedom, and the future of free- through direct Peace Corps pro-
dom around the world, depend, in grams.
a very real sense, on their ability Working through these channels
to build growing and independent the Peace Corps is to raise the lit-
nations — where men can live in eracy and levels of knowledge
dignity, liberated from the bonds which are deemed essential for
of hunger, ignorance, and pov- successful national development.
erty.”! It is to help improve the health in
According to President Ken- underdeveloped countries, fighting
nedy, the objective of the Peace malaria, typhoid, smallpox, teta-
Corps is the employment of Amer- nus, and other diseases that re-
icans in productive work in newly duce economic productivity and
developing areas of the world. output. The members are to be em-
Peace Corps members are to teach, ployed in agricultural projects,
or to build, or to work with local community development programs,
institutions, living with the peo- construction of schools, coopera-
ple they are sent to help. They are tive housing, roads, and other pub-
to be recruited from the ranks of lic projects. They are to work on
young college graduates or work- large-scale construction and in-
ers with skills needed abroad. The dustrial projects, such as dams,
Peace Corps is to reinforce exist- new cities, modern factories, and
ing government-approved private so on. And finally, they are to work
programs of assistance and pub- in government administration and
lic development by filling some of on government projects in accord-
the manpower gap. Being closely ance with the government's priori-
related to other foreign aid pro- ties of development needs.
grams the Peace Corps is to pro-
vide skilled manpower to develop- Grandiose Schemes of
ing nations through five different Central Planning
channels: (1) through private In the face of this array of col-
agencies that carry on Peace- lectivistic ideas and projects, one
Corps-type programs, (2) through searches in vain for differences
arrangements with colleges, uni- between the Peace Corps programs
versities, or other educational in- and similar development projects
stitutions, (3) through programs initiated by the communistic coun-
of other U.S. government agencies, tries. There is no essential differ-
"1 New York Times, March 2, 1961. ence between the Soviet approach


===== PAGE 42 =====

40 THE FREEMAN . September

to development aid to India or In- which also afford opportunities
donesia and that of the American for patronage and special favors.”
Peace Corps. The American Peace Corps is
The Peace Corps program as to assist foreign governments to-
well as other foreign aid programs ward successful national develop-
officially encourage the develop- ment. Its members are to work in
ment of statism and socialism government agricultural projects,
abroad. The United States is in government community programs,
fact doing what the Soviet Union government construction of
is merely promising to do: It is schools, houses, roads, and other
spending vast sums, and now is government projects. They are to
dispatching its Peace Corps vol- work on large-scale government
unteers, to promote socialism all construction projects, government
over the world. It finances five- dams, new cities and factories
year plans, seven-year plans, eco- built by government. They are to
nomic planning boards, imitation work in government administra-
TVA’s; it supports governments tion and regulation. In short, they
that seize and confiscate indus- are to be employed in precisely the
tries; it puts foreign governments same manner as the Soviet gov-
into the electric power business, ernment would employ its youth
into cement manufacture, textile organization, its “Pioneers,” in
manufacture, tanning, sugar re- similar development projects.
fining, milk and meat processing,
and in many other enterprises. It Economic Development Presumes
is no exaggeration, indeed, that Certain Legal and Social Conditions
the United States’ foreign aid pro- According to capitalistic ideol-
gram is the strongest single force ogy the underdeveloped nations
for the growth of socialism all are poverty-stricken and disease-
over the world. According to Clem- ridden because the fundamental
ent Johnson, Chairman of the prerequisites for economic pro-
Board of the U.S. Chamber of duction and exchange are lacking.
Commerce, reporting to the Sen- Economic production requires
ate Foreign Relations Committee stable conditions. It demands
on the foreign aid programs in peace and continuity which are
Southeast Asia, “there is little or the goal and purpose of all legal
no encouragement for private en- institutions. It requires the pro-
terprise. It is politically more pop-. tection and defense of property
ular to create state-owned, pub- against all those who would
licly administered monopolies acquire it through fraud and vio-


===== PAGE 43 =====

1961 VOLUNTEERS FOR THE PEACE CORPS 41

lence. Economic production re- businessmen accumulate in the
quires a legal system that main- form of factories, machines, tools,
tains peace and order and safe- and means of transportation.
guards private property. Rational During the last two hundred
production with intensive cultiva- years European and American
tion of the land and industrial businessmen expanded their eco-
mass production cannot develop nomic activities to all parts of the
without private property. world. Under the leadership of
The evolution of private prop- Great Britain, the European coun-
erty in the Western Hemisphere tries brought Western law and
constituted a fundamental prere- order to countries that had lived
quisite for the rise of Western in barbarism ever since the be-
civilization with its unprecedented ginning of man. The light of
economic productivity and well- Western civilization emanating
being. Other civilizations and from individual freedom and pri-
other underdeveloped areas of the vate property spread over all parts
world lack the Western legal sys- of the globe. But with the rebirth
tems that safeguard private pos- of collectivism in the shape of
sessions. Socialism and commu- aggressive nationalism and social-
nism deny private property and ism since the end of the nine-
therefore negate the basic prere- teenth century, the light of civili-
quisites for rational economic pro- zation in Asia and Africa dark-
duction. No matter how the com- ened again. And with the exodus
munistic propagandists may fal- of American and European busi-
sify their production statistics, nessmen from Asia and Africa,
their system inevitably breeds the ray of hope that had barely

slavery and poverty. shone faded away. Instead, the
people in the underdeveloped
The Need for Businessmen areas learned to attach their new

The underdeveloped countries hopes to the socialistic ideology
above all need entrepreneurs who that is more akin to their own
organize productive enterprise, age-old systems of tribal com-
hire and train workers, build busi- munism,
nesses, plantations, and factories. History will record that the dis-
They need businessmen who — in integration of Western civiliza-
order to earn profits — build chan- tion accelerated under American
nels of trade and commerce, create leadership since World War II. In
jobs, and produce goods and serv- practically all political issues in-
ices. They need capital which these volving the colonial powers of


===== PAGE 44 =====

42 THE FREEMAN September

Europe and the underdeveloped The fact is that the American
countries, our liberal statesmen Peace Corps member working
and politicians sided with the with the natives cannot replace
latter. In fact, they perceive no the British, French, or Belgian
difference between the freedom banker and businessman. He can-
revolution in their own country not replace the Belgian plantation
some 184 years ago and the rise owner whose property was seized
of world-wide statism today. or destroyed without compensa-
Their slogan, ‘Africa for the tion and who barely escaped with
Africans,” reveals either an in- his life. Instruction in the Eng-
credible confusion or their great lish language, which the American
hostility to the order of Western college graduate may be qualified
civilization and its individual en- to render, is no substitute for the
terprise system. law and order decreed by a Brit-
ish court of law and enforced by
an efficient police force.

The American boy or girl of 25

The Peace Corps is a poor sub- is accustomed to a standard of
stitute for Western civilization consumption that may in some
with its private property, individ- cases be 100 times greater than
ual freedom, and enterprise. In- that of the people he or she is
stead, it is a manifestation of so- supposed to help. The American
cialism, which necessitates gov- may be capable of living on
ernment control over labor. Plank $2,000-$3,000 a year while the na-
8 of the Communist Manifesto, tives subsist on $20-$30 a year.
which Karl Marx designed some This fact casts doubt on the
113 years ago, demands the “es- ability of the Peace Corpsman to
tablishment of industrial armies, survive under primitive Asian
especially for agriculture.” The and African living conditions. At
Peace Corps constitutes its reali- any rate, the natives are well
zation. Once the Peace Corps is qualified mentally and physically
firmly established, it undoubtedly to live under their customary con-
will grow to “Peace Armies” at ditions. In spite of their illiteracy
the disposal of the government for they evidence considerable intel-
foreign as well as domestic em- ligence in their ways of life. In
ployment. Socialism will have order to survive the deprivation
reached its ultimate when every and poverty of his new surround-
man and woman is drafted into ings, the American will need con-
the Peace Army. siderable assistance not only from

Peace Corps No Substitute
for Capitalism


===== PAGE 45 =====

1961 VOLUNTEERS FOR THE PEACE CORPS 43

his own government but also from that seize and confiscate the prop-
his native fellow workers. erty of Europeans and other for-
American government assist- eigners and manage their econ-
ance would immediately raise his omies according to socialistic and
economic and social position above communistic principles. The
that of the natives and thus make American boy with four years of
him a new target for native envy liberal indoctrination at college
and agitation. Without U.S. gov- plus two years of Asian and Afri-
ernment help the Peace Corps vol- can government omnipotence, may
unteer would become a burden to learn to embrace and advocate the
the natives and the object of their very principles that threaten to
ridicule rather than a benefactor. engulf our civilization. Thus can
be lost and forgotten the concepts

As a junior member of the na- and practices of capitalism, pri-
tive government machine, he vate property, and the profit sys-
would participate in the policies tem, commonly called “The Amer-
of corrupt tribal organizations ican Way of Life.” @®

PERHAPS WE WOULD be doing the peoples of the world a greater
and more enduring service if, along with each item of food,
clothing, money, and equipment, we sent a simple, matter-of-fact
statement of the reasons underlying our ability to make contribu-
tions which are so far out of proportion to our population and
our natural resources.

And I rather like this idea from another standpoint. In the
role of salesmen for America, perhaps we might become more
appreciative of our own product, more steadfast in holding to
the faith of our fathers, more alert in resisting the alluring
promises of false utopias, which for over 6,000 years have kept
the vast majority of people underfed, poorly clothed, embroiled
in wars, and surrounded by famine, pestilence, and human
degradation.

HENRY GRADY WEAVER, The Mainspring of Human Progress


===== PAGE 46 =====

ot
Se OS =
N
Ez =

ALFRED ANDERSON KENNEDY

AN ART EXHIBIT under the aus- rooms are impressive, not only for
pices of a “Gallerie Internation- the excellent taste and variety of
ale” might sound as though it art work exhibited, but also for
were a project of the Comintern; the absence of works conspicuously
but that would be a wrong impres- sentimentalizing the proletariat —
sion. the latter having dwindled in ap-
The “Gallerie Internationale, peal to the art-collecting cogno-
Ltd.” came into being two years scenti. However, noncommunist or
ago when a group of young men “bourgeois” art does not neces-
opened an art gallery in San Fran- sarily engage in the moralization
cisco to promote “international of its ethics. Such moralization
development through individual repels more often than it attracts.
initiative.” Herein lies the great, though often
Since their San Francisco suc- unrecognized, weakness of Marx-
cess, the group has established ist culture. It has made a truism
branches in such faraway places as of Upton Sinclair’s dictum that all
Athens (Greece), Lima (Peru), art is propaganda. The uncommit-
~ and Bangkok (Thailand) to pro- ted or nondoctrinaire mind is ut-
vide international outlets for non- terly alienated by the constant
collectivist art. The East Coast propagation of dubious ideals.
Gallerie Internationale imports Open-mindedness is not the mo-
through Hampton Roads, Virgin- nopoly of Western culture; but,
ia, and maintains a showroom historically, one finds its ante-
just outside historic Williamsburg. cedents in the libertarian tradi-
Gallerie Internationale show- tions of the West.
According to the literature of
the Gallerie Internationale:

Mr. Kennedy is a free lance writer and capi-
talist, among whose hobbies is an interest in eye
the arts. © * The world’s unprecedented ability

44


===== PAGE 47 =====

1961 CAPITALIST INTERNATIONAL 45

to provide all men with adequate in the arts as well as freedom of
food, shelter, and self-respect is commercial enterprise.

found thwarted today by several Throughout the age when mer-
conflicting ideologies and diametri- cantilism was in flower, little prog-
cally opposed social-economic systems. ress was made in artistic expres-
The fastest growing, most aggres- . . .

sive and most feared of these sys- SOT It was in the nineteenth cen-
tems is international communism. tury, the age of free enterprise,

Although millions of dollars and that new schools and various eso-
thousands of lives have been ex- teric forms of expression devel-
pended in combating the forceful oped in the arts.
spread of communism, daily events Gradually, the free market idea
indicate that most free world so- replaced the direct commission
cial-economic programs have not practice as the artist's primary
engaged their real enemy. means of earning a living from

To engage the real enemy, which his work. That is, he would display
is the spirit of collectivism as well his works in galleries to prospec-
as the ‘reality of international tive buyers rather than being
communism, the “Gallerie,” as a commissioned to do a specific work
private stock corporation: for a specific collector.

Establishes international rallying
points of free enterprise among those Today, most artists would pre-
who respect nothing so much as ac- fer to vend their works in the free
tion and replaces communist “rev- market sphere of the gallery in-
olutionary pride” with the conta- stead of working on commission.
gious. personal confidence of individ- But those in the Soviet Union
uals realizing their maximum con- must produce for the wiles of a
structive potential. totalitarian state, which serves as

“We are quite frankly selling critic and censor. In many other
an ideal (responsible individual- socialist nations the restriction
ism),” say these young men. of private capital impedes artistic
“There is a story and an individ- development, while state patronage
ual’s personal accomplishment be- often brings about the same re-
hind our every product.” sults as in the USSR.

Those who operate the Gal- To those desiring a renaissance
lerie and others whose thinking of the free market ethic in the
is similarly inclined realize that arts where the creator is the crit-
Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations ic of his creativity, organizations
provided the intellectual main- such as Gallerie Internationale of-
spring of freedom of expression fer a breath of fresh air. @®


===== PAGE 48 =====

Wilhelm
von Humbolot

One of the
Great Individualists
of the Past

RALPH RAICO

WHEN Oswald Spengler in one of the ideals of freedom which were
of his minor books scornfully char- conceived and propagated in Eng-
acterized German classical liberal- land, Scotland, and France toward
ism as “a bit of the spirit of Eng- the end of the eighteenth century,
land on German soil,” he was had found an echo and a support
merely displaying the willful in the works of writers such as
blindness of the school of mili- Kant, Schiller, and even the young
taristic-statist German historians, Fichte. Although by 1899 William
who refused to acknowledge as a Graham Sumner could write that
true compatriot any thinker who “there is today scarcely an insti-
did not form part of the “intel- tution in Germany except the
lectual bodyguard of the House of army,” it is nevertheless true that
Hohenzollern.” Spengler had ap- there existed a native German tra-
parently forgotten that Germany dition of distinguished, libertarian
had had its Enlightenment, and thought, which had, in the course
 — of the nineteenth century, to some
This article is reprinted by permission from degree at least been translated

the first issue, April 1961, of the New Indi- . . .

vidualist Review published by the University into action. Of the thinkers who

of Chicago chapter of the Intercollegiate Soci- . . I) .

ety of Individualists P. O. Box 4309, Chicago contributed to this tradition, Wil-
» Illinois. $2.00 per year (students $1.00).
Mr. Raico is editor-in-chief of New Individ- helm von Humboldt was unques-

ualist Review, and is studying under the Com- tionably one .of the greatest.

‘mittee on Social Thought, University of Chi- .

cago. Born in 1767, Humboldt was de-

46


===== PAGE 49 =====

1961 WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT 47

scended from a Junker family appears to have arrived at some
which had faithfully served the of the major conclusions of Burke,
rulers of Prussia for generations without at that time being famil-
—a fact which was later to cause iar with the latter's work. He
surprise to some of those who states, for instance, that “reason
heard young Humboldt in conver- is capable to be sure of giving
sation passionately defend per- form to material already present,
sonal liberty. He was educated at but it has no power to create new
Frankfurt-am-Oder, and later at material . .. Constitutions cannot
Gottingen, at that time one of be grafted upon men as sprigs
the centers of liberal ideas in upon trees.” For a new political

Germany, order to be successful, it is neces-
Lo sary for “time and nature” to have
Dim View of French Revolution prepared the ground. Since this

In the summer of 1789, Hum- has not been the case in France,
boldt undertook a trip to Paris, historical analogy compels us to
in the company of his former answer no to the question whether
tutor, Campe, who was a devotee this new constitution will succeed.
of the philosophes, and now eager In addition, this essay is inter-
to see with his own eyes “the esting because it anticipates an
funeral rites of French despot- idea which was central to the
ism.” His pupil did not share his thesis of Humboldt’s most impor-
enthusiasm for the Revolution, tant work on political theory and
however, for from what Humboldt which was never far from his
had witnessed at Paris and from mind whenever he deliberated on
conversations with Friedrich the nature of man — the notion
Gentz (at that time a supporter of that “whatever is to flourish in a
the French Revolution) there is- man must spring from within him,
sued a brief article, “Ideas on the and not be given him from with-
Constitutions of States, occasioned out.”
by the New French Constitution.’”? Nevertheless, Humboldt does

This little essay, originally in- not, in this essay, display the
tended as a letter to a friend, is. hostility toward the French people
noteworthy for a number of rea- which was characteristic of Burke.
sons. In the first place, Humboldt He realizes that if the French had

1 “Jdeen liber Staatsverfassung, durch given themselves over to ill-con-
die neue franzosische Constitution ver- Sidered schemes for remolding
anlasst,” in Humboldt’s Gesammelte {heir society according to a pre-

Schriften, vol. i, (Berlin, 1903), pp. 77- . . .
85. conceived plan, it was a reaction


===== PAGE 50 =====

48 THE FREEMAN September

which might have been expected, lightened” state paternalism then
given the provocations of the Old prevalent in Germany. He pressed
Regime. “Mankind had suffered at Humboldt for a written exposition
the hands of one extreme; it un- of his views on the subject, and
derstandably sought its salvation Humboldt responded, in 1792, by

at the other.” composing his classic, The Sphere
On his return to Berlin, Hum- -and Duties of Government.?
boldt had been given a minor post This little book was later to

at the law court. But the relative have a good deal of influence. It
freedom of thought which had was of importance in shaping some
been enjoyed in Prussia under of John Stuart Mill's ideas in this
Frederick the Great was at this field, and may even have provided
time being replaced by persecu- the immediate occasion for his
tions of the press and religious On Liberty. In France, Laboulaye,
intolerance, and Humboldt did not the late nineteenth century indi-
find the atmosphere of public life vidualist, owed much to this work
congenial. Added to this, was the of Humboldt’s, and in Germany it
disinclination which he felt to in- exercised an influence even over
terfere in the lives of others (a such a basically unsympathetic
nicety of feeling almost grotes- mind as von Treitschke’s. But it is
quely out of place in a “public also a book which has an inherent:
servant”). Most important of all, value, because in it are set forth
perhaps, was the new conception — in some cases, I believe, for the
which he was beginning to formu- first time —some of the major
late of the legitimate functions of arguments for freedom.

government, a conception which Humboldt begins his work by
virtually compelled him to look on remarking that previous writers
the states of his time as engines on political philosophy have con-
of injustice. In the spring of cerned themselves almost exclu-
1791, Humboldt resigned his posi- sively with investigating the divi-

tion. sions of governmental power and
what part the nation, or certain
The Role of Government sectors of it, ought to have in the

The genesis of his major work exercise of this power. These
on political theory, and the one of

p ~. ¥ dividuali ji 2 It was under this title that Hum-
most interest to individualists, iS  po1dt’s book appeared in English, in
also to be found in discussions 1854. The German title is, Ideen zu ein-

: . em Versuch, die Grenzen der Wirksam-
with a friend, Karl von Dalberg, keit des Staats zu bestimmen; in Hum-

who was a proponent of the “en- boldt, op. cit. vol. i, pp. 97-254.



===== PAGE 51 =====

1961 WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT 49

writers have neglected the more pand the range of values with
fundamental question, “To what which the human race is familiar,
end ought the whole apparatus of and it is through expanding this
the state to aim, and what limits range that increasingly better an-
ought to be set to its activity?’ It swers can be found to the ques-
is this question that Humboldt in- tion, “In exactly what ways are
tends to answer. men to arrange their lives?”
“The true end of man — not that A free nation would, according
which capricious inclination pre- to Humboldt, be one in which “the
scribes by eternally immutable continuing necessity of association
reason — is the highest and most with others would urgently impel
harmonious cultivation of his fac- each gradually to modify himself”
ulties into one whole. For this cul- in the light of his appreciation of
tivation, freedom is the first and the value of the life-patterns
indispensable condition.” Hum- others have accepted. In such a
boldt thus begins by placing his society, “no power and no hand
argument within the framework would be lost for the elevation and
of a particular conception of man’s enjoyment of human existence.”
nature, but it ought to be noted Each man, in applying his reason
that the validity of his argument to his own life and circumstances,
does not depend upon the correct- would contribute to the education
ness of his view of “the true end of of other men, and would, in turn,
man.” Of primary importance are learn from their experience. This
his ideas in regard to the mechan- is Humboldt’s view of the mechan-
ism of individual and social prog- ism of human progress.
ress, and here even such a socially- It should be clear, however, that
minded utilitarian as John Stuart this progressive refinement of the
Mill could find instruction and in- individual personality can only
spiration. take place under a regime of free-
For the full flourishing of the dom, since “what is not chosen by
individual, Humboldt asserts, the individual himself, that in
there is requisite, besides freedom, which he is only restricted and led,
a “manifoldness of situations,” does not enter into his being. It
which, while logically distinct remains foreign to him, and he
from freedom, has always followed does not really accomplish it with
upon it. It is only when men are human energy, but with mechani-
placed in a great variety of cir- cal address.” This is one of the
cumstances that those experiments central ideas of the book and mer-
in living can take place which ex- its some discussion.


===== PAGE 52 =====

50 THE FREEMAN September

Freedom in Science each applying his own special ability

It is an idea which no one will to the task that appears most profit-
dispute, when it is a question of able to him. Thus as many trails as
scientific progress. No one expects possible will be covered, and science

. . . ill penetrate most rapidly in every
worth-whil ientific thought to WP may
take place hore the coiontist is direction toward that kind of hidden

lled icted i knowledge which is unsuspected by
compe ed or restricte In Some  4y) put its discoverer, the kind of
important facet of his work. He pew knowledge on which thé prog-
in accordance with the self-im- poy will doubt that scientific
posed standards of his profession, ,.,oress would have been appal-
out of his own originality. But |j,o}y retarded if, for instance,

scientific knowledge is only one ginstein had been compelled to
type of knowledge; there are other  ;.i, permission from a board in

types, some at least as socially use- charge of “planning science” be-
ful. There is the knowledge which  ¢,... he could undertake his re-
consists in skills and techniques of go. ches (or if a government com-
production, and the type which, as .ooi00 had been empowered to
we have seen, is embedded in oq on Galileo's intended work!).

values and ways of life: besides But if men like Henry Ford had
the sort of knowledge which is ac- | + peen free to put their ideas

quired through abstract thought, ;,¢; operation, industrial progress
there is the sort acquired through 4 ,,1q have been no less stanched.
practical thought and through ac- we may freely concede that the
tion. The argument for freedom In ppqtract scientific thought of an
the elaboration of scientific knowl- Einstein is a loftier thing, repre-
edge, therefore, is simply a special go; ting a greater achievement of
instance of the argument for free- (1. human mind. But this has no
dom in general. bearing on the argument.

Professor Michael Polanyi has We believe that individual
described the benefits of “individ-  gejentists should be unhindered in
ualism in the cultivation of (he pursuit of their aims, because
science”: those who would be in charge of

The pursuit of science can be or- the central direction of scientific
ganized . .. in no other manner than research, or those who had power
by granting complete independence to restrict scientists in essential
to all mature scientists. They will ways, wauld not know as well as
then distribute themselves over the “nino. polanyi, The Logic of Lib-
whole field of possible discoveries, erty, (London, 1951), p. 89.


===== PAGE 53 =====

1961 WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT 51

the scientists themselves — each of solution he thinks it best to at-
whom has an immediate knowledge tempt, that Humboldt wanted to
of the relevant factors in his par- limit the activities of the state as
ticular situation — which are the severely as possible. Another argu-
most promising lines to be ex- ment in favor of this conclusion
plored. In addition, a self-chosen is that a government wishing to
activity, or one which may be supervise to even a modest degree
freely followed up in all of its such a complex phenomenon as
ramifications, will summon forth society, simply cannot fit its regu-
energy which will not be available lations to the peculiarities of vari-
in cases where a task is imposed ous concatenations of circum-
from without, or where the re- stances. But measures which
searcher meets up against count- ignore such peculiarities will tend
less frustrations in the pursuit of to produce uniformity and con-
his goal — the free activity, in tract the “manifoldness of situa-
other words, will command greater tions” which is the spur to all
incentive. progress.

But both of these propositions
are equally true of activities in- The limits of Coercion
volving practical knowledge, or But what is the indispensable
knowledge in action, of which minimum of government activity?
techniques of production are an Humboldt finds that the one good
example. The Socialist who be- which society cannot provide for
lieves in central direction of eco- itself is security against those who
nomic activity ought, consistently, aggress against the person and
to believe also in the central plan- property of others. His answer to
ning of science, and those who the question which he posed at
favor widespread government the beginning of his work, “what
control of economic life, because limits ought to be set to the ac-
the state “knows better,” should, tivity of the state,” is “that the
if they were consistent, favor a provision of security, against both
return to the system that shackled external enemies and internal dis-
the scientific enterprise as well. sensions must constitute the pur-

It was partly because force nec- pose of the state, and occupy the
essarily interferes with individual circle of its activity.”
self-development and the prolifera- As for the services which it is
tion of new ideas, by erecting a commonly held must fall within
barrier between the individual's the scope of government action,
perception of a situation and the as, for instance, charity, Humboldt


===== PAGE 54 =====

52 THE FREEMAN September

believes that they need not be pro- pology. From 1802 to 1808 he
vided by political institutions, but served as Prussian minister to
can safely be entrusted to social Rome, a post which involved a
ones. “It is only requisite that minimum of official business, and
freedom of association be given to which he accepted chiefly out of
individual parts of the nation or his love for the city. Humboldt’s
to the nation itself,” in order for real “return to the state” occurs in
charitable ends to be satisfactorily 1809, when he became Director of
fulfilled. In this, as, indeed, the Section for Public Worship
throughout his whole book, Hum- and Education, in the Ministry of
boldt shows himself to be a Interior. In this capacity, he di-
thoughtful but passionate believer rected the reorganization of the
in the efficacy of truly social Prussian public education system,
forces, in the possibility of great and, in particular, founded the
social ends being achieved with- University of Berlin.

out any necessity for direction on

the part of the state. Humboldt Misplaced Patriotism :
thus allies himself with the That so unquestionably sincere

thinkers who rejected the state in a man as Humboldt could have
order to affirm society. acted in such disharmony with the

Parts of Humboldt’s book ap- principles set forth in his only
peared in two German periodicals book on political philosophy
in 1792, but difficulties with the (among them, that the state should
Prussian censorship and a certain have no connection with educa-
apparently innate lack of confi- tion), requires some explanation.
dence in his own works, caused The reason is to be sought in his
him to put off publication of the patriotism, which had been
work until it could be revised. The aroused by the utter defeat suf-
day for revision never came, how- fered by Prussia at the hands of
ever, and it was only sixteen years Napoleon. Humboldt wished to
after the author's death that The contribute to the regeneration of
Sphere and Duties of Government his country which was being un-
was published in its entirety. dertaken by men such as Stein and

For ten years after the comple- Hardenberg, and the reform of
tion of this book, Humboldt de- the educational system fitted his
voted himself to traveling and abilities and inclinations.
private studies, principally in . This task completed, Humboldt
aesthetics and the classics, linguis- served in various diplomatic posts
tics, and comparative anthro- for a number of years, including


===== PAGE 55 =====

1961 WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT 53

that of Prussian minister to the that was offered him by the king.
Congress of Vienna, and, after The rest of his life he devoted to
peace had been established, as a his studies, of which the re-
member of the Council of State. searches into linguistics were the
But the spirit which now predomi- most important and gained for
nated in Berlin, as well as him the reputation of a pioneer in
throughout Europe, was the spirit the field. He died in 1835.
of Metternich, who, always able If we ask what are the primary
accurately to identify the enemies contributions of Humboldt to
of his system, had already in 1814 libertarian thought, we will find
termed Humboldt a “Jacobin.” the answer in his ideas on the
Humboldt’s opposition to the reac- value of the free, self-sustaining
tionary policies of his government activity of the individual, and of
gained for him as much ill-will at the importance of the unhindered
court as it did popularity among collaboration — often unconscious
the people. He was hated and in- — of the members of society. The
trigued against by the reaction- first is a conception which is find-
aries at court; they went so far ing remarkable support and ap-
as to open his mail, as if he had plication in the work of the Client-
in actuality been a Jacobin. When, centered, or Non-directive school
in 1819, Metternich induced Prus- of psychotherapists, while the
sia to agree to the Karlsbad De- second has been explored in the
crees, which attempted to establish recent books of writers such as
a rigid censorship for all of Ger- F. A. Hayek and Michael Polanyi.?
many, Humboldt termed the regu- That ideas which were set forth
lations ‘shameful, unnational, and by Humboldt should be proving so
provoking to a great people,” and relevant to contemporary research
demanded the impeachment of into man and society, is a sign of
Bernstorff, the Prussian minister the clearly discernible trend
who had signed them. toward individualism in present-
It was clear that a man like gay thought at the highest levels.
Humboldt was an anomaly in a _
government which treacherously 4 On this very suggestive approach to

. re psychotherapy, see Carl R. Rogers, et.
refused to fulfill its war-time al., Client-Centered Therapy, (New

promises of a constitution, and york, 1951).

whose domestic policies were 5 See, especially, F. A. Hayek, The

largely dictated by Metternich. In  Counter-Revolution of Science, (Glencoe,
I11,, 1952), and The Constitution of Lib-

December, 1819, Humboldt was erty, (Chicago, 1960), and Michael Pol-

dismissed. He refused the pension anyi, op. cit.


===== PAGE 56 =====

=

(i)

x
H
%
3

A REVIEWER'S NOTEBOOK Johh Chamberlain

Let There Be Ligh

MATTHEW JOSEPHSON has never the other half of the so-called
loved the American past. His The Gilded Age; he can even speak of
Robber Barons, a very famous the “insouciant charm of the mid-
book in the nineteen thirties, nineteenth-century era in Amer-
formulated a prevalent negative ica.” He still cannot bear the fact
attitude toward the enterprisers that men like J. P. Morgan made
of the post-Civil War period; his profit the touchstone of the bank-
The Politicos, which succeeded er’s art, but he is now willing to
The Robber Barons, mocked our grant that the American civiliza-
legislators and presidents for be- tion that has grown out of the
ing mere messenger boys for the nineteenth century is ‘“meliora-
businessmen. Finally, in his Por- tive and charitable” as well as
trait of the Artist as American, ‘‘materialistic.”
Mr. Josephson spoke of the “grim, Reluctantly but inevitably, Mr.
dull American past” weighing Josephson succumbs to the evi-
down upon such sensitive artistic dence turned up by his own splen-
souls as Lafcadio Hearn and didly indefatigable research.
Henry James, There were the “robber barons,”
It comes as something of a yes. There was Jay Gould, whose
shock, then, to discover that Mr. business was the manipulation of
Josephson can be a lover of Amer- paper (stocks, debentures, green-
ica as well as a hater. His latest backs) to the end of amassing
book, a long and extremely rich more paper. There were the efforts
biography of the inventor Thomas to form “trusts.” But as Mr.
A. Edison (Edison, McGraw-Hill, Josephson follows the various Edi-
511 pages, $6.95), is a rhapsody sonian revolutions that came out
not in blue but in all the golden. of the famous inventor’s labora-
hues of the electric light. At long tories at Menlo Park and Orange
last Mr. Josephson has discovered in New Jersey, the skullduggeries

54


===== PAGE 57 =====

1961 LET THERE BE LIGHT! 55

which our author once celebrated century, it becomes apparent, were
as being the whole of the latter all connected with the unfortunate
nineteenth century shrink to neg- propensity of men to make unfair
ligible proportions. use of a natural monopoly through

Scores of important new “meli- pressure on the government. A
orative” businesses sprang from very non-Manchesterian breed of
Edison’s manipulation of electric capitalist got subsidies for rail-
current. There were the central roads by pleading that the “pub-
power stations, making it possible lic” needed the transportation and
for factories to relocate far from then proceeded to get rich by feed-
the slums. Transportation changed ing the public’s own money out in
with the coming of the urban and unconscionably large amounts to
interurban trolley; homes were no their own “construction” compan-
longer in darkness, Men made lies. The railroad men of Cali-
money out of consulting the con- fornia in particular charged the
sumer’s taste, saying “the public people more in tolls than was
be pleased”: there was the phono- either just or sensible — for the
graph, the moving picture theatre, people had presented the “railroad
and — as an unlooked-for dividend barons” of the West with the right
paid on Edison’s discovery of a of eminent domain and they natu-
strange ‘““Edison effect” in a rally had a right to expect some
vacuum tube —the whole modern consideration in return. As for the
electronics industry. Edison made “rapacity” of the early Rockefeller
it possible for the masses to live oil companies, that was bound up
in light and comparative luxury — with the railroad rebate — still an-
and if their tastes have not always other misuse of a power protected
been of the best, that is hardly the by government. It was government
fault of either Edison in particu- alone that accounted for capital-
lar or the capitalist system in gen- ism’s sins, and this hardly consti-

eral, tutes a black eye for “laissez faire.”

When all is said and done, how-
The Major Problem ever, how feeble and ineffective
Was Government Intervention were the attempts of the “barons”

Almost in spite of Mr. Joseph- to achieve monopoly through mis-
son’s intentions a favorable judg- use of government in late nine-
ment of the “Gilded Age” of teenth century America. The Edi-
American capitalism emerges sons of the time were entirely too
from the pages of Edison. The much for those who dreamed of
real excesses of the late nineteenth cartelizing the United States. As a


===== PAGE 58 =====

56 THE FREEMAN September

young telegraph operator Edison age battery in hopes of creating a
worked for Western Union in vari- thriving business in small electric
ous cities — and the aspiring young runabouts. His friend, Henry
inventor noticed that Western Un- Ford, beat him out in the race to
ion, by dint of buying up and con- provide cheap individual transpor-
solidating the many separate city- tation, for: gasoline proved more
to-city lines, had managed pretty practicable than electric storage
much to control the dissemination batteries — but as a result of the
of vital business information. But competition between Edison and
the men in charge of Western Un- Ford the street car “monopolies”
ion failed to see the importance of were as dead as doornails within
Alexander Graham Bell's tele- a few scant years of time. And the
phone, or of Edison’s own improved railroads themselves, facing the
telephone transmitter which made competition of airplane and truck,
the telephone commercially feas- were kept in business to some ex-
ible, and accordingly they muffed tent by the electrification of some
the chance to buy the Bell patents. of their lines, a change made pos-
The result was a complete rebirth sible by Edison’s original creation
of competition in the information- of the central power station.
dissemination business, with tele-

phone and telegraph acting as The American Norm

checks on each other. Thus it was that the “wizard of
. Menlo Park” led the way in making
Competitive Progress : competition the norm in American

In the business of lighting, the capitalistic civilization. Though he
gas companies of the late nine- himself benefited to same extent
teenth century thought they had by patent monopolies in the light-
an inside monopolistic track in ing and phonograph and moving
most communities. But along came picture fields, Edison soon discov-
Edison, with his carbonized fila- ered that even perfectly legal mo-
ment vacuum bulb — and the gas nopolies were impossible to main-
companies were compelled to share tain. The patent infringers were
the stage with the new “Edison” like the tides which Canute could
companies. The urban and inter- not face down. Indeed, far from
urban traction companies, using being a system operated by monop-
Edison's own “juice,” thought they olistic “robber barons,” the capi-
had a monopoly of street transpor- talistic order of nineteenth cen-
tation — but Edison went to work tury America was even more un-
to make a good rechargeable stor- mitigatedly competitive than Edi-


===== PAGE 59 =====

1961 LET THERE BE LIGHT! 57

son himself cared to contemplate. If in the light of Mr. Josephson’s
But, though patent infringement book the historical goblin of the
may have been unfair to the in- “robber baron monopolists”’ tends
ventor, the customer certainly did to dissolve into thin air, there is
not suffer because of it. another familiar charge against

“capitalism” that is also dispelled
The House of Morgan by these pages. Historians without

J. P. Morgan helped bankroll the end have averred that capitalism
early Edison. As a financier, Mor- made the world a cluttered and
gan was not inclined to give Edi- dirty place. But Edison’s life work
son too much money too quickly, proved that the dirt and clutter
and Mr. Josephson chooses to in- were not due to the operation of
terpret this as stupidity and nig- the capitalist economic system as
gardliness on the part of a conven- such. The dinginess of early nine-
tional “Wall Street.” Mr. Joseph- teentn century times was due to —
son’s view rests, of course, on hind- coal and gas. When Edison substi-
sight. A more charitable interpre- tuted the central power station and
tation of the whole business is that the electric light for coal and gas,
Morgan was not versed in the in- the world quickly became a cleaner
tricacies of such esoteric matters place. And capitalism proved just
as Ohm's Law of electrical resist- as willing to finance the new Edi-
ance. After all, electricity was .a sonian cleanliness as it had been
complete mystery to people in the willing to finance the dirty spout-
nineteenth century — and Morgan ing engines made possible by
and his friends did pretty well by James Watt.

Edison when they took the inven- Mr. Josephson, of course, is not
tor’s first promises on trust. More- interested in making out a case for
over, Morgan's money was his own nineteenth century capitalism. But
to play with — and if he chose to his Edison is for the most part a
deploy much of it in other direc- splendidly objective biography.
tions than those approved by Edi- Despite Mr. Josephson's previous
son, that was his own affair. As for ideological commitments to the
Edison, he was always smart Left, it makes out its own case.
enough to recoup his own fortunes America comes off well in this
no matter what he spent on his in- book — so well, in fact, that Mr.
ventions. One thing paid for an- Josephson may be reckoned an un-
other with Edison — and the suc- conscious convert to a view of the
cesses always proved bigger than past that may become more know-
the failures. ingly explicit in his next book. ®


===== PAGE 60 =====

58 THE FREEMAN September

» INTELLECTUAL SCHIZO- Albert Jay Nock, who in his Page-
PHRENIA by R. J. Rushdoony. Barbour Lectures at the University
Preface-by Edmund A. Opitz. The ©f Virginia! pointed out that ex-
Presbyterian and Reformed Pub- periments with methods, curricula
lishing Company, 1961. 133 pp. educational plants, etc. did not go
$2.75. to the root of the matter; that

the real problems stemmed from
the theory of education presently
DEAN INGE, the controversial Eng- accepted, whether consciously or
lish churchman, sent birthday not, by most citizens of the nation.
greetings to the Quaker philoso- This theory assumes, in brief, that
pher, Rufus Jones, remarking that there is one kind of education for
he was gratified to know that if everyone, that everyone can and
the Church of England kicked him should be educated, and that
out, he would have a spiritual “yniversal education” — equated
home in the Society of Friends. with training in verbal skills —
It is to be hoped that the Reverend will bring great improvements to
Mr. Rushdoony, likewise, has society and government. This
made arrangements for new spirit- theory is seriously defective, and
ual accommodations should he re- until we get ourselves a new
quire them at some future date; theory all our efforts to improve
and he just might, especially if the situation, however sincere,
he continues writing books as pro- will, at best, accomplish little and,
vocative as the one under review! gat worst, do irreparable damage.

It is a powerful little package, a Now Mr. Rushdoony gets down

real thought shaker. to bedrock with his perceptive
Critics of education in the criticism of the state of education

United States are all about us, but today as the inevitable outcome of
most of them treat the subject in adhering to a bad theory. In our
a superficial manner. The current so-called public school system, he
crop, for instance, assures us that says, we have created a secular in-
the way to solve all educational gtitution that has for its object of
problems is to spend several more worship, not God but the State.
billions on schools each year; a “Modern education thus is statist
few years back professional educa- education, and the state is made
tors whooped it up for various and the all-embracing institution of
sundry experiments with newly which all other institutions are
conceived curricula. One of the few TI The Theory of Education in the
critics to go deep was the late yauited States, Regnery, Chicago.

Reviewed by Robert Thornton


===== PAGE 61 =====

1961 OTHER BOOKS 59

but facets.” This has been true on assuming God's nonexistence.”
even with schools under the con- Organized religion has not been
trol of local governments and will, invulnerable to this secular trend.
of course, progress further once Man and his politics, not God, is to
the national government inter- an alarming degree, the center of
venes under the guise of render- ecclesiastical attention. It is sad
ing financial assistance to sup- irony that many churches are sup-
posedly bankrupt school districts. porting federal aid to education,
Let the central government gain often indirectly by favoring aid to
control of the local school districts public schools and/or opposing aid
and pupils will be indoctrinated to private or parochial schools.
with pseudopatriotic nonsense The libertarian cannot favor any
about the glories of the nation. federal aid to any educational in-
The educator will “play the role stitutions, but he is especially op-
of a god” in the effort to remake posed to a program that discrimi-
man into a contented tool of the nates against private schools; for
all-powerful State. these institutions are the last bul-
Again, going deep to help us warks against the spread of a
grasp a full understanding of our secular, statist education that en-
present dilemma, Mr. Rushdoony gulfs all. They will have little
shows that “secular learning is in- chance of survival if present
volved in self-contradiction, is trends continue.
continually denying itself.” The
end result of attempting “to func- Mr. Rushdoony’s book is a fine
tion apart from God, to use the effort to halt this trend toward
things of this creation while deny- the absurd extreme of a man-cen-
ing their creator and the eternal tered but depersonalized society,
decree behind all reality (may) be and restore some sense of balance
characterized as intellectual to our thinking about man’s proper
schizophrenia.” He would doubt- deportment in God's world. We
less agree with Wilhelm Roepke’s should not be dismayed because
analysis of the present debacle: the age in which we live is a de-
“It is as though we had wanted cadent one. This very fact should
to add to the already existing be treated as a challenge which,
proofs of God’s existence, a new bravely faced, will give the indi-
and finally convincing one: the vidual a true sense of joyful
universal destruction that follows living. @®


===== PAGE 62 =====

TO OBTAIN
COMPREHENSIVE ORIENTATION
IN NEOCLASSICAL ECONOMICS

If an economist asks himself in which of three schools of
economic thought he has read least — whether Classical, Collectivist
or Neoclassical — his answer will probably be, Neoclassical. Further
reading of the writings of this school of thought should be rewarding.

(1) In time sequence, what is called Classical came first. In
retrospect, it appears that the name was applied too early in the
history of economic thought.

(2) Collectivist economics (socialist, communist, central plan-
ning, dirigist) is a hostile reaction to the Classical, which was basically
rooted in freedom. The socialists discovered some of the fallacies
of the Classicists, but the solutions of the socialists were aggrava-
tions of the errors of the Classicists. The socialists disagreed with
the Classicists where the latter were right, and built their own social-
ist superstructure on the fallacies of the Classicists; the socialists
in general rejected the good and kept the bad of the Classicists.

(3) The Neoclassicists (as their name indicates) are in the
genuine tradition of the Classicists and they corrected ambiguities
and errors of the latter. The writings of classicists as Adam Smith
and David Ricardo are not effective today against collectivist eco-
nomics. Those authors do not provide the help that the anti-collecti-
vists need. It is the Neoclassical who are especially useful in this
regard.

Several of the greatest Neoclassicists were Austrian nationals.
They wrote in German. Only recently have translations or new
books by them become available in the English language.

continued

LIBERTARIAN PRESS, South Holland, Illinois

(Page One of Four Pages)



===== PAGE 63 =====

We are herewith offering three books which constitute the main
stream of Neoclassical thought, at a special combination price.

(1) Carl Menger PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMICS
The Free Press, Glencoe, Illinois, 1950 - 320 pages $6

(2) Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk CAPITAL AND INTEREST
Libertarian Press, South Holland, Illinois, 1959
I History and Critique of Interest Theories
II Positive Theory of Capital
IIT Further Essays on Capital and Interest

1248 pages ~~ Three Volurres In One: $15
(See page four for refer. to three-volume edition)
(3) Ludwig von Mises HUMAN ACTION
Yale University Press, © ~ Haven, Conn., 1949
899 pages $12.50
"OMBINATION PRICE $30

Libertarian Press will ~~ oly these three books for the special,
reduced, combination pri.. ou. $30 plus postage.

(1) Menger:
PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMICS

Menger’s Principles of Economics is
the earliest and shortest book in the
series. It is also the easiest reading.

This book contains in simplest form
the basic idea which constituted, in the
19th century, a “revolution in economics.”
(There is an Introduction by Frank H.
Knight, which should be read after the
Menger, Bohm-Bawerk and Mises books
have been read.)

Carl M nger .
continued
LIBERTARIAN PRESS, South Holland, lllinois

(Page Two of Four Pages)



===== PAGE 64 =====

(2) Bobm-Bawerk:
CAPITAL AND INTEREST

Marx and other socialists attacked
all “unearned income,” as exploitation of
employes; they were grossly mistaken.

In opposition to that, pro-capitalism
economists defended interest on the
ground that it was not exploitation of
the worker, but compensation for the
productivity of the capital supplied; or
they gave other reasons. But these argu-

ments were fallacious, as both the socialists -

Bohm-Bawerk declared and Bohm-Bawerk has shown.

History and Critique of Interest Theories (Vol. I) is, figuratively, a grave-
yard of fallacious interest theories. Positive Theory of Capital (Vol. II) con-
tains the most comprehensive analysis that has been made of capital and interest.
This volume is an impressive superstructure reared on Menger’s premises.
Further Essays on Capital and Interest (Vol. III) supplements Volume II.

As an intellectual production, these volumes outrank anything

published earlier in the science of economics.

(3) Mises: HUMAN ACTION

Mises’s major work is Human Action.
It builds better, on and beyond, Menger
and Bohm-Bawerk.

Human Action is the most compre-
hensive economic treatise yet written.
(First 150 pages pertain to fundamental
and difficult epistemological problems.)

Human Action shows where the
cause for business booms and depressions
must be sought, and what the policy
should be to ameliorate that situation.

Mastering these books will be facilitated by reading them in
the chronological order in which they were written; first Menger;
then Bohm-Bawerk; then Mises. continued

LIBERTARIAN PRESS, South Holland, Illinois

(Page Three of Four Pages)



===== PAGE 65 =====

CAPITAL AND INTEREST: Bohm-
Bawerk’s main work is so large it has always
appeared in more than one volume. In addi-
tion to the three-volumes-in-one edition, this
text is also available in three separate vol- -
umes, boxed in a slip-case. 1959. I, 512
pages; II, 480 pages; III, 256 pages. $25 the
set, plus postage.

PLANNING FOR FREEDOM by Mises:

Trenchant essays, which constitute the easiest in-
troduction to Mises. 1952. 174 pages. Paper $1.50.

SHORTER CLASSICS OF

BOHM-BAWERK:

(To be published soon; approx. 400 pages, $7.50.)
Contents are as follows:

“The Austrian Economists”

“Whether Legal Rights and Relationships Are Eco-
nomic Goods” (First English translation)

“Control Or Economic Law?”

“The Unresolved Contradiction in the Marxian
Economic System”

“The Ultimate Standard of Value”

FIRST PRINCIPLES IN MORALITY
AND ECONOMICS: A 32-page month-
ly for six years, 1955-1960. A hybrid
publication covering ethics and economics,
with the ethics Hebrew-Christian; and
the economics, Neoclassical. The major
emphasis is on ethics. Paperbound. Six
volumes at $18. 384 pages each volume,
size, 814” x 5147.

LIBERTARIAN PRESS, South Holland, ll.

(Page Four of Four Pages)



===== PAGE 66 =====

io Government vs. Government

By Now, the government’s prosecution of the heavy electrical equipment
industry under the antitrust laws is widely known. By this deed, govern- .
ment action has presumably served to promote competition in the in-
dustry.

Not so widely known, however, is that the same government at the
same time has also been discouraging competition in the heavy electrical
generating industry. Government obstacles on imports have contributed
to rejected foreign bids even though they have been 30 per cent or more
below the lowest domestic bid.

It is surely a striking anomaly to see simultaneously vigorous enforce-
ment of the antitrust laws and government restraints on competition.
For government to pursue obviously conflicting purposes smacks of
.dangerous nonsense, giving rise to that distrust of law which erodes
and eventually destroys the foundations of a free society.

To cap the many ironies, reports are now circulating that the govern-
ment, having won its antitrust case, now seeks to prevent the largest of
the firms from competing too hard, in order to avoid ‘damage’ to
smaller firms. Its antitrust victory won, the government now wants to
re-establish the status quo ante bellum.

The development of new and efficient small businesses is one of the
basic props to a competitive economy. However, to subsidize small busi-
ness by arbitrary government policy genuflecting before the shrine of
smallness makes no more sense than to discriminate in favor of bigness.

Unless or until we are prepared to let free market forces and the
movement of goods perform much of the work of maintaining competi-
tion, government policy probably will continue to be inconsistent and
self-defeating. In turn, this does not add that respect for government
which it should have, but must earn.

From Economic Intelligence, July 1961, published by the Economic Re-
search Department of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States.

64


===== PAGE 67 =====

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. oC . nm " N R R PE oe oN
| INTERCOLLEGIATE SOCIETY.

“
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OF INDIVIDUALISTS, INC.

»

SI

A For the Advancement of Conservative Thought on the Campus “
Pounded 1953 © cL pT Ta g "
TT TR ee lr : Ry

The Intercollegiate Society of Individualists is a non-profit, non-partisan
educational organization. IS! is dedicated to developing among college
students and teachers a better understanding of the conservative phi-
losophy of individual liberty, the right of private property, free market
economics, limited government, and the spiritual and moral values which
underlie this philosophy.

IS| places primary emphasis on the distribution of literature—essays,
booklets and books. ISI publications range across many fields: eco-
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In addition to its publications program, ISI also:

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If you know college students or teachers who might be interested in ISI,
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starting one — the 24-page ISI Leadership Guide.
Write for copy.



===== PAGE 68 =====

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