===== PAGE 1 =====

IREEMAN

Ideas On (Ideas On Liberty

July 1999 Vol. 49, No. 7
a a a Amr a

WAR IN THE BALKANS

6 THOUGHTS on FREEDOM~—Outside the Limits by Donald J. Boudreaux

8 Immoral, Unconstitutional War by David N. Mayer
( 12 The Kosovo Tangle by Gary Dempsey
16 Remembering and Inventing: A Short History of the Balkans by Peter Mentzel
21 POTOMAC PRINCIPLES—Warmongering for Peace by Doug Bandow
23 Isolationism by Frank Chodorov

26 How War Amplified Federal Power in the Twentieth Century by Robert Higgs
30 Another Place, Another War by Michael Palmer
32 War’s Other Casualty by Wendy McElroy

dei NE uf Nyt nk. Ng Nyt. me.
TR —— —~ Van Fan ~ Van Fa) TN

FEATURES

¥ 37 Spontaneous Order by Nigel Ashford
43 Storm Trooping to Equality by James Bovard

48 Croaking Frogs by Brian Doherty

51 Noah Smithwick: Pioneer Texan and Monetary Critic
by Joseph R. Stromberg

COLUMNS

35 IDEAS and CONSEQUENCES—Clinton versus Cleveland and Coolidge on Taxes
by Lawrence W. Reed

41 THE THERAPEUTIC STATE—Suicide as a Moral Issue by Thomas Szasz

¥ as ECONOMIC NOTIONS—In the Absence of Private Property Rights by Dwight R. Lee
54 ECONOMICS on TRIAL—Dismal Scientists Score Another Win by Mark Skousen
63 THE PURSUIT of HAPPINESS—Ignorance Is Bliss—Maybe by Walter Williams

DEPARTMENTS

2 Perspective—Operation Legacy by Sheldon Richman
4 Tax Cuts Are Unfair? It Just Ain’t So! by David Kelley
56 Book Reviews

Overcoming Welfare: Expecting More from the Poor and Ourselves by James L. Payne,
reviewed by Robert Batemarco; Coolidge: An American Enigma by Robert Sobel and

The Presidency of Calvin Coolidge by Robert Ferrell, reviewed by Raymond J. Keating;

H. L. Mencken Revisited by William H. A. Williams, reviewed by George C. Leef;

Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics by P. J. O'Rourke, reviewed by William H. Peterson;
Cyber Rights: Defending Free Speech in the Digital Age by Mike Godwin, reviewed by
Royce Van Tassell.



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EEMAN C idcas On Liberty Operation Legacy
Published b . Co.
The Foundation for Economic Education The Clinton policy in the Balkans can be
Irvington-on-Hudson, NY 10533 criticized at many levels: the apparent lack of

Fhone (O14) wig FAX (914) 591-8910 forethought, the misapprehension of the con-
-maitl: reem €e.or . . , . . .

FEE Home Page: hitp://www.fee.org flict and the region’s history, the likely dishon-
President: Donald J. Boudreaux esty about the intention to use ground troops,

the law of unintended consequences (the

Editor: Sheldon Richman }
Manazing Editor: Beth A. Hoff boost to Greater Albania, for example), and
ae wor: eth A. Hollman so on. That all has been much commented on.
or merius What's most neglected is the domestic reason
Book Review Editor for forswearing such foreign adventurism,
George C. Leef no matter how heart-wrenching the CNN
Editorial Assistant coverage.
c pny Aa Murphy I can do no better than to quote James
Oy Baird Madison on this subject.
Doug Bandow “Of all the enemies to public liberty,” he
Dwight R. Lee said, “war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded,
Lawrence W. Reed because it comprises and develops the germ of

Russell Roberts
Mark Skousen
Thomas Szasz

every other. War is the parent of armies; from
these proceed debts and taxes; and armies,

Walter Williams and debts, and taxes are the known instru-
Contributing Editors ments for bringing the many under the domi-
Peter J. Boettke nation of the few. . . . No nation could pre-
Clarence B. Carson serve its freedom in the midst of continual
Burton W. Folsom. warfare.”
. , Ir. . . ,
Joseph S. Fulda The reader Is referred to Robert Higgs’s
Bettina Bien Greaves Crisis and Leviathan for documentation of the
Robert Higgs Madisonian principle.
John Hospers Mr. Madison proceeded to describe the
Raymond J. Keating bloated executive that war produces. Could he
Daniel B. Klein .
Wendy McElroy have foreseen the day when a president makes
Tibor R. Machan war without a congressional declaration?
Andrew P. Morriss (These days we have “consultation” or, at best,
Ronald Nash debate after the president has committed the
Edmund A. Opitz country to war.)

James L. Payne “War,” Madison continued, “is in fact the

William H. Peterson . ‘
true nurse of executive aggrandizement. In

Jane S. Shaw . . .
Richard H. Timberlake war, a physical force is to be created; and it is
Lawrence H. White the executive will, which is to direct it. In
The Freeman is the monthly publication of The Foundation for Eco- war, the public treasuries are to be unlocked;
nomic Education, Inc., Irvington-on-Hudson, NY 10533. FEE, 4 1 2 1 ' Tao
established in 1946 by Leonard E. Read, is a non-political, educational and 1t 1s the executive hand which 1s to dis
champion of private property, the free market, and limited government. pense them. In war, the honors and emolu-
FEE is classified as a 26 USC 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. ET “po
Copyright © 1999 by The Foundation for Economic Education. Per- ments of office are to be multiplied; and it is
mission is granted to reprint any article in this issue, except “Isolation- : :
ism,” provided credit is given and two copies of the reprinted material the executive patronage under which they are
are sent to FEE. : . it 1 1
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Bound volumes of The Freeman are available from The Foundation
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Cover: Bombing damage in Kosovo. (AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS).


===== PAGE 3 =====

_—__———

honorable or venal love of fame, are all in Two of our columnists also focus on the
conspiracy against the desire and duty of war. Donald Boudreaux explains that govern-
peace.” ment doesn’t have the competence to impose

Milosevic takes his place beside a long list itself on other people’s conflicts. And Doug
of state-wielding butchers. He’s caused the Bandow tries heroically to make sense of a
burial of thousands of ethnic Albanians. The foreign policy that defies explanation.
president of the United States didn’t have to No idea is more important to the freedom
let that tragedy dump more dirt on the philosophy than that of unplanned, or sponta-

gravesite of limited government here. neous, order. Yet it is counterintuitive and
therefore hard for many people to accept.
* * * Nigel Ashford explores the products of

human action but not human design.

We devote a major portion of this issue of When the government sets out to create
The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty to the U.S.-led equality in any sense other than equality
war against Yugoslavia. David Mayer argues before the law, all manner of mischief is pos-
that the war is an act of aggression that vio- sible. James Bovard reports that “tyranny” is
lates the U.S. Constitution, not to mention the not too strong a word for what egalitarian offi-
charters of the United Nations and NATO. He cials are capable of inflicting.

also points out that events in Serbia and Koso- Why are frog populations declining and
vo bear no relation to any vital interest of the deformities increasing? Does it portend an
American people. environmental cataclysm? Some officials

Gary Dempsey outlines the history of would have us believe so. Brian Doherty says
Kosovo, beginning about 2000 B.C., and its the real meaning may be less worthy of head-
importance to both the Serbs and Albanians, lines.
showing that brutality is not unknown to Americans of the nineteenth century knew
either side. something about the nature of money that has

Peter Mentzel adds to the historical analysis, long since escaped citizens of today. Joseph
emphasizing the modern roots of the conflict. =~ Stromberg demonstrates this through the

Next we reprint a classic from the autobi- memoirs of an obscure but classic pioneer and
ography of Frank Chodorov in which he jack-of-all-trades.
defends isolationism as a sensible human Lawrence Reed’s column points out that
impulse to mind one’s own business and to Bill Clinton could have learned a thing or two
avoid far-off conflicts that one likely doesn’t about taxes from Grover Cleveland and
understand. Calvin Coolidge. Dwight Lee finds it ironic

Robert Higgs summarizes America’s that property rights are blamed for problems
involvement in two world wars and the cold caused by the lack of defined property.
war to illustrate how foreign adventurism bol- Thomas Szasz says suicide is a moral, not a
sters the power of government and shrinks the medical, issue. Mark Skousen explains “eco-
sphere of liberty. nomic value added.” Walter Williams wonders

Michael Palmer finds himself thinking back when people will stop blaming others. And
to 1969, when he was dispatched to the barren David Kelley examines the claim that tax pol-
and perilous Ashau Valley in South Vietnam, icy should make “winners” compensate
and fears for the young Americans facing “losers,” concluding, It Just Ain’t So!
combat in the Balkans today. In the book review section, volumes on

Wendy McElroy takes a close look at Ran- welfare, Calvin Coolidge, H.L. Mencken, the
dolph Bourne’s famous sentence—“War is the rich, and freedom of speech on the Net get a
health of the State” —and shows that he had going over.
more in mind than taxes and spending. —SHELDON RICHMAN


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FREEMAN

ldeas On Libert

Tax Cuts Are Unfair? ics but of morality, and their standard of jus-
tice is warped.

Let’s begin with two obvious points. First, a
tax cut does not confer a “benefit” on taxpay-
It t Ai 't S | ers, as if the money belonged to the govern-
Us IN 0! ment, which was generously conferring gifts
on its citizens. If you follow that conception
to its logical conclusion, all income belongs
to the state, and any tax rate below 100 per-
cent constitutes a gift. But that conception is
wrong. It is the taxpayers who earn the
ederal tax revenues last year were nearly income by producing it; it belongs to them. A
22 percent of GDP—the highest level in portion is taken in taxes, and when govern-
American history. With federal coffers ment lowers the tax rate it is simply refraining
swollen, the government is enjoying a surplus from taking as much as it used to.
that, until recently, no one would have expect- The second point is that the wealthy save
ed. It is obviously time for a tax cut to return the most from a lower tax rate because they
some of this largess to its rightful owners, the pay the most in taxes. Levy and Lav complain
taxpayers. that with a 10 percent rate cut, the upper tenth
Republicans have been pushing for a 10 would receive 55 percent of the tax-cut total.
percent cut in income-tax rates. This proposal But those people are currently paying 62.4
has encountered the usual protests that it percent of all income taxes. The bottom three-
would favor the rich. A typical comment quarters of all earners pay less than a fifth of
appeared in a New York Times op-ed, “The all income taxes, while the upper tiers pay a
Trouble with Tax Cuts” (February 24, 1999) vastly disproportionate share. So of course the
by Frank Levy, an economist at MIT, and Iris wealthy would save the most from a rate cut—
J. Lav, deputy director of the Center on Bud- and they should.
get and Policy Priorities.
Levy and Lav argue that “the econom
heavily favors the better educated” at the Deeper Flaws
expense of less-educated and semi-skilled Beyond these obvious points, the argument
workers. “Since good times don’t automati- is flawed at a deeper level. It rests on a false
cally benefit everyone,” they claim, “winners conception of how an economy works and of
need to use some of their extra income to how people earn their incomes.
compensate losers.” A rate cut of 10 percent, The implicit premise of Levy and Lav’s
they assert, would “work in the opposite argument is that the U.S. economy is a collec-
direction: it would increase income inequali- tive enterprise in which income is distributed
ty.” The upper tenth of the income distribu- to individuals who are more or less passive
tion, with earnings above $90,000, would recipients of what they get. The distribution is
receive 55 percent of the tax cut. The bottom determined by various factors: the level of
60 percent would receive only 10 percent. skill and training an individual gets from the
And the 35 million households that pay no educational system, the level of technology,
income taxes would receive no benefits at all! market forces (including foreign competi-
In their view it’s just not fair. tion), and government tax and spending poli-
Or is it? The case that Levy and Lav make cies, among others. The government, on this
against the tax cut is not a matter of econom- conception, has the responsibility of counter-



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

ing the effect of the nongovernmental factors Winners and Losers?

so as to produce a fairer overall distribution The most offensive aspect of Levy and
than a free market would achieve. Levy and [ av’ argument, morally speaking, is the
Lav assume that greater equality is good, less notion that people with lower incomes are
equality is bad. “losers” who must be compensated by the

But this whole outlook is misconceived. “winners” An economy is not a competitive
People are not passive recipients of an income scramble for shares of a fixed pool of wealth,
“distribution.” They acquire money by trading but a process of cooperation in producing
with others, earning income in diverse ways. wealth on an ever-increasing scale. And those
Some people form long-term relationships at the bottom benefit the most, not the least.
with employers, trading their time, effort, and They are able to enjoy a standard of living
skill for a salary; others operate solo, selling made possible by those who created the indus-
goods or services directly to customers. Some tries they work in and the products they buy.
trade the use of their property for a rent pay- As Ayn Rand observed, there’s a pyramid of
ment, or the use of their savings for interest. ability in which benefits flow downward, from

What determine a person’s income are his the most to the least able. “When you work in
own choices and the choices of individuals a modern factory, you are paid, not only for
who trade with him. People differ in their your labor, but for all the productive genius
desire for money, as opposed to leisure, time which has made that factory possible,” the
with the family, or other goods. They differ in industrialists, financiers, engineers, scientists,
the kind of work they find meaningful, and the and other creators without whom the unskilled
kinds of working conditions they prefer. The worker would not have a job in the first place.
market—which is just a sum of individuals Bill Gates’s billions are but a fraction of the
who produce and trade—values some work value he has showered on the office workers
more highly than others and pays more for it. who use his software and earn higher wages
And of course people differ in ability, knowl- because they can produce more efficiently;
edge, and skill—sometimes because of innate the home users who can track their finances
capacity or the environment in which they and surf the Net; the retailers who sell the
grew up, sometimes because of previous software or the computers that use it; the pro-

choices they have made in their lives. grammers whose software runs under Win-
Each of us is an entrepreneur in his own dows; and on and on.
life, with the capacity—and the responsibili- Are the “winners” in economic growth

ty—to find ways of acquiring money through morally obliged to pay compensation to the
trade, each in accordance with his talents and “losers”? It just ain’t so. There are no real
preferences. Each of us is an active agent, losers—and that’s because the “winners” have
constantly making choices about how to already spread the prodigious benefits of their
exploit the opportunities we have—and how productive ability to everyone with whom
to create new opportunities for ourselves. And they trade. Let’s cut taxes, and allow everyone
over time, virtually everyone increases the to reap more of the benefits of their place in
income he can earn as he acquires experience, the pyramid of ability.

training, knowledge, contacts, savings, and —DAviD KELLEY
other productive assets. Institute for Objectivist Studies

The apple icon @ identifies Freeman articles that are appropriate for teaching stu-
dents several major subjects—including economics, history, government, philosophy,
and current issues.

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our Web site or request written lesson plans to take advantage of this unique service.



===== PAGE 6 =====

Thoughts on Freedom

by Donald J. Boudreaux

Outside the Limits

“@  lobodan Milosevic is hideous. If tomor- fact, even democratic governments are driven
row he is run over by a beer truck the overwhelmingly by pressures from special-
world will be a better place.” interest groups. These groups routinely get
That was my response to the bright woman government to do their bidding at the expense
who was simultaneously cutting my hair and of innocent citizens whose only political
seeking my opinion of U.S. military involve- access is an occasional trip to the voting

ment in Kosovo. booth. And don’t forget that government itself
“So you agree that NATO's bombing mis- is a special-interest group. Politicians and
sion is justified? ” she asked. bureaucrats have potent incentives to stay in

“Well, no. I think it’s atrocious. Milosevic power even if this means doing things that
is no threat to the United States. As I see it, if aren’t in the best interest of the country as a
the U.S. military has a legitimate role it is to whole. It happens all the time. The govern-
protect Americans from foreign coercion. ment isn’t us.”
That should be its only function.” “I really, really disagree with your cynical

“How can you say that?! The Serbs are view of our political system. NATO's current
slaughtering the Kosovars and driving them air strikes against Milosevic prove you wrong.
from their homes by the hundreds of thou- America has nothing to gain by interfering in
sands! We have a moral obligation to help Kosovo. We're there to right a wrong, not to

those poor people.” help some special-interest group.”
“Who’s the ‘we’?” 1 asked. “You and I I could tell she was worked up.
aren’t in Kosovo, and I have no plans to go “And further, even if your cynical view is

there; 1 bet that you don’t either. You must correct, what can be wrong with helping the
mean that this obligation is owed by the U.S. Kosovars escape ethnic cleansing?”
government—not by ‘we’. “Look, it’s naive to suppose that bureau-

“But our government IS us. Because it rep- crats in the Department of Agriculture,
resents us, it is our tool for doing what we H.UD., the FT.C., and other domestic agen-
Americans feel is just and necessary.” cies are pawns of interest groups while

“I couldn’t disagree more. Despite elec- bureaucrats in the military and diplomatic
tions to decide which particular people occu- corps are saintly patrons of the public interest.
py various government offices, the govern- But even if I concede that government offi-
ment is not us. Don’t be deceived by the high- cials are forever selfless when it comes to
school-civics fantasy that a wide franchise diplomatic and military relations with foreign
and regular elections ensure that government countries 1 would still oppose U.S. military
does only what is willed by The People. In involvement in Kosovo.”

“On what basis?”

Donald J. Boudreaux is president of FEE. “Institutional competence. The fact that the


===== PAGE 7 =====

American military possesses vast firepower “But this good judgment about the institu-
doesn’t mean that those in charge possess vast tional limitations of government disappears
wisdom. Even if such people are immune to when it comes to military adventures. These
interest-group pressures, they can never be same conservative friends innocently trust not
immune to vanity, ignorance, and error. only the motives of politicians who get us
They’re human. Given this fact, it’s unwise in involved in foreign military campaigns, but
the extreme to entrust military power to any- also their abilities.

one for any purpose other than national “I ask why? If we can’t trust Bill Clin-
defense.” ton and his appointees to craft a worth-
“Why just national defense?” while statute to restrict access to guns or to

“Because it’s a relatively easy goal to define reduce greenhouse gases, why can we trust
and one that enjoys nearly universal approval. him to deploy in another region of the world
It’s within the confines of what a government the most powerful military machine
is institutionally able to do—protect its citi- humankind has ever known? Why should
zens from foreign military invasion. such government actions be trusted not to

“But Americans today suffer the dreadful breed larger problems than those that they are
misconception that because our country is meant to solve? Are politicians wiser on the
wealthy and our government powerful, our foreign front than on the domestic front?
government can right all wrongs—that our Hardly.”
government can create an earthly paradise; My hairdresser thought for a moment. “But
that our government is superhuman; that if you re right, we shouldn't trust government
our government should address every evil, to use the military to defend even our own
big and small. Did the Mississippi River shores against aggressors.”
flood into your home? No problem. Uncle “Entrusting anyone, for any reason, with
Sam will cover your losses and fix the river. the power to coerce others is inherently dan-
Did crazed teenagers shoot and kill innocent gerous. But, again, if our armed forces are
children in a school library? Don’t worry. charged only with defending Americans from
More gun-control legislation will ensure foreign aggression, it’s far easier for citizens
that such massacres never happen again. to tell if the military is being used appropri-
Did you get sick on some tainted turkey? Can ately. All we need to ask is ‘Have we been
your children access porn sites on the Inter- attacked or are we on the verge of being
net? Did a waiter in some restaurant take too attacked?’ If the answer is ‘yes,’ then—and
long to serve a Latino family? Is there a nasty only then—should our military swing into
ethnic conflict in the Balkans? Not to worry. action. Of course, reasonable people can dis-
Uncle Sam and his minions will solve all agree about whether or not, in some instances,
problems.” we are on the verge of being attacked. But at

I looked up to chart the progress of my cut, least the goal is clear and unambiguously just.
then continued: “But social engineering is That goal is national defense. By sticking to
impossible, no less so on the international than this goal, we mind our business, make far
on the domestic front. Many of my conserva- fewer enemies, and avoid unexpectedly open-
tive friends don’t grasp this fact. They gener- ing cans of worms. Also, we citizens can bet-
ally agree that government isn’t to be trusted ter monitor the appropriateness of our govern-
to interfere in economic matters because they ment’s use of its most potent weapon, the mil-
recognize rightly that government is institu- itary. In an imperfect world, these are stellar
tionally incapable of making things better. achievements.”

Politicians and government regulators are too I don’t know if I persuaded my hairdresser.
ham-fisted and detached from the countless But I do know that NATO bombs and ground
details and nuances of the markets to do any- troops will not create a civil and peaceful
thing but make matters worse. society in Kosovo. []


===== PAGE 8 =====

Ee Se ae ee SE SRE WER

WAR IN THE BALKANS

Immoral, Unconstitutional War

by David N. Mayer

he United States has no vital interests at it can be argued that the bombing of Kosovo

stake in Yugoslavia; the conflict there is worsened the so-called “ethnic cleansing” and
the kind of European war that Americans other atrocities being committed by Serbian
should avoid if we follow the advice of the or Yugoslav forces in that province.) Critics of
early American presidents, beginning with the United States and of the West generally
George Washington in his famous Farewell can point to the bombings as clear evidence of
Address. The situation in Yugoslavia has been Western “imperialism.” Undoubtedly, many
ably summarized by journalist Philip Terzian: communists and other leftists in the new
“We are bombing a sovereign nation, not a NATO member nations of Poland, Hungary,
member of NATO, which is not disturbing its and the Czech Republic are doing just that—
neighbors but seeking, instead, to prevent one possibly setting back for decades whatever
of its provinces from seceding. Bear in mind progress in foreign relations the United States
that the United States fought a bloody, four- has made in eastern Europe since the fall of
year civil war, on the issue of secession (we're the Soviet Union.
against it) and that NATO, in its action against Regardless of the outcome of the war itself
the Serbs, now proposes to invade a European  politically—whether it will bring about the
state—in the Balkans, no less—to resolve an demise of Slobodan Milosevic, and at what
internal ethnic dispute. For the first time since  price—the lasting importance of the war to
1945, the German air force is in action against Americans will be its significance constitu-
another European country. And everyone tionally. What it reveals is that the actual bal-
agrees that air assaults are not conclusive. In ance of power in matters of foreign policy has
order to achieve what we want, it might well shifted decisively toward the President, and
be necessary to introduce ground troops.” that Congress has failed utterly to function as

The Clinton administration’s decision to the institution the Framers of the Constitution

bomb Yugoslavia, under the rubric of NATO, intended it to be. What that signifies, in terms
is an incredible foreign policy blunder. Not of the concentration of unchecked power in
only is the situation there none of the United the White House, should be a matter of pro-
States’ business, but our participation in the found concern to all Americans.
NATO bombings also threatens to destabilize

eastern Europe far more than anything done .
by Slobodan Milosevic’s government. (Indeed, The Wisdom of the Framers

— : The Framers of the Constitution gave the
David Mayer is professor of law and history at Cap-

ital University in Columbus, Ohio. He is the author of power to declare war to Congress, and hot to
The Constitutional Thought of Thomas Jefferson the President, because they recognized that
(University of Virginia Press). the people have a vital stake in war: it


===== PAGE 9 =====

FOSS WE OU VIS VIN SA

involves the expenditure of American tax dol- enter into war) that in fact usurps Congress’s
lars as well as the loss of American lives. For legitimate authority.
that reason, Congress must be involved in Some legal scholars have advanced the
making the initial decision to commit Ameri- extraordinary argument that Congress has
can forces abroad. As James Madison neither a constitutional obligation nor a right
explained in 1793, the momentous questions to declare war before the United States joins
of war and peace properly belong to the legis- in a “police action” sanctioned by either the
lature, where they can be publicly debated by United Nations or NATO. They argue that
the people’s representatives. U.S. ratification of the UN. Charter and of the
The decision to declare war—that is to say, North Atlantic Treaty after World War II made
the decision to initiate the use of force aggres- us part of a “new world order” in which mem-
sively and not in self-defense—is a decision ber nations can no longer “make war,” in the
that only the Congress can make. The debate classic sense. The implication of this argu-
over war—indeed, the debate not only over ment is that the Article I, Section 8, grant of
strategy (war versus economic sanctions) but the war-making power to Congress has been
also whether any American intervention is rendered obsolete since 1945. Even with con-
justified, as a matter of policy—should have currence of the Senate, however, the President
taken place publicly in both houses of Con- cannot amend the Constitution; only the peo-
gress, not in the Oval Office among a clique ple can do that, according to the amendment
of presidential advisers. By committing the procedures prescribed by the Constitution
United States to a course that led inevitably to itself. Until that happens, the Constitution
war without the explicit authorization of Con- binds all the branches of government, espe-
gress, President Clinton committed an act that cially the President, who has no higher oblig-
violates the Constitution. ation than his duty to adhere to the oath he
Congress’s exclusive power to declare war swore, to “preserve, protect, and defend” the
under Article I, Section 8, is not the only pro- Constitution.
vision of the Constitution violated by Bill
Sbmeon's war in Yugoslavia. Arguably, the Charter Violations
ugoslav war also violates the first clause of
Article I, Section 8, which limits Congress’s NATO’s attack on Yugoslavia, moreover,
taxing power—and hence, the U.S. govern- violates both the United Nations Charter and
ment’s spending power—to matters that con- NATO’s basic charter, the North Atlantic
cern “the common Defence and general Wel- Treaty. Article 2(4) of the UN. Charter
fare of the United States.” Nothing in the requires that members “refrain in their inter-
Constitution authorizes the President, even national relations from the threat or use of
with Congress’s consent, to use the military force against the territorial integrity or politi-
forces of the United States not for national cal independence of any state.” Similarly,
defense, but for offensive military actions in Article 2(3) states, “Members shall settle their
Europe—in effect to transform the U.S. mili- international disputes by peaceful means.” No
tary into a kind of Peace Corps with guns. matter how great a thug Slobodan Milosevic
Moreover, Article II, Section 2, provides, may be—no matter what atrocities the Ser-
“The President shall be Commander in Chief bians commit in Kosovo—no member of the
of the Army and Navy of the United States.” United Nations has a right, under the U.N.
By committing U.S. troops to a NATO opera- Charter, to initiate the use of force against
tion, under NATO command (whether or not Yugoslavia. Article 51 of the Charter does
the NATO commander is an American), Clin- recognize the “inherent right of individual or
ton has abdicated his legitimate power as collective self-defense” for all members, but
commander-in-chief (the power to actually the bombing of Belgrade is not self-defense;
wage war) in the name of asserting a fictitious it is an act of aggression. Similarly, Article 5
power as commander-in-chief (the power to of the North Atlantic Treaty contemplates use


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10 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY © WAR IN THE BALKANS ® JULY 1999
He —

of military power only defensively, not offen- president in whatever actions he should
sively; it provides, “an armed attack on one or decide to take—resolutions that reveal the
more [members] . . . shall be considered an degree to which Congress has failed to fulfill
attack against them all,” clearly a defensive its constitutional obligation to act as a check
provision. Needless to say, Yugoslavia has not on presidential power. Nothing could be far-
attacked any NATO member. ther from the intent of the Framers. As
NATO was created for the purposes of Thomas Jefferson explained it in 1798, “Free
mutual defense (by the United States and government is founded in jealousy, and not in
western European nations) against a hostile confidence; it is jealousy and not confidence
Soviet Union. With the Soviet Union no which prescribes limited constitutions, to
longer existing, one might ask whether NATO bind down those whom we are obliged to trust
itself is today obsolete. Even if we assume with power. . . . In questions of power, then,
that Russia poses a great threat, NATO's legit- let no more be heard of confidence in man,
imacy still rests on its fundamental purpose as but bind him down from mischief by the
a defensive alliance. Nothing in NATO's char- chains of the Constitution.”
ter allows it to become a general European
police force, which is what it has now become. The Other Costs of War
Advocates of presidential war power
(whether defending George Bush’s war in the American involvement in war is too impor-
Persian Gulf or the various actions in which tant a matter to be left to the private delibera-
Bill Clinton has committed U.S. military tions of the president and a small group of
forces in such places as Haiti, Bosnia, and advisers. Surely the lives of tens of thousands
now Kosovo) also have asserted that the need of Americans lost in Korea and Vietnam—
for an international consensus prior to a wars in which other presidents unilaterally
NATO- or UN.-sanctioned “police action” embroiled the country—bear eloquent wit-
provides a sufficient check on presidential ness to the other, noneconomic costs of war.
power. The validity of that argument, howev- Just as surely, the domestic turmoil that
er, is belied by these presidential military resulted from those conflicts, particularly
actions themselves. It is not surprising that Vietnam, illustrates the danger of presidents’
both Presidents Bush and Clinton bypassed making commitments that the American peo-
Congress and the American people, choosing ple do not wholeheartedly support.
instead to first assemble international support. Bill Clinton and his apologists (who
Of course other nations will approve “police include many conservatives as well as so-
actions” staffed almost entirely by U.S. troops called “liberals”) defend U.S. involvement in
and funded almost entirely by U.S. taxpayers. Yugoslavia with the argument that the United
To be effective, the check on presidential States, as the world’s only superpower, has a
powers must be given to Congress because duty to use its military force for “humanitari-
Congress is directly representative of the an” purposes. The argument assumes that
American people, who must pay for these Americans should take the responsibility for
“police actions” with their taxes and their the world’s troubles simply because their
blood. International politics cannot adequate- country is a superpower. But the United States
ly substitute for the checks and balances of is a superpower—and, indeed, also is the
the Constitution, world’s richest nation—because its legal and
The Framers of the Constitution carefully constitutional system more fully protects free-
devised a scheme of separation of powers and market capitalism and the rights of the indi-
checks and balances to minimize the dangers vidual than any other system anywhere in the
of concentrating too much power in the hands world. Americans should not feel guilty about
of any one person, or group of persons. They their wealth or power; they’ve earned it. And
would be appalled at the resolutions in Con- simply being successful does not make a
gress expressing unqualified support of the nation responsible for the problems of other



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

IMMORAL, UNCONSTITUTIONAL WAR 11

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nations, just as being successful as an individ- of the collective; and their accomplices were
ual does not make one responsible for the the priests, who appealed to superstition and
problems of other individuals. The fundamen- mysticism—the supposed will of the one or
tal rules of morality apply equally to nation- more gods—to convince the people that it was
states as to individuals; and the basic rule of a “sin” not to sacrifice their well-being to the
morality—the only rule of morality based on thugs who ran the government.

reason rather than emotion or mysticism—is In more recent times, totalitarian dictators
the precept “do no harm to others.” Rather on both the “left” and “right”—Lenin, Stalin,
than following that basic rule of good behav- and Mao, as well as Hitler, Mussolini, and
ior (for nation-states as well as for individu- Peron—similarly have preached that the indi-
als), Bill Clinton has led the United States vidual is nothing, that the collective is every-
into acts of aggression that violate the princi- thing. They too have been supported by
ple. And our so-called “humanitarian” priests of sorts, namely, so-called “intellectu-
effort—like similar assumed “humanitarian” als” who preach either a sectarian or secular
policies domestically—is in fact exacerbating form of civic religion that also condemns as
the problem, for the NATO bombing com- sinful the individual’s pursuit of his own hap-
pounds the atrocities being committed on the piness or self-interest and extol a “duty” to

people of Kosovo. serve the state. As F. A. Hayek has shown,
“the road to serfdom” has taken many paths in
Altruism Makes Bad Policy the twentieth century. The call for “national

service” that Bill Clinton and like-minded
Morally, the essential flaw in Clinton’s war collectivists (again, both on the left and the
on Yugoslavia is the principle of altruism that right) made at the President’s Conference on
underlies it. By “altruism,” I mean the moral America’s Future in April 1997 differs from
code that asserts that people should sacrifice the philosophy of other twentieth-century
their own happiness or well-being to the hap- totalitarians only in degree, not in kind.
piness or well-being of others; the moral code The principle of altruism makes bad policy,
that preaches that self-interest is bad but that whether in domestic law or in foreign rela-
self-sacrifice is noble, that the proper ethical tions. In domestic law, it has made possible
posture of human beings is that of sacrificial the welfare state and all the problems associ-
animals to the supposed “good” of society, or ated with it—not only economically but
some other collective. This moral code of socially and morally—as David Kelley ably
altruism is a very old, traditional moral code shows in his excellent new book, 4 Life of
that has been responsible for virtually all the Ones Own. In foreign relations, it has made
evil, all the suffering, that has occurred possible a series of wars in the twentieth cen-
throughout human history. It is the same tury, beginning with World War I (and
moral code that underlies the atrocities being Woodrow Wilsons campaign to “make the
committed in Kosovo itself, where people on world safe for democracy”), in which young
both sides of the ethnic conflict (Serbian and Americans were told it was their duty to sac-
Albanian alike) ignore the rights of individu- rifice their lives not for their own country’s
als and instead regard people as significant freedom or security, but for some fancy of the
only as members of a collective (in this case, foreign-policy wonks who advise the Presi-
an ethnic group). dent. It’s time that those of us who truly “sup-
Tyrants throughout human history have jus- port our troops”—those of us who believe that
tified their tyranny by appealing to some forrn the lives of young Americans are too precious
of collectivism. The pharaohs of ancient Egypt, to waste on the follies of presidential advis-
the emperors of Imperial Rome, and the kings ers—show our support for them by calling for
of medieval Europe all called upon their people the immediate end of this immoral and uncon-
to sacrifice their individual well-being to that stitutional war. J


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WAR IN THE BALKANS @ History

The Kosovo Tangle

by Gary Dempsey

Borders Albania and Macedonia, Kosovo centuries. In fact, virtually all of the oldest
is the southernmost province of present- monuments in Kosovo are Serbian and most
day Serbia, which, together with Montenegro, names of places have a Serbian-language
makes up what remains of the Socialist Feder- root. But in 1389 the Serb dynasty fell to the
al Republic of Yugoslavia. Kosovo was origi- Ottoman Empire at the battle of Kosovo Polje.
nally populated by the Illyrians, an ancient Although they fought alongside Serbs during
people who inhabited the western part of the the battle, the vast majority of ethnic Albani-
Balkans from about 2000 B.C. The earliest ans in the area converted to Islam in the fif-
known Illyrian king was Hyllus, who died in teenth and sixteenth centuries and participat-
1225 B.C., and the last was Gentius, who was ed in the Ottoman administration of Kosovo.
defeated by the Romans in 165 B.C.! As the Ottoman Empire declined in the
Although it is a point of anthropological eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Kosovo
debate, many modern Albanians contend that became the focus of competing Serbian and
they are the direct descendants of the ancient Albanian independence movements. In 1878,
Illyrians and thus the original inhabitants of the League of Prizren, which sought to create
Kosovo. an independent Albanian state, was founded
The first Slavs appeared around Kosovo in in Kosovo. But when the Ottoman Empire
the late fourth century A.D. as marauders who finally buckled under the weight of the First
raided Roman settlements. By the end of the Balkan War in 1912, Kosovo was granted to
eighth century, the Slavs had colonized most Serbia pursuant to the Conference of Ambas-
of the area of modern Yugoslavia, including sadors held in London. By that time, however,
Kosovo. Serbs are not identified until the Serbs comprised only about 20 to 25 percent
tenth-century writings of Byzantine emperor of Kosovo's population.2
Constantine VII. There they are described as
Slavs residing in the area of present-day Kosovo After World War I
Kosovo, Montenegro, and Bosnia, who con-
verted to Eastern Christianity in the ninth cen- At the end of World War I, Croatia and
tury. In the twelfth century, Serbs successful- Slovenia joined with Serbia to form the King-
ly fought against the Byzantine Empire to dom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, with
establish an independent Serbian kingdom. Kosovo remaining a constituent part of Ser-
Kosovo was crucial to that kingdom and to the bia. During the 1920s, Serbian authorities
Serbian Orthodox Church for the next two attempted to repopulate Kosovo with Serbs.
By 1928, the Serb population in Kosovo

Gary Dempsey is a foreign policy analyst at the Cato ~~ Wa$ increased to about 38 percent, mainly
Institute. because of state-organized immigration from

12



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

13

ee

inner Serbia.3 In 1929, the Kingdom of Serbs, in the Yugoslav federation. In the course of
Croats, and Slovenes was renamed Yugoslavia. the violence, Serbs and Montenegrins in
During World War II, following Yugoslavia’s Kosovo were beaten, their homes and busi-
defeat by the Axis Powers in April 1941, the nesses burned, and their shops looted.”
population trend lines in Kosovo were Also, a mysterious fire was set at one of
reversed. Fascist Italy ceded the province to Serbia’s most cherished religious shrines, the
neighboring Albania, which had been under Pec Patriarchate in Kosovo, a complex of
Axis occupation since 1939, and Kosovo was medieval churches and the historical seat of
ruled as part of Italian-occupied Albania for the patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox
the remainder of the war. Between 1941 and Church.8 The civil unrest was eventually
1945, more than 70,000 Serbs fled Kosovo quashed by the communist authorities, but
while 75,000 Albanians migrated there. thousands of Serbs fled Kosovo following the
After World War II, Kosovo was returned to violence.
Serbia. But, wanting to forge a Balkan com- Throughout the rest of the 1980s the Ser-
munist federation with Albania and Bulgaria, bian Orthodox Church in Kosovo and Serbian
the new Yugoslav government under Josip civic groups documented numerous cases of
Broz Tito hoped that the prospect of reacquir- harassment, intimidation, vandalism, destruc-
ing Kosovo would draw Albania into the pact. tion of Serbian monuments and churches, and
Tito, therefore, wanted Kosovo to remain pre- attacks on Serbian priests, nuns, and civilians
dominantly Albanian. On March 6, 1945, he by ethnic Albanians. As historian Noel Mal-
issued a decree forbidding Serbs displaced by colm reports,
the war from returning to their homes In

Kosovo.5 The following year, Kosovo was In the mid-1980s the Serbian Academy of
made an “autonomous region” within Serbia. Sciences commissioned a survey of S00
Tito’s plan to create a Balkan communist fed- households of Serbs who had migrated to
eration, however, collapsed in 1948 when inner Serbia from Kosovo. Many of the
Yugoslavia broke with the Soviet-led Comin- people interviewed thought that there was
form. a political dimension to the deterioration of
Nevertheless, the ethnic Albanian popula- conditions for the Slavs in Kosovo. . .

tion in Kosovo continued to grow and to push When giving the reasons for their migra-
for greater autonomy. In 1963, Kosovo was tion, 41 percent mentioned “indirect pres-
made an “autonomous province,” and under sure” from the Albanians, and 21 percent
Yugoslavia’s 1974 constitution it was granted referred to direct pressure: that last catego-
separate federal representation and was only ry was composed of verbal abuse (8.5 per-
formally linked with Serbia. During that peri- cent), material damage (7.5 percent) and
od of enhanced autonomy, ethnic Albanians personal injury (5 percent).

exercised almost complete control over Koso-

vo’s provincial administration, but many While the number of cases of abuse against

Serbs complained of pervasive discrimination Serbs varies by source, historian Miranda
in employment and housing, and of the Vickers has concluded that “many Serbs and
authorities’ unwillingness to protect them Montenegrins who decided to leave Kosovo

from anti-Serb violence. [in the 1980s] had experienced intimidation,
pressure, violence, and other severe abuses of
Kosovo After Tito their human rights because of their ethnici-

ty.’10 Similarly, historian Richard West notes

By 1981, official census data pegged Koso- that while ethnic Albanians from Kosovo were
vo’s ethnic Albanian population at 77.5 per- “always ready to tell sympathetic journalists
cent.6 The same year, in the wake of Tito’s an account of their suffering under the Ser-
death, riots broke out in Kosovo as ethnic bian regime . . . foreign observers failed to
Albanians demanded full republic status with- notice that, although the Serbs were supposed


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

14 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY © WAR IN THE BALKANS ¢ JuLy 1999
mee

to be the oppressors, they themselves were dent, a parliament, a tax system, and schools.

departing from Kosovo, complaining about Shadow president Ibrahim Rugova thereafter

the destruction of property, the desecration of worked for Kosovo’s independence through

graves, and many assaults and rapes.”!! peaceful means, but a more militant group
soon emerged.

Enter Slobodan Milosevic } .
In April 1987, over 60,000 Serbs from 1N€ Kosovo Liberation Army

Kosovo signed a petition calling on the gov- By the mid-1990s, the ethnic Albanian pop-
ernment in Belgrade to stop the ethnic vio- ulation in Kosovo had grown to between 85
lence and intimidation aimed at them.!2 In an and 90 percent, and the human rights condi-
opportunistic attempt to raise his political tions in the province continued to deterio-
profile, then Serbian Communist Party presi- rate.!” As Human Rights Watch, a New York-
dent Slobodan Milosevic traveled to Kosovo based rights organization, reported,

and played the nationalist card, proclaiming

to Serbs everywhere, “No one should dare Since the revocation of Kosovo’s autono-
beat you again.”!3 By October 1987, federal my, the human rights abuses against ethnic
riot police and army troops were deployed in Albanians by the Serbian and Yugoslav
Kosovo following demonstrations by thou- governments have been constant. The
sands of Serbs protesting an alleged comment names of the victims change, but the fre-
by a Kosovar Albanian leader that “the inci- quency and the manner of beatings, harass-
dents of [ethnic] Albanians raping Serbian ment, and political trials remain the same.
women could be reduced if more Serbian It is a status quo of repression. . . . The bru-
women worked as prostitutes.”14 In 1989, Bel- tality of the police continues against the
grade downgraded Kosovo’s autonomy to its population. Random harassment and beat-
pre-1974 level, and Milosevic was elected ings are a daily reality for ethnic Albanians
president of Serbia with 65 percent of the in Kosovo, especially those in villages and
vote. As Aleksa Djilas later noted in Foreign smaller towns. 18

Affairs, Milosevic “succeeded because he

understood the power of fear and knew how to In 1996, a shadowy separatist organization
use it for his own purposes.”!s called the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)

Following the reduction of Kosovo’s auton- surfaced for the first time, claiming responsi-
omy, Belgrade imposed “emergency mea- bility for a series of bombings in Kosovo. By
sures” in Kosovo, summarily dismissing thou- its own admission, the KLA killed more than
sands of ethnic Albanians from state-sector S50 government officials and ethnic Albanian
jobs. No part of Kosovo's society was left “collaborators” over the next two years. The
untouched. Even the provincial theater in KLA’s intention: to trigger the secession of
Pristina was placed under “emergency man- Kosovo from the Yugoslav state. Pursuing a
agement” and the theater manager removed textbook strategy, the KL A carried out attacks
by police officers and replaced by a Serb. The on police and civilians aimed at provoking a
greatest changes, however, occurred in educa- government crackdown that would radicalize
tion. The teaching of Albanian history, litera- the ethnic Albanian population in Kosovo. In
ture, and language was reduced to a mini- February 1998, the KLA intensified its
mum. Also, ethnic Albanian students were attacks against Yugoslav authorities and Serb
forbidden from enrolling in secondary school civilians. Armed KLA guerrillas attacked
unless they could pass Serbian literature and Serb houses in the villages of Klina, Decani,
language examinations, which few could do.!¢ and Djakovica, and a Serb refugee camp in

In 1991, ethnic Albanians responded to Babaloc. KLA guerrillas also ambushed and
their diminished autonomy by forming a killed two Serb policemen patrolling on the
shadow government, complete with a presi- road between Glogovac and Srbica.


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

THE Kosovo TANGLE 15

eS ep

A government crackdown on the KLA sworn that they will not stop fighting the Ser-
immediately followed, and the world soon bian government until they achieved the “total
learned that nearly 80 Kosovar Albanians, liberation” of the province.2!
including many women and children, were The conflict in Kosovo is thus not simply a
killed by Serbian internal security forces in matter of Kosovar Albanians suffering under a
Kosovo’s central Drenica region. The brutal and repressive regime—which they
Yugoslav Interior Ministry claimed that the were and are—but a complex clash of mutu-
action was directed against Adem Jashari, ally exclusive political claims that are aggra-
whose family clan allegedly constituted the vated by conflicting historical grievances. As
core of the KLA organization. On a closely former U.S. ambassador to Yugoslavia Warren
supervised trip to the village of Prekaz, for- Zimmerman correctly observes,
eign reporters were told that government

security forces had killed Jashari and The competing claims of Serbs and Albani-
destroyed the power base of the KLA organi- ans have been hopelessly tangled in the
zation. “We have struck at their heart and we webs of history and myth. In its essence,
have dealt terrorists a lethal blow,” a police however, the main issue is as simple as it is
spokesman said.!® The spokesman was intractable. The Serbian claim . . . is based
wrong. Government-versus-guerrilla clashes primarily on the historical-cultural princi-
continued in Kosovo, leaving more than 2,000 ple—the Jerusalem argument. The Albanian
dead over the ensuing 14 months. claim to independence is based largely on
the demographic principle—the majority

. argument. Since these claims are mutually
Tying the Balkan Knot incompatible, there is little reason to believe
For Serbs, Kosovo is widely considered the that Kosovo will be easy to solve.22 OJ

cradle of their culture, history, and religion. In

: 1. See John Wilkes, The Illyrians (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992).
fact, over 75 percent of all Serbian cultural 0&0 0 <n Violent History of Kosovo Doesnt Jus.
and national monuments are located in Koso- tify ‘Ethnic Cleansing,’ Washington Times, April 14, 1998, p. A16.

: : : : _ 3. Noel Malcolm, Kosovo: A Short History (New York: New
vo, including the historic fourteenth CENtUIY = University Press, 1998). p. 282.
monastery of Samodrezi, where the Serbian 4. Alex Dragnich and Slavko Todorovich, The Saga of Kosovo:
: : : : Focus on Serbian-Albanian Relations (Boulder, Colo.: East Euro-
king blessed his army just before their defeat pean Monographs, 1984), p. 138; and Dusan Batakovic, The Kosovo
at the hands of the Ottoman Turks in 1389 and Chronicles (Belgrade: Plato Publishers, 1992), p. 14.

: _ _ 5. Branko Mikasinovich, Yugoslavia: Crisis and Disintegration
the famous Kosovo Polje battlefield the Ser (Milwaukee: Plyroma Publishing 1994). p. 63.
bian equivalent of the Alamo. Accordingly, 6. Miranda Vickers, Between Serb and Albanian: A History of
3 Kosovo (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), p. 318.
Yugoslav Army General Dusan Samardzic 7, Vickers, p. 197.
recently told a group of new officers, 8. Ibid.

9. Malcolm, Kosovo: A Short History, p. 331.
10. Vickers, p. 220.

This is a turning point for Yugoslavia, 11. Richard West, Tito and the Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia (New
when we need to show the world our mili- York: Pri 1994), p. 223.
tary ability and might. Kosovo's integrity 13. Laura Silber and Allan Little, The Death of Yugoslavia (Lon-
has been threatened by [ethnic] Albanian ao vik won p-37.
secessionists, with assistance from abroad. 15. Aleksa Diilas, “Profile of Slobodan Milosevic,” Foreign
: Affairs, Summer 1993, p. 84.
Our ancestry and posterity would never 16. Vickers, pp. 246-48.
forgive us if we surrendered the cradle of 17. Ibid., p. 320; and International Crisis Group, Kosovo Spring:
20 The International Crisis Group Guide to Kosovo (Brussels: Interna-
Serb culture to someone else. tional Crisis Group. 1998), pp. 1314.
18. International Crisis Group, p. 13.
; : : - 19. “Only One Option: A War for National Liberation, UCK,”
On the other side of the dispute, ethnic Alba- -- Newslino, March 9, 1998.
nians outnumbered Serbs in Kosovo nearly 9 to 20. Quoted in Vickers, p. 300.
1 before NATO air strikes began on March ~~ 21- Quoted in Intemational Crisis Group, p. 72.

, 22. Warren Zimmerman, “The Demons of Kosovo,” The Nation-
24, 1999, and representatives of the KLA have al Interest, Summer 1998, p 10.


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

eS

WAR IN THE BALKANS

Remembering and Inventing:
A Short History of the Balkans

by Peter Mentzel

ince the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia marily on interpretations of imported Franco-

descended into bloodshed and mayhem German notions of nationalism. In their most
during the summer of 1991 a number of dif- basic articulations, these theories had two
ferent historical explanations for the conflict’s aspects in common. First were the quasi-
origins and ferocity have been written. While mystical organic roots of nations. They were
these accounts differ in their details, in gener- deemed to have been always-existing, at least
al they paint two different pictures of Balkan very ancient, entities with their own distinct
history. One argues that the wars of the characteristics. The second common aspect of
Yugoslav succession are the result of “ancient this kind of nationalism was its emphasis on
tribal hatreds.” That is, the violence in the the state as the embodiment, or at least
modern Balkans is the result of hatreds dating expression, of the nation’s will.
back hundreds, if not thousands, of years. The As a result of these principles, the new
second picture of Balkan history takes issue states of the Balkans devoted considerable
with this argument and offers instead a story energy to the creation and/or inculcation of a
of tolerance where each community coexisted nationalist history. These histories varied
in peace, if not harmony. This entire conver- from place to place but were remarkably sim-
sation is closely tied to the history of the ilar in their outlines. They all resembled the

development of Balkan nation-states. following model: in the Middle Ages our
nations had strong and wealthy states (often
Nations and States empires). Then the Turk destroyed our states

and subjected our nations to centuries of slav-
ery and oppression. Finally, our national
heroes rose and reclaimed our states. This
outline is very basic and most serious histori-
ans, even those of Balkan origin, qualify these
points with numerous caveats. However, the
official “schoolbook” national histories taught
in the educational systems of these states fol-
lowed, and for the most part still follow, these
basic points. !

There are two serious problems with these
official nationalist histories. First, they are
Peter Mentzel is an assistant professor of history at anachronistic, and second, their implications
Utah State University. are extremely destabilizing.

16

In an attempt to address these historio-
graphical points, this article will take one
simple starting point: the Balkan nations and
Balkan nation-states are all very young. None
1s more than 200 years old. Thus the hatreds
there cannot be “ancient.” In fact, the current
ethnic hatreds in the Balkans, while unfortu-
nately very real indeed, all have their roots in
the statist nationalism of the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries.

Balkan national ideologies were based pri-


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

17

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Origin Myths Small-Power Imperialism

Most of the work on nationalism and The other effect of these Balkan nationalist
national identity over the past three or four histories was to foster, perhaps unavoidably,
decades has argued for their constructed, an irredentist and militaristic foreign policy
subjective nature. That is, in contrast to that some historians have called “small-power
older concepts, nations are not organic, imperialism.” Since all the modern Balkan
objectively existing entities, but have a high- national states self-consciously base their
ly subjective nature. They exist insofar as a existence on medieval dynastic ones, the bor-
sufficient number of people believe they ders of those medieval states have become,
exist. Also widely argued in the current liter- quite consistently, the borders desired by the
ature is the modernity of nations and (the nationalist leadership of the new states. The
more controversial contention) that nations problem is that the borders of all of the
are the creation of states, not the other way medieval states fluctuated widely over the
around. In other words, the modern state cre- years and always overlapped each other. The
ated nations, or at least nationalism, as a best example of this problem is Macedonia.
means of raising and maintaining large con- Historically, Macedonia was a geographical
script armies and, especially, of legitimizing term that described the area encompassed by
itself. on the modern Republic of Macedonia, south-

If these arguments are valid, then it is clear western Bulgaria, and most of northern
that the medieval Balkan kingdoms (or any Greece (the Greek province of Macedonia).
medieval kingdoms for that matter) were not At one time or another, this area, or at least
“nation-states” and that the people who lived substantial parts of it, was ruled by the King-
in them did not constitute “nations” in the dom of Serbia, the Bulgarian Empire, or the
post-nineteenth-century sense of that word. Byzantine Empire (taken by Greek national-
An important example of Balkan national ori- ists as the antecedent of the Greek nation-
gin stories is the Battle of Kosovo. Serb state). Thus, during the late nineteenth centu-
nationalist history uses this event as the defin- ry, the newly formed Serb, Bulgar, and Greek
ing moment in the history of the Serbian nation-states claimed the area on historical
nation. But it is clear that although a feudal grounds.
state known as the Kingdom of Serbia was As if the problem of overlapping “histori-
defeated there, it is anachronistic to say that cal” claims were not daunting enough, each of
this kingdom was a Serbian nation-state. the new national states also claimed territory
Indeed, only a few years after the battle, Ser- on the basis of national identity. Again, the
bian knights fought (by most accounts example of Macedonia is illustrative of the
valiantly) as vassals of their new imperial broader phenomenon. The small Serb, Bulgar,
overlord, the Ottoman Sultan, against Timur and Greek national states wanted to incorpo-
Lenk (a.k.a. Tamerlane) in central Anatolia. rate Macedonia (still part of the Ottoman
Likewise, it is a back-projection of modern Empire until 1912) into their own realms. In
national ideas to argue (as Serb nationalist addition to their supposed historical titles to
histories do) that the Ottoman armies at the the territory, agents of these states also
Battle of Kosovo were “Turks.” They were, attempted to foster in the population of the
like their enemies at that battle, soldiers inthe region a sense of nationalism friendly to their
army of a dynastic state. There were, in fact, own states. So Serb, Bulgar, and Greek
Christian vassals of the Sultan fighting on the nationalists, usually working with at least the
Ottoman side.2 The Balkan nationalist histo- tacit approval of their governments, tried to
ries, however, portray the Balkan dynastic set up schools, clubs, and associations in
medieval kingdoms as nation-states and as the Macedonia in an effort to convince the mem-
direct antecedents of the modern Balkan bers of these institutions of their Serb, Bulgar,
states. or Greek identity. A more pernicious side of



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18 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY ® WAR IN THE BALKANS ¢ JuLy 1999
3

this process was the use of terror by armed Powers were very worried, correctly as it
bands of each of these nationalities when edu- turned out, that the disintegration of the
cation and argument did not succeed.3 Ottoman Empire could provoke a crisis that
The objective of these activities in Macedo- would lead to a general European war. Such a
nia (and in other highly contested regions war indeed almost broke out in 1878, averted
such as the Dobruja, Thrace, and the Vojvodi- only by Prince Otto von Bismarck’s cynical,
na) was to convince the local population to yet effective, diplomacy. Unfortunately,
declare themselves members of one of the another Balkan crisis in the summer of 1914
nations on offer. Occasionally, as in the case spun rapidly out of control with results famil-
of Macedonia, or in the region that eventually iar to all of us.
was to become Albania, some of the locals

responded by developing their own national Nationalism, Genocide, and

identities (in this case Macedonian or Alban- Shu 3
1an) and, subsequently, nationalist move- Brotherhood and Unity

ments. With the end of the Ottoman and Habsburg
Empires in the last days of World War I, the
Eastern Question effectively ended. The polit-
ical map of the Balkans took on the shape it
Besides nationalism, another major factor was to hold, except for a few years during
in the establishment of the Balkan national World War II, until the disintegration of the
states was the influence of the Great Powers. Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
From the late eighteenth century until the end beginning in 1991.
of World War I, much of European diplomat- The map of the Balkans in 1918 represent-
ic thinking was dominated by the so-called ed the triumph of nationalism. The consolida-
“Eastern Question.” In its most basic form, tion of the nation-state system, however, far
this term referred to the set of problems sur- from ushering in a period of peace and coop-
rounding the apparent weakness of the eration among the Balkan states, only created
Ottoman Empire and the centripetal tenden- renewed tensions. The problems were caused
cies of many of its parts, especially those by exactly the same factors that had led to
coming under the influence of nationalist violence during the prewar period. That is,
intellectuals. none of the nationalists in the new Balkan
Of the European Great Powers, the British states (with the important exception of the
were, until the end of the nineteenth century, Republic of Turkey) accepted the political
the strongest supporters of the continued borders as final. Quite the contrary, the
maintenance of the Ottoman Empire, while Balkan nationalists saw on the maps of the
the Russian government was probably the Balkans drawn up at Ste. Germaine, Trianon,
biggest external threat to the Empire. The and Neuilly terrae irredenta, territories and
British government wanted to maintain the populations of their co-nationals crying for
Ottoman Empire as a buffer against Russian freedom and union with the “Motherland.” In
expansion in the Near East, which British particular, Bulgarian and Greek nationalists
diplomats and military men saw as a threat felt that their states had been cheated out of
against British India. Russian imperialists, Macedonia. Bulgaria also had lost territory to
in turn, were animated by the ideas of Pan- Romania (the southern Dobruja) and to
Slavism or the ability to break out of the Greece (Western Thrace). Albanian national-
Black Sea basin. ists wanted a Greater Albania that included
During the nineteenth century, however, the province of Kosovo and swaths of Mace-
most of the diplomacy surrounding the East- donia (both Serbian after 1912 and part of
ern Question focused on how the Ottoman Yugoslavia after 1918). The Vojvodina was
Empire could be maintained, or at least divid- disputed among Hungary, Yugoslavia, and
ed up in as peaceful a way as possible. The Romania.

Great-Power Imperialism



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

REMEMBERING AND INVENTING: A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BALKANS 19

—r

The territorial claims of the Balkan states same time considering them to be “Croats of
against each other were paralleled by the the Muslim religion.” Pavelic even ordered
internal problems caused by the presence of the construction of a mosque in Zagreb
sizable minority populations. Nowhere was (called the Poglavnik’s Mosque after his offi-
this problem more acute than in the Kingdom cial title) in his efforts to secure the loyalty of
of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, renamed the Muslim Slavs. Many, but certainly by no
the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929. While means all, of the Muslims of Bosnia-Herze-
ostensibly the national state of the Yugoslavs, govina responded to the fascist Croat authori-
many of its citizens, perhaps the majority ties, as they had responded to all outside
even in 1918, did not have a “Yugoslav” occupiers since 1878, with cautious coopera-
national identity at all, but thought of them- tion or at least passivity. Some of the Muslim
selves as members of different nations, for population actively supported the Ustasha
example, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedo- regime. There were 11 Muslim deputies in the
nians, and so on. NDH’s parliament (the Sabor) and there was

Yugoslavism, the idea that all of the South even a Bosnian Muslim division (called
Slavs constituted one nation, was popular “Handzar” or scimitar) within the Waffen SS.5
mainly among Slovene and Croat intellectu- Under the leadership of the Ustashas, hun-
als. There were also, however, Croat (and a dreds of thousands of Serbs, Gypsies, Jews,
much smaller number of Slovene) nationalists and “enemies of the state” were murdered.
who thought in terms of independent or The Ustashas even had their own concentra-
autonomous Croat or Slovene nation-states. tion camp at Jasenovac in northern Bosnia.
Very few Serbs or Muslim Slavs showed Most of the rest of Yugoslavia was parti-
much interest in Yugoslavism. Most Serbs tioned among the Axis powers and their allies.
preferred to think in terms of the creation ofa Most of Slovenia was incorporated into the
Greater Serbia, while the Muslims were most- Third Reich. Much of the Vojvodina went to
ly concerned with maintaining good relations Hungary. Macedonia was occupied by Bul-
with their rulers (whoever they might be) so garia, and most of Kosovo was joined to
as to secure the free practice of their religion Italian-occupied Albania.
and the maintenance of their religious schools The Ustasha and the Axis occupation
and socio-economic institutions. armies were opposed by two main armed

The story of the formation of the Yugoslav guerrilla groups, commonly called the Parti-
state and its constitutional and national crises sans and the Chetniks. The former group was
are beyond the scope of this short essay. A ostensibly a broad coalition of individuals and
generalization about this period is that the parties from all the nationalities of Yugoslavia
tensions between the different nationalities of that were united against the NDH and the for-
Yugoslavia, and especially between the Croats eign occupiers of the country. In practice the
and Serbs, intensified steadily during the organization became dominated by the Com-
1920s and 1930s. The Croat fascist Ustasha munist Party of Yugoslavia led by Josip Broz,
organization, aided by Italy, emerged and pur- better known by the nom de guerre “Tito.”
sued a campaign of terror against the The Chetniks were originally made up of
Yugoslav state. Following the Nazi invasion mostly Serb units of the Royal Yugoslavian
of Yugoslavia in 1941 (preceded by an air Army that had avoided destruction or capture
attack on Belgrade by the Luftwaffe), the by the invading Axis powers and had re-estab-
Ustasha leader, Ante Pavelic (1889-1959), lished themselves as guerrillas. Their leader,
became the ruler of the “Independent State of Colonel Draza Mihailovic, was a supporter of
Croatia” (often referred to by its Croatian ini- King Peter and the Yugoslav government in
tials NDH). The Nazis granted their puppet exile in London.
state generous borders, including most of During the course of the war, the Partisans
Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Ustashas actively and the Chetniks began to regard each other
courted the Bosnian Muslims, while at the as enemies and in fact spent much of their



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

20 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY ® WAR IN THE BALKANS ¢ JULY 1999
a a A a

time fighting each other. The Chetniks even- ent republics, each of which (with the impor-
tually became de facto collaborators with the tant exception of Bosnia-Herzegovina) corre-
Nazis and Ustashas against the Partisans. Par- sponded to a particular constituent nationali-
tially because of this development, the Allies ty. These different nationally based republics
eventually decided to back the Partisans and were bound together by the monolithic con-
Tito instead of King Peter and the Chetniks. trol of the LCY (the only legal political party)
With the end of the war, the Partisans took and its slogan of “Brotherhood and Unity.”
control of the entire country and exacted swift
revenge against collaborators, suspects of col- Not So Ancient
laboration, and all enemies of the Communist
Party of Yugoslavia. Mihailovic was captured ~~ With this very brief history in mind, the
and hanged. Pavelic managed to escape to events in the Balkans, and especially in the
Argentina, but most of his followers and their former Yugoslavia, since 1991 acquire a
sympathizers were not so lucky: they were rather different complexion from “ancient
executed. tribal hatreds.” It is certainly no accident that
One of the most notorious events of this Croats and Serbs routinely call each other
period occurred at the Austrian-Yugoslav bor- “Ustashas” and “Chetniks,” respectively.
der near the village of Bleiburg. A group of Likewise, the Serb opposition to the indepen-
over 100,000 Croat men, women, and chil- dence of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina
dren fled before the advancing Partisans into must have been tinged with memories of the
southern Austria, at the time under the occu- links between Croat and Bosnian Muslim fas-
pation of the British Army. Some of these cists during World War II.
refugees were indeed former Ustasha mem- The extraordinary violence that has accom-
bers, but many certainly were not. The Parti- panied the disintegration of the Socialist Fed-
sans demanded that they be sent back to eral Republic of Yugoslavia is therefore based
Yugoslavia. The British commander on the on the very real recollections, just within liv-
scene was bound by agreements and treaties ing memory, of the horrors of World War II.
to comply, and they were sent back into Those actions themselves, however, grew out
Yugoslav territory into the custody of the Par- of the invention and perpetuation of chauvin-
tisan forces. Over the next weeks between istic and expansionist national ideologies of
40,000 and 100,000 of them died.6 Overall, the nationalists and. especially the national
the war and its immediate aftermath were states of the late nineteenth century. 0
tremendously destructive. Some 1,014,000 1. Maria Todorova, “The Ottoman Legacy in the Balkans” and

people, almost six percent of the population  F.AK. Yasamee, “Nationality in the Balkans: The Case of the Mace-

: : donians,” both in Gunay Goksu Ozdogan and Kemal Saybasili, eds.,
of Yugoslavia, perished, many of them at the Balkans: A Mirror of the New International Order (Istanbul: Eren

hands of their fellow Yugoslavs.? Yayincilik ve Kitapcilik, 1995), pp. 73, 125.
: a - 2. Peter Sugar, Southeastern Europe under Ottoman Rule (Seat-
After the Partisans had secured their victo tle: University of Washington Press, 1977), p. 21.
ry, Yugoslavia was reorganized as a federal 3. Charles and Barbara Jelavich, The Establishment of the Balkan
a ’ HART) : National States, 1804-1920 (Seattle: University of Washington
peoples’ republic.” The Communist Party, Press, 1977). p. 211.

renamed the League of Communists of 4. For a more detailed discussion of this period see Ivo Banac,

: : The National Question in Yugoslavia (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univer-
Yugoslavia (LCY), at first tried to foster an sity Press, 1983).

interpretation of Yugoslavism that would sub- 5. Barbara Jelavich, History of the Balkans, vol. Il (Cambridge:

% di : 43 Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 264. Aydin Babuna, Die
sume the country S different nationalities. But nationale Entwicklung der bosnischen Muslime (Frankfurt a/M:
by the early 1960s the LCY had abandoned Peter Lang, 1996), pp. 291-292.

; ; : ; : _ 6. Jelavich, History of the Balkans, p. 272.
this policy in favor of an increasingly decen 7. Ivo Banac, “Nationalism in Serbia,” in Ozdogan and Saybasili,

tralized federal structure based on the differ- p. 143.


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

Potomac Principles by Doug Bandow

WAR IN THE BALKANS

Warmongering for Peace

he United States bestrides the world as a responded to the charge that they failed to
military colossus. By far the dominant foresee the risks of their strategy by saying,

global power, it is allied with every other essentially, yes we did. If true, the President
major advanced industrialized state. Ameri- was criminally negligent: he expected further
ca’s adversaries are poor, isolated, and attacks on Kosovars, massive refugee flows,
pitiable: Cuba, Iraq, North Korea, and and Serb intransigence, but did nothing to
Yugoslavia. prepare for those consequences. Even he, one

But apparently Washington policymakers would hope, could not be so irresponsible.
can’t stand the thought of living in peace. Tra- It has oft been said that the world is a dan-
ditionally, war has been considered a last gerous place, and it certainly is. But not par-
resort. Yet this administration is implementing ticularly to the United States. Unfortunately,
the most militaristic program in at least two however, conflict does wrack many other
decades. The President used U.S. troops to try countries around the world. There have been
to rebuild Somali society, bombed Serbian mass murders in Burundi, Cambodia, Rwan-
insurgents in Bosnia, warned of possible mil- da, Sudan, and Uganda; brutal insurgencies in
itary action against North Korea, occupied Angola, Congo, Ethiopia, Liberia, Mozam-
Haiti, sent troops to Macedonia and Bosnia, bique, Sierra Leone, and Sri Lanka; bloody
has undertaken military exercises around the wars between Armenia and Azerbaijan,
world, is conducting regular attacks on Iraq, Ethiopia and Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia,
and inaugurated aggressive war against India and Pakistan; endless civil war in
Yugoslavia. Afghanistan; violent separatist campaigns in

Obviously the administration, filled with Iraq (Kurds), Mexico (Chiapans), Northern
high hubris, believed Belgrade to be an easy Ireland (Catholics), Russia (Chechens), Spain
target. Washington was apparently convinced (Basques), and Turkey (Kurds); and varying
that it could impose an outside solution on an strife in Burma, Georgia, India, Indonesia,
ancient ethnic conflict, micromanage a guer- Tajikistan, and elsewhere.
rilla insurgency, and unleash the dogs of war Then there is Kosovo. Without doubt, the
without their running wild. situation is tragic. Yet the one constant of

The result was a disastrous miscalculation: guerrilla insurgencies and civil wars is their
the administration simultaneously magnified brutality—by both sides. The Serbian govern-
violence against ethnic Albanians and desta- ment has caused many civilian casualties in
bilized neighboring states. Yet U.S. officials Kosovo, but its conduct does not exist in a
—_— _. vacuum. Last June a U.S. diplomat in Bel-
Doug Bandow, a nationally syndicated columnist, is Ce R
a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. This article grade told me: If you re a Serb, hell yes, the
draws on his testimony before the House Internation- KLA [Kosova Liberation Army] is a terrorist
al Relations Committee in early March. organization.” Even ethnic Albanians admit

21


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

22 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY ® WAR IN THE BALKANS  JuLy 1999

that the KLA had targeted Serb policemen thizers. Some 37,000 Kurds have died over
and other government employees, Serbs the last decade.

viewed as abusing Kosovars, as well as Alban- But the administration has voiced no out-
ian “collaborators.” Each cycle of violence rage, proposed no bombing, demanded no
spawned another. occupation. To the contrary, Washington sup-

The resulting suffering of Kosovars was plies the weapons Turkey uses to repress Kur-
obvious. Yet at least until NATO intervened, dish separatists and apparently helped Ankara
the fighting in Kosovo barely rose to the sta- capture rebel head Abdullah Ocalan. There is
tus of atrocity in today’s world. It certainly did much to criticize about Ocalan’s Kurdistan
not constitute genocide, a term now tossed Workers’ Party, of course, but one could make
around with wild abandon. At least three similar judgments regarding the KLA. Hypo-
times as many people died in January alone in critical is perhaps the most charitable charac-
Sierra Leone as in Kosovo last year. Nearly as terization of the administrations policy.
many people died in one three-day battle Although Washington need not act every-
between Tamil guerrillas and the Sri Lankan where if it desires to implement a policy of
government last fall as in Kosovo in all of humanitarian intervention, surely some objec-
1998. By any normal standard, events in tive standards are necessary. The administra-
Kosovo are less important than those in many tion has articulated none. In practice, Wash-
other nations around the world, where tens of ington seems prepared to use military force
thousands, hundreds of thousands, and even under three conditions:
millions have died.

In 1991 the West encouraged the breakup ¢ those being killed are white Europeans;
of Yugoslavia. Then the United States and < the perceived aggressor is not a U.S. ally;
Europeans decided that Serbs were not enti- and
tled likewise to secede from Croatia and e there is saturation media coverage of the
Bosnia, the latter of which burgeoned into a conflict.
particularly bloody conflict. NATO eventually Lo
lent its air force to Muslims in Bosnia and This makes a mockery of the humanitarian
helped impose the bizarre Dayton accord, pretensions advanced by Western leaders. Nor
under which three antagonistic groups are is there anything compassionate about send-
supposed to live together in an artificial state ing others off to fight. It’s one thing to ask
ruled by international bureaucrats. The same young men (and now young women) to risk
hypocrisy is being played out in Kosovo— their lives for their own political community.
Washington unreservedly supports Britain, It is quite different for armchair warriors to
Spain, and Turkey, for instance, in combating treat them like gambit pawns to be sacrificed
violent separatists, has placed no pressure on in some international chess game.
Macedonia to offer autonomy to its ethnic The administration’s faux humanitarianism
Albanians, and ignored massive ethnic creates severe practical problems as well. In
cleansing of Serbs by Croats in 1995. particular, it encourages intensification of

Indeed, contrast U.S. policy toward local conflict. Guerrillas like the KLA often
Turkey. Slobodan Milosevic is a demagogic undertake strikes in order to spark retaliatory
thug. But the behavior of his government atrocities that might bring outside interven-
toward Albanians looks a lot like that of tion. Kosovar leaders long sought to influence
Turkey, a NATO member and U.S. ally par- media coverage. One activist admitted to me
ticipating in the assault on Yugoslavia, last summer that the prospect of NATO inter-
toward the Kurds. An oppressed people, the vention “depends on how we look on CNN.”
Kurds are seeking the right of self-determi- Washington needs to return to the foreign
nation. In response, Ankara destroys Kurdish policy of a republic, not an empire. It should
villages and ruthlessly restricts civil liberties be a shining city on a hill, an example to oth-
and political freedoms of Kurdish sympa- ers, not the dictatress to the world. OJ



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

Re Sa an

WAR IN THE BALKANS

Isolationism

by Frank Chodorov

| | solationism has been turned (by our politi- the name of their congressman or take the
cians, our bureaucracy and its henchmen, slightest interest in how he votes on given
the professorial idealists) into a bad word. issues?
And yet, isolationism is inherent in the It has become standard procedure for soci-
human makeup. It is in the nature of the ologists and politicians to take opinion polls
human being to be interested first in himself, and to deduce behavior patterns from such
and second in his neighbors. His primary con- data. Yet, it is a fact that the subject matters of
cern is with his bread-and-butter problems, to these polls do not touch on matters in which
begin with, and then in the other things that the questionees are vitally interested, but are
living implies: his health, his pleasures, the topics in which the pollsters have a concern.
education of his children, wiping out the Putting aside the possibility of so framing the
mortgage on the old homestead, and getting questions as to elicit replies the pollsters
along with his neighbors. If he has the time want, the fact is that the pride of the question-
and inclination for it, he takes a hand in local ees can well influence their answers. Thus, a
charities and local politics. If something hap- housewife who has been asked for her opinion
pens in his state capital that arouses his ire or on South African apartheid, for instance, will
his imagination, he may talk to his neighbors feel flattered that she has been singled out for
about the necessity of reform; that is, if the the honor and will feel impelled to give some
reform happens to engage his interests. Taxa- answer, usually a predigested opinion taken
tion always interests him. But events and from a newspaper editorial; she will not say
movements that occur far away from his honestly that she knows nothing about
immediate circumstances or that affect him apartheid and cares less. On the other hand, if
only tangentially (like inflation or debates in she were asked about the baking of an apple
the U.N.) either pass him by completely or, if pie, she would come up with an intelligent
he reads about them in the newspapers, con- answer; but the sociologists are not interested
cern him only academically. A Minnesotan in knowing how to bake an apple pie.
may take notice of a headline event in Florida, The scientist immersed in the laboratory
as a conversation piece, but he is vitally inter- will weigh carefully any question put to him
ested in what has happened in his community: regarding the subject matter of his science
a fire, a divorce case, or the new road that and will probably not come up with a yes-or-
will pass through. How many people know no answer; but he is positive that the nation

Frank Chodorov (1887-1966) was editor of The Free- ought to recognize the Chinese communist
man in 1954 and 1955. This is excerpted from his ~T€8IME, because he heard another scientist say
autobiography Out of Step (Devin-Adair, 1962). SO. The baseball fan who knows the batting

Reprinted with permission. average of every member of his team, on the
23


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

24 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY © WAR IN THE BALKANS ¢ JULY 1999
KI

other hand, will denounce the recognition of lecturers who came here to decry our lack of
- the regime because he has heard that the manners. We certainly enjoyed the bananas
“Reds” are no good. The student whose and coffee imported from Latin American
grades are just about passing will speak out countries, and, while we might deplore their
boldly on the UN., reflecting the opinion of habit of setting up dictatorships, we felt no
his professor on that organization. Everybody obligation to inject ourselves into their politi-
has opinions on international subjects, cal affairs; that was their business, not ours.
because the newspapers have opinions on This was the general attitude of the Ameri-
them, and the readers like to be “in the swim.” can people before the experiment in interven-
That is to say, interventionism is a fad stimu- tionism known as World War 1. Before that
lated by the public press, and like a fad, had event, Woodrow Wilson had taken leave of his
no real substance behind it. If a poll were to senses in backing one revolutionary leader
be taken on the subject of our going to war, against another in Mexico, and had even sent
the probability is that very few would vote for the marines to support his choice; his excuse
the proposition; yet, war is the ultimate of for opposing Huerta was that that leader had
interventionism, and the opposition to it is not been “democratically” elected, overlook-
proof enough that we are isolationist in our ing the fact that 80 percent of the Mexicans
sympathies. A poll on the subject of isolation- were simply incapable of making a choice, or
ism—something like “Do you believe we of caring about it. From that interventionary
ought to keep out of the politics of other exploit we. garnered a mistrust of American
nations and ought to let them work out their intentions vis-a-vis Mexico which haunts us
problems without our interference?”—might to this day. But, Wilson’s urgency to introduce
bring out some interesting conclusions; but “democracy” in Mexico was purely a person-
the politicians and the energumens of inter- al idiosyncrasy, shared by his political
ventionism would prefer not to conduct such entourage but not by the American people. We
a poll. Our “foreign-aid” program has never cared little about which brigand, Huerta or

been subjected to a plebiscite. Carranza, got to the top, and were stirred up
only by the fact that a number of American
A Natural Attitude boys were killed in Wilson’s invasion.

When World War II got going in Europe and

Isolationism is not a political policy, it is a it became evident that Roosevelt was intent on
natural attitude of a people. It is adjustment to getting us into it, a group of Americans orga-
the prevailing culture within a country, and a nized the America First Committee for the
feeling of security within that adjustment. The purpose of arousing the native spirit of isola-
traditions, the political and social institutions, tionism to the point of frustrating his intent.
and the moral values that obtain seem good, They were for keeping the nation neutral. For
the people do not wish them to be disturbed by various reasons (particularly Pearl Harbor)
peoples with other backgrounds and, what is their plan failed, even though at the beginning
more, they do not feel any call to impose their they gained the adherence of many Americans.
own customs and values on strangers. This One flaw in their program was a tendency
does not mean that they will not voluntarily toward protectionism; the anti-involvement
borrow from. other cultures or that they will became identified with “Buy American” slo-
surround themselves with parochial walls. gans and with high tariffs; that is, with eco-
Long before interventionism became a fixed nomic, rather than political, isolationism. Eco-
policy of the government, American students nomic isolationism—tariffs, quotas, embar-
went to Europe to complete their education goes, and general governmental interference
and immigrants introduced their exotic foods with international trade—is an irritant that can
to the American table. But these were volun- well lead to war, or political interventionism.
tary adoptions, even as we welcomed German To build a trade wall around a country is to
and Italian operas and applauded the British invite reprisals, which in turn make for misun-


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

ISOLATIONISM 25

eS ee

derstanding and mistrust. Besides, free trade establishment and an adequate bureaucracy,
carries with it an appreciation of the cultures his sights are lifted beyond the borders. To be
of the trading countries, and a feeling of good- sure, his interest is always the enlightenment
will among the peoples engaged. Free trade is or the betterment of the people over whom he
natural, protectionism is political. seeks to extend his dominion or influence,
The America First Committee’s opposition never to exploit them. Thus, Alexander the
to our entry into the war was based on politi- Great offered the benefits of Hellenic civiliza-
cal and economic considerations. It is a well- tion to the people of Asia, the Roman legions
known fact that during a war the state carried Pax Romana at the tip of their spears,
acquires powers which it does not relinquish and Napoleon imposed French “liberté, fra-
when hostilities are over. When the enemy is  ternité, égalité” on the peoples of Europe,
at the city gates, or the illusion that he is com- whether they wanted it or not. Hitler tried to
ing can be put into people’s minds, the ten- extend the influence of Aryanism and the late
dency is to turn over to the captain all the British Empire was built on the premise that a
powers he deems necessary to keep the enemy taste of English civilization would do the
away. Liberty is downgraded in favor of pro- natives good.
tection. But, when the enemy is driven away, “Foreign policy” is the euphemism which
the state finds reason enough to hold onto its covers up this inclination toward intervention-
acquired powers. Thus, conscription, which ism. About the only foreign policy consistent
Roosevelt reintroduced at the beginning of the with the natural isolationism of a people
war, has become the permanent policy of the would be one designed to prevent interference
government, and militarism, which 1s the of a foreign power in the internal affairs of the
opposite of freedom, has been incorporated country; that is, protection from invasion. But
into our mores. Whether or not this eventual- that is too limited in scope to satisfy the crav-
ity was in Roosevelt’s mind is not germane; it ings of the government of a powerful country.
is inherent in the character of the state. Taxes Theodore Roosevelt’s foreign policy was
imposed ostensibly “for the duration” have avowedly designed to spread among other
become permanent, the bureaucracy built up peoples the benefits of American civiliza-
during the war has not been dismantled, and tion—even at the end of a Big Stick. Without
interventions in the economy necessary for an income tax, he could do very little beyond
the prosecution of war are now held to be nec- the display of naval might to execute this pur-

essary for the welfare of the people. . . . pose, and the job was undertaken by
Woodrow Wilson. It is interesting to note that
Fatal Conceit Wilson was by persuasion an antimilitarist

and an isolationist; yet the exigencies of office
As isolationism is a natural attitude of the induced him to lead the country into war and
people, so interventionism is a conceit of the into the missionary purpose of spreading
political leader. There does not seem to be American democracy far and wide. He failed,
area enough in the world to satiate his desire partly because the peoples of the world were
to exercise his power or, at least, his influence. not willing to adopt the American tradition
Just as the mayor of a town hopes to become and partly because he could not break down
governor of his state, a congressman, or even American resistance to interventionism. It
president, so does the president or the king of remained for Franklin D. Roosevelt, aided and
a country deem it his duty to look beyond the abetted by the Great Depression and a great
immediate job of running his country. Neces- war, to do that. And now that a monstrous
sity limits the interventionary inclination of bureaucracy with a vested interest in inter-
the head of a small country, unless, indeed, he ventionism is in control of our “foreign poli-
finds a neighboring small country incapable cy,” the nation is committed to a program of
of resisting his advances. But, given a nation interference in the affairs of every country in
opulent enough to maintain a sizable military the world. :


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

ee

WAR IN THE BALKANS

How War Amplified Federal
Power in the Twentieth Century

by Robert Higgs

fter surveying the Western world in the a handful of unlucky firms, it was for most
past six centuries, Bruce Porter conclud- citizens remote and unimportant.
ed: “a government at war is a juggernaut of With U.S. entry into the Great War, the fed-
centralization determined to crush any inter- eral government expanded enormously in size,
nal opposition that impedes the mobilization scope, and power. It virtually nationalized the
of militarily vital resources. This centralizing ocean shipping industry. It did nationalize the
tendency of war has made the rise of the state railroad, telephone, domestic telegraph, and
throughout much of history a disaster for international telegraphic cable industries. It
human liberty and rights.”! As a cause of the became deeply engaged in manipulating
development of big government in the United labor-management relations, securities sales,
States, however, war seldom receives its due. agricultural production and marketing, the dis-
tribution of coal and oil, international com-
merce, and markets for raw materials and
World War I manufactured products. Its Liberty Bond
Despite expansion during Woodrow Wil- drives dominated the financial capital markets.
son’s first term as president, the federal gov- It turned the newly created Federal Reserve
ernment on the eve of World War I remained System into a powerful engine of monetary
small. In 1914, federal spending totaled less inflation to help satisfy the government’s vora-
than 2 percent of GNP. The top rate of the cious appetite for money and credit. In view of
recently enacted federal individual-income the more than 5,000 mobilization agencies of
tax was 7 percent, on income over $500,000, various sorts—boards, committees, corpora-
and 99 percent of the population owed no tions, administrations—contemporaries who
income tax. The 402,000 federal civilian described the 1918 government as “war social-
employees, most of whom worked for the Post ism” were well justified.2
Office, constituted about 1 percent of the During the war the government built up the
labor force. The armed forces comprised armed forces to a strength of four million offi-
fewer than 166,000 men on active duty. cers and men, drawn from a prewar labor force
Although the federal government meddled in of 40 million persons. Of those added to the
a few areas of economic life, prescribing rail- armed forces after the U.S. declaration of war,
road rates and bringing antitrust suits against more than 2.8 million, or 72 percent, were
drafted.? Men alone, however, did not make an

Robert Higgs is editor of The Independent Review army. They required barracks and training
and author of Crisis and Leviathan (1987). facilities, transportation, food, clothing, and

26



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

27
eS 3

health care. They had to be equipped with arrests of suspected draft evaders, and other
modern arms and great stocks of ammunition. outrages too numerous to catalog here. In
As the mobilization began, the requisite California the police arrested Upton Sinclair
resources remained in the possession of pri- for reading the Bill of Rights at a rally. In
vate citizens. Although manpower could be New Jersey the police arrested Roger Bald-
obtained by conscription, public opinion win for publicly reading the Constitution.
would not tolerate the outright confiscation of The government also employed a massive
all the property required to turn the men into propaganda machine to whip up what can
a well-equipped fighting force. Still, ordinary only be described as public hysteria. The
market mechanisms threatened to operate too result was countless incidents of intimidation,
slowly and at too great an expense to facilitate physical abuse, and even lynching of persons
the government’s plans. The Wilson adminis- suspected of disloyalty or insufficient enthusi-
tration therefore resorted to the vast array of asm for the war. People of German ancestry
interventions mentioned earlier. All may be suffered disproportionately.’
seen as devices to hasten the delivery of the When the war ended, the government aban-
requisite resources and to diminish the fiscal doned most, but not all, of its wartime control
burden of equipping the huge conscript army measures. The draft itself ended when the
for effective service in France. armistice took effect on November 11, 1918.
Notwithstanding those contrivances to keep By the end of 1920 the bulk of the economic
the Treasury’s expenses down, taxes still had regulatory apparatus had been scrapped,
to be increased enormously—federal rev- including the Food Administration, the Fuel
enues rose by nearly 400 percent between fis- Administration, the Railroad Administration,
cal 1917 and fiscal 1919—and even greater the War Industries Board, and the War Labor
amounts had to be borrowed. The national Board. Some emergency powers migrated
debt swelled from $1.2 billion in 1916 to into regular government departments such as
$25.5 billion in 1919. State, Labor, and Treasury and continued in
To ensure that the conscription-based force. The Espionage Act and the Trading
mobilization could proceed without obstruc- with the Enemy Act remained on the statute
tion, critics had to be silenced. The Espionage books. Congressional enactments in 1920
Act of June 15, 1917, penalized those con- preserved much of the federal government’s
victed of willfully obstructing the enlistment wartime involvement in the railroad and
services by fines up to $10,000 and imprison- ocean shipping industries. The War Finance
ment as long as 20 years. An amendment, the Corporation shifted missions, subsidizing
Sedition Act of May 16, 1918, went much fur- exporters and farmers until the mid-1920s.
ther, imposing the same severe criminal Wartime prohibition of alcoholic beverages, a
penalties on all forms of expression in any purported conservation measure, transmogri-
way critical of the government, its symbols, or fied into the ill-fated Eighteenth Amendment.
its mobilization of resources for the war. Most important, the dominant contempo-
Those suppressions of free speech, subse- rary interpretation of the war mobilization,
quently upheld by the Supreme Court, estab- including the belief that federal economic
lished dangerous precedents that derogated controls had been instrumental in achieving
from the rights previously enjoyed by citizens the victory, persisted, especially among the
under the First Amendment. elites who had played leading roles in the
The government further subverted the Bill wartime economic management. It was hard-
of Rights by censoring all printed materials, ly surprising that 15 years later, in the depths
peremptorily deporting hundreds of aliens of the Great Depression, the federal govern-
without due process of law, and conduct- ment employed the wartime measures as
ing—and encouraging state and local gov- models for dealing with what Franklin D.
ernments and vigilante groups to conduct— Roosevelt called “a crisis in our national life
warrantless searches and seizures, blanket comparable to war”


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

28 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY © WAR IN THE BALKANS ® JuLy 1999

—%

World War 11 and 1945, most war expenses still had to be
financed by borrowing. The publicly held
When World War II began in Europe in national debt rose by $200 billion, or more
1939, the size and scope of the federal gov- than fivefold. The Federal Reserve System
ernment were much greater than they had itself bought some $20 billion of government
been 25 years earlier, owing mainly to World debt, thereby serving as a de facto printing
War I and its peacetime progeny, the New press for the Treasury. Between 1940 and
Deal. Federal spending now equaled 10 per- 1948 the money stock (M1) increased by
cent of GNP. Of a labor force of 56 million, 183 percent, and the dollar lost nearly half its
the federal government employed about 1.3 purchasing power.
million persons (2.2 percent) in regular civil- The authorities resorted to a vast system of
ian and military jobs and another 3.3 million controls and market interventions to get
(5.9 percent) in emergency work-relief pro- resources without having to bid them away
grams. The national debt held outside the gov- from competing buyers in free markets. By
ernment had grown to nearly $40 billion. fixing prices, directly allocating physical and
Most important, the scope of federal regula- human resources, establishing official priori-
tion had increased immensely to embrace ties, prohibitions, and set-asides, then
agricultural production and marketing, labor- rationing the civilian consumer goods in short
management relations, wages, hours, and supply, the war planners steered raw materi-
working conditions, securities markets and als, intermediate goods, and finished products
investment institutions, petroleum and coal into the uses they valued most. Markets no
marketing, trucking, radio broadcasting, air- longer functioned freely; in many areas they
line operation, provision for income during did not function at all.!?
retirement and unemployment, and many World War II witnessed massive violations
other objects.” Notwithstanding those prodi- of human rights in the United States, apart
gious developments, during the next six years from the involuntary servitude of the military
the federal government would assume vastly conscripts. Most egregiously, about 112,000
greater dimensions—in some respects its blameless persons of Japanese ancestry, most
greatest size, scope, and power ever.8 of them U.S. citizens, were uprooted from
During the war the conscript-based armed their homes and confined in concentration
force, which ultimately comprised more than camps without due process of law. Those sub-
12 million men and women, required enor- sequently released as civilians during the war
mous amounts of complementary resources remained under parole-like surveillance. The
for its housing, subsistence, clothing, medical government also imprisoned nearly 6,000
care, training, and transportation, not to men- conscientious objectors—three-fourths of
tion the special equipment, arms, ammuni- them Jehovah’s Witnesses—who would not
tion, and expensive weapons platforms that comply with the service requirements of the
now included tanks, fighter and bomber air- draft laws.!! Signaling the enlarged federal
craft, and naval aircraft carriers. capacity for repression, the number of FBI
For the Treasury, World War II was ten special agents increased from 785 in 1939 to
times more expensive than World War I. 4,370 in 1945.12
Many new taxes were levied. Income taxes Scores of newspapers were denied the priv-
were raised repeatedly, until the personal ilege of the mails under the authority of the
income-tax rates extended from a low of 23 1917 Espionage Act, which remained in
percent to a high of 94 percent. The income effect. Some newspapers were banned alto-
tax, previously a “class tax,” became a gether.!3 The Office of Censorship restricted
“mass tax,” as the number of returns grew the content of press reports and radio broad-
from 15 million in 1940 to 50 million in casts and censored personal mail entering or
1945.9 Even though federal revenues soared leaving the country. The Office of War Infor-
from $7 billion to $50 billion between 1940 mation put the government’s spin on what-



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

How WAR AMPLIFIED FEDERAL POWER IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 29

ee —

ever it deigned to tell the public, and the many, it seemed that a federal government
military authorities censored news from the capable of leading the nation to victory in a
battlefields, sometimes for merely political global war had a similar capacity to remedy
reasons. peacetime economic and social ills. Accord-
The government seized more than 60 ingly, in 1946 Congress passed the Employ-
industrial facilities—sometimes entire indus- ment Act, pledging the federal government to
tries (for example, railroads, bituminous coal act as America’s permanent macroeconomic
mines, meatpacking firms)—most of them in warden.
order to impose employment conditions
favorable to labor unions engaged in disputes The Cold War
with the management. 14
At the end of the war most of the econom- The end of World War II blended into the
ic control agencies shut down. But some pow- beginning of the Cold War. In 1948 the gov-
ers persisted, either lodged at the local level, ernment reimposed the military draft, and
like New York City’s rent controls, or shifted over the next 25 years conscription was
from emergency agencies to regular depart- extended time and again. After 1950 the
ments, like the international trade controls military-industrial-congressional complex
moved from the Foreign Economic Adminis- achieved renewed vigor, sapping 7.7 percent
tration to the State Department. of GNP on average during the next four
Federal tax revenues remained high by decades—cumulatively some $11 trillion dol-
prewar standards. In the late 1940s the lars of 1999 purchasing power.!3
IRS’s annual take averaged four times During the Cold War the government’s
greater in constant dollars than in the late operatives committed crimes against the
1930s. In 1949, federal outlays amounted American people too numerous to catalog
to 15 percent of GNP, up from 10 percent here, ranging from surveillance of millions of
in 1939. The national debt stood at what would innocuous citizens and mass arrests of politi-
have been an unthinkable figure before the cal protesters to harassment and even murder
war, $214 billion—in constant dollars, rough- of persons considered especially threaten-
ly a hundred times the national debt in 1916.  ing.!16 C’est la guerre. The government’s rep-
The prevailing interpretation of the rehensible actions, which many citizens
wartime experience gave unprecedented ideo- viewed only as abuses, we can apprehend
logical support to those who desired a big fed- more plausibly as intrinsic to its constant
eral government actively engaged in a wide preparation for and episodic engagement in
range of domestic and international tasks. To warfare.

1. Bruce D. Porter, War and the Rise of the State: The Military 6. Quoted by Porter, War and the Rise of the State, p. 277.
Foundations of Modern Politics (New York: Free Press, 1994), 7. Higgs, Crisis and Leviathan, pp. 159-95.
p. xv. 8. Abrahamson, American Home Front, pp. 131, 142.

2. Robert Higgs, Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the 9. Carolyn C. Jones, “Class Tax to Mass Tax: The Role of Pro-

Growth of American Government (New York: Oxford University  paganda in the Expansion of the Income Tax during World War I,”
Press, 1987), pp. 123-58; James L. Abrahamson, The American Buffalo Law Review, Fall 1988/89, pp. 685-737.

Home Front (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 10. Higgs, Crisis and Leviathan, pp. 196-236.
1983), pp. 101-12. 11. Abrahamson, American Home Front, p. 159.
3. John Whiteclay Chambers, Ill, To Raise An Army: The Draft 12. Porter, War and the Rise of the State, p. 284.
Comes to Modern America (New York: Free Press, 1987), p. 338, n. 68. 13. Linfield, Freedom Under Fire, p. 73.
4. Michael Linfield, Freedom Under Fire: U.S. Civil Liberties in 14. Ibid., pp. 102-103.
Times of War (Boston: South End Press, 1990), p. 65. 15. Robert Higgs, “The Cold War Economy: Opportunity Costs,

5. Ronald Schaffer, America in the Great War: The Rise of the Ideology, and the Politics of Crisis,” Explorations in Economic His-
War Welfare State (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), tory, July 1994, pp. 9-10.
pp. 3-30. 16. Linfield, Freedom Under Fire, pp. 113-67.


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

Se

WAR IN THE BALKANS

Another Place, Another War

by Michael Palmer

ebruary 2, 1969: | step off the back of a CH-34, a helicopter that looks like a

flying apartment building complete with side-mounted machine guns. It is so
muggy you can’t catch your breath.

I'm at Camp Eagle, just north of Hue, South Vietnam. it's the year after the Tet
offensive of 1968. Eagle had been a holding of the 1st Cav. until the Vietcong
and North Vietnamese regular army overran it. Over 3,800 Americans were killed
during the 12-week offensive.

Camp Eagle looks as though it's been through a war. Nothing of value is left.
The ground is strewn with trash; barbed wire is everywhere littered with blown
paper, rags, and plastic sheeting. The place smells dirty, dusty, and rotten. Half-
crouching, not knowing what to expect but knowing this is a place where no one
likes you and everyone wants to hurt you, you make for some kind of cover. The
remains of a set of hooches (wooden, screen-sided, tin-roofed sheds) will suffice.
Little do we know they will be our home for the next year.

Once we get inside, the choppers take off, leaving us in a frightening silence.
This is a real “what have | gotten myself into?” predicament. The realization is
that whatever happens from here on out, all you will have you have now.

As we pull together to organize a cleanup and planning session, the bleakness
of the situation hits. This is really it. We have nothing: no toilet paper, no pop,
no sheets, no light, no power. What we do have is mud, wet, mildew, nightly
sapper raids (Vietcong running through our hooches throwing bags of explo-
sives). We eventually have “122 mm” rocket attacks, where the ‘Cong makes a
bamboo fork large enough to hold a six-foot-long bottle rocket and tries to hit
you with it. From a couple of miles away they are surprisingly accurate—though
accuracy doesn’t matter. The fear they generate is the real intent.

Being in an assault helicopter unit with the 101st Airborne has its rewards.
There is a certain military prestige to such an assignment. Reality is less glam-
orous. Our assignment is the Ashau Valley. We are to support the various fire-
bases and LZs (landing zones) strung out up and down the valley. The Vietcong
uses the valley as a highway to supply the south from the north and China. The
firebases are small artillery outposts positioned with fire zones to control any
traffic.

The living conditions at these firebases are the most primitive any of us have
ever seen. Imagine a mountaintop blasted bare of any vegetation, a rough circle
of mud ringed with concertina wire and sandbagged bunkers. In the center of
this circle is a large sandbagged depression. Artillery of any variety will be found
there: eight-inch track-mounted guns, old twin-barreled anti-aircraft guns. What-
ever. Everything that goes on here is to protect those guns.

30



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

31
eee

You live in a hole in the ground—mud walls, insects, snakes, and rats. When it
is wet it is mud, when dry, red dust. You seldom get to eat hot food, and never
get to take a shower. You sleep in a wet sleeping bag night after night, week
after week. Everything you own is wet, muddy, and moldy: clothes, food, and
equipment.

When you can, you toast your bread. That way you don’t notice the weevils.
You try to think of it as whole wheat. Your water is always Kool-Aid so you don’t
see how brown it is. If something doesn’t come out of a sealed can you don’t
trust it.

And you live like this until somebody decides you need to move. Doesn't mat-
ter—the terrain will be different but the situation the same.

hirty years later, are we doing this again? For what? We lost 58,000 of my
generation. For what? | lost friends; you lost sons, brothers, husbands.

We went where our government sent us. And we learned; learned not to trust,
learned that politicians, out of ignorance and vainglory, can get us into situations
they will not allow us to leave for fear of losing face. Who has to clean it up? Our
kids, our military, who cannot question their orders.

| have three sons. The oldest is 26 and in the army. The next is 20, and the
youngest is 16. My grandfather was in WWI, my dad in WWII; | was in Vietnam.
Will my sons end up in the Balkans—even if “only” in a peacekeeping force?
Americans will undoubtedly be in Kosovo for a long time.

The politicians wax eloquent about the humanitarian war against Serbia.
Where's the humanitarianism in sending Americans to the backwater of Europe
while taking sides in a bloody conflict over land? Have they nothing better to do
with their lives than become fodder for a president's legacy or an obsolete
alliance’s credibility?

George Washington, in his Farewell Address in 1796, said that “Europe has a
set of primary interests which to us have none or a very remote relation.” He
wondered: “Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our
own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that
of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European
ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?”

As a father, as a citizen, | ask, why indeed? Hl

Michael Palmer lives in Colorado.


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

a SE a

WAR IN THE BALKANS

War’s Other Casualty

by Wendy McElroy

«“ ar is the health of the State.” function, such as postal workers and grade-
Those famous words are contained in school teachers, have no sense of sanctity
Randolph Bourne’s essay “The State,” written about them. They are what Bourne describes
in response to America’s participation in as “common and unsanctified men.” Even
World War I, but left unfinished because of those elected to political office do not gener-
his death from influenza in 1918. ally inspire admiration, but are usually “indis-
In the introduction to War and the Intellec- tinguishable from the mass.” This egalitarian
tuals: Collected Essays 1915-1919—an attitude is part of the American republican
anthology of Bourne’s writings—editor Carl heritage. Thus in times of peace, “the sense of
Resek explains the phrase: “In its proper the State almost fades out of the conscious-
place it meant that mindless power thrived on ness of men.” People may rise to honor the
war because war corrupted a nation’s moral flag at ball games but they have few practical
fabric and especially corrupted its intellectu- reasons to contemplate the State.
als.” Those seven words contain a complexity The American State is more of a concept
of meaning that is often overlooked by those than a physical reality. It is the political struc-
who use them. To grasp this complexity, it is ture established by the American Revolution,
necessary to explore the theoretical context the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Gov-
within which Bourne, a left-wing writer with ernments come and go, but the State remains
individualist sensibilities, wrote. essentially the same. It is the State, not Gov-
Bourne argued that in times of peace, the ernment, that inspires emotions such as awe
majority of people do not give much thought or patriotism within its citizenry because the
to the State, but deal instead with the Govern- State is considered to be sanctified by history
ment, which may be viewed as the practical and by the popular will. It is to the concept of
day-to-day “offices and functions” of a State. the American State—not to any particular
He defined “Government” as “a framework of Government, Republican or Democratic—
the administration of laws, and the carrying that people pledge allegiance with hands
out of the public force. Government is the placed over their hearts.
idea of the State put into practical operation in Another key to understanding America is
the hands of definite, concrete, fallible men.” the concept of “Society,” which Bourne
The people whose jobs make Government referred to as “nation” or “country.” Society is
the collection of nonpolitical factors that con-
Wendy McElroy is the author of The Reasonable St itute life in America, including: charactens-
Woman: A Guide to Intellectual Survival UC attitudes, common lore and literature, a

(Prometheus Books, 1998) and a contributing editor ~~ Shared history, a unique ethnic mix, the pre-
of The Freeman. vailing cultural norms. These nonpolitical

32



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

FOSS VANE OU OI VA U—

factors are what make the American society disloyalty to the State. For example,
different from Chinese or French society. although criticizing the president is a right
They constitute “the American way.” In times regularly exercised by almost every Ameri-
of peace, most people identify more with can, such criticism becomes an act of treason
Society than they do with Government. For when the president has just declared war.
example, most define themselves more in Bourne explained that “objections to the
relation to a community, religion, or ethnic war, luke-warm opinions concerning the
heritage than in relation to a political party. necessity or the beauty of conscription, are
For Bourne, Society, unlike Government, is made subject to ferocious penalties, far
not an expression of the State, nor can it exceeding in severity those affixed to actual
peacefully co-exist with the State because pragmatic crimes.”
the two concepts are antagonistic. Bourne The impact of war on Society is even more
observed that “Country [society] is a concept dramatic. Bourne wrote that “in general, the
of peace, tolerance, of living and letting live. nation in war-time attains a uniformity of
But State is essentially a concept of power, of feeling, a hierarchy of values culminating at
competition; it signifies a group in its aggres- the undisputed apex of the State ideal, which
sive aspects. And we have the misfortune of could not possibly be produced through any
being born not only into a country but into a other agency than war.” Instead of its peace-
State, and as we grow up we learn to mingle time principle—live and let live—Society
the two feelings into a hopeless confusion.” adopts the State’s principle of a group acting
“in its aggressive aspects.”
This is the theoretical meaning of “war is
The Impact of War the health of the State.” In peace, people are
Bourne defined war as the ultimate act of largely defined by their Society and they
statehood. “War is a function . . . of States,” he interact with Government, giving little
wrote, “and could not occur except in such a thought to the State. In times of war, the hier-
system.” archy and the power of these concepts are
He argued that war so blurs the lines sepa- inverted. The Government virtually becomes
rating the State from Government and from the State, and Society is subordinated to both.
Society that the lines virtually disappear in
the minds of most people. Filled with emo- The Individual in Wartime
tion, the patriot loses “all sense of the distinc-
tion between State, nation and government.” What happens to the individual when Soci-
As Bourne described the process, “Patriotism ety and Government are dominated by the
becomes the dominant feeling, and produces State? In times of peace an individual acts
immediately that intense and hopeless confu- according to his own conscience to secure
sion between the relations which the individ- what he believes to be in his self-interest,
ual bears and should bear towards the society which usually includes pursuing prosperity
of which he is a part” Thus, “Every individ- and security for the family, engaging in
ual citizen who in peacetimes had no function leisure, and the like. Individuals interact
to perform by which he could imagine him- peacefully in Society without any imposed
self an expression or living fragment of the coordination because the interactions are
State becomes an active amateur agent of the sparked by a common desire (such as attend-
Government in reporting spies and disloyal- ing a football game or exchanging goods for
ists, in raising Government funds, or in prop- money) without any loss of individual choice.
agating such measures as are considered nec- In times of war, individuals become what
essary by officialdom.” Bourne refers to as “the herd.” “The State is
In times of war, the State and Government the organization of the herd to act offensively
become virtually identical so that to oppose or defensively against another herd similarly
the Government is considered to be an act of organized.” Members of the herd may have a


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

34 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY © WAR IN THE BALKANS JULY 1999

wide range of emotional and intellectual reac- Thus, a “people at war become in the most
tions to wartime events and to the war itself. literal sense obedient, respectful, trustful chil-
Nevertheless, “by an ingenious mixture of dren again, full of that naive faith in the all-
cajolery, agitation, intimidation, the herd is wisdom and all-power of the adult who takes
licked into shape, into an effective mechanical care of them.” “[T]his great herd-machine”
unity, if not into a spiritual whole.” functions under “a most indescribable confu-
Just as the line between the State and Soci- sion of democratic pride and personal fear”
ety blurs, so, too, does the line between the that makes the individuals “submit to the
State and the individual. The State attempts to destruction of their livelihood if not their
draw upon the powerful force of individual lives, in a way that would formerly have
choice by appealing to the patriotism of peo- seemed to them so obnoxious as to be incred-
ple and asking them to make the “choice” to ible.” The individual became a “child on the
enlist and otherwise support the war effort. back of a mad elephant” that he could neither
Usually, the individual obliges because in “a control nor abandon, but was compelled to
nation at war, every citizen identifies himself ride until the elephant decided to halt.
with the whole, and feels immensely strength- This, too, is the meaning of “war is the
ened in that identification.” But if the individ- health of the State”: war is the death of indi-
ual makes the wrong choice—the choice to vidualism.
not volunteer, to not cooperate with wartime Bourne’s essays, written while he was on
measures—the State reveals that choice was the editorial staff of the New Republic, are not
never the real issue. “Men are told simultane- typical of antiwar literature. He did not dwell
ously that they will enter the military estab- on the “butcher’s bill” of dead soldiers and
lishment of their own volition, as their splen- civilians. He did not rail against the profits
did sacrifice for their country’s welfare, and reaped by the military-industrial complex,
that if they do not enter they will be hunted which was collectively called “the munitions
down and punished with the most horrid makers” in his day. The thrust of Bourne’s
penalties. . . 7 essays is how war leads to the moral collapse
Usually, the individual does not rebel of society by kicking out the props of peace-
against war’s massive violation of rights ful interaction.
because he feels what Bourne called “a large In essence, Bourne addressed the moral
element of pure filial mysticism” toward the consequences of war on a postwar society that
State, especially the wartime State. Bourne had abandoned individualism in favor of “the
likened this mysticism to the response often herd-machinery.” He eloquently argued that
offered to religion. “As the Church is the postwar America would be morally, intellec-
medium for the spiritual salvation of men, so tually, and psychologically impoverished. By
the State is thought of as the medium for his this observation, Bourne did not mean that
political salvation.” The same feeling of patri- peacetime America would struggle under the
otism that brings tears to the eyes of those increased bureaucracy that never seems to roll
saluting the flag at ball games is magnified back to prewar levels. Many historians have
by—some would say distorted and exploited made this point. Bourne addressed the less
by—the wartime State to make individuals tangible, though arguably more significant,
conform. Feeling strengthened by “identify- costs of war. Post-1918 America, he predict-
ing with the whole,” people cease to be indi- ed, would be burdened by intellectuals who
viduals and become, instead, citizens of the had “forgotten that the real enemy is War
State. The man who dissents and remains an rather than imperial Germany.” In converting
individual feels “forlorn and helpless,” while World War I into a holy war, the intellectual
those who think and feel as the others in the and psychological groundwork was being laid
herd have “the warm feeling of obedience, the for future instances of what he termed “the
soothing irresponsibility of protection.” sport of the upper class” —global conflict. []



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

Ideas and Consequences by Lawrence W. Reed

Clinton versus Cleveland
and Coolidge on Taxes

n a post-State of the Union speech in Buf- question back to the audience: “I want every
falo, New York, on January 20, 1999, Pres- parent here to look at the young people here
ident William Jefferson Clinton was asked and ask yourself, ‘Do you really want to run

why Americans shouldn’t get a tax cut since the risk of squandering this surplus?’ ”
the federal budget is in surplus and the share Bill Clinton is not the only American pres-
of personal income taken by the federal gov- ident who couldn’t trust the people with their
ernment is at a post-World War II high. Is this own money. Nor is Grover Cleveland the only
what he said in response? president among the 41 we’ve had who want-
ed the people to keep more of what they
When more of the people’s sustenance is earned. Clinton’s audacious remarks harshly
exacted through the form of taxation than contrast with the perspective of another chief
is necessary to meet the just obligations of executive more recent than Cleveland: Calvin
government and the expense of its eco- Coolidge. “Silent Cal” is one of my favorites
nomical administration, such exaction and a man who would undoubtedly spurn
becomes ruthless extortion and a violation Clinton as a mouthpiece for an arrogant, sta-
of the fundamental principles of a free tist elite. Let me use this opportunity to share
government. with readers what America’s 30th president
thought about taxes and the people who

No, unfortunately, Bill Clinton didn’t say worked hard to pay them.

that—but how refreshing it would have been “I want the people of America to be able to
if he had! Another Democratic president of work less for the government and more for
long ago, Grover Cleveland (who, ironically, themselves,” declared Coolidge in his inau-
got his start in politics in Buffalo) said it in gural address on March 4, 1925. “I want them
his second annual message to Congress in to have the rewards of their own industry. That
December 1886. What Bill Clinton did say is the chief meaning of freedom. Until we can

was this: re-establish a condition under which the earn-
“We could give it all back to you and hope ings of the people can be kept by the people,
you spend it right.” we are bound to suffer a very distinct curtail-

He went on to say he wanted to keep the ment of our liberty.”
surplus for such government programs as This flinty, frugal New Englander, who
Social Security, and he concluded by tossinga grew up respecting the hard-earned property
of others, believed that the strength of the
Lawrence Reed is president of the Mackinac Center American nation was not centered in Wash-
Sor Public Policy (www.mackinac.org), a free market ington, D.C. Once, as governor of Massachu-

research and educational organization in Midland, Setts, he asserted, “In a free republic a great
Michigan, and chairman of FEE’s Board of Trustees. government is the product of a great people.

35


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

36 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY ® JULY 1999

They will look to themselves rather than gov- If we had a tax whereby on the first work-
ernment for success. The destiny, the great- ing day the government took 5 percent of
ness of America lies around the hearthstone. your wages, on the second day 10 percent,
... Look well to the hearthstone; therein all on the third day 20 percent, on the fourth
hope for America lies.” day 30 percent, on the fifth day 50 percent,

Bill Clinton has raised taxes in many forms, and on the sixth day 60 percent, how many
several times, and once called taxes “contri- of you would continue to work on the last
butions.” As one wag put it, “Clinton never two days of the week? It is the same with
saw a tax he didn’t like—and hike.” capital. Surplus income will go into tax-

Not Calvin Coolidge. As vice president, he exempt securities. It will refuse to take the
strongly supported the steep reductions in risk incidental to embarking in business.
income tax rates proposed by President War- This will raise the rate which established
ren Harding’s treasury secretary, Andrew businesses will have to pay for new capital,
Mellon. From the time he became president and result in a marked increase in the cost

after Harding’s untimely death in August of living.
1923 until he left office in March 1929,
Coolidge kept Mellon on the job and Coolidge told a press conference on Octo-
strengthened his own reputation as a commit- ber 11, 1927, that he and others “interested in
ted tax cutter by urging Congress to enact tax reduction ought to be first of all bending
further reductions. In the 1920s, the top their energies to see that no unwise expendi-
income-tax rate fell from 73 percent to 24 tures are authorized by the government, and
percent. Americans with the lowest incomes that every possible effort is put forth to keep
benefited even more when the rate at the our expenditures down, and pay off our debt,
other end fell from 4 percent to one-half so that we can have tax reduction.” There
percent. was no Coolidge counterpart to Clinton’s call
Between 1921 and 1929, the economy for tens of billions of dollars of additional
grew by nearly 60 percent, the national debt spending in his State of the Union speech last
was reduced by a quarter, and the federal January.
budget was consistently in the black. The According to Americans for Tax Reform
depression that came later resulted not from (ATR), the average family today pays more in
tax cuts, but from unwise monetary policies taxes than it spends on food, clothing, shelter,
of the Federal Reserve and destructive inter- and transportation combined. The Census
ventions by Congress, particularly in the Bureau reports that the average household
years 1930-33. pays $9,445 in federal income taxes alone—
Moreover, Coolidge understood that people twice what it paid just 14 years ago in 1985.
respond positively to incentives, and negative- The federal tax code is made up of four huge
ly to disincentives. He knew that marginal volumes that are each thicker than the Bible,
rates of taxation made all the difference in the and the tax code is over seven million words
world in terms of economic behavior. In that long. And ATR reports that if Congress were
sense, he was an early supply-sider—with an to adopt the fiscal 2000 budget President
important difference. While today’s supply- Clinton proposed in January, federal bureau-
siders support tax cuts as a means to increase crats will spend more in one second ($56,000)
government revenue, Coolidge wanted to than the average taxpayer earns in a year
leverage tax cuts into major spending reduc- ($28,000).
tions. Here’s what he told an audience on Feb- Where is Calvin Coolidge when we really
ruary 12, 1924: need him?! []



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

¥ Philosophy

FREEMAN

deas On Liberty

Spontaneous Order

by Nigel Ashford

“Many human institutions are the result of human action,
but not of human design.”
—ADAM FERGUSON

[ Jw has been a central preoccupation of that “private vices” such as individual self-
political thinkers and philosophers interest could lead to “public benefits” from
throughout the ages. It is widely understood which the whole community benefited. He
today as a state of harmony between people, observed that the sum of individuals acting
or social peace. In the premodern era, howev- from separate motives produced a commer-
er, the concept was understood as the mainte- cial society that was no part of any one per-
nance of a stable, hierarchical order that was son’s intention. This idea that the evolution of
pre-ordained by God or nature or both. Order human institutions allowed individuals to
can also be seen as the existence of regularity serve others, even though their motive might
and predictability in human affairs, the be self-interest, was at the core of the Scottish
absence of chaos. Although no longer associ- Enlightenment that grew up around Adam
ated with a rigid society ranked by privilege Smith, David Hume, and Adam Ferguson.
and power, the idea of order is still highly val- They sought to apply this idea to a whole
ued. This is because it allows people with dif- range of human institutions, including com-
ferent interests and values to live together in merce, law, language, human morality, and
society without resorting to discord, conflict, even mores and customs. Far from a narrow
or civil war. This is the modern idea of spon- theory of economics, Smith’s Theory of Moral
taneous order. Sentiments (1759) argued that morals evolved
The first thinker to articulate this modern slowly. The principles that enabled humanity
concept of spontaneous order was Bernard de to flourish and prosper were eventually
Mandeville, in a book called The Fable of the accepted by the community. They stood the
Bees (1714). This work discussed the paradox test of time.
Smith, Hume, and Ferguson were fascinat-
Nigel Ashford is senior lecturer in politics at the Uni- ed at how these values and institutions grew
versity of Staffordshire in England and coauthor of A yp to greatly benefit mankind despite their

Dictionary of Conservative and Libertarian Thought . : .

(Routledge, 1991). This article is adapted from his being the product of ne single mind, Adam
paper “Principles for a Free Society,” a primer for Ferguson’s observation that human action
former communist countries. Reprinted by permission produced a form of social order superior to
of the Jarl Hjalmarson Foundation of Stockholm. that conceived by human design was to echo

37


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

38 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY e JULY 1999

in the thoughts of an Austrian thinker, F. A. worked to get us to the stage society has
Hayek, two centuries later. Hayek took on the reached, but innovation and trial and error are
ancient idea that institutions were divided required if we are to continue to discover new,
between those that are “natural” and those effective rules of which we are currently igno-
that are “artificial.” A third group existed, rant. Social institutions that keep society
Hayek said, and these were social institutions. orderly—customs, traditions, and values—are
As these are regular and orderly, people sup- like tools. They contain the knowledge of gen-
pose that they have been invented by humani- erations before us about how to behave and
ty and can therefore be altered or restructured will be modified by the rising generation and
at will. Hayek pointed out that this notion was then passed on to the next. Groups that adopt
mistaken because the human mind and soci- these rules benefit from having done so, with-
ety had evolved together. Tearing down the out necessarily knowing why. The institutions
institutions that kept society together and that transmit information about the rules are
building anew, as socialists advocated, would the product of human action, but not neces-

destroy the order that made society work. sarily the result of human design.
There are three categories of social rules,
Order Without Commands according to Hayek. The first consists of those

that we design ourselves, such as parliamen-

Spontaneous order keeps the wheels of tary legislation. The second, which has been
society turning without the need to issue com- called “tacit knowledge,” consists of things
mands from the center. A free society is order- like a sense of fair play or injustice that we all
ly not because people are told what to do but understand but cannot put into words. Finally,
because the evolving traditions and inherited there is a third group of rules of beneficial
institutions of human society allow individu- behavior that we can observe and write down,
als to pursue their own ends and by so doing, but our attempts at codification only approxi-
meet the needs of others. People’s behavior mate the principles. The Anglo-Saxon system
follows certain patterns because they have of common law is an example of this third
been accepted by society initially as they type of rule; it evolved through and was grad-
allowed the groups that adopted them to pros- ually refined over centuries by different cases
per. It is no accident, said Hayek, that the and judgments, and it is open to modification
sharpest differences in material welfare can in the future. We learn from these rules and
be seen throughout the Third World where the contribute to them even though we often can-
city meets the countryside and complex rule- not fully explain them. It is the second and
guided societies meet intimate communities third categories that have the power to create
in which the rules are different. a complex order that uses more knowledge

The rules that allow a complex social order than can ever be known by a single human
like a city or the global economy to function mind.
are not orders in the sense that term is usual-
ly understood. Rules that prevent individuals’ Why We Need Freedom
injuring others or engaging in theft or fraud or
breaking promises in fact give people a great Complex social orders require freedom
deal of latitude in their behavior. They tell because the information and knowledge that
people how to do things, but they do not tell make them work can never be amassed by a
them what they should do. central authority. Attempting to use the first

The moral framework for human society is category of rules—legislation—to change the
not set in stone, but rather is constantly second and third categories will fail because
changing as new rules are discovered that the sum total of human knowledge has
allow the social order to function better. The allowed people in society to live with one
problem is that we do not know in advance another and brought us to the levels of pros-
which rules will work and which will not. Our  perity and population that we now enjoy. This
existing laws and customs show us what has was seen in the old socialist states of the Sovi-



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

SPONTANEOUS ORDER 39

et empire, in which government attacked and 1831, he heard what he described as “a con-
undermined traditional morality, justice, and fused hum.” That great chronicler of Ameri-
fair play while relying on the economies of can society wrote, “No sooner do you set foot
the West to keep living standards from falling upon American ground than you are stunned
below subsistence levels. Freedom is critical by a kind of tumult; a confused clamor is
to the process of achieving spontaneous order heard on every side, and a thousand simulta-
in society because we do not know in advance neous voices demand the satisfaction of their
which rules will work, because liberty is social wants.” Simply trying to work out how
essential to the trial-and-error process, and society works by watching it and listening to
because the creative powers of man can only it tells us little. It would be like trying to
be expressed in a society in which power and understand how a clock works by telling the
knowledge are widely dispersed. To impose a time. It is how people must interact with one
pre-designed pattern on society would make another that allows the clockwork of society
society cease to function as a creative force. to keep ticking.
Progress cannot be commanded. The hum of commerce eases the path of
Essential to the progress of an orderly soci- social cooperation in a free society, in part
ety is the distribution of power among its cit- because it offers man opportunities that are
izens, as opposed to the concentration of simply not available when acting alone or in a
power in the hands of the state. This allows state of war of all against all. Incentives allow
society to experiment in the rules and mores us to cooperate with others even though our
that govern people’s behavior. The process of views on political issues or our religious
trial and error limits the impact of mistakes to beliefs may radically differ. When people sup-
a small segment of society. Rules that work ply goods and services or buy them from oth-
will be observed, imitated, and absorbed into ers, they may not know with whom they deal.
the social framework. Risk-taking and rule- Protestant, Catholic, Jew, and Muslim all ben-
breaking are virtually impossible in small, efit from the commercial activity of a free
intimate rural societies, yet these activities are society without altering their fundamental
essential to maintaining the large populations beliefs. Their security and prosperity are
that live in the vast impersonal societies of interdependent and in free societies far sur-
modern life. pass those of nations where conflict marks
differences of faith. These differences are
resolved peaceably and profitably in a free
society, because the benefits of these values
Life in a free society can be hard because it have been passed down through society and
forces individuals to adjust to the needs of have become part of the moral framework.
others. The free society works because it The absence of this mechanism for transmit-
coordinates conflicting desires by creating ting moral values is one of the reasons that
incentives for people to satisfy their own religious strife and social discord mark soci-
wants by satisfying those of others. This is the eties that have never known freedom.
opposite of a state in which one can
only achieve one’s aims at the expense of oth-
ers. As if by an invisible hand, Adam Smith The Law
suggested, we are moved to serve the needs of One key institution that makes the coordi-
others while pursuing our own self-interest. nation of a free society possible is the law. In a
This complex order that harmonizes and free society, law is not the same as the arbi-
synchronizes the conflicting desires of people trary government decrees of totalitarian and
who are different from one another can be autocratic societies or the legislation of West-
confusing at first. But it is essential to look ern congresses and parliaments. It is, as we
beyond that initial confusion if we are to see have seen, a code that has evolved not at the
how a free society works. When Alexis de hands of politicians but in the decisions of
Tocqueville first disembarked in New York in judges. Tocqueville in Democracy in America

The Role of Incentives


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

40 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY ® JULY 1999

(1840) described how laws keep order ina free is based on rules that have grown up and
society. He observed that “the spirit of the law been tested in real life, and because the values
which is produced in the schools and courts of and the spirit of the law are closely connected
justice, gradually penetrates beyond their to the moral values of the civilization.

walls into the bosom of society, where it Over-government undermines that respect
descends to the lowest classes, so that at last by imposing controls on society that do not
the whole people contract the habits and tastes conform to people’s inherited sense of right
of the judicial magistrate.” The law is respect- and wrong. Freedom creates order in society.
ed in a free society not by the use of force The institutions of a free society give people
(although governments do reserve the right to an interest in keeping the peace, better than
use force to protect freedom), but because it any police state or concentration camp. [J

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

The Therapeutic State by Thomas Szasz

Suicide as a Moral Issue

“Suicide is an event that is a part of human nature.
However much may have been said and done about it in the past,
every person must confront it for himself anew, and every age
must come to its own terms with it.”

—JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE (1749-1832)

Bd Goethe’s simple statement lies a To accomplish this, we must de-medicalize
profound truth: dying voluntarily is a and destigmatize voluntary death and accept
choice intrinsic to human existence. It is our it as a behavior that has always been and will
ultimate, fatal freedom. That is not how the always be a part of the human condition.
right-thinking person today sees voluntary Wanting to die or killing oneself is sometimes
death: he believes that no one in his right blameworthy, sometimes praiseworthy, and
mind kills himself, that suicide is a mental sometimes neither; it is not a disease; it can-
health problem. Behind that belief lies a trans- not be a bona fide medical treatment; and it
parent evasion: relying on physicians to pre- can never justify deprivation of liberty.
vent suicide as well as to provide suicide—
and thus avoid the subject of suicide—is an
evasion of personal responsibility fatal to
freedom. Increasing life expectancy, advances in
Not long ago the right-thinking person medical technology, and radical changes in
believed that masturbation, oral sex, homo- the regulation of drug use and the economics
sexuality, and other “unnatural acts” were of health care have transformed how we die.
medical problems whose solution was dele- Formerly, most people died at home. Today,
gated to doctors. It took us a surprisingly long most people die in a hospital. Formerly,
time to take these behaviors back from physi- patients who could not breathe or whose kid-
cians, accept them comfortably, and speak neys or livers or hearts failed to function died.
about them calmly. Perhaps the time is ripe to Now, they can be kept alive by machines,
rethink our attitude toward suicide and its transplanted organs, and immunosuppressive
relation to the medical profession, accept sui- drugs. These developments have created
cide comfortably, and speak about it calmly. choices not only about whether to live or die

— : : but also about when and how to die.
Thomas Szasz, M.D., professor of psychiatry emeritus Birth and death . h
at SUNY Health Science Center in Syracuse, New 1 an Cath arc umque phenomena.

York, is the author of Fatal Freedom (forthcoming Absent celibacy or infertility, practicing birth
from Praeger), from which this article is adapted. control—that is, procreating voluntarily—is a

41

Death Transformed


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

42 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY © JULY 1999

personal decision. Absent accidental or sud- cide just as surely as he would preclude
den death, practicing death control—that is, understanding a Japanese speaker if he
dying voluntarily—is also a personal deci- assumed that he is hearing garbled English.
sion. The state and the medical profession no For the person who kills himself or plans to
longer interfere with birth control. They ought kill himself, suicide is, eo ipso, an action.
to stop interfering with death control. Psychiatrists, however, maintain that suicide
As individuals, we can choose to die active- is a happening, the result of a disease. Against
ly or passively, practicing death control or this mindset, the view that, a priori, suicide
dying of disease or old age. As a society, we has nothing to do with illness or medicine,
can choose to let people die on their own which is my view, risks being dismissed as an
terms or force them to die on terms decreed act of intellectual know-nothingness, akin to
by the dominant ethic. Camus maintained that asserting that cancer has nothing to do with
suicide is the only “truly serious philosophi- illness or medicine.
cal problem.” It would be more accurate to We are proud that suicide is no longer a
say that suicide is our foremost moral and crime, yet it is plainly not legal; if it were, it
political problem, logically anterior to such would be illegal to use force to prevent sui-
closely related problems as the right to reject cide and it would be legal to help a person kill
treatment or the right to physician-assisted himself. Instead, coercive suicide prevention
suicide. is considered a life-saving treatment and help-
Faced with a particular personal conduct, ing a person kill himself is (in most jurisdic-
we can approve, facilitate, and reward it; dis- tions) a felony.
approve, hinder, and penalize it; or accept, Supporters and opponents of policies con-
tolerate, and ignore it. Over time, social atti- cerning troubling social issues—such as slav-
tudes toward many behaviors have changed. ery, pornography, abortion—have always
Suicide began as a sin, became a crime, then invoked a sacred authority or creed to justify
became a mental illness, and now some peo- the policies they favored. Formerly, God, the
ple propose transferring it into the category Bible, the Church; now, the Constitution,
called “treatment,” provided the cure is under Law, Medicine. It is an unpersuasive tactic:

the control of doctors. too many deplorable social policies have been
justified by appeals to Scriptural, Constitu-
Crucial Qu estions tional, and Medical sanctions.

The question of who should control when
Is killing oneself a voluntary act or the and how we die is one of the most troubling
product of mental illness? Should physicians issues we face. today. The debate is in full
be permitted to use force to prevent suicide? swing. Once again, the participants invoke the
Should they be authorized to prescribe a authority of the Bible, the Constitution, and
lethal dose of a drug for the purpose of sui- Medicine to cast the decisive ballot in favor of
cide? Personal careers, professional identities, their particular program. It is a spineless gam-
multibillion-dollar industries, legal doctrines, bit: persons who promote particular social
judicial procedures, and the life and liberty of policies do so because they believe that their
every American hang on how we answer these policies are superior to the policies of their
questions. Answering such questions requires adversaries. Accordingly, they ought to defend
no specialized knowledge of medicine or law. their position on the grounds of their own
It requires only a willingness to open our eyes moral vision, instead of trying to disarm oppo-
and look life—and death—in the eye. Evad- nents by appealing to a sanctified authority.

ing that challenge is tantamount to denying For a long time, suicide was the business of
that we are just as responsible for how we die the Church and the priest. Now it is the busi-
as we are for how we live. ness of the State and the doctor. Eventually

The person who kills himself sees suicide we will make it our own business, regardless
as a solution. If the observer views it as a of what the Bible or the Constitution or Med-
problem, he precludes understanding the sui- icine supposedly tells us about it. Cl


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

FREEMAN

deas On Libert

Storm Trooping to Equality

by James Bovard

Po Licians have long enjoyed promising to the law permits.” Not equality of opportuni-
deliver equality to the American people. In ty—not equal chances for equal talent—but
a January speech, President Clinton equality, plain and simple. The passion for
announced that he is seeking a budget increase quick results far exceeds OFCCP’s devotion
to hire more federal agents to penalize more to the law. In some parts of the south in the
companies for alleged inequalities in their early 1900s, any company hiring a black for
wage and salary structures. Clinton declared, certain positions was presumed guilty of
“We have an opportunity now, and an obliga- breaking a law. Nowadays, thanks to the
tion, to make sure every American fairly ben- OFCCP, any federal contractor who does not
efits from this moment of prosperity.” Howev- hire or promote a black, Hispanic, or woman
er, as usual, Clinton’ idea of “fairness” con- can routinely be presumed guilty of breaking
sists merely of politicians and bureaucrats the law.
tightening their grip over everyone else. The OFCCP is legendary for the pretexts it
Clinton is asking for a $14 million increase concocts to accuse private companies of vio-
in enforcement budgets for the Equal lating its regulations. One manager at a Wash-
Employment Opportunity Commission and ington, D.C.-area company summarized the
the Labor Departments Office of Federal attitude of the OFCCP official who descended
Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP). upon her firm: “We don’t need no stinking
While these are small amounts, the feds are statistical significance!” As long as there are
certain to use the money to extort far greater disparities between male and female salaries,
sums from private companies. or between the salaries of different races, the
The OFCCP has jurisdiction over the jobs company can be proclaimed guilty.
of 25 million people who work for companies, The OFCCP routinely comes in, looks at
universities, and other entities with federal the median pay rate for a certain job grade,
contracts. The agency has already announced and then fines the company if women or
plans to almost double the number of compa- minorities make less than that amount. But
nies it investigates this year. this essentially ignores workers’ experience,
OFCCP Director Shirley Wilcher declared productivity, and a dozen other factors. As
in 1995, “Enforcement of equality in the work American Enterprise Institute economist
place includes penalties to deter violations Diana Furchtgott-Roth told the Los Angeles
and to get results as quickly and efficiently as Times, “Measuring so-called discrimination
by comparing women’s wages to the median
James Bovard is the author of Freedom in Chains: Wa8¢ 13 like saying there's something wrong
The Rise of the State & the Demise of the Citizen (Sz. With oranges because they are smaller than
Martin's Press). grapefruits.”

43


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

44 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY ® JULY 1999

Judging Performance never hired and never did a day’s work for
them.

One district director in a large western state
has achieved notoriety for his heavy-handed
methods. According to one lawyer, the direc-
tor shows up at site visits and warns the con-
tractor: “If you get a lawyer, I will make it
more difficult for you.” The director has pro-
claimed to harrowed employees during audits:
“You won’t have a job around here much

The Equal Employment Advisory Commit-
tee, an organization of large government con-
tractors, reports that OFCCP auditors consid-
ered compensation decisions based on “per-
formance ratings history” and “promotion,
demotion, or downgrades” might be unac-
ceptable to the OF CCP “because these may be
seen as ‘subjective’ factors over which the
employer has some control.” Further, “The jonger unless you cooperate with us because
federal pay system with which compliance you are in deep trouble.” Contractor employ-
officers are most familiar is a very rigid one eg have been left in tears at the OFCCP dis-
consisting of 15 grades and 10 steps within trict director's bullying. This director’s meth-
each grade. Over time, everyone progresses ods have been so successful at racking up set-
through the same series of within-grade step  tiement numbers that he has reportedly been
increases and/or promotion-related grade invited to other OFCCP districts to lecture
increases.” The fact that a private company about his “enforcement model.”
does not treat its employees like government Jennifer Taylor, personnel director of City
workers—that is, paying them largely accord- Utilities of Springfield, Missouri, testified to
ing to how long they have loitered around the Congress in 1996 of the nightmare OFCCP
office—can be interpreted by some compli- audit her company experienced. An OFCCP
ance officers as foul play. compliance officer visited the company and

Because the rules that the OFCCP uses are spent almost an entire year going through files
vague and convoluted, compliance officers and documentation. After he examined the
exercise arbitrary power over those whom company’s 250-page affirmative action plan
they investigate. Expert after expert whom I and found no violations, he ordered the utility
interviewed stated that officers routinely to completely recalculate its analyses, hoping
grossly abuse their power. (Few people I that the revised version would produce some
spoke to were willing to allow their names t0 numbers with which he could condemn its
be used, since there is pervasive fear of hiring and promotion policies. The official
agency retaliation.) One Midwest human- demanded “documentation and reasons why
resources director complained of officers virtually every minority and female consid-
“just coming on site and scaring everyone to ered for promotion and new hire was not
death and costing them thousands of dollars elected for nearly every opening,” Taylor tes-
in time and effort” She observed that the tified. Though the company had roughly the
OFCCP official who monitored her company same proportion of minorities on payroll as in
for ten months “felt that he was on a cru- the local labor market, the OFCCP demanded
sade—and therefore the ends justified the that the company in the future recruit from
means.” Another human-resources profes- the Kansas City area—170 miles away. Taylor
sional noted that OFCCP agents “wield a lot observed, “We must ignore a readily obtain-
of power and they know it and they very often able source of local labor, which is more
don’t act in compliance with the law and they motivated to remain with us because of our
attempt to coerce and intimidate employers geographical preference, simply because of
into doing what they think what they should their race.” Though the OFCCP inspector
do.” A female lawyer with over a quarter cen- could not even gin up enough evidence to file
tury’s experience with OFCCP efforts said a notice of violation, the inspection cost the
that browbeating, intimidation, and lying company over $26,000 and tied up key per-
about the law happens “all the time.” In many sonnel throughout 1995.
cases, the OFCCP arm-twists companies into Despite the absurdities in OFCCP compen-
paying “compensation” to people who were sation analyses, many companies settle the



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

STORM TROOPING TO EQUALITY 45

charges by paying the money the agency Labor Department can hold hostage any com-
demands. This is because the agency has the plaints or accusations against the OFCCP for
power to debar companies from getting any years. Companies cannot gain access to a fed-
federal contracts—a power described as a eral court until it has run the gauntlet of
“nuclear bomb” by Assistant Secretary of pseudo-remedies within the agency itself.
Labor Bernard Anderson. Company officials Even if a company wins before a Labor
routinely complain that there was no justice in Department administrative-law judge, a polit-
the OFCCP charges but that the company can- ical appointee can simply write a memo and
not afford to fight the federal government and overturn the judge’s decision—thus thrusting
lose all its government contracts. the company back in legal purgatory.

Clinton justified the new crackdowns last Lawyers estimate that legal fees in OFCCP
January as part of his plan “to prepare our cases can easily exceed half a million dollars
nation for the 21st century.” But if Labor before companies reach a federal court.
Department bureaucrats are in charge of lead- Because of the high costs of reaching a feder-
ing us into the new millennium, Americans al judge, there have been few court rulings
should get ready for some thin gruel in the limiting the agency’s power. As a result,
future. OFCCP officials have free rein to twist the

Many OFCCP officials are both lazy and law to suit their purposes.
incompetent. One private lawyer who has The issue of OFCCP’s power cuts to the
dealt with the agency for over 25 years com- heart of the coerciveness of the welfare state.
plained that OFCCP investigators “show upto The essence of the OFCCP’s concept of social
do an onsite review at 10 in the morning and justice is compelling companies to pay people
leave at 2 in the afternoon to pick up their for work they never did—based on secret
grandkids from school. There is absolutely no rules the agency continually changes.
control or monitoring of the kinds of hours This nation does not need a cadre of
that people are allegedly working. You can go employment commissars running around
months without catching up with someone” at inflicting political correctness on American
the agency. businesses. The methods of the OFCCP

Many private lawyers and personnel experts should be repulsive to anyone who respects
who deal with the OFCCP complain of the legal rights and due process. As Justice
extremely poor training of some of the com- Clarence Thomas wrote in a 1995 Supreme
pliance officers. The OFCCP has apparently Court opinion, “Government-sponsored racial
been careful not to commit the same crime it discrimination based on benign prejudice is
accuses private companies of committing: just as noxious as discrimination inspired by
requiring excessive literacy or intelligence in malicious prejudice. In each instance, it is
the people hired. One lawyer complained, “We racial discrimination, plain and simple. Racial
have had OFCCP investigators who had dis- paternalism and its unintended consequences
abilities who can’t read. We had one case sev- can be as poisonous and pernicious as any
eral years ago in which the investigator ruled other form of discrimination.”
that the company violated OFCCP policy Clinton, in his announcement of the expand-
because an individual was not paid the same ed crackdown on private pay, declared that “it’s
amount as someone else working for the com- a matter of principle—a question of what kind
pany—but the person who allegedly was of country we want America to be today, and
underpaid never worked for the company. It into the 21st century.” Unfortunately, Clinton is
took forever to straighten out that mess.” making this a country in which petty bureau-

crats have more and more power to punish
other Americans on more and more pretexts.
Legal Redress Impeded And since the process by which OFCCP settle-

Unfortunately, it is very difficult to fight the ments are imposed is fundamentally unfair, the
OFCCP in court. Because of the doctrine of larger the settlements, the greater the likely
“exhaustion of administrative remedies,” the injustice by the government. [J


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

Economic Notions by Dwight R. Lee

¥ Economics

In the Absence of Private
Property Rights

We commonly benefit from things we rights should be restricted to prevent firms
neither understand nor appreciate. and individuals from putting their private gain
Obviously there are advantages in benefiting ahead of the public’ interest in a clean envi-
from a wide range of things without having to ronment. But pollution is actually a problem
give them much thought. But the danger is caused by too little reliance on property
that such neglect can often cause us great rights, not too much. Pollution problems
harm. Good health is an example. For most should teach us how much we benefit from
people, good health is easy to take for grant- private property by illustrating the inevitable
ed, and this often results in harmful patterns breakdown - in social cooperation in its
of behavior. In the case of health, however, absence. -
most people know something about the risks Pollution problems would not exist if we
of unhealthy behavior, and recognize the could divide up the atmosphere, rivers, and
advantage of healthy habits even if they don’t oceans into separate units owned and con-
practice them. trolled as private property. There would still
Unfortunately, this is not true for maintain- be pollution, but not excessive pollution. If I
ing a healthy economy. The productivity and wanted to discharge pollutants into the air that
cooperation essential to economic progress belonged to others, they would prevent me
depend on things that are not only easily from doing so unless I paid them a price that
neglected, but also commonly denounced. covered the cost my pollution imposed on
Private property is a good example. Instead them. So I would pollute only as long as the
of recognizing private property as the foun- value I realized from discharging an addition-
dation of economic cooperation and al unit of pollutant was at least as great as the
progress, people commonly see it as the cost to others. Private property and the market
source of economic problems actually caused prices that result would motivate people to
by the lack of well-defined and enforced pri- take into consideration the environmental
vate-property rights. concerns of others.
Pollution problems exist because without
Pollution and Private Prop erty private property in air sheds and waterways
there are no market prices to make polluters
Pollution is widely blamed on capitalism, mindful of the cost of their polluting activi-
with its emphasis on profits and private prop- ties. The result is that people pollute exces-
erty. According to this view, private property sively; pollution continues even though the
benefits from additional pollution are less
than the costs.
Dwight Lee is Ramsey Professor of Economics in the Although we cannot easily imagine treating
Terry Business School at the University of Georgia. the atmosphere and waterways as private

46



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

47

property, the lack of cooperation that under- whales within a few months. Will the captain
lies pollution problems would extend to all save the whale on hearing this information?
aspects of human action if private property Not likely. He will correctly conclude that
were absent. Instead of seeing pollution prob- since he has no property right in the whale, if
lems as an indictment of private property, he doesn’t kill it today someone else soon
these problems should give us an appreciation will. Being patient and allowing the whale to
of the wonderful advantages we realize from give birth requires an immediate sacrifice,
private property. And once the power of pri- without permitting him to benefit from that
vate property to promote cooperation is real- sacrifice in the future. If somehow whales
ized, one can see how pollution policy can be were privately owned, it would then pay the
improved through the creative establishment captain to take the future value of the whale
of private property. and her offspring into consideration, since
Instead of having political authorities dic- that future value would be his opportunity
tate how, and how much, polluters have to cost of killing the whale today.
reduce their discharges (as they do now), it It is no wonder that many species of wild
would be far better to create a form of private animals are overexploited, and in some cases
property in the use of the environment for threatened with extinction. The situation is
waste disposal. This private property would very different with domestic animals that are
take the form of transferable pollution permits privately owned. There is no worry that chick-
specifying how much their owners could ens, pigs, cows, or goats will be driven to
legally pollute. These permits would establish extinction. The future value of these animals
the total allowable pollution, but not how is fully considered by owners who can profit
much each polluter reduces his discharges or from maintaining them. Indeed, the more of
how he does so. With transferable permits, these animals we kill, the more of them we
market prices would emerge that force pol- have. In the United States alone, approxi-
luters to consider much of the cost of their mately 25 million chickens are killed and
discharges. Those who could reduce dis- eaten every day. It has been said that the dif-
charges cheaply would reduce a lot, releasing ference between chicken hawks and people is
permits to be used by those facing higher that when chicken hawks eat more chickens
cleanup costs. The result would be a pattern of there are fewer chickens, but when people eat
pollution reduction that yields any given level more chickens there are more chickens. The
of environmental quality at far less cost than more fundamental difference is that people
the command-and-control approach that dom- establish private property rights and, as a
inates current policy. (A more detailed discus- result, take the future into consideration;
sion of the advantages of such a market-based chicken hawks don’t.
approach to pollution control has to await a Unfortunately, legislation such as the
future column.) Endangered Species Act attempts to protect
species by undermining private property
Private Prop erty and Patience rights, thereby reducing the motivation of
land owners to provide suitable habitat for
Another common misconception is that the wildlife, endangered or not.
profits from private property motivate people Private property allows us to solve prob-
to ignore the long-run consequences of their lems by taking into consideration the pre-
actions. Actually, the lack of private property sent and future concerns of others. Unfortu-
is the biggest threat to future concerns. Con- nately, people with good intentions but little
sider the captain of a whaling ship who has a economic understanding often call for solv-
whale in the cross hairs of his harpoon. The ing problems stemming from inadequate
captain is about to pull the trigger when his private property by subverting rights to pri-
first officer points out that the whale is preg- vate property with political restrictions and
nant and if they let it live there will be two mandates. OJ


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

FREEMAN

Ideas On Liberty

Croaking Frogs

by Brian Doherty

t’s the kind of story that doesn’t often get The frog situation has gotten just enough
reported in the media—even though it is media attention—stories in Newsweek,
largely the medias creation. In February, Inte- episodes of “Nightline”—and is just bizarre
rior Secretary Bruce Babbitt made a stirring and frightening enough that the average man
call for an extra $8.1 million in other people’s in the street knows there’s something funny
money—your money and mine—for fiscal going on with frogs. There are two potential
2000 to research yet another potentially earth- problems—probably unrelated, but conflated
shaking environmental crisis: declining and in both media and government—with
deformed frogs. amphibians: die-offs (frogs no longer appear-
It’s tiny by federal standards. Still, the fed- ing in customary numbers in certain habitats)
eral agency umbrella group created last year and deformities.
for which Babbitt is seeking this new cash That frogs are disappearing in numbers
infusion, the Taskforce of Amphibian larger than what herpetologists have come to
Declines and Deformities (TADD), could consider normal is not controversial in the
portend something big. It certainly seems as if field now; what these observations mean, and
the government is prepared for anything and what might be causing them, are. A recently
everything to come out of the issue of unex- discovered chytrid fungus has been found
pectedly disappearing and deformed amphib- killing frogs in Australia, Central America,
ians: TADD, in an almost archetypal example and the United States; it is moving to the fore-
of federal overkill, has representatives from front as a convincing explanation in the scien-
the departments of state, justice, and defense tific debate. Also, there is the possibility that
on the team. natural fluctuations occur in frog populations
While the Department of the Interior posits that scientists don’t understand because they
this program as an example of pure science, haven’t been looking at trend lines long enough.
research into a vital issue that only govern- Even the government’s own Web site devoted
ment force can supply, Babbitt’s science to the nascent frog crisis acknowledges that
adviser William Brown let slip the real score one of the frog species whose diminution con-
to a reporter from BNA Daily Environment. cerns us now, the Northern leopard frog, cre-
“There are a whole set of regulatory initia- ated an earlier alarm in the Midwest in the
tives” waiting in the wings for when they find 1960s and ’70s, and “initiated our concern
what they set out to find. about amphibian declines, but many of these
original declines have stopped and popula-
Brian Doherty is the Warren Brookes Fellow in Envi- 1101S have recovered to some extent.” These
ronmental Journalism at the Competitive Enterprise population fluctuations happen in nature, and
Institute. the workings of nature, like that of the human

48



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

economy, are so multicausal and complex that banning more pesti- |
we don’t always know why certain things cides to stop man’s
occur. Our intimate knowledge of long-term mad, unchecked lust
population trends is so poor that we can’t even for food not infested
be sure we are seeing an alarmingly unnatur- with (or eaten by)
al diminution. insects.

Also, there are a couple of very likely man- The frog deformi-
caused, though prosaic, problems that could ty problem is the
be killing off frogs: general encroachment on more grotesque and
habitat and stocking non-native fish in large disturbing—freakish
numbers in frog ponds. Indeed, man’s desire frogs with eyes in
for trout fishing could be hurting young tad- their mouths, multi- Young visitors to the

Captain Ribbitt

poles—but this is a matter of tradeoffs, not ple sets of limbs, FrogWeb are
unquestionable bads. missing limbs, miss- encouraged to “find

ing jaws, appearing out how you can SAVE
Favored Explanations (or being noticed) THE FROGS!”

in unusually large

However, the government frog effort numbers. Consequently, it has gotten the most
prefers other controversial explanations. Not attention and money so far. The state of Min-
coincidentally, these explanations—while nesota alone—where the crisis first hit the
government researchers admit they have media in 1995 after a school field trip found
found no causal smoking gun—are those for an unusual number of deformed frogs in one
which industrial society can be blamed: pesti- pond—has spent around a million dollars
cides and ultraviolet radiation. These are the investigating the matter, and has already cre-
sort of explanations that would inspire the ated a public scare on scant evidence. The
“whole set of regulatory initiatives” Babbitt’s Minnesota Pollution Control Agency in Sep-
science adviser crowed about. It’s true that tember 1997 announced that local well water
UV radiation can cause problems for frog was definitely causing frog deformities (pres-
eggs in labs, but no one has shown that suring scientists to go public with studies
amphibian eggs in nature are actually being before they felt they were ready), and began
exposed to too much of it. (The UV thesis is giving out bottled water to frightened resi-
thought to have more to do with the problem dents. The agency later admitted it was mis-
of deformed frogs rather than dying ones, taken. One of the leading researchers of frog
though even there the evidence of real-world deformity, who thinks that naturally occurring
exposure is lacking.) Two herpetologists, from parasites and cannibalism among tadpoles are
Stanford and the Smithsonian Institution, most likely the main culprits, complains that
wrote in the journal Froglog that “what fund- the information presented to Babbitt was
ing is available tends to be directed toward the biased in the direction of scary man-caused
most high-profile factors, regardless of explanations.
whether or not they are the most likely The feds are pulling out the whole panoply
causative agencies.” And when government of modern devices to create a scare about this
bureaucrats pay the scientific piper, the issue. They set up a Web site and created a
bureaucrats call the tune—and they tend to cute mascot to encourage children of all ages
love the sweet sound of more regulation. to get scared and get active—and, perhaps
Thus, while even such potential causes as coincidentally, to become a public constituen-
chytrid fungus might have man to blame, in cy for more federal money on matters
the sense that herpetologists themselves amphibian.
might be spreading the fungus cross- Captain Ribbitt, a cartoon frog in a space-
continent, advising scientists to wash their suit presented as “Earth’s Ambassador from
boots more carefully just doesn’t pack the reg- the Planet Amphibian” tells “earthlings” that
ulatory punch of stopping UV radiation or they “must join Frog Force now, get involved


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

50 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY © JULY 1999

in finding the cause, and become a friend cycles, function as a sort of canary-in-the-
to frogs everywhere.” Some amphibian scien- coal-mine early warning system for the bio-
tists shudder at the thought of thousands of sphere. But herpetologists Joseph H. K. Pech-
eager kids recruited by this cartoon comman- mann and Henry M. Wilbur, writing in the
do tromping heedlessly through the habitat of academic journal Herpetologica, write that
possibly endangered frogs, but you can’t get “we are not aware of any evidence available to
a good environmental scare story rolling substantiate it. The toxicological literature
without starting a Children’s Crusade. One does not support a general statement that
wonders how much of last year’s frog bud- amphibians are a relatively sensitive group.”
get—your tax dollars at work—went to But because that idea, false as it may be, is
cutesy absurdities such as this. widespread, the frog problem could be anoth-
When Babbitt first heard about the frog er global warming in the making—media
problem, he told the Washington Post that it hype and government science in alliance to
“illuminated a landscape of potential extinc- condemn industrial society and justify mas-
tion that extends all the way round the world.” sive government intervention—on question-
This 1s rhetoric of the sort that herpetologists able evidence.
don’t necessarily agree with. The govern- In federal terms, $9 million makes for a
ment’s and media’s panic over frog disappear- mere tadpole of a program. But tadpoles
ances is based on the oft-repeated rhetorical become frogs. And little government pro-
notion that frogs, because of their permeable grams have been known to metamorphose
skin and water-based and land-based life into regulatory monsters. []

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

FREEMAN

deas On Libert

Noah Smithwick: Pioneer Texan
and Monetary Critic

by Joseph R. Stromberg

I 1931 F. A. Hayek wrote that although the New Orleans. He immediately became the
quantity theory of money as such is an object of resentment on the part of the older,
oversimplification, “it would be one of the established workers for being too productive.
worst things which could befall us if the gen- Cautioned to go slower, he responded, “Our
eral public should ever again cease to believe employer pays me for my time: do I not owe
in the elementary propositions of the quantity him all that I am capable of doing in that
theory.” His point was that the fundamental time?” The other workers’ attitude was that
idea—that any increase in the supply of “‘No sprig of a boy must presume to set the
money will raise commodity prices in gener- pace for us,” and so I was forced to slow down
al—is good enough to guide the voting and dnft with the tide. This was Labour
publics of Western nations, even if the unal- Unionism in its incipiency.”
loyed quantity theory lacks important Austri- Smithwick, born in 1808 in North Carolina,
an insights into the behavior of relative prices. went on to Texas—then part of Mexico—as
If only the voters understood even that much soon as he could save enough money in New
today! Orleans. He lived through the tumultuous
The lively and colorful memoirs of Noah days of the Texan Revolution, the Texas
Smithwick, nonagenarian, ex-North Carolin- Republic, the Mexican-American War, and
ian, early Texas pioneer, and eventual Cali- the secession crisis of 1861. At that time, the
fornian, take us back to a time when Ameri- “integral nationalism” that he shared with
cans could grasp essential truths about the Governor Sam Houston led him to leave Texas
nature of money. His book, The Evolution of for the more favorable climate of California,
a State or Recollections of Old Texas Days, where he remained. His eyesight failing him,
reflects the original value system of the he dictated his recollections to his daughter in
mobile and ambitious Americans of the early 1899. Smithwick died the next year.
nineteenth century. Sometime in 1827 Smith-
wick set off down the Mississippi River on his Willin gness to Work
way to Texas. Owing to some complication
arising on the riverboat, he lost his grubstake Noah Smithwick’s life may well stand as an
and had to take a temporary job as a “mechan- example of what is rapidly disappearing from
ic” or “finisher” in an industrial concern in the American character. Willing to work hard
and with a natural mechanical ability, he tried
Joseph Stromberg is a part-time college lecturer in ume rous enterprises: blacksmith, gunsmith,
history who has contributed to the Journal of Liber- soldier, mill owner, critic of land fraud (per-

tarian Studies, Reason, Independent Review, and haps the first big “industry” in Texas), inde-
other publications. pendent inventor of the circular saw, and

51


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

52 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY e JULY 1999

diplomat. (He negotiated an Indian treaty,
promptly violated by both sides.) He would
undertake any kind of honest work, which
probably explains why he was never much of
a politician.

As an active and ambitious pioneer, Smith-
wick calls to mind the “venturesome conserv-
atives” of the Jacksonian period (to use Mar-
vin Meyer’s phrase). A canny observer of, and
participant in, the economic life of early
(Anglo) Texas, he makes sharp comments on
many of its aspects. Alongside his interesting
passages on ethnic and cultural groups he
came to know of (Mexicans, Indians, blacks,
Germans, and Mormons), some of his best
material and most amusing stories focus on
the nature of money.

Smithwick describes the crisis caused in
the Texas Republic by the government's issue
of inflationary “scrip” (a sort of constant with
new regimes). In a textbook demonstration of x
Gresham's Law, coin (that is, real money) dis- Noah Smithwick
appeared. He recalls: “I received a hatful of
new, crisp, one-dollar bills in payment for a
horse lost in the San Saba Indian fight, which 1831 he ran afoul of the law in San Felipe.
I immediately turned over to a creditor [!], Texas was still part of Mexico, and Smithwick
without ever having folded them. People thought it best to shove off to the Redlands,
would almost rather have anything else than which bordered on the American state of
the commonwealth paper.” Louisiana. There he came to know the local

In Travis County, people came up with an counterfeiter, on whose premises he worked,
alternative: “Under those circumstances, we although he never took part himself in the
established a currency of our own, a kind of counterfeiting portion of “John Doe’s” busi-
banking system as it were, which though ness. Doe’s product was a copper-sandwich
unauthorized by law, met the local require- version of the Mexican silver dollar, calling
ments. Horses were generally considered vividly to mind the “Lyndon Johnson” dimes
legal tender: but owing to the constant drain and quarters introduced sometime in the mid-
on the public treasury by the horse-loving 1960s.

Indian, that kind of currency became scarce, Smithwick says of Doe: “There was noth-
so we settled on the cow as the least liable to ing of the desperado about him. On the con-
fluctuation.” Private bills were written against trary, he was pleasant and peaceable and gen-
cows (valued at $10 per animal in real erally liked, and, so far from being looked
money). The system apparently worked well upon as a malefactor, was considered a public
enough as long as it was needed. (Yearlings benefactor, in that he furnished the only cur-

were also used as a medium of exchange.) rency to which the people had access. The

country could not be said to be on either a

Meet “John Doe” gold or silver basis, copper being the basis of
Doe’s coinage. . . .”

An even better example of Smithwick’s Doe would occasionally call in his worn

empirical Texan monetary views is found in sandwich dollars and restamp them with a
his discussion of counterfeiting in the Red- veneer of silver. He made doubloons as well.
lands just before Texan independence. In Clearly in touch with the policy debates of his



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

NoAH SMITHWICK: PIONEER TEXAN AND MONETARY CRITIC 53

last years, Smithwick remarks: “Doe’s curren- colonies . . . by restamping the old ham-
cy furnishes a good example of the practical mered dollars, a single blow of the hammer
working of the populist idea: it was all right in adding 25 cents to the value of each. There
domestic transactions, but when they attempt- were thousands of them thus rehabilitated.”
ed to discharge foreign [that is, non-East (There was apparently no debasing with
Texan] obligations with it, it got them into copper in this operation.) Doe was finally
trouble.” put out of business by counterfeiters in
Doe did not do well when he extended his Louisiana, who printed up fake U.S. bank-
operations into western Louisiana. On one notes and floated them in East Texas. Smith-
occasion, however, he won a sizeable bet by wick observes: “Paper and ink being cheap-
stamping a pure silver coin with the same er even than copper, Doe’s currency was
cracked die he used for his copper-sandwich given the go-by.” Copper, after all, was fair-
coins and sending a crony into a saloon to ly valuable and Doe, at one time, had to
spend it. A skeptical bartender announced that break up a still to keep his copper-sandwich
the coin was clearly counterfeit, but put to the undertaking going.
test, this coin of course proved to be unadul- Smithwick’s experience with the counter-
terated silver. (Doe won $500 on the bet.) feiter suggests a corollary to Gresham’ Law:
With this windfall, Doe removed himself west worse money drives out merely bad money. It
of the Sabine River, where, as Smithwick puts is refreshing to read the memoirs of a pioneer

it, “his efforts were more appreciated.” who could grasp an essential point about the

As a moneysmith, says Smithwick, Doe nature of money and use it to cast light on his
“added materially to the wealth of the times. OJ
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===== PAGE 54 =====

Economics on Trial by Mark Skousen
THE

FREEMA

Jury 1999

Dismal Scientists Score
Another Win

“Until a business returns a profit that is greater than its cost

of capital, it operates at a loss.”
—PETER F. DRUCKER

he English essayist (and economist) Wal- ~ Are Accounting Profits
ter Bagehot once remarked, “No real for Real?

Englishman in his secret soul was ever sorry
for the death of an economist.” For years, economists have complained that
Quite a few security analysts and fund man- conventional accounting distorts the true eco-
agers on American shores probably feel that nomics of the firm by not including a charge
way about the economists who came up with for common equity in its earnings reports and
the efficient market hypothesis and proved balance sheets. Generally accepted account-
that 95 percent of professionals can’t beat a ing principles treat equity as if it were free.
blindfolded monkey in picking stocks. Highly Thus, publicly traded corporations release
paid Wall Street analysts don’t like being quarterly reports showing substantial earnings
compared to sightless apes. Yet after decades that in fact are losses. “True profits don’t
of heated exchange between Wall Street and begin until corporations have covered a nor-
academia, the eggheads are winning the argu- mal return on investment,” declares Al
ment. Today index funds—the professors’ Ehrbar, senior vice president of consultants
favorite investment vehicle—are the fastest Stern Stewart & Co., specialists in EVA—a
growing sector on Wall Street. new performance technique for business.!
The latest group to sympathize with the What is EVA? It stands for “economic
words of Walter Bagehot are the accountants. value added” (also called economic profit or
Over the past decade, ivory-tower economists residual income). Essentially, EVA is a pre-
(mainly professors teaching modern finance cise measurement of the opportunity cost of
theory at MBA schools) have taken on the capital. For years, opportunity cost was a neb-
accounting departments, damning them for ulous concept known only to professors. The
not taking into account the full opportunity term, coined by Austrian economist Friedrich
cost of capital. Wieser in the early twentieth century, refers to
the universal principle that all human action
_ involves giving up other opportunities. When
Mark Skousen (http://www.mskousen.com; mskousen yo) invest in a stock, lend money, or create a
@aol.com) is an economist at Rollins College, . .
Department of Economics, Winter Park, FL 32789, new product, you give up the chance to invest

a Forbes columnist, and editor of Forecasts & e€lsewhere. If you invest in a high-flying com-
Strategies. puter stock, you can’t buy T-bills. If you build

54



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

55

a new office building, your money is tied up ing Coca-Cola, Eli Lilly, and Sprint, use EVA
for years in concrete and can’t be invested in as a capital accountability tool to reinforce the
AT&T. idea that profits don’t begin until corporations
EVA is a practical application of classical have covered their normal return. Wall Street
economics and modern finance theory. The analysts at Goldman Sachs and First Boston,
Austrians elucidated the concept of opportu- among others, use EVA to evaluate stocks.
nity cost, and Nobel laureates Merton H. According to Ehrbar, EVA explains stock per-
Miller and Franco Modigliani used it in their formance and market value better than any
model of the firm to determine its true value. other accounting measure, including return on
In the 1980s, G. Bennett Stewart III created equity, cash flow, earnings per share, or sales.
EVA as a financial yardstick to measure EVA makes company officers focus more
opportunity costs in business. clearly on creating shareholder value and a
EVA is fairly simple to determine: it is higher stock price. Stern Stewart issues an
after-tax operating profits minus the appropri- annual EVA report on the top 1,000 U.S. cor-
ate capital charge for both debt and equity. If porations. For several years now, Intel has had
a company issues debt, the opportunity cost is the highest EVA ranking and GM the lowest.
linked to the Treasury rate (currently 5-6 per-
cent), plus the credit risk of the issuer. If the EVA Wins the Battle
company issues stock, the opportunity cost is
measured by the long-term annualized return Accountants still have a dominant grip on
on the stock market, approximately 12 per- the way corporate financial statements are
cent. In short, EVA recognizes that investors submitted, but the popularity of EVA has
must earn enough to compensate for risk of forced them to take notice. All five accounting
their investment capital. firms offer an EVA-type statistic to their
If a firm earns more than these opportunity clients. Most accounting textbooks now
costs, it has “added value” to its shareholders include a significant section on economic
and created wealth in the world economy. value added, economic profit, or residual
Hence, the phrase “economic value added.” If income. Previous editions did not mention
EVA is positive, shareholders and the econo- EVA or opportunity cost.
my are making real contributions to the bot- Want more? Check out Al Ehrbar’s highly
tom line. Otherwise, the business should shut readable EVA or John Kay’s brilliant Why
down and invest shareholders’ funds in Trea- Firms Succeed. See also www.eva.com.
suries or an index fund. As British economist I like EVA. Companies adopting it appear
John Kay declares, “In the long run, firms that to perform better in creating wealth and
fail to add value in a competitive market will shareholder value. But it may have potential
not survive, nor do they deserve to0.”2 drawbacks. EVA puts enormous pressure on
Okay, so what good is EVA to corporate managers to overachieve and to create con-
managers? EVA analysis helps identify poten- stant above-average profit centers. Imagine
tial acquisitions, expansion plans, and non- not earning a true profit unless your company
performing assets and assists in eliminating or division beats last year’s Dow Jones Indus-
low-profit-margin operations that are clearly trial Average. It could be depressing. Wonder
unprofitable when full costs are taken into what your company’s EVA will look like in
account. EVA is also being used as an incen- the next recession? Heads could roll

tive system for managers and employees. Some managers may want to join Wall
Bonuses are linked to economic earnings, not Street analysts and accountants in shooting
just accounting earnings, and EVA has proven those dismal scientists. OJ
effective in boosting productivity.

EVA makes a lot of sense and has made sig- 1. Al Ehrbar, EVA: The Real Key to Creating Wealth (New York:

+ ps . . . . John Wiley & Sons, 1998), p. viii.
nificant inroads into the financial world. 2. John Kay, Why Firms Succeed (New York: Oxford University

Already over 300 major corporations, includ- Press, 1995), p. 19.


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

56
Payne not only shows that expectant giving
can work, but also cites much evidence that
it has worked. Britains unjustly maligned
Reform Act of 1834 actually was a rare gov-

Overcoming Welfare: Expecting ernmental effort to replace sympathetic giv-

More from the Poor and Ourselves ing (home relief) with expectant giving (the
workhouse). Even more important were the

by James L. Payne “charity theorists”—most notably Octavia
Basic Books ® 1998 © 243 pages © $26.50 Hill—who not only preached the virtues of
expectant giving, but also practiced them. By
treating the poor as responsible people with
problems to overcome, Hill and her fellow
hen free-market advocates criticize poverty fighters were able to elicit construc-
welfare they are commonly accused of tive responses from them, turning many of the
having nothing to put in its place. James indigent into productive members of society.
Payne meets this objection head-on in Over- Payne’s analysis of how we moved from the
coming Welfare by making a crucial distinc- sound expectant approach to the bankrupt
tion between “sympathetic giving” and sympathetic approach is equally interesting.
“expectant giving.” In so doing, he provides He implicates many factors, most important
an alternative that is consistent with free-mar- the spread of the idea that income redistribu-
ket principles and keeps defenders of the sta- tion is an appropriate function of government.
tus quo from occupying the moral high Once government programs were in place,
ground. whatever lip service was paid to expectant
~ Sympathetic giving means giving out of giving was always superseded in practice with
pity and seeking nothing in return from the government handouts. The political incentives
recipient. It characterizes all twentieth- that virtually guarantee this result are well-
century government “anti-poverty” programs. charted territory in the public choice litera-
Payne echoes the views of numerous scholars ture, but Payne presents them with great clar-
that those programs not only fail to reduce ity and force.
poverty (indeed, by rewarding irresponsible He also blames the elite classes’ acceptance
behavior, they generate more), but also lead to of moral relativism (the notion that no choice
resentment on the part of givers, receivers, or lifestyle should be judged as any better or
and intermediaries alike. worse than any other) and what I call infantile
Expectant giving means that the giver leftism (that no act, however irresponsible,
expects that the receiver will give something should have any negative consequences for the
back. The quid pro quo, however, is usually actor). Both ideas have exacerbated the prob-
not something that directly benefits the donor. lems inherent in government programs and
What the recipient most often “contributes” is infected many privately funded efforts as well.
some action that will eventually lead him to It is usually easier to diagnose problems
overcome his state of need. than to propose solutions, and this book’s less
It is the demand of something in return that convincing sections are those offering political
makes expectant giving superior to its alterna- escapes from our welfare trap. Payne suggests
tive. The specific demand—whether swearing attaching a taxpayer representative to each
off drugs, keeping a curfew, or rendering welfare program to expose the flaws in it.
some useful service—is less important than (Admittedly, he does not consider this to be a
that the act symbolizes that the recipient is panacea.) This is a worthwhile objective, but it
ultimately responsible for himself. Thats a is hard to imagine that legislators would
heretical idea in an age when everyone is appoint people who would take on the task
encouraged to label himself a victim to whom with the requisite seriousness. Besides, the
society owes a living. But it’s an idea that flaws in our welfare system have already been
must be revived. exposed for all who care to inform themselves.

Reviewed by Robert Batemarco



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

Books 57

Another imperfection in the book is that, as because he supposedly did “nothing.” (See the
important as the distinction between sympa- review in The Freeman, March 1999.) That’s
thetic and expectant giving is, there is a paral- the ultimate source of the discontent regard-
lel distinction the author fails to make. Thatis ing Coolidge—he actually accomplished
the distinction between self-esteem and self- much, but not the government activism
respect. The former refers to feeling good desired by so-called liberal observers.
about oneself, regardless of whether those During the Coolidge administration federal
feelings are merited. The latter, on the other expenditures fell from $5.06 billion in 1921
hand, must be earned. Self-esteem is (under President Warren Harding) to $3.12
bestowed on a something-for-nothing (sym- billion in 1929. Along the way, Coolidge
pathetic) basis, while self-respect results from stopped various government boondoggles,
constructive effort to better oneself. Payne most prominently the McNary-Haugen bill,
uses the term “self-esteem” exclusively, when which would have had the federal government
“self-respect” is often what he really means. ~~ buy up farm surpluses to sell abroad and hike

Those qualifications aside, Overcoming prices domestically. The federal debt fell by
Welfare is an outstanding book. In writing it, 30 percent between 1921 and 1929.

James Payne has made a valuable contribu- At the same time, tax rates were slashed.
tion to the debate over welfare policy. [0 The top personal income tax rate dropped

Robert Batemarco is director of analytics at a mar- from 73 percent to 25 percent, and the capital

keting research firm in New York City and teaches gains tax from 73 percent to 12.5 percent.
economics at Marymount College in Tarrytown, New Coolidge got Congress to eliminate the recent-

York. ly imposed gift tax and to reduce the estate tax.
The corporate income tax was also cut.

The consequences of these policies were
Coolidge: An American Enigma positive. Real annual economic growth aver-
by Robert Sobel aged 6.2 percent from 1922 to 1929 and con-
Regnery Publishing ® 1998 © 462 pages ® $34.95 Sumer prices fell.

Coolidge’s record was not perfect. He
favored high tariffs and supported limitations
on immigration, although he fought unsuccess-

The Presidency of Calvin Coolidge

by Robert Ferrell fully against an anti-Japanese provision in the
University Press of Kansas © 1998 © 272 pages Immigration Act of 1924. Initially he opposed
* $29.95 federal relief for the Mississippi flood of 1927,

but eventually relented under massive congres-
sional pressure. Coolidge downsized the relief
plan, but it set an expensive precedent.
ew U.S. presidents have suffered more at Taken as a whole, however, Coolidge’
the hands of statist historians than Calvin record was admirable, and these two new
Coolidge. The reason for the nearly unani- books take major steps toward a far more just
mous scorn directed at the 30th president was historical assessment.
Coolidge’s generally limited government Robert Ferrell’s effort is the more work-
philosophy, which he quietly brandished manlike of the two. He has a formidable grasp
while in the White House. of the period and the key events of the time.
Those historians love to criticize Coolidge Many of his interpretations, however, suggest
because he presided over peace and prosperi- a strong faith in government action. For
ty and had no interest in federal programs to example, Ferrell declares that “something had
“manage” the economy and “solve” social to be done” regarding farmers’ woes during
problems. Recently, for example, Nathan the 1920s—the implication being that govern-
Miller, author of Star-Spangled Men: Ameri- ment had to do something.
cas Ten Worst Presidents, ranked Coolidge Nonetheless, he manages to restrain such
among the worst not for anything he did, but leanings and provides sound historical report-

Reviewed by Raymond J. Keating



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

58 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY ® JULY 1999

ing on Coolidge, his career, and his adminis- corporate-welfare expenditures, his philoso-
tration. Of note, Ferrell observes about phy looks very sound.
Coolidge’s stint as governor of Massachu- My sole complaint with Sobel’s book again
setts: “Crowning his accomplishments as gov- lies with his understanding of economics.
ernor was consolidation of the common- While Sobel gets much of Coolidge’s eco-
wealth’s 118 separate government depart- nomics and its effects right, he asserts that
ments into 18, a courageous thing to do, for Coolidge was “not a ‘supply-sider.” ”
many people lost lucrative posts.” He also However, this statement seems to grow
writes that “Regulation in the Coolidge era from the standard misunderstanding of
was thin to the point of invisibility.” And he supply-side economics. Coolidge, after all,
honestly summarizes Coolidge’s fiscal record: showed a consistent understanding of how
“During the 1920s, the Coolidge administra- high tax rates dulled incentives for working,
tion reduced the debt, kept the budget flat, and investing, and risk taking, and thereby
brought in sufficient revenues through restrained the economy’s productive capacity.
markedly reduced tax rates, both personal and Ferrell and Sobel manage to grasp the com-
corporate.” plete Coolidge. While most historians have
Where Ferrell falls far short is in his offered a caricature of a president completely
understanding of economics. He breaks into beholden to business interests, both authors
Keynesian rhetoric, for example, in declaring understand that at Coolidge’s core were his
that Coolidge failed to see the problem of religious beliefs. As Sobel points out, during
“underconsumption.” Based on this Keyne- the same speech in which Coolidge noted in
sian model, Ferrell concludes: “The economy passing that the “chief business of the Ameri-
was the greatest problem of the moment, and can people is business,” he also declared:
Coolidge understood it less than some of his “The things of the spirit come first.”
contemporaries. If he failed in the presidency, In another speech, Coolidge sagaciously
this was the major failure.” In reality, aside observed: “Prosperity is only an instrument to
from his failure to understand the benefits of be used, not a deity to be worshiped.”
free trade, Coolidge may have had the best Despite certain weaknesses in both books,
grasp of how the economy works among all they go far toward setting straight the histori-
twentieth-century presidents. cal record on Calvin Coolidge. OJ

Robert Sobel’s book is a highly readable Raymond J. Keating is chief economist for the

popular biography. It is largely based on sec- smal Business Survival Committee, a columnist with
ondary sources, but the author’s interpreta- Newsday, and a contributing editor to The Freeman.

tions are fresh.
Among the many interesting issues Sobel
touches on is Coolidge’s request “for legisla-
ipalities to issue tax-exempt securities, argu- ery is
ing that new investment fonneled into these by William H. A. Williams
securities could be better employed in the pri- TWayne Publishers ® 1998 ¢ 195 pages ® $35.00
vate sector.” Coolidge’s argument holds even
greater validity today, given the tremendous
waste that has been financed by such instru-
ments over the past seven decades. enry Louis Mencken is known to many
Sobel also reports that Coolidge believed lovers of freedom as a sharp-tongued
that “government should remain out of the satirist who lampooned politicians, crusading
economy, and businessmen should not inter- moralists, overstuffed intellectuals, and any-
fere with the proper functions of govern- one else he thought was a public menace. He
ment.” Again, given today’s convoluted tax is well appreciated for his acidic barbs (FDR,
system, web-like regulatory regime, cam- for example, was “King Roosevelt II”’), but
paign-finance controversies, and extensive most people who think well of Mencken do so

Reviewed by George C. Leef



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

Books 59

just because he disliked big government and self-serving attempts to manipulate the
its champions. Not many are familiar with his  “booboisie” for their own gain. For instance,
life and career as a journalist. he denounced Woodrow Wilson's last attorney
William H. A. Williams’s H. L. Mencken general, A. Mitchell Palmer, for his “medieval
Revisited admirably supplies the details of attempts to get into the White House by
Mencken’s life and career. The book is not a pumping up the Bolshevik issue.”
detailed biography, but covers the main fea- Many people at the time, and perhaps to this
tures of the great Baltimorean’s life, with the day, regarded the incessantly satirical Menck-
primary focus on his thought, writings, and en as simply a nihilist. Williams argues other-
battles with the many people he believed were wise: “Beneath the surface of his satire,
ruining the United States. Mencken was a very different figure from the
One of Mencken’s virtues was his consis- cynical nihilist depicted by so many of his crit-
tency. He was a man of principle, and ics. He never denied the importance of values
Williams’s book makes this very clear. or their necessity in society. He never sought
Williams often refers to Mencken's “libertari- to destroy those values in which he believed.
anism” and quotes him as saying, “My liter- He did attack, sometimes ignorantly and intol-
ary theory, like my politics, is based chiefly erantly, ideals that seemed to him hypocritical
upon one idea, to wit, the idea of freedom. I or false. Even then, he usually produced his
am, in brief, a libertarian of the most extreme condemnation by juxtaposing the qualities he
variety, and can imagine no human right that admired against those he rejected. . . . He was
is half as valuable as the simple right to pur- in his own way a moralist, angrily decrying the
sue the truth at discretion and utter it when erosion of those values necessary to a humane
found.” Instances of his commitment to the and civilized society.”
philosophy abound in the book. Williams also defends Mencken against
For example, he vigorously opposed all other attacks by leftists who feel compelled
attempts to silence free speech, even for those to besmirch the name of anyone who dis-
with whom he was in complete disagreement. agrees with them. Mencken died in 1956, but
During the Red Scare of the 1920s, he not in recent years he has been subjected to
only wrote to condemn the arrest and depor- charges of racism and anti-Semitism. The
tation of anarchist Emma Goldman, but also “racist label is based on nothing more than
tried to get the Justice Department to return snippets of Mencken’s colorful writing and
her papers seized in a raid on the office of her hardly squares with a man who helped many
magazine and urged the Bureau of Immigra- black authors, had black friends, testified in
tion to allow her to return to the United States favor of an anti-lynching bill, and repeatedly
to visit relatives. He even contributed money slammed the Ku Klux Klan” As to alleged
to the Emma Goldman Recovery Committee. anti-Semitism, Williams quotes Sheldon
Why worry about the treatment of a leftist Richman’s observation that Mencken never
radical? Because, Mencken knew, preserva- blamed Jews for anything. Moreover, he had
tion of the marketplace of ideas supersedes numerous Jewish friends, and denounced the
disagreement with particular ideas. Williams Roosevelt administration’s policy of refusing
writes, “Mencken belonged to no political admittance to Jews seeking to flee Germany,
organizations, and he invariably had little condemning “political mountebanks who fill
sympathy for the liberal or radical goals of the air with hollow denunciations of Hitler,
those he defended. He was motivated by lib- and yet never lift a hand to help an actual
ertarian principles and basic human sympa- Jew.”
thy.” Mencken thought little of most politi- If you are among that group of people who
cians. He subscribed to the belief that “public are fond of H.L. Mencken’s flamboyant writ-
officials, under democracy, were predomi- ing but know little about the man, this is a
nantly frauds, and hence did not deserve to be book you would do well to acquire. ]
taken seriously.”
He blasted most for what he saw to be their George Leef is book review editor of The Freeman.



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

60 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY ¢ JULY 1999

Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics ] Yet PJ's Chinese escort could brag in the
ace of this monumental office real-estate

by P. J. O’Rourke glut, rolling his eyes slightly: “The floor space
Atlantic Monthly Press ® 1998 ® 265 pages ® $24.00 of high-rises in Pudong exceeds New York
: — City” That was in 1997. Office space in
Reviewed by William H. Peterson Pudong was set to grow by a third more in
1998. The Chinese communists, according to

at the rich. Why not? Everyone knows the Asian Wall Street Journal, had literally
that they're responsible for the poverty of ordered Shanghai to be a world-class city—
victimized masses. To their rescue comes apparently regardless of cost. The beneficia-
Compassionate Government selflessly trans- ries? Certainly not the poor Chinese peasant.

ferring wealth from the rich to the poor. The O'Rourke, a roving editor for Rolling Stone,
transfer, however, comes at a steep price to has covered such official misdeeds in previous
society in terms of disincentives to the rich (as books such as Give War a Chance and Parlia-
well as the middle class) but more so to the ment of Whores (in which he held that the whores
poor whose plight is compounded by the law include anyone who is on the take from the wel-
of unintended consequences. The poor, you fare state). His winking cynicism and irreverence
see, get to be truly victimized by the “com- can lift a reader’ sense of gloom, on surveying
passion” of their own government. political shenanigans at home and abroad, nto
This is the theme that P. J. O’Rourke plays, laughter at the follies of government. Often, a
grandly, in this lighthearted work with the good horselaugh is a more effective refutation of
tongue-in-cheek subtitle of “A Treatise on Statist pomposities than a lengthy article, and PJ.
Economics.” Economics then is taught via lampoons with a Menckenesque verve.
numerous examples of official mismanage- Continuing his economics lessons, PJ. plugs
ment and unscrupulousness. Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand idea, quoting the

One of the foremost lessons concerns the famous passage: “It is not from the benevo-
consequences of living under the rule of men lence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker,

rather than the rule of law. The rule of men, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard
says our hardy world traveler, is the pits. to their own interest” He rejects the cliché that
O’Rourke wittily cites his experiences in if free societies the rich get richer and the poor
Albania, Sweden, Cuba, Russia, Tanzania, 8¢t poorer. He amends that line with a punch
China, and elsewhere to make his point. line: “The rich are getting richer. The poor are

There, men in power seem bent on building 8etting richer. And we're all getting older.”
monuments to themselves—funded mainly With anecdotes and humor he demonstrates

that economic liberty makes for the creation
by, naturally, the poor. )
One such monument is seen in Shanghai’s Of Wealth and that economic repression makes

giant new gleaming Pudong business district. for poverty. Thousands of people who would
The only catch: no business, even though the otherwise shun a conventional treatise on eco-
place boasts of regional headquarters for the nomics may learn the fundamentals of human
likes of Hewlett-Packard, Siemens, Sharp, action from this unconventional one.

Coca-Cola, SmithKline Beecham, and Sony. Lastly, PJ. finds economic virtue in the
O’Rourke writes: Tenth Commandment condemning covetous-

ness. He says that if you want a donkey or a
Nobody seemed to be there at all. In the pot roast or a cleaning lady every week,
middle of a Tuesday afternoon, nothing was “don’t bitch about what the people across the
going on. We drove up and down empty street have. Go get your own.”
streets along concrete fences decorated with Great message. Ol
those int ross-out si tt
:ndicati ernational ¢ c hn silhoue N S William Peterson is an adjunct scholar at the Her-
indicating profubition of this or that. INo itage Foundation in Washington and Distinguished

spitting. No martial arts. No cutting trees. Lundy Professor Emeritus of Business Philosophy at
No firecrackers. No breaking the phone. Campbell University in North Carolina.



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

Books 61

hurt me.” When we tell children this, we know

Cyber Rights: Defending Free Speech in that the reason some people want to restrict

the Digital Age certain kinds of speech is precisely because
by Mike Godwin words can hurt. But just as children must
Times Books ® 1998 305 pages ® $27.50 learn to rise above adversity and learn to cope
with the power of words, so must adults—
Reviewed by Royce Van Tassell even when the words hurt or offend.

Cyber Rights is not without its flaws. God-
n June 26, 1995, Time magazine started win makes the claim that libel law may be
the “Great Cyberporn Panic of 1995” coming to an end, but it is rather difficult to
with a story legitimizing Martin Rimm’ take that seriously. Furthermore, his passion
scaremongering study of pornography online. for the Net sometimes colors his judgment.
Three weeks later, after Mike Godwin and He states at one point that, “the Net [is] reduc-
others in the online community had complete- 10g and perhaps erasing the imbalance of
ly discredited Rimm’s study, Time realized POWer between mass media and private indi-
that Rimm had duped them and issued what Viduals. The power of the Net allows anyone
amounts to the only full-page retraction in its With a will and the energy to write the oppor-
70-year history. tunity to publish their ideas.” While the sec-
In his book Cyber Rights, Mike Godwin, ond half of that statement is true, I am not
chief counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foun- convinced of the first. Earning a voice in pub-
dation, uses that and other cases to show how lic discourse comparable to the current posi-
important full free speech rights on the Net tion of, Say, the New York Times or Tom
are. Without them, Godwin maintains, the Net Brokaw is as much a product of luck as it is of
could not help the rest of America hold the effort or knowledge.
mainstream press accountable and facilitate ~~ Godwin’s writing is for the most part clear
the vigorous, uninhibited exchange of ideas and succinct. He distills the legalese of speech
we find there. This book is a passionate argu- law into simple prose, and then illustrates the
ment that speech in cyberspace must enjoy the application and importance of those princi-
same protection as “ink on dead trees.” ples in cyberspace with well-told stories. On
Godwin believes that the Net represents the ~ ©ccasion, his transition between the explana-
most complete extension of the American tion of a principle and the ensuing illustration
experiment in democracy. It permits every- Jarred me, but it was not difficult to pick up
one, “not just lawyers or journalists or policy- the trail agam.
makers, or the rich and well-connected . . . to Cyber Rights is an enjoyable and Impor-
level the playing field, to hold media and tant book. For lawyers conversant in First
political institutions accountable, and to tell Amendment law, Godwin dispels some of
the truth.” It makes everyone with a computer the preconceptions that have led many of
and a modem a modern “pamphleteer” Any- them to segregate speech on the Net from
one who recently logged onto the seattle.gen- Speech in the traditional media. For legisla-
eral newsgroup saw how vibrant the discus- tors and policymakers, it is an excellent
sion of racial preferences and affirmative Primer on why they must not rashly alter the
action can be, as opposed to the staid, often rules of speech in new media. Lastly, God-
redundant discourse found in the traditional Win helps the average citizen understand
media. Without the Net’s anonymity, such how the Net can improve society and per-

frankness would never have emerged. haps re-establish some of the community
Freedom of speech must be more than a lost in our increasingly distant society—if it
notion to which we sometimes pay lip service. 18 left free. Ol

Godwin tells adults to releam a lesson we've Royce Van Tassell is an analyst with Citygate Asso-
all tried to teach children: “Sticks and stones  cigres, a policy and management consulting firm in
may break my bones, but words will never Sacramento, California.


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

LEVIATHAN
at WAR

“Many men desire peace; but not many desire
the things that make for peace.”
- Thomas a Kempis

This issue's special section on the war in the Balkans falls squarely within FEE’s
53-year tradition of exploring the ideas that make for freedom and peace. As
Leonard E. Read, FEE’s founder and longtime president, once explained: “War is
liberty’s greatest enemy, and the deadly foe of economic progress. If war be evil
there must be a way to avoid it; there must be a rationale, a type of thinking,
patterns for living, that lead to peace.”

In 1995, FEE published Leviathan at War, an anthology of articles from The
Freeman and other FEE releases. Edited by Edmund A. Opitz, Leviathan at War
includes more than 20 essays on the causes and economics of war, free trade as
a foundation for peace, war's effect on individual liberty, and related topics.

What makes Leviathan at War such a valuable collection?

* Leonard Read’s classic “Conscience on the Battlefield,” penned during the
Korean War to debunk the popular notion of war “as a means to peace among
nations”

¢ Daniel Webster and B.H. Liddell Hart's historic essays on conscription, along
with Dean Russell's “The Conscription Idea,” written in 1953

e Essays by Ludwig von Mises, Ayn Rand, Hans Sennholz, Samuel H. Husbands,
and Edmund A. Opitz, along with fresh ideas from a younger generation of writers

¢ “The War Prayer” by Mark Twain

192 pages, indexed, paperback
Specially priced this month: $10.95, postpaid
(8 copies to a single address: $25.95, postpaid)

To order, call 800-452-3518, or fax 914-591-8910. Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and
Discover orders welcomed. Or send your check or money order to: FEE, 30 S. Broadway,
Irvington-on-Hudson, NY 10533. Offer ends August 31, 1999.


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

The Pursuit of Happiness by Walter E. Williams

Ignorance Is Bliss—Maybe

NN having experienced much of the past is the inanimate object, while incapable of act-
a mixed blessing. Whats grotesque, ing, that is responsible. That is, a gun is
shocking, and unheard of to older Americans responsible for murder, not the gun’s user. A
might seem normal, perhaps just a bit curious, cigarette is responsible for a fire, not the care-
to younger Americans. For example, last year less smoker. That being the case, it “logically”
New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial brought suit follows that manufacturers of the offending
against gun manufacturers to recover carnage inanimate object are culpable. After all, had
costs in his city. This January, Philadelphia the manufacturer not produced the gun or
Mayor Ed Rendell met with his advisers to cigarette there would be fewer homicides,
consider whether the city should sue gun man- smoking-related illnesses, and fires caused by
ufacturers for creating a public nuisance since careless smoking.
guns were used in its 400-plus homicides. The
city would seek to recover the cost of every- «yg i)
thing from cleanup after bloody murders to It’s Not My Fault
court and social workers for victims. Mayor This it’s-not-my-fault principle can be
Rendell’s imagination has also led him to dis- broadened to include just about anything. If a
cover a new liability for tobacco companies: scantily clad young lady prancing along the
since some of Philadelphia’s fires have careless street distracts my attention, and I have an
smoking as their origin, why not sue tobacco automobile collision, the it’s-not-my-fault
companies to recover the city’s fire losses? principle would hold the young lady liable for
Decades ago anyone suggesting bringing my accident. But she might make the case that
lawsuits against gun manufacturers for homi- it is the manufacturer of her miniskirt who is
cides, or tobacco companies for fires caused really liable. If we Americans were to carry
by careless smoking would have been consid- the it’s-not-my-fault principle to its logical
ered a prime candidate for a lunatic asylum. If conclusion, we would virtually guarantee
one generalizes from the lawsuits brought poverty. There would be little production.
against gun manufacturers because people use Why should I manufacture irons if I could be
their product to commit murder and mayhem, held liable for anything a person might do
and against tobacco companies for smoking with the iron, including assault or leaving the
illnesses and fires caused by careless smok- iron unattended and thereby causing a fire.
ing, one would conclude that people are not to Suppose by some miracle a person who
be held responsible for anything they do. Itis died as recently as 1950 were to come back to

Walter Williams is the John M. Olin Distinguished "it, 1092y’s America. How might we expla

Professor of Economics and chairman of the eco- all this to him? At first blush we might tell
nomics department at George Mason University in him that Americans and their leaders have

Fairfax, Virginia. taken complete leave of their senses and wish
63


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64 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY ® JULY 1999

to abandon all notions of personal responsi- Michael Jacobson, CSPI’s director, also
bility. But there is a more flattering explana- thinks Mexican and Chinese restaurants offer
tion though nonetheless still troubling: Amer- servings much too large and says, “It’s high
icans simply want other people’s money, and time the [restaurant] industry begins to bear
the courts and the legislature have provided some responsibility for its contribution to
them with a mechanism for getting it. I do not obesity, heart disease and cancer.”
believe we have reached a point where the
courts would countenance legislatures’ Got Milk?
brazenly picking out a corporation and say-
ing, “You look as if you have a lot of money; Since obesity impacts heavily on health-
give it to us.” Thus, we have to create an aura care costs, why not bring lawsuits against the
of legitimacy to extortion. We do it with pro- food industry like those against the tobacco
paganda impugning the company’s moral industry? Yale University’s Professor Kelley
character and with bogus science. Health and D. Brownell, director of the Center for Eating
professed concern about the nation’s children and Weight Disorders, proposes that foods
have been two successful strategies. After all, high in fat or with little nutritional content be
who can be against health and the welfare of taxed. He recommends that the tax proceeds
America’s children? be used to build bike and hiking trails. He
Where it all ends is difficult to predict but also says that since the average child sees
there are some signs on the horizon. “Caffeine 10,000 food commercials each year, 95 per-
is the new drug of choice among kids,” warns cent of them for junk food and sugared cere-
Helen Cordes writing in The Nation magazine als, Congress ought to regulate junk-food
(April 27, 1998), adding, “Caffeine Inc. [soda commercials. The cigarette tyrants got “Joe
manufacturers] is raking it in, often targeting Camel” advertisements banned. Why not go
teens and younger kids. . . . The major caf- after Rice Krispies’ “Snap, Crackle, and
feine suppliers to kids have been throwing Pop”?
millions into advertising and give-aways.” In New York City, Anti-Dairy Coalition
The Center for Science in the Public Interest Executive Director Robert Cohen, author of
(CSPI) agrees and wants the FDA to regulate the book Milk: The Deadly Poison, says that
caffeine content of soda, coffee, tea, and “Milk products, like tobacco, are an enor-
chocolate. Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins mous threat to the health of both children and
University is also concerned about coffee’s adults, yet we see the dairy industry protected
addictive qualities and says, “If health risks by constitutionally questionable laws while
are well-documented, caffeine could be cata- the tobacco industry is held accountable.”
pulted in public perception from a pleasant If there is a blessing to being at an age
habit to a possibly harmful drug of abuse.” when one contemplates the arrival of the grim
That vision, along with bogus science, might reaper, it is the knowledge that one will not
become justification for lawsuits and FDA be around to witness the end of sanity in
regulation. America. 0