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NOTE Foreword

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Defending the Undefendable, The Pimp, Prostitute, Scab, Slumlord, Libeler, Money Lender and Other Scapegoats in the Rogues Gallery of American Society

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by Walter Block

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Forward by Murray Ann Rothbard

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For many years, free market economists have shown how market activities benefit the often heedless public.

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Ever since the days of Adam Smith, they have shown how producers and businessmen, generally

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motivated solely by personal gain, unwittingly confer enormous benefits on the general public.

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By seeking to maximize their profits and minimize losses, for example, businessmen are driven

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to satisfy the most urgent demands of the consumers in the most efficient way.

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Economists have long shown these truths in the abstract, and in recent years they have

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added to our knowledge by illustrating, in case after case, in the concrete, the superiority

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and efficiency of private operation.

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But the inquiries of economists have been confined, with sober pedantry, to the respectable

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industries, to such activities as agriculture, natural gas, housing, airways, and so forth.

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Until this book, no economist has had the courage of Professor Walter Block in tackling

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head-on the moral and economic status of the dozens of reviled, scorned and grievously

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misunderstood professions and occupations in our society, those whom he rightly calls

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the economic scapegoats.

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Fearlessly and with logic and trenchant wit, Professor Block rehabilitates and demonstrates

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represents the considerable economic merits of such scapegoat occupations as the pimp,

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the blackmailer and the slumlord.

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In this way, in addition to redeeming the stature of these much reviled occupations,

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defending the undefendable performs the service of highlighting, in the fullest and starkest

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terms, the essential nature of the productive services performed by all people in the free

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market.

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By taking the most extreme examples and showing how the Smithian principles work even in these

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cases, the book does far more to demonstrate the workability and morality of the free market

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than a dozen sober tomes on more respectable industries and activities.

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By testing and proving the extreme cases, he all the more illustrates and vindicates

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the theory.

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These case studies also have considerable shock value.

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By relentlessly taking up one extreme case after another that is generally guaranteed

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to shock the sensibilities of the reader, Professor Block forces the reader to think,

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to rethink his initial knee-jerk emotional responses, and to gain a new and far sounder

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under appreciation of economic theory, and of the virtues and operations of the free-market economy.

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Even many readers who now think they believe in a free market must now be prepared to grasp fully the logical implications of a belief in a free economy.

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This book will be an exciting and shocking adventure for most readers, even for those who believe that they are already converted

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to the Merits of the Free Market Economy.

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Alright, some readers might concede, we grant that these people are performing valuable

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economic services.

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But why, for heaven's sake, call them heroes?

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Why is the pimp or the medical quack any more heroic, and therefore, in a sense, more moral

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than other more respectable producers?

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The grocers, clothiers, steel manufacturers, etc.

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The explanation is precisely wrapped up in the extreme lack of respectability of Professor

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Block's scapegoats.

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For the grocer, the steel producer and the others are generally allowed to go about their

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business unmolested and, indeed, earn respect and prestige from the fellow members of the

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community.

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Not so, these scapegoats.

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For not only are their economic services unrecognized, but they face the universal bile, scorn and

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wrath of virtually every member of society, plus the additional restrictions and prohibitions

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that governments have almost universally placed upon their activities.

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Scorned and condemned unmercifully by society and state alike, social outcasts and state-proclaimed

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and Outlaws, Professor Block's collection of scapegoats go about their business nevertheless,

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heroically proceeding to confer their economic services in the teeth of universal scorn and

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outlawry.

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They are heroes, indeed, made so by their unjust treatment at the hands of society and

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of the state apparatus.

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Heroes, yes, but not necessarily saints.

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When the author confers the moral stature of hero on the scab, the usurer, the pimp

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and so on, he does not mean to imply that these activities are intrinsically more moral

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than any other.

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In a free market, and in a society that treats the usurer, slumlord and sweatshop employer

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in precisely the same just way as it treats other occupations, they would no longer be

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be heroes, and they would certainly be no more moral than anyone else.

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Their heroic status for Professor Block is solely a function of the unjust restrictions

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that other men have been placing upon them.

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It is the happy paradox of this book that if its implicit advice is followed, and the

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men and women described in these pages are no longer treated to scorn and legal coercion,

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One and only then will they no longer be heroes.

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If you don't like the idea of a usurer or a slumlord being a hero, then the only way

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to deprive him of this stature is to remove the shackles that misguided people have placed

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upon him.

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Murray and Rothbard