Ladies and gentlemen, I'm in a rather unaccustomed position that I'm actually going to be talking about books that I like
rather than ones that I don't like. This is very hard for me to do, but I'll try it anyway.
The first book that I want to mention, I unfortunately don't have a copy to show you,
by Tom Woods called The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History
What Tom Woods argues in this book is that there's been a trend toward centralization in American history
that's been very hostile to liberty
and Liberty. There's a continued trend toward increasing centralization of power in the
federal government, increasing power for the government. And he points out that he emphasized
a counter trend in constitutional history. As you know, at the time the Constitution
was adopted in 1787, the people in favor of the Constitution were those promoting central
were those promoting central government as opposed to the anti-Federalists who feared
that the Constitution would promote an overly powerful government.
But Woods points out that even the centralizers of that time, the proponents of the Constitution,
were themselves very anxious to limit the government.
By comparison with later developments, they were in favor of limited government.
He stresses particularly the importance of the Jeffersonian tradition.
Jefferson believed, as shown in the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, that the states
had the right to nullify or interpose if the laws were passed by Congress that they thought
were unconstitutional.
They had ways of protesting.
They would just hold that the law couldn't be applied in that state.
This wasn't, would point out, an extremist idea just promoted later by a few Southern
and Firebrands, but it was basic to the whole Jeffersonian tradition.
He contrasts this with the Hamiltonian tradition.
Remember, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson were both members of the first cabinet of
George Washington, whereas Hamilton favored a central, more of a nationalistic trend where
economic, particularly economic policy would be under the control of the government, the
central government.
The Jeffersonian tradition was one of opposition to such power and that liberty could be promoted only by having power dispersed among the states and local communities.
What goes on in the book to emphasize the importance of the war between the states, sometimes referred to as the Civil War,
for Consolidating the Power of the Central Government.
In the conflict, this was the first time that direct military action was taken against civilians
under some of the generals, such as General Sherman and others, there was direct action
taken against civilians, and this has been a very bad precedent since then.
Wood's continues his account of American history, again stressing this theme of the centralizing
state versus opposition to it, especially emphasizing the role of the New Deal under
Franklin Roosevelt in consolidating government power.
I think a good book to read along with Tom Wood's book is a book called How Capitalism
From Saved America, this is one you can get on sale today.
This is by Tom DiLorenzo, who's an economist and also a historian.
Like Woods, this is the reason I say the two fit together, Woods stresses this basic split
in American history between the Hamiltonian centralizers and the Jeffersonian decentralizers
But Clay had what he called the American system, which was one in which the government would
promote economic development through high tariffs, internal improvements, which would
be building canals and other roads and various measures that he thought the free market wasn't
DeLorenzo points out, and this is what he's best known for as an American historian, Clay's
leading follower was Abraham Lincoln, and Lincoln, throughout his career, emphasized
that he was a disciple of Clay, and DeLorenzo holds that what was fundamental in causing
During the Civil War was Lincoln's plan to centralize the government and the opposition
to the high tariff policies he pursued by the southern states.
Lincoln said at the time secession was contemplated, he wasn't going to interfere with slavery
in the states where it existed, but if the southern states refused to remit the tariffs
to the Government, then he would go right ahead and go in and enforce this. So this was
the key issue for Lincoln, is how could economic power be centralized in the national government.
The same policies again were continued after the war, and one thing that both DeLorenzo
and Woods are very good on is emphasizing how the Reconstruction period right after
to the Civil War, which lasted from 1865 to 1876, was one of growth of government power,
and de Lorenzo goes on to emphasize how this continued under Woodrow Wilson and Franklin
Roosevelt, and he draws some very interesting parallels between the New Deal of Franklin
In 1920s and early 30s, Mussolini was very well regarded by large sections of the American
and Public Opinion, and that Lorenzo points out that in many ways, certain aspects of the New Deal, such as the National Industrial Recovery Act, were modeled on Mussolini's system.
Now if we ask, both these authors have stressed the growth of centralized power as a threat to liberty.
Now, if we ask what has been the main way in which central power has increased, what has been the main mechanism by which the state has increased its power throughout American history,
I think the answer is clearly in war, in preparation for war.
In this connection, I want to mention two books, one of which I have here by the American historian and economist Robert Higgs.
Higgs, one is called Against Leviathan. This again is, if you allow me, the hint is one you can buy afterwards at the table outside.
I don't have a copy of another book by Higgs called The Resurgence of the Warfare State.
Many of you are probably familiar with Higgs' basic thesis that during a war the government increases its power.
And then even though once war ends, the government will reduce to a certain extent and the wartime
emergency regulations will no longer be enforced, the government never goes back to the previous
level.
There's always what he calls a ratchet effect by which government power continually increases
so that each war is meant that the government becomes more and more powerful.
And one point that Higgs is very good on in stressing is the role of the judiciary in this
whole process of increasing government power.
During World War I, for example, the Supreme Court rejected out of hand all challenges
to the Constitutionality of the Draft, that they said, even though this isn't the Constitution,
no word gives the government the power to draft people. This didn't matter to the Supreme
Court, of course, there was a draft under Lincoln as well.
And now, one point that Higgs emphasizes is a statement by Oliver Wendell Holmes, who was
and I'm going to talk a little bit about how the government can protest against economic regulations and infringement of liberty because if the government has the power to draft people, then can't it do, say, the government say, I think the case, the particular case where he said this involved the government closing off a national park to people, said they didn't want people going into this area, so Holmes said, well look, if the government can say, can draft you into the army, surely it can say to you, you can't go into a certain
The government can really, because of the power to draft people during the war, can really do anything it wants.
Another point Higgs stresses in his newest book, which is this one, Resurgence of the Warfare State,
is that the prevalence of a certain mentality in the government in dealing with foreign affairs,
and Foreign Affairs, and here he follows the sociologist C. Wright Mills and he calls this crackpot realism.
And what this concept involves is that the people in charge of the government will say only they are capable of handling the realities of power politics.
The people as a whole are too idealistic or too unwilling to confront the hard realities
of the situation, and only the people who are still to the nature of emergencies can
really handle the situation.
And the reason Seawright Mills and Higgs call this crackpot realism is that it doesn't consider
any options other than military ones.
Simply, if say possibly a certain country is building up arms, well then the thing to do is to go in and drop a nuclear bomb on them in case to prevent the possibility that they might develop nuclear weapons.
So we have to go in and say let Iran or other countries have it first, and there's no willingness to consider any other ways of dealing with the situation than strictly military ones.
So Higgs, I think, very strongly argues that this is a way in which centralized power has
developed through this constant use of war.
Now one question one might ask is, why has there not been very effective opposition to
this centralizing policy that's emphasizing war?
And one place we might look to such opposition usually has been the American right-wing forces,
the American conservative movement.
Certainly during the period leading up to World War II, what Murray Rothbard used to
call the old right was very strongly in opposition to Bellicose foreign policy and was emphasized
emphasize the need for peaceful policy and realize that warlike policy is one that will
only enhance the growth of the state.
So the question comes up, why is current American conservatism unable to mount such a stand?
And here I want to refer to a book by Lew Rockwell called Speaking of Liberty, which
which is a very good book. It's a collection of various columns and speeches that he's given.
It's a very substantial volume of well over 400 pages.
There are many different themes in the book, but one that I particularly want to stress in this connection
is that according to Lew Rockwell, one reason the American conservative movement has failed to respond adequately
to the challenge, if we can use Toynbee's famous terms of a challenge in response, why American conservatives not responded adequately to the challenge of militarism, is that there's been an emphasis in post-World War II conservatism on conservatism just as a state of mind or tradition rather than a system of principles.
We don't, as in the old right, before have a consistent set of principles opposing the
growth of state power, but we just have a trend, a sort of a frame of mind in which people
say, are opposed to too much change or like things the way they've been, as they've known
them, say, the way they were growing up, they don't want things to be changed much.
And such a disposition isn't a real substitute for an ideological set of beliefs, and Lew
particularly emphasizes the role of Russell Kirk's very influential book, The Conservative
Mind in this connection, that Kirk stressed very much that conservatism has a disposition
And he opposed ideology, thus he could at one point say that both Ludwig von Mises and
Karl Marx were equally ideologists, which of course in his terms is a very bad thing
to be.
According to Kirk, one doesn't want to have a system of ideas.
We could also think, for example, Michael Oakeshott, who was a very influential conservative
of Philosophy once reviewed Friedrich Hayek and said, well the trouble with Hayek is he doesn't believe in his right to oppose economic planning, but he has a plan to get rid of planning, and this is no good, we can't have a plan to get rid of planning, we just have to go according to how things develop without any fixed principles.
So we have here an example of, I think, the same sort of mentality Lew Rockwell is rightly
combating in his book.
Now if we agree that with Lew Rockwell on the need for an ideological system, one based
on reason, then the question comes up, how can reason, how can belief in reason or competence
be adequately defended philosophically.
Here I want to mention that the last of the books, one by Hans Hoppe who spoke earlier today,
this again you can get for sale here, is called The Economics and Ethics of Private Property.
One theme that Hans Hoppe brings out in this book, I think very effectively, is that one way in which opponents of the free market have attempted to combat the arguments in favor of the market is simply to reject reason altogether.
This fits in with what the Rockwell is saying in certain trends in American conservatism.
They tended to say, well, if arguments show that socialism won't work, then we have to
just go by feeling and get rid of reason altogether.
We would just say everything is contextual or relative and we would reject the need for
fixed principles.
And I think what Hans does very effectively in the book is to say that this kind of view
is really in a certain way self-contradictory, that say people who say that don't believe
in reason intend their own views to be, they think their own views are true.
They think that it's true that there are no truths or so.
What Hans develops in several of the essays in the book, I think very effectively, is
to show how our very engagement in any kind of action or argument has certain presuppositions
to it and that to deny these presuppositions, say, to say that change just takes place randomly
is really contradicting our own making statements, that the very fact that we're able to make
certain statements or act in ways presupposes certain things about the world, and Hans goes
argues or claims that we can get an entire ethical system and theory of knowledge based
on this Fundamental Fact. So, as you can see, I've managed to come up with at least a few
books that I like. Certainly, it's much easier to come up with books that I don't like, but
I'm always happy to find ones that I recommend. These are six books that I recommend very
highly to you. Thanks very much.
Thank you very much.