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FCC: Free Speech, “Public Needs,” and Mr. Minow

ROBERT M. HURT*

THE PANORAMA confronting television viewers may recently have passed the cost of living as a universal cause for complaint. It is no wonder that FCC Chairman Newton Minow’s crusade to induce broadcasters to cater to our nation’s more refined tastes (meaning of course your tastes and mine!) has been greeted with considerable enthusiasm. In this case most of the iceberg is well below the surface; the popularity of Minow’s cause has obscured the challenge to a free society implicit in his approach. In this article I hope to point out some of the dangers inherent in both past Commission policy and in Minow’s present course. While the Commission performs such diverse functions as regulation of private telephone and telegraph rates,1 research in communication technology, and supervision of future communications satellites, I deal here with the Commission’s most controversial function: allocation of available radio and television frequencies among applicants and subsequent supervision of their use. I conclude with some brief suggestions as to how the problems discussed might be solved.2

My position can be summed up as follows: When some form of legal regulation of the air waves became inevitable, Congress chose a method that would lead to problems of excessive government control no matter how well intentioned those appointed to supervise the air waves would prove to be. As a result, during the next three decades a philosophy of public ownership and control of the airwaves became crystallized, although the Commission was generally restrained in its application of this philosophy. Finally, when public sentiment against broadcasters became strong enough, we were so accustomed to according a special “public” status to the broadcasting industry that the appearance of Minow as a tribune of the public interest seemed natural. The seemingly benevolent and non-despotic nature of his crusade obscures the fact that his program requires markedly increased bureaucratic supervision of what “the public interest requires” in the way of programming. Nowhere in the vast structure of governmental regulation of our way of life can one better apply Tocqueville’s warning against that

. . . immense and tutelary power which takes upon itself alone to secure [men’s] gratifications and to watch over their fate. This power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild.

WHILE RADIO WAS first used commercially at the turn of the century, there was no urgent need for legal regulation of broadcasting until 1922, when the number of broadcasting stations increased from 60 to 564. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, who was authorized to grant broadcasting licenses under a 1912 Act of Congress, attempted to prevent new stations from interfering with one another and with existing stations by writing into new licenses the wave lengths the licensee could use and the hours he could broadcast. However, in 1926 a federal court held that the Secretary could not attach such conditions to a license under the 1912 Act. The result of this decision was chaos and confusion. Over two hundred stations were built during the next nine months, and existing stations no longer limited themselves to frequencies allocated in their licenses. Interference was rampant and radio reception was described as a “Babel of tongues.”

Obviously some form of legal intervention was necessary here. Available radio and television frequencies are like any scarce resource in that they are not open to universal and unrestricted use without their value being destroyed or seriously impaired. There is room on the frequency spectrum for only 106 AM radio channels, 50 FM radio channels, 12 very high frequency television channels, and 70 ultra high frequency television channels, if interference is to be avoided. Since stations far enough apart can operate on the same frequencies without interference, there would be room in the entire nation for 3,000 AM stations, 2,000 FM stations, 619 VHF stations, and 1,432 UHF stations.3 Invariably there have been many more potential users than available airspace.

Consequently, broadcasting frequencies, like land, would have to be rationed in some way among potential users. Just as the same frequencies cannot be used in a community by two broadcasters without interference which would drown out or seriously hinder one or both, a tract of fertile land would lose most of its value if everyone were free to attempt to sow or reap it. To give an analogy closer to the problem of radio interference, land would lose its value for cultivation if anyone could graze his domestic animals on it. The same is true of any scarce factor of production, whether a natural resource such as iron ore or a finished product such as a machine. In these cases the rationing problem has been met by rules of property laid down by courts and legislatures, by which property rights are defined and protection is given against interference.

Several alternative forms of legal regulation were available at this point, and we will explore some of them later. But a 1925 Senate resolution set the pattern to be followed by declaring that the “ether” was an “inalienable possession of the people of the United States . . .” and the first Congressional response to the 1926 court decision was to require all licensees to execute “a waiver of any right or of any claim to any right, as against the United States, to any wave length or to the use of the ether in radio transmission.” This was due partly to a reaction against the scandalous giveaway of public lands before the turn of the century to railroads and other private interests. But while it may not have been universally recognized at the time, the first corollary to “public ownership of the ether” would be the doctrine that broadcasters were in some sense trustees bound to act in the interest of the public, since they were using the property of the public. The inevitable second corollary is that government is the tribune of the people that must enforce this duty.4

In 1927 an Act of Congress created the Federal Radio Commission, which was authorized to issue licenses for use of airwaves only when “the public interest, necessity, or convenience would be served” by so doing. Licenses were issued for only three years, subject to renewal by the Commission, and could be transferred to another party only with its consent. In 1934 the powers and functions of the Federal Radio Commission were transferred to the seven man Federal Communications Commission, but the regulatory system of the 1927 Act was retained.

Congress had specified in the Acts of 1927 and 1934 that the Commission was not to act as a censor and was not to infringe freedom of speech. The drafters of this legislation may have legitimately hoped that this provision would eliminate the spectre of bureaucrats determining or influencing the content of radio communication. The stated purpose of the Act was “to make available so far as possible . . . a rapid, efficient nationwide and worldwide wire and radio communication service. . . .” It has been argued that the act relegated the Commission to the role of a “traffic officer policing the wave lengths to prevent stations from interfering with each other.” And as late as 1940 the Supreme Court declared that the broadcasting field was open to anyone showing “competency, the adequacy of his equipment, and financial ability to make good use of assigned channels.”

However, no matter how anxious the Commissioners might have been to obey these strictures against censorship, they were faced with a dilemma. In most crucial cases they are confronted with several applicants for a given frequency range, each possessing the necessary technological and financial qualifications. They were forced to make choices on some other basis, and their only legislative guide was the empty “public interest, necessity, or convenience” standard. Inevitably the Commissioners turned to the only other really important criterion, and decisions were made, either directly or indirectly, on the basis of prospective program content (or past program content when passing on renewal applications). This was approved by the Supreme Court in 1943, when Justice Frankfurter correctly pointed out that the rationing function delegated by Congress necessarily involved passing on the quality of programming.5

THE COMMISSION IS not immune to the most spectacular method used from time immemorial by bureaucrats when called on to award exclusive rights, as was demonstrated by the Commissioner Mack bribery scandal. And it is notoriously guilty of the sin of arbitrariness, which we find associated with almost any allocation process where political replaces market allocation. According to Professor Louis Jaffe of the Harvard Law School, the Commission’s announced criteria for awarding licenses were “spurious criteria used to justify results otherwise arrived at.” They were “announced only to be ignored, ingeniously explained away, or so occasionally applied that their very application seems a mockery of justice.”6 The process of awarding licenses is characterized by inconsistency, uncertainty, fantastic delay, and favoritism, placing a serious barrier in the way of managers attempting to make rational business calculations. But these are problems which we can expect to crop up with any regulatory bureau. The FCC presents a special problem because its present procedure brings it into direct conflict with the constitutional guarantee of free speech and free press, and it is to this issue that I address the bulk of this article.

The original Act of 1927 prohibited programs containing “obscene, indecent, and profane” language as well as radio lotteries. Enforcement of these provisions has been relatively restrained, although the Commission has sometimes stretched the meaning of these terms. For instance station KVEP of Portland, Oregon, was dropped from the air and a character known as the “Oregon Wildcat” was criminally convicted for broadcasting profane statements, because of his use of the expressions “damn scoundrel,” “by God,” and “I’ll put on the mantle of the Lord and call down the curse of God on you.”7 Such stringent censorship would probably be a violation of the First Amendment if applied to newspapers. The Commission also placed a ban on the popular giveaway shows of the 1940’s, arguing that this constituted a lottery. This ban was struck down by the Supreme Court as not within the Commission’s legislative mandate.

However the Commission has challenged freedom of speech more directly by determining what is proper or improper editorializing. In its earliest days the Commission closed down stations for personal vendettas and broadcasts which constituted a “disruptive influence.” In the first case of this sort, the Federal Radio Commission in 1928 refused to renew the license of WCOT in Providence, Rhode Island, because the owner made “false and defamatory” statements about personal enemies. (This characterization was based on a Commission decision and not on a jury trial for defamation.)

An amazing case, more for the language of the decision than for the actual holding, was the refusal to renew the license of KTNT, Muscatine, Iowa, where the licensee had pushed his quack cancer cures and attacked the state medical association and other enemies:

[The medical association’s] alleged sins may be at times of public importance, to be called to the attention of the public over the air in the right minded way. But this record discloses that Mr. Baker does not do so in any high minded way. It shows that he continually and erratically over the air rides a personal hobby [sic], his cancer cure ideas and his likes and dislikes of certain persons and things. Surely his infliction of all this on the listeners is not the proper use of a broadcasting license. Many of his utterances are vulgar, if not indeed indecent. Assuredly they are not uplifting or entertaining.

* * *

Though we may not censor [!] it is our duty to see that broadcasting licenses do not afford mere personal organs, and also see that a standard of refinement fitting our day and generation is maintained.8 [italics added]

In 1932 the Commission refused to renew the license of KGEF, operated by the Trinity Methodist Church of Los Angeles, because its minister, Robert Shuler, had engaged in personal vendettas, made guardedly anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish statements and accused judges of personal immorality. The Commission was upheld by the Circuit Court:

If it be considered that one in possession of a permit to broadcast in interstate commerce may, without let or hindrance from any source, use these facilities reaching out as they do, from one corner of the country to the other, to obstruct the administration of justice, offend the religious susceptibilities of thousands, inspire political distrust and civic discord, or offend youth and innocence by the free use of words suggestive of sexual immorality, and be answerable for slander only at the instance of the one offended, then this great science, instead of a boon, will become a scourge, and the nation a theatre for the display of individual passions and the collision of personal interests.9

The Commission and courts demonstrated at this early date that the federal government would supervise the content and standards of radio broadcasters to a degree that would have been immediately rejected as a violation of freedom of press if applied to newspapers. They were willing to pass on what was and was not “the high minded way” and “uplifting and entertaining.” The statement that “we may not censor” was obvious doubletalk; the Commission and courts spoke in the language of blatant censorship if the word is to have any meaning.

Cases such as the above, however, were rare; and the holdings themselves were not as extreme as the language used to rationalize them. The most spectacular infringement of free speech was the Mayflower Doctrine of 1940, which prohibited all editorializing by radio stations.

A truly free radio cannot be used to advocate the cause of the licensee. It cannot be used to support the candidacies of his friends. It cannot be devoted to the support of principles he happens to regard most favorably. In brief, the broadcaster cannot be an advocate.10

Although this rule was almost unquestionably unconstitutional, it was obeyed without challenge for nine years. In 1949 the rule was implicitly repudiated by the Commission, and the “fairness doctrine” was substituted in its place. When a station allows a given controversial viewpoint to be presented, it must allow an opportunity for the contrary viewpoint to be presented:

Only when the licensee’s discretion in the choice of the particular programs to be broadcast over his facilities is exercised so as to afford a reasonable opportunity for the presentation of all responsible positions on matters of sufficient importance to be afforded radio time can radio be maintained as a medium of freedom of speech for the people as a whole.11 [italics added]

The Commission switched from a position of banning editorials on radio to actively encouraging them. At present an applicant for a license is expected to include time for discussion of public issues on his proposed schedule, and Chairman Minow has castigated broadcasters for neglecting this area. But two aspects of this doctrine need to be examined, for it is potentially more dangerous than the absolute ban of the Mayflower Doctrine. This issue is by no means academic, since more than 400 fairness complaints were received by the Commission in 1961, more than double the 1960 number.

First, the expression “freedom of speech” has undergone a transformation as complete as that of the word “liberal.” The First Amendment proclaims that “Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech or of the press.” Freedom of speech has been viewed quite naturally as a negative freedom—the right not to be restrained from expressing oneself. And the Constitution barred only the government from restraining individuals. But the Commission, while admitting that radio came under the First Amendment, proceeded to give the concept an opposite meaning:

But this does not mean that the freedom of the people as a whole to enjoy the maximum possible utilization of this medium of mass communication may be subordinated to the freedom of any single person to exploit the medium for his own private interest. . . . The most significant meaning of freedom of the radio is the right of the American people to listen to this great medium of communcation free from any governmental dictation as to what they can or cannot hear and free alike from similar restraints of private licensees. [italics added]

Freedom of speech has become the “right” of “the people as a whole” to receive broadcasts free from “restraints” of those who make the broadcasts; the violators of this freedom are those who decide what they will broadcast according to their “own private interest,” and the government is the interpreter and enforcer of this “freedom.” This seems an unconscious parody of a recent explanation by Mikoyan as to why the Russian press is free and the Western press is not.

A more concrete problem is raised by the assumption that there is an objective standard of fairness. Undoubtedly opinions which would fit into what we might irreverently dub the “Establishment Consensus” will be held entitled to a reply—attacks on the flag, the New Frontier, religion, racial equality, labor unions will almost certainly fall within the fairness doctrine. But what of the hard cases, the less “respectable” opinions, which always constitute the crucial arena when freedom of speech is involved. Would Ross Barnett be entitled to reply to an attack on his position? Harry Bridges? Jimmy Hoffa? The Commission inserted “weasel words” to provide a way out. Only “responsible positions” “on matters of sufficient importance” are entitled to replies. And the government must of course decide what is responsible and of sufficient importance. Hence the Commission must make crucial value judgments to apply its standard.

The record indicates that, in spite of self-righteous denials, the Commission has done just this. Labor unions and cooperatives have received Commission help when stations were charged with anti-labor or anti-cooperative bias,12 as have various other groups representing what we view as responsible opinions. But an atheist named Robert Scott did not fare so well in an attempt to reply to direct attacks on the atheist position. An initial decision in 1946 denied Scott’s request for revocation of the licenses of stations that refused to give him time, but the Commission indicated that atheistic views were controversial and might be entitled to a hearing.13 This dictum provoked the expected furor on Capitol Hill, complete with a committee investigation. Here was one of those great issues of righteousness which so obsess the souls of Congressmen and allow them to sound off to the constituency without antagonizing any sizeable group.14 As a result the Commission backed off, and in a later challenge by Scott refused him even a hearing. More recently the NBC documentary, “Battle of Newburgh,” which this writer and many conservative commentators felt was a grossly biased report of a domestic controversy, was given a clean bill of health by the Commission. In response to a fairness complaint by City Manager Mitchell, the Commissioners hailed it as a “conscientious and responsible effort to report a controversial issue.”15 While we may be as opinionated as the Commission here, the tragedy is that the Commissioners are able and willing to base their decisions on such opinion in a matter where reasonable men can obviously disagree.

It seems obvious that a “fairness doctrine” is not likely to be applied fairly, not only because there can be no objective criteria for applying it, but also because a politically sensitive agency will almost certainly be unwilling or unable to apply it symmetrically. (A symmetrical application would mean that if advocates of opinion B could be challenged by advocates of opinion A, then advocates of opinion B could challenge advocates of opinion A.) And in the hands of Commissioners who are not well intentioned, this would become a potent weapon for control of our nation’s thought. The possibilities are indicated by recent urgings that the Commission should investigate southern stations that did not give a fair hearing to President Kennedy’s position in the Mississippi integration crisis.

A related problem is raised by the “good character” requirement for licensees. An applicant is required by the Commission to show that he is “of good character and possesses other qualifications sufficient to provide a satisfactory public service.” Under this regulation the Commission has denied licenses to applicants who make false statements on their application forms and who have been convicted of crimes.16

The Commission is on much weaker ground when it attempts to ascertain the character of applicants by examining their opinions and associations.17 When the New York Daily News applied in 1942 for an FM station, the American Jewish Congress intervened, arguing that the newspaper’s alleged editorial bias against Jews and Negroes had disqualified it as a radio operator. The Commission allowed this evidence to be admitted to help it determine “whether [the applicant] is likely to give a fair break to those who do not share [these beliefs].”18 According to the Commission this evidence was relevant to the “character” of the applicant and was not used to determine his beliefs. (If the Commission were sincere and not really interested in specific beliefs, consistency would require it to admit evidence of an anti-racist bias as relevant to the question of the applicant’s willingness to give racists a fair break. This hardly seems likely.) The evidence submitted was dismissed by the Commission as being unscientifically prepared and thus having no probative value. The license was denied, allegedly on other grounds, and it is impossible to determine what actual effect the evidence had.

In a later case a clergyman was denied a license because he was found to be “intemperate in his writings, sermons and broadcasts . . . an expert in vituperation and vilification.” However the Commission recognizes some limits. When a rival applicant attacked the application of WHDH because Al Capp was a minority shareholder and his comic strip “Li’l Abner” had allegedly been condemned by a New York legislative committee, the Commission dismissed the argument, stating with a straight face that Capp was obviously not in control of WHDH.

Inevitably the alleged Communist or pro-Communist connections of applicants have become involved in license controversies. Applicants have been rejected for refusal to disclose whether they were members of the Communist party. The case of Edward Lamb, a founder of the far left National Lawyers’ Guild, raised one of the greatest rows in Commission history. In 1954, when Lamb applied for license renewal for his station WICU, a pioneer television station, the Commission charged that he had lied during hearings for his license in 1948. He had not told of alleged Communist affiliations and associations and had not mentioned a pro-Russian book he had written in 1935 (the book would seem to have been a matter of public record). During lengthy and well-publicized hearings two Commission witnesses recanted and accused Commission representatives of urging them to lie under oath. (One of these witnesses, however, was later convicted of libeling a Commission staff member with these charges.) The hearing examiner found no evidence that Lamb had engaged in Communist activity, and the license was eventually renewed.

This is an incomplete catalog of some of the more dramatic absurdities of Commission activity up through the last two years. It should be noted that these cases were exceptions rather than the rule, and the language of the decisions and rulings was usually much worse than the actual holdings. The Commissioners usually exhibited a healthy desire not to force their tastes, prejudices and views on broadcasters and the public. Its most potent weapon of coercion, the threat not to renew a license, was used so sparingly that the Commission earned from certain leftist quarters the ne plus ultra of insulting epithets: laissez-faire. However, during this period a philosophy of special responsibilities on the part of broadcasters and of a duty to supervise and control on the part of the Commission had become so well established that the stage was set for a Caesar who would not view his role with such self restraint.

THIS POTENTIALITY for abuse inherent in our public philosophy of radio and television regulation has unfortunately taken on a magnified importance since the arrival of the New Frontier and Newton Minow in Washington. Since his famous “Wasteland” speech in May of 1961, Minow has embarked upon the imposing task of forcing stations and networks to fulfill their alleged trust obligation to the American public. Broadcasters are constantly exhorted to act in the “public interest,” which he treats as an entity as ascertainable as the specific gravity of lead. Much of his crusade thus far consists of verbiage which can be dismissed with a condescending smile usually reserved for overly enthusiastic cheerleaders: “Never have so few [the broadcasters] owed so much to so many [the public].” “Gentlemen, your trust accounting with your beneficiaries is overdue.” And of course: “Ask not what broadcasting can do for you. Ask what you can do for broadcasting.”19

But other remarks and actions cannot be dismissed so easily. He has coupled his warnings that programming standards must be improved with explicit threats not to renew licenses if this is not done. He assures us that no censorship is planned:

I am unalterably opposed to governmental censorship. There will be no suppression of programming which does not meet with bureaucratic tastes. Censorship strikes at the tap root of our free society.

It might seem that a decision as to what is or is not improved programming involves a value judgment on the part of the Commission, involves what we would call censorship and the application of bureaucratic tastes. But we misunderstand the meaning of censorship, and Minow sets us straight on this. The Commission does not censor, since the courts have upheld its authority to concern itself with a licensee’s programming. Rather it is the broadcasters who censor. This censorship takes two insidious forms, “rating censorship” and “dollar censorship.” Rating censorship

. . . is a result of the almost desperate compulsion of some licensees to live by the numbers, always striving to reach the largest possible audience in order to attract and hold the mass advertising dollars.20

In other words censorship occurs when broadcasters give the listeners what they want! Dollar censorship occurs when a broadcaster lets his advertiser—the party footing the bill—determine what will be shown.

But even if we are overawed by Minow’s rhetoric and concede that only broadcasters indulge in “censorship” under the New Frontier redefinition, certain dilemmas remain which cannot be avoided by facile cliches about “public interest” and “the people’s airwaves.”21 Clearly the broadcasters and networks are not presenting the type of programs Minow and his cohorts expect (in this they are supported by the most vocal segments of national opinion), and he intends to bring about a change. His objection is not that the broadcasters are failing to give the public what it wants but precisely that they are giving the public what it wants but not what it “needs.” “Some say the public interest is what interests the public. I disagree. . . . It is not enough to cater to the public whims—you must also serve the nation’s needs.” To implement this program there is no alternative to substitution of “bureaucratic tastes,” so strongly eschewed by Minow, for the tastes of the marketplace as indicated by the ratings. This raises a more fundamental conflict for a free, pluralistic, and ostensibly consumeroriented society than even control of editorials under the “fairness” doctrine. The logical extension of this elitist desire to use government to subordinate popular tastes in favor of more “edifying” ones can be seen in England, where the government’s Pilkington Report advocates placing commercial television under government control (even though now it is run by government-appointed trustees) precisely because it is drawing viewers away from the more uplifting BBC programs and forcing the BBC to lower its standards to compete.22

I would not claim that the present mediocrity in television does not present a problem, and it is possible that Minow’s non-coercive attempts at moral suasion may in some cases have a desirable effect. I will deal with this problem more thoroughly below. But first we need to examine some of his specific responses to the problem.

First, he holds that there is no problem of censorship or invasion of the broadcaster’s programming function if the Commission cracks down on overall program balance rather than on individual programs. “I told the Senate committee that if someone puts on a lousy Western it’s none of the Government’s business—but if someone puts on nothing else for three weeks, then it is.” (He will of course find no station which shows nothing but Westerns; he obviously refers to “too many Westerns”—in somebody’s judgment.) Before his appointment the Commission had established a policy of viewing overall program balance as a major criterion for granting and renewing licenses,23 although few renewals were denied for not complying with promises. He has announced that he will vigorously enforce this policy, especially by denying renewals. Of course any judgment as to what constitutes a balanced schedule—or which of two competing schedules is more balanced—must involve some standard of taste or value just as much as passing on the worth of an individual program.

Second, Minow continually refers to another pseudo-objective standard which he would have us believe would not involve bureaucratic value judgments. Broadcasters must meet “local needs,” and these needs are to be ascertained by calling in local groups before Commission hearings.

Renewal hearings should be held in the local community. Let anybody come and say what kind of programs the local stations have been showing. League of Women Voters, P.T.A., Church groups, everybody. I think that pretty quickly you’d have better television programming. I don’t think people realize they own the air, and the broadcaster is using it with their permission.24

Recently a license was denied Suburban Broadcasters in Elizabeth, New Jersey, specifically because the applicant “made no attempt to determine the program needs of Elizabeth.”

While this policy might appear to some to express an admirable “democratic” sentiment, he never specifies precisely what is meant by local needs. But we can get a good idea of the emphasis it is likely to take by looking at the recent Commission hearings in Chicago which were held to determine such local needs. The Radio and TV director of the Catholic Archdiocese complained that the shows given free of charge to the Archdiocese were produced in “the smallest and most inadequate studio in Chicago” and charged the stations with a “lack of concern” for religious programming. The head of the Broadcasting Commission of the Chicago Board of Rabbis complained that religious programs are scheduled for Sunday morning, when TV sets are allegedly not in use. The publisher of the Chicago Daily Defender complained that “generally the Negro as a normal human being doesn’t exist in the programming eye of the local TV stations.” He reported that there had been some improvement, but the stations still “haven’t come around to our satisfaction.” The President of the Joint Civic Committee of Italian-Americans found a number of programs, such as “The Untouchables,” portraying “persons of Italian extraction as gangsters.” And the Chairman of the Japanese-American Citizens League complained of anti-Japanese World War II movies on late shows.25

One important reason for television’s mediocrity has been the fear of offending minority and special interest groups. Making a politically sensitive government bureau a champion of “local interests” certainly would not work in the other direction. The “public” which makes itself heard at government hearings is invariably composed of the best organized interest groups. This is a variety of democracy that is all too prevalent today.

Third, Minow sees TV’s programming “wasteland” as largely due to sordid attempts by advertisers and broadcasters to maximize profits. He notes with indignation that far too many broadcasters operate “not in the public interest but rather to get the greatest financial return possible out of their investment.” He somehow hopes to improve radio and television fare with various restrictions on advertisers which will inevitably make sponsorship less attractive to them, including proposals to prevent any control by advertisers of the programs they sponsor and to place severe limits on the length and content of commercials. While a more “uplifting” television program is not necessarily a more costly one, a policy which is designed to make sponsorship less attractive to advertisers would seem to be the worst way to entice them into improving their programs. A more plausible effect would be to cause advertisers to shift their advertising dollars out of radio and television and into media where the return is higher. His policy becomes all the more incomprehensible when we consider that he wishes to apply the more stringent advertising controls to radio, where he asserts that earnings are “too low,” and where he is looking for methods of raising earnings. Following the regulatory tradition of the CAB and ICC, he has suggested that radio is “too competitive,” and that earnings might be increased by making it less competitive—i.e., by encouraging concentration.

Thus far Minow has met with opposition to his policies on the Commission itself; he has seldom been able to obtain a majority to support his promises to use revocation and refusals to renew licenses to enforce his ideas of proper programming. Commissioners Rosel Hyde and John Cross have publicly criticized his regulation mania, and Hyde has warned that, “The unattractive office of censor can be made to appear as guardian of integrity.” But in December of 1962 President Kennedy, an avid supporter of Minow’s policies, appointed Kenneth Cox, a Minow partisan, to replace the retiring Cross. And in 1965, assuming the New Frontier goes rolling on, we can count on an absolute majority of Minow men.

Thus the near future may bring the full fruits of our nation’s acquiescence in broadcasting control. The likelihood that many renewal applications will be denied takes on special significance. As was mentioned earlier, during its entire history the Commission had acted with restraint in this matter. But in 1961, the first year of the Minow dispensation, 588 applications for renewal were deferred for investigation, many times more than the total for any previous year. And the Commission’s refusal to renew the license of WDKD in Kingstree, South Carolina, for “coarse, vulgar, suggestive, indecent, double meaning statements” of a disc jockey as well as for alleged “over-commercialization,” has been interpreted as marking a reversal of previous leniency on renewals.26

The Commission’s past restraint in the matter of renewals has been a most effective check on bureaucratic control of our radio and television fare. The administrative bureau offers a tremendous opportunity for coercion to satisfy the whims and prejudices of the bureaucrats in control, since a bogus basis can be found for almost any decision (and decisions are essentially non-reviewable on the facts by higher courts). But the greatest danger will not be in the actual use of this power, but rather in the fear that it might be used. When we consider Professor Jaffe’s observation that announced criteria are largely ignored by the Commission and that the licensing process is characterized by marked arbitrariness and uncertainty, we can be certain that similar uncertainty about the likelihood of obtaining a renewal every three years could wreak havoc with attempts by managers to make rational business calculations about the future.

And what of the effects on freedom of expression? Witness the Mayflower Decision, which, though obviously unconstitutional, was obeyed for nine years without challenge. If significant numbers of licenses are revoked or not renewed, no one can be certain of the real reasons. Even if objective and high sounding criteria are offered, who will risk offending the New Frontier editorially before renewal time? Who will risk defying the opinions and prejudices which Commissioners express off the record? Broadcasters devote exhaustive effort to determining “public whims;” it would seem even more urgent to them to guess at and satisfy the whims of the Commissioners, who hold the power of life or death over their business every three years.

WITH THESE DISTURBING problems raised by government regulation, why do we single out radio and television for a comprehensive and in some ways unique form of regulation, one that we would not allow for a moment with newspapers or public speeches? There is of course the fear of monopoly concentration because of scarcity of airspace and consequent difficulty of entry into the industry. Such a danger might well exist; but we have an elaborate structure of antitrust laws, and these have been frequently applied to the broadcasting field. From a strictly economic perspective imperfect competition in radio and television presents the same problems which in other industries we have been content to leave to the antitrust laws.

But there are other more important difficulties which allegedly distinguish radio and television from newspapers and movies. Radio and especially television are more accessible to children than printed matter; hence it is argued that immorality, violence, and other subject matter which might have a bad effect on children should be more strictly controlled. This argument is in the writer’s opinion the only one which might support greater program control of airwaves than of newspapers. The difference, however, is one of degree and not of kind; objectionable printed matter, as well as television pictures, can find its way into the home. And in a free society the duty of censorship of material likely to influence children should rest primarily with the parent.

It is also persuasively argued that anyone can start a newspaper, but only a limited and privileged number can operate a television station. Hence, aside from the danger of monopoly profits, this most important channel for the dissemination of ideas is not really open to the “marketplace of ideas,” as is the newspaper business. Any point of view can allegedly find expression in the newspaper world, but radio and especially television are controlled by those who were fortunate enough to get a special privilege. This argument has only a grain of truth. In the first place radio and television stations must compete with newspapers in the marketplace as well as with other stations, and there is no persuasive evidence that stations have generally been more effective proponents than newspapers. Even more important, our fifty largest cities have an average of from three to four television stations but only two newspapers.27 Just as there are technological limitations on the number of radio and television stations in a geographic area, a community will only be capable of supporting financially a small number of newspapers. A few persons will control each medium in any community. The argument is valid only insofar as anyone with sufficient capital can attempt to found a newspaper but cannot found a broadcasting station without a government grant.

Two factors do seem to differentiate broadcasting from other communications media and need to be dealt with at greater length. In both cases I suggest that we should consider possible market solutions utilizing the price mechanism.

The first problem (which I must deal with in a somewhat oversimplified fashion) arises from the fact that broadcasting is financed by advertising rather than by direct payments from its audience. Consequently, voting by viewers cannot be “weighted” as it is in other areas. By this I mean that, if a given minority wants a better magazine or a better car enough to pay more for it, it will be produced if the higher price they are willing to pay will make production profitable. But there is no analogous way for television viewers to weight their vote. Though John Doe might be willing to pay $5.00 to see one show and little or nothing to see another show that he watches, this cannot be recorded by the market. Consequently, it can be said with only minor qualifications that the sponsor is interested only in paying for a show that, for a given cost, will reach the largest possible audience.28 Hence our radio and television fare tends to be pitched to the lowest common denominator, and minority tastes will often be unsatisfied.

This has been a major reason for Minow’s acclaim among vocal segments of American opinion for his demands that our television wasteland be renovated. One can debate whether it is necessarily undesirable to have a low-brow communications medium. But if we fell that at least a portion of our television fare should be devoted to what we consider higher quality material, pay television offers one solution to this problem. A minority, no matter how small, could make it advantageous to produce a given type of show merely by being willing to pay enough to make it profitable. The Commission has moved hesitatingly in the right direction by allowing tests of pay television in Hartford and Denver, after much delay due largely to Congressional pressure. The amazing aspect is that this can be done only under close Commission supervision and that the Commission’s power to grant permission could be seriously challenged in the courts by associations of theatre owners and broadcasters with the argument that they would be deprived of business. Another possibility is the increased use of closed circuit pay television, which is not under FCC jurisdiction and does not interfere with open circuit stations on the same frequencies, although there are serious technological problems in establishing a profitable system of this sort.

Pay television raises certain problems that space does not permit me to deal with here. But if we feel that television standards must be improved, the alternative to pay TV seems to be a bureaucratic determination as to what is necessary to elevate and educate the American citizenry.

The second and more crucial problem was alluded to above: how can available frequencies be allocated so as to avoid the pitfalls outlined above? A startling but plausible suggestion (and one that I have not too subtly hinted at throughout the article) is that we view the available frequencies as another scarce resource and examine alternative methods by which the impersonal market might ration this resource.

The homesteading principle was one method of allocating land, and this principle was actually applied by some courts to radio before the Act of 1927.29 In these cases the station first to put equipment into use which used certain frequencies received a property right in these frequencies, that is, a right to use these frequencies without interference from other operators. The courts used the analogy of the homesteader who obtained ownership of the land that he put to use first. Many problems, such as the limits of the geographic area covered by this property right and the control of interference, would be left to the courts to decide. But the courts have successfully faced analogous problems in property law before and they were developing such a body of law when Congress intervened in 1927.

Professor R. H. Coase of the University of Virginia presents a more radical but probably more acceptable plan: he suggests that property rights in available frequencies be auctioned by the government to the highest bidder.30 He presents a lengthy and convincing case for a market allocation of available frequencies, and I can only give a brief outline of his position here. The successful bidder would be free to sell, lease, or otherwise contract for the use of these frequencies and would be entitled to government protection against interference in his allocated frequency range, just as a property owner is entitled to government protection against interference with the use of his property.

By this device the price system rather than the bureaucratic process would allocate the airwaves just as it allocates other fixed factors of production such as land and labor: available airspace would go to those who would use it most profitably. And the argument for allocation of land, labor, and minerals, to those who could use them most profitably would apply here. To state it a bit crudely, the most profitable use is the one, among all competing uses, which is valued most highly by consumers.31

Broadcasting would consequently be placed on a basis similar to newspapers Both would purchase all their factors of production on the market, and each community would support only a few of each, selection being made by the largely impersonal market mechanism. The strongest arguments for the “trustee” role of broadcasters would disappear. Not only would the people no longer “own” the airwaves, but the licensee would no longer receive from the state a free grant, often worth large sums of money, from which special duties to the public could be reasonably inferred. Elimination of huge windfalls which accrue to successful licensees would be one advantage to this plan. At present stations sell for as much as $20 million, and a sizeable portion of this is for the mere license.

This plan has been naively dismissed by some on the grounds that it would award stations to those with the most money. Actually, the price mechanism allocates resources to those who can put them to the most profitable use; and, assuming a fluid capital market, this will only coincidentally be the party possessing the most money. On the other hand, the Commission has in fact tended to favor large, financially prosperous and experienced firms; it is certainly not implausible that newer and smaller firms would obtain more stations under an auctioning system.

In addition to eliminating the need for regulation of program content with its dangers for freedom of speech and press, use of the market mechanism would eliminate other problems inherent in centralized decision-making. Program broadcasting occupies a relatively small portion of available frequencies, the rest being allocated to various private users—oil companies, taxis, telephone companies, etc.—and to governmental users—military, forest services, etc. The Commission, which is overworked and operating on a tiny budget, has been forced to arbitrarily assign ranges of frequencies to various categories of use. Consequently the Commission often rations available broadcasting frequencies among eager applicants while equally serviceable frequencies go unused. An auctioning system would ration out all available frequencies among all possible uses according to the relative monetary returns to various uses, as reflected in the bids.

These seem like strange and radical proposals largely because we have grown to look at broadcasting in a way which is not warranted by the facts. As Professor Coase states it: “It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the widespread opposition to the use of the pricing system for the allocation of frequencies can be explained only by the fact that the possibility of using it has never been seriously faced.”

There would of course be serious problems in implementing such a system today; since expectations have been built around the present system, it would be more difficult to convert to a pricing system today than to implement it in the 1920’s. Alternative measures might be explored which would invoke some of the benefits of the market and reduce the role of government. If sale of frequencies for all time to the highest bidder were unacceptable, the government might lease the frequencies to the highest bidder for a period of years, with the lessee having the right to freely sublease or otherwise use the frequencies as he saw fit. If we feel that it would be unfair to require existing stations, who have invested large amounts in the expectation of continued free use of their frequencies, to either bid high or lose their frequencies, we might restrict bidding to presently unused frequencies. The price mechanism would prevail to a large extent even under the present system if licensees were free to sell or otherwise dispose of their frequencies to anyone without Commission approval and if renewals were made automatic.32

The suggestions advanced above are offered with some trepidation; there are many difficulties which space does not permit me to deal with here. But we should at least explore them more thoroughly, for the alternative is abdication to the present system, which not only has operated unsatisfactorily in the past but is showing portents for the future that a free society cannot accept.

Czecho-Slovakia and the USSR

OTTO VON HABSBURG*

IT IS CUSTOMARY in the Free World to consider the so-called satellite countries as having more or less identical standing within the Warsaw Pact system. This is a fallacy. In fact, there are basic differences from Moscow’s point of view.

The history of the last fourteen years proves that Eastern Europe is not the monolithic bloc that Khrushchev pretends it is. In two states, the population has shown, not only its overwhelming hostility against Communism and foreign rule, but also its readiness to make the supreme sacrifice in a desperate attempt to overthrow the tyranny. In Hungary, at least nine-tenths of the nation rose against colonial oppression in October, 1956. Khrushchev needed 21 armored divisions and protracted heavy artillery fire on the centers of resistance, especially Budapest, to impose the puppet regime of Janos Kadar on the vanquished country. The strength of continued opposition despite military defeat is shown by Kadar’s repeated purges and obvious efforts to placate the nation.

In the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany, the so-called “German Democratic Republic,” the oppressed population and especially the factory-workers of East Berlin and of the industrial areas of Halle and Leipzig, rose on June 17, 1953, and for several days fought valiantly against dictator Ulbricht’s police. Here, too, the Russian army had to step in, in order to keep the Communists in power.

In Poland we have had strikes and other acts of resistance in 1956, even before the Hungarian uprising. After Budapest fell to the Russians, the situation remained extremely critical for two months. Finally, a de facto compromise was reached: the Polish people represented primarily by the Catholic bishops, led by Archbishop Cardinal Wyszinsky, renounced—in the light of what had happened in Hungary—the use of violence, in exchange for an easing of the Soviet pressure and the elimination of the so-called Natolin-Stalinist group. The Soviets, on the other hand, recognized that a war in Poland would entail more dangers for them than the one in Hungary, since Poland has a mighty army and direct access to the sea, where it could receive arms and equipment from the West via the ports of Stettin and Danzig. Poland has thus obtained up to this day a special position in the Eastern Bloc. True, Gomulka is not a democrat, as certain Western observers would like to believe. Still, there are areas of freedom in Poland which Moscow tacitly accepts in both cultural and economic life, especially agriculture.

Compared to these developments, it is surprising that since 1948 only Czecho-Slovakia among the central European satellites has accepted without serious resistance both Soviet hegemony and the integrally Communist policies of its governments. In all that period only the liquidation of the Slansky group might be regarded as an attempt at liberalization, since the eleven Communist leaders hanged had been the most important liaison men between the Czech government and the Soviet Union. Even after the 20th Party Congress all remained quiet in this model Communist Republic. Never did Stalin or Khrushchev feel the need to intervene in Prague.

Slovakia is the only area in Czecho-Slovakia where major security measures have been called for. This shows an essential difference within the nation, which has deep historic roots.

The overwhelming majority in Slovakia has always opposed the fiction of the Czecho-Slovak nation. During the First World War, the leader of the Czech emigration and later head of the Czecho-Slovak Provisional Government, Thomas G. Masaryk, pledged to the American Slovaks in the Treaty of Pittsburgh that, in exchange for their political support, full autonomy would be given to their country, including an independent Parliament and administration. This agreement was never honored by the Czechs, despite strong Slovak protests. Masaryk later stated that he had only meant to make a non-committal declaration. To prove that this was not true, a delegation of American Slovaks brought the original document from Pittsburgh to Europe in 1938. The Slovaks, led by Mr. Hletko, entered their country through Poland and, at great popular gatherings, exhibited the signature of Masaryk. The energetic demands of the Slovaks for the fulfillment of the treaty contributed decisively to the collapse of President Benes’ regime in the summer of 1938.

The Slovaks considered themselves a separate nationality not “Czecho-Slovaks.” The same can be said of the Czechs, who never call themselves “Czecho-Slovaks.” The Slovak, Hodza, who was Prime Minister at the hour of the great crisis in 1938, went one step further and spoke of “Czechs, Moravians and Slovaks,” thus showing that he considered even the Slavs of Moravia as a nation. There is a Slovak language. Even the casual traveler will see it while reading public inscriptions. In the trains, compartments where smoking is forbidden are marked in Czech territories Nekuraci, while in Slovakia it is Nefajfarov. The difference between Czech and Slovak is approximately the same as between Slovene and Croat, Danish and Norwegian, or Dutch and German. Furthermore, the predominantly rural population of Slovakia is deeply religious and consequently resented the laicistic cultural policy pursued by the Czechs from 1918-1919 on.

The Slovak question turned out to be the fatal handicap of the Second Czecho-Slovak Republic from October, 1938, to March, 1939. The hyphen between the two parts of the State’s name was obtained by the Slovaks immediately after the Munich agreement. They also received a far-reaching autonomy with independent Diet and ministries. But new conflicts soon arose. When the central authority violated the constitution by removing the autonomous Slovak government, German diplomacy had no great trouble encouraging the Slovaks in their demand for a complete break with Prague. On March 13, 1939, the independent Slovak Republic was proclaimed in Bratislava. This was the cause of President Hacha’s ill-fated trip to Berlin.

The Slovaks, in whose make-up we find many Magyar and Polish elements, are much more temperamental than the Czechs. During the Second World War they rose in the autumn of 1944 against the Nazi occupier, while the Czech territories, the Protectorate, remained cooperative and quiet. The so-called Prague uprising of May 5, 1945, took place only because a false rumor had spread that American combat units had already entered the town. On the morning of May 9, the Red Army entered Prague and thus secured the victory of the Communists.

In Slovakia, resistance against Communism was much stronger than in the Czech areas despite the fact that the Communists at first recognized Slovak autonomy and abandoned the fiction of “Czechoslovak” by including the hyphenated version of the word in the constitution. It is practically unknown in the Free World that in the 1946 elections, the last which were relatively free, only the Slovaks gave a clear and sizeable majority against the Communists; this was not the case for the historically Czech provinces of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. In May, 1946, 61.4% of the Slovak voters supported the strongly anti-Communist Slovak Democratic Party. While Communist votes amounted to 38% in the whole nation, Communist returns in the Czech territories exceeded 40%. The Socialist Party, led by Zedenek Fierlinger, closely allied with the Communists, received 12.8% of the total, almost exclusively from Czech areas. Thus the Communists and their satellites had, from 1946 on, a 50.8% majority in the State. Without the massive anti-Communist votes of the Slovaks this majority would have been much greater.

Had the Czechs voted in 1946 as did the Slovaks it might have been possible to form in Prague a government without Communists, or at least a cabinet in which the Communists would not have held the top positions such as the Presidency of the Council, the Ministry of Interior (with its control over the police), or the Ministries of Propaganda, Agriculture, Education and Culture. An “Austrian solution” would have been possible.

A realistic appraisal leads thus to the conclusion that, contrary to the Poles, the Hungarians and the East Germans, a majority of the Czechs gave in to the left wing totalitarians and dragged the unwilling Slovaks along with them into the catastrophe. Only 15.8% of the Czech voters gave their ballots in May, 1946, to the only party which presented a true alternative to the Communists, namely the Christian Lidova Strana, whose press had the courage in the years 1945-46 to expose the crimes of the Communists and to warn of their gradual take-over of the State. Especially the columnist Helena Kozeluhova, who later was able to escape to the West, spoke out with great courage and raised the hopes that her party might become a strong rallying point.

The Social Democrats were, as we mentioned, satellites of the Communists. It is true that in the year 1947, when the Social Democratic youth became restless, Fierlinger was removed as head of the party and replaced by Bohumil Lausman. Nevertheless, in 1948 Lausman was the first to recognize the new order demanded by the Communists and sanctioned by President Benes. Later on Lausman escaped to the West but very soon returned to Czecho-Slovakia and made his peace with the Gottwald-Fierlinger regime. There are good reasons to believe that he did not come to the West as a bona fide emigrant but as an agent sent to carry out propaganda actions in favor of the Communists.

Concerning the present-day situation in the country, one has to be most skeptical regarding alleged secret information coming from emigre political groups. There is no tangible evidence of an effective underground movement. Escapees and prisoners who were used as forced labor in the coal pits, stone quarries and uranium mines, and thus had the opportunity to speak with Czech co-workers or prisoners, report unanimously that there unquestionably is dissatisfaction in the country, but that real resistance can only be found in Slovakia.

This surprising attitude of the Czechs has its roots in three reasons which the West scarcely knows:

(1) the expulsion of the German population from the Czecho-Slovak Republic prepared systematically by Dr. Benes since 1939;

(2) Benes’ consistent policy of close alignment of his country with the Soviet Union; and

(3) the bloody so-called revolution organized by Dr. Benes after the liberation which did more than anything else to deliver the nation to the Communists.

The Germans were already in the First Czecho-Slovak Republic, from 1918 to 1938, a bulwark against Communism. Thus in the parliamentary elections of 1925, 42 of 182 Czecho-Slovakian seats went to Communists; of the 66 German seats only 6 were held by followers of Moscow. When the Social Democratic Party split in 1920 the majority of Czech Social Democrats joined the Communists, while only one-fifth of the Germans did the same thing. Thus the expulsion of the Germans was bound to be beneficial to the Communists. To this must be added the fact that the Communists very ably used the expropriation of the Sudeten Germans to strengthen their position in the nation’s economy by gaining the lion’s share of the spoils. On July 25, 1947, Godfrey Lias, one of President Benes’ most active apologists, wrote in the London Times: “Through their control of the Ministry of Interior and Agriculture the Communists were able to create in the frontier regions a party-state within the state.” This was the first time that in the pages of the Times, which to that moment had fully supported the Benes regime, the Communist danger in Czecho-Slovakia was being mentioned. The Times’ readers suddenly learned that through the banning of the Agrarian Party, many farmers had been pushed into the arms of the Communist Party: “Probably the strongest group of Communist supporters among the peasants were those who had received German land in the frontier regions.”

Farmers enriched by the expropriation of Germans were not the only followers which the Communists were able to gain with the help of Dr. Benes. The decisive role in the battle between the Communist and the non-Communist parties—in 1946 the Christian People’s Party, the Slovak Democratic Party and, to a lesser degree, the Czech National Socialist Party—was played by the decree which gave complete amnesty for all acts of violence carried out during the so-called revolution. The presidential decrees were issued in violation of the constitution. Benes had resigned from the Presidency in October, 1938, not because of strong foreign pressure, but because he was compelled to give in to adverse public opinion. He had sent his congratulations to the newly elected President Hacha from America. At first the Allies had refused to recognize the government which he formed in 1940 in London. The only genuine supporter he had was Anthony Eden. Thus in order to bolster his power and to destroy his opposition, Benes made a complete alliance with the Soviet Union. He rode into Czecho-Slovakia on the coat-tails of the Red Army coming from the East; he thus passed through the Podkarpatska Rus which, in a secret treaty, he had already offered to the Soviets in exchange for financial and diplomatic aid. This completely illegal decision was to give Russia the essential military bridgehead on the southern slopes of the Carpathian mountains. In April, 1945, Benes formed a government in Kosice in which the Communists already held the decisive positions. His “program of Kosice” was inspired by the Communists. In order to prevent the expression of public opinion, the President decided to rule by decree in a period of transition, although it would have been easy to elect a Constituent Assembly immediately following liberation, as Austria did in November, 1945. Benes thus established a personal dictatorship. He permitted elections only in May, 1946, when he and the Communists had successfully weakened the social fabric of his nation and changed the legal order.

On May 16, 1945, Benes had entered Prague. In his first speech he declared that “the country must be completely purged of Germans.” On May 25 the Communist Minister of Propaganda stated that the Army was in readiness “to clean out the border areas of Germans and Hungarians and to give back all these old Slav territories to the Czechs.” These German “colonists” had settled in the area in the 12th and 13th century. The Germans had developed these virgin lands at the invitation of the Bohemian dukes and kings, 400 years before the Pilgrim Fathers landed in America.

On June 19, 1945, Benes issued a decree which ordered the confiscation and division of all land owned by Germans and Magyars, as well as by all “enemies and traitors” to the Czech and Slovak people. The confiscation extended not only to land, houses, factories and machinery, but also to all the private property of German-speaking citizens, such as clothes, furniture and household goods. During the deportation (Odsun) every German-speaking citizen was only permitted to take with him 70 kilograms, including no valuables. In most instances the Germans had already been robbed in the concentration camps to the point that they had nothing but the clothes they were wearing.

IN THE MONTHS following May, 1945, Czecho-Slovakia was the scene of innumerable crimes. According to the official statistics of the German Federal Republic,1 225,000 of 3,000,000 Sudeten Germans were killed—every 13th German-speaking citizen of Czecho-Slovakia was slaughtered during the orgy of terrorism. The first official Czecho-Slovak statistic2 stated that the number of Czechs killed during the Nazi regime amounted to 60,000—that is, one Czech out of 150. Later, the Prague Communists increased this number to 335,000, an obviously fantastic exaggeration. But even if it were true, the losses of the Czechs and the Slovaks would be much smaller than those of the Germans: one dead out of 27 inhabitants.

With indignation, a true Czech resistance fighter wrote in the Socialist weekly Cil:3 “We witnessed how human rats who had shown nothing but cowardice sallied from their holes against the vanquished enemy in order to avenge themselves in shameful manner for their own dishonor. We also saw uniformed and non-uniformed mobs who had insolently put on the Red armband of the revolutionary guards, attack dwelling places and plunder them. . . . This wave of crimes finally influenced even some among the true freedom fighters. It was the tragic consequence of the general demoralization brought by these hyenas.”

This state of affairs laid the ground for what happened in the 1946 and 1948 elections. Dr. Benes personally was largely responsible for the disregard of human rights in his country. On May 8, 1946, he proclaimed spontaneously the so-called amnesty-law, whose first paragraph stated: “Any action carried out in the period between Sept. 3, 1938, and Oct. 28, 1945, with the intention to help the fight for the reestablishment of Czech and Slovak freedom or which was a just vengeance for the crimes of the occupants and their associates is not illegal even if it is punishable by law.” Of course this paragraph in fact exclusively covers what happened between May 8 and Oct. 28, 1945. In most cases, as the long period of 5½ months after Germany’s surrender shows, acts covered by the amnesty were not emotional vengeance, as might have occurred in the first days of the liberation; indeed the great majority of these were crimes organized in cold blood.

In Prague alone, according to Czech newspapers published in June, 1945, there were 27,000 “suicides” of Germans within the three weeks following May 8. On that day there lived roughly 60,000 Germans in Prague, to which must be added a large number of wounded soldiers in hospitals who were killed almost without exception. In other words, according to the Czech press itself, we are asked to believe that almost 50% of all Germans committed suicide. It is quite obvious that, in reality, the word is simply a euphemism for murder and execution. No nation can stand such a wholesale outbreak of bloodlust without deep-seated moral and psychological consequences. This may well be an important cause of the Czech flight into Communism, which alone would give them protection from their bad conscience and a possible future vengeance. One must add that literally hundreds of thousands of Czechs were also imprisoned, robbed and even killed for alleged collaboration. There is good reason to believe that in the statistic of Czech victims of the war published by the Communists, these dead were also included and simply put to the German account.

Dr. Benes’ Secretary, Edvard Toborsky, admitted that his chief had already thought of the expulsion of the Germans in 1939,4 that is to say, at a time when there was as yet no cause for such cruel vengeance. In 1943 the Czech President-in-exile received Moscow’s consent for his plan. In exchange he offered to the Russians the transformation of his state into a Communist province. In the so-called “Narodni Fronta” which ruled the country after the manifesto of Kosice of April, 1945, and which gave Benes his dictatorial powers, only those parties were represented which in the emigration had supported Benes’ close alliance with Moscow: Communists, Social Democrats, National Socialists and Populists. On the other hand, the Republican Party (or Agrarians)—which had between 1925 and 1939 the strongest party in the Czech parliament and which from 1920 to 1939 had given the country all its Prime Ministers, a party which had produced first rate personalities like Antonin Svehla and Milan Hodza—was banned by presidential order. A similar fate befell the National Democratic Party, which was headed until 1937 by the great Czech patriot Karel Kramar, who had been condemned to death during the First World War, been released by Emperor Charles and had become Czecho-Slovakia’s first Prime Minister. If, in the case of the Agrarians, one could argue that one of their members had been for a time Prime Minister in the Hitlerite Protectorate, not a single act of collaboration could be charged against the strongly nationalistic National Democrats. Their only crime was that they had opposed Benes’ policy of alignment with the Soviet Union.

IT WAS OBVIOUS that these measures were aimed at the extermination of those national Czech forces which had prevailed during the critical days of May, 1945, and had tried to establish ties with the West. Thus the path was open for the Communists. Gen. Ingr, who had been Minister of War in Benes’ London exile government and had escaped to England after the events of February, 1948, declared immediately upon his arrival, in an interview with the London Catholic Herald, that the Army, which was in majority anti-Communist, was completely ready to prevent the Communist take-over and to guarantee a liberal order. But, as in 1938, Benes had been too cowardly to give the order. He had betrayed his people and liberty. This statement, coming from one of the most prominent collaborators of Dr. Benes, seems to show that the latter was driven by lust for personal power, had tried desperately to retain his position, and had hoped, even in 1948, to stay on as head of the State by carrying out the will of the Communists unquestioningly. That is why he remained in office despite the murder of two of his faithful friends, Jan Masaryk and Drtina, and the transformation of the People’s Democracy into open Communist Party dictatorship. Maybe his attitude was logical from his point of view. He had made his alliance with the Soviet Union in 1935 and had been elected President with the help of the Communist votes. In 1941 and 1943 he had delivered himself into the hands of the Communists and in 1945 had covered with the mantle of his name and authority all the crimes committed by left wing totalitarians. He had thus destroyed the moral foundations of a democratic community and delivered to the totalitarians the most important positions in the State. Such premises made final surrender to Gottwald just a matter of time. A few months after this last step, Benes was to die, alone, dishonored, and dismissed from the office to which he had clung so desperately and for which he had sacrificed all higher principles.

The Sudeten German leader, Wenzel Jaksch, who during the war was an emigre in London and at present is a Socialist member of the German Bundestag, has shown in his remarkable book, Europe’s Road to Potsdam,5 that Benes not only betrayed his own people and the Slovaks to Moscow, but also contributed decisively to the loss of Poland by giving President Roosevelt false information on Stalin’s plans, and selling the American public on the pipedream of a democratic Russia.

Thus the moral fiber of the Czech people was destroyed. This is felt even today. Khrushchev’s strongest support in the Eastern bloc comes from Czecho-Slovakia. It is only when Communism will have been defeated in Warsaw, Budapest and East Berlin that we can expect an end of totalitarian rule in Prague.

The Case Against Coercion

ROBERT CUNNINGHAM*

IT IS A RATHER easy sport to show how particular collectivist measures have gone awry. But we conservatives cannot neglect the task of attempting to articulate a theoretical justification for our position. And this is especially important for a journal such as New Individualist Review. In this article I have attempted to outline some of the more general and abstract arguments for limiting governmental coercion to the narrowest possible sphere. While one cannot in so brief a space show conclusively where the line between governmental and non-governmental action should be drawn, I hope to provide support for the premise that is fundamental to the conservative position: that a prima facie case exists against governmental coercion when extended beyond its role of preventing violence by private individuals, and that consequently the burden of proof is always on its proponent.

To avoid the usual arguments over the “true meaning” of coercion, I will stipulate the following definition. Coercion is violence or threatened violence designed to cause a person either to perform an act or to refrain from performing one. Most would agree that governmental coercion in this sense ought to be used against the private coercive action of one citizen directed against another, and against those agents of foreign governments who initiate coercion against us. Are there good reasons for wanting to minimize the overall coercion of one man by another, whether by an agent of government or by anyone else? Are there reasons for wanting to maximize “freedom” (which I stipulate to mean the absence of coercion initiated by one man against another)?1

When coercion is exercised upon a man, he does not act according to his own plans and for his own ends, but out of fear, acts as a tool in the hands of him who coerces. Not only are certain choices closed to him, but the opportunities freedom offers for self discipline are closed to him. Whenever the sphere of fully voluntary acts is thus narrowed, the number of choices open to the agent is reduced and he will consequently find it impossible to act in accord with the best judgment of his own conscience; and so not only the egoist, the man who lives for himself, but even the altruist prefers to be left free to make his own choices.

Coercion may be justified insofar as it removes obstacles to virtuous acts, and it is on this ground that coercion of children by parents may be justified: the bulldozer of coercion cannot build the house of virtue, but can push away the obstructions of unrestrained passion. Coercion of adults cannot be justified for this reason because nothing similar to the loving interest and detailed knowledge that parents can be presumed to have of their own children—and how many are the blunders of parents!—can be found on the part of governors of adults. Such interest and knowledge may exist, but there is no institutionalized way of picking out those who possess it. The appropriate means for one adult to lead another to a good end is persuasion, example, moral suasion, etc.—all of which attempt to affect only the choice and not the physical environment or body of the actor.

Unless an adult is permitted to guide himself to his own ends, he will fail to concern himself with matters which he knows best and cares for most. And unless there were some assurance that the governor’s circumstantial knowledge of and concern for what is good for each individual exceeds that of the individual, it could not be justifiably claimed that the governor is right to coerce individuals for their own good. As Thoreau said, “If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.”

There is a question one might raise about this analysis: “How distinguish coercion from other forms of non-rational influence?” One cannot of course deny that people differ in ability to withstand pressures of various sorts, and that there are circumstances in which some individuals will fear certain moral sanctions as strongly as they would fear threatened violence. But though at the margin non-coercive forms of pressure may be as strongly felt as the threat of physical violence, one must not blur the difference between the two: Not only is it far easier for a man of conviction to resist jeers than it is to resist a club, but it is also true that while one can usually accomplish his ends though he feels the force of social disapproval, one cannot usually accomplish his ends when in jail.

Thus far we have said, in sum, that governmental coercion is desirable as a means of reducing overall coercion, and that there is an initial prejudice against using coercive measures for other reasons, because an act done under coercion fails to be a fully voluntary and thus a fully valuable human act. On this analysis, governors are the guardians of the peace, not spiritual directors. The conservative position is that governors hold a warrant only to promote that outward peace without which social life is impossible. As Jefferson said in his first inaugural address, government is to confine itself to restraining men from injuring one another: “this is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.” There is no way to guarantee the possession by agents of government of the special wisdom and other virtues demanded to know and carry out progress which uses coercion to make people good, or better. To put this point another way: I may believe I know what is good for you, but I do not trust you to know what is good for me. And if I might lose my power to coerce you for your own good, and if you might gain power to coerce me for my own good—then I want to deny myself the power to coerce you, and want to try to persuade you to deny yourself the power to coerce me. Surely it is true that individuals often act against their own best interests. Surely it is true that there are some who could use coercion to make people really better. But the problem is, how can we find these paragons of wisdom and virtue?

It should be clear that on this view of government, the most important question is not the classic “Who should rule?” but “How can we stop rulers from ruling too much?” For only if political sovereignty is thought to be essentially unlimited would the question “Who is to be sovereign?” be the only important question left.2 The problem of getting rulers who will always, or even more often than not, know and act for what is really in the best interests of all, beyond the minimizing of coercion, is practically insoluble; though of course every ruler and candidate professes love of and devotion to the “common good”—equivalent only to a denial that he is motivated by purely sectional concerns—and certainly no one could fault even Hitler in this respect. I am not maintaining the theory of the “outlaw conscience,” conscientia ex lex, the theory that the individual’s conscience is unrestrained and unrestrainable by anything other than its own subjective imperatives. Rather I approve a form of natural-law theory according to which certain moral truths (the Ten Commandments, let us say) are known with very little discourse. But I deny that any civil governor or governors, or even the majority of people in a democracy, will always or even usually act wisely when it is a matter not of minimizing overall coercion, but of coercing people to be better. This is not to say that one should not sometimes use every means short of coercion to lead others to what he considers to be virtuous activity or intelligent thinking about some matter. But he will either convince all or only some: if all are convinced, coercion will be unnecessary; if only some are convinced, coercion is, in my opinion, undesirable.

One must be willing to distinguish accurately between what is valuable in itself and what is a desirable goal of men acting through the instrumentality of the coercive state. To illustrate: one may believe that some men are “natural slaves” (in the Aristotelian sense); and yet, because of the difficulties of identifying these slaves and the dangers of giving to some men the power so to identify others, one may deny the desirability of a political order in which men are distinguished as “naturally” free or “naturally” slave.

Now even though the principle that state coercion is justified to minimize overall coercion be accepted, it must be in somebody’s discretion to answer the question: is such-and-such a coercive measure necessary to prevent worse coercion? The formula “better prevention than cure” would tend to stifle spontaneity and to presume more knowledge on the part of governors than can reasonably be expected. So there is no easy answer to this question and at the margin there will be room for dispute. But some administrative arbitrariness may be avoided if the onus probandi be placed on those who propose new legislation and if such coercive measures as are adopted be general abstract rules, known beforehand, and equally applicable to all.3

A number of other reasons have been offered by political theorists for justifying the reduction of coercion to a minimum. Among them we find the alleged fact that there exists a sphere of private, non-social activity in which no one but the individual concerned is interested, a sphere which does not involve the well-being of others; and so in this sphere no government coercion is justified. But no such purely private sphere exists; all behavior affects others at least indirectly and remotely, and those effects of my actions, though relatively unpredictable, may be quite as important to others as the obvious and immediate effects. One cannot, furthermore, assume the relativist position that no one knows what is morally or otherwise good for the individual better than he himself does; to my mind, at least, relativism is an indefensible position. Nor can one assume that most men are morally good and can well be left alone to pursue their own interests; the contrary I believe more likely: most men are morally bad in that most men seek the good of sense in opposition to the good of reason. The only telling argument for minimizing governmental and other coercion is this: there is no way of getting rulers who will know and do what is best for all concerned. If there were a way of getting rulers who would use force when necessary to teach us to use our liberty rightly, to become strong in resisting the determination of our own instincts, to stand firm against non-coercive sanctions—the curled lip, the raised eyebrow, the cancelled invitation, the economic deprivation, the scorn and ridicule, or the applause, the bonus and the medal—then one might not unreasonably be willing to give up a measure of freedom; to stop insisting on as large a protected “private” sphere of activity as possible. This is not to say that each of us is a little god, almighty and allgood, who asks only to be left alone to enjoy himself and his works; it is only to say that the state is not in Hegel’s words “a Big god almighty and allgood,” whose will is carried out by angelic agents.

To sum up in a sentence: We need governmental coercion, but we want no more than is “necessary.” But how much is necessary beyond what is called for by internal and external aggression? The conservative answer is: none. The hypothesis the conservative defends might be stated: if no more coercion be admitted than is necessary to reduce coercion to an overall minimum, then the conditions of the “good life” will be preserved. How could we verify this hypothesis? By attempting to falsify it, and failing. If we could find some interventionist measure (one by which government interferes with the voluntary actions of individuals to force them to do or refrain from doing certain non-coercive acts) whose consequences would be on the whole beneficial, then we should have falsified the hypothesis. Now the conservative does not hold that should one, or even a number of interventionist measures be introduced, the sky will crack and the world tumble about our ears. Some governmental interventions have worse consequences than others; one should take the middle path when the best path is closed; etc. But the conservative does hold that the fact that coercive measures are introduced “democratically” does not make them less undesirable. And he does believe that the better arguments can be found on the side of those who oppose interventionist measures—measures such as minimum wage laws; price and rent control; Social Security; FEPC legislation; Communist Party registration; the establishment of “free” and public schools; tariffs and quotas; regulatory commissions such as the ICC, the FCC, and the like; government monopoly of the post office; state licensing provisions; and the TVA. Now every such interventionist proposal would require a careful critique if one expected to convince a reasonable person of the rightness beyond question of the conservative position. It seems to me, however, that at a minimum the considerations we have just educed on the undesirability of coercion unmistakably throw the burden of proof on those who announce plans to increase the scope of governmental activity.

Ireland, Victim of Its Own Politicians

JOHN P. McCARTHY*

IRISH-AMERICANS are earnestly proud of their Irish heritage. At the annual St. Patrick’s Day festivities they vigorously assert their determination to further Ireland’s freedom and national unification, and indulge in a few Anglophobic outbursts. But as soon as the ceremonies are over, they return these Fenian enthusiasms to the attic storerooms and once again become preoccupied with the problems and concerns of those institutions to which they owe their primary loyalties: the United States and the Catholic Church. This is fortunate, not only for American politics which has one less overseas political loyalty to have to appease, but also for Ireland herself. Irish-American involvement in Irish problems would scarcely benefit Ireland. Because of their lack of understanding about Ireland’s real needs, Irish-American circles would probably only aid the nationalist politicians in Ireland who are primarily responsible for Ireland’s present difficulties. These Irish politicians would use Irish-American sympathy for Ireland solely to cover up their own inadequacies by reassuring the Irish electorate that there is overwhelming support in America for their policies. For instance, Ted Kennedy’s two-day visit to Ireland last spring is used by Irish politicians to assure their constituents that all will go well because Ireland has an ardent champion in the American Senate.

Ireland’s present difficulties are attributable not to British tyranny nor to partition, but to the ineptitude of many of the people who have been governing Ireland since national independence was won, especially since Eamon de Valera’s assumption of power in 1932. A further tragedy is that the natural Irish rebelliousness and political ingenuity has been lulled to sleep because of self-satisfaction with the very fact of having independence. Probably because of a political inferiority complex, Irishmen will scarcely criticize their own government in front of foreigners lest their listeners think the Irish are unfit to govern themselves.

Simply because an activity or policy is followed by an independent Irish government, Irishmen tend to think that it has to be supported regardless of its merits. As a result, Ireland has let herself be dominated in the past thirty years or so by a band of fattened revolutionaries, who are profiting from the memory of their exploits during the revolution of 1916-1921, but who are scarcely concerned or competent to deal with Ireland’s most pressing needs. This incompetence especially injures the greatest section of the Irish population, the people living on farms. The greatest gains made by the Irish farmers—the ability to own their own land and the initiation of the co-operative creameries—began in the last few years of British rule. They have had no comparable gains since then. But before discussing these politicians and their policies, let us examine the history and development of Irish independence.

PRIMARILY BECAUSE of the political genius of Irish leaders, such as O’Connell and Parnell, most of the frightful injustices under which the Irish suffered had been removed. Catholics had been admitted to Parliament in 1829, the Episcopal Church in Ireland was disestablished in 1867, and in the 1890’s and early 1900’s landlordism disappeared as the British Government assisted the Irish peasants in becoming the proprietors of their own land. In earlier history, especially during the penal days in the eighteenth century, British power in Ireland was used solely to benefit the land-grabbing Protestant “Establishment.” But in the thirty years before World War One, the British ministry and Parliament had begun to govern for the benefit and well-being of all the Irish population. Railroads were extended to the neglected Irish western seaboard, a Department of Agriculture was set up to help the new peasant proprietors modernize their farming methods, and educational opportunities were extended, including the establishment of a non-denominational National University.

The major remaining objective of the Irish Nationalist representatives in Parliament was to gain Home Rule for Ireland, that is, an independent legislature for Ireland with responsibility for Irish domestic affairs. By 1911, the British ministry itself was committed to the passage of a Home Rule Act. Since the veto power of the Tory House of Lords had been removed, a Home Rule Act seemed certain of success.

The only obstacle was the refusal, even to the point of arms, of the Protestant section in Northern Ireland, Ulster, to accept being ruled by a Home Rule Parliament. An attempt at compromise was made as the Unionist leader, Edward Carson, modified his total opposition to any Home Rule to simply an insistence on the exclusion of six of the Ulster counties from a Home-Ruled Ireland. John Redmond, the Nationalist leader, was willing to accept the exclusion of part of Ulster, but insisted that two of the six counties, Tyrone and Fermanagh, which had Catholic and Nationalist majorities, should be included under Home Rule. The Unionists would not agree to this, and when the World War began the ministry postponed any action on Home Rule. The prospects for it at the end of the war were bright, though, for, as King George V told Redmond in a private conversation, everyone, himself included, regarded Home Rule as inevitable.1

But then, on the virtual eve of the attainment of Home Rule, a futile uprising occurred in Dublin in Easter Week, 1916. The rebels, led and inspired by a group of Gaelic language revivalists, labor leaders, and intellectuals, rejected the Irish Nationalist Party’s policy of working within the British Parliament to achieve Ireland’s objectives. To them, Ireland’s political independence was not something to be requested from the British Parliament. Wanting not just legislative independence or Home Rule, they proclaimed “the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State.”

Irish popular sentiment was still behind the parliamentary Nationalists. However, the heavy-handed treatment of the rebels by the British military authorities and Lloyd George’s decision in April, 1918, to request an extension of the draft to Ireland caused a shift in public feeling to the Sinn Fein, the political party of the rebels. Irish sensitivity had been offended by Lloyd George’s move because there were already many Irish volunteers in the British forces, and Redmond’s offer to have Irish Volunteer Militia units called to active service had been rejected by the War Office.

The Sinn Fein won 73 of the Irish seats to Parliament in the 1918 general election, against 6 for the Nationalists, and 26 for the Unionists. Yet, the Sinn Fein M.P.’s refused to sit in the British Parliament (where they would have been able to take part in the probable passage of Home Rule legislation). Instead, they declared a de facto Parliament of Ireland (Dail Eireann), and demanded the removal of the British forces from Ireland as well as the dissolution of the Royal Irish Constabulary, the police force in Ireland. Then, following a series of attacks on the British military by the Irish Republican Army, the military arm of the insurgent Irish government, fierce guerrilla warfare was initiated and covered Ireland for the next two years.

A compromise between the different sections in Ireland became even more improbable now that southern sentiment had shifted from the Parliamentary Nationalists to the Sinn Fein. The Sinn Fein refused any compromise solution, but insisted that the north must be governed by and accept, not a Home Rule Parliament granted by the British Government, but the de facto republican government which the Sinn Feiners claimed to be the government of all Ireland. The Redmond party, at least, would have accepted the exclusion of some northern counties from the Home Rule section of Ireland. Home Rule Ireland would also have maintained some connection with Britain. This and the control of the independent Irish Parliament by experienced parliamentary leaders might have made the Unionists amenable to an eventual re-unification.2

LLOYD GEORGE PASSED a Government of Ireland Act, which set up two separate Home Rule Parliaments, one for the twenty-six southern counties and one for six Ulster counties, including the predominantly Catholic and Nationalist Tyrone and Fermanagh. King George V opened the northern Parliament on June 22, 1921, expressing his wish for eventual re-unification. The Sinn Feiners had been elected to the southern Parliament, but they refused to operate it since it was not the republican Parliament of all of Ireland.

Then, the British Government entered into direct negotiations with representatives of the rebel government. A treaty was drafted and was accepted by the rebel Parliament in January, 1922, whereby Ireland was given more independence than had been sought for by the pre-Sinn Fein Irish leaders. The twenty-six counties received not just legislative independence, but a complete government as well as the evacuation of the British military. The only restriction on the independence of this Irish Free State was that it was to be a member of the British Commonwealth, with a representative of the Crown present in Ireland and an oath to the King required of members of the Irish Parliament. Also, the Irish Free State was to allow several Irish harbor facilities and defenses to be maintained by the British forces.

Many republicans, such as Eamon de Valera, regarded the treaty’s acceptance of membership in the Commonwealth, the oath to the King, and the continuing partition as a betrayal of the Sinn Fein principles of an independent Irish Republic. The pro-treaty forces had won the Parliamentary election of the Irish Free State’s provisional government. However, civil war broke out between the die-hard rebel army, the IRA, and the new professional Irish Free State Army being recruited in accord with the treaty.

The republicans were defeated (although the Chairman of the provisional government, Michael Collins, had been killed in an ambush), and ended fighting in April, 1923. The political arm of the republicans, the Sinn Fein, continued its opposition to the treaty as its members refused to sit in or recognize the Free State Parliament to which many of them had been elected. Then de Valera organized a new republican party, the Fianna Fail, whose members would accept their seats in the Parliament. In the 1927 elections, the pro-treaty party, now called Cumann na nGaedheal, maintained its majority with W. T. Cosgrave remaining as President.

In 1925, a Boundary Commission (with representatives from Northern and Southern Ireland and Britain), called for by the 1922 treaty, suggested, over the dissent of the southern Irish member, that the status quo boundary between Northern and Southern Ireland be maintained, despite the fact that there were nationalist majorities in many northern areas. This was rationalized on the grounds that the economic survival of Northern Ireland as a separate entity necessitated the inclusion of these predominantly nationalist areas in Northern Ireland.

The southern government’s dissatisfaction with this report was resolved by a new agreement in December, 1925, which replaced the 1922 treaty. The Boundary Commission and the contemplated “Council of Ireland,” where both sections could have met together on common problems, were dissolved, but the status quo partition was accepted. At the same time the British Government and the Free State cancelled their respective liabilities towards each other. Then, by an agreement reached in March, 1926, the Free State agreed to transmit to the British Government the annual payments on land annuities collected from the former tenants who had purchased their estates under the 1903 Land Act.

Under this Act many Irish tenants were enabled to buy the land on which they lived solely by promising to pay the annuities over a period of 68 years to the British Government which had compensated the landlords. The landlords had been compensated by being issued stock on which interest was paid out of the monies collected as annuities. As a result of this 1926 agreement the Irish Government agreed to collect and to transmit to the British Government the annuities which amounted to about £5 million annually.

IN THE 1932 GENERAL elections de Valera’s Fianna Fail Party won control of the Free State Government which they, as republicans, had originally refused to recognize. With the two short exceptions of 1948-51 and 1954-57, the Fianna Fail has since been in power. Therefore, the record of Irish development in the past thirty years must to all intents and purposes be considered as the Fianna Fail record.

Intent on achieving the old republican goal of breaking all ties with Great Britain, the Fianna Fail Government removed the oath to the King from the Free State constitution, and continually slighted the King’s representative in Dublin, the Governor-General, whose legal powers were removed. The right of appeal from the Irish courts to the British Privy Council was abolished.

These gestures naturally made the Unionist Government of Northern Ireland permanently opposed to any re-unification, for it realized that re-unification with the Fianna Fail Government would involve dissolution of the British connection to which the Unionists were so committed. Those who suffered most from de Valera’s strict republicanism were, of course, his nationalist allies in the north, for the possibility of a compromise whereby they would find themselves in a united Ireland was now removed. The only alternative course for the northern nationalists (who in County Tyrone and County Fermanagh were the majorities, justly entitled to incorporation with the Southern Government) was some sort of rebellion. To prevent this, the Unionist Government placed stringent restrictions on the nationalist and Catholic minorities in the north.

De Valera then refused to abide by the 1926 agreement to transmit the land annuities to the English Government. This refusal would have been justified if de Valera had based it on the grounds that the former landlords really had no right to have owned the land in the first place, since they had gained it by confiscating it from the original owners in the 16th and 17th centuries. The tenant-purchasers were the true successors of the rightful owners whose land had been taken in those centuries, and therefore they should have no obligation to compensate the illegitimate “landlords” nor to pay annuities for their own land.

But de Valera contradicted this reasoning, for he did not end the obligation of the tenant-purchasers to pay annuities. The only thing he did was to insist that the annuities be collected for his government rather than for the old “landlords.”

The British Government naturally retaliated against de Valera’s action by raising special duties on imports from the Irish Free State. De Valera replied by imposing higher duties on imports to Ireland from Great Britain, and an economic war between both nations began. Naturally, Ireland, the agrarian and exporting country which had always relied on British markets to sell its products in and which was dependent on British manufactured goods, was bound to be the loser.

As a result of the economic war, Irish agriculture became so disorganized that its export capacity fell by 50%. But this did not trouble the Fianna Fail theorists, who saw the war as an opportunity to further their ideals of separation from Britain and of economic nationalism. It should be remembered that the social forces behind the Irish Revolution had not been the impoverished farming community, which had supported the nineteenth century struggles, especially those against landlordism. Rather, it came from the many children of the farmers who had been forced to seek work in the towns and cities. “Surplus children squeezed into the towns and cities, and found there that all the power and most of the wealth was in the hands of people of a different religion, racial origin, or political loyalty.” It was this ambitious urban class which had come to power in Ireland.

This class was not a laboring class. Rather, “the more able among them were petit bourgeois, middle-men, importers, small manufacturers . . . a new twentieth-century middle-class to fill the vacuum created by the departure or depression of the earlier alien middle-class . . . they were rising to sudden wealth behind protective tariff-walls . . . [and] had a vested interest in nationalism and even in isolationism.”3

During the economic war and ever since then, there has been considerable industrial expansion in Ireland, part of it, no doubt, having been encouraged by protective tariffs as well as by government credits. Furthermore, a sizeable part of industrial progress in Ireland has been due to government investment, as state-sponsored boards and companies cover an extremely wide field in production, communications, marketing, research, development, finance, and sports. No doubt much employment has resulted from this industrial development, but its long range effect on Ireland’s welfare is still to be determined. This is especially so if government protection and subsidization of certain industries penalizes other activities such as agriculture, which have much more basic importance to Ireland.

In 1938 the economic war ceased, following an argument between de Valera and Neville Chamberlain. The land annuities dispute was resolved by English acceptance of a final Irish payment of only £10 million, and both nations removed the special duties imposed during the economic war. Chamberlain would not heed the Irish request that he put pressure on the Northern Government towards unification, but he did agree to revoke the 1922 agreement by withdrawing the British forces from the Southern Irish ports of Cobh, Berehaven, and Lough Swilly.

A new Irish constitution was drawn up whereby the name “Ireland” was substituted for “Irish Free State,” and the only remaining connection with Britain was by membership in the Commonwealth. The King was regarded as the head of that association, but not someone entitled to an oath of allegiance. De Valera assumed the new office of Prime Minister or “Taoiseach,” and Douglas Hyde, a leader of the old Gaelic League, was elected to the honorific Presidency. Then in 1949 Ireland broke the last ties with Britain, as it withdrew from the Commonwealth and Ireland was proclaimed a Republic. Paradoxically this was done not by the Fianna Fail Party, but by a coalition government headed by J. A. Costello of the Fine Gael Party, the successors of the Cosgrave Free State Party. Costello had agreed to leave the Commonwealth as a bargain to gain the parliamentary votes of an extremist republican party.

IN CONTRAST TO the industrial expansion, Irish agriculture has hardly developed as one might have expected since the achievement of national independence. This agrarian failure is partly attributable to the economic war of the 1930’s. This was a loss which could not be compensated by the numerous welfare schemes offered to the farmers by the de Valera government. In Ireland there are many pensions for the elderly people, widows, and orphans; new houses are provided, and there is an extensive government sponsored hospitalization scheme. Despite these welfare advantages, however, the number of agrarian workers in Ireland has declined since the 1920’s. The growing industrial capacity of Ireland has scarcely been able to absorb those leaving the farms. Instead, most have emigrated to the industrial areas of England and the United States. Emigration from Ireland is so great that Ireland shares with only East Germany and North Vietnam the dubious distinction of being a nation with a declining population.

The standard of living, measured by the increased amounts spent on food, tobacco, drink, clothes, fuel, light, entertainment, and on motor cars, has improved—but this is only because there was so much emigration which prevented mass unemployment and limited to a low level the total number dependent on the national income.

The emigration from rural areas to industrial urban areas is a common feature in the modern world. But accompanying the decline of agricultural laborers in many nations has been a substantial modernization of agricultural methods and a sizeable increase in agricultural productivity. In comparison with many of these nations, though, Ireland is failing to modernize significantly its agricultural methods or improve its productivity.

Irish leadership should be aware that Ireland’s natural resources are too limited to create a serious manufacturing economy in Ireland. Fortunately, the new ministry of Sean Lemass, who succeeded de Valera as the Fianna Fail leader when the latter assumed the non-political office of President in 1959, is receding from the old ideals of economic nationalism. Instead of protecting and subsidizing industries which would be incapable of meeting foreign competition and would penalize the domestic Irish consumer, the Government is now encouraging private investment in Ireland by foreign capital. Tax concessions are granted to the imported industries with hopes that these industries will be successful in foreign markets.

However, it is not enough simply to encourage manufacturing. Ireland’s economy can only prosper by emphasizing and developing the most naturally advantageous industries: agriculture and fishing. This is especially so if Ireland is to join the Common Market, where Ireland will scarcely be able to compete in manufactured goods with the other Common Market members. As an agrarian country, Ireland will have to reconcile herself to a certain amount of emigration. But, by improving her agricultural methods and expanding productivity, the amount of emigration can be lessened and greater prosperity and well-being can be obtained for the bulk of the population.

The government should not expect to encourage agricultural improvement by the present system of welfare assistance, pensions, and housing grants. These forms of assistance to the farmer are scarcely large enough to serve as capital with which to improve his methods. Indeed, by providing a certain amount of minimum comforts they probably engender a spirit of self-satisfaction and disdain to change or improve himself.

Government facilitation of more liberal credit terms in acquiring new machinery is, of course, more useful to the farmer than would be unproductive doles. At the same time, the farmer has to be encouraged to abandon the traditional Irish small 30-acre farm, which is incapable of competing in a modern economy, in favor of larger scale co-operatives. The dairy products co-operatives encouraged by the Agricultural Department set up under British rule probably did more than anything else to improve the lot of Irish farmers.

Irish fishing needs more encouragement. In view of the frequent presence of so many Danish trawlers within a few miles of the Irish coast, it should be expected that a modernized and well-equipped Irish fishing fleet could successfully compete in the European market and provide thousands of job opportunities in Ireland. At present, however, the Irish fishing industry is in a relatively primitive state, with much fishing being done by independent fishermen with unmotorized craft.

Until the leaders realize the full potentials of Irish agriculture and fishing, and recognize the marginal value of so much of the manufacturing and tourism which the government encourages, the Irish economy will scarcely be able to hold its own, never mind prosper, in the Common Market.

A curious policy of the Irish Government has been its efforts to encourage the revival of the Gaelic language. Irish enthusiasm for the old language is understandable. In other centuries, the Anglo-Irish Establishment had deposed the Gaelic-speaking Catholics from their own land and insulted the natives by making English the official language of Ireland. The Irish people were successfully induced to speak English in national schools, and an attitude was nurtured to regard the inability to speak English as a sign of ignorance.

But the Gaelic enthusiasts should reconcile themselves to the fact that the overwhelming majority of Irishmen are English speaking, and are unlikely to be won over to a Gaelic revival. This, despite the compulsory studying of Gaelic in the national schools as well as the requirement to speak Gaelic in most civil service positions. There are many areas in western Ireland, known as Gaeltacht, where a high percentage of the people can speak Gaelic. But even in these areas most of the people, especially the younger ones, speak English despite their eligibility for government grants for the ability to speak Gaelic. Significantly, it is the Gaeltacht areas that have the highest rate of emigration, emigration to such non-Gaelic speaking areas as London and New York.

Another feature of the Irish Government’s policy has been its “neutralism” in foreign affairs. It justified its non-involvement in World War Two and its refusal to join NATO on the grounds that part of Ireland had been “imprisoned” by one of the Allies, Great Britain. Most of the Irish people are firmly anti-Communist and very sympathetic to the policies of the United States (especially since the election of John F. Kennedy). However, it is becoming fashionable in many Irish intellectual and political circles, especially since Ireland’s entry into the UN, to consider their nation as one of the peaceful nations uninvolved in the Cold War and allied only with the anti-imperialist struggles in Asia and Africa. All of this would have been very innocent except for Ireland’s commitment to the UN assault on Katanga, where quite a few Irish soldiers lost their lives as a result of the policies of the historian-turned-diplomatic-adventurer, Conor Cruise O’Brien.

IT IS NECESSARY that new leadership arise in Ireland to replace the romantic and opportunistic governing circles who have refused to acknowledge the twentieth century. Ireland must shake itself loose from its Gaelic romanticism and accept the rightful burdens, concerns, and Weltanschauung of a modern Western European nation. Unless it does so, Ireland will be neither a modern nation nor a romantic Gaelic “other world.” Instead it will be simply a tourist resort, with most of its native population having departed through emigration.

NEW BOOKS AND ARTICLES

THE FOLLOWING IS A SELECT LIST OF BOOKS AND ARTICLES WHICH, IN THE OPINION OF THE EDITORS, MAY BE OF INTEREST TO OUR READERS.

James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, The Calculus of Consent. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1962. $6.95. An attempt to apply a rigorously scientific approach, based primarily on game theory and marginal utility analysis, to the problems of democratic government.
Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. $1.50, paper. Happily, a paperback reprint of Prof. Friedman’s book, published last year, has already been issued. Tightly-reasoned and bold in its conclusions, this volume is an excellent example of the approach of the “Chicago school” of neo-liberal economists.
George B. de Huszar, editor, Fundamentals of Voluntary Health Care. Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Press. $6. An intelligent selection of pertinent and cogent essays on voluntary as against socialized medicine, by a number of experts in the field.
Michael Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics. New York: Basic Books. $6.50. A collection of essays on politics, ethics and related subjects, permeated with Burkeanism and written by one of the leading contemporary British conservative writers.
Edmund A. Opitz and Robert LeFevre, Must We Depend upon Political Protection? Colorado Springs, Colo.: The Freedom School. 75¢. A debate on “limited” vs. “no” government.
Hans Rothfels, The German Opposition to Hitler. Chicago: Regnery, 1962. $4.00. A new edition of the classic introduction to the internal opposition to Nazism, which culminated in the attempted coup d’etat of July 20, 1944. A stimulating review of Rothfels’ book appears in the Winter, 1962-63, Modern Age. Prof. Klaus Epstein here argues that Roosevelt’s foreign policy in regard to Germany and Russia was so perverse that, within its framework, we must be grateful that the coup did not succeed!
Eliseo Vivas, Relativism: Its Paradoxes and Pitfalls. Pamphlet; free copy available from Intercollegiate Society of Individualists, 629 Public Ledger Building, Philadelphia 6, Pa. An interesting, if oblique, handling of the thesis of the relativism of moral values, by a distinguished professional philosopher.
J. K. Zawodny, Death in the Forest. South Bend, Ind.: Notre Dame University Press. $6.50. A detailed and comprehensive examination of the facts concerning the massacre of 10,000 Polish officers and intellectuals at Katyn Forest in 1940 by the Russian Army.
Robert E. Gaskins, Jr., “The Voluntary Society,” The Standard, December, 1962. Free copy available from The Standard Publishing Co., Lawrence, Kans. A young libertarian presents a proposal for extending the principle of private ownership to the court system and the police force.
William McCord, “Long Night in Ghana,” New Leader, Nov. 26, 1962. A professor of sociology reports on the totalitarian state being erected by the Osagyefo (“In Accra today one sees phlanxes of ‘Young Pioneers,’ aged 12, chanting their oath: ‘Nkrumah is always right! Nkrumah will never die!’ ”), and replies point by point to the Establishment’s apologia for the African dictator.

Know Your Enemy!!

The editors of NEW INDIVIDUALIST REVIEW have recently, through their highly placed contacts in the Communist Empire, come into possession of a fantastic and hitherto secret Communist blue-print for world domination. Entitled BLUE-PRINT FOR WORLD DOMINATION, it was composed in the depths of the Kremlin in 1920, by a noted Bolshevik writer, and has been ratified and re-ratified by numerous Communist Congresses and countless Communist deeds. Every patriotic American must familiarize himself with this shocking and sobering document! Here are the Conclusions, as set forth by its author, the well-known Bolshevik leader, V. I. LENIN.

“In order to conquer the world for our Godless Creed we must employ infinite craftiness and patience. The most difficult nation to vanquish will be the United States, for there the people are basically prosperous, moral, and un-revolutionary, because of the inspiring achievements of free enterprise. After the United States has been initially softened up by the abolition of the gold standard and the introduction of welfare legislation, we will begin this Three-Point Program for victory over America:

“(1) First we will trick them into banning prayer in the public schools. Just as fluoridation of water destroys the body, so the elimination of public-school prayer destroys the spirit.

“(2) Then, in keeping with our almost Oriental immoralism, we will begin the steady introduction of pornographic materials—both those which are rankly so, and those which we will camouflage as “avant-gardism”—into American society. Pornography will be the chief weapon in our campaign to rot out the moral fibre of America, but abstract art and 12-tone music are not to be neglected in this connection.

“(3) Our final take-over will be preceded by an unparalleled crusade to destroy the magazine, NEW INDIVIDUALIST REVIEW. This quarterly journal, because it is so highly informative, entertaining and intellectual, is perhaps our single most serious problem in the United States, rivalled only by the Strategic Air Command. To destroy NEW INDIVIDUALIST REVIEW is to make America a plum ripe for the picking!”

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(1) You can urge your college library or your local library to subscribe. A library subscription makes an excelent donation since it may introduce the magazine to dozens of people.

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Society lives and acts only in individuals . . . Everyone carries a part of society on his shoulders; no one is relieved of his share of responsibility by others. And no one can find a safe way for himself if society is sweeping toward destruction. Therefore everyone, in his own interests, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle. None can stand aside with unconcern; the interests of everyone hang on the result. Whether he chooses or not, every man is drawn into the great historical struggle, the decisive battle (between freedom and slavery) into which our epoch has plunged us.

—Ludwig Von Mises

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VOLUME 3, NUMBER 1, SUMMER 1963

EDUCATION: FREE AND PUBLIC?

ROBERT L. CUNNINGHAM

“CONSUMER SOVEREIGNTY” AND THE LAW

BRUNO LEONI

ON THE PREMISES OF GROWTH ECONOMICS

ISRAEL M. KIRZNER

THE NEGRO REVOLUTION

MURRAY N. ROTHBARD

Vol. 3, No. 1

35 cents

Summer 1963

Education: Free and Public?
	3	ROBERT L. CUNNINGHAM
“Consumer Sovereignty” and the Law
	16	BRUNO LEONI
On the Premises of Growth Economics
	20	ISRAEL M. KIRZNER
The Negro Revolution
	29	MURRAY N. ROTHBARD
Foreign Aid in Latin America
	38	ROBERT SCHUETTINGER
BOOK REVIEW
Roepke’s “Economics of the Free Society”
	44	SAM PELTZMAN
New Books and Articles
	47

NEW INDIVIDUALIST REVIEW is published quarterly by New Individualist Review, Inc., at Ida Noyes Hall, University of Chicago, Chicago 37, Illinois.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors. Editorial, advertising, and subscription correspondence and manuscripts should be sent to NEW INDIVIDUALIST REVIEW, Ida Noyes Hall, University of Chicago, Chicago 37, Illinois. All manuscripts become the property of NEW INDIVIDUALIST REVIEW.

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Copyright 1963 by New Individualist Review, Inc., Chicago, Illinois. All rights reserved. Republication of less than 200 words may be made without specific permission of the publisher, provided NEW INDIVIDUALIST REVIEW is duly credited and two copies of the publication in which such material appears are forwarded to NEW INDIVIDUALIST REVIEW.

EDITORIAL STAFF

Editors-in-Chief • Ronald Hamowy • Ralph Raico

Associate Editors • Robert M. Hurt • John P. McCarthy

Robert Schuettinger • John Weicher

Business Manager • Sam Peltzman

Editorial Assistants • Jameson Campaigne, Jr. • Joe Cobb

Burton Gray • Thomas Heagy • Jerome Heater

R. P. Johnson • Robert Michaels • James Powell

EDITORIAL ADVISORS

Yale Brozen • Milton Friedman • George J. Stigler

University of Chicago

F. A. Hayek	•	Benjamin Rogge
University of Freiburg		Wabash College

COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY REPRESENTATIVES

UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA
Dianne Hastings

UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
Stephen Sala

BALL STATE COLLEGE
Geoffrey Scott

BELOIT COLLEGE
Alfred Regnery

BROOKLYN COLLEGE
Howard Seigel

BRYN MAWR COLLEGE
Sheila Bunker

CITY COLLEGE OF NEW YORK
Kathie Fiesel

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
John P. McCarthy

UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE
John M. Tobin

DE PAUW UNIVERSITY
David Prosser

UNIVERSITY OF DETROIT
George McDonnell

DUKE UNIVERSITY
Robert B. Fisher

EARLHAM COLLEGE
David Lindsey

GROVE CITY COLLEGE
A. Bruce Gillander

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
David Friedman

UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO
Robert D. Brown

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
Bill Jacklin

INDIANA UNIVERSITY
Karl K. Pingle

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
Larry F. Glaser

UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY
James G. Otto

KNOX COLLEGE
Kip Pencheff

LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY
William Thomas Tete

LOYOLA UNIVERSITY (Chicago)
William Ford

MANHATTAN COLLEGE
Stephen J. Kerins

MIAMI UNIVERSITY (Ohio)
Thomas R. Ireland

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
Jeffrey Jay Weiser

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
S. Kent Steffke

OCCIDENTAL COLLEGE
Goetz Wolff

OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
John Charles Neeley

PACIFIC COAST UNIVERSITY
Ernest Talaganis

PROVIDENCE COLLEGE
Raymond LaJeunesse

PURDUE UNIVERSITY
Ted Sigward

QUEENS COLLEGE
Robert J. Malito

QUINCY COLLEGE
Michael J. Hill

REGIS COLLEGE
Edwin J. Feulner, Jr.

SOUTHERN ILL. UNIVERSITY
John Lulves, Jr.

STANFORD UNIVERSITY
Richard Noble

SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY
Irwin H. Rosenthal

TUFTS UNIVERSITY
William G. Nowlin, Jr.

VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY
Peter Chamberlain

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
Robert Stuart Redfield

WABASH COLLEGE
Ronald Rettig

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN
Theodore Cormaney

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN (Milwaukee)
Wells H. Perkins

•

UNIVERSITY OF FRANKFURT
Werner Krebs

UNIVERSITY OF PARIS
Ronald Hamowy

OXFORD UNIVERSITY
Robert Schuettinger

Education: Free and Public?

ROBERT L. CUNNINGHAM*

ONE IS RIGHTLY suspicious when he comes across what purports to be an easy solution to a complex of difficult problems. Knowing that a preference for shortcuts springs from deep-seated intellectual laziness, he is suspicious when told that all would change if only people would become pacifists, or abandon Aristotelian logic, or adopt the social credit system. Yet sometimes it is the simple solution which is the best solution. This may well be the case with regard to the major educational problems we face in the United States today: the religious-school problem, the problem of raising educational standards, and the segregation problem.

I propose in this paper to ask, and offer an answer to, two questions: Why do we need schools that are “free”? and, Suppose our schools were “free” but not “public,” what would be the consequences? To the first question I shall answer: We do not need schools that are “free,” but will find it impossible in the short run to persuade people that we do not. To the second I shall answer: The consequences of a system where most schools are “free” but “non-public” are such that our major problems will be solved, and no new problems of consequence will be raised.

WHY THEN DO WE need a free school system? Suppose we examine the hypothesis that, given parental rights and duties, there is no need for a free school system, and that government has only two roles in the field of schooling: the first that of a truant officer, of making a minimum standard of education compulsory; the second, the paternalistic role of paying the costs of educating those children whose parents are demonstrably unable to pay.

The first, truant-officer role of government, can be perhaps justified on the grounds that unless some schooling were compulsory, a significant number of parents would give their children little or no schooling—which would put the child at a disadvantage with respect to his peers, and cause external diseconomies, such as a lower level of political understanding and of productive power. Knowledge is the sort of good or value whose goodness is obvious only to those who have some, and if there are illiterate parents who do not appreciate the value of literacy, it is generally thought that government interference is justified in the name of the child and the “common good”; the grounds are that the whole social cost of sub-standard education is borne not by the uneducated individual and his family alone, but by society as a whole, for the fact is that the educated child confers political, material, and cultural benefits upon others.1 We must recognize, however, that by making schooling compulsory, we fly in the face of the principle stated by Thomas Jefferson, “It is better to tolerate that rare instance of a parent’s refusing to let his child be educated, than to shock the common feelings by a forcible transportation and education of the infant against the will of his father.”2 Whether one agrees with Jefferson or not, it is worth noting how far we have come from Jefferson’s notion of parental liberty and control—few of us feel any “shock of the common feelings”!

If one could make the assumption that the great bulk of families were capable of paying the costs of schooling for their own children, the only other role of government, if private charity proved insufficient, would be the paternalistic one of paying the costs of educating those children whose parents are demonstrably unable to pay; just as it now gives subsistence aid to those children whose parents are demonstrably unable to furnish food, clothing, and shelter.

Can one make the assumption that the great bulk of families are capable of paying directly the costs of educating their own children? One could, of course, point out that state and local taxes would be cut by 45% (which amount now goes to the public school system), thus leaving that much more money in the hands of individuals to pay the costs of schooling for their own children. One might point to the example of the Catholics who, though a lower-middle income class, built and paid for a system of parochial schools, costing them three-quarters of a billion dollars a year, that compares favorably with the public schools—even while a substantial proportion of their state and local taxes was spent to make education “free” for other people’s children. Again, one might point to the rise in the number of those who send their children to private schools, which indicates an increasing demand and ability to pay for private schooling; for in 1950, one in seven attended private schools, in 1960, one in 5.7, and if extrapolation is legitimate, one in four will attend private schools in 1970.

We have, I think, answered the first question: Why do we need schools that are free? The answer is: we do not. Yet, practically, there is no real likelihood that people can be persuaded that it is desirable to leave to private initiative the demand for schooling. The reasons are easy to see: conservative resistance to any kind of change, insufficient attraction to exercise of individual choice, the educationist lobby, egalitarianism, and the failure to see that even though public education is “free,” it must be paid for.

But even more important than all this is the fear that the great bulk of parents would not see the advantages of paying for at least as much schooling as their children receive now, and we should have a relatively uneducated American populace, with all the disadvantages this entails. But, one might answer, although parents now take schooling as a matter of course and give it little attention, under the proposal referred to, parental attitudes, interest, and sense of responsibility, would be greatly strengthened and developed. Consider an analogy: suppose that 50 years ago children’s clothing had been made a “free” commodity, given regularly to children out of government warehouses. Suppose that this had become institutionalized and a part of our American way of life. Now consider the difficulty one would have today in seeing that parents could be led to take an interest in clothing their children; the difficulty of convincing people that the principle of equal opportunity would not be irreparably damaged if rich parents purchased better clothing for their children than the poor could afford for their children; the difficulty of conservative inertia; the difficulty of arousing parents to overcome their distaste for assuming greater responsibility than before; the difficulty of making people see that “free” clothing must be paid for; etc.3

TO SUM UP: a system of schools that are non-free (and non-public) is impractical. But now our second question: Suppose our schools were “free” but not “public,” what would be the consequences? At present the great majority of our schools are free and public. Let us consider the nature and consequences of a system in which the majority of our schools were free but not public, a system in which government subsidizes the demand for but not the supply of education, a system in which government pays the costs of but does not supply or run schools. Such a system is not really a new sort of thing; in most of the countries of Western Europe, schooling is at least partly free and at most only partly administered publicly. And in the United States we have witnessed an application of free but non-public schooling in the G.I. Bill, under which a veteran attends, if he wishes, the private school of his choice, the costs of schooling being met out of public tax funds.

One might justify such a proposal by arguing this way: parents are compelled by law to send their children to school. If the capacities of parents to obey this law are unequal, provision should be made to equalize these capacities. But parents are relevantly unequal in respect of their ability to pay for schooling. So, because some of the benefits of educating children accrue to society as a “neighborhood effect,” in the form of more cultured, more productive citizens, society may find it to its interests to raise money to pay for the education of children through taxation.4

Now, the crucial considerations in arranging for the distribution of the educational funds are these two: first, when the government distributes goods, the distribution should be made impartially and equally to all in such a way that no irrelevant differentiating criteria such as those of race, color, or creed be made excluding conditions; second, the distribution should be made in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, the principle that the individual should be permitted to do for himself whatever he alone or in conjunction with like-minded people can do as well or nearly as well as some agency of government can. This is to say that acceptance of government control over the use of these funds should not be made an enabling condition for the very reception of the funds. Thus, those parents who give evidence of ability to reach the ends for which the compulsory law was instituted, either by educating their own children or delegating this function to a qualified schoolmaster in a non-government school, should not be excluded from sharing in the tax funds raised to guarantee an educated population. (Is there any reason to believe that a government-appointed schoolmaster is a better educator than a schoolmaster who has won the support of the parents whose children he offers to educate?)

One way of institutionalizing the distribution of an educational fund is by means of a “voucher” system. Suppose individual parents, in California let us say, were given a “voucher,” a certificate, for a certain amount (say $400, which is somewhat less than the normal per-pupil cost in California per year) which could be “spent” only by offering it as full or partial payment for schooling to a schoolmaster, who could then receive cash for it out of local and state tax funds. (Of course, in small, relatively isolated communities, the small size of the educational-consumer public might offer little scope for competition—and so the one school would likely remain “public.”) Suppose, too, that the majority of parents exercise their option of sending their children to a private school of their choice. What would be the consequences of a sort of “G.I. Bill” for all children down at the elementary and secondary levels?5

The first and perhaps most important consequence is that really effective control over the education of the child would be in the hands of his parents. Most parents who have $400 school vouchers to spend would give at least as much attention to choosing a school for their child (supplementing the voucher with money directly out of pocket, perhaps6 ) as they do to choosing a family automobile. And just as parents are now responsible for choosing food, clothing, and shelter for their children, so then they would be responsible for choosing the food, clothing, shelter, and education of their children. Of course, not all parents are now expert dieticians but they can and do come to know, and choose, perhaps with the expert advice and instruction of Dr. Spock and others, appropriate food for their children; so, too, parents could and would come to know, and choose, perhaps with expert advice and instruction, appropriate education for their children. Few are expert in medicine, but a man wants to choose his own doctor, even though he does not expect to tell the doctor what to do.

First, then, there is the advantage of extending, in an important way, the scope of parental free choice; the other side of the coin is the elimination of the possibility of dangerous public control, of the power of the state to dominate the formation of the minds of the young.7Only if there were: first, truly scientific answers to educational problems; and second, no danger that the authority to whom education is entrusted would fail to apply these answers; and third, no possibility of disagreement about what kind of human being is desirable—only if all these conditions were met might we not fear to entrust this power over the young to the state. But scientfic answers to educational problems, tested objectively, are not available;8 past and recent history does not encourage us to trust the state without reservation; and there is a good deal of disagreement at all levels about what sort of human being is ideal. The recent development and growth of psychological and psycho-pharmacological techniques which increase our power to mould men’s minds deliberately, should—at least when we’re in a 1984 mood—lead us to be concerned about the temptation to make use of these newly found powers. Consider too the possibilities of television—the possibility of an expanding uniformity, the spectre of a single All-Informing Eye teaching all the children of the land. Consider the possibilities of psychic “conditioning,” already feasible through “counseling and guidance.” In a unified public school system the temptation to use these new powers might conceivably sooner or later prove irresistible; and there is reason to want a disinterested institution to act as an impartial protector of men’s minds against the use of such powers—a function government at its various levels could perform were it not committed, through an often powerful educational bureaucracy, to the application of the then currently most fashionable educational curriculum, methods, and techniques.9 Most obviously, in a system in which almost all schools are private there would be less danger of domination by the “scientific” theories of some one group of educators.

Another consequence of the introduction of the voucher-system would be the relegation of the religious-school problem from the area of political decision to the area of private decision. The problem of paying for their religious-schools is giving Catholics, and others, increasingly great concern. They pay the whole cost of their own schools and a share of the far more expensive schooling of their neighbors’ children; and costs are rising on the local, state, and federal levels. This leads Catholics to ask for public funds of one kind or another to help ease the burden they have voluntarily adopted. Unless we can arrive at some substantially unanimous agreement on how to resolve this conflict, we shall likely enter a period of religious-versus-secular school conflict like that indigenous to France for generations.

It is difficult to see, given the mainly-public school system, a way out of this political and social predicament. People might sooner or later be brought to find it desirable to assist the parochial schools in a substantial way on grounds of self-interest, on the grounds that anyone who does a fairly decent job of educating the young serves the interests of the rest of the citizenry as a whole. But if more state aid were given, would not a degree of government control follow, such that, for example, an atheist or a Zen Buddhist would be effectively able to demand admission for his child at a tax-supported parochial school and be effectively able to demand that no religious doctrine be taught his child?

Some Catholics claim that they are being (and have been for over 100 years) treated unjustly according to the canons of “distributive justice.” They are being “penalized financially for the exercise of their constitutional rights,” so that they are not “free” to send their children to parochial schools, since “freedom at a price is not freedom.” It appears to me that there is some basis for this sort of claim, though perhaps the language of “penalized” and “freedom” is somewhat queer. Let us use an analogy. Suppose “the government” felt it necessary to raise the level of consumption of sweets by the population. And suppose that instead of handing out vouchers for the purchase of sweets, it decided to hand out chocolate bars to all who applied. And suppose also that some people preferred jelly beans to chocolate bars, but, since the government does not offer “free” jelly beans, those who prefer jelly beans must purchase them privately. This would presumably constitute a case of government’s “penalizing” those who prefer jelly beans, since the jelly bean eaters would be, in their own chosen way, seeing to it that their own consumption of sweets was raised. But if the charges of the jelly bean eaters and the Catholics be allowed, many other similar charges must be allowed. For socialized medicine, socialized housing, and the like, are as objectionable as are socialized schooling and socialized candy distribution: all entail practical limitations on the exercise of choice among alternative means to the same goal. This is to say that if I object to living in a particular housing project—but would qualify if I wished to live there—then I have a right in distributive justice to government support for the sort of housing I prefer (or “need”). And if I have a right to publicly supported recreation facilities, but happen to prefer Disneyland to Yosemite, I have a right in distributive justice to spend “my share” in Disneyland. Thus any government “welfare” measure, unless it meets with absolutely unanimous agreement in every detail, may be said to limit freedom, to “penalize” those who would choose otherwise.

But if the school-system were mainly private, it is quite likely that the reality of effective parental control in this area would be quite as important to most Protestants, and others, as to Catholics. Though both Catholics and Protestants realize that, given our government public school system, the application of the least-possible-common-denominator principle is imperative in the field of religion and morality, many Protestants and others would exercise their option in a mainly-private system by choosing a school that teaches a preferred religion and morality. For, of course, schools catering to the demand for religious, or irreligious, training would be developed in numbers approximating effective market desire for them—a development which displeases no one but those who are convinced that parents should be permitted no alternative to that offered by the wisdom of majority decision.

Another development to be anticipated would make Catholics stand out in the crowd less than they do at present. The parochial school system would be weakened and, at least in the long run, would tend to break down. For the parochial school, which is tied to a parish church in respect of location, size, and administration would prove to be less efficient in meeting the demands of Catholic parents than would the more adaptable private school. Catholic religious teachers would of course make the most efficient use of their limited numbers by concentrating on the teaching of religion and related subjects, since if the voucher system were introduced, only one of three schools serving Catholics could be wholly staffed by religious teachers.

And now, as one analyst of this proposal has put it, to go from the Gordian Knot of the church-related school problem to the Augean Stables of the school segregation issue. What would be the effects of the introduction of the voucher plan on the segregation issue?10

At the moment, the segregation issue is being decided on the basis of majority wishes: the majority of people in the United States have opted for compulsory integration; the majority of people in some Southern states have opted for compulsory segregation. It is characteristic of activities that depend on political decisions that if even the smallest change is to be made peacefully, it is necessary to convince a political majority to favor making the desired political decision. Now those who are interested in the fullest possible measure of human freedom find themselves in a dilemma when asked to choose between compulsory segregation and compulsory integration. But is such a choice necessary? Not under the voucher system, which would obviate such a choice. Under this system there would be white schools, and Negro schools, and mixed schools, in numbers approximating the desires of various elements of the local population. There would be no coercion; and for those who are willing to permit free speech and other civil rights even to those with whom they disagree, this is an important value.

There are no integrated grade or high schools in Alabama. It is therefore difficult to show the majority of Alabamans that discrimination solely on the basis of color is quite unreasonable. But under the voucher system those parents in Alabama, and of course there are some, who believe that the presence of an intelligent Negro child in class with their children will not only fail to lower but will likely improve the class standard, have no effective way of demonstrating their preference. Under the voucher system it would be a matter of convincing one’s next door neighbors. It would not be unreasonable to expect that if the voucher system were introduced, there would be, overnight as it were, substantially more integration in the South than can be anticipated by the use of coercion, which clearly tends to strengthen opposition and prejudice.11 The appropriate method of eradicating prejudice is not for the majority to coerce the minority, but for one person to use rational persuasion and moral suasion to convince another that the latter’s position is wrong-headed and the fruit of prejudice. I deplore segregation and racial prejudice, but it is not, in my view, the function of government to force the individual to act in accordance with my or anyone else’s views—whether about racial prejudice or whom to vote for—so long as he does not employ violence and physical coercion on others.

Further, the de facto segregation of Negroes and others in public schools by reason of the stratification of residential areas would tend to diminish when like-minded people, whether white or black, offered their vouchers to a schoolmaster who had demonstrated his ability to provide just the sort of education these parents want for their children.

With regard to the prospective consequences of the proposed competitive school-master system in improving school standards, one can be brief: “monopolies do not, whether in manufacturing, services, or education, provide incentives for increasing productivity or quality;”12 under the voucher system the forces of competition between schoolmasters would increase educational quality, variety, and innovation. Even if the prediction that the number of government schools would in time diminish drastically is wrong, the competition of private schools would offer the individual parent quite an effective way of expressing disapproval of what was done in some public school, namely by withdrawing his voucher from one schoolmaster and giving it to another.13 At present, an individual parent can express disapproval only as one of perhaps 50,000 or 100,000 or 1,000,000 voters for a school board, and has ordinarily little power to change educational policy which offers but one standard model for a community.14 The forces of competition would give parents the sort of schooling they want for their children: there would be schools which offer traditional academic training and schools which emphasize science, or the core curriculum, or modern languages, etc., in numbers approximating the proportions of those who want such education for their children; and if a parent wanted to send his child to a school for pickpockets, a law enforcing minimum standards, as we have today for private schools, would eliminate such an obviously unwise choice.

But, one might ask, if parents are faced with so wide a range of schools to choose from, how will they know which is best for their child? How will they make an intelligent, responsible choice? The answer is, of course, that they will not always know with certitude, as they do not now know precisely what quantity of what food, or which toy, or which musical instrument, is best for their child; but, of course, in all these latter cases, expert advice and the experience of others is available, and so also would it be with respect to schooling. If a man wanted a new car, it would take less of his time and attention if there were only one model in one make offered, but he would probably not find that car satisfying his desires or serving his purposes so well as one he chooses after examining a number of models in a number of makes. The myth that parents do not know anything about their own children, and would not act on this knowledge if they did, is an educationist’s myth, as fanciful and unreal as any ever dreamed of; but few myths are held and defended with greater vigor.

Further, educational economists tell us that the size and location of most public schools, based as they are on political considerations, are uneconomic and inefficient.15 Others go on to tell us that desirable innovations find their way into the school, if they ever do, only after an unconscionably long time.16 A mainly-private school system, based at least in part on profit, would tend to correct such manifestations of head-in-the-sand conservatism. It is characteristic of a monopoly, most particularly of a government-administered monopoly such as the public-school system, that stagnation sets in. (At the elementary and secondary levels, private schools, because of their higher costs and fear of being out of step, offer no effective competition.)

What would be the effect of such a program on the teacher? Better teachers would, under such a system, receive higher pay not based entirely on seniority and post-graduate “education” credits; there would, furthermore, be differential pay scales for different subjects, so as to make it possible to hire and retain those teachers, especially in the pure sciences, who are well qualified to teach.

A final advantage of the voucher system is described by C. S. Benson, the Harvard educational economist:

Further, it would be possible for a family to adjust its expenditures somewhat in accordance with the needs of its different children, e.g., unusually bright or slow children might be provided with special programs in schools that offered such work. It would be possible, furthermore, for a family voluntarily to increase its expenditures on elementary and secondary education at the time when it enjoyed an increase in income. For instance, suppose a head of a household receives a $500 increment in annual earnings, after taxes. If the family had already attained a reasonably comfortable standard of living, it might wish to spend as much as $250 of this gain on education. A child might be shifted, say, from a lower-cost to a higher-cost private school. Under our present system, however, there is no good way for this $250 to be spent on elementary and secondary education. Even the total increase in income would not pay for tuition in a good private school, and it would certainly not represent the cost of changing residence to a better school district. Instead of spending it on elementary or secondary education, the prudent family might put the sum aside for college education. Of course, school taxes might go up, but they would be unlikely to increase by $250 in a year. In short, certain families might want to use part of their gains in income for the purpose of education in amounts substantially in excess of an annual rise in tax rates, provided they thought that they were getting what they wanted in education. The present system does not have a place for this gradual, voluntary rise in educational expenditures.17

WE HAVE SEEN now the desirable consequences. But are there undesirable consequences? Let us see. The main objection now made against private schools is that they are divisive. This charge has certainly never been documented, but it is a common theme of educationists, who speak of private schools as “inherently undemocratic” by contrast with the “democratic public school system.” Dr. James B. Conant has said, “To my mind our schools should serve all creeds.” (Conant’s statement can mean either: (1) all people should go to the public schools, whether they are satisfied with them or not; or (2) all people should be satisfied with the public schools.) He goes on, “the greater the proportion of our youth who attend independent schools, the greater the threat to our democratic unity.”

The nature of a desirable democratic unity is certainly difficult to assess, being of not-too-much, not-too-little variety: we want “unity,” but not “conformity;” we want “differentiation,” but not “divisiveness.” And how much of a “threat to democratic unity” should we permit? Should these “threats” be absolutely prohibited? After all, free speech is divisive; freedom of the press is divisive; political democracy itself, with candidates who actually compete against each other, is divisive.

It is generally accepted that in any stable society there must be a set of common ideas and assumptions without which even rational discussion and persuasion is impossible; and that without commonly held moral beliefs, maintenance of order will require extreme coercion. On the other hand, it seems reasonable to expect that the majority opinion which in a limited area guides democratic government should, in order to avoid circularity and stagnation, be independent of the control of government in its formation. Otherwise, there will be a tendency to prevent a minority from trying to alter majority opinion—and to do this is to cut the roots of progress, to destroy the principle of minority opposition by which civilization has grown and spread. “. . . the conception that government should be guided by majority opinion makes sense only if that opinion is independent of government. The idea of democracy rests on the belief that the view which will direct government emerges from an independent and spontaneous process. It requires therefore the existence of a large sphere independent of majority control in which the opinions of individuals are formed.”18 Consider an example: the judgment of the desirability of the United States’ maintaining its membership in the United Nations or in NATO or in SEATO is a judgment that should be made, no doubt, on majority grounds. But suppose a measure of government control such that the great majority of children are indoctrinated to hold that membership in the UN, NATO, SEATO, etc., is in the best interests of the U. S. The majority at some one moment could use a unified public school system to impose its position on the minds of the young, there would be no real possibility of change, even if conditions change.19

Applying these principles to the controversy over the private schools as a threat to democratic unity, and assuming that it is generally true that schools are a mirror of society, it follows that, unless substantial evidence is forthcoming, unless it could somehow be shown that private schools will not reflect parents’ wishes or that parents will wish to train their children in un-American ways, there may be grounds for wondering, but no grounds for acting as though private schools are a threat to desirable democratic unity. Since there are far more historical precedents for being careful to avoid a school system that is nationally controlled, one should want to make very sure that a minority having doubts about the wisdom of a majority decision is not to be denied an opportunity to use rational discussion and persuasion to alter the conviction of the majority. This may appear to be an exaggeration, but consider an editorial in the New Republic (March 20, 1960) which informs us that “to accept the principle of equal support of public and private schools out of public funds is to abandon the mission of the state . . . the State is committed to exerting a secular, unifying egalitarian force.” This appears to me very like the analysis by John Stuart Mill of “state education,” which, however, he deplores:

That the whole or any large part of the education of the people should be in State hands, I go as far as anyone in deprecating. All that has been said of the importance of individuality of character, and diversity of opinions and modes of conduct, involves, as of the same unspeakable importance, diversity of education. A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another; and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power of the government, whether this be a monarch, a priesthood, an aristocrat, or the majority of the existing generation; in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by natural tendency to one over the body. An education established and controlled by the state should only exist, if it exists at all, as one among many competing experiments, carried on for the purpose of example and stimulus, to keep the others up to a certain standard of excellence.20

In sum, a mainly-private school system seems to destroy the balance between democratic unity and democratic diversity as judged by the rule-of-thumb: avoid what tends to make rational discussion more difficult. Thomas Gilby, O. P., has said, “Civilization is formed by men locked together in argument. From this dialogue the community becomes a political community.” There is no evidence that a school system where parents have a choice between alternative types of schooling, will fail to mirror our society as it is, or make rational discussion more difficult. “It is unlikely that private demand will purchase, or that private supply will offer, kinds of education which threaten or even marginally undermine the beliefs we hold and the knowledge and skills we deem essential. . . . An enterprise which emphasized instruction in the Koran or the Communist Manifesto would be unlikely to be established or, if established, to endure.”21

Another objection is raised by Benson:

The compelling argument for maintaining the present pattern of public operation is, we believe, found in the imperative of social mobility. In this country (in Dr. Conant’s words) there is a “devotion to the ideals of equality of opportunity and equality of status.” The ideal that every child have an equal start in life is impossible of close attainment, but the public schools have been the major instrumentality for moving as far as we have toward that goal. It seems clear, moreover, that quality of education is becoming a more important determinant than before of an individual’s income and status. The justification for public operation of the schools rests, then, on the control of the public school system in preserving social mobility.22

This objection is quite obviously based on the egalitarian assumption that everyone should have an equal start, and takes the dog-in-the-manger attitude that if everyone cannot have the better, then no one shall. It is not said that some would receive a worse education than any do now, but rather that not all would benefit to the same degree. (Under the voucher system, the exchange value of vouchers would differ from community to community, but there is no reason to believe that there would be a wider range of expenditure than exists now: in 1959-60, the per-pupil cost in Arkansas was $191, but was almost three times that amount, $559, in New York.) Some parents would supplement the voucher directly out of their own pockets, and thus give their children a better start in life.23 Egalitarians, however, look at matters this way: if a child is born having great natural talents, well and good—this is natural—and he can eventually develop and use these talents for the common welfare. Yet the useful qualities which are welcomed when a result of a person’s natural endowment are suspect when they are the result of circumstances such as a good home and intelligent parents. Of course, we believe that the family is so valuable because we believe that as a rule parents can prepare their children better for a satisfactory life than can anyone else. (If we did not believe this, we would likely follow the example of the Russians, who take children out of the family at a very early age and put them into State nurseries for the preferred moral and intellectual training to be got there.) But we seem not to be aware that “there is, indeed, good reason to think that there are some socially valuable qualities which will be rarely acquired in a single generation but which will generally be formed only by the continuous efforts of two or three.” We are simply not willing to admit that “belonging to a particular family is part of the individual personality, that society is made up as much of families as of individuals, and that the transmission of the heritage of civilization within the family is as important a tool in man’s striving towards better things as is the heredity of beneficial physical attributes.”24 It is as unreasonable to take away from parents a good chance of providing their children with a head-start in cultural and educational qualities as it would be to take away from parents the chance of providing their children with a head-start because they were given a finer moral training.

One might now reasonably ask: why is it that people so devoted to freedom as were our Founding Fathers did not develop a mainly-private school system? The answer is that of course no large-scale educational system was developed until the second third of the 19th century—and a public-school system was then developed for a number of reasons which have little or no application today: first, the scope of mass-immigration made defensible the concept of the public-school as a “melting-pot;” second, the very technical administrative difficulties of a publicly-supported private school system, of handing out vouchers to individuals, and checking their use, made such a system impractical (today, of course, an I.B.M. engineer could outline a rational approach to this problem on his day off); third, Catholics under the leadership of some bishops made the fatal mistake of fighting the school question as a Roman Catholic question rather than as a question of a desirable exercise of parental rights;25 fourth, there was a measure of belief among the most influential Protestant bodies that public schools could be Christian though non-sectarian—a belief that proved unfounded, especially once the courts began, around the turn of the century, to defend minority rights in this sphere; fifth, the “natural monopoly” argument was much stronger in earlier days: a given locality can support only one school, and that had best be publicly administered and finally, the intellectuals of the day looked upon the Prussian public-school system as an ideal model.

UNDER THE SYSTEM proposed, whereby the financing of education is a government function but the educational institution itself is privately administered, what happens to higher education? According to Friedman and Hayek, we must first of all distinguish between three sorts of education beyond the highschool: first, education for leisure and leadership, or liberal education; second, vocational education offered in professional schools—those which train dentists, veterinarians, beauticians, etc.; third, advanced research at the “frontiers” of knowledge. Different things must be said of each, though it is often admittedly difficult to distinguish between them in practice.

What about college-level liberal arts education? Limited by the wealth of the community, a case for subsidizing the demand for this sort of education can be made along the same lines as the case for subsidizing the demand for elementary and secondary education—though, of course, the case for financing education for all at some lower level is stronger than it is at a more advanced level. Here the student’s family would be given a voucher for a limited sum, which could be supplemented by the family’s own resources, scholarships, etc.—a sort of G.I. Bill extended to all. There would tend to be fewer if any State administered liberal arts schools remaining. And the limitations of this program would be imposed by the limitations of the material and human resources of the community.

What should be the functions of the State with respect to vocational education? Let us look a little more closely at, say, the training of a dentist. A young man is attracted by the material (and, conceivably, non-material) rewards of dentistry. He must invest a certain number of years, and a certain amount of money, but when he gets his certification, he gains the rewards of his investment. As things now are, it is usually a great deal easier for the wealthy young man to invest the requisite time and money; it would appear desirable that loans (analogous to equity capital) be made available, in the absence of private investors, by some federal institution which could offset this advantage the wealthy have; this would tend to increase competition and promote the full development of human resources. Note that it is loans, not gifts, which are in issue—for since the major part of the advantages of such professional education (those which increase the individual’s economic productivity) accrue directly to the individual in greater earning power, it is undesirable that government make this sort of education free, for that would tend to promote overinvestment in human beings.

What, finally, should be the functions of the State with respect to advanced research in all the fields of knowledge? It is clear that major contributions to knowledge are made at advanced-research institutions—universities which provide education as a by-product of research. Unlike the benefits which training in dentistry confers, the benefits which the research-scholar’s work produces do not accrue to him personally. “The benefits that a community receives from its scientists and scholars cannot be measured by the price at which these men sell their particular services, since much of their contribution becomes freely available to all.”26 Financing such research may be a desirable function for government when private resources are not wholly adequate. And here it is a matter of a gift to an institution or to an individual, since success in this field does not usually bring proportional financial returns to the institutions or individual researchers.

TO TURN TO the immediately practical order, what chance does the voucher plan have of achieving recognition and approval? There are some formidable obstacles, most notably the road-block the educationists are likely to erect in the way of a plan which would do so much to weaken their power and prestige. As Albert Lynd wrote a few years ago, “The educationists have copper-riveted one of the neatest bureaucratic machines ever invented by any professional group in any country since the priesthood of ancient Egypt.” Then consider the difficulty of rousing the interest of the 20th-century-liberal intellectuals, who concern themselves with some sorts of infringements of individual liberty but favor over and over again increasing the role of government vis-a-vis individual initiative—though if this group ever came down on the side of effective parental choice, the battle would be over. And conservatives may be of two minds: opposition to innovation and change will struggle with the desire to roll back the influence of government in an important area of national life. Of course, both Catholics and Protestants could be expected to approve on the grounds that an extension of parental initiative is desirable; but some Protestants would dislike the idea that Catholics would no longer be at a financial disadvantage. Negroes would have good reason to favor the plan if they were shown that their status would gradually improve, but the fact that the plan was first introduced in the South is a strike against it; and they might prefer seeing coercion used on their side for a change.

There are, however, two quite hopeful straws in the wind: first, the current interest in Gov. Nelson Rockefeller’s “scholar incentive program” to strengthen the private colleges and universities in New York, and second, the interest in strengthening private schools evidenced by the number of congressional bills (163 from 1953 to 1960) for reducing taxes by an amount proportionate to tuition costs. Further, since the voucher plan is quite open to being introduced gradually on the local level, and since costs are rising, economy—attainable by giving as an alternative to public schooling a voucher for an amount less than estimated public school costs—may offer an additional motive for its introduction, at least in those areas where Catholics are not numerous.

To conclude, it may be that the current debates over our various educational problems in the United States will lead increasing numbers to consider seriously proposals like the voucher-system, systems which remove most educational choice from the sphere of yes-or-no political decision. The test of the desirability of considering such systems is not speedy enactment but the contribution they make to orderly thinking about basic issues of educational policy. And perhaps what David Riesman has said in another context may prove to be the case here: “Radical and what were previously regarded as ‘impossible’ changes come about almost instantaneously once people discover that views they had previously regarded as unacceptable or idiosyncratic are in fact widely shared.”27

“Consumer Sovereignty” and the Law

BRUNO LEONI*

CONTEMPORARY TECHNOLOGY has accustomed us to the manufacturing of the most varied things, and not only of things never previously produced or conceived, but also of those which in the not too distant past were produced but not manufactured, as, for instance, pre-fabricated houses, and the famous Liberty Ships which contributed so much to the victory of the Allies in the last war. With the help of technology, long and costly processes of production have been eliminated, costs reduced, and delivery dates accelerated, with increased satisfaction for the consumer, and, naturally, for the producer as well. These technological processes have, as has already been emphasized by many, posed a series of problems in other fields, by bringing about often radical changes in the social environment and even in our ways of thinking.

A widespread commonplace concerning contemporary culture is the position affirmed by—among others—the distinguished American jurist, W. Friedman, in his recent book, Law in a Changing Society:1 namely, that technical progress has necessarily and directly entailed a profound revolution of legal institutions. In this age of space satellites and astronauts, we often hear it asked, how can we possibly limit ourselves to, say, the concepts inherited from the Romans on the subject of property or contractual obligations, and so on? In reality, however, the modifications of legal institutions through the agency of technical innovation are not so numerous nor so important as they seem; in any case, it is very doubtful, and surely at least debatable, that such innovations of themselves entail radical modifications of the institutions and relations which have ruled our societies for thousands of years. While, for example, the private ownership of property admittedly no longer reaches usque ad sidera in any country of the world, nevertheless, it still persists and fulfills its necessary role. In the same way, the word or signature given by telephoto, or any other ultra-modern method, serves the same necessary function that it has had for some millenia. The modern man who communicates by television and travels in jets is of the same flesh and blood as, is psychologically and physically similar to, his distant ancestors who communicated by voice and travelled in chariots and sailing ships.

But notwithstanding the relative stability of legal institutions, at least in the countries of the West, a noteworthy change has arisen during the last 150 years precisely in the way in which people had for centuries, and even millenia, conceived the nature, origin and functions of the law.

The decline of the idea that the law is on the whole independent of the will of the rulers, and that it cannot be identified immediately and completely with the laws and decrees emanating from time to time from the holders of political power, is a most striking development, for its implications no less than for its diffusion in almost all societies in the contemporary period.2 Strangely enough, this development—perhaps through the continuity and gradualness with which it has taken place since the beginning of the last century—has seemed so natural, especially in Europe, that very few scholars up to now have addressed themselves to the task of considering it in its whole import or have dedicated to it the attention, and, I would wish to add, the apprehensiveness, that it deserves.

If only one word had to be used to define this widespread change in the idea of the law, I would say that according to the man on the street the law today is something which must be manufactured, or even pre-fabricated. That is, it is something produced with the minimum of time and effort judged necessary, according to plans prepared in advance, by the “suitable” people in the “suitable” places (the national legislatures), and presented to those who must obey the laws. The latter people (we might say the “consumers,” if the word were not misleading for reasons which we shall shortly see) do not have—or are thought not to have—any other role than that of using the product ready made for them, just as they use the automobile or the washing machine.

The production of the law today by other procedures would seem to many people slow, inadequate and imprecise. Habits, customs, judicial precedents and the opinions of experts in this matter were the classical instruments of the production of the law in classical Rome, in medieval and modern England, in the United States, and, notwithstanding some contrary appearances, in the majority of the countries of Europe until the compilation of the current legal codes, that is, generally speaking, until the beginning of the last century. But these instruments appear today, at least to the superficial glance of many, as outmoded tools of an “artisan” society, inadequate for the needs of a “rapid” civilization on the vast scale that we are familiar with today.

THE ANALOGY BETWEEN juridical “products” and the products of our technical and industrial civilization is not, however, so suitable as it appears at first glance. In fact, considered more attentively, it turns out to be wholly deceptive and false. A fundamental difference exists in the relationship, on the one hand, between the producers and consumers of the goods manufactured with the resources of industrial technique, and, on the other hand, between the “producers” and “consumers” of legal rules manufactured, even mass-produced, by the wielders of political power with the resources of legislative techniques.

In spite of every contrary appearance, the industrial productive process in the countries of the West is still originated and sustained by the initiative of private individuals—that is to say, by individuals who do not have at their disposal the police or the army to constrain the consumers to buy the products which these private individuals put on the market. “One dollar, one vote,” describes very well the nature of that continuous process with which the consumer directs and dominates the conduct of the producers in the free market. While the latter study how to entice the consumer (and sometimes even how to deceive him), they know that in the final analysis they must serve the consumer, satisfy his will, and cater to his whim under penalty of going into the red, and thus having to cease their productive activity.

There is a radically different relation between the “producers” and “consumers” of the legal rules manufactured through the use of legislative technique. The vote of the “consumers” in this case is discontinuous, a circumstance arising from the fact that it can be given only at certain times and under certain conditions, with a meaning almost always empty or equivocal, and with effects not predicted, often unpredictable and frequently unwanted. We may also add that not all “consumers” can vote, whereas on the market even a five year old boy who has ten cents to buy himself an ice cream cone casts his “ballot.” Further, there are always some voters who will find themselves in the minority of any political vote and despite every contrary electoral invention and device are destined purely and simply to waste their votes. To control the production of legislation, in this case, is for the “consumers,” the people for whom the rules themselves are intended, an evidently hopeless job.

It is said that these differences between economic processes and legislative techniques are inevitable, and that it is therefore necessary to know how to resign oneself to them. Our civilization does not allow us to take into consideration the desires of all the electorate on the political level, the argument goes, and consequently political representation is the best substitute that can be offered us for that real “representation” which would otherwise be unfeasible. This position would make sense if the people for whom the laws are intended could control the production of these laws in no other way than through the institution of “representation.” But it is exactly this claim—that there is no other way to produce law than through the institution of representation—which has to be demonstrated, since this technique of production of the law (legislation) reveals its grave inefficiency. It is the problem of defining “law” that must be entirely reconsidered and, in particular, the problem of whether the law, and, especially the above-mentioned private law, can be “manufactured,” as today a washing machine or automobile is manufactured. Might it not be, instead, that the law is something that evades the rules of industrial production and consumption, something not susceptible of being manufactured by a limited number of “entrepreneurs” for the use of everyone else?

One can cite the contemporary experience: the law of today which denies that of yesterday evening, and which will be superseded by that of tomorrow morning; the two thousand laws manufactured every year by 500 men in our own, as in other countries, without the majority of the citizens even knowing of the existence of these laws; the obviously ephemeral character of much legislative activity, owing to the transitory triumph of no less ephemeral majorities in parliaments; the consequent impossibility of the citizens making long-range plans which could take for granted the constancy of juridical rules; the equally serious consequence that the law of today can be the result (as frequently happens) of the oppressive design of a slender majority, or even of an effective minority (the “pressure groups,” as they are called today), who tomorrow will see themselves oppressed in their turn by a new minority in the seats of power. All these are reasons for profound perplexity on the nature and the function of the law “manufactured” by the legislators who produce laws on a vast scale. This process of “production”’ may seem to be equivalent to the techniques evolved for manufacturing industrial items, but, unlike the industrial sector, in the case of law there are actually very few reasons for preferring those techniques to the ancient methods of the “artisans” for the ascertainment and the “production” of the customary and judicial law.

Perhaps one day the common man will understand a truth with which he appeared to be instinctively acquainted in times not far distant from us, although they seem to fade more and more into the past. In reality, the law is something which is not pre-fabricated in some specially-designated place, by some specially-designated producer and with some pre-established technique. In much the same way, no followers of the artificial languages such as Esperanto and Volapuk have yet succeeded in finding a substitute for the language that we speak every day, which also is not pre-fabricated. The law is in the last analysis something which everyone makes every day with his behavior, his spontaneous acceptance and observance of the rules that everyone helps to establish, and finally, even if it seems paradoxical, with the disagreements themselves which eventually arise among the various individuals on the observance of these rules.

The consequences of this old but always valid conception of the law will not necessarily consist in the total abandonment of the “manufacturing” of the law. But certainly our law-factories will have to limit very much their “production,” and renounce sooner or later (if the West is not destined to fall into servitude) many of their “products.” Finally, “law-consumers” will take back their true function of being producers of their own laws or at least of those laws—and they are not few—whose production they would otherwise control but today cannot.

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On the Premises of Growth Economics

ISRAEL M. KIRZNER*

THERE ARE FEW topics concerning which economists are currently more able to secure respectful public attention, than that of economic growth. “To foster a more rapid growth rate” has become an almost unquestioned goal of governments throughout the world. A very considerable fraction of the research efforts of economists is, and has been now for several years, directed to the problem of how this goal is to be achieved. The course of political and economic history in recent decades has focused both professional and lay attention upon the problem of growth and development, pushing out of the limelight even such long-time favorites as the problem of economic stability. Elections have revolved around economic growth, commencement day orators, columnists and editorial writers consider the topic suitable grist for their mills, and books on this supposedly esoteric subject have become popularly accepted as fare for the masses.

There are a number of points of view from which this preoccupation with growth and development appears to be based on misconception and misunderstanding. This article is concerned with the dangers which this preoccupation must seem to imply for all who are concerned with the maintenance of individual liberties. We will analyze the growth problem in order to expose those fallacies in popular thinking on the subject that are responsible for the potential dangers to a free society arising out of this preoccupation. Many of these fallacies will be seen to have their counterparts in the writings of economists themselves; this is not entirely a matter for surprise, but in any event makes our task no less pressing.

That the popular growth preoccupation carries with it implications that must seem menacing to the individualist, hardly needs elaborate demonstration. A growth policy invariably means a government policy. A growth or development policy may call, at worst, for a completely socialized economy; at best it implies a degree of regimentation forced upon an otherwise free enterprise system. Those preoccupied with growth generally believe, first, that growth is per se desirable; second, that the spontaneous growth of a market economy is likely to fall short of its full potential; and third, that this full potential may be achieved by appropriate governmental policies. Many even of those who have some understanding of the allocative functions of the price system, and who appreciate the market as an engine of social efficiency, are convinced that for growth purposes it is necessary to resort to governmental direction of economic activity. Like Keynes, they see no reason to suppose that the market seriously misemploys the factors of production which are in use;1 perhaps, unlike Keynes, they see no reason even to believe that the market fails seriously in providing employment for all factors that can be efficiently employed, but they do nonetheless believe that the unhampered market fails to direct economic activity along the channels required for growth.2 It is this belief that leads to the advocacy of programs of government activity that must necessarily impinge more or less heavily upon the range of opportunities open to individuals.

This article will focus critical attention on the analytical underpinnings of these beliefs, and will specifically deal with the following four aspects of the problem:

1) We will examine the view that distinguishes sharply between the current allocation of resources on the one hand, and the task of making provision for future growth on the other. It is this postulated distinction that is responsible for the possibility of a posture of simultaneous acceptance of the short-run allocational capabilities of the market, and distrust of its long-run propensities. At the same time it is to this alleged distinction that must be attributed the uncritical acceptance of growth as a goal appropriate to all situations.

2) We will examine the claim that long-run market-achieved results may be expected to be rendered inadequate because of what the economist calls “externalities” operating over time. We will examine both the claim itself, as well as the corollary drawn from it to the effect that, in consequence, government interference with the market may be desirable.

3) We will examine the uncritical use, in the growth literature, of national income (or related) figures as a means of judging and measuring the extent of achieved desirable growth.

4) We will subject to critical examination the welfare theory that is implicit in much of the current literature and discussion of growth. This theory will be scrutinized and held up for comparison with the more limited welfare propositions that are acceptable to economics seen as a science of human action, and to individualist-minded critics.

As we shall discover, these different aspects are intimately bound up with one another. Fallacies which we will expose in connection with one of these aspects, will be found to have great relevance to others. Nonetheless, for the sake of clarity, it appears expedient to deal with one matter at a time.

WE TURN TO the first aspect: that of the postulated distinction between the goals of short-run allocation, and long-run growth. This distinction is one that is made repeatedly in the economic literature. (It is not met with quite as frequently in lay writings, probably because the allocation problem itself is poorly understood in these writings.) Many textbooks of economics inform students that allocation and the provision of growth are separate functions of economic systems.3 An outstanding British economist has declared that the study of growth, rather than of allocation of scarce resources among competing ends, should be seen as the core of economic science.4 Certain economists suggest that the Soviet economy may not be successful in allocating its resources, but is successful in achieving rapid growth.5 And the list could easily be prolonged.

The rationale of the distinction is a simple one. At any one time an economy finds itself with given resources that set the ceiling on current productive potential. Over time the volume and composition of these resources may change, bringing about corresponding changes in the productive possibilities of the economy. Two separate problems are then distinguished. First, there is the problem of squeezing the greatest possible volume of current output, in value terms, from the currently available body of resources. This is the allocation problem. Second, there is the problem of ensuring that the change over time in the volume of available resources be so arranged as to permit rapid growth.

But the superficiality of the distinction can be shown with equal simplicity. Insofar as the change over time in the volume of resources can be consciously manipulated, this second problem reduces itself immediately to an aspect of the first one. A policy today for tomorrow’s resource availability must mean, if it means anything at all, a choice with respect to current production with today’s resources that will have an impact on the availability of resources tomorrow. Such a choice clearly involves a particular aspect of the general problem of the allocation of today’s resources.

So the writers who profess to have confidence in the ability of the market to allocate resources, but not in the ability of the market to achieve a desirable growth rate, are open to the charge of inconsistency. For the very same price mechanism through which the market system allocates current resources as between the production of shoes and the production of sausages, is available for the allocation of resources as between the production of shoes for today and the production of shoe factories for the future. In fact, the market has developed a wide range of institutions through which intertemporal exchanges can be made between individuals, in this way achieving an allocation of resources over time. There seems no obvious reason to assume the market to be any less efficient in this allocative task than in its others. Writers who wish to express doubts on this score can do so more easily by diverting attention altogether from the intertemporal allocation of resources involved in a growth policy. Their pursuance of this course must appear distinctly dangerous to individualists, if only because this procedure masks the extent to which a governmental growth policy interferes with the pattern of allocation that would emerge from the actions of free individuals acting through the market.6

In particular, the spurious distinction between “allocation” and “growth” must be held largely responsible for the uncritical adoption of growth as a desirable goal in all situations. And here, as elsewhere, it is the duty of the economist to point out the costs associated with an otherwise desirable outcome—costs which may be of such a magnitude as to render the outcome no longer desirable at all. By implying that a growth policy is not at the same time a policy with respect to the allocation of current resources, growth writers are able to create the illusion that growth involves no cost—and is hence unquestionably desirable. By ignoring the costs required for growth, such writers are led to point accusing fingers at the performance of the market, charging that it does not achieve a sufficiently rapid growth rate. As soon as the growth problem is placed in proper perspective as an allocation problem, however, it is no longer at all obvious that growth per se is necessarily desirable. One no longer has the right, then, to condemn the market for not achieving a given rate of growth, when it is by no means clear a priori whether such a rate justifies the costs involved. In fact, the costs may be such that the most desirable goal turns out to be not to grow at all, or even to decline. The propensity to ignore the costs of achieving growth, therefore, can only facilitate government interference with the intertemporal choices of individuals through the market, by concealing this kind of cost of a growth policy altogether.

A MORE SOPHISTICATED rationalization for not relying on the market for growth purposes, is provided by economists concerned with external economies and diseconomies. Externalities have roughly to do: (a) with cases in which an individual is held back from undertaking a project the costs of which would be more than offset by the benefits accruing to the economy, because the project requires that while he shoulder all the costs himself, he share the benefits with many others; (b) with cases in which an individual is induced to undertake a project the costs of which fail to be offset by the accruing benefits, because he is able to escape some of these costs while reaping the full benefit for himself. Such possibilities would constitute instances in which private costs or benefits fail to coincide with “social” costs or benefits. Critics of the market economy have pointed to such cases as instances calling for government intervention to prevent an otherwise faulty allocation of “social resources.”

A special example of the externalities argument occurs where a large project (or series of complementary projects), in which many people would participate jointly in both costs and benefits, would be of net benefit to each of them—but which no single individual wishes to embark upon by himself for fear that he might be left to bear all the costs while sharing the benefits with others. It is this kind of possibility that is frequently implied when the necessity for central direction of a developing economy is advocated. It is argued, that is, that the profitability of investment projects frequently hinges on the simultaneous undertaking by others of complementary investment projects. A railroad will extend a commuter line to the outskirts of a city only if a series of housing projects is expected to be built there; but the housing projects may in turn be contingent on the prospect of the commuter line extension.7 In the words of one recent writer, “an atomistic market provides no means of breaking the deadlock: none of us is willing to invest unilaterally, each of us is prepared to if we all do.”8

Nonetheless it is not clear that externalities and interdependence provide sufficient justification for persuading a society of free men to surrender significant degrees of their liberties. This position is based on two grounds. First, it can be shown that externalities do not render the market as impotent an engine of efficiency as might appear at first blush. Second, it can be argued that even where externalities cannot be overcome by the market process, the situation does not obviously justify coercion as a solution. We take up these two points in order.

Externalities may not seriously impair the efficiency of the market, because the market itself is able to exert forces capable of overcoming many of the obstacles raised by these externalities. The existence of interdependence sets up market forces making for conglomeration. External economies tend to become internalized by mergers of firms into larger units, or by voluntary cooperative activity.9 This can be as true for long range projects as for immediate ones. So long as the size of the proposed projects remains relatively small as compared with the size of the economy as a whole, this process can be carried on without seriously affecting the competitiveness of the system, and provides, in effect, a market alternative to central planning of interrelated projects.

With special regard to intertemporal allocation, too, the market is capable of considerable flexibility in developing institutions to cope with problems of interdependence. The relatively long-range plans of market participants can interact very powerfully through intertemporal markets of all types. Forward markets, bond markets, and securities exchanges are all market institutions through which the diverse expectations of prospective investors can become mutually adjusted.

Fully as important, however, as the recognition of the capabilities of the market in overcoming problems of interdependence is the recognition of the significance of problems of this kind that still remain unresolved. Such a recognition will show that it is far from obvious that discovery of unresolved problems of interdependence constitutes an automatic case for central direction. The fact is that consideration of the hypothetical case of interdependence frequently leads one to appreciate the obvious benefits that would accrue from concerted action, without a full understanding of the associated costs. It is easy to compare one situation in which the possibilities of concerted action are not exploited, with the situation in which they are exploited, and become convinced of the resulting gains. But it is also easy to do so without taking into account the fact that the organization of concerted action involves an unavoidable cost in terms of communication of knowledge, persuasion of individuals to participate, ensuring conformity with the agreement, and so forth. These costs must, in the nature of the problem, be borne if concerted action is to take place. If these costs can be covered by the gains, there is a market basis for expecting that the task of securing concerted action will be undertaken. If the market does not achieve such concerted action, either through merger or co-operative agreement, this is then prima facie evidence that these costs are excessive and render concerted action no longer desirable on a net basis.

Under such conditions, central direction in order to achieve concerted interdependent actions by a group, becomes visible in its true light. Central direction is not a short-cut method of pushing aside the senseless obstacles to progress erected by stubborn externalities. Central direction is seen rather as involving costs of a particular kind, alternative to those other direct costs of achieving concerted action—costs that the market has pronounced to be so high as to make such group action not worthwhile. These particular costs involved in central direction include, of course, the liberties that must be sacrificed in the process. The argument that interdependence problems call for solution by central direction, like other such arguments, rests heavily on forgotten costs. All group action requires some degree of surrender of individual decision-making authority. The members of a golf club have given the club’s governing body the power to make a range of decisions affecting the members. Where the market finds it unprofitable to form such clubs, this means that the costs of persuading potential members to make such a surrender are excessive and not justified by the anticipated result. Central direction does not avoid these costs; it merely substitutes its own. (After all, forcing people to join a club is not necessarily a desirable way of getting recalcitrant potential members to do what is good for them.)

A PIVOTAL POSITION is occupied in the literature on growth, especially that relating to proposals for a centrally-directed growth program, by the measurement of national product, or income, or similar quantities, through such aggregative measures as national income figures. These figures, perhaps adjusted to a per capita basis, are employed to show how slow our “growth rate” has been, and thus how unsuccessful our market economy has been in this respect. It is to be stressed that only because such tools of measurement are available for use, and are widely known (by, among others, journalists), is it that the concept of a “growth rate” has gained popularity. But for the ready availability of these aggregative measures, the growth concept itself might not have been able to have been crystallized sufficiently so as to capture public attention. These aggregative figures are used in growth discussions as reflecting the level of economic well-being of a nation. It will be pointed out in this section that the indiscriminate use of such figures in the growth literature has had harmful results for two distinct reasons: (a) such aggregative measures suffer from serious (and well-recognized) limitations in respect to their ability to serve as measurements of economic well-being; (b) the use of these measures, by ignoring the serious conceptual problems which they involve, helps to create the image of a “national” rate of growth, that corresponds to no rigorous theoretical concept whatsoever.

Gross National Product figures10 measure the annual physical output of an economy valued at market prices. Placed on a per capita basis, historical figures are frequently used to measure achieved growth, which may then be held up for comparison with similar figures for other countries. It will be pointed out here that because national product figures can necessarily measure output defined only in a particular way, their use in this manner in the growth literature—usually as indices of rising standards of economic well-being—may be highly misleading. These limitations11 do not preclude the figures from having great usefulness, properly used. The growth problem, however, is precisely one where these limitations (or at least some of them) become crucial. These figures measure the physical output in value terms, but it is well-known that the resulting figure cannot take into consideration many important items of output that do not flow through the market; and, in addition, the output figure makes no attempt to measure the enjoyment of leisure by the members of the economy. This latter omission is, of course, not open to criticism, in a measure of output as such; but it does render the resulting figure quite misleading as a measure of economic growth, especially for comparative purposes. We are entitled to assume that the concept of economic growth, for the layman certainly, refers broadly to increases in economic well-being, rather than to increases in purely physical output. After all, as one writer has pointed out, an economy specializing in breeding rabbits could reach a very high growth rate, in physical terms.12 But if this is granted, then a figure that reflects nothing of the leisure-dimension of well-being must seem highly distorted. Two economies growing at the same rate, according to these measurements, but which differ in the rate of addition to their leisure time, can surely in no wise be described as keeping pace with one another.13

The fact is that aggregate measures such as Gross National Product must necessarily fail to express sensitively many of the variations and refinements that must be taken into consideration in assessing the increase in over-all economic well-being. The current fashion of measuring growth in Gross National Product terms, and of proceeding to use the resulting calculations in policy contexts, cannot fail to exert powerful constraints on the direction of subsequent individual activities. Insofar as policy is deliberately directed to accelerating growth in terms of GNP, it must necessarily nudge the expansion of economic activity away from those dimensions of progress which find no expression in these aggregates, towards those which do. This may well, for example, encourage rabbit breeding at the expense of leisure, free individual preferences possibly being to the contrary notwithstanding.

Perhaps even more important, however, than the omissions that unavoidably> cloud aggregates such as GNP, is the fact that the widespread use of these figures draws attention completely away from the numerous well-nigh insoluble problems involved in measuring at all the almost incredibly elusive “quantity” which GNP purports to represent, and in distilling “its” rate of growth. The truth is that the “level of economic well-being” and similar entities, during any one period, are vexingly but inescapably multi-dimensional—they involve innumerable heterogeneous goods, valued by innumerable different people. To collapse this concept into a single figure raises theoretical and statistical problems so serious that almost any use of the resulting figure in popular media can hardly fail to mislead. When this use is glibly extended to hatch out a rate-of-growth concept, it is to be feared that economists are permitting this apparently simple measure—their own creature—to foster habits of thought in their own minds and in those of the public, which would perhaps never have emerged had the intrinsic conceptual and measurement problems been borne in mind. There can be few more obtrusive examples of the tissue of fallacies that can emerge from ill-considered aggregation than this GNP-inspired notion of a “national” rate of economic growth—a notion whose appeal to the lay intellect is so suspiciously complete as to propagate an entirely new set of attitudes towards economic affairs.14

WE TURN TO appraise the welfare theory that is implicit in much of the growth literature. Of all the habits of thought embedded in the growth literature, it is this that offers the most serious threat to the free society. There is, in fact, a profound difficulty (from a welfare theory point of view) that seriously affects all discussions of growth “policies,” and especially those relevant to long-range policies for the future. This difficulty arises from the fact that in formulating any such policy, one is necessarily involving the welfare of unborn generations; so that, before even attempting the task of policy formulation, it is necessary to clear up the problem of precisely how the welfare of as yet non-existent people is to be taken into consideration. This problem is crucially relevant to the maintenance of a free society; it is moreover relevant to the “scientific” quality of growth propositions underlying government policy in this context.

The truth of the matter is that economists are incapable of asserting any propositions concerning welfare that do not depend in some way on necessarily arbitrary individual judgments of value. To the extent that economists make welfare propositions, they are either acting in a non-scientific capacity, or they are applying scientific propositions in the context of given dominant arbitrary value judgments.15 All this is true of welfare propositions in general; it is a fortiori true of propositions involving unborn generations (and thus of growth literature) in particular.

To put the matter in a different way, economists are unable to state as a scientific proposition that any given change yields a net benefit to “society.” The reason for this is that ultimately no scientific meaning can be attached to the phrase “the net benefit to society.”16 The economist may be able to assert that acts freely performed by individuals have made them better off; but this does not preclude others from having been made worse off by these acts. And even if a change benefits every single individual (or benefits some without harming others), we have no scientific meaning to attach to the concept of “society’s being better off,” other than the fact that some individuals in society are better off.

“Group decision-making” can in no sense help us escape this impasse. Unless we define the social “good” as that emerging from some specified machinery for group decision-making, like majority rule (thereby making what seems to be a dangerous misuse of language), we cannot hope that any such group decision should “represent” the composite values of its members in a consistent fashion. To demonstrate this was the outstanding contribution of Arrow.17

But if all this is the case, what basis in consistent thought exists for long-range growth policies on the part of the state? We have shown in this essay that such policies can claim to be plans only if the benefits anticipated for the future are weighed against the associated current costs. But even if such a comparison is attempted, one is left facing the problem of how to evaluate the planned future gains. Ordinarily a plan involves a balance of yield against costs. In the growth case, not only are those who will enjoy the benefits different people from those who must bear the cost—these beneficiaries do not yet exist: their value scales are as yet non-existent. How then can cost and benefit be meaningfully compared?

The problem can be restated in terms less skeptical of the possibility of scientific welfare propositions. Let us for the sake of argument concede that due attention to appropriate welfare criteria makes it possible to enunciate such propositions. These propositions are built out of changes in the welfare of individuals. Such changes can be defined only in terms of the value scales of the individuals themselves (so long as we eschew references to an absolute, metaphysical welfare). A person is made better off by a change if he prefers the new situation to the old. But such a preference can be described only against a background of given tastes. Should the change in situation be accompanied by a change in tastes, there may possibly exist no unambiguous meaning to the term “the preferred situation.” Comparisons of benefit and cost are thus ruled out in this scheme of things, even between persons existing simultaneously; between persons not existing simultaneously, it seems hardly possible even to define what such a comparison should mean.18

IT SHOULD BE noticed that the sweeping implications of these considerations for growth “policies” have reference only to those of the state. As far as individuals are concerned, nothing need prevent them from exercising their own arbitrary judgments as to their current choices that might affect future generations. They may wish to consume all their capital and exhaust all the natural resources which they possess, leaving nothing left for posterity. Or they may conserve resources, accumulate capital, to prepare a wealthier environment for the future. It is perfectly in order that these choices be made on a non-scientific basis.

The devastating implications of the above considerations for state growth policies arise precisely from the fact that the state can hope to formulate such policies only as an individual does—that is, on the basis of arbitrary judgments of value. And it is here that the crucial issue for a free society is encountered. The arbitrary choices of the state can hardly fail to conflict with the arbitrary judgment of some of the citizens.

In effect, state growth policies, consciously or otherwise, require that the state set itself apart from the current wishes of its citizens, scan the future history of society, and pass judgment as to the most “desirable” inter-generation allocation of the “nation’s” resources. The state becomes the guardian of the interests of its future citizens, it conserves resources for them, it deprives present citizens in order to accumulate capital for them—all this in a manner that must be arbitrarily different from the allocation pattern desired by at least some of the affected present citizens. Sometimes, indeed, this is explicitly recognized. Pigou deemed it the responsibility of the state to protect the long-run interests of society from the short-sighted selfishness of the current property-holders.19

At issue are some very fundamental questions concerning private property rights, and the proper functions, powers, and responsibilities of government. This is not the place to clarify these questions. Here it is merely desired to point out that government growth programs cannot avoid rigidly circumscribing the concept of property rights. Such programs involve the deliberate acceptance of a stewardship notion of property rights; they involve moreover the notion of a government elected by today’s citizens, that should represent the interests also of future citizens (possibly in directions undesired by many of today’s citizens). The implications of these matters require no elaboration.

A FEW FINAL remarks concerning one further aspect of the fashionable emphasis on governmental growth policies may not be completely out of place. We have referred to the pattern of development that would emerge from freely-made multi-period choices of individual citizens acting through the inter-temporal market. Whether growth or decline, this development may at least express the choices of today’s citizens. (It may clearly be desirable in some contexts to allocate a larger portion of resources to earlier than to later periods). Whatever the pattern of development, it depends for the success with which it reflects the wishes of the people, on the accuracy of the intertemporal market in registering the multi-period value rankings of individuals. And it is here that governmental growth (and other) policies may inhibit the desirable expression of these multi-period value rankings. An atmosphere in which individuals fear such things as chronic inflation, possible eventual abrogation of property rights, confiscatory taxation, and the like, cannot but distort the multi-period plans that individuals would otherwise make. Intervention in the intertemporal markets must, moreover, inevitably prevent them from registering individual multi-period value rankings as sensitively as possible. All this may lead conceivably to a pattern of historical development substantially different from what might have emerged from the free choices of the people working through the free intertemporal market.

New Individualist Review welcomes contributions for publication from its readers. Essays should not exceed 3,000 words, and should be type-written. All manuscripts will receive careful consideration.

The Negro Revolution

MURRAY N. ROTHBARD*

DESPITE INCREASING USE of the term, it is doubtful that most Americans have come to recognize the Negro crisis as a revolution, possessed of all the typical characteristics and stigmata of a revolutionary movement and a revolutionary situation. Undoubtedly, Americans, when they think of “revolution,” only visualize some single dramatic act, as if they would wake up one day to find an armed mob storming the Capitol. Yet this is rarely the way revolutions occur. Revolution does not mean that some sinister little group sit around plotting “overthrow of the government by force and violence,” and then one day take up their machine guns and make the attempt. This kind of romantic adventurism has little to do with genuine revolution.

Revolution, in the first place, is not a single, isolated event, to be looked at as a static phenomenon. It is a dynamic, open-ended process. One of its chief characteristics, indeed, is the rapidity and acceleration of social change. Ordinarily, the tempo of social and political change is slow, meandering, inconsequential: in short, the typical orderly America of the political science textbooks. But, in a revolution, the tempo of change suddenly speeds up enormously; and this means change in all relevant variables: in the ideas governing the revolutionary movement, in its growth and in the character of its leadership, and in its impact on the rest of society. Another crucial aspect of Revolution is its sudden stress on mass action. In America, social and political action has taken place for a long while in smoke-filled rooms of political parties, in quiet behind-the-scenes talks of lobbyists, Congressmen, and executive officials, and in the sober, drawn-out processes of the courts. Outside of football games, the very concept of mass action has been virtually unknown in the United States. But all this has been changed with the onset, this year, of the Negro Revolution.

As in the case of most revolutions, the Negro Revolution began with a change in the ruling values and ideas of American intellectuals. At the turn of the century, and through the 1920’s, most American intellectuals were fundamentally “racist,” i.e., they upheld two guiding postulates: (1) that the white race in general, and the Anglo-Saxon wing of that race in particular, are inherently superior, intellectually and morally, to other races and ethnic groups, and particularly the brown and black races; and (2) that therefore the superior races had the right and perhaps even the duty to exercise political power over the inferior. Although (2) does not at all follow from (1), few people, whether pro- or anti-racist, have seen that this political conclusion is a non sequitur.

In the 1930’s and 1940’s, an enormous change occurred among American intellectuals on the race question. Influenced partly by the racist excesses of Hitler and the atmosphere of World War II, American intellectuals, during the 1930’s and ’40’s, swung around to almost the opposite position. In their anxiety to preclude a racist brand of statism, the intellectuals adopted the opposite brand of egalitarianism. Their two new guiding postulates became: (1) all races and ethnic groups are intellectually and morally equal or identical, and (2) that therefore no one should be allowed to treat anyone else as if they were not equal, i.e., that the State should be used to compel absolute equality of treatment among the races. Here again, few people noticed that another non sequitur was being employed.

It should be noted that this shift is by no means identical to the well-known shift (sometimes attributed by conservatives to a Fabian “conspiracy”) of intellectuals from laissez-faire liberalism to interventionism and socialism. That shift occurred decades earlier, and the racist postulates were as common among American socialists and progressives as among conservatives. This shift by intellectuals from racism to egalitarianism then began to filter down, inevitably, to the rest of the population. And this had two crucial effects: it inspired the Negroes to begin to struggle, at long last, for their rights as they saw them; and it disarmed the whites from offering any effective opposition to such a change.

NOW THE PATTERN of racism in America, of course, has been political and therefore enforced by police power in the South; voluntary and therefore much looser in the North. The focus of the Negro movement thus had to be the South And even though the Negroes are a submerged minority in the South, the growth of education and therefore receptivity to intellectual influences, has led the white majority to agree that the Negroes are right, that morality, at least, is on the side of the Negro people. Here we have the indispensable condition for success of a minority revolution; for even though Negroes are a minority in this country, general white agreement on the righteousness of the Negro cause has provided the framework for majority support.

The first step, then, was an ideological conversion of the intellectuals and then the bulk of the people; the second was the stirring of the Negroes themselves against segregation and for egalitarian goals. Since the outstanding racist center is the South, the drive began there, and proceeded in the most “moderate,” non-revolutionary way possible: through the orderly, staid processes of the government and its courts. This was the way of the oldest and by far the most conservative of the leading Negro organizations, the NAACP. Financed largely by wealthy whites, the NAACP’s technique was to employ the power of the Federal Government—its courts and hopefully its legislature, to change conditions in the South. That the NAACP is moderate and non-revolutionary, incidentally, does not mean that it is less statist than more radical Negro groups. On the contrary, the hallmark of the NAACP technique has been to use the “courts instead of the streets,” i.e., to confine the Negro movement to State processes, instead of direct action by the masses. It is precisely action outside and against the State apparatus that forms the hallmark of a social revolution.

The NAACP went ahead, slowly and gradually, and its use of the Federal arm bore fruit; but the processes of gradualism and legalism, typified by the snail’s pace of school desegregation years after the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education, began to make the Negroes restive, and understandably so. If they were indeed right, as almost everyone up to the Supreme Court was proclaiming, why shouldn’t right prevail quickly, even immediately? How long were the Negroes to wait for what nearly everyone, since the previous “revolution” in values, now conceded was their right and due?

There then began among the Negroes a series of sporadic, isolated, uncoordinated actions: beginning with the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, and continuing with sit-ins, Freedom Rides, etc. The significant points about this third phase of the Negro movement are: (1) that they were direct mass actions, actions “in the streets,” voluntary actions by Negroes themselves, casting off dependence on the quiet and seemingly peaceful operations of the State; and (2) as such, they quickly went beyond the established NAACP framework. Because the NAACP was not geared for this type of revolutionary action, new, far more radical organizations began to replace the NAACP in the leadership of the demonstrations. As in the French Revolution, each succeeding wave of organizations able to capture the leadership of this dynamic movement is more radical than the one before: has to be, in order to gain and keep that leadership. And, as the process accelerates, each succeeding organization takes the risk of being tagged with that chilling label “Uncle Tom,” apologist for white domination. And, therefore, the older organizations, in this fierce inter-group competition for the loyalty and leadership of the increasingly radicalized Negro masses, themselves become more radical or claim to; thus the NAACP, until recently an opponent of mass demonstrations, now must take a stand in favor of them—or lose all standing in the Negro community.

The Reverend Martin Luther King brought to the Negro movement the truly revolutionary concept of non-violent mass action. The Gandhian concept of non-violent action had several advantages for the Negro movement, especially in that relatively early stage. For one thing, it imbued the movement with the prestige of a “philosophy,” however shaky much of the philosophy was; it was able to make use of the common Christianity of the country to appeal to the great Christian tradition of nonviolence; it placed a great moral advantage in the hands of the non-violent demonstrators as against their armed opponents; and, finally, it was the most practical course for an oppressed, unarmed minority facing the armed brutality of the Southern police. Probably, the most important of these advantages is the moral: for, nothing could be more potent in mobilizing support throughout the country, among Negroes and whites, than the news or pictures of unarmed and helpless Negroes beaten or clubbed by armed whites. And this despite the philosophical fuzziness of the King concept of “non-violence;” for mass invasion of private restaurants, or mass blocking of street entrances is, in the deepest sense, also violence. But, in the generally statist atmosphere of our age, violence against property is not considered “violence;” this label goes only to the more obvious violence against persons.

AS MORE AND MORE Negroes participated in mass action, the ideology and especially the tactics of the Negroes became increasingly radical and militant. But in the main the King type of strategy prevailed. As this process grew, however, and as the non-violent strategy met defeats as in Albany, Georgia, a new and far different voice began to emerge—with a far different strategy. This newest and most revolutionary movement, as yet still waiting in the wings, is typified, in their different ways, by Robert F. Williams and by the Black Muslims. Essentially, men like Williams and the Muslims asked of the Kings a very intelligent question: why must only the Negroes exercise non-violence? Why may the white oppressors, whether in the form of Ku Klux Klan-type mobs or as armed police, be armed and violent, while only the Negroes must remain meek and disarmed? Why not preach non-violence to the whites for a change? In short, these radicals asserted the perfectly incontrovertible thesis: everyone has the right to defend himself against violence with violence; and therefore the Negroes have the right to defend themselves with violence agains armed attacks. The views of Williams and the Muslims have generally been distorted in the press as advocating aggressive violence against whites; but they have been quite clear that they would only use violence defensively (although they, too, of course, would not consider such acts as sit-ins to be “violence”).

The leading white advocate of this extreme left, Truman Nelson, cites as reflecting his views the following quote from William Lloyd Garrison’s review of Uncle Tom’s Cabin:

That all slaves of the South ought to repudiate all carnal weapons, shed no blood, be obedient to their masters, wait for peaceful deliverance and abstain for all insurrectionary movements is everywhere taken for granted, because the victims are black! . . . . They are required by the Bible to put away all wrath, to submit to every conceivable outrage without resistance. None of their advocates may seek to inspire them to imitate the example of the Greeks, the Poles, the Hungarians, our revolutionary sires, for such teaching would evince a most un-Christian and blood-thirsty disposition. But for those whose skin is of a different complexion, the case is materially altered. Talk not to the whites of peacefully submitting, of overcoming evil with good when they are spit upon and buffeted, outraged and oppressed. . . . Oh no, for them it is, let the blood of the tyrants flow! Is there one law of submission for the black man and another law of rebellion and conflict for the white man?1

Against whom would this militant revolutionary wing direct its defensive violence? Not, to be sure, against such private citizens as store-keepers or owners of golf courses; their rights are already invaded, in a “non-violent” manner, by the established Negro “Center.” The proposed revolutionary violence would be directed against two groups: (a) white armed mobs, of the Ku Klux Klan variety, and (b) the armed forces of (white) governments, specifically the Southern police.

By the spring of 1963, the “Negro liberation movement” had grown steadily, in numbers and intensity, with the dominant motif one of disciplined non-violence, but with advocates of defensive violence gaining in strength around the fringes. But the movement, though developing, was not yet a revolutionary one in the truest sense; its mass demonstrations were still sporadic, limited, and largely confined to a majority of students and other dedicated groups.

IT IS POSSIBLE to pinpoint the time and place when the Negro movement became a revolution: the time, May, 1963, the place, Birmingham, Alabama. In the Birmingham struggle, the stories and pictures of masses of women and small children non-violently refusing “to be moved,” and being set upon by fire hoses and police dogs, galvanized the Negro cause throughout the country. This spectacle provided the spark for an amazingly rapid and thorough-going radicalization of the Negro masses. Since that date, the Negro masses throughout the country have become revolutionized, are willing and even eager to demonstrate, sit-down, even fill the jails, and, in some cases, to fight back violently. Not only are the Negro masses eager to join in the fight, but they have since Birmingham exhibited a remarkable alienation and thoroughgoing disgust that is essential to the flourishing of any revolutionary movement. James Baldwin’s words which so shocked Robert Kennedy, that the Negroes will not fight for “their” country against, e.g. Cuba, as long as they do not receive their full rights, typifies this growing, radical alienation.

But the Birmingham crisis-point needs to be analyzed in more detail. For the Birmingham struggle took place in two phases: the first phase, of the non-violent children, was on behalf of desegregation, and also compulsory integration of restaurants and forced hiring of Negroes in various jobs. This phase ended with the negotiated agreement of May 10. In retaliation for the Negroes’ success, white gangs resorted to violence: to the bombing of a leading Negro motel and the house of the Rev. King’s brother. It was this act that provoked an entirely different set of Negroes to action: to committing retaliatory violence on the night of May 11-12. These were not the sober, church-going, lower middle-class Negroes committed to the Rev. King and non-violence. These were the poorest strata of the Negro workers, the economically submerged who help to form that group which suffers from unemployment at a depression-rate, a rate twice the average for American workers as a whole. Interestingly and significantly enough, their aim was not compulsory integration, nor was their particular target the white employer or restaurant-owner. No, it was the police.

A reporter for the New York Post described these militants:

They were not the fresh-faced youngsters who paraded so solemnly for justice last week.

They were not those parents who stood proudly by as they saw their children off to jail.

No, instead they are Birmingham’s dispossessed, and the truth is that they will remain non-privileged even when the new day dawns. . . . They will not benefit from Birmingham’s new deal because they will never be qualified, or acceptable, for jobs as clerks or salesmen.

They have known only two kinds of white men—the boss and the cop. The boss is none too good. . . . But the cop is much worse. The cop accosts them at any hour and arrests them on any pretext.

In every town there’s gossip of what cops do in the back room. There was no need for a backroom in Birmingham. The cops often beat Negroes senseless in full public view on the street. . . .

They had always cowered before the cops and held back their hatred—to protect their skulls. But suddenly, without forewarning, for they had been in no church rallies and ridden in no freedom rides, they saw Negroes defying the hated cop.

So, the non-privileged decided to make it a fight of their own. . . .2

Demonstrating Negroes have taken to a favorite chant: “What do we want? Freedom! When do we want it? Now!” An admirable sentiment, but “freedom,” at best a word of fuzzy meaning in recent decades, is a vague portmanteau, and hopelessly ambiguous word as used by the Negro movement. To some groups it means desegregation, to others compulsory integration, to yet others a racial quota system in all jobs, to still others, as we have seen, the ousting of the Southern police and the Southern sheriff from arbitrary rule over Negro citizens (and whites as well). And to still more radical groups, as we shall see, it means a “Negro nation” in the Black Belt of the South. But the very vagueness of the term adds fuel to the dynamics of the revolution. For it makes the goals of the Negroes open-ended, distant, ever-receding into the future. In short, the very fuzziness of the goal permits the Negroes to accelerate and increase their own demands without limit regardless of how many demands are met. No movement with strictly limited goals can ever become revolutionary; it is the very sweep and vagueness of the demands that make the movement insatiable, and hence ever-open to rapid growth.

ONCE THE REVOLUTIONARY crisis-point is passed, the revolution becomes almost unbeatable, because: (1) if the white governments yield to the stated demands, this adds fuel to the revolutionary movement and induces them to increase their demands; but (2) if savagely repressive measures are taken, as at Birmingham, this will make martyrs out of the Negro victims, multiply their revolutionary fervor, and greatly intensify support of the revolution throughout the country, among white and Negro alike. Indeed, it was this treatment, as we have seen, that made the Negro cause a revolution. In short, the governments are now damned if they do and damned if they don’t. With the Negro movement now in a revolutionary situation, it seems therefore impossible for the governments to stop or defeat it.

This does not mean, however, that the Negro Revolution will inevitably be victorious. There are two ways by which it might be crippled and defeated. First, the retaliatory creation of a white counter-revolutionary mass movement, equally determined and militant. In short, by the re-creation of the kind of Ku Klux Klan that smashed Reconstruction and the Negro movement in the late 19th century. Since whites are in the majority, they have the capacity to do this if they have the will. But the will, in my opinion, is gone; this is not the 19th century, nor even the 1920’s. White opinion, as we have seen, has drastically shifted from racism to egalitarianism; even the Southern whites, particularly the educated leadership, concede the broad merit of the Negro cause; and, finally, mob action no longer has respectability in our society. There have been attempts, to be sure, at mass counter-revolutionary white action: the Ku Klux leader in Georgia told a rally that “we must fight poison with poison,” armed conflict between white and Negro mobs has broken out in Cambridge, Maryland, and white hoodlums have repeatedly assaulted Negro pickets in the Bronx. But all this is a feeble replica of the kind of white action that would be necessary to defeat the revolution; and it seems almost impossible for action to be generated on the required scale.

There is a second, and far more subtle, method by which the Negro Revolution might be tamed and eventually crippled: through a “sellout” by the Negro leadership itself. It has happened time and again in the history of unsuccessful revolts that the masses, after having been indoctrinated and radicalized by their leadership, are then betrayed by the leadership itself, and left floundering and inchoate, finally to collapse from lack of direction or guidance. Betrayals occur for a variety of reasons, but usually from a combination of venality and timorousness; and because it is much easier for counter-revolutionaries to put pressure on the leadership, the few who stand out from the crowd, than on the broad base of the masses themselves.

There are very strong indications that this betrayal-process has already begun; for so radicalized were the Negro masses by the events of May that they have now outstripped almost all of the Negro leadership, even those considered the “crackpot” fringe only a year ago. In particular, we are seeing more and more the openly expressed fear on the part of all the established Negro organizations that the Negro masses will get out of hand, will pass beyond the safe-and-sane limits desired by the leadership, and begin to “resort to violence” against the government. Desperately fearful of violence and hence of genuine militancy, all these established organizations, from NAACP to CORE to SNCC, have banded together in the Council for United Civil Rights Leadership, heavily financed by equally fearful white Liberals, to keep the Negro masses “under control.”

Of course, the Negro Establishment will not be able to dump their own revolution quickly and abruptly, else they would be totally repudiated by their followers. The strategy, on the contrary, appears to be as follows: to pressure for the “safe-and-sane” course of Federal intervention and civil rights bills, and, with the plum of this concession to the Negro masses, to keep the damper down on mass demonstrations.

The following quotes indicate the dimensions of this attempt to cripple the revolution and channel it into “safe,” orderly statist directions:

Administration and Negro leaders view the passage this year of the Kennedy civil rights bill, with the “public accommodations” section relatively intact, as absolutely essential to keep the fire under control.

“If we don’t get the public accommodations section, the Negroes won’t talk to us any more,” said one important Administration figure. “If we can’t talk to them, advise them, there’s no telling what might happen.”3

Why are white religious, business and civic leaders so anxious to deal with men like [the leaders of the Council for United Civil Rights Leadership]. . . . “You should see what’s waiting in the wings to take over, if these non-violent people fail,” said one influential white private citizen. . . .4

It seems clear, furthermore, that President Kennedy’s sudden decision for allout action on civil rights legislation and his intervention in general were caused precisely by the new revolutionary mood of the Negro people. It was immediately after the Negro violence of the night of May 11-12, that the President decided to send Federal troops to Alabama—causing Malcolm X, articulate young spokesman for the radical Black Muslims, to comment acidly that Kennedy only intervened after the onset of Negro violence. Nothing had been done by the Federal government, he added, when white (government) violence had been rampant in Birmingham.

OUR PROGNOSIS FOR the Negro problem in this country depends on whether or not the Establishment strategy for curbing and containing the Negro Revolution will succeed. Success for this strategy depends upon two factors: (a) whether Congress will pass a “tough” civil rights bill this year, and (b) whether the Negro masses will find a leadership willing at least to keep up with the radical temper of the masses or even to go beyond it. If Congress does pass the civil rights bill, and no popular radical leaders emerge among the Negroes, then it is fairly certain that the Negro Revolution will be curbed, will be satisfied with limited concessions, and will finally simmer down or perhaps fizzle out. But if, on the other hand, the civil rights bill is stopped by a filibuster, and a popular radical leadership comes to the fore, then a full-scale Negro Revolution seems inevitable. Should one of the conditions hold and not the other, then the outcome becomes doubtful.

As to the second condition for the continuation of the Revolution, it is rare that a revolution has succeeded without truly radical leaders to constitute a vanguard. But as yet, the Negro Revolution has not found its Lenin, its Castro, or its Hitler. Who are the “extremist” groups “waiting in the wings”? So far, they consist largely of the followers of Robert F. Williams and the Black Muslims, with smaller groupings around the Trotskyites and the Maoist “Hammer and Steel.” There are also new and so far small groups of militants such as the Uhuru and GOAL movements in Detroit.

The Black Muslims have a substantial following, but largely limited to the poorer working class in the Northern cities. The Muslims are a highly interesting movement, which received favorable publicity years ago in the ultra-right-wing Right magazine. The Muslims have a far more libertarian program than the other Negro organizations, opposed to compulsory integration. Indeed, as a Negro nationalist movement, they favor voluntary segregation of the races, preferably in a Negro nation in the “Black Belt” of the South, or in a Negro return to Africa. The Muslims have also been able, paradoxically, to do a remarkable job in instilling the “Protestant ethic” into the most criminal groups of the Negro population. The Muslims, however, have not been able to attract any Negro support in the South; and, at the most, its Muslim religion would limit its mass base. Malcolm X will never be the “Lenin” of the Negro Revolution; at the most, the Muslims could be a co-operating but subsidiary organization in such a struggle.

Robert F. Williams had a substantial following in the South, but he fled to Cuba after being charged with kidnapping, and it is doubtful if he commands any organizational support at present. William Worthy is emphatically on the left of the Negro movement, but again, he is an independent journalist without an organizational base.

The fact that no over-riding leaders are in sight, however, does not mean that they will not emerge. For one of the main characteristics of a revolutionary situation is that change is unprecedentedly swift. As long as the situation continues to be revolutionary, a prominent radical leader and organization could emerge out of the blue in a matter of months.

Suppose that the Establishment strategy fails, and the Negro Revolution succeeds, what form might we expect it to take? Here again, prognosis is risky, but we might expect several developments. In the first place, there seems no doubt that a revolutionary leadership would be generally “leftist,” i.e., for some form of socialism at home, and opposed to the Cold War foreign policies of the United States. We can infer this from the fact that the current radical leadership, each in its separate way, has a strong tendency to identify “white oppression” at home with “white American imperialism” abroad, especially against the “colored countries” of Asia and Africa.

As an example of this trend of thought, we may take the Negro journalist William Worthy. In a speech in Harlem on June 1, Worthy called for a Negro “third party” in America (toward which the Muslims and others are also sympathetic) to “co-ordinate . . . unsung local heroes into one gigantic effective national movement.” A Negro party, added Worthy, would wield the political balance of power, and upset the entire “white power structure” of the country. It would also “change the nuclear-racistcolonialist course of American history, and thereby the destiny of the entire world.”

A revolutionary Negro leadership would concentrate, as we have indicated, far more on direct opposition to all levels of government, especially the local police. That this would be true North as well as South is seen by the recent prominence of new, militant groups in protesting police brutality in Detroit. Protesting the killing of an alleged Negro prostitute by a white policeman, were none of the established organizations; only radical groups participated, including the Black Muslims, Uhuru and GOAL.

Another factor has already served to radicalize all sectors of the Negro movement. More and more reference appears, in the Negro literature, to the “white power structure;” Negroes were highly impressed with the fact that negotiations in Birmingham were conducted, not so much with the elected public officials, as with the leading businessmen of the community. This has caused many Negroes, of varying political stripe, to adopt the radical view that the “real rulers” of government are not the elected officials, but the big businessmen of the community or, in the final analysis, of the country. We can expect that many of them will draw Marxist conclusions from this premise; and the Marxists near and among the radical Negro groups will do their best to see to it that these conclusions are drawn.

Many conservatives are irretrievably convinced that the Communists are somehow “behind” the whole Negro Revolution. Paradoxically, however, in the spectrum of Negro organizations that we have outlined, the Communist Party can best be described as “moderately left of center.” Their main idol is the Rev. Martin Luther King, and they wax almost as hysterical over the possibility of Negro violence as do the most determined racists. Anyone considering this far-fetched is invited to turn to a lengthy article by the Negro editor of The Worker, James E. Jackson, on the Negro question. Jackson devotes a large part of his article to a savagely vituperative attack on the Black Muslims, calling them “ultra-reactionary forces . . . with the strategic assignment to sow ideological confusion . . . a leach on the Negro freedom movement—sucking its blood. . . .” Jackson is particularly bitter that Malcolm X dared to attack the Rev. King as an “Uncle Tom.” Jackson even goes on to denounce militant, revolutionary Negroes in general as self-glorifiers and ignorant egotists. The radical Liberator magazine is denounced for daring to criticize the Rev. King, and even Robert F. Williams is bitterly attacked for his “utterly irresponsible attacks upon . . . Negro leaders and their allies. . . .”5

In denouncing the Muslim proposal for a Black nation in the South, James Jackson carefully refrained from pointing out that this was the Communist Party line several decades ago. Still holding to this program, however, is perhaps the “furthest out” and most radical of all the revolutionary organizations in and around the Negro Left: Hammer and Steel. A Maoist splinter group of men formerly in the Communist Party, Hammer and Steel considers the Negro movement to be a “national liberation movement,” which “must be prepared to answer violence with greater violence directed at Wall Street and their agents.” Non-violence might have worked against relatively civilized Britain, says Hammer and Steel, but could not work against “brutal and genocidal” American imperialism. To have true civil rights, the “Negro nation” must have its “freedom” and self-determination in the South, and “special rights” must be granted the Negro minority in the North and West. “A Free Negro nation will determine whether its best interest lie [sic] in separation or as an autonomous part of the U. S.” As for the best means of attaining this goal, Hammer and Steel envisages a “national liberation front” in the South similar to the fronts in Viet Nam and Algeria. Hammer and Steel ends its discussion with a series of slogans for our time: “Disarm the White Oppressors in the South!”, “Arms for the Negro People!”, and “Self-Determination, State Power for the Negro Nation!”6

TO PASS BRIEFLY from the analytical to the evaluative, what should be the libertarian position on the Negro movement? Perhaps the most important point to make here is that the issue is a complex one; the Negro Revolution has some elements that a libertarian must favor, others that he must oppose. Thus, the libertarian opposes compulsory segregation and police brutality, but also opposes compulsory integration and such absurdities as ethnic quota systems in jobs. The ethnic quota is no less objectionable than Hitler’s numerus clausus; if 25% of bricklayers must be Negro, must not the proportion of Jewish doctors be forcibly reduced to 3%? Must every occupation in the land have its precise quota of Armenians, Greeks, Montenegrans, etc. ad infinitum?

For his over-all estimate of the Negro movement, the libertarian must weigh and formulate his conclusions according to what he believes to be the most important priorities. In doing so, incidentally, he should not overlook a generally neglected point: some Negroes are beginning to see that the heavy incidence of unemployment among Negro workers is partially caused by union restrictionism keeping Negroes (as well as numerous whites) out of many fields of employment. If the Negro Revolution shall have as one of its consequences the destruction of the restrictive union movement in this country, this, at least, will be a welcome boon.

Foreign Aid in Latin America

ROBERT SCHUETTINGER*

THE PROBLEM OF how best to bring about economic, educational and political progress in the underdeveloped nations is certainly one of the major challenges of our time. For this reason, it is particularly discouraging that the great body of our college graduates (who mould the public opinion of this country) have been content to follow the lead of publications such as the New York Times and adopt a simplistic and essentially thoughtless attitude toward what will perhaps be remembered as the Gordian Knot of the Twentieth Century.

If you ask the average modern Liberal intellectual what sort of economic system he considers best suited to the “emerging”1 nations, nine times out of ten you will receive almost exactly the same cliche in reply: “For the advanced nations, I am all in favor of free enterprise (under adequate safeguards, of course) but I think that some form of socialism is necessary for the developing countries—at least until they develop sufficient thrust to pass the ‘take-off stage’.”2 The results of such little polls would not be especially noteworthy were it not for the fact that most of the available economic data point in precisely the opposite direction.3

It is a rather alarming commentary on the state of public discussion in America (and on our intellectual community in general) that almost all of the talking and writing done on the subject of foreign aid each year is uninformed and emotional. This, of course, is an indictment not of one party only, but of both sides of the case. The Liberals as a rule dismiss all critics of foreign aid as reactionary, anti-humanitarian and isolationist; the Conservatives, on the other hand, too often attack foreign aid as a general principle without pausing to ask what are the actual effects upon the United States and the receiving country of a particular program. In the light of this background then, I would like to discuss the operation of the Peace Corps and some other aspects of our foreign economic aid program in Latin America.

This past winter, I spent a month of my vacation touring three Latin American countries, stopping on the way to visit friends who are currently serving in the Peace Corps.4 My impression of this much-publicized organization, based on the Volunteers I have met in the United States as well as in Latin America, is that it does not attract into its ranks the very highest level of college graduates; with a few exceptions it attracts the solid, competent, intelligent, second-level type. There are good and obvious reasons why this should be so. Most really first-rate students simply can not spare two years for this kind of work; they are committed to long stretches of graduate study interrupted, in most cases, by the Armed Services. There are, however, notable exceptions. Some of the Volunteers I met will certainly be leaders in their fields; but, as in most government agencies, these are few and far between. Tocqueville’s comment that the most able Americans, as a rule, avoid public service is as true in 1963 as it was in 1830.

Most of the Volunteers I met had no strong political convictions; the great majority fitted in unobtrusively with the American consensus. The beatnik types are clearly a small minority in the Corps. The hardships of the two-month training period, I was told, weeded out the few of them who did apply. At one Peace Corps “boot camp” I visited, the training was indeed rigorous in the physical and busy-work sense; anyone who completed it had more than his share of conscientiousness and endurance. These are the two qualities the Corps is most interested in and it is for this reason that only a few Volunteers have returned to this country prematurely. On the other hand, the training program can not be said to be intellectually demanding and it is primarily for this reason that Harvard University has declined to have anything more to do with it. What is demanded is staying-power, including the capacity to sit through twelve hours a day of classes which, in many cases, are boring and trivial.

The Peace Corps now consists of over 5,000 persons and it is still growing rapidly. It is not at all surprising, therefore, that such an organization should have faults, but it is surprising that it has managed to do so effective a job with so little money under such adverse conditions and in so short a time. That it has been able to do so is largely due to the quality of the Volunteers themselves, almost all of whom do more than their jobs require. Despite a generally favorable press, however, and the support of most politicians, strong criticism of the Corps is still to be heard, most of it centering around two main points.

Some conservatives have taken pains to point out that the Peace Corps Volunteers are inadequately trained in methods of combatting Communism. Since it is highly unlikely, however, that a recent college graduate could be trained to be an effective anti-Communist agent in less than a year, it would seem that the return would not be worth the investment. Under existing circumstances all that can be reasonably expected of the Volunteers is that they be able to explain with some clarity,5 whenever it seems appropriate, why they prefer democracy6 to totalitarianism.

A complaint frequently heard from classical Liberals is that the Peace Corps, for all its good intentions, teaches young people to rely unduly upon government as a panacea. This would be a damning charge if it were true, but I don’t believe that it is. It certainly cannot be denied that all Peace Corps Volunteers are employees of the United States government; the important point, however, is that in almost all countries they have been assigned jobs which have traditionally been under government direction. Unlike other parts of the foreign aid program, the Peace Corps has caused almost no displacement of private enterprise. For instance, well over half of all Peace Corpsmen are teachers, who are, in underdeveloped countries as in the United States, largely government employees.

Nor can it fairly be said that the Peace Corps has ignored private organizations working in the same fields. Since its policy is to stimulate and advise and not to preempt it has usually sought (and usually received) the co-operation of local businesses, newspapers, labor unions, church groups and independent relief agencies as well as individuals interested in contributing something to a particular project.

In some parts of Latin America, Peace Corpsmen work alongside members of a private “peace corps” called Accion. This “rival firm” was launched by a California student who had read William James’ essay, “A Moral Equivalent for War.” In 1958, he decided to put into action the psychologist’s exhortation to the youth of the advanced nations to abandon militarism and to channel their restless energies instead into a great effort to spread civilization to the remotest parts of the earth. Two years after this idea was first revived in California, the then Senator Kennedy began talking about a “Point Four Youth Program.” A year before the campaign of 1960, however, a group of students aided by several businessmen had already put the first “peace corps” into operation.

THE PRIOR EXISTENCE of Accion, of course, was enough to raise the question of what justification there could be for a government Peace Corps if the same work could be done well by private enterprise. I would answer that the Peace Corps is probably the single most effective part of our entire economic aid network, and, since it is one of the few cases where our foreign aid funds are being spent in the right way, it serves as a valuable example. This assumes, of course, that the principle of foreign aid can itself be defended insofar as: (1) it actually improves the economic well-being of the people in the receiving country, and (2) it furthers the foreign policy aims and thereby the security of the United States. A good deal of our present foreign aid does not even fulfill the second criterion and almost none of it fulfills the first. The Peace Corps, to its credit, fulfills both.

Our foreign policy objectives have clearly been furthered by the Peace Corps primarily because every Peace Corps Volunteer is a visible demonstration of the friendship of the American people for the people of the host country. Since most people are more interested in other people than they are in machines, the propaganda value of a $75-a-month (plus expenses) Peace Corpsman is a far better investment for the United States than the equivalent value in, say, fertilizer. Also, as one Volunteer told me, a Peace Corpsman is probably the only variety of foreign aid which cannot be stolen by a politician somewhere along the line. He can, of course, be wasted, and a certain number of Volunteers are sitting around right now waiting for their assignments to emerge from some Kafka-esque local bureaucracy. But these are the exceptions and not the rule.

Economically, the Peace Corps has concentrated on spreading knowledge and education. Most economists would agree that this is the best way for governments to lay the groundwork for advance and thereby encourage economic progress.7

An additional benefit of the Peace Corps and one not foreseen by the planners in Washington is the effect upon thousands of Volunteers of seeing exactly how governments go about their announced goals of raising living standards Most Peace Corpsmen left the United States with a prejudice in favor of foreign aid and government economic planning; as a result of their experiences many are certain to revise their opinions. Indeed, the most idealistic and naive observer8 can not help but notice that corruption, inefficiency and wastefulness are the hallmarks of almost all Latin American governments; in these nations a political career is regarded simply as a means to self-enrichment (as it is still looked upon today in some parts of the United States).

EVEN IF WE set corruption and political instability aside, however, at least three major impediments to economic progress in Latin America remain: (1) the threat of nationalization of industry, (2) economic nationalism, and (3), perhaps most fundamental of all, the resistance to change which is firmly rooted in the Latin American way of life. None of these obstacles to a rising standard of living is likely to be reduced by our foreign aid program as it is presently designed. The plain truth is that Latin America (and the underdeveloped countries generally) can not expect to make real economic progress without first effecting drastic internal reforms. And these changes can only be brought about by the governments themselves; any hint of United States interference will bring outraged cries of “Yankee imperialism.” By the rules of the game we are forbidden to insist that money be allocated first for such basics as education, sanitation, vocational training, roads and water and sewage systems.9 Nor may we insist upon the necessary controls to minimize graft and guarantee competent management.

The single most important reason why capital, which is needed so badly to create new industries and jobs, has been fleeing Latin America at such an increasing rate is the threat of nationalization. In a Senate speech recently, Jacob Javits pointed out that, “Additional North American investments are losing the battle against the flow of Latin Americtn local capital, whose flight is calculated between nine and fifteen billion dollars, a great part of which is deposited in Swiss banks. I ask you to imagine the tonic effect that would result,” he went on, “if only these depositors, who have in Swiss banks the ‘fugitive’ capital of Latin America, would invest but one half of the balance of their accounts in their own countries. The same political instability and economic doubts that caused the emigration of Latin American capital, is [sic] responsible for the decline of North American direct investments in Latin America. . . . These negative tendencies are reciprocally reinforced by a vicious circle which causes greater doubts and instability—and finally violent nationalistic acts and unjust expropriations. It is evident that a great responsibility lies upon the Latin American nations for the improvement of their climate for investments.”

The extent of this hostility to private enterprise may be gauged by the fact that the Chamber of Commerce of America, meeting recently in Florida, passed a resolution specifically requesting President Kennedy and the Latin American governments concerned to allow the participation of private industry in the United States foreign aid program.10

Economists have estimated that the investments planned over a ten year period by the United States government could be brought about in only a few months if only Latin American governments would abandon their hostile attitude toward private capital, domestic and foreign. It is not too hard to imagine what a great difference this speed-up could make to millions of people now living in utter poverty; but as things stand today, these people will just have to wait.

The truth is that Latin America’s dictators11 do not care how long their people wait so long as they get full credit for any new jobs created or new industries founded. This, of course, is a major source of the economic nationalism which is one of the biggest millstones around Latin America’s neck. The ruling groups, supported by Washington, are interested primarily in creating “show-case industries”—which require large capital investments and small numbers of employees. Such industries include automobiles, petrochemicals, machine tools and other mass production items which use highly automated processes. There are several reasons why spending money on such projects actually hurts rather than helps the welfare of the people in the countries concerned. First, “show-case industries,” while satisfying the pride of the planners, divert needed capital from economically sound to economically unsound uses. Unemployment is aggravated, not helped, by this concentration on highly automated industries. By insisting on manufacturing their own automobiles at a high cost, when they could buy them at a much lower cost from the United States, the planners are making certain that their citizens will have less to spend for other products. As consumers have less money to spend, fewer imports can be bought and fewer new jobs created both at home and abroad. Our own economy is hurt by these policies just as it would be helped if our foreign aid programs could achieve their announced objectives. All this nonsense-on-stilts is simply mercantilism, the inward-looking and backward-glancing system that Adam Smith exploded in 1776.12

The planners thus refuse to acknowledge the importance of the free flow of private capital, and the ordinary citizen is denied the advantages of geographic specialization and the international division of labor. Rather than come down to earth and help their citizens concentrate on what they can do well, the dictators prefer to weave grandiose schemes which they are being encouraged to charge off to the United States taxpayer. Everyone would laugh if the United Fruit Company poured vast sums of money into growing bananas near its Boston headquarters; otherwise intelligent people, however, greet such follies as a new Diesel-engine plant in Nicaragua as “an important step forward.”13

BUT ALL OF Latin America’s economic ills cannot be blamed on Washington and her own governments; the people themselves must shoulder a good part of the responsibility. Like many North Americans, most Latin Americans distrust change. As long as they have barely enough to eat and some kind of a roof over their heads they are content to let come what may. The people for whose benefit our optimistic foreign aid plans were supposedly launched are just not much interested in progress. If anyone doubts this, he has only to look at what has happened in those countries where free land in the interior has been offered to anyone who would go out and settle it. Wherever such offers have been made there has been almost no response; the supposedly land-hungry campesinos have been too lazy and too conservative to move their families 200 miles in order to get a farm of their own. Of course, these same people will accept a piece of the neighboring hacienda if it is handed to them on a silver platter by a benevolent (and vote-conscious) government. I know of at least two instances where formerly landless peasants took over a large farm and duly harvested the crops planted by the previous owners. The next year, however, there was no crop at all; the new owners claimed that they “didn’t know what to do.” This is what “land reform,” as it is usually practiced in Latin America, means—not opening up new land to productivity but destroying formerly productive land by incompetent management. No doubt it is unfair to expect a largely uneducated population to change its way of living in a short period of time. And yet if Latin America is even to maintain its present standard of living, in the face of a rapidly rising birth rate and a declining death rate, it is essential that change does come, and soon.

Our economic aid program as now constituted, however, will not promote this change. Despite all the rhetoric about “the winds of change sweeping across a continent,” the planners in Washington are doing their best to assist the reactionaries’ struggle against change. Far from being a “liberating force,” the program is actually a support for sagging dictatorships, a buttress for a decaying feudalism, and the keystone of a revived mercantilism.

“Economics of the Free Society”1

SAM PELTZMAN*

AS ONE OF the chief architects of West Germany’s post-war “economic miracle,” Wilhelm Roepke has exerted a powerful influence on contemporary practical affairs. However, it is in his role as an academic economist that Professor Roepke comes to us in this book. Economics of the Free Society is the English translation of what has become a popular textbook on the Continent. In a very few pages, it is able to cover just about every aspect of the workings of the free market system, always with a view to demonstrating the superiority of this system over its collectivist rivals. The book is aimed at the reader with no formal training in economics—the “intelligent layman”—and many in this audience will find it a good, easily-read introduction to the problems a modern economy must solve and the means by which a system of free markets solves them. Beginner or not, however, the reader will be satisfied only in inverse proportion to the degree of logical rigor he demands.

Roepke sets forth his arguments almost exclusively by analogy and example. While this can be helpful and certainly contributes to the readability of the book, it is no substitute for lucid logical argument. At those points in the exposition where some central theoretical concept is being elucidated, a geometric presentation could usefully be inserted into the text. This would do much more for the book than simply clothe it in the trappings of elegance. The Cartesian plane remains the basic tool of the economist, and, even for the beginner, it is an invaluable device for tying together diverse concepts into a logical whole. By his almost exclusive reliance on analogy and anecdote, Roepke seriously dilutes the content of economics, sometimes to the point of permitting himself to make glib assertions he might not care to defend under a more rigorous analysis.2 While it might be claimed that glibness and superficial analysis are tolerable in a book for beginners, it is precisely this audience which can most benefit from a good grounding in the logical requirements of economic analysis. To the extent that a knowledge of the methods of economic analysis equips one to refute the numerous collectivist fallacies, Roepke is doing a disservice to the cause he champions.

The cause he is championing, it must be noted, is not the laissez-faire capitalism of the last century (a period Roepke identifies as the era of “paleo-liberalism”). Roepke recognizes the inherent social efficiency of a competitive market system, and for the attainment of such a system Roepke is willing to use the power of the state to destroy or regulate private monopoly. Though he is unspecific as to methods, Roepke also advocates use of state power in some form to gain a more equitable distribution of income (p. 197 ff.). Yet, in this respect, Roepke differs hardly at all from certain other supporters of the free market system, e.g., Henry Simons. It is when he charges that the logic of capitalist development, entailing as it does a rapid extension of the specialization of economic functions, has contributed to the “inhumane,” depersonalized condition of modern industrial society, that Roepke differs from most of his intellectual bed-fellows. This is a charge, of course, often made by the collectivist critics of capitalism, particularly those of the fascist stripe; it is one seldom made by a defender of capitalism like Roepke. At the same time, however, Roepke takes great pains to point out the futility of hoping for, much less seriously advocating, a return to some pre-Raphaelite utopia. The rapid extension of specialization has been the motive force behind a great increase in the productivity of modern industry, but this very development has made possible an equally great increase in population, which population is consequently dependent for its very existence on the productivity of the specialized industrial system. Thus, every contemporary social system, collectivist or otherwise, is constrained to preserve the present degree of specialization, for “to turn back the clock would be tantamount to ordering the destruction of millions of lives.” While one may agree or disagree with Roepke’s pessimistic view of the social effects of specialization (and I do think he tends to greatly underemphasize some of the contributions to a “good society”—the unprecedented extension of general education to all strata of society has been made possible only because the specialized economy has been productive enough to release the necessary human and material resources), his analysis should serve as a strong antidote to policy recommendations based on “the fond reveries of economic romanticists and autarkists.”

HELPFUL AS ROEPKE’S analysis of particular economic and social problems may be, one can hardly fail to be disappointed by the inattention to rigorous analysis which pervades his book. Nowhere is this more evident than in his section on “The Impact of Keynesianism” (p. 221 ff.). Roepke totally eschews a frontal attack on the logic or the empirical relevance of Keynes’ analysis. In fact, he concedes that “the services which Keynes rendered to the advancement of theory . . . . are considerable,” and further “we will readily concede that the use of Keynesianism as a logical apparatus . . . in the struggle against inflation is (and was) thoroughly legitimate . . . .” If the reader wonders why Roepke is ready to concede so much to the Keynesian analytic system, he need only turn back a few pages to Roepke’s presentation of his own theory of business cycles. It bears a close family re-resemblance to the Keynesian theory. Roepke: “Expansion and contraction of investments, which go hand in hand with expansion and contraction of the supply of credit, constitute the real core of the cyclical movement” (p. 212). Keynes: “The Trade Cycle is best regarded, I think, as being occasioned by a cyclical change in the marginal efficiency of capital [the demand curve for investment] . . . .”3 Given such close agreement between Roepke and Keynes on the analytical level, there would seem to be little room for Roepke to take issue with Keynes as an economist. What Roepke proceeds to do, then, is to attack Keynes on several irrelevant fronts: in contrast to the “deistic moralist,” Adam Smith, who left us, “in addition to his magnum opus on the Wealth of Nations (1776) a book on the Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759),” Keynes was a (presumably amoral) “exponent of positivistic scientism,” who can claim only “a monograph on the theory of probability” in addition to his ecomonic works. With absolutely no analysis of the substantive content of Keynes’ works, Roepke permits himself to label them “the end product of a process of disintegration in which the crisis of an exclusively rationalistic society finds its ultimate expression.” Not only is Keynes’ economics to be discredited because he failed to write books on morality, but he must be saddled with the immorality of his followers as well:

. . . the real tragedy of the Keynesian legacy is that what Keynes regarded as intellectual “working capital,” i.e., ideas easily shifted from the service of one ideal to that of another, became for his less flexible disciples intellectual “fixed capital,” the profits of which were protected by every means available, including that of monopolistic exclusion. Keynes cannot be spared the reproach of having failed to take this fateful result of his writings and teachings into account.

(p. 225, italics supplied.)

We are thus asked to blame the doctor for the death of his patient when the latter takes a prescription for moderate exercise as license for an attempt at the four-minute mile. Such procedure, I would submit, is simply inadmissable in any rational evaluation of economic theories. If Roepke were concerned to give us a critical biography of Keynes, he should have made his intention clear. To pass off a few derogatory remarks on Keynes and the Keynesians as a sufficient critique of the substance of Keynes’ economics is, however, a form of intellectual laxity which contributes little either to biography or economics. The fact is that Adam Smith’s economics qua economics stands solely on its ability to give us a useful, i.e., empirically relevant, framework within which to analyze economic problems, not on the fact that Smith happened to be a deist or that his followers were prudent men. It is on this same basis that Keynes’ economics should and will ultimately be judged. Personal and social values may well find themselves confirmed in economic writing, and conversely we may reject recommendations which conflict with our values though they are founded on good economic reasoning. It is important, however, especially in a book about economics, to make a distinction between economics and ethics. Roepke, especially in his discussion of Keynes, has failed to do this, and it detracts greatly from his book.

AT A TIME when various collectivist programs gain ever greater acceptance among the most influential groups in our society, there can be no doubt of the need for a good introductory economics textbook which explicitly emphasizes the method by which the free market solves economic problems. Economics of the Free Society is an attempt to fill this need, but it does so only partially. There are areas in which its analysis can be quite effective, but these are too lightly interspersed in a book which avoids logical analysis at almost every point. Since most collectivist programs suffer precisely from a deficiency in their underlying logic, it is to be regretted that Roepke chose not to exploit this weakness.

NEW BOOKS AND ARTICLES

THE FOLLOWING IS A SELECT LIST OF BOOKS AND ARTICLES WHICH, IN THE OPINION OF THE EDITORS, MAY BE OF INTEREST TO OUR READERS.

Yale Brozen, Automation: The Impact of Technological Change (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1963), $1.00. A professional economist analyzes the arguments on automation, pro and con, and cites some remarkable statistics in its behalf. A noteworthy study.

James Dugan, American Viking (New York: Harper, 1963). The saga of the shipping magnate Hans Isbrandtsen, the rugged individualist who successfully challenged the international shipping cartel and took on the meddling bureaucrats of many nations with less success.

F. A. Hayek, ed., Capitalism and the Historians (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), $1.50, paper. A reprint of six essays, examining the “supreme myth which more than any other has served to discredit the economic system to which we owe our present-day civilization . . . the legend of the deterioration of the position of the working class in consequence of the rise of ‘capitalism’ . . .” Contributors to this valuable symposium are T. S. Ashton, Louis Hacker, W. H. Hutt, Bertrand de Jouvenal and the editor.

Helmut Schoeck and James W. Wiggins, eds., The New Argument in Economics: The Public vs. the Private Sector (Princeton, N. J.: Van Nostrand, 1963), $5.95. The latest in the stimulating and high-level symposia on various philosophical and political subjects edited by the two Emory University sociologists. This volume contains papers by George Stigler, W. Allen Wallis, Ernest van den Haag, and others, dissecting the “public squalor argument.”

Neil McInnes, “Half a Century of Rent Control,” Barron’s, July 8, 1963. A review of French rent control policies, which have “turned France into a nation of slum-dwellers.”

Benjamin A. Rogge, “Is Economic Freedom Possible?” The Freeman, April, 1963 (free copy on request from Foundation for Economic Education, Irvington-on-Hudson, New York). An examination of the charge that private monopoly will inevitably make free enterprise impossible.

Richard M. Weaver, “Two Types of American Individualism,” Modern Age, Spring, 1963. In his last published article, Prof. Weaver contrasts the aristocratic individualism of John Randolph with the “high but irresponsible thinking of Thoreau,” and argues for reinstitution of the former in our society, which has too curtly dismissed both. The same issue of Modern Age contains an article by A. A. Shenfield, “Economic Planning in Great Britain: Pretense and Reality.” Here the author, a noted English economist, reviews the elusive goals and chaotic results of Labor Party policies, and lauds the re-emergence of liberal principles up until 1955 under the Conservative Party Regrettably, he observes, it has since relapsed into a fascination with centralized planning, which often seems to have “the power of magic over men’s minds—and the inability of magic to master men’s problems.”

The fourth volume of The Journal of Law and Economics (dated Autumn, 1961) has been issued, and includes articles by George Stigler, Milton Friedman, and others. Of all American scholarly journals, this annual publication is undoubtedly the one most solidly in the classical liberal tradition. A complete set (four numbers) may be obtained for $10 (students, $4) by writing: Prof. Aaron Director, The Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Law School, Chicago 37, Illinois.

In the Coming Year . . .

NEW INDIVIDUALIST REVIEW will NOT publish articles by James Baldwin, Ralph McGill, Walter Lippmann, J. William Fulbright, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Gore Vidal, Jean-Paul Sartre, Nehru, or Howard N’Bongo-Bongo, Prime Minister of Anthropophagia;

NIR will not tell you how affluent you are, or urge you to write your Congressman to triple your income-tax, so that the country can eliminate squalor in the public sector;

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HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY LIVE WITHOUT NIR? SUBSCRIBE TODAY!

—Ludwig Von Mises

VOLUME 3, NUMBER 2, WINTER 1964

KINDS OF ORDER IN SOCIETY

P. A. HAYEK

A REPORT ON TEN YEARS OF ECONOMIC PLANNING IN INDIA

B. R. SHENOY

SKINNER’S BEHAVIORIST UTOPIA

BRUCE GOLDBERG

BENJAMIN CONSTANT

RALPH RAICO

Vol. 3, No. 2

35 cents

Kinds of Order in Society
	3	F. A. HAYEK
The Results of Planning in India
	13	B. R. SHENOY
Red China’s Great Leap Backward
	21	MICHAEL F. ZAREMSKI
Skinner’s Behaviorist Utopia
	29	BRUCE GOLDBERG
Benjamin Constant
	45	RALPH RAICO
New Books and Articles
	55

NEW INDIVIDUALIST REVIEW is published quarterly by New Individualist Review, Inc., at Ida Noyes Hall, University of Chicago, Chicago 37, Illinois.

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Copyright 1964 by New Individualist Review, Inc., Chicago, Illinois. All rights reserved. Republication of less than 200 words may be made without specific permission of the publisher, provided NEW INDIVIDUALIST REVIEW is duly credited and two copies of the publication in which such material appears are forwarded to NEW INDIVIDUALIST REVIEW.

EDITORIAL STAFF

Editors-in-Chief • Ronald Hamowy • Ralph Raico

Associate Editors • Robert M. Hurt • John P. McCarthy

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Business Manager • Sam Peltzman

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Jameson Campaigne, Jr. • Burton Gray • Thomas Heagy •

Robert Michaels • James Rock

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Yale Brozen • Milton Friedman • George J. Stigler

University of Chicago

F. A. Hayek	•	Benjamin Rogge
University of Freiburg		Wabash College

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Geoffrey Scott

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Alfred Regnery

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Scott Keller

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David Friedman

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Karl K. Pingle

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Larry F. Glaser

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James G. Otto

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William Ford

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Goetz Wolff

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John Charles Neeley

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Robert J. Malito

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John Lulves, Jr.

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Robert Stuart Redfield

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Ronald Rettig

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R. P. Johnson

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Theodore Cormaney

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Wells H. Perkins

•

UNIVERSITY OF FRANKFURT
Werner Krebs

OXFORD UNIVERSITY
Robert Schuettinger

Kinds of Order in Society

F. A. HAYEK*

WE CALL A MULTITUDE of men a society when their activities are mutually adjusted to one another. Men in society can successfully pursue their ends because they know what to expect from their fellows. Their relations, in other words, show a certain order. How such an order of the multifarious activities of millions of men is produced or can be achieved is the central problem of social theory and social policy.1

Sometimes the very existence of such an order is denied when it is asserted that society—or, more particularly, its economic activities—are “chaotic.” A complete absence of an order, however, cannot be seriously maintained. What presumably is meant by that complaint is that society is not as orderly as it should be. The orderliness of existing society may indeed be capable of great improvement; but the criticism is due mainly to the circumstance that both the order which exists and the manner in which it is formed are not readily perceived. The plain man will be aware of an order of social affairs only to the extent that such an order has been deliberately arranged; and he is inclined to blame the apparent absence of an order in much of what he sees on the fact that nobody has deliberately ordered those activities. Order, to the ordinary person, is the result of the ordering activity of an ordering mind. Much of the order of society of which we speak is, however, not of this kind; and the very recognition that there exists such an order requires a certain amount of reflection.

The chief difficulty is that the order of social events can generally not be perceived by our senses but can only be traced by our intellect. It is, as we shall say, an abstract and not a concrete order. It is also a very complex order. And it is an order which, though it is the result of human action, has not been created by men deliberately arranging the elements in a preconceived pattern. These peculiarities of the social order are closely connected, and it will be the task of this essay to make their interrelation clear. We shall see that, although there is no absolute necessity that a complex order must always be spontaneous and abstract, the more complex the order is at which we aim, the more we shall have to rely on spontaneous forces to bring it about, and the more our power of control will be confined in consequence to the abstract features and not extend to the concrete manifestations of that order.2

(The terms “concrete” and “abstract,” which we shall have to use frequently, are often used in a variety of meanings. It may be useful, therefore, to state here in which sense they will be used. As “concrete” we shall describe particular real objects given to observation by our senses, and regard as the distinguishing characteristic of such concrete objects that there are always still more properties of them to be discovered than we already know or have perceived. In comparison with any such determinate object, and the intuitive knowledge we can acquire of it, all images and concepts of it are abstract and possess a limited number of attributes. All thought is in this sense necessarily abstract, although there are degrees of abstractness and it is customary to describe the relatively less abstract in contrast to the more abstract as (relatively) concrete. Strictly speaking, however, the contrast between the concrete and the abstract, as we shall use it, is the same as that between a fact of which we always know only abstract attributes but can always discover still more such attributes, and all those images, conceptions, and concepts which we retain when we no longer contemplate the particular object.3

The distinction between an abstract and a (relatively) concrete order is, of course, the same as that between a concept with a small connotation (intention) and a consequently wide denotation on the one hand, and a concept with a rich connotation and a correspondingly narrow denotation on the other. An abstract order of a certain kind may comprise many different manifestations of that order. The distinction becomes particularly important in the case of complex orders based on a hierarchy of ordering relations where several such orders may agree with respect to their more general ordering principles but differ in others. What is significant in the present context is that it may be important that an order possesses certain abstract features irrespective of its concrete manifestations, and that we may have it in our power to bring it about that an order which spontaneously forms itself will have those desirable characteristics, but not to determine the concrete manifestations or the position of the individual elements.)

THE SIMPLE CONCEPTION of an order of the kind which results when somebody puts the parts of an intended whole in their appropriate places applies in many parts of society. Such an order which is achieved by arranging the relations between the parts according to a preconceived plan we call in the social field an organization. The extent to which the power of many men can be increased by such deliberate co-ordination of their efforts is well-known and many of the achievements of man rest on the use of this technique. It is an order which we all understand because we know how it is made. But it is not the only nor even the chief kind of order on which the working of society rests; nor can the whole of the order of society be produced in this manner.

The discovery that there exist in society orders of another kind which have not been designed by men but have resulted from the action of individuals without their intending to create such an order, is the achievement of social theory—or, rather, it was this discovery which has shown that there was an object for social theory. It shook the deeply-ingrained belief of men that where there was an order there must also have been a personal orderer. It had consequences far beyond the field of social theory since it provided the conceptions which made possible a theoretical explanation of the structures of biological phenomena.4 And in the social field it provided the foundation for a systematic argument for individual liberty.

This kind of order which is characteristic not only of biological organisms (to which the originally much wider meaning of the term organism is now usually confined), is an order which is not made by anybody but which forms itself.

It is for this reason usually called a “spontaneous” or sometimes (for reasons we shall yet explain) a “polycentric” order. If we understand the forces which determine such an order, we can use them by creating the conditions under which such an order will form itself.

This indirect method of bringing about an order has the advantage that it can be used to produce orders which are far more complex than any order we can produce by putting the individual pieces in their appropriate places. But it has the drawback that it enables us to determine only the general character of the resulting order and not its detail. Its use in one sense thus extends our powers: it places us in a position to produce very complex orders which we could never produce by putting the individual elements in their places. Our power over the particular arrangement of the elements in such an order is however much more limited than it is over an order which we produce by individually arranging the parts. All we can control are certain abstract features of such an order, but not its concrete detail.

All this is familiar in the physical and biological field. We could never produce a crystal by directly placing the individual molecules from which it is built up. But we can create the conditions under which such a crystal will form itself. If for that purpose we make use of known forces, we can, however, not determine the position an individual molecule will occupy within a crystal, or even the size or position of the several crystals. Similarly, we can create the conditions under which a biological organism will grow and develop. But all we can do is create conditions favorable to that growth, and we are able to determine the resulting shape and structure only within narrow limits. The same applies to spontaneous social orders.

IN THE CASE OF certain social phenomena, such as language, the fact that they possess an order which nobody has deliberately designed and which we have to discover, is now generally recognized. In these fields we have at last outgrown the naive belief that every orderly arrangement of parts which assist man in the pursuit of his ends must be due to a personal maker. There was a time when it was believed that all those useful institutions which serve the intercourse of men, such as language, morals, law, writing, or money, must be due to an individual inventor or legislator, or to an explicit agreement of wise men who consented to certain useful practices.5 We understand now the process by which such institutions have gradually taken shape through men learning to act according to certain rules—rules which they long knew how to follow before there was any need to state them in words.

But if in those simpler instances we have overcome the belief that, wherever we find an order or a regular structure which serves a human purpose, there must also have been a mind which deliberately created it, the reluctance to recognize the existence of such spontaneous orders is still with us in many other fields. We still cling to a division, deeply embedded in Western thought since the classical antiquity, between things which owe their order to “nature” and those which owe it to “convention.”6 It still seems strange and unbelievable to many people that an order may arise neither wholly independent of human action, nor as the intended result of such action, but as the unforeseen effect of conduct which men have adopted with no such end in mind. Yet much of what we call culture is just such a spontaneously grown order which arose neither altogether independently of human action nor by design, but by a process which stands somewhere between these two possibilities which were long considered as exclusive alternatives.

Such spontaneous orders we find not only in the working of institutions like language or law (or, more conspicuously, the biological organisms) which show a recognizable permanent structure that is the result of slow evolution, but also in the relations of the market which must continuously form and reform themselves and where only the conditions conducive to their constant reconstitution have been shaped by evolution. The genetic and the functional aspects can never be fully separated.7

That division of labor on which our economic system rests is the best example of such a daily renewed order. In the order created by the market, the participants are constantly induced to respond to events of which they do not directly know, in a way which secures a continuous flow of production, a coordination of the quantities of the different things so that the even flow is not interrupted and everything is produced at least as cheaply as anybody can still provide the last quantities for which others are prepared to pay the costs. That it is an order which consists of the adaptation to the multitudinous circumstances which no single person can know completely is one reason why its existence is not perceived by simple inspection. It is embodied in such relations as those between prices and costs of commodities and the corresponding distribution of resources; and we can confirm that such an order in fact exists only after we have reconstructed its principles in our minds.

THE “ORDERING FORCES” of which we can make use in such instances are the rules governing the behavior of the elements of which the orders are formed. They determine that each element will respond to the particular circumstances which act on it in a manner which will result in an overall pattern. Each of the iron filings, for instance, which are magnetized by a magnet under the sheet of paper on which we have poured them, will so act on and react to all the others that they will arrange themselves in a characteristic figure of which we can predict the general shape but not the detail. In this simple instance the elements are all of the same kind and the known uniform rules which determine their behavior would enable us to predict the behavior of each in great detail if we only knew all the facts and were able to deal with them in all their complexity.

Some order of a determinate general character may form itself also from various kinds of different elements, i.e., of elements whose response to given circumstances will be alike only in some but not in all respects. The formation of the molecules of highly complex organic compounds provides an example from the physical sciences. But the fact is especially significant for many of the spontaneous orders which form themselves in the biological and social sphere. They are composed of many different elements which will respond to the same circumstances alike in some respects but not in others. But they will form orderly wholes, because each element responds to its particular environment in accordance with definite rules. The order results thus from the separate responses of the different elements to the particular circumstances which act on them and for this reason we describe it as a “polycentric order.”8

The physical examples of spontaneous orders we have considered are instructive because they show that the rules which the elements follow need of course not be “known” to them. The same is true more often than not where living beings and particularly men are the elements of such an order. Man does not know most of the rules on which he acts;9 and even what we call his intelligence is largely a system of rules which operate on him but which he does not know. In animal societies and in a great measure in primitive human society, the structure of social life is determined by rules of action which manifest themselves only in their being obeyed. It is only when individual intellects begin to differ sufficiently (or individual minds become more complex) that it becomes necessary to express the rules in communicable form so that they can be taught by example and deviant behavior can be corrected and differences of view expressed about what is to be decided.10 Though man never existed without laws which he obeyed, he did exist for millennia without laws which he knew in the sense that he was able to articulate them.

Where the elements of the social order are individual men, the particular circumstances to which each of them reacts are those which are known to him. But it is only when the responses of the individuals show a certain similarity, or obey some common rules that this will result in an overall order. Even a limited similarity of their responses—common rules which determine only some aspects of their behavior—suffice, however, for the formation of an order of a general kind. The important fact is that this order will be an adaptation to a multitude of circumstances which are known only to the individual members but not as a totality to any one of them; and that such an order will result only because, and in so far as, the different individuals follow similar rules in these responses to the particular circumstances known to them. This does not mean, nor is it necessary for the production of an order, that in similar circumstances different persons will do precisely the same thing. All that is meant and required is that in some respect they follow the same rule, that their responses are similar in some degree, or that they are limited to a certain range of actions which all have some attributes in common. This is true even of the iron filings in our former illustration which may not all move with the same speed because they will be different in shape, smoothness, or weight. Such differences will determine the particular manifestation of the resulting pattern which, in consequence of our ignorance of these particulars, will be unpredictable; but the general character of the pattern will be unaffected by them and will therefore be predictable.

Similarly, the responses of the human individuals to events in their environment need be similar only in certain abstract aspects in order that a definite overall pattern should result. There must be some regularity but not complete regularity in their actions: they must follow some common rules, but these common rules need not be sufficient to determine their action fully; and what action a particular individual will take will depend on further characteristics peculiar to him.

The question which is of central importance both for social theory and social policy is what rules the individuals must follow so that an order will result. Some such common rules the individuals will follow merely because of the similarity of their environment, or, rather, because of the similar manner in which this environment reflects itself in their minds. Others they will all follow spontaneously because they are part of the common cultural tradition of their society. But there are still others which it is necessary that they be made to obey, since it would be in the interest of each individual to disregard them, though the overall order will be formed only if the rule is generally obeyed.

The chief regularity in the conduct of individuals in a society based on division of labor and exchange follows from their common situation: they all work to earn an income. This means that they will normally prefer a larger income for a given effort—and possibly increase their effort if its productivity increases. This is a rule which is sufficiently generally followed in fact for those who follow it to impress upon society an order of a certain kind. But the fact that most people follow this rule in their actions leaves the character of the resulting order yet very indeterminate, and it certainly does not by itself insure that this order will be of a beneficent character. For this it is necessary that people also obey certain conventional rules, i.e., rules which do not follow simply from the nature of their knowledge and aims but which have become habitual in their society. The common rules of morals and of law are the chief instance of this.

It is not our task here to analyze the relation between the different kinds of rules which people in fact follow and the order which results from this. We are interested only in one particular class of rules which contribute to the nature of the order and which, because we can deliberately shape them, are the chief tool through which we can influence the general character of the order which will form itself: the rules of law.

These rules differ from the others which individuals follow chiefly by the circumstances that people are made to obey them by their fellows. They are necessary because only if the individuals know what means are at their respective disposals, and are made to bear the consequences of their use of these means, will the resulting order possess certain desirable attributes. The appropriate delimitation of these individual spheres is the main function of the rules of law, and their desirable content one of the chief problems of social policy. This is not altered by the fact that their desirable form has been found largely by the accumulated experience of ages and that their further improvement is also to be expected more from slow experimental piecemeal evolution than from redesign of the whole.

THOUGH THE CONDUCT of the individuals which produces the social order is guided in part by deliberately enforced rules, the order is still a spontaneous order, corresponding to an organism rather than to an organization. It does not rest on the activities being fitted together according to a preconceived plan, but on their being adjusted to each other through the confinement of the action of each by certain general rules. And the enforcement of these general rules insures only the general character of the order and not its concrete realization. It also provides only general facilities which unknown individuals may use for their own ends, but does not insure the achievement of any particular results.

In order to enforce the rules required for the formation of this spontaneous order, an order of the other kind, an organization, is also required. Even if the rules themselves were given once and for all, their enforcement would demand the coordinated effort of many men. The task of changing and improving the rules may also, though it need not, be the object of organized effort. And in so far as the state, in addition to upholding the law, renders other services to the citizens, this also requires an organized apparatus.

The organization of the apparatus of government is also effected in some measure by means of rules. But these rules which serve the creation and direction of an organization are of a different character from those which make possible the formation of a spontaneous order. They are rules which apply only to particular people selected by government; and they have to be followed by them in most instances (i.e., except in the case of judges) in the pursuit of particular ends also determined by government.

Even where the type of order chosen is that of organization and not a spontaneous order, the organizer must largely rely on rules rather than specific commands to the members of the organization. This is due to the fundamental problem which all complex order encounters: the organizer wants the individuals who are to cooperate to make use of knowledge which he himself does not possess. In none but the most simple kinds of social order it is conceivable that all activities are governed by a single mind. And certainly nobody has yet succeeded in deliberately arranging all the activities of a complex society; there is no such thing as a fully planned society of any degree of complexity. If anyone did succeed in organizing such a society, it would not make use of many minds but would instead be altogether dependent on one mind; it would certainly not be complex but very primitive—and so would soon be the mind whose knowledge and will determined everything. The facts which enter into the design of such an order could be only those which could be perceived and digested by this mind; and as only he could decide on action and thus gain experience, there could not be that interplay of many minds in which a lone mind can grow.

The kind of rules which govern an organization are rules for the performance of assigned tasks. They presuppose that the place of each individual in a fixed skeleton order is decided by deliberate appointment, and that the rules which apply to him depend on the place he has been given in that order. The rules thus regulate only the detail of the action of appointed functionaries or agencies of government—or the functioning of an organization created by arrangement.

Rules which are to enable individuals to find their own places in a spontaneous order of the whole society must be general; they must not assign to particular individuals a status, but rather leave the individual to create his own position. The rules which assist in the running of an organization, on the other hand, operate only within a framework of specific commands which designate the particular ends which the organization aims at and the particular functions which the several members are to perform. Though applicable only to particular, individually designated people, these rules of an organization look very much like the general rules underlying a spontaneous order, but they must not be confused with the latter. They enable those who have to carry out commands to fill in detail according to circumstances which they, but not the author of the command, know.

In the terms we have used, this means that the general rules of law aim at an abstract order whose concrete or particular manifestation is unpredictable; while both the commands and the rules which enable those who obey commands to fill in the detail left open by the command, serve a concrete order or an organization. The more complex the order aimed at, the greater will be the part of the circumstances determining its concrete manifestation which cannot be known to those whose concern it is to secure the formation of the order, and the more they will be able to control it only through rules and not through commands. In the most complex type of organizations little more than the assignment of particular functions to particular people will be determined by specific decisions, while the performance of these functions will be regulated only by rules. It is when we pass from the biggest organization, serving particular tasks, to the order of the whole of society which comprises the relations between those organizations as well as the relations between them and the individuals and among the individuals, that this overall order relies entirely on rules, i.e., is entirely of a spontaneous character, with not even its skeleton determined by commands. The situation is, of course, that, because it was not dependent on organization but grew as a spontaneous order, the structure of modern society has attained a degree of complexity which far exceeds that which it is possible to achieve by deliberate organization. Even the rules which made the growth of this complex order possible were not designed in anticipation of that result; but those peoples who happened to adopt suitable rules developed a complex civilization which prevailed over others. It is thus a paradox, based on a complete misunderstanding of these connections, when it is sometimes contended that we must deliberately plan modern society because it has grown so complex. The fact is rather that we can preserve an order of such complexity only if we control it not by the method of “planning,” i.e., by direct orders, but on the contrary aim at the formation of a spontaneous order based on general rules.

We shall presently have to consider how in such a complex system the different principles of order must be combined. At this stage it is necessary, however, at once to forestall a misunderstanding and to stress that there is one way in which it can never be sensible to mix the two principles. While in an organization it makes sense, and indeed will be the rule, to determine the skeleton by specific command and regulate the detail of the action of the different members only by rules, the reverse could never serve a rational purpose; if the overall character of an order is of the spontaneous kind, we cannot improve upon it by issuing to the elements of that order direct commands: because only these individuals and no central authority will know the circumstances which make them do what they do.

EVERY SOCIETY of any degree of complexity must make use of both ordering principles which we have discussed. But while they must be combined by being applied to different tasks and to the sectors of society corresponding to them, they cannot successfully be mixed in any manner we like. Lack of understanding of the difference between the two principles constantly leads to such confusion. It is the manner in which the two principles are combined which determines the character of the different social and economic systems. (The fact that these different “systems” which result from different combinations of the two ordering principles, are sometimes also referred to as different “orders” has added to the terminological confusion.)

We shall consider further only a free system which relies on spontaneous ordering forces not merely (as every system must) to fill in the interstices left by the commands determining its aim and structure, but also for its overall order. Such systems not only have many organizations (in particular, firms) as their elements but also require an organization to enforce obedience to (and modify and develop) the body of abstract rules which are required to secure the formation of the spontaneous overall order. The fact that government is itself an organization and employs rules as an instrument of its organization, and that beyond its task of enforcing the law this organization renders a multitude of other services, has led to a complete confusion between the nature of the different kinds of rules and the orders which they serve.

The abstract and general rules of law in the narrow sense (in which “the law” comprises the rules of civil and criminal law) aim not at the creation of an order by arrangement but at creating the conditions in which an order will form itself. But the conception of law as a means of order-creation (a term which, as a translation of the equally ambiguous German Ordnungsgestaltung, is now invading Anglo-American jurisprudence11 ) in the hands of public lawyers and civil servants who are primarily concerned with tasks of organization rather than with the conditions of the formation of a spontaneous order, is increasingly interpreted as meaning an instrument of arrangement. This conception of law, which is the conception prevailing in totalitarian states, has characteristically been given its clearest expression by the legal theorist who became Hitler’s chief legal apologist, as “concrete order formation” (konkretes Ordnungsdenken).12 This kind of law aims at creating a concrete preconceived order by putting each individual on a task assigned by authority.

But though this technique of creating an order is indispensable for organizing the institutions of government and all the enterprises and households which form the elements of the order of society as a whole, it is wholly inadequate for bringing about the infinitely more complex overall order.

We have it in our power to assure that such an overall order will form itself and will possess certain desirable general characteristics, but only if we do not attempt to control the detail of that order. But we jettison that power and deprive ourselves of the possibility of achieving that abstract order of the whole, if we insist on placing particular pieces into the place we wish them to occupy. It is the condition of the formation of this abstract order that we leave the concrete and particular details to the separate individuals and bind them only by general and abstract rules. If we do not provide this condition but restrict the capacity of the individuals to adjust themselves to the particular circumstances known only to them, we destroy the forces making for a spontaneous overall order and are forced to replace them by deliberate arrangement which, though it gives us greater control over detail, restricts the range over which we can hope to achieve a coherent order.

IT IS NOT IRRELEVANT to our chief purpose if in conclusion we consider briefly the role which abstract rules play in the coordination not only of the actions of many different persons but also in the mutual adjustment of the successive decisions of a single individual or organization. Here, too, it is often not possible to make detailed plans for action in the more distant future (although what we should do now depends on what we shall want to do in the future), simply because we do not yet know the particular facts which we shall face. The method through which we nevertheless succeed in giving some coherence to our actions is that we adopt a framework of rules for guidance which makes the general pattern though not the detail of our life predictable. It is these rules of which we are often not consciously aware—in many instances rules of a very abstract character—which make the course of our lives orderly. Many of these rules will be “customs” of the social group in which we have grown up and only some will be individual “habits” which we have accidentally or deliberately acquired. But they all serve to abbreviate the list of circumstances which we need to take into account in the particular instances, singling out certain classes of facts as alone determining the general kind of action which we should take. At the same time, this means that we systematically disregard certain facts which we know and which would be relevant to our decisions if we knew all such facts, but which it is rational to neglect because they are accidental partial information which does not alter the probability that, if we could know and digest all the facts, the balance of advantage would be in favor of following the rule.

It is, in other words, our restricted horizon of knowledge of the concrete facts which makes it necessary to coordinate our actions by submitting to abstract rules rather than to attempt to decide each particular case solely in view of the limited set of relevant particular facts which we happen to know. It may sound paradoxical that rationality should thus require that we deliberately disregard knowledge which we possess; but this is part of the necessity of coming to terms with our unalterable ignorance of much that would be relevant if we knew it. Where we know that the probability is that the unfavorable effects of a kind of action will overbalance the favorable ones, the decision should not be affected by the circumstance that in the particular case a few consequences which we happen to be able to foresee should all be favorable. The fact is that in an apparent striving after rationality in the sense of fuller taking into account all the foreseeable consequences, we may achieve greater irrationality, less effective taking into account of remote effects and an altogether less coherent result. It is the great lesson which science has taught us that we must resort to the abstract where we cannot master the concrete. The preference for the concrete is to renounce the power which thought gives us. It is therefore also not really surprising that the consequence of modern democratic legislation which disdains submitting to general rules and attempts to solve each problem as it comes on its specific merits, is probably the most irrational and disorderly arrangement of affairs ever produced by the deliberate decisions of men.

The Results of Planning in India

B. R. SHENOY*

PLANNING IS NOT, like Communism, a way of life, though planning and Communism necessarily go together. In democracies, planning may be defended only as a means to an end. The aim of planning in India is fourfold: abolition of poverty, liquidation of unemployment, reduction of income inequalities, and industrialization. By emphasizing the third objective—reduction of income inequalities—it is sought to establish, simultaneously with economic progress, a socialist pattern of society, the principal characteristics of which will be absence of concentrations of wealth, income and economic power, and prevention of the stifling of talent for want of opportunities.

Indian planners believe that these objectives cannot be achieved with the speed necessary to prevent a social explosion, if the economy and society are left free to trudge along on their own. In common with their counterparts in other countries, they have a deep-seated distrust of the ability of the free-market mechanism to realize striking overall progress; they believe that the profit motive animating it is apt to divert productive resources into fields where they may yield the highest private gains rather than the highest social good. They maintain that a planning commission, on the other hand, would be actuated by considerations of the advance of the community as a whole, not by any private or sectional interests. Though this assertion is unsupported by any rigorous reasoning or empirical evidence, it represents the conviction of the policy makers and of the people that count in India.

It is now possible to put to the test this claim of Indian planners by assessing our achievements during the past decade of planning. We shall attempt this in terms of each of the four objectives of Indian economic planning.

ORDINARILY, PROGRESS in the abolition of poverty may be broadly gauged by the expansion of production. From 1950-51, the last pre-Plan year, to 1961-62, Indian national income (at constant prices) rose by 47 per cent, or at an annual rate of 3.6 per cent. This figure, however, is highly misleading as evidence of our progress in overcoming poverty. For such evidence, the increase in national income must be modified by four deflators.

First, it must be adjusted for the rise in population, as per capita income is more meaningful as an indicator of well-being than the income of the community as a whole. According to the 1961 Census, Indian population rose by 22 per cent during the past decade. On this basis, per capita income rose by but 18.5 per cent, from $51.98 in 1950-51 to $61.61 in 1961-62, or by less than one-half of the increase in overall national income.

Secondly, since the ultimate test of economic welfare is the marketed output of consumer goods, due allowances must be made from national income statistics (a) for the unduly large output of non-consumer goods as reflected by excess production capacities, and (b) for excessive additions to inventories. Excess capacities exist both in the capital goods and consumer goods industries and in the public as well as the private sector. They are estimated at 35 per cent in the major and minor irrigation works, of a lesser order in the power projects and at an average of 40 to 50 per cent in 40 industries.

Additions to inventories are common under inflation, though it is not always possible to assess their precise magnitude. Circumstantial evidence confirms the build-up of inventories of foodgrains during the three years ending 1958-59 when foodgrains prices rose by 18 per cent. Total foodgrains supplies—domestic production plus imports—went up from 65.81 million tons in 1955-56 to 77.70 million tons in 1958-59. This was a much faster rate of increase (over 5 per cent per year) than the increase in money incomes (3.9 per cent per year). Since, in spite of this increased production, prices rose, it seems safe to infer that part of the increase in supplies was hoarded; if the whole of the enhanced supplies had flowed into the market, prices should have fallen. Since then, on the same reasoning, some decumulation of foodgrains stocks has probably taken place. This is evidenced by the fact that, though money incomes were 20.6 per cent higher in 1962 than in 1958-59, and foodgrains supplies rose by but 5 per cent, foodgrains prices remained steady, the index of foodgrains prices being 100.1 in 1959-60 and 100.0 in 1961-62 (1952-53=100). Apparently, the supplies placed on the market were larger than the domestic output plus imports, inventories being drawn upon for the difference.

Thirdly, as the well-being of a people must be assessed by the economic condition of the masses, not by the overall magnitude of the national income, due allowances must be made for the considerable sums of unmerited and illicit shifts of income which have taken place during the past decade in favor of the upper-income groups. Such income shifts have taken place (a) as a result of inflation, which has corroded the incomes of the fixed and “sticky” money income groups—the masses of the people—and has correspondingly added to the incomes of a fraction of the community—the traders, businessmen and industrialists; (b) because of controls which, in addition to corruption, have created sheltered markets and semi-monopolistic positions, bringing windfall gains to the beneficiaries of controls; and (c) from the great expansion of the public sector, which has added phenomenally to the illicit gains of contractors and other participants in this expansion.

In recent years, the magnitude of these income shifts may be of an annual order of $1.6 billion, or more than the rate of increase in the national income, which has averaged $1.5 billion per year during the past seven years. Large as this income shift might seem at first sight, it is, possibly, an underestimate, as is suggested by a review of the components of the income shifts.

The inflationary expansion of money—if this may be defined to be expansion of the money supply in excess of the needs of expanded production at constant prices—during the seven years ending 1961-62 amounted to $1.3 billion, or about $180 million per year. This may be taken as a rough measure of the “anti-social” income shifts resulting from inflation.

By law, private importers must buy a license from the government. Such licenses have been issued in an amount averaging $1.3 billion per year over the past seven years. However, the resale value of an import license is anywhere from 30 to 500 per cent or more above its face value, depending on the commodity concerned. Assuming an average mark-up of 75 per cent, total net gains from these licenses may be on the order of $1.0 billion per year. The bulk of the gains from these licenses accrues to well-to-do, or comparatively well-to-do, people, such as corrupt functionaries of the state, touts and “contact” men, and the recipients of the licenses.

Public sector investment outlays have shot up from $4.1 billion in the First Plan to $9.7 billion in the Second. However, when $100 is accounted as “invested” in a public sector project, all of this does not, in fact, go into the project concerned. A part, varying with circumstances, gets siphoned off into private incomes in the form of illicit payments made for obtaining business by the contractors and successful bidders. Assuming that such illicit payments, which again accrue to the well-to-do, average 20 per cent of “investment,” they have amounted to about $400 million per year in the Second Plan period.

If to the above is added monopoly revenues accruing from controls, the total anti-social income shifts, even excluding illicit earnings from price controls, distribution controls, and other restrictions, may come to $1.6 to $1.7 billion per year.

Fourthly, national income at constant prices is arrived at mainly by deflating national income at current prices by index numbers of prices. However, the latter understate the actual level of prices, since, where price controls apply, they are based on controlled prices, which are generally lower than free-market prices. This is evidenced by the disparate movements of the price index and the money supply. From 1960-61 to 1962-63, while the money supply rose by 15.3 per cent, prices rose by but 2.4 per cent. Allowance being made for the larger money requirements of the expanded national product, prices should still have risen by at least 11 per cent. The use of these defective index numbers has led to the national income at current prices being insufficiently deflated, the statistics of national income at constant prices being correspondingly exaggerated. This exaggeration may be of an order of 8 per cent during the three years ending 1962-63, so that the actual rate of growth of income during the period may be less than the rate of growth of population.

The net result of these adjustments may well be that the well-being of the masses of the people has stagnated during the past decade of planning. Eloquent evidence of this is in the consumption of food and cloth. In the context of Indian poverty, even apart from other data, the level of food and cloth consumption alone should be a sufficient indicator of plan achievements. Data on food consumption are in the Economic Survey, issued with the Union budget. Per capita “availability” of foodgrains per day fluctuated downward with the progress of planning, from 15.7 ozs. in 1954 to 14.0 ozs. in 1958, recovered to 16.2 ozs. in 1961, and was at 15.8 ozs. in 1962. These figures are not adjusted for additions to stocks by traders and farmers. With such adjustments, per capita consumption would be less than the “availabilities.” Jail rations are 16 ozs., army rations 19 ozs. and the nutritional norm 18-19 ozs. During the five years ending 1960, annual per capita consumption of cloth, statistics of which are published in the Indian Textile Bulletin, issued by the Textile Commissioner, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, declined from 14.66 metres in 1956 to 13.98 metres in 1960.

THE NET GAIN FROM PLANNING in the field of employment seems to be negative. The additional employment produced by the First Plan was 4.7 million and from the Second 6.5 million—an improvement of 35 per cent—despite the steep rise of 110 per cent in investment outlays from $7.9 billion in the First Plan to $16.6 billion in the Second. Moreover, since the increase in employment has been less than the natural increase in the labor force, the Second Plan will bequeath to the Third Plan vastly more unemployed—conjectured at 9 million—than it inherited from the First—conjectured at 5.3 million. These computations are based on a population increase of 5 million per year—the rate indicated by the 1951 Census—of which 40 per cent is treated as additions to the labor force. The 1961 Census, however, revealed that the population has actually been rising at a rate of 7.9 million per year. If we take the latter figure, plan achievements in the field of employment appear even poorer. These employment statistics, however, cannot be taken at face value. Though issued officially, they are guesses, and the margin of error they embody may be large. But perhaps it may be broadly correct to say that the expansion of employment has probably lagged behind the expansion of the labor force.

REFERENCE HAS BEEN MADE to the anti-social income shifts resulting from inflation and statist economic measures. The experience of West Germany appears to have been similar; we are told that, while planning lasted in West Germany, there emerged “a thin upper crust able to afford anything” on top of a “broad lower stratum with insufficient purchasing power.” Statism in India has concentrated power in the hands of the Administration—the politician and the civil servant. It has done this through public sector investment outlays, which amounted to $9.7 billion under the Second Plan and would be $16.9 billion under the Third—or a rise from 58 per cent to 66 per cent of total investment outlays, including foreign aid; and it has done this through permits, licenses, concessions and other instruments of statist direction and control of the economy, which enable their recipients to siphon from the community colossal gains to which they have neither economic nor moral claims. Unmerited and anti-social income shifts seem to be inevitable under statism.

Under economic freedom, on the other hand, control over investment resources would be acquired by tens of millions of entrepreneurs competing in the open market, and economic power would be correspondingly diffused over the community as a whole. Financial success would be governed by efficiency, quality and price of the output, i.e., in proportion to what the individual adds to the national product. Under statism, however, financial success often rests overwhelmingly on contacts and “pull” in obtaining patronage, and not wholly on the use of talent to contribute to the stream of the national product. Statism is apt to bring into being a body of parasitical functionaries.

IN CONTRAST TO the disappointing record in regard to the three objectives of planning reviewed above, production statistics exhibit striking progress in industrialization, the fourth objective of the planners, the General Index of industrial production going up at an annual rate of 6.7 per cent, from 100 in 1951 to 191.8 in 1961. This has not lifted up the overall national product at a comparable rate, because industries account for but a minor part, 16 to 19 per cent, of total economic activity. Though progress was recorded in all categories of production, the expansion in the output of capital goods—machinery, electrical motors, machine tools and automobiles—and intermediate goods—coal, iron and steel, other metals, cement, heavy chemicals, paints, tanned hides, rubber goods and electricity—was outstanding. In 1960, the output of capital goods ranged from 2.9 times (automobiles) to 8.9 times (diesel engines) their output in 1950; the corresponding rise in intermediate goods was from 1.6 times (coal) to 21 times (rayon yarn).

Among consumer goods, the output of cotton textiles showed the least progress, the index of cotton textiles production rising from 100 in 1951 to 117 in 1961 (1951=100). The production indices for consumer goods used by the relatively well-to-do classes of the Indian people—sewing machines, electric lamps, electric fans, radio receivers, sugar, vegetable oil products and cigarettes—went up much faster, their increases varying from 1.9 times (vegetable oil products) to 9.6 times (sewing machines) their output in 1950. Most of these goods are still little more than curiosities to the masses of the people.

This pattern of industrial production corresponds to the foregoing analysis. It reflects the unduly large diversion of resources into heavy industries to the neglect of agriculture. The pattern of consumer goods production reflects the anti-social income shifts and the vastly larger improvement in the well-being of the upper income groups as compared with the masses of the people, the well-being of the latter remaining stagnant at best.

Most of the industrial expansion has taken place in defiance of the doctrine of comparative costs; it is forced by official policy, rigorous import restrictions and exchange controls. The unsalability abroad of Indian sugar surpluses because of the heavy price differential—the price of Indian sugar is about $242 per ton as against the world price of $66 per ton—is an example of the unconscionably heavy costs of industrialization in a closed market. Fertilizer, penicillin and refrigerators provide other examples. The landed cost of imported penicillin is 2¢ per million units, while the estimated cost of production in India is 26¢ per million units. The import of refrigerators is banned. The cost of a refrigerator in India is about $473. The cost of a comparable refrigerator in England is about $190. These are but a few instances of what applies extensively to the whole range of industrial production in India, though there may be striking exceptions here and there.

The wastages of forced industrialization are examples of what we may term “Walt Disney economics.” Manifestations of waste may be seen in abundance in those under-developed countries which have embarked on the “exciting national pilgrimage” of “development” through “planned” industrialization, on which their economic salvation is believed to rest. Productive resources, which are extremely scarce, are devoted to fabricating commodities at home which may be imported—in unlimited amounts, in superior quality and at prices vastly lower than those charged for the poor quality home products. Were free competition permitted, the domestic manufactures would have little or no chance against the imported products. But the domestic manufactures are protected against this competition by autarchic policies reinforced by exchange restrictions.

A unique phenomenon of interest to this discussion is the vast gap between the landed costs and the market prices of virtually the whole range of import goods; these gaps have emerged as a consequence of inflation, an unrealistic exchange rate and exchange controls. The gaps vary from 30 per cent to 500 per cent or more of the landed costs, depending upon commodities. These price gaps are a rough measure of the unmerited windfall gains which accrue to the recipients of the import licenses; of the near-ransom prices paid by domestic consumers for imported goods and for their domestic substitutes; and of the waste of resources in producing goods at home which may be had much more cheaply through imports. If the resources thus wasted were employed in export industries with comparative cost advantages, the national product would rise commensurately. Such a policy would also put a stop to the prevailing anti-social income shifts from the general body of consumers to the holders of import licenses, dealers in imported goods and industrialists fabricating domestic substitutes for imported goods.

It is bad enough to produce goods at home which may be acquired at much lower costs from abroad. However, when the domestic output exceeds the demands of the home market, the surplus is sold abroad at knock-down prices subsidized by the government. The manufacturer-exporters have their losses made good by cash payments and other benefits which the government grants to certain categories of exporters as part of its “export promotion” schemes. Apparently, the under-developed countries are prepared to pay any price, however fantastic, to foster the growth of industry and “a technologically mature society.” It is interesting to note that a part of this price is paid by the industrially advanced countries in the form of massive “developmental” aid to the under-developed countries.

The phenomenal pace of progress in the industrialization of India is thus not a matter to be enthused over. It is a species of Pyrrhic victory. Obviously, the consumer does not stand to benefit from it. To continue the example of the refrigerator, what good can accrue to him to get mulcted of $473 and receive but a refrigerator in exchange, when, if imports were unrestricted—as in the pre-Plan days—he could not only have had a much better refrigerator, with fewer breakdowns and a longer life-span, but would still have had about $280 to furnish the kitchen with other goods.

Forced industrialization has been detrimental to the national product and to the expansion of employment, through the callous and wasteful disposal of resources which it has produced. Resources have been diverted from sectors where they produce greater output into sectors where real costs are higher and returns lower. It has been estimated that an additional investment of $2.1 million would yield a gross yearly output of $1.2 million to $1.4 million in agriculture and a gross output of $0.3 million to $0.9 million in five manufacturing industries—cement, paper, iron and steel, cotton textiles and sugar, the output in iron and steel being $0.4 million. The same amount of investment would provide employment for 500 persons in large-scale investment goods industries, 1,150 persons in large-scale consumer goods industries and 4,000 persons in agriculture and small-scale and household industries. To press the development of heavy industry in such a context is uneconomic and seems inhuman.

Historically, advances in agriculture appear to have almost always preceded industrial expansion, and progress in lighter industries to have preceded the development of heavy industry. Growth of agriculture provided a broad-based demand for the output of industry, and the growth of light industry provided an assured demand for the output of heavy industry. This pattern of economic development, one sector sustaining and aiding the progress of the other, would eliminate the present wastages and so contribute to a more rapid growth of the Indian economy.

Planning in India, however, has amounted to a reversal of this natural process. We are developing heavy industry ahead of light industry—among the latter, throttling the growth of cotton textiles, the most important consumer goods industry, accounting for about 36 per cent of industrial output—and developing both at the expense of agriculture. This topsy-turvy progress is inherently unstable. Persistence in such a policy might render the Indian economy more vulnerable to setbacks. The edifice that is being built might run into a storm, and it could even come crashing to the ground, if its principal support, foreign aid, should be drastically curtailed or withdrawn. If, on the other hand, production and international trade had been allowed to be directed by the basic economic forces of comparative costs and efficiency, India might have had both progress and stability. Indian national income might then have increased at a much faster rate than it actually has, perhaps at 8 to 10 per cent per year. This possibility is well supported by the striking economic and social progress made by countries—like West Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Japan—which have pursued liberal economic policies.

STATIST TAMPERING with the market mechanism in the name of “planning” has brought on us the worst of both worlds—the evils of planning and the evils which the market mechanism produces when tampered with. The consequences of statist tampering have been the opposite of its intentions; we have had, if anything, an increase of poverty, unemployment and income inequalities. Statist policies might have been abandoned before now but for the intervention of three factors.

First, generous foreign aid—$479 million or 6 per cent of the outlay of the First Plan and $3.1 billion or 19 per cent of the outlay in the Second Plan—seems to have more than compensated for the prodigalities of “planning.” The actual significance of foreign aid is much greater than these percentages might indicate. The dollar amount of Plan outlays is given here as converted from Indian money at the highly over-valued official exchange rate of the rupee. To measure the real significance of foreign aid to the Indian economy, it must be assessed in terms of the market prices of the goods imported by its means. On this basis, foreign aid may represent 11 per cent of total investments in the First Plan and 33 per cent of total investments in the Second Plan. Currently, this percentage may be very much higher. Despite reductions in domestic saving, foreign aid has raised investment from 7 per cent of national income at the end of the First Plan to 11 per cent at the end of the Second. That per capita income has, nevertheless, remained semistagnant, is testimony to investment extravagance, wastages and corruption. To put it bluntly, our socialist policies in India are being supported by the savings of free societies overseas.

Secondly, the thinking behind statist policies, though much of it is fallacious, and empirical evidence against it is growing, has received considerable moral support from visiting economists. Their chits carry great weight with the Indian public.

The Indian public has been assured by others that inflation, born of a big Plan, could be contained if an abundant flow of foodgrains was provided under U. S. Public Law 480. This assurance is given on the ground that foodgrains constitute the major part of the budget of the average Indian laborer. The Government of India seems to have accepted this assurance. India has also been told by Professor J. K. Galbraith that there was no “alternative to extensive public enterprise;” this has been interpreted as expert blessing on the Indian policy of unrestrained expansion of the public sector. The latest appreciative pat is from Dr. T. Balogh, which comes after a two-month sojourn with kindred souls in a monastery at Calcutta. Dr. Balogh has commended “Soviet planning” for India, and he was confident that we might undertake this without damage to democracy “thanks to the great authority which the Prime Minister wielded.” He has also certified that Indian “economic thinking” was ahead of that of the rest of the world, though it is not clear whether this applied as well to the unrepentant adherents of a free society.

Somehow, visiting economists to this country, being hand-picked, have a habit of belonging to a certain economic persuasion. Professors Milton Friedman and P. T. Bauer were the exceptions which prove the rule. It is time that the Indian public had the advantage of hearing the views of those opposed to statism.

This is not to argue against foreign aid or against a voluntary Point Four program. The need for accelerated capital formation is obvious. However, if the burden of debt-service is not to break our back, aid must be channeled into the best among alternative investments. The best investment, the one which contributes most to national income, it must be noted, is not always the most spectacular. However, there seems to be no easy device to guarantee that aid will be so channeled in the absence of fiscal and monetary stability.

There is little hope of a reversal of the socialist policies of the Indian Government unless foreign aid is scaled down or abandoned—which might happen only in the event of the aid-giving countries’ running into serious trouble—or, unless the aid-giving countries adopt a positive foreign aid policy, linking aid to domestic economic, fiscal, monetary and social reforms. Though the linking of foreign aid to domestic policies may present many challenges to diplomacy, there is a precedent to such a linkage; the International Monetary Fund requires assurances of appropriate domestic policies before borrowings from a country’s third and fourth allotments are agreed to.

We seem to be living in peculiar times. Freedom-loving people, in the name of preserving and spreading freedom, are unwittingly financing and otherwise sustaining socialist policies which thus far—sensational projects and schemes apart—have yielded little else than social injustice, unemployment, poverty and conflict. Though the Indian planners and their overseas supporters are full of promises and hope, these policies can hold out prospects of nothing better for the future.

WE MAY NOW summarize the principal conclusions emerging from this discussion:

1. Judging from its four principal objectives and taking an overall view, statist economic policies have not been a success in India.

2. During the 11 years ending 1961-62, Indian national income rose by 47 per cent, or 3.6 per cent per year. However, this figure is misleading as evidence of Indian progress in overcoming poverty. For a more reliable measure, it must be deflated by the rise in population, the unduly large output of non-consumer goods, the creation of excess production capacities, the unduly large accumulation of inventories, the unmerited and illicit income shifts from the masses of the people to the upper-income groups, and the use of the general price index, which understates the actual price level, in computing national income at constant prices.

3. Progress in the welfare of the people in recent years is best reflected in the statistics of food and cloth consumption. Since 1952-53, the per capita consumption of food has fluctuated downward, being below the jail ration of 16 ounces per day most of the time; the nutritional norm is 18-19 ounces. The per capita consumption of cloth, which improved until 1956, has since declined, from 14.66 metres in 1956 to 13.98 metres in 1960.

4. The gain in employment from planning has been negative. The expansion of employment has fallen short of the natural growth of the labor force. The volume of unemployment has thus grown despite a more than doubling of Plan investments, from $7.9 billion in the First Plan to $16.6 billion in the Second.

5. Since planning began, the pattern of income distribution has probably become more unequal than ever. Statism in India has involved concentration of power in the Administration—in the politician and civil servant—on a Himalayan scale. It has centralized in the state control of over two-thirds of national investment resources, including foreign aid, and colossal powers of control of economic activity through licenses, permits, quotas and concessions. Antisocial income shifts are inevitable under statism. The magnitude of these antisocial income shifts may be of an order of $1.6 billion per year.

6. Alone among the four objectives of planning in India, industrial production has shown remarkable progress, the index of industrial production rising by 92 per cent in 10 years. However, much of this progress is in defiance of the doctrine of comparative costs. By diverting resources from other sectors of the economy, principally agriculture, where returns are vastly higher, it has detracted from a maximization of the national product, and, therefore, from the pace of progress in overcoming poverty and unemployment. In the context of a semistagnant agriculture, this development has rendered the Indian economy highly vulnerable to setbacks. The unstable structure that is being erected might topple over if its principal support, foreign aid, should be drastically cut or withdrawn.

7. Statist policies in India might have been abandoned long ago, but for the intervention of foreign aid, which kept the coffers of the prodigal replenished as they got depleted, the moral support lent to statist policies by visiting “experts” from overseas, and the colossal gains in money and power which these policies yield to the politician and civil servant.

Red China’s Great Leap Backward

MICHAEL F. ZAREMSKI*

TILLMAN DURDIN, in his introduction to Report from Red China, relates that when sixteen-year-old Mao Tse-tung was on his way to enroll in a school some distance from his home, he met a small boy walking with an old man. Liking their companionship, but irked by their inability to keep up with his steady pace, he derided them and provoked the youngster to tears with his incessant, scornful cries of “Faster! Faster! Faster!”

In a broad sense, this episode characterizes the whole attitude of the Chinese dictator with regard to the 700 million people he rules. With unrelenting, brutal determination, he led his unwilling followers into a complete program of rapid collectivization and industrialization, which, leaving no sector of Chinese life untouched, brought the country “even one step beyond the Soviet Union” on the road to the pure Communist state. But despite the heady optimism with which the project was launched, it proved a dismal failure, and now, after the disastrous flirtation with Communism-in-practice, the Chinese economy is again languishing in chaos.

The country Mao Tse-tung took control of when the Communists conquered the Chinese mainland in 1949 was one which manifestly showed the results of thirty years of civil war and almost a decade of Japanese incursions. Cities were in rubble; the countryside, ravaged by the unpredictable floodings of the Yellow River, the Yangtze, and the Huai, lay in waste; and the few industries, concentrated in Manchuria, were decimated when the departing Soviet occupation troops dismantled most of the machinery and brought it back with them into Russia. Compounding these difficulties was China’s perennial problem, agriculture.

The basic cause of the country’s farm troubles can be traced to the lack of arable land. While mainland China encompasses 9.6 million square kilometers of territory, only an estimated 250 million acres are cultivable. Per capita land distribution in pre-war China was only 0.45 acres, as compared with 2.01 in Russia and 8.04 in the United States.1 Since almost 90 per cent of the population earned their living from the soil and the Chinese rules of inheritance dictated that land be distributed among all a person’s heirs, farm units were kept small. In 1933, the average land holding was 4.23 acres, while at the same time it was 39.74 in Denmark, 77.30 in England and 156.85 in the United States.2

The Communist remedy for the situation was not long in coming. The first few years after their seizure of power witnessed the first stage of the “great agricultural experiment,” the liquidation of the large land holdings and the execution of the landlords and other “Counter-revolutionaries.” Estimates of the total number of landlords killed range from a conservative figure of 3 million—based on official estimates—to upwards of seven times that sum.3 That done, the Agrarian Reform Law of 1950 was adopted, establishing the complex machinery whereby the confiscated land—117 million acres—would be redistributed among 300 million farm laborers and poor peasants.

But China’s Red rulers have never left much doubt about the real purpose of agrarian reform—as a necessary preliminary stage in their program for China’s industrial development. Immediately before the adoption of the Agrarian Reform Law, on June 14, 1950, Liu Shao-chi, then the chief theoretician of the Party, commented:

The basic reasons for and the aim of agrarian reform are different from the view that it is only designed to relieve the poor people. . . . The results of agrarian reform are beneficial to the impoverished laboring peasants, helping them partly to solve their problem of poverty. But the basic aim of agrarian reform is not purely one of relieving the impoverished peasants. It is designed to set free the rural productive forces from the shackles of the feudal ownership system of the landlord class in order to develop agricultural production and thus pave the way for New China’s industrialization.4

No sooner had the land been divided and subdivided into small, individual plots than the Communists initiated a new program designed to help the Chinese to discover the inefficiency of small-scale farming. The peasants were now subjected to a new propaganda line exhorting them to join “mutual aid teams.” By thus pooling their resources, so they were instructed, they could benefit from the increased knowledge of modern farming methods and could have access to costly mechanical implements otherwise beyond their means.

The Chinese Communist Party then adopted a resolution establishing the Agricultural Producers’ Co-operatives. Under this system the peasants pooled their labor, tools and livestock, worked the land jointly, and were paid a part of the crop-yield in proportion to the value of the material they originally “invested” in the co-operative.

The program, which began inauspiciously with 300 experimental co-operatives in 1952, soon burgeoned. By 1953, 14,000 units had been established, and the next year the number rose to over half a million. In 1956 there were 1,300,000 such organizations in operation, encompassing, as the Communists boasted, over 90 per cent of the peasant households. Thus the peasant was suddenly and unceremoniously deprived of the very land which a few years before he had been given with so much fanfare and at a cost of so many lives.

This step taken, the next was viewed by the Communists as inevitable; it was “the logical result of the march of events.” In August, 1958, the Chinese Communist leadership approved a measure calling for “The Establishment of the People’s Communes in the Rural Areas.” The land was totally communized, private property nearly completely eliminated, and the workers fully regimented. What was to be the final stage in the “great agricultural experiment” was reached.

THE DRIVE TO modernize China’s economy through industrialization was carried forward with no less brutal determination. The first aim of the Party’s leadership was the re-establishment of the factories in southern Manchuria, a goal achieved through a provision of the treaty of alliance signed between the Soviet Union and the Chinese People’s Republic in early 1950, by which Moscow agreed to lend Peking $300 million in five yearly instalments. Then, in January, 1953, Chou En-lai announced China’s first Five-Year Plan, an ambitious program of forced industrialization to be carried out with Russian administrative and technical assistance.

Under the Plan the Communist leadership called for all available capital and labor to be directed into the development of heavy industry, machines, fuel and electrical power, with little channeled into those sectors of the economy producing consumer goods. Over the five year period, according to official statistics, 58.2 per cent of the total capital investment of $18 billion went into industrial projects, with only 7.6 per cent going to agriculture, forestry and water conservation. Moreover, of the total industrial investment, 88.8 per cent went into heavy industry, leaving 11.2 per cent for light industrial projects. As a result of this order of priority, China, at the end of the first economic plan, could boast of factories making automobiles, electrical equipment, machine tools and military goods, while such staple commodities as wearing apparel were in short supply and of poor quality.

Nonetheless, if the low priority given to consumer commodities produced an unfortunate situation, the results of the concentration on capital good industries were impressive. The total value of industrial output at the end of the five year period exceeded the original goal by 21 per cent—141 per cent higher than in 1952. The average annual rate of growth was planned to be 14.7 per cent; it actually surpassed 19 per cent.5 Steel production, for example, which was 1.35 million metric tons in 1952, reached 4.45 million tons in 1956, thereby passing, a year ahead of schedule, the original target of 4.12 million tons.

Yet despite the rapid and in some cases startling gains made under the first Five-Year Plan, the program manifested numerous signs of inefficiency and waste. In August, 1954, the People’s Daily (Peking) published an article which revealed that “the products of a number of machine-producing factories have a rate of wastage as high as 40 per cent, with only a very low passing grade in quality.6

A more graphic account of inefficiency was carried in that same publication in February, 1955. In a story describing a government inspection of a machine shop in Shenyang, the following was noted:

The safety devices were not functioning properly. . . . Some of the drills stopped working within 20 seconds after being started—electrical switches did not function well; some sliding surfaces could not be lubricated properly; the gears made a great noise; and the shaft cases leaked oil. Closer examination revealed that many of the parts did not comply with the specifications. Iron filings, dirt, and sand were found in the moving parts. A further check showed that all of the drills and drill presses of these two models on hand in the stock room were defective.7

Accounts of similar situations appeared too frequently in the official press to discount the above as isolated cases.

UNDER THE SECOND Five-Year Plan, announced in 1957, priority continued to be given to heavy industry, though the growth rate for this sector of the economy was now revised downward. The growth rate for agricultural output, on the other hand, was set at 10 per cent above the corresponding rate for the 1953-1957 period.

This increased agricultural quota underlines one of China’s more pressing problems: In order to finance her industrialization projects, marketable grains and raw materials must be exported from the mainland. But population increases continually absorb any gains in agricultural production; how then is additional revenue to be accumulated? The answer, as the Communists worked it out, was to order output raised, give a lower percentage of income back to the local authorities, and divert more and more money into reserve funds to be distributed by the central government for top-priority industrial projects. After the communes were established, the point was reached where only 20 per cent of the total income reverted to the commune, with the remainder invested in the industrial program. The still further decline of the living standard of the peasant and the stifling of local initiative were defects in the system which Peking either could not or would not recognize.

But these difficulties, compounded by waste and inefficiency in the administration of the program, soon assumed alarming proportions, and in an apparent about-face, China’s rulers reversed the system, allowing the local bureaucracy to utilize a large percentage of the commune’s income. Counting on a great burst of enthusiasm on the local level, Peking announced, in 1959, the beginning of the “Great Leap Forward.” Under this program, the peasant laborers, in addition to working at their regular communal jobs, were expected to devote their “free” time to such occupations as making cement in backyard kilns, operating neighborhood steel furnaces, mining coal in small, otherwise unproductive seams, or working with teams on public works projects.

While oppression was still the order of the day, opposition could not be stifled among the peasants. Reports conspicuously appeared in the Chinese press relating such anti-regime activities as work slow-downs, deliberate damage to property, attacks on local cadres and the slaughter of livestock.

In an obvious attempt to put down the government’s increasingly vociferous “rightist” critics, Chou En-lai was forced, in late 1959, to declare that the commune system “was in fact very good and not at all a terrible mess . . . , that its rise was not premature.”8

The actual agricultural and industrial production figures, however, failed to support his case. The second Five-Year Plan called for a 12 per cent increase in the value of agricultural output during 1960, but the crop-yield failed by far to match this goal. Three successive years of bad harvests, in 1959, 1960, and 1961, depleted whatever supply of food China had, forcing her to import a great quantity of grain from abroad to feed her soldiers and other security personnel. In addition to these difficulties, by mid-1961 the livestock population had fallen by 40 per cent. In October, 1961, the People’s Daily (Peking) was forced to admit that “three consecutive years of grave natural disasters have resulted in the reduction of agricultural production” and this has “affected light industry production and also heavy industry and consequently commodity supplies and the people’s livelihood.”

Industrial output during the 1959-1962 period decreased by more than 30 per cent. Steel production, estimated at 15 million metric tons in 1960, dropped to about 12 million tons in 1961, and below 10 million tons in 1962. Coal output in 1962 was about half as much as in 1960.

Consumer industries fared no better. As late as October, 1962, an official government statement declared that “the goods we produce are still insufficient to meet the needs of the rural people.” Industry must “increase the variety and raise the quality of products,” it advised.

There can be no doubt that the institution of the commune system was the major factor in the deterioration of China’s whole economy. In their major policy statements, the Red leaders declared that the nation’s economy would thrive because of the benefits to be gained from the “rational” use of land and labor and unified planning and management. Yet, as it happened, it was precisely for these reasons—and others—that China’s economic structure collapsed.

For the Chinese leadership, with their advocacy of rapid and large-scale industrialization, “rational” use of labor meant pulling every possible man off farming projects and putting him to work building up heavy industry. While this sector of the economy may have benefitted from the move, the effect on agricultural production was disastrous. The shortage of farm workers, confessed the People’s Daily (Peking) in 1960, was the main cause of the devastation of grain fields that year. Further, as the correspondent of the London Times reported,

Some of the measures taken to stimulate grain production imply that it has not been drought and flood alone that are to be blamed, but the misuse of manpower in the communes. The excesses of backyard steel were corrected when the steel was found to be useless . . . . the small-scale factory production of the communes was one of the great claims made for the new system of human organization and it is these factories that seem to have drawn off too much able-bodied manpower so that grain production has suffered.9

Similarly, centralized planning also proved to be extremely damaging. In an effort to achieve uniformity in farming techniques and management throughout the country, Peking issued sets of regulations which totally ignored the differences necessarily existing between one locality and another. Peculiar needs were sacrificed to an impossible goal; the results of the indiscriminate advocacy of such techniques as “close-planting” and “deep-plowing” were evident in the final production figures.

Another aspect of communal life contributing to the agricultural crisis was the fact that in the commune there was no incentive to make the peasant want to work harder to fulfill the promises of the “Great Leap.” To be sure, the workers were driven hard to meet production goals; but when every worker gets the same payment for his work, when all live under the same conditions and eat the same amount of food, there are few who will do more than the bare minimum necessary to gain admission to the communal dining hall. Those who had had high production levels lost all incentive; those who were slothful or unskilled remained so or become worse.

Even more damaging to the economy as a whole was the anti-specialist attitude manifested by the Party bureaucracy. The expert was held in reproach, and book learning was described as “a heap of garbage;” scientific achievements born in the West were similarly condemned as worthless.10 Party officials were given the managerial jobs on the farms and in the factories; it did not seem to matter if they knew what they were doing so long as they followed the Party line in doing it.

The absence of trained technical personnel in positions of authority wrought devastating results, especially in industry. Gross mismanagement was in evidence everywhere; doctrine-bound party cadres, more interested in meeting goals on target dates than in building securely, embarked on impractical schemes and fostered poor production standards. Mechanical equipment in factories was badly made and improperly operated. When machines broke down, they remained inoperable because there were no spare parts available for repairing them.

THESE LESSONS were not entirely lost on the Chinese Communist leadership. The first signs of a change in Peking’s policy line were manifested in October, 1959, when the basic unit of agricultural production was shifted from the commune to the production brigade, similar in size to the former agricultural co-operative. Ownership of land, tools and draft animals was given to the smaller unit, which divided its income among the members of the group without any consideration of the other brigades. Thus, in an effort to gain more production through increased incentive, the much vaunted egalitarian feature of income distribution was repudiated.

A step farther was taken in the spring of 1961 when the brigades were subdivided into production teams. Incentive wages tied to productivity were given laborers, and small plots allowed them for individual cultivation. Moreover, the village “free-markets,” where the peasant could sell certain commodities for personal profit, were re-established.

Early in the year, evidence of a drastic reform of China’s whole economic program came out of the ninth plenary session of the Communist Party’s Central Committee. Ordering a reduction of capital outlays for heavy industry, it initiated a policy of “consolidation, adjustment and filling out” for the country’s economy; henceforth, agricultural production would be emphasized. The plan, calling for “diligence, thrift and hard work,” was reiterated at the meeting of the People’s National Assembly in April, 1962.

The degree to which China’s rulers have repudiated the “Great Leap” was underlined in an article which appeared in an issue of Hung Chi, the official organ of the Party’s Central Committee. The gist of the piece was that industry would have to make do with the labor resources and machinery now at its disposal; no sizable new capital investments would be forthcoming.

Factories were called upon to “unfold technical innovation in existing enterprises and bring out fully the potentials of existing equipment. . . . By this method labor productivity can be raised rapidly and effectively with little investment.”

Significantly, the article went on to say that “the process of realizing socialist industrialization can only be a gradual process, and the process of improving working equipment, too, can only be a gradual process.” “Real results,” it added, “can be obtained only if we consider the problem of mechanization and automation on the basis of the present level of industrialization.”

Reluctantly following capitalist example, the author of the article advised the institution of a system of rewards and penalties tied to production: “Special material incentives should be given to individuals and units for special accomplishments in production. . . . Necessary economic penalties should be imposed on individuals and units for poor production because of insufficient subjective effort.”11

Indicative of the seriousness of Red China’s continuing agricultural crisis is the fact that the country’s rulers have had to forsake their political dogmatism in an effort to avoid widespread famine and disease by importing grain from the West. While the government has insisted that economic necessity would never force it to compromise its position, the Chinese pattern of trade in recent years would seem to indicate otherwise.

Since 1959 general trade with the nations of the Soviet bloc has been halved, mainly because neither Russia nor her European satellites, plagued by farming difficulties of their own, have been able to supply China with the massive aid she requires. The only recourse left the Chinese Communists was to turn westward, which they have been doing with increasing frequency.

In 1961, for example, Red China signed a three-year, $362 million trade agreement with Canada, and negotiated other contracts with Australia, France, Argentina and a number of other Western nations. To pay for this grain a high percentage of China’s exports has gone to Western Europe, Canada, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, and even Japan, with whom the Chinese had broken off trade relations for political reasons in 1958.

But an even more radical policy change—and one which is certain to have widespread effects—may be in the making. For the grain reserves of the nations with which China is now trading are rapidly shrinking. If the agricultural output on the mainland cannot be considerably increased in the very near future, the only country which has food supplies large enough to be able to give sizable assistance to China is the United States.

CERTAINLY, THE MAJOR problem now facing China is her population, presently expanding at a rate of from 2 to 3 per cent annually, and calculated to exceed 800 million before the end of the decade. At present, however, the problem is one which the dogmatic Communists cannot even acknowledge: unemployment.

When the emphasis in the economic program was shifted from industry to agriculture, the hordes of peasants forced into the cities were no longer needed. With the withdrawal of Soviet assistance,12 a multitude of various projects were cancelled and factories closed down. In addition, those factories which remained in operation were ordered to cut personnel to the barest minimum.

The Chinese leadership pursued the only course left open: to effect the mass transfer of these workless peasants back to the country. The already over-populated and impoverished rural areas, however, had neither need nor room for more people, and even with the current emphasis on farming no work could be found. Many of these people thereafter resorted to begging and stealing, becoming a source of constant discontent among the rural populace.

While the Chinese Communists rode into power on their pledge to remedy the agricultural situation, an examination of pre-war conditions as compared to those of today reveals that in actuality their program of compulsory collectivism has radically aggravated rather than alleviated the problem; the peasant could never boast of his condition, but it was even worse now.

In 1956, for example, the Communist leadership initiated a large-scale program of water conservation. But:

As most of the canals and reservoirs were dug and constructed without proper geological investigation or technical design, the new projects not only destroyed the natural irrigation system and hindered the regular function of the main rivers, . . . but also made roughly a million acres of arable land alkaline.13

Whereas before the canal construction the area of flood and drought had never exceeded 30 million acres, it now increased to 38 million acres in 1957, 78 million in 1958, 108 million in 1959, and 150 million acres in 1960.14

These errors in economic planning had their effect on the Chinese peasant, whose living standard was reduced to the lowest recorded level. Official statistics for 1956, the peak year of the first Five-Year Plan, reveal that per capita annual consumption amounted to only $35. Personal consumption in 1957 was estimated to have been 18 per cent below the figure for 1933.15

Caloric intake has also shown a marked decrease. In 1957, the per capita intake was set at 1,830 units daily, as compared to 1,940 for 1933. While the 1933 figure indicates bare sustinence level, the food ration allowed in 1957 was 110 calories lower, and thereafter steadily decreased until in late 1961 a diet of 600 calories was average.16

Above the appreciable reduction in their already pitiable standard of living, the Chinese have suffered more acutely from something else, something more intangible though no less important—the dehumanizing character of the Communist system.

A dispassionate picture of this aspect of life under the “Great Leap” is drawn by Robert Loh, one of three sons of a successful Chinese businessman, who, while enjoying a secure position as a university instructor, underwent the familiar infatuation-disillusion-despair process that marks the life of many living under totalitarian tyranny. “Any worker who lived through the Great Leap,” he writes,

knows that the campaign had the effect of suppression. The people were made to work constantly to the very limit of human endurance—and in many cases beyond. . . . It was as though the authorities, in a vicious fury at the antagonism shown them by the people during the blossom period, had sentenced the whole population to the slave gangs of labor reform. Proof of the punitive nature of the campaign was in the fact that people from the other classes and strata who incurred the Party’s disfavor were sent as punishment to ‘learn from the masses’ by giving their labor along with the workers and peasants.17 (Author’s emphasis.)

THE CHINESE EXPERIENCE demonstrates a number of economic facts of life which especially the under-developed countries would do well to take into careful consideration. Coercion of the populace, bureaucratic mismanagement, shoddy work, economically unsound experiments, public apathy or outright opposition—all diminished where the free market is allowed to operate—are commonplace in China.

Any government worthy of the name seeks economic progress primarily as a means of raising the standard of living of its citizens; China has sought it as a springboard to recognition as a world power. To their detriment, the Communists have ignored the individual, the key to economic progress. While the Chinese leadership has often been forced to reverse their policies, they have in no sense repudiated the communes of the “Great Leap.” It is almost certain that similar projects will be launched in the future; it is likewise certain that they, too, will meet an ignominious fate. George Santayana wrote, “He who does not learn from history is condemned to repeat it;” those nations seeking economic progress should be mindful of the experience of post-war China.

Skinner’s Behaviorist Utopia

BRUCE GOLDBERG*

THAT A STATEMENT or a theory is true or false is a matter which is, presumably, to be decided by the employment of the various canons of scientific (in the widest sense of that term) observation and inference. A theory, for example, is tested by its ability to explain the facts on the basis of which it was introduced, and also by its ability to explain new facts which were not explicitly taken into account in its construction. And there are considerations irrelevant in determining the acceptability of putative truths. One obviously irrelevant factor is the aesthetic satisfaction anyone might get from contemplating a given theory. Whatever the poet may have thought, beauty is not the same as truth. Less obvious, and perhaps worth mentioning for that reason, is that the moral consequences of a statement are not relevant determinants of its truth or falsity. It may be that the general acceptance of some statement would lead to universal misery. Conceivably this could be a reason for keeping the statement secret. It could not be a reason for concluding that it was false. All men are mortal, whatever Angst might be occasioned by recognition of the fact.

That these considerations are not truth determinants would seem to be hardly susceptible of dispute. And yet, without explicit avowal, antagonists of scientific theories have all too often allowed aesthetic or moral upset to count against those theories. The Einsteinian conception of time as a relativistic magnitude did indeed shatter a well-established Weltanschauung. The relatively simple picture of Newtonian mechanistic interactions embedded in an absolute temporal framework died hard. That death, however, should have been an easy one. The major test of a scientific theory is its ability to explain the phenomena, and the new theory was better at this than the old. And for most (although not absolutely all) physicists, this was enough. But for others—theologians, philosophers, aestheticians, even laymen (though certainly not for all the members of any of these groups)—this was not enough. The aprioristic defenses of the old order began. “It’s perfectly self-evident,” ran one defense, “that time is absolute throughout the universe. One simply can’t conceive of it being any other way.” “It’s in the nature of time,” ran another, “to be the same everywhere.” And in the background was the—unexpressed—objection that the adjustment was too difficult to make, that the new picture was not anything so much as repulsive.

Nowhere does this anti-scientific resistance to new theorizing assume more vigor than with respect to explanations in psychology. While physicists may displease, they are in possession of a mathematical apparatus which frightens. The critics, for all their resistance, remain more or less quiet and, at times, even a little ashamed. However, the language of, say, Freudian theory is ordinary English (or German). The technical terms are no more awe-inspiring than those of a competent aesthetician: “drive cathexis” is no more intimidating than “aesthetic distance.” This releases inhibitions, and the defenders of received opinion feel that they have a free hand.

But there is a feature of psychological theory more important in this connection than that its propositions are unmathematized.1 Psychological theory concerns people. It attempts, among other things, to explain why they act the way they do. And often the answers are such that the actor would not unreflectively acknowledge their correctness. Further, the critic may have a stake in the answers’ being incorrect. How often has Freudian theory been attacked because of its “repulsive” doctrines of infantile sexuality? Or on the ground that our traditional views of human responsibility would have to be discarded? But such objections are absolutely worthless. The repulsiveness of Freudian theory is no more relevant to its truth or falsity than its country of origin. But it is one thing to point up the utter irrationality of an objection, and quite another to dispel the fears which prompt it.

As objectionable as Freudian theory was, however, it was sufficiently anthropomorphic to pose less of a threat to “man’s dignity” than the mechanistic view associated with a certain other psychological theory. While Freud, the standard version goes, moved the springs of action from the conscious mind to the unconscious, later twentieth century psychology removd it from the psyche altogether. This new dehumanization of man is called behaviorism. Behaviorism not only eliminated the mental as a factor—it combined this with a thoroughgoing determinism which left no room for free action at all. The moral conscience revolted. Behaviorism was castigated as evil, and therefore, presumably, false. But the argument is no more legitimate here than it was in the preceding cases. Behaviorism simply cannot be shown to be incorrect by showing that its alleged consequences are undesirable, morally repugnant, or even evil. Those who adopt this approach deserve our ears no more than the critics of another theory, who insisted that man’s dignity required that his planet be at the center of the universe.

THESE OBSERVATIONS ON what is relevant and what is irrelevant in the evaluation of a scientific theory such as behaviorism are necessary, for in this essay I shall be concerned with the behaviorist-based recommendations for social organizations of Professor B. F. Skinner, the eminent Harvard University psychologist, as set forth in his utopian novel, Walden Two.2 If his proposal for a society rigidly controlled by behaviorist psychologists is to be rejected (as I think, in reason, it must be), it will have to be on the basis of logical analysis, and not of foolish sloganizing.

The blurb on the book informs us that Walden Two “provocatively pictures a society in which human problems are solved by a scientific technology of human conduct—and in which many of our contemporary values are obsolete.” That anyone has presented us with a solution for human problems should make us listen, especially when the donor is a psychologist of unquestionable achievement. If in the end we will be skeptical, no part of the cause should be lack of gratitude for the attempt.

Walden Two is an attempt, in fictional form, to outline a system of social organization based on behaviorist psychological theory. “The methods of science have been enormously successful wherever they have been tried,” Skinner says in another place;3 “let us then apply them to human affairs.” The scene of most of the book is a utopian community (Walden Two). Frazier, the creator of the experiment, defends his theories of social organization against Professor Burris, a slightly skeptical but generally sympathetic antagonist, and Professor Castle, a tender-minded philosopher and a bumptious, nasty, and unreasonable caviller, who interrupts the discussion from time to time with generally strawmannish objections.

A good deal is said in this novel, and I shall not try to examine every point that is made. What I shall do is consider certain of the central ideas of Walden Two, on the falsity of which the claims of the book would founder. Occasionally I shall bring to bear illustrative evidence from one of Skinner’s non-fiction works, Science and Human Behavior.

The initial picture of the inhabitants of Walden Two with which we are presented is an attractive one. “These were delightful people,” Professor Burris muses; “their conversation had a measure and a cadence more often found in well-wrought fiction than in fact. They were pleasant and well-mannered, yet perfectly candid; they were lively, but not boisterous; affectionate, but not effusive” (page 28). And in the course of the book, we come to learn that the inhabitants of Walden Two possess most of the desirable character traits one can think of and almost none of the bad ones. Indeed, with the exception of Frazier himself (who did not have the benefit of a Walden Two upbringing) everyone seems to be supremely happy and well-adjusted. This is not to be scoffed at. Only those with no social concern at all (and they don’t count) could be indifferent to the possibility of establishing a form of social organization which has such results.

How does one go about producing such desirable characters? Well, babies at Walden Two are reared in community nurseries. At the age of one year, they graduate to community playgrounds, being subjected during these formative years to an intensive and highly scientific program of conditioning. All this provokes much resistance from the antagonistic Castle. But the questions of the techniques of Walden Two seem to me less interesting than the question of whether Skinner has even provided a coherent account of what can be accomplished by those techniques. If that account is itself internally inconsistent, the details are unimportant.

What I mean is this. Skinner’s general program is the behavioral conditioning of certain kinds of emotions and behavioral responses. This conditioning is to have the result that only certain kinds of emotions appear in the members of Walden Two, while others, the undesirable ones, disappear through lack of positive reinforcement. The result is lots of people with good emotions, and very few or none with bad ones. It might immediately be objected that this could never come about, that human nature cannot be changed, or something of the sort. But this Castle-type move is a bad one. Talk about human nature is far too vague to permit a reasonable decision to be made as to whether or not it could be changed.

“As to emotions—we aren’t free of them all, nor should we like to be. But the meaner and more annoying—the emotions which breed unhappiness—are almost unknown here, like unhappiness itself. We don’t need them any longer in our struggle for existence, and it’s easier on our circulatory system, and certainly pleasanter, to dispense with them” (page 101). To the objection that emotions are fun, Frazier replies, “Some of them, yes. The productive and strengthening emotions—joy and love. But sorrow and hate—and the high-voltage excitements of anger, fear and rage—are out of proportion with the needs of modern life, and they’re wasteful and dangerous. Mr. Castle has mentioned jealousy—a minor form of anger, I think we may call it. Naturally we avoid it” (page 102). And so it is conditioned out, along with the other unpleasant emotions, presumably simply by never receiving any positive reinforcement on any occasion of its occurrence. This is the account one must examine, not, I should add, to determine whether or not it would be advisable to condition out the emotions referred to but to determine whether such a conditioning out would be even a theoretical possibility.

The behaviorist picture (at least as Skinner presents it) is in some ways an excessively simplistic one. There seems to be the idea that, with respect to any given person and the various emotions he is capable of experiencing, one could, given a proper technology, pluck out some while leaving the others intact. Occurrences of emotions are, on this account, something like pains. Just as one can eliminate a given pain (by administering a drug, say), so one can eliminate a given emotion (by a proper administration of behavioral engineering). In this sense, the account of the emotions is an atomistic one. Each emotion can be considered separately, and the relevant conditioning techniques can be applied to it. The good ones stay and the bad ones go.

THIS PICTURE IS A radically misconceived one, and it requires no experimentation at all to show this. Is it even possible to become clear about what the picture suggests? Skinner wants to retain joy (because it is productive) and eliminate sorrow (because it isn’t). Under what circumstances might one experience joy? Well, suppose one has not seen one’s mother for twenty years. One goes to meet the plane on which she is expected to arrive. The door opens, she descends the stairs and comes running to meet one, arms outstretched, tears in her eyes. Presumably, on this occasion one is happy, joyful, and the inspiration provided enables one that very evening to make some important new contribution to knowledge.4 But suppose that just as one is about to embrace one’s mother, an unknown assailant shoots her in the back. Doesn’t one then feel at least sorrow, or even grief? Is one neutral? Indifferent? Isn’t it obvious that joy and sorrow are not atomistic states with no stronger connection than that they are both emotions? If the death of one’s mother (in the situation described above) did leave one indifferent, how could the embrace produce joy? In order for one to experience joy in the situation described, it must (logically must) be true that whether or not one’s mother lives or dies makes some difference to one. But if that’s true, then one could not remain indifferent if she does die.

Perhaps another example will make the point clearer. Skinner is pro-happiness. The people in Walden Two are a happy group. They are often engaged in creative enterprises, and they are happy in their work. But unhappiness is unproductive. Presumably it’s also to be conditioned out. Again, the question arises about the theoretical possibility of such a state of affairs, i.e., a state of affairs in which people are only happy. Suppose I have been working on a project for ten years, have constructed an elaborate theory which has only to receive its final experimental confirmation. The laboratory technicians bring in the results of a series of experiments which they have been running for the past two weeks. Now what is Skinner’s claim? Am I indifferent to the results of my experiments? Suppose I am. In that case, it’s odd to say that I’m very happy, even overjoyed, when I learn that my theory has been confirmed. Suppose that I’m not. Then it’s equally odd to say that I’m not even a little bit unhappy when I learn that the experiments have falsified the theory. Given that people sometimes fail to achieve what they want very much (and not even Walden Two promises to fulfill all desires), it follows that they are sometimes unhappy. Isn’t it patently obvious that happiness and unhappiness are not independent atomic states? But if that’s true, then it doesn’t even make sense to suppose that one could condition people never to experience the one and always (or almost always) to experience the other.

The principle illustrated by these examples is that many emotions have what might be called quasi-logical counterparts. Pairs such as love-hate, joy-sorrow, happiness-unhappiness are familiar. To suppose that (whatever technique one might employ) one could condition out one member and leave the other intact is to believe a fiction. And this has nothing to do with the nature of man or the limitations of scientific technique. It is, rather, a matter of the logic of emotional predication. “Whenever a particular emotion is no longer a useful part of a behavioral repertoire, we proceed to eliminate it,” Frazier tells us (page 103). Presumably, on this account we could, if we wanted, “engineer” a person to feel only grief or only love or only nostalgia. We decide which emotions we want, and then instill them. But this is something we shall never be able to do (at least not in the way implied in Walden Two). And the reason is that to say that we can do it doesn’t even make sense.

The above is not mere philosophic pedantry. One of the attractions of Walden Two is that it seems to offer us an escape from the unpleasant, and this through the application of an allegedly scientific theory. But that theory, whatever its other merits, cannot at least succeed in this. If the inhabitants of Walden Two can experience joy, then they can experience sorrow. And it is a logical mistake to suppose that things could be otherwise.

WE HAVE, THEN, eliminated one major piece of the theoretical groundwork of Walden Two, at least as Skinner views his system. There is another view advanced by Skinner, of even greater importance than the view that one can selectively condition emotions. This is the idea that free will is an illusion. Skinner regards a behavioral technology as being incompatible with free will Since he regards the former as possible, he denies the latter. Now, the problem of free will is an enormously complicated one. What I shall try to do here is merely to show that Skinner’s view of what it would mean to have free will is a confused one, and that nothing he says even tends to show that free will is an illusion.

Skinner regards adherence to the idea that man has free will as essentially a relic of pre-scientific ways of thinking. And this is a fairly widespread notion. Without discussing the merits of this claim—my own opinion is that it is much too vague for argumentation on either side—it might be worthwhile to see just how Skinner proposes to demonstrate the falsity of the free will doctrine. In a way, this is a difficult thing to do, for Skinner seems not altogether clear about what view he is attacking. Sometimes it is the view that human actions are spontaneous, at other times it is that their actions are the actions of responsible agents, at still other times it is the view that human actions are uncaused. This last is probably the most substantial, so let us deal with that one. Skinner argues that it is a mistake to regard actions as uncaused. The most we are justified in saying is that for various actions we do not know what the causes are. However, the advancing march of science gives us every reason to believe that in time the causes of human behavior will present no greater problem than the causes of heat transfer in gases. The issue of free will is often discussed in these terms. That is, those who assert that we have free will generally regard this as committing them to the view that human action is uncaused. Those who opt for a general determinism regard this as implying that human action is unfree.5 One of the unfortunate aspects of this controversy is that both sides seem to have thought that they had pretty clear ideas about the meaning of the key expression, i.e., determinism. The allegedly unproblematic explication of this notion has most often been: “the theory that every event has a cause.” But a number of contemporary philosophers have seen that this explication is by no means as clear as has been thought. Some have gone so far as to assert that they do not know what the thesis of determinism is.6 And there is good reason for this. For example, if one sees how Skinner fills out his account of what determinism with respect to behavior is, one cannot but find it surprising that he does regard the truth of determinism as incompatible with human freedom.

In Chapter Three, “Why Organisms Behave,” of Science and Human Behavior, Skinner says that “we are concerned . . . with the causes of human behavior. We want to know why men behave as they do. Any condition or event which can be shown to have an effect upon behavior must be taken into account. By discovering and analyzing these causes we can predict behavior; to the extent that we can manipulate them, we can control behavior” (page 23).

Initially such a picture of a general determinism of behavior seems to many people to be a frightening one. The suggestion is that we are mere ciphers in a causal stream over which we have no control. And this is a picture to which Skinner frequently alludes in a favorable way in the course of his writings. We can manipulate causes and control people. A Brave New World (if one is frightened) or a Walden Two (if one is pleased) looms up before us.

But is there reason, given Skinner’s view (which is a widely held one), for either fear or pleasure? Is there, indeed, anything excitingly new being said?

What are the causes of behavior on Skinner’s showing? “Any condition or event which can be shown to have an effect upon behavior. . . .” Suppose I am a devotee of Shakespeare and a friend tells me that a new production of King Lear has just come to the Lido. Excited, I rush down to reserve tickets for the next performance. Now it is unquestionably true that my friend’s informing me that the play was being performed is an event which had an effect on my behavior. If he hadn’t told me I wouldn’t have done what in fact I did do, viz., go to the theater to reserve the tickets. Of course I might later have learned on my own that the play was being performed and would have then bought the tickets, but I wouldn’t have done that when, as a matter of fact, I did. Suppose that I go to the play, and, after having thoroughly enjoyed it, applaud wildly when the performers take their curtain calls. Again, the appearance of the performers on the stage is an event which had an influence on my behavior. If they hadn’t come out I would have returned home without applauding, wondering what went wrong, and perhaps feeling a bit sad because I didn’t have the opportunity to show my appreciation. We have here, then, two examples of events which had an influence on my behavior. Were they causes of it?

It is not altogether easy to answer this question. For Skinner, of course, the answer is clear. They are causes. According to the quoted passage any condition or event which has an influence on behavior is a cause. But there are difficulties. Consider another kind of case. I tell someone, “I was just in the psychology laboratory with John and I caused his leg to rise.” When asked how, I reply that I hit his knee in the familiar spot with a small hammer. But suppose that, when asked how I caused John’s leg to rise I reply, not that I hit his knee with a small hammer, but that I asked him if he would raise his leg. Ordinarily, we would say that if this is how I got John’s leg to rise (by asking him to raise his leg), then I didn’t cause his leg to rise, although what I said was certainly relevant to bringing it about that John’s leg did rise. It would at least be misleading, under these circumstances, to say that I did cause his leg to rise. In a context like this one, it would in general be assumed that if I caused John’s leg to rise, I did something which in some way put it out of John’s control that his leg did rise. When this assumption turns out to be wrong, i.e., when it turns out that I simply asked John to raise his leg and he did so, then it sounds very odd indeed to say that I caused his leg to rise. This is not always true. If John were hypnotized and raised his leg at my command, then it would be perfectly in order for me to say that I caused what occurred. One can easily think of other cases in which it wouldn’t sound odd to say that I caused John’s leg to rise. But in the case where I simply ask John to raise his leg (and he’s fully conscious—not hypnotized, etc.), it does. But why should this be true if, as Skinner says, a cause is any condition or event which can be shown to have an effect upon behavior? Why does it sound at all odd to say that the performers’ appearing on the stage caused me to applaud?

Above I hinted at what seems to me to be at least a partial explanation. It seems to be a legitimate inference that if someone is caused to do something, then that thing is in some way out of his control that he is in some way not at liberty not to do it. And Skinner appears to be aware of the legitimacy of this inference. Notice that he says that to the extent to which we can manipulate behavior we can control it. If I am controlling someone’s behavior, then he certainly isn’t. This is surely the source of the doctrine that if someone’s behavior is determined, then he isn’t free. If the behavior is determined, then it’s caused; if it’s caused, then it is out of his control; and if it is out of his control, then he’s not free. Assuming this argument to be legitimate, then one cannot at the same time grant that a bit of behavior was determined and that it was free. From the fact that the behavior was determined, it would follow that it was not free. But does it follow from the fact that there were events which influenced the behavior that the behavior was unfree? Put in another way, from the fact that the agent was influenced by certain circumstances to act in a certain way, does it follow that the action was out of his control? As we ordinarily speak about behavior, this certainly does not follow. Let us take still another example.

One of the factors influencing a general’s decision to attack may be the intelligence information that the enemy is shortly going to concentrate its forces against his weak flank. Is his subsequent behavior (giving instructions to his subordinates to attack, preparing certain false reports which he is going to allow to fall into enemy hands, etc.) something which is out of his control? Surely not. Such a situation is just the sort of situation in which we say someone’s behavior is under his control. Under what circumstances would we say that his behavior was out of his control? Well, suppose that he received the intelligence information and instead of calmly preparing plans for the coming attack, went berserk. Suppose he ran out of the Command Headquarters raving about the imminent destruction of his forces, and ordered each individual soldier (with or without a weapon) to attack the enemy at once. Suppose, too, that he himself starts running in the direction of the enemy camp, knife in hand, screaming that he is going to kill the mad beasts. Here, most probably, we would say that his behavior was not under his control. Surely our estimate of the situation must be different when he calmly sits down to prepare the attack, and gives his subordinates intelligent instructions, involving what, in the opinion of all, is a master military move. And yet there are events which influenced this behavior, just as there are events which influenced the berserk behavior. But if we allow that, in the case of the intelligent action, simply from the fact that there were indeed events which influenced his behavior it does not follow that the behavior was out of his control, then we must either reject the argument that causality implies non-freedom or reject Skinner’s assumption that any event which influences behavior is a cause of that behavior.

And indeed how would one go about trying to show that any event which influences behavior is a cause of that behavior? Skinner, in the passage I quoted, seems to want to do this by definition. But this can show absolutely nothing. Presumably Skinner must regard the assertion that all behavior is, because determined, unfree, as an interesting assertion about behavior, i.e., about actions which people perform. That is, presumably he doesn’t regard the contention that behavior is unfree as a simple definition. For if it were a mere definition, then while we might agree (accepting his definition for a moment) that “behavior” will imply unfreedom, we could not say about any of the events which we normally call cases of human action that they were in fact cases of “behavior.”

Let us assume, then, that the statement at issue is not a simple definition. Now, to say that behavior is determined, is to say that it is caused. Therefore, by the original argument, caused behavior is unfree. And if any event or condition which influences behavior is a cause, then behavior which is to any extent influenced by events or conditions is unfree. What is it to say that a bit of behavior was influenced by an event or condition? Presumably, that the event or condition would be relevant in explaining why the behavior occurred, why the man acted as he did. From all of the above, it follows logically that the only behavior which could be free is that behavior for which there is no explanation at all. The only behavior which could be free is that behavior which is completely irrelevant to the circumstances in which it occurred, in the sense that nothing could be brought to bear to explain why the agent acted as he did. And from this it follows that every case of goal-directed behavior (that is, behavior in which the agent acts to achieve some end) is, to the extent to which the end was relevant to his behavior, unfree. And finally, it follows that all behavior, in so far as it is rational, is unfree. This, I submit, is absurd, for if behavior is unfree, then it is impossible that it be rational. Any argument which has as its conclusion the assertion that all rational behavior is unfree (in the last analysis, because it is rational) must be rejected. Skinner’s argument about free will thus results in a palpable contradiction. His reasons for thinking that free will is an illusion are no reasons at all.

I have spent a good deal of time on what might be called the philosophical underpinning of Walden Two, the two theses, namely, that it is possible selectively to condition emotions and behavior, and that all behavior is unfree. If the truth of these theses were granted, much (though not all) of what Skinner recommends would be extremely difficult to deny. Mere charges that it is all diabolical would, in this case (and actually, in any case), be pointless. Now that we have seen that they are false, we can go on to see how they lead to the advocacy of Walden Two.

IN WALDEN TWO, things are controlled from the top. There are various managers (of play, of social activity, of work, etc.) who decide what sorts of enterprises are conducive to the psychological welfare of the members of the community, and are therefore to be permitted. The society is thus a rigidly controlled one, and the reason is that “when a science of behavior has once been achieved, there’s no alternative to a planned society. We can’t leave mankind to an accidental or biased control” (page 264). Why, one might ask, is the only alternative to planning (controlling) the lives of people by Skinnerian managers that of leaving them to the (accidental and/or biased) control of others? The historical tradition of liberalism would seem clearly to have shown us another alternative, that of letting people shape their own lives as they see fit. But, it should by now be clear, this is not an alternative which Skinner, in terms of the framework he has constructed, could even suggest. Since all behavior, whether we like it or not, is, in fact, controlled, we might as well let it be controlled by the good guys. Why is all behavior controlled? In the last analysis, because there are events and conditions which influence that behavior. Because of his mistaken idea that no behavior can be free, Skinner is rendered incapable of seeing the distinction between planning someone’s life and letting him plan it himself.

This is a most important point. Prima facie there would seem to be two alternatives (with lots of gradations in between)—either people are controlled, or they are not. But for Skinner, this last is not even a possibility. The argument about free will makes it impossible that anyone is uncontrolled. The only real alternatives are good control and bad control (page 263). But this is simply the product of a bit of sham reasoning. What, one wants to ask, do you say about the possibility of establishing a society in which people are not subject to a rigid conditioning process in the hands of “behavioral engineers,” but in which they are able to encounter many and diverse influences and make up their own minds about which they regard as the more important and which the less? Skinner’s answer is clear. This, he would presumably say, is just the situation I am trying to avoid; it is the one I was talking about when I described a situation in which there was accidental and biased control.

It seems to me that therein lies, for the superficial reader, the main attraction of Walden Two. Only the unreasonable would prefer a system of biased and accidental control to one of intelligent control. Walden Two is, after all, better than Russia. It is to expose the view that these are our only choices that I spent as much time as I did examining Skinner’s argument about free will.

In actuality, there are a number of alternatives open to us who would recommend a form of social order. There are at least the three just alluded to: a Russian system controlled from the top by foolish and arbitrary men, a Walden Two in which this control is exercised by intelligent men of good will, and an uncontrolled society.7 These are, of course, not the only alternatives, but if we recognize the fallaciousness of Skinner’s free will argument, we see that there are at least these three.

And, granting that Walden Two is preferable to Soviet society, we must raise the question concerning whether it is better than an uncontrolled one. Frazier, in effect, raises this very question, “. . . what do you say to the design of personalities? Would that interest you? The control of temperament? Give me the specifications, and I’ll give you the man! . . . Let us control the lives of our children and see what we can make of them” (page 292). Notice that Skinner relies, in characterizing his own alternative, on the view which we discovered earlier was not even coherent. It is not true, irrespective of the techniques one employs, that one can generate people according to any arbitrary list of specifications: one could not (logically) make people who were only happy. But leaving this aside, the question is whether we should allow a central committee in control of society consciously to design personalities. Prima facie the answer to the question would seem to depend on which values the central committee is concerned to instill. It might seem that if these values are good ones, then we can accept Skinner’s recommendation, and that if they are bad ones, we should reject it. What are the character traits and social values which Skinner accepts? In general, they are the very best. Happiness, productivity, lovingness, etc. This is another reason, I suspect, for the attraction which Walden Two exerts. If the answer to the question did depend on whether or not Skinner’s choices were good ones, then there would be little more to say.8 But it does not. What must be decided is the question of the desirability of a controlled society.

An initial question, preparatory to deciding the matter, might be the following: given that we can produce artists, scientists, musicians, at will, how could anybody reasonably decide about the desirable proportions? This seems to be the sort of value question which the behavioral scientist is in no better position to answer than any of the rest of us. Suppose that the behaviorist were to reply that this isn’t a value question at all. It’s purely an economic matter, i.e., the question is one of the allocation of resources: we want to provide the people in our behaviorist utopia with the maximum possible satisfaction of their various desires, and our decision about what sort of people to produce (artists, musicians, scientists, etc.) will depend not on our values, but on the values of the community.

Now there would be difficulties in proceeding in this way. I mean that the behaviorist in his controlled socialist society would have the same problems in the effective allocation of resources as any other socialist planner. But this sort of objection is, at this point, not the relevant one. Can we really allow that, as far as we have presented it, the behaviorist’s problem is one of resource-allocation? I think not. Remember that the important idea about Walden Two is that we are conditioning values, i.e., likes and dislikes. We are not simply taking an arbitrary society and discussing the question about how best to satisfy the needs of that society given its (and not our) set of values. What this means in the present case is that the problem about how many musicians to produce is not an economic question. We are deciding not merely how to satisfy desires—we are deciding what those desires shall be, i.e., we must decide how many people are going to want to hear music, how many people enjoy art, etc.

Thus the behavioral scientist is faced with a question of value, a question of the order in which various goods are to be placed on a preference scale, and the behavioral scientist is in no better position to resolve this problem than we are. Indeed what criteria could be employed to decide such a question? This is surely not a scientific question, in the sense that there are generally accepted ways of finding out the answer. finding out the answer. The very best one could do is suggest an answer, and that answer will be an expression of the particular value scheme embraced by the suggester. There is no reason at all to suppose that the behaviorist is possessed of any expertise in this matter which is denied to the rest of us.9

IT BEGINS TO LOOK as though distinctly unscientific elements of arbitrariness (which arbitrariness, remember, Skinner was concerned to avoid) are being introduced into the design of the behaviorist utopia. But there are further difficulties. Skinner argues that a free society (in the ordinary sense) is an extremely undesirable thing. The reason is that all sorts of elements of arbitrariness and haphazardness are introduced by people pursuing incompatible (and often unpraiseworthy) goals. The various efforts which these people make in the attempt to persuade their fellows that the goals are desirable ones are causal factors which can change, in the last analysis, the value orientation of that society. This arbitrariness, the possibly of bad values being substituted for good ones as a result of the free (again in the ordinary sense) interplay of competing goals, is perhaps the chief evil against which Walden Two is directed. This is the reason Skinner advocates a controlled society.

We must then investigate whether or not it is possible, even on Skinner’s terms, to eliminate arbitrariness in this sense. Let us suppose that we have a scientific procedure for determining not only how to condition various abilities, character traits, and values, but also for determining which ones we should condition. Now, it is not so easy to know what we are supposing here. With respect to musical ability, for example, are we supposing ourselves to be conditioning general ability in this area, ability at baroque music, ability at Bach, Vivaldi, or what? The same question arises for musical tastes. Do we condition people to like baroque music or do we condition a fondness for music in general? This is by no means an academic question for the behavioral engineer. We shall see that his failure to solve this problem will result in the emergence of new values in society, which the behaviorist psychologist cannot have taken into consideration in his scheme of conditioning, and for the control of which he will have to resort to methods which have nothing of the respectable air of science about them.

We can distinguish various levels of what we might call value generality, and the behavioral engineer must decide, assuming him to have the suitable techniques, on which level to operate. For purposes of the discussion, we might call music in general the first, or highest, level of generality; the various periods—baroque, classical, romantic, etc.—the second level of generality; particular composers, the third level; and so on. Let us call an ability or a liking on the first level an Ability₁ or a Value₁, and so on.

Now the question is: at what value or ability level are our conditioning procedures supposed to operate? Presumably the behaviorist is not going to condition each miniscule preference or ability in each member of society. I mean he is not going to decide that so and so many people should be devotees of the late Beethoven quartets, and that so and so many people are going to be admirers of Bach piano sonatas played without the pedal. Let us assume, then, that conditioning procedures are going to be applied at the first level: we are going to produce so and so many musicians, so and so many artists, etc. We are not going to produce as a matter of deliberate policy a given number of baroque pianists, a given number of impressionists, and so on. Thus, Value₂ choices are not, as the Value₁ choices are, the direct result of policies and practices instituted by the planners.

This is the situation we are envisaging. What could we reasonably expect from such a situation; what would be the natural result of this absence of Value₂ conditioning? Well, one thing we could reasonably expect would be that, in an important sense, Value₂ would not be anything like as stable as Value₁. While the number of people who have musical interests and abilities is something that we can expect to be constant (because we are fixing it) the number of people who like any kind of music and the number who are skilled in the production of any kind of music is something that is likely to vary.

So, to restrict ourselves to this specific case, we can expect there to be periods in which one sort of music is in the ascendancy and periods when this sort of music is replaced by another in the favor of the inhabitants of the society. More interesting is the fact that we can expect new values to be created on this level. Since, to the extent to which values on this level are unconditioned there is an area for what we might call a free interplay of competing values, there is reason to expect that there will be some sort of building on what is already in existence. Gifted musicians will see the possibility of innovating, of building upon the stock of values and knowledge which they already possess, in the same way that this was done in the old society, in the way, for example, in which Mahler is said to have built on Wagner, and Schoenberg on Mahler. And we can also expect that some of these innovations will receive acceptance on the part of some of the music lovers of the society. Remember that we are supposing their Value₂ choices to be unconditioned.

Thus new and unplanned values have come into existence in the society. What interest, if any, should the planners take in this fact? Presumably they are going to be very interested indeed. After all, this new sort of music, when it is performed, is going to be one of the causal factors influencing the behavior of the inhabitants of the society. And there will be all sorts of factors, on this level, which will be determinants of the behavior of the inhabitants of the society—new art forms, new ways of painting, new ways of writing and performing plays; innovations in technology; new ways of building homes, new alloys for use in such building. The possibility of a literally endless number of changes in the established order opens up. These new elements are going to be competing with each other for the attention and approval of society at large. Were the planners to step back disinterestedly from this development the very element of arbitrariness and randomness which Skinner was concerned to eliminate would reappear.

So the planners must act. If it could be shown that some new Value₂—some new style of painting, for instance—was likely to have what in the judgment of the planners would be an adverse influence on the populace, it must be stopped. The whole point of the society is that such adverse influences are to be eliminated. Thus, control is introduced at this lower level of value generality.

OR IS IT? When we speak of “control” at this level are we speaking about the same sort of thing with which we began? The answer is no. In our initial attempt at describing the behaviorist utopia, how did we suppose control to be introduced? What counted as control? Clearly, it was the conditioning of certain likes and dislikes, certain abilities and character traits. This is what Skinner seems to mean throughout Walden Two. This, for Skinner, is an innocuous sort of control. The planners of the society are not acting against the wishes of the members—they are shaping those wishes. People do what they want to do, although what they want to do is determined by what some others want them to want. It is in this sense, for Skinner, that Walden Two is a controlled society in which all the inhabitants are free. But the control of which we are now speaking is nothing like this at all. It consists simply in the proscription, by the authorities, of certain kinds of activities. If the planners decide that a certain type of music is likely to have an injurious effect, they will forbid it. This is political control pure and simple.

Interestingly enough, Skinner admits that control of the kind takes place in Walden Two (page 164). If someone in the society comes up with something new, he does not try to bring it about that the society at large accept his innovation. He goes to the relevant planning board. It is there that the decision about the acceptability of what he has done is made. If the planners decide against his idea they will prohibit its circulation. Thus is met the threat of “arbitrariness.”

It is of absolute importance to recognize the difference between control in this latter sense and behavioral conditioning. Walden Two seems to present us with a picture of a society in which the ordinary, “nasty” elements of political control are absent. I suppose that many readers of the book have found this to be one of its most attractive features. But, as we have shown above, this is an illusion. As long as the planners of the behaviorist utopia do not condition values and abilities down to the last thinkable atom, it will be absolutely necessary to control the society (in the ordinary sense) in order to insure that the chosen values maintain their supremacy. Whatever merits Walden Two may have, the absence of rigid political control is not one of them.

This last point obviously raises the question of freedom, now in the political sense, and not in the sense of freedom of the will. Skinner argues that the former question is one that finds an easy solution in Walden Two. If people do what they want to do (whether or not their wants have been selected by someone else) then they are free. Suppose we accepted this account. Would it then follow that the inhabitants of the behaviorist utopia are free? Surely not. Consider a citizen of the society going to the planning board convinced that his new idea will result in enormous progress in sundry fields. He wants (if the word is not too weak) to have the idea introduced. But after many hours of pleading with the planners (whom he comes to look on, at least in part, as thick-headed), he is turned down. He asks, as a last desperate move, to be permitted to give a public address on the merits of his new scheme. This too is turned down. The planners, we may suppose, feel that any propagation of the ideas they have just heard will have a markedly deleterious effect on the rest of society. This sort of situation is clearly possible in the behaviorist utopia. Skinner admits as much when he says that new ideas will have to be cleared through the relevant planning boards. But the situation we have described is a situation in which someone is not allowed to do what he wants to do. Thus we can grant Skinner all he asks for (in the way of a definition of freedom) and still the society he envisages is an unfree one. Not only are wants and desires (on some level) conditioned by the behavioral engineers, but any deviation from the established pattern is suppressed by those behavioral engineers when it does not accord with their own views. Walden Two may now begin to look, not like an excitingly new departure in the theory of social organization, but like an old-fashioned totalitarian society of a kind with which we are already familiar.

Thus we have seen that at every important stage in the argument for the behaviorist utopia, the position adopted by Skinner is one that cannot be maintained. But let us suppose now that none of this was shown. Let us suppose, that is, that Skinner’s argument, up to this point, has been a good one. Would even that show that his recommendations are worthy of acceptance? Is a controlled society (assuming that it can do most of what Skinner says) a desirable thing? Again, I submit, the answer is no. But, given our assumption, it is not possible to show this by pointing up internal contradictions in the theory behind Walden Two. We are assuming, in some vague sense, that Walden Two can “work.”

Is a working Walden Two a more desirable social organization than a free society? The answer to this question obviously depends, in part, on the sort of criteria one employs in assessing the merits of a particular form of social organization. Given certain ends, Walden Two is more desirable. Frazier indicates, in the course of his advocacy of Walden Two, that an important feature of the society is that it provides the opportunity to make controlled social experiments. Obviously, Walden Two would provide a more effective medium in which to conduct controlled social experiments (of a certain kind) than would a free society. But this is, after all, a rather restricted goal. And the fact that it is so restricted renders it untenable as a justifying goal for a form of social organization. One doesn’t construct a society for the purpose of experimenting with its members. Skinner recognizes this, and what he regards as justifying the society is something else. Walden Two is supposed to represent an extremely progressive society, and one remarkably well adapted to achieve the goals set for it. It is in these terms that the issue between Walden Two and a free society must be discussed.10

ONE OF THE MOST important criteria by which we judge societies, of course, is a great degree of satisfaction of material wants—that is, the society must be an economically successful one. And the economic question is especially important in regard to Walden Two: much of the glamor of the life there proceeds from the fact that the inhabitants, having to work no more than four hours a day, have a great deal of leisure for the pursuit of culture and general self-improvement. Unfortunately, I am afraid that there is not much use in discussing this aspect of Skinner’s ideas. He states, in his book, that the economics of a society are “child’s play,” and, indeed, he proceeds to deal with economic problems much as a child would. His ideas here are simply naive socialism, of the silliest sort. One example: once in a while, the children in Walden Two are sent out into the world and given a

sort of detective assignment. The game is to establish a connection in the shortest possible time between any given bit of luxury and some piece of poverty or depravity. The children may start with a fine residence, for example. By going in the service drive they may be able to speak to a colored laundress hanging out clothes. They induce her to let them drive her home. That’s enough [page 206].

Enough for what? To prove that all wealth in a free enterprise system is gotten unfairly? To prove that wealth in a society is like a pie, and that if some have more others must necessarily have less? Does Skinner know what an economic cost is, and that there are fortunes to be made by entrepreneurs who can discover ways of cutting costs which their competitors have not yet realized? Does Skinner know that there exists a question of the practicability of rational allocation of resources in the absence of a market for capital goods—in such a situation as obtains in Walden Two, for instance? Offhand, one would have considered an economics primer required reading for a society-builder. But in any case, the economic problems of a utopian socialist community are much beyond the scope of our discussion here. Let us, therefore, pass on to the more general question of social control vs. the decentralization characteristic of a free society.

I have mentioned that Skinner admits the necessity for political control over new ideas. This concession occurs in his discussion of the “Walden Code,” a system of maxims regulating the conduct of the members of the community in an incredibly detailed way: the Code even governs how introductions between people are to be made, establishes what is to count as rudeness in a conversation and prohibits (for the sake of psychological health) the deliberate expression of gratitude between members of the society. Now, in regard to this Code, Skinner states:

As to disagreement, anyone may examine the evidence upon which a rule was introduced into the Code. He may argue against its inclusion and may present his own evidence. If the Managers refuse to change the rule, he may appeal to the Planners. But in no case must he argue about the Code with the members at large. There’s a rule against that.11

What this involves, then, is that every innovation in social life will have to gain the approval of the behavioral engineers. Thus, the distinction between Walden Two and the open society becomes as clear-cut as possible, and we are in a position to introduce what is probably the chief argument for freedom.

Let us attempt to state this argument in the form of an analogy—the analogy between society as a whole considered as an organization for the acquisition and communication of knowledge, and any given semi-orgnized field within society serving the same functon. If advances in social knowledge (in the best ways of meeting the problems that arise in human life) are best promoted by a system of rigid controls such as Skinner’s why not apply this system to science and the arts? If we established a commission of the best physicists, say, who would decide what lines of thought subordinate physicists would be allowed to follow up, is it likely that breakthroughs in this science would be as frequent as in these past centuries of “anarchy,” when each physicist has done as he wished? In other fields, to cite illustrations is virtually to close the case as far as these disciplines are concerned: who would wish that Bradley and Bosanquet—the outstanding British philosophers of their day—had been commissars of philosophy, empowered to decide whether Russell and Moore would be allowed to present their ideas to the public? Who would wish to have set Haydn in a similar way as arbiter over the young Beethoven?

These examples illustrate the principle that the progress of ideas is not served by casting over any given field—and a fortiori, over society as a whole—the mental limitations of one mind or one group of minds, no matter how superior a position they occupy in regard to other individual minds.

Now, it may be objected that the analogy is a false one; that the behaviorist psychologists would occupy, in relation to their wards, an extremely superior position, not at all comparable to that of Haydn to Beethoven. That is, the behaviorist might argue: “Of course, we would not wish a young innovating genius to have his hands tied by the established and conservative leaders in his field. But this would not be the case with human behavior. It is not the ideas of a young Beethoven that will be ‘suppressed’ by our behavioral engineers; it is simply the ‘ideas’ of the masses of uninspired, generally mediocre men and women, and they will assuredly gain in our system.”

But such a rebuttal fails to see the full implications of the problem of innovation. Very often, innovation depends not only on qualities internal to the innovator (which conceivably could be predicted by a system of testing), but on a unique combination of circumstances in which the innovator finds himself. As Hayek describes the situation:

. . . we have no way of predicting who will at each step first make the appropriate move or what particular combinations of knowledge and skills will suggest to some man the suitable answer, or by what channels his example will be transmitted to others who will follow the lead. It is difficult to conceive all the combinations of knowledge and skills which thus come into action and from which arises the discovery of appropriate practices or devices that, once found, can be accepted generally. But from the countless number of humble steps taken by anonymous persons in the course of doing familiar things in changed circumstances spring the examples that prevail. They are as important as the major intellectual innovations which are explicitly recognized and communicated as such.12

TO PUT ANYONE in charge of a field of human activity—or of human activity in general—is necessarily to place him in a position of arbiter over every potential innovator. The original question remains: “Why doesn’t Skinner propose establishing commissions in each science and art, to pass judgment on the efforts of all its practitioners?”

It seems clear, then, that innovation will not be promoted by a controlled society. But perhaps a controlled society is in the best position to make use of the knowledge already available (we are speaking now of “social knowledge”—the sort of thing with which the “Walden Code” deals). Actually, it is difficult to know what to say here, because Skinner appears to be maintaining a position little short of incredible. When he says, for instance, that the expression of gratitude is not to be allowed between members of society—does he mean this literally? Will it, under all possible circumstances, represent an infraction of the Code to express gratitude? What if a man saves my life at the risk of his own? Or, to put it more strongly, what if he submits to torture, in order to conceal my place of hiding from my would-be murderers? Does Skinner mean to say that I will have to clear it with a board of behavioral engineers before I express my gratitude? Perhaps the rule concerning gratitude, when it emerges from the laboratories, will contain a clause permitting its expression in certain cases. But then, how many clauses will it contain? In general, how will it be possible for a group of men—endowed, as we may assume them to be, with a great deal of scientific psychological knowledge—to foresee all the possible combinations of circumstances which occur in social life, circumstances which often include the pitting of one generally-accepted rule against another?

Since it is clearly impossible, perhaps Skinner could allow a certain leeway in the interpretation of his gratitude rule. But it requires little insight to see that this would be a fatal breach in his system. Once people are permitted a degree of personal discretion in the application of a behaviorist “truth,” it becomes possible for them to modify the rule itself, in the way that judges have made dead-letters of various laws by their interpretations of them. Control over behavior would once more pass from the hands of the psychologists to those of society at large, the very situation Walden Two was created to eliminate. Thus, we must assume that no leeway will be allowed in the interpretation of the various behaviorist maxims. Now, what does this imply? It implies that the only place where society’s accumulated knowledge can be refined and fitted for application to an infinitely great variety of circumstances is in the laboratories of the behavioral psychologists. If someone thinks that a received rule ought to be modified in its application to the particular situation in which he finds himself, he is not allowed to do so. He must obey the rule as it has been handed down to him, and await the judgment of the behavioral engineers as to the permissibility of his suggested modification. Isn’t it obvious that this would bring about virtually the least flexible and least adaptable society imaginable? To arbitrarily exclude by far the larger segment of society from the work of adapting received rules and maxims to various situations is to eliminate all these minds as centers for acquiring, refining and passing on knowledge. Such a procedure would make sense if there were good reason to believe that the minds put in control were omniscient—but our previous discussion of free will and selective conditioning does not support that claim, at least as far as one important behaviorist is concerned, and it is unlikely that the case would be different with his fellows.

The argument for freedom is—quite unfortunately, from the viewpoint of the prospects for a free society—an enormously complicated and abstract one, and we have only touched the surface here.13 But, I hope that enough has been said to suggest that Walden Two is hardly a rival to a free society with respect to its ability both to adapt to changing conditions and to promote progress.

A word is perhaps in order for those who have read Walden Two and are made enthusiastic by its promise of a better existence for all, with less frustration and fewer misdirected lives than we see around us today. The important thing to realize is that the choice before us is not between whatever improvements behavioral psychology offers us in the problems of arranging our lives, and the benefits a free society offers us in the way of innovation and progress. Skinner’s utopia indeed precludes the advantages accruing from the free play of ideas and the clash of values of the open society, but the reverse is not the case. In an uncontrolled social setting, people are free to adapt their lives in the light of behavioral psychology, and, if a substantial part of what Skinner claims for his ideas is true, then the same society which gave birth to them will be free to apply them to advantage.

The real value of the book, I think, is that it performs one of the functions credited by John Stuart Mill to even the most erroneous doctrines: by energetically presenting the case for a centrally-directed social order, it leads us to reconsider fundamentals, and forces us to re-examine and refine the arguments for the open society. Thus, while we may thank Skinner for promoting this end—which was indeed no part of his intention—those of us who are reasonable must decline the offering.

GREAT INDIVIDUALISTS OF THE PAST

Benjamin Constant

RALPH RAICO*

“HE LOVED LIBERTY as other men love power,” was the judgment passed on Benjamin Constant by a contemporary. His life-long concern, both as a writer and politician, was the attainment in France and in other nations of a free society, and at the time when classical liberalism was the spectre haunting Europe—in the second and third decades of the last century—he shared with Jeremy Bentham the honor of being the chief intellectual protagonist for the new ideology. But it is not only for his elevated and disinterested love of freedom, nor for his historical importance that Constant merits being remembered: there is something to be gained in the study of his works by individualists aiming at the development of a political philosophy that will avoid the errors both of certain 18th century liberals and of 19th century conservatism.

Although in his day he was the most famous liberal spokesman on the Continent, Constant was never as well-known in the English-speaking world; especially today, when he shares the neglect into which his party has fallen, something will have to be said of his career.1

He was born near Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1767, a descendant of Huguenots who had fled France following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Little need be noted of his generally erratic upbringing, except that he enjoyed a cosmopolitan education, studying at the universities of Erlangen and Edinburgh; the latter was at the time a center of Whig ideas, and boasted a faculty which included Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson. Constant was early attracted to Parisian life, and entered the world of the salons shortly before the beginning of the Revolution. He was absent in Germany until the fall of the Jacobins, returning in 1795, when he quickly became closely associated with Madame de Stael, and began a life of political pamphleteering. A brief period as a member of the Tribunate under Napoleon was ended after a too ardently expressed demand that the legislative assembly be allowed a voice in the making of laws—Constant and his friends were purged, Napoleon complaining of the “metaphysicians” in the assembly who were forever seeking to tie his hands. There followed a period of intense opposition to Bonaparte. At this time, Constant composed his On the Spirit of Conquest and Usurpation,2 a demonstration of to what extent the aims and methods of Napoleon were out of keeping with the spirit of the new bourgeois world. He joined other liberals in enlisting under Napoleon’s banner, however, during the Hundred Days, on the supposition that the great general would now be compelled to rule as a constitutional monarch. At this time, Constant drafted the constitution under which Napoleon was to have governed. With Waterloo and the restoration of the Bourbons, Constant joined the liberal opposition, serving in the Chamber of Deputies and acting as a brilliant and forceful critic of every governmental policy which he viewed as inconsistent with the rights of man. This was the period of his greatest influence, when he enjoyed a vast European reputation and inspired groups of young disciples as far away as Warsaw. He died in 1830, shortly after the establishment of the July Monarchy.

With two important facts regarding Constant, we will not be concerned here, although they merit mentioning. First, that he occupies an honorable place in the history of French literature, principally through his short novel, Adolphe; and, second, that, like the hero of this work, his was a painfully introspective intellect, and his a personality that found it impossible ever to be less than studied and analytical. His psychological problems and the complex emotional life to which they led have provided most of the content for the studies of Constant which have appeared up until the present. While it is likely that these aspects of his personality had a certain bearing on his political and social thought, it did so in too complex a way to warrant closer examination here.

FRANCE HAS, together with England and Scotland, contributed more than any other nation to the theory, if not to the practice, of liberty. In the line of great French liberals, which begins about the second quarter of the 18th century with Montesquieu, Constant was the first of the generation following the Revolution. This circumstance was of the greatest significance for the development of his political ideas, and to it may be traced the fact that he tended to regard political problems from a somewhat different viewpoint from that of most of the earlier liberals. This is most evident in his attitude toward the power of the central government.

Turgot and the Physiocrats, for example, had championed the extension of state power in the interests of “reform.” These liberals saw the economic life of France hamstrung by the guilds and by an incredibly circumstantial mercantilist regulation; its social life irrationally structured on the basis of nobility of birth; its intellectual life, though intense, yet furtive and often even subterranean, because a large number of persons and bodies—from the Sorbonne to some influential duchess at Versailles—had the de facto power of ordering any book they wished committed to the flames; and they blamed the casual heaping up of tradition for such an intolerable state of affairs. They thought that what was needed was the action of an enlightened, ordering mind, endowed with sufficient power to sweep aside the machinations of all those who had a vested interest in the traditional encumbrances on freedom. For this reason, the philosophes (both those among them who were essentially liberals, and those who cannot fairly be classed as such) were enthusiasts of the “enlightened despotism” fashionable among certain rulers of the time. This is also the reason that led virtually the whole philosophical party wholeheartedly to support Louis XV in his suppression of the parlements; since these law courts had been the only legal check on the power of the king, the favor shown by the philosophes for this arbitrary action would otherwise be difficult to understand.3

With the upheaval of the Revolution, however, most of the institutions of the Old Regime which had (with government sanction, to be sure) acted as centers of privilege, were swept away. Industrial freedom was granted to all, Protestants and freethinkers no longer had to fear imprisonment for manifesting their beliefs, there was one law for commoner and noble. The focus of all threats to individual freedom became the government itself. The Church, nobility, guilds and other corporations which, endowed with coercive privilege, had vexed the free functioning of men, left the stage, and across the gap created by their disappearance the individual and the state, for the first time, stood alone facing each other. And now the liberals’ attitude toward the state underwent a change. Where previous French liberals had seen a potential instrument for the establishment of liberty, and one that might at times even safely be used for the realization of certain “philosophical” values, writers like Constant started to see a collection of standing threats to individual freedom: government is “the natural enemy of liberty;” ministers, of whatever party, are, by nature, “the eternal adversaries of freedom of the press;” governments will always look on war as “a means of increasing their authority.” Thus, with Constant, the chief articulator of his generation’s liberal ideals, we see the beginnings of classical liberalism’s “state-hatred,” which, after the 18th century’s ambiguous attitude, marks its theory to the present day.4

Another feature distinguishing Constant from earlier liberals was what he conceived to be the ethical ends of social organization. In this respect, the philosophes had anticipated the central idea of Bentham, Constant’s fellow liberal and almost exact contemporary. While the liberalism of writers like Mercier de la Rivière and Du Pont de Nemours, like Bentham’s, was based exclusively on a utilitarian ethic, Constant’s had a vaguer, but, it will appear to many, a more elevated foundation. This ought to be emphasized, since many writers on the history of liberalism—both conservatives and modern left-liberals—often write as if utilitarianism were historically the sole philosophical basis of liberalism. This was not the case with many of the most prominent liberals, including Constant, who emphatically rejected utilitarianism:

. . . is it so true that happiness—of whatever sort it might be—is the unique end of man? In that case, our road would be quite narrow, and our destination not a very lofty one. There is not one of us, who, if he wished to descend, to restrict his moral faculties, to degrade his desires, to abjure activity, glory and all generous and profound emotions, could not make himself a brute, and a happy one . . . it is not for happiness alone, it is for self-perfectioning that destiny calls us. . . .5

Thus, Constant found the ethical ends which he wished to realize through a system of liberty not in the greatest-happiness principle, but in the development and enrichment of personality. This view was in keeping with the humanism then prevalent in Germany, and was possibly, in the case of Constant, traceable to his study of Kantian philosophy, and to the influence of certain of his many German friends, including Schiller and especially Wilhelm von Humboldt.

THE AIM OF ALLOWING the widest possible sphere for individual development meant, in Constant’s thinking, the restriction of government action within the narrowest possible limits, namely, defense against external and internal aggression:

Whenever there is no absolute necessity, whenever legislation may fail to intervene without society being overthrown, whenever, finally, it is a question merely of some hypothetical improvement, the law must abstain, leave things alone, and keep quiet.6

The same conclusion is arrived at by another line of reasoning. To demand that individual activity be interfered with is to demand that individual judgment give way to the judgment of the government. Now, no matter how tenaciously the partisans of state action attempt to cling to abstract terms, in the last analysis their program calls for substituting the opinion of certain government officials for individual judgment, and this aspect of the problem may be stated in this way: is there good reason to suppose the government officials will as a rule make more intelligent decisions regarding whatever it is they wish to legislate about than the individuals concerned? Constant believed the answer to be definitely negative, and offered an interesting analysis of the drawbacks of government decision-making.7 In the first place, the government officials will presumably be chosen, directly or indirectly, by the very people whom they are supposed to manage, and it is therefore unlikely that their outlook will be appreciably in advance of that of society as a whole. In fact, the officials will probably share the prejudices and restricted views of the relatively unenlightened majority, rather than the values and thinking of the progressive and innovating minority. In addition, Constant held, decisions arrived at by political officials exhibit certain other undesirable but necessary features: (1) errors in legislation spread their effects throughout society, while individuals’ errors are limited in their consequences to a much smaller circle; (2) the effects of such erroneous laws will fall more on others than on the legislator, who thus has less of an interest in correcting them (at least, less of an interest in proportion to their bad effects) than a private citizen has in modifying his own errors, the burden of which falls on himself; (3) the fact that the legislator is further removed from the effects of his action brings it about that a greater period of time is required for modifying it, if it should prove wrong, than is the case with private individuals; (4) since legislators are continually under the eyes of hostile observers, modification of errors involves loss of prestige, and is also difficult for this reason; (5) finally, legislation has the defect of all collective decisions: it is a “forced give-and-take between prejudice and truth, betwen interests and principles,” while decisions taken by individuals have the chance of being, in this sense, purer. Thus, Constant concludes, although in a regime of laissez faire we will have to renounce many grand and glittering undertakings on the part of the state, the chances and costs of errors in legislation are so great that, on net, the sacrifice will be well worth it.

The sphere in which individuals would be free to pursue their activities in accordance with their own values and judgment was to be delimited by a system of rights, which included the customary demands of the classical liberals: personal liberty (including the abolition of Negro slavery and all other forms of involuntary servitude), freedom of religion, freedom of the press, economic liberty, and so on.

Constant did not occupy himself particularly with economic questions. In this field he was first and last a disciple of the economists, especially of Adam Smith and J. B. Say, but asserting the principle of economic non-intervention in even more absolute terms than was customary with the professional economists, and going so far as to criticize the latter for not adhering firmly enough to their motto of laissez faire, laissez passer.8 But the more interesting aspect of Constant’s thought is his political philosophy, and it is to this that we now turn.

IN A SENSE, Constant’s political theory may be considered a rebuttal to that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose ideas in this field had gained increasing influence toward the end of the 18th century, coming to constitute something like the official ideology of the Jacobin, or democratic, party. Like Locke, Rousseau had posited an original social contract, but where the English philosopher had attempted to employ this notion as a foundation for civil rights, in Rousseau’s conception the contract involved the total surrender by the individual of his life, liberty and possessions into the hands of the community. It is perhaps not too much of an over-simplification to say that Rousseau’s idea amounted to a Hobbesian system, in which the despot is replaced by society as the great Leviathan, but for one important qualification: Rousseau recognized the dangers involved in his scheme, and believed they could be met by stipulating that, in return for the loss of rights as against society, the individual would be assured of an equal share with all other individuals in the sovereignty, in the determination and exercise of the “General Will.” Accepting the idea that social life necessarily brings with it the total alienation of one’s rights, Rousseau was thus the modern originator of the notion that freedom in a social context is identifiable with a condition of equal submission to the interests of the community and equal participation in the exercise of political power.

Constant believed that the championship of unlimited popular sovereignty by Rousseau and others represented much less of a break with the historical political pattern than might at first appear to be the case. What had happened was that these thinkers

saw in history a small number of men, or even a single man, in possession of an immense power, which did much harm, but their wrath was directed against the possessors of power, and not against the power itself. Instead of destroying it, they only dreamt of displacing it. It was a scourge, and they regarded it as a conquest.9

Constant admitted the sovereignty of the people, in the sense that no government whose authority is not delegated to it by the people, is a legitimate one. But from this sense of sovereignty

it does not follow that the universality of the citizens or those who are invested by them with sovereignty, can dispose as supreme master of the existence of individuals. There is, on the contrary, a part of human existence which necessarily remains individual and independent, and which is of right outside of all social competence.10

In analyzing Rousseau’s conception of freedom, Constant had occasion to enter into an interesting historical explanation of the Rousseauian idea. He distinguished two senses of freedom: the liberty of the ancients, and that of the moderns, and asserted that Rousseau, as well as the Jacobins during the Revolution, had been attempting to re-introduce the sort of liberty which had been prevalent in the republics of classical antiquity, but which was, for various historical reasons, now outmoded. How this analysis was relevant to the state of opinion at the time may require some explanation.

DURING THE 18th CENTURY, the veneration of the classical reached such proportions that it has been referred to by one historian as a “cult.” If few went to the lengths of the admittedly oversensitive Madame Roland, who as a girl wept for not having been born a Roman or a Spartan, the commonly-accepted picture of the typical citizen of the ancient republics as austerely virtuous and natural led many to consider whether the institutions which had produced this presumably ideal human being could not be reproduced in France with similarly beneficent effects. This cult achieved its peak during the Revolution, and especially with the triumph of the Jacobins. Now thousands were sent to their deaths, cities were razed and wars declared, all accompanied by the invocation of what amounted to a schoolboy’s vague but over-heated notion of “ancient liberty.” This acceptance of the worst forms of tyranny—from arbitrary arrest and trial without jury to conscription, the “blood tax”—to the doubtlessly sincere cry of “liberty” resulted in much confusion. Conservatives were often even led to the conclusion that the tyrannical excesses were somehow connected with an “excess” of liberty, and resolved that in the future Jacobin tyranny would be avoided by a ruthless suppression of all liberal demands. But, Constant held, the truth of the matter was that what was involved were two different senses of “liberty”: one, the sort of “liberty” generally characteristic of the ancient world—consisting in equal powerlessness before the state and equal participation in public affairs—was perfectly compatible with all the specific measures which were destructive of the second sort of liberty, the liberty characteristic of modern times. This was a liberty having to do above all with the sphere of private life, and one in which political activity plays a very subordinate role:

Inquire, first of all, gentlemen, what, in our day, an Englishman, a Frenchman, an inhabitant of the United States of America, understands by the word, “liberty.” It means for everyone to be under the dominion of nothing but the laws, not to be arrested, detained, or put to death, nor maltreated in any way as a consequence of the arbitrary will of one or more individuals. It is for everyone to have the right to express his opinion, to choose and exercise his occupation; to dispose of his property and even to abuse it; to go and come without having to obtain permission, and without having to give an accounting of his motives or actions. It is, for each man, the right to join with other individuals, either to confer on their interests, or simply to fill his hours and days in a manner more conformable to his inclinations and his fantasies. Finally, it is the right for each to influence the administration of the government, either by the nomination of all or of certain functionaries, or by representations, petitions and demands, which authority is more or less obligated to take into consideration.11

Constant makes some suggestive observations as to why political liberty can no longer be considered a significant enough good to outweigh the sacrifice of private liberties:

The most obscure citizen of Rome and of Sparta was a power. This is no longer the case with the simple citizen of Great Britain or of the United States. His personal influence is an imperceptible element in the social will which impresses on the government its direction.12

Even leaving aside the question of the desirability of this way of life, man could, in the present day, simply not be a political animal in the sense proposed by the partisans of antiquity. Thus, the preservation of liberty in the modern sense becomes our chief task.

Rousseau had argued that, given popular sovereignty, there was no longer any need for guarantees against state power: if the sovereign was identifiable with the totality of the citizens, it was foolish to think that it would act in such a way as to harm the citizens. The speciousness of this reasoning, obvious enough in itself, was made explicit by Constant:

. . . as soon as the sovereign is to make use of the force which it possesses, that is, as soon as it is necessary to proceed to a practical organization of authority, since the sovereign itself cannot exercise the authority, it delegates it. . . . The action done in the name of all necessarily being willingly or unwillingly at the disposition of an individual or of a few individuals, it comes about that in giving oneself to no one, one gives oneself, on the contrary, to those who act in the name of all.13

At the beginning of the age of democratic government, Constant insisted on a truth which doctrinaire democrats of the Rousseauian sort have tended to overlook: “The people which can do anything it wishes is just as dangerous, is more dangerous, than any tyrant, or, rather, it is certain that tyranny will seize hold of this right granted to the people.”14 The worst outrages of the Terror could be regarded as logical deductions from Rousseau’s principles, and “the Social Contract, so often invoked in favor of liberty, is the most terrible auxiliary of every form of despotism.”

Having established the necessity of limits to state power, Constant had to seek for a system of effective guarantees to maintain such limits.

AFTER THE REVOLUTION and the Napoleonic period, it had become a fact too obvious for anyone to deny that the mere proclamation of a list of rights was in no way a sufficient guarantee of freedom:

All the constitutions which have been given to France have equally accorded individual liberty, and under the empire of these constitutions, individual liberty has been ceaselessly violated. The point is that a simple declaration does not suffice. What is required are positive safeguards; what is required are bodies powerful enough to employ in favor of the oppressed the means of defense sanctioned by the law.15

That is to say, if individual rights are not to be a dead-letter, certain institutional arrangements must be developed and encouraged which can be counted on to work toward the maintenance of constitutional guarantees. In one sense, everything with which Constant concerned himself—from bicameralism, through freedom of the press and private property, to religion—may be viewed as an addition to the edifice of guarantees. In general, these positive guarantees may be divided into two sorts: there are those which are positively established by state action, and have to do with the form of the government itself, and there are those which consist in extra-governmental forces which there is good reason to believe can also be relied upon to serve the function of limiting government action to its proper sphere.

As regards the first category, Constant’s thinking represents no major innovation. Rather, his merit in this regard is that of having been the systematizer of the structure of the liberal state, to the point where an eminent French historian of thought could say of him that he “invented liberalism.”16

The method of limiting state power which, since the time of Montesquieu, had been thought of as most effective by the liberals was that of turning the state in against itself, through a system of division of powers. The author of The Spirit of the Laws had observed that “it is an eternal experience that anyone who possesses power tends to abuse it. . . . In order that power should not be abused, it is necessary so to arrange matters that power should be checked by power.” If every increase in the power of some arm of the state could be counted on to meet the resistance of other arms of the state, then, because, while it extended the sphere of the former functionaries, it narrowed that of the latter, there would result another case of a great social good being achieved by tapping the vices of men. In this way, the will to power of state officials would be directed not so much against the rights of the people as against the power of other officials. The system of checks and balances and the division of powers were not, therefore, what one social democratic writer has recently called them: “contrivances, so dear to the [classical] liberals, for guarding against the possibility that governments might govern”;17 they were instead reasonable institutionalized protections against the virtual certainty that governments would try to govern too much.

The system of checks and balances was, in Constant’s thought, to operate at many different points in the structure of government, and the general outlines of his scheme will be familiar enough to anyone acquainted with the American Constitution. There was to be a bicameral legislature, including a House of Peers to be selected independently of democratic opinion. This was an institution which had been demanded by the Anglophile, or moderate liberal, party as early as the first year of the Revolution, and a number of historians, including Acton, have seen in the rejection of this proposal the first ominous signs of the thoughtless Rousseauian spirit that was to lead to the Convention. Constant further divided power between the legislature and the ministry, and between these two branches and the judiciary, which was to consist of judges whose immovability from office was guaranteed. A further limit on the power of the central government was implied in a system of departmental and municipal rights, an idea which had never found much acceptance in France, accustomed for centuries to the centralizing efforts of the monarchy.18

Besides the division of powers, another political guarantee of rights was to be found in a certain degree of popular representation in the government. But Constant insisted on restricting the franchise to property-holders. The extent to which democracy was necessary for the maintenance of liberty could, he thought, be served by such a limited franchise, and he was skeptical of the benefits of a more democratic system. He had seen Napoleon made Consul for life, and later Emperor, on the basis of universal manhood suffrage; he saw that in the situation in which France found itself during the Restoration, it was primarily the more prosperous and educated classes which were the bearers of the new liberal ideas. The masses of workers and, especially, peasants, cared less for the introduction of a liberal state than for the preservation of the old ways, to which they were accustomed—indeed, this was the reason why the only significant group which was interested in a mass-based suffrage at this time was a certain wing of the reactionary party.19

A major reason for Constant’s disinclination to extend the franchise was the question of property:

If, to the liberty of the faculties and of industry, which you owe them [the lower classes], you join political rights, which you do not owe them, then these rights, in the hands of the greatest number will inevitably serve to invade property. They will march toward it by this irregular route, instead of following the natural route, labor. . . .20

Although in historical retrospect the attempt to limit the franchise appears to have been unrealistic, Constant at least has the merit—as this passage shows—of having foreseen one of the principal features of modern democracy.

In addition to the guarantees of individual rights which were built into the system of government itself, Constant looked to certain social institutions to provide further guarantees. One of the most important of these was the press, and freedom of the press in this way took on a double character: it was itself a precious right, and it acted as one of the most powerful non-political guarantees of all other rights as well. The function of the press as a tribune for those whose rights were violated was incessantly emphasized by Constant:

Everyone now knows that freedom of the press is nothing else than the guarantee that the acts of the government will be made known to the public, that it is the sole means of such publication, that without such publication the authorities are free to do what they will, and that to trammel freedom of the press is to place the life, property and person of every Frenchman in the hands of a few ministers.21

He looked, as we have mentioned, on the ministers, of whatever political complexion they happened to be at the moment, as the “eternal adversaries of freedom of the press.” During his career as deputy in the French legislature, at the period of the Bourbon Restoration, Constant tirelessly fought all the various expedients which an ingenious and anxious government devised to interfere with this freedom. He was considered the parliamentary expert on the subject, and, in view of the place that debates in the French legislature occupied in the affairs of the whole continent, the great European defender of this liberty.

AN IDEA WHICH SEEMS to have originated with Constant is that a further guarantee against despotism is to be found in certain extra-governmental institutions capable of tying the loyalties of men against the day when the state might once again, as in the time of Robespierre, attempt to become the be-all and the end-all of social life. It was for this reason that he severely criticized the reckless spirit of uniformity and the senseless passion for pseudo-mathematical “symmetry” which inspired many of the Revolutionary measures; which, for instance, hatched Sieyes’ suggestion that the departments, having replaced the traditional provinces, should be designated by number rather than by name, and which led, at the Jacobin Club of Strasbourg, to the interesting question being raised of whether it might not, after all, be better to guillotine Alsatians who were “divisive” enough to cling to German as their chief language. “It is remarkable,” observes Constant, “that absolute unity of action, without any limits, has never found greater favor than in a revolution made in the name of the rights of man.” Every institution with a claim to the loyalty of men was another potential enemy for a state aiming at total control; this was particularly true of such powerful social elements as regionalism:

The interests and memories which are born of local customs contain a germ of resistance which authority suffers only with regret, and which it hastens to eradicate. With individuals it has its way more easily; it rolls its enormous weight over them effortlessly, as over sand.22

It is in this light that we should also view Constant’s attitude toward religion, to the study of which he devoted many years. His works on this subject are no longer read, but they contributed to the post-18th century attitude, which no longer considered religion to have originated as a priestly invention (“when the first knave met the first fool”), but as a response to a deeply-rooted need. The writers of the Enlightenment had also, with few exceptions, been bitterly hostile to organized religion in general, and particularly to the Catholic Church. Faced with an often savage religious intolerance, thinkers like Voltaire and Diderot explicitly championed control of the Church by the State,23 believing the only alternative to be the reverse order of control. Constant, however, held that, given religious toleration as an established right, guaranteed as other rights were, religion could, from a strictly political point of view, serve the same sort of valuable function as regionalism. He welcomed it as a similar “divisive” element in social life, and warned against the proposal of the philosophes of combining the spiritual and political powers in the same hands:

What does it matter if spiritual pretensions have given way to political authority, if this authority makes of religion an instrument, and thus acts against liberty with a double force?24

CONSTANT’S BREAK with the Enlightenment and the Revolution by no means meant that he was sympathetic to the ideas then being advanced by conservative writers like de Maistre and Bonald, who attempted to erect the Christian notion of Original Sin into the theoretical underpinning for a system of oppression, arguing for a state strong enough to keep a firm check on natural man. Constant could not imagine how politicians could be thought not to have participated in the Fall, and saw no merit in this

bizarre notion according to which it is claimed that because men are corrupt, it is necessary to give certain of them all that much more power . . . on the contrary, they must be given less power, that is, one must skillfully combine institutions and place within them certain counterweights against the vices and weaknesses of men.25

Furthermore, his respect for traditions as encumbrances on government action did not mean that he was prepared, as were the conservative writers of his day, to enshrine simply any tradition. The touchstone for him was the employment of force in connection with the traditional arrangement. He rejected both the program of some of the Revolutionaries, who had been eager enough to use force to destroy traditions which did not fulfill their personal, “philosophical” values, and the program of the conservatives, who typically recommended the use of state power for opposite ends. Constant was content to leave changes in traditional institutions to the workings of forces outside of the state:

If I reject violent and forced improvements, I equally condemn the maintenance, by force, of what the progress of ideas tends to improve and reform insensibly.26

In the last analysis, Constant was as much an opponent of conservatism as of the Jacobin system, and on much the same grounds: both involved violent interference with the rightful sphere of the individual’s private judgment and action, the seed-bed from which emerge the things that make social life worthwhile. It is interesting to note, in this connection, that when faced with the beginnings of the socialist movement, in the form of the Saint-Simonians, Constant thought it appropriate to associate them with the representatives of the closed societies of the past; they wished, he asserted, simply to be popes over the economic organization of society, and “priests of Memphis and Thebes” over its intellectual life.27

BENJAMIN CONSTANT MAY serve as a good rebuttal to the stereotype of the classical liberal as anti-religious, utilitarian and fanatically democratic, a stereotype which is often employed by contemporary conservatives who insist on confusing classical liberalism with Philosophical Radicalism. And for everyone sincerely interested in discovering a liberalism which will avoid some of the errors of certain liberal thinkers of the past, Constant may be looked on as a good starting point.

NEW BOOKS AND ARTICLES

THE FOLLOWING IS A SELECT LIST OF BOOKS AND ARTICLES WHICH, IN THE OPINION OF THE EDITORS, MAY BE OF INTEREST TO OUR READERS.

Alfred Avins, ed., Open Occupancy vs. Forced Housing Under the Fourteenth Amendment (New York: Bookmailer, 1963). This symposium includes contributions from a large number of legal scholars and judges, evaluating the basis for legislation outlawing discrimination in housing by builders and landlords. It is particularly timely at present.
Israel M. Kirzner, Market Theory and the Price System (Princeton, N. J.: Van Nostrand, 1963). A textbook in intermediate price theory designed for undergraduates, by a contributor to New Individualist Review. Although Prof. Kirzner presumes that his readers have already had a course in elementary economics, some students without such training may find it useful, since, in the author’s words, “determined efforts have been made to subordinate geometry to economic reasoning.”
Leonard W. Levy, Jefferson and Civil Liberties: The Darker Side (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963). A fairly conclusive demonstration that the revered saint of civil liberties was not all that he was cracked up to be outside of the area of religious dissent. One surprise is Jefferson’s stand on the Alien and Sedition Acts. In opposition to Madison’s view that seditious libel should not be an offense, he argued merely that the question should be left to the states.
Oskar Morgenstern, On the Accuracy of Economic Observations (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963, new edition). An influential economist questions the value of most modern statistical economics. His ideas on this subject are presented in a more popular form in an article, “Qui Numerare Incipit Errare Incipit,” Fortune, October, 1963.
Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963), paper. A reprint of the classic defense of the free society against the totalitarianism of Plato and Hegel. A new collection of Prof. Popper’s essays has also been published recently: Conjectures and Refutations (New York: Basic Books, 1963). While most of the essays concern the philosophy of science and the history of philosophy, there are several interesting discussions of political and social topics, such as “Towards a Rational Theory of Tradition,” and “Utopia and Violence.”
Murray N. Rothbard, America’s Great Depression (Princeton, N.J.: Van Nostrand, 1963). Dr. Rothbard, whose name will be familiar to our readers, presents an analysis of the Crash of ’29 and the subsequent depression, based on the Austrian theory of the business cycle. His conclusion is that, far from being an unanswerable instance of the failure of the market economy, the Crash is attributable to a government-sponsored policy of credit-expansion, while the Great Depression itself was aggravated and prolonged by the measures taken by the government to alleviate it.
Robert H. Bork, “Civil Rights—A Challenge,” New Republic, August 31, 1963. Prof. Bork presents a clear case against the proposed civil rights bill now before Congress. In a reply, the editors of the New Republic accuse Bork of advocating a principle (neo-liberalism) which “would today require the repeal of the industrial revolution.” See also Bork’s reply in the September 21, 1963, issue, where Bork continues his assault on the dominant social-democratic position on civil rights and the Negro revolution.
Richard J. Whalen, “Here Come the Conservatives,” Fortune, December, 1963. Mr. Whalen provides a brief history of the revival of conservatism in America in the post-war period. He is careful to distinguish the many, often conflicting, strains of thought at work in this revival, but concludes that conservatives “have thrust themselves forward as a force that Liberalism can never again ignore.” An excellent introduction to an important contemporary American phenomenon.

NEWE BOKES & ARTICULLES

YE FOLLOWING IS A SELECTE LISTE OF BOKES AND ARTICULLES WHICH, IN YE OPINIONE OFF YE EDITORS, MAYE BEE OFF INTEREST TO OVREREADERS.

John Selden, Of the Dominion, or, Ownership of the Sea, Two Books. In the first is shew’d, that the sea, by the law of nature, or nations, is not common to all men, but capable of private dominion or proprietie, as well as the land. In the second is proved, that the dominion of the British sea, or that which incompasseth the isle of Great Britain is, and ever hath been, a part or appendant of the empire of that island. Written at first in Latin, and entituled, Mare clausum seu, De domino maris, by John Selden. Translated into English, and set forth with som additional evidences and discourses, by Marchamont Nedham. (London: Published by special Command, Printed by William Du-Gard, by appointment of the Council of State: and are to be sold at the Sign of the Ship at the New Exchange, 1652). A noteworthy study in the tradition of private roads, private police forces, and private ownership of courts.

Orders Appointed to bee executed in the Citie of London, for setting Roges and idle persons to work and for relefe of the poore. (London: John Daye, dwelling over Aldersgate, 1580). [Title page bears text of Proverbs 16 and Psalm 61.] A captivating study of social security legislation in England and its effects upon the level of unemployment.

Sir John Fortescue, A learned commendation of the politique lawes of England; wherein by most pitthy reasons and euident demonstrations they are plainely proued farre to escell as well the Ciuile lawes of the Empiere, as also all other lawes of the worlde, wyth a large discourse of the difference betwene the ii gouernements of kindomes; whereof the one is onely regall, and the other consisteth of regall and politique administration conjoyned. Written in Latine aboue an hundred yeares past, by the learned and right honorable maister Fortescue knyght, lorde Chauncellour of England in the time of King Henry the vi, And newly translated into Englishe by Robert Mulcaster. (London: R. Totell, 1573). A learned commendation of pitthy reasons and eudent demonstrations which has been plainely proued farre escelled by its advertising agency.

Newe Indiuidualist Reuiewe, A pitthy journall of euident articulles thoughtfully and thought-provokingly written on indiuidualist ideas and proposals by some of the leading conservative and libertarian writers of today and tomorrow—articulles like those in the issue you have just read.

—Ludwig Von Mises

VOLUME 3, NUMBER 3, AUTUMN 1964

THE CONSERVATISM OF RICHARD M. WEAVER

1. THE SOUTHERN TRADITION

2. THE HUMANITIES IN A CENTURY OF THE COMMON MAN

REFLECTIONS ON THE LOSS OF LIBERTY

GEORGE J. STIGLER

CLASSICAL LIBERALISM AND TRADITION

RALPH RAICO

Vol. 3, No. 3

35 cents

THE CONSERVATISM OF RICHARD M. WEAVER
The Foundations of Weaver’s Traditionalism
	3	JAMES POWELL
The Southern Tradition
	7
The Humanities in a Century of the Common Man
	17	RICHARD M. WEAVER
Reflections on the Loss of Liberty
	25	GEORGE J. STIGLER
The Fusionists on Liberalism and Tradition
	29	RALPH RAICO
H. L. Mencken and the American Hydra
	37	WILLIAM H. NOLTE
New Books and Articles
	47

NEW INDIVIDUALIST REVIEW is published quarterly by New Individualist Review, Inc., at Ida Noyes Hall, University of Chicago, Chicago 37, Illinois.

Subscription rates: $2.00 per year (students $1.00).

Copyright 1984 by New Individualist Review, Inc., Chicago, Illinois. All rights reserved. Republication of less than 200 words may be made without specific permission of the publisher, provided NEW INDIVIDUALIST REVIEW is duly credited and two copies of the publication in which such material appears are forwarded to NEW INDIVIDUALIST REVIEW.

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Associate Editors • Robert M. Hurt • John P. McCarthy

Robert Schuettinger • John Weicher

Editorial Assistants • J. Michael Cobb • James Powell

James Rock • Avis Vidal • Jameson Campaigne, Jr.

Burton Gray • Thomas Heagy • Robert Michaels

EDITORIAL ADVISORS

Yale Brozen • Milton Friedman • George J. Stigler

University of Chicago

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University of Freiburg		Wabash College

COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY REPRESENTATIVES

UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
Stephen Sala

BALL STATE COLLEGE
Geoffrey Scott

BELOIT COLLEGE
Alfred Regnery

BROWN UNIVERSITY
Grant F. Shipley

BRYN MAWR COLLEGE
Sheila Bunker

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
A. Thadeus Perry

UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE
John M. Tobin

DE PAUW UNIVERSITY
David Prosser

UNIVERSITY OF DETROIT
George McDonnell

DUKE UNIVERSITY
Robert B. Fisher

EARLHAM COLLEGE
David Lindsey

GROVE CITY COLLEGE
A. Bruce Gillander

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
David Friedman

UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO
Robert D. Brown

INDIANA UNIVERSITY (Bloomington)
Karl K. Pringle

INDIANA UNIVERSITY (Indianapolis)
Janis Starcs

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
Larry F. Glaser

UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY
James G. Otto

KNOX COLLEGE
Kip Pencheff

LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY
William Thomas Tete

LOYOLA UNIVERSITY (Chicago)
William Ford

MANHATTAN COLLEGE
Stephen J. Kerins

MIAMI UNIVERSITY (Ohio)
Thomas R. Ireland

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
Jeffrey Jay Weiser

OCCIDENTAL COLLEGE
Goetz Wolff

OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
John Charles Neeley

PACIFIC COAST UNIVERSITY
Ernest Talaganis

PROVIDENCE COLLEGE
Raymond LaJeunesse

PURDUE UNIVERSITY
Ted Sigward

QUINCY COLLEGE
Michael J. Hill

REGIS COLLEGE
Herbert C. Liebman, III

SOUTHERN ILL. UNIVERSITY
Thomas Cannon

STANFORD UNIVERSITY
Rossman Wm. Smith, Jr.

SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY
Irwin H. Rosenthal

TEXAS A & M UNIVERSITY
Steve Thurman

TUFTS UNIVERSITY
William G. Nowlin, Jr.

VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY
Peter Chamberlain

WABASH COLLEGE
Ronald Rettig

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
R. P. Johnson

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN
Theodore Cormaney

WILLIAMS COLLEGE
Thomas Ehrich

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN (Milwaukee)
Wells H. Perkins

YALE UNIVERSITY
Bill Dennis

•

UNIVERSITY OF FRANKFURT
Werner Krebs

OXFORD UNIVERSITY
Robert Schuettinger

*The Conservatism of Richard M. Weaver**

With the death of Richard M. Weaver last year, American traditionalism lost one of its most respected and sensitive representatives. Besides being a professor of English at the University of Chicago for many years, he was the author of two books which gained him wide regard as a conservative critic of modern society and culture: Ideas Have Consequences and The Ethics of Rhetoric. His works display the distinctive character of his thinking and his concern for values shared by few of his fellow intellectuals. . They have contributed a great deal to the intellectual renaissance of American conservatism in the widest sense. We are pleased, therefore, to be able to present two of his unpublished articles, with the kind permission of his brother-in-law, Mr. Kendall Beaton, and Mr. Louis Dehmlow, the executor of his literary estate.

[* ] Robert M. Hurt is an Associate Editor of New Individualist Review.

[1 ] Problems raised by rate regulation are covered in the preceding two articles. FCC rate regulation is often as exotic as that of the ICC and CAB, as is indicated by a recent report in the Wall Street Journal: “The FCC found that both companies were earning about 3% on their private telegraph services and ordered [!] them to boost rates so that AT&T would earn about 7¼% and Western Union about 9%.” January 30, 1963.

[2 ] My suggested solutions, as well as much of my background material, are taken largely from an article by R. H. Coase which this writer considers a classic of applied economic theory: “The Federal Communications Commission,” Journal of Law and Economics, October, 1959, pp. 1-40. I recommend this article for those who wish a more sophisticated development of the issues presented here.

[3 ] Wilcox, Public Policies Toward Business (Homewood, Ill.: Irwin, 1959), pp. 697-701. These figures are based, first, on the rather arbitrary Commission allocation of available airspace among broadcasters and other domestic and governmental users, and, second, on the Commission’s fixed rules determining how many frequencies each station may use. As Coase suggests, op. cit., different methods of allocation might result in a substantially different number of stations. These figures merely demonstrate that there will be a substantial limitation on the number of stations.

[4 ] Both these corollaries are echoed today by Chairman Minow in his famous Wasteland Speech before the National Association of Broadcasters: “Your license lets you use the public’s airwaves as Trustees for 180,000,000 Americans. The public is your beneficiary. If you want to stay on as Trustees, you must deliver a decent return to the public—not only to your stockholders.” “For every hour that the people give you—you owe them something. I intend to see that your debt is paid with service.” Vital Speeches, June 15, 1961, p. 533, 535.

[5 ] “The Commission’s licensing function cannot be discharged, therefore, merely by finding that there are no technological objections to the granting of a license. If the criterion of ‘public interest’ were limited to such matters, how could the Commission choose between two applicants for the same facilities, each of whom is financially and technically qualified to operate a station? Since the very inception of federal regulation of radio, comparative considerations as to services to be rendered have governed the application of the standard of ‘public interest, necessity or convenience.’ ” National Broadcasting Co. v. U.S., 319 U.S. 190, 217 (1943).

[6 ] “The Scandal in TV Licensing,” Harper’s Magazine, September, 1957, p. 79, 84.

[7 ] Duncan v. U.S., 48 Fed 2nd 128, 132, 133 (1931).

[8 ] FCC Docket #967, June 5, 1931, quoted from Coase, op. cit., p. 9.

[9 ] Trinity Methodist Church, South v. F.R.C., 62 Fed 2nd 850, 852 (1932).

[10 ] Mayflower Broadcasting Co., 8 F.C.C. 330, 340 (1940).

[11 ] Editorializing by Broadcast Licensees, 13 F.C.C. 1246, 1250 (1949). The fairness doctrine was devised by the FCC and should not be confused with the “equal time rule,” which was written into the 1927 Act and requires stations to give equal time to all political candidates. This rule raises separate problems not dealt with here.

[12 ] Smead, Freedom of Speech by Radio and Television (Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press, 1959), p. 50 et. seq., and Wilcox, op. cit., p. 713.

[13 ] In re Petition of Robert Scott (FCC release 96050) July 19, 1946, quoted in Smead, ibid, p. 61.

[14 ] Representative Charles J. Kersten demonstrated typical Congressional tolerance: “Atheists have no more standing to ask equal time with religious programs over the air than violators of the moral law would have the right to expound immoral ideas on an equal basis with time granted to those who defended the moral law.” Quoted from Smead, op. cit., p. 62.

[15 ]New York Times, August 12, 1962.

[16 ] The Commission recently held up a renewal for a General Electric station because of the anti-trust suit against G.E. Wall Street Journal, June 16, 1961. After heated hearings, J. S. Love was granted a license in Mississippi even though he openly ignored the state’s prohibition law as a hotel keeper, a law which was such a dead letter that the state also taxed the sale of liquor. Brown, infra, n. 17, p. 647.

[17 ] The cases mentioned here are discussed at greater length in an article by Prof. Ralph S. Brown, “Character and Candor Requirements for FCC Licensees,” Law and Contemporary Problems, Autumn, 1957, p. 644 et. seq.

[18 ] WBNX Broadcasting Co., 12 F.C.C. 805 (1948).

[19 ] The Wasteland Speech again. Vital Speeches, June 15, 1961, p. 533, 534, 537.

[20 ]Wall Street Journal, August 4, 1962.

[21 ] A typical example of Minow doubletalk: “[We do not] contemplate any invasion by the Commission of the programming function of the broadcasters. However, we are equally determined that every broadcaster to whom we issue a license shall make an honest, sincere effort to serve the public interest.” Wall Street Journal, January 24, 1962.

[22 ]New York Times, June 28, 1962. Fortunately several Tory government spokesmen have indicated their disapproval of the report.

[23 ] In a pre-Minow statement, “Network Programming Inquiry Report and Statement of Policy,” 25 Federal Regulations 7291 (1961), the Commission, Commissioner Hyde dissenting, laid down the following categories as essential to a balanced schedule: (1) Opportunity for local self expression, (2) Development and use of local talents, (3) Programs for children, (4) Religious programs (possible constitutional question?), (5) Educational programs, (6) Public affaris programs, (7) Editorialization by licensees (remember the fairness rule), (8) Political broadcasts, (9) Agricultural programs, (10) News programs, (11) Weather and market reports, (12) Sports programs, (13) Service to minority groups, (14) Entertainment programming. (p. 7295) There is a strong indication that all these must be included in a successful application prospectus; cf. Nebraska Law Review, June, 1962, p. 826. And failure to carry out the program set forth in the prospectus is sufficient grounds for refusal to renew a license.

[24 ] “The Big Squeeze,” Saturday Evening Post, November 11, 1961, p. 62.

[25 ]Wall Street Journal, March 20, 1962, and March 22, 1962. Minow places great store by such complaints: “We received substantial complaints from the three major religious faiths and other citizens requesting a chance to comment on local service [in Chicago]. I say to you frankly and positively; we will not ignore such complaints and neither should you.” New York Times, April 4, 1962.

[26 ] “An End to Laissez Faire?” Saturday Review, March 24, 1962, p. 35, and New York Times, July 26, 1962. The hearing examiner in the case stated that a Commission decision to uphold him would “help signalize abandonment by the Commission of a laissez faire policy of regulation in the field of programming.”

[27 ]Nebraska Law Review, June, 1962, p. 824.

[28 ] Even when attempting to attract the largest audience, an advertiser will often cater to minority tastes: an historical documentary might receive a higher numerical rating than a western because there are so many westerns competing for those who prefer westerns to historical documentaries. And an advertiser may prefer a select audience even if smaller; farm appliance dealers would cater to farmers and soap manufacturers to housewives. In a few cases advertisers are concerned with the “stamp of quality” for their product which they hope will be derived from a high quality show. The “Hallmark Hall of Fame” is a good example.

[29 ] Cf. Tribune Co. v. Oak Leaves Broadcasting Station (Cir. Ct., Cook County, III., 1926), cited in Coase, op. cit., p. 31. The operator of a station was held to have established a sufficient property right, acquired by priority, to bar a later established station from causing any interference.

[30 ]Op. cit., n. 2.

[31 ] In the case of non-pay TV and radio, the direct consumers are advertisers rather than the audience, and the problems brought about by the inability of listeners to weight their votes would still exist if airspace was auctioned.

[32 ] Full utilization of ultra high frequencies, which can be expected in the future, will more than double the number of television stations and will consequently lessen the need for rigorous rationing. It is possible that there will be airspace available in many areas for more stations than the area will support economically. At present UHF is not fully utilized, largely because most television sets are not equipped to receive it (although in other ways UHF is inferior to VHF). FM broadcasting was slow in becoming established for the same reason, and market pressures will undoubtedly increase the use of UHF just as it did FM. This process will be accelerated by the recent law which requires television manufacturers to adapt all sets to UHF.

[* ] Otto von Habsburg is the present head of the House of Habsburg. He is a member of the Mt. Pelerin Society and a keen student of current international affairs, and has contributed numerous articles on historical and political topics to scholarly journals.

[1 ]Vertreibungsverluste (Wiesbaden, 1958), p. 325 ff.; p. 355.

[2 ]Encyclopedia Americana, vol. VIII, p. 383.

[3 ] No. 19 (May, 1947), p. 23.

[4 ]Pravda Zvitexila (Prague, 1947), p. 207.

[5 ] Stuttgart, 1958, p. 378 ff.

[* ] Robert Cunningham is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of San Francisco. He received his Ph.D. from Laval University and is the author of articles in Mind and other philosophic journals.

[1 ] Freedom is a word with many meanings: Isaiah Berlin tells us that over 200 have been recorded by historians of ideas. I have given one of them, and when I use the word without qualification, “absence of initiated coercion” is sub-stitutable for it. I do not in so defining “freedom” wish to deny that there are other goods which ordinary usage in some contexts may justify calling “freedom,” “freedoms,” “liberty,” etc.; if one wishes to say that other “freedoms” are more valuable than the absence of initiated coercion. I shall be willing to hear him out—for in giving a definition I have proved nothing.

[2 ]Cf. Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1960), p. 120 et seq.

[3 ]Cf. F. A. Hayek, “Freedom and Coercion: A Reply to Mr. Hamowy,” New Individualist Review (Vol. I, No. 2).

[* ] John P. McCarthy is an Associate Editor of New Individualist Review.

[1 ] Edgar Holt, Protest in Arms, the Irish Troubles, 1919-23 (New York: Coward-McCann, 1961), p. 47.

[2 ] Michael Sheehy in Divided We Stand (London: Faber and Faber, 1955) argues that southern extreme nationalism following the decline of the Parliamentary Nationalist Party did more than anything else to insure the permanence of partition.

[3 ] Sean O’Faolain, “Fifty Years of Irish Writing,” Studies, Vol. LI, no. 201 (Spring, 1962), p. 97.

[* ] Robert L. Cunningham is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of San Francisco, and the author of numerous philosophical articles in scholarly journals.

[1 ] Cf. J. C. DeHaven, Some Economic Features of Public Education, p. 3ff. H. R. Bowen points out that price exclusion (unwillingness to pay for some benefit leads to exclusion from its use) is as impractical for the social benefits of education as for the benefits of national defense. Toward Social Economy (New York: Rinehart, 1948), pp. 172-3.

[2 ] Saul Padover, Jefferson (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1952), p. 196.

[3 ] Adapted from O. B. Johannsen, Private Schools for All (1959), p. 7.

[4 ] Cf. W. Gorman, “A Case of Distributive Justice,” in Robert Gordis, et al., Religion and the Schools (New York: The Fund for the Republic, 1959).

[5 ] Cf. esp. Milton Friedman, “The Role of Government in Education,” in Robert A. Solo, ed., Economics and the Public Interest (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1955), and Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), ch. 7; and V. Blum, Freedom of Choice in Education (New York: Macmillan, 1958).

[6 ] C. S. Benson, The Economics of Public Education (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961), p. 324: “There is evidence to show that high expenditures on education offer real, not fictitious, improvements in quality, and that there is no tendency for quality to level off as the support level goes up.” See also Lorne H. Woollatt, The Cost-Quality Relationship on the Growing Edge (New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1949).

[7 ] Cf. Arnold J. Toynbee, Study of History (London: Oxford University Press, 1934), Vol. IV, pp. 196-97. The degree of seriousness of the danger is no doubt a function of the degree of unified federal control. The federal government in the United States, according to Clayton D. Hutchins of the U. S. Office of Education, is currently spending $2.5 billion annually to support educational programs of various sorts.

[8 ] It is perhaps worth noting that we should be grateful that the firing of the Russian Sputnik shook the confidence of educators and their clients alike that educational problems were, in the main, licked.

[9 ] Cf. F. A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960), pp. 380-81.

[10 ] For an excellent analysis, cf. Friedman, op. cit.; and for an interesting sketch of the philosophy behind, and the working of, the “Virginia Plan,” see Leon Dure, “The New Southern Response: Anatomy of Two Freedoms,” Georgia Review, Vol. XV, No. 4, 1961, and his “Individual Freedom v. ‘State Action,”’ Virginia Quarterly Review, Summer, 1962; for criticism of the plan see H. C. Dillard, “Freedom of Choice and Democratic Values,” in the same issue of VQR. For data on the working of the plan, see “The Freedom of Education Plan,” in The Reporter, Oct. 11, 1962.

[11 ] “Resegregation,” according to the estimates of some Southern educators, has brought about a state of affairs in which there are more all-Negro schools in the South now than there were before the U. S. Supreme Court’s desegregation decision of 1954—the desegregation order has led to less mixing of races than before. Cf. U. S. News and World Report, December 4, 1961, pp. 86-7.

[12 ] DeHaven, op. cit.; in Benson’s opinion: “there is a lack of genuine diversity in educational programs and practices.” But “. . . without diversity it is extremely difficult to test whether some innovation in method or staffing pattern is efficient. . . . Lack of diversity would seem to prevail on two counts. First . . . the public schools are local monopolies and hence cannot in fairness make any kind of radical change which would be repellent to some group of parents. Second, invention and innovation normally cost money. They are processes involving risk, in the sense that the ‘payoff’ is uncertain, with respect to whether any good thing will occur, and, if so, when it will occur. It follows that expenditures on development, broadly considered, are hard to defend against the attacks of the zealous skeptic. But school authorities, as we have said, must continually be ready to defend expenditures against the opposition (a) of non-parents and (b) of parents who are quite satisfied with the existing program.” Benson, op. cit., pp. 326-27.

[13 ] One may now go to the principal or to the superintendent with complaints, but as school districts become larger, access to the administrator becomes more and more difficult. And as Benson says, “. . . physical access to the office of the administrator is not equivalent to access to the man.” Ibid., p. 228.

[14 ] “He can work through cumbrous political channels to promote change. As anyone who is familiar with schools knows, change will be slow. There is reason to suspect that change in public schools is necessarily slow by the fact of public operation. In short, measurable change will occur only after the parent’s child has passed beyond that part of the program with which the parent was dissatisfied.” Ibid., p. 325.

[15 ] Cf. Procter Thomson. “Free Public Education,” School Review, 1955.

[16 ] Cf. Paul R. Mort and Francis G. Cornell, Adaptability of Public School Systems (New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1938).

[17 ] Benson, op. cit., pp. 327-28.

[18 ] Hayek, op. cit., p. 109.

[19 ] Cf. F. Lilge, “The Politicizing of Educational Theory,” Ethics, April, 1962; and C. Bay says: “It is the ability to resist manipulation I wish to see increased, and this ability can best be developed in institutions in which not impartiality but controversy is fostered. . . . On this score I swear to the wisdom of Socrates.” The Structure of Freedom (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1958), p. 98.

[20 ] John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1947), p. 108.

[21 ] Thomson, op. cit.

[22 ] Benson, “Rebuttal,” op. cit., pp. 328-29. First italics mine.

[23 ] The educational tax level would tend to rise to the level at which those parents who constituted a majority of the whole population voting on educational funds would pay no additional subsidy to the schoolmaster.

[24 ] Hayek, op. cit., p. 90.

[25 ] Cf. Zachariah Montgomery, “The School Question” (Washington: Gibson Bros., Printers, 1886), esp. p. 45 ff.

[26 ] Hayek, op. cit., p. 283.

[27 ]Atlantic Monthly, April, 1961, p. 43.

[* ] Bruno Leoni is a Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Pavia. He is the author of Freedom and the Law, and the editor of the scholarly journal Il Politico. This essay was translated from the Italian by William Campbell, an American student studying under Professor Leoni at Pavia.

[1 ] W. Friedman, Law in a Changing Society (London: Stevens, 1959).

[2 ] The phenomenon concerns not only the countries of continental Europe (where, as is well-known, the “will of the prince” has been repeatedly regarded as the fount of the law), but also the Anglo-Saxon countries, where it used to be maintained, at least up to the beginning of this century, and still is in part, that the “prince” (today we should say “parliament,” and through it the government, when the parliament delegates to it the necessary powers) is not so much the creator of the law as the guardian of justice, which the judges administer in the prince’s name, but in full independence of his personal will.

[* ] Israel M. Kirzner is an Associate Professor of Economics in the School of Commerce at New York University. His published books are The Economic Point of View and Market-Theory and the Price System, just published by Van Nostrand.

[1 ] See J. M. Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1936), p. 379.

[2 ] For some recent examples of this widespread belief, see Karl de Schweinitz, “Free Enterprise in a Growth World,” Southern Economic Journal, October, 1962; Stephen A. Marglin, “The Social Rate of Discount and the Optimal Rate of Investment,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February, 1963; review by Joan Robinson, Economic Journal, March, 1963, p. 125.

[3 ] For examples see Paul T. Homan, Albert Gailord Hart, and Arnold W. Sametz, The Economic Order (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1958), p. 10.: George J. Stigler, The Theory of Price (New York: Macmillan, 1952), p. 4; Richard H. Leftwich. The Price System and Resource Allocation (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1960), p. 20; see also Frank H. Knight, The Economic Organization (New York: Kelley, 1951), pp. 12-13.

[4 ] Peter J. D. Wiles, Price, Cost and Output (Oxford: Blackwell, 1956).

[5 ] J. M. Montias, “Planning with Material Balances in Soviet-Type Economies.” American Economic Review, December, 1959, p. 982.

[6 ] See, e.g., the paper by de Schweinitz cited above, n. 2, for statements concerning the necessity to abrogate freedom for growth purposes.

[7 ] See J. de V. Graaff, Theoretical Welfare Economics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957), p. 104.

[8 ] Marglin, op. cit., p. 103.

[9 ] See Otto A. Davis and Andrew Whinston, “Externalities, Welfare, and the Theory of Games,” Journal of Political Economy, June, 1962.

[10 ] We use Gross National Product (GNP) figures for our purposes here, but other similar figures are open to similar criticism. Of course nothing in these remarks refers to the use of such figures with due awareness of their limitations.

[11 ] See P. T. Bauer and B. S. Yamey, The Economics of Underdeveloped Countries (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), Chapter II, for an excellent survey.

[12 ] See E. Malinvaud, “An Analogy Between Atemporal and Intertemporal Theories of Resource Allocation,” Review of Economic Studies, June, 1961, pp. 148-150, for a sophisticated critique of the “rate of growth” concept.

[13 ] This, of course, vitiates growth comparisons between the U. S. and the U.S.S.R.

[14 ] Among the more serious theoretical problems raised by the use of GNP figures as indices of growth are: (a) the aggregation of market values which individually reflect only marginal decisions and valuations; (b) the extent to which production for investment should be reflected in these measures. See J. Bonner and D. S. Lees, “Consumption and Investment,” Journal of Political Economy, February, 1963; see also P. A. Samuelson, “The Evaluation of ‘Social Income.’ Capital Formation and Wealth,” in F. A. Lutz and D. C. Hague, eds., The Theory of Capital (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1961), p. 56.

[15 ] See the large welfare literature on these points, especially Murray N. Rothbard, “Toward a Reconstruction of Utility and Welfare Economics,” in Mary Sennholz, ed., On Freedom and Free Enterprise (Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1956).

[16 ] In the more important realm of metaphysics, things are of course quite different.

[17 ] Kenneth Arrow, Social Choice and Individual Values (New York: John Wiley, 1951).

[18 ] All this is well recognized in the literature. See I. M. D. Little, A Critique of Welfare Economics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957, 2nd edition), p. 85; see also Jerome Rothenberg, The Measurement of Social Welfare (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1961), pp. 52-58; Richard S. Weckstein, “Welfare Criteria and Changing Tastes,” American Economic Review, March, 1962; Malinvaud, op. cit., pp. 146-147.

[19 ] See citations (and references to other writers) in de Graaff, op. cit., p. 101.

[* ] Murray N. Rothbard, a consulting economist in New York City, is the author of several books on economic subjects: Man, Economy and State (2 vols.), The Panic of 1819, and, most recently. The Great Depression.

[1 ] Quoted in Robert F. Williams, Negroes with Guns (New York: Marzani and Munsell, 1962), p. 22.

[2 ]New York Post, May 13, 1963.

[3 ]New York Daily News, July 26, 1963.

[4 ]New York Daily News, July 25, 1963.

[5 ] James E. Jackson, “A Fighting People Forging New Unity,” The Worker, July 7, 1963.

[6 ]Hammer and Steel Newsletter, June, 1963.

[* ] Robert Schuettinger is an Associate Editor of New Individualist Review. He is currently doing graduate work at Oxford University as an Ear-hart Fellow.

[1 ] It would be tiresome to list all of the various euphemisms tossed up in order to avoid using the Anglo-Saxon word “backward.” I have come across twelve such circumlocutions in my reading, and I invite the reader to try to top my score.

[2 ] The most widely-discussed exposition of this view is W. W. Rostow, The Stages of Economic Growth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960). In Man, Economy and State (Princeton, N. J.: Van Nostrand, 1962), Murray N. Rothbard remarks, “Perhaps some of the popularity of this work may be due to the term ‘take-off,’ which is certainly in tune with our . . . space-minded age.”

[3 ] F. A. Hayek, in The Constitution of Liberty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960), notes (p. 367) that, “However strong a case there may exist in such countries for the government’s taking the initiative in providing examples and spending freely on spreading knowledge and education, it seems to me that the case against over-all planning and direction of all economic activity is even stronger there than in more advanced countries. I say this on both economic and cultural grounds. Only free growth is likely to enable such countries to develop a viable civilization on their own capable of making a distinct contribution to the needs of mankind.”

[4 ] This article, then, is inspired by some personal observations, but I would not want to say that it is based on them. It seems to me that man-hour for man-hour invested, more important and reliable information is to be derived from printed sources (assuming they are well-chosen, of course) than is to be derived from so-called “firsthand experience.”

[5 ] If this seems like too modest a goal, it might be helpful to recall that a man who was to serve twice as President of the United States (Dwight Eisenhower) confessed that he could not explain to Marshal Zhukov why democracy was better than Communism. It is really not as easy as it may sound at first.

[6 ] Or republicanism, if any reader has a marked preference for that word.

[7 ] See footnote 3 for F. A. Hayek’s comment on the proper role of governments in furthering education as the foundation for economic growth.

[8 ] As a matter of fact, Chester Bowles has recently returned from one of his journeys and has presented a report urging that foreign aid be decreased or denied to those countries which fail to meet minimum standards of co-operation and self-help.

[9 ] These, of course, are the areas where the Peace Corps has been concentrating its efforts. Would that the rest of our foreign aid program would profit by this example.

[10 ] This despite the fact that many Liberal writers on economics, including the last Ambassador to India, John Kenneth Galbraith, have recently said that what the underdeveloped countries need is more private enterprise, not less. See Galbraith’s new book, Economic Development in Persepective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962).

[11 ] Most objective political scientists would estimate that, at the very most, three or four Latin American nations are not governed by dictators.

[12 ] Milton Friedman, in his “Foreign Aid: Means and Objectives,” (Yale Review, Summer, 1958, p. 505) cites a classic example of this sort of “planning”: “The Pharaohs raised enormous sums of capital to build the Pyramids; this was capital formation on a grand scale; it certainly did not promote economic development in the fundamental sense of contributing to a self-sustaining growth in the standard of life of the Egyptian masses. Modern Egypt has under government auspices built a steel mill; this involves capital formation; but it is a drain on the economic resources of Egypt . . . since the cost of making steel in Egypt is very much greater than the cost of buying it elsewhere; it is simply a modern equivalent of the Pyramids, except that maintenance expenses are higher.”

[13 ] As F. A. Hayek (op. cit., p. 366) points out: “Much of this endeavor . . . seems to be based on a rather naive fallacy of the post hoc ergo propter hoc variety: because historically the growth of wealth has regularly been accompanied by rapid industrialization, it is assumed that industrialization will bring about a more rapid growth of wealth. This involves a clear confusion of an intermediary effect with a cause. It is true that, as productivity per head increases as a result of more capital in tools, and even more as a result of investment in knowledge and skill, more and more of the additional output will be wanted in the form of industrial products. It is also true that a substantial increase in the production of food in those countries will require an increased supply of tools. But neither of these considerations alters the fact that if large-scale industrialization is to be the most rapid way of increasing average income, there must be an agricultural surplus available so that an industrial population can be fed.”

[1 ] A review of Economics of the Free Society by Wilhelm Roepke (Chicago: Regnery, 1963), 273 pp.

[* ] Sam Peltzman is Business Manager and Associate Editor of New Individualist Review.

[2 ] An example of this may be found on page 149 where Roepke claims: “It is quite possible . . . that a fall in agricultural prices may provoke an increase rather than a reduction in cultivation as a consequence of each farmer seeking to compensate for price declines by raising his output.” A farmer can compensate for a price decline by an increase in output only if the costs of the additional output are at least covered by the receipts from the additional output at the new, lower price. However, if such a situation in fact obtains, the farmer would surely have been able to cover the costs of the added output by the receipts from its sale at the original, higher price. He would thus have expanded his output previous to any fall in price. Unless Roepke is willing to claim that farmers are less interested than others in making money, the quoted assertion is sheer nonsense.

[3 ] Keynes, John Maynard, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1936), p. 313.

[* ] F. A. Hayek, an editorial advisor of NEW INDIVIDUALIST REVIEW, is Professor of Political Economy at the University of Freiburg and Honorary President of the Mt. Pelerin Society. He is the author of several books, including The Road to Serfdom, The Counter-Revolution of Science, and, most recently, The Constitution of Liberty.

[1 ] The concept of order has recently achieved a central position in the social sciences largely through the work of Walter Eucken and his friends and pupils, known as the Ordo-circle from the yearbook Ordo issued by them. For other instances of its use, see: J. J. Spengler, “The Problem of Order in Economic Affairs,” Southern Economic Journal, July, 1948, reprinted in J. J. Spengler and W. R. Allen, eds., Essays on Economic Thought (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1960); H. Barth, Die Idee der Ordnung (Zurich: E. Rentsch, 1958); R. Meimberg, Alternativen der Ordnung (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1956); and, more remotely relevant as a treatment of some of the philosophical problems involved, W. D. Oliver, Theory of Order (Yellow Springs, Ohio: Antioch Press, 1951).

[2 ] For a more extensive treatment of the problem of the scientific treatment of complex phenomena, see my essay, “The Theory of Complex Phenomena,” in Mario A. Bunge, ed.; The Critical Approach: Essays in Honor of Karl Popper (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, Inc., 1963).

[3 ] For a helpful survey of the abstract/concrete relation and especially its significance in jurisprudence, see K. Englisch, Die Idee der Konkretisierung in Rechtswissenschaft unserer Zeit (Heidelberg: Abhandlungen der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.-Hist. Klasse, I, 1953).

[4 ] All three independent discoverers of biological evolution, Darwin, Wallace, and Spencer, admittedly derived their ideas from the current concepts of social evolution.

[5 ] Cf., e.g., the examples given by Denys Hay, Polydore Vergil (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952), ch. 3.

[6 ] Cf. F. Heinimann, Nomos und Physis (Basel: F. Reinhardt, 1945).

[7 ] On the inseparability of the genetic and the functional aspects of these phenomena as well as the general relation between organisms and organizations, see Carl Menger, Untersuchungen uber die Methode der Sozialwissenschaften und der politischen Oekonomie insbesondere (Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1883), which is still the classical treatment of these topics.

[8 ] Cf. Michael Polanyi, The Logic of Liberty (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1951), p. 159.

[9 ] On the whole issue of the relation of unconscious rules to human action, on which I can touch here only briefly, see my essay, “Rules, Perception, and Intelligibility,” Proceedings of the British Academy, v. 48 (1962-63).

[10 ] There thus seems to be some truth in the alleged original state of goodness in which everybody spontaneously did right and could not do otherwise, and to the idea that only with increased knowledge came wrongdoing. It is only with the knowledge of other possibilities that the individual becomes able to deviate from the established rules; without such knowledge, no sin.

[11 ] Cf., e.g., E. Bodenheimer, Jurisprudence, the Philosophy and Method of Law (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962), p. 211.

[12 ] See Carl Schmitt, Die drei Arten des rechtswissenschaftlichen Denkens (Hamburg: Schriften fur Akademie fur deutsches Recht, 1934).

[* ] B. R. Shenoy is Director of the School of Social Sciences at Gujarat University, in Ahmedabad, India. He is a contributor of numerous articles to scholarly journals, and a member of the Mt. Pelerin Society.

[* ] Michael F. Zaremski, who holds a B.A. from Iona College, is a graduate student in the Department of Public Law and Government at Columbia University.

[1 ] A. K. Chiu, “Agriculture,” in China, edited by H. F. MacNair (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1946), p. 468.

[2 ] J. L. Buck, Land Utilization in China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1937), pp. 267-69.

[3 ] Sripati Chandra-sekhar, Red China: An Asian View (New York: Praeger, 1961), p. 24.

A former Chinese government and party official estimates that “conservatively speaking, in each of the more than two hundred thousand villages (hsiang) in China, an average of five landlords were killed and another five were terrorized into committing suicide. This totals more than two million people.” Chow Ching-wen, Ten Years of Storm (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1960), p. 105.

Another observer states: “The Communists issued many sets of figures when it came to summing up the results of their Campaign against Counter-revolutionaries in October 1951. In some areas they gave precise numbers while in others their figures were vague and suggested inadequate statistical work. . . . It is worth while to cite a few of the figures given by the Communists in order to point up the intensity of violence involved in this campaign.

“In his report on the situation in the Central-South Region on 21 November 1951, Teng Tzu-hui stated that from the winter of 1949-50 until November 1951 more than 1,150,000 ‘native bandits’ had been inactivated and that 28 percent of these or 322,000 had been executed. These were figures for only one of the six major administrative areas in China. The Southern Daily in Canton reported that in the ten months between 10 October 1950 and 10 August 1951, 28,332 ‘criminals’ had been executed in Kwangtung province. The figures published for October 1949 to October 1950, before the drive to eliminate counter-revolutionaries got under way in earnest, are illuminating: a total of 1,176,000 were liquidated in four of the six administrative regions, according to the chairmen of the regions involved. Yet according to statements of Communist officials themselves the campaign did not assume major proportions until 1951. By 1952 Peking no longer reported in such detail on the number of people liquidated; the figures were being used against the Communists on the world propaganda front.

“It is on the basis of these incomplete figures and others provided by the Communists that the Free Trade Union Committee of the American Federation of Labor estimated in October, 1952 that the Mao regime had been responsible for the deaths of more than 14,000,000 people over the previous five years. This total included more than 5,000,000 executed in the rural areas and more than 2,600,000 executed as ‘bandit agents’ or counter-revolutionaries. It is difficult to keep in mind that these are human beings rather than mere statistics. . . .” Richard L. Walker, China Under Communism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955), pp. 218-19.

[4 ] Chandra-sekhar, op. cit., p. 25.

[5 ] Cheng Chu-yuan, Communist China’s Economy, 1949-1962 (South Orange: Seton Hall University Press, 1963), pp. 132-33.

[6 ] Paul S. H. Tang, Communist China Today (New York: Praeger, 1957), p. 301.

[7 ]Ibid.

[8 ]Wall Street Journal, March 10, 1960.

[9 ]London Times, September 27, 1960.

[10 ]Wall Street Journal, February 2, 1962.

[11 ]New York Times, September 20, 1962.

[12 ] An editorial on the subject of Russia’s withdrawal of assistance appeared in the People’s Daily (Peking) on July 19, 1963. It revealed that the ordering home of all the Soviet experts and the cancellation of numerous Russian contracts was totally “unexpected” and inflicted “incalculable difficulties” on China’s economy.

[13 ] Cheng Chu-yuan, op. cit., p. 142.

[14 ]Ibid.

“By 1959 the People’s Daily sensed something was wrong: ‘During the past one or two years, the alkalization of much soil in many irrigated areas in the North is spreading.’ But the canal digging went on. In 1960, the same paper again reported that saltpetre, which normally appears only in serious drought, had affected millions of acres of farmland. In April 1961, the Kuang Ming Daily said: ‘Arable land is continuously shrinking and alkali soil spreading.’ In August 1962, the Party’s authoritative mouthpiece Red Flag reported that nearly 20 million acres of farmland in Manchuria and in the North, Northwest and Central China had turned alkaline, and that the peasants were unwilling to till the swiftly alkalizing farms which soon became barren land, thus reducing the already limited arable land of the country.” Valentin Chu, Ta Ta, Tan Tan (Fight Fight, Talk Talk): The Inside Story of Communist China (New York: Norton, 1963), pp. 66-67.

[15 ] Cheng Chu-yuan, op. cit., pp. 159-60.

[16 ]Ibid.

Newsweek reported on March 27, 1961, that the average rice ration in the commune, originally 12 ounces daily, had then been cut to 4 or 5 ounces, about one bowlful. It added that visitors reported that the people blamed the government, not nature, for this situation.

Writing of more recent conditions, Valentin Chu commented: “A normal man in Asia requires a minimum of 2,300 calories of food daily. In food-short India, according to a United Nations survey, the daily average food intake is 2,000 calories. In pre-war China it was 2,234 calories. In Taiwan it is 2,310 calories. Most of the peasants in Communist China, who must work long hours at hard labor, have been getting about 1,000 calories.” Chu, op. cit., pp. 72-73.

[17 ] Robert Loh, as told to Humphrey Evans, Escape from Red China (New York: Coward-McCann, 1962), pp. 369-70.

[* ] Bruce Goldberg did graduate work in philosophy at Princeton and Oxford Universities, and is presently an instructor in philosophy at the University of Illinois. He is a contributor to Analysis and The Journal of Philosophy.

[1 ] I am, of course, ignoring those areas of psychology where mathematics is becoming increasingly important, e.g., learning theory.

[2 ] Originally published in 1948. I have used the paperback edition published by Macmillan in 1962.

[3 ]Science and Human Behavior (New York: Macmillan, 1953), p. 5.

[4 ] For joy, Skinner tells us, is a productive emotion (page 102). This seems hardly to be a “scientific” remark. What is it for an emotion to be “productive”? Is the view something like that joyful people do more productive work than sad ones? Is there any empirical evidence for this? Skinner provides no experimental evidence; and even if one were to make a historical survey which showed that joyful people are, in fact, more productive than sad people, that wouldn’t establish the claim. Their greater productivity might be attributable to all sorts of other factors. But Skinner probably doesn’t mean anything as precise as this. More likely, all he means by calling joy a productive emotion is that he has a favorable attitude towards joy and not towards sorrow. In any case, nowhere are any criteria presented for what is to count as a productive emotion.

[5 ] There have been exceptions in the history of philosophy. Hume and John Stuart Mill accepted both determinism and free will. But this is no place for a historical account of the question.

[6 ] Cf. P. F. Strawson, Freedom and Resentment (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), p. 187.

[7 ] It should be clear that by uncontrolled society I don’t mean one in which there is no control over behavior. Obviously, a society which prohibits certain acts (e.g., murder) is to that extent controlling behavior. By an uncontrolled society. I don’t mean an anarchic one. This is not the place to enter upon an extended discussion of the semantics of “control.” For my purposes it is enough to say that by an uncontrolled society I mean one in which the sorts of control that are characteristic of both Walden Two and Soviet society are absent—thought control, thoroughly propagandized education, etc.

[8 ] Of course, in this discussion I am accepting something which I spent much time earlier in denying, viz., the possibility of creating people to order.

[9 ] While Skinner seems to be vague enough on how questions of value are decided in Walden Two, he is at least candid in admitting that science plays no part in the decisions. “The philosopher in search of a rational basis for deciding what is good has always reminded me of the centipede trying to decide how to walk. Simply go ahead and walk! We all know what’s good, until we stop to think about it” (page 159). If Skinner means by this that universal agreement can be obtained on what is and what is not good, his statement is obviously false—suffering, promiscuous sexual behavior, etc., are things concerning the goodness of which a Christian and a hedonist might well disagree. But even assuming that we could cleanly separate good from bad things, this would in no way solve the problem of the behavioral engineer. Since he is charged with arranging the value systems of the members of society, and since very often a choice must be made among good things (at the very least because they can’t all be realized at the same time), he must have a good idea of the order in which goods are to be ranked among themselves—which are the more important ones, and which the less. This problem scarcely permits of a ready answer.

[10 ] Of course, a free society does not have goals set for it in the same sense that Skinner’s controlled society would, for there is no one in a position to set goals for everyone else. All we mean here by the goals of a free society are the ends which, in considering it, we would like it to achieve.

[11 ] It ought to be pointed out, incidentally, that the “scientific” nature of Walden Two is always stated rather than shown. That is, Frazier’s defense of a particular practice in his community takes the form not of the presentation of any pointer readings, but simply of suggestive inferences about human beings, much as might occur in a conversation between two educated persons with an interest in “what makes people tick.” (Sometimes, indeed, it descends somewhat beneath this level—see for instance his argumentation concerning the irrelevancy of history, with his vague but impossioned championship of “the Now” [page 239].) But, presumably, Skinner is not calling for the acceptance of any of the particular practices he describes (for which he gives no “laboratory evidence” at all); it is rather the method which he wants us to accept.

[12 ] F. A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960), p. 28.

[13 ] Much the most profound discussion of these problems which I have come across is contained in Hayek’s Constitution of Liberty. An interesting discussion of Skinner’s social ideas from a psychological point of view is provided by Carl R. Rogers, “The Place of the Individual in the New World of the Behaviorial Sciences,” in On Becoming a Person (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961), pp. 384-402.

[* ] Ralph Raico is an Editor-in-Chief of NEW INDIVIDUALIST REVIEW.

[1 ] The most complete biography of Constant in English is that of Elizabeth Schermerhorn, Benjamin Constant: His Private Life and His Contribution to the Cause of Liberal Government in France (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1924).

[2 ] Published in Hannover, in 1813. It is reprinted in Edouard Laboulaye, ed.; Cours de Politique Constitutionnelle (Paris: Guillaumin, 1872), vol. ii, pp. 129-282. There have been several English translations of On the Spirit of Conquest, and the reader may consult this book for a good example of Constant’s political and social thought.

[3 ] The inability of many of the French liberals to fully appreciate the operations of a spontaneous, undirected social order has been emphasized by F. A. Hayek; cf. his stimulating essay, “True and False Individualism,” in Individualism and Economic Order (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948).

[4 ] Cf. Henri Michel, L’Idee de l’Etat.

[5 ]Cours de Politique Constitutionnelle, vol. ii, p. 559.

[6 ]Commentaire sur l’ouvrage de Filangleri (Paris: Dufard, 1824), p. 70.

[7 ]Ibid., pp. 55-70.

[8 ]Ibid., p. 14.

[9 ]Cours, vol. i, p. 9.

[10 ]Ibid.

[11 ]Ibid., vol. ii, p. 541.

[12 ]Ibid., p. 545.

[13 ]Ibid., vol. i, pp. 10-11.

[14 ]Ibid., p. 280.

[15 ]Ibid., p. 146.

[16 ] Emile Faguet, Politiques et Moralistes du Dix-neuvième Siècle (Paris: Société Française d’Imprimerie, 1891), p. 255.

[17 ] Harry K. Girvetz, The Evolution of Liberalism (New York: Collier, 1963), p. 105. In this passage, Prof. Girvetz goes so far as to include even “bills of rights” within the sweep of his Voltairian irony. Since he prefers to consider himself a “liberal,” his book turns out to be a good illustration of its own sad theme.

[18 ] Constant’s constitutional ideas are elaborated on in his Principes de Politiques and Reflexions sur les Constitutions et les Garanties, both reprinted in the Cours, vol. i, pp. 1-381.

[19 ] Georges Weill, La France sous la Monarchie constitutionnelle (Paris: Alcan, 1912), p. 5. As a rule, conservatives rejected democracy in the 19th century because of its connection with the French Revolution, and because they viewed it as part-and-parcel of the new-fangled liberal system. But the rivulet of conservative thinking which looked on democracy as a good tactic for depriving the liberal middle classes of predominance in the legislatures was sufficiently important to merit more attention than it has been given. Its chief practical consequence was the establishment of universal manhood suffrage in the Constitution of the North German Confederation, in 1867, by the Junker Bismarck, who was explicitly guided by the consideration just cited (cf. Gustav Mayer, Bismarck und Lassalle [Berlin: Dietz, 1928], pp. 33-39). The obvious fact that if the masses are anti-liberal democracy will be as much a peril to liberty as any other system is now forcing itself on the attention of even its more unreserved panegyrists, as they reflect on the civil liberties controversy in the United States; concern with this problem is sometimes put in the form of the question: “If put to a plebiscite, could the Bill of Rights gain a majority in America today?”

[20 ] Cours, vol. i, p. 55.

[21 ]Ibid., p. lxi.

[22 ]Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 170-171.

[23 ] Kingsley Martin, French Liberal Thought in the Eighteenth Century (London: Turnstile, 1954), pp. 136-37.

[24 ]Filangieri, p. 27.

[25 ] Cited in Georges de Lauris, Benjamin Constant et les Idées Libérales (Paris: Plon, 1904), p. 6.

[26 ]Cours, vol. ii, p. 172n.

[27 ] Sébastien Charléty, Histoire du Saint-Simonisme (Paris: Hachette, 1896), p. 54.

[* ] James Powell is a third-year student at the University of Chicago, majoring in economics and the history of ideas, and an editorial assistant of NEW INDIVIDUALIST REVIEW.

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Czecho-Slovakia and the USSR

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Education: Free and Public?

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