Vol. 17.2, February 1983

THE Libertarian Forum

Murray N. Rothbard, Editor

A MONTHLY NEWSLETTER

FEBRUARY, 1983

Box 341, Madison Square Station, New York, NY 10010

US-ISSN0047-4517

For President: Gene Burns

I bring tidings of great joy: We have a presidential candidate.

His name is Gene Burns, of Orlando, Florida.

At the last NatCom meeting at Orlando, on December 4-5, I first met Gene Burns by appearing on his radio talk show. I was impressed by the astuteness of his questions and his obvious sympathy with and knowledge of libertarianism. Then, at the banquet Saturday night, Gene delivered a magnificent, stem-winding speech that brought the entire audience to its feet.

Jocularly, without realizing how prophetic we were, some of us nudged each other and said, “Hey, what about him as a Presidential candidate?” And now, that dream has come true.

If you ask: “What about good old so-and-so for President?”, chances are excellent that good old so-and-so has already firmly refused the chance. They are all too tired, or too impecunious, or too whatever to make the grueling sacrifice of months of one’s life needed to make the race.

But Gene Burns is enthusiastic and rarin’ to go. He has been a radio talk-show host for eleven years, and well known in the Orlando area. He is mature, knowledgeable, charismatic, and a super speaker. Chances are you will get to meet him at your state convention. He has already addressed the Georgia LP convention and received a standing ovation. He has a dedicated and politically savvy staff, a staff that includes some of the top leaders in the Florida LP. He is of course familiar with the media and how it works. The Orlando Sentinel has already published a long article on the Bums candidacy. Qua candidate, he will run a great race.

But how is he ideologically—always a critical bone of contention? Well, I can report that Gene Burns has been vetted and catechized at great length, by some of the toughest and most ideologically rigorous people in the Libertarian Party, and he has come through with flying colors. He agrees enthusiastically with the entire national platform. He is sound in all areas. He is, if reason and justice prevail, the LP’s next Presidential candidate.

So far, Gene Burns has only one possible opponent, or quasi-opponent. The joker is that that antagonist is not a person but a committee: The Committee to Draft Ron Paul, headed by Crane hireling Chris Hocker. The heinous and degraded Crane Machine is desperate, its back to the wall. Having lost control of the Libertarian Party apparat, its fortunes sliding into oblivion, trapped in the last Bunker, it has only once chance left: The capture of the Presidential nomination. And so the Draft Paul boomlet.

As long as there was no candidate in the race, drafting someone, however remote, had a certain plausibility. But now we have a live candidate. It will be difficult to sell the LP on drafting a non-existing candidate when there is a live one eager for the race.

Hocker has been trying desperately to line up some people for the draft committee beyond the small circle of Crane Machiners. But he has had difficulty in specifying the scenario he has in mind. For Congressman Paul (a) is a Republican Congressman, and (b) while more libertarian than any other Congressman, he has a voting record spotted with numerous anti-libertarian votes. To presume to run for the highest nomination in the Libertarian Party, he would, at the least, have to do two things: change his affiliation from Republican to Libertarian, and pronto; and explain in detail how or whether he has changed his mind on these votes and other key issues and become a genuine libertarian with a capital L.

So far, Congressman Paul has given no indication of any willingness to run. So what do Hocker/Crane have in mind? Is Paul going to change his affiliation and explain his votes before the Presidential convention? If not, does the Crane Machine have the unmitigated gall to believe that Libertarian Party delegates will buy a pig in a poke? When there are candidate debates at the Convention, or at preceding state conventions, is Gene Burns going to have to debate an empty chair?

Rumors have, been circulating that are so monstrous that it is hard to credit them. They state that Crane/Paul are thinking of running Ron Paul for President on the Libertarian Party ticket, while at the same time running for reelection to Congress on the Republican ticket! (Texas uniquely has the “Lyndon Johnson law”, so named because Lyndon was able to run for Vice-President and Senate in 1960, and he won both races.) Libertarians welcome ex-Democrats and ex-Republicans into the Party (indeed, we’d better, since who else is there?), but we most emphatically do not welcome Democrats or Republicans who retain their party labels and affiliations and yet have the chutzpah to try to run on the Libertarian ticket.

So far the only thing the Crane Machine has come up with to attack Gene Burns is that he used to be a Democrat. Well, gee willikins! Whom do we want: Someone who used to be a Democrat and is now a 100.per cent Libertarian, or someone who used to be and still is a Republican?

I hereby offer unsolicited my favorite slogan (which I did not originate) for the Burns campaign: Gene Burns, the libertarian candidate.

The Crane Machine Revealed

Who are the Crane Machine, anyway? New readers have been asking us this question, and one reader wanted to know if a “Craniac” is some giant malign computer run by Crane out of Washington, D.C. No sir, our word for a Crane Machine member is “Craniac”, or, if we are feeling charitable that morning, “Machiner.”

Note: Being employed in a Crane-bossed institution does not necessarily make one a Machiner. A tipoff is whether or not said employee is active in the Libertarian Party, the institution closest to Boss Crane’s heart. A Crane employee who is active in the LP should be considered a Machiner, unless demonstrated otherwise.

Also note: the affiliations listed in parentheses may not be up-to-date. It is the essence of faithful Crane Machiners (those who would, in the immortal words of Chuck Colson, “walk over their grandmothers” if Crane gave the order) that they are slotted back and forth as they are needed in various Crane institutions, and in and out of various LP campaigns. Often they are “warehoused” for periods of time in one of these institutions. In short, the Crane Machine operates like a mini-multinational corporation, moving people in, out, and around. Also: some of the lesser Machiners are listed as “present whereabouts unknown”. I hasten to add that that means unknown to me, not that they have gone underground, although that would be a consummation devoutly to be wished. If we had the resources of Time magazine, we could track them down, and also print front and profile mug shots of all the Craniacs, but this article will have to do until a fuller profile comes along.

I Edward H. Crane III The Big Boss: capo di tutti capi. Main power base: Head of the Cato Institute, which moved from San Francisco to Washington, D.C. early in the Reagan Administration to be close to the Corridors of Power. Also, Boss of: Libertarian Review Foundation, and its publications Inquiry and Update; National Taxpayers Legal Fund; and the Crane Machine in the Libertarian Party. Formerly, boss of Students for a Libertarian Society, and formerly, National Chairman of the LP. Managed the LP presidential campaigns in 1976 and 1980.

---

II The Top Craniacs (In no particular order of rank)

Christopher (“Chris”) Hocker (Crane hireling; publisher of Inquiry, editor of Update. Recently brought in as editor of the latter to tone down the smearsheet. Former National Director of the LP, now NatCom member, head of Draft Ron Paul Committee.)

Howard (“Howie”) Rich (New York businessman. Top Craniac politico. Ran the disastrous Guida campaign for national chair in 1981, the equally disastrous Randolph campaign in 1982, and the likewise disastrous Northrup for Governor campaign in New York in 1982. Craniac straw boss on LP NatCom.)

Andrea Millen Rich (Wife of Howie. Proprietor of Laissez-faire Bookstore in New York, which has become a social center for New York Machiners. Banned the Libertarian Forum from the bookstore for being critical of the Crane Machine. NatCom member.)

Jule (“The Tool”) Herbert, Jr. (Highly paid Crane hireling. Runs the National Taxpayers Legal Fund in Washington. Former Alabama lawyer. Runs the District of Columbia LP with an iron hand. NatCom member.)

Leslie Graves (alias Leslie Graves Key. Crane hireling. Former editor, now reporter, for Update. NatCom member. Boss of the Wisconsin LP, based in Madison, now rumored to be suffering a revolt from the long-downtrodden Milwaukee forces.)

Gary Greenberg (Legal Aid lawyer, boss of the New York LP, of which he apparently aspires to be lifetime chairman. Suffering a widespread revolt against his leadership, headed by 1982 U.S. Senate candidate Jim McKeown.)

Tom Palmer (though young, long-time Crane devotee. Former Crane strawboss on SLS, now working for Crane’s sister—or rather cousinly—organization, Council for Competitive Economy, in Washington.)

Jim Johnston (economist for Standard Oil of Indiana. Craniac straw boss in the Illinois LP, NatCom member, and self-styled Parliamentarian).

III Quasi-Independent

Dick Randolph (A special category for the straw boss of the Alaska LP. Formerly State Rep, ran disastrous campaign for Governor in 1982. Turned his entire campaign over to the Crane Machine. One has the feeling, however, that Dick could someday leave the Machine. Is rumored to be suffering from revolt within Alaska LP.)

IV Lesser Craniacs

Kent Guida (Crane hireling. Used to be, and perhaps still is, working for both Update and NTLF. Came in third in three-man race for national chair in 1981, ran the calamitous Randolph campaign under Rich’s supervision. NatCom member. Former Maryland businessman.)

Roy A. Childs, Jr. (Crane hireling. Former editor of now defunct Libertarian Review. Crane-imposed keynoter at LP Presidential convention in 1979. Now “foreign policy analyst”—Has anyone ever seen any of his analyses?—at Cato.)

Eric O’Keefe (The Martyr. Former National Director of the LP; when ousted, went to Alaska to help Guida run the Randolph fiasco. Present whereabouts unknown.)

David Boaz (Crane hireling. Vice-President, Cato Institute. Research director, LP Presidential campaign, 1980).

V Minor Craniacs

Janet Nelson (Crane hireling at Cato. Ex-wife of Kent Guida.)

Kristina Herbert (Crane hireling at Cato. Ex-wife of Jule Herbert.)

Deb Haws (wife of Chris Hocker. Ex-O’Keefe aide at LP headquarters. Daughter of Minnesota LP bigwig Frank Haws. Present whereabouts unknown.)

Anita Anderson (Ex-Cato employee. Now rumored to be working at Laissez-Faire Bookstore.)

Dr. Ross Levatter (Young Ohio physician. Formerly Craniac straw boss in the Ohio LP. A national organizer in the 1980 presidential campaign. Writer and “philosopher.”)

Frank Horn (Computer person, now in California. Crane hireling as reporter for Update. Former top lieutenant in the Graves (Key) machine in the Wisconsin LP.)

Robert Capozzi (Ex-editor, Update. Present whereabouts unknown.)

David Lampo (Crane hireling at Cato. Ex-SLS operative.)

Paul Beckner (Helped run Randolph campaign in Alaska. Present whereabouts unknown.)

Celeste “Cissey” Webb (formerly Illinois LP bigwig, now rumored to be Crane hireling in D.C.)

VI Peripheral Craniacs, Some Now Inactive

These are mainly Craniacs who are—generally for career reasons—at present inactive in the Machine, but might be brought back by the Boss at any time.

Ray and Carol Cunningham (formerly top Craniacs—in California, on NatCom, and in the presidential campaign of 1980. Both are Connecticut engineers.)

Robert Costello (formerly in California, now working for free-market investment letter in Chicago.)

Milton Mueller (formerly head of SLS, when Crane-run, then presumably booted out for Left Deviation. But recently wrote a Cato leaflet. Present Machine status questionable.)

Jeff Friedman (formerly head of SLS, when Crane-run, then presumably booted out for Left Deviation. Student at Brown University. Present Machine status questionable.)

Jeff Riggenbach (Crane hireling. Head of Cato’s Bylines, radio commentary series. Inactive in LP, but can be trundled in for writing jobs, e.g. his hatchet job against the Mason campaign and for Guida in Libertarian Review, 1981.)

Bill Birmingham (Crane hireling. Ex-staff of Libertarian Review, now used occasionally by Update for hatchet-job writing assignments.

David Henderson (Friedmanite economist, ex-Crane hireling at Cato. Present employment, the White House. Therefore presumably inactive in the Machine, but recently wrote book review for Reason back at the old stand, attacking Austrian economics.)

VII Possible Craniac Defector

Bruce Majors (graduate student, D.C. Until just before press time, would have been listed as a leading youth member in Category IV. Reputed to have been straw boss at Update. Ran the disastrous Northrup campaign under Rich, 1982. Late information, however, spots Majors as possible defector from Machine. No present Machine employment.)

I apologize if I left anyone out. Will try better next time. New editions as needed.

Eubie Blake: RIP

by Mr. First Nighter

When I first saw this great man, this veritable phenomenon, play the piano he was 92 or 93 years old, making his mighty comeback. The wonder was not so much that one of the outstanding ragtime composers and pianists was still alive, and well, and kicking at 93. It was not just that he was spry, and alert, and sparkling, telling charming anecdotes and playing the piano and singing his songs. For O my countrymen, what playing!

I first saw Eubie on an all-ragtime program, the first half of which was played by young Joshua Rifkin, who has replayed much of the old ragtime repertoire. Rifkin was weak, drab, monotonic, although it was of course good to hear the old tunes again. Then, on the second half, out came Eubie. He went to the piano, and then . . . The power, the tone, the nuance! The power was unbelievable, and the grace and tone almost equally so.

Eubie was not only a ragtime composer and pianist. After the ragtime era ended, after World War I, Eubie moved on to become a great popular song composer. His most famous songs are the charming I’m Just Wild About Harry (1921) and the magnificent Memories of You (1930), one of the greatest popular songs ever written. Get the record of Eubie playing his own Memories of You in his early 90’s, and you’ll see what I mean, both about the playing and the song.

In his late 90’s, Eubie began to seem a bit frail. On February 7, 1983, Eubie Blake celebrated his 100th birthday, an event commemorated and well publicized in several events in New York City. Eubie was home ill, but he was able to watch some of the celebration on television and listen on radio. A few days later, this wonderful man was dead.

Eubie Blake is a testimony to what the human spirit can achieve. In a world filled with sin and sorrow and injustice, he makes one proud of the human race. God bless you, Eubie, and, to plagiarize Horatio, flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

Economic Notes

Flip-flop on Oil.

Hey—has anyone noticed the incredible flip-flop of the Establishment on the oil price question? For ten years we had been regaled, endlessly and ad nauseam, about the evil Arabs in OPEC, and how they caused a decade of terrible inflation, and how they have ruined the standard of living of everyone, and how maybe the good old USA should send troops in there and grab the oil before it’s too late, and how oil is going to run out any day now. Now, at long last, oil prices have started to slip, and the evil OPEC is falling apart, and you might ask yourself the question: The Establishment is happy now, right?

Wrong. Now what we are hearing is how terrible it is that OPEC, a fountain of oil stability, is falling apart, and how prices are falling (horrors!), causing depression and chaos in the undeveloped world which of course the good old USA is supposed to bail out.

So, here’s a question for all the mavens in the media: Tell us, what’s the good oil price, the price at which you will stop bellyaching, and at which the USA is not supposed to step in, at great expense, to save the day in some way or other? We await an answer.

Reaganomic Semantics.

The long-awaited Regan budget for fiscal 1984 is mainly remarkable for coining some more hoax words and phrases to cover up ugly reality. We had already suffered last year, from various euphemisms for tax increases, including “revenue enhancement”, “closing loopholes,” and “user fees” (for more than doubling federal gasoline taxes). The new budget now brings us the concept of “accelerated” taxes and spending—instead of increase, you see—and a spending “freeze” that is not a freeze, but merely an average increase of 5 percent. This is on top of 1981-82 tax and spending “cuts” which were really hefty increases.

Out of respect for the English language alone, we must all yearn for the good old days when a “cut” meant a reduction of a given number from the year before, and a “freeze” meant zero growth.

Were We Being Beastly to the Gipper?

In the early days of the Age of Reagan, when some libertarians and free-marketeers were under the illusion that Ronnie was at least moving the economy in the right direction, our lambasting of the Reagan Administration was chided by some right-wingers in our movement for concentrating on absolute numbers rather than on the rate of growth of the budget or the percentage of the GNP. OK, let’s look at the record. In the first three years of the Carter Administration, free-spending Jimmy increased federal spending at the rate of 11 per cent per annum. In the first three years of Reagan, our “free-market” President has increased spending at the rate of 13 per cent per annum. In 1980, at the end of Carter’s reign, the federal budget was over 22 per cent of the GNP. The Republican platform of 1980 thundered that this was too high, pledged a substantial reduction in the percentage. The percentage is now, in 1983, at 26 per cent.

‘Nuff said.

The Greenspan Sellout.

The disgraceful performance of the Greenspan Commission on Social Security is well known. Instead of moving toward the abolition of the biggest and cruelest racket in the government—the Social Security System—even instead of cutting benefits, the Commission moved in the opposite direction: toward raising taxes and dragooning more people into the system. The only benefit cut was a one-shot six-month suspension of cost-of-living benefits; everything else was more intensive and extensive coercion, including forcing non-profit organizations into the SSS.

How could Greenspan do it, when he’s supposed to be a Randian-libertarian, and wrote in the past calling for abolition of Social Security? Who knows? Except to point to Lord Acton’s famous maxim that “power tends to corrupt”; in Alan’s case, that tendency seems to have reached an aggravated rate.

But Greenspan’s report should not be surprising. During his zenith of power in the Nixon-Ford Administration, Greenspan was an Establishment conservative-Keynesian, and he continues so to this day. In contrast to Reagan, who once in a while slips into a free-market rhetoric at total odds with his statist policies, even Greenspan’s rhetoric has long ago ceased being in any sense libertarian. It is cautious, modulated, boring and statist—the very model of a modern Establishment economist.

Scorecard on Reaganomics.

As the old adage says, “you can’t tell the players without a scorecard”, and lack of a scorecard, or knowledge of the players, has led most people to believe that “Reaganomics” is a homogeneous lump that has a position and sometimes changes. Actually, Reaganomics has been the resultant of the pushes and pulls, the shifting coalitions and conflicts, among four sets of economists (a) for want of a better word, “old-fashioned conservatives”, or free-marketeers; (b) Friedmanite monetarists; (c) conservative Keynesians—the Shultzes, Burnses, Greenspans, Walkers—the folks that brought us the Nixon-Ford Administration; and (d) the Lafferite supply-siders, who are strong in the media, including Jude Wanniski, Irving Kristol, and the Wall Street Journal, and in politics have Rep. Jack Kemp as their point man. Up to the Republican convention, Reagan relied mainly on such unorthodox thinkers as Laffer, and Reagan’s rhetoric throughout his campaign was a blend of old-fashioned free market and supply-side. (Briefly, supply-siders want a big tax cut in the upper-income brackets to stimulate saving, and no reduction in government spending).

But at the Republican convention, Laffer and company were ousted, and all of a sudden, the old conservative Keynesian crowd, who had to a man backed Ford in the internecine struggles of 1976, roared back in and took over Reagonomics in coalition with the Friedmanites. Reagan I—which we may call Reaganomics from early 1981 until the middle of 1982—consisted of continuing to bamboozle Americans with the rhetoric of free-market + supply-side, while actually pursuing the policies of the monetarists, in tandem with the Keynesians.

As it became clear that monetarism had plunged the country into a depression marked by unusually high real interest rates, the Reagan Administration began a dramatic shift leftward, into Reagan II, a total takeover by the Keynesians. One by one, the few free-market or quasi-libertarian economists (Martin Anderson, Steve Hanke) were forced out of government, the supply-siders were booted out (Paul Craig Roberts, Norman Ture), and the monetarists were kicked out or shunted aside (Jerry Jordan, and the quiescence of Beryl Sprinkel). The accession to power and influence of George Shultz (virtually No. 2 man in everything), and Martin Feldstein symbolizes the final Keynesian victory. That victory, and the crushing of the Friedmanites, has been evident since July 1982, when the Federal Reserve embarked on a massive course of monetary inflation—now proceeding at 15 per cent per annum in M-1 and 30 per cent in M-2.

The Logic of Anarchy

by Carl Watner

In 1793, William Godwin wrote that “To dragoon man into the adoption of what we think right, is an intolerable tyranny.” Godwin asserted that the advocate of coercion is in a logically precarious position. Coercion does not convince, nor is it any kind of argument at all. The initiation of coercion is “a tacit confession of imbecility. If he who employs coercion against me could mould me to his purposes by argument, no doubt he would. He pretends to punish me, because his argument is strong; but he really punishes me because he is weak.”

The presupposition that the one who initiates violence is in a morally and logically indefensible position is the epistemological bias against violence. As Godwin added, “Force is an expedient, the use of which is much to be deplored. It is contrary to the nature of the intellect, which cannot be improved by conviction and persuasion. It corrupts the man that employs it, and the man upon whom it is employed.”

Historically, man’s original condition was anarchic. Government arose through conquest; through the initiation of coercion against the unwilling. Anarchism is the doctrine that the State, as a social institution, should not exist; that mankind should be allowed to return to its natural state of no government. Epistemologically, we must start out as anarchists, too. The advocate of the State must convince us that the positive belief in government is justified. The burden of proof is not on the anarchist to justify the absence of government. Logically, this burden of proof rests on the advocate of the State.

This point was made clear by those who argued against compulsory vaccination in late 19th Century England. They presented two independent arguments; (first), that the medical and scientific claims of the vaccinationists were wrong; and, (second), that the initiation of compulsion was wrong in and of itself. For them, the hallmark of civilization was the abandonment of legalized compulsion. As John Morley put it, “liberty, or the absence of coercion, or the leaving people to think, speak, and act as they please, is in itself a good thing. It is the object of a favourable presumption. The burden of proving it inexpedient always lies, and wholly lies, on those who wish to abridge it by coercion.

Without realizing it, the anti-vaccinationists hit upon the logic of anarchy. Whether their medical argument was correct or not was essentially beside the point. The epistemological bias against violence precludes the initiation of force. This prevents the existence of the State (or legislation) which is by its very nature invasive. If those who advocate the State must rely on force in order to bring it about, then their arguments are already tainted. The anti-vaccinationists claimed that “vaccination is either good or bad. Its goodness removes the need for compulsion and its badness destroys the right to coerce those who oppose it.” So for the State. It is as illogical as it is wicked. In the nature of the case, the more the government protects, the less need there is to make it compulsory. On the other hand, the less it protects, the more infamous is its compulsion. In their anxiety to coerce others, statists demonstrate their own lack of faith in the prescription which they assert affords complete protection from anarchy.

Recommended Reading: Monopoly and Anti-trust

Hey, what’s going on here? There has developed a drum-beating network of considerable scope for free-market books and writings; so why has almost nothing been said about the best book ever published on monopoly, competition, and anti-trust? This is Dominick T. Armentano, Antitrust and Monopoly: Anatomy of a Policy Failure (New York; John Wiley & Sons, 1982). Ten years before, Professor Armentano had published his excellent The Myths of Antitrust; now this earlier work has been thoroughly revised and updated. Not only that: Whereas in his earlier book, Armentano was a blend of Austrian and Schumpeterian, he is now solidly Austrian, which means that, in contrast to every other “free market” specialist on monopoly, Armentano is opposed to all government intervention in industry, including all anti-trust laws, which he realizes to be a monopoly-creating, rather than monopoly-fighting device. Armentano writes clearly, and his book is a judicious blend of theory and examination of the most important case law in the field. So why is the hard core, uncompromisingly free-market work of Armentano ignored, while mushy moderates carry the day? These days, that question has become purely rhetorical, but you can overcome this Blackout by rushing out and buying a copy today!

Margaret Mead: Justice at Last!

Once in a while, once in a very great while, justice really triumphs in this world. In the case of the incredibly pernicious Margaret Mead, it took justice six decades to arrive, but it has triumphed at long last.

Ideas have consequences in history, although they scarcely work in the direct Randian “From Kant-to-Hitler” manner. But Margaret Mead’s writings, beginning with her whopping best-seller, Coming of Age in Samoa in 1928 and continuing through her New Guinea tribal investigations of the 1930’s, moulded the hearts and character of literally generations of Americans. The Mead message is now, of course, all too familiar, but it struck Americans of the day with blockbuster force. The thesis was simple and captivating enough to permit the book’s being a best seller: The lovable natives of Samoa (and the Arapesh of New Guinea) are, in contrast to our own uptight and repressed Western civilization, happy, happy, happy. And why are they so happy—in contrast to the miseries of the West? For two reasons: first, the Samoans and the Arapesh of both sexes are culturally encouraged—and from an early age—to screw like rabbits. Since there is no monogamy, there is no jealousy, no frustration, no repression, no bourgeois possessiveness or insecurity. And second, and as a corollary, there is no private property in these peaceful happy tribes. Since every thing is tribally owned, there is no economic repression, no jealousy, frustration, bourgeois possessiveness or insecurity.

On the other hand, and by stark contrast, the Mundagamor tribe in new Guinea, like you-know-who, has a culture marked by monogamy and private property. And, by gum, the Mundagamor are uptight, miserable, warlike, uphappy. So there!

The not-so-implicit message of Margaret Mead was crystal clear: If only we Americans can cast off the incubus of monogamy, chastity, and private property, and adopt communism and screw-like-rabbits, we too could be happy, happy, happy. And all this in the Name, not of value-judgments, heaven forfend, but of Science itself. Science tells us, after all, that communal property + free sex equals peace, contentment, and happiness, and private property + monogamy spells the reverse.

In short, Margaret Mead was the pre-World War II version of the venerable dean of the polymorphous perverse of the New Left era, Herbert Marcuse. But there was a key difference. Margaret Mead wrote in clear and graceful English, and therefore her message spread wide and sunk deep into our consciousness. Marcuse wrote in incomprehensible, jargon-filled, neo-Hegelian Germano-English, in a style, as Mencken once wrote of Veblen, “that affected the higher cerebral centers like a constant roll of subway expresses.” He was therefore the fad of a day.

Margaret Mead, in short, was the living embodiment and carrier of the twin banes of the twentieth century, Marxo-Freudism or Freudo-Marxism. From the point of view of orthodox Marxists and Freudians, of course, the two doctrines are at sword’s point, but the great fashion of our century has been the odd mating of both of these assaults upon reason and individual dignity. Mead’s writings were also one of the banes of my college years, since the Meadian atmosphere was everywhere. The whole argument struck me as a geyser of pishposh, and besides I was ready to defend private property, romantic love, and Western civilization against the primitive communal life even if the latter was supposed to bring happiness. Since I did not know enough to refute the Argument From Samoa on its own terms, I dismissed not only La Mead but also anthropology per se as the devil’s cauldron and proceeded to other disciplines.

But now, Hallelujah! and at long last, anthropology itself is, with great pain and turmoil, overthrowing the Meadian vision. A book forthcoming in April from Harvard University Press is a slashing refutation of the Mead/Samoa myth from top to bottom: Derek Freeman’s Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth. It turns out that in the “science” of anthropology—unknown surely to any other alleged science, even social or behavioral—every anthropologist’s field work in primitive tribes is taken as gospel by everyone else. Professor Freeman, an Australian anthropologist, has actually been to, and lived in Samoa for years, and he found precisely the opposite there (and strong evidence of the opposite during the 1920’s as well). Instead of happy, happy, Samoa is marked by jealousy, tension, homicide, rape, competitiveness, and nobody screws like rabbits. (The news reports did not go into the private vs. communal property angle. As usual, sex sells more papers than economics. See the New York Times, January 31 and February 1.) It turns out that this widely beloved and influential “scientist” pretended to know all about Samoan life, even though (a) she didn’t know the language, and (b) she lived with white expatriates rather than natives. Dr. Freeman speculates that what misled Mead is that adolescent girls had a lot of naughty fun telling Margaret what she wanted to hear: That they were all screwing like rabbits and Having a Wonderful Time.

The reactions among the profession as recorded in the New York Times were fascinating. Since the book was published by Harvard and not by some backwater Australian press, it could not be laughed off by status-conscious academics. There was the usual left-liberal hysteria and charges that Freeman was an evil crypto-Lorenzian and hereditarian. But there was less of this than I had expected. Most affecting was the remark of a native Samoan professor of anthropology who exulted that at long last his native culture was portrayed accurately, and liberated from the nonsensical Meadian myth.

In fact, the dominant academic reaction was to cut their losses. At her death five years ago. La Mead was virtually canonized by the profession. Now, it turns out that her methods have long been under severe questioning, that everyone had great doubts. And then the retreat to the final line of defense: Yes, we see now (as we have seen for a long while) that she was wrong, but she provided a great contribution to anthropology for her time. As Professor Richard Basham of the University of Sydney put it: “A lot of us had already discounted the scientific work of Dr. Mead. To the extent that we assign her books, it is to show how anthropology has developed.”

No fellows, that copout is not good enough. For six decades, the gross distortions and ideological flim-flam of Margaret Mead were inflicted upon American life. The damage that she did was incalculable, and you are not going to slide out of it with “correct for her time” bushwah. The Christian tradition is correct: Forgiveness can only come after genuine repentance. And the one thing that academics, whatever their discipline, are never going to do is Repent.

But still justice has come at last. It is too bad that Margaret Mead is not alive to appreciate it.

Four Ways to Insure a Very Short Phone Conversation

I

Dr. Rothbard?

Yes.

Dr. Murray Rothbard?

Yes.

I’m a libertarian from _______. Do you have time for some constructive criticism?

II

Dr. Rothbard?

Yes.

There’s an inner contradiction on page 856 of your Man, Economy, and State, and I quote . . .

III

Dr. Rothbard?

Yes.

Dr. Murray Rothbard?

Yes.

We’re calling from this bar in _______. We saw your name on this neat poster. Are you really the “greatest living enemy of coercive government”? Hey, that’s great, hey, where do you stand on rent control?

I’m against it.

You’re against rent control? You must be some kind of nut. . .

IV

Murray Rothbard?

Yes.

Why did you write that pack of lies about me in your last issue?