Vol. 6.12, December 1974

A Monthly Newsletter

THE

Libertarian Forum

Joseph R. Peden, Publisher		Murray N. Rothbard, Editor
VOLUME VI, NO. 12	DECEMBER, 1974	US-ISSN0047-4517

THE EMERGING CRISIS

The United States is now entering a period of what might well be the greatest crisis in its history. While all the lineaments of the crisis are as yet unclear, it very much looks as if we will be plunged into the Greatest Leap Forward into collectivism since the New Deal—in fact, that we may soon be looking back upon the New Deal as a relative haven of freedom and free enterprise. The signs are ominous and everywhere. And while this means that the failures of statism are rapidly multiplying the “objective conditions” for a libertarian victory, they might be pulling swiftly ahead of the “subjective conditions”—the rapid expansion of libertarian numbers and influence. If this prognosis is correct, we are in for dire times indeed.

The core of the crisis is economic: rooted in the abject failure of the Keynesian Establishment to foresee or to solve the accelerating inflation combined with the deepening recession/depression. 1974 saw the recession spreading and deepening to such an extent that even our economic and political Pollyannas have been forced to concede the gloomy picture. The Keynesian chickens have come home to roost—as forty years of expanding money supply, federal deficits, and government spending have finally brought us to our accelerating inflationary recession. The nation’s economists, after helping to foist this Keynesian mixed economy upon the country, are rapidly despairing of being able to understand or prescribe for what is going on. Briefly, the Keynesian nostrum of government budget surpluses to combat inflation, with deficits to offset a recession, have totally run aground in the face of an economy where both are happening at the same time. Even the Friedmanite quasi-Establishment has been discredited in also not being able to predict or explain the inflationary recession.

The economic Establishment, in short, is in despair. But does that mean that they are at least having the grace to keep quiet? Anyone who knows economists knows also the futility of such a hope. No indeed: ignorant and, or totally hostile to the Austrian School, laissez-faire, hard money alternative to the present system, and of its great record in both prediction and explanation of the current mess, the Establishment economists are rapidly turning to full-fledged collectivism as the way out. Some weeks ago for example, the New York Times published an article noting that most economists, as well as businessmen and politicians, are again turning to comprehensive wage-price controls as the remedy for the inflationary recession. How can they do this, asked the writer, when the various Phases of price-wage control were scrapped less than a year ago as a total failure (controls that rang all the changes on freezes, stiff controls, and loose controls)? How? Because, the Times writer admitted, they don’t know what else to do. Clearly, the simple maxim of doing nothing if one doesn’t know what to do is unacceptable to all of these “enlightened” groups. And so, and even though wage-price controls have always failed and have only caused widespread hardship and shortages, and even though collectivism itself has had a black economic record in this century, it looks as if we are going to get it, full blast. When the Keynesians led the way to the inflationary mixed economy in the 1930’s, they proclaimed that they were thereby “saving American capitalism”. Only a few free-market voices warned that they were, instead, digging capitalism’s grave. And now that this “salvation” hasn’t been working, they are ready to scrap the free-market economy altogether. Thus, as Soma Golden writes in a year-end economic survey in the New York Times (Dec. 29, 1974), “1975 shapes up as a critical year, one that could usher in a fundamental transformation of the American economy towards increased government planning and controls. For if the economy fails to show a marked improvement by the end of the year, in terms of both prices and unemployment, traditional economic policies will seem to have failed.” Golden quotes the prominent moderate Keynesian economist. Otto Eckstein of Harvard, as stating that “we either work our way out of this mess in 1975, or we are in real trouble. If policy does not meet the challenge next year, we’ll have to examine how to change the economic system.” Golden goes on: “Some economists think that frustration with inflation and recession could lead to the nationalization of major industries or the placement of government officials on private boards of directors. Others point out that this is already happening as the Government—without any prior plan—has stepped into emergency situations to bail out such enterprises as the Franklin National Bank and passenger railroads in financial trouble. A few economists, including Harvard’s Nobel Prize winner (and long-time left-Socialist) Wassily Leontief, say some form of national commitment to planning will be the ultimate solution.” Golden concludes the Times article. “If the convergence of painful economic events continues, the United States eventually might be forced into some form of planned economy. According to Professor Leontief of Harvard—who at 68 is still some years ahead of his profession—‘It’s only a matter of time.’

This horrendous but possibly accurate prognosis is bolstered by the significant changes that have been at the same time occurring in both major political parties. In both parties, the moderate statists centers of gravity have been drastically shifted in a leftward and collectivist direction. In the Democratic party, the mid-term national party conference in Kansas City this December was marked by a complete takeover of the national party by extreme-leftist McGovernite forces. The centrist, old New Deal faction headed by the AFL-CIO and its political operative Alexander Barkan, was virtually driven out of the party as the Left triumphed in both form and content. In the form of internal party machinery, the left-wing quota system for “oppressed minorities” was permanently enshrined. This institutionalizing of the quota system for delegates received so much publicity that the monstrous content of the mid-term conference economic platform was overlooked in the media. What was overlooked was the fact that the national Democratic party is now committed to a comprehensive leap into collectivism. For this economic platform features the following: (1) “an across-the-board system of economic controls, including prices, wages, executive compensation, profits and rents”, by the federal government. Also included is a provision for compulsory “wage catch-ups” and “price rollbacks”. The Nixon control program was criticized for ineffective enforcement, so we can look to a vast bureaucracy to administer, and a Gestapo to police, the program, (New York Times, Dec. 8, 1974). (2) a new Reconstruction Finance Corporation, to bail out inefficient and bankrupt businesses; (3) stepped-up trust-busting to penalize “monopolistic” and efficient businesses; (4) comprehensive national health insurance, i.e. socialized medicine: (5) compulsory energy “conservation”, energy self-sufficiency, and, “as a last resort,” rationing of gasoline and fuel oil: (6) expanded “public service employment” and unemployment compensation—i.e. socializing the job market in a new WPA, and subsidizing the creation and maintenance of unemployment in the private market.

How is this monstrosity being greeted by the Republican party, and by the Ford Administration? The Republican Establishment is reacting by trailing the Democrats by a few months or years. After the idiocy of the “voluntary” WIN program and other absurd attempts to “fight inflation” and to “conserve energy”, the Ford Administration is moving rapidly toward the same collectivist programs. The same forces which only a year ago kept the price of gasoline and fuel oil below the free market price, thereby generating an artificial “shortage”, and which then reluctantly allowed the market to work, leading to a consequent and seemingly miraculous disappearance of the “shortage”, are now taking the reverse tack. Where as last year they claimed that oil and gasoline prices could not be allowed to rise because the “poor” would be hurt, they now call stridently for a whopping gasoline tax in order to compel an artificial reduction of energy consumption, to create an artificial scarcity and an artificially high price. Oil is being cartellized further by government, as oil import restrictions are being imposed again, and the talk is of further controls and allocations, as well as possible rationing. The excuse for this price-raising policy of artificial scarcity, for this cartellizing and protectionism, is that if we don’t impose such “sacrifices” and achieve energy “self-sufficiency” now, then the evil Arabs might do the same thing at some time in the future. In short: to avoid the possibility that the Arabs might cut our throats in the future, let us do so now! National health insurance and a guaranteed minimum income arc being revived by the Ford Administration, as is the threat of wage-price controls in 1975.

Or shall we say, the Rockefeller Administration? For the essence of the dramatic change in the Republican party is the post-Watergate crushing of the Cowboys (opportunistic, despotic, more pro-war, more economically conservative) by the Rockefeller wing of the Yankee Establishment. Almost the entire Cowboy political leadership, from the Nixon-Agnew administration leaders to John Connally, are either banished, in jail, or under indictment. After long-time Rockefeller man George Beall (of Maryland) pulled the plug in the Justice Department of ex-Rockefeller man Agnew (of Maryland), the scene was set for the creation of two vacancies in the Presidency, and for the assumption of Rockefeller to total power. The dismal spectacle of both liberals and conservatives rolling over and playing dead for Nelson, despite the revelations of vast monetary payments by Rocky and of his massive politico-economic power, simply reveals the extent of Rockefeller power and political influence. Rockefeller has been openly named domestic czar, and with long-time Rockefeller flunky Henry Kissinger in total charge of foreign policy, the administration now belongs to Rockefeller root and branch, while Ford bumbles along the ski slopes. In contrast to the nitwit Ford. Rockefeller is smart and tough, and a corporate statist to the very core: the emerging cartellizing policy on gasoline and oil is but one reflection of the total Rocky takeover in the works. The tiny list of Republican conservatives in Congress that dared to rise up and oppose Nelson’s appointment is a list of men of courage who refused to be bought.

The victory of Rockefeller has been followed close:;’ by a purging of the remaining Cowboys in positions of power. Once again, the key is the mysterious and dangerous Central Intelligence Agency, where the remaining Cowboy war-mongers and repressors of domestic dissent, in particular the Angleton clique, have been purged from the CIA. A leading member of the Cowboy set in the CIA. of course, is E. Howard Hunt, who is headed for jail. Barry Goldwater’s outlandish expostulation that domestic break-ins and spying by the CIA are necessary to keep tabs on the Ellsbergs is the last gasp of the Cowboy mentality in Washington. Replacing it will be the Yankee policy of “repressive tolerance”, with free speech and cultural liberty being allowed so long as they do not endanger the seats of power. Furthermore, the sudden rash of Assassination Revisionism (in the Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King cases) is an indication that the victorious Yankees are about to pull the plug openly on the possible assassination activities of the previously-ruling Cowboy forces.

The chances of a conservative third party to give voice to the right-wing populism of the large mass of all effectively disenfranchised populace remain dim—although this seems like the only short-run hope of putting some breaks on either the Rockefeller-corporate state or the left-Democrat forms of collectivism. While the conservative Human Events has been calling loudly for a third party, the veteran Judas Goats of National Review are split: with Bill Buckley clearly willing to accept the Rockefeller dispensation, and Senator Jim Buckley voting for the Nelson appointment: while Bill Rusher and George Will intensify their opposition to the new regime. In the meanwhile, the long-time National Review theoretician, statist James Burnham, has called for a $1.00 a gallon tax on gasoline to push for energy self-sufficiency, while “traditionalist” conservative Jeffrey Hart demands that all conservatives rally around the concept of a strong and mighty Presidency. While Ronald Reagan showed some signs of interest in leading a third party drive in ’76, this has been effectively undercut by his conservative financial backers in California, who are moving toward rapprochement with the Ford-Rockefeller team.

And speaking of Judas Goats, what has been the role of “libertarian”, top Randian Alan Greenspan in all of this? Unfortunately, Greenspan’s performance has more than confirmed the gloomy forecasts of the Lib. Forum editor. Two recent reports on Greenspan’s role: the New York Times noted that Greenspan has been active in trying to push a reluctant Jerry Ford into adopting a stiff gasoline tax; and now the authoritative Evans and Novak report that Greenspan opposed the heroic fight of Secretary of the Treasury William Simon against a huge expansion of government spending! In the fight of Simon against Roy Ash to limit the expansion of the federal budget, “Alan Greenspan, the President’s supposedly arch-conservative chief economic adviser, was considerably less ardent an economizer than Simon.” (Evans and Novak, Jan. 2, 1975). In consequence, the latest forecast is for a whopping $40 billion federal deficit. So much for our “Galtian” hero! And so much for Randian strategic theory and for the idea of Rand as a “libertarian”.

And so we libertarians are on our own. We cannot depend upon conservatives as allies, and we certainly cannot depend upon “divine” intervention from above: from “libertarians” enscouced in the cozy seats of Power. But in this gloomy picture there are a few rays of light; one of them being the truly revolutionary sentiment welling up among the masses in this country in opposition to the current public school system. In the mountain country of Kanawha County, West Virginia, a massive revolution from below is shaping up against liberal educationists trying to use the public school system to “lift up” the Fundamentalist, working class masses into the general American culture, to use the textbooks and public school teacher as a conscious “agent of social change.” In an article surprisingly sympathetic to the Fundamentalist revolutionaries, the left-liberal Paul Cowan (“A Fight Over America’s Future,” Village Voice. Dec. 9. 1974) points out that the fight against upper class liberals is in many respects a highly articulate and intelligent one. Cowan quotes the daughter of one Fundamentalist minister as saying: “We’re not asking that they teach Christianity in the schools. We’re just asking that they don’t insult our faith.” Where are the libertarians here? Why are there none lo aid in the battle and to point out the larger libertarian implications?

This lack, however, has been happily remedied in the other fierce struggle over the schools now raging in this country: in the fight of the Irish of South Boston against compulsory bussing. For one of the heroes of the South Bostonians in this battle has been the young libertarian (non-Irish) radio commentator Avi Nelson, whose radio program is alone in the media to support the people of South Boston in their opposition to bussing. Mass meetings in South Boston are ringing to the call of “Avi! Avi! Avi!” Indeed, it is possible that polarization around the public school system may become as explosive an issue throughout the country as the economic crisis; and in this set of issues, it is only the libertarians who have the answer that can cut through and resolve the numerous conflicts around bussing, textbooks, religion, sex, etc. that are rife in the public schools. And that answer, of course, is to abolish the public school system root and branch, and thereby to allow any groups of parents and students to have the schools, integrated or segregated, Fundamentalist or atheist, disciplined or permissive, that they respectively and individually prefer.

At any rate, the prospects ahead are grim, and it behooves all libertarians to rise up and redouble their efforts on behalf of their cause, their country, and their own liberties. For make no mistake: there is no place to hide. Your gold coins, your caves in the woods stocked with canned goods, your retreats to new islands, your Swiss bank accounts, are not going to be worth a tinker’s dam when the U.S.A. goes collectivist. If we stand up and oppose the trend, we might succeed in avoiding the holocaust, at the very least, we will be able to tell ourselves and our grandchildren that we did our best. If we do nothing but run to the cave, literally or metaphorically, we will deserve the scorn of present and future generations.

Libertarian Scholarship Advances

The year 1974 saw a notable acceleration of libertarian scholarship, with the burgeoning of high-level scholarly conferences and papers, and the finding and developing of a remarkable number of new young scholars in various libertarian fields. In June, the Institute for Humane Studies sponsored what was undoubtedly the first Austrian School economics conference since the days of old Austria, at Royalton College in Vermont. The conference brought together over fifty Austrians, most of them brilliant graduate students and younger professors, and the proceedings will probably be published in book form. (For a report on the conference, see Richard M. Ebeling. “Austrian Economics On the Rise”, Lib. Forum, October. 1974). A second Austrian School conference is now planned for the University of Hartford, for June, 1975, featuring papers by some of the best of the younger attendees at Royalton. One of these attendees, Dr. Gerald P. O’Driscoll, Jr., recently completed his doctoral dissertation at UCLA, on “Economics as a Coordination Problem: the Contribution of Friedrich A. Hayek.”

Libertarianism has also been “invading” the regular scholarly associations, hitherto almost impervious to such incursions. The annual November 1974 meeting of the Southern Economic Association at Atlanta. Georgia included an excellent session of papers devoted to “The Contribution of Ludwig von Mises.” Organized by Dr. Laurence Moss, of the University of Virginia, the session, chaired by Mises’ old student Fritz Machlup of Princeton and New York Universities, included papers by: Moss on the monetary theory of Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard on “Mises and Economic Calculation Under Socialism”, Professor Israel Kirzner of New York University on “Mises’ Theory of Capital and Interest”. Professor William P. Baumgarth of Wake Forest University on “Ludwig von Mises and the Theory of the Liberal Order,” and a commentary weaving together these varied themes by Professor Karen I. Vaughn of the University of Tennessee. It was truly a day to remember, and the session was one of the best attended at the meeting, even by several distinguished Friedmanites. The papers at the Mises session will hopefully be published in a separate volume. Also on the economics front in 1974, Murray Rothbard’s review of Israel Kirzner’s distinguished Misesian book, Competition and Entrepreneurship (University of Chicago Press) was published in the leading book review medium in the economics profession. The Journal of Economic Literature.

That libertarianism is truly in the scholarly air on a broad front is also shown by the fact that the prestigious American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy decided to devote its annual December meeting in Washington to the theme of “Anarchism.” Organized by Professor Robert Paul Wolff of the University of Massachusetts, whose book In Defense of Anarchism a few years ago made the topic respectable in the philosophy profession for the first time, the meeting was launched with a paper delivered by Murray Rothbard on “Society Without a State”. The session, organized in conjunction with the larger meeting of the American Philosophical Association, was filled to overflowing, as Rothbard defused some common anti-anarchist arguments, and went on to adumbrate how arbitration and the courts might work in an anarcho-capitalist society: comments on the paper were made by Christopher Stone, professor of law at the University of Southern California, and by David Wieck, of the philosophy department of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Wieck, a left-wing anarchist, burst into tears at the “hardheartedness” displayed by Rothbard in merely discussing the problem of murder in an anarchist society. The proceedings are scheduled to be published, in more elaborate form, by the ASPLP.

Interest among the philosophers present in the topic was keen, and the meeting and party afterward also brought together a host of brilliant young libertarians in the philosophy profession, ranging from limited-government to outright anarchist. Among the libertarian philosophers present were Professors John Hospers (USC) and Robert Nozick (Harvard) in the senior ranks, and, among the younger scholars (with dissertation topics, completed or pending, in parentheses), were: Professor Paul Sagal (Boston University), Dr. Eric Mack (Harvard University, natural rights). Dr. Jeffrey Paul (Univ. of Cincinnati, methodological individualism). Miss Bee Fletcher (USC. property rights). Roger Pilon (University of Chicago, negative freedom), and John T. Sanders (Boston University, anarcho-capitalism and the critique of arguments for government.)

Last but not least, the weekend of October 26-28 saw the convening of the Second Libertarian Scholars Conference in New York City. Organized by Professor Walter Grinder of the economics department of Rutgers University and Dr. Walter Block of Business Week, the conference drew several dozen invited scholars to hear a glittering array of papers in various fields of the libertarian discipline. Featured in particular was the first magnificent fruits of the researches of Professor Leonard Liggio, of the history department of City College, CUNY, into the origins of libertarian thought in nineteenth-century France, in particular the thought of J. B. Say. Charles Comte and Charles Dunoyer. Commenting were Murray Rothbard and a particular welcome and incisive paper by Professor Ralph Raico, of the history department of the State University College at Buffalo. Another highlight of the conference was the first fruits of the research of our publisher, Professor Joseph Peden of the history department of Baruch College, CUNY, into the life and thought of an important but neglected 19th century American libertarian, Charles O’Conor of the New York City bar.

Another session of the LSC was devoted to a fascinating debate on “Value-Freedom in Economics,” with contrasting papers put forth by Roy A. Childs, Jr. and Professor Israel Kirzner of NYU. Another highlight of the conference was the presentation of two chapters from a work in process by Walter Grinder and John Hagel III of Harvard Law School, applying Austrian economics and libertarian ruling class theory in a new and illuminating way to an analysis of the social reality of modern America. Bill Baumgarth of Wake Forest University department political science, delivered a paper on virtue, power and order, the historian Dr. R. Dale Grinder analyzed the role of the intellectuals in installing and perpetuating the hegemony of Power, and Murray Rothbard applied a theory of historical determination to the American Revolution (see Rothbard, “Economic Determinism, Ideology, and the American Revolution,” Lib. Forum, November, 1974).

With these inquiries into history of libertarian thought, political philosophy, philosophy of economics, history and sociology, a great time was had by all, and libertarian scholarship was greatly enriched by the papers and the meeting.

Women’s Lib: Goldberg Replies To Kinsky

By Steven Goldberg

Department of Sociology
City College, CUNY

(Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, the most heated controversies in the libertarian movement in the last few years have been generated by issues perhaps fascinating in themselves but only tangential to libertarianism: science fiction and women’s “liberation.” Let us hope that this does not mean that all too many libertarians are more interested in such peripheral matters than in liberty itself. At any rate, the current brouhaha began in April. 1974, when the Lib. Forum editor published a favorable review of a brilliant work by the young sociologist Steven Goldberg. The Inevitability of Patriarchy, in Books for Libertarians (now Libertarian Review.) Even though the BFL review was balanced by a negative review by Mrs. Riqui Leon in the same issue, a raft of hysterical letters bombarded the magazine, which then published the best of them, by Miss Julia White, along with my reply, in its June, 1974 issue. BFL then saw fit to publish two critical letters on my review and on the Goldberg book by Miss Lynn Kinsky, executive editor of Reason magazine. The first was in the same June issue, and the next, longer critique of my reply and of the book itself was in BFL’s August, 1974 issue. Since I felt I had had my say on the subject and could only repeat my rather lengthy June letter, I turned over the second Kinsky letter to Professor Goldberg, who is far more qualified than I on the subject, and deserves his chance to reply. Professor Goldberg’s reply was too long for Lib. Review’s space requirements, and so we are privileged to be able to publish it, in its entirety, below. I have just received a letter from a distinguished libertarian sociologist hailing the Goldberg book as a “sterling” work, and particularly admiring the “air of cold authority” with which he writes. That air is also a hallmark of the present article. I would also like to call our readers’ attention to the new paperback version of Goldberg’s The Inevitability of Patriarchy (William Morrow, 1974, $2.95), which includes over 60 additional pages, further explaining his theory and replying to the various critics of the hardcover original. David Gutmann, in his review of the original book in Commentary, hailed Goldberg as “at all times icily logical”, and there is no field of current controversy in which icy logic is more badly needed.)

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To the editor of BFL:

I have just come across Lynn Kinsky’s letter concerning my The Inevitability of Patriarchy (BFL, August). While Miss Kinsky’s criticisms are based on a most simplistic view of physiological dimorphism, it is a view that is held by many sociologists and I would be most grateful for the opportunity to respond.

At its most basic. Patriarchy argues that:

A. In all societies that exist or have existed males attain the overwhelming number of upper hierarchical positions (patriarchy), males perform those non-maternal roles and tasks—whichever they are in any given society—that are given highest status (male attainment), and dominance in male-female relationships—as evidenced in the emotions of males and females, the values and customs that reflect these emotional expectations, and the authority system in which nearly every woman comes under the authority of either her husband or brother—is associated with the male (male dominance).

B. The only explanation of this universality that is internally logical, concordant with the anthropological evidence, plausible, and inclusive of the physiological evidence is an explanation positing a physiological dimorphism that is such that males are more strongly motivated, by the environmental presence of a hierarchy or member of the other sex, to manifest whatever behavior is necessary in any given environmental setting to attain dominance in hierarchies and male-female relationships. It is irrelevant for our theoretical purposes whether one conceptualizes this emotional-behavioral differentiation in terms of a greater male “drive”, a lower male threshold for the release of dominance behavior, a greater male “need” of dominance, or even a weaker male ego that needs shoring up by attainment and dominance (just as it is unimportant whether one conceptualizes the physiologically-rooted motivating factors we loosely refer to as the “sex drive” as a “drive” or as a “need”).

C. We need not merely postulate the relevance of physiological dimorphism to emotional and behavioral differentiation (though the anthropological evidence and the requirements of parsimony would force us to do so even if there were no direct physiological evidence). The direct endocrinological study of humans and hundreds of controlled experiments on the effects of hormonal masculinization of female subjects of other mammalian species demonstrates beyond reasonable challenge that the testicularly-generated fetal hormonalization of the male central nervous system promotes early maturation of the brain structures that mediate between male hormones and outward behavior, thereby rendering the male hypersensitive to the later presence of the hormones that energize dominance behavior (“aggression”, as I use the term). Most of Patriarchy is concerned with the way in which socialization and institutions conform to, and exaggerate, the reality of the differentiated behavior that is rooted in dimorphism and that is observed by the population, but Miss Kinsky does not address this and I need not summarize that material here.

Miss Kinsky writes: “I am surprised at (Murray Rothbard) being so gullible as to believe Goldberg when he says there is such a thing as ‘status drive’ or ‘initiative’ able to be defined precisely and measured in such a way that a sociologist can say that this person has more of it than that person does or that this group has more of it than that group does—and that it can be shown to correlate with one and only one physical attribute. (And a nondichotomous one at that: both sexes produce both estrogen and testosterone with levels being roughly equal until puberty, and most men only draw slightly ahead of most women in testosterone production after age 18 or so!).

There is so much confusion and irrelevance in Miss Kinsky’s paragraph that it is impossible to straighten it out in just a few words. But I might make these points:

A. I do not use the term “status drive”, though I think that this term is satisfactory as a shorthand for the behavior that satisfies the “need” for attainment and dominance that is greater in the male and that is precondition for attainment and dominance. The important correlation is between testosterone and attainment (for the group of males as opposed to the group of females) and no one denies that this correlation is very high (i.e. upper hierarchical positions are attained almost exclusively by males in every society and in every society males have higher testosterone levels than females). The point at issue is not whether there is such a correlation, but whether there is the causal relationship I describe. (Incidentally, males have adult testosterone levels roughly twelve times those of females, not just “slightly” higher; a young adult woman with a testosterone level that would be normal for a male is in big medical trouble.)

B. More importantly, it is grossly simplistic to speak only of “hormone levels”. It is not merely the level of hormones, but the sensitivity of the CNS to the effects of testosterone—a sensitivity that is greater in males as a result of the fetal preparation of the male CNS by the testicularly-generated testosterone—that is relevant to dominance behavior.

C. Thus the fact that male and female testosterone levels are roughly equal before puberty does not demonstrate that the pre-pubertal male’s greater dominance behavior is owing only to socialization. (Moreover, even if dominance behavior were a function of only testosterone levels, this would still not indicate the irrelevance of dimorphism to children. Socialization reflects observation of adults and is preparation for adulthood. Adult males would be more “aggressive” even if only testosterone levels were relevant.)

D. It is quite true that both males and females have both testosterone and estrogen, but this no more demonstrates the irrelevance of hormones to dominance behavior than it demonstrates that women can grow beards (a male “ability” that derives from the male’s higher testosterone level). It is the ratio of testosterone and estrogen, and the sensitivity of the CNS, that is crucial.

E. Miss Kinsky makes the common, but fallacious, argument that it behooves me—if I am to argue for the determinativeness of physiological dimorphism to dominance behavior and to socialization relevant to dominance behavior—to demonstrate that hormone differences account for differing individuals’ dominance behavior. If Miss Kinsky means that it is incumbent upon me to show that males in upper hierarchical positions have higher testosterone levels than other males and that the physiological factor precedes the attainment, I would say that I think it not at all unlikely that males do vary in their physiologically-engendered propensity for dominance behavior, but that it is irrelevant to the theory advanced in Patriarchy whether they do or not. An analogy may make this clear: one can demonstrate the determinativeness of the male’s greater physical strength to the fact that all boxing champions are male (and to socialization of little girls away from boxing) without assuming that strength is determinative within the group of males. Indeed, boxing champions are not the strongest males; once the strength precondition is met, then other factors become relevant. Likewise, the emotional-behavioral differentiation of men and women that is observed by every population and that is reflected by, and exaggerated by, every social system, is sufficient to explain why every society is patriarchal. (Such a “sufficient” explanation is the purpose of Patriarchy.) Once the physiological precondition is met, as it is met by all hormonally-normal males, then other factors become determinative to dominance behavior. If Miss Kinsky is arguing that I must show a perfect correlation between maleness and dominance, then her argument is just silly. Obviously there are many exceptions (i.e. many women who manifest dominance behavior more strongly or more readily than many men). There are many exceptions even when we are considering characteristics that are almost purely physiologically-engendered (i.e. there are many women who are taller than many men). We should hardly be surprised to find exceptions when we consider a factor (dominance behavior) that is a result not only of physiological factors, but psychological, familial, and social factors as well. The theory presented in Patriarchy does not argue that every male is more aggressive than every female, but that, as a result of dimorphism and the emotional-behavioral differentiation it engenders, most males more strongly manifest dominance behavior and that this is observed by the population and is manifested in the socialization system and the society’s institutions.

Miss Kinsky does make an interesting point when she takes a behaviorist approach, but I do not find her arguments much more telling than her analyses of physiology. I have addressed the behaviorist criticisms at length in the paperback edition of Patriarchy and can here make only a few points:

Miss Kinsky argues that: (A) biologists consider dominance behavior only in terms of attack behavior, (B) we cannot invoke the presence of emotion in an explanation of animal behavior (because animals cannot report their feelings verbally), and (C) terms such as “male dominance” are operationally meaningless. (A) is simply incorrect. In the experimental studies hierarchy and dominance are the primary objects of study. Attack behavior is sometimes—but by no means always—the mode by which hierarchical position and dominance in male-female encounters is attained. (B) is the sort of argument that is invoked only when one dislikes the conclusions arrived at by an experiment. If the experimental animals were of a low order, then one might reasonably argue that the physiological factor is an instinct to fight and that emotion is an irrelevant consideration. But with non-human mammals—as with people—attack behavior (or other behavior leading to attainment or dominance) is not merely instinctive reaction, but action in the service of emotional predisposition (i.e. the “drive” or “need” discussed above). This predisposition is greater in males for the physiological reasons discussed above. Note that no one, least of all the feminist sociologist, denies the relevance of the emotional predisposition to dominance in human beings. Feminists describe at length the emotional and behavioral differentiation of males and females and then incorrectly, ascribe the causation of the emotional-behavioral differentiation primarily to social factors and socialization. This feminist “explanation” is no explanation at all, but merely a begging of the question: why does every society’s men and women associate dominance behavior with males, why does no society socialize its women towards dominance behavior, and why are the male and female emotions relevant to dominance not reversed in even one society? (C) is incorrect “Patriarchy” is defined in terms that would satisfy the most rigid behaviorist; one need merely count the numbers of men and women in hierarchies. “Male dominance” is identified by both the expressed expectations of men and women and by its manifestation in the authority system (relevant to male-female relationships); there is no society in which individuals’ emotions (as expressed in verbal accounts, proverbs, songs, legal expectations, etc.) fail to associate dominance with males and no society in which women do not come under the authority of a husband or brother (usually by law, always by social expectation). It is quite true that it is difficult to specify on a general level the actions that will lead to attainment and dominance in particular societies because—while willingness to sacrifice time, health, longevity, affection, familial life, and other sources of satisfaction will nearly always be relevant—the specific actions will be determined by the culture of the particular society. It is the underlying physiologically-generated need that is the motivational factor. This need finds its mode of satisfaction within the limits imposed by the particular culture. When fighting behavior leads to attainment, males will be more motivated to fight: when sacrificing one’s family to the corporation leads to attainment, then those individuals willing to make this sacrifice will mostly be men. Again: no feminist denies that such emotional differentiation exists; the feminist identifies such expectations and then attributes to them an etiology that ignores the one factor capable of explaining the universality of the emotional differentiation and the institutions that reflect them. (Miss Kinsky is incorrect in her implication that this analysis is tautological; it is falsifiable by the development or discovery of a single society in which the emotions of male dominance, and their manifestation in socialization and institution, are not present.)

Much of Miss Kinsky’s letter is an attack on sociological epistemology. I suspect that Miss Kinsky has not read Patriarchy and therefore believes that, because I am in a department of sociology, this attack somehow casts doubt on the book. In fact, Patriarchy is not “sociological” in any sense for which her epistemological criticisms would be relevant and I need not consider them here.

Boston Libertarian Dinners!

Two libertarian students at Harvard Law School have decided to organize a monthly dinner series to provide an opportunity for libertarians of all persuasions in the Boston area to meet on a regular basis. Following each dinner, a prominent libertarian will speak informally to the group, and field questions from the assembled guests.

The first dinner in the series has already been scheduled: on February 19 at 7:30 P.M. at the Hong Kong Restaurant, 1236 Massachusetts Ave, in Cambridge. Dr. Robert Nozick, professor of philosophy at Harvard University and author of the recently published work, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, will be the featured speaker.

To attend, mail $2 per person cover charge to the Center for the Study of Social Systems, P.O. Box 920, Boston, Mass. 02103. Guests who show up at the door without reservations will be required to pay a $3.00 cover charge. Each guest will order dinner and pay for it individually on an a la carte basis. This is a non-profit venture, and the cover charge will be used to pay for organizing expenses in arranging the dinner series, and to help pay transportation expenses for out-of-town libertarian speakers.

Libertarians who are unable to attend this first dinner but who want to be placed on the mailing list for invitations to subsequent dinners, are urged to contact the Center at the above address. Also, please feel free to suggest additional names and addresses of people who might be interested in receiving future mailings on these dinners.

Henry Hazlitt Celebrates 80th Birthday

It is indeed a pleasure to have the opportunity to honor Henry Hazlitt on his 80th birthday (November 28). One of the most distinguished and productive economists, writers and intellectuals in this country, Hazlitt at 80 looks and acts a full 20 years younger. A remarkable combination of a brilliant and incisive mind, an unusually clear and lucid style, and an unfailingly cheerful, generous, and gentle soul, Henry Hazlitt continues to be a veritable fount of energy and productivity.

No one, moreover, can match Henry Hazlitt in blending great and broad erudition with a clarity and simplicity of style that makes him a joy to read. The great stylist H. L. Mencken’s tribute to Hazlitt 40 years ago that he was the only economist that could be understood by the general public remains true to this day.

Why, then, does Henry Hazlitt remain grievously neglected by the nation’s intelligentsia, by the self-proclaimed intellectual elite that moulds so much of “educated” public opinion? Why does Hazlitt, for example, never appear, either as writer or reviewed author, in the highly influential New York Review of Books?

There are several factors that contribute to this shameful neglect of one of the country’s outstanding writers and thinkers. They all add up to his being totally out of the intellectual fashion of our day.

In the first place, he lacks either a Ph.D. or an academic post—those twin passports to intellectual and academic respectability. For a scholar to discuss or footnote a book by Hazlitt—no matter how important or scholarly—would be to lose caste and Brownie points in the status-anxious-world of academe.

Secondly, in an age of hyper-specialization, when the fashion is to aspire to be the world’s foremost expert on some extremely narrow and trivial topic, Henry Hazlitt simply knows too darn much about an enormous range and variety of subjects. Surely, then, he must be unsound.

Thirdly, Hazlitt writes too clearly; surely, someone who writes so that he can be generally understood lacks the “profundity” that only obscurantist jargon can provide. One of the main reasons for the popularity of Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes among intellectuals was precisely the staggering obscurity of their prose; only when a writer is obscure can a cult of followers gather around to serve as the semi-official interpreters and exegetes of the Master. Henry Hazlitt has always lacked that fog of incomprehensibility necessary to become celebrated as a Profound Thinker.

Fourthly, as an economist, Hazlitt has always been too honest to don the robes of soothsayer and prophet, to tell us precisely what the GNP or the unemployment rate is going to be in six or nine months.

Last but certainly not least, Henry Hazlitt has been totally outside the modern fashion in battling for many years as an uncompromising adherent of laissez-faire and the free market economy. If only Hazlitt had been a statist or Socialist, perhaps he would have been forgiven for his other intellectual sins. But not the greatest sin of all—of arguing, year in and out, for free-market capitalism.

In the course of his remarkably productive career, Henry Hazlitt has been distinguished as a journalist, editor, literary critic, philosopher, political scientist and, above all, economist. His major base has been in journalism.

Born in Philadelphia in 1894, young Hazlitt left college early to be a financial writer, successively for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Evening Post, and the Mechanics and Metals National Bank of New York. In 1921 he became financial editor for the New York Evening Mail. Then, during the 1920s, he expanded his horizons into the general editorial and literary fields, first as editorial writer for the New York Herald and the New York Sun, and then as literary editor for the Sun in the late 1920s, from which he went to the Nation as literary editor from 1930 to 1933. When H. L. Mencken left the editorship of the American Mercury in 1933, he was happy to select Hazlitt as his successor to that distinguished post.

After leaving the Mercury the following year. Hazlitt became an editorial writer for—mirabile dictu—the New York Times for the next dozen years. It was Hazlitt who largely accounted for whatever conservative tone the Times adopted during that era.

It was shortly after he joined the Times that an event occurred which would change and shape Hazlitt’s life from that point on. Reviewing the first English translation of Ludwig von Mises’ great work Socialism in 1936, Hazlitt was converted to a position of uncompromising adherence to free-market capitalism, and hostility to statism and socialism that would mark ail of his work from that time forward.

Hazlitt became a leading follower of the great Austrian, free-market economist, and was to become one of Mises’ closest friends and coworkers from the time that Mises emigrated to the United States during World War II.

It was as a leading “Misesian” that Hazlitt was to write the bulk of his more than a dozen books and countless journal and newspaper articles.

As the New York Times moved inexorably leftward, Henry Hazlitt departed to become weekly economic columnist for Newsweek magazine. There, for 20 years, from 1946-1966, Hazlitt, week in and week out, penned lucid and incisive defenses of the free market, private property rights, and the gold standard, as well as trenchant critiques of the evils of government intervention in the economy.

In countless radio and television debates, and on the lecture platform, Hazlitt carried on the battle against the growth of Big Government. Furthermore, he was co-editor-in-chief of the Freeman in its early years, 1950-53, when that magazine was a noble attempt to serve as a weekly periodical on behalf of the conservative-libertarian cause.

But it is his host of published books that will serve as an enduring monument to this great and much neglected man. The scope and merit are enormous: ranging from his first work on clear thinking, Thinking As a Science (1916, reissued in 1969), to literary criticism, The Anatomy of Criticism (1933).

Particularly important, both in quantity and quality, is his post-1936 or “Misesian” output. His first work in this period was a notable contribution to political science, A New Constitution Now (1942, and soon to be reissued; see HUMAN EVENTS, Nov. 16, 1974, page 10). This work, in which Hazlitt argued for the scrapping of the American Constitution on behalf of a European Parliamentary government, was not calculated to please Constitutionalist conservatives.

But whether or not one agrees fully with Hazlitt, he made an extremely important point which has taken on far more importance in these days of unbridled executive and presidential power. For he argued that the great defect of the American Constitution is that it permits runaway executive power, unchecked by Congress or the public.

A Parliamentary system could at least make the executive far more responsive to Congress, and serve as a check on executive tyranny. In the era of Watergate, there would have been no need for the clumsy impeachment process, since the President could have been removed far more easily and swiftly.

In 1946, Hazlitt published his most popular book, Economics in One Lesson, which remains to this day the best introductory primer to economic science. With his usual lucidity, Hazlitt set forth the merits of the free market, and the unfortunate consequences of all the major forms of government intervention, all of which continue to plague us today.

There is still no better introduction to free market economics than Economics in One Lesson. The “lesson” derives from the 19th Century libertarian French economist Frederic Bastiat, who was also distinguished for the clarity of his style: the difference between “what is seen” as a result of government intervention and “what is not seen.”

For example, if the government taxes the public to build housing, what is seen is the new housing, which may seem on the surface to be a net advance: what is not seen is what the public would have done if they had been allowed to keep their own money.

The following year, Hazlitt came out with his booklet, Will Dollars Save the World?, his dissection of the Marshall Plan and one of the first important critiques of the postwar foreign aid program. This was followed by his Illusions of Point Four (1950), on Truman’s boondoggle program of aid to what is now known as the “Third World.”

In 1951, Hazlitt turned to the novel form, publishing what is one of my own favorite parts of the Hazlitt canon, The Great Idea (1951, later reissued as Time Will Run Back, 1966). The Great Idea was roasted by critics as a novel, but I confess I enjoyed it thoroughly, and it has long been one of my favorite works of fiction. This despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that it frankly cloaks sound economic theory in a readable, novelistic form.

For one thing, it is one of the best and most thorough discussions of the economic fallacies of socialism to be found anywhere. The plot is fascinating: by happenstance, an intelligent political innocent inherits the post of dictator of a future World Communist State.

Beginning simply as a search for ways of making the disastrous Communist economy work better, the dictator alters the economy, step by inexorable logical step, in the direction of freedom until he changes the world into a purely free market economy and free society.

Beginning with allowing citizens to exchange their ration tickets, the dictator comes to rediscover the forgotten free market, gold money, and the rights of private property. If the aesthetes are worried about the lack of avant-garde symbolism or of morbid psychologizing in The Great Idea, then so much the worse for them!

A few years later came a veritable labor of love. The Free Man’s Library (1956). Hazlitt’s annotated bibliography of libertarian and conservative books. It still serves as the only work of its kind, and an updating of this book would be one of the most useful projects to inspire and instruct a new generation of libertarians.

In 1959. Hazlitt published his greatest contribution to economic science, the massive, thorough The Failure of the New Economics, a step-by-step and page-by-page evisceration of Lord Keynes’ mischievous and enormously influential General Theory. Employing Misesian, “Austrian” economics in a masterful fashion, Hazlitt left not a shred standing of Keynes’ famous work. It was a superb exercise in economic demolition.

The massive neglect of Fallacies by the economics profession, which, when it deigned to consider the book at all, dismissed it as mere “pamphleteering,” is a shameful blot on the state of the economics profession. As a one-two punch to Keynesianism, Hazlitt followed up this work by collecting the best anti-Keynesian critiques by economists in his The Critics of Keynesian Economics (1960).

In the same year, Hazlitt wrote his searching critique of the inflationary policies of our time, warning of accelerating inflation and calling for a return to the gold standard in his What You Should Know About Inflation (1960, revised editions in 1965 and 1968). Happily, Hazlitt is now busily at work on a new book on this all too timely topic.

Not content with economics, political science, journalism and literary criticism. Hazlitt next turned to an important work on political and ethical philosophy, The Foundations of Morality (1964). In a work fully as neglected by the academic philosophers as his economic writings were ignored by the nation’s economists, Hazlitt argued for a utilitarian ethic and for the morality of free-market capitalism.

In his latest two books, Henry Hazlitt dealt with the vital problems of poverty and the welfare state: Man vs. the Welfare State (1970) and The Conquest of Poverty (1973). In these works, Hazlitt showed that only capitalism can conquer poverty and provide genuine welfare, and he demolished the fallacies of the welfare state. Also included is the best available refutation of the potentially disastrous Milton Friedman proposal for a “negative income tax.”

Thus, throughout his remarkably productive life, Henry Hazlitt has fought for freedom and a free-market economy with a unique combination of the erudition of a scholar and the lucidity and popular appeal of a lifelong writer and journalist. In a healthier cultural and intellectual climate, he would have honors heaped upon him by scholars and by the general public. As it is, we can only do our part by greeting this vibrant and gracious gentleman, this distinguished scholar and libertarian, and by looking forward to the many important books and articles which will doubtless flow from his pen in the years to come.

Reprinted from Human Events, Nov. 20, 1974.

Arts And Movies

By Mr. First Nighter

Musicals: the Nostalgia Boom.

Two of my most delightful experiences in the arts this year were exercises in musical nostalgia: watching a revival of Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes”, with the 40’s singing and dancing star Ann Miller; and seeing the revival of the once-famous Andrews Sisters in their highly successful new Broadway hit, “Over Here!” Nostalgia was certainly a great part in the delight: How great Miss Miller looked! Not a day older than in her successful movie musicals of twenty and thirty years ago! And to see the cheerful Andrews Sisters once more (minus La Verne, who died some years ago), to hear their infectious and swinging renditions, was indeed, to return to a past that was at least culturally happier than today. Indeed, after the curtain fell on a remarkably good throwback by Richard and Robert Sherman, to 1930’s musicals, the wildly enthusiastic audience prompted Patty and Maxine Andrews to spend twenty minutes on the stage, singing the renditions of their fabulous hits of the past: each number punctuated by the cheers and “Bravos!” of the audience. In their famous “I’ll Be With You in Apple Blossom Time”, the audience could not refrain from singing along, and the stage-wise Andrews Sisters promptly brought the entire audience into the act: “What a WON-derful wedding it will be”, everyone belted out, knowing the renditions down to the last phrase.

But my main point here is that far more than simple nostalgia was involved. After all, there were a large number of kids and young people in the audience, to add their chorus of approval to the nostalgia of the middle-aged. Why did the young people love the show?

I submit that the reason is that the old musicals were far better than today, and that this fact is sensed by young and old alike. The good old days were better, at least in music and the popular arts. No better clue can be found to the cause than to read the brilliant critique of modern music, written two decades ago, by the eminent music critic Henry Pleasants. The Agony of Modern Music (Simon and Schuster, 1955). Pleasants’ work was a critique of modern “serious” music, and a demonstration of why that music has been in a state of decline and collapse since Wagner (and, in many respects, since Beethoven.) Briefly, in contrast to the heyday of classical music (roughly from Monteverdi and the beginning of the seventeenth century to the mid-nineteenth), modern music had been marked by the destruction of melody, rhythm, and tonality. In the classical period, music had been marked by tuneful melody, and by a strong, regular rhythmic beat, to which a strictly tonal harmony had been subordinate. In contrast, modern music had destroyed melody by making it thematic and harmonic, and had wrecked the rhythmic beat by substituting vertical harmonies and varying rhythms. Melody and rhythm had been destroyed on behalf of harmony, which in turn had lost its strong tonality. One of the hallmarks of the classical symphony, for example, is that it was pianistic; and could readily be transcribed for the piano. In later, modern music, orchestration had taken command, and a conductor became needed to impose order on the players.

More relevant to our topic is what modern music did to the opera. Classical opera had been marked by the dominance of the singer and the song, the melodic song as delivered in arias, duets, etc. Modern music destroyed the opera by eliminating the melodic song, by subordinating the singer to the orchestra and by confining the singer to talky recitative; while pure music was transformed into the “tone poem.” The “integration” of music and the song into the orchestra and the dramatic text had succeeded only in destroying the opera form.

Mr. Pleasants went on to point out that twentieth century American jazz and popular music constituted a renaissance of the classical musical form, and therefore carried on the best traditions of “serious” music. Jazz and popular music restored the dominance of melody and rhythm, harmony was once again tonal and subordinate to the other elements. Even the seemingly new motifs of vocal and instrumental improvisation was a return to pre-nineteenth century vocalising and to such forms as the concerto grosso.

It struck me that the same kind of development that happened to opera had also happened within the popular musical, although not in nearly as destructive a way. Pleasants seemed to recognize this when he pointed out in passing that George Gershwin’s highly touted excursions into the semi-classical or quasi-symphonic or operatic form, such as Rhapsody in Blue or Porgy and Bess, were far inferior to his marvelous show tunes, such as “Embraceable You” or “But Not for Me.” Unfortunately, Gershwin, one of our great pop song composers, suffered from an inferiority complex vis à vis “serious” music, and so was ever trying to blend into what our intelligentsia persisted in defining as “legitimate” music. If such critics as Pleasants had been writing in the 1920’s and 30’s, the course of Gershwin’s career might have been very different.

The heyday of the popular song was the 1920’s and 30’s, led by such masters of the blending of sentiment and sophistication as Gershwin, Porter. Rodgers and Hart, Berlin, and Arlen. Their songs were built around the show tune, and the vehicle of the show tune was the Broadway musical—or what can now be described as the “old-fashioned” or pre-1940’s musical. One of the great delights, then, of seeing “Anything Goes” or the reminiscent “Over Here!” was being able to re-experience the true Broadway musical. Much derided now, the old-fashioned musical, like Pleasants’ criteria for the classical opera, strictly subordinated the drama and the plot to the song and the melodic tune. Yes, the plot of the old musical was a thin clothes-line on which to hang the lovely and melodic tunes, but so what? Nobody wanted any more; if people wanted plots, they could go to plays or motion pictures.

The destruction of the Broadway musical can be dated as precisely as the advent of the late Wagnerian operas, and indeed the course of their decline unconsciously recapitulated the post-Wagnerian decay of the opera. Specifically, the precipitous decline and fall began with Rodgers and Hammerstein’s famous 1940 musical “Oklahoma!” “Oklahoma!” was unfortunately hailed by the critics and the intellectuals for precisely the wrong reasons because it subordinated the song and the tune to the dramatic text, and integrated the songs into the drama. Starting with Rodgers and Hammerstein, furthermore, the musical composers (in a sense recapitulating Wagner) began to freight their drama with pretentious pseudo-“philosophical” messages, as exemplified by the fuzzy “brotherhood” themes in South Pacific and West Side Story. The older musical now looked hopelessly “old-fashioned”, and it took only a few years for the tunes to disappear altogether; how many years has it been since a truly memorable Broadway musical? Again, as in the classical symphony or opera, a hallmark of the decay has been the disappearance of the hummable or singable tune—the analog of the collapse of the aria or the pianistic symphony. Deprived of their major vehicle, the show tune, the great song composers—the Porters and Harts and Cowards—died out and there were none to take their place. By the 1950’s, the popular song had decayed to such an extent that rock-and-roll was able to rush in and fill the vacuum, and we must now be content with such second-rate song composers as Bert Bacharach.

The entering wedge to the decline and fall of the show tune and the musical, then, was the weakness of Richard Rodgers as a composer. For, in contrast to many other composers, the great Rodgers has always been dominated musically by his lyricist. In the 1920’s and 1930’s, Rodgers and the magnificent Lorenz Hart collaborated on some of the greatest songs in the history of popular music, a blend of melody and sophistication unmatched by anyone but the superb Cole Porter. Listen, for example, to one of the most affecting and magnificent of the female pop singers, Lee Wiley (in her heyday, twenty-odd years ago) singing such stunning songs as “Glad to Be Unhappy” and “It Never Entered My Mind”, for a recording of popular song–and singing–at its best. Unfortunately, after the death of Larry Hart, Rodgers began to collaborate with Oscar Hammerstein II, who promptly proceeded to impose a gushy and cornball over-sentimentality on Rodgers’ creative output, a sentimentality combined with vaguely leftish “messages”, that was to lead to the music-drama and the destruction of the genuine Broadway musical. Compare, for example, the Rodgers-Hammerstein “I’m as Corny as Kansas in August” to the earlier Rodgers-Hart tunes. Like the post-Wagnerians in relation to Wagner, Rodgers’ successors were devoid of his melodic genius and thereby swiftly brought about the destruction of the musical. In the post-Hammerstein music drama, only the great song writer Frank Loesser was able to preserve the first-rate melody, in his “Guys and Dolls.” The rest is Old Night.

The very same decline and fall, incidentally, also occurred in pop music’s cousin, jazz. Jazz had reached its summit in its earliest, or “classical”, period: New Orleans, from approximately 1900-1920. It was in New Orleans jazz, in its funeral marching bands, dance bands, and whorehouse pianists, that the classical period of “serious” music was most fully restored, and jazz reached its most inspired form of melodic improvisation within the rhythmic beat of the drum, the banjo, and the slap double-bass. As jazz moved north to Chicago in the “Dixieland” of the 1920’s, the power and inspiration cooled, and the music became lighter and more routinized. But the classic jazz form was still there. Jazz became further corrupted in the lush, monotonous “swing” of the big band era of the late 1930’s (Mahler, Bruckner?), but it was still at least dimly recognizable in the classical jazz tradition. The destruction of jazz came with the “bebop” and post-bebop eras after World War II (Schoenberg?), as jazz, too, lost its melody and rhythm, and turned to the dominance of harmonic variety that has marked modern “serious” music. Like modern music, jazz became “cerebral” and cut off from its emotive roots and popular audience. Indeed, it is often difficult to distinguish between modern jazz and modern serious music, if one in fact cares enough about either to bother searching for the distinction. Both serious music and jazz have reached a dead end, although there are still enough viable elements left, in jazz and popular music at least, to permit a future renaissance.