Book Reviews

A REVIEWER'S NOTEBOOK JOHN CHAMBERLAIN HENRY HAZLITT's The Founda tions. of Morality (Van Nostrand, $9.95) is an ambitious attempt to ground a system of ethics in the pragmatic necessities of daily life. The book, which is in the great line of utilitarian thinking that comes down from Hume, Adam Smith, and Bentham, is lucid, per suasive, and soundly argued; and in a nonreligious age one can only hope that Mr. Hazlitt will succeed in converting those who insist that the claims of morality are purely relative to the moment and subject to change without notice. But if Mr. Hazlitt takes us a good distance, it should also be said that he doesn't reach the end of the road. My own fundamental objection to Mr. Hazlitt's reason ing is that he refuses to admit that he, too, makes a few assump tions, or value judgments, that are intuitive. In his own way he is just as mystical, say, as Albert Schweitzer, or any of the philoso phers of natural law whom he chides in ever so gentle terms.

Before going into the subject of intuitive assumptions, however, one must pay tribute to Mr. Hazlitt's refinement of the grosser view of Bentham's "pleasure-pain" explanation of ethics. He thinks Carlyle did Bentham a great dis service in calling Benthamism the "pig philosophy." To get around Carlyle, Mr. Hazlitt says, "It seems the part of practical wis dom, and the best way to mini mize misunderstanding, to use the terms 'pleasure' and 'pain' very sparingly, if not to abandon them almost altogether in ethical dis cussion." The terms confuse everybody by bringing up visions of the rewards· and penalties of purely carnal pleasure. What Ben tham was really talking about, ac cording to Hazlitt, was "happiness as an aggregate," which could, of course, include a good deal of de nial of short-run pleasures in or der to create the basis for long term satisfactions. Prudence, benevolence, social cooperation, and altruism all find a place in Mr. Hazlitfs refined utilitarianism, for they all help to create a livable community. If Mr.

Hazlitt remains an unreconstructed believer in competitive capitalism, it is because he thinks economic 59 60 THE FREEMAN January competition between separate business units is the only really workable way of inducing people to cooperate to the end of raising the standard of living. This isn't a paradox, for the competitive spirit is what hones any team to the supreme cooperative effort. Capitalist Ys. Socialist Ethics The most telling chapters in Mr. Hazlitt's book are those on the ethics of capitalism versus the ethics of socialism. Capitalism, he says, is not "ethically indifferent," or "ethically neutral," for it de pends on voluntary social coopera tion through mutually beneficial exchanges. Quoting Murray Roth bard, Hazlitt insists that in a sys tem of beneficial exchanges one man's gain is necessarily another man's gain. The system naturally develops more practical social sym pathy than any other, even though some capitalists may be mighty egoists.

In any case, it is socialism, not capitalism, that emphasizes the jungle competition of tooth and claw. The discipline of competi tion between units disappears, and men cut each other's throats in the scramble for preferment within the one big unit of the state. "Office politics" under com munism are magnified beyond be lief. Socialism means coercion of the individual, and he who does not obey does not eat. Naturally, a great maj ori ty of men become sly malingerers under such a sys tem. And, as Hayek said long ago in The Road to Serfdom, in a sys tem that depends on coercion, the "worst get on top." Hazlitt, following Hume, makes the point that no society can be happy if its citizens are not will ing to abide by general rules. It may seem cruel to apply the prin"':' ciple of "equality before the law" to a man who steals because he is in need, but if individuals are to become the judges of their own need a society must thereby be come a jungle of distrust. When judges and juries begin to exer cise too much compassion, de linquency grows by leaps and bounds.

Somewhere, A Premise Most of Mr. Hazlitt's book comes under the heading of elo quently expressed common sense. But when he comes to discuss such things as intuitionism and natural law he reminds me of the psychologists who organized a val iant crusade to kill the word "soul" and ended up by substitu ting for it the word "psyche," which, like the "soul," is also an impalpable thing that nobody has yet succeeded in situating in any specific part of the human ana to my. Besides, as Chesterton said, 1965 THE MORAL AND MYSTERIOUS 61 "psyche" means "soul" in Greek. Mr. Hazlitt thinks that the term "natural rights" is unfortunate in that it has helped to perpetuate a "mystique" which regards rights as having existed since the begin ning of time. But he is willing to accept the "concept" of natural rights as long as it is understood to mean "ideal rights," or the "le gal rights that every man ought to enjoy."

It is at this point that one be comes aware of Mr. Hazli tt' sown dependence on the Schweitzer in tuition that human life is, or should be, held sacred, not because of any utili tarian reason con nected with. the "greatest happi ness of the greatest number," but f or reasons that can only be called religious. Under a cannibal sys tem, the "greatest happiness of the greatest number" could be mathematically fixed at the point where a majority would be con suming a minority without leading to the extinction of the species. But this would not be "right" even though it might be called "rational." One has to fall back on intuitive assumption at some point in the discussion of rights, which is not a pleasant predica ment for anyone who believes in the supremacy of reason. Yet there it is, and I, for one, find it less offensive to accept certain truths as "self;.evident" gifts of a Creator than I do to make no assumptions at all.

For the fact is that every. hu man being who abstains from sui cide proceeds on the assumption that life is worth living, which in itself is not susceptible of "proof" in any scientific sense of the word. One lives, one accepts the Schweit zerian intuition of the sacred value of one's own body and soul (or psyche), just as one accepts the facts of digestion, blood pres sure, reproduction, and a lot of other things. There is no need to try to "ground" the perception of "natural right" in anything; it is simply there. From this initial assumption the whole doctrine of "natural rights" flows. If one has. a right to life, one has rights to liberty and property as the necessary means to sustaining life. A Starting Point Without the first assumption of human life as a sacred gift from a Creator (whatever or whoever the Creator may be), Mr. Haz litt's chosen economic system be comes a purely arbitrary thing.

'Vhy, indeed, should a Soviet com missar give up his post of po,ver merely to satisfy the craving of a peasant for··· his own plot of ground unless the peasant has rights to control his own life? There is no reason why the strong 62 THE FREEMAN January should not oppress the weak if the right to life is not "self-evi dent," Le., beyond the necessity of proof in a scientific sense. These. are deep waters, and I don't feel comfortable when try ing to navigate them. Nobody ever spoke to me out of a burning bush, so I have to take the· felt conviction of a basic right to life on intuitive trust. But there is no sense denying that existence is rooted in mystery. My only objec tion to Mr. Hazlitt's book is that it does not make enough allow ance for mystery. He tries to put the Deity in a hole by propound ing a conundrum: Is a thing right because God wills it, or does God will it because it is right? Now it is entirely possible that, as the Deity sees it, the very formula tion of such a conundrum pro ceeds from a deficiency in the human ability to penetrate mys tery. Cats can't do algebra, the amoeba can't think as a cat - and why should human beings at this particular stage in evolution be expected to know everything? ~ ~ THE OTHER AMERICA: Pov erty in the United States by Michael Harrington (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1963),203 pp. 95¢.

Reviewed by Edmund A. Opitz THE FIRST THING to do with poor people, Tolstoy said, is get off their backs. This, the very government which has declared war on poverty, is not doing. The new of ficial poverty line for a family is drawn at somewhere around $3,000 a year. Yet, a couple with out dependents who earn this much money are forced by the na tional government to pay an in come tax of roughly $300. Not to mention local and state levies, plus the hidden taxes on every item purchased! Poverty in a society is over come by productivity, and in no other way. There is no political alchemy which can transmute di minished production into increased consumption. Government inter ventions into economic life can. re distribute goods by taxing every one and subsidizing a few, taking money out of the pockets of some and putting it into the pockets of others. But, obviously, no such scheme can elevate the general welfare. The economic welfare of all can be raised only by removing artificial (usually political) im pediments from wealth produc tion. More can be consumed only if more is produced.

Men have been freer to produce up to individual capacity in American society, historically, than in any other society, and our affluence, as a result, is the envy of the world. Hindsight tells us that we might have done even better if our statutes had per1965 OTHER BOOKS 63 mitted as much economic freedom as we said we believed in. Actu ally there has been much anti-eco nomic legislation since 1789, but it was not till a generation ago that we began cutting our eco nomic throat on principle. To the extent that the politically inspired "war on poverty" succeeds, it will be that much harder for poor people to improve their economic circumstances. According to Mr. Harrington, about a fourth of our nation lives on Tobacco Road; between forty and fifty million Americans are "maimed in body and spirit." "The poor," in his view, constitute al· most a separate species, to be analyzed and acted upon politi cally, Le., impersonally.

An ideological passion to change the structures of American so ciety informs this book. It would eliminate the free market economy as well as Constitutional guar antees of liberty which preserve indi vid ual and social sectors of immunity against governmental power. This would not help the poor, and it would hurt everyone. Mr. Harrington declares (p. 17) that the welfare state which arose in the thirties "helped the poor least of all." His super state weI farism would be more of the same, and worse. This is why we must oppose him. Political liberty, the Rule of Law, and the free market are the hallmarks of a free soci ety; and only a truly free society, with its ethical and religious prin ciples in working order, can re solve the problem of poverty. ~ Confused Thinking OUR DIFFICULTY lies not so much with obnoxious Communists in our midst as with the fuzzy-minded people who think we can have totalitarian economics in the hands of bureaucracy, and at the same time to have personal liberty .... Their confused thinking convinces them that they are liberals - but if they are liberals, they have liberalism without liberty. Nor are they middle-of-the-roaders as they claim to be: They are a half-way house to totalitarianism.

HERBERT HOOVER, before the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, June 22, 1948 a condensed and inexpensivecombined edition of THE LAW ~ CLICHES OF SOCIALISM Frederic Bastiat, French econonlist, states n1an, and author, writing at the time of the Revolution of 1848 in France, clearly showed how the law was then being perverted to use as an instrument of plunder rather than to keep the peace. His great classic, The Law, is here con densed and combined with 42 of FEE's sug gested answers to the more popular socialis tic fallacies, which now, as in Bastiat's time, tend to undermine the foundations of linl ited government and the free society. This attractive 256-page, paperbacked edition of The La'w & Cliches of Socialism, published by Constructive Action, Inc. in California, is now available. Single copy 3 copies 10 copies 25 copies 100 copies $1.00 2.00 5.00 10.00 30.00 ORDER FROM THE FOUNDATION FOR ECONOMIC EDUCATION, INC.

IRVINGTON-ON-HUDSON, NEW YORK, 10533 FEBRUARY 1965 The Formation and Function of Prices . "The Government Is All of Us" . Fallacies in the Current Cult of Progress . Flying Socialism The Flight from Reality 5. The Utopian Vision . Britain Returns to Mercantilism . Is God a Keynesian? . Forty-Eight Thousand Dollars! From Eden to Paradise: Choice vs. Compulsion . Why Social Security Must Fail The Individual and the State . Books: Freeing Our Economy . Hans Sennho/z 3 Leonard E. Read 9 Fred DeArmond 12 Sam H. Husbands, Jr. 17 Clarence B. Corson 20 George Winder 34 William Henry Chamberlin 38 Paul L. Poirot 44 Dean Bonks 46 Dean Russell 55 William H. Peterson 58 John Chamberlain 61 FINANCIAL STRENGTH - Assets over half a billion dollars. Strong reserves and high ratio of cash and government bonds to assure with drawal of savings immediately on request. HIGHER EARNINGS - Earnings for 1964 paid at 4.9% per year.