Book Reviews

Now, almost two centuries later, Mogens V. Hermann, a Denmark born economist and statistician, has applied Wealth of Nations cri teria to the modern world with the tropics very much on his mind. His Contribution and Reward (Ex position Press, $6.50) might be called an exercise in geoeconomics, for it seeks to determine what mon soon rains, enervating heat, and such diseases as malaria and dysen tery, do to affect the energies of men. His conclusion is that hot60 JOHN CHAMBERLAIN country geography can be overcome by the application of classical eco nomic principles only with diffi culty. But even though the virtues of hard work, self-reliance, avoid ance of waste, thrift, and a knowl edge of one's own assets may be hard to perceive in a steaming and superheated atmosphere, they are still a better bet than letting the "government" dominate the pic ture with forced industrialism, "nationalization" of foreign enter prises, and a series of Five-Year plans.

Experience in the Tropics Mr. Hermann's credentials as an adviser to tropical nations are suf ficiently impressive to make Con tribution and Reward a "must" reading in such variegated places as the Congo, South Vietnam, and the Dominican Republic. A gradu ate in economics, statistics, and law at the University of Copenhagen, he served in Danish government i.{UJB A WAY TO BEAT THE HEAT 61 offices and in the Danish army for two years ..Thus he knows. the ad vantages and defects of state-ad miniBtered Bystems from· experi ence at an impressionable age. Fol lowing his military training, he be came a statistician for the State Bank of Ethiopia, where he do mesticated the idea of compiling monthly statistics. Still pursuing a career in the tropics, his next job was as Assistant Chief of the Department of Economic Research for the Banco Central de Honduras, where he worked on such immedi ately relevant topics as evaluations of foreign companies and the bal ance of payments. In the early nineteen fifties he was sent by the International Monetary Fund to reorganize the National Bank of Nicaragua. Then, before taking up his current occupation as a cur rency analyst in New York· City, he studied the problems of Thai land, Malaya, and the Philippines for the International Bank for Re construction and Development.

It is as important to mention all this in connection with Oontribu tion and Reward as it is to stress Adam Smith's observation of the workings of the corn laws and the herring bounty when one is talk ing about the attack onmercan tilism in the Wealth of Nations. Mr. Hermann draws his theoretical conclusions from an experience that is practically unique for an economist born in the temperate zone. He knows how men in the tropics feel. Historically, the idea in the trop ics has been to "beat the heat." One does this best by letting other people do the work. Hierarchies, aristocracies, and ruling priest hoods were based on the idea that idleness was a superior virtue. The clever man tried to corner enough land to support serfs who could yield him a life of luxury. Priests studied their parishioners' means with an eye to where the gift of a chicken or a handful of cereals might be expected. The social levels became stratified, and the expecta tions of peasants were dulled by a daily contact with an agriculture that knew little about the use of fertilizers or insecticides or better seeds.

The North Sets Examples of Law and Order Mr. Hermann, in his own exten sive travels, has observed that the incursion of temperate zone "col onial exploiters" in tropical lands has had good effects in countering the "beat the heat" mentality. In dia benefited by the administrative training and example brought by the British. The Filipinos, after two or three generations' contact with Americans, are better pre pared to live in the modern world than, say, the Ethiopians, who were 62 THE FREEMAN February never conquered. This is not an ar gument for "colonialism"; it is merely an explanation that the tropics would do well to imitate northern methods of administra tion and a northern view of the desirability of "law and order." But even in lands where colonial administrators and enterprisers have provided examples of the vir tues of hard work and avoidance of waste, the old "beat the heat"

tradition hangs on as "freedom" takes over. Education becomes a fetish with the emerging tropical nations, but it is not the sort of education that is needed to com bat the notion that the clever man lives by the work of others. The idea is to go to school long enough to be trained as a planner in a semi socialistic system, then take a job with a Fabian government th~t has wangled a "spectacular" such as a steel mill or a big dam as "foreign aid." The "educated" Fabian won't care that the steel mill won't have much of a domestic market, owing to the absence of small metal-work ing shops and retailers. He won't care that farmers who know little about soil nutrition aren't in the market for steel plowshares or tractors. The idea that an economic system must grow out of a, score of small enterprisers who mesh their needs, their skills, and their ideas will be anathema to the "edu cated" planner with a background in the sort of economics taught by the late Harold Laski.

Mr. Hermann admits that a semi-socialistic "planning" gov ernment in the tropics can offer short-term advantages to an elec torate that has had "one man, one vote" for at least one time around. Technical aid from abroad will come in to put native labor to work building the "spectacular." Some ideas about the organization of an enterprise will rub off on local people. But a government-owned spectacular will offer a haven for political appointees. It won't have to show a profit. (In Mexico, the "nationalized" oil industry, "Pem ex," has been regarded as a fertile field for stowaway berths for any one supporting the "revolution." A Vicious Circle What the "planner" won't see is the private investment that "gov ernment" industry and the threat of "nationalization" have scared away. They won't see that the "edu cated" class have been siphoned off by the high "social overhead" im posed by the very existence of big bureaucracies. People ·with brains will be pushing paper at the capital, not designing new small businesses out in the provinces. High taxa tion will be encouraged to pay for the planners' retinues. And infla tion will bother nobody in a gov ernment that can raise its own 1966 A WAY TO BEAT THE HEAT 68 salaries as its paper money floods the market.

Mr. Hermann has a theory that hjgtofY jg a matter of pendulum swings. A mercantilist age will give way to the age of Adam Smith. Then, in the space of a few gener ations, the Marxists and the Fab ians will begin to have their way. But Marxism and Fabianism, he thinks, must lead to disillusion ment, for socialism yields inferior production. In Europe "indicative planning" is still popular. But Marxism is losing its good repute, and the "indicative planners" are ~ INTRODUCTION TO POLITI CAL SCIENCE by OscarH. Ibele (Ne,v York: The American Press, 1964), 810 pp. $7.50. ~ HISTORY OF POLITICAL PHI LOSOPHY edited by Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey (Chicago: Rand McNally & Company, 1963), 790 pp. $8.50. Re'oiewed by Edmund A. Opitz A UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR of sociol ogy, generally regarded as at the top of his trade, proclaims him self "a man of the Left." And he believes that this is "a nation in which Leftist values predominate."

This observation appears to hold true of the academy, at any rate, and especially of the departments more inclined to accept the neces sity of a market that is at least 50 per cent free. So, as Mr. Hermann sees it, the pendulum is swinging back toward Wealth of Nations ideas. The swing will probably take some time to reach the tropics. But when Mr. Hermann, in humble tones, says that God would not have led him "on a guided tour of certain wide ly separated areas" without a "pur pose," he does not doubt that, even in the tropics, common sense is bound some day to take over. + of social science; economists, so ciologists, and political scientists incline more in the direction of the welfare state than toward the market economy and the free so ciety. Many of the most widely used college textbooks reflect this prevailing bias. A professor of political science who leans toward the conservative-libertarian posi tion is a rare bird, and still rarer is a competent and comprehensive textbook of political science. Pro fessor Ibele of Kent State Univer sity is not "a man of the Left,"

and his book is an excellent intro duction to politics. This volume is designed for an introductory political science course, and it has emerged from 64 THE FREEMAN February the author's long experience teach ing the subject to college students. It is mainly descriptive and ana lytical. There's no sound of an ax being ground in the background; the facts and ideas are permitted to speak for themselves as the student learns some of the argu ments for .limited government and free market theories. He is also, of course, exposed to an exposition of other philosophies of society which hold millions of people in their sway. The student gets a brief back ground of the history of govern ment, a description of the govern ments of other nations, good cov erage of our own form of govern ment in theory and practice, the workings of our systems of law J international politics, and much else. Now a textbook is not exciting reading, but the general reader might find this a useful book to have on his shelves for browsing and consultation. Each of its thir ty-two chapters has a bibliog raphy, and the extensive index means that topics can be readily located.

The Strauss-Cropsey book is a handsome anthology consisting of thirty-three essays on the great political philosophers from Plato on down, written by twenty-eight authors. Most of the influential names in Western political thought are here, and the discussion is high level and expert. The individ uality of the authors is not cur tailed, but a certain unity of treat ment is attained because these authors form part of what might be called The Strauss School, that is to say, they are students and associates of the venerable Leo Strauss, University of Chicago political philosopher. This con stitutes recommendation enough for any book! ~ WHEN YOU CHANGE YOUR ADDRESS We'll find out about it eventually,so why not tell us in advance? Otherwise, there's postage on THE FREEMAN you missed, plus more postage to locate you, plus still more to send anothercopy. And it may be your money! Write to: THE FREEMAN, Irvington-on-Hudson,N. Y.

NEW INDIVIDUALISTREVIEW "The net result of our urban renewal program has been increased cost of housing for the poor and the destruction of the livelihoods of hundreds of small businessmen . ... As the minimum wage rate has been raised, more and more people have been laid off who were not worth the higher wage rate. ... We would have less in stability if the Federal Reserve Board stopped toying with the supply of money." THESE are some of the conclusions of an article by Prof. Yale Brozen, of the University of Chicago, in a recent issue of NE~ INDIVIDUALIST REVIEW. On the basis of the latest research, Prof. Brozen documents the failure of government intervention in many fields - including agriculture, utilities, power and transportation. NEW INDIVIDUALIST REVIEW attempts to present articles of a high calibre, in non-technical language, on all aspects of the individualist, limited-government philosophy. Our contributors have included Ludwig von Mises, F. A. Hayek, Milton Friedman and many other established authorities, as well as articulate libertarian college stu dents and instructors. Articles fronl NEW INDIVIDUALIST REVIEW have been reprinted in The Freeman, The Wall Street Journal and Barron's.

A year's subscription (4 issues) is $3.00 (students, $1.50). A sam ple copy is available on request. FREEMAN readers who sub scribe now will receive a reprint of Prof. Brozen's article, cited above. ,- -- - - - - - - - . NEW INDIVIDUALIST REVIEW I Dept. B., Ida Noyes Hall I University of Chicago, Chicago; Ill. 60637 Please enter my subscription for one year I at $3.00 Students, $1.50 I NAME _ I ADDRESS IF STUDENT: SCHOOL _ I YEAR OF GRADUATION~~=~~~== AUTOMATION AND JOBS • There are persons who regard it as a great disasterwhen they hear that 150,000 persons in our spinning works now produce as much yarn as could hardly be spun with the little handwheel by 40,000,000. These people appear to cherish the absurd opinion that if there were no machines, manufacture would really give employmentto as many millionsas now; nor do they reflect that the whole of Europe would be inadequate for all this work; and that in that case a fifth of the whole population would need to be occupied with cotton-spinningalone! Both experienceand reflectionteach us just the contrary;and we should certainly maintainthat, if we still had to spin by the handwheel today, cotton manufacture would employ only a fifth of the present number.

EDWAR 0 B A I N ES, History of the Cotton Manufacture in Great Britain, 1835 Clarence B. Carson 8 Ralph W. Husted 23 Vermont Royster 33 Edmund A. Opitz 36 K. Fritz Schumacher 42 Martin Anderson 46 MARCH 1966 Why Humans Must Be Free The Flight from Reality: 18. The Origins of Reform Methods . The Moral Foundation of Freedom . To the Gallows . Lord Gifford's Legacy Today's Robber Barons. The Fiasco of Urban Renewal . Books: Mercantilism Invites Corrup.tion . Other Books V. Orval Watts John Chamberlain 3 60 63 COMPOUNDED DAILY, your savings earn 4.97% when held one year at cur rent rate of 4.85 %, paid semi-annually. COAST FEDERAL SAVINGS & LOAN ASSOCIATION Department FM, 9th & Hill Sts., Los Angeles, California 90014 STREET _ NAME(S) _ (please print) o Please send me a FREE copy of President Crail's IIAdam Smith vs. Karl Marx" speech. o I enclose my check (or money order) for $ _ Please open a Coast Federal Sav ings account D Individual D Joint in the name(s) of CITY STATE _ 6-121 Y' "Man fulfills his Creator's purpose only as he develops the power to know and choose good and reject evil." .. p. 3 Y' Dr. Carson, in this chapter, traces the development of the methods of re form employed in the Flight from Reality. ... . ......... p. 8 Y' A businessman explains· why suc cessful private enterprise requires spir itual and political, as well as economic, freedom. .. ...... p. 23 Y' Governments that persist in deficit financing of profligate spending are bound to blame their victims for the consequent rise of prices. . . .p. 33 Y' The Reverend E. A. Opitz scholarly reviews Lord Gifford's legacy - The Gifford Lectures. .. .. ..p. 36 Y' An old friend of the "iron horse"