Book Reviews

Because of the practically univer sal obfuscation, any even half-way successful attempt to reach a true definition of Fascism is welcome. In an ambitious book called Fascism (The Free Press $7.95), Paul Hayes, a Fellow of Keble College, Oxford, has made a strong effort to uncover the roots of the Twentieth Century's second most malignant political phenomenon. (I say "second" because 1 believe Communism is an even bigger evil.) Professor Hayes struggles nobly with his problem, but he doesn't quite overcome the many difficulties that inhere in the at tempt to distinguish between vari ous shades of authoritarianism, Nasserism, tribalism, military dic tatorship, royal absolutism, or whatever. Nor is he quite as clear about the economic origins of Fascism as the late John T. Flynn, whose As We Go Marching has just been reissued in paperback by Free Life Editions, with a preface by Ronald Radosh ($3.45).

Professor Hayes realizes at the start that he is trying to get a grip on a most baffling problem. Mussolini's Italy was surely a Fascist state. But it never really made an issue of race, even though, at Hitler's proddings, it did do official obeisance to anti Semitism during the short-lived period of the Rome-Berlin Axis. German Nazism was Fascism on all of Professor Hayes's counts, accepting the myth of racial su123 124 THE FREEMAN February periority along with the trappings of militarism, national socialism, economic corporativism, and wor ship of the leadership principle. But how does the Nazi form of totalitarianism differ from the So viet Communist version? Bolshe vism, in practice, has discrimi nated against Jews, not to mention Ukrainians, or Baltics, or Moslems when they exhibit too much aware ness of their own religious heri tage. The Soviets subscribe to the idea of the party elite, they "plan"

industry, they are imperialist, and they suppress free trade unions. Nevertheless, Professor Hayes, even as John T. Flynn before him, distingu~shes between Fascism and Communism. The difference would seem to re side in contrasting attitudes toward the concept of ownership and in the divergent class origins of the two forms of totalitarian ism. Fascism permits private prop erty, subject to control of its uses; it also tolerates the existence of more classes than the proletariat. So there is a reason why neither Professor Hayes nor John T. Flynn chose to deal with the Marxist varieties of the totali tarian State. Not Much Difference For myself, I don't see very much to choose between Brown and Red Bolshevisms. Fascism made use of the bourgeoisie and the private corporation, but the Lenin who approved the Nepmen private farmers in the days of the New Economic Policy was not a pure Communist, and Brezhnev is even now contemplating making deals with the capitalist Occidental Oil Company. On the other hand, as Professor Hayes recognizes, both German and Italian Fascism had their Marxist forebears. Mus solini had been a socialist, and Hitler depended on crossovers from the German Communist and Social Democratic parties to swell his ranks in the late Twenties and early Thirties. There are good rea sons for regarding Fascism and Communism as variants of the same evil thing that denies the whole theory of inalienable indi vidual rights.

Professor Hayes does a master ful job in isolating the various in tellectual currents of the Nine teenth Century that coalesced into Fascist theory. There were the ra cial supremacists from Count Go bineau to Houston Stewart Cham berlain. There were the Hegelians who exalted the idea of the State. There were the militarists and the extreme nationalists. There were the theoreticians of economic au tarchy, from List and Rodbertus and Diihring in Germany to Cun ningham and George Bernard Shaw in Britain. There were the 1974 FASCISM 125 pre-Civil War American protec tionists who encouraged German protectionists. There were the "ra tionalizers" who thought in terms of big cartels subject to national planning and the coercion of in ternational trade by currency con trols. Setting the Stage The Nineteenth Century think ers who opposed the Adam Smith and Richard Cobden theories of unfettered competition were not Fascists, but they all combined to disseminate the Statist philos ophy that was necessary for the triumphs of Mussolini and Hitler~ And there was, of course, Niet zsche and his "will to pov\7er" that exalted strength for its own sake, even the strength that violated the laws of any given community.

Before we are through with Professor Hayes's book we have had the equivalent of a good se mester's immersion in anti-liber tarian thought. But we haven't quite defined Fascism. Is Franco's Spain a Fascist country? Paul Hayes, noting that Franco kept his country out of World War II, decides that Spain is simply a counter-revolutionary country. Franco used the Fascists in order to preserve a traditional Spanish conserva tism. By making an exception of Spain, Professor Hayes seems to be saying that authoritarian coun tries· which refrain from interna tional intrigue and expansionism are not Fascist. But then he con fuses the issue by seeing Argen tinian "peronismo" as a form of Fascism. Since Peron had no de signs on his neighbors, how does he differ from Franco? The dif ference could be in Peron's mobili zation of labor to supply the bulk support of his regime. But Profes sor Hayes introduces a second note of confusion when he says that the "European fascist model was based on massive middle-and up per-class support together with a sizeable minority from the work ing class." So it can't be a major reliance on labor that distin guishes the true from the false Fascism.

Not that it makes much differ ence anyway: oppression is op pression no matter how the local details differ. No One Really Wants It What makes John T. Flynn's thirty-year-old As We Go Ma,rch ing a really superior book is Flynn's way of showing that Fascism can come to a country even though nobody really wants it. Italy's liberal politicians cre ated Fascism by spending far more than could be recouped by taxation and then plunging their country into a frustrating war.

126 THE FREEMAN February Mussolini was simply the oppor tunist receiver of a ruined nation. Germany's leftist and center par ties made disastrous economic de cisions, couldn't cope with the problems created by the fantastic inflation, and failed to control the militarists. Looking at the tre mendous growth of government debt and the ballooning of military expenditures in the U.S., Flynn warned us in 1944 that we could become a Fascist country by mere ly adding a war-minded dictator ship to New Deal-type economic interventionism. It could happen without anti-Semitism and with all our banners proclaiming that "Progressivism" had won its greatest victory. ~ EDUCATION IN A FREE SOCI ETY, Edited by Anne Husted Bur leigh (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, Inc., 3520 Washington Blvd., 1973) 182 pp. $3.50. Reviewed by Thomas Johnson OF ALL the activities in which men engage, education - development of the human mind - is the most important. What sort of education should exist in a free society? In an attempt to answer this question as it pertains to higher education, two directors of Liberty Fund, Ben"

jamin A. Rogge and Pierre F. Goodrich, wrote a position paper enti tled "Education in a Free Society." Four other well-known educators and writers (Gottfried Dietze, Rus sell Kirk, Henry Manne, and Stephen Tonsor) also presented papers at a seminar held in Indian apolis in 1971. Present were other educators and writers who dis cussed the ideas put forth by these men. The papers are here reprinted, and the discussion summarized. This makes for provocative, inter esting reading. Rogge and Goodrich take a strong stand on behalf of the need for a free enterprise approach to education. They recognize that "the educational arrangements currently in use· in this country are grossly inefficient, inequitable, contrary to human rights, con trary to human nature, and des tructive of the society ~f free and responsible men." They present their idea of what an institution of higher learning should be like in a free society, which includes such matters as the selection of faculty members according to their promise as teachers, the income of faculty based on "their effective ness in serving the purposes of the college," decisions of policy to be made by the board and carried out by the administrators, the elimination of tests or exams (ex cept those voluntarily requested by the student), grades and de1974 OTHER BOOKS 127 grees, and all financing from pri vate funds - p:referably the' col lege would be a profit-making concern.

The other participants, however, do not envision a radical restruc turing of our educational institu tions. They accept the idea of a grade-giving, degree-granting uni versity, while urging reforms de signed to revitalize the institu tion, restore proper authority to trustees and administration, and so on. Little do they realize that the scholastic environment by its nature subordinates the quest for truth to the student's desire for grades, degrees, and certification. The system fosters obsequious ness, hypocrisy and mental leth argy. Not even Rogge and Goodrich realize that in a free society there would and should exist only edu cation businesses which would of fer their courses of instruction to any paying customer, regardless of age, who wished to purchase this instruction. In a free society only· the market demands would determine what is taught, how it is taught, and to whom it is taught, and the individual would possess full freedom of choice in determining the development of his or her own mind. A business setting is the only healthy, and free, environment in which proper mental development can occur.

~ LABOR LEGISLATION FROM AN ECONOMIC POINT OF VIEW by Gustavo R. Velasco (3520 Washington Blvd., Indian a,polis, Indiana: Liberty Fund, 1973) 65 pp., $3.00. Rev·iewed by Paul L. Poirot THAT BENJAMIN A. ROGGE would edit and write an introduction should be evidence enough of qual ity in-a book on Labor Legislation from an Economic Point of View; but its value is doubly assured when the author is Professor GustavoR. Velasco of Mexico City, lawyer, banker, author, teacher, and internationally recognized ad vocate of freedom. As Rogge points out, "He has long stood for free markets and free men in a nation where the ruling party has been formally socialist and in a world where the ruling practice has been somewhere between the interventionist and the socialist." A clue to Professor Velasco's purpose in this monograph comes in his opinion that instead of call ing our age "the era of socialism"

it would be more nearly correct to name it "the era of labor or of laborism." Workers, of course, are interested in better pay, more free time, better working conditions, and more economic security. And the question is whether or not these objectives are likely to be 128 THE FREEMAN February achieved through the collective ac tion of labor unions and govern ment intervention. To the arguments that "labor is not a commodity" and that work ers are objects of "exploitation" by capitalists, Velasco answers by explaining the functioning of the market and concludes that "wage rates depend finally on the value that the wage earner's fellow men ascribe to his services and achieve ment." So, what happens when govern ment intervenes directly to force wages above market rates, or in directly by delegating to labor unions the privilege of using co ercion? What happens is that the least productive of the workers or those with the least political clout - face unemployment; and consumers in general suffer the ef fects of relatively lower productiv ity. This is the inevitable conse quence whenever force is used to prevent cooperation between will ing buyers and willing sellers of any scarce and valuable resource.

Or conversely, as Velasco says, "the only way of coordinating production t6 the highly variable conditions that result from the perpetually fluctuating desires and opinions of consumers, from sci entific and technological progress, ~rom the phenomena of nature, and from a hundred more-circum stances, consists in not hampering the movements of the market." Once the prolabor policies of government result in market dis tortions, the victims of such in tervention are prone to demand cures which mean further inter vention. The makers of laws which cause unemployment are pressured to create spending power - money - to subsidize idled workers back into the spending stream, if not into the productive process. The political actions which grant spe cial privileges to labor unions are actions which also promote infla tion. Professor Velasco admirably summarizes in this brief volume the unforeseen disastrous conse quences of prolabor policies, and offers an extensive bibliography for those who would explore the issues at greater depth. (!) tile Freeman VOL. ~~4, NO.3. MARCH 1974 Public Goods and Fear of Foreigners Gary North 131 Subsidized services attract more "customers" than taxpayers want to serve.