Book Reviews

scientists, was a prime example of Edmund Burke's "little platoon" in action in a situation that de pended on individual initiative even more than on coordinated wartime planning. The other part of Otto Scott's writing life is spent on dramatiz ing the evil effects of the Horrible Example. He is very much con cerned with the occasional propen sity of the human race to listen to fools. He plans biographies of King James I of England and President Woodrow Wilson, who, in his estimation, were strong men who just couldn't think straight. The Stuart dynasty never did learn how to govern England, and Woodrow Wilson's idea that the Seychelles Islands could be the equal of Britain or the U.S. in a world parliament has led to all the stupidities that Pat Moynihan has had to protest. But the biggest fools of all, in Scott's opinion, were the men who created the French Revolution. Scott has chos en the most despicable of all the French revolutionaries for his Robespierre: The Voice 01 Virtue (Mason and Lipscomb, $9.95).

The French Revolution, of course, was the antithesis of the American Revolution, even though Tom Paine and the Marquis de La fayette, who took part in both of them, failed to see it that way un til it was too late. The American 251 252 THE FREEMAN April Revolution was, actually, an armed struggle fought to defend the tra ditional claim of the colonists to the immemorial "rights of En glishmen."As such, it was a counter-revolution (the real rev olutionist being King George III, who sought to become a dic tator insofar as his American "subjects" were concerned). What Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and the rest established in America was a drastically lim ited government that provided for vetoes all over the lot. The small states could check the big states in the U.S. Senate; the big states could have their way in the House of Representatives. The President had his veto over both houses of Congress, and the Supreme Court could measure all new laws against the words of the Constitution.

Meanwhile the ninth and tenth amendments, with some help from the first, second and fifth, defined the inalienable rights of states and individuals. The French Revolution There was nothing like this in France. When King Louis the Six teenth called for convening the Estates-General for the first time in 174 years, he succumbed to the pamphleteers who demanded that the Commons should have as many votes as theelergy and nobility combined. This insured the creation of a "Nationa'l Assembly" that would be unchecked save by a royal veto. But Louis the Six teenth, an amiable, thoughtless man, was not one to fight for re tention of his veto rights. With the help of a few renegade 'nobles and clergymen, the new National Assembly quickly became a mono lith. Dominated by small-bore pro vincial lawyers such as Robes pierre, the "sea-green incorrupt ible" from Arras, the Assembly knew nothing about the require ments of production or the need for fiscal sanity. Excess was piled upon excess. The cities, faced with starvation, cou'ld not restrain a maddened populace. Bakers were taken out and hanged because they had run out of bread.

It wasn't long before the more "virtuous" revolutionaries such as R·obespierre were using their con trol of an unchecked majority in the National Assembly to get rid of "moderates." The Revolution, with its guillotine, began to "de vour its children." Danton went. Marat was assassinated in his bath by Charlotte Corday. Blood flowed everywhere. And then, one fine day, some of the more fright ened revolutionaries looked at Robespierre, with his endless pos turing about total virtue, and real ized that if they didn't get the "in corruptible" from Arras first he would soon he getting them. They 1976 ROBESPIERRE: THE VOICE OF VIRTUE 253 did what was necessary: Robes pierre was beheaded, and the stage was set for the military regime of Napoleon. Mr. Scott does not bother to philosophize; he lets the dramatic narrative, with all its grisly detail, convey its ... own lesson. Whether it all had to happen that way is a question. If Louis the Sixteenth had been a stronger man, and if his Queen, Marie Antoinette, had had the intelligence of some of the royal mistresses of earlier French monarchs, the Estates-General might have been reconstituted along English lines, with the nobles and the clergy occupying the position of the British House of Lords. Workable compromises might have put France, a rich country, on its feet again, with a budget more or less in balance and with taxes equitably levied.

Emphasis on Equality The French went wrong in 1789 because they made the fundamen tal mistake of equating freedom with equality. The only equality in the world is equal judgment in the sight of God. Men are not gods; they have no business trying to put each and every individual into the bed of an equalitarian Pro crustes. Burke said it all in his Reflec tions on the Revolution in France. We ought to suspend our judgment on the spirit of liberty, he said, until we see how it works out in action in a specific context. Burke refused to endorse the French Revolution on the basis of abstrac tions. He wanted to know how the "new liberty of France . . . had been combined with g'Overnment; with public force; with the disci pline and obedience of armies; with the collection of an effective and well-distributed revenue; with morality and religion; with the solidity of property; with peace and order; with civil and social manners." All these, he said, were good things, too.

The "new liberty" of France took no C'ognizance of the Burkean caveats. And so all the "good things" enumerated by Burke were sacrificed to a grand abstrac tion. Otto Scott's story makes some thing of Mirabeau's effort to write a new constitution for France based on the English system. This would have been in accord with Montesquieu's idea of checks and balances. But in the heady atmos phere of the time the National As sembly, as the voice of the "peo ple," did not propose yielding some of its powers to an upper chamber or to a royal veto. Years later John Calhoun of South Caro'lina, in his great Disquisition on Government, put his finger on the French mis take. Government must be limited 254 THE FREEMAN April or Equality, as defined by 51 per cent of the people, will murder the liberty of 49 per cent. Without vetoes democracy runs to tyranny. A good thought for our Bicenten nial.

~ THINKING ABOUT CRIME by James Wilson. New York: Basic Books, 1975, 231 pp. $10. Reviewed by Haven Bradford Gow JAMES WILSON, a Professor of Government at Harvard Univer sity, is concerned· about the fash ionable cant and nonsense that is revealed in our thinking about, and attempts to cope with, crime. For example: During the past dec ade legal scholars have been en gaged in an intense debate over the evidentiary rules governing search and seizure, police interro gations, and the taking of confes sions. Professor Wilson concedes that this debate has illuminated some interesting legal and philo sophical issues, but thinks. the de bate has a hollow ring when re called in the 'context of what ac tually happens in a police station house. Professor· Wilson has done the much-needed research ;,he finds that most persons arrested for such crimes as robbery and burg lary have been arrested under cir cumstances in which no confession is needed, no searches have to be conducted, and no . police interro gations are required. Most robbers and burglars are caught in the very act. Also, there often are wit nesses to testify or stolen property that can be identified; and most of those who are captured,far from desiring to ensure that they may remain silent behind constitution ally protected rights, want very much to talk so that they might lighten their sentences.

The Harvard University profes sor is also disturbed about the view that "Crime and drug addic tion can only be dealt with by at tacking their root causes." He re sponds that he has yet to see a "root cause," and that he has yet to encounter a government pro gram that has successfully at tacked it, at least with respect to those social problems that ema nate from human volition rather than technological malfunction. But more importantly, he finds that the demand for causal solu tions is really an excuse for de ferring action. Professor Wilson also explodes the popular myth that poverty causes crime. During the 1960's it became fashionable to contend that if weasa society were to re duce crime, we had to eliminate poverty, increase educational op portunities, eliminate bad housing, encourage community organiza1976 OTHER BOOKS 255 tion, and furnish counseling serv ices to troubled and delinquent youth. It was a confident assump tion of high-level Kennedy and Johnsonadministra tion officials that economic prosperity would lead to a sharp reduction of crime.

Thus an avalanche of programs aimed at the poor, young and de prived were developed and imple mented. But crime soared. Indeed, crime rose ata faster rate, and to high er levels than at any time .since the 1930's and, in some categories, to higher levels than any previous ly experienced in this country. The decade of the 1960's began with a sense of 'contentment and opti mism; but this sense of content ment· and optimism was shattered, not only by crime but by riots and war as well. To the contention that "Men steal because they are poor and de prived," Professor Wilson re~ sponds: "There is more crime in most poor neighborhoods than in most well-off ones, but even in poor communities most people do not steaL" Moreover, "crime rose the fastest in this country at a time when the number of persons living in poverty or squalor was declin ing." And to the popular assertion that the increase in crime results from population changes, the au thor replies: "Crime in our cities has increased far faster than the number of young people, or poor people, or black people, or jlist plain people who live in those cit ies. In short, objective conditions alone, whether demographic or economic, cannot account for the crime increases, though they no doubt contributed to it." Far more accurate to contend, as Professor Wilson does, that the increase of crime emanates from forces diffi cult to define and impossible to measure scientifically : namely, the destruction of community and our attitudes·, ideas and values.

Implicit in much of the fashion able misconception regarding crime and criminals, contends Pro fessor Wilson, are frequently naive and unacknowledged as sumptionsabout human nature. To contend that poverty causes a person to become a criminal is to assume that man does not possess free will, that he lacks the inher ent capacity to transcend his en vironment. To believe that human beings will become virtuous once they· have attained social and eco nomic success is to deny the com mon-sense recognition that wicked people exist. "Some persons will shun crime even if we. do nothing to deter them," observes the Har vard University professor, "while others will seek it out even if we do everything to reform them." Evil men and women exist; and nothing avails except to set these 256 THE FREEMAN April evil persons apart from innocent persons. "And many people, nei ther wicked nor innocent, but watchful, dissembling, or calculat ing of their opportunities," con cludes Professor Wilson in his clearly-written and well-argued work, "ponder our reaction to wickedness as a cue to what they might profitably do. We have tri fled with the wicked, made sport of the innocent, and encouraged the calculators. Justice suffers, and so do we all."

~ PROPERTY IN A HUMANE ECONOMY edited by Samuel L. Blumenfeld (LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 1974) 265 pages plus index, $10.00 hardcover, $3.50 softcover. Reviewed by Brian Summers THIS VOLUME consists of thirteen essays delivered at several sym posia sponsored by the Institute for Humane Studies. The contrib utors - F. A. Harper, Carl F. H. Henry, Leopold Kohr, James W. Wiggins, James A. Sadowsky, Murray N. Rothbard, Arthur Kemp, Louis M. Sp·adaro, Sylves ter Petro, Georrge 1. Mavrodes, Edwin G. Dolan, James M. Smith, Israel M. Kirzner - consider such questions as: What is the connection between property and freedom? Is private property theft? Can scarcity be eliminated by redistributing prop erty? Are property rights the cre ation of law? If God owns every thing, can people own anything? Can an individual·own himself? The authors represent a wide spectrum of professions, approach es, and points of view. They differ on many questions, including the precise definitions of ownership and prOpBrty. However, they unite in their belief that the institution of private property is crucial to a humane .society.

Property in a Humane Economy is being distributed by the Insti tute for Humane Studies, 1177 University Drive, Menlo Park, Calif. 94025. ~ the ' Freeman VOL. 26, NO.5· MAY 1976 EducationalVouchers: The Double Tax Gary North 259 Those who want independent schools must stand on principle against the voucher system. ANew Message I. On Choosing liberty Jackson Pemberton 276 Words of courage and counsel from the hearts of the Founding Fathers to their children in a troubled ~ation. Capital Consumption Hans F. Sennholz 282 In order to consume more, man must produce more unless he is prepared to eat into the capital that helps produce the goods. Socialism as a Family Enterprise Yale Jay lubkin 300 - with children too small and too immature to know better. The Business of Government ClarenceB. Carson 302 Putting the "general welfare" in context; justicevs. mercy. Book Reviews: "The Biggest Con: How the Government Is Fleecing You" by Irwin A. Schiff "America's Emerging Fascist Economy" by Charlotte Twight "One Nation Under God" by Rus Walton "The New American Ideology" by George C. Lodge Anyone wishing to communicate with authors may send first-class mail in care of THE FREEMAN for forwarding.