Book Reviews

The best he can do is to say that ((socialism," by which he means some undefined ideal thing, H can only take root in capitalism and de velop by outgrowing-not destroy ing-capitalist civilization, while preserving its two cornerstones: the capacity to produce, and political, individual and cultural freedoms." The Totalitarian Temptation by Jean-Francois Revel. Pub lished by Doubleday & Co., 245 Park Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10017, $8.95 Such a sentence I find very puz zling. Isn't Revel trying to tell us that he is a voluntarist who wants to build a cooperative world on a base 445 446 THE FREEMAN July of private property and free associa tion? The word (socialism," with the connotations it has gathered, hardly covers Revel's desire. Oddly enough, Revel's ((socialism" seems to be very much the French equivalent of the Hneo-con servatism" that Irving Kristol ac cepts in his witty Two Cheers for Capitalism. Unlike his French brother, Kristol disdains to use the word ((socialism," saying that the socialist doctrine is dead but as yet unburied. But he is still a socialist in the Revel sense when he puts in a plug for a ((conservative welfare state." The idea of a welfare state, he says, ((is in itself perfectly consis tent with a conservative political philosophy-as Bismarck knew a hundred years ago."

Two Cheers for Capitalism by Irving Kristo!. Published by Basic Books, 10 E. 53rd Street, New York, N.Y. 10022, $10.00 Bringing Bismarck, the Prussian junker who prepared the soil for Hitler, into the picture I find just as confusing as Revel's attempt to root ((socialism" in capitalism. The terms of the argument get unbearably fuzzy. Actually, Kristol is not for a welfare state; he is for a welfare society, which is something quite different. He is willing to let the state define the uses to which people shall put their own money during a sort of Fabianism-in-reverse transi tion to a cooperative world built on a base of pri vate property and free association. This is a tactical com promise, not a philosophy of the ((conservative welfare state" as such. Fabianism in Reverse I feel a certain kinship with both Revel and Kristol, for I have person ally been through the evolution that they have, in my judgment, only half-completed. To have a pluralist society using democratic methods of government, there must be the property base. It's a matter of physics, as Isabel Paterson ex plained long ago. The free man must have something to stand on. He can't have free speech unless he can own his own sources of woodpulp and his own printing press. (If he wants to make that free speech oral, he must be able to hire his own hall in the market place.) If the state has the power to conscript one's income, thus preventing the acquisition of private property, the possibility of pluralism and democracy tends to disappear as the government pushes its power toward the totalitarian ex treme.

Yet, in deference to Irving Kristol, we must acknowledge the tactical necessity of getting from ((here to there" in a Fabianism-in-reverse movement back to the voluntary so1978 A MIDDLE WAY? 447 ciety. Kristol is full of ingenious suggestions: he wants to move away from state social security and state medicine by letting individuals take their voluntary insurance payments to pension funds and Blue Cross and Blue Shield schemes as wholly tax deductible items. He wants to see the Republican Party build itself anew on a program of offering ((in centives for the citizen to provide for his own welfare." No Sense of Direction The difficulty of working from the Kristol-or the Revel-position is that, when one becomes engaged in the game of Fabian compromise, it becomes increasingly hard to keep one's .sense of direction. To get a compromise in a libertarian, volun taristic direction, you need some muscularity and conviction in your preference for, say, private educa tion versus the public school. There must be a determined opposition in society to the idea of state support of education in order to provide the leverage to fight for even the mild est Fabianism-in-reverse voucher system for parents who might prefer private schools. The question comes down to the polarities of pluralism.

Where,and on what, do you take your stand? Polarities are created in society before they send their representa tives to the legislature. Mr. Kristol sees this point at times. He attacks what he calls the ((new class" for its greed for controlling the levers of power that are operated from a polit ical base in Washington. The ~~new class" sets itself up as an elite with a mystical call to use the common man's tax money-and the inflation ary paper dollar-to set the stan dards for society. With its support in the media, the new class has no compunctions about using compul sion to get its way. It wants no part of pluralism. Kristol supports some regulation, but in his evolution to nneo conservatism" he is having second thoughts about putting fetters on individuals and private organiza tions. He is worried about the bu reaucratization of society that re sults from ((new class" management of the people's tax money. The wel fare state, he says, is on a collision course with a working class psychol ogy which, while not rejecting any of the benefits of welfarism, feels vic timized by it. It turns out that it isn't much fun to be managed by the elite ~~new class" sons and daughters of the old middle class.

An Ugly Battle over the Question of Power In his progress from a quasi socialism to neo-conservatism, Kris tol has discovered ~(a dirty little se cret." The new elite talks about the ((redistribution of income." But it wants the income to be handed over 448 THE FREEMAN to the state, with the elite assuming the prerogatives of dishing it out. The battle is over the question of power. It is an ugly battle. So Mr. Kristol has become a tax rebel. He would force the rich to bequeath their money to heirs in small amounts, but for the living he advocates letting them keep their money. He still chides capitalists for not Hthinking politically." But in his own mind he considers the world has become too politicized. He ends as he begins, by giving ((two cheers" for capitalism on the grounds that the alternatives to it supported by the new elites range from the ((hideous" to the ((merely squalid." Com munism, socialism and fascism have all turned out to be illusions or frauds. So let us have a political order that allows men and women a private life, using their energies as they themselves may choose. @J HANDSOME BLUE LEATHERLEX FREEMAN BINDERS $3.00 Order from: THE FOUNDATION FOR ECONOMIC EDUCATION, INC.

IRVINGTON-ON-HUDSON, NEW YORK 10533 the Freeman VOL. 28, NO.8. AUGUST 1978 One Currency for the World? Henry Hazlitt 451 Look not to international agreements for a money as good as gold. Inflation-What It Is and What It Does Bettina Bien Greaves 455 Government creation of additional dollars discourages saving, hampers production, and denies individual self-reliance. Gourds and Dollars Ralph Bradford 460 From gourds to gold as money in Haiti. World in the Grip of an Idea 20. The United States: Business as an Instrument of Political Power Clarence B. Carson 463 Government control over business makes business the instrument of government control of consumers. Keep Off the Grass Gary North 475 Observations concerning the nature and the impact of central planning. Robert Louis Stevenson: Champion of Liberty Bob Stevenson 481 A biographical sketch of the libertarian views of the famed storyteller.