Book Reviews

The old, he suggests, have become an endangered species in America. ((Old daddy gov'mint" has done its best to make ttseniority" and ttsenil ity" interchangeable words. A third 572 of the nation is supposed, at age 65 or thereabouts, to get out of the work force and start living on that Social Security funny money that could have been real wealth if daddy gov'mint had only allowed people the alternative of making their own investments. The Congress that passes the laws that discriminate against Hsenior citizens" is entirely hypocritical. It has no mandatory retirement age for itself. Yet it sets limits on what the 65-year-older can earn and still collect the full Social Security that he has been paying for all those years under the illusion that he was buying insurance. Inflation, of course, is the bane of the elderly who are compelled by the national stereotype to accept the burden of living on fixed incomes.

The villain in inflation is the same WITH WINGS AS EAGLES 573 government that has decreed an ar bitrary cutoff for people in the work ing force. In California, Old Man Jarvis, himself an exciting and energetic septuagenarian, actually succeeded in doing something about the two jaws of the ((vise" (rising prices and increasing taxes) that work such a hardship on those on fixed incomes. The Jarvis crusade against the property tax is a heartening har binger. Following the California example, the elderly can, as Perry Gresham says, ((mobilize for less government instead of more, for fewer taxes instead of more bene fits." Meanwhile Perry Gresham is not waiting on the tax rebellion to do something for people. Like Leonard Read, he believes in exemplarity. He discovered, on a rainy night in St. Louis when he was making notes for a speech on ((Life Begins at Sev enty," that he had all too negli gently accepted a scenario of the human life-cycle that put him on a plateau that must give way to slow decline and death. It suddenly oc curred to him that life was a matter of several peaks of achievement, not merely one. Perry Gresham speaks of experiencing something he calls ((the surge of the sixties." It was equivalent to the athletes' second wind.

The concept of new surges sent Perry Gresham to the history books. He discovered that six of Plato's greatest dialogues were written in the two decades before his death at 79. Socrates was cut off at age 70 by a rigged court that had condemned him to death for being all too effec tive as a teacher. Goethe wrote some of his greatest poetry in his seven ties. Benjamin Franklin was active in the Constitutional convention in his eighties. To come closer to home, Henry Hazlitt writes as clearly and cogently about economics in his eighties as he did in his fifties. Life, says Perry Gresham, is dura tion. The concept was Henri Bergson's, who thought that aging persons, who had greater reservoirs of experience from which to draw, With Wings as Eagles (163 pages) is pUblished by Anna PUblishing, Inc., P.O. Box 4778, Winter Park, Florida 32793. The hardbound edition at $10.95 may be ordered directly from the publisher.

The attractive paperbacked edition is also available from: The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc. Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y. 10533 paperback, single copy $5.95 10 copies or more, each $4.00 574 THE FREEMAN September Fierce no more is the spectre of old age I now see life as a series of renewals Senility is for those who abuse the body Or fail to qualify for renewal Despondency is for those who fail to find new challenges Loneliness is for those who fail to cultivate new friends Despair is for those who have lost their nerve I have faced all these spectres and I have defeated them With eagle wings I soar above them Old age is truly better than youth or middle years I have earned the right to be wise And to enjoy the inner splendor which has replaced The external concerns of the busiest years. PERRY E. GRESHAM could contribute much to creative evolution. Pondering Bergson on duration and his own experience with the ((surge of the sixties," Perry Gresham decided that men could be betrayed by defective images. Some of the images are mechanical. There is, for instance, the ((old-car"theory.

An old car can take just so many repairs. Brakes can be relined, even new engines may be substituted, but bodies nevertheless wear out in the allotted time. Biological images can be just as discouraging. There is the ((old-tree" theory. Eventually the sturdiest tree trunk must become a rotting log returning to the earth. Perry Gresham discovered that if he rejected mechanical and biologi cal images in favor of his ((surge" theory, life became a matter of suc cessive renewals. The title of his book comes from the Prophet Isaiah: ((But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles." The fear of death is a udis ease of Europe." It is what comes of faulty images, such as that of the ((old car" or the ((old tree." But if one is willing to ((wait upon the Lord"

1980 WITH WINGS AS EAGLES 575 and accept the theory of renewals, one ceases to worry about death. Much of Perry Gresham's book is a celebration of the scriptural exal tation of faith as the substance of things hoped-for, the evidence of things not seen. But, though he pays tribute to Oriental cultures which have little terror of the prospect of dying, Perry Gresham is like any other incurable Westerner when it comes to self-help in postponing the day when there will be no more earthly surges of energy. He has good rules for sustaining old friendships and cultivating new ones. He believes in the therapeutic values of games and dieting, but warns against being fanatic and bor ing about either. He believes in lis tening as well as in speaking. The vice of self-centeredness must be combatted-it is what makes one morose and dissatisfied even among interesting people. ((The cultivating of an other-regarding point of view,"

says Perry Gresham, ((is a lifelong experience, but seventy is a good time to start if it hasn't been started earlier." We have lived through the years of the baby boom and the tyranny of the young. Now that our population is growing older, Perry Gresham's surge philosophy may find a bigger audience than would have been pos sible in the Nineteen Sixties. The officially sanctioned retirement age has recently been jumped from 65 to 70. Congress feels more complacent about letting those on Social Secu rity earn more without being penalized for being productive. Who knows, if Perry Gresham can get a good hearing for his eagle-wing point of view, maybe Congress will ditch all those laws that treat the elderly with contempt. @ CUTTING BACK CITY HALL by Robert W. Poole, Jr. (Universe Books, 381 Park Ave. So., New York, N.Y. 10016) 224 pages. $12.50 cloth Reviewed by Brian Summers AMERICANS have grown used to thinking that the quality of local services rises and falls with tax rates. Thus, anyone proposing a tax cut is immediately accused of want ing to reduce already inadequate services.

This, Robert Poole shows, need not be the case. Local taxes can be cut while services are maintained if not vastly improved! Take the example of mass transit. Any talk of a tax cut is immediately met with threats of fare hikes and reduced schedules. But there is no reason why mass transit should be a city-run monopoly. As Poole shows with actual cases, private buses, jit neys, gypsy cabs, shared-ride cabs, car pools and van pools provide bet576 THE FREEMAN ter, cheaper, and more flexible ser vice than tax-subsidized mass transit systems. All that is needed to turn them loose is a repeal of gov ernment regulations. The same is true for garbage col lection. Cut taxes, we are threat ened, and garbage will pile up. But Poole cites numerous examples of private firms that put the gov ernment-run systems to shame. And at a profit! Private refuse col lectors have pioneered in the profit able extraction of energy, usable metals and glass from garbage.

Poole also considers police and fire protection, criminal justice, ambu lance service, recreational services, health care, zoning, public works, city management, and schools. In every field he finds examples of pri vate contracting, user fees, and modern management techniques that are improving local services while cutting costs. Cutting Back City Hall is a valu able handbook for those who seek better local services with reduced taxes. Especially useful is a listing of companies (including consultants) that offer services to local govern ments on a contractual basis. , HANDSOME BLUE LEATHERLEX FREEMAN BINDERS $3.00 Order from: THE FOUNDATION FOR ECONOMIC EDUCATION, INC. IRVINGTON-ON-HUDSON, NEW YORK 10533 the Freeman VOL. 30, NO.1 0 • OCTOBER 1980 The Case AgainstProtectionism If goods do not cross frontiers, armies will. LawrenceW. Reed 579 Penaltieson Employment Ralph Bradford 586 Throwing obstacles between employer and employee.