Book Reviews

Ellen Garwood, the daughter of Will Clayton, the cotton broker who was primarily responsible for the Marshall Plan, has done something to dispel our general ignorance of the Latin American past in a first-rate bi ography of Mariano Moreno, who was Secretary of Government and of War in the 1810revolutionary junta in Buenos Aires. Moreno, a passionate believer in free markets, had worked for free trade on behalf of the Argen tine gauchos before he himself be came a revolutionary. Ellen Garwood·calls her biography The Undying Flame: Mariano Mo reno oj Buenos A ires (Washington, D.C.: American Studies Center, 229 pp., $14.95). It is noteworthy that Mrs. Garwood's extensive bibliog raphy contains the merest smattering of Anglo-Saxon names. Mariano Moreno has no entry in my Encyclo pedia Britannica, which speaks of a "creole" junta in the La Plata region of Argentina. "Creole" was the ac cepted word for anyone of Spanish extraction who happened to be born on the American side of the Atlantic.

Moreno resented the implIcation that "creoles" were less deserving of high office in the colonial govern ments than the Spaniards who went out from Spain to enforce strict mer cantilist regulations. (Gaucho hides, tallow, and meat had to be sent to Cadiz and traded for Spanish goods or Spanish coin.) But, like all the early seekers for a relaxation of the mer cantilist rules that kept British ships and British goods out of Latin ports (and incidentally set things up for smugglers), Moreno was at first loath to cut completely free of the ties to Madrid. The Latins faced a situation that was a bit different from the one con fronting George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John and Samuel Ad ams in North America. There was the special problem of the captive King in Spain. Napoleon had taken Ferdinand VII captive. The creoles had ideas about bargaining with Ferdi nand, and some of them hoped that a restoration in Spain, once Napoleon was out of the way, would let the new principles of Adam Smith take over.

more pomp and ceremony than Mo reno felt was compatible with true de mocracy. Eventually the junta became the creature of its president, Colonel Saavedra, who liked to ape a viceroy's manners even though he stood by the revolution in the end. The Saavedra Ideas of Rousseau partisans ultimately pushed Moreno M oreno wa.s the first to ...diS-into undertaking a mission to England card the "mask of Ferdi-which was a thinly disguised way of nand" in the La Plata re-sending him into exile. Worn out by gion. In his Gaceta, or gazette, he his efforts to prepare the way for the pushed the ideas of Rousseau, who coming of General San Martin, who believed in the social contract. He ar-put the necessary military muscle into gued that the authority of the Mon-the freeing of Argentina and Chile, arch had been returned to the peoples Moreno fell sick at sea and had to be of both Spain and the colonies~. buried beneath the waves in his early through the captivity of Ferdinand. thirties.

"The people can," he said, "mod-Moreno, on Mrs. Garwood's showify or reduce ... authority to the form ing, was a truly selfless man. He took most agreeable to them in the act of legal cases, including one for the gau entrusting it to a new representative chos of the pampas, with no thought ... the Laws of the Indies were not of personal emolument. He founded made for a State and already we are the Public Library of Buenos Aires. forming one." Public hygiene was one of his preocThe Argentineans of the La Plata cupations: he started what became a region, in response to Moreno's urg-permanent establishment for the ings, opted for a constitution. His propagation of vaccine. He ordered trust in the Rousseauistic "general police patrols in dangerous vicinities, Will" assumed a consensus through-and he insisted on the elimination of out the whole back country of the Ar-potholes in the streets. He was a very gentine pampas. He had gone to the practical man.

university in Chuquisaca, where he As a publisher of Rousseau's Social took degrees in both canonical and Contract, Moreno eliminated the last civil law. Chuquisaca was leagues chapter for reasons of religious scru away from Buenos Aires, and Moreno pIes. He thought Rousseau had gone was sure that the country he had astray in religious matters. He seems passed through by foot, horseback, to have been unacquainted with Rous and coach to go to school was with seau's compatriot Montesquieu. him in wanting a constitution. He sent Maybe it was Moreno's cardinal error troops to the back country not as con-to have gone to Rousseau for his in querors, but as persuaders. spiration instead of Montesquieu, He did, however, feel constrained who subordinated the general will to to order the execution of a handful of the separation of powers. There ad dissenters including a former viceroy, mittedly must be some consensus in the Frenchman Liniers. This was one government, but the gateway to tyr of the hardest things that Moreno, a anny is opened when there is no pro peace-loving man who had been des-vision for vetoes and the constitu tined for the church before shifting to tional protection of minorities.

the law, ever had to do. It brought him With no checks and balances in the entirely false reputation of being government it is all too easy for a a "Jacobin," which provided a han-strong man to assume that he is the dIe for those in the junta who wanted embodiment of the general will. 0 237 MARIANO MORENO OF BUENOS AIRES 238 OTHER BOOKS Democratick Editorials: Essays in Jacksonian Political Economy by William Leggett compiled, edited, and with a foreword by Lawrence H. White Liberty Press, 7440 North Shadeland, Indianapolis, IN 46250 •1984 •412 + xx pages, $12.00 cloth; $6.00 paperback Reviewed by Arthur A. Ekirch, Jr. W illiam Leggett, spokesman . of the radical, laissez-faire wing of Jacksonian democ racy, deservedly continues to attract the attention of modern libertarians. Less than forty years of age at the time of his death in 1839, Leggett in the last decade of his short life became a free wheeling journalist and newspaper editor, serving from 1829 to 1836 as William Cullen Bryant's assistant, and then partner, on the New York Eve ning Post. Leggett's own forthright editorials in support of equal rights and minimal government caused his newspaper to lose most of its political patronage advertising. Although Leg gett therefore, not surprisingly, left the Post, he continued to write in two new periodicals of his own, which he promptly established, the New York Examiner and the Plaindealer.

Lawrence H.White's new Leggett collection draws much of its material from those Plaindealer editorials which were not included in the origi nal Collection of the Political Writ ings of William Leggett, published in 1840. White's selections accordingly provide a fuller account of Leggett's running literary battle against all eco nomic monopolies, his support of the divorce of government and banking, and his advocacy of free trade. These causes reflected in large part the na tional policies of the J acksonians. And one of Leggett's key editorials, "True Functions of Government," appropriately began with a quote from the President's message, vetoing the recharter of the Bank of the United States: "There are no necessary evils in Government. Its evils exist only in its abuses: If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified bless ing." "Governments have no right,"

Leggett added,. "to interfere with the pursuits of individuals, as guaranteed by those general laws, by offering en couragements and granting privileges to any particular class of industry or any select bodies of men, inasmuch as all classes of industry and all men are equally important to the general welfare and equally entitled to protection.' , On the state level, Le.ggett's consid erable influence among his fellow New York democrats left a legacy of free banking legislation and a general in corporation law. As a follower of the Jeffersonian agrarian or Jacksonian small capitalist philosophy, Leggett believed in the natural right to prop erty, not its abolition. Equal rights for all, within the limits of the General Law, and laissez-faire were the best guarantee of personal liberty. Expe rience taught that strong governments used their powers to enact special leg islation in order to reward the wealthy and take away from the poor. "The remedy," Leggett wrote, "is easy. It is to confine government within the narrowest limits of necessary duties."

No less important to Leggett than equal opportunity in the sphere of po litical economy were the rights of free speech and free discussion. Here he believed government had the duty to protect such unpopular minorities as the abolitionists in their crusade against slavery. And he also espoused the right of the laboring classes to combine against the power of corpo rate privilege and monopoly. For the immigrants coming to America, "as the boasted asylum of the oppressed to all the world," Leggett urged a warm welcome rather than hostility and intolerance. Ever consistent in his attacks upon special privilege, Leggett opposed government subsidies for public works, including education, roads, and canals, as well as the pro tection of authors and inventors via copyright and patent laws. White's compilation offers an at tractive, readable account of Leg gett's vigorous libertarian philosophy.

His foreword tells the story of a brief career for which Leggett's own clear prose is the best epitaph. 0 (Arthur Ekirch teaches history at the State University of New York at Albany.) The Economist of the Country: Ludwig von Mises in the History of Monetary Thought by James Rolph Edwards Carlton Press, 11 W. 32nd St., New York, N.Y. 10001 • 143 pages, $7.95 Reviewed by Jose [talo Stelle Y·oung scholars intent on com municating the history and ideas of the "Austrian" school of economics to a wider au dience could learn a great deal from James Rolph Edwards, Ludwig von Mises Assistant Professor of Eco nomics at Hillsdale College. This book deals with some crucial and forgotten aspects of monetary thought advanced early in this century by Mises. Edwards disproves the con tention of some economists "that Mises made no contributions worthy of note to monetary theory and re lated topics which have not already been recognized by orthodox western economists and credited in their his tories of monetary thought or general doctrinal histories."

Professor Edwards stresses that most mainstream economists and eco nomic historians fail to recognize the importance of Mises as a monetary theorist because they neglect his early writings. There was a time in the 1920's when Mises was known in Vi enna as "the economist of the coun try" -a man whose advice was sought by business and government leaders in his native Austria. But the climate of opinion shifted in the 1930's. Mises had warned that every infla tionary boom would be followed by economic collapse, but when the Great Depression came, nations turned to economic planning and Mises' work was ignored. Mises' business-cycle theory, for instance, "has been vir tually forgotten, until just recently." The same has happened to his appli cation of marginal analysis to the de mand for money, one of his greatest contributions. Worse, perhaps, is the widespread belief that monetary the ory "was not fully integrated with value theory until 1956," although Mises had accomplished this in 1912.

Edwards attributes "the relative obscurity" of Mises partly" ... to the fact that Th£: Theory of Money and Credit and certain of his other early works were unavailable in English translati,ons for some decades follow ing their initial publication." In Edwards' technical discussion of the nature of money, the regression theorem, the value of money, and so on, he makes it clear that most critics of Mises failed to spend the time re quired to understand him. Their con clusions result from too hasty a con sideration of the ideas of this unique "Austrian." Edwards probes the crit ics' half-truths, the superficially-ob vious certainties, showing their logical mistakes in contrast to the truth of Mises' position. Vindication of Mises against this background of ignorance and forget fulness makes The Economist of the Country worthy of notice. 0 (Jose 1. Stelle is a freelance writer, editor, and translator.) 239 OTHER BOOKS Waysto Save "The Permanent Things"

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Order from: The Foundation for Economic Education Irvington-on-Hudson, New York 10533 THEFREE IDEAS ON LIBERTY CONTENTS 244 The Political Economy of 262 Toward Free Banking JULY Educational Vouchers Donald R. Wells and 1986 Dwight R. Lee L. S. Scruggs VOL. 36 If educational vouchers become On the advantages of free NO.7 politically viable, it will be market banking, and how such because they can be used to a system might be implemented reverse the expansion in in the United States. genuinely private education. 270 The Ethics of Privatization 249 Taxes and Unemployment Tibor R. Machan Hans F. Sennholz Unless the privatization Taxation reduces the amount of movement stresses its moral capital invested per worker, legitimacy, it will prove to be lowers the productivity of a passing fancy. labor, depresses wage rates, and destroys jobs. 274 We Would Be Wise To ... Dale M. Haywood 256 The Industrial Revolution: Are we getting all we assume Working Class Poverty or we are from government Prosperity? services? To answer this John Majewski question, consider some market The evidence of increasing real alternatives.