April

146 Public Funding for the Arts: Diamond or Daub? Eugenie Dickerson What happens when the government becomes patron of the arts? 148 Freedom Footnote Paul Rux A lesson from a most unexpected source. 149 Some Thoughts on Discrimination George C. Lee! A free economy, open to all, would obviate the need for anti discrimination laws. 154 The Job Abacus: No Guide to Public Policy James E. McClure and T. Norman Van Cott Counting jobs yields irrelevant answers. 156 Government Regulation of Air Safety May Be Hazardous to Your Health John Semmens Do more crowded skies le::td to less safety? 159 A Reviewer's Notebook John Chamberlain A review of "Wedemeyer on War and Peace," edited by K. E. Eiler. CONTENTS APRIL 1988 VOL. 38 NO.4 THEFREEMAN IDEAS ON LIBERTY Published by The Foundation for Economic Education Irvington-on-Hudson, NY 10533 President of the Board: Robert D. Love Vice-President of Operations: Robert G. Anderson Senior Editors: Beth A. Hoffman Brian Summers Book Review Editor: Edmund A. Opitz Contributing Editors: Bettina Bien Greaves Jacob G. Hornberger Paul L. Poirot The Freeman is the monthly publication of The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc., Irvington-on-Hudson, NY 10533 (914) 591-7230.

FEE, founded in 1946 by Leonard E. Read, is a nonpolitical educational champion of private property, the free market, and limited govern ment. FEE is classified as a 26 USC 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt organization. Other officers of FEE's Board of Trustees are: Bruce M. Evans, chairman; Thomas C. Stevens, vice-chairman; Joseph E. Coberly, Jr., vice-president; Don L. Foote, secretary; Lovett C. Peters, treasurer. The costs of Foundation projects and services are met through donations. Donations are invited in any amount. Subscriptions to The Freeman are available to any interested person in the United States for the asking. Additional single copies $1.00; 10 or more, 50 cents each. For foreign delivery, a donation of $10.00 a year is required to cover direct mailing costs. Copyright © 1988 by the Foundation for Economic Education, Inc. Printed in U.S.A. Permission is granted to reprint any article in this issue, except "Entrepreneurs and the State" pro vided appropriate credit is given and two copies of the reprinted material are sent to The Founda tion.

Bound volumes of The Freeman are available from The Foundation for calendar years 1969 to date. Earlier volumes as well as current issues are available on microfilm from University Micro films, 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. The Freeman considers unsolicited editorial sub missions, but they must be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Our author's guide is available on request. PERSPECTIVE Taken for Granted There is a sense in which being taken for granted is a compliment. A person who takes me for granted has assumed my reliability, trustworthiness, and competence. I have been perceived not as a variable-the fickle subject of random change-but as a constant. But being taken for granted can also irk. It can be perceived as indifference, as a lack of interest or concern. Indeed, a person who ha bitually takes another for granted, never ex pressing appreciation of that person's activities, runs the risk of jeopardizing the very relation ship he or she values.

Many today take the productive genius of the free market for granted. They assume a boun tiful supply of goods and services, and devise elaborate schemes to secure a "fairer" distri bution~ Burdensome regulations are placed on those creating wealth. In the name of compas sion, market prices are overruled. But in so doing, the market is fettered and its subtle operations flounder. Information sig nalled by changing market prices is distorted. Labor, capital, and raw materials are misallo cated. The material abundance cavalierly taken for granted is threatened. The productive capacity of a free market in one sense can be taken for granted. The market can be relied upon, trusted, and thus "as sumed." Yet when this reliance leads to poli cies which defy the economic laws governing the market, or to a disregard of the moral values the market presupposes, the ultimate de struction of what has been taken for granted is guaranteed.

-John K. Williams The Underclass What prevents men and women in the inner city from advancing is not racism and not a lack of government programs. We have had, in re cent years, more government programs and less racism than ever before-yet the underclass has been multiplying at an ever more rapid pace. For any group to advance, what is re quired is self-discipline, deferring immediate gratification for long-run goals, and a willing ness to commit oneself to hard work. The dra matic strides made by recent immigrants from Southeast Asia-who possess such a value system-indicate that difference of race, lan guage and culture is no impediment to prog ress. Black organizations and leaders should be asking themselves how they can assist in pro moting such a value system among young people in the inner city. Instead, they continue to speak of more programs, more government spending, and more of the very things which have grown precisely as the underclass has grown. Needless to say, many of those who ad vocate such counterproductive public policy have a vested interest in such programs. They may be helping themselves, but they have not been helping the pregnant teenagers, the illegit imate children, the one parent families and the young people caught in a dead end of drugs and crime in whose name they speak.

For many years, the black civil rights estab lishment succeeded in intimidating other Amer icans, black and white, from confronting the growing inner-city underclass. The fear of being called "racist" was enough to silence many. Yet, today, the explosion of illegitimate births and crime-of drug addiction and every form of social pathology-can no longer be ig nored. Finally, it is on the national agenda for discussion and debate. -J. A. Parker, Editor Lincoln Review Freedom to Move The greatest danger to the country, to indi vidual employees and to the companies in volved is governmental policies that tend to lock companies and employees in place rather than encourage the expeditious movement of PERSPECTIVE personnel and capital out of declining industries and into the new, evolving growth industries. -Martin Stone, Chairman Monogram Industries Russian Humor You can tell a lot about a country from its humor. Here is a joke which is making the rounds in the Soviet Union: A man goes to buy a car. He puts down his money and is told by the clerk that he can ex pect delivery in exactly ten years.

, 'Morning or afternoon?" the purchaser asks. "Ten years from now, what difference does it make?" replies the clerk. "Well," says the car buyer, "the plumber's coming in the morning." -The New York Times, August 21, 1987 Good Questions Is there a compelling national interest in im proving gourmet salads? Congressman Silvio Conte of Massachusetts, the ranking Repub lican on the House Appropriations Committee, apparently thought so when he earmarked $60,000 for a Belgian Endive Research Center at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Is U.S. foreign policy served by the $8 million that Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, set aside for a language school for Sephardic Jews in France? Do Alaskan fishermen really need the $2.6 million that Sen. Ted Stevens won to "develop fishery products' '? Are America's economic interests truly met by the $6.4 million federally funded Bavarian-style ski resort that Sen. James McClure brought home to spur development in Kellogg, Idaho?

-Newsweek, January 18, 1988 124 THEFREEMAN IDEAS ON LIBERTY Equal: But Not the Same by Edmund A. Opitz T he real American revolution of two hundred years ago took place in the minds of people; it was a philosophical revolution which evolved a new temper and state of mind. There were some daring assump tions about the nature of the human person, with his Creator-endowed rights, as set forth in the catalog of self-evident truths contained in the Declaration of Independence. The accep tance of these novel truths about the human person led logically to a new conception of government, a theory of right political action radically different from all previous theories of the purposes of government in human affairs. Government, according to the Declaration, is instituted for one purpose only-to secure every person in his God-given rights. Period. No longer was the State to exercise the positive function of ordering, regulating, controlling, directing, or dominating the citizens. The new idea was to limit government to a negative role in society; government's task is to protect life, liberty, and property by using lawful force against aggressive and criminal actions. Gov ernment would discipline the antisocial, but otherwise let people alone. The law was to apply equally to all; justice was to be impartial and even-handed.