November

IDEAS ON LIBERTY 420 Henry Hazlitt: A Man for ManySeasons BettinaBien Greaves A tribute in honor of author and economistHenryHazlitt's 95thbirthday. 429 No Votefor the Candidate TiborR. Machan Wouldn'tit be refreshingto have a candidatewho is reallyconcernedabout this country'ssolvencyand credibility? 431 The UnspokenDialogueof the Market MatthewB. Kibbe Each of us is continuouslyengagedin an unspokendialoguewithothers simply by actingand choosing. 434 Free Speech:An EndangeredSpeciesin India Rayasam~ Prasad Can a countryachieveprosperitywithouta free press? 436 Who Is Destroyingthe World'sForests? GregoryR Rehmke The answermay be surprising. 440 "Lime": E. B. Whiteand Self-Reliance CecilKuhne The entanglingweb of governmentbenevolence. 441 The PopulationBomb•••Defused R. CortKirkwood Populationgrowthstatisticsreallytell observersonlyone thing: there are more peopletoday than there were yesterday.

446 Private Property from Sowetoto Shanghai DavidBoaz A trip around the worldyieldssomevaluablelessons. 449 The Marketfor Low Cholesterol MichaelWalker The market wageswar againstdietaryfat. 450 MakingDough in the Heartland Ann Weiss Rogers A rural entrepreneur stumblesagainstgovernmentregulations. 453 Book Reviews John Chamberlain reviews Gerald Gunderson's The Wealth Creators.'An En trepreneurialHistory of the United States. Other books: Lexicon of Economic Thought by WalterE. Block and MichaelA. Walker and If EverybodyBought One Shoe.' AmericanCapitalismin CommunistChinaby Graeme Browning. CONTENTS NOVEMBER 1989 VOL. 39 NO.11 THE IDEASON LIBERTY Published by The Foundation for Economic Education Irvington-on-Hudson, NY 10533 President of The Board: Bruce M. Evans Vice-President: Robert G. Anderson Senior Editors: Beth A. Hoffman Brian Summers Contributing Editors: Bettina Bien Greaves Edmund A. Opitz Paul L. Poirot Copy Editor: Deane M. Brasfield 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 government. FEE is classified as a 26 USC 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt organization. Other officers of FEE's Board of Trustees are: Thomas C. Stevens, chairman; Ridgway K. Foley, Jr., vice chairman; Paul L. Poirot, secretary; H.E Lan genberg, 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 $15.00a year is required to cover direct mailing costs. Copyright © 1989 by the Foundation for Eco nomic Education, Inc. Printed in the U.S.A. Permission is granted to reprint any article in this issue, except "No Vote for the Candidate," provided appropriate credit is given and two copies of the reprinted material are sent to The Foundation.

Bound volumes of The Freeman are available from The Foundation for calendar years 1969 to date. Earlier volumes as well as current is sues are available on microfilm from University Microfilms, 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI48106. The Freeman considers unsolicited editorial submissions, but they must be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Our au thor's guide is available on request. FAX: (914) 591-8910 Cover illustration of Henry Hazlitt. © Deborah Melvin Beisner, 1989 PERSPECTIVE Is Aid HelpingProlongthe SudaneseWar? The government of the Democratic Republic of Sudan has become increasingly dissatisfied with the United States and other Western gov ernments for failing to provide sufficient aid. This was never more evident than following last year's flooding in northern Sudan, when Information Minister Abdallah Mohamed Ahmed called the U.S. "miserly" and said, "[their response] has let us know who our true friends are." (The Daily Nation [Nairobi, Kenya], August 26, 1988) Gone are the days when gifts, regardless of size, were gratefully received. Foreign aid has come to be expected as a right, and provides a large chunk of many Third World nations' bud gets. Many Third World governments limp from crisis to crisis, ever promising but rarely deliver ing true reform. And with the supply taps end lessly open, there is little incentive for reform.

In fact, why end the current civil war? Time was when starving people and endless destruction made it impossible to continue a war. But now war simply brings in more foreign aid. So where is the incentive to stop it? -J. KEITH BATEMAN Juba, Sudan Knowledgeof the Law Is No Excuse The Dallas Morning News says HUD over charges have cost the taxpayers $1 billion in the last five years. My goodness, a billion dollars. That must be a lot of money. But you couldn't prove it by me. It's so far beyond my comprehension that ... well, like a giant star that's a billion miles away,to me it's next to nothing. But let me tell you what I can understand: $165. A friend of mine, who is kind of weird, was telling me about it. (I say he's weird, but in a nice way. He's a doctor who still makes house calls.) What it is, he has a lawyer acquaintance who all the time is trying to make him understand he should be making more money.

"He was telling me what a terrible business man 1 am," the doctor said, chuckling. "But 1 guess he thought if I was smart enough to know what a doctor knows, maybe I was smart enough to learn what a lawyer knows. "Real estate-that's the ticket, he said. I need ed to diversify,invest, to widen my holdings. "Well, what do 1 know about real estate? Real estate has nothing to do with medicine. "For that matter, I asked him, what does a lawyer know about real estate? Real estate has nothing to do with law. "He didn't answer me directly.Instead he start ed telling me about a piece of property he owned, a house that he rents out. It so happened I knew which house it was, though I hadn't known he owned it. "I said, 'You mean that old falling down house with the rusty tin roof?' "He said, 'Don't make fun of it. That old house puts rent money in my pocket every month.' "I laughed and said, 'How much money can a place like that rent for?' "Now it was his turn to laugh. 'Would you be lieve $330 a month,' he said.

"I said, 'Good night! What idiot would pay $330for a dump?' "He said, 'No idiot would. But HUD pays half of it.' "I said, 'Are you telling me that you're not only making money off poor people, but the tax payers as well? And you're telling me that's what 1ought to do?' "He sort of took offense at that. He said, 'Well, it's all perfectly legal.' "I guess he had me there. I'm no lawyer. But 1 do know this much, that there can be a big differ ence between legality and morality, and 1 told him so." Personally, I haven't seen the property and have no way of knowing if my doctor friend is correct, that it's a bad deal for everybody in volved, poor people and taxpayers alike. PERSPECTIVE I do know this much: that half of $330is $165. Just for the fun of fiddling with figures, let's say there are 10 such bad deals in this county, amounting to $1,650 a month in HUD money or $19,800a year. Multiply that figure times the 256 counties in Texas. All of a sudden you've topped $5 million.

Take it one more step, $5 million times 50 states, and by golly we're at the quarter of a bil lion dollar mark. In just four years-not five-you have found a billion dollars in bad deals. But like the fellows say, here in Lufkin and there in Washington, it was all perfectly legal. Far be it from me to suggest otherwise. About the only legal precept I know is that ignorance of the law is no excuse. Too bad it doesn't work the other way as well: that knowledge of the law is no excuse. - JOE MURRAY, writing in the July 3, 1989, issue of The Lufkin Daily News, Lufkin, Texas, a member of Cox Newspapers, Inc FEE Salutes HenryHazlitt November 28,1989, marks the 95th birthday of Henry Hazlitt, noted author and economist. Mr. Hazlitt has served FEE as a Trustee since its be ginning in 1946 and was recently voted the desig nation "Founding Trustee" by his fellow mem bers of the Board. For a glimpse at Mr. Hazlitt's illustrious career, see Bettina Bien Greaves' article, "Henry Hazlitt: A Man for Many Seasons," starting on page 420.

This fall FEE published Henry Hazlitt: An Appreciation, a collection of essays by and about Mr. Hazlitt. The booklet also contains Mrs. Greaves' annotated bibliography of Mr. Hazlitt's books. Henry Hazlitt: An Appreciation is available from FEE free of charge with the purchase of Economics in One Lesson (paperback $7.95).