October

389 The Confession of Yevgeni Turchik: Part-lime KGB Agent A special interview from inside the Soviet Union. 392 The Real Child Care Crisis J. Brian Phillips The state is neither an effective nor appropriate guardian for our children. 394 Specialization and Exchange Gene Smiley Gains from a rising specialization are the same whether we consider two individuals, the citizens of two states, or the citizens of two nations. 396 The Minimum Wage: An Unfair Advantage for Employers Donald J. Boudreaux The minimum wage creates a surplus of unskilled labor in the marketplace. 398 Free Market Money in Coal-Mining Communities Richard H. Timberlake The issue and use of scrip in isolated economic environments. 406 The Forgotten Right of Association David Hood Have the courts compromised a fundamental right in the name of expediency? 409 Movie-Goers Can Think for Themselves Tibor R.· Machan Consumers are not helpless pawns of advertisers.

410 Book Reviews John Chamberlain reviews A Critical Examination of Socialism by William Hurrell Mallock. Other reviews: Hong Kong by Jan Morris, The Fatal Conceit; The Errors of Socialism by F.A. Hayek, and Roosevelt and Stalin: The Failed Courtship by Robert Nisbet. CONTENTS OCTOBER 1989 VOL. 39 NO. 10 THEFREEMAN 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 Carl O. Helstrom, III 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 1946by 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 Freemanare 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 "Free Market Money in Coal Mining Communities" and "Movie-Goers Can Think for Themselves," provided appropriate credit is given and two copies of the reprinted material are sent to The Foundation. Bound volumes of The Freemanare 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 Freemanconsiders 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 PERSPECTIVE China:Whythe Worst Got on Top The recent slaughter of student demonstrators in China's Tiananmen Square led me to reread "Why the Worst Get on Top," a chapter in E A. Hayek's classic The Road to Serfdom, written in 1944. Why were the Chinese authorities so bru tal? Why did the soldiers shoot their own coun trymen? Consider Hayek's perceptive comments about totalitarian leaders and their minions: "To be a useful assistant in the running of a to talitarian state, it is not enough that a man should be prepared to accept specious justification of vile deeds; he must himself be prepared actively to break every moral rule he has ever known if this seems necessary to achieve the end set for him. Since it is the supreme leader who alone de tennines the ends, his instruments must have no moral convictions of their own. They must, above all, be unreservedly committed to the person of the leader; but next to this the most important thing is that they should be completely unprinci pled and literally capable of everything....

"Yet while there is little that is likely to induce men who are good by our standards to aspire to leading positions in the totalitarian machine, and much to deter them, there will be special oppor tunities for the ruthless and unscrupulous. There will be jobs to be done about the badness of which taken by themselves nobody has any doubt, but which have to be done in the service of some higher end, and which have to be execut ed with the same expertness and efficiencyas any others. . . . The readiness to do bad things be comes a path to promotion and power. . . . It is only too true when a distinguished American economist [Frank Knight] concludes from a simi lar brief enumeration of the duties of the authori ties of a collectiviststate that 'they would have to do these things whether they wanted to or not: and the probability of the people in power being individuals who would dislike the possession and exercise of power is on a level with the probabili ty that an extremely tender-hearted person would get the job of whipping-master in a slave planta tion.'"

-BRIAN SUMMERS OnEnvy It is ludicrous to envy anyone who succeeds in a capitalistic economy. Those who achieve great financial success do so through their productivity and are our most efficient servants. Their genius and energy produce the cheapest, the best, or the most desirable products that we buy. If they didn't, we wouldn't buy, and they wouldn't be so rich. Ours is truly a symbiotic relationship. Our good fortune is their good fortune-and vice ver sa. Their genius and energy are ours for the pur chase price of their goods and services. -JIM RUSSELL Beachwood, Ohio BeyondNumbers The success of recent privatization efforts can obscure the fact that privatization seeks merely to redress the damage done by collectivist actions and principles. Often those principles are left es sentially unchallenged, even aft~r property has been returned to private hands. The strong anti property, anti-capitalist bias of government offi cials is still largely intact. Some officials may have concluded that government action in the market place is inefficient, but few think it immoral.

We will not make real progress in shrinking the size of government if we only react to govern ment programs and if our reaction consists only of bar graphs and balance sheets. The figures, while providing empirical evidence against state intervention, apply to only one specific case at any time; there is nothing to carry over, no "big picture" to leave people with. The fact is that most people will countenance a good bit of ineffi ciency if they believe it to be for a good cause. The goal should be to nip plans to expand gov ernment in the bud, before a protective con stituency sprouts up. To accomplish this, the mindset of decision-makers in government must be changed. Such a change can occur only when the intellectual battle moves beyond simple num ber crunching. For success, the conflict must be waged where notions of freedom and liberty are the most compelling-the realm of ideas.

- JEFF A. TAYLOR Kingstree, South Carolina PERSPECTIVE The WorstPolluter Crude waste disposal practices, which the Federal government banned in the private sec tor a decade ago but allowed to continue at its own nuclear weapon plants, are largely respon sible for extensive environmental damage at those plants. . . . At the Portsmouth Uranium Enrichment Complex in Piketon, Ohio, workers dumped oil on the soil and plowed it under until 1983, failing to analyze it for cancer-causing solvents that have now contaminated the underground water and threaten drinking water supplies. . . . At the Savannah River Plant near Aiken, S.C., wastes laden with radioactive and chemical pollu tants were dumped until the mid-1980'sinto seep age lagoons. . . . At the Pinellas Plant in Largo, Fla., toxic sub stances have been discharged into the Pinellas County Sewer System. . . . The reports make clear, and experts agree, that the pollution was allowed to continue long after techniques for controlling it were thoroughly un derstood.

-MATTHEW L. WALD, writing in the December 8,1988, New York Times EqualRights Do rights exist in the individual or in the group? If rights exist in the individual, then there are no other rights that come with belonging to any group. A cajun does not have more rights be cause he belongs to a group labeled "cajuns" be cause there is no such thing as "cajun rights." A black does not have more rights than non-blacks because he joins other blacks to form a politically active group. Therefore, there's no such thing as "black rights" per se, but only individual rights that are the same for any black, white, cajun, and everyone else. -KEVIN SOUlHWICK, editor, CentreDemocrat, Bellefonte, Pennsylvania 380 THEFREEMAN IDEASON LIBERTY A Triumphfor Bootstraps Capitalism by Clint Bolick E go Brown never fancied himself a crusad er. His ambition is more that of a classic entrepreneur. His dream, as Mr. Brown describes it, is to "spread the shine" with shoe shine stands on street corners throughout Washington, D.C., and eventually in other cities as well.