Book Reviews

But we know this can't be true. A century ago practically everybody was poor. Today this isn't so. The world's stack of wealth is increasing all the time, even in the midst of debilitating wars. Father Schall wonders how once-fertile coun tries can fall into poverty. Tanzania in tropical Africa perplexes him. It could be as prosperous as Kenya next door. But ideology interferes. "The best way to discover why Tanzania ... remains poor," he says, "is not to examine its soil or its rainfall, but to read the collected speeches of Mr. Julius Nyerere. He may be a very good man, but he chose the wrong theoretical ideology to explain his country's poverty to itself. He gave some of these speeches to religious groups which have spread the doctrine widely.And this has promoted coercion-with poverty as the inevitable result." Tanzanian farmers are compelled to raise crops collectively.There is no individual incentive. The practical result is that there is nothing in the store house.

Father Schall doesn't like the idea of sharing. It implies that there is common ownership of the wealth. He wants to promote giving. As to shar ing, he writes, "I have always held the unorthodox view that it is more difficult to receive than to give." He quotes Chesterton as saying that "if I were a poet writing a Utopia . . . if I were a God making a Planet, I would deliberately make it a world of give and take, rather than a world of sharing .... I want Jones by one mystical and godlike act to give a cigar to Brown, and Brown by another mystical and godlike act to give a cigar to Jones." The world, so Father Schall sums up, "is made up of givers and receivers, while those who merely share, I suspect, remain locked up in a very little world in which everything belongs to everyone else and nothing to each." Father Schall thinks there is plenty in the world for everybody. He quotes Norman Macrae in The Economist as saying that we could easily produce a glut on the international food market "so great it would dwarf all other issues.The Ganges Valleyin India, the Yangtze in China, the MississippiValley in the Midwest, and even the smaller San Joaquin Valleyin California can by themselves come fairly close to supplying the world's basic food needs if farmed with the intensity and skill of the Dutch or Japanese. What causes insufficient food produc tion are fundamentally the theories, values, and ideologies that interfere with or fail to foster those 236 THE FREEMAN • JUNE 1990 means of achieving the planet's capacity in this area. Some seem even to welcome starvation in order to prove their theories."

Schall asks rhetorically "What is taught in many religious circles today?" He gives as his answer "mostly this: the poor are poor because the rich are rich. The poor are getting poorer because the percentage gap between the rich and the poor is slightly increasing. The rich are rich because they exploit the poor. The only way to change this is to alter the consciousness of the exploited people to be 'aware' of their condition, to become angry or even violent. A new order based on political, socialist-oriented principles must be instituted soon to redistribute worldly power and wealth. This process is called 'justice' and has practically co-opted any other meaning of the word." As Westbrook Pegler might have said, "'T ain't right." By carefully following all this "religious ped agogy," says Schall, "the net result would be that the poor remain forever poor." What we ought to be doing, says Schall, is not sending "our eas ily manipulated nuns, college students, and sem inarians to slums and barrios" to have them rou tinely return reciting "canned ideology in the name of faith without a clue about the differ ence."

Instead of heavily laden socialist theological texts, our "young ought at least to have a look at . . . Norman Macrae, Irving Kristol. . . Paul Johnson, E T. Bauer, and The Economist.For an early reflection on faith and justice, instead of Marx and the Bible, they might try Barrington Moore's Reflectionson the CausesofHuman Mis eryandCertainProposalstoAlleviateIt or Jacques Ellul's Betrayalof the West . .." There ought, says Schall, to be ways of making the widening of state power palatable. The Chris tian distinction between the things of God and Caesar suggests the idea of the limited state in which Caesar does not control everything, "espe ciallythe most important things." But the interpre tation of the Constitution's general welfare clause is taken to mean that the state has a moral duty to provide and guarantee just about everything. It is a totalitarian view of modem natural rights theory, and it just won't work, as Schall notes.

"No doubt the state need not be our enemy," he says, "but who is to save us when even the clergy seems to suggest it is our salvation?" 0 INDIVIDUALS AND mEIR RIGHTS by Tibor R. Machan Open Court,315 Fifth Street, Peru, IL 61354 • 1989 • 250 pages $32.95cloth,$16.95paper Reviewedby DavidM. Brown I n his new and very readable book on our nat ural rights, philosopher Tibor R. Machan has accepted a task that too many contemporary advocates of liberty regard as almost beside the point. What he has done is ground our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in a broad philosophical framework of ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics-that is to say,in a theory of what reality is fundamentally like· (metaphysics), how we can know anything about it (epistemology), and what choices we should make given what we know about ourselves and the outside ·world (ethics or morality). Once Machan has given us answers in those realms, he can then go on to apply his answers to political questions.

The more fundamental levels of philosophy do matter for questions of public policy. To see this, let us suppose that everybody agrees to follow what has been called the "nonaggression axiom," a principle which some libertarians insist would be sufficient, all by itself,to secure and sustain a polit ically just society. The nonaggression axiom says: Nobody has the right to initiate the use of force. Simple reference to this principle, it is said, enables us to recognize where the justice lies in any politi cal conflict or in social conflicts involving violence or coercion. But this approach founders if we ask, for exam ple, what in fact constitutes aggression? What is the realm which may not be aggressed against? How do we determine it? If you punch somebody in the nose out of the blue, is that the only thing that counts as aggression? What about menacing gestures? What about taking property whose own ership is in doubt? But maybe we're being too ambitious here. Maybe we can't really know any thing anyway. Heck, maybe we don't even existor at least not our rights.

My own attention to such questions has been informed by writers like Ayn Rand, Robert James Bidinotto, Dimitri Rotov, David Kelley, and now TiborMachan. This book is a full fledged discussion of human nature, how we can know it, and what the implications are for political and social relations. The author confronts opposing philosophical positions with eminent fairness, and successfully shows why they lead to different, and morally wrong, policy prescrip tions. His own argument clearly demonstrates that political principles require a more funda mental philosophical foundation for their intelli gible defense and that the specific politics one espouses will be intimately affected by variations in those basic positions. Rights are a kind of moral claim, based on the objective requirements of life in a social context, although they have been treated by many writers, including Thomas Jefferson, as a kind of endow ment. By contrast, Machan defines rights as "social conditions that ought to be maintained, moral principles pertaining to aspects of social life." He favorably quotes Ayn Rand's statement that rights are "conditions of existence required by man's nature for his proper survival." Although I would say that rights are actually justified moral claims or entitlements to those conditions rather than, as appears to be asserted here, the conditions themselves (one can have a right without its being respected), the relationship of the rights issue to the wider philosophical realm is evident.

If, for instance, man's nature is fluid, unknow able, or the opposite of what we think it is, then what we can logicallysay about the requirements of sustaining man's life-of achievinghis "proper" survival-will be consequently altered. To wit, if man is a predetermined, fate-driven automaton with no genuine capacity for choice, then to declare that he "ought" to do something is mean ingless. And if man does not, after all, possess the capacity to reason, then to declare that force is evil because it thwarts his reasoning is meaningless as well. This book is refreshing not because it aspires to be definitive or exhaustive on these issues, but because it treats them as necessarily interrelated, and profoundly illuminates the connections. Of course, not all readers, even those already in agreement with the broad premise of the book, will accept Machan's arguments entirely. I had trouble with aspects of his discussionof "consent,"

for instance. But certainly those who seek to improve their understanding of the requirements of a free society willbe well rewarded by a scrupu lous study of this work. Here, for example, is just one of Machan's OTHER BOOKS 237 insightsthat caught my attention. It is an examina tion of the "tragedy of the commons" that builds on the usual economic treatment: One way of interpreting the famous doctrine of "the tragedy of the commons" is to realize that when common ownership and authority attach to some valuable option, individuals who are responsible for making morally right choices cannot make them. They are unable to deter mine what they should do because they lack jurisdiction over the various alternatives that face them. As a result, one of their alternatives is to not consider externalities [external costs] their use of the property imposes on others. Indeed, it is not even possible to know what are externalities and what are not. "External" and "internal" presuppose borders spelled out by property rights and property law.... What is ultimately tragic in the "tragedy of the com mons" is that even if one were determined not to neglect any of one's responsibilities it cannot be clear what one's responsibilities are.

Here the economic truth of common ownership is related to the essential requirements of moral responsibility to others. Moreover, this insight relies on Machan's general discussion of man's nature that spells out in what ways man is a social creature, in what ways he is a purely private and individual creature, and how to properly specify both realms so as to protect all individuals and their rights. Machan defends his thesis ably against several contending theories, and is generally effective in doing so. He pays careful attention to what his col leagues are arguing and gives their theories their due before exposing their fallacies. My one gripe with his approach and with the entire book is his tendency to garnish perfectly plain and defensible contentions with unnecessary qualifications, including wordslike "seems" and "appears to be" when the implied uncertainty of these locutions is uncalled for. I don't believe that Machan is a crypto-skeptic, so perhaps instead he is struggling to be diplomatic with his philosophical adver saries. This tactic seems to be epistemologically wrong, however,with statements that are regarded as certain rather than tentative, especially when issues of life and death are at stake.

Be that as it may, this is not a book to be missed if you are interested in the philosophical defense 238 THE FREEMAN • JUNE 1990 of individual rights. You'll be enriched by it, and willwant to return to its arguments many times.D David M. Brown is the managing editor of the Laissez Faire Books catalog and a freelance writer. For a copy of the Laissez Faire catalog, write Laissez Faire Books, 942 Howard Street, San Francisco, CA 94103. ECONOMICS:WORKAND PROSPERITY by Russell Kirk A Beka Book Publications, P.O. Box 18000, Pensacola, FL 32523 9160 • 1989 • 398 pages • $12.10 paperback Reviewedby E. CalvinBeisner T he old adage goes, "Those who can't, teach." And many a student can testify that those who can't teach, write textbooks. The typical elementary-and secondary-school textbook tests the patience and fortitude of every student. Not, of course, because it is challenging, but because it is dull. It is written as ifby a machine rather than by a warm, flesh-and-blood human being; and usually that is half true, for most such textbooks are written by committees, in which all the signsof personality die the death of a thousand qualifications.

The substance of most textbooks is no better than their form, and often is worse. Publishers typ ically find people only half-educated in the fields, and select them because they have shown some ability to get along in committee work as co authors. As a result, we have American history texts that utterly ignore the role of religion in shap ing this nation's political, social, and economic institutions, civicstextbooks that anachronistically saddle the framers of the Constitution with the views of today's liberal Federal judiciary, and text books in all fields that are filled with the most ele mentary errors. It is, therefore, a refreshing shock to find an excellent high school economics textbook written by one of America's finest writers, political philosophers, and historians of ideas, Dr. Russell Kirk. In Economics:Work and Prosperity,Kirk combines his great literary skills with his unparal leled knowledge of history and the ideas that have shaped it to give students a textbook that willchal lenge them, inspire them, even (sometimes) enter tain them. And those who read it attentively will, upon completing it, understand considerably more about economics, I daresay, than do most students who have just completed an undergraduate degree in the field. (Indeed, I first read the book in manuscript form while working on my own mas ter's thesis in economic ethics. I quickly recognized that it taught more solid substance in clearer ways than any other book I'd read in the field.) Kirk begins, in the first five chapters, by intro ducing students to some of the first principles of economics: work, the nature of economic value, types of goods, the elements of capital, labor, and resources, supply and demand, marginal utility, price, how the market economy processes infor mation, profits and productivity, and the important fact that poverty, not prosperity, is the natural con dition of mankind. From the start he alerts readers to the important difference between controlled and free economies and how the former are doomed to failure because they try to function as if there were no economic laws.

Kirk does this not by means of a theoretical dis cussion but by telling the story of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, who began their venture in the New World as communists, quickly found that this "kind of slavery" bred nothing but poverty and discontent, and then abandoned the "common course and condition" in favor of a free market based on private property, finding in that the secret of abundant productivity. Indeed, part of the genius of Kirk's book is his frequent resort to stories that clearly illustrate the concepts he seeks to communicate. The stories have their origins in American history, great fictional literature, the Bible, and frequently enough Kirk's own fertile imagination. In the sixth through ninth chapters, Kirk explains how competition contributes to economic wellbeing and monopoly harms it; how division of labor, comparative advantage, and scale of pro duction contribute to efficiencyof production; the importance, forms, and effects of saving; and the nature and functions of money and banking in the economy.

The 10th through 13th chapters focus on the relationships between civil government and the economy, showingwhy a very limited role for gov ernment better contributes to a productive, just economy than does a broad role. The 11th chapter chronicles the successes and weaknesses of the market economy,answering, along the way,allega tions that it falls short of justice, while the 12th explains the inherent weaknesses of command economies, and the 13th addresses various chal lenges facing all economies: pollution, waste, and especially inflation, with its distorting effects on production and distribution. Kirk concludes with a chapter on the economic future of the world. He castigates the "prophets of doom and gloom" for ignoring obvious signs that the world is getting richer, not poorer, and for advocating "remedies" for the world's economic ills that by their very nature cannot fail to exacer bate the problems. At the end of the chapter he has a section on "The Moral Foundation of Eco nomics," reviving a theme that plays throughout the book. Here Kirk drives home the lesson that "material prosperity depends upon moral convic tions and moral dealings." He explains several virtues on which economic welfare depends: hon esty, industry, charity, fortitude, and generosity, and shows how and why Marxism undercuts all such values.

"So long as many people work intelligently,with good moral habits, for their own advantage and for the prosperity of a nation, an economy willremain healthy," Kirk writes. "But hard work and sound habits may be undone by foolish public policies or by the violent entry of totalist states. There is a strong need for watchfulness on behalf of the economy." As one expects from an admirer of Samuel Johnson, Kirk includes a glossary with clear, help ful definitions for all the chief terms in the book. Like Johnson, he doesn't hesitate to let definitions communicate perspective. Compare, for instance, liberal("in politics a person who favors change and experiment, as opposed to a conservative") with conservative("one who prefers old and tested institutions to new and untried ways; one who believes that there are basic values that need to be conserved"). He equips students to see through the popular distortions of economic facts by giving them straight definitions of often twisted words.

Inflation, for instance, which many now equate with rising prices (no thanks to the news media's unvarying misuse of the word), he defines as "an economic condition in which too much money is in circulation, causing prices to rise rapidly." A thorough and helpful index completes the volume, putting useful information at the student's fingertips whenever he needs it. Interestingly enough, Economics: Work and Prosperitywas rejected by several major publishOTHER BOOKS 239 ers, in some cases after they had first shown con siderable interest in it. Why? Because they judged that it was not sufficiently "value neutral," that it made too much use of moral and even religious concepts, to be used in public schools. So much the worse for the public schools. Economics:Work and Prosperityhas been published instead by A Beka Book Publications, one of the nation's largest suppliers of textbooks for home and private schools. No doubt it will contribute might ilyto the quality of education in those markets, not only in economics but also in moral and political philosophy, and even in students' understanding of history. I can think of no better textbook by which to introduce students to economics. D E. Calvin Beisner holds an M.A. in economic ethics and is the author of Prosperity and Poverty: The Compas sionate Use of Resources in a World of Scarcity (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1988) and Prospects for Growth: A Bibilical View of Population, Resources, and the Future (Crossway Books).

FEDERALSUPPORTOF HIGHER EDUCATION:THE GROWING CHALLENGETO INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM Edited by Roger E. Meiners and Ryan C. Amacher Professors World Peace Academy, distributed by Paragon House Publishers, 90 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10011 • 1989 393 pages • $15.95paperback Reviewedby Julio H. Cole H igher education the world over is domi nated by government. In the United States, most colleges and universities are government institutions, or rely heavily on govern ment support even if they are private. Since it is an article of common sense that "whoever pays the piper calls the tune," the question naturally arises as to the effects which government funding has had upon the direction and quality of university teaching and research. Surprisingly, however, as the editors note in their foreword, "understanding of the impact of governmental domination of the academy by scholars is not very good." Of course, there is no shortage of academic literature seeking to justify ever larger public support for higher education, but studies that examine government's role in a detached and impartial manner are quite rare. The 240 THE FREEMAN • JUNE 1990 paperscollectedin this volumeare an attempt to redressthis imbalance,at least as far as the situa tionin the U.S. is concerned.

Overall,the contributingauthors tend to con cludethattheeffectsofgovernmentinterventionin the market for highereducationhave been nega tive, althoughthe first chapterby the late Sidney Hook does not find, in principle, any conflict betweengovernmentsupport and academicfree dom.Thefollowingchaptersarelesssanguine,and point to more subtle and less obviousinfluences. "TheGrowthofGovernmentControlofAmerican HigherEducation"is chronicledin the chapterby LeonardLiggioandRogerMeiners,andtheeffects of this growthdo not appear to have been wholly salutary. The chapter by Donald Erickson, for instance,showsthat in the academicfield of "edu cation,"researchis devotedalmostentirelyto jus tifyinggovernmentpolicies,whilemorecontrover sialissuestendto be ignored.Similarsituationsare encounteredin accounting(RossWattsand Jerold Zimmerman) and agriculturaleconomics(E. C. Pasour).Theseare all fields in which government not only financesresearch, but also has a direct impacton practicethroughpolicyand regulation.

The chapter by Peter Aranson suggests that theseeffectsare not so mucha questionofideolo gy as one ofsimply"not bitingthe handsthat feed them."To be sure,academicsas a groupare more left-of-centerthan the generalpopulation.How ever, withinacademiathe natural scientists,who receive a larger share of government research funds, tend to be more politicallyconservative, while political science, where government researchsupportis trivialby comparison,has the largest proportion of left-leaningprofessors.(In this regard,the caseof the "hard" scientistsseems comparable to that of other special interest groups,such as defensecontractorsand farmers, who also tend to be "conservative"while at the same time favoringgovernment intervention in theirown sectors.) Other papers in this collection deal with the National Science Foundation (John Sommer), how collegeaccreditationis allowingfor addition al Federal control (Robert Staaf), "Intellectual Attitudes and Regulatory Change" (Fred Mc Chesney), by-products of governmentfunded research(MichaelGhiselin),a criticalanalysisof the arguments for government intervention in education(E. G. West),and a highlylearned dis cussionofthe basicconflictbetweena freemarket in ideasand attemptsto "organize"highereduca tion (WilliamBartley).A finalchapterby Gordon Tullock offers some provocative remarks on "What is Higher Education?" and some innova tivesuggestionsfor restructuringit.

Theseare all importantpaperson an important topic,and this volumeshouldhelp stimulatefur ther discussionand debateon theseissues. 0 Professor Cole teaches economics at the Universidad Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala.