July

IDEAS ON LIBERTY 244 The Military's Secret War Against Racism Lee Nichols Reporting the story of the successfulracialintegration of the armed forces. 247 The Right Kind of Social Activism EdwardWalter Project Choiceexemplifiesprivate sector initiativesto aid minoritystudents. 249 Capitalism and the Environment TiborR. Machan How the free market systemaddressesthe problems of pollution. 258 Employee Ownership: A Rapidly Growing Threat to a Free Market DwightD. Murphey The proliferationof Employee Stock OwnershipPlans. 262 The Ongoing Struggle for Liberty: Reasons for Optimism DwightR. Lee and RichardB. McKenzie Has the threat of governmentreached its zenith? 268 Fostering the System Ann Rogersand MichaelRogers A foster familyand their foster son become victimsof the state's social welfaresystems. 271 LowLife Al Garner A look at those who think life owes them a living. 273 A University with a Future LeonardR Liggio Guatemala's FranciscoMarroquin Universityhelps students to appreciate the freedom philosophy.

274 Readers' Forum 276 Book Reviews John ChamberlainreviewsIsrael'sDilemma:Why Israelis FallingApart and How to Put it Back Togetherby Ezra Sohar.Other books: The Diaryof H.L. Menckenedited by Charles A. Fecher, The HolocaustConspiracy:An InternationalPolicyof Genocideby WilliamR. Perl. CONTENTS JULY 1990 VOL. 40 NO.7 THEFREEMAN IDEASON LIBERTY PERSPECTIVE FAX: (914) 591-8910 Published by The Foundation for Economic Education Irvington-on-Hudson, NY 10533 The Freeman considers unsolicited editorial submissions, but they must be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Our author's guide is available on request. Bound volumes of The Freeman are available from The Foundation for calendar years 1971 to date. Earlier volumes as well as current is sues are available on microfilm from Univer sity Microfilms, 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. LivingWithinOurMeans Here is a simple rule with a wealth of stress reducing benefits.

Think of all the advantages to individuals and families of practicing the rule of "livingwithin your means." Previous generations in this country expected each person to live within his or her means as a re quirement of good citizenship. How else can one enjoy freedom? Certainly not when choices are limited by debt or when one has no personal resources. There can be no peace of mind when one is subject to the will of creditors. The same is true when one has no personal re sources. Like slaves of old, debtors live at the com mand of others-their creditors. And for all the at tempts to place the blame for public debt on someone else, as politicians often do, there is no es caping the fact that each of us is responsible for our own actions. We are the problem! When we take our hard won heritage of freedom and treat it so casually as to avoid taking care of our own affairs,we diminish our strength for self-government and allow the government to control more and more of our lives.

Consider how many problems would be less ened if it became popular again to live within our means. We don't need surveys, statistics, or psy chologicaltheories to show the stress in individuals and families due to financial problems. We see it all around us. Actually, livingwithin our means requires living below our means. Saving something regularly from our earnings strengthens our security and peace of mind, while at the same time it expands our choices and opportunities for the future. I remember the advice given me when I got mar ried: "Live below your income or you will never know contentment." I have heard and read a lot of financial ideas in the 40 years since receiving this advice. But I have never heard anything better. It works! If enough people returned to this simple rule and experienced its profound worth, they would then have the key to correcting many of their personal and financial problems. Once peo ple know this rule to be reality, they have a clear understanding of how to correct the financial problems in local, state, and national affairs. It all Bruce M. Evans Robert G. Anderson Beth A. Hoffman Brian Summers Bettina Bien Greaves Edmund A. Opitz Paul L. Poirot Deane M. BrasfieldCopy Editor: President of The Board: Vice-President: Senior Editors: The costs of Foundation projects and services are met through donations. Donations are in vited in any amount. Subscriptions to The Freeman are available to any interested per son in the United States for the asking. Addi tional single copies $1.00; 10 or more, 50 cents each. For foreign delivery, a donation of $15.00 a year is required to cover direct mail ing costs.

Copyright © 1990 by The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc. Printed in the U.S.A. Permission is granted to reprint any article in this issue except "Capitalism and the Environment," provided appropriate credit is given and two copies of the reprinted material are sent to The Foundation. Contributing Editors: 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 champi on 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, sec retary; Don L. Foote, Treasurer.

starts with the individual! Unforeseen catastrophes can happen to individ uals and nations, and can take away their material security despite their having prudently lived within their means. However, if the worst happens, expe rience shows a strength of character both in indi viduals and nations as a result of practicing this simple formula. When you think about it, isn't this morally what we should be doing with our freedom? -RICHARD W. HOLDEN Avon, Connecticut The Returnto Freedom The most precious gift to man is freedom. What makes man human is reason. Without the freedom to reason, man is not human! In order to think, to reason, man needs not only to livein a setting free of fear. He also must be stim ulated by scientific debate, various political and philosophical opinions, by freedom of the press, of work, of conscience, of association, of criticism. None of this is possible in countries where there is only official truth, where there is only one official philosophy, where there is only one party, the party in power, only one paper, that published by the government's party, only state-owned property, and only one economic plan, that imposed by the central planning office. In such an environment, there can be no scientific progress, no technologi cal development, no economic prosperity, as even the officials in some of those countries are now coming to recognize.

To return to freedom is to return to the market economy, to freedom of inquiry, to private enter prise, to a true multi-party system, to respect for the political and economic freedom of individuals. That is the basis of Western democracy, of human progress and social equality. - TITO LIVIO CALDAS, writing in CienciaPolitica(First Quarter, 1989), a quarterlyreviewforLatinAmericaandSpainpub lished by Tierra Firme Editores, Bogota, Colom bia. Translated from the Spanish by Bettina Bien Greaves. PERSPECTIVE Sweatshops Journalists and political sorts deem sweatshops to be evil, and evil is to be directly eradicated. We are to pass strict laws, strictly enforced, to abolish low pay, long hours, unpleasant working condi tions, unpleasant working hours (including work at home), and use of children. But is that really the end of the story, the end of analysis of the problem, the end of policy prescrip tion? We simply outlaw the scourge of sweatshops and walk away in prim satisfaction?

What is to happen to the erstwhile workers -commonly uneducated, poorly trained, illegally in a land foreign to them, with little experience and marketplace sophistication-who have had their livelihoods abolished? They had been surviv ing-even if meanly by civilized standards-in market competition by selling their limited ser vices of low value at meager wages. Taking away those miserable jobs, pricing them out of what had been their best option, does not magically provide them with better alternative employment. Reduc ing their already poor power to compete, leaving them more handicapped than before, is a strange way to help them. -WILLIAM R. ALLEN The MidnightEconomist StickyFingers During my lifetime, I can recall endless exam ples of sticky fingers in the public till. And I can also recall the endless legislation, myriad investi gating committees, and cries of the outraged pub lic. But when all is said and done, we still have government scandals.

We willnever completely erase public greed and corruption. We are imperfect creatures at best. But there is a way to give the citizen better odds. Dras tically reduce the size of government. Wipe out big chunks of entrenched bureaucracies. We can't eliminatestickyfingers,butwe canreducethesize of the cookie jar. -EUGENE L. GOTZ Arlington, Massachusetts 244 THEFREEMAN IDEASON UBERTY The Military's Secret War Against Racism by Lee Nichols Editors' Note: The following is an account, condensed from the author's unpublished mem oirs, of how he broke through the armed forces' curtain of silence on its racial integration drive in the late1940s and early 1950s. * * * * * * I was working as a rewrite man on the United Press night desk in Washington, D.C., in 1952 when I got wind that something was going on about the military establishment's racially segre gated forces. I thought that there was racial progress in the U.S. in general that had not been fully reported and that might make a magazine article. The head of Collier's magazine's Washing ton bureau expressed interest in the military aspect of that picture and asked me to submit an outline of an article.