April

THEFREE IDEAS ON LIBERTY 124 Learning Not to Love Revolution GeorgeFriedman Eastern Europeans must learn to cherishprivatelife. 128 Albania: Europe's Last Marxist Holdout A visitto the Communistdictatorship. 132 Do Wars Cure Alling Economies? MarkAhlseen Lessonsfrom WorldWar II. 133 Pigeons and Property Rights DonaldG. Smith Property rightsare the cornerstoneof all humanrights. 135 The Roots of the Liability Crisis James L. Payne The use of aggressiveforce is fundamentallyunsound. 137 Home Schooling: A Personal Experience HannahLapp Educationis muchmore than academicstudy. 140 Medicare: Prescription for a Fool's Paradise DianneL. Duranteand SalvatoreJ. Durante Our mostserioushealth problemis governmentintervention. 145 Boulwarism: Ideas Have Consequences WilliamH. Peterson LemuelBoulware'strail-blazingemployeepolicy. 148 The Objectives of Economic Education Ludwig von Mises How to understandand counter economicfallacies.

153 The Re-Iegalization of Dmgs TiborR. Machanand Mark Thornton Healingthe woundsof prohibition. 156 Knowledge-Processing, Spontaneous Order, and the Free Market SylvesterPetro The trulyendangeredspeciesis economicfreedom. 158 Book Reviews John ChamberlainreviewsStalinsApologistby S. J. Taylor;Peter J. Boettke reviewsThe Road to a Free Economy by Janos Kornai. CONTENTS APRIL 1991 VOL. 41 NO.4 THEFREEMAN IDEAS ON L1BERlY 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. FEE, established 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: Thomas C.

Stevens, chairman; Philip M. Spicer, vice chairman; Paul L. Poirot, secretary; Don L. Foote, treasurer. 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 © 1991 by The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc. Printed in the U.S.A. Permission is granted to reprint any article in this issue except "Learning Not to Love Revolution" and "The Re-Iegalization of Drugs," provided appropriate credit is giv~ en 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 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.

The Freemanconsiders unsolicited editorial submissions, but they must be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Our author's guide is available on request. Phone: (914) 591-7230 FAX: (914) 591-8910 PERSPECTIVE The Hard Line Leonard Read was a hard-liner. He believed that a person should practice what he preaches. Perhaps he had this in mind when he established FEE to promote a moralfoundation for economic education, advocating a solid ethical basis for the free society. In 1961 he wrote in The Freeman: "The crown of virtue should rest uneasily on any man until he has given evil a setback. ... Ever so many persons think of themselves as virtuous simply because they have done nothing they conceive to be wrong. . . . Political virtue, however, is a false claim until our affinity to right principles has been tested and found unbreakable .... The measure of character is recorded in how each of us responds to the ques tion, 'Do I yield or triumph over what I believe to be wrong?''' Leonard Read's approach requires that men de velop respect for human life and private property.

They must use common sense in the understanding of economic principles. And they must erect a lim ited government, designed to protect them, their civil rights, and their property, to act with force against wrongdoers and to settle disputes. These basic guidelines lead to a society of peace and pros perity. The hard-liner must be an extraordinary person to maintain a constant philosophical position. He must be willingto give up material gains for moral rectitude. He must be prepared to choose right over wrong at the risk of great personal sacrifice. The choice to hold fast on moral terms demands complete adherence to the fundamentals of the free society-peace, tolerance, and respect. Capi talism promises hope for the future to those willing to stand on the hard line for liberty, those who try to do good and refuse to do evil. The concept of the moral hard line flows from the basic idea of liberty.The positive side of liberty is the potential reward for prudent action. The negative side is the potential punishment for im prudent behavior. One side leads toward mankind's advancement to higher levels of civi lized conduct. The other side keeps us from sliding back into barbarism. The essence of the idea of lib erty is that a person must decide to take one side or the other. He must choose good or evil.

Leonard Read started FEE for hard-liners. He believed that every human being must take a moral stand. He knew that the only method for achieving peace on earth, and the only intellectual basis for a tolerant and prosperous society, is to draw a definite ethical line between good ideas and bad ideas that men cannot cross. He became a hard-liner himself and a livingexample for the free society.He practiced what he preached, and that is what FEE is all about. -CARL HELSTROM Real Money Gertrude Stein once told a story about her young nephew who, while out walking, saw some horses and came running in to tell his father that he had seen "a million horses." "A million?" the father asked. "Well, three anyway," the boy replied. There is, of course, a difference between three and a million. Three we can understand. We can picture three horses in a field, with maybe a few trees and a fence around them. But a million is too many. We can't grasp such numbers.

Politicians face this problem every day. They spend millions, and billions, and even trillions of dollars. But what does it all mean? You can't pic ture that kind of money. Mind games don't help much either. It takes, for example, about 10,000 dollar bills stretched end to end to cover a mile. Can anyone really visualize a billion dollars ($100 bills stretched out for 1,000miles)? Maybe that is one reason why politicians, except perhaps at the very local level, seem so out of touch with their constituents. When they sit in a budget committee somewhere, they don't seem to be func tioning in the real world. They appropriate and al locate and budget for this or that, but the numbers are so big that the money has an ethereal aspect to it. It just doesn't seem real anymore. But the money is real. Every dollar spent by the government has to be paid by someone some where in one way or another. So let's try to put it into perspective.

PERSPECTIVE Federal, state, and local government spending willamount to about $2 trillion this year. In terms of dollar bills stretched end to end, that's 200 million miles.But in the real world, where Americans try to make ends meet, it comes to $8,000for every man, woman, and child, or $32,000for a family of four. Now $8,000 or $32,000 we can understand. We know what it takes to earn that kind of money, and what it means to our budgets. We have a pretty good idea of how to allocate such sums to meet our family needs. We know that when our money runs short we willhave to turn down the thermostat, put off a vacation, try to keep the old car running, and hope that no one loses a filling. To us, as individu als, $8,000per family member is real money. Of course, most politicians have spent real mon ey at one time or another. They have some idea of what it takes to write out a mortgage check, pay for heat, or go through a checkout line. The troubles begin when they sit around those budget tables, where the numbers become astronomical and the real problems of Americans seem so distant.

-BRIAN SUMMERS Play Money Because they typically lobby for restraints on re sources and property that do not belong to them, environmentalists bear few of the costs of their ac tions. When they secure legislation that prohibits oil and gas drilling, for example, or development of a mall on a specifictract of land, the costs are borne to a disproportionate degree by the owners of the land or by the users of the goods and services that would have been produced. It is not unlike playing Monopoly. With board game money, you can be reckless, make wild pur chases, and otherwise be extravagant in ways you would never consider in real life. When playing with real dollars, however, people have to balance other considerations like the need to secure food and shelter. -Jo KWONG ECHARD Protectingthe Environment: Old Rhetoric,New Imperatives 124 THEFREEMAN IDEASON LIBERTY LeamingNot to Love Revolution by George Friedman F or the past two centuries every revolution has wanted to serve as the model for all future revolutions. Since 1917,two regimes have laid claim to be the rightful heir of the revo lutionary tradition. For most of that time, it appeared to reasonable observers that it was the Soviet Union that would serve as exemplar to the world. In a stunning reversal of fortunes, the Soviet model has fallen into disrepute, and most of the rebellious world appears to be taking its bear ings from the American regime. It is the Statue of Liberty theat moved the crowds in Peking and Prague rather than "L'lnternationale."