December

453 Why Teenagers Can't Find Work John l( LaBeaume The minimumwage legallyplaces many out of the labor market. 455 The Great American Epic DavisKeeler The intellectual drama of the American Revolution. 457 The Chinese Won't Forget SheilaMelvin Bearing witnessto the tragic events in Tiananmen Square. 462 Catholicism's Developing Social Teaching RobertA. Sirico, CSP From Rerum Novarum to CentesimusAnnus: 100 years of the church'sthought. in the socialrealm. 475 Free Trade and the Irish Famine John R Finneran Protectionism is ruinous in human terms. 478 Book Reviews Greg Kaza reviewsCapturingthe Culture:Film, Art, and Politics,by Richard Grenier; Raymond J. Keating examines The NationalReview CollegeGuide editedby CharlesSykesand BradMiner;DougBandowlooksat Drugsand Crimeedited by MichaelTonry and James Q. Wilson;Free Market Environmentalismby Terry L. Anderson and Donald R. Leal is reviewed by WilliamH. Peterson.

483 Index for 1991 CONTENTS DECEMBER 1991 VOL. 41 NO. 12 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 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; David H. Keyston, 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, 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 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 Freeman considers 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 Cover art: © Dover Books PERSPECTIVE SovietKeynesians The Soviet Ministry of Finance would be very surprised to find out that its monetary policy since 1985 has been a typical Keynesian one. The Keynesians advocate a budget deficit and over supply of money for the stimulation of consumer demand. Keynesianism was discredited in the West during the 1970sbecause Keynesian policies directly led to stagflation, where there is inflation, no economic growth, and rising unemployment.

The excessive supply of money was extremely de structive even in the West where there is market competition. What can we say about the Soviet economy, where there is no competitive market and only huge monopoly structures? Here we see that the oversupply of money combined with price increases is a direct path to the decrease in produc tion and destruction of the economy. That is what we witness today. In 1985 the government's philosophy was, "We'll suffer, but we'll learn." This hasn't worked because it isn't the government that suffers, but rather the general public. - YURI OLSEVICH of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, writing in the April 1991 issue of Ogonyok The Role of Government The rightful role of government in a free society is to provide justice, not goods and services.It does this using law. Life, liberty, and property existed before legislation, thus causing man to make laws to secure these. The law is merely the organization of the individual's natural right of lawful defense.

It is the substitution of this common force for indi vidual forces that is to protect persons, liberties, and properties, equally. The inevitable question now arises: How can the government provide any goods or services if the only way it can do this is to steal the property it is supposed to protect? The inconvenient answer for fans of redistribution is that it cannot do the impos sible. It either provides justice by protecting prop erty, or perverts justice by redistributing it-but it cannot do both simultaneously. - R. W. BOEHM, writing in the June 1, 1991, issue of the Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Herald 442 The Marketin Burned-Out LightBulbs In Kiev, the capital city of the Ukraine Repub lic, the price of a new light bulb is 35 or 40 kopecks. (There are 100 kopecks to a ruble.) Yet a market has emerged in Kiev for burned-out light bulbs, and people pay as much as two rubles for a burned-out light bulb. I doubt that any American could figure out why burned-out light bulbs would be selling for five or six times the price of a new light bulb; only a native of the Soviet Union could understand that.

The explanation is simple. The price of a new light bulb is indeed only 35 or 40 kopecks, but the average person cannot find, let alone buy, them. There is a shortage of light bulbs, as well as a shortage of everything else. So people buy burned-out light bulbs, take them to their place of employment, and when no one is looking, they unscrew the functioning light bulb, replace it with a burned-out light bulb, and take the new one home. -EMANUEL S. SAVAS, speaking at Saint Vincent College, March 20, 1991 A LittleVacation New York City's shelter system for homeless families has become so livable that hundreds, if not thousands, of families who could stay elsewhere are flocking to shelters so they can move to the top of the list for permanent subsidized housing, city offi cials say. Dorian and Renita Steeley and their three chil dren, for example, were crowded into a two bedroom apartment with relatives. But they want ed their own place. So they went to the city and said they were homeless. They now have a pleas ant two-bedroom apartment in a Bronx shelter, at a cost to the city of $2,730a month.

Mr. Steeley is certified to work with the mentally ill, and Mrs. Steeley has been employed as a dental assistant. But they are now receiving public assisPERSPECTIVE tance, and neither plans to work until they get a permanent place to live. "I consider this a little vacation," she said re cently. -CELIA W. DUGGER,writing in the September 4, 1991, issue of The New York Times MedicalCare The only problem with our medicalcare system is that the government and other third parties are paying the bills. The government has established various cost containment programs in an effort to reduce its share of the financial burden for hospital care, physician services, and prescription drugs for Medicare and Medicaid patients. These programs have given the government license to ration medi cal care and have raised the cost for those who pay their own bills by as much as 50 percent. The only thing that is breaking down is the gov ernment system of paying for medical care. If our bloated bureaucracy can't provide medical care for a small percentage of the population, why would anyone want it to try to provide medical care for all Americans?

-FRANCIS A. DAVIS, writing in the March 1991 issue of PrivatePractice The Powerof Attraction Don't get too upset with the declining standards all around you and your inability to influence oth ers regarding what you see as the errors of their ways and their thinking. Remember, the only per son you are responsible for is you. That puts a big premium on your thinking and your behavior. Con centrate, therefore, on improving yourself, and if you get good enough, the power of attraction will soon reveal itself by influencing others to follow your example. -H. F. LANGENBERG, speaking before the Republican Women's Club, Union, Missouri, April 18, 1991 443 444 THEFREEMAN IDEASON LIBERTY A Toast to the Holidays by Donald G. Smith T he holiday season means many things to the divergent complex of human beings who constitute our Western civilization. For some it is a deeply moving religious experi ence, for some it is a round of parties, and for oth ers it is some time off from work. It is family time, travel time, and often the loneliness of being away from home.