July

THEFREE IDEAS ON LIBERTY 244 America'sOPEC:The PublicSchoolCartel Thomas J. DiLorenzo How state fundingstrengthensthe cartel'sgrip. 248 IUiberaiEducationCan'tBe Curedwith miberalism John-Peter A. Pham What'swrongwithsome of the "solutions"to America'seducationalcrisis. 254 KeynesianBudgetsThreatenRecovery Hans R Sennholz We can't spend our way to prosperity. 257 A Reportfrom the Worldof SuggestiveLooks Jack Matthews "Sexualharassment"at atraffic light. 259 Tyranny-Fromthe Eastto the West Tibor R. Machan Totalitarianthinkingon Americancampuses. 261 Elephantsand Ivory Elizabeth Larson How to save the Africanelephant. 264 GovemmentIs StranglingTransit John Semmens Regulatorybarriers and subsidizedpricesstiflecompetition. 266 Hittingthe PhantomCurve Donald G. Smith Over-extendedgovernmentis a riggedgame. 268 BiblicalRootsof AmericanLiberty Edmund A. Opitz A sound politicalphilosophyrests on religiouspremises.

276 Book Reviews John ChamberlainreviewsLeftism Revisited by Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn; David M. BrownreviewsChild Labor and the Industrial Revolution by Clark Nardinelli;WilliamH. Peterson reviewsThe Crisis in Drug Prohibition edited by David Boaz. CONTENTS JULY 1991 VOL. 41 NO.7 THEFREEMAN IDEAS ON 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 except "Keynesian Bud gets Threaten Recovery" and "Tyranny From the East to the West," 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: © Washington Post Writers Group PERSPECTIVE ResponsibleAttitudes Private business enriches society. You have a greater responsibility and a greater attitude to ward the things'you own. In socialism, everything "belonged" to everyone, so no one had a respon sible attitude toward the equipment and material. -MILAN STRBA, a commercial painter in Czechoslovakia, quoted in the March 1991 issue of New Dimensions Freeto Choose A central feature of bourgeois philosophy, what I have called "classical individualism," is that hu man life is not subject to predictions. This is be cause human individuals have the capacity to choose what they will do. Of course, one can esti mate trends, based on well-established habits of mind and action, the constraints of nature and law, and so forth. But just how human beings will cope with the constraints, how they will come to terms with their own habits of mind and action, whether they will change their laws-those questions must not be answered prior to what they willactually do.

Perhaps the most grievous fault of contemporary social science is to have built up expectations in us that ignore the above aspects of human life. Social engineering can only go so far-usually as far as the next person's intelligent way of pre-empting the engineers' plans. - TIBOR R. MACHAN Auburn University Free-Wheeling Capitalism Picture this: a Southern town invaded by hordes of motorcyclists. If it were the plot of a B movie, you all know how the script would go. The people are apprehensive; the motorcyclists are abusive. But this action takes place for real every year in Daytona Beach, Florida, and most residents couldn't be happier. The event is officiallycalled Bike Week, though that's Harley-Davidsons not 10-speeds, and this year was its 50th anniversary. It takes place in the time period after the Daytona 500 race has ended and before Spring Break begins. It's when the mo torcycle engines at the Daytona Beach racetrack 242 start revving up. It's also when you start noticing folks around town who don't exactly remind you of Ozzie and Harriet.

But before you even notice the folks, you notice the signs. "Welcome Bikers." On the Food Lion Supermarket, there's a big piece of white cloth draped out front saying "Welcome Bikers." The Wal-Mart also welcomes the bikers; so do many of the restaurants and motels. A Western-dress store runs advertisements on television only during Bike Week. Ditto a gun store. The bars welcome the bik ers too. Now these guys look a lot like the guys in those B movies. They are dressed in black. Many of the men sport beards and long hair. In general, both the men and the women have a jenesaisquaiambiance about them, which sets them apart. Perhaps it's all their tattoos. But nonetheless, townspeople under stand that underneath it all is a common humanity. If you prick them, do they not bleed? And better than that, do they not share with the rest of us the need to eat and sleep and purchase souvenirs? Welcome Bikers. Residents enjoy going out on the town just to see hundreds, sometimes thou sands, of motorcycles parked in front of local busi nesses. And there's a parade marking the end of Bike Week that passes by the McDonald's with its "Welcome Bikers" sign out front. Come back next year, bikers. Daytona Beach doesn't have much in dustry, and it's people like you who keep this town going. So come back and bring your buddies and don't forget your wallets.

See! It's not just Southern hospitality that brings out the best in people. And it's not just laws that overcome prejudices. It's capitalism too. -A. M. ROGERS Ormond Beach, Florida AnyoneCanDo It Of all our social problems, crime is certainly the most inexcusable, and the criminal is deserving of the least compassion. People who suffer from phys ical and mental disorders or unforeseen economic hardships have had their situation thrust upon them, and they truly suffer from the cards that were dealt to them. This is not true of the criminal, how ever, and one is hard put to include him on the list of those who drew the short straw from the fates. PERSPECTIVE The professional criminal is a volunteer. All that society asks of him is that he stop doing what he is doing, and this doesn't seem to be an unreasonable request. It isn't a great exaggeration to say that ev ery man, woman, and child in the United States is capable of not stripping a car, not selling drugs, not vandalizing property, and not robbing a store. No one is asking the lawbreaker to run a four-minute mile, to translate the Dead Sea Scrolls, or to playa fugue on the harpsichord. Obeying the law requires no talent and no training. Anyone can do it.

-DONALD G. SMITH Santa Maria, California Reapingthe Harvest I had my gall bladder removed last summer by a new surgical procedure that kept me hospitalized for only one night. This is a vast improvement over the standard gall bladder surgery, and the nurses made quite a fuss over my "miraculous" recovery. Of course, I had almost nothing to do with this "miracle." Someone else thought of it; someone else invested in it; someone else went through a lot of training to make it work. As we look back, we see that such advances are based upon a seemingly endless procession of sim ilar breakthroughs. The advances of the 1990s are based on the advances of the 1980s,the 19708,and so on. It takes a long time to perform major surgery in less than an hour. What type of environment gives rise to such ad vances? What percentage of them have occurred in an open atmosphere of relative freedom? What percentage of them have relied upon coercive tax ation, regulations, and orders from above?

When we examine history, particularly the incredible advances that have been squeezed into the past 200 years, we find that free societies lead the way. A free society is truly a breakthrough society. Can we, as individuals, contribute to such ad vances? Most of us, after all, don't work at the cut ting edge of science, technology, or medicine. We can, however, contribute to the cause of freedom, for it is freedom of thought and freedom of enter prise that will nurture the great advances that will bless our children. -BRIAN SUMMERS 243 244 THEFREEMAN IDEASON L1BER1Y America's0 PEC: The PublicSchool Cartel by Thomas J. DiLorenzo T ennessee, New Jersey, and numerous other states have recently proposed or enacted state tax increases with the ostensible pur pose of improving localpublic schools.Despite the fact that there is virtually no evidence that simply throwing more money at public schools will improve them, governors, state educational bureaucrats, teachers' unions, superintendents' associations, and politicians strongly support the increased taxes because, they claim, it is in the "public interest" to do so.l Anyone who challenges these policies is typi cally labeled as greedy or grossly uninformed about the educational needs of children. Listening to the public school bureaucracy, one gets the impression that this latter category even includes many parents.