October

THEFREE IDEAS ON LIBERTY 364 WelfareStateon the StreetWhereYou Live TiborR. Machan If you want to understandwhy we have deficitspendingat the Federal level, think about it in connectionwith your own parks and recreation department. 366 IndividualRights:The CrumblingFoundationof AmericanGovernment RobertHiggs Denigrationof individualrightshas fueled the relentlessmove toward a less and less free society. 374 PositiveExtemaHtiesof Gun Ownership John Kell Some benefitsof the civilianownershipof guns. 377 Painsof the GermanUnification Hans F. Sennholz Government-imposedcostsand regulationshave prolongedeastern Germany's deepdepression. 380 China'sEntrepreneurs:Keepingthe FaithAfterTiananmen SheilaMelvin How changingpoliticsand economicretrenchment have affectedprivate enterprisesand individualbusinessesin China. 387 FreedomIs Not Elected DonaldG. Smith Representativegovernmentis no guarantor of liberty.

388 Thankthe Japanesefor Our TradeDeficits John D. Fargo Why do people clingto economicmythsregardingthe detrimentaleffectsof trade deficits? 394 Book Reviews JeffreyTuckerreviewsThis Hemisphereof Libertyby MichaelNovak;Peter Boettke reviewsTo Promotethe GeneralWelfareby Richard E. Wagner; WoundedInnocentsby RichardWexleris examinedby Hannah Lapp;William Peterson looksat Parliamentof Whores:A Lone HumoristAttemptsto Explain the EntireU. S. Government,by ~ J. O'Rourke. CONTENTS OCTOBER 1991 VOL. 41 NO. 10 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 Freemanis 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 "Welfare State on the Street Where You Live" and "Pains of the German Unification," 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 A PollyannaWorld The collapse of Eastern Europe has highlighted the serious flaws of socialism as a system that vests all power in a small, political elite, and in the name of equality turns a people into an unthinking, un creative, faceless mass. It is a system without checks and balances, a sys tem that takes away a people's voice and turns them into drudges. There is no incentive to suc ceed, because whether people do their best or their worst, the best and the worst end up with the same reward. Theirjob is protected, no one can fire them, so they can show up for work, or they can sit in the back room and play cards-the system will take care of them. Why should the man of ability break his back when he is not appreciated? And so, in stead of working, he joins those in the back room in the card game. Nothing gets done. The spectacle of hungry people and the collapse of Russia today is the result of this attitude played out on a national scale.

Socialism is a system that does not accept the re ality of man-the fact that man needs incentives and competition to move forward. Yes, man is greedy, he blooms on praise, he does his best in the competitive arena. Just a sniff of reward brings a glint to his eye. Socialism does not recognize the vanity of man, his weaknesses, his sin. Socialists live in a Pollyanna world of do-gooders, and in try ing to transform man into an angel, they have turned him into a shuffling dullard. All through Europe the world has seen the ug liness of inertia, of a malaise that killed a people's spirit, destroyed nations, and turned beauty into dross. -from an editorial in the December 13, 1990, issue of The Tribune,a daily newspaper published in the Bahamas CanadianHealthCare There is a queue of heart patients in Vancouver, British Columbia, who are unable to receive med ical care. According to B.C. Cardiac Society spokesman Dr. Lawrence Burr, over a dozen can didates for open heart surgery have already died because of the long waiting list. And this is only the 362 tip of the iceberg. Burr estimates that 720people in British Columbia have been accepted as cardiovas cular patients, and that 400 of them are in urgent need of surgery within one month. This is a tragedy, and an obvious failure for Canadian socialized medicine.

Because of this medical emergency, British Columbia officials are trying to place 200 of their heart patients in Seattle hospitals. According to Dr. Jim Nell, president of the Seattle Area Hospital Council, "We'll have no trouble meeting the need." Even if the 200 patients are moved across the border to Seattle, this won't end the long lines in B.C. hospital wards. Stated Dr. Burr, "Reducing the waiting list by 200 ... would drop the waiting time for the remaining patients to about 11 weeks." This is an improvement, but in his view six weeks is ideal. All in all, this isn't a pretty story for the much vaunted Canadian socialized medical system. -WALTER BLOCK,writing for The Fraser Institute Vancouver, Canada SocialResponsibility In a free society, there is no more responsible way to work for the benefit and improvement of all than to produce the goods and services others value highly enough to buy in free and open competition.

Meeting the market test is the ultimate proof of ser vice to others. The values instilled through volun tary contracts and exchanges in free markets repre sent the highest order of true social responsibility. -M. BRUCEJOHNSON,writing in the June 1991 issue of Alternatives in Philanthropy The Natureof Planning Economic planning or industrial planning is nothing more than the forcible superseding of somebodf else's plan by the powerful elite. For ex ample, I may plan to buy a Honda motorcycle, but the powerful supersede those plans through tariffs and quotas because they have decided a Harley Davidson is preferable. My daughter might plan to work for the hardware store for $2 an hour; I agree PERSPECTIVE with it as her father; her mother agrees with it; she agrees with it; and the hardware store owner agrees with it. But the powerful elite directs that the plan be cancelled unless she gets $3.80 an hour. That's economic planning. It is the forcible superseding of somebody else's plan by the powerful elite.

-WALTER WILLIAMS, speaking at Saint Vincent College, February 5, 1991 AffirmativeAction Affirmative action reinforces and places a pre mium on racial consciousness and prejudice. It en courages an attitude of victimization among blacks and other protected groups whom it regards as de pendent and-if not inferior-then at least inca pable of competing on their own. Moreover, it re quires that anti-bias and civil rights progress be denied in the face of clear evidence to the contrary. A deeply dialectical intelligence is required to con clude that affirmative action has not had a corrupt ing effect on the American political tradition. -HERMAN BELZ Equality Transformed Eastand West For a permanent social rejuvenation, the East needs to learn what the West has forgotten-that it isn't enough to install capitalism as a utilitarian eco nomic stopgap measure. What is needed is for the entire legal agenda of classical liberalism to be en shrined within a culture. The classical liberal con cern for the fundamental rights of the individual to life, liberty, and property cannot be treated as a mere expedient; it should not be expected to bail out a society from its past mistakes, only to be sac rificed, once the economy begins to recover, on the altar of the welfare state, with all its wasteful poli cies in behalf of aspects of society that will not be upgraded without self-discipline, without the disci pline imposed by the free market economy and a criminal law system that upholds the principles of individual rights.

- TmOR R. MACHAN Auburn University 363 364 THEFREEMAN IDEAS ON LIBERTY Welfare State on the Street Where You Live by Tibor R. Machan L ike many fathers, I take my children to city run recreation facilities. My 7-year-old daughter takes gymnastic lessons, and my ii-year-old son plays baseball. All three of my children have attended summer day camps provid ed by the city parks and recreation department. But I'm not happy about this, at least about the way it fits into the large picture of our society. While, of course, the kids have fun and get some thing out of it, there is a definite downside to counting on the city to provide such facilities. Already at this point people are learning to depend on government to do a great deal for them that it shouldn't be doing at all. In short, a city gov ernment should have no parks and recreation department. It isn't what government is supposed to be about. It has nothing to do with justice, with protecting, maintaining, and preserving the rights of individuals at the city's level of jurisdiction.