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148 Welfare: Fraud on Steroids K. L. Billingsley Who are the true beneficiariesof our massiveredistributionsystem? 150 New York'sWar Against the Vans Robert Zimmerman Legalmonopolyversusfreedomof choice. 152 A Tale of Infamy: The Air AssociatesStrikes of 1941 CharlesW Baird A tragicchapter in the sagaof government'sempowermentof labor unions. 160 Tony Trivisano'sAmerican Dream FrederickC. Crawford Timeis the secret of wealthand success. 163 How Many Laws Are Enough? James L. Payne What happenswhen governmentforsakesits roleas peacemaker? 164 Book Reviews John ChamberlainconsidersEdmund Burke: The Enlightenmentand Revolutionby Peter J. Stanlis.WilliamH. Peterson discussesAustrian Economicsedited by Richard M. Ebeling;FeminismWithoutIllusions by ElizabethFox-Genoveseis reviewedby ElizabethLarson;and Raymond1. Keatinglooksat The Birthof the Modern:WorldSociety 1815-1830by Paul Johnson. CONTENTS APRIL 1992 VOL. 42 NO.4 THEFREEMAN IDEAS ON LIBERTY Published by The Foundation for Economic Education Irvington-on-Hudson, NY·10533 President of The Board: Bruce M. Evans VicePresident: Robert G. Anderson Senior Editors: Beth A. Hoffman Brian Summers Contributing Editors: Bettina Bien Greaves Edmund A. Opitz Editor Emeritus: 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: Gregg C.

MacDonald, chairman; Lovett C. Peters, vice chairman; 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 $20.00 a year is required to cover direct mail ing costs. Copyright © 1992 by The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc. Printed in the U.S.A. Permission is granted to reprint any article in this issue except "Looking for a Strong Man After the Revolution," "New York's War Against the Vans," and "Tony Trivisano's American Dream," 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 NorthZeeb 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 portrait of William Paterson © Dover Books. PERSPECTIVE TowardJeffersonian Self-Government My idealistic and distinctly unpragmatic stance toward social policy is to say that local control, the voluntary coming together of neighbors, and re sponsibility for one's own life are good things for everyone, not just the middle class, that they are the basis for the pursuit of happiness-that the way to help the underclass live satisfying lives is to make them responsible for their own lives and re sponsible for the life of their community. I alsosug gest that the way to tap the assets of the able and the affluent is to pull down the bureaucracies of social service professionals that now shield them from personal responsibility. It does not seem to me far-fetched that, deprived of the ability to pay social service professionals to do it for him, the av erage American in the late twentieth century would take his own steps, in his own neighborhood and reaching across to poor neighborhoods, to keep his fellow human beings from starving in the street, to keep children from growing up neglect ed, to keep communities from being ravaged by crime and drugs. It does not even seem far-fetched that these steps would be more effective than the current system in reducing the incidence of dis crete problems such as malnutrition, child neglect, and homelessness, even as it was spectacularly more effective in achieving the larger goal of en abling people to live satisfying lives.

This is a radical approach indeed in an age when social democracy along the Western European model seems to be enjoying a global ascendancy. But having spent the last few decades testing the limits of social policy, why not reconsider the po tential of a solution that was once as American as apple pie: Jeffersonian self-government? -CHARLES MURRAY,writing in CriticalReview Landof Opportunity Over the years, thousands of refugees came to this country from Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and Latin America. They were certainly not prototypes of success. In fact, they were often personal failures-they came here with no money, no assets, and no contacts. They usually 130 started out in menial jobs. Yet once in America, they worked hard, got ahead, and their sons and daughters rose to the top of their class at some of America's best universities. It is a thrilling experi ence to watch the mechanisms of freedom and op portunity transform the lives of these previous "failures," and to realize that their successenriches the American culture just as surely as it enriches the American economy.

-KENNETHY. TOMLINSON,writing in the December 1991 issue of Imprimis EconomicStrikers Permitting unions and their members to sup press the competition of other workers is not right. Indeed it is both economically and morally vi cious-as vicious as it would be to allow white workers to block the access of blacks to employ ment opportunities, another thing that unions have been known to do.... Freedom is the foundation of morality and the sine qua non of wellbeing. Preventing employers from offering and workers from accepting jobs abandoned by strikers, often for no good reason at all, makes no socially acceptable sense. It is the kind of thinking that has made America's union ized industries uncompetitive in world markets, the country's unemployment rolls grow, and its busi nessmen invest elsewhere. It doesn't do union members any good, either. So who benefits? -SYLVESTERPETRO,writing in the August 5, 1991,Wall StreetJournal RentControl Though few people know it, rent control is not one of the original laws of nature. New York City apartments have been subject to control for only 48 years. From Peter Minuit until 1943, tenants and landlords negotiated leases without government interference, except for a spell during and after World War I. Without artificially low rents, people had no incentive to cling to one dwelling; they moved freely, and empty apartments abounded.

-from an editorial in the August 13, 1991,New York Times PERSPECTIVE FairTradevs. Free Trade All trade barriers rest upon the moral premise that it is fairer for the U.S. government to effective ly force an American citizen to buy from an Amer ican company than to allow him to voluntarily make a purchase from a foreign company. U.S. trade policy assumes that the moral difference be tween an American company and a foreign compa ny is greater than the difference between coercion and voluntary agreement. The choice of fair trade vs. free trade is largely: When is coercion fairer than voluntary agreement? -JAMES BOVARD The Fair Trade Fraud "AnimalRights" Animals should be treated in a humane and eth ical manner, but we should not forget that most ma jor advances in human and veterinary medicine would have been nearly impossible without animal testing. In 1879, Robert Koch demonstrated the rela tionship between bacteria and disease by studying anthrax in sheep and cattle.

In 1922, Frederick Banting and Charles Best, working with dogs, discovered a method of extract ing insulin from the pancreas of an animal to treat humans suffering from diabetes. In 1954,Jonas Salk used monkeys to develop the polio vaccine. In 1967, Christiaan Barnard tested heart trans plant techniques on dogs and other animals before performing the procedure on humans. It is unthinkable that such major medical progress could have been thwarted by those who claim that "a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy." Yet to day we stand on the threshold of restricting ani mal research and, hence, greatly diminishing progress in areas including cancer chemo therapy, hypertension, atherosclerosis and Alz heimer's disease. -ELIZABETHM. WHELAN,writing in the September 1991 issue of Private Practice 131 132 THEFREEMAN IDEASON LIBERTY The Mythology of State Spending by John Hood I n 1991, 30 states facing budget deficits raised . inco~e~ sales,.excise, and ~ther taxes a total of $17 bl1hon,wIth more tax Increases promised for 1992 and beyond.