Book Reviews

In volume two, Child of Fortune, St. John gave a weekly recounting of the battle in the states to ratify the Philadelphia constitution. It was hard goingfor the Federalists to combat the Anti-feder alists led by Patrick Henry, of "liberty or death" fame, who wanted to scrap the centralizing work of Madison and Hamilton. There had to be a promise of a Bill of Rights to get the Constitution adopted in recalcitrant states. St. John's volume three, Forge of Union, Anvil ofLiberty, (320pages, $24.95cloth) reports on the first Federal elections and the creation of the Bill of Rights, a list of which was reduced from seven teen, then to twelve, and finally, with merger phrasing, to the familiar ten. One interesting thing in St. John's Forge of Union, Anvil ofLiberty is the way in which Wash ington relied on Madison to keep Patrick Henry and the Anti-federalists at bay. With the Spanish and the French and the British egging the Indians on in Florida and in the Mississippi Valley, care had to be taken in pursuing a foreign policy.Mon etary policy was important too: Alexander Hamil ton proposed that the federal government assume at face value the debts incurred by the states dur ing the recent war, adding them to the debts car ried by the general treasury. The government's taxing power and the projected national bank would assure repayment. Patrick Henry "could find no clause in the Constitution authorizing congress to assume the debts of the states," but President Washington, without fully understand ing what Hamilton was proposing, backed him.

"This is the first symptom," so Hamilton wrote of Patrick Henry's attack on debt assumption, "of a spirit which must either be killed or will kill the Constitution .... " The difference between the American and French revolutions is continuously stressed through letters and documents produced by St. John. A parenthetical refrain running through the book is St. John's boast of "a copy having been obtained by this correspondent." There was a savagery to the French revolution ary uprising that was,in St. John's words, fueled by a burning hatred for the aristocracy. "This type of savagery," says the author, "was almost totally absent during the American revolution .... in the last two years it has been demonstrated to a disbe lieving world that it is possible, on this side of the Atlantic, to effect revolutionary political reform 326 without recourse to mob violence and internal bloodshed. Even during the long War of Indepen dence, the conflict was governed within specific codes of conduct that prevented it from degener ating into a savage civilconflict between people of the same cultural traditions."

Savagery, remarks St. John, was a common place in such collisions as those that Washington had witnessed in western Pennsylvania, but, "its appearance on the supposedly civilized streets of Paris has shocked and stunned American politi cal leaders. " Violence might have developed from the Founders' failure to rid their culture of slavery.But compromise was possible here-in the so-called Northwest Ordinance territory, no slaves were permitted in new states north of the Ohio River. Kentucky and Vermont could peaceably join the union as the fourteenth and fifteenth states with out provoking trouble. New Jersey became the first state to adopt a Bill of Rights. The struggle for a permanent site of gov ernment was settled in favor of the "Powtomac" (the upper Potomac) at the expense of the Susque hanna, which was too far north. Having emerged from the 18th century, Jeffrey 51. John will be looking for something to do. He is tempted by the subject of the Cold War. But that would mean spending inordinate time with the ghosts of Stalin and Brezhnev. Better, one thinks, to stick with the 18th century. Why not a history of the Louisiana Purchase, which gave us half a continent? D LIBERTY&CULTURE by Tibor R. Machan PrometheusBooks,700 AmherstStreet,Buffalo,NY 14215 1989 •288 pages • $21.95cloth Reviewed by J. E. Chesher I 've just finished reading a delightfully • thought-provoking and entertaining book, Liberty& Cultureby Tibor Machan, professor of philosophy at Auburn University. Machan is widely published in professional journals and a frequent contributor to The Freeman. Though the great bulk of Machan's previous work is scholarly and aimed at a highly trained, specialized audi ence, Liberty & Culture is more widely accessible.

This book is a collection of selected editorials that 327 have appeared, over a period of 20 years, on the Op-Ed pages of many prominent newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Liberty, and the National Review. The essays cover diverse issues and topics, beginning with Machan's touching and colorful account of his "Escape from Tyranny" as a youth in Communist Hungary. There are a number of essays each on Marxism, Democracy, Individual Human Rights, Foreign Affairs, Politics, Eco nomics, Business Law, Morality, Medicine, and Culture. Each one addresses, in terms of some fun damental principle, a specific event, problem, or issue of the day. The essays, though varied in scope, are smoothly woven together by the com mon thread of Machan's concern with the relation ship between "liberty and culture." The essays are further unified by a common motive. As Machan observes, "my main concern in these writings has been with moral and political standards for contemporary society. I have stressed the enormous diversity open to each of us as we strive to live a morally proper life. And I champion the preservation of individual liberty, which makes moral conduct possible for everyone in the human community."

What the reader willfind in this book are famil iar themes freshly and originally applied to con temporary issues. For example, in response to the claim that video recorders make it possible to infringe on the rightful earnings of the Hollywood community, Machan observes that "the crucial question is whether the proposal advanced by the Hollywood creative community-that Congress tax tape equipment and transfer the funds to the industry-is consistent with individual rights. Is this a special case requiring government interven tion or is it simply another case of special-interest pleading?" Machan demonstrates that this plea for special government assistance is not consistent with rights of ownership. Again, in response to the lament that the compe tition of free markets is good for the swiftbut cruel to the slow, Machan offers this perspective: "... competition is actuallyonly a sideshowin a free market ... what the market makes possible is only incidentally a matter of contest. More accurately it is a matter of excellence. In a free market people can excel at what they do, even if there is no one challenging them. If there are many who want to 328 THE FREEMAN • AUGUST 1992 excel at some craft, profession, or art, then here we find competition .... But that is not crucial. Free dom allowsthose who want to work at some task to do their best without punishment."

Machan comments on strikes by public school teachers. He discusses the Supreme Court's sup port of statism. He points out that creeping fas cism, not socialism, is the greater threat in this country. He writes of the business community's ironic disdain of capitalism. He explains why it is wrong to blame tobacco companies for the woes of smokers, why defense spending and social spend ing are no more comparable than apples and oranges, why the government's war on drugs may be more threatening than drugs themselves, why it is contradictory to claim that "given a free press, a fair and impartial jury is impossible," also when one has the obligation not to vote. The essays in this book are challenging but "reader friendly," requiring no special knowledge, no dictionary at one's side. Liberty & Culture brings the philosophy of liberty down from the clouds and demonstrates how sound theory and moral principles are solidly grounded inexperi ence. Each essay provides the reader with suffi cient information to consider the issue intelligent 1y. This collection of essays would be an excellent introduction to liberty for those many people we know who are not familiar with the literature on the subject, but are genuinely curious about its lim its and applications. Such people are not moved by works on abstract theory and lofty moralizing.

Give them this book instead. D Mr. Chesher, who teachesin the philosophy department of Santa BarbaraCity College, is a free-lancewriterand reviewer. THE JOHN TEMPLETON HONOR ROLL FOR FREE ENTERPRISE TEACHING The Foundation for Economic Education is pleased to anounce the publication of its descriptive survey detailing The John Templeton Foundation Honor Roll for Free Enterprise Teaching for 1992. Copies of the honor roll are available on request by contacting: Janette Brown The Foundation for Economic Education Irvington-on-Hudson, New York 10533 telephone: (9 14) 59 1-7230 fax: (914) 591-8910 THEFREE IDEAS ON LIBERTY 332 Thoughts on Creativity While Watching The Twilight Zone ThomasA. Giovanetti A free market both permits and rewards creativity. 334 Lessons from an Entrepreneur DavidN. Laband In praise of the late Sam Walton and his success in satisfying the wants and needs of consumers.