April

IDEASON LIBERTY 124 The Growth of Government in America Stephen Moore The growth of government is the greatest tragedy of the twentieth century. 137 Can Voluntarism Survive the Taxman? James L. Payne Taxes are destroying the benevolent activities of the American people. 139 Judging Politicians Rick White It is unrealistic, and dangerous, to think we can survive without principles and without elected representatives who believe in those principles. 141 Thomas Jefferson: Liberty and Power Clarence Carson This month marks the 250th anniversary of Jefferson's birth. 149 Do State and Local Fiscal Choices Matter? Stephen E. Life A comparison of neighboring states says they do. 151 The Costs of Tax and Spend John D. McGinnis Government costs far more than a glance at tax revenues would indicate. 154 Book Reviews John Attarian reviews Adventures in Porkland: How Washington Wastes Your Money and Why They Won't Stop by Brian Kelly; Grand TheJt and Petit Larceny, Property Rights in America by Mark L.

Pollot, reviewed by Grant Thompson; Official Lies: How Washington Misleads Us by James T. Bennett and Thomas J. DiLorenzo, reviewed by William H. Peterson; Patient Power: Solving America's Health Care Crisis by John C. Goodman and Gerald L. Musgrave, reviewed by Ross Korves; What Has Government Done to Our Health Care? by Terree P. Wasley, reviewed by Gerald Musgrave; We Hold These Truths by Lawrence Patton McDonald and The Right Guide: A Guide to Conservative and Right-oj-Center Organizations edited by Wildox, Shackman, and Naas, reviewed by John W. Robbins. CONTENTS APRIL 1993 VOL. 43 NO.4 THEFREEMAN IDEASON UBERTY Published by The Foundation for Economic Education Irvington-on-Hudson, NY 10533 President: Hans F. Sennholz, Ph.D. Editor: John W. Robbins, Ph.D. Senior Editor: Beth A. Hoffman Associate Editors: John Chamberlain Bettina Bien Greaves Edmund A. Opitz Paul L. Poirot, Ph.D. Contributing Editors: Clarence B. Carson, Ph.D.

Thomas J. DiLorenzo, Ph.D. Robert Higgs, Ph.D. John Hospers, Ph.D. Ronald Nash, Ph.D. William H. Peterson, Ph.D. Richard H. Timberlake, Ph.D. Lawrence H. White, Ph.D. 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 non-political, educational champion of pri vate property, the free market, and limited government. FEE is classified as a 26 USC 50l(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Copyright © 1993 by The Foundation for Economic Education. 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 Foun dation. The costs of Foundation projects and ser vices are met through donations, which are invited in any amount. Donors of $25.00 or more receive a subscription to The Free man. Additional copies of single issues of The Freeman are $2.00. For foreign deliv ery, a donation of $40.00 a year is suggested to cover mailing costs.

Bound volumes of The Freeman are avail able from The Foundation for calendar years 1972 to date. Earlier volumes as well as cur rent issues are available on microfilm from University Microfilms, 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Phone (914) 591-7230 FAX (914) 591-8910 PERSPECTIVE The Revolution That Was America America is not a place but a revolution. No other country's emergence in human history has ushered in a revolution as did that of the United States of America. The Russian' 'October" Revolution was nothing much in comparison, a mere changing of one bad regime to another, with different slogans from the old but without much change in substance. That is not how it happened with the American revolution. Where America has made the biggest difference is in its political and legal consti tution-how it was conceived, with what priorities. The central novelty of the Amer ican polity was its transfer of sovereignty from the society, community, state, nation, royal family, church, and all kinds of col lectivities to the individual human being.

It isn't free enterprise, or even private property, that counts for most in this polit ical vision. It is the individual person's life as a project to embark upon with complete authority-that's what made the difference about America. Indeed, that is what nearly everyone who came to its shores perceived, if only simply or implicitly. Elsewhere the important things were the culture, people, race, religious sect, class, or whatnot. And the individual as an individual didn't much matter. Not according to the American dream. Sure, that dream has never been fully real ized and was sometimes drastically sub verted, as with slavery and militaryconscrip tion, as well as compulsory education and all forms of extortion passingfor taxation. But at least there were the words of the Declara tion of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the breakthroughs in civil liberties , and a certain measureoffreedomoftrade.Thesefixedfor millions here and abroad a vision of how a country might be, how its people might interact and embark on various missions either on their own or in voluntary cooper ation with any number of their fellows.

An anecdote may help to underscore this point. Once, many years after I became a 122 citizen of the United States of America, I went back to visit relatives in Europe. Sitting in a rather elegant Viennese restau rant with my mother, I engaged a Yugosla vian waiter-who recently left his homeland so as to seek prosperity abroad-in conver sation about America. The chat went well and it was thus something of a shock when upon its conclusion my mother showed clear signs of irritation. She put it this way: "You shouldn't have chatted away with a mere waiter. It's embarrassing." This was very odd to hear for someone who came to America and lived here know ing that it is never embarrassing to speak to someone simply because of his origin, oc cupation, race, or sex. Of course, there are exceptions, but in the main the American mind is characterized by a basic kind of individualism, whereby what counts is the person one is, not one's origins or status.

Despite what some leftwing hecklers of America keep shrieking, there is no class structure in this country. For a long time the politically correct thing to do was to think of people as individuals, not as members of some superior or inferior group. Although the ideal of individual liberty and the ensuing development of an accom modating political order are relatively new in human history, there has not been much progress in the development of either. Re actionary ideas have set in for some time now and have governed most people's thinking, especially those who air their views in prominent forums-the electronic news media, widely reviewed books, major magazines, and newspapers. Yet, it is also crucial that just returning to home base and carrying on as before cannot be the answer. The meaning of the right to individual liberty, while fundamentally sta ble throughout human affairs, needs to be interpreted for innumerable novel human situations. What freedom of speech meant for colonial America is not identical to what it means for the computer era. Private prop erty rights are, essentially, having the final PERSPECTIVE authority to determine what is to be done with what is one's own, but owning a saw, a bazooka, an airplane, and an internal combustion engine do not all come to the same thing.

So as we consider the details of how the country may be turned around along lines that once made it the best of all countries in the world-with its flaws clearly being its departure from its own ideals-we cannot expect merely to repeat policies of the past. The polity of liberty needs to be worked out to meet new and different challenges. It needs to have a legal framework that does not stifle progress but adjusts to it. The polity of liberty is every bit prepared to do so. This depends on no more than that we understand what human nature can achieve as far as political objectives are concerned, and that we are committed to help it along by taking responsibility for our own actions, accepting blame as well as praise for what we do, and not expecting government to live our lives for us. -TIBOR R. MACHAN How the GovernmentPlans to "Improve" Your Lab Tests If the cost of tests done by your medical laboratory has only gone up by 300 percent or more, you're one of the lucky ones.

Some patients will no longer be able to have lab tests at all, at least not without driving 100 miles. The reason is the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act (eLlA) of 1988. As of September 1992, all physicians' officelabo ratories are required to be registered with the federal government. And if the labora tory does anything other than the simplest tests, payment of a registration fee isjust the beginning. There are paperwork require ments, personnel standards, proficiency testing, more fees, and huge fines for vio lating any of the Byzantine requirements. -JANE M. ORIENT, M.D. 123 THEFREEMAN IDEASON UBERtY THE GROWTH OF GOVERNMENT IN AMERICA by Stephen Moore L et us begin with a simple but vitally important proposition: Government in America was never supposed to engage in the multitude of activities that it does today. When the United States gained its inde pendence more than 200 years ago, the founding fathers envisioned a national gov ernment with explicit and restricted respon sibilities. These responsibilities pertained mainly to protecting the security of the nation and ensuring" domestic tranquility, "