December

IDEASON LIBERTY 652 Nineteen Neglected Consequences of Income Redistribution CONTENTS by Robert Higgs DECEMBER The insidious effects of transfer payments. 1994 658 Closing the Green Gap of Market Liberalism by Karl Hess, Jr. VOL. 44 How greens and market liberals can engage in the common cause of NO. 12 good environment and sustainable liberty. 664 "Predatory Pricing" Laws: Hazardous to Consumers' Health by Donald J. Boudreaux Antitrust statutes stifle competition and injure consumers. 668 Ideas and Consequences: "Environmental Regulations Aren't Cheap" by Lawrence W. Reed Businesses and local governments struggle with the spiralling costs of compliance. 670 The Government as Robin Hood by E. C. Pasour, Jr. Practical and ethical problems of government poverty programs. 673 Invisible Value by Jane S. Shaw Markets accomplish what good intentions cannot. 675 Liberty and Entrepreneurship by Brian Lee Crowley When they are free to try, entrepreneurs will work their magic of social, cultural, and economic transformation.

679 Beyond Equality of the Sexes by Jennifer Roback Making women equal to men in any particular is not equivalent to making women better off. 685 Libertarianism as Communitarianism by Daniel B. Klein How libertarianism can help communitarians achieve their goals. 690 Time to Kill Draft Registration by Doug Bandow Is peacetime sign-up "essential to our national security"? 696 A Matter of Principle: The Real Enemy of Liberty by Robert James Bidinotto The first of Mr. Bidinotto's monthly Freeman columns. 698 Health-Care Reform: Deja Vu All Over Again by Steven Horwitz and Ronald M. Horwitz Lessons from the Federal Reserve Act and its aftermath. 701 Origins of Federal Control Over Education by Charlotte Twight How government officials actively cultivated key myths to secure passage of two sweeping federal statutes. 705 Passing Laws: Is Governing That Simple? by Eric-Charles Banfield Teaching legislators not to legislate.

707 Correction, Please! Baseball Strikes Out by Mark Skousen 709 Book Reviews George C. Leef reviews Cauldron by Larry Bond; The Right Data by Edwin S. Rubenstein et al., reviewed by Robert Batemarco; Money Meltdown: Restoring Order to the Global Currency System by Judy Shelton, reviewed by Raymond J. Keating; Lost Rights: The Destruction ofAmerican Liberty by James Bovard, reviewed by WilliamH. Peterson. 714 Index 1994 THEFREEMAN IDEASON LIBERTY Published by The Foundation for Economic Education Irvington-on-Hudson, NY 10533 Phone (914) 591-7230 FAX (914) 591-8910 President: Hans F. Sennholz Managing Editor: Beth A. Hoffman Guest Editor: Robert Higgs Editor Emeritus Paul L. Poirot Lewisburg, Pennsylvania Book Review Editor Robert Batemarco Marymount College, Tarrytown, New York Associate Editors John Chamberlain Cheshire, Connecticut Bettina Bien Greaves Resident Scholar, FEE Edmund A. Opitz Chatham, Massachusetts Columnists Robert James Bidinotto Staff Writer, Reader's Digest Lawrence W. Reed Mackinac Center for Public Policy Midland, Michigan Mark Skousen Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida Contributing Editors Charles W. Baird California State University, Hayward Doug Bandow Cato Institute, Washington, D.C.

E. Calvin Beisner Covenant College, Chattanooga, Tennessee Peter J. Boettke New York University Clarence B. Carson American Textbook Committee Wadley, Alabama Thomas J. DiLorenzo Loyola College, Baltimore, Maryland Joseph S. Fulda New York, New York Roger W. Garrison Auburn University Robert Higgs The Independent Institute, Oakland, California John Hospers University of Southern California Los Angeles, California Tibor R. Machan Auburn University Ronald Nash Reformed Theological Seminary Maitland, Florida James L. Payne Sandpoint, Idaho William H. Peterson Heritage Foundation, Washington, D.C. Jane S. Shaw PERC Bozeman, Montana Richard H. Timberlake University of Georgia Lawrence H. White University of Georgia 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, educa tional champion of private property, the free market, and limited government. FEE is classified as a 26 USC 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization.

Copyright © 1994 by The Foundation for Economic Education. Permissionisgranted to reprint any article in this issue, except' 'Beyond Equality of the Sexes" and "Passing Laws," provided appropriate credit is given and two copies of the reprinted material are sent to The Foundation. The costs of Foundation projects and services are met through donations, which are invited in any amount. Donors of$25.00 or more receive a subscriptionto TheFreeman. Student subscriptionsare $10.00 for the nine-month academic year; $5.00 per semester. Additional copies of singleissues of The Freeman are $2.00.For foreign delivery, a donation of $40.00a year is suggested to cover mailingcosts. Bound volumes of The Freeman are available from The Foundation for calendar years 1972to date. The Freeman is available in microform from University Microfilms, 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Cover: Dover Books PERSPECTIVE The Struggle for Liberty America is becoming a police state. Each year, more and more actions become either officially forbidden or officially required.

The scope for individuals to decide how to live their own lives grows steadily narrower. The list of crimes grows longer and longer, and any deviance may subject the citizen to the wrath of the police, the courts, and the prisons-not to mention the fiery violence of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the Drug Enforcement Administration. No one knows when the state will strike, for no one can possibly know whether he is violating the law-there are far more laws, regulations, and ordinances than anyone can possibly comprehend, much less obey. Citizens are now being punished for such ,'crimes" as fillingin mud puddles or cutting down trees on their own land, selling vita mins and herbs, and charging to braid some one's hair without a license. Many are punished for no crime at all, when their property is seized without due process of law in so-called civil forfeitures.

How can Americans stop the expansion of the police state? There is no simple answer, but some prerequisites are clear. First, people must come to a clearer understanding that using government to im pose their personal preferences on every body leads inexorably toward a society dominated by those in authority. One may disapprove of many things, including the use of dangerous narcotics or "quack" medi cines, the reckless disregard of some devel opers for flora and fauna, the decisions of teenagers to quit school, and the uncivilized opinions expressed by certain entertainers. But one cannotjustify using the power of the state to crush those whose actions strike him as merely foolish or unaesthetic. Second, people must come to a clearer understanding that, in politics, things are seldom what they are represented to be. Government thrives on sham: often it does not do what it claims to do, such as protect ing life and property, and often it does what 650 it is pledged not to do, such as singling out certain groups or individuals for selective punishment because of their unpopular at tributes or beliefs. Because government and mendacity go hand in hand, it is always risky to trust government. To trust it to carry out conscientiously thousands of important ac tivities-far more than anyone can moni tor-is utterly foolhardy.

As a practical political strategy, it might be worthwhile to concentrate exclusively on the repeal of existing laws. We are entangled in so many and such unjustified restraints that the most immediate need is to cut through some of these chains. For some people this may seem to be an unappealingly negative program. But nothing is more pos itive than our liberties. With each chain that we cut, we become a little freer. There is so much that deserves to be demolished. To rest content with our present condition is to accept government officials as our masters, and freeborn men and women can never make that concession. -ROBERT HIGGS Economic (Un)Liberty, Kansas Style Fifteen year-old Monique Landers is a criminal. Her crime? The young African-American started and ran a successful business wash ing and braiding hair for profit. For this criminal behavior, the Kansas state government threatened Monique with a fineor imprisonment in the countyjail or both.

But Monique also was recognized for her business acumen by the National Founda tion for Teaching Entrepreneurship, head quartered in New York. The Foundation honored Ms. Landers as one of five Out standing High School Entrepreneurs. Hair salons and cosmetology schools learned of Monique 's achievement and com plained. The Kansas Cosmetology Board put its foot down hard on the teenager: shut down your business or you might go to jail. Monique did not have a license to touch anyone's hair for money. PERSPECTIVE The Cosmetology Board's Executive Di rector said the youngster could go to a year-long cosmetology school if she wanted to braid hair. The problem: few such schools teach braiding and, to add insult to injury, those that did would not take her until she turned seventeen. "The Board won't let me earn my own money, and won't let kids like me learn how to take care of ourselves, " Monique said.

Monique is keenly aware of the virtues of economic liberty. "I think owning your own business is a way of being free, " she says. "If more kids knew they could grow up to be their own boss they would be more responsible and cause less trouble." Monique knows about kids causing trou ble; her one brother has been in jail and a sister has been expelled from school. In her own eyes, Monique was a produc tive citizen; to the Kansas government, she was a criminal. Cascade Update Spring/Summer 1994 Democracy versus Liberty [W]hen we ask where liberty is, "they" refer us to the ballots in our hands; over the vast machine which keeps us in subjection we have this one right: we, the ten-or twenty or thirty-millionthof the sovereign, lost in the vast crowd of our fellows, can on occasion take a hand in setting the machine in motion. And that, "they" tell us, is our liberty. We lose it whenever an individual will takes sole possession of the machine: that is autocracy.

We regain it when the right of giving the machine a periodical mass-impulsion is re stored to us: that is democracy. This is all either misdealing or cheating. Liberty is something quite different. Its essence lies in our will not being subject to other human wills: in our will ruling alone over our actions, only being checked when it injures the basic, indispensable require ments of life in society. -BERTRAND DE JOUVENEL On Power 651 THEFREEMAN IDEASON UBERTY NineteenNeglected Consequencesof Income Redistribution Robert Higgs V irtually every government action changes the personal distribution of income, but some government programs, which give money, goods, or services to individuals who give nothing in exchange, represent income redistribution in its stark est form. Until the twentieth century, American governments steered pretty clear of such "transfer payments. " The national govern ment gave pensions and land grants to veterans, and local governments provided food and shelter to the destitute. But the transfers to veterans can be viewed as deferred payments for military services, and local relief never amounted to much.