Book Reviews

• 1995 • 156 pages. $14.95 paperback (special price until October 31: $11.95) Reviewed by William H. Peterson W here else in America but in law-passing, tax-imposing, and regulation-issuing Washington, D.C., is private success so roundly condemned? And where else is it so punished, especially when it involves entrepreneurship and "the rich"? (A measure of U.S. "capital" punishment is seen in the climb of the top income tax rate from 28 percent in 1987 to 39.6 percent today. Said President Clinton in his 1994 State of the Union Address: "Only the top I-yes, listen-only the top 1.2 percent of Americans, as I said all along, will face higher income tax rates.") I ask: Where? But perhaps the sharper ques tion is: Why? Back in 1966 German sociologist Helmut Schoeck gave one answer to why in his pathfind ing book, Envy. Envy is a major force shaping really distorting-man and society, history and politics, says Schoeck. He finds it rearing its ugly head from Greek democracy 2,500years ago to Western democracy today.

How good then to get this FEE collection of essays from The Freeman glorifying future oriented entrepreneurship, justifying the rich, and excoriating the politics of envy. Such politics can be seen in the progressive income tax-a tax called for, by the way, in Marx's 1848 Communist Manifesto as a means of undermining capitalism. It can be seen again in the current opposition to a flat tax or a cut in the entrepreneur-strapping capital gains tax-a cut which opponents unjustly and counterproduc tively brand a "handout" to the rich. (A handout to the nonrich, including the poor, is closer to the mark.) Indeed, entrepreneurship along with capital investment is the secret of American prosperity. More often than not, the rich gain their wealth through entrepreneurship. In a brief but pungent .essay here, Ludwig von Mises portrays the entrepreneur as indispensable· to a free society, 671 as one who enriches that society, as the driving force behind the whole market system, as a kind of an unsung hero who in a sense shares his wealth with society through what Mises called "social liability," his recognition that invest ments have to be monitored scrupulously, that they can and do fail.

In his introduction to this volume, FEE's Hans Sennholz hails futurists and visionaries like John D. Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan, and Henry Ford. These giants bequeathed capital investment, in dustrial might, and labor productivity to succeed ing generations of Americans. The rub is that Americans are largely ignorant of this bequest, are apt to snap at "robber barons," and vote anticapitalists into office. A deadly business. Cautions Dr. Sennholz in punchy terms: "The future is purchased today. We have a number of choices. But all sales are final." In a refreshing essay, contributor Jane Shaw of the PERC research center in Bozeman, Montana thanks the entrepreneurship behind Bozeman eateries for gastronomic delights. She calls at tention to George Gilder's idea that entrepre neurs are "givers"-altruistic people who give first and get rewards later, if profits kick in. Contributor Israel Kirzner of New York Uni versity says the glory of free enterprise lies in its ability to attract vigorous and imaginative indi viduals who establish long-run capital-conserv ing profitable firms-profitable to themselves and, of at least equal importance, profitable to their customers, Le., to the American consumer.

Wal-Mart is such a firm and its founder Sam Walton was such an entrepreneur, notes David Laband of Auburn University's economics de partment in his contribution. Dr. Laband sees Wal-Mart giving significant benefits to its cus tomers and a hard time to its big competitors such as Sears and K-Mart and to its local, small competitors such as independent drug and hard ware stores. But that competition is anything but' 'unfair, " as charged by many of Wal-Mart's rivals. As he writes: "It is true that Wal-Mart's competitors lost business. However, let's get the cause and the effect straight: Wal-Mart never put anybody out of business, American consumers (his em phasis) did." Chinese consumers in Beijing's big 500-seat, fast-food Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant also exercise quite a degree of sovereignty, observes contributor Lawrence Reed of Michi gan's Mackinac Center. But that sovereignty and Kentucky Fried Chicken's entrepreneurship are 672 THE FREEMAN • OCTOBER 1995 still held back in post-Mao, ongoing socialist China.

The Chinese government, for example, insists on majority ownership. Kentucky Fried Chick en's share is held to 40 percent. Too, its man agement has to put up with state-set wages and a state-owned utility refusing to provide any heat before November 15th or after March 15th, regardless of any intervening but not uncommon freezing weather. In his contribution, the Reverend John K. Williams of Australia tells of Ralph Nader on a speaking tour Down Under, with the so-called consumer advocate suggesting to Aussies that "big business" executives should be sent to prison for defrauding the public. The suggestion received rapturous applause. Reverend Williams attributes that applause to what he calls "the business bogey." No doubt about the bogey. Throughout the West the highly constructive role of business in society is not only very often unappreciated at the university lectern, church pulpit, editorial office,and so on but, ironically, all too frequently by businessmen themselves.

Mr. Businessman, in other words, often inad vertently supports anticapitalist causes by mind lessly sending a check to his left-wing alma mater. Or he lets the battle of ideas go by default. Comments John Williams: "That is his failing, and possibly his fatal failing." He might have added a line from FEE writer Admiral Ben Moreell back in the 1950s: to communism via majority vote. This reviewer, on the firing line of defending the rich for more years than he cares to remem ber, suggests: Let those critics attacking "greed" and "fat cats" redirect their frustration into a new outlet: Don't get mad, get even-get rich. Remember, critics, you's free to try. But watch out: You may become the butt of your own diatribes. 0 Dr. Peterson, an adjunct scholar at the Heritage Foundation, is the Distinguished Lundy Profes sor Emeritus ofBusiness Philosophy at Campbell University in North Carolina.

The Tyranny of Numbers by Nicholas Eberstadt AEI Press, Washington, D.C.• 1995 • 305 pages • $24.95 cloth Reviewed by Julian L. Simon I n this book about political systems, economic development, and demography, Nicholas Eberstadt displays a firm grasp on the right end of the stick. His data well demonstrate his unifyingtheme, which is that to understand social phenomena, we must look at experience over a long stretch of time, across a varied group of countries, and with as large a sample of countries as possible. It is because they do exactly the opposite that the doomsters arrive at precisely the wrong conclusions about the way that things are going in society. Among the specificissues that Eberstadt deals with are poverty, health, life expectancy, infant mortality, population growth, and economic de velopment. These issues are discussed in the comparative context of capitalistic United States and socialistic Eastern Europe and Asia. Eber stadt is well-skilled to tackle these topics. He is a fine demographer, and his 1976 article in The New York Review of Books on world food pro duction-written at age 19-was as good an attack on prevailing false common beliefs as was written in that decade.

The basic idea in the book is that wealth leads to health and long life, political freedom leads to wealth, and therefore in the long run political freedom leads to health and the other good things of life. The Communist bloc-of which Eberstadt is a very competent scholar-will long remain the classic proof of this truth. For example, life expectancy in eastern Europe has been declining during the past decades, whereas everywhere else in the world it has been rising. Part of the explanation may be the enormous pollution of air and water that is inevitable under Communism, and perhaps it is related to the fascinating pat terns of smoking and drinking about which Eber stadt presents data. But the most important reason almost surely is the decline in the overall standard of living in those countries. To illustrate Eberstadt's position that not consulting the long view of history leads to unsound conclusions, consider the public's be liefs about black infant mortality. Almost every one's reaction is that black infant mortality is a bad situation. But look at the decreases in black and white infant mortality in the United States since 1915. In 1915 white infant mortality was almost 100 deaths per 1,000 births, and black infant mortality was fully 180 deaths per 1,000 births. Both are horrifying. And the rates were even more horrifying in earlier years in some countries-up to 300 or 400 deaths per thousand births.

Nowadays white infant mortality is about eight per thousand, and black infant mortality about 16 per thousand. Of course it is regrettable that mortality is higher for blacks than for whites. But should we not be impressed by the tremendous improvement for both races-both falling to about ten percent of what they were-with the black rate coming ever closer to the white rate? Is not this extraordinary improvement for the entire population the most important story-and a most happy story? Yet the press gives us the impression that we should be mainly distressed about the state of black infant mortality. This is the error of thought that Eberstadt warns us against. Someone once said to Voltaire: "Life is hard." Voltaire replied: "Compared to what?" Every evaluation requires that we make some sort of comparison. And the comparisons one chooses to make are decisive in the judgments one makes about whether things are getting better or worse.

Though the ideas in The Tyranny of Numbers are sound and important, and should be part of the mental contents of every policymaker in our society, the book is not a great success as a monograph. It cannot claim novelty because its ideas are not new; they are the staples of classic liberal thought about economic development, as exemplified by Lord Peter Bauer, Margaret Thatcher's first economic guru. And the main conclusions are only implicit rather than explicit because the volume lacks integration. It reads more like a set of essays than like a book with a basic unifying theme. Additionally, the art of making a book from separate essays was scanted by both author and editor. Similar material pops up in several parts of the book. But leave those cavils aside. The content of the book is sound and important. The more policy makers who read it, the better. And there are lots of interesting data, even for the scholar. D Dr. Simon is the author ofThe State of Humanity and The Ultimate Resource (2nd edition forth coming).

BOOKS 673 The Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating America by Philip K. Howard Random House. 1994. 202 pages. $18.00 Reviewed by James L. Payne I t is rare that a book should carry in its title a double entendre so embarrassing to the au thor. Howard intends to say that common sense has died in the morass of modern law and legal regulation, which he finds wasteful, counterpro ductive, and laughably ineffective. "Modern law has not protected us from stupidity and caprice, " he says, "but has made stupidity and caprice dominant features of our society. " The book lays bare regulation's ugly underbelly, with case after case of silly governmental action angrily re counted by the author. So what should we do about it? Here the reader is treated to a second death of common sense: Mr. Howard's. Hejust can't bring himself to see that the solution to the abuses of government is less government.

The opening case nicely illustrates his hangup. Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity wanted to reconstruct a burned-out building in New York City to make it into a homeless shelter. They didn't want, and would refuse to use, an elevator, but city regulations insisted they spend the extra $100,000to put one in anyway. As a result of the impasse, the nuns gave up on the project. Howard is appalled by this outcome. "There are probably 1millionbuildings in New York without elevators. Homeless people would love to live in almost anyone of these." What's the way to prevent this kind of regu latory absurdity? The common sense reply is: get government out of deciding things like who must have an elevator. How could a government agency ever have the wisdom and sensitivity to know, for scores of thousands of different build ings every year, when an elevator was appropri ate and when not? Let owners, architects, build ers, and tenants figure it out.

This answer never occurs to Howard, not in this case and not in connection with the dozens of other regulation horror stories he presents. He's a man of the left, it appears, with the old New Dealer's deep, unexamined faith in govern ment. He believes it should manage everything: schools, medicine, businesses, environment, safety, housing, zoning. Anyone who suggests government is overextended, he says in an im674 THE FREEMAN • OCTOBER 1995 patient aside, is guilty of "dreaming of an agrar ian republic." Howard is the first to agree that all this massive regulation has gone painfully wrong, but that doesn't mean that the idea of big gov ernment is flawed; it's just been carried out incorrectly. What's the right way to do it, then? How do we avoid dehumanizing red tape, bureaucracy, and litigation, and still give government the power to regulate everything in sight? Howard doesn't stress his answer, but it clearly lurks in his pages: we give government officials arbitrary power to regulate as they see fit. "When we demand that the welfare state address difficult human prob lems like poverty and homelessness, and ordi nary ones like education, we must allow the humans doing the job to operate appropriately. "

To Howard's way of thinking, bureaucrats should be free to use their own judgment in deciding who has to have an elevator, let us say. When Mother Teresa comes by, he assumes they would let her off the hook. But Howard doesn't seem to worry about the negative side of this arbitrary power. What happens when someone rubs an officialthe wrong way and is ordered to put an elevator in his dog's house? He can't be permitted to complain to anyone. If the courts hear the case, that would restart the litigation engine Howard so deplores. Appealing to a councilman or congressman would lead to the massive legislation he has spent his book criti cizing. So taxation with representation must go by the board. Obviously, Howard hasn't thought through his idea' 'to let bureaucrats loose without precise instructions." Judging from this book's great popularity, there are lots of people these days in the same boat with Howard: they hate how government works but they still believe in it. It hasn't yet dawned on them that government is based on force, and that no matter how you slice it, force is a defective foundation for social reform. D Dr. Payne, a contributing editor ofThe Freeman, is director ofLytton Research and Analysis and the author ofCostly Returns: The Burdens of the U.S. Tax System.

The Careless Society: Community and Its Counterfeits by John McKnight Basic Books. 1995 • 185 pages. $21.00 Reviewed by Doug Bandow T here is little doubt that the sinews of Amer ican society have weakened over the last 40 years. One need not treat the 1950sas a long-lost utopia to recognize that families are now more likely to break up and, indeed, not to form at all; that communities are crumbling as they fill with fractured families; and that even prosperous middle America seems ever-less cohesive. What is the cause of this phenomenon, which has created a social catastrophe in many inner cities? Much of it results from misguided and per verse government policies, as John McKnight, now at Northwestern University, details. But he identifies a broader villain: professionalism. As he explains, "our problem is not ineffective service-providing institutions. In fact, our in stitutions are too powerful, authoritative, and strong. Our problem is weak communities, made ever more impotent by our strong service sys tems."

His is a provocative, if somewhat misguided, thesis. In virtually every aspect of life-medi cine, poverty, crime-McKnight contends that professionals are taking over. The result has been to "destroy the sense of community competence by capturing and commodifying the citizens' capacity to solve problems and to care." We have become a nation of clients. McKnight directs much of his fire at the medical profession. He is mightily irritated with physicians for reasons that are not entirely clear. For instance, he seems to blame doctors for the fact that Americans like to engage in unhealthy activities and then want to be healed. In such cases doctors are merely responding to our irresponsibility. Still, this desire that someone else counteract the effects of our own foolishness suggests a serious moral problem. The fault lies not with the servers, but with us, for believing that re sponsibility for solving our problems lies outside of ourselves.

This tendency to yield control is perhaps most evident in the field of social services, where The Careless Society is at its most persuasive. Here we see coercion at work, with the government using taxpayers' money to foist "services" upon the most vulnerable members of our society. As McKnight reports, the resulting picture is not pretty: When the services grow dense enough around people's lives, a circular process de velops. A different environment is created for these individuals. The result of a noncommu nity environment is that those who experience it necessarily act in unusual and deviant ways. These new ways, called inappropriate behav ior, are then cited by service professionals as proof of the need for separation in a forest of services and for more services. The disabling effect of this circular process is devastating to the client and to our commu nities. Not surprisingly, the rangers in this forest of services develop into a potent political lobby. As a result, complains McKnight, the bulk of "anti poverty" spending goes to the largely middle class servers, whose incentive is to create yet more programs. This tends to push out genuine citizen activists, who offer the intimate personal relationships which are what community is all about.

The loss caused by this sort of social service imperialism is enormous, but intangible. Even the poorest communities, when convinced that they control their own destinies, can achieve much. McKnight details the case of one Chicago neighborhood where local activists assessed the most common reasons for treatment at the local hospital, and then began addressing problems like dog bites. Rather than marching on city hall, they used local block clubs to create a system of bounties for stray dogs. The number ofbites went down and, reports McKnight, "the people began to learn that their action, rather than the hospi tal's, determines their health." How to encourage more of such activism? McKnight emphasizes deregulation. People and communities must be free to act, he writes, yet "in thinking about extending spheres of free action, one is constantly impressed by the bar riers imposed by various forms of state regula tion." Although these restrictions are always defended as protecting the public, McKnight warns that "they are usually means to ensure professional monopolies, central authority, and preferred technologies."

Eliminating barriers is not enough. The author also worries about jobs and economic growth, though his more interventionist economic pro posals contradict the lessons that he advances about the failure of government central social BOOKS 675 planning. Moreover, he emphasizes the role of associations, which are "the result of people acting through consent." Officials have to rec ognize the power of this voluntary sector, for it, observes McKnight: "provides a social tool in which consent is the primary motivation, inter dependence creates wholistic environments, people of all capacities and fallibilities are incor porated, quick responses are possible, creativity is multiplied rather than channeled, individual ized responses are characteristic, care is able to replace service, and citizenship is possible." In short, community is the most important antidote for what ails us. McKnight closes with an interesting reflection on Christianity, which has provided such an impulse for service. Would Christ approve of today's institutionalization of service, asks McKnight? Not if Christ saw "help becoming control, care becoming commercialized, and cure becoming immobilizing." Rather, McKnight ar gues, the highest expression of service is people helping people. Ultimately, he argues, we should seek not to be servants, but friends, which Christ proclaimed his disciples to be during the Last Supper. As McKnight so nicely concludes a powerful, though at times flawed, book: "In our time, professionalized servants are people who are limited by the unknowing friendlessness of their help. Friends, on the other hand, are people liberated by the possibilities of knowing how to help each other. " 0 Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and the author ofThe Politics of Envy: Statism as Theology (Transaction).

Economic Thought Before Adam Smith-An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought, Volume 1 by Murray N. Rothbard Edward Elgar. 1995 • 556 pages. $99.95 Reviewed by Gregory P. Pavlik L ibertarian theory did not emerge from a vacuum. Yet, often it seems that the deepest antecedents that movement libertarians would bequeath to us lie in the Enlightenment. Indeed, some would not proceed backward past Ayn Rand. The truth is, libertarian thought has an ancestry extending down through the ages to 676 THE FREEMAN • OCTOBER 1995 antiquity. To be specific, those roots are both Western and Christian. There can be no clearer exposition of this fact than the last major work of Murray Rothbard. Economic Thought Before Adam Smith is a deceptively titled volume. It is actually a full blown history of ideas from a natural rights natural law perspective in philosophy as well as a critique of economic doctrine and theory from within the Misesian paradigm of mainstream Austrian economics. Professor Rothbard's treat ment is a thorough overview of the roots of the libertarian system that informed his life's work.

This book is all the more valuable for Roth bard's general approach to historiography. Working through the Austrian paradigm, Roth bard delivers a devastating blow to the standard chronology of economic theory as a linear and correct development from Adam Smith to mod ern neoclassical economics. As the title implies, there was a wealth of analysis developed before the time of Adam Smith. Although most was imbedded in moral theology or appeared in fragments, a body of sound economic thought existed, much emerging from Thomistic Scholasticism. One of the most impressive examples of advanced theoretical contributions was the fourteenth-century French philosopher Jean Buridan de Bethune, who was responsible for' 'the virtual creation of the mod ern [Austrian] theory of money. " As Rothbard explains: Foreshadowing the Austrians Menger and von Mises, Buridan insisted that an effectively functioning money be composed of a material possessing a value independent of its role as money. . . . Buridan went on to catalogue those qualities that lead the market to choose a commodity as a medium of exchange ...

portability, high value per unit weight, divis ibility, and durability. In short, a sophisticated commodity theory of money. This served the additional function of beginning to sever monetary theory from the Aristotelian notion of money as a unique creation ofthe state, barren ofintrinsic value, that plagued early economic considerations, and formed the basis of the early Christian prohibitions on inter est. It is most informative to note that there were in fact modern general treatises on economics that preceded Adam Smith, the most important being Essai Sur La Nature Du Commerce En General, by the "gallicized Irish merchant" Richard Cantillon. Cantillon was sound on his analysis of market pricing, providing a sophisti cated discussion of consumer demand coupled with supply. He was "the first to stress and analyze the entrepreneur." Cantillon' s work pi oneered "spatial economics ... the analysis of economic activity in relation to geographic space." Most importantly, all of this was done some 70 years before Adam Smith, the alleged father of economics.

The subject of Adam Smith is where Rothbard will perhaps raise the most eyebrows. He is almost without exception hostile, deeming Smith a proto-Marxist, and, following Schumpeter, an obstacle for the development of sound economic theory. For Rothbard, Smith interjected the labor theory of value into economics and pioneered an extreme variant ofthe egalitarianism that plagues political dialogue to this day. Contrary to con ventional wisdom, Rothbard holds that even Smith's famous "invisible hand" was not origi nal, and that Smith's emphasis on the division of labor neglected the importance of specialization in the economy as a whole. In the wake of Rothbard's dissection, laissez-faire promoters of Adam Smith have a lot of explaining to do. Rothbard's book also serves as a history of the development of natural law theory, a discussion which moves from Aristotle through to moder nity. Notable again is the emphasis on the pos itive role played by Christianity, and Catholicism in particular, on the emergence of a coherent natural rights-based libertarian doctrine. As the author points out, the Catholic professor at Bologna, Huguccio, in his Summa of 1188, es tablished the doctrine that' 'private property was to be considered a sacrosanct right derived from the natural law." In theory, private property was to be immune from the aggressions of the state.

This analysis leads to an interesting reinter pretation of more well known proto-libertarian natural rights theorists like John Locke. In the case of Locke, Rothbard regards his theory as "neo-Scholastic Protestantism," a resurrection of previously held Christian doctrine regarding the natural law. Of course, there were radical innovations within the Lockean system, most importantly with regard to social contract theory. But the author's point is extremely important, and must lead to a reconsideration of the religious roots of the doctrines of political freedom. Further, Professor Rothbard takes the reader through an in-depth analysis of the social rami fications of the Protestant Reformation, and of the great theological divides in Europe. There is an extensive survey of Mercantilism in theory and practice. The Enlightenment comes under scrutiny for its mysticism and perversion of libertarian doctrine. No essential subject in eco nomic or political theory is left untouched.

This is an immensely important work, a judg ment that must be reserved for a select number of titles. As a fresh history of economic theory it is invaluable. As a learned analysis of the roots of libertarian thought, it is revolutionary. This is a book that deserves to be read carefully and repeatedly. 0 Mr. Pavlik is director of The Freeman Op-Ed Program at The Foundation for Economic Edu cation. Tax Free 2000: The Rebirth of American Liberty by Murray Sabrin Prescott Press, Inc., Lafayette, Louisiana. 1995 • 240 pages. $12.99 paperback Reviewed by Robert W. McGee I f you hate taxes, then you'll love Murray Sabrin's Tax Free 2000. Dr. Sabrin traces the history and evolution of taxes from ancient times through the Middle Ages and up until the ratifi cation of the 16th Amendment, which gave the federal government the legal authority to impose an income tax. He also analyzes the impact of taxation on the economy and concludes that taxes distort production by transferring re sources from the peaceful and productive sec tor-the free market-to the "coercive" sector of society-the government.

If after reading chapters one through four you are not convinced the government is not your friend, then Sabrin's discussion of the govern ment's monetary policies should convince you that the U.S. dollar could be headed for the trash can if sound money is not restored. So how do we get out of this statist mess? Sabrin demonstrates how a taxless society would function. He systematically analyzes all levels of government spending and concludes that they do not pass the test of either efficiency or justice. Without a foundation of freedom to guide social relations, the hallmark of a laissez-faire economy, government spending by definition creates conflict among the citizenry by creating a perpetual civil war for the spoils of taxation. Sabrin thus takes the Jeffersonian doctrine of limited government to its logical conclusion extreme noninterference. BOOKS 677 At the federal level, government must pro vide a national defense to protect the territorial integrity of the United States, but not the "de mocracy" of Haiti, the safety of South Korea, or the stability of the Balkans. States, counties, and municipalities also must downsize because they too deliver services by using massive coer cion.

According to Sabrin, we can phase out all taxes by the year 2000 and eliminate virtually all government spending by the early years of the next century. By the next millennium Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, foreign aid, farm subsidies, welfare, education, and all the other spending programs that have become the com ponents of the American welfare state or mixed economy should be abolished. Sabrin asserts that both the profit and nonprofit sectors would deliver the services the American people desire, not what the special interests want. This would be in keeping with the principles of 1776 that, he claims, were overturned in the quiet revolution of 1913, the year the income tax amendment was added to the Constitution and the Federal Re serve Act was signed into law by President Wilson. You don't have to be a radical rightist or a libertarian to appreciate Tax Free 2000. If Amer ica is going to once again become a truly free country, then the income tax, sales tax, property tax, estate tax, inheritance tax, and the myriad of government depredations of the people must end.

And the sooner the better. Sabrin has offered a bold prescription for America's future. If we want to achieve both freedom and sustainable prosperity, then Tax Free 2000 is the book we need. D Dr. McGee teaches at Seton Hall University. The American Revolution Resurgent by Raphael G. Kazmann Scott-Townsend Publishers: Washington, D.C. • 1994 • 186 pages. $15.00paperback Reviewed by Robert Batemarco T ake a heavy dose of principle, add some solid economic reasoning and a scattering of his torical examples, leaven it with some unconven tional definitions, and you have The American Revolution Resurgent. This book clearly lays out the consequences of America's jettisoning the constitutional republic the Founding Fathers 678 THE FREEMAN • OCTOBER 1995 bequeathed us in favor of majoritarianism. Its cogent suggestions as to how to return are unfortunately well ahead of their time. Democracy has by and large degenerated into majorities voting themselves a share of the prop erty of the minority. Raphael Kazmann redefines democracy as what a polity should be: one in which majority rule, constrained by morality and justice, is applied to solve those problems com mon to all members of society. Kazmann' s natural law approach to morality and justice draws from such diverse sources as Ayn Rand and the Bible. Government actions that we take for granted permit him to provide us with many examples of the consequences offailing to adhere to the natural law. Public schooling, progressive taxation, protectionism, Social Security, and foreign aid all come in for a drubbing. On progressive taxation, for instance, Kazmann ob serves: "The idea that taxation should be based on the 'ability to pay' can be paraphrased as 'let's have a gradation in robbery, those who are the richest shall be robbed the most, those who are less rich shall be robbed less, but no one who earns anything shall escape.'"

Nowhere does Kazmann go further against the grain of what currently passes for democracy than in questioning the desirability of the univer sal franchise. He illustrates, through the example of investment clubs, that where electoral major ities have no power to transgress the rights of minorities, those less qualified to make decisions are only too glad to leave that task to those better qualified. The key here is the pursuit of a common goal, rather than some factions seeking to gain at the expense of others which characterizes our actual political system. He fleshes out this notion with a plan to restrict the franchise to that 60 percent of the population with the greatest Adjusted Gross Incomes. His presumption is that those who are running their own lives successfully, at least in this single dimension, are more likely to make correct decisions in the public arena. Those who would argue that this standard may be somewhat arbi trary would have a tough time convincing anyone that the current qualification for voting, i.e., to have been breathing for the last eighteen years, is not arbitrary.

He concludes the book with five general policy proposals: stabilizing the currency, abolishing all transfer payments, maintaining order, converting our current progressive income tax to a flat consumption tax, and permitting all voluntary exchanges. Kazmann does not skimp on specifics to back up his general points. His discussion of the harm done by government water resource programs draws on his professional training as a hydrolo gist. His discussions of the German hyperinfla tion, Social Security, and the minimum wage are filled with relevant facts soundly interpreted. All too many free market thinkers revere democratic capitalism in a manner which empha sizes the democratic part over the capitalism. The main contribution of this work is to place the mechanism of voting in its proper place as a means rather than an end. As Kazmann con cludes, "It is not the organizational structure that determines whether or not a society will survive.

It is the extent to which the organizational structure conforms to the natural laws that gov ern human societies." D In addition to editing the book review section of The Freeman, Dr. Batemarco is a marketing research project manager in New York City and teaches economics at Marymount College in Tarrytown, New York. Government Nannies: The Cradle to Grave Agenda of Goals 2000 and Outcome Based Education by Cathy Duffy Noble Publishing Associates. 1995 • 263 pages • $13.00 paperback Reviewed by Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley F ew forces in American life have postured as more messianic than public education, whose prophets predicted a golden age of cre ativity, equality, and prosperity if only the gov ernment could run the schools and children be forced to attend. They got their wish, and billions of dollars in the people's money, but the result was quite different. Instead of imparting a body of knowledge and transmitting the time-honored cultural and moral values to students, American public education really government education-serves mainly to reinforce ignorance, enhance credulity, and put its inmates at the mercy of society's eager brain washers, with recording studios and TV cameras at their disposal. Home-education expert and curriculum consultant Cathy Duffyknows this all too well.

In the early 18oos, before we had compulsory schooling, she points out, the literacy rate sur passed that of today , when students who can read advertisements are considered literate. In eco nomic education the situation is even more dismal. America's educational establishment also knows its own failures and has embarked on a grandiose program it claims will fix the prob lems. In this tough, well-documented book, Cathy Duffy gives them a report card. Duffygoes to the heart of the problem with her diagnosis that American educational problems are iatrogenic, induced by the system itself, particularly in its attempts at reform. As Richard Mitchell and other educational critics have shown, even calls for reform only feed the bureaucratic brontosaurus by providing it with a pretext for yet more studies, more support per sonnel, and of course increased taxes. The latest of these are "Goals 2000" and "Outcome Based Education," subjects of this helpful volume.

The author shows a keen ability to translate from the language of bureaucrats, which some call "educanto." This is the pretentious dialect that calls grades "outcomes," tests "assess ments," and libraries "learning resource cen ters." But there is no mistaking the author's purpose: to "stimulate more people to value their freedom and autonomy enough to stand against the encroachment of benevolent government nanny programs that would keep us all perpetual children. " Goals 2000,Duffysays, includes some reforms but in reality" goes out of the classroom, into the home, beyond instruction and into indoctrina tion. In reality it provides the framework for a cradle-to-grave takeover of America's families." For example, the author shows how the screen ing processes of ostensibly benevolent "parent educators" (PEs) are based on a massive mistrust of parents. The plan's call for "partnership,"

Duffy says, "is shaping up to be an invasion." The officialpretext is the desire that "all children shall start school ready to learn." The intrusive PE's, Duffy shows, can easily manipulate parents into uncritical acceptance of programs under the Goals 2000 umbrella. These include the declaration of certain children ' 'at risk. " But the standards are so broad that some schools declare all students "at risk." And Duffy documents the disturbing liaisons between BOOKS 679 schools and social service agencies which, when in doubt, tend to break up families first and ask questions later. Duffy casts doubt upon every high-minded plank in the Goals 2000program, whose cost she estimates at up to $1 billion a year. She notes that the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is an $11 billionper year' 'investment" in education that even dwarfs Goals 2000. The much-promoted Outcome Based Educa tion (OBE) while promising improved results, turns out to rely more on the feelings of students than their thinking powers and mastery of knowl edge. As the California CLAS tests confirm, it also allows schools to become yet more intrusive with students and parents.

The one certainty of such reforms is that they willbe expensive. Another is that they will serve bureaucratic interests. Based on those realities the prospects for success may well be doubted. Duffy makes a convincing case that these goals could well make things worse but at the same time raises key questions for those dealing with the system. Do children belong to the state, as in the Prussian system on which ours is based? Are citizens rapidly become slaves to the govern ment? As C.S. Lewis put it, there is a funda mental difference between the methods of an eagle which teaches her young to fly and fend for themselves, and the poultry farmer who raises birds for the slaughter. American education is very much in the second camp. "We are faced with two choices," the author concludes, "We can choose the security of the government womb and pay the price of freedom. Or, we can choose a challenging future that holds both risks and responsibilities. "

Cathy Duffyprovides solidanalysis to push the reader toward that more difficult second path, ringing defenses of freedom to challenge the reader, and resources to help them proceed. Government Nannies will prove a most useful tool for parents and educators alike in the closing years of this century. 0 Mr. Billingsley is a media fellow of the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco.

Landmark Kirk Memoir Lowest Price Anywhere! ((RussellKirk $final work is a tributeto him as a seminalthinker.... A wondeiful read, indispensableto those interestedin a conservative$view ofa half century." -WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR. R ussell Kirk's memoir and last work, The Sword of Imagination, is as much a chronicle of the confusion and perplexities of the twentieth century as it is autobiography. Its portraits of Henry Ford, Flannery O'Connor, the Archduke Otto von Habsburg, T. S. Eliot, Donald Davidson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and other notables are un surpassed. Kirk's keen insight into the minds of children, his romantic courtship, his perceptions of human nature, his adventures in dark corners are here for readers to enjoy. Writing from Mecosta, a remote village in the backwoods of northern Mi~hi gan, Kirk wielded his sword of imagination, laying bare the conceits of a sensate age.

Cloth, 497 pp. +Illustrations, List: $34.99, lSI: $24.00 1---------------------------1 Send this coupon to: lSI, 14 S. Bryn Mawr Ave., Bryn Mawr, PA 19010-3275, or for credit card orders call 1-800-526-7022 (please add 504:/copy to help with shipping and handling). Name _ Address Apt. _ City State Zipcode _ o Enclosed is a $ check for _ copies ($24.00/copy) of Sword. o Enter my credit card order for __ copies ($24.00/ copy) of Sword. I wish to pay by: 0 VISA 0 MasterCard Signature: _ Account# Exp. date FEEIO/95 L ~ INTERCOLLEGIATE STUDIES INSTITUTE To Educatefor Liberty THEFREEMAN IDEAS ON LIBERTY FEATURES 684 688 690 697 703 708 712 717 719 723 726 728 Center 695 715 721 734 682 736 Should We Cancel the National Debt? by Daniel J. Pilla The consequences of repudiation. How to Destroy Wealth by Richard W Stevens A simple experiment. Education vs. Democracy by Sheldon Richman Should we remove schools from the arena of political control?