Book Reviews

They've built it. We're in it. The intellectual cornerstone of the New Soci ety was determinism: the belief that human behavior is in principle caused by factors outside the agent's control. Once the psychological and/or socioeconomic "root causes" of unde sired behavior-be it crime or capitalism-are found and addressed, that behavior can be me thodically, "scientifically" eliminated. If you weren't mugged over the past week, it's no thanks to this lunatic theory. In all its variants, it has swept post-Christian culture off its feet. The accredited "experts" and "specialists" of , the social sciences that guide the criminal jus tice system have been dedicated to the denial of common sense. In fact the denial of.common sense virtually defines the expert, who smiles at the naive assumption that there are" bad" people-people who freely choose to do evil-and that the job of the state is to punish them. The late psychiatrist Karl Menninger spoke of "the crime of punish ment" (itself a sternly judgmental phrase). The job of the state is to "rehabilitate" the criminal.

On this view, the criminal becomes a kind of innocent, a victim whose crimes indict not him selfbut "society"; only the desire for retributive justice is condemned as atavistic. Even our official language expresses the reg nant ideology. Hence we now have departments not of penal justice, but of "correction." The trouble is, nobody gets corrected, and nobody even thinks anyone gets corrected, by prisons organized on these enlightened princi ples. Now that the root causes have been ad dressed, the crime rate has soared beyond any one's nightmare of anarchy. Safety from violence is no longer a common condition of American life, as it was a generation ago; it's a commodity you pay dearly for-in choice real estate, secu599 rity guards, neighborhood watches, burglar alarms, and whatever weapons the private citizen may still be permitted to possess. Robert James Bidinotto, who put Willie Hor ton on the map, as it were, in a 1988 Reader's Digest article, has edited a book of essays by highly intelligent but unabashedly unenlightened writers who take the view that the way to lower the crime rate is to put the scare into bad people.

Furthermore, these writers don't believe that bad people are badly frightened by the possibility of even a life sentence in a minimum-security facility with all the basic creature comforts and weekend furloughs. If the essays in Criminal Justice? stopped there, the book would be instructive only to those least likely to read it: the mad scientists of what Mr. Bidinotto calls "the Excuse-Making Indus try" -sociologists, Marxian economists, psy chologists (Freudian and behavioral), biologists, and Ramsey Clark. Mr. Bidinotto also has a fine short treatment of the philosophical problem with determinism: if the doctrine is true, we can never know it, since reason itself must be an illusion resulting from irrational causes. The idea is radically absurd. Criminal behavior may be encouraged or dis couraged by many factors, but it isn't "caused." That is, no stimulus or condition yields a pre dictable result of the kind summed up in the weary aphorism that "poverty causes crime."

Many desperately poor societies have low crime rates. Ours has seen crime rise along with un paralleled prosperity. Mr. Bidinotto suggests that we "consider a heretical thought: not that 'pov erty causes crime,' but that criminality causes poverty." If there are no "root causes," there are cer tainly incentives and disincentives for those for whom criminal options are matters of cold cal culation. By one reckoning, only 1.7 percent of all crimes are punished by imprisonment. Not much deterrent there. (Of course enlightened opinion denies that punishment deters violent crime, even as it seeks to criminalize, i.e. deter, with threats of punishment, all sorts of formerly licit market activities; and it ascribes" greed" not to armed robbers who shoot clerks, but to busi nessmen and taxpayers who want to keep more of their own earnings.) There are many fine essays in the book besides Mr. Bidinotto's four contributions. David Wal ter, taking a leaf from Bastiat, provocatively suggests that the welfare state is so morally ambiguous that it encourages private individuals to do what the state itself constantly does: 600 THE FREEMAN • SEPTEMBER 1995 namely, grab others' property. If nothing really belongs to anyone, what's so wrong about theft?

Ralph Adam Fine shows how plea bargaining corrupts the justice system, and also argues that the courts, expanding the Miranda principle beyond its original absurdity, have wrongly de prived the police of a legitimate asset: the need of many criminals to confess. Caleb Nelson simi larly explores the irrationality ofthe exclusionary rule. Lee Coleman shows how the insanity de fense lends itself to abuses; in fact the book as a whole could start a lively debate over who is crazier, psychiatrists or federal judges, with plenty of evidence for both sides. Other.essays devastate such myths as the notion that our prisons house too many petty offenders who shouldn't have been incarcerated in the first place. Without succumbing to determinism, and agreeing with nearly everything the authors say, I nevertheless think there is a certain "root cause, " as it were, of our burgeoning crime rate: the mad ambition of liberalism to "remake soci ety. " A society can neither be made nor remade; it can only be maintained, or corrupted and destroyed. The welfare state has disastrously weakened the tribal links and loyalties that make most men behave most of the time; chiefly, the desire for the respect of older men and the fear of disgrace in their eyes. We suffer from a glut of fatherless boys-not only fatherless, but also, so to speak, uncleless-who are more unassim ilable than any wave of immigrants. A male mentor who sets a responsible example, and supplies the timely rebuke, can make all the difference to a borderline· criminal. Put simply, people need love.

This is not to deny free will or the importance of incentives; on the contrary, millions of Amer ican boys, sons of mothers on welfare, lack one of the strongest incentives to good behavior: a real or virtual father who can provide both affection and authority. This is a terrible pity, and it creates problems for everyone. The "experts" seem not to grasp it; the rest of us should. An ounce of prevention is all to the good, and abolishing the welfare state would be more like a ton of prevention. I wish the book had said more about this dimension of crime. Meanwhile, alas, we have to deal with the boys for whom prevention is too late. Toward them severity is the only remedy left to us. They have, after all, chosen to do evil, thereby leaving victims more pitiful than themselves. At that point they are simply bad people. Those. who excuse them share their guilt. In this respect Criminal Justice? is consistently sensible and fresh, a damning indictment of a truly criminal system. D Mr. Sobran is a syndicated columnist and editor of a newsletter, Sobran's.

A Second Mencken Chrestomathy Selected, Revised, and Annotated by H. L. Mencken Edited by Terry Teachout Alfred A. Knopf. 1995 • 491 pages. $30 Reviewed by Sheldon Richman " D espite his persona, H. L. Mencken, the curmudgeonly Sage of Baltimore who ruled American letters as critic and journalist from roughly 1910 to 1933, was actually a very gener ous man. Although next year will mark the 40th anniversary of his death, in the last six years, Mencken has presented us with four new b90ks. For Mencken fans that is like a stream of gifts from the other world, which of course the ag nostic HLM couldn't bring himself to believe in. In 1989 The Diary of H. L. Mencken was published, rekindling the national fascination in the author, an interest that may smolder but never is in danger of being extinguished. Next we got My Life as Author and Editor, a memoir of his literary life, then Thirty-five Years of News paper Work.

Now we have in hand a Second Mencken Chrestomathy. What could be better than a smorgasbord of Mencken' s work selected, re vised, and annotated by the old man himself? As Terry Teachout explains in his delicious intro duction, Mencken in 1947-48 gathered and re vised material for an anthology, but prepared much more than could fit in a single volume. The first Chrestomathy was ready for typesetting on November 8, 1948. About two weeks later Mencken suffered a debilitating stroke that stole his ability to read and write until his death in 1956. Although Mencken had hinted that there was a sequel to the Chrestomathy, no one seemed to realize it. After Mencken's death, his papers were stored in Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library where for almost 30 years no one, except a curator in 1963, looked closely at the material. As luck would have it, Teachout, who's writing a biography of HLM, dove into the Mencken's papers in 1992 and discovered that Mencken had done quite a lot of work on the sequel. Teachout should be awarded a box of Uncle Willie cigars (Mencken's brand) for bringing the book to our shelves.

Here's the enduring question: why after the man has been dead so long does his spirit refuse to depart? Why do we refuse to let it depart? Why do people of such differingoutlooks about lifeand politics find themselves drawn to HLM much as he was drawn to a good Pilsner? I think the answer lies in Mencken' s refreshing, call-'em as-I-see-' em, let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may, like-it-or-Iump-itcandor. That attitude makes his writing irresistible in a time when bromidic fustian passes for elegance and erudition. Mencken seemed to have two questions con stantly in mind: how do things look to me and how can I report my findings to intelligent men who abhor the commonplace? For Mencken, there were two capital offenses-hypocrisy and monotonY-in a word, cant. Mencken of course was a self-styled libertar ian. While he distrusted all philosophical systems and did not apply his libertarianism consistently (as Leonard Read wouldhave put it, he "leaked"), Mencken on many occasions declared that what mattered most to him was liberty: "And when I say liberty I mean the thing in its widest imag inable sense-liberty up the extreme limits of the feasible and tolerable. " Liberty is what made human life possible. Thus, the greatest threat to "the superior man" was government, the instru ment of force and conformity.

As he writes in this volume: Whenever a state is strong it is intolerant of dissent, when it is strong enough it puts down dissent with relentless violence. Here one state is as bad as another, or, at all events, potentially as bad. The Puritan theocracy of early New England hanged dissenters as gaily as they are now being hanged by the atheistic Union of Soviet Republics; the Prussian, Rus sian, Austrian, French, and English monar chies were as alert against heresy as the militaristic-capitalistic bloc which now runs Italy or the plutocracy which runs Pennsylva nia, California, and Massachusetts. [1927] Being an enemy of meddlesome government, Mencken naturally was critical of its most con sequential product: war. He could see no good coming from America's entry into the two world wars and was thus a relentless critic of Woodrow Wilson and the man he called Roosevelt II. No one was better at pointing out the duplicity of national leaders who professed peace while scheming for American participation in the BOOKS 601 blood-orgies that were WWI and WWII. "But wars are not made by common folk, scratching for livings in the heat of the day," he wrote in May 1939, "they are made by demagogues in festing palaces. "

Nor was Mencken an enthusiast for public schools. For HLM, real education was "directed toward a capacity to differentiate between fact and -appearance" and thus' 'is and always willbe a more or less furtive and illicit thing." The plain fact [he wrote in 1921] is that education is itself a form of propaganda-a deliberate scheme to outfit the pupil, not with the capacity to weigh ideas, but with a simple appetite for gulpingideas ready-made. The aim is to make "good citizens," which is to say, docile and uninquisitive citizens.... Ameri cans in the days when their education stopped with the three R's, were a self-reliant, cynical, liberty-loving and extremely rambunctious people. Today, with pedagogy standardized and schoolhouses everywhere, they are the herd of sheep (Ovis aries). One of course could go on quoting HLM all day. You'll enjoy him more by getting the book, picking out a comfortable chair, and dipping into any part of the volume. Savor his tribute to bricklayers and bartenders, his views on the literary and musical giants and pygmies of his time, his piercing of pols and professors, his musings on making a living and the places where one can make it. Mencken' s humor and good sense touched every aspect of this inspiring and infuriating world.

"My writings, such as they are," he says 6n the final page of the book, "have had only one purpose: to attain for H. L. Mencken that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved which a cow enjoys on giving milk. Further than that, I have had no interest in the matter whatso ever. It has never given me any satisfaction to encounter one who said ,my notions had pleased him. My preference has always been for people with notions of their own. " There it is! That's what I'm talking about. That's the quality that draws so many to H. L. Mencken. And why we'll never tire of him. Sadly, I don't think there's any "new" Mencken material left. We'll have to content ourselves with what we have. It's almost enough to last a l~time. 0 Sheldon Richman is author o/Separating School and State: How to Liberate America's Families (The Future of Freedom Foundation) and "Mr. Mencken and the Jews."

602 THE FREEMAN • SEPTEMBER 1995 The Politics of Envy: Statism as Theology by Doug Bandow Transaction Publishers. 1994 • 333 pages + index. $34.95; available from Laissez Faire Books at $19.95 Reviewed by Jeffrey Tucker "Both freedom and virtue are under assault today," writes Doug Bandow in The Poli tics of Envy, an applied integration of social conservatism and economic libertarianism. The root cause is a public theology of state worship. He posits that a conservative social order-intact families secure in communities characterized by low crime and cultural coherence-would be the dominant strain of an American life absent gov ernment intrusion. The result of his argument is an old-fashioned, principled case for classical liberalism, applied to a myriad of modem policy problems. The direct relationship between big govern ment and the decline of personal morality is not predetermined, Bandow argues, but a trend to ward one reinforces the other. Men of weak faith tum to government to feed the old but forgotten vice of envy. In this context, envy means taking satisfaction in the financial and moral downfall of others, and acting through government to bring it about. It saps the strength ofprivate initiative and institutions like the church and family, which in turn creates ever more social crises to be "solved" by government.

In this process, bad policy drives out good morals. The welfare state, regulations on enter prise, public schooling, drug prohibitionism, and a panoply of spending programs have overturned rooted cultural mores as well as made us poorer. Thus Bandow suggests this rule for government policy: first do no harm. In nearly every sphere the government has intruded, he shows, it has caused more problems than it has helped. This is not only true in well-known cases like family policy; it's true in agricultural and housing policy; in the international economic policy ofthe World Bank; the attempt to use foreign policy to create collective security; in the U.S. attempt to create and sustain a global empire to promote "democracy." These policies strengthen the government and its connected interests, which is why they have their defenders, but are they good for society at large? Bandow demands that all forms of redistributionism and intervention be evaluated in moral and practical terms.

The strength of the argument derives largely from Bandow's willingness to apply his princi ples so broadly, and not shrink from their con clusions. Thus it is not Bandow's theory so much as its application which makes this book a compelling and often unpredictable read. He makes a passionate argument against the pro choice view on abortion, for example, but also against the prohibitionists who oppose a legal market for drugs. On environmentalism, he asks whether the many greens are engaged in protecting the earth or actually worshiping it. The questions rein forces the book's theme, because, as he demon strates, policies designed to "protect the earth" must rely on highlevels of coercion. They are not only costly (Bandow reports that the Clean Air Act costs $40 billion annually) but also ineffec tive. Then he adds this twist. Because environ mental ideology is religious at its root, and holds a view of man and nature that is alien to Western faith, people should consider "what spiritual theories they are in effect subsidizing" through environmental policy. If the government can't subsidize churches, it should also be prohibited from' 'turning the new wilderness cathedrals into an established religion."

So it is with national service programs which ultimately assume' 'that citizens are responsible not to each other, but to the state." Bandow worries about "voluntary" programs because they "imply a unity of society and state, with work for the latter being equated with service to the former." As he points out, one third of Americans now volunteer scarce time and energy to charitable projects that involve no remunera tion. What national service promotes is service to the state, and this "service" necessarily chal lenges our loyalties to other institutions that mediate between individuals and government. Neither does Bandow view the government as an appropriate means of stamping out vice, a type of coercion encouraged more by neoconserva tives than by the much-villified Christian Right. As Bandow writes, many conservatives, "de spite their verbal support for both traditional values and individual liberty, are as secularized and authoritarian as their liberal counterparts."

One need only think how neoconservatives' efforts to create a national curriculum for public schools have backfired. They proposed it just in time for the Clinton administration to fill in the details. The result, as Bandow knew it would be, was an anti-education, multicultural mess. But Washington's conservatives are slow learners, even slower than its liberals. Somehow they are always holding out hope that this or that program will make the federal government work for them instead of the people across the aisle. This tendency is apparent even in the work of the new Congress (do we really need to expand the military budget?). Yet the problem of govern ment which Bandow identifies is more funda mental: it is in competition with God for our loyalties. The modem state embodies a counter-religion, one which rests on and reinforces immorality and social breakdown. The first step toward restoring both freedom and virtue is to dismantle it. "Should Christians Be Statists?" Bandow asks as the title to one section. The answer rigorously argued-is no. D Mr. Tucker is director ofresearch at the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama.

The Elgar Companion to Austrian Economics edited by Peter J. Boettke Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd .• 1994 • 620 pages. $149.95 Reviewed by Bettina Bien Greaves S ince the days of Aristotle, philosophers and other thinkers have been trying to understand how the world works and how to foster a peace ful, prosperous society. A big stride was made with the publication of Carl Menger's Principles of Economics (1871),from which developed the Austrian school of economics. The Austrians explained market operations as the outcome of the actions and choices of individuals and, as a result, advocated free markets and limiting gov ernment to the protection of life, property, and individual freedom. During the early decades of this century, as Marxists and Keynesians came to dominate col leges and universities and their ideas influenced political action, the message of the Austrians was widely ignored. Advocates of the free market were in despair. Yet when the late Ludwig von Mises was asked, in Argentina in 1959, if the situation then was not worse than in ancient Rome, which he had described as a period of price controls and inflation, he had replied, "No, it is not worse." In the age of the Roman emperors, no one disputed the idea that the government had the right to fix prices. But now, Mises said, "we know very well that this is a BOOKS 603 problem for discussion. All these bad ideas from which we suffer today, which have made our policies so harmful, were developed by academic theorists. . .. What we need is nothing else than to substitute better ideas for bad ideas. . . . Our civilization will and must survive. And it will survive through better ideas than those which now govern most of the world today, and these better ideas will be developed by the rising generation" (Economic Policy, pp. 104-105).

In the U.S., a younger generation of Austrians appeared. Peter Boettke, editor of the book under review, considers The Foundations of Modern Austrian Economics (Edwin Dolan, ed., 1976)"the definingwork in the resurgence of the Austrian school in the 1970s." (p. 601)Professors of "conservative" or free market leanings be came more welcome in academia. Courses in free enterprise, entrepreneurship, and Austrian eco nomics were introduced in some colleges. A standard reference published in 1987, The New Palgrave (London: Macmillan Press; New York: Stockton Press) included several articles by and about spokesmen of the Austrian school. Com mercial and university publishers in this country and abroad reprinted classic "Austrian" works and published quite a few new works by younger "Austrians." Austrian ideas were more widely discussed and debated. And now we have The Elgar Companion to Austrian Economics edited by Peter J. Boettke.

Boettke selected contributors who were basically supportive of three Austrian themes-method ological individualism, subjectivism, and the spontaneous order. He asked each to contribute an originalpaper on a topic in the fieldof Austrian economics with which he or she was familiar. Each article was limited to about 2,500words. In this way, Boettke produced a one-volume refer ence work of relatively short entries, each with a bibliography of additional sources. It contains 87 papers by 68 economists from 45 different col leges, universities, or institutions in the United States and seven other countries. Not surpris ingly the papers are uneven in quality, although their approach is generally Austrian. A list of a few authors and titles will give some idea of the subjects covered. Part I, "Methodology and Theoretical Con cepts in Austrian Economics," includes papers on basic principles such as "Methodological individualism" (Gregory B. Christainsen), "Sub jectivism" (Steven Horwitz), "Marginal utility"

(Jack High), "Entrepreneurship" (Israel M. Kirzner), and "Efficiency" (Roy E. Cordato). Part II, "Fields of Research," discusses var604 THE FREEMAN • SEPTEMBER 1995 ious topics to be explored further from the Austrian approach-' 'Capital theory" (Peter Lewin), "Austrian business cycle theory" (Rob ert J. Batemarco), "Comparative economic sys tems" (David L. Prychitko), and "International monetary theory" (Joseph T. Salerno). Part III, "Applied Economics and Public Pol icy," includes articles on a wide range of subjects from "Utilitarianism" (Leland B. Yeager) and "Interventionism" (Sanford Ikeda), to "The col lapse of communism and post-communist re form" (James A. Dorn). Part IV, "History of Thought and Alternative Schools and Approaches," deals with the histor ical development of the Austrian School. Samuel Bostaph writes about the Methodenstreit, the conflict over methodology between the early Austrians and the German historicists; Peter Rosner about the debate between Bohm-Bawerk and Hilferding, William N. Butos about the Hayek-Keynes macro debate, and Karen I.

Vaughn about the socialist calculation debate. Other papers in this section compare various schools of economics and examine fine points that differentiate them from the Austrians. Boettke, as editor of this anthology was to some extent at the mercy of his contributors and his non-contributors, those invited who didn't submit papers. His "Conclusion" in Part V, "Alternative Paths Forward for Austrian Eco nomics, " compensates for some of the gaps. Boettke reviews the ideological shift that led to the resurgence of the Austrian school, discusses current economic journals, and suggests topics that would be fruitful for further exploration by Austrians. My chief criticism of the book is that it is weak on money and banking, both major strengths of the Austrian school. The Austrian view is that money is neither mysterious nor government made; it is merely a medium of exchange which evolves on the market. As for banks, Mises explained that their role is essentially two fold-to warehouse the deposits of clients and to lend money. Free banking is simply a system under which such banks are obligated to fulfill their contractual obligations just as must any other business. Yet in the view of many young "Austrians," apparently the chief purpose of banks is to issue currency. (See Schuler, "Free banking is a system of competitive issue of banknotes and deposits" and Lewin.) However, note issue is not the purpose of banking; it is at best a subsidiary function, a byproduct of a bank's warehousing and money lending activi ties. And a potentially dangerous activity at that.

No bank that issues notes over and above the face value of its reserves can long survive without some government privilege or protection. Leaving aside this criticism, The Elgar Com panion should be a valuable reference for stu dents of Austrian economics. A few years ago it would have been impossible to assemble such an extensive stable of Austrian writers. Many were probably still youngsters, some perhaps not even born, when Mises spoke 36 years ago. Yet they have become spokesmen for the free market, non-interventionist teachings of Mises and his Austrian school colleagues. Mises' trust in the rising generation was well justified. D Mrs. Greaves is resident scholar at the Founda tion for Economic Education. Speaking Freely edited by Henry Mark Holzer Second Thoughts Books, Studio City, Calif.·. 1995 • 277 pages. $24.95 cloth; $10.00 paperback Reviewed by John Hospers T o be a moral agent, wrote Milton in his Areopagitica, a person must be free to choose; and to make moral choices persons must be free to express their opinions. Milton held, writes Calvin Massey in this anthology, "that by tolerating abhorrent and hateful speech, we are able to see more clearly our societal biases and thereby hasten the process by which we purge ourselves of hidden intolerance."

Mill's On Liberty (1859) was another classic paean for freedom of speech and discussion. For the truth about a subject to be known, he said, it must be freely and openly discussed without fear of penalty: there should be no censorship of ideas by government, especially of those opposed to the State itself. As a utilitarian, Millbelieved that concealment of the truth was, in the long run, always counterproductive. Many have argued that Mill was mistaken: that some truths should remain concealed for the public good, particu larly in the midst of inflammatory controversy when feelings run high. To take a contemporary example, assume that it is true, as Murray and Herrenstein allege, that the average I.Q. of Mrican-Americans is somewhat lower than that of Caucasians and Asians. Many critics would say that this is not true, but others would say that even if it were true it should not be generally known, since it might have a deleterious effect on the morale of blacks. Mill would undoubtedly have reminded us of the long-term effects of such a policy, as is done eloquently in Millean fashion by Professor Massey: "The intolerant impulse-banning such racist speech-may have counterproductive long-term results, for it enables the dominant society to tell itself (smuglyand falsely) that, collectively, it has no problem: the problem lies wholly with those nasty racists whom we have righteously muz zled. Thus, the nastiness of racist epithets serves to remind us all that there is a substantive nastiness in our society that we have yet to eradicate. Better that the truth of our condition be painfully revealed to us than that we live in delusion that racial equality has been achieved by virtue of painting over the ugliness. In the hon esty of the revelation we may ultimately create more real tolerance and respect for diverse groups than by pretending that silence passes for respect. . . . The dangerous dog of racism is still a biter when muzzled."

There are of course occasions on which speech is prohibited: false advertising, defamation, con fiding secrets to enemy nations, and so on. (Whether these are compatible with the words of the First Amendment is still a matter of contro versy.) But there is one particularly difficultarea, speech that incites to violence or riot. A union agitator walks into a factory filled with angry striking workers, and says "Torch the factory!" (This is Mill's example.) Mill would have him stopped to avoid a riot. This opens up a prob lematic area in the free-speech controversy; when are words to be considered inciting? The First Amendment simply says that Con gress shall pass no law abridging freedom of speech or of the press; it doesn't add "unless the views expressed are offensive" or "unless the audience is so agitated that they might take action." Taken on its face, this would permit defamation and conspiracy, which the courts have regularly prohibited.

In any case, there are many groups today who would prohibit much more than libel or espio nage; they sometimes allege that racial slurs are an incitement; usually they want the words banned from public discourse because "they are false," or because the effects of permitting their dissemination would be counterproductive on utilitarian grounds. (As a rule they assume with out proof that what they want to censor is false, and devote their energies to describing the ill effects of allowing the speech to occur. But they do not always make the distinction between truth and utility.) BOOKS 605 To this end, the authors of this anthology cite many examples of "politically incorrect" speech, especially in academia, for which a student may be penalized, expelled, or subjected to "re-education seminars" Soviet style. There are many examples of this, and many are regu larly found in conservative student publications.

Here is one example, described in detail in the book. From Van Alstyne's essay we learn that in one university (one infers from the author's title that it is Duke) a code is enforced by which "no member ofthe faculty, student body, or staff shall engage in any verbal conduct that renders the environment on campus or some part thereof, offensive. This rule shall apply, however, only if the verbal conduct is ofa sexual, religious, racial, or other nature reflecting an improper or unrea sonable attitude toward others according to the common standards of the university community." The authors of the essays in this anthology are unanimous in condemning all such procedures. For example, in a brilliant essay Robert Sedler argues that all bans on campus speech, however incendiary or hateful, run afoul of the First Amendment. For one thing, the Supreme Court has never recognized any exceptions to the rule that the government cannot regulate expression in such a way as to favor one viewpoint over another: this is the principle of content neutrality, and was the basis for the Court's invalidation of bans on flag desecration. For another, the First Amendment "forecloses any justification for a restriction on expression on the ground that the expression is offensive.... The government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable. "

When the Duke University committee had crafted their rules of campus behavior, they were apparently satisfied with the result-"except," writes Van Alstyne, "for a small lingering group off in one corner-who thought they caught a slightwhiffof diesel fumes, and a slight sound, as of tanks clanking, as in some far-away deserted square" (Tiananmen Square). It was the dread of such an appalling prospect that inspired this collection of essays. It is an extraordinarily fine collection; but will the relevant academicians read it? Will the courts? D Dr. Hospers is professor emeritus ofphilosophy at the University of Southern California.

606 THE FREEMAN • SEPTEMBER 1995 Life After Television: The Coming Transformation of Media and American Life (Revised Edition) by George Gilder W.W. Norton & Company, New York. 1994. 216 pages. $11.00 paperback Reviewed by Raymond J. Keating I n the early 1980s, George Gilder helped to clarify the muddied field of economics with two insightful books-Wealth and Poverty and The Spirit of Enterprise (both recently updated and reviewed in The Freeman). In these land mark works, Gilder managed to wrest economics from the deadening morass into which it had sunk for over a half-century. When practiced by Gilder, economics is no longer the dismal sci ence. With the publication of Microcosm in 1989and now an updated and much-expanded version of Life After Television (originally published in 1990),Gilder has built upon his economic works by offering insights regarding recent and future developments in today's most dynamic indus tries-computers and telecommunications.

Gilder offers a compelling vision of the future, whereby technological advancements enhance individual creativity. In Life After Television, Gilder takes the reader on a technological journey into the mi crocosm of the computer, across the air on the "spectrum of electromagnetic vibrations," and on beams of light traveling across strands of glass or fiberoptic cables. It is an exciting journey for both the technology expert and for those indi viduals with an interest in how our economy and our culture will be transformed by the informa tion revolution. Gilder's contagious enthusiasm regarding great leaps in the fields of computers and tele communications springs not from the base appeal of couch potatoes passively surfing across 500 channels or of video games available to numb our children's minds. Instead, Gilder declares that individualism willwin out over mass culture. The top-down structure of television, whereby a few executives appeal to the widest, and therefore lowest, common denominator possible, will be overthrown by a bottom-up, consumer-and en trepreneurial-driven revolution.

Gilder sagaciously observes: "A healthy cul ture reflects not the psychology of crowds but the creativity and inspiration of millions of individuals reaching for higher goals. In place of the broadcast pyramid, a peer network willemerge in which all the terminals will be smart-not mere television sets but interactive video receivers, processors, and transmitters." He refers to these smart terminals as teleput ers. He points out that "the teleputer is an instrument of creative destruction." That is, as with any major invention or innovation, an en trenched and less-efficientsystem must give way. Such entrenched, special interests, however, do not do so readily, instead trying to stop the critical economic process of creative destruction through government protection against competi tion. As Gilder notes: "Capitalism may offer the promise of great power and wealth to the very few people who can shape or anticipate the future, but bureaucratic politics provides a rich panoply of weapons to the many more people who want to resist change. Whenever possible, the government and its principalities attempt to frustrate or dispossess innovators."

Gilder understands the dynamic nature of markets, and therefore observes: "American industry, released from its regulatory shackles, could finance a program of fiber to the home without any government aid." The best actions for government to take regarding the telecom munications and computer industries is not some bureaucrat-driven industrial policy; it is deregu lation. Interestingly, while Gilder predicts the death of television under this wave of creative destruc tion, he makes a compelling case for newspapers spearheading the information revolution. Pro duction and transmission costs will collapse for newspapers as computers and fiberoptics replace printing presses. Gilder explains: "The ultimate reason that the newspapers will prevail in the information age is that they are better than anyone else at collecting, editing, filtering, and presenting real information and they are allying with this computer juggernaut to do it. The newspapers are pursuing the fastest-expanding current markets rather than rearview markets.

They are targeting "adults with real interests and ambitions that generate buying power rather than distracting children from more edifyingpursuits." In the end, the fundamental difference be tween the television and the personal comput er-or soon to be teleputer-can be explained in economic terms. It is the difference between reacting and creating; the difference between demand and supply. As Gilder states: "While TV watchers use their machines to lull themselves and their children into a stupor, PC users exploit their machines to become yet richer and smarter and more productive-and still better to exploit future computer advances .... The TV is a consumption product. The PC is a supply-side investment in the coming restoration of the home to a central role in the productive dynamics of capitalism, and the transformation of capitalism into a healing force in the present crisis of home and family, culture and community."

Where other authors see only ways in which computer and telecommunications advance ments serve current markets, Gilder sees how such developments create new markets-impact ing the entire economy and culture. Life After Television is and will be an exciting adventure. D Mr. Keating is chief economist with the Small Business Survival Foundation. The State is Rolling Back: Essays in Persuasion by Arthur Seldon E. & L. Books. 1994 • 326 pages. $15.00 Reviewed by Charles H. Hamilton A rthur Seldon is what Hayek has called a "professional secondhand dealer in ideas." This is actually high praise and well deserved. For Hayek had in mind the intellectual in his role as an "intermediary in the spreading of ideas. " In a myriad of ways, Seldon is a model for us all. He is a Founding President of the Institute for Economic Affairs in England. Under his able editorial direction, lEA didn't just focus on a sort of vacuous public policy. Its prodigious output of books and papers (Seldon authored many ofthem and edited over 350) combined the highest intel lectual quality with a deep commitment to the principles of liberty. There is little doubt that the world in which we live is different because of the sustained work and dedication of Seldon and men and women like him.

The State is Rolling Back is a sampling of 54 (out of some 230) journalistic pieces he wrote between 1937 and 1990. We are given an intrigu ing snapshot of a young man committed to classical liberal ideas when it was assumed that the welfare state was inevitable and permanent. The battle of ideas over politics is evident in every article. The more recent articles celebrate the successes of capitalism that would have been difficult to conceive of nearly 50 years earlier. BOOKS 607 The majority ofthe pieces here take us through the slow disintegration of the English welfare state from 1950through 1992.Economic progress and the careful presentation of free-market ideas combined to roll back the state. These are informative controversies here. Seldon's discus sions of the perils of the English social insurance and state pension system apply to Social Secu rity. His critique of government funding of edu cation and of the welfare system are very helpful.

And yet, Seldon is very aware of the continu ing dangers of statism. He warns advocates of free markets not to become too enamored of what is "politically possible." One should never forget the principles and moral arguments that make these ideas so com pelling and universal. One of the last articles in this book presents a wonderful goal and chal lenge, "Too Little Government is Better than too Much." (Of Seldon's other work, one is espe cially important to mention. His 1990 book Cap italism is a very good exposition of the theoret ical, moral, and practical case for capitalism. It was reviewed in the June 1991 Freeman.) These short articles are also well worth reading as models of how we should make the continuing case for capitalism. They all show an honesty and respect for all ideas. They are, in a word, civilized, following Hayek's injunction to be "mild in manner, strong in argument." They don't just make the case for free markets, but they were, I suspect, convincing to many of their readers. One can't help suspecting that it is the decades-long effort to make continually the case for liberty in the newspapers and magazines of England that had the most sustained-though less remembered-impact on our lives. We need more young writers to make that kind of com mitment Seldon made and challenges us to ~~. D Mr. Hamilton is a consultantfor foundations and is a former editor of The Freeman at FEE.

608 THE FREEMAN • SEPTEMBER 1995 A Moral Basis for Liberty Institute of Economic Affairs Health and Welfare Unit, London; or American distributor: The Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, Grand Rapids, MI 49503 • 1994 • 38 Pages • $7.50 paperback Reviewed by John Attarian W ith the Soviet bloc's collapse and the evidence of socialism's appalling failures and human cost, capitalism seems triumphant. Francis Fukuyama even proclaimed the "end of history": ideological conflicts are over; only managerial and technical controversies remain. For Father Robert Sirico, founder and presi dent of the Acton Institute, this facile optimism is untenable. Pragmatic defenses of liberty are inadequate. "So long as economic libertyand its requisite institutions of private property, free exchange, capital accumulation, contract en forcement-is not backed by a generally held set of norms by which it can be defended, it cannot be sustained over the long term." In this admi rably pithy and lucid monograph, Father Sirico helps remedy that defect.

Why do freedom's foes hold the moral high ground? Father Sirico rightly argues that "Many of the confusions of our age rest on a loss of crucial distinctions": between rights and privi leges, between society and government, and between freely chosen action and action enforced by coercion. While exposing the muddle, he restores those lost distinctions. To be inalien able, rights must be grounded in something independent of politics. Bogus new "rights" are actually politically-granted privileges. Similarly, "today the term community is often used to put a humanitarian gloss on what used to be called a political pressure group. " Coerced virtue is oxy moronic: "A morality that is not chosen is no morality at all. Only human beings with volition can be said to be moral, and in order to act in a moral way one must have liberty." Capitalism fosters morality; entrepreneurs must be other-regarding "because the only way to get money peacefully and without charity is to offer something of value in exchange." But Father Sirico' s main argument is that liberty and capitalism are grounded in Judaism, Christianity, and Thomistic natural law.

Seeking "liberty under the law of Yahweh," the ancient Hebrews viewed God, not the state, as the source of justice, which enabled them "to escape tyranny by an appeal to an objective standard of justice against oppression. " Christi anity "employs the model of the family, not the state, as the ideal human community, " with love, not power, as the cement of community life, and religion's view of people as inherently dignified gives them a claim to rights. St. Thomas Aquinas' natural law, drawing on both experience and reason, "establishes the sanctity ofthe individual as a rational being who can interpret the rela tionship between the individual and the commu nity in terms. of free association and contract." Aquinas' followers elaborated an economics amazingly close to that of the Austrians. Unfortunately, religious leaders tend to be economic illiterates, hence hostile to wealth producers. Most endorse the welfare state "on the fairly crude premise that Christian charity and coercive wealth transfers are morally iden tical." This unfortunately discourages charity among the laity. Father Sirico argues instead for the authentic compassion of personal, local-level involvement in helping poor people.

Father Sirico' s arguments are important and valid-so much so that he might have done still better to devote himself solely to elaborating his case for liberty, giving his shrewd criticisms of the welfare state and religious leaders economic illiteracy the separate works they deserve. In an appended commentary, Nigel Lawson, Margaret Thatcher's Chancellor of the Exche quer, chides him for evading egalitarianism's hostility to capitalism as creator of an immoral inequality of wealth. True, Father Sirico said little about this, but Lawson's charge that "he virtually sells the pass with a puzzling (and distinctly un-Hayekian) reference to 'the de mands of justice (classically defined as giving to each his due)'" is unfair. If people contribute unequally to production, giving them their due generates inequality, yet is just. Journalist William Oddie comments that cap italism and liberty require virtues to endure, but today's global disappearance of values makes their survival problematic. He ends gloomily: " 'Where there is no vision, the people perish' (Proverbs 29:18), but where is vision to be found?

Father Sirico knows; but will we listen?" Perhaps not. But those who do choose to redeem the time will find AMoral Basis for Liberty valuable. D John Attarian is afree-lance writer in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with a Ph.D. in economics.