Book Reviews

Longman painstakingly documents the insol vency that awaits Social Security, Medicare, mili tary-retirement and veterans' benefits, federal pensions, and myriad lesser-known others. The big lie behind these programs is that they have been paid for, in advance, by regular deductions from their beneficiaries' paychecks. Historically, how ever, federal-entitlement recipients have collected far more than they have put in, leaving the financial burden to future generations. The debt cycle cannot exist in perpetuity, and the baby boomers' imminent retirement is sure to break the bank. When that happens, Longman claims, the middle class will have to give up welfare-and all the excesses it permits-cold turkey. This is good news. But advocates of limited government are sorely mistaken if they think Mr. Longman is an ally. The Return to Thrift offers no principled opposition to wealth transfers per se; Longman merely resents that they are adminis tered inefficiently and benefit mostly members of the middle class. He is in favor of redistributing of wealth as long as it goes to the "needy." A "reason to expect higher taxes in the next century,"

which he gladly accepts, is that "as the size of the American underclass continues to grow ... the cost of social programs targeted toward the poor no doubt will escalate dramatically." He never thinks to extend his argument-that the end of welfare 769 willrestore self-reliance to the middle class-to the lower rungs of the economic ladder. Longman's prescription for "thrift" is compul sory savings, deducted automatically from pay checks on a fixed, progressive scale. He never considers that the government could reduce its debt or spur individual savings by cutting taxes. Instead, he calls for tax hikes by urging that Congress eliminate "loopholes" in the tax code, such as deductions for mortgage payments and medical insurance, without proposing other reduc tions to take their place. When discussing Medicare reform, Longman favors rationing (he laments that new technology is keeping seniors alive longer than ever before), without even mentioning medical savings accounts, let alone outright privatization. The Return of Thrift is a hard-bound oxymoron, its first twelve chapters chronicling the inherent liabilities of government planning, its final two demanding more. Longman is prescient, however, when he warns that like narcotics, big government can be so addictive that junkies will defy common sense, at their own peril, to get a fix. He'll have ample time to meditate over the theory in rehab. 0 Mr. Weinkopf is an editorial associate at National Review.

Creating the Commonwealth: The Economic Culture of Puritan New England by Stephen Innes W. W. Norton & Company. 1995 • 405 pages. $25.00 Reviewed by Russell Shannon S ome 90 years have now passed since the German sociologist Max Weber published his famous study The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. In it Weber argued that the areas of the Western world inhabited by people whose religious beliefs caused them to consider ordinary work-not just seclusion in a monastery or a career as a priest-to be a calling were those in which economic development was most rapid. Much ink has been spilled on this issue in the interim, including most recently Michael Novak's The Cath olic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, in which the author suggests that entrepreneurial endeavors promoted by the Roman church also contribute significantly to extraordinary economic perfor mance.

770 THE FREEMAN • NOVEMBER 1996 Now Stephen Innes, an historian at the Uni versity of Virginia, has entered the fray with a detailed and distinguished description of the Puritan settlement in Massachusetts during the seventeenth century. In his book, called Creating the Commonwealth, Innes shows how the New Englanders, who settled a relatively inhospitable land with no obvious "cash" crop such as tobacco, achieved a rate of economic growth that could only be called stunning. Certainly, attitudes such as the work ethic were a crucial ingredient of the story. But so too were political institutions. Here, where labor was scarce, the regulatory crust of European mercantilism tended to crumble. Gone were the guilds whose rigid rules on apprenticeship and product quality hampered competition and diminished consumer options. Missing also was the notion of monopoly rights, which stifled much initiative back in En gland; in Massachusetts, it evolved into something akin to our modern idea of patents, which meant that monopoly powers were limited both in scope and duration.

Vigorous development of the fishing, ironworks, shipping, and timber industries, all essentially in terrelated, laid a vital groundwork for rapid eco nomic development. Innes suggests that our mod ern concept of "synergy" is applicable here, for each of these industries helped promote the development of the others, the whole exceeding the sum of its parts. Yet, as Innes stresses, the capitalism of this era was not individual but communal. Development of the ironworks and shipbuilding industries was deliberately fostered by both the Massachusetts General Court (the governing body) and individual communities, which provided free land, tax exemp tions, and exclusiverights to individuals and groups willing to invest in establishing factories-much as our states today seek to attract industries by offering tax advantages and other benefits. Sales of materials such as timber were likewise some times limited so as to encourage shipbuilding, which settlers believed would offer their commu nity more long-run benefits than would accrue if the wood were used for more transitory purposes.

Of course, there was vastly more individual freedom than the settlers had enjoyed in their homeland, but the Protestant ethic also imposed a social discipline provided by community con straints which curbed what Innes sees as the myopic tendencies of short-run profit-seeking. Expressed another way, Innes finds much evi dence of civic engagement. He does not propose that our federal government should emulate this system, for in his account these are all local arrangements which tapped the energies and the farsighted wisdom of local residents. It should also be remembered that modern institutions such as stock markets had not yet emerged. Nor were the settlers' efforts always an unmitigated success: while they favored cattle raising over growing crops to economize on the use of scarce labor, the large expanses needed for grazing cattle forced the settlers to become more dispersed, thereby diluting the sense of community. And the technical diffi culties involved in operating the early iron works forced the colonists to attract from Britain men and women who were highly skilled at their tasks but who were also given to "armed robbery, rape, arson, assault, battery, lewdness, profanity, and chronic drunkenness" -all distinctly non Puritanical behavior.

Yet, by not resorting to slavery, as the plantation economies to the South had sadly done, the New England Puritans escaped the implied notion that hard work is degrading. On these principles of hard work, community concern, investment in the de velopment of strategic productive facilities, and reduced regulation, the New England colonies set a standard for economic, social, and political development which was not only remarkable for its time but which has seldom been matched. 0 Dr. Shannon is professor of economics at Clemson University. The Road Ahead by Bill Gates Viking. 1995 • 286 pages. $29.95 Reviewed by Raymond J. Keating A n odd breed of business executive regularly appears on the publicpolicy landscape-the supporter of big government in business. Big government boosters favor not only corpo rate welfare initiatives, but a host of other inter ventions, including research and development, education, pork-barrel subsidies, and even ex panded social welfare programs. Interestingly, many-but not all-of these statist business exec utives tend to serve in large companies. Many were never entrepreneurs, but instead dutiful managers who worked their wayup through the ranks of large businesses. Their experiences, in some ways, more closely reflect the careers of bureaucrats rather than economic risk-takers.

Readers of The Road Ahead fortunately will find an author that is an entrepreneur, not a corporate bureaucrat. Indeed, Bill Gates stands as one of the most successful entrepreneurs of the late twentieth century. (An entrepreneur, we find out, who raised some of his seed capital through poker winnings in college.) Gates's book is a highly readable, informative, and non-technical installment in a long line of recent volumes regarding computers, telecommu nications, and the future of technology. From the outset, Gates exhibits a clear prefer ence for private economic actions over govern ment. He dislikes the metaphor of the "informa tion superhighway" to describe the unfolding developments in the information economy. He worries about the implication that a "highway" should be built by government, an option Gates considers "a major mistake." Gates also recognizes that emphasis on infor mation infrastructure and government could turn the highway into a costly white elephant. In con trast, markets emphasize "applications." Indeed, Gates prefers the phrase "the ultimate market."

Gates argues persuasively that government also should not get involved in trying to set some kind of compatibility standards for the emerging information market. Gates observes that de facto standards "are supported by the marketplace rather than by law, they are chosen for the right reasons and replaced when something truly better shows up-the way the compact disc has almost replaced the vinyl record." Later, Gates saga ciously declares: "The range of uncertainties about the information highway is very large, but the marketplace will design an appropriate system." Being involved firsthand, Gates naturally is an optimist regarding the revolution in information technology-a nice antidote to today's many neo Luddite economic and social prognosticators. Gates writes favorably of the mix between free markets and information technology advance ments: "Capitalism, demonstrably the greatest of the constructed economic systems, has in the past decade clearly proved its advantages over the alternative systems. The information highway will magnify those advantages .... Adam Smith would be pleased. More important, consumers every where will enjoy the benefits."

In the end, entrepreneurs lie at the center of the capitalist economy as the sources of creativity, innovation, and invention. Gates correctly notes: "Entrepreneurship willplaya major role in shaping the development of the information highway, the same way it shaped the personal-computer busi ne&s." And he grasps the full benefits of entrepre neurship as well: "The good news is that people learn from both the successes and the failures, and the net result is rapid progress." BOOKS 771 As for government, Gates offers sound advice: "deregulate communications." D Mr. Keating selVes as chief economist with the Small Business SUlVivalFoundation. Private Means, Public Ends: Voluntarism vs. Coercion Edited by J. Wilson Mixon, Jr. The Foundation for Economic Education. 1996 • 150 pages. $14.95 paperback Reviewed by Fred Foldvary D o you have friends who are socialists? Show them Robert Zimmerman's chapter, "New York's War Against the Vans" in Private Means, Public Ends. Zimmerman shows private enter prise efficiently providing much-needed transpor tation, while the city transit police block passenger pickup, issue summonses, and otherwise harass van operators and passengers. If government is needed to provide such public goods, why does government keep blocking private services?

The essays in Private Means, Public Ends dem onstrate how private efforts have effectively pro vided public goods. This collection of mostly recent articles reprinted from The Freeman will challenge those who doubt the workability of free markets and buttress the thinking of those already oriented to liberty with excellent examples. Case after case, nicely combining stories with analysis, shows vol untary and market means as more effective than government, despite state barriers and imposed costs. The introduction by Professor Mixon begins with the metaphor of free human action as a wildflower field, in contrast to the potted plants of state institutions. If wildflowers disappear and all we see are flowers in pots, who can imagine the breathtaking beauty of the wild field-nature's spontaneous order? Henry Hazlitt's classic critique of central plan ning provides a cogent starting point. Why do good folks oppose peaceful and honest voluntary ex change? They believe that free markets produce too many wrong goods and not enough right goods.

Hazlitt points out that the private sector is volun tary, and the government's "public" sector is co ercive. The subsequent essaysdemonstrate that the voluntary sector does indeed provide for those "right" goods the public wants. The next section of the book deals with lan guage, art, and communication. John Finneran's 772 THE FREEMAN • NOVEMBER 1996 "Tale of Two Dictionaries" contrasts the French Academy's clumsycommittee-produced dictionary with the elegant English dictionary created by the individual genius of Samuel Johnson. John son's motivation due to private financing sped the work along while yet allowing scope for his per sonal creativity. One of the "right" goods allegedly required of government is promotion of the arts. But what kind of "good" is that "twisted, rusted iron pipe" that William Allen and William Dickneider depict in "Art and Representative Government"? They note that privately financed art has long flourished without government subsidies. Art can be useful, as Barbara Dodsworth informs us in "Art and Com merce." Historically, art has alwaysbeen commer cial and applied, with much "fine art" produced under sponsor direction.

But what about bad "art," such as billboards? Lawrence Person's "In Praise of Billboards" notes the useful information signs provide. If ugliness is to be banned, it not only violates property rights, but, taken to its logical conclusion, would lead to banning ugly cars-or people! The author notes also that the First Amendment does not distinguish between commercial and personal speech. Government police power has extended even into the kosher food market, as Jacob Sullum describes in "Kosher Cops." He notes that the conditions that invite fraud have led to a private system of consumer protection by religious author ities. God has help enough. This section is rounded out with chapters by Ray Keating and Clint Bolick on communications. Keating notes that the convergence of various media reduces the rationale for regulation. Bolick shows how free speech fostered communications technology.

Section III, on a "caring society," givesexamples of how health, education, and welfare are pro moted without coercion. Hannah Lapp describes her personal experience with home schooling, which government officialstried to stifle despite its effectiveness. Scott Payne's "School with a Money-Back Guar antee" is an eye-opener. It describes HOPE Acad emy in Lansing, Michigan, inspired by Marva Collins's school in Chicago. If the kindergartner can't read by year's end, HOPE parents get their money back. The Academy uses phonics for read ing and emphasizes proper conduct, and the cost is much less than what government spends. What about the poor? John Fargo spins a yarn in "Charity in the Land of Individualism" of how the "rugged individuals" of the corn belt went all out to help a fellow farmer, even a rather shiftless one, demonstrating how "true charity lies deep within the fertile soil of authentic individualism."

Daniel Bazikian, reviewingThe TragedyofAmer ican Compassion by Marvin Olasky, shows how earlier American charity, influenced by biblical themes, strengthened affiliations, bonded donor and recipient, distinguished among needs, dis cerned fraud, employed for responsibility, and fulfilled spiritual needs. Contrast this with today's "give me" welfare mentality! Gerald Wisz in "End ing Welfare as They Knew It" describes how the Broadway Presbyterian Church in New York City teaches responsibility. The proposition that only government can pro vide a social safety net is refuted by John Chodes's chapter on the "friendly societies," which pooled members' savings to provide health care and in surance for unemployment and old age. David Beito's chapter shows how fraternal societies hired "lodge doctors" at affordable rates, a practice killed by the medical establishment. Section IV examines the "bases of a dynamic economy." Richard Sylla recalls the era of private, unregulated bankers in the United States, while Richard Timberlake writes on the private money that was used in coal-mining communities. Even policing can be adequately provided privately, as shown by Nicholas Elliott.

Markets have also provided transportation, as illustrated by William Irvine on trains and Daniel Klein on the private turnpikes and plank roads built in nineteenth-century America, later usurped by government. New York City's subwaysoperated privately until 1940; is it surprising that with government operation, service deteriorated while charges went up? Henry Hazlitt called this "So cialism, U.S. Style." Environmentalists often misunderstand how markets protect wildlife and habitat, so John Kell's refreshing essay shows how environmentalists who voluntarily compensate ranchers who lose animals to wild predators are indeed "A Species Worth Preserving." The epilogue of the book is freedom as the sine qua non, the indispensable requirement. Ross Korves asks "What Makes a Market?" A market is voluntary exchange, and "markets develop spon taneously as people interact." This anthology shows how the freedom to act does indeed, in practice, provide for our social wants, if only we have the liberty to do so. 0 Dr. Foldvary is the author of Public Goods and Private Communities: The Market Provision of Social Services (Edward Elgar, 1994).

Learn to Earn by Peter Lynch and John Rothchild Fireside. 1995 • 272 pages. $13.00 Reviewed by Philip R. Murray I f anyone doesn't know U.S. economic history or how excitingbusiness can be, wait until this book makes its mark. Although Peter Lynch and John Rothchild direct this book to a young audience, older readers will also find several worthwhile lessons to learn in economics and business. It starts with "A Short History of Capitalism." Don't be misled by the title. Lynch and Rothchild devote 70 pages to the subject. Economic histori ans will respect their interpretation, which empha sizes individuals. We learn that the colonists at Jamestown and Plymouth abandoned communism for private property. The authors paraphrase Adam Smith as follows: "... when each person pursues his own line of work, the general popula tion is far better off than it is when a king or a central planner runs the show and decides who gets what."

This tale of U.S. capitalism features inventors, immigrants, and the companies rooted in our past and still alive today. Free-market economists will quarrel with the authors' assertion that: "Another factor that may have contributed to the national prosperity is that our borders were effectively closed to many foreign-made goods by prohibitive tariffs." But elsewhere the authors sound like students of Ludwig von Mises: "with more efficient machinery, the workers' time became more valu able, not less, and the factories could afford to raise the workers' wages." Concerning the Great De pression, the authors cite government mismanage ment of the money supply as the cause, but not the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. Lynch and Rothchild are pro-saving and invest ment' as they make clear in the introduction: "Investors are the first link in the capitalist chain." Their advice is: "Save as much as you can! You'll be helping yourself and helping the country." Take this to mean that we may safely ignore John Maynard Keynes and his followers who reason that consumption spending leads to economic growth and worry that saving will not become investment.

In fact, discussion of Keynes is conspicuously absent from this book. In the chapter on "The Basics of Investing" the reader will learn, among other things, that cash investments fail to keep pace with inflation, that a house is a smart purchase, and that stocks BOOKS 773 outperform bonds. Of course, Lynch and Roth child prefer stocks and encourage the reader to use what he knows to pick his own stocks. The beginner willencounter stock market basics such as dividend yield, PIE ratio, and the important role of profit. The authors do their part for economic education by recommending The Wealth of Nations and explaining such statements as: "Capitalism is not a zero-sum game." Their discussion of the business cycle endorses an environment of low taxes and minimum regu lations but is marred by the view that government has the responsibility to stabilize the economy. They do, however, note that government deficit spending is crowding out private investment.

Lynch and Rothchild do a superb job of mak ing entrepreneurs into heroes. They give a bullish description of contemporary American business and address the public concern over layoffs.Of 25 large companies they select, such as Exxon and General Electric, layoffsamounted to 400,000from 1985 to 1995. However, the 25 small companies in their sample, such as Microsoft and Toys R Us, created over 1,000,000jobs during the same period. This phenomenon of big companies downsizing to survive while small companies add jobs to grow is an excellent example of what Joseph Schumpeter dubbed "creative destruction." Try Learn to Earn for a solid introduction to the workings of the market economy and ~~~ 0 Philip Murray is an associate professor ofeconomics at Webber College in Babson Park, Florida. Global Bondage by Cliff Kincaid Huntington House Publishers. 1995 • 208 pages • $10.99 Reviewed by Laurence M. Vance I fyou think that U.S. income taxes are too high, the tax code too complex, and IRS methods too harsh, then think again. How would you like to pay a global tax collected by faceless bureaucrats at the United Nations?

Global Bondage, by journalist CliffKincaid, who regularly contributes to the conservative weekly Human Events, is a fully documented introductory study of the globalist ambitions of the United Nations that will appeal to conservatives and libertarians who don't subscribe to conspiracy theories.

774 THE FREEMAN • NOVEMBER 1996 Although the U.N. did not exist until 1945, its roots go back to the end of World War 1. In a speech before Congress on February 11, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson declared: "What we are striving for is a new international order." Wilson's "new international order," however, was never established, for the U.S. Senate rejected Wilson's League of Nations on March 19, 1920.It took another war for Wilson's "new international order" to come to fruition. Now, with the 50th anniversary of the U.N. and the continued utiliza tion of its "peacekeeping forces," the U.N. is once again being examined and exposed as what Kin caid calls "a horribly mismanaged bureaucracy with tremendous waste, fraud, and abuse." In six chapters, Kincaid lays out the case against the U.N.'s support of terrorists and communists, government-mandated universal health coverage, forced abortion and sterilization under the guise of "population control," gross mismanagement of funds, and massive corruption.

Those who on principle oppose the twin evils of foreign aid and foreign interventionism should be especially alarmed at the continued U.S. funding of the organization. The U.S. taxpayer support of the U.N. and its member states is foreign aid at its worst, for many of the nations we lavish subsidies on regularly vote against us in the U.N. According to Kincaid, member nations vote "in favor of U.S. positions only 17 percent of the time." The United States also contributes billions of dollars everyyear to fund the various U.N. operations. Global inter vention in the affairs of other countries by the United States is bad enough, but supplying troops for U.N. "peacekeeping" and subordinating Amer ican troops to foreign command is even worse. Kincaid cites figures from the General Accounting Office showing that "U.N. peacekeeping cost the United States more than $10billion from fiscalyear 1992 to fiscal year 1995."

Although, as Kincaid points out, "most U.N. opponents are dismissed as members of the John Birch Society," recent developments have con firmed claims he makes in Global Bondage. In order to have a world government, the U.N. must have a continuous source of revenue like any government. Thus, early in 1996, U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali called for a "light international tax" to finance the U.N. The globalist goals of the U.N. should be a cause for alarm to any defender of liberty and limited government. Quoting the late Murray Rothbard, Kincaid makes the case that U.N. activities amount to "international government despotism to be exercised by faceless and arrogant bureaucrats accountable to no one." But as Kincaid further points out, "international government despotism" by the U.N. is "more insidious and dangerous" than the U.S. variety because it is "further beyond the ability of most Americans to do anything about."

Although Kincaid recognizes that the U.N.'s concept of free trade "involves givinginternational bureaucracies the power to manage trade relations between states," he neglects to make a case for real free trade. And aside from some remarks about the evils of "predatory trade partners such as Japan," and his puzzling statement that the "le galization of drugs would entail a massive expan sion of government power," Kincaid is to be commended for his documented exposure of U.N. activities that are not only deleterious to the United States but financed by it as well. D Mr. Vance is an instructor at Pensacola Bible Insti tute and a freelance writer living in Pensacola, Florida. Command Science and the War on AIDS Inventing the AIDS Virus by Peter H. Duesberg Regnery. 1996 • 649 pages. $29.95 Reviewed by Neil DeRosa , ..Then I first heard about Peter Duesberg a few "" years ago, I was only half skeptical. This professor of molecular and cell biology at Berkeley was claiming that AIDS is not caused by HIV, is not even contagious, that long-term use of "recreation al drugs" is the real cause of AIDS, and moreover that AZT, the "antiviral" medication most often prescribed to treat AIDS is instead hastening the death of AIDS patients. Duesberg has been mak ing these claims since 1987. Now his long-awaited book is out.

AIDS was first reported in the news in the early 1980s as a kind of "Andromeda strain," a deadly new virus that could wipe out mankind. The reporting hasn't changed much since then. In spite of dire predictions, the disease still has not broken out of its "risk groups" and spread to the general population. But for those afflicted there is no cure, no vaccine, no ability to predict its course. And in spite of billions of tax dollars spent, the best treatment for it killsinstead of savinglives.Nobody is sayingwhy. Nobody but Duesberg, and a very few others. The present book is dynamite. The facts are all here, beginning with a history of the "microbe hunters" who, by following the lead of Koch and Pasteur, conquered most of· the infectious diseases known to man. But they also spent years, at a cost of thousands of lives, trying to blame microbes for the diseases of malnutrition. More recently in Japan, there was the SMON epidemic in which evidence that an anti-diarrhea drug was causing a polio-like disease, was silenced for over ten years by government -sponsored "virus hunters." Then, in America, there was the medical empire-building and dismal failure dubbed the "War on Cancer," in which many of the current AIDS players "made their bones," and during which the virus hunters developed some of their most dubious theories-such as the "slow virus"

hypothesis. Duesberg next provides ample evidence to sup port his contentions. Chapters crammed with facts answer the questions some of us had. What's behind Magic Johnson's "miraculous" comeback? What killed Arthur Ashe, Kimberly Bergalis, and Allison Gertz-was it AIDS or AZT? But more importantly, he scientifically challenges the as sumptions of the HIV hypothesis and finds its predictive ability to be inferior to that of his drug hypothesis. Also interesting are the thousands of recorded cases of HIV-negative AIDS at the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) renamed ICL. Anyone who has followed this controversy-and anyone who reads this book-will see what's going on. Namely, a power grab and the politicization of medicine. The goal? Command science. On the one side: the vast multibillion dollar tax-supported, "peer (read insider) reviewed," medical establishment, including the NIH and the CDC; drug companies, activists, and scientists with conflicts of interest, lobbyists in Congress, and royalties on patents for failed medications; insider control of grant monies for research, and of which drugs get approved; and even censorship and control over publication in professional journals.

On the other side? One man stands alone. Duesberg. For that, he deserves credit-and our gratitude. D Mr. DeRosa is a freelance writerfrom Poughkeepsie, New York. BOOKS 775 The Failure of America's Foreign Wars Edited by Richard M. Ebeling and Jacob G. Hornberger Future of Freedom Foundation. 1996 • 380 pages. $24.95 cloth; $17.95 paperback Reviewed by Hans-Hermann Hoppe H istory is invariably written by its victors. Because the twentieth century is uniquely the American century, with the United States emerging victorious from both world wars and ultimately rising to the rank of the world's only military superpower, official twentieth-century world history today is above all history as seen from the perspective of the U.S. government and its intellectual bodyguards. Thus, it is in particular U.S. foreign policy, and especially the policies of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt and of U.S. allies such as Churchill and Stalin, which come under closer scrutiny and are subject to critical reevaluation and revision in The Failure of America's Foreign Wars.

The articles in this book survey critical episodes in U.S. foreign policy over the last hundred years, beginning with the Spanish-American War, cen tering on World War I and World War II, and continuing to the Panama Invasion and the Gulf War. The editors wish to illustrate the thesis that the replacement of the "isolationist" U.S. foreign policy by a globalist-interventionist foreign policy has been an utter failure. As a result of the great moral crusade "to make the world safe for democ racy," the twentieth century has been one of the most murderous centuries in all of history and the century par excellence of socialism: of communism, fascism, national socialism, and social democracy. Several times in the book the question is raised: what would have happened if Wilson, in accor dance with America's isolationist foreign policy tradition and his own election campaign promise, had kept the United States out of World War I?

By virtue of its counterfactual nature, the answer to a question such as this can never be empirically confirmed or falsified. This does not make the question meaningless or the answer arbitrary, however. To the contrary. Based on an understand ing of the actual historical events and personalities involved, the question concerning the most likely alternative course of history can be answered in detail and with considerable confidence. If the United States had followed a strict non interventionist foreign policy, the intra-European conflict likely would have ended in late 1916 or 776 THE FREEMAN • NOVEMBER 1996 early 1917 instead of late 1918. Moreover, it would have been concluded with a mutually acceptable (face-saving) compromise peace rather than the one-sided terms actually dictated. Consequently, Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Russia would have remained traditional monarchies instead of being turned into shortlived democratic republics.

With a Russian Czar and a German and Austrian Kaiser in place, it would have been practically impossible for the Bolsheviks to seize power in Russia, and in reaction to a growing communist threat in Western Europe, for the fascists and the national Socialists to come to power in Italy and Germany. The victims of communism, national socialism, and World War II-some 100 million European lives-would have been saved. The extent of government interference with and con trol of the private economy in the United States and Western Europe would have never reached the heights seen today. And rather than Eastern Eu rope (and consequently half of the globe) falling into communist hands and for more than 40 years being plundered, devastated, and forcibly insulated from Western markets, all of Europe (and the entire globe) would have remained integrated economically (as in the nineteenth century) in a worldwide system of division of labor and coop eration. Accordingly world living standards would have grown immensely higher than they actually did. In helping its reader recognize this "realisti cally possible" alternative course of history, The Failure ofAmerica's Foreign Wars contains a sharp moral condemnation of twentieth-century U.S.

foreign policy and a vigorous plea for a return to a noninterventionist-isolationist foreign policy. While the facts and the conclusions reached are largely correct and reasonable, the book is not without shortcomings. Even a professed "re visionist" such as Ebeling cannot free himself entirely from orthodox-leftist historical myths when he appears to liken and classify as on a par the "evils" of Stalin and Hitler and the socio economic character of Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. From 1929 to 1939,in peace time, Stalin and the Bolsheviks killed about 20 million Soviet citizens, for no predictable reason. Hitler and the National Socialists ruined the businesses and ca reers of hundreds of thousands of German citizens, but the.number of people killed by them before the outbreak of the war was only a few hundred, most of them fellow Nazis and all of them for a predictable reason. Even immediately after the onset of the war, when it became known that the Nazis had begun to engage in "mercy killings" of the incurably insane (euthanasia).' the Catholic bishops, led by Bernhard von Galen, openly pro tested, and German public opinion compelled the Nazis to halt the program. Bishop (later: Cardinal) von Galen survived the Nazi regime. Under Stalin and the Bolsheviks, any such opposition was im possible and Bishop von Galen would have been quickly disposed of. Also irritating is Hornberger's inclination toward psychobabble, according to which Hitler and national socialism are somehow the outgrowth of parent alcoholism and child abuse.

More serious is a structural defect. In collecting in their book almost exclusivelyarticles previously published in the Freedom Daily, and mostly (29 of 47) written by themselves, Ebeling and Hornberger missed the opportunity of assembling a far superior product. The quality of the articles is rather uneven, and there is quite a bit of repetitiveness. Many articles qualify as hardly more than journal istic exercises; and with only two professional historians (Ralph Raico and Robert Higgs) among the authors, the book has a somewhat amateurish flavor. Despite these shortcomings, however, the book contains a vitally important message and makes for genuinely refreshing reading. The two marvelously insightful articles contributed by Ralph Raico alone-on "The Case for an America First Foreign Policy" and "The Turning Point in American Foreign Policy"-are well worth the price of admission. 0 Dr. Hoppe is professor ofeconomics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, senior fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and co-editor of the Review of Austrian Economics and the Journal of Libertarian Studies.