My Barbers; J. Fulda

Sue? No. File a complaint with a city, state, or federal agency? No. In the best American individualist tradition, they quit to go into business for themselves. To this day the owner of that barbershop has not found success in his replacements. But our heroes pooled their money, bought equipment, and a mere month or two later were in business again-as the competition, located on West 180th Street on the corner of Broadway diagonally across from their old place, a bit down toward Wadsworth Avenue. They did well in that location, and one of the three eventually retired. The barbershop was located in the first chamber within the building. Through the outer door, one could Joseph Fulda, a contributing editor ofThe Freeman, is author, most recently, of Eight Steps Towards Libertarianism (Free Enterprise Press). He can be reached at fulda@acm.org.

28 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY • OCTOBER 1999 agencies flourish, but there is stiff competi tion among them for the large market. Still Partners I continued to use my barbers, going some times to one, sometimes to the other. As a lib ertarian, I felt a special need not to help the state destroy these men's living-and I recalled that when Alex retired and I started looking for a replacement, I got some fairly unwelcome haircuts in the interim! I learned in discussions with them that my barbers remained partners, splitting their expenses and proceeds. The small space was not designed for comfort, but the haircuts were still up to par. Unfortunately, their hope to reopen their store was not to be realized, as a restraining order was eventually posted on their old place of work. Undaunted, the two barbers showed their resourcefulness yet again and somehow man aged to obtain a store on Broadway between West l80th Street and West 179th Street. The reader can visit them there and attest to the truth of this tale while having his hair cut.

The qualities these barbers showed in the face of market adversity (the change of own ers in their original place and the bad working conditions) and government obstacles are not just resourcefulness, ingenuity, and determi nation. They also benefited from their ability to cooperate-none would have been able to open their second store without the other two and neither of the remaining barbers would have been able to open the third store without the other. I suspect most people would have severed the partnership or acted in a way that would have made maintaining it an insupera ble obstacle-and that would have proved their undoing. These three entrepreneurs and countless others like them across this land are the real, if unsung, heroes of American capitalism. Their stories do not make for captivating biography; they are not the stuff of heroic novels; they are neither titans of industry, nor great innovators, inventors, or investors. But they epitomize the Franklinesque virtues that made America great, and they and others like them are the reason why not everything in this fair land is sold in chains and franchises, as marvelous as those bulwarks of capitalism have admittedly proven themselves. They're the sort of entrepreneurs who provide much more than labor and capital in a felicitous combination; they give the word "indepen dent" a strong, favorable cast. D "With his masterful grasp of history and his ingenious insight into economics, phi losophy, politics, and human nature, Dr.

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