September

Voucher Advocates, Take HeedIdeas 011 Libel tU THE FI\EEMAN Published by The Foundation for Economic Education Irvington-on-Hudson, NY 10533 Phone (914) 591-7230 FAX (914) 591-8910 E-mail: freeman@fee.org FEE Home Page: http://www.fee.org President: Donald 1. Boudreaux Editor: Sheldon Richman Managing Editor: Beth A. Hoffman Editor Emeritus Paul L. Poirot Book Review Editor George C. Leef Editorial Assistant Mary Ann Murphy Columnists Charles W. Baird Doug Bandow Dwight R. Lee Lawrence W. Reed Russell Roberts Mark Skousen Thomas Szasz Walter Williams Contributing Editors Peter J. Boettke Clarence B. Carson Thomas J. DiLorenzo Burton W. Folsom, Jr. Joseph S. Fulda Bettina Bien Greaves Robert Higgs John Hospers Raymond J. Keating Daniel B. Klein Wendy McElroy Tibor R. Machan Ronald Nash Edmund A. Opitz James L. Payne William H. Peterson Jane S. Shaw Richard H. Timberlake Lawrence H. White The Freeman is the monthly publication of The Foundation for Eco nomic Education, Inc., Irvington-on-Hudson, NY 10533. FEE, established in 1946 by Leonard E. Read, is a nonpolitical, educational champion of private property, the free market, and limited government.

FEE is classified as a 26 USC 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Copyright © 1999 by The Foundation for Economic Education. Per mission is granted to reprint any article in this issue, provided credit is given and two copies of the reprinted material are sent to FEE. The costs of Foundation projects and services are met through dona tions, which are invited in any amount. Donors of $30.00 or more receive a subscription to The Freeman. For delivery outside the United States: $45.00 to Canada; $55.00 to all other countries. Student sub scriptions are $10.00 for the nine-month academic year; $5.00 per semester. Additional copies of this issue of The Freeman are $3.00 each. Bound volumes of The Freeman are available from The Foundation for calendar years 1972 to date. The Freeman is available in microform from University Microfilms, 300 N. Zeeb Rd., Ann Arbor, MI 48106. As if we needed more proof that with gov ernment money come regulations, the U.S.

Department of Education says that colleges and universities may not use .standardized admissions tests that have a "significant dis parate impact" on any race, sex, or national origin. Unless a test is indispensable-a mat ter to be decided by the department-its use will be regarded as invidiously discriminatory, resulting in loss of federal money. The premise is that admissions tests on which particular groups do relatively poorly the SAT and ACT-must be culturally biased. The assertion that these exams somehow give a cultural advantage to white males of Euro pean ancestry and Asian males is bunk, but that's inconvenient to the social engineers. The tests must be biased. The consequences of the prohibition are predictable. Students will be admitted to schools for which they are unqualified. Then they will flunk out. There's benevolent social policy for you. After California's state colleges and universities were forced to stop using race as a criterion for admission, it was pointed out that minority groups lost "representation" at the top schools, UCLA and Berkeley. But Thomas Sowell noticed that there are now more blacks, Mexican-Americans, and Ameri can Indians than previously at other schools, such as the University of California at Irvine.

The opponents of quotas were right: instead of going to Berkeley, for which they are unquali fied, minority youth who are not top students, like their white counterparts, will go to schools where they have a chance to succeed. David Friedman, the economist and author of Hidden Order, once formulated Friedman's Law: government is so incompetent, it can't even give something away. Government may promise to give all students a shot at a top col lege, but clearly it can't make unqualified stu dents qualified simply by forcing their admis sion to top schools. Government should not be dictating who should be admitted to which schools. It shouldn't be operating schools. Period. Where 2 there is government, there is control. Voucher advocates, take heed. * * * September is back-to-school month, a fit ting time to again put government control of education on the examination table. Private schools are better at educating chil dren than government schools. But why?

Because they're private? Marshall Fritz thinks that answer misses a big point and distorts the school-reform movement. The rule about pipers, payers, and tunes is endlessly cited in the analysis of government policy. But it's curiously neglected in discus sions about what to do about the "public schools." Jacob Huebert reminds us that it's applicable there too. The logic of government education leads inexorably to wider intervention in the econo my. The "School-to-Work" program of the Clinton administration shows that only too well. Gary Wolfram explains. Government schools are reliable for at least one thing: teaching children the government's line on everything from taxes to war. Daniel Hager says this is nothing new. Higher education is also increasingly a creature of public policy. Through loans and grants, government helps a lot of people go to college who otherwise wouldn't be there.

Russell Madden is not so sure this is a good thing. The battle in the Balkans is a reminder that governments, never trustworthy, are least credible when they go to war. H.L. Mencken knew this well. Unable to write about war, he found a more subtle way to comment on the state's lack of veracity and the people's incli nation to believe whatever it says. Wendy McElroy explains. This month marks the 50th anniversary of perhaps the greatest achievement in econom ics in the 20th century: the publication of 3 Human Action by Ludwig von Mises. Richard Ebeling explains why this book and this occa sion are so important. It was Mises who pointed out that socialism would have no way to intelligently plan an economy because the abolition of the market would eliminate the tools of calculation: prices. Manual Ayau revisits the calculation debate and notes that it applies to any system other than laissez-faire capitalism.

Most of us are taught that before the Euro peans intruded, American Indians lived com munally with individuality submerged in the tribal soup. Amy Sturgis writes that, on the contrary, Indian life was yet another source of the freedom philosophy for the European set tlers in North America. Nothing could be more different than the way business and government account for their activities. James Bovard demonstrates that in each case, form follows function. One of Washington's hottest ideas is to invest some of the Social Security tax revenue in the stock market. Great idea, right? Not so fast, says Deroy Murdock. Our columnists have been busy the last month. Donald Boudreaux finds the govern ment's method of detecting victimless "crimes" horrifying. Lawrence Reed sees nothing but bad news in the coming explosion of bogus liability suits against business. Doug Bandow revisits the U.S. bombing in Sudan.

Thomas Szasz warns that speaking truth can land you in trouble. Dwight Lee examines the relationship between speculation and risk. Mark Skousen looks back at anticommunism. Russell Roberts imagines a world without the FDA. And Michael Cox and Richard AIm consider the claim that wealthy people hurt the middle class, concluding "It Just Ain't So!" In the book section, reviewers provide the scoop on works dealing with liberty, social ism, protectionism, and FDR. -SHELDON RICHMAN e>n. by Donald J. Boudreaux Break This Vile Addiction J anneral Denson, who is black, was seven months pregnant when she returned to her home in Florida after visiting Jamaica. u.s. Customs agents at the Fort Lauderdale airport greeted her with accusations that she had swallowed packets of drugs to smuggle them into the United States. Ignoring a physician's opinion that Ms. Denson's stomach contained no prohibited substances, Customs Service agents denied her request to call her mother, spirited her away against her will to a Miami hospital, handcuffed her to a bed, and forced her to down laxatives. Careful inspection of the results of their handiwork finally persuaded them that Ms. Denson was, in fact, no drug smuggler. She was released the next day.