Radicals for Capitalism: A Review of a Review Alexander S. Peak 4 April 2007 Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement is a book by Brian Doherty which supposedly chronicles the modern libertarian movement. I’ve not read it. I did, however, read a review of the book by David Leonhardt, which appeared in the New York Times. It is to this review that I would like to respond. Mr. Leonhardt writes, “MOST troubling, Doherty merely catalogs the movement’s failings rather than grappling with them. He relates that [Ayn] Rand ‘notoriously testified’ before the big-brotherly House Un-American Activities Committee in October 1947, when the committee was investigating Hollywood, where Rand had worked as a screenwriter, but the episode receives only two paragraphs.” I have read Ms. Rand’s full testimony in the past. As far as I can tell, her attempt there was simply to answer the questions asked of her as truthfully as she could. In no way does she appear to imply that she condones the existence of the committee, nor does she advocate the government take any steps or intervene in any way. Mr. Leonhardt implies that there is something wrong with Ms. Rand having made her testimony. This implication is without merit. Mr. Leonhardt goes on to write, “He skates over other questionable matters, too: for instance, that Friedman advised the murderous Pinochet regime in Chile.” Again, I fail to see any problem here. It is true that Dr. Friedman did provide economic advice to the Chilean tyrant, but is this a bad thing? Let us be clear: Pinochet was a murderous tyrant, and would have been whether Dr. Friedman had been an economic advisor thereto or not. Dr. Friedman did not make Pinochet a murderous scumbag; Pinochet made himself that. Of course, every libertarian is going to oppose allowing a murderous scumbag to hold a political office, and if Mr. Leonhardt is trying to imply otherwise, he is sadly mistaken. Providing a leader with advice, however, is not predicated upon supporting all—or any—actions taken by the leader. If I advise President George Walker Bush to cut taxes, and he subsequently does so, does this imply that I support maintaining President Bush as a leader? No. As Jacob G. Hornberger writes, Fortunately, there have been those whose conscience and consciousness enabled them to…correctly perceived Pinochet and DINA officials to be the terrorists—state terrorists. They correctly recognized the right of people to peacefully resist a military regime, especially an anti-democratic regime that has gained power through the violent ouster of a democratically elected regime. Nothing—not even “free-enterprise, Chicago-boys” economic policies—can excuse that sort of state-sponsored thuggery. That’s why people in the libertarian section of the political spectrum, unlike those in the conservative section, have long supported the criminal indictment of Pinochet and his DINA minions—because terror in the name of fighting terror is a grave criminal offense against humanity no matter what economic philosophy the state terrorist happens to hold. Pinochet left office in 1990. In 2000—almost 30 years after the Chilean people democratically elected a socialist, Salvador Allende, president—the Chilean people democratically elected another self-avowed socialist, Ricardo Lagos, president of their country. A few days ago—January 4, 2005, Chile’s Supreme Court upheld a criminal indictment brought against Gen. Augusto Pinochet for murder and kidnappings. Mr. Leonhardt also says that Mr. Doherty skates over such points as Merwin Hart having “infected his free-market thought with anti-Semitism” and Murray N. Rothbard having “supported Strom Thurmond’s segregationist campaign for president in 1948 (because, [as] Doherty casually observes, ‘[Rothbard] admired Thurmond’s states’ rights position’).” These points, unlike the previous points Mr. Leonhardt mentions, may potentially be damaging. However, I cannot tell for certain. On the one hand, I am unfamiliar with Merwin Hart and with the peculiarities of Strom Thurmond’s 1948 platform; it is therefore not impossible that, were I to know more about each, I would find myself in agreement with Mr. Leonhardt. On the other hand, however, at this point in his review, Mr. Leonhardt has already made some hugely egregious implications regarding both Ms. Rand and Dr. Friedman, and regardless of whether he was intentionally being deceptive to his reader or simply was mistaken in making the implications he made, I am left having a difficult time believing Mr. Leonhardt’s other points. Suffice to say, I would have to look more into Thurmond’s 1948 platform, as well as at the platforms of his opponents, before making my judgment on Dr. Rothbard’s choice to support him. I would likewise have to take a look at what sort of “support” was actually granted, for that could range anywhere from something as big as helping to rig an election to something as small as casually saying, in passing, “At least he’s not as bad as the other guy[s].” Finally, as I am wholly unfamiliar with Merwin Hart, I clearly would have to learn more about him before A) judging whether or not he was an anti-Semite, and B) judging whether or not he was a libertarian. Assuming he indeed was an anti-Semite, I would already be inclined to suspect that he was not a libertarian, for as Ms. Rand had written, “Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism.” (But, of course, I would have to keep an open mind that perhaps it is possible to be both a libertarian and an anti-Semite, as incongruous as that may sound.) Even if Mr. Leonhardt is wrong about all four of his points (and he is certainly wrong on at least two of the implications he made), I can forgive him, for these errors could be chucked up to a simple error of interpretation. I cannot, however, forgive the error that Mr. Leonhardt makes when he writes, “Libertarianism has now arrived at an interesting juncture. The moment for its grandest ambitions seems to have passed. President Bush is no longer talking about privatizing Social Security, and his free-market approach to rebuilding Iraq has proven disastrous.” It is true that President Bush is no longer talking about privatising Social Security. Indeed, in the opinion of many of us, President Bush has never truly been a supporter of the free market, and it thus comes as little or no surprise that he has folded on this issue. And, perhaps it’s a good thing that he is no longer talking about it, for, to be quite honest, I’m not convinced President Bush any longer possesses the power to sell any ideas to the American people, regardless of how beneficial or detrimental they may be. (And, although this may be beside the point, Mr. Harry Browne had, on a number of occasions, stated that President Bush had never proposed a plan to truly privatise Social Security, that is to say to allow each and every individual to control his or her own savings wholly independent of the government. Mr. Browne pointed out that the government, under President Bush’s plan, would still maintain control over Social Security, simply altering the manner in which it controlled the system.) But!, it is in no way whatsoever true that President Bush’s “free-market approach to rebuilding Iraq has proven disastrous.” Why am I so confident in saying this? Because the simple fact is: President Bush has had no “free- market” approach with Iraq. Under no stretch of the term “free-market” can we ever use it to describe President Bush’s approach to Iraq. If anything, I would argue that his approach to Iraq has definably been the complete and total opposite of a free-market approach. The appropriate term to describe President Bush’s approach to the rebuilding of Iraq is “neo-mercantilist.” Look at the no-bid contracts that Halliburton, for example, received—these are quite contrary to a free market. Worse yet is the number of so-called cost-plus provisions that, according to the Wall Street Journal, “guarantee contractors a certain profit regardless of how much they ultimately spend.” Such agreements remove any incentives for private companies to control expenses, which are paid for by the tax-payer. As Anthony Gregory points out, The importance of private interests in public policy is paramount, and libertarians and free-market thinkers would do themselves well to see the frequency of conspiracy between the U.S. warfare state and big corporations, which are not, despite the common misconceptions, overwhelmingly favorable toward free markets. On the contrary, the neo-mercantilism so prevalent in the history of U.S. foreign policy—from United Fruit in Latin America to Halliburton in Iraq—benefits big business by socializing costs and risks, thus forcing taxpayers and foreigners to pay for corporate profits. Addendum – 5 April 2007 Having just read David Boaz’s comments on Mr. Leonhardt’s review at Cato @ Liberty, I must herein recommend them. Particularly intriguing are his comments on Dr. Friedman and Merwin Hart. Apparently, I’m not the only person that had never heard of Hart. As Mr. Boaz writes, Despite 30 years in the libertarian movement, and despite having read this book, I had never heard of Merwin Hart. But I found him in the index (not always an easy thing; the best criticism of this book, which Leonhardt missed, is that the index is seriously inadequate…). Turns out he ran something called the National Economic Council in the 1950s. And why is he in this book? Because he’s a major libertarian figure? Because he’s a minor libertarian figure? No. He gets one line in this book because movement founding father Leonard Read told people to stay away from Hart because, yes, he “infected his free- market thought with anti-Semitism” — in other words, he wasn’t one of us. 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