Vol. 6.3, March 1974

A Monthly Newsletter

THE

Libertarian Forum

Joseph R. Peden, Publisher		Murray N. Rothbard, Editor
VOLUME VI, NO. 3	MARCH, 1974	US-ISSN0047-4517

SEVEN DAYS IN MAY??

Day by day, piece by piece, the Truth in all its majesty and inexorability is closing in on the Tricky One. Piece by piece, the high crimes, low crimes, and misdemeanors of Richard Nixon are becoming increasingly evident, even to the blindest Nixonite loyalist. The Nixon strategy—highlighted by the absurdities of the short-lived (and revealingly named) “Operation Candor”—is clearly shown to be a series of lies, evasions, and retreats to hastily prepared fallback positions. The only purpose is to cling to the power and perquisites of office as long as he possibly can.

Impeachment per se is beginning to look too good for the Monster Milhous. Somehow, even the courageous Leon Jaworski has discovered somewhere in the Constitution (?) that a sitting President cannot be indicted for any crime whatever. Why must the President be exempt from the common criminal law? Vice-President Agnew was not, and he was only able to escape the hoosegow by plea-bargaining for a simple resignation and reprimand. But at any rate, this means that Nixon must be impeached before he can be indicted, convicted, and punished for his numerous crimes, high and low. It is not only being booted out of office that now looms for Mr. Nixon, but beyond that, the spectre of the jailhouse door—a spectre which more imminently faces his former chief henchmen in the Administration. Perhaps that is why Mr. Nixon is fighting with such desperation.

But that very desperation, coupled with certain hints in his defense against impeachment, gives rise to some very scary possibilities for America’s future. If these Unthinkable Thoughts seem paranoid, remember that almost every seemingly crazy piece of Left-wing paranoia about Richard Nixon over the years has turned out to be all too true. What possibly may loom ahead is a blend of the Philip Roth scenario (in a hilarious but chilling parody of Nixon’s “speech on the day of his impeachment” published a year ago in the New York Review of Books) with Fletcher Knebel’s exciting portrayal of a military takeover in Seven Days in May.

Let us first consider one of Mr. Nixon’s major defenses against the impeachment proceedings: that the charges are too broad, that to be impeached he has to have committed (been convicted of?) actual crimes, major crimes at that, and furthermore crimes ancillary to his high office. (Presumably, income tax fraud is not enough ancillary to the office, misprision of a felony in not reporting the hush money plot to the Attorney-General is too “low” a crime, etc.) Historically, as an interpretation of the Constitution, Mr. Nixon’s argument is palpable nonsense, as any competent historian will attest. But is this just historical balderdash born out of delaying tactics? Or is something more sinister involved?

Suppose, as seems more and more likely, the House votes to impeach Mr. Nixon, and the great impeachment trial is launched in the U.S. Senate. At this point, there does not seem to be the two-thirds majority needed to convict in the Senate, but who knows what will happen when the facts pour out at the impeachment trial? Already, Senator James Buckley, in an eloquent speech calling for Nixon’s resignation, has virtually pinned the responsibility, and hence the blame, on Nixon for the admitted actions of his top subordinates; does this presage at long, long last, abandonment of Nixon’s cause by the Conservatives? Or are they really willing to walk the last mile and go down the tubes politically with Mr. Nixon? Suppose, then, that the Senate does vote Nixon guilty, by a vote just above two-thirds. The chilling speculation is; what happens then?

The general assumption is that Mr. Nixon would at that point, and at last, step down, though of course kicking and snarling as he went. But can we count on that? Suppose that the following happens; Mr. Nixon goes on the air, praises the Congress for performing its task as best it can, but then says that, according to his view of the Constitution, the impeachment vote is unconstitutional because his crimes were not sufficient to warrant the action. Suppose, then, that he refuses to leave the Presidential office. What happens next? Can we really be sure that this will not happen? If we couple the Nixonian claim about the charges being too broad with what Anthony Lewis has called his “L’Etat c’est Moi” attitude and with what we know of his character, then this scenario begins to appear all too realistic.

So: what happens then? Will they, in the marvelous metaphor of Martha Mitchell, “have to drag him out of the White House in chains?” And who will do it? Already, a Village Voice reporter went to several top Pentagon officials and posed for them this hypothetical situation. What would they do? To a man, they gave the now famous “Eichmann answer”, that their job in life is to obey all orders of their Commander-in-Chief without question; and they left no doubt that in that situation they would still consider Mr. Nixon as their Commander-in-Chief. So what happens then? Civil War? Backtracking by the Congress? Dragging out in chains? Will we ever be able to rid ourselves of Richard Nixon by constitutional means? Will the American Republic last long enough to be able to celebrate its Bicentennial? If Senator Buckley is worried about a “crisis of the regime”, to use his curiously Petainist phrase, there my countrymen would be, a crisis indeed.

European Politics

By Leonard P. Liggio

Just before the recent English elections took place, there was a radio program on the voters’ attitudes. It started with a man saying that it was necessary to end all the government controls and to allow the free play of economic forces. Later, when his interview was presented in full, it turned out he was not one of our English libertarians but was a Labourite attacking the Conservative government. Since the Conservatives, and not only in England, have become the leading advocates of strong state economic authority, including controls, it should not be surprising to find that other parties take up some kind of critique of controls. The recent elections gave the Conservatives a well deserved defeat without giving the Labour Party any mandate that it could turn into a push for more socialism. One commentator said: “Mr. Heath went to the country on the issue of who governs and the answer he got was nobody.” The New York Times declared that that had been “the worst possible result.” Who were the gainers? The Nationalists from the Celtic areas of Scotland, Wales, western England and Northern Ireland made important victories. Building on their first victory in 1970, the Scottish Nationalists won several by-elections last fall, and won seven seats in the early March general elections. The Welsh Plaid Cymru won two seats. The ultra Ulster Unionists, who call for a separate Protestant-controlled Northern Ireland, won eleven seats. The Liberals, who won fourteen seats, also reflect a nationalist feeling, especially in the Celtic western English counties. The large Liberal vote—six million—represented about twenty per cent of the total vote, and denied either major party its victory. Voting Liberal was a sound way of punishing the Conservatives without giving the Labourites a mandate. With that number of votes, the Liberals should have had ten times the number of seats they actually received in Parliament. Heath tried to get them into a coalition with the Conservatives but the Liberals (supported by the Manchester Guardian) rejected Heath’s continuing in power. The Liberals demand a reform of the election system as well as a separate Parliament for Scotland and something similar for Wales. The Liberals have attracted the youth vote on a program of support for capitalism against regulations or controls over economic or private life, support for the Common Market and the tradition of free trade, and for decentralization or “community polities.” The Liberals’ image is that of radical capitalism and decentralization. On Wilson’s new cabinet, the Liberals bitterly attacked it as “an old-fashioned Socialist government of the type which failed the country before.”

There is a possibility that the Labour government may be less inflationary than the Conservatives. The chancellor of the exchequer, Denis Healy, favors floating exchange rates rather than controls. Harold Lever, chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and key economic advisor to Wilson, strongly opposes increased taxes. But should the battle against inflation fail it has been suggested that Enoch Powell will benefit. Powell refused to run for Parliament in the election due to his opposition to wage and price controls and to the inflationary monetary policies of the Conservatives. This action places him once more in a serious political position instead of the dead end of opposition to the free movement of people and goods that he had been emphasizing. Powell called on his supporters to vote Labour to save the country from the Conservatives’ price-wage controls and inflation. The New Statesman declared: “Who would be the beneficiary? It could be Enoch Powell, who in my view has—so far from committing political suicide—played his cards adroitly by placing himself outside the party arena. To rise above the enmities of Right and Left, to ‘unite the nation’, is a well-tried but always potentially effective technique.” To whom has Powell been appealing? Powell has represented Birmingham which, according to Jane Jacobs, was the center of the flexibility and quick responses to the market which are the flower of capitalism. The Manchester Guardian commented on Powell’s new influence from concentrating on issues of controls and inflation (Powell had earlier contributed to England’s abandonment of imperialist positions around the world and to the reduction of defense spending): “The West Midlands is the home of independent capitalism. The typical voter is not a frightened bank clerk of Carshalton but a small businessman with three men working for him somewhere in Cradley Heath. He doesn’t like an incomes and prices policy.”

The developments in England reflect some changes that have been occurring in other parts of the Commonwealth. The Labour parties of Australia and New Zealand were victorious after long periods of opposition, mainly in response to Conservative inflations. Since coming to power, these Labour governments have had the courage to break with U.S. domination of their foreign policies and defense programs. In Canada, the Liberals have been ruling as a minority party from the increase a year and a half ago of the New Democratic party and the decline of the Social Creditists who also lost their strongholds as the provincial governments in Alberta and British Columbia. The only unifying element in Canadian politics appears to be a desire to stem the influence of American investments. That theme has been carried further in Quebec, where the French population would like to limit the role of English-speaking Canadians. Last fall in provincial elections the separatist Parti Quebecois, led by Rene Levesque, received 29% of the vote against 55% for the Liberals, with the rest going to the National Union and to the Creditistes.

In Holland and Scandinavia there have been important electoral developments. In Holland, a year and a half ago, the electorate polarized. The religious parties—a Catholic one and several Protestant ones, headed by the Anti-Revolutionary party (aimed against the classical liberalism and freedom of religion of the French Revolution)—lost their joint control of national politics. The Dutch voted against the traditionalist parties and their no-issues campaign and favored parties taking strong stands. The Dutch Liberals, with the Young Liberals in the vanguard, made strong gains among the youth vote opposed to inflation and to the repression of new culture. The Radical People’s Party similarly made gains as people have left the old religion-oriented culture for the new culture.

In Sweden last September the long dominant Social Democrats lost heavily, and now rule in a Parliament in which their coalition has only half the seats. The biggest Swedish gainer was the Center party which appealed to a “desire among many for the simple life that preceded industrial society.” The Center party seemed to represent the Sweden of the past before the shifts of population from country to city—“a nostalgia for the day when the people didn’t have to move to cities and work in factories.” At the same time in Norway the thirty years of Labor rule was maintained only barely. The growth of the opposition is somewhat similar to Sweden. Five per cent of the vote went to the “Anders Lange party for the sharp reduction of taxes, levies and public interference.” Anders Lange does not like taxes. A lot of people don’t include a lot of Danes. Last December Berkeley-trained Mogens Glistrup and his Progress party won 28 seats in Denmark’s Parliament. Glistrup seeks abolition of the income tax and burning of the papers of the revenue office, and wants to start budget cuts with defense. Glistrup declared: “I’m also against spending money on defense . . . If we had our own defense, we could last five hours, without it, five minutes. So who needs it?” This view represents the result of serious study by Europeans of defense problems and the economic advantage of peace and peace policy rather than defense spending. The New York Times went out of its mind when Glistrup received so many votes. The Times editorial was entitled: “Poujadism in Denmark.” Poujadism in mid-1950s France sought to organize tax resistance. At the time it attracted the attention of libertarians in America as a significant contribution to serious politics rather than to verbal exercises. However, both the National Review and Human Events rejected articles expounding the role of tax resistance in France and indicating its value for organizing a popular libertarian movement in America. No taxes, no warfare state!

In Germany the Free Democrats continue to make gains at the expense of the Socialists and Christian Democrats. The Free Democrats’ leader, Walter Scheel, the present foreign minister, seems likely to be elected the next president of Germany. When formed after the second world war, the Free Democrats united those opposed to the socialism of the Socialists and the dominance of religion in society of the Christian Democrats. They opposed high taxes, government interference with private lives and the pro-American foreign policy which they felt did not reflect a nationalist position between America and Russia. As radical capitalists the Free Democrats are to the left of the Socialists on many issues. This radicalism was reflected in their breaking with Ludwig Erhard in 1966 when he violated a pledge not to increase taxes as he bowed to U.S. demands that he increase contributions to defense. Under Scheel Germany has been engaged in a massive investment program in the Soviet Union, most recently a plan to build an over 1 billion dollar steel plant. Germany and the Soviet Union have agreed to set up joint companies to operate in third countries with mixed Soviet-German capital, management and production. The Free Democratic resurgence has been explained as the result of changes in German society away from traditionalist attitudes. Time has noted: “discipline is giving way to what sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf, who also happens to be the Free Democrats’ leading thinker, calls the individual search for happiness by people freed of the fetters of tradition and thrown into the affluent society.” Writes Dahrendorf in Society and Democracy in Germany: “Discipline, orderliness, subservience, cleanliness, industriousness, precision, and all the other virtues ascribed by many to the Germans as an echo of past splendor have already given way to a much less rigid set of values, among which economic success, a high income, the holiday trip, and the new car play a much larger part than the virtues of the past. Younger people especially display little of the much praised and much scorned respect for authority, and less of the disciplined virtues that for their fathers were allegedly sacred. A world of highly individual values has emerged, which puts the experienced happiness of the individual in first place and increasingly lets the so-called whole slip from sight.”

Scheel and the German government have been major targets during this March of Nixon and Kissinger. Nixon wants the Europeans to continue to underwrite the costs of American inflation; they refuse. Likewise, they do not wish to have America dominate Europe’s defenses. But, especially, they wish to have the freedom to operate in the world market to purchase raw materials, mainly oil, without the intrusions of American political demands. Kissinger has attacked Michel Jobert, French foreign minister, for seeking since last July to block U.S. European defense arrangements under NATO, as well as for opposing U.S. claims that there was a Soviet threat during the Middle East crisis.

However, the big blow-up came during the February Washington meeting that Kissinger had determined would present a solid, hard-line toward the Arab countries. Jobert presented a blistering critique of American policy and affirmed France’s independent policy toward the Arab world. Jobert’s standing in French public opinion has skyrocketed and he has become a leading contender to succeed to the French presidency. Even the very influential Le Monde, almost never having praised Gaullist attitudes, strongly attacked the American leaders and defended the French position of independence. President Nixon has giver dire warnings to the Europeans and threatens to unleash his secret weapon—i.e., he may not visit them this year. The Europeans may emerge from this situation stronger and more independent, which would be a plus for world peace as well as a check on the Nixon administration’s taste for super-run-away inflation.

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The British Elections

Given the unspeakable state of British politics and the economy, the results of the recent elections were the best that could be hoped for. The Labor Party is now gung ho socialist, and so a victory for Labor in the elections would have been an unmitigated disaster: Labor was pledged, for example, to the nationalization of a host of vital industries, as well as to the monstrous despotism of compulsory abolition of the private schools of Great Britain. Under former Prime Minister Edward Heath, however, the Conservatives were proceeding to wreck the British economy by the familiar combination of large-scale inflation of the money supply coupled with severe price and wage controls (Is Britain ten years further down the American road?) While we cannot condone the stranglehold of union monopoly in Britain, the immediate cause of the breakdown of the British economy and the miners’ strike was Mr. Heath’s stubborn insistence on keeping wage controls far below the free market level. Heath’s policy was particularly repellent for its Nixonian quality: masking collectivist policy in a cloak of free-enterprise rhetoric. A clear-cut victory for Heath, then, would simply have endorsed his disastrous economic policies.

Through the closeness of the vote, and still more by the large increase of votes for the minor parties, the British electorate has made sure that neither incubus of a major party could command a majority in Parliament. Furthermore, in the short run, Prime Minister Wilson was able to solve the economic crisis by in effect removing wage controls on the coal miners and thereby ending the strike. Labor’s minority status insures that Mr. Wilson will not be able to push through the gallopping collectivism of the full Labor program. Since both major parties are horrendous, a stalemate government blocking both party programs was the best that could be extracted from the situation.

But there are even more goodies in the British election. For the striking increase in the votes for the Liberals and for the Nationalists can only be beneficial in themselves. The Liberal Party is, alas!, very far from its libertarian Cobdenite origins. But while it is a confused, middle-of-the-road party, the Liberals are not prepared to go along with-the pet collectivist extremes of either the Laborites or the Tories. At least the Liberals will throw some sand in the collectivist machinery of either major party. Even healthier is the rise of the Scottish and Welsh Nationalists, the former increasing their number of seats phenomenally from 2 to 7, amassing over one-fifth of the Scottish vote; while the latter, the Plaid Cymru, gained 2 seats in Parliament over their previous zero. Americans tend to think of all the inhabitants of the British Isles as “English”. Nothing could be further from the truth. For centuries, the Scottish and the Welsh, each with a totally separate language and culture, have been the victims of English imperialism and English oppression, and the rise of the Plaid Cymru and the “Scot Nats” presages a dramatic shift toward home rule for these minority nations. Furthermore, while the Scot Nats are hardly champions of the free market, they are at least staunchly opposed to the Labor program for the nationalization of the large new oilfields that have recently been discovered off the North Sea coast of Scotland.

It is characteristic of the growing adherence to the Establishment of Bill Buckley that he gave Heath and the Tories an all-out endorsement before the election. Or else it was a breakdown of his much-vaulted “strategic intelligence.” For Buckley explicitly rejected the only political strategy that carries hope for Britain in the foreseeable future: that of the dissident stormy petrel of British politics, Enoch Powell. For Powell, head of the “right wing” of the Tories, refused to stand for reelection to Parliament, and urged his supporters to break the Heath administration by voting Labor. Only in that way, only by turning the Tories out, was there hope for overturning Heath and thereby paving the way for a later ride of Enoch Powell to power. In fact, Powell’s defection was responsible for the loss of at least six Tory seats in the West Midlands, the major base of Powell’s political support.

Decades of horrific British policies have created a rigid, stratified, and cartellized economy, a set of frozen power blocs integrated with Big Government: namely, Big Business and Big Labor. Even the most cautious and gradualist of English libertarians now admit that only a radical political change can save England. Enoch Powell is the only man on the horizon who could be the sparkplug for such a change. It is true, of course, that for libertarians Enoch Powell has many deficiencies. For one thing he is an admitted High Tory who believes in the divine right of kings; for another, his immigration policy is the reverse of libertarian. But on the critical issues in these parlous times: on checking the inflationary rise in the money supply, and on scuttling the disastrous price and wage controls, Powell is by far the soundest politician in Britain. A sweep of Enoch Powell into power would hardly be ideal, but it offers the best existing hope for British freedom and survival.

Libertarianism And Humanist Psychology

By Martin Andrews
Department of Psychology
St. John’s University, Minnesota

In the last few years a new movement has grown up in psychology. This movement is variously designated as humanistic psychology, the “human potential” movement, existential psychology, or, perhaps most commonly, the “third force”. The phrase “third force” is used to distinguish this brand of psychology from the first two forces, psychoanalysis and behaviorism. This loosely organized group has its own professional society, the Association for Humanistic Psychology, and has more or less, been given the official seal of approval with the formation of Division 32 of the American Psychological Association, the Division for Humanistic Psychology. There are many different points of view among the various members of the movement, and some of these differences are quite significant, but there do seem to be large areas of agreement among them, in addition to their common opposition to behaviorism and psychoanalysis. Some of the characteristics of this new psychology can be seen in the following partial listing:

1. A belief in man’s free will and responsibility

2. An emphasis on experience as the basic datum of psychology

3. The idea that the person is or should be the main concern of psychologists

4. A commitment to the investigation of more meaningful problems than psychology has traditionally dealt with, even if this means a considerable loss of rigor

5. A belief in the moral necessity for the full development of human potential

6. A belief that man has considerable freedom from his past, and that much of his behaviour is determined by his plans and goals for the future

7. A belief in the natural goodness of man

8. The view that man is pre-eminently a social being, and can find fulfillment only through relatedness to others

9. The idea that values should be of great importance to psychologists

I take it as more or less axiomatic that libertarians have a valid interest in the views of psychologists. Since one’s views about the proper kind of society are presumably based on one’s view of human nature, and human nature is perhaps the chief professional interest of psychologists, it would be remarkable if libertarians, as social philosophers, did not have this interest. In any case, it would seem that libertarians have generally taken a positive view of the third force. A number of California libertarians, report has it, have become involved in the human potential movement. As another evidence of this, I note that the Laissez-faire Books catalog prominently features in its listings works on transactional analysis and gestalt therapy, both typical third force therapies, as well as the major works of Abraham Maslow, the father of the “third force.” In light of this interest, and in view of the importance of arriving at a reasonable psychology for any sort of social philosophy, it would perhaps be useful to offer some critical commentary on the humanistic movement.

A real grasp of the meaning of the third force can probably best be gained by a consideration of its historical genesis. As indicated above, this movement arose largely as a reaction against behaviorism and psychoanalysis, and this reaction is intimately related to both its good and its bad points. Since the humanists’ objections to behaviorism and psychoanalysis are rather different, it would probably be wise to examine these criticisms separately.

The criticisms directed against the behaviorists by the humanists seem to reduce to two. The first such objection is that behaviorism has trivialized psychology. By its rejection of such “mentalistic” categories as mind, reason, purpose, value, consciousness, and feeling, in the name of a spurious scientific objectivity, the humanists argue, the behaviorists have made impossible the study of any but trivial problems. The malign influence of behaviorism, they say, has forced psychologists to investigate only such phenomena as can be treated objectively, namely such inherently dull things as what influences the rate at which rats press a bar in a Skinner box. The study of more significant problems, they urge, is greatly needed. The second charge is that behaviorism views man as purely “reactive”. That is, behaviorists view all behavior as having its cause in either past or present stimulation. The recognition of man’s freedom and spontaneity, the humanists think, is needed in order to get a proper picture of the human person.

It is clear that one could hardly accuse psychoanalysis of being trivial, whatever its other sins may be. The charges against this doctrine, then, assume a somewhat different form. The psychoanalysts, the humanists say, paint a needlessly gloomy picture of human nature and its possibilities. If one might be permitted to caricature the psychoanalytic view of man, one might say that the analysts tend to see man as powerfully driven by anti-social sexual and aggressive needs kept in check only by the forces of repression and the necessities of social life, as a prisoner of his past, doomed to endlessly repeat the same neurotic script throughout his life, and that fundamentally there is very little that can be expected by way of alleviation of this unhappy situation. The humanists’ response to this is twofold. First, they assert, this view fails to recognize the potentiality for goodness possessed by mankind. Second, they say, the psychoanalysts make the same mistake the behaviorists do, when they argue that man is a prisoner of his past. This is to fail to realize that man is free and can change himself.

The basic question, of course, is what we are to make of this series of assertions put forth by the humanists. It is clear, I think, that much of what the humanists hold is justified. It seems to me to be unquestionably true that the behaviorists’ ruling out of “mentalistic” terms was a great mistake. The reasons for this, though, contrary to what many humanists seem to think, are for the most part scientific, rather than metaphysical or ethical. It is also true, I believe, that the study of values, and the explication of the concept of purpose are essential to any reasonable account of human behavior, just as the humanists assert. It is true, again, that the psychoanalysts’ world-view is deeply depressing, at least to anyone who takes it seriously. This, of course, tells us nothing about the truth or falsity of the doctrine. Fortunately, though this is not the place to go into the subject, there is a great deal of evidence that the psychoanalysts were wrong about many things.

It seems to be the case, then, that the humanists have made a number of valid points at the expense of their opponents. Unfortunately, however, there are a number of places where the views of the humanists are open to severe criticism. I will here concentrate on four of them. These are: 1) the humanists’ idea of freedom; 2) their influence on psychological thinking; 3) the political implications of some of their doctrines; 4) their utter disregard for the value of privacy.

Turning first to the question of freedom, it would seem to the writer that it is important to make a distinction between political and economic freedom, in the sense of freedom from coercion, and metaphysical freedom, in the sense of freedom of the will. The two concepts are logically independent, and to confuse them, as I believe the humanists frequently do (so do some libertarians), is to risk getting mired in some philosophical quagmires. It is often felt, for example, that it is only on the premise of free will that it makes any sense to speak of responsibility. This would seem to be the reverse of the truth. If an act is truly free, it would seem to imply that it is uncaused or random. It is difficult to see in what sense it is reasonable to assign blame for a random act. It is peculiar to express moral outrage at the outcome of the toss of dice, and illogical to expect censure to affect the next toss. Responsibility, then, is more compatible with determinism than with free will, in the writer’s view.

A second, and in many ways more serious, difficulty with the doctrine of free will is that such a doctrine is ultimately inconsistent with any concept of human nature. If human beings operate under no constraints, save those of physical nature, then it is clear that they can make themselves into anything they want, and there is no obvious reason why one such choice should be better than another. Some of the existentially oriented writers seem to have seen this difficulty and more or less faced up to it. Sartre, for example, explicitly states that there is no such thing as human nature, and that we are free to make of ourselves what we will. The concept of the gratuitous, random act occurs in the writings of Gide, for another example. The concept of free will, I believe, is ultimately nihilistic, and therefore incompatible with any vision of social life, libertarian or otherwise. The point to be made here is that the “third force” has a considerable intellectual indebtedness to the existentialists, and are infected, to that extent, with the existentialists’ nihilism.

The second point of criticism of the third force is that their influence on psychological thinking has, in many ways, been bad. Because of their objections to the peculiar kind of rigor practiced by the behaviorists, they have all too often thrown out the concept of rigor altogether, and placed the highest value on subjectivity. Subjectivity, to be sure, has its place in science as in all other endeavors, but when one rejects the possibility of some kind of objectivity, there is clearly no way of settling disputes, and truth comes to be measured by intensity of conviction, the dangerousness of which, I assume, needs no elaboration. A related point is that the humanistic psychologists have tended to discourage the kind of analytic thinking that has been characteristic of experimental psychology at its best, in favor of what, for want of a better term, could be called synthetic intuitions. The chief point here is that analytical and rigorous thinking is, when all is said and done, a necessity for the life of the mind.

The humanists, as noted above, tend to believe in the natural goodness of man, his great potential for better things, and his freedom to achieve them. This aspect of humanism seems to be taken largely from the philosophy of Rousseau (as do several other aspects of humanism). The difficulty with a point of view of this type is that it tends to lead to Utopian expectations and extreme dissatisfaction with present institutions. Dissatisfaction with present institutions, especially the government, the libertarian would be sure to add, is wholly justified in this age, as in any other that we are aware of, but if all human unhappiness is to be attributed to social institutions, then the justification for violent revolution becomes clear, and the way is opened for all the suffering that this would entail. It is often said that utopianism is a vital part of the human spirit. I can only say that as science fiction or fantasy it is unobjectionable, but as thought, it stinks. Most libertarians, including this one, would favor revolution under some circumstances. However, it is clear to me that I would not support any of the revolutionary movements that seem to have any chance of success today. Ultimately I think the view of Nock and Mencken is a humane one, namely that when men are convinced of the need for liberty, it will be forthcoming with a minimum of bloodshed. This concludes our third point of criticism of humanistic psychology, its encouragement of Utopian thinking.

The last point, that of the humanists’ lack of regard for privacy, can perhaps best be made by an extract from an article in Psychology Today (September, 1969), written by a prominent philosophical psychologist, Sigmund Koch, and entitled, “Psychology cannot be a coherent science.” (I would add that I agree with Koch’s sentiments on humanistic psychology, but not necessarily with the major point of the article). In this article he discusses attending a symposium conducted by a humanistic psychologist, Paul Bindrim, the originator of “nude marathon group therapy”. The extract is as follows:

Bindrim’s methods, for the most part, are the standard devices of group therapy. He was enthusiastic at the symposium, however, about a therapeutic intervention of his own inspired coinage that he calls “crotch eyeballing”. The crotch, he notes, is the focus of many hang-ups. In particular, three classes: (1) aftermath difficulties of toilet training; (2) masturbation guilts; (3) stresses of adult sexuality. Why not blast all this pathology at once! Thus two group members aid in (as Bindrim says) the “spread-eagling” of a third member and the entire company is instructed to stare unrelentingly and for a good long interval at the offending target area. Each group member is given an opportunity to benefit from this refreshing psychic boost. Scientist that he is, Bindrim is unwilling to make a decisive assessment of the benefits until more data are in. But he is encouraged.

Admittedly, Bindrim’s is only one of many approaches in group therapy. But all these methods are based on one fundamental assumption: that total psychic transparency—total self-exposure—has therapeutic and growth-releasing potential . . . Every technique, manipulative gimmick, cherished and wielded by the lovable, shaggy workers in this field is selected for its efficacy to such an end . . .

The human potentialists . . . are saying in effect that a world of private stimulations is unhealthy . . . In no time at all (they) have achieved a conception of human nature so gross as to make behaviorism seem a form of Victorian sentimentality.

Koch, I believe, has made the point about as well as it can be made. It is certainly true that the humanists have concentrated most of their efforts on the development of methods of group therapy, and that the idea of the private person often appears repugnant to them, perhaps even immoral. While I like to look at crotches as well as the next man—indeed my taste for this sort of thing may even exceed the average man’s—it seems ridiculous to me to think that a viewing of “Deep Throat”, for example, is a powerful therapeutic experience. One thing that can be said about nudity is that it is a great equalizer. As the dean of a great university once said about his faculty, “In their underpants you can’t tell them from the students”. If you are a great believer in equality, then, perhaps nudity is the proper form of dress for psychotherapy. A related point is that this need to submerge oneself in the mass that seems to be so characteristic of group therapies would seem to be inconsistent with the kind of differentiation among individuals that libertarians presumably regard as a good thing. Again, the view of human nature that seems to be typical of the “third force” can probably be traced back to Rousseau.

At this point a brief summary would seem to be in order. It appears that much of the inspiration for humanistic psychology can be traced to Existentialism and to Rousseau. Thus, the representatives of the “third force” get into trouble when they discuss the nature of freedom. Their influence on psychology has probably been more bad than good. Their belief in the natural goodness of man is surely untenable, and their emphasis on group therapy and total self-disclosure often seems to disguise a desire to get into situations where no social distinctions are made and one can lose one’s identity in the mass. I would conclude, then, that Sartre and Rousseau are poor models for the libertarian, and that while the third force has made some valid points, the libertarian would be well advised to shop elsewhere for a psychology.

Ed. Note:

Professor Andrews’ welcome article needs, in my view, an important philosophical corrective—one, however, which does not injure the main thrust of his position. The random concept of freedom of the will which he is criticizing is faulty post-Cartesian version. What we need to return to is the classical Aristotelian-Thomist concept of free will as self-determination, and emphasizing the freedom to reason. Particularly welcome is Andrews’ critique of the fashionable and massive invasion of individual privacy in the name of “openness” and “humanism.”

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The laws were most numerous when the State was in a condition of decay.

— Tacitus

Why No Oil Refineries?

One of the most severe indictments of the oil companies in the current crisis is that they have failed to build any new refineries on the East Coast in the last several years. Hence, the oil and gas shortage. On the face of it, this charge is economically ignorant. If there was indeed such a great social demand for new oil refineries, then this demand would have been reflected in high expected profits, and in response the oil companies would have leaped at the chance. The fact that no such onrush took place indicates to the economist that (a) either there was no such demand, or, in this case more likely (b) that the government was right in their doing something to discourage such building.

In early March an event took place which highlights the reasons for the dearth of new refineries. Aristotle Onassis and his Olympic Refineries have been planning to build a new giant $600,000,000 oil refinery on the coast of New Hampshire. Terrific, you say? Surely the good citizens of New Hampshire have welcomed this contribution to aid the energy crisis with open arms and hosannahs? You bet your sweet life they have not. On the contrary, the citizens of New Hampshire have been moving heaven and earth or rather various levels of government—to prohibit the new refinery. And this month various local town governments have voted to ban a new refinery; furthermore, despite the support for the refinery of conservative Governor Meldrin Thomson, the state legislature has voted to endorse the actions of the localities. And so, a giant and productive new refinery on the East Coast will not be built.

What were the objections? The usual environmentalist crazies were at work. Refineries by definition “deface” the unspoiled earth, mar the governmental beaches, and maybe even injure a few plankton while they’re about it. How much longer are we all going to continue to suffer hardship so that the environmentalists can impose their peculiar esthetics on the rest of us by governmental coercion?

And while we’re on the subject of the oil industry, we must alert ourselves to a new, horrendous bill introduced into the Senate by Adlai Stevenson (D., Ill.), and Warren Magnuson (D., Wash.) The Stevenson-Magnuson proposed “Consumer Energy Act of 1974”, reports Human Events (March 16), would do the following:

1) Instead of deregulating natural gas from the clutches of the FPC and thereby end the natural gas shortage in interstate commerce, the bill would extend FPC regulation to cover intrastate commerce as well—thereby effectively killing off the natural gas industry.

2) It would extend the same degree of federal regulation to petroleum as it has to natural gas.

3) It would create a socialistic Federal Oil and Gas Corporation, owned by the federal government, which would locate and develop oil and natural gas.

4) It would give power to the FPC to demand any information it wanted from any oil or gas company, and to make it public at its own discretion. But—and here is the zinger—should any owner, agent, or official of such a company “neglect or refuse” to answer any request made to him by the FPC or any of its agents, he would be liable to criminal penalties of a stiff fine and one to two years of imprisonment!

Hey, Liberals, what happened to the Fifth Amendment? What happened to the constitutional prohibition of self-incrimination? And what happened to the usual mushy-headed Liberal attitude toward punishment of crime? What the Liberal attitude apparently boils down to is this: for murderers, rapists, kidnappers, muggers, and bank robbers, a light slap on the wrist and heaps of “understanding” of their psyches and their environments; for productive citizens who sell above controlled prices or who neglect to answer questions directed at them by meddling bureaucrats, not one whit of “understanding”, and instead escalation of punishment. How about going all the way and restoring the death penalty only for businessmen who fail to answer questions or who sell above controlled prices? For those who think this question purely a facetious reductio ad absurdum, there is all too ample precedent, at least for the punishment meted out to businessmen: Roman Emperor Diocletian, the French Revolution, Chiang kai-Shek, Marshal Ky, and Soviety Russia, which only a few weeks ago executed a dozen people for the “economic crime” of selling in the black market.

How To Deal With Kidnapping

It looks very much as if we are in for a rash of “political” kidnappings, inspired by the evident success of the Symbionese Liberation Army’s kidnapping of Patricia Hearst. If we are not to suffer a reign of terror in this country from groups of thugs, we must nip this “movement” in the bud. Basically, there is only one way to do it, as rigorous and even “hardhearted” as it may seem. And that is for everyone to make up his mind, and to shout it loud and clear well in advance of any such crimes, that no one will collaborate in any way with the kidnappers’ demands: no money, no food to the starving masses, no free publicity, no “negotiations”, no nothing. If potential kidnappers are put on clear warning from the very start that no demands they make will be satisfied by one iota, then kidnappings will cease before they begin, and the lives of their victims and family will not be shattered. In the long-run, this is the least “hardhearted” position to take, in addition to clearly being the only one consonant with justice. Evil and crime must never be rewarded.

But isn’t this too morally rigorous a position to expect parents to take? Isn’t Randolph Hearst’s grovelling before the SLA monsters to be expected? Perhaps. But there is surely no need for anyone else besides the parents involved to follow their lead. If Mr. and Mrs. Hearst were not strong enough to avoid succumbing to the SLA outrage, then all the other collaborators involved should have been. In short, none of the friends, relatives, or business associates of Mr. Hearst should have collaborated one inch in providing the ransom money or food; if they had not done so, then the kidnappers would have learned clearly and emphatically that the failure to achieve their demands was not the fault of the Hearst parents. And certainly all future kidnappers would have gotten the message all the more clearly. Even more morally repellent has been the collaboration of the leftish welfare agencies in supplying the free food, as well as the media in treating the SLA with dignity and respect as some sort of legitimate ideological organization worthy of ever continuing dialogue. What the SLA kidnappers deserve is not dialogue but the business end of a machine gun.

This brings us to the punishment to be meted out to apprehended kidnappers. The U.S. Senate has been sensible and statesmanlike in voting to restore the death penalty for kidnappers who kill their victims. The idea that the death penalty never deters murder is almost self-evident hogwash. The abolition of the death penalty, was philosophic left-sentimentality, as well as juridical nonsense. Philosophically, a person who murders another forfeits his own right to life, on the principle that he who deprives others of rights deserves to lose his in proportion. Juridically, to say that the Constitutional prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishment” prohibits the death penalty flies in the face of the common use of that penalty at the time the Constitution was written, and after it was established. No Founding Father issued a protest of alleged unconstitutionality. The Supreme Court argument that the death penalty is now “unusual” is purely a product of the success of left-wing jurists in recent years in stalling and blocking the use of capital punishment. Allow the death penalty to flow freely in cases of murder and the punishment would soon no longer be “unusual.”

On the other hand, the Senate acted well in not restoring the previous death penalty for kidnapping per se. Not only does such punishment go beyond the rule of proportionality; it also fails to deter the murder of a victim after he or she has been kidnapped. If passed, the present bill will help greatly in bringing the kidnapping era to a close before it gets underway. But more important is a determination by every person and group in society to give no quarter, and to yield to no demand, of any kidnappers.

On this topic, the farcical nature of the “right-wing” kidnapping is an apt commentary on the current political scene. For a short while it looked as if there were a right-wing terrorist group, the “American Revolutionary Army,” dedicated to kidnapping prominent liberals as part of a campaign for a right-wing coup. Yet, in this case, the authorities acted swiftly; the victim was speedily returned to his home and family; the ransom money was promptly recovered; and the existence of the ARA turned out to be a hoax. When will the day arrive when the leftist SLA, which is surely not a hoax, is treated with the same efficiency and dispatch? When will the media treat left-wing bandits with the same revulsion and contempt as they treat their real or alleged right-wing counterparts?

“Our purpose is the abolition, not only of all existing States, but of the State itself . . . And what is the State? It is not a thing that can be especially defined by Russia, Germany, Great Britain, or Massachusetts. The State is a principle, a philosophical error in social existence. The State is chaos, rioting under the guise of law, order, and morality. The State is a mob, posited on unscientific premises. We propose to supplant the mob by that true social order which is pivoted on the sovereignty of individualities associated for mutual well-being under the law of natural attraction and selection—Liberty.”

— Benjamin R. Tucker

“O Freedom, thou queen of Perfection,

Sweet nurse of the brave and the free,

The choice of our heart’s deep election,

We tender devotion to thee!

With Reason thy consort forever.

And Justice the law of thy realm,

Thy kingdom shall perish, O never,

No tyrant thy power shall o’erwhelm!”

— J. William Lloyd

Libertarian Songs—I

No ideological movement has ever gotten anywhere without songs: songs to express their ideology, their joy in the struggle, their hopes and expectations for ultimate victory. And yet the libertarian movement has been singularly unproductive in forging songs of freedom. (Of course, there are precious few songs in general, anymore, and this may have a lot to do with the dearth of songs in the libertarian movement.) At any rate, we hereby begin a series of songs that were composed by members of the old “Circle Bastiat”, the tiny group that virtually constituted the entire New York movement during the dark days of the 1950’s. In the old ideological tradition set by the IWW at the turn of the century, we took standard songs and composed new words to fit the new mood and ideology.

Note A: the hint of megalomania that permeates most of these songs was deliberate. It was of course on one level amusing and ironic for a literal handful of people, in a seemingly hopeless minority, to talk so confidently of imminent victory. On another level, however, it expressed our fond hopes for the future.

Note B: The “Circle” in these songs refers to our little group; in the present context, “movement” would supply the analogous meaning.

The Battle Hymn of Freedom

(sung to the tune of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”)

O’er these murky, troubled waters shines the Circle’s beacon light,

That brilliant guiding beam that draws men daily to the Right,

Oh, its glory is a refuge from the State’s inhuman might,

For Anarchy we fight.

Freedom, freedom, blessed freedom (repeat twice)

For Anarchy we fight.

In that free world of tomorrow which now rushes to the fore;

Man shall bow his noble head to neither gods nor caesars more;

And this shall end forever all the State’s communal lore,

For all shall know the truth.

Upward, upward go black banners (repeat twice)

For all shall know the truth.

Look up there, Circle brothers, see the black banners unfurled;

How they wave in expectation of a new and better world.

The lines are drawn, the ranks are firm, the challenge has been hurled,

The Circle marches on.

Vict’ry, vict’ry lies before us (repeat twice)

The Circle marches on.

All of freedom’s blessed martyrs are here marching by our side,

Ours the spirit, ours the cause for which they smiling bled and died.

With us now they cut the fetters which man’s mind and body tied,

Man will at last be free.

Nothing now will ever stop us (repeat twice)

Man will at last be free.

One by one the States are dying, see the age old monsters fall,

As the world resounds in answer to the Circle’s trumpet call.

We’ll not rest until all States are gone and men are freemen all,

And that day lies at hand.

Onward, onward Circle brothers (repeat twice)

For that day lies at hand.

Libertarian Songs—II

The State

(sung to the tune of “America the Beautiful”)

It’s yours to right the great wrong done

Ten thousand years ago,

The State, conceived in blood and hate,

Remains our only foe.

Oh, Circle brothers, Circle brothers,

Victory is nigh,

Come, meet your fate, destroy the State,

and raise your banners high.

Libertarian Dinner Club

Back in the winter of 1969, in retrospect the origins of the current movement, our publisher helped to organize a series of libertarian dinners in New York, featuring a speaker and social get-together. The dinners were so successful that we moved on to a libertarian conference in the fall, about which the veil of History may be mercifully draped. At any rate, the dinner club idea fell into the discard. Now, inspired by the growth of the New York movement and the successful, continuing Libertarian Supper Club in Los Angeles, young J. Neil Schulman has organized The Libertarian Circle to revive the old dinner series in New York, in a series which will hopefully gather regularly every month.

The first two dinners have already been scheduled, at the Roast Beef and Brew restaurant, Madison Ave. and 79th St., Manhattan. The first dinner will be on Tuesday evening, April 23rd, with Murray Rothbard speaking on the “Next Economic Crisis”; the second dinner will be on Tuesday, May 21st, with Jerome Tuccille speaking on “Libertarianism and the Future”. Price per dinner is $9.95. For information on reservations, write to The Libertarian Circle, 208A Mercer St., New York, N.Y. 10012.

Civil Liberties, Selective Style

How many millions of words have been poured out on behalf of the plight of Soviet Jewry? Surely, countless numbers, especially if we add in the deluge on behalf of Solzhenitsyn and other political prisoners in the Soviet Union. Countless intellectuals, right, left, and center, intellectuals devoted to civil liberties in general as well as those whose devotion seems confined either to Jews or to the inhabitants of the territory east of Leningrad and west of Vladivostok—all these have written, signed full page ads, poured forth their zeal without stint. As well they might.

But it looks very much as if this outpouring and this zeal for civil liberties is curiously selective, even among such staunch civil libertarians as Village Voice columnist Nat Hentoff. For there is one State of all, one State alone whose violations of civil liberties—even of the civil liberties of Jews, if that detail should matter—never call forth any mass deluge of protest. No full page ads attacking its practices appear in the august pages of the New York Times or the Village Voice. The voices of civil libertarians with regard to this State are strangely stilled. We refer, of course, to that “little bastion of democracy” in the Middle East.

Thus, how many words have you read in the Establishment press, the Left press, or the Right press, about two flagrant cases of oppression and political imprisonment recently committed by the State of Israel? Both were against Jewish citizens. One was the case of Uri Davis, well-known Israeli writer and pacifist of long standing. Davis was forced to spend five months in an Israeli prison for the high crime of entering a “military zone” without a government permit. This “military zone” consisted of land which had been expropriated from its Arab owners and then converted by the State of Israel into an all-Jewish settlement from which all Arabs are excluded by law.

And then there is the case of another Jewish citizen of Israel, Rami Linveh. A few months ago Mr. Linveh was sentenced to ten years in prison for the crime of failing to report to the Israeli authorities meeting a Palestinian Arab alleged by the prosecution to be a “foreign agent.”

So: Nat Hentoff, Irving Kristol, Max Lerner, et al., where are those protests?

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There is most wrongdoing where there are most laws.

— Arcesilaus (4th century B. C.)