In Pursuit of Happiness; R. Foley, Jr.

straints".2 Although it requires greater effort to defend human liberty, the· abstract concept of a human actor unfettered by other persons in seeking his particular destiny can be assimilated by most thinkers. The third part of the trilogy -the· pursuit of happiness - poses the greatest conceptual Mr. Foley, a partner in Souther, Spaulding, Kinsey, Williamson & Schwabe, practices law in Portland, Oregon. problems, yet analysis reveals it to inhabit an equally fundamental and interrelated station with the first two parts of the trinity. In deed, as. this essay explores the issue, the "pursuit of happiness" serves to illuminate the basic meaning of freedom. In many a Iitany of personal rights, one observes the triumvi rate of "life, liberty and prop erty" .3 Surely, the concept of "property rights" ranks among the foremost of misunderstood and maligned tenets. Does "property" in this sense equate with the "pur suit of happiness"? Correctly un derstood, the term "pursuit of happiness" explains the full mean ing of property rig1hts.

Property A part of the confusion and am bivalence normally attendant upon a study of property rights evolves from the failure to realize that the 365 366 THE FREEMAN June phrase contains two words, and that meaning must attach to both "property" and "rights" in ord,er to clarify the speaker/writer's postulate. Traditionally, we attribute to property a definition related to things, corporeal or incorporeal objects ,existing in the real world: (1) land (real property), or (2) livestock/ goods (personal proper ty). Yet, such a simplistic defini tion unduly limits adequate com prehension of the nature of man, his rights and his liberties. Prop erty describes objects, to he sure, but property rights concern the re lationship of an individual to things in the universe. Property itself possesses no rights: can one really impute rights to a home stead, or a blossom, or an auto mobile? By definition, a right con sists of a pre-eminent claim of one human being to a certain state of affairs in contrast to other human beings; thus, nonhuman objects cannot possess rights by the very terms employed. 4 The Concept of Property Rights presupposes a concept of value. 5 Value refers to a subJective indi vidual internal scale of preferences between alternatives. Human ac tion forms a fundamental reality: man acts; he chooses between al ternatives;6 he rests his choices upon (a) his perception of reality and (b) his subjective value judgments or individual scale of pref erences. James Madison, a diminu tive man with a magnificent in sight, touched upon this thought shortly after the birth of the Re public: This term [property], in its partic ular application, means "that domin ion which one man claims and exer cises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other in dividual."

In its larger and juster meaning, it embraces everything to which a man may attach a value and have a right, and which leaves to everyone else the like advantage. In the former sense, a man's land, or merchandise, or money, is called his property. In the latter sense, a man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them. 7 Thus myopia produces a view of property as visible things in the outside world; truth reveals prop erty inherent in ideas, concepts and things of the mind. The laws concerning copyright, trademarks, and trade names rest upon this tacit knowledge. Property Rights Once we understand the breadth and scope of property, it remains imperative to examine the other half of the equation, the concept of property rights. To merely state that property 1976 IN PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS 367 rights refer to the relationship of an individual to a res or an idea vis-a-vis other human actors offers scant insight into· the salient na ture of the doctrine under exami nation. Incisive inquiry demands evaluation of the depth and sweep of the relationship. Generations of law students learned to visualize rights in property as a bundle of sticks, with each succeeding con veyance, transfer or limitation de pleting the original bundle by one or more branches. A California Superior Court judge aptly point ed out the two broad aspects of property rights when he noted the attributes of dominion and exclu sions• A mighty skinny package of limbs remains if one's dominion over an automobile, a book, or some acreage does not countenance the legalexc1usion of other men from its bounds and borders. Like wise, the transitory "right" to ex clude one or more individuals from a given object means little if the party performing the exclusion possesses no personal right to en joyment of the thing in question.

In the broad sense, property rights refer to the legally-sanctioned power of an individual to possess, use, own and exclusively enjoy the res or idea under discussion. 9 Rights represent absolute power to seek an end. The concept of rights cannot tolerate an erosion without destruction of the concept per see In this sense" rights which flow from nature, or the universal truth, or reality, must be perceived as absolute. A right which exists in fantasy, or ephemerally, or at the whim of some other actor, does not deserve the appellation. Consider these strict normative statements in the ambience of property rights. Suppose A owns Blackacre: we commonly announce that he possesses a property right therein. The meaning: A can ex clude all trespassers from Black acre; he can employ it to grow crops or to feed cattle; he can allow it to deteriorate into wrack and ruin, if that be his pleasure; he can open it to the world, or he can bar all others and live in the splendid seclusion of a hermit.

Suppose, however, Blackacre ex ists 'in Jefferson, a state which en gages a planner and embarks upon the device of land-use control and zoning. In so doing, Jefferson (the collective force of mankind as sembled in Jefferson) restricts the permissible uses to which A may put Blackacre. It becomes a con tradiction in terms to speak of A's property rights in Blackacre: A's "rights," now mere illusions, de pend upon the whimsey of others. 10 One might urge, quite reason ably, that restriction of a single aspect of one's rights in property leaves the remainder unsullied: in the foregoing example, Jefferson's 368 THE FREEMAN June zoning ordinance might merely prohibit A from raising sugar beets on his land or from con structing an edifice more than three stories high; all other sticks in A's bundle of rights regarding Blackacre would remain extant. This argument ignores two inter related factors: (a) the concept of fundamentals and (b) the idea of precedent. If property repre sents a right, it must remain un trammeled, secure in its entirety, else it fails to meet the definition of "right". The concept, as well as the definition, represent a funda mental, inalterable principle and, as the late Dr. F. A. Harper made manifest, fundamental principles can be breached but not compro mised. ll Again, contemplate the effect of pr'ecedent, the human tendency to look over one's shoulder and to pattern current conduct upon past action. Our land-use example serves us well in this endeavor, for land-use planning, commenced as simple "agreeable" zoning ordi nances overtly designed to "keep out harmful and obnoxious indus tries", developed into a hydra headed monster encompassing comprehensive plans which detail and manage the every individual action of a community, county, state or region. Refer to A and his Blackacre; if we grant Jefferson the power to take a single twig from A's bundle of rights, we set a dangerous intellectual and prac tical precedent for future incur sions into private rights; each sub sequent norm, grandly cast in elo quent language, designed to pro mote some hallucination labeled "public interest", and calculated to further the aims and ambitions of greedy, avaricious men holding power, feeds upon each past inva sion asa justification for further destruction of human rights.

The Dimension of Property Rights Unbounded Dominion The ahsolute nature of property rights discloses the salient truth that the individual human actor should possess unbounded domin ion and exclusive control over property which he owns. Correct comprehension of this hypothesis compels consideration of three re lated issues which should serve to illuminate the basic precept. First, some analysts suggest a rule resembling the following: each individual should enjoy a right to life, liberty and property without restriction save that he grant an equal, reciprocal right to every other human being and not employ his property in an aggres sive or deceitful manner. Properly understood, this explanation reit erates the former statement. The mere fact that one uses his prop erty as a fraudulent or aggressive 1976 IN PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS 369 implem,ent does not necessarily destroy his relation to that prop erty. Property does not defraud or maim : human actors do. Hope fully, civilization ha,s advanced be yond Anglo-Saxon times of the "bot" and "wergelt" where injured persons wre'aked vengeance upon dumb beasts and inanimate ob jectswhich "caused" ha:r;m. If an individual fires a pistol and in jures another, the proper remedy lies not in destroying the gun man's relationship to his weapon or the pistol itself, but rather in restricting his liberty as a means of societal protection and individ ual restitution. True, some sys tems of justice employ fines and penalties as a means of accom plishing retributive 'ends, thus forcibly altering human relation ships to property; in this sense alone, the second definition may modify the former.

Second, the rule must be under stood as containing an implied caveat that normative regulations pertain to living human actors, in the main. L.egal philosophers have endured a long struggle over the issue of whether, and to what ex tent, a decedent mayor should control the distribution of prop erty. Statutes of Mortmain, the rule against perpetuities, and re straints upon testamentary aliena tion all express the human interest of removing the dead hand (Mortmain) from property which the survivors believe should belong to, and serve, the living. Testators, donors, . and their counsel have proved similarly artful in circum venting some, if not all, of these restrictions by use of trusts, char itable gifts, nonprofit corporations, foundations and other artificial entities which extend beyond the normal human life span. Propo nents of freedom should opt for the maximum donative liberty to possessors of property and should decry attempts to impair the transmittal of goods and ideas ac cording to the owner's quirks and values.

Third, the concept of property must envision contractual freedom upon the part of the living posses sor wholly consonant with the rec ognized power of the testator to bequeath or transfer possessions on his demise. The postulate of un fettered dominion and unqualified authority to exclude others neces sarily demands recognition of the guaranty to every man that he may give, sell, transfer, maintain, keep or destroy his property as he sees fit so long as he does not thereby harm another person en joying a concomitant right. The free society, in final analysis, rests upon the cornerstone of contract, the voluntary and unimpeded transfer and holding of ideas, goods and services. 12 370 THE FREEMAN June The Meaning of Property Property represents created val ue. Meaninglessness mars any ref erence to "property" possessing no value to any individua1. Each hu man being ,evaluates tangible and intangible things upon his scale of preferences and acquires that up on which he places a subjective priority. Two attributes particu larly distinguish man from other inhabitants of the earth: (1) the concept of moral choice, and (2) his power to create and assess value in objects.

Material things evince no prop erty value apart from their rela tionship to one or more men. One cannot meaningfully say that a tree in a pre-human epoch pos sessed a value, or that some later resident of the earth enj oyed a property right in its now-nonex istent trunk, bark or roots. OJ} ex isted in one form or another under the Arabian desert from pre-Cam brian times,' yet it took on signifi cance only with the advent of the modern industrial culture; prior to that event, man did not seek it; subsequent to that occasion, man (or some men) accorded it a place of value in the scheme of things. Yet man's ability to assess value - to evaluate or judge the worth of things or concepts - cannot be divorced from his correlative at tribute, the creation of value. Oil in Saudi Arabia represents no real value to a citizen of Nebraska or Norway without the application of human effort and ingenuity to ex tract, refine, transport, and de liver a usable and useful product to one who wishes to exchange something he has acquired or cre ated for the product. Application of human abilities creates the val ue attached to property.

Man can acquire property by two discrete and disparate means: (1) he can create it directly by his own efforts, or indirectly by creat ing something of value to another person and trading with the other, or (2) he can annex it by coercive and agressive means. In simple language, man procures property rights by creative or by aggressive effort. No matter the mode of ac quisition, property must be cre ated by someone and valued by someone in order to fit the defini tion. Indivisible Rights: Life, Liberty and Property The draftsmen of the Declara tion of Independence and the United States Constitution, like their philosophical predecessors such as John Locke, proclaimed the triumvirate of natural human rights - to life, liberty, and prop erty - as if they formed three dis continuous virtues separated by both conceptual and actual bar riers. In fact and in essence, the 1976 IN PURSUIT OF' HAPPINESS 371 "natural rights" of life, liberty and property present different as pects of the same facade, as though one viewed the identical building from three different angles.

Recur to fundamentals. Every individual possesses a right to live his life unmolested by others so long as he works no force or fraud upon his neighbors, a right to chart his destiny by the particular stars he perceives. 13 Grant this premise and the corollaries dis cussed in this tract fall naturally and inevitably in place. From this fundamental axiom derives the right of each individual to free action, to liberty, since one cannot seek his own subjective ends if other men plot constraints which reduce or eliminate the full sweep of the actor's choice or pre-deter mine his ends. 14 Life mea!ns life lived to its fullest, given the per son's nature and ahility, untar nished by the forceful actions of others. Living without liberty of fers a poor excuse for :life. In like manner, the same fundamental premise begets a right in each man to retain or transfer, on his own terms, that which he creates or produces, "property rights" in the argot, since no one can be mean ingfully free to live his life in quest of his goals if he 'cannot em ploy, enjoy, barter, donate or dev astate that which he has created.

One must not tolerate any limitation on this basiic postulate uu der the guise of state interest or public purpose, else the errors of miscomprehension of fundamentals and undesirable precedent, noted hefore, will 'ineluctably sully the integrity of the solemn doctrine. An advocate might disdain ,the power-nee-right to destroy created value, urging that the "world de serves a masterpiece" or some such tomfoolery. Neither the world at large nor any human being there in can morally stake a claim to that which another has produced. Recall the subjective nature of value and ask whether one could morally condemn Enrico Fermi if he had destroyed his notes and re fused to disclose his findings which led to nuclear detonation: would "the world" be better served with or without his research? The right to property necessarily includes the right to use and dispose of those goods, services a!nd ideas as the possessor sees fit.

This identity of rights under scores the fallacy inherent in the phrase that "human rights deserve a transcendent station when com pared to property rights". Human rights are property rights, and property rights are human rights. 15 All other rights hecome worthless if the state or some in dividual or group of men possess an uncontrollable and pre-emptive power over the property of the 372 THE FREEMAN June owner .16 Property rights mean the rights of a human actor to domin ion and exclusive control over ideas or objects vis-a-v'isother men and women: no more fundamental "human" right exists than the right to use and control things and thoughts so as to manage one's life and follow one's star. Freedom of speech appears spurious where the government prohibits private ownership of all placards, sound trucks, and meeting hans; freedom of press deteriorates into an emp ty semantic exercise where the state monopolizes newsprint and printing presses; anti-loitering laws can nullify a proclaimed free- .

dom of association. 17 Edmund Opitz has put the matter precisely ~ and succinctly from a slightly dif ferent perspective: Despotism does not merely seek to control the external conduct of men; it knows that men may conform ex ternally even while swallowing the revulsion that seethes beneath the surface. Despotism, therefore, must seek to control men's ideas and their thoughts. Once this is accomplished, then each inner-directed man will control his own conduct willy-nilly in accord with the planner's blueprint.l 8 Property control thus wends its inevitable tracks to thought con trol, and thence to personal con trol. Civil liberty and a right to life cannot exist, then, in the absence of an unabridged right to prop erty, for one cannot be truly rec ognized as the skipper of his own Hfe when he must exist at the whim and caprice of others. 19 Yet another facet of the truth of. in divisibility remains to be explored: the necessary interrelationship of human freedom between several individuals. In a word, my free dom depends on yours, and my property rights exist only so long as yours remain inviolate. 20 The invasion of a person's property, for whatever professed reason, de stroys the fundamental inviolabil ity of property generally and af fords a pragmatic precedent for future coercive action.

Dean Russell aptly sums up the case for the indivisibility of lib erty: Freedom is based on ownership. If it is possible for a person to own laI;ld and machines and buildings, it is also possible for him to have freedom of press, speech, and religion. But if it is impossible for a person to buy and sell land and other resources, then it is also impossible for him to have peaceful access to any effective means of disagreeing with the decision of his government. Thus my contention is that, in the final analysis, human free dom stands or falls with the market" economy of private ownership of the means of production and distribu tion.21 1976 IN PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS 373 And Nobel Prize winner, Fried rich A. von Hayek, adds a salient postscript: What our generation has forgotten is that the system of private property is the most important guaranty of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not. 22 The Pursuit 01 Happiness Return now to the resonant Jef fersonian phrase - the pursuit of happiness - and observe how neat ly it fits with the philosophy of freedom and individual property rights discussed.

Ask first: What is happiness? No universal response obtains save in the form of tautology, and with good reason, for happiness de pends solely upon the subjective values of each unique human crea ture. For one it may be lolling on the gentle beaches, for another working on a composition, for a third praising God, for yet an other basking in the ownership of material things. Each person cre ates his own happiness or melan choly according to his character and that ever-present internal scale of preferences and choices between alterna tives. Property may afford the means of achieving hap piness, just as it may constitute the condition itself. Note secondarily, the intentional employment of the term "pursuit". Noone can, or should attempt to, guarantee a happy issue out of the afflictions of this world. Cor relative with man's frailties and finite nature lies the undeniable realization that things do go wrong, that plans come a cropper, that friendships go awry. Law, properly utilized in accordance with the philosophy of freedom, can only guarantee man the liberty to seek happiness, whatever his goals, so long as he does not trample upon the equivalent rights of others.

Accordingly, the phrase "life, liberty and the pursuit of happi ness" truly affords mankind the opportunity to live each solitary life apart from the external bars and restraints imposed by other men, to create and distribute value in the manner and mode which harmonizes with the crea tive tal ents and purposes, and to pursue those values which carry meaning to the unique being holding the particular concept of worth. Thus, the multifaceted language revolves about a single truth: Man lives better and more nearly achieves his potential if other men leave him unhindered. When Worlds Col/ide It remains to discuss the har mony of human values and to con sider the adj ustment of conflicts 374 THE FREEMAN June resulting from competing human drives. Initially, the collision of rights is more apparent than rea1.23 Proper analysis normally defines away the problem. 24 Consider the current miasma of land-use con trol. The advocates envision plan ning and zoning as a means to secure a pleasant environment for the citizenry, away from dust and fumes and ugly edifices. Such a reasonable desire, until viewed under the microscope of rigorous analysis. Remember the salient and valid proposition that property values, like all values, are subjec tive: what is good or beautiful or desirable depends wholly upon the intricacies of the individual per ceiver. If each of us conjured up the form of the perfect "lot" and committed our concepts accurately to paper, ,a comparison would re veal no concatenation of forms: each one of us would provide a dif ferent perception of the idea. 25 Application of these fundamen tals to the present question of land-use planning reveals that each and every 'instance of land-use planning and zoning, no matter how phrased, devolves to one sim ple proposition: one or more peo ple who do not own specific land enjoy control of the political ap paratus which can be employed to require other people to use (or not to use) thejr earned value (land, in this instance) in some manner not desired by the owners. In short, one person or group imposes their subjective values of appro priate land use upon other persons possessjng differing subjective values. One man's green belt amounts to another man's eyesore.

Behind the pretty mask of "public interest" may lurk pure, unfet tered dictatorship. As to the ulti mate justification - "public inter est" - the public has no "interest"; groups of individuals have inter ests. The platitude of "public inter est" merely cloa.ks the reali ty of forceful deprivation of rights by those enjoying political power against those lacking such regency. Favor the Individual Sjmply stated, where a man's rights are threatened, especially by government action, this country should strike the halance in favor of individual control of 'individual action according to individual values. In the further instance where an immediate solution to conflict does not seem readily apparent, disputes may be adjudicated in ac cordance with principles of free dom and sans irrational depriva tion of property. The solution rests with the ,amazing elasticity of the common law, that ancient device of putting seemingly insolvable interpersonal rifts to an impartial 1976 IN PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS 375 judge and community jury for de eision. In the - past, the common law ofttimes resided upon basic common sense occasionally flavored with statist aberrations. The pas sage of time has accentuated the latter ingredient.

A free society demands a rec ognized mechanism for decision making as well ,as an -accepted body of rules for finally conclud ing squabbles. Men committed to freedom can simply design both institutional character and narra tive content by reflecting upon the definition, pr·ocesses and issues of liberty. The law of riparian rights or prior appropriation, aptly mod ified to reflect the fundamentals of freedom, can safely, swiftly and securely protect an abutting owner from one who pollutes a stream, just as the ancient rules of tres pass and nuisance, garbed in mod ern dress, can ev.aluate and settle altercations between adjoining property owners when, for ex ample, noise, fumes, particulates or soot waft from Blackacre to Whi teacre. 26 Respect for free choice and ad herence to the concept that each man should be accorded the right to live his life unrepressed by other men or their external ham strings so long as he does not initiate aggression or fraud against another must undergird any system of common law.

Achievement of such a-structure w-iIllay the foundation for the pur suit of happiness envisioned by the founding fathers. I • FOOTNOTES. 1 Declaration of Independence of the United States of America. ~ lowe recurrent gratitude to Leonard Read for this succinct, penetrating and happy phrase. See Read, Leonard E., "Justice versus Social Justice", Who's Listening? (The Foundation for Eco nomic Education, Inc., Irvington-on Hudson, New York 1973) 93, et seq. ;~ E.g~, Constitution of the United States, Amendments V, XIV. -l: Poirot, Paul L., "Property Rights and Human Rights", 2 Essays on Liberty 79 (1954). See Bayes, William W., "What is Property?" 20 Freeman (No.7) 392, 394 (,July 1970). G See Foley, Ridgway K., Jr., "The Concept of Value in Ethics and Eco nomics", 25 Freeman (No.2) 115-123 (February 1975). G See Foley, Ridgway K., Jr., "Choice or Chains", 2.4 Freeman (No.4) 199-204 (April 1974).

7 Madison, James, IV Works of Madi son 478-480 (March 27, 1792); reprinted in 22 Freeman (No.4) 248-250 (April 1971). See also Bayes, Note 4, op. cit.; at 347. 8 Palmer, William J., "Prophets, Jur ists, and Property", 17 Freeman (No.2) 92, 100 (February 1967). !) Bayes, Note 4, op. cit., 20 Freeman at 393. 10 Palmer, Note 8, op. cit., 17 Freeman at 95. 11 Harper, F. A., "Morals and Lib erty", 21 Freeman (No.7) 426,430 (July 1971) . 12 The doctrine and theory of contrac tual rights and obligations in a free so ciety deserves separate and thoughtful analysis, beyond the scope of this trea tise. 1i{ A more ample development of this 376 THE FREEMAN June theme appears in Foley, Ridgway K., Jr., "A Libertarian Looks at Life" (unpub lished manuscript). 14 See Foley, Ridgway K., Jr., "The Rationale for Liberty", 23 Freeman (No. 4) 222-229 (April 1973). 15 A thorough explanation of this truth, and a clear exposition of the hu man rights/property rights false dichot omy, appears in Rothbard, Murray N., "Human Rights are Property Rights", 6 Essays on Liberty 315 (Foundation For Economic Education, Inc., Irvington-on Hudson, New York 1959); Poirot, Paul L., "Property Rights and Human ,Rights", supra, 2 Essays on Liberty 79 (Founda tion for Economic Education, Inc., Irv ington-on-Hudson, New York 1954); Rothbard, Murray N., For a New Liberty (The Macmillan Company, New York, 1973) 43-46.

16 Palmer, Note 8, op. cit. p. 101; Home v. Los Angeles County Flood Control Dis trict, 25 Cal2d 384, 153 P2d 950 (1944). 17 For more detailed excursions into these subjects, see, e.g., Summers, Brian, "Economics and the Press", 23 Freeman (No.9) 564-565 (Sept. 1973); Barger, Melvin D., "Let the People Own the Airwaves", 10 Essays on Liberty 283 (Foundation for Economic Education, Inc., 1963); Russell, Dean, "Freedom of the Press", 12 Essays on Liberty. 404 (Foundation for Economic Education, Inc., 1965) . 18 Opitz, Edmund A., "Some Thoughts on Censorship", 16 Freeman (No.6) 56, 57 (June 1966). 19 Palmer, Note 8, op. cit. p. 95. :!O See Foley, Ridgway K., Jr., "The Texture of Society" (unpublished manu script); see also Bayes, Note 4, op. cit. at 398-400. 21 Russell, Note 17, op. cit. at 490. See also, Russell, Dean, "Freedom Follows the Free Market" 10 Essays on Liberty 198, 200-201 (Foundation for Economic Education, Inc., Irvington-on-Hudson, N. Y. 1963) and Russell, Dean, "Basis of Liberty", 12 Freeman (No.7) 9 (July 1962).

22 Hayek, Friedrich A. von, The Road to Serfdom (University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1964) 103-104. Of course, cor rectly viewed, no one\exists without prop erty, for each of us possesses his own mind and creates his own value, however sligh t in the eyes of others. ~3 For a full discussion, see Foley, Ridgway K., Jr., "The Chimera of Rights in Collusion" (unpublished manuscript). 24 See Rothbard, For a New Liberty, note 15, op. cit. . 25 Rogge, Benjamin A., "No New Urban Jerusalem," 3 Imprimis (No.9) 1 (September 1974). 26 I do not propose to lengthen this essay unduly by development of this topic which, after all, deserves definitive_ and separate treatment. I have viewed one of several aspects of the question in the essay cited at Note 23, op. cit. IDEAS ON $ LIBERTY The Guaranteed Life WHATEVER the motives behind a government-dominated economy, it can have but one result, a loss of individual liberty in thought, speech and action. A guaranteed life is not free.

A free man has a value to himself and perhaps to his time; a ward of the state is useless to himself - useful only as so many foot-pounds of energy serving those who manage to set themselves above him. The guaranteed life turns out to be not only not free - it's not safe. MAXWELL ANDERSON A REVIEWER'S NOTEBOOK W. H. HUTT is a paradox. He is a man of extremely clear vision, but he is a most difficult writer. His Individual Freedom, which con sists of selected es,says edited by Svetozar Pejovich and David Klingaman (Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut, $15.95) , presents the case for classical lib eralism in an unchallengeable way: the parts all fall into place to make for a most consistent whole. But it is a struggle to deal with such ob servations as "the :entrenchment of the non-discriminatory princi ple would undoubtedly precipitate an enormous disinvestment of the capital invested in what' the au thors call 'organization aimed at securing differential gains by po litical means'." What he i,s saying is that if governments were to stop favoring special interests, money would flow into areas that JOHN CHAMBERLAIN FREEDOM would be the most productive for society as a whole. It is all clear enough, but you have to work at translating technical language, sometimes for pages on end.