by David Gordon

Recently by David Gordon: You Call That Austrian?

Developments at the Cato Institute have in recent months taken a surprising turn. After a protracted struggle between Ed Crane, the President of Cato since its inception, and Charles and David Koch, both sides have reached a settlement. John Allison, a highly successful banker, has replaced Crane: he is now President and CEO of Cato, To all of us who care about the future of Rothbardian libertarianism, this appointment should be a matter of grave concern, It signals a new stage in the efforts of Cato to separate itself from its Rothbardian founding principles and to replace these principles with something radically different.

Allison’s appointment at first sight seems difficult to understand. He is not only a follower of Ayn Rand, but a Randian of the strictest observance. In his recent book, The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure, he acknowledges "a deep intellectual debt to Aristotle, Ayn Rand, and Leonard Peikoff." (For many readers, "from the sublime to the ridiculous" will come to mind.) Peikoff is of course the guardian of the flame of Objectivist orthodoxy, ever anxious to expel heretics, such as David Kelley, who displease him. Peikoff is closely associated with the Ayn Rand Institute, and the President of that organization, Yaron Brook, also is close to Allison, He finds Allison’s book to be "the best, deepest, explanation of what caused the crisis and the consequences of our government’s response to it." The website of the Ayn Rand Institute features the book.

Allison is a strict Randian, close to Peikoff and Brook: so what? Why do his views make his appointment difficult to understand? The answer lies in bringing together two facts. The Cato Institute, despite its break with Rothbard, bills itself as a libertarian organization; but the Ayn Rand Institute has for many years bitterly opposed libertarianism. The opposition finds its foremost expression in a pamphlet by Peter Schwartz, "Libertarianism: the Perversion of Liberty." As Randians of the Peikoff faction see matters, libertarians’ defense of the free market counts for little or nothing, in the absence of the proper philosophical foundations. Only Objectivists can consistently defend liberty. Schwartz draws the following conclusion in a shorter essay of 1989, "On Moral Sanctions: "Justice demands moral judgment. It demands that one objectively evaluate Libertarianism, and act in accordance with that evaluation. It demands that one identify Libertarianism as the antithesis of – and therefore as a clear threat to – not merely genuine liberty, but all rational values. And it demands that Libertarianism, like all such threats, be boycotted and condemned."

How then can Allison, a confirmed follower of Peikoff, assume the leadership of a libertarian organization, if to the members of the Peikoff faction no association with libertarians is permissible? The mystery appears to have a ready solution, but this solution will not stand examination. The solution is that the ultra-Randians have changed their views about cooperation with libertarians. In an interview with Jordan Bloom, published on The American Conservative website on October15, 2012, Brook stated that his group was now open to cooperation with libertarians: Allison, it would seem to follow, had not violated Objectivist principles by taking over at Cato. "I [Brook] don’t think there’s been a significant change in terms of our attitude towards libertarians. Two things have happened. We’ve grown, and we’ve gotten to a size where we don’t just do educational programs, we do a lot more outreach and a lot more policy and working with other organizations. I also believe the libertarian movement has changed. It’s become less influenced by Rothbard, less influenced by the anarchist, crazy for lack of a better word, wing of libertarianism. As a consequence, because we’re bigger and doing more things and because libertarianism has become more reasonable, we are doing more work with them than we have in the past. But I don’t think ideologically anything of substance has changed at the Institute."

I do not think Brook is right that libertarians today are less influenced by Rothbard than they were in years past: does Brook’s devotion to Peikoff occlude from his vision the popularity among libertarians of the Ron Paul movement, heavily influenced by Rothbard? But suppose that he were right. It would still be the case that for Objectivists, even libertarians who renounce Rothbard and anarchism would not count as defenders of freedom unless their defense rested on a proper philosophical foundation. And we all know what that is. How then can Brook on his own principles support cooperation with libertarians?

One suggestion is that Brook has abandoned the view expressed so portentously by the blowhard Schwartz, but this hardly seems likely. Indeed, in a Podcast with Leonard Peikoff, which appeared on October 22, Brook reverted to the older position: "Even though it [libertarianism] might have initially been adopted innocently by certain people who were advocates of free markets, it was very quickly, in the 1960's and 70's co-opted by the anarchists and by the complete philosophic subjectivists. And they dominated the movements throughout that period of time.

Even though I believe that today the libertarian movement is fragmented, it's disintegrating. It is tragic that many people are still using the term, and not letting the term kind of pass with the passing of the guy who really led this movement – Murray Rothbard. When he passed, the whole concept should have passed with him." Brook’s comments are available on Robert Wenzel’s Economic Policy Journal website.

How is the discrepancy between Brook’s statements to be resolved? Has Brook abandoned the Law of Identity and embraced contradiction? I do not think so. The paradox is not genuine. Brook retains his former contempt for philosophically rootless libertarians; but, with the accession of Allison, he grasps new possibilities. Cato controls a substantial amount of money. If its resources could be used to promote Objectivism, would it not be worth it for Brook and his cohorts temporarily to suspend their reluctance to associate with libertarians? The situation would become all the more promising if, in addition, the Ayn Rand Institute had in prospect patronage from the billionaire Koch brothers. Allison’s appointment to head Cato took place at their behest, and Charles Koch says that Allison’s book "should be required reading for all future business leaders."

I have not conjured out of thin air the suggestion that the Ayn Rand Institute has in mind taking over Cato to promote their rigid and intolerant style of Objectivism. After Allison accepted the presidency of Cato, many Objectivists wondered whether he had acted in a way consistent with their creed. In a meeting held at an Ayn Rand Institute conference held in San Diego in late June and early July, Allison and Brook sought to reassure their restive followers. No transcript of Allison’s remarks is available; but according to one account, Allison stated his intention to move Cato in an Objectivist direction; in fact, Brook urged him to accept the appointment. He is alleged to have said that "those disrespectful of Rand will change their attitude or find other employment." He intends to groom an Objectivist successor and looked to the challenge of reforming Cato’s foreign policy position. (My account of Allison’s statement is taken from here.) Whether this accurately represents Allison’s remarks on that occasion, I am unable to say; but even if it is erroneous, it is clear that Allison and Brook remain on good terms. Given their devotion to Rand, it stands to reason that they would use the new opportunity in the manner that I have suggested.

If the Ayn Rand Institute Objectivists did substantially increase their influence at Cato, why should Rothbardians care? Foreign policy presents the main problem. When Cato was founded, it adhered to Rothbard’s principled defense of nonintervention. Indeed, Cato published in 1980 a pamphlet by the most famous revisionist historian and publicist, Harry Elmer Barnes, Revisionism: A Key to Peace and other Essays. Cato has long since stopped circulating this pamphlet, but no one who read it could doubt Cato’s embrace at the time of its publication of "isolationism."

After Cato and Rothbard parted ways, Cato abandoned a fully consistent position on foreign policy. In general, its publications continued to favor nonintervention. Sometimes, though, they did not. Ted Galen Carpenter, e.g., though an effective critic of the Iraq War, urged that we pursue with greater militancy the struggle against al Qaeda’s terrorism in Pakistan and elsewhere. (See his Smart Power [Cato, 2008] and my review in The Mises Review.)

Alison and Brook see foreign policy in an altogether different fashion from Rothbard, though at first this is hard to discern. They both say that they favor only defensive wars. The neoconservative efforts to extend democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan in order to spread there the blessings of democracy reflect a misguided altruism that no right thinking Randian ethical egoist could accept. With a proper defensive orientation, could we not cut our bloated defense budget? Allison says in his book, "It is clear that the defense budget of the United States could be cut at least 25 (and probably 50) percent while making the United States better defended than it is today."

What Rothbardian could object to any of this? Unfortunately, first appearances are once again deceptive. Allison and Brook’s notion of defense is, shall we say, a somewhat extended one. It transpires that we must withdraw from our "altruistic" interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan in order the better to confront genuine threats, such as North Korea, Iran, and "Islamic terrorism." Brook, while in the Israeli Army, served for three years as a sergeant in Israeli Military Intelligence, and one can be sure that he will urge Cato to favor Israel’s interests in the Middle East. Beneath the rhetoric of defense that Allison and Brook adopt lies a highly militant and aggressive foreign policy.

More generally, one can only view with misgiving the increased influence at a prominent libertarian organization of Objectivism in the style of Peikoff. I write not as someone who thinks poorly of Ayn Rand: to the contrary, she was an insightful and original thinker. But the rigid ideological framework of Peikoff and his allies has little to be said for it. Only those who accept their system, they say, count as true defenders of liberty. Those who do not are libertines, relativists, and subjectivists. This dogmatism stands in sharp contrast to the often expressed position of Murray Rothbard that libertarianism is a political philosophy, not a comprehensive worldview. People of diverse philosophical positions count fully as libertarians, so long as they accept its political tenets. Will the Randian accession to power at Cato drive from the field whatever tolerance for diverse philosophies and noninterventionist foreign policy that remains there, to be replaced by kowtows to Peikoff and war on Islamic terrorism? Time will tell.

Copyright © 2012 by the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided full credit is given.

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