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What Should We Do?
Over
the time I’ve been writing articles for LewRockwell.com I’ve
received dozens of emails from somewhat frustrated readers that
said things like, "You’ve diagnosed the trouble, but what do
you recommend we do?" To cite the most recent case,
in response to my Screwtape Letters-styled piece
a couple of weeks back, P.D. writes, "there is one thing [your]
articles beg, and that is an answer to the question, in light of
all of this, what is one to do? You’ve written a lot of words on
the problem, I’d be curious what solutions you pose…. My question
is simple, what is the best way to return to freedom and the constitution
and limited (rather than unlimited) government…?"
The
question is humbling. I’ve wrestled with it the whole time I’ve
been writing about liberty. It long predates my involvement with
LewRockwell.com. As a member of the Midlands Libertarian
Party based here in Columbia in the early to middle 1990s, we often
debated what we should be doing. When all was said and done I had
to agree with a sardonic remark by Ziggy, the comic strip character
created by Tom Wilson, that "when all is said and done, there
is a lot more said than there is done." One of our members
angrily left the group telling us, "When you are ready to do
something, call me!" To his credit, this fellow had
been a fixture at the South Carolina State House and had a reputation
for badgering politicians with questions they did not want to answer.
He passed away later in the decade, and while the politicians probably
don’t miss him, he is definitely missed by South Carolina’s libertarians.
But
however colorful this background might be, it doesn’t answer the
question the reader posed.
It’s
a dilemma. On the one hand, I’ve long advocated different groups
pool their resources and work together: libertarians, Christian
groups, pro-South groups, etc. While there are obvious differences
of opinion among these (for example, many libertarians including
people I consider allies on almost every other point are fixated
on the idea that to be a "real" libertarian you have to
be an atheist, as was Ayn Rand), there is also common ground. Taking
up that common ground and defining its premises, one finds commitments
to individual natural rights, limits on the powers of government,
personal responsibility, the need to deal with other individuals
and peoples peacefully, and so on. These are all powerful rallying
points against collectivism, statism, welfare dependency, political
correctness, unlimited government and the ideology of total-war.
But
on the other hand, a successful umbrella movement taking up the
case for liberty against statism could fall into a hidden trap.
The larger movements grow, the greater the temptation to adopt hierarchical
and bureaucratic models of organization. Then the leadership becomes
less responsive to those at the grass roots level who then lose
interest and go their separate ways. First thing you know, you are
right back where you started. I have come to doubt that a large-scale
big-tent libertarian movement would work. Libertarianism just isn’t
that kind of a political philosophy. If libertarians tried to force
it to work, they would find they had become de facto statists!
So
what can we do? The answer lies with enumerating actions individuals
can take. First, as I often tell readers, we didn’t get into our
present predicament overnight, and we are not going to get out of
it overnight. The strategies most likely to work involve various
forms of personal economic, cultural and educational secession easing
one’s way out from under the currently dominant political structures
and their influence on one’s thought and life. Some of these strategies
will be relatively easy for some to pursue; others will be much,
much harder, depending on one’s background and personal inclinations.
It is fortunate that we do not need to be doing all the same things.
There is a natural division of labor within the freedom movement.
I write articles (I am also revising a book manuscript and working
on a novel). Not everyone is a writer. Writing is a solitary business,
and that alone would drive some people up the wall. Maybe these
other people are better organizers of people than I am (I sometimes
sardonically tell people that I cannot organize my desk). Still
others are natural-born entrepreneurs who have a knack for seeing
unfilled needs. Most of us have some combination of these, with
one trait or the other dominant.
Likewise,
there are organizations one can join, or support with donations.
The Ludwig von Mises Institute
is the obvious example; there is also the Center
for Libertarian Studies, and there are numerous state and local
libertarian organizations. Research institutes do a lot of educational
and outreach work, including regular seminars and conferences such
as the upcoming Mises
University at the Mises Institute next month. Other libertarian
organizations are hosting other conferences, such as Freedom
Summit 2003, coming this October in Phoenix, Ariz. So there
is actually a lot of activity occurring. We should be grateful that
today we have the Internet and the World Wide Web. Obviously, the
people who originally founded our republic did not. The people who
kept libertarian ideas alive, decade after decade, as the state
expanded its power did not. Electronic media comprise a formidable
weapon. They are inherently decentralized, and decentralizing. More
and more people are logging on and reading online commentary sites
such as LewRockwell.com. "Mainstream" print media,
rocked with scandals such as the Jayson Blair fiasco and countless
others, are very slowly losing credibility. So are the "mainstream"
universities, with their promotion of obvious political agendas
ahead of real scholarship and pedagogy.
Yet
we are not out of the woods by a long shot, not with the Patriot
Act still on the books and even worse legislation circulating in
Congress (e.g., Patriot II, the Domestic Security Enhancement Act
of 2003). But as just
revealed by Ron Paul’s office, the Patriot Act is facing opposition
from the inside. That means there is hope. For us out here in the
real world beyond the confines of Rome on the Potomac, what counts
is individual action, and what actions one can take are best determined
by the individual himself or herself – in accordance with
that fundamental principle of liberty known as personal responsibility.
What actions individuals will take depends on their personal resources,
interests, values, inclinations, and level of motivation. (Sometimes
this last factor is the most important!)
One
thing people who want to preserve liberty should do is plan out
a course as early in their lives as possible that will lead to personal
financial independence – including independence from the
need to work directly for someone else. As long as you need to seek
direct employment from others, you are vulnerable to a variety of
abuses in a corrupted system (e.g., affirmative action if you are
a white male). As long as you are employed working directly under
a boss, you are vulnerable to being fired for having the wrong ideas,
with little or no recourse. Depending on your age bracket, there
are a variety of options you can pursue. In college, major in subjects
such as business and finance with an emphasis on entrepreneurship;
it may be necessary to pursue extracurricular workshops or adult-education
programs in case entrepreneurship is not emphasized in one’s business
school (as opposed to fitting into a corporate hierarchy). Gary
North has some
additional suggestions. There are careers one can pursue that
do not even require a college degree. Real estate is an example
– although if the housing bubble bursts, the option might
come to look less attractive. Selling insurance is another example.
Becoming a copywriter – for those skilled at writing and
research – is yet another. There are many more.
If
your business makes money, use some of that money to support organizations
such as the Mises Institute or the Center for Libertarian Studies;
there is also We The People,
Bob Schulz’s organization trying to bring the IRS under control.
There are new organizations such as Freedom-Force
International, about which I will say more below. It is worth
observing that none of these is supported by Ford Foundation or
Rockefeller Foundation or Carnegie Corporation grants, to name just
three of the huge tax-exempt foundations that have bankrolled any
number of collectivist and destructive causes over the years and
done so much damage to this country. Freedom organizations survive
and prosper mostly through donations by individuals who have chosen
to support a cause instead of vacationing at Myrtle Beach.
If
you have children, keep them as far as possible from government
schools. It has become evident that the dumbing down of America
has resulted from a longstanding and very deliberate effort, again
with huge financial backing from foundations such as Rockefeller
and Carnegie, involving "programs" known not to work.
These include "new math," which almost guarantees innumeracy,
as well as whole-language approaches that guarantee life-long reading
problems. John
Taylor Gatto has thoroughly documented the longstanding decline
in literacy over the past century. Charlotte
Thomson Iserbyt has thoroughly documented the deliberate nature
of the strategy, citing the sources that allow us to name names.
(It was the Rockefeller Foundation, for example, that bankrolled
John Dewey’s Progressive Education movement; the Carnegie financial
empire has been behind OBE and its offshoots.) The solution is that
education should be done either within one’s own family unit (home
schooling) or by those whose entrepreneurial specialty is education.
The latter, among freedom people, will be found setting up and running
private neighborhood schools or church-affiliated schools.
Another
suggestion I often make is for readers to acquire as much knowledge
as they can of our country’s founding principles and its history
– beginning with knowing what is in the Declaration of Independence
and the U.S. Constitution – and, perhaps, the Articles of
Confederation as well, as background. Also read the Federalist Papers
alongside the writings of the so-called Antifederalists. There are
a number of good books about the very early history of this country
such as those by Forrest McDonald, and treatments of the broad sweep
of U.S. history such as the six-volume set of books by Clarence
B. Carson, A
Basic History of the United States. And then, of course,
there are more specific treatments such as Tom DiLorenzo’s blockbuster
The
Real Lincoln. Study the history of this country to learn
the reasons for our founding principles’ betrayal. It is important
to see that this country has undergone specific turning points in
its departure from its founding principles. The first major turning
point occurred under Lincoln’s watch, when we ceased to be a voluntary
union of states and became a nation state held together by threat
of direct military coercion. Lincoln’s regime did not simply destroy
the Confederacy; it destroyed federalism as originally conceived.
(There are a lot of libertarians who unfortunately do not grasp
this; they are still locked into the idea that the War Against Southern
Independence was fought exclusively, or almost exclusively, over
slavery, and that its most important consequence was the end of
slavery.)
The
next period to look at closely began in 1913 and ended with Woodrow
Wilson’s entry into what had been a regional European conflict.
That disastrous year saw the creation of both the Federal Reserve
central banking system and the Internal Revenue Service. The former
eventually destroyed the value of our currency; the latter, by making
it possible to tax individuals’ personal incomes, gave expansionist
government an increasingly unlimited means of expropriating from
taxpayers whatever it needed to further its programs. For a good
guide to the origins of the Federal Reserve I recommend G. Edward
Griffin’s The
Creature from Jekyll Island; for some economic arguments
about why the perceived need for central banking is an illusion
I recommend Murray Rothbard’s The
Case Against the Fed. Speaking of Griffin, however, he has
recently put together an organization with an impressive beginning.
I mentioned it above: Freedom-Force
International. Griffin has organized, in a number of essays
listed in the issues
portion of the organization’s website, a very impressive statement
on the still mostly hidden power structure that has been quietly
constructing the New World Order. This includes information on how
the U.S. was maneuvered into what become World War I, how the attack
on Pearl Harbor was instigated with the evil Roosevelt’s full foreknowledge,
all leading up to some very disquieting revelations about 9-11.
Yes, Virginia, it is extremely likely that powerful people knew
in advance that 9-11 itself, or something very like it, was coming,
and did nothing because they knew it was something they could use
to increase their power. A few people wrote to me in response to
my last piece to question whether the global elites were really
serving the devil, Ol’ Scratch himself. But surely it is clear we
are confronting something evil here.
Griffin’s
recent work unites a number of fundamentally libertarian ideas (he
does not use that specific term) with what some would label a "conspiratorial"
view of history: the only view of the past century that can explain
how every pivotal event has expanded the state and led to greater
and greater concentrations of wealth and power. I recall a time,
long ago, when I was quite skeptical of "conspiracy theories."
Then a friend showed me Carroll Quigley’s books Tragedy
and Hope and The
Anglo-American Establishment. Quigley, as I’ve shown elsewhere,
was an insider. His work cannot be dismissed as the product of paranoia.
We must eventually shelve the view that twentieth century history
is the product of a sequence of unlucky accidents.
That
takes care of history. One should also study economics. Begin with
Gene Callahan’s brilliantly written Economics
for Real People – or possibly go back and get Henry
Hazlitt’s Economics
in One Lesson. Then you’ll be ready for Ludwig von Mises,
the most important economist of the last century. Most of Mises’
works can be downloaded from the Ludwig von Mises Institute’s website.
The most important: Human
Action, Socialism,
The
Theory of Money and Credit and Theory
and History. Also of value to those so inclined are the
recently republished The
Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science and Epistemological
Problems of Economics, The
Anti-Capitalist Mentality, Bureaucracy,
and A
Critique of Interventionism. There are other valuable works
in the Austrian school – especially those of Hans-Hermann
Hoppe – but reading your way through Mises’ most significant
works ought to keep you busy for a long, long while.
I
would also recommend some crucial works of modern philosophy for
those interested in such things. Here some readers will automatically
think: Ayn Rand. I happen to disagree with aspects of Rand’s philosophy,
especially her conception of human nature, which. I see as inherently
sinful and in need of redemption, while she doesn’t. Nevertheless,
I’ve long found her work of great value. The
Fountainhead is the better of her two huge novels, though
I would not neglect Atlas
Shrugged. Nonfiction works such as The
Virtue of Selfishness and The
New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution offer good statements
of her positions on various issues that do merit study. (Capitalism:
The Unknown Ideal, edited by Rand, contains an essay by,
of all people, Alan Greenspan on, of all things, the importance
of the gold standard for freedom, written back in 1966! Talk about
power corrupting!) There are also a number of significant libertarian
philosophers such as Robert Nozick, Tibor R. Machan, Jan Narveson,
Douglas B. Rasmussen, Douglas Den Uyl, David Gordon, and plenty
of others who have created a significant literature outside the
philosophical "mainstream" which is almost uniformly collectivist
and statist. There are a number of other contemporary philosophers
whose work is relevant here: Barry Smith, Chris Matthew Sciabarra
and Roderick Long, to name just three. For really dedicated readers,
I would recommend going back and getting a magnificent work by Brand
Blanshard entitled Reason and Analysis. Blanshard utterly
demolished positivism and all its offshoots, including most of the
linguistic philosophy that came to dominate the English-speaking
world. Had Blanshard’s lead been followed instead of, say, Wittgenstein,
contemporary academic philosophy might not have turned into an intellectual
wasteland by the 1960s. Unfortunately, Blanshard’s work is very
hard to find today – this being symptomatic of the state of
affairs in academia. (I have heard reports that an earlier work
of Blanshard’s, entitled The
Nature of Thought, similarly demolished behaviorism in psychology
– but, alas, it is long out of print and I’ve not been able
to locate an affordable copy.) Finally, I would pull in a solid
work on thinking logically. Mises’s favorite was Morris Cohen and
Ernest Nagel’s An
Introduction to Logic and Scientific Method. This book may
be a bit dense for most readers; so David Kelley’s The
Art of Reasoning will probably do. Then use David Gordon’s
An
Introduction to Economic Reasoning to make the transition
from logic and philosophy back to economics and other areas.
Being
something of a scholar myself, I may have penned an article that
seems top-heavy with books to read. Point taken. One need not have
read and mastered all the nuances of history or economics or philosophy
to act on behalf of freedom. Ultimately it is the action
that counts. But one must know what one believes and be able to
articulate reasons for that belief. One is then in a good position
to take actions such as writing letters to the editor, criticizing
this or that government plan that involves taxpayer dollars (i.e.,
dollars extracted by threat of force from those who earned them
and given away to those who didn’t). One may even be able to slip
a guest op-ed or two into the local newspaper before the official
gatekeepers catch on (most editorial page editors aren’t rocket
scientists). As these come to the attention of like-minded individuals
in one’s community, one finds that one has a lot of sympathizers
who are fed up with being stolen blind by politicians and bureaucrats.
Then, with the right leadership, organized action to limit government
becomes possible.
And
then we rely on the division of labor. With a combination of some
well-educated families whose children aren’t likely to end up, say,
on drugs, some educators, some entrepreneurs, and a number of well-focused
research and educational institutes – God willing –
we might just be in a position to pick up the pieces when whatever
happens, happens. Because one thing is for sure: Rome on the Potomac
cannot continue on its present course indefinitely. Focusing on
just one of its vulnerabilities: U.S. government debt is massive
(now over $6.7 trillion) and growing daily – you can check
its growth for yourself here.
This debt is one product of unsound money combined with massive
and increasing federal spending, these in turn being products of
unsound economic theory and social policy. The federal government
cannot continue promising everything to everyone, including dysfunctional
governments half way around the world that are in no position to
pay American taxpayers back. Our government cannot undertake "nation
building" endeavors, whether in Iraq or anywhere else, while
our own economy struggles and our middle class dwindles under the
twin burdens of taxation and pseudo-free trade (the product of NAFTA
and other trade agreements that primarily benefit the global elites).
From the standpoint of sound economics alone, Rome on the Potomac
is in no position to continue on its present course toward global
empire, a course that might last another ten years at the most before
the roof caves in. No amount of wealth and no degree of concentration
of power are sufficient to repeal the laws of economics –
any more than they can repeal the laws of physics.
What
we should do is keep the range of freedom-oriented ideas and strategies
alive in the meantime. The question, in that case, is: are we up
to the task?
July
28, 2003
 Steven
Yates [send him mail]
is an adjunct scholar with the Ludwig von Mises Institute. A professional
writer and editor with a Ph.D. in philosophy, he is the author of
Civil
Wrongs: What Went Wrong With Affirmative Action
(San Francisco: ICS Press, 1994). His latest book manuscript, In
Defense of Logic,
is undergoing revisions. He works out of Columbia, South Carolina.
Copyright
© 2003 LewRockwell.com
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Yates Archives
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