libertarian journal 1969-06-01

8/3/2019 Libertarian Journal 1969-06-01

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A Semi-Monthly Newsletter

The LibertarianJoseph R. Peden, Publi sher Washington Editor, Karl Hess Murr ay N. Rothbard, Edi tor

VOL. 1, NO. V JUNE 1, 1969 35C

T H E M O V E MThe libertari an movement, bless it, is on the march. Fo r

the f ir st time in memory, the re is now a nationwide liber-

tarian organization in existence, the Radical LibertarianAlliance. It was born on May 17, on the oc casi on of the th irdmeeting of the Li ber ta ria n Fo rum in New York City.

Until this year, the liberta rian movement was pitifullysma ll and beleaguered, and any talk of any s or t of liber-tari an organization o r even occasional meetings was hope-les sly Utopian. But now the movement ha s been escala tingwith extr aord inar y rapidity. In the old days, t here would beone new convert a ye ar, and he would be worked on withpainful slowness befo re h is conversio n could be complete,But now we keep running into kids, s om e college freshme n,who a r e not only liberta rian s, but full-fledged and self-converted, with the "correct line" on everything, fromcompeting private defense agencies to private propertyrights to war revisionism to alliance with the New Left.I t has a ll been very gratifying.

Compare the state of the movement now, say, to that of a

ye ar ago. One ye ar ago the New York movement containedabout half a dozen people; now, fo r the fi rs t time in livingmemory it has escalate d to f a r beyond the capacity of oneperson's living room. It was for that rea son that JosephPeden and Jerry Woloz dedided to found the LibertarianForu m, basical ly c onceiv ed a s a way fo r the whole New Yorkmovement to meet peri odic ally in the confines of one room.We met fo r the fir st time on January 31 at the GreatShanghai rest au ran t in New York City. We expecte dabout 20people to appear; we got over seventy. It was a gloriousmoment. People came fro m a s fa r away a s South Carolinaand Buffalo fo r the occasion. The edi tor spoke about thenecessity for thinking in revolutionary terms.

The next meeting was on Apri l 11, when Karl Hess, ou rmost rece nt and our best-known convert, spoke on the needto avoid letting a se cta ria n emph asis on economics blockour alliance with other, New Left, groups which are overalllibe rtar ian in thrus t without being sophisticated in eco-nomics. The attendance at this meeting was again overseventy. The atmos phe re at both mee ting s was highlyenthusiastic, and sev era l on-the-spot conversi ons weremade to the cause. The "Devil" was rep res en ted in bothcas es by his advocates in the for m of as sorte d Randiansand red-baiters, who serve d a s useful foils for spiri tedargument.

The spi rit and the attendance at the Forums gave ri se tomuch agitation to p ro gr es s beyond these simp le meetings,and to advance toward a wider and better-organized move-ment. Our best orga nize d group had been the Ford hamLibertaria n Alliance, which led the sit-in at the onceconservative Fordham campus demanding the ouster of themilitary cadr e known as ROTC fro m the campus. The F L A

E N T G R O W Shad begun only in this aca dem ic year, with Gerald P.O'Driscoll, Jr., who grad uate s this spring with honors in

economics, a s i ts dynamic leader. Two year s ago, Je rr ywas a b right young right -winger and ROTC lea der, whofavo red the wa r in Vietnam. Now he sta nds a s one of theleading sp iri ts of anarcho-ca pitalist youth. Je rr y will pro-ceed next yea r to gra duat e work in economics at UCLA,leaving FLA in the capable hands of Frank X. Richter,Dave Hagner, and a host of oth ers.

An importan t ana rcho-capi talist group has also rapidlyeme rged at Wesleyan College, phenomenal in that it cons istsalmo st exclusively of freshme n, led by John Hagel 111 Hageand hi s remarkabl e colleagues have already seized controlof the Fr ee Univers ity at Wesleyan, at which John is alreadyteaching a course in anarchism, and have done extensiveorganizi ng work in college s and prep schoo ls throughoutthe New England and even Middle Atlantic states. TheWesleyan group al so helped lead an anti-ROTC sit -in at theAdminist ration Building there. Adopting the principl e of

alliance with the New Left, the entire Wesleyan groupform ed the Ea rl Fra nci s Memorial Chapter of SDS, andwill battle within SDS against the Marxist forces. (E ar lFrancis was a heroic individualist martyr to the U.S.government; the government refused to recognize his home-stea din g c la im to a gold mine on U.S. land on the groundsthat the mine wa s too smal l, and ord ere d him off the landand his house blown up; Francis complied, blowing himselfup along with it.)

At Sta te Uni ve rsi ty of New York at Buffa10,Roy A. Ch ilds ,Jr. has made the paradigma tic progressive transit ion fromRandianism to L efevrian pacifism to revolutionary anarcho-capi tali sm, and h as been writing a column in one of thecollege newspap ers and been hear d on Buffalo radio.

In the meanwhile, at Stanford University Pr ofe sso r RonaldHamowy of the hist ory and contempo rary civilization depart-ments has been car ryin g on radical l ibertarian activit ies ofhis own. To old friend s, the em ergence of the fo rm ermode rate Ronald as revo lutionary i s one of the joyous sur -pr is es of th is ag e of polariza tion. Las t year , Ronald Hamowywas one of the two or thr ee Stanford profe ssors to supportthe sit-in fo r university reform . In the cours e of hisradical activit ies there, he gave a notable speech, carrie din the Stanford pape r, which sharp ly crit iciz ed the rigidlynon-violent tendency of the dra ft resi sta nce movement ofthat era . This year, it was Ronald who suggested the sit-intactic employed by the student rebels against militaryres ea rch at the Stanford Research Institute, and he sat inf o r the week-long demonstr ation. Then, when a cou rtinjunction threa tened to be employed against a second groupof si t-in s, Ronald org aniz ed an open let ter to the hdmin-

( C o n t i n u e d on page 2 )



istr atio n threatening a faculty strike--i. e. refusal to handin grades--should any studen t be jailed for violating theinjunction against them from even attending their owncla sse s. Not only has Stanford been threaten ing to fi re thesi gne rs of this lett er, but t here have been muttering s that

Ronald by hi s action is trying to "intimidate" the court andis ther efor e in a sta te of contempt of cou rt and could beimmedia tely jailed. Such is just one as pe ct of the re pre ss ionthat is growing and accele rating ag ainst the dis se nte rs inthis "fre e" country. (In the old days, l iber tari ans alwaysused to be asked the question: "Well, af te r all, what l ibe rti eshave we lost?" No one has asked th is question fo r a longwhile; the re pres sio n i s too obvious.)

Speaking of rep res si on, a litt le whiff of it was felt at thethird meeting of the Libertaria n Fo rum at the Ja ge r Housein New York, when the libe rtar ian sch olar and acti vistLeonard P. Liggio spoke on the libertarian nature of theNew Left. Les s than twenty-four ho urs a ft er the end of thisharmless meeting, we heard from unimpeachable sourcesof someone who had read the report in sextuplicate of a copsp y at the meeting, the other c arbo ns going to othe r coporganizations. And yet, countless libertarian-conservativesstill revere and identify with the p o l i z e i l I t se ems that therewer e SDS members --horrors !--at the Foru m meeting, andthat many SDS people a re tailed where ver they go by so mefo rm of unde rcover cop.

At any rate, out of that F orum meeting em erge d theRadical Lib ertarian Alliance. In keeping with it s libe rtari annature, it is envisioned that RLA will be organized in thefo rm of str ict ly autonomous cha pter s. At the beginning,most of the chapte rs will be in vari ous colleges, but the rear e also seve ral non-campus chapters. There ar e regionalorganize rs, and there will be meetings in the variousregions. The national functions ar e ones of se rvic e: educa-tion and coordination. The re will be a national Speak ers'Bureau, which will s end spea ker s around to the variouschap ters for purposes of education and inspiration and anational Publications Bureau to print leaflets and oth er

material. The fi rs t mater ial to be issued by the PublicationsBureau will be a founding statement of ai ms and principles,a sta tement which defines the goals, the strategy , and theprin cipl es of the Radica l Li be rta ria n Alliance. All who ag re ewith this stateme nt will ,be admitte d to the individualchapters.

Officers of RLA ar e a s follows: Regional Coordinators:John Hagel 111 fo r New Eng land andf or Pr e p Schools, WilsonA. Clark, Jr . of the Un iversity of No rth Car olina fo r theSouth, and Gerald O'Driscoll a s the "missio nary" coordi-nator fo r California. Overall North American Coordinatoris Ka rl Hes s. 1085 Nationa l P r e s s Building. N. W.. Wash-

Letter From

By K a r l Hess IThe Coming White Terror

The re i s going to be a time of re pres sio n in thiscountry. It may be quite ha rsh. Fo r many, includinglibe rtar ians , it may be frightening and discouraging.Fo r the only vaguely co mmitted it will be too much tobe ar and they will move back to safe positions in liberal-land o r conservative-country, those establishment en-claves whose philosophically peripatet ic borders seemnow to overlap lovingly and lastingly on the Americanpolitica l landscape.

The fac ts of the rep res si on a re c lear , even if not overt.The Deputy Attorney General, Richard Kleindienst, anold frien d who, I can as su re you, is more than capableof matchin g rhe to ri c to action, has been quoted in TheAtlantic as saying that student dissenters would be"rounded up* and placed in "detention camps". His sub-sequen t denial of the quotation was not catego rial butonly complained that he had been, as politicians appar-ently alw ays ar e, misquo ted and that, ah hah, even if hehad s ai d somethin g like that he hadn't meant anything likethat.

Mr. Kleindienst, a s with ev ery one of his politic alas so cia te s with whom I have worked, is sensitive fi rs tand fore mo st to nationa l mood. Although they may some -tim es see m to buck it s o rdin ary ebb and flow, they alltur n and run in the face of it s occasional floods. Such aflood is now evident, with mo re than 80pe rcen t of pe rso nsansweri ng rece nt polls saying that they approve ofstri ngen t crack-downs on student dissent. It is my notionthat b uried in thes e resp onse s, and not by too muchrac is t d i r t a t tha t, i s an impl ic i t des i re a l so for a c rack-down on black militants.

The Adminis tration, with som e of the most attentiv epolitical antennae we have eve r seen--look at the powerwielded in it by publicists!--is su rel y going to play therep res siv e mood f or al l i t is worth. And how much i t isworth is , in turn, cle arl y evident in the fact that SuperSema ntic ist S. I. Havakawa ha s become Puis san t Politi-

- - -Henry Clay, 1818 NO.It is the l ibertarian inst inct and interpretat ion that tel ls

ington , D. C. - Tr e a s u r e r is Walter ~l oc ky -3 80 iver*-%\& cian merely and solely because he has bumbled himself ,Drive, New York, N. Y. Anyone who wants to sen d funds to like the Bri tish a t Balaclava, into a bloody, dumb,RLA should send them to Walter. The key post of co rr e- eventually disastrous position of pig-headed glory. Thesponding secr eta ry ha s gone to Roy A. Childs, Jr., 109 fact that mere ly crackin g a few student skulls has beenWende, Buffalo, New York 14211. Anyone who wants info r- enough to prop el this sec ond -rat e soc ial dem ocra t into a

mation o r advice on joining the organization, forming fi rs t ran k of right-wing resp ect, equal to and possiblychapters , getting spea kers , etc. o r who wishes to send news even in advance of that othe r pill ar of West Coast educa-to other members, should contact Roy Childs. tionism, Max Rafferty, must be les son enough to Richard

It i s estimated that alread y, when RLA has hardly been Nixon and his cour t that the re a re political rich es in theformed, there a re a t l eas t 26 college chap ters alone. The blood of repr ess ion.potential fo r rapid growth is enormous , beginning this fall, The re is, however, a growing interpret ation, evenespecially on those campuse s where SDS has come under among some who call themselv es l ibertarian s but whothe contro l of Marxist elem ents and where RLA could fill probably would be more c omfortable a s conserva tives,an immediate l ibertaria n vacuum. that the New Left h as brought it al l on them sel ves and,

Onward and upward! conseq uently, upon the re s t of us andt hat, in a convenient-I applica tion of what the Chr isti ans might call the Agnus

"An oppressed people are author ized whenever they can torise and break their fetters."

Dei shift, it is the New Left into whom all the daggers ofrecriminat ion may be thrust ..



he Libertarian, June 1 , 1 9 6 9 3-us that it is the state, and not those who attack or resistit, that is the guilty o r most guilty part y in the develop-ment of any repression and that to call repres sion merelyreaction is to overlook o r even deny the dynamics of sta tedevelopment.

In that dynamic development, the stat e, any state,always becomes more repressive over the long runrather than less. There a re no exceptions to this in the

development of any sta te where t he power ha s been dele-gated by the people to the politician s, no matt er howbenign those politicians may se em a t any parti cularpoint of the development.

~ h u s , he actio ns by the New Left, o r even the C raz ies ,that have goaded the state into its curren t quiet frenzy,are hastened by but not created by those actions. Thestate must, sooner or later, become mor e rat her thanle ss coerci ve and repressive. That movement may beaccelerated by people's res ist anc e but it is not createdby that resistance. Has not, in fact, the str uct ure ofgovernmen t, s tate, local, and national, actually becomemore repre ssive year by year in this country whether intimes of peace, war, languor or riot? The answer is thatit has and the very political par ty which now occupies(and occupies is just the word) the positions of powertoday is also the very political part y which in past cam-paigns has documented and dealt with that onwar dcou rseof r epr ess ion in great est detail. They ar e silent now, ofcourse, because what it once called oppressive underDemocrats becomes orderliness under Republicans.

Liber taria ns, who, throughout modern political history,have presented the only clear and consistent analysis ofst at e power, know that the difference between the natu ralor spontaneous order of a free society, and the enforcedor de r of a sta te syst em, is the very difference betweenthe day of human liberation and the night of st at e co erciv e-ness.

(Some det ail s of that night as it now unfolds in Wash-ington, appea r to include the syste mati c arre st , on awide variety of unrelated ch arg es and a s often a s possibleby local police, of student lea de rs and, subsequently , andper hap s depending upon the react ion to that, of non-

student militants and radicals. The Black Panthers, ofcourse, face a repression fa r more har sh and the key toits success very liekly is simply to what extent localpolice forces , now frothing with a really r abid zeal, canexecute Panth ers without 'publicity. They will be helped,probably, by all of those lib eral and conservative edi torswho feel that Panther revolution ary rhe tor ic is a threatto the orderly development of their own political pro-grams.)

Liber taria ns have a rathe r clear-cut choice in facingthe r epression. They tacitly o r otherwise support thesta te o r they can remain with the Resistance. Th ere isno convenient middle c our se such a s sim ply opting outof the struggle. Ther e may be an app eara nce of such anoption but it is illusory. For instance, evenif one is ableto retreat to a position in which one has no contact witheither the state or the Resistance, a reaction in regardto the state-resistance question is inevitable. Fo r onething there will be many times when afriend who has notretreated could use your help. By not helping him, andif he is resisting, the sta te itself has been helped. Thisis not to call for sel fless heroi cs, but only for principledrecognition of t he fact that t her e a re two sid es in thisstruggle and libertarians, whose analysis is the mostpert inen t of all, should not contemplate being able toavoid taking one of thos e sides. Nor should they avoidthe possibility--and I say it is inevitability--that a choicewhich does not support the Resistance, even if withgrave reservati ons regarding s ome of its charac ter orcha rac ter s, actually opposes it and that any choice whichdoes not oppose the state, actually supports it.

Not eve ry lib ertar ian should or could be found at the

DON'T TREAD ON MEIf the R ub ber Man ufa ctu rer s Association can buy enough

burea ucrat s, the old Fis k slogan "Time to Re-tire" willcea se to be a me re advertising slogan and become agunpoint command.

The April newsletter of the National Highway UsersConference notes that the RM.4 has "s uggestedn t o theFe de ral Highway Administration a three -par t "t ir esafety program". It calls for state laws that wouldrequire tir e inspection 1) on a periodic basi s, pref erabl ysemi-annuall y at a sta te inspection station; 2) by lawenforcement autho riti es on a Spot-check o r random basis,and 3) a s a pre-co ndition to the sale of al l used vehicles.

The RMA inspection program would make it mandatoryto remove passenger c a r tlres from service when treaddepth is le ss than 1/16th of an inch. The assoc iati onpointed out to the Government that this depth ha s alr eadybeen rec ogn ize d by the National Highway Safety Bureau,which re qu ir es all new ti re s to have molded tread wearind ica tor s at the 1/16-inch mark.

The RMA sa id that only a few stat es alread y have com-pulsory tire inspection programs and expressed dismaythat two-thirds of a ll ca r s on the roadcan sti ll be drivenwithout period ic check s fo r worn-out tir es (i. e. by peopleother than the owner).

All states should enact statutes which would permit"policing authori ties" to require removal fro m a vehicleof any unsa fe t ir e whenever and where ver it may befound, the RMA stated.

The inspection pro gra m, the newsletter said, was "sub-mitted in response to proposed Federal motor vehiclesafet y standa rds fo r vehicles in use." It's a clas sicexamp le of how bu sin ess uses the Government fo r it s ownbenefit, and h elps explain why, after a sho rt bleat ofprot est f o r the record, the auto industry crawled in bedwith Ralph Nader when he made his propositions.

The propagandists waul$have you believe the con sum eris being prot ected by the auto safety" prog ram, but whatcon sum er has the tim e o r the know-how to "respond" to

"proposed motor vehicle safety standards"? Car-buying,aft er a ll, tak es up a very small part of his day.RMA lobbyists, on the other hand, have absolutely

nothing bet ter to do al l day than badger and bribe bureau-crats into passing laws that will force more tires on anunwilling public. Once again it is being demo nstra ted thatreg ula tor y agen cies work to the benefit of the pro duc erinstead of the consumer.

How sweet it is f o r the country club set in Akron. Theycan cut loose some of that high-price marketing helpthat t ri es to tempt d ri ve rs into buying new tir es and rel yinst ead on tax-suppor ted state police to do the "selling".

Some da y soo n you ma y be flagged down by a cop witha .38 caliber pistol in one and .38 caliber calipers in theother. He's authorized to poke around in your tire tread,then f or ce you into the tire store that happens to benearby. It pro mi ses to be the best fee-splitting sc hem esi nc e justi ces of the pea ce started going out of sty le.

Traditionally the tire industry has been relativelyunr egu lat ed and consequently highly competitive. Butnow it is trying to blow out the little Fisk boy's candleand cli mb on the wide-tr ead bandwagon of th e Fe de ra lHighway Administration.

---Peter Blake

bar ric ade s resis ting o r in the tunnels undermining stat epow er. None, of cour se, want to end up in jail . And nowthey will see the power of the state, awesome and evenfrightenin g, and they will see the jails eag erl y eatingthe revolution.

Ta ct ic s may have to change. That is only wisdom. Butdir ect ion ? Never! The course is to liberty. The state isthe enemy.



4 The Libertarian. June 1. 1969

FOR R E V O L U T I O N A R Y A N A R C H O - C A P I TA L IS M

A fully consistent concern with human liberty such asthat which The Libertarian espouse s, nec ess ari ly involvesthe acceptance of what may be called RevolutionaryAnarcho-Capitalism. Let us s ee why.

Liber ty can only e xist when no one's r ights a re violated.

Sinc e man rightfully owns hi s own body and the produc eof any unclaimed natura l r eso urc es he mixes hi s laborwith, he has a right to trade this produce with otherindividuals o r groups of individuals. Any thre at o r initia-tion of violence against a man o r his prope rty is inviolation of man's right s and hence inimi cal to liberty.So fa r, Capitalism. (Note, however, the differ ence

RECOMMENDED READINGKa rl Hess , "In Defense of Hess," The New Guard (April,

1969). It is ra re indeed fo r us to be recommending anyarticle in this YAF publication, but Hess' article is astirring defense of anarchism. Interestingly enough,rep ort s ar e that Jer ome Tuccille, who argues the archis tpoint of view in the sa me issue, ha s si nce been virtuallyconverted to the lib ertar ian position.

Ferdinand Lundberg, The Rich and the Super-Rich (Bantam,paper). A huge, sprawling, badly organized best-seller,which yet contains indispensable information on the richfamili es and the ir rel ationship with government.

Lewis Mumford, The City in History (Harc ourt, Bra ce, andWorld, paper). A fascinating, monumental histo ry of thecity. Includes analy sis of the original city a s being aparas itic, milita ry a rm of the State, living off society.

Albert Jay Nock, Memoirs of a Supe~fluous Man(Regnery,paper). It is great to have this modern cla ssi c back inprint , and in paperback. Nock was an exce llent sty lis tand a profound liber taria n, and his bookis must reading,desp ite it s suffering from a profound histo rical pess i-mism that isolated Nock and robbed him of most of theimp act he could have had.

Jacobus ten Broek, Edward Barnhart, and Floyd Matson,Preju dice, War and the Cons titution (Univ ersi ty of. Cali-fornia Press, paper). A reprint of a thorough, scholarlyaccount of Ame rica' s most vicious inv asion of civilliberties: the ma ss evacuation into concentration cam psof America's JapaneseLAmerican citiz ens in WorldWar 11

Gordon Zahn, German Catho tics and tfitzer's Wars (Dutton,pape r). An i mpr ess ive indictment of the favor able attitudeof the German Catholic hie rar chv toward the Germa nState and therefore toward ~i t l e r ' s wars.

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between this free-market philosophy and that of ourprese nt liber al corporate "capitaIism".)

The "Anarcho" pa rt comes in when it is realized thatgovernment by its very nature i s coercive. Even a "pure"democracy, one not ruled by a power-elite, such as our sis , is coerc ive. People who have not consented to thedemocratic proce ss in the firs t place will be coerced ifthey a r e outvoted. The Anarchistic strain is strengthenedby the understanding that the fre e mar ket provides abette r product at a lower pri ce for all goods. For defense,courts, police, roads, information, a money medium, aswell as for goods where even classical liberals wouldrestrict government intervention. So far, Anarcho-Capitalism.

Anarcho-Capita lism i s not enough, however. Unles s werea liz e that defensive violence in response to aggressionis fully c onsis tent with lib ertar ianis m, Anarcho-Capital-ism can lead to a s te ri le pacifism. ("Governmektdepredations are im moral, but opposition is also immora l;we can the ref ore only educate."). Education alone cannotachieve liber ty a s can be see n by assuming the mostfavorable ca se fo r "educationalism". Let's suppose, fo rexample, that all the people in the world who presentlyre je ct Ana rcho-Capitalis m through lack of knowledgele ar n th e e r r o r of th ei r ways. While this would be agr ea t boon, wha t of th e people who defend st at is m notthrough e rr or , but through immorality? No ruling cl as sin histo ry has ev er given up it s power through sweetreasonableness and rational argument. For this, aRevolutionary Anarcho-Capitalist movement is needed.

--Walter Block

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