Market Liberalism: A Paradigm for the 21st Century. - book reviews

National Review, May 24, 1993 by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

WHAT is the proper role of the central government? Most conservatives and libertarians would say, defend the borders, mint sound money, and that's about it. As it happens, the laws of economics as well as the natural patterns of social development support such a minimalist view. Yet we face a gargantuan state claiming sovereignty over our families, our businesses, our schools, our property, and our health. And President Clinton's Newer Deal can only make things vastly worse.

What to do? For one thing, we can recognize with Albert Jay Nock that our enemy is the state. It is no coincidence that Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot were government officials. We also need more books to tell us, in the Nockian tradition, about the futility and ferocity of the modern statist project. The Illusion of Choice is not such a book.

In fact, Andrew Bard Schmookler, an associate of what sounds like the think tank from Hell (Harvard University's Center for Psychological Studies in the Nuclear Age), calls for a much bigger state. The "spiraling arms race revealed something terribly wrong about our civilization," he says, and so does "our ceaselessly escalating race for material wealth." Oh sure, we can buy a "bowl's worth of oatmeal" for "a few pennies," but the market "neglects the penniless." Having "so much, we remain hungry" and are "devouring the earth." (Mmmm, pass me a piece of Central America, please.)

In order to elevate the environment over mankind and the penniless over the productive--two of the imperatives of the Schmooklerian social order--Washington, D.C., must be put in almost total control of the economy. (As versus the present situation, when it can tell us what to do only 98 per cent of the time.) A properly empowered state will ensure that we make the choices that are good for us and the environment, choices now obscured by such illusions of the market as that: a) higher standards of living are better than lower standards, b) people are more important than aphids, c) businessmen contribute more to society than derelicts do.

Quoting John Kenneth Galbraith, Schmookler laments that, thanks to the market's power to cloud men's minds, "alcohol, comic books, and mouthwash" have better reputations than does the government in its role as provider of "schools, judges, and municipal swimming pools."

Sorry, JK. What decent American, if asked to choose between a good cognac and condomed public schools, thug-loving judges, and disease-ridden government swimming holes, wouldn't call for a snifter? All the more reason, says Schmookler, to demand a "radical transformation in our political economy and in our consciousness," away from such capitalist crimes as the use of rock salt on ice. He's right that this damages cars, roads, underground cables, etc., and there are undoubtedly better ways of doing the job. But we'll never find out until it's no longer the task of government to apply salt to government roads.

Schmookler talks about other alleged third-party effects of "externalities" of capitalism, such as the sale of a farm in Taylor, New York. It was transformed into a low-level nuclear dump, to the distress of neighbors. But it was the New York state government that bought the property. Government subsidization of a favored industry can hardly be blamed on the free market, which generates no externalities requiring political intervention.

Schmookler, needless to say, blames the market for ozone loss, acid rain, and "tropical-forest-killing hamburgers." But ozone loss and acid rain are eco-myths, as environmentalists, and even the New York Times and Washington Post, are beginning to realize. As to chainsaw sandwiches, what exactly is wrong with Brazilian peasants cutting down the rain forest (a/k/a the jungle) and raising beef? Or are they supposed to live in mildewed loincloths so the eco-nuts in Manhattan and Malibu can feel warm all over?

Schmookler claims that "market forces corrode community," but that's nonsense as well. In the laissez-faire nineteenth century, communities and families were almost invincible. In the twentieth century, they are sick unto death. The reason is the welfare state, which seeks to destroy all competing power centers in society.

At the beginning of his book, Schmookler tells us that he's poor and close to the earth, and he feels awesome about it, man. But as with the entire Left, envy clearly drives his program. He wants everyone to be poor, and his policies would certainly make that possible.

Every market advocate enjoys a rigorous challenge from the Left, if only because intellectual debate is so much fun. Schmookler sets out to refute Mises, Hayek, and Friedman, so he seems like a worthy challenger. But his book is confused, banal, and simple-minded, demonstrating once again that opponents of the free market haven't come up with a new argument since Veblen. And Mencken took care of him.

How nice to clear one's mind of Schmookler with the essays in Market Liberalism, by and large an edifying endorsement of less federal involvement in domestic and international affairs. We learn, for example, about the FDA and other political intrusions that harm health (in the essay by Michael Tanner), the trouble with the World Bank and IMF (Melanie S. Tammen), the importance of a non-imperial foreign policy (Christopher Layne, Ted Galen Carpenter, et al.), and the myth of global warming (Patrick J. Michaels).