AFTER 50, WHAT NEXT?

by Liberty and Power

The Fifty Year Project--A Retrospective

Frank Chodorov suggested in"A Fifty Year Project" (analysis, October, 1950, reprinted in his Out of Step: The Autobiography of An Individualist (New York: Devin-Adair, 1962. 261 pp.) that libertarians

have the most challenging opportunity in education before them. It will not be an easy or quick job. It will require the kind of industry, intelligence and patience that comes with devotion to an ideal. And the only reward they can hope for is that by the end of the century the socialization of the American character will have been undone. It is, in short, a fifty-year project.
Perhaps the job should be begun by going after the pre-adolescent mind, even in the kindergarten grade. The socialists, it may be recalled, did not neglect to turn nursery rhymes to their use, and since the advent of the comic strip, the communists (or advanced socialists) have employed this medium of indoctrination. But, that is a specialized effort that could be well deferred until the college mind, the mind that will soon enter the active arena, is taken care of. The assault must begin on the campus.
Assault is the proper word, and the proper attitude, for the proposed job. The possibility of winning over the faculty might well be dismissed, simply because the faculty is largely beyond redemption; it is both the cause and the effect of the conditions that is to be corrected. The professor is by and large a product of the socialistic clubs and socialistic education of the 1920's and 30's, and thus is committed to perpetuate that line. Here and there an atavism will be found, and it will be welcomed, but the safe thing to do is to write off the faculty. That tactic, moreover, will find favor with the students, aprticularly those endowed with the gift of intellectual curiosity; to be able to controvert the dicta of the professor is always a sophomoric delight. To win the student over to the idea of individualism it is necessary to equip him with doubts regarding the collectivistic doctrines insinuated in the lecture rooms, or the text books. If the suggested undertaking should apply itself to a refutation of the"adopted" texts, especially in the fields of economics and government, a veritable revolution could be started on the campus; socialism is replete with dictates unsupported by empiric data, and therefore lends itself to easy refutation.
The apparatus for initiating the project suggests itself. It would consist of a lecture bureau manned by a secretariat and a corps of competent lecturers. The business of the bureau would be to arrange for lectures on the campus.
The lecturers--who might also be organizers, though this is not necessary, since the students interested in the subject would organize themselves--would have to be acquainted with socialistic theory, so as to point out its fallacies. Whatever the subject matter of the lecture, the doctrine of the primacy of the individual must be emphasized, thus the student will be presented with a point of view not met within his text book and will be able to challenge the text and its professorial protagonist.
However, it is unnecessary in throwing out the idea to detail an entire program. Once started, the project would develop momentum of its own; the students will see to that themselves. It might be suggested that the lectures be followed, or preceded by the organization of Individualistic Clubs, and that intercollegiate affiliation be instituted. Prizes for essays on individualism would do much to stimulate thought, and a publication offering an outlet for articles would be necessary. Out of such activities would come an esprit de corps, based on the understanding and enthusiasm of a"new" idea. The individualist would become the campus radical, just as the socialist was forty years ago, and the halo of intellectualism would descend on his brow.
Is the effort worth while? To which one could offer as answer another question: What in life is more worth while than the pursuit of an ideal?

Now that we are past the half-century mark offered by Chodorov, it is, perhaps, time to make an evaluation of our progress.

The first to take up Chodorov's cudgel were Leonard Read's Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), Chodorov's own Intercollegiate Society of Individualists (ISI) and Robert LeFevre's Freedom School. Each of these have continued along their own ways. I've lopped off discussions of a number of other groups here (Institute for Humane Studies, John Birch Society, Liberty Amendment Committee, etc.), partly because it would run my discussion too far afield.)

FEE has maintained a long-standing effort to publish both established libertarian intellectuals and new thinkers and writers within libertarian circles with the periodical, The Freeman, and their lecture markets, providing an international audience for these thinkers, in addition to publishing the books written by Leonard Read, who promoted limited government laissez-faire within FEE, and others.

ISI morphed over the years into the Intercollegiate Studies Institute with an emphasis on a more conservative effort founded upon the ideas of Burke, Kirk, and the like through Modern Age and other publications and books which they supported. Taking their cue from traditionalist values, while allowing libertarians to be occasionally published, their concern has primarily been that of a support for local government/states rights position.

The Freedom School, with the efforts of a dynamic speaker and writer, the pacifist and antipolitical free market anarchist Robert LeFevre, developed courses and writings for young libertarian minds who would attend the school in Colorado (later moved to California). Publishing numerous pamphlets and periodicals, including the highly regarded, but difficult-to-find, Rampart Journal, as well as writing for R.C. Hoiles' Freedom Chain newspapers, the lecturers (including Rose Wilder Lane and James J. Martin) and graduates remain some of the most important libertarian intellectuals of today.

During the early 1960's, new organizations were coming to the fore, the most important were the Nathaniel Branden Institute (NBI) and the Free Enterprise Institute (FEI). An entirely new group of young libertarian radicals came from these, with rather different approaches.

NBI, with the novelist Ayn Rand's approval, was Rand's outlet for espousing her philosophy of objectivism (and promoting her nonfiction, as well as her fiction). Primarily based in New York, NBI supplied lectures, periodicals and opinions which students were expected to adhere to, with little or no dissent from the heavily-structured belief system that Rand, Branden (both Nathaniel and Barbara) and others presented in the classes. Objectivists were strident in their advocacy of laissez-faire than others and purged numerous groups within and opposed other libertarians who differed in any respect from Rand. It has grown and expanded under the auspices of several post-NBI organizations and individuals with some differentiation between each group.

Andrew Galambos' Free Enterprise Institute based in the Los Angeles/Orange County, CA area provided a wide range of courses on an antipolitical free market anarchist philosophy developed by Galambos with suggestions from Al Lowi, Spencer H. MacCallum (and his grandfather, Spencer Heath), Jay S. Snelson and others. Expanding upon his unique approach toward intellectual property, his students often moved in more creative directions than many of the other groups.

By the late 1960's and 1970's, organizational efforts had come in many new and unusual directions, from the brilliant writings of Murray Rothbard, the creation of the Society for Individual Liberty (SIL--later the International Society for Individual Liberty, ISIL), Cato Institute, the beginning of many of Antony Fisher's efforts creating classical liberal/libertarian organizations throughout the world, and political strategies culminating in the Libertarian Party.

During the 1980's through the turn of the century, we have seen many of the institutes and foundations working together through the Atlas Foundation, more student organizations than one can count, libertarian intellectuals producing papers and books which are gradually transforming every school of thought, if not by allowing an evolutionary process of changing the emphasis toward individualism and freedom, then by providing trenchant critiques of long-assumed beliefs of statist/socialist thinking which beginning and graduate students must consider when working within their own specialties.

Looking back over the past fifty years, I would think that Chodorov would be surpised, and very pleased at what has occurred.

Now we are at the beginning of a new century. What are the directions that liberty is going to move? Which are the new battles to be fought and where is the new assault going to be made?

Any thoughts?
Just Ken
CLASSical Liberal

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More Comments:

Kenneth R Gregg - 3/14/2005

Gus,

Leif Smith and Durk Pearson did some very interesting research on this in the 1970's.

Leif expanded upon Hayek's "Sensory Order" book in framing a methodology which should have been further explored by more than him and Patricia Wagner. They have built several businesses based upon their initial work in the Denver Open Network--Pattern Research, Inc. and Personal Best Consulting, LLC. Largely consulting work from what I've seen, Pat does library and medical-related fields and Leif does sports psychology.

Durk, who has always been a polymath interested in multiple fields, moved mainly into the health field.

I wouldn't be a bit surprised if they have done much in the Hayek program which neither has published.

Take care. Good to hear another Freedom School grad moved on. Don't know if Bob would have considered you quite the heretic that you seem to think.
Just Ken

Gus diZerega - 3/11/2005

and the second post...

to Sudha Shenoy

If I follow you correctly I think your point does not really change the point I was making, which was really independent of the US. That is, a society where the basic value underlying various systems of rules is voluntary agreement, whether by persuasion or compromise, will generate emergent phenomena so long as the processes generate some kind of relatively impersonal feedback systems. Different rules will generate different emergent orders.

Science focuses on agreement as to reliable knowledge about physical reality - hence the importance of measurement, prediction, experiment, and the like. It is a kind of "gift economy" where reputation is the systemically defined resource sought by participants. (Individual motives can be quite different. But this is the resource that is systemically important.)

Markets focus on agreement about instrumental exchange relations, hence the centrality of rules of contract, property right, and tort. They facilitate exchanges, especially exchanges between strangers. (When I was a business person dealing with long time customers on a face to face basis things were far more informal and often came to resemble what I term civil society relations rather than the logic of purely instrumental market relations.) Money is the systemically defined resource sought by participants. (Individual motives can be quite different. But this is the resource that is systemically important.)

Liberal democracies arise when an institution for universal binding public choices arises with rules of formal equality of speech, organization, press, and voting. Votes are the systemic resource. (Individual motives can be quite different. But this is the resource that is systemically important.)

Civil society seems to me to arise when people are free to create cooperative arrangements making use of elements of all the above, and also non-emergent order phenomena such as friendships, in a wide variety of mutually voluntary associations, some serving the wider public, like the Red Cross, some far more private in intent, like an amateur sports league. This too is a kind of "gift economy." I suspect one reason that civil society has not been able to replace more of the public functions performed by government is that organizing costs are much higher because there is no clearly defined systemic resource to facilitate evaluating what projects are most worthy of anyone's interest. The flip side is that civil society is ethically deeper because it does not simplify values as much as these other orders in order to facilitate cooperation. It is ethically deeper and therefore less well defined and more difficult to coordinate than the above. But I could be wrong here - I am just beginning to think of civil society in this way.

Outside the US - which started with an unusually liberal set of national political rules and relatively liberal cultures in many states - some of these will likely only become powerful as commitment to procedural rules rooted in some kind of consent grows. S. Korea is a good example, I think. I think that both civil society and democracy followed upon the growth of an independent middle class due to the growth of the market. I have no idea what the state of S. Korean science is.

From another perspective, most European democracies evolved out of undemocratic states whereas American administrative agencies arose after the democracy had been fairly well established. This is why American bureaucracy often does not resemble European ones even though both exist in democracies now - their origins were different. Once being democratic, neither have really come to resemble Tocqueville's administrative despotism because having become democratic, the state was subsumed to the spontaneous ordering processes. For example, I often tell my libertarian friends that, in terms of Berlin's negative liberty, a majority of Americans are probably more free today than their counterparts were in 1920. This makes no sense if the US is a state where there is a clear connection between growth of government and diminishing of freedom. But, lest I sound too optimistic, attempts in this country to create a national political machine, if successful, will witness the triumph of the government over the democracy - and therefore the creation in the US of a true state. Ironically, this will have happened, if it does, with the assistance of many "anti-statist" Americans. This is because the machine, if successful, will mean an organization now dominates a spontaneous order.

Gus diZerega - 3/11/2005

As a freedom School graduate who cut his ideological teeth reading the Freeman and listening to Leonard rRad and Baldy Harper, this post brings back fond memories, even if by many people's standards I have since strayed ideologically...

As to the future, I think the framework of analysis F. A. Hayek developed is among the most promising. Earlier this week I sent the following appended post to the Hayek list proposing a Hayekian research agenda - one that opens up questions rather than closing them off with deductive answers. I will attach a second, more detailed, post I sent to that list in response to a brief comment by Sudha Shenoy right after I send this one. Perhaps it will intrigue some readers to explore it themselves.

Gus

--- --- --- ---
I confine my remarks to one point [made by Lanney Ebenstein].

Lannyebenstein@AOL.COM wrote:

>(snip)
>
> 3) Warren correctly, I think, calls attention to the constructivist
>nature of Hayek's thought, in the sense that Hayek sought great change in society.
>At the same time, I am more inclined than Warren to emphasize the difference,
>as Hayek did, between change in the societal macro-institutions and values
>within which decisions are made and the attempt to direct particular decisions,
>which Hayek opposed.
>

I agree with Lanny's caveat. However, I think there is another point to be made here. If Hayek had fully appreciated that markets are not neutral transmission belts facilitating individual exchanges, that they bias successful outcomes along certain broad values and penalize other such values (this is implicit in Hayek's work, but not explicit), AND had he realized that democracies are spontaneous orders oriented around other values biases (again, in Constitution of Liberty he came very close to this insight, but didn't cross the final "t," he would have been far less cavalier about radically changing political rules. Vol. 3 of Law, Legislation and Liberty would have been different in its recommendations.

The very logic that argues markets coordinate information we are not aware of in ways that on balance are useful within its field of value biases, also applies to democracies.

Had this happened, classical liberalism would have been presented with an exciting new research paradigm: that of emergent orders as the institutional outcome of liberal principles, and the fascinating additional questions of

1.) How do they influence one another? The market, democracy, science, and what Richard Cornuelle calls the Independent Sector, interact in very complex ways. The independent sector was first identified by Tocqueville in Democracy in America ( a remarkably Hayekian book in my opinion). In the past I had argued that markets, science, and democracy are the three distinctive liberal institutions as spontaneous orders. After again re-reading Tocqueville and teaching him in my civil society class, I would add civil society as a fourth.

2.) The clash of interests between instrumental organizations in spontaneous orders and the needs of those orders themselves. (Hayek was aware of this problem with corporations, but the issue has been largely lost from sight in the government bashing that largely substitutes for political theory among many classical liberals and libertarians.) I think the two most important areas are corporations and the market and political parties and democracy.

3.) How social emergent orders interact with natural ones. The issue of the environment.

4.) How the simplified value biases of the rules generating emergent orders interact with the much more complex value frameworks of the individuals who act within them.

It seems to me this is a robust research paradigm that shifts the focus of liberal political thought with the insight that what was called "the state" is, in democracies, contained within the larger democratic framework (though always eager to become independent of it, as all but the blind see today) is enormously exciting. For one, once we realize that civil society is also able to address public values, it may be that one alternative to expecting government to handle many problems is for civil society (as separate from profit seeking firms) to do so.

Of course, there is the other possibility for many people's attraction to Hayek- that his work if mechanically applied offers ammunition for ideological war, and the farthest thing from their mind is an active research program that explores questions where we do not know the answer in advance.

Kenneth R Gregg - 3/10/2005

John,
Quite correct. I glossed through a lot here, nearly all of which should be considered in detail. Buckley’s influence has been tragic in more ways than just ISI, nor do I consider ISI his (and other anticommunists’) most egregious action. He was a “Charlie Koch” gone wrong, willing to put his personal wealth behind projects during the 50’s and has remained, since then, a figure which one cannot ignore in looking at the history of the American right wing.

By the way, there was no “New Right” until the next decade. The Right at that time was comprised of a motley crew of FDR opponents, ex-commies and other anticommunists of various stripes. Their commingling was always uncomfortable for each of the groups and disrupted constantly over foreign policy matters.

Isolationism, or perhaps rather anti-imperialism, was sneered at by ex-commies (mostly trots--Burnham and Schlamm come immediately to mind--who morphed into today's neocons) and the military adventurism of the anticommunists was looked at in horror (rightly so, in our opinion) by the libertarian elements. In a lot of groups (such as the John Birch Society), libertarians were purged and kicked out of managerial positions.

With ISI, there were libertarians left in mid-level if none were now in control. Also, with ISI, the new emphasis on social conservatism was not all that uncomfortable with libertarians, and it appeared to many that Burkean conservatism (led largely by Russell Kirk) were going to change the direction of the anticommie trots inward, away from foreign adventurism and toward an emphasis on personal lifestyles which would reflect more upon the local community and minimal involvement on a federal level.

As an addendum, I was invited into some of the leadership training at ISI by other libertarians within the organization. Much of it was standard stuff—writing letters to newspapers, talking up matters in public, etc., etc., but it provided some good experiences for a young libertarian at the time (late 60’s, early 70’s). My interests, however, were toward a more libertarian stance, and became involved with Rampart College, Invictus (an early anarchocapitalist/objectivist periodical in Los Angeles), Ed Butler’s Square Movement, CLA (California Libertarian Alliance, led by Dana Rohrabacher and Shawn Steele, which had splintered off from YAF and later merged with), SRI (the objectivist Students for a Rational Individualism, which later merged with), SIL (Society for Individual Liberty which is now ISIL). Libertarians were always involved in one group or another (or three) at that time!

Since then, we’ve learned that this paleoconservatism (at ISI, The Federalist Society, etc.), rather than dominating neocon thought, has splintered off and broken away from the neocon dominance in right-wing institutions, toward some fairly weak alliances with Rockwellian paleolibertarians. The Kirk/Burke apologia has been used by neocons as window-dressing more than I care to admit. Still makes their machinations more palatable to the general public and their money people.

Anyway, back to Buckley. His greatest influence has been through National Review and his books. NR is not as original as claimed today. If you compare early NR issues with the pre-FEE The Freeman, you will see that the format is the same, the writing style is the same and many of the same writers came aboard. The big difference was that Buckley’s NR gradually purged out libertarians (Paterson may have been the last, and the only reason Buckley wanter her was that she was a great writer) and kept the social conservatives and anticommie trots, all of whom were more to his liking, although distinct from his personal lifestyle.

Chodorov and other libertarians did look at Buckley as their ally (“The enemy of our enemy is our friend”). Not true as we have learned. We get to learn stuff over time. Even libertarians do. A half-century before this, libertarians had active and successful alliances with all sorts of socialists as “fellow-travelers,” but we learned. And we learned from this experience as well. Not every libertarian has, though, and still subscribe to an attachment to the military adventurism of our day, following the old ghosts of libertarians past.

Just a thought
Just Ken
kgregglv@cox.net

John W. Payne - 3/10/2005

I find nothing actually wrong in this post, but I think Gregg has breezed over the decay of ISI after Chodorov lost control of the organization. He allowed Bill Buckley to head the organization after him, and although many of Buckley's very early writings reveal a hardcore libertarian essence (after all, he was influenced deeply by Albert Jay Nock, a close friend of his father), he quickly betrayed his principles for the Cold War political religion. Chodorov was a hero of liberty, but I think this decision was deeply flawed and overly influenced by two factors: Chodorov's loyalty to old friends and his eagerness to ally with the emerging New Right (i.e. National Review (NR) and its allies). He failed to see that Buckley and many of NR's editors and contributors would embrace the Cold War and the necessary domestic tyranny so whole-heartedly. Of course, this decision was not entirely irrational: the intellectuals that most influenced Buckley in his early years were mostly pro-freedom, and Chodorov had few alternatives at his disposal. Nonetheless, by the time NR published its first issue, Buckley already headed ISI and had sacrificed his individualism to the cause of the Cold War. As Gregg points out, this turnover shows in ISI's current incarnation. I cannot help but think that if Chodorov had turned over the organization to a more committed individualist, libertarianism would be more popular now than it is in reality. At the very least, one of the first American libertarian organizations after WWII would not be working against us.

-John Payne