Jewish World Review Jan. 24, 2003 / 21 Shevat, 5763

Drs. Michael A. Glueck & Robert J. Cihak

The Medicine Men
JWR's Pundits
World Editorial
Cartoon Showcase

Mallard Fillmore

Michael Barone
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Don Feder
Suzanne Fields
James Glassman
Paul Greenberg
Bob Greene
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Marianne Jennings
Michael Kelly
Mort Kondracke
Ch. Krauthammer
Lawrence Kudlow
Dr. Laura
John Leo
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Chris Matthews
Michael Medved
MUGGER
Kathleen Parker
Wes Pruden
Sam Schulman
Amity Shlaes
Roger Simon
Tony Snow
Thomas Sowell
Cal Thomas
Jonathan S. Tobin
Ben Wattenberg
George Will
Bruce Williams
Walter Williams
Mort Zuckerman

Consumer Reports


Libertarian moment or movement?


http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | Our dilemma this week: Does the libertarian movement have a major role to play in post-9/11 America?

Says Robert Higgs, senior fellow of the Oakland-based Independent Institute: No way.

Says his boss, David Theroux: Absolutely yes, if. . .

The question is no mere think tank squabble. Not as the United States moves toward a war whose necessity has been endlessly asserted but never proven, and toward a high-tech domestic surveillance state unimaginable even a few years ago.

Libertarianism has long been "the other white meat" of a political system in which both liberals and conservatives prefer beef - and, in the classic usage of the term, pork - and both in quantity. Most Americans know (What choice do we have?) about the left-libertarian American Civil Liberties Union, its fervent defense of individual liberties and favored causes, and its far too-often self-serving hype.

Many Americans are familiar with the movement's basic tenets: the primacy of civil society over government, individual voilition over state coercion, and a foreign policy that might be described as pacifist or Jeffersonian, according to taste. Less well-known is the libertarian critique of how the United States arrived at its present welfare state/warfare state. For in the libertarian analysis, the two are far from unrelated.

ROBERT HIGGS

Robert Higgs, a political economist who taught at several universities and who now edits the Independent Review, says "There's no libertarian moment now. Times such as the present are most difficult because crisis conditions always make the general public more submissive to authority than usual. In this crisis, as in preceding ones, practically everyone's attempting to accomplish something through politics by tying his project to responding to the crisis."

Higgs spent decades documenting this process of "crisis opportunism." His 1987 classic, "Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government," lays out what most of us know intuitively. Government grows via what he calls the "ratchet effect," or what some neo-Darwinians call "punctuated evolution: periods of relative stasis followed by spasms of activity.

Throughout the 20th century, according to Higgs, war provided the major impetus to growth. After each war, government shrank somewhat, but never totally returned to its former size or scope. Further, from the Depression forward, the warfare state buttressed the welfare state, as people grew more and more accustomed to governmental control.

In the end, Higgs concludes, governments will always act like governments, seeking to expand their power, unless checked by the citizenry. But when that citizenry becomes accustomed to the tandem of coercion and bribery, when everything becomes a crisis, and the standard American response is to demand that the government DO SOMETHING, despotism ensues.

But libertarianism, Higgs concludes, "is a political non-starter. Politics is about ways to use power, not leaving people alone. We may have to endure terrible tyranny before a sufficient number of people understand the current situation."

DAVID THEROUX

His boss, although no less pessimistic in the short term, disagrees. Independant Institute president David Theroux holds that "The penetration of our analysis is being enhanced. People find the points we're raising are very telling, and we're addressing issues others aren't."

Theroux goes on: "The Achilles heel of the whole system is trust in government. If the problems don't respond to orthodox approaches, if the president can't solve the problems, if it becomes clear that the government can't solve problems that the government has created, we might break the cycle of complacency. Ideological revolutions have happened in the past."

But how to get the message across? For decades, libertarians have spent most of their time and energy talking to and at each other. Theroux concedes that "libertarians have not been sensitive to the views of others, not trying to communicate ideas that make sense in a respectful way. Too often, they just try to provoke people. Ideas have to be picked up in a discreet way. Everybody won't get it at once. The key is how you build bridges."

AN INCUBATOR OF IDEAS

Bridges to where? Not to political power, certainly. But the libertarian movement at its best has functioned as an incubator of ideas that, one way or another, find their themselves in the political mainstream. So far, their best work has been in economics and law. But there's no inherent reason why, sooner or later, the libertarian critique of the welfare/warfare state, and their perspective on the perils of the 21st century, shouldn't enter the realm of the commonly known.

In sum: The movement does have a role to play post 9/11. Best it be sooner.

Enjoy this duo's work? Why not sign-up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.




Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D., is a multiple award winning writer who comments on medical- legal issues. Robert J. Cihak, M.D., is past president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Both JWR contributors are Harvard trained diagnostic radiologists. Comment by clicking here.

Up

01/17/03: It's not just 'sue the docs' anymore
01/03/03: A pox on the critics; diagnosis sour grapes
01/03/03: If protesting is good for your health; then at least let's root for the home team
12/20/02: Obesidemic (obesity epidemic) or not?
12/20/02: Time for voluntary informed smallpox vaccinations
12/13/02: The real reason the state opposes homeschooling?
12/06/02: Conscience of a former conservative: Portrait of a political metamorphosis
11/27/02: Thanksgiving dinner hazard?
11/22/02: Time to think outside the box and inside the nucleus
11/15/02: The military should be protected from abusive environmental laws in times of war
11/11/02: Does Kyoto Treaty pose more harm than global warming?
10/31/02: Deep thoughts on Baseball, the World Series and Life: How about them Anaheim Angels?
10/23/02: "Pediatric rule" guinea pigs
10/23/02: Once the World Series ends, we need to create a Donnie Moore Day of Remembrance: Sports and mental health
10/18/02: Congress to senior patients: Do as we say not as we do for ourselves
10/11/02: Using pollution "scare labeling" to political advantage
10/04/02: The Great Asbestos Heist: Did Litigation and Junk Medical Science Helped Bring Down the World Trade Center?
09/27/02: The imminent rise of civic feminism: A far healthier national alternative in war and peace
09/20/02: A Ray A Day" to replace the daily apple?
09/13/02: Beware of celebrities hawking drugs
09/06/02: Avoid 9/11 overdose: Give blood to begin "September of Service," SOS
08/28/02: From Doubleday to strikeday: Baseball's collective anxiety attack
08/23/02: Should she or shouldn't she?: An alternative view on treating menopause with HRT
08/16/02: Cooking up defenses against germ warfare
08/02/02: Medicine, crime and canines
07/26/02: Lies, pathologic lies and the Palestinians
07/19/02: Medicare Drug Follies … as in "now you see it, now you don't"
07/12/02: Anti-Profiling: A New Medically False Belief System
07/08/02: Don't procrastinate, vaccinate!
06/28/02: The scientific advances on the safe and effective deployment of DDT are being ignored, or denied. Why?
06/21/02: Sex and the system: In seeking healthcare men are different from women
06/14/02: The FDA, drug companies and life-saving drugs: Who's the fox and who's the hen now?
06/07/02: Medical Privacy Lost: A hippo on the healthcare back!
05/24/02: To clean up America's game: A (soggy) ground rule
05/10/02: Free speech is good medicine
05/03/02: Medicine's Vietnam
04/26/02: Attack on alternative medicine could lead to alternative lawsuits
04/12/02: Insure the 'crazies'?
04/09/02: No Time for Litmus Tests: In War We Need a Surgeon General and NIH, CDC, and FDA Directors
04/02/02: The scoop on soot: A dirty rotten shame?
03/22/02: Too many beautiful minds to waste: The first annual Caduceus Movie
03/15/02: Terror and transformation: Defense essential for health & state of mind
03/08/02: Diagnosis: Delusional
03/06/02: The great matzah famine
03/01/02: Is new Hippocratic Oath hypocritical?
02/15/02: Why the recent moaning about cloning?
02/08/02: Searching for Dr. Strangelove
01/15/02: Score one for the value of human life
01/04/02: Medical-legal-financial wake-up call
12/28/01: Who's afraid of a 'dirty bomb'?
12/21/01: End of medicine?
12/14/01: More heroes: Docs deserve a little credit after 9/11
11/16/01: Do we need 'Super Smallpox Saturdays'?
11/09/01: Why the post-9-11 health care debate will never be the same
11/01/01: Common sense good for our mental health
10/26/01: Your right to medical privacy --- even in terror time
10/12/01: Failed immigration policy ultimately bad for nation's mental health: Enemy within leads to epidemic of jumpy nerves
09/28/01: Can legal leopards change their spots: A treat instead of a trick
09/21/01: Civil defense again a civic duty
08/30/01: Shut down this government CAFE
08/23/01: School Bells or Jail Cells?
08/15/01: Time to take coaches to the woodshed
08/10/01: Blood, Guts & Glory: The Stem of the Stem Cell controversy

© 2002