The Libertarian Forum, Vol. 5, No. 7, July 1973
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A Monthly Newsletter
| Joseph R. Peden, Publisher |
Murray N. Rothbard, Editor |
| VOLUME V, NO. 7 |
JULY, 1973 |
US-ISSN0047-4517 |
If Watergate bids fair to bring down the Nixon Administration,
Nixonomics is ever more raucously in the background, ready to
administer an extra kick in the gut. For in no area has Mr. Nixon looked
less like a strong and wise leader, in no area has he done more weaving,
stumbling, and bumbling, than in the vital economic arena. Not only that:
but Mr. Nixon's economic sins are fast catching up with him; one of the
important new facts about the economic world is that evil effects are now
taking a lot less time to catch up with evil causes. In previous decades,
when there was more "fat" in the capitalist economy, the sins of the
fathers could only be visited upon the sons, or even the grandsons; but
now chickens sent out by the President take hardly a few years to come
home to roost. The sins of each President are now, more and more,
visited upon himself.
President Nixon is now in a fearsome economic mess, at home and
abroad, and the accelerating number of his gyrations and "phases" are
not helping him in the slightest. They only push him wildly from one set of
evils to another and back again, while correctly giving the public an
image of a confused and bewildered Chief Executive.
Take the accelerating international monetary crisis. On the black day
of August 15, 1971, Mr. Nixon scuttled the last of the Bretton Woods
System. Under pressure by foreign central banks to redeem some of their
huge accumulated stock of nearly $80 billion of dollars in gold which we
were pledged to pay on demand but did not have, Nixon simply "shut the
gold window" in an act of international bankruptcy and bad faith. By his
act, Mr. Nixon replaced a bad system by an intolerable one, by a world
without a money, a world of fluctuating fiat currencies each at the mercy
of their (more or less inflationary) government, a world which
threatened to degenerate into the currency blocs, competing
devaluations, exchange control, economic warfare, and the shattering of
international trade and investment that marked the 1930s. Struggling to
recreate an international order with fixed exchange rates — but without
gold or any other international money, Mr. Nixon drove into existence a
new monetary system in the Smithsonian Agreement of December 18,
1971.
President Nixon has made many absurd statements since assuming
office, but surely none was more absurd than his laughable hailing of the
Smithsonian as "the greatest monetary agreement in the history of the
world." To anyone who knew anything about money, left, right, or center,
it was clear that no system will break down faster or more thoroughly
than fixed exchange rates without an international money. The fact that a
wider zone of fluctuations than before was allowed around the exchange
rates meant nothing. The "greatest monetary agreement" lasted hardly
more than a year, and the great monetary crisis of February-March 1973
sent it smashing to smithereens. For the handwriting was on the wall
from the very beginning for the absurdly overvalued dollar and the ditto
British pound, overvalued in relation to the West German, Swiss, French,
and Japanese currencies and in relation to gold. The loss of confidence in
the ever more inflated dollar and other currencies sent the price of gold
on the free market skyrocketing to $125 an ounce — almost a quadrupling
of the gold price from the formerly sacred $35 figure. Finally, in
February-March 1973, the pressure on the absurdly overvalued dollar and
pound broke these currencies, and the Smithsonian along with them. Once
again, market forces and economic law had proved far stronger than the
will of governments.
Since March, we have been, on the international front, in a Friedmanite
heaven. For exchange rates (except within the West European bloc) have
been fluctuating, more or less freely. For a short while, bankers and
economists spoke with surprise of how "well" the fluctuating system was
working. But the rapid plunge of the dollar in early July has brought the
American public up short. Good God! This means that the prices of
foreign imports are now 50% higher than last year, it means that
American tourists have to spend 50% more than even a few months ago,
etc.! And not only do we face far higher prices for foreign products; the
cheap American exports are now being snapped up by foreign countries,
thereby lowering the supply of these goods at home and raising their
prices in the U. S. Cheap exports "import inflation" from abroad. We are
beginning to wake up to the fact that the Friedmanite Utopia of freely
fluctuating exchange rates means in practice a bonanza for American
export interests and for inefficient domestic producers, and suffering for
everyone else. And since we have already been burdened by a host of
policies subsidizing exports and hampering imports — from foreign aid to
protective tariffs and import quotas — the shock of an additional push is
rather too much to bear. If there is anything America does not need now,
it is a massive dose of more export subsidies and import restrictions,
which is what a depreciating dollar entails.
So now what? Undoubtedly, we will get frantic scrambles back and
forth between fixed and fluctuating exchange rates, with neither policy
working well as we try to escape one set of evils by embracing another.
The frantic plunge of the dollar in early July was only checked by an
announcement of more authority by the Federal Reserve to "swap" by
borrowing hard currency in order to support the dollar in the exchange
market. But this is obviously a temporary stopgap; the market won't long
be fooled by this kind of device. And while the world waffles back and
forth between fixed and fluctuating rates, the dread spectre of the 1930s
remains: in this case of Western Europe refusing to accept — and indeed
dumping — their $80 billion stock of more and more useless dollars, the
fruits of two decades of deficits in the U. S. balance of payments. At some
point, the hard money countries of Western Europe will stop the hated
flow of dollars by imposing exchange controls, and we will be back in the
economic warfare of the 1930s — with a good chance of a world-wide
depression to boot.
And neither Nixon nor any other Administration will get out of this
mess until we return to the truly free-market system of the gold
standard. It is the United States, above all other countries, that is
resisting a return to gold to the uttermost, for the sake of preserving its
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July, 1973 |
A great many theories of government and social organization rest on
consideration of man's perfection. From the time of Plato, philosophers
and political theorists have formulated much of their thinking about
political communities in line with some view about the relationship
between ideal man and actual people. Invariably actual people were
declared to be "imperfect", "flawed", "lowly" and the like. In
theological thinking matters were stated in terms of man's original sin,
his pride, or his passioned instead of spiritual inclinations.
What is the importance of such thinking for theorizing about the kind of
political order mankind ought to institute? And what is the precise
meaning of such claims as that man is "flawed" or "imperfect"? To
understand what we face in trying to evaluate political alternatives, i.e.,
different solutions to the basic question of political theory, it is necessary
that we become clear on these matters.
References to man's flawed nature, his imperfection and the like, are
not simple to understand. Ordinarily when we consider whether
something is a flawed or perfect specimen of its kind, we refer to
particular items. Thus some particular chair may be ill-designed, some
table badly constructed, or some marriage perfect. Even when we
consider groups of things, say a line of furniture designed by some firm's
team of engineers, we talk about that group's failure to meet standards of
excellence appropriate to what is being manufactured. Thus a particular
line of furniture may be said to have been badly designed — with reference
to certain known purposes chairs — all chairs — have. (Of course it is not
easy to offer evaluations even of chairs. A lot depends on what purpose
some variety of chair is to serve.) The same is true about, e.g., trees, not
just human artifacts. Some, even if few, are perfect for use as christmas
trees, others as material for lumber yards, and yet others as models for
artists. Still, when we know that some particular purpose someone has is
unobjectionable on, say, moral grounds, then we are able to and will
freely judge items which are intended to serve it in terms of the standard
of how well they will satisfy that purpose. And then, even if rarely, we
may judge something perfect.
When we come to evaluating human beings as such — Man — we meet
with a number of difficulties. Does Man serve some purpose? Whose?
Who is to judge how well He satisfies it? Very often the answer given is
that Man serves God's purposes. Yet there is much debate as to whether
anyone of us could even know this much, not alone know what God's
purposes are. Generally it is wiser to leave religious questions out of
political matters. This is because religion rests on human faith, a very
personal, incommunicable matter whatever its nature. Politics, on the
other hand, reaches out for clear understanding, rational solutions. We
would be unwise to expect that matters of personal faith, including what
any of us believes ahout God's purposes and, therefore, man's capacity to
satisfy them, are suited for making political judgments. (Consider that
for some religious faiths God has no purpose involving man; for others
man's existence, just as he does exist at any given time, satisfies God's
purpose; for yet others man cannot even fulfill the purpose for which he is
created by God except after his life on earth.) With a realm so individual
and inaccessible to common understanding as faith, it is wisest not to
attempt to introduce it into areas where common understanding is the
very cornerstone of reaching solutions.
Outside of a religious context what sense can we make of the idea that
man has a purpose? That is, that mankind — the species itself — serves
some purpose? Aristotle tried to make sense of this, albeit not with
complete success. He believed that the purpose of man as of any other
natural being is to fulfill its essence. This, applied to man, means that
each of us as rational animals fulfills our purpose if he lives his life in
accordance with our human nature, namely as fully rationally as we, with
our individual capacities, can.
But Aristotle's idea is not exactly that mankind as such has a purpose.
It is that there is a purpose to the life of each member of mankind. This is
generally describable as living according to human nature. Yet because
each man is at once a member of the class of mankind and also an
individual who differs from all others in important ways, that alone could
not convey the meaning of "having a purpose for any given individual."
Before we can say what a given man's specific purpose is, we must know
something about him as an individual. We need to know what living
according to his human nature, rationally, must mean for any given
individual.
If we consider this approach carefully — and it is the only sensible
discussion of purpose closely tied to political theory in all of man's
history — an interesting thing emerges. Whether a given individual is or is
not perfect cannot be known ahead of time. And whether mankind is
perfect is not even an intelligible question. It would be like asking if trees
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Economic Mess —
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inflationary system. And now that the free-market gold price is $125 an
ounce, it would be easy to return to gold at this — or even a still higher —
price. That would give the U. S. and all other currencies three times as
much gold to back up their currencies as they have now.
On the domestic economic front, matters are certainly no better. Here
we see the Nixon Administration waffling back and forth between
innumerable "phases": from tight to loose price-wage controls, to tight
to loose again, ad infinitum. And each of these phases is working
conspicuously less well than the one preceding. In the February 1973 Lib.
Forum we wrote that the second Nixon term seemed to be moving away
from controls, but that the "sticks were in the closet." Well, they're out
of the closet now, of course, with the Draconian Second Freeze of Phase
3½ succeeding a partly tolerable Phase 3. Phase 3½ idiotically froze all
prices, but not wages or unprocessed foods; the result was the very rapid
development of food shortages, especially meat and margarine. Phase 4
promises to be Phase 2ish, and so on. But Phases 3½ and 4, as is
recognized by virtually all economists, are going to break down much
faster than Phases 1 and 2, since the economy is now bursting at the
seams in an inflationary boom whereas in 1971 we were in a (less)
inflationary recession with lots of slack in the economy. So that while it
took over a year for Phases 1-2 to break down, the collapse will be
considerably faster for the comparable Phases 3½-4. The point of the
whole thing is that the Nixon Administration is now committed to price
and wage controls, shifting wildly between tight and loose, while at the
same time — and despite the publicity on the "tight money" of high
interest rates — it continues to expand the money supply by 8-10% per
year. It does not have the guts to stop this policy of inflating (money)
while trying to hold down or break the inflation thermometer (prices)
even though it knows that its policy is economic lunacy. For it does not
have the guts to face the recession that is inevitable once the inflationary
process has been stopped.
Even Milton Friedman, who has long held that a recession is not the
inevitable consequence of an inflationary boom, now admits that a sharp
recession is inevitable should the government stop inflating the money
supply. It is curious, by the way, that Friedman reacted with far greater
horror to Nixon's second freeze than in his rather mild wrist-slapping of
August 1971. Somehow he feels that the second freeze is Nixon's real
betrayal of free-market principles; but in our view the basic decision to
dump the market for price controls was made in Phase 1: all the rest
have been gyrations within that basic decision. But I suppose we should
welcome Milton, even if belatedly, to the ranks of the indignant.
The prognosis on the domestic front is scarcely happier than on the
foreign. Prices are now accelerating at a rapid rate, far more rapidly
than in the previous administrations. But the will to stop inflating is
clearly not there. And so we can expect a ratcheting series of price
inflations, with the eventual super-catastrophe of runaway inflation and
the "crack-up boom" looming ever closer on the horizon. Only an iron
will of the Administration to stop inflating could reverse this prognosis,
and there is no sign of that will anywhere in the Administration. The poor
befuddled public, with its eye on price controls, doesn't even begin to
understand the problem, and so can be no help in putting pressure on our
rulers. The only comfort for libertarians in this grim picture is that we
should be able to convert many people to a libertarian, hard-money, free
market position with an impressive catalog of "I-told-you-sos".
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On Man And Perfection —
(Continued From Page 2)
or roses or fish or the moon, etc., are perfect. But by what standard? To
what must trees measure up to be identified as a perfect? The best we
can answer is: to the purpose we have for trees in our own lives. But what
of fish, moons and the millions of other kinds of entities in nature? To ask
whether these are perfect makes little sense. Perfect by what standard,
for what purpose?
With man the issue of perfection is a moral and personal issue. It has to
do with man's nature as a free and self-responsible being. He is free to
cause his actions (although, of course, some people are too impaired
either mentally or physically to be thought of this way). And he is
responsible to choose those actions that will make his life a success. As
Aristotle seems to have believed, and I do too, happiness, the successful
state of human life, is each man's moral purpose. (Ayn Rand spells this
out in detail.) It is with reference to how well each does to satisfy this
goal that anyone may be evaluated as either perfect, good, mediocre or
downright evil. No other sense can be made of the idea of human
perfection.
But what of the claims about man's "flawed" and "imperfect" nature?
Surely there must be something meant by these remarks. And indeed
there appears to be something important to them. That is that no man has
a guarantee for success. Moral excellence is not ensured for anyone
ahead of time. Every person must make the effort to be good on his own -
he cannot be made to be good.
But the idea that man is "flawed" is often interpreted so that we are
given to understand that people cannot be good even if they do their best.
that man is fallible but that he is necessarily a failure, flawed by his
nature. Yet this cannot be understood at all. How would anyone be
knowledgeable enough to say such a thing? It would seem to be
presumptuous to declare of all people, past, present and future, that they
cannot live a morally good life, that they cannot achieve the best possible
life for themselves, given their capacities and circumstances. This kind
of a judgment is best characterized as prejudicial — it disregards the
perfectly sensible judicial principle of the presumption of innocence. It
confuses "free to do good or ill" with "must do ill".
Believing that man is flawed, Marx, for example, thought that it was
the inevitable result of revolutionary social conflicts to make him good.
Marx did not believe in free will. So he did not take man's "flawedness"
to mean that the possibility of evil, as well as of good, is open to all
people. He believed that — by virtue of institutional and similar elusive
causes — man is necessarily flawed. Only when man had been made
automatically good would the perfect society emerge.
Claiming that some equally elusive problem left man to believe in his
own freedom, B. F. Skinner, too, asks us to accept that man can be made
good by social control. And when one believes that there is something in
human nature itself that makes us flawed, it is not unreasonable to try to
wipe the flaw out, to make the necessary reparations. We do this, after
all, with faulty chairs, cars, cameras, and even human physical organs.
So why not with mankind?
It is often this belief in the flawed nature of man that impels people,
especially ambitious and impatient ones, toward social engineering. I
believe that a clear grasp of what must be meant when we say that man is
not perfect — namely that moral perfection is never guaranteed for anyone
but must be earned by the individual himself through hard work — will
reduce the inclination toward statism, paternalism and totalitarianism.
We could then develop societies that assume neither man's perfectability
nor his imperfectability.
Such a system would make sure that those who aim to do well in their
lives, who try for moral excellence, would not be disturbed by those who
are not willing to try for it. Nor would anyone be ordered to live a morally
decent life — all he will not be permitted to do is to prevent others from
trying. This, I think, is the only nonutopian and yet optimistic approach to
man's goal of living in peace with his fellows.
Baldy Harper's last published writing appeared, a week before his
death, in the Santa Ana Register for April 13. It is characteristic that
Baldy's last writing was in celebration of a powerful tax rebellion
movement that has recently appeared in Denmark. (The article is
entitled, "Tax Rebel Shows Strong in Dane Poll"). The article writes of
the great and rising popularity of Mr. Mogens Gilstrup and his new
Progressive Party, the latest poll showing that if an election were now
held in Denmark, the Progressives would win 33 out of the 179 seats in the
Danish Parliament, making the new party second to the ruling Social
Democrats.
Who is Gilstrup, and what is the Progressive Party program? Gilstrup
is a tax lawyer and a tax rebel, who two years ago announced on
television that had paid no income tax at all on a "very high income," and
that he did so through legal tax avoidance. His Progressive Party
program is short and sweet: (1) abolish all income taxes over the next six
years; (2) reduce the government bureaucracy by 90% (!); and (3)
rewrite all the statutes so as to make them short and clear enough for
everyone to understand.
Harper, with his keen appreciation of the clear-cut antithesis between
the State and private property, concludes as follows:
"The time may fast be approaching when the tax-bowed
citizens of western countries will face up to a clear choice
between two views: (1) Taxes are part of the person's
income that is confiscated without his consent, or (2)
persons are owned by the government, in essence, which
means that these incomes were owned by the government
before being taken as taxes."
Liberty Or Order: 1970 Domestic Spying Plan
|
William F. Buckley's National Review once said of Tom Charles
Huston that "he radiates a primal personal integrity and conceals
remarkable intellectual and political agility behind a facade of Hoosier
folksiness. He is one of the young luminaries of American conservatism."
Huston is the young lawyer and conservative political activist who, in
the summer of 1970, as a White House aide drafted an expanded domestic
intelligence plan for President Nixon. The plan involved spying,
wiretapping, burglaries, and the interception and opening of mail.
How did it happen that Huston, a former national chairman of the
Young Americans for Freedom student group, came to design a program
for the systematic violation of civil liberties?
The answer to this puzzle lies in large part in the ideological concepts of
"freedom" and of "order" that are held by men like Huston who are in
the leadership of the organized conservative movement in America.
A profile of Huston in the May 24 New York Times quoted him as
explaining that "repression is an inevitable result of disorder. Forced to
choose between order and freedom, people will take order."
The error in Houston's [Huston's] reasoning is twofold. First, there is a
philosophical error in not recognizing the difference between a societal
"order" that is simply securing to citizens their rights to life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness and a societal "order" that secures a
governmental system, any governmental system in power.
Thus, the American Revolution in the eighteenth century is correctly
seen both as a threat to the order of the British Empire and as a defense
of the natural order of human liberty. There is always a dichotomy
between governmental order per se and liberty. But there is perfect
compatibility between total liberty and a natural order securing to all this
same liberty.
Secondly, Huston made the practical error of defending not the natural
order of full freedom for all, but governmental order. He has
subsequently attempted to justify this by contending that at the time the
voters were likely to endorse more extensive abrogation of civil liberties,
if the Nixon plan was not successful.
But here we see the same opportunistic position that Huston found so
distasteful in the Nixon administration's other domestic programs.
Borrowing the sort of domestic security program that one might
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Pareto on the Prospects for Liberty
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Editor's Note: One of the important but neglected resources for
libertarians is the translation of libertarian works of the past that
languish unread because of the great language barrier that afflicts even
the most learned Americans. Here, Professor Ralph Raico, of the history
department of the State University College at Buffalo, one of the notable
translators of the movement who brought us the excellent English
translation of Mises' Liberalismus (The Free and Prosperous
Commonwealth) now gives us, for the first time in English, a beautifully
written letter by the great Pareto. Vilfredo Pareto, a great Italian
libertarian theorist of the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth,
began by the turn of the century to despair of the prospects for liberty. He
had good reasons for his pessimism, as he saw libertarianism (or laissez-faire
liberalism) ground down between the socialists on the one hand and
the right-wing protectionist statists on the other. It was Pareto's despair
at the victory of emotional statist appeals that led him later to the
sociological view that the persuasive power of reason was helpless in the
grip of irrational motivations. The view, especially for that epoch, was
understandable though unfortunate, since it neglects the possibility of
libertarian appeals blending reason and emotion as contrasted to the
merely emotional propaganda of its enemies. Pareto's letter was
originally published in Le monde economique of April 10, May 8, and June
5, 1897; and was then reprinted in his Oeuvres Completes, Vol. VI, Mythes
et Ideologies (Geneva, 1956), pp. 113-16.
Letter to M. Brelay
by Vilfredo Pareto
translated by Ralph Raico
My dear colleague,
You are a stout-hearted fellow, you continue to fight for liberty, your
writings and lectures are filled with practical good sense. But even you
must have some doubts on the outcome of the battle. For myself, I am
tempted to believe that the game is really just about lost, except in
England and perhaps in Switzerland. As for the rest of Europe, it may be
that the triumph of socialism is only a question of time. Besides, you will
notice that by now the fight is already merely between different sects of
socialists. In Germany, it is imperial and military socialism that fights it
out with the socialism of the masses. In Italy and France, the latter is at
grips with protectionist socialism. Do you happen to have any
preferences for one or another of these sects? I myself don't; and, in any
case, it would not be the socialism of established governments that I
would defend.
As for the liberals, I search for them in vain. There are, it is true, a few
chiefs left, such as Herbert Spencer and our good friend, M. de Molinari.
But as for the common soldiers — where are they? At each election, one
sees the number of socialist deputies increase. It is true that the number
of liberal deputies does not diminish, but that is for the excellent reason
that for a long time now that number has been zero. The majority of
young people whom I know in Italy and elsewhere are either opportunists
or socialists; it isn't necessary to tell you that I much prefer the latter,
who may be deceiving themselves, but who at least have generous and
decent intentions.
How does it happen that the liberal party, which, in the time of the
Cobdens, the J.-B. Says, the Bastiats, etc., appeared to be assured of a
quick victory, now does not even exist anymore in most of the states of
the European continent? This fact is due to a great number of causes,
which it would take too much time to set forth; but there is one which,
though secondary, seems to me rather important, and which I would like
to converse with you about a bit.
The great error of the party of economic liberty, in my view, has been
and still is today that it is not a political party. When one does pure
science, one can and must do analysis; that is, one can and must separate
one question from all others and study it apart. No one is more drawn to
recognize this principle than myself; I have written a whole treatise on
political economy in which I declared that I had no wish to resolve any
practical question at all. But when one leaves theory and wishes to lay
down rules for real life, it is necessary to make syntheses. What does it
matter to me if free trade permits me gain ten francs, if this same
amount is taken away from me again by raising taxes? The loveliest
theories are worth nothing if the final result is bad: "I live from good
soup, and not from beautiful language." One may hope to make partisans
for one's cause by saying: Join us and you will pay thirty or forty
centimes for sugar, as the English do, instead of paying one franc ten. But
whom does one intend to persuade by saying: Take a lot of trouble, make
sacrifices — you will continue, it is true, to pay one franc ten for your
sugar, only you will have the satisfaction, the pleasure, the happiness of
knowing that it will be because of a fiscal levy and not a protective levy.
The point is that in theory this sort of distinction is useful and justified,
but in practical politics it is absurd.
Not concerning itself with politics, the party of economic liberty had, it
is true, the advantage of recruiting rather promptly a great number of
adherents; but it lost in force and intensity of conviction what it gained in
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Liberty Or Order —
(Continued From Page 3)
anticipate from a George Wallace in order to avert his gaining electoral
strength, is hardly acting in accord with any "philosophical view of what
government ought to be doing."
Embracing Only Rhetoric
If Huston had recognized that a free society was the proper
environment for human activity, he would have held that a net
subtraction of freedom is never justified. If Huston had fully belonged to
the individualist political tradition, instead of merely partially
embracing its rhetoric, liberty would have been his highest political goal,
to which all others were subordinated.
However, Huston and the other adherents of the William Buckley circle
of conservatives attempt to fuse a devotion to the prevailing traditional
order with a devotion to liberty. In times of crisis, they most often come
down on the side of the ruling order rather than liberty.
Huston himself is an admirer of the political thought of John C.
Calhoun, whose portrait was on his office wall in his White House years.
Calhoun's influence no doubt added to Huston's capacity to rationalize
setting up the 1970 espionage program.
Calhoun was both a brilliant, original political theorist and an active
politician in the period preceding the American Civil War. But Calhoun
rejected the Jeffersonian doctrine that all human beings possessed
natural and inalienable rights.
Calhoun argued in his Disquisition on Government that "it is a great
and dangerous error to suppose that all people are equally entitled to
liberty."
"It is a reward to be earned, not a blessing to be gratuitously lavished
of all alike — a reward reserved for the intelligent, the patriotic, the
virtuous and deserving, and not a boon to be bestowed on a people too
ignorant, degraded, and vicious to be capable either of appreciating or of
enjoying it."
Huston was inclined to believe with Calhoun that when liberty and
governmental order came into conflict, liberty must yield to
governmental power. Huston was therefore willing to devise a massive
plan to control dissenters.
But Huston's and Calhoun's anti-libertarian approach is an attack upon
the social conditions that are right for man. Only when it is generally
recognized that, in Proudhon's words, "liberty is not the daughter but the
mother of order," and when men are ready to defend such a natural order
of liberty, will we have a free society, a society in which virtue can
prosper.
Reprinted from the Stanford Daily, July 6, 1973.
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Prospects for Liberty —
(Continued From Page 4)
extension. It consoles itself agreeably enough by making fun of its
enemies, as the Greeks, vanquished by the Romans, consoled themselves
by counting up the grammatical mistakes their masters made. When the
scandals break that are an inevitable consequence of state socialism, the
liberals, far from profiting from the occasion to make the public aware of
the advantages of their doctrine, modestly lower their eyes, keep still,
hide and seem truly to fear nothing so much as having been too much in
the right. In reality, most of the people who call themselves liberal are
quite simply the defenders of the interests of the upper social classes. But
these are far from rallying to liberal doctrines; they want more than and
better than simply to preserve what belongs to them. They intend to enjoy
all the benefits of bourgeois and protectionist socialism, and hardly
concern themselves except with the people who can help them in
appropriating the goods of others. They do not absolutely scorn the
praises that so-called liberal economists bestow on the luxury of the rich.
But frankly that is only meager meat in comparison with the good
protective tariffs, the good manufacturing subsidies, with the privileges
and monopolies of all kinds that they obtain from the right honorable
politicians.
The pseudo-liberals have contributed not a little (aided by the
socialists) to create the legend that makes of political economy the
enemy of the working classes and reduces it to a kind of casuistry in the
service of the rich. One is surprised and pained to see men of talent
believing in such nonsense. Thus, an illustrious scholar, of whom I
certainly shall only speak with the greatest respect, M. Berthelot,* in a
recent speech, pronounced the following words: "Above all, far from us
these egoistic doctrines of laissez-faire and laissez-passer, which would
suppress any intervention of scientific laws in the direction of societies,
as well as the fatal slogan once proclaimed from the height of the tribune
as the supreme end of social life: Get rich!"**
What would M. Berthelot say if someone confused the phlogiston theory
with modern atomic theory? Well, it is a similar confusion that he
commits by mixing up the sometimes illusory speculations of the
economists of the optimistic school with economic science.
He probably imagines that "laissez-faire, laissez-passer" is a kind of
fetish adored by certain savages. He certainly is unaware that the
theorem that proves that free competition leads to the maximum of well-being
is quite as well demonstrated as any theorem in theoretical
mechanics. He is unaware that the theorem that shows that every
indirect transfer of wealth from certain individuals to certain others is
accompanied by a destruction of wealth rests on proofs altogether as sure
as those which serve to prove the second law of thermodynamics. If we
then proceed to apply these theorems to the social aggregate, he cries out
that we want to preclude the "scientific direction of societies." It is as if
one applied the principles of thermodynamics to steamengines and M.
Berthelot complained that "one intends to exclude the science of the
construction of these machines." Isn't it profoundly regrettable that a
scientist who justifiably enjoys such a great authority talks in this way
about such matters, without trying in the least to understand the precise
meaning of the theories he condemns?
Then there is the egoism of "laissez-faire, laissez-passer"! Oh, yes,
truly — it was through egoism that Bastiat demanded that the people not
be plundered by means of tariffs, and it was through egoism that Cobden
and his friends delivered the English people from the tribute that they
paid the landlords. Hasn't M. Berthelot ever gone to England, hasn't he
ever read a book dealing with economic conditions in that country? Is he
therefore really unaware that it is because in England one "lets things
pass" — wheat, meat, sugar — that the workers of that land enjoy much
greater well-being than the workers of the European continent? In what
part of the world did one find oneself when, in France, an entry-duty was
placed on bread, in order to prevent workers from buying it in Belgium.
M. Berthelot has only to read the excellent study of M. G. Francois,
Thirty Years of Free Trade in England, and he will learn that "laissez-faire,
laissez-passer" can, after all, do some good. Let M. Berthelot go to
England and he will see the children of workers and farmers eating
sweets. Let him then betake himself to Italy, and he will perceive that
only the children of the rich may eat candy. Does he know why? Because
in England sugar costs forty centimes a kilogram, and in Italy one franc
eighty. Now, if M. Berthelot is ignorant of the reason for this difference
in price I can let him know: it is that in England one "lets sugar pass" at
the frontier, while in Italy it is stopped in order to enrich the right
honorable manufacturers and refiners of sugar, who, it is true share with
the politicians. We laissez-faire liberals prove our egoism because we
demand a stop to this sort of plundering of the people. We prove our
ignorance because we reject, for the direction of society, this "science"
whose real name is the science of plunder, while the dear little saints who
grow rich on the benefits of protectionism and state socialism are living
examples of the purest love of neighbor!
As for the advice to "get rich," one must distinguish. Does M.
Berthdot really believe that an individual cannot become rich except by
appropriating the goods of others? That would be going back, in political
economy, even further than one would, in chemistry, in adopting the
phlogiston theory! But there is another means of getting rich, which does
no wrong to anyone and is extremely beneficial to all of society: it is by
creating utilities. It is in this way that whole peoples grow rich. How
could a people become rich if each individual of which it is composed
became poorer? It is solely due to this growth of the wealth of peoples
that progress has been possible; otherwise, we would still live like our
cannibal ancestors. It is because they lack food that many savage people
kill their aged; it is because we are not yet rich enough that we cannot
assist all who are weak. Therefore we must still reiterate this advice to
"get rich" (by honest means, of course), for if our societies were richer
the question of a retirement pension for old people would be immediately
solved.
But what is the use of proving to our adversaries that they are wrong?
They still go along perpetually repeating propositions that are
perpetually refuted. Have you ever seen them come to answer your
speeches? Have they ever been able to deny the facts, refute the
reasonings by which you expose the evils of protectionism? They are too
prudent even to venture to try. They do suspect a little that neither
experience nor logic are to be numbered among their allies, and it is to
the passions that they appeal, not to reason. In any case, it's probably
because of that that they will triumph. Nothing proves that they will not
succeed in reducing our societies to some state resembling that of ancient
Peru. Our descendants are destined to see some fine things! As for me, I
certainly don't begrudge them their bliss.
· · ·
* Pierre Eugene Marcelin Berthelot (1827-1907) was a French chemist
and politician. His work was particularly notable in the field of
thermochemistry. — trans. note
** The phrase "Enrichissez-vous" was supposed to have been spoken by
Francois Guizot, French historian and premier under Louis Philippe
(1840-48), in response to the query of how non-enfranchised citizens
could ever hope to enjoy the right to vote, considering the existence of
property qualifications for the franchise. — trans. note
Public Schools: the Counterattack Begins
|
There is no doubt about the fact that one of the most influential centers
of social thought and planning in the United States is the well financed
Center for Democratic Institutions in Santa Barbara, California. Under
the long time direction of Robert M. Hutchins, former President of the
University of Chicago, the Center has become famous for perceiving a
crisis before it becomes apparent to others, for setting about the task of
creating a "brain trust" to study the various aspects of the crisis-to-be,
and then "planning" for its resolution. But unlike so many academic
"think-tanks" which send their results in sealed envelopes to appropriate
corporate or governmental sponsors, the CDI gives the widest possible
publicity to its deliberations and its findings, and often lobbies to get its
schemes into being by exerting whatever pressures it can muster.
We have already described the role of the CDI in the creation of an
oceanic regime designed to monopolize as much of the territories and
(Continued On Page 6)
| Page 6 |
The Libertarian Forum |
July, 1973 |
Public Schools —
(Continued From Page 5)
resources of the open seas as it can (Lib. Forum, Aug. 1972). Under the
direction of old New Deal brain-truster Rexford G. Tugwell, the Center
scholars also had the temerity to write a new Constitution for the United
States and sponsor dozens of regional conferences throughout the country
to "discuss" Tugwell's draft. The reception was so unfavorable in almost
all quarters that the scheme seems to have been put in storage for the
moment. But if Nixon or his successor ever wishes to formalize his
Augustan principate by calling a Constitutional Convention — say in 1976
— the Tugwell draft is there in the dust, like Richard III's crown, waiting
to be picked up.
The latest project of Hutchins and his proteges is an open admission
that the public education establishment is under seige and in panic; and
now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the "party".
Hutchins has announced that the CDI, in conjunction with the Center for
Policy Study of the University of Chicago, will undertake an inquiry on
public education. Why?
"The political community should be required to justify the
prolonged detention of its citizens in an educational system.
We need to enquire into the possibility of such justification.
We need to answer the question whether public education is
any longer useful. If so, on what terms? If not, what is the
alternative?"
The questions raised certainly go to the heart of the issue and are a
tribute to radical and libertarian critics of the past decade. The first four
questions are almost certainly a plea for some intelligent reply to the
criticisms of Ivan Illich (See rev. of Illich's Deschooling Society by Len
Liggio, Lib. Forum, Oct. 1971):
"Are universal literacy and numericity of sufficient
importance in this decade to deserve the substantial share
of educational funds and energies? How shall the terminal
point of education be determined? How shall assessed
national needs and individual aspirations and propensities
be reconciled when they are incongruent? Are schools the
appropriate institutions for career education? Job training?
Shall maximizing the educability of the deprived, least
schooled segments of our population be a matter of first
priority?"
Other questions reflect the devastating impact on the public
educationist establishment of the findings of Christopher Jencks and his
associates (Inequality: A Reassessment of the Effect of Family and
Schooling in America, Basic Books 1972). As Christopher Lasch has so
well said:
"Not only do they (Jencks' findings) undermine the popular
belief that schooling is an avenue of economic
advancement, they also undermine the progressive version
of this national mythology — namely that progressive
education policies can be used to promote social justice and
a new set of social values: cooperation, spontaneity and
creativity. Jencks' evidence strongly suggests that the
school does not function in any direct and conscious way as
the principal agency of indoctrination, discipline or social
control . . ."
This must have been the inspiration for Hutchins' first series of
questions:
"Should the primary concern of education be the creation of
a political community? If so, how should the political
community be conceived? As primarily economic,
concerned mainly with the livelihoods of its members and
the productivity of the whole, or as requiring additional
dimensions?" Or elsewhere, "Should schools be concerned
with the recast of values and loyalties and reformation of
character? If so should the aim be one body of values,
loyalties or character traits or should a diversity be sought?
If this task is held to be inappropriate to public schools,
should it be undertaken at all? If so, by what means?"
And as if in response to the challenge of the libertarian-oriented Center
for Independent Education's symposium on compulsory education, (held
in Milwaukee in Nov. 1972) Hutchins asks: "What, if any community
requirements justify compulsory attendance? To what age?"
For those who have asserted the right to an education determined by
diverse ethnic, linguistic or religious preferences, (attacked as long ago
as the 1950's by former Harvard President Dr. James Conant as un-American
because "divisive"), Hutchins includes the question:
"Concerning a common language, history and culture: to what extent and
in what form shall these be pursued? What degree and form of
patriotism? How shall religion be treated?".
The Hutchins study has rightly recognized the enemies of the public
school system and properly is examining its defenses. Of course, it
appears from a recent article by Hutchins that he has already reached a
conclusion on the main issues (Robert Hutchins, "The Schools Must
Stay", Center Magazine, Jan./Feb. 1973):
"The purpose of the public schools is not accomplished by
having them free, universal and compulsory. Schools are
public because they are dedicated to the maintenance and
improvement of the public thing, the res publica; they are
the common schools of the commonwealth, the political
community. They may do many things for the young; they
may amuse them, comfort them, look after their health,
keep them off the streets. But they are not public schools
unless they start their pupils toward an understanding of
what it means to be a self-governing citizen of a self-governing
political community."
Another prominent educationalist, Prof. R. Freeman Butts, Russell
Professor of Education at Teachers College, Columbia, and long a leading
public education ideological commissar, speaks more bluntly than
Hutchins, making the same points. In his article "The Public School:
Assault on A Great Idea", (The Nation, April 30, 1973) Butts asserts that
"to achieve a sense of community is the essential purpose
of public education. This work cannot be left to the vagaries
of individual parents, or small groups of like-minded
parents, or particular interest groups, or religious sects, or
private enterprisers, or cultural specialties. . . I believe the
chief end of American public education is the promotion of
a new civism appropriate to the principles of a just society
in the United States and a just world community . . . We
require the renewal of a civic commitment that seeks to
reverse and overcome the trend to segmented and
disjunctive "alternatives" serving narrow or parochial or
racist interests".
Butts' open totalitariansim, which has its intellectual roots in Plato and
stretches down to the Papadapoulos regime of modern Greece, cuts
through the liberal romanticism of Hutchins and lays bare the root
purpose of public education. Yet Hutchins cries that "nobody has a kind
word for the public school, the institution that only the other day was
looked upon as the foundation of our freedom, the guaranty of our future,
the cause of our prosperity and power, the bastion of our security, and the
source of our enlightenment".
It's like being ungrateful to God!
| July, 1973 |
The Libertarian Forum |
Page 7 |
The Heartbreak Kid. dir. by Elaine May. With Charles Grodin, Cybill
Shepherd, Jeannie Berlin, and Eddie Albert.
If, in the old adage, "it takes one to know one," we can perhaps
understand some of the brilliance with which the team of Nichols and
May hilariously and acidulously satirized the typical conversation and
thought-processes of New York-liberal-Jewish intellectuals in their great
records of the 1950s and early 60s. Since then, Mike Nichols has gone on to
ape the pretentiousness of the people he once satirized, leaving Elaine
May to mine the comic vein alone. Her first movie, A New Leaf, was
simply and happily hilarious, starring the great comedic talent of Walter
Matthau, but lacked the old social bite of former days. In The Heartbreak
Kid, Miss May returns to her old genre, and with the notable exception of
Philip Roth, no one is as adept in exploring the cultural differences and
conflicts between the Jewish and the goyishe worlds. Heartbreak Kid is a
brilliantly crafted, intelligent, and often funny movie, but it lacks the
hilarity of, say, Roth's superb Portnoy's Complaint (the book, not the
abominable movie). Perhaps the main reason is that, in contrast to
Portnoy, there is scarcely a character in Heartbreak with whom anyone
can identify.
The central character, Charles Grodin, is unfortunately so empty,
banal, and phony that no one really can care what happens to him (and his
fate is left hanging in a highly unsatisfactory "ending"). The obligatory
Jewish and WASP wedding scenes are marvellous, but Jeannie Berlin's
portrayal of a repellent slob is only countered by the beautiful Cybill
Shepherd's portrayal of the WASP girl as a kooky but totally inarticulate
dum-dum. As one viewer noted, we are in a heck of a fix when the only
admirable character in the picture is the sensible but inarticulate Eddie
Albert, playing Cybill's father.
The crucial point is that, to be truly memorable, satire must flow from
a firmly held set of values, which the satirist indignantly sees are being
violated by the society around him. This was true of such great satirists
as Swift, Twain, Chesterton, Waugh, and Mencken. But alas, no positive
values are discernible in Elaine May's work and so the satire ultimately
sours.
The Day of the Jackal. dir. by Fred Zinnemann. With Edward Fox.
A meticulous and exciting portrayal of the best-selling adventure
thriller by Frederick Forsyth, building the step-by-step saga of an
unsuccessful, fictional attempt to assassinate Charles deGaulle. The
movie is a literal, line-by-line account of the book, which works fine since
the novel was virtually written as a screen-play. Unfortunately, Edward
Fox is too laconic as the assassin, and therefore his motives and reactions
are never touched on, much less explored. The major failure of the movie
is the ending, where for some reason Zinnemann unaccountably and for
the first time rushes through a situation which requires the continued
build-up of suspense. A few more minutes devoted to the ending would
have made for a great adventure film.
Sleuth. dir. by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. With Sir Laurence Olivier and
Michael Caine.
The great murder-thriller play faithfully transcribed to the screen,
probably because author Anthony Shaffer wrote the screenplay. The play-and-movie
is an exciting series of gambits and double-crosses which the
two principals pull on each other. Olivier does extremely well
(fortunately, he does not over-act, as he sometimes tends to do); Caine,
while certainly adequate, is not up to Keith Baxter's stage version. Still, a
must for lovers of intelligent excitement on the screen.
Theater of Blood. With Vincent Price and Diana Rigg.
The horror-movie, when well done, is one of the cinema's great genres,
though it never receives its due from the avant-garde critics. Except
when corrupted by camp humor or phony psychology, the horror genre
consists of an exciting plot with heroes pitted against villains (and what
villains!) Theater of Blood is a virtuoso tour de force for the great Price,
who here gets his chance to ham it up as an essential theme of the plot
itself. Scorned by the drama critics, Price, a Shakespearean actor,
decides to bump off each of his critics in turn, using appropriate scenes
from his Shakespearean repertoire. Price is ably assisted by his
daughter, Diana Rigg, one of England's finest actresses, who always
projects a fascinating blend of beauty and high competence.
Live and Let Die. dir. by Guy Hamilton. With Roger Moore and Jane
Seymour.
James Bond is back, and all's well with the movie world. The Ian
Fleming novels, and for the most part the movies in the Bond series, were
the quintessence of the Old Culture: marvellous plot, exciting action,
hero vs. villains, spy plots, crisp dialogue and the frank enjoyment of
bourgeois luxury and fascinating technological gadgets. Some of the Bond
series, notably From Russia With Love, were great film classics: can we
ever forget the introduction of that excellent actor Robert Shaw to the
screen, or the delightful movie menace embodied by GPU agent Lotte
Lenya ("Rosa Klebb") and her deadly boot?
For most of us, however, Sean Connery is James Bond, a superb blend
of toughness and sophistication. But by the last few Bond movies,
Connery was visibly aging, and this will not do for Bond. George Lazenby
was a weak disaster for one Bond movie, and was quickly dropped. Who
to replace the great Connery?
Live and Let Die introduces Roger Moore as the new Bond, fresh from
the Saint series on television. Moore is properly suave and silky, but he is
too slight and debonair to convey the toughness required for the part;
Moore is adequate, but he is no Sean Connery. But, for all that, Live and
Let Die is a great delight, one of the best of the Bond series: tough, witty,
exciting, uncompromising. Guy Hamilton does a superb job of direction
as we are vaulted from one danger and chase to another.
Another great thing about Live and Let Die is its unflinching integrity,
its willingness to bring back the delightful old cliches of the action
pictures of the 1930s and 40s, to follow the plot of the Fleming novel
regardless of any temptation to soften the blow. For the villains are all
Negro, and the plot postulates a giant Negro conspiracy covering taxi
drivers in Harlem, funeral marchers in New Orleans, and voodoo priests
in the Caribbean. It is particularly delightful that Live and Let Die brings
back the old voodoo themes, with black natives menacing and torturing
white captives and finally, after ritual dances, killing them with cobra
bites. At the end of the film, Bond even rescues a white, quasi-virgin, ex-priestess
of voodoo, from the dread cobra ritual. And the movie brings
back the traditional scene of crocodile-alligator menace. Not only does
the movie have the courage to follow the novel's racial theme, it is also of
course unabashedly "sexiest" [sexist], as, once again, James Bond converts
female villains to the path of righteousness by the sheer macho power of
his virility. And yet all this is done with such verve and style that there
has not been a single yelp from black or women's lib groups. What a
corking good movie!
Shaft in Africa. dir. by John Guillermin. With Richard Roundtree.
The original Shaft was one of the best and toughest of the delightful
"blaxploitation" genre. The acting of star Richard Roundtree was such
as to make him a most credible tough black private eye despite his lack of
the usual physical attributes of the tough hero. Hated by the black
intelligentsia for being a rugged macho type instead of the embodiment of
"noble suffering," Shaft was the delight of black movie audiences. Shaft
in Harlem, however, was a weak and flimsy sequel; the old black-white
confrontation was gone, the movie had little to say, and the protest of
black female groups had deprived Shaft of his original penchant for
sleeping with white females.
But now, with Shaft in Africa, the Shaft series is back on the beam.
Adding an international espionage flavor to the Harlem dude, the movie
is the equal of the original Shaft. The action is swift and exciting, the
dialogue is delightfully sassy, and the hero's amatory activities are again
inter- as well as intra-racial.
Newport Jazz Festival in New York-1973.
Classic jazz is magnificently Old Culture, an exciting blend of
European melody and harmony with African rhythm, developed first in
New Orleans at the turn of the twentieth century. As such, it is as far
from the mindless cacophony of modern acid rock as it is possible to get.
(Continued On Page 8)
| Page 8 |
The Libertarian Forum |
July, 1973 |
Arts and Movies —
(Continued From Page 7)
Classic jazz always featured a small band, with drums, bass, banjo, or
piano providing the rhythmic framework (and the latter the melody as
well), the cornet or trumpet asserting the lead melody, the clarinet riding
high above it and the trombone punching its way below. Classic jazz was
creative improvisation around the lead melody, provided by the song
being played. In classic jazz, risk, and challenge were high: for the
challenge was for the musician to be creative and yet remain always
within the framework of the written song, and also to blend in
harmoniously with the other players. The danger is either to sink into
non-creative banality on the one hand (as Chicago "Dixieland" jazz
generally did to its New Orleans model), or, far worse, to abandon the
melodic framework altogether and thereby get lost in musical solipsism
and absurdity. Big-band swing of the late 1930's tended to do both, losing
the creativity of improvisation while getting lost in mindless riffs and
solo showboating for its own sake (e.g. the endless drum solos of Krupa
and Rich.) Finally, at the end of World War II, jazz lost its melody and
harmony, and even its rhythm, altogether and degenerated into "bebop"
and ultimately the nihilism of contemporary or "modern" jazz.
Since great jazz requires great melodic songs at its base, the
degeneration of jazz after World War II went hand in hand with the
degeneration of the popular song, which finally descended into rock.
Without the great melodies, how could jazz remain anchored to a melodic
framework and thereby avoid descent into the anti-melodic abyss?
Classic jazz, therefore, depended on playing the great tunes, either such
marvellous hymns as "Closer Walk to Thee" as with the New Orleans
bands, or the superb show tunes of Porter or Rodgers-and-Hart. Hence,
the inspired plan of the 1973 Newport-in-New York Jazz Festival to put on
"A Jazz Salute to American Song" (July 3) which forced the numerous
participants to return, at least in part, to their melodic roots and play
classic jazz once more.
The "Jazz Salute" program was, inevitably, a mixed bag. It began with
an excellent Dixieland band, headed by the fine cornetist Jimmy
McPartland, and ably seconded by Art Hodes on the piano and Vic
Dickenson on trombone; playing Irving Berlin tunes, McPartland's band
was particularly good in a rousing rendition of "Alexander's Ragtime
Band." They were followed by the great jazz pianist, Earl "Fatha"
Hines, looking remarkably young as he played notable tunes by Fats
Waller, headed by Hines' excellent jazz singing (of which there was alas
too little at the concert) of Waller's famous "Honeysuckle Rose." Hines
is not my favorite jazz pianist, since he plays not at all lyrically but in
great blocks of sound, but he was extremely interesting nevertheless. A
special lagniappe was a duet played by Hines and the marvellously
breathy tenor saxophonist Illinois Jacquet, of Eubie Blake's "Memories
of You." (Blake, by the way, is a magnificant [magnificent] ragtime pianist and
composer, still playing at the age of 90, and still far more powerful and
forceful a ragtime and jazz pianist than several men one third his age put
together.)
Cole Porter was terribly slighted at the concert, first disparaged
stupidly by the promoter (who accused Porter of lacking "sentiment" —
read cornball banality), and then raced through a few of his lesser tunes
by Teddi King, a poor singer, and perfunctory piano by Ellis Larkins.
Then came by far the worst set of the concert, in which the great Duke
Ellington was butchered by the harsh screeching of R. Roland Kirk, who
played the tenor sax, the monzella, and the clarinet simultaneously and
badly; and by the tortured bellowing of Al Hibbler.
The evening was quickly set back on course, however, as the superb
jazz pianist Barbara Carroll swung her way lightly and lyrically through
such marvellous Harold Arlen tunes as "Come Rain or Come Shine," "As
Long as I Live", and "Out of this World." She was well assisted by singer
Sylvia Sims (but where O where was Lee Wiley, who even now with voice
partly gone is far and away the best female jazz singer extant? For
heartbreaking and magical jazz singing at its best, go back and listen to
Lee Wiley's record, made twenty-odd years ago, singing Rodgers-and-Hart.)
Miss Carroll is one of our finest jazz pianists, and it was good to
see her return to the musical scene.
The famous jazz pianist Dave Brubeck then led his band through a
rousing rendition of great songs by Jimmy Van Heusen, including
"Someone in Love", "Rainy Day", and "It Could Happen to You."
Except for a tendency to lose the melody at times, there was happily little
trace of Brubeck's old modernism.
The Modern Jazz Quartet then played a set of Gershwin melodies. The
MJQ was the best and most classical of early "bop" and "modern" jazz,
and there they were constrained by the Gershwin melodic structure to
play in their best manner of cool and sensuous elegance, a manner
insured by the playing of the famous Milt Jackson on the vibes. It's too
bad that the MJQ stuck to the corny Porgy and Bess, which is not really
vintage Gershwin (where, for example, was the master's magnificent
"But Not for Me"?) And they could well scrap their harshly percussive
drummer.
A highly interesting set was the playing of the great Rodgers and Hart
(in the days before Rodgers was corrupted by the banal, left-liberal
sentimentality of Oscar Hammerstein II), particularly two of the
greatest pop songs and show tunes ever written, "My Romance" and "It
Never Entered My Mind." The band was excellent, headed by the creamy
tenor sax of Stan Getz; unfortunately, the singer was Mabel Mercer, who
has enjoyed cult status in the fashionable New York supper clubs, but has
literally no voice at all, and simply talks her lines. Still, Getz and the band
made the playing worthwhile.
The final set was an excellent one, with the delightful Marian
McPartland at the piano and Gerry Mulligan playing a sinous [sinuous] and superb
baritone sax, as they played Alec Wilder's "It's So Peaceful In the
Country", "When We're Young", and "I'll be Around When He's Gone."
All in all, an important reminder that jazz needs great melodies to make
it viable.
HTML formatting and proofreading by Joel Schlosberg.