Correspondence
al., Seifert, Wagstaff, Reynolds, et
"Correspondence" Dear Tyrrell: Each time I pore through the endless acres of words-words-words in ~ Alternative, I deplore the way you miss the boat so much. Oh, it's fun to ventilate one's soul of opinions,...
...Some supply response to higher prices can be expected even in the short-run: Companies like B.P...
...So, you lads can have your fun being very, very smug ridiculing what you don't agree with (but offering no intelligent "alternatives"), and probably accomplishing nothing except an accolade or two from your cohorts in your nightly gatherings in your Hoosier counterpart of McSorley's Ale House...
...i recall visiting huston one day in his office next to the white house on the day preceeding the onslaught of the unwashed and the guard was leery of allowing an old cosmic cowboy into the innersanctums of government, tom charles came down and got me in and while our talk centered on the upcoming chaos at no time did he exhibit any rhetoric of the police state...
...how marvelous to have lived in arizona or indiana then...
...Alan Reynolds New York City to the editor, your february's pulse was excellent, i am pleased that someone has dared to defend tom charles huston from the mob that unfortunately seems to include many so-called conservatives...
...Oh, it's fun to ventilate one's soul of opinions, and that your writers certainly do...
...One sharpie is already making fireplace logs out of dried leaves...
...the latter by "business...
...Why not give us--each issue--an informative ARTICLE detailing such promising conservative movernents as Abe Kalish's ACCURACY IN MEDIA...
...in the huston case, i have attempted to argue with friends that although his proposals may have serious antilibertarian overtones (at least) that most people now have the hindsight to condemn exactly what they thought in 1970...
...His personal life, which is blatantly interjected in his writings, is known to have been reprehensible...
...Wagstaff Boca Raton, Florida Erratum There is a slight goof in my article "Energy Economics" (The Alternative, February, 1974) which I prefer to blame on some faceless printer: The line labeled y in the second graph should bump into the supply curve at the controlled price--not at the market price...
...Consumers have other preferences which aren't very fair, such as discrimination against ugliness, but there is no reason to suppose that the same people will suddenly become pillars of economic justice merely by stepping into a voting booth...
...None of Mr...
...and the bleeding hearts that would rather see the president lynched than bella abzug referred to as "mrs...
...We need humor and satire, too...
...fraternally, phillip abbott luce scottsdale, arizona To the Editor: I am normally leery of those who write fan letters to publications, but, after reading the lead story in your January issue, I feel compelled to offer my humble praise...
...Consumers prefer to buy goods and services produced by bright and industrious people, and then they are surprised to find that bright and industrious people have higher incomes...
...Your staff writers and editors, I'm afraid, have been carried away with their own infallible wisdom and somewhat overwhelmed by their combined scholastic brilliance and accumulated degrees...
...No mejorityrule socialism, if such a thing is possible, could operate in a manner consistent with this individualist morality...
...The ingenuity of man will come up with all sorts of energy sources, and energy-saving devices, once the incentives are allowed to operate...
...The former is decided by political influence...
...This indicates that price controls not only increase demand but also discourage supply...
...But if we are to motivate specific ACTION...
...Having taught English in a small girls' school in Cleveland for twenty years, I have long been disturbed by the mystical reverence with which Mark Twain has too long been afforded...
...Alan Reynolds 30 The Alternative April 1974...
...others are running cars on manure...
...We need arcane opinions and esoteric mental masturbations like your column.., yes...
...If a majority decides who shall produce what for whom, individuals would have to conform to that plan...
...The immorality here is inherent in the structure of incentives that we have institutionalized...
...Clark, "and organizes them as a democratic majority dictates, that's as 'moral' as free enterprise...
...The implicit standard is that whatever 51 percent want (e.g., burn the Jews) is morally right But only free enterprise is consistent with the maximization of individual choice, and a society which removes the opportunity to choose also removes the opportunity for moral behavior...
...This suggests that the personal distribution of wealth or income has nothing whatsoever to do with the creation of gOods and services...
...If the state controls all the means of production," says Mr...
...Most sincerely, Walt Seifert Professor of Journalism Ohio State University Walt: Thanks for the thoughtful suggestion and kind sentiments...
...When I took a "trial run" on your hook, I hoped for an _ _ thoughtful publication that would "talk sense" about our political scene and public personalities...
...Yet the statement expresses a strong moral judgement without giving any reasons for that judgement...
...it was also the time of kent state and stanford, actually huston's contentions were mild compared with the talk at met kane's local bar where both yafers and printers from a local newspaper spent the late hours...
...Clark, "the body politic can do as it pleases about the distribution of the wealth...
...the small, brilliant cell at Washington that fights wall and effectively against giants like NBC...
...As such, in all my years of teaching, I have never allowed my students to expose themselves or to be exposed to his works...
...J.B...
...Rhetoric, alone, is not enough...
...When businessmen have to bribe officials to let them conduct legitimate business, any immorality does not reside in the businessman's behavior...
...My disagreement with many government activities and personalities and with the men on both sides of "the aisle" ranges from mixed to violent...
...but in washington, on the garbage heap, the scene was one of paranoia brought on in part by the reality of the sds, pip, weatherpeople, black lunatics, and the seeming potential for jerry rubin and company to tear up the town...
...BUt you lack IMPACT for the simple reason you concentrate, on OPINION instead of cold fact...
...Continued luck in your iconoclastic exposure of American myths...
...Clark's other writing suggests that he doubts the efficacy of economic incentives, so this statement must be a description rather than a prescription...
...But I don't think these men are idiots--as your writers seem to--nor do I think that some "smarty-pants" collegians out in an Indiana corn field make much sense calling them idiots...
...But that's not what I got...
...Corporations would not want to "influence politics" and make "illegal contributions" if they were not subject to unpredictable government regulation and expropriation, or if the state's police powers were never used to suppress competition...
...it is all too damn familiar, in 1965 i wrote a monograph for the then huac on the potential for isolated attempts at 'revolution' from the black sectors of our major cities, in a concluding chapter i noted the various possibilities open to the government in the case that such a danger actually materialized, in part i noted that the mccarran act still provided for selective detention and that the french had considered the use of passes in algeria, once the monograph was released the only news regarding it was that both i and the huac were calling for the detention of blacks...
...In fact, the main deviations from any defensible standard of economic justice are the subsidies awarded by our "democratic" government...
...huston has been tried and convicted not just by the kneejerk liberal...
...Sister O.F...
...An individualist ethic --to replace Clark's majoritarian one--is that indivduals should not be prevented from engaging in mutually satisfactory exchange (e.g., by price controls) unless that exchange harms third parties...
...The quotes around "moral" imply that morality is simply a matter of opinion...
...i am also concerned because far too many of us in the right wing have not been as forceful and honest as you in defending huston and in explaining the conditions surrounding his "memo...
...we need a few COLD FACTS...
...Real incomes are ultimately determined by what others are willing to give up to acquire our services...
...and Shell can send Arab oil to nonembargoed countries, and thus divert more non-Arab oil to us...
...We could probably generate considerable power by simply burning all franked mail and most energy bills...
...But the higher incomes represent consumers' valuation of additions to the income stream, and are not (except in cases of force or fraud) obtained at the expense of others...
...Joyce Cleveland, Ohio To the Editor: I have just received and read my first issue of The Alternative, and I want my $6.00 b a c k . . . I dare say you do not really care why I don't like your publication, but I11 tell you briefly anyway...
...If business enterprise does a good job of generating the wealth," says Mr...
...as a one time leftist allow me to note that one horrendous fact of the right is its ability to forget its own people...
...RET To the Editor: I have great respect for Lindley Clark's economics, but perhaps he should avoid the philosophy of ethics (The Alternative, February, 1974...
...Old domestic oil walls, which are idle because it is unprofitable to squeezeout the last few barrels at controlled prices, might be brought into use...
Vol. 7 • April 1974 • No. 7
