1
Economic Non-Interventionists in Mid Twentieth
Century America
Jeremy Shearmur, School of Philosophy, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT
0200, Australia [email protected]
Draft of May 21, 2016 made available for discussion by those attending HETSA 2016; I
hope to revise this paper further before the meeting. As it is a draft, it is very provisional
in its character: anyone wishing to refer to it should consult me to see if there is a more
up-to-date version available.
1. Introduction
This paper represents an initial exploration of the role played by some distinctive
religious ideas among American writers opposed to economic redistribution, in the
middle of the Twentieth Century. It draws on ongoing archival work. Its broad argument
is that while their case was prima facie economic and certainly had strongly economic
aspects to it, its underlying character consisted more of variations on some nontraditional religious themes.
In an earlier paper delivered to this society, 1 I discussed the way in which there was
conflict in the early meetings of the Mont Pelerin Society between classical liberals who
were broadly in the mould of Herbert Simons, and others who were fundamentally
opposed to interventionism. I documented the way in which the presence of the noninterventionists at the first Mont Pelerin Meeting, other than Mises, was a consequence of
the dependence of Hayek on assistance from the Volker Fund to pay for travel for
participants from the United States to Europe. While Volker Fund agreed to fund those
whom Hayek wished to invite, the price of this was that Volker provided an additional
list of people should also be invited. These people – who were much more in sympathy
with Mises than they were with the predominantly Chicago economists whom Hayek
invited – were unhappy with the character of the meetings. In particular, it seemed to
them that Hayek rigged the discussion, calling largely on Chicago people to speak, so that
they did not have an adequate opportunity to present their views or to get into discussion
in the sessions with those whom they disagreed.
This paper follows on from the first, and poses the question: just what kind of views did
the non-interventionists hold (I am not, here, concerned with non-interventionism in
foreign policy), and why did they hold them? The answer seems to me to differ between
individuals, and to be slightly complicated. (I will, here, talk about intellectual currents
quite generally through the 1950s and early 1960s, rather than the immediate background
to the first MPS.) The most obvious responses one might be tempted to make would be
in terms of:
2
(a) The influence of Mises’ argument that interventionism was unstable – that it would,
unintentionally, lead people towards socialism, which he had previously argued not to
work in an economy of any sophistication. (I have not referred, here, to Hayek’s Road to
Serfdom just because there were interventionist aspects to Hayek’s approach, 2 and it was
judged unsound on this basis by some of those with whom I am here concerned.)
(b) The influence of Ayn Rand.
(c) The influence of various kinds of rights theories, of the sort which, for example, were
appealed to in the work of Murray Rothbard.
Of these, the first two were to be found (Edmund Opitz, discussing those playing leading
roles in the organization ‘Spiritual Mobilization’, 3 refers to two figures who played an
important role there as being Misesian and Randian, respectively 4). However, the
situation was complicated. While Mises was valued as a hard-line classical liberal
economist, his arguments against interventionism only started to appear in English from
1944. 5 Rand was an influence, but there was – to say the least – an ambivalence about
the reaction to her work, which became explicit with Whittaker Chambers’ review of her
Atlas Shrugged in 1957. 6 This piece played an interesting role, in that reactions to it
served to mark an important divide among those who favoured non-interventionist
approaches. Rand was herself enormously influential, despite the fact that those
immediately around her turned her approach into a kind of cult. 7 Rand’s fiction made a
huge appeal, and her philosophical ideas were taken up and refined by a number of very
talented American philosophers, including Douglas Den Uyl, Douglas Rasmussen, Eric
Mack, and Tibor Machan (to say nothing of those closer to Randian objectivism, such as
David Kelley and Tara Smith, as well as ‘true believers’ such as Leonard Peikoff).
However, the Chambers review spelled out the degree to which her ideas were
experienced as being at odds with the more liberal, humanitarian and religious ethos
which had been shared by other libertarians and conservatives. It is striking to find that
Chambers’ criticism of Rand was well-received by F. A. Harper (the founder of the
Institute for Humane Studies) and James Ingebretsen of Spiritual Mobilization, but that
The Foundation for Economic Education published a review by John Chamberlain, 8
which was much more sympathetic to Rand’s book. 9
It seems to me that it was really only when Murray Rothbard made a case for it rather
later, that non-interventionists started to embrace arguments based on natural rights. 10
(Although, for example, IHS’s F. A. Harper was immediately sympathetic to this
argument when it was made, 11 and there is a sense in which the religious ideas to which I
will refer shortly could be seen as introducing concerns akin to those to be found in this
tradition.) Clearly, the idea that one might argue in terms of rights fell on fertile soil in
the United States, because of the use of the language of rights in the Founding documents.
But there was a problem, in that the use of this language in the Founding represented
something like the last gasp of a theologically-based theology of natural rights, the
intellectual basis of which a number of the Founders had already moved well away
from. 12 Insofar as there was, say, continuity with Lockean and related arguments, there
was the further problem that the basis on which Locke argued for rights to land
3
ownership in the Second Treatise of Government, has to be read as qualified by what he
said about a right to charity (in respect of what is needed for subsistence) on the part of
the indigent in the First Treatise. (While the idea that there were such entitlements can
be found in more traditional Catholic natural law theory.) This is important to appreciate,
just because it seems to me not implausible to suggest that Locke’s views on this topic in
the First Treatise could offer the basis for an approach under which property rights in the
ordinary sense might be seen as subject to qualification, in the light of claims to
subsistence on the part of the poor. Some might see this, in its turn, as offering an
argument for a (limited) welfare state (not least because it is difficult to know what to
make of a positive right to subsistence unless there is some mechanism set up to
aggregate and regularize the way in which this could be claimed 13). Just what
institutional arrangements are most appropriate here, and whether, indeed, a positive right
to subsistence should be accepted, was itself a matter of controversy in France in the
Eighteenth Century, and was a topic on which Adam Smith wrote in an interesting
manner; a discussion which may usefully be related to the later claims made for the idea
of a ‘moral economy’ by E. P. Thompson. 14
This is of importance because of its relationship to the broad concerns of the antiinterventionists. What were they worried about? At the heart of their concerns, was the
ideal of a limited government (with some of them favouring going beyond this, in the
direction of free-market anarchism; others being bitterly opposed to it). Specifically, they
were worried about: (i) redistribution; (ii) government intervention in the price system,
controlling monopolies etc (where these had themselves developed other than as a result
of governmental intervention); (iii) government ‘pump-priming’, and anything
‘Keynesian’ in its character (although whether, if government was involved in spending
on infrastructure, it would be acceptable to time this in the light of the state of the trade
cycle, might be open to argument).
It should be clear from this list, that some of the argument about these matters would be
moral in its character – e.g. as to just what constitute people’s property rights, and as to
what claim (if any) others have upon them. (Clearly, to argue that the indigent have no
such rights, does not mean that one necessarily rejects the idea that there is a moral
obligation to assist them. Some of those who take such a view stress the significance of
charity as a virtue, and the idea that something can only be a virtue if it is a matter of
voluntary choice whether or not to undertake it. Utilitarians – and other consequentialists
– might argue, against this, that what matters morally is the outcomes, not whether or not
the actions which give rise to them were undertaken voluntarily, although even they
would typically wish to avoid anything that smacked of endorsing the kidnapping and
dismembering of individuals because their body-parts would do more good elsewhere.)
But what should be clear is that simply to invoke ideas about rights does not necessarily
help, unless one can make ones favoured view compelling. Far be it from me to
discourage argument about such matters (and clearly, say, the later libertarian thought
which serves as a foil to the first part of Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia was
libertarianism of just this kind). But it would seem to me a mistake to read back
argument of this sort into the period with which I am dealing.
4
Other argument would be about
What, then, are the intellectual positions which underlay the resistance to interventionism
with which I am dealing? It is a tentative investigation into this which forms the paper
which follows.
2. Why Non-Interventionism?
There would seem to me to be two particular lines of argument for non-interventionism
2.1
Economic Arguments
Free-market arguments of a distinctive kind, which were influenced by Thomas Nixon
Carver. As David Levy and Sandra Peart have argued, 15 his views quickly became
unfashionable, because of the way in which they were inter-twined with strands of social
Darwinism. But a former student of his, Vervon Orvall Watts, was an influential writer
and teacher, and was one of those invited to the first meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society
as a consequence of being on the Volker Fund’s list. He published with FEE, and a small
foundation run by Ingebretsen brought out several of his books. 16 Now Carver’s
approach (he retired to California) seems to have been a significant influence on William
Mullendore who, in turn, seems to have been responsible for Leonard Read 17 (who
subsequently headed up FEE, and was another of those invited to the Mont Pelerin
Society at Volker’s request) coming to take issue with the New Deal. Read, who in his
first book on economic themes, Romance of Reality refers to both Mullendore and Carver
as friends, 18 was, at the time, heading the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, and Watts
was appointed ‘economic council’ to the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce in 1939. 19
(He also worked as ‘economic council’ for Southern California Edison, which was
headed by Mullendore.) It is also worth noting that Ingebretsen, who had a background
in corporate law, was appointed as Council to the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce –
and, indeed, served the same role for the Chamber of Commerce at a Federal level. 20
As Levy and Peart note, there was a distinctive tenor to the thought of those influenced
by Carver, which was individualistic rather than democratic. (Rose Wilder Lane
produced criticisms of an early economics text as being insufficiently individualistic,
which led to problems about its adoption. 21 Ludwig von Mises also found himself taken
to task for his espousal of democracy, by Lane. 22) I do not know of any evidence that
Mullendore or Read shared any of Carver’s Social Darwinism. 23 But it is clear that the
entire group of people to whom I have referred, came to take a strongly free-market
approach to economics in a manner which may in part be an indirect product of Carver’s
influence. [Go through Read’s Romance of Reality to check just what was going on!]
Mises was an important and respected figure. But it would appear to me (i.e. on the basis
of quite extensive archive work on some of the figures discussed here) that it was only
really with the publication of his Human Action that his writings became influential. His
arguments to the effect that interventionism is not a stable system, do not seem to have
made all that much of an impact. 24
5
2.2 Religious Arguments
Second, and the main topic of the present paper, were some religious-based arguments.
Just what these were differed between the people whom I will here discuss.
2.21 From Opitz to Ingebretsen
Let me start with Edmund Opitz.25 He was initially a Unitarian minister (he later became
a Congregationalist), who attended a conference organized by Spiritual Mobilization, and
was then invited to join their staff. He was employed by them, for several years, to
organize conferences, where his work took him to the East of the United States. He
eventually left Spiritual Mobilization, and joined FEE (to which he had earlier been
introduced by Frank Chodorov). There, he wrote extensively, and also organized a group
called ‘The Remnant’. The name of this was inspired by the American individualist
writer Albert J. Nock, of whom he was a great admirer. 26 It drew together clergy – of
different kinds (including, for example, the leading conservative evangelical writer Carl
Henry 27) – and free-market intellectuals associated with FEE.
Opitz was an interesting and sophisticated writer on religious topics. His economic views
were influenced by Fairchild, Furness and Buck’s Principles of Economics, and by Henry
Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson. He also read The Wealth of Nations, and some
Herbert Spencer, and was influenced by the American individualist writers Nock and
Chodorov, but also by Christopher Dawson and William Temple. Opitz was self-taught
in philosophy: he refers, here, to his extensive reading of Joad and to Barzun. 28 While at
Spiritual Mobilization and then especially at FEE, he wrote a large number of essays on
topics relating to religion, politics and economics. His most extensive work was his
Religion and Capitalism: Allies Not Enemies. 29 His ideas concerning redistribution
would seem to me to be based, at bottom, on religious ideas that it is wrong to steal. The
problem about this, is that everything then really depends on ones theory of property
ownership, where that needs to support ideas about property rights which are strong
enough to avoid the features that I noted, above, are possessed by Locke’s. That is to say,
one needs a theory of the acquisition of property which avoids ownership being qualified
in any way by the needs of others. It was not clear to me that Opitz quite realized what
was needed here: his arguments tend, rather, to be conducted against Twentieth Century
proponents of the ‘social gospel’.
Now, Opitz was an interesting and prolific writer, but the role that he plays in the present
story relates to his enthusiasm for the religious writer, Gerald Heard. Heard, who had
studied history and theology at Cambridge, made a living as a writer and lecturer. He
became particularly interested in the inter-relationships between science and spiritual
experience, and was a friend of Christopher Isherwood and of Aldous Huxley. He
migrated to the United States with Huxley and his wife in 1937, and lived there for the
rest of his life. Opitz was impressed by Heard’s Preface to Prayer, The Creed of Christ
and The Code of Christ, and when Heard was lecturing at the Vedanta Centre near Los
6
Angeles, Opitz went to hear him. He got to know Heard, and introduced him to
Ingebretsen, Mullendore and Leonard Read.
While Heard initially wrote on Christian themes, his real interest had become ideas about
the exploration of consciousness and religious experience, and his approach became
increasingly eclectic. He was interested in Indian philosophy, and had an early interest in
the use of LSD for the generation of ‘spiritual’ experience. Opitz became very interested
in Heard’s work – he wrote a sizable guide to Heard’s extensive writings, which has not
been published. 30 Opitz also seems to have interested others at Spiritual Mobilization in
issues to do with the exploration of religious experience, including Ingebretsen, who,
while he became a key organizer of Spiritual Mobilization, and was to take over
leadership of the organization, seems up to this point not to have had any religious
interests.
Ingebretsen was heavily involved, through Spiritual Mobilization, in various campaigns
directed against the activities of the Congregational Church relating to the ‘social gospel’,
and, in particular, against their Social Action?? unit, which was concerned with lobbying
in Washington for various activities directed towards the establishment of a welfare state.
(The founders of Spiritual Mobilization, Rev. James Fifield Jr and Donald J. Cowling,
were strongly involved in Congregationalist affairs. 31) On the strength of this
background, Ingebretsen agreed to undertake some work for J. Howard Pew, relating to a
committee of laymen of the National Council of Churches, of which Pew had been a
member, which was disbanded by the organization. 32 Ingebretsen organized the work for
this from California, but needed also to visit New York. It was during this trip that, quite
uncharacteristically, he had two dramatic religious experiences, which changed his life. 33
Ingebretsen was not sure what to make of this, and asked his friend Opitz for advice.
Opitz referred Ingebretsen to Heard, about whom, personally – and about whose ideas –
Ingebretsen became extremely enthusiastic.
Heard came to feature increasingly in Ingebretsen’s activities. Faith and Freedom
contained material by him and about his work. While Ingebretsen and Opitz organized
meetings, to which their friends and those associated with Spiritual Mobilization were
invited, in which Heard played a leading role. Heard gave presentations, which
combined spiritual and psychological themes, but which also discussed issues about
leadership in a business context. He made a striking impression on a number of the
people who heard them, and he was eventually funded in part by Ingebretsen’s personal
foundation, and was placed on the payroll of Spiritual Mobilization. In some ways, all
this fitted quite well: there was a Christian background to some of his work, and the
Spiritual Mobilization group were extremely theologically liberal in their interpretation of
Christianity. In addition, Heard was happy to write in contexts which were critical of the
‘social gospel’, 34 said to Opitz that the social consequences of his views affirmed ‘laissez
faire’, 35 and also gave a talk at the strongly free-market St Louis Discussion Club. 36
However, Heard’s view – which Ingebretsen enthusiastically shared – was that the proper
role of the Churches should be as ‘spiritual gymnasia’, and Heard’s view of the spiritual
experience which they should be encouraging was not Christian in its specific character.
7
Ingebretsen shifted the headquarters of Spiritual Mobilization to a property in the hills
between Los Angeles and Palm Springs, from which he also hosted religious retreats.
Ingebretsen, in particular, was led through his interest in Heard into early forms of ‘new
age’ concerns, and an involvement with a variety of different spiritual leaders; an interest
which Opitz did not share. He, under the supervision of Heard, on one occasion took
LSD. (Mullendore became more systematically involved in this.) Not all the supporters
of Spiritual Mobilization were enthused about the direction that things were taking, while
Heard apparently became concerned that the political background of Spiritual
Mobilization might jeopardise other plans that he had with people who were interested in
his work. The result was that Heard came off the payroll of Spiritual Mobilization, and
no longer received standing support from Ingebretsen’s foundation. However, he still
organized various activities with Ingebretsen, and money from donors associated with
Ingebretsen seems to have become his principal means of support in his old age,
continuing right through until his death.
That all this took place has been noted by a number of writers. 37 Perhaps the most
trenchant treatment is that given by Murray Rothbard in his The Betrayal of the American
Right. 38 He commented (p. 169):
One thing that plunging into this nonsense accomplished, of course, was to
convince the participants that liberty, statism, economics, politics and even ethics
were not really important; that the only thing that really counted was advances in
personal spiritual “awareness”. Even though presumably not designed for that
purpose, this was a beautiful way to destroy an active ideological movement.
Rothbard is right that Ingebretsen’s interest shifted towards ‘spiritual’ concerns.
However, through this same period, his foundation (while also being used for his work
with Heard and religious activities) continued to publish libertarian books. [Give details
– cf. list in Oregon material.] In addition, Ingebretsen took seriously the inter-relations
between his religious and political ideas, and these took him in quite radical directions.
He posed the question, in correspondence, to both Opitz and Read at FEE, as to whether
the limited liability of corporations, and patents, meant that they were enjoying special
privileges of a kind that libertarians elsewhere condemned. (The correspondence in the
Ingebretsen archive is here incomplete, but it would seem as if he got the brush-off,
rather than a proper response, from both of them.) While his ideas about personal
spiritual transformation, and its social consequences, led him to question Opitz’ view that
a repressive state of some kind would always be needed.
Rothbard is also correct that Spiritual Mobilization collapsed. But it is not clear that this
was really the fault of Heard and his influence. Clearly, the fact that Faith and Freedom
started to take material about Heard, and that he started to write a regular feature in it,
would not have helped those who did not favour his concerns. There was no longer – as
there had been in the past – attempt to include contributions from members of the clergy.
And it would also not have helped that the cover of the magazine was re-designed to
feature a cross, the cross-piece of which was formed by the trail of a jet aeroplane. In
addition, as Rothbard notes, there was a further problem, not related to Heard. It was that
8
Spiritual Mobilization started to concentrate on the ‘right to work’ issue (i.e. moves
against any form of the union closed shop), and to put a lot of material relating to this
into Faith and Freedom. This seems to have been a mistake on the part of Ingebretsen.
In part, it meant that donors with a background in industry and commerce became
reluctant to give money, because this would lead to opposition from Trades Unions. In
part, there seems to have been less support for this as an issue on the part of their
constituency among the clergy, than there was for their wider arguments against the
‘social gospel’, and against Church lobbying for welfare measures in Washington. Third,
however, there was a problem about the model that Ingebretsen was using: his aim was to
run articles in the journal, and then collect them into a book.
This model went back to an arrangement that he had been able to make, earlier, in which
the Volker Fund provided money for research which would underpin articles which
appeared in The Freeman, and which would subsequently be collected together as a book
to be published by Ingebretsen’s foundation. One book was published on this basis, by
Opitz, dealing with Church lobbying in Washington D.C. But the model hit a problem
when, in the face of a financial crisis, The Freeman was taken over by FEE. Leonard
Read simply had no interest in this model, and in the end Ingebretsen was able to get
permission from the Volker Fund to use the residue of the money for other purposes. It is
clear, though, that Ingebretsen found the model attractive, and it would seem as if he was
trying to use it with regard to the ‘right to work’ issue.
There was, however, a deeper problem facing Spiritual Mobilization: they simply could
not find someone suitable to head it up. What was required was a person who was a
Christian, who was liberal in their theology, but dedicated to the cause of free markets
and, more generally, political libertarianism. They would also need to have the kind of
dynamic character that was needed to head up an organization which needed to appeal for
funds. Ingebretsen was looking round for such a person, but simply could not find one.
There was also another problem, concerning the character of the organization itself. It
was founded by Fifield and Cowling, and was involved, initially, with issues internal to
the policy of Congregationalism – and then, more widely, to take on the cause of the
‘social gospel’. With the passing of time, the concerns that it had addressed became less
attractive, and some of the activities in which it was engaged seemed simply corny (e.g.
the promotion of the ringing of Church bells, and the holding of competitions for sermons,
around July 4th). Faith and Freedom, prior to the Heard invasion, became an interesting
journal – for libertarians. 39 But the distinctively religious aspects of it virtually
disappeared. All told, if someone had turned up with the right beliefs, vision and
personal dynamism, it might have been possible to make something of Spiritual
Mobilization. But absent that – and Ingebretsen was not able to find such a person – it is
no surprise that it died: it was, in the end, merged with Ingebretsen’s foundation.
2.22 Leonard Read
The figures with whom I have dealt before, while well-known in American free-market
circles, did not have the kind of significance of Leonard Read. He played an important
role at the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. But his Foundation for Economic
9
Education was of immense significance for free market activities in the U.S. Read’s
organization was able to offer employment to Ludwig von Mises. He engaged in a wide
range of educational activities. He was able, when it got into difficult editorial and
financial problems, to rescue The Freeman, by merging it with an in-house journal. He
also published a great deal of material. In addition, Read played a key role as an advisor.
Felix Morley was commissioned to write a book, which was eventually published as The
Power in the People. (Its production was financed by Pew and Crane, and its
development overseen by a committee including Pew, Crane, Rose Wilder Lane, Norman
Vincent Peale and Read.) Read was asked to vet the suitability of its treatment of
economic issues (about which Pew and Crane had misgivings). It was a group broadly
associated with Read, which the Volker Fund sent to the Mont Pelerin Society. And it
was Read who was asked about the suitability of Henry Simons’ A Positive Case for
Laissez Faire, for distribution by the Volker Fund’s book distribution arm. 40
Read – after his discussion with Mullendore – became convinced of the case for freemarket economics. His Romance of Reality, 41 written while he was at the Los Angeles
Chamber of Commerce, is interesting, here. It is a breezily-written book, which treats
taxation and government expenditure as if it simply represented a loss to productive
activity. Read cites Carver – in making purely free-market points – and also refers to
Lionel Robbins and to the Atlantic version of what became the first part of Lippmann’s
The Good Society, as well as to the writings of the American proto-libertarian Nock. The
final part of the book is a plea for the importance of the activities of Chambers of
Commerce.
Read subsequently set up FEE. He there became, on the one side, a kind of authority –
among business supporters of free markets – for what was orthodox. One striking story
here, is that Jasper Crane and H. Howard Pew felt that it was important to produce a kind
of ‘Bible’ of free enterprise. The one-time college President, and then journalist, Felix
Morley, was recruited to write this. His work was supervised by a panel of people,
including Pew, Crane, Rose Wilder Lane, Read and Norman Vincent Peale. Pew and
also Crane were very unhappy about Morley’s treatment of economic issues, and Read
was given the task of sorting him out. Read himself, however, became increasingly
concerned with issues relating to spirituality, and it was these which came, increasingly,
to influence his view of the world, and the character of his non-interventionism. Read
had been introduced to, and had a high opinion of, Heard, but there is no evidence that I
have come across to date that he had the same kind of involvement as did Ingebretsen and
Mullendore. He wrote quite extensively on religious themes, and read widely on
unconventional issues relating to ‘spiritual’ development. He had, at one point, an
interest in Subud, and invited John Godolphin Bennett – a prolific British author who had
had an involvement with Gurdjieff, and had a wide interest in ‘spiritual’ issues – to FEE.
I have not yet summoned up the resolve to work my way through Read’s religious
writings in any detail – to say nothing of the extensive list of reading suggestions that he
commended to his friends. But it would seem to me that Read, like Ingebretsen, held the
view that each person’s spiritual development should be their own concern, and that
interference with this was counter-productive and should not take place. Indeed, it was
this that formed the basis of their non-interventionism.
10
Read’s own views, however, were different from those of Ingebretsen. He seemed much
more of a fatalist and a spiritual elitist (Ingebretsen, in comments on a paper by Read,
indicates that it seemed to him to share the same kind of elitism as did Ayn Rand’s Atlas
Shrugged). There was also, however, an aspect of Read’s approach which seemed to
suggest that things would work out for the good, if they were just allowed to take their
course. 42 Indeed, as I suggest in more detail in a discussion of Read’s well-known ‘I,
Pencil’, which forms an appendix to this paper, what plays the key role in Read’s paper is
less specifically economic argument, than a belief that, if things are allowed to take their
course, then all will work out harmoniously. Indeed, at one point in his journals, he
suggests that the value of economic libertarianism is as a stepping-stone to spiritual
libertarianism.
What, more specifically, were Read’s ideas here? I will spare you an extensive
discussion, but the following should convey an impression of the kind of views that he
adopted.
As set forth in the piece I am now writing, Infinite Consciousness appears to me to
be a magnetic force pulling or drawing mankind into its Infinite Orbit. This thought
this morning: It seems to be a pulsating force. It draws and relaxes alternatively on
a vast range of frequencies. Man is drawn into a higher consciousness and then left
on his own as if to test what he has. Most men slip back in these periods. But the
Force pulsates inexorably and, over time, consciousness increases, emerges, in man.
In one of the lower frequencies we observe a Dark Age But followed by a
Renaissance (born anew). In one of the higher frequencies the emerging individual
experiences periods of intellectual and spiritual sluggishness followed by periods of
perception or insight. We have periods of despondency and of buoyancy, all of
these in a seemingly rhythmic pattern. 43
The mystic, that is, the student of matters metaphysical, all too often is suspect. Yet,
the mystic only probes the unknown and the unknown characterizes the physical or
sensual world as well as the spiritual. Those who hold the mystic as suspect are
those who are smug in their know-it-allness. As I have insisted on many occasions,
they don't know how to make a pencil, and have no knowledge at all of how their
meals became available to them. I may try my hand at a paper on this. 44
Our life here is but a phase in an eternal experience of the individual spirit. The
conclusion of this phase is as much a part of it as is the beginning. The time
between beginning and conclusion is for the purpose of growth -- a growing in
consciousness, which is to say, a coming into harmony with Infinite Consciousness.
If this lofty view is believed (it is as near as I can come to Purpose), then a code for
life on earth rather easily takes shape. For example, longevity as an object is seen as
rather silly. When growth is over, regardless of age, 'tis time to conclude this phase
and the individual, if he could but rise to it, ought to be not adverse to this.
Programs to keep people from dying, private and government, are the rage of the
day. To delay death after growth is completed may be as evil as to thwart birth
11
before growth has begun. (The more I reflect on this the more closely do I
approximate some of the Mormon views -- spirits waiting to be born; the borning
[sic] is itself a spiritual event which should in no way be beneath all that is good
and sacred.) Giving money to all of these voluntary associations is, by and large,
indiscriminately to finance longevity for its own sake, which may prolong
experiences that should conclude as well as some that should be maintained for
potential growth. However, in these instances, each of us has a free choice -- one
does not have to participate if one does not wish to do so. The real evil is for
government to indulge in this sort of thing -- where all are compelled to partake
whether or not we wish to do so. In this later instance, life substance is taken from
many people, substance that is essential to growth. This kind of reasoning leads to
another thought: If it be conceded that the taking from others to feather one's own
nest is the greatest evil of all -- I believe it to be -- then government is today
practicing the greatest evil on a scale never before known. Such an example in itself
makes plausible the practice of lesser evils about which we complain so much, that
is, child delinquency, sex and other laxities, the enormous breaking down of selfreliance, labor union monopolies, and a host of other evils. When we put the state
gargantuan in the place of God, we put legalized evil in the place of conscience.
When we do this we cut the roots of individual growth on a mass scale. This is
mass murder of the individual spirit, perhaps more to be condemned than the mass
murder of human flesh. 45
2.23 F. A. Harper
Harper had a background in agricultural economics and subsequently marketing at
Cornell. He seems, however, to have had a long-standing concern to run an institute
devoted to advanced studies relating to classical liberalism. He left Cornell to work with
Leonard Read at FEE, and had understood that he would be able to set up his institute
there, but this was in the end blocked by Read. He then moved to the Volker Fund, and
there were plans to split the fund’s activities between three different bodies – an Institute
run by Harper, a body concerned with forms of voluntary welfare, run by Richard
Cornuelle, and a third body, concerned with American history, but with a strong religious
streak, run by Ivan Bierly. In the event, all these plans collapsed – although it is difficult
to reconstruct exactly what happened, as the Volker Fund’s papers seem to have been
lost. 46
Harper was an interesting but also in some ways a rather strange man. He had very wide
intellectual interests, and had some really interesting ideas about issues which his
Institute might pursue. 47 By contrast with this, his own writing had what Murray
Rothbard called a ‘cornpoke’ character, 48 and much of what IHS actually did, fell a long
way short of his lofty aspirations for it. (He liked to refer to the Institute for Advanced
Studies at Princeton, and to some European research institutes, as offering models for
IHS; but much of his own work, when he was running IHS, was involved in fund-raising,
and in producing material which would be of interest to potential donors.)
12
My concern on the present occasion, is with Harper’s own ideas. Much of his work dealt
with free-market economics: a selection was published after his death in a two-volume
collection by IHS. It is striking, however, that when he was working at Volker Fund
(more specifically, with Cornuelle, at the Foundation for Voluntary Welfare), he wrote in
a letter about what might be called the religious basis of his non-interventionism. While
Harper is not, here, in the same league as Ingebretsen or Read, his account seems to me to
display an in some ways similar kind of religious sensibility. I will quote from a letter he
sent to Chet Anderson on February 4, 1960: 49
I believe that Creation must have a purpose, though beyond any certain
comprehension of any one of us; that the only domain we are given is the right to
pursue that purpose as we see it, individually, with our own lives and that which is
properly our own (an assertion encompassing major questions left unanswered here,
but you know how I would answer those).
So a part of the plan of Creation must be liberty itself, i.e. the right to explore that
purpose, each in his own way (his own right). To interfere with anyone’s exercise
of that right is to violate the presumed plan of Creation in this important respect.
When anyone draws a blueprint for the conduct of another person (or persons),
unless it be to teach him a new belief to guide his acts, or how better to act in
harmony with his beliefs, he creates the danger of a design held to be superior to
the means of its attainment. Once this is done, the door will be opened in form
(although in an uncertain degree and rate of arraignment), to an ultimately
authoritarian society. As you and I know, some of our best friends, with libertarian
banners lifted highly aloft, have done just this in their ideological positions. (I do
not have the precise quotation at hand or in mind, but wasn’t it once said in
disfavour: ‘What acts are done in my name!’).
3. Conclusion
My argument in this paper (which I would stress is highly tentative) is that the answer to
my initial question – what motivated people in the free-market movement towards
economic non-interventionism – was that a major role was played by religious ideas.
(One can also find a similar line in ‘Baldy’ Harper the founder of the Institute for
Humane Studies. In his case, there was a concern that interventionism with people’s
spiritual development would, in some way, be bound to escalate.) While these people
stress religious experience, and while – at least in the case of Read – they sometimes
wrote about this, and at length, the interpretation of these matters seemed a matter of
personal feeling, rather than something for which they offered any arguments.
Indeed, their attitude towards religious matters seems to me rather strange. Harper was
friendly towards Carl Henry, and if he could have raised the finances to do it, would have
given one of the first IHS Fellowships to Gordon H. Clark, a proponent of a particular
kind of hard-line Protestant ‘presuppositionalism’, to write his Historiography: Secular
and Religious, 50 and in addition he was in contact with Francis Schaeffer and tried to
arrange a meeting with him when he was in California. In addition, Read was closely
13
associated with Jasper Crane and J. Howard Pew, who were both Presbyterians. Their
Churchmanship would be a fascinating topic for another study, and is difficult to place.
They were hostile to any interpretation of Christianity in terms of the ‘social gospel’,
while being strong supporters, and generous practitioners, of private charity. They
associated with conservative evangelicals, including not just Carl Henry but also Billy
Graham, and even the Christian separatist Carl McIntyre – Crane offering him detailed
comments on a MS dealing, inter alia, with just the degree to which the Earth was now
the domain of Satan – while also both strongly supporting Christianity Today. Their
ready cooperation with Read seems very strange, given the highly heterodox character of
his religious views. Indeed, the wider story of the conservative evangelicals’ cooperation
with libertarians such as Harper itself poses an interesting question, as it was not clear
that they shared his libertarianism – although they were critical of liberal social gospel
views, and Schaeffer, certainly, favoured free markets. (An earlier flirtation with
Rushdoony seemed to me somewhat different, given that Rushdoony’s writings published
in two early issues of Faith and Freedom offered a strong critique of government
management of ‘Indian’ reservations. Later, when he was still at Volker Fund, Harper
was asked if he had, indeed – as it appeared – recommended a book of Rushdoony’s, and
Harper was scathing about the quality of its argument.)
My more general conclusion, here, is that, in looking at this period, and in reading work
produced by these people, one needs to bear in mind that everything may not always be
what it seems. Leonard Read’s ‘I, Pencil’ is often given as reading to people starting
economics. It can clearly be read in that manner. But, as the Appendix to this paper
suggests, one might in the light of what I have written above about Read’s religious
views, question whether it is a piece of writing about economics, at all.
14
Appendix The Birth and Early Career of ‘I, Pencil’51
I suspect that the most influential of FEE’s publications, is Leonard Read’s ‘I, Pencil’. It
is widely made use of in introductory courses in economics and social philosophy. It
offers a striking way to introduce students to a market-based perspective, bringing out
how, in a market economy, we are able to make use of socially scattered knowledge – in
such a way that literally no-one knows how to make as apparently simple an object as a
pencil (if one really considers all that is involved, directly and indirectly, in its
manufacture). Milton Friedman famously made use of Read’s idea, with appropriate
acknowledgement, in his Free to Choose TV series and subsequent book (See Milton and
Rose Friedman, Free to Choose, New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1979, pp. 1112.)
15
In his essay, Read sets out ideas which – once one is aware of them – seem
straightforward and really illuminating, with the result that it is all too easy to take his
approach for granted. But no-one else had previously put things quite that way before.
Just how did Read come to write his essay, and what lies behind it? Friedman, in an
introduction to the fiftieth anniversary edition of the essay, points to what Adam Smith
had to say about the division of labour as an inspiration behind Read’s essay
(see http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/112; Read refers, at the end of his essay, to the
‘Invisible Hand’, and in the 1959 edition there is a brief quotation from Adam Smith on
the invisible hand, in the margin). Friedman also points to Hayek’s work on the social
division of knowledge as a possible influence. If one looks at the history of political
economy more generally, there is certainly also a parallel with what John Locke has to
say, in his Second Treatise on Government, Part II §43, about the different kinds of
labour which go into the making of an ordinary object such as a loaf of bread. But none
of this quite captures what is distinctive about Read’s essay.
During May 2015, I was able to undertake some research at FEE’s offices in Atlanta, and,
while there, I was able to consult some of Read’s journals. In these, he offers a reflective
account of his daily activities, and also includes copies of some of his writings and
correspondence. From his journal, what seems to me an interesting story emerges of the
birth and early career of ‘I, Pencil’.
In his journal entry for August 29th, 1958, Read wrote: ‘Decided to try ghost writing an
autobiography of a pencil – “I, Pencil”. Perhaps by this device I can show what is meant
by the configuration of creative human energies.’ In a later journal entry, Read includes
the text of a paper of his: ‘On What to Do’, with a note that it was ‘prepared for a private
seminar, April 17-19, 1959’. In the course of this, Read reflects on various ways in
which ordinary people can enhance their creativity and, in this context, reports on some
of the ideas of Rudolf Steiner, of which he has been making use. Read writes:
Steiner prescribed several exercises but I shall present only the ones I have
personally tried. These exercises cover a six-month period. If a day is missed in any
month, begin the month all over again. These are designed to be habit forming,
thinking disciplines; therefore laxity cancels out any possible benefits. First Month:
Concentrate for not less than five minutes each day on some object of your own
choosing - a blade of grass, a leaf, a rock, a pencil or whatever. Think of everything
you possibly can about this object - for instance, its source, even its molecular
configuration, its purpose and so on. But it should be your exploratory thinking, no
one else's. The main purpose of this exercise is to fix or identify you with reality,
for any person who succeeds in a ‘break through’ is in danger of getting his ‘head
in the clouds,’ whereas he should ‘keep his feet on the ground.’ Also, the exercise
stretches the consciousness, remarkably.
It is clearly about these exercises that Read had written (journal, December 21st, 1958):
16
I have completed five months of the excellent exercises. Now comes the sixth month, a
recapitulation, six days of each. Out of it all comes numerous ideas and disciplines,
including “I, Pencil” - the most original and most unanimously accepted piece I have done.
It is interesting that, in the current Wikipedia discussion of ‘Rudolf Steiner's exercises for
spiritual development’, an account of ‘supplementary exercises’ includes the following
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Steiner%27s_exercises_for_spiritual_development):
Steiner suggested that a special group of general exercises should accompany all
spiritual training as he believed their influence on inner development would be
beneficial whatever the spiritual path. These six exercises are [the article lists them
in order, of which the following is the first]: Practicing self-control over one's
thinking. For example: for a period of time - at least five minutes - contemplate any
object and concentrate one's thoughts exclusively on this object. (A pencil or a
paper clip might do.)…
In the case of ‘I, Pencil’, Read’s meditations were only one aspect to the story. For Read
met with a representative of the lead pencils manufacturers association (September
2nd 1958), who arranged for him to visit a factory in which pencils were made: The
Eberhard Faber Company, in Wilkes-Barre. Read commented (his journal entry for
September 17th reads:
to new $4 million plant of Eberhard Faber Pencil Company and to office of Louis
M. Brown, President. Ag and I spent two hours going through plant with a Mr.
Vanderrest. Afterward, we spent a good spell with Schlerer, the company research
head and chemist. We lunched with Mr. Brown, had a session with Mr. Strickler
and another, after which Mr. Brown had us driven to the airport. In any event, I
collected an abundance of material and facts for my proposed ‘I, Pencil.’ Let no
one think a common pencil a simple thing!
Indeed, from the initial written version of ‘I, Pencil’, the pencil was identified as a
specific product of this branch of the Faber company: Mongol 482.
Read’s procedure was frequently to try out ideas on which he was working in
presentations to business people. And this occurred with respect to ‘I, Pencil’. Read
reports in his journal entry of September 28th, on a seminar at Brown County State Park
in Indiana, that: ‘I did most of forenoon's session and on method, using the need for faith
in free men, employing my pencil idea to explain it’. Read then notes that he worked off
and on, on a written version of the piece, completing a first rough draft on October 3rd.
This version is included in Read’s journal. Read sent it to the President of Eberhard Faber,
to get criticism and technical feedback. Read reports in his journal: ‘October 9. Phoned
Mr. Brown's secretary (Eberhard Faber) about Pencil piece. The reports to it be [sic]
“very clever” and they appear to like it. Will send corrections on technical detail today.’
‘I, Pencil’ first appeared in print in the December 1958 edition of The Freeman. It is
striking that it was not accorded a prominent place in the journal. In addition, Jasper
Crane – a member of FEE’s Board of Trustees, and an important fund-raiser for FEE, did
not like it. ‘I. Pencil” was then published as a pamphlet by FEE (see
17
http://fee.org/resources/detail/i-pencil-original-1959-pamphlet). It was illustrated by a
number of stylized line drawings of a pencil, not just as reproduced at the start of this
piece, but also undertaking various activities involved in the manufacture of pencils!
While Read was at the pencil factory, he had been able to view the different stages in its
production. One of these involves the creation of a so-called ‘sandwich’. (See for a
useful account of the manufacture of pencils, Every Pencil is a Sandwich, available at:
http://pencils.com/every-pencil-sandwich/.) In an early stage in the production of a
pencil, a slat of wood is glued onto another slat which has had grooves made in it, into
which a mixture of graphite and clay has been placed. This is referred to as a ‘sandwich’.
The ‘sandwich’ is subsequently cut up to make individual pencils. Read contacted
Eberhard Faber, and requested some samples of such ‘sandwiches’ – which they were
happy to supply. (Journal, October 14th: ‘Phoned Lewis Brown of Pencil Company about
getting 700 “lead sandwiches”, to which he agrees.’) Read distributed these sandwiches
as part of his publicity efforts for his essay. (Journal December 6th, 1958: ‘Just for the
record, I sent 1200 of the “sandwiches” with a green label glued on with this message in
red printing: “I, Pencil, commend to you a faith in free men and my writer, Leonard E.
Read, wishes you a Merry Christmas”.’ Eberhard Faber themselves seem to have been
delighted with Read’s essay, and to have distributed copies of it (on December 17th, 1958
they ordered 500 copies). ‘I, Pencil’ has subsequently been reprinted, and the most
recent edition is available from FEE’s website: http://fee.org/resources/detail/i-pencilaudio-pdf-and-html.
This, however, was not the end of the story: two further points are worth noting about it.
First, I have mentioned that the idea seems to have initially stemmed from Read’s making
use of Rudolf Steiner’s ideas about creativity, which included meditating on an everyday
object. Given Read’s background and character – a farming background, service in the
armed forces, and then involvements in business and Chambers of Commerce – the fact
that he was making use of ideas from Steiner might seem surprising. For Rudolf Steiner,
while a man of academic distinction whose ideas on education have been influential, and
who influenced, for example, C.S. Lewis’s friend Owen Barfield, was a mystic, who had
an interest in Theosophy. But, in fact, a strong strand in Read’s approach was his
attachment to somewhat unorthodox religious ideas about individual spiritual
development. (Read was not alone in this: William Mullendore, who had been a major
influence on the development of his economic views, shared the same religious interests.
It is striking to find Read and Mullendore corresponding about such topics as the work of
J. G. Bennett, a one-time follower of Gurdjieff, and Read invited Bennett to FEE (see
Read’s journal, February 2, 1959). For Read, there was a strong inter-connection
between the material and the spiritual (Read’s journal October 15th, 1958: ‘Physical and
material experiences in life are but A-B-C lessons of the spiritual. It is, I think, a mistake
to place the two in separate categories. They are simply different levels of the same
process.’) Indeed, ‘I, Pencil’ itself has religious overtones:
I, Pencil, am a complex combination of miracles: a tree, zinc, copper, graphite, and
so on. But to these miracles which manifest themselves in Nature an even more
18
extraordinary miracle has been added: the configuration of creative human
energies—millions of tiny know-hows configurating naturally and spontaneously in
response to human necessity and desire and in the absence of any human
masterminding! Since only God can make a tree, I insist that only God could make
me. Man can no more direct these millions of know-hows to bring me into being
than he can put molecules together to create a tree…
It is also striking that Read does not explain how this happens. In Friedman’s discussion,
after re-telling Read’s story, he goes on to pose the question: ‘How did it happen’ (p. 13),
and to then discuss the non-zero-sum character of voluntary exchange, the price system,
and prices and the transmission of information. By contrast, the conclusion of Read’s
essay, while stirring, and referring to freedom and the invisible hand, is not obviously
‘economic’ in its character: ‘The lesson I have to teach is this: Leave all creative energies
uninhibited. Merely organize society to act in harmony with this lesson. Let society's
legal apparatus remove all obstacles the best it can. Permit these creative know­hows
freely to flow. Have faith that free men will respond to the Invisible Hand. This faith will
be confirmed. I, Pencil, seemingly simple though I am, offer the miracle of my creation
as testimony that this is a practical faith, as practical as the sun, the rain, a cedar tree, the
good earth.’
According to Read’s biographer (Mary Sennholz, Leonard Read: Philosopher of
Freedom, New York: FEE, 1963), disagreement about whether religious themes should
be included in FEE’s publications led to the resignation of one of FEE’s trustees. Just
what Read’s religious ideas were, and how they inter-related with his economic ideas, is,
however, a topic for a paper other than this one.
Second, Read was clearly captivated by the ‘Pencil’ motif, and an outline figure of a
pencil started to appear in 1959, promoting the contents of various issues of The Freeman,
on the envelopes in which it was distributed. In the March 1959, a formal announcement
was made that the Pencil had joined FEE’s staff. As the Pencil himself put it: ‘IF I, an
ordinary wooden pencil with all my limitations, can aid the cause of liberty, just think
what countless human beings might do! MY ASSIGNMENT: No one can become really
skilled at explaining the miracles wrought by men when free without constant practice regular exercises in free market, private property, limited government thinking, writing,
speaking, and reading. So, I asked myself the question, “How can I inspire more of such
reading?” This led to a practical answer: In my humble opinion, The Freeman is a firstrate study journal. While consistently libertarian, it hasn't been getting the reading a lot
of folks have intended to give it. They've been “too busy.” Then the thought struck me of
presenting myself on The Freeman envelopes, announcing each month some unusually
interesting item.’ This activity on the part of Pencil came to an end, when the way in
which The Freeman was distributed changed, and there was no longer any space for the
drawings on the envelope.
One final note. Read’s journal for January 31st 1959 reports that:
19
a grandmother …had written to tell of the effect the reading [of ‘I, Pencil’] had had
on her four-year-old grandson. He listened intently and later went about the house
gathering up pencils and apologising to them that he had chewed [them]’
20
Notes
1
‘No “thought collective”: Some Historical Remarks on The Mont Pelerin Society’, HETSA 2015.
See on this my ‘Hayek, Keynes and the State’, see http://www.hetsa.org.au/pdf-back/26-A-6.pdf.
3
Spiritual Mobilization was an organization founded by Fifield and Cowling to resist ‘social gospel’
interpretations of Christianity within Congregationalism. (Their orientation was distinctive, in that it
combined liberal theology with classical liberal ideas about economics and politics.) Spiritual Mobilization
undertook a range of activities, perhaps the most interesting of which was its journal Faith and Freedom,
which became a lively forum for libertarian-inclined writers of different stripes, and in which some of the
points at issue between libertarians were argued about (e.g. issues of foreign policy). For fuller treatments,
see Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism, Kruse, One Nation Under God, George Nash, The
Conservative Intellectual Movement Since 1945, and my ‘Spirituality and Liberty: the case of James
Ingebretsen’ (in progress).
4
Edmund Opitz to Ingebretsen, August 20, 1981 James Ingebretsen archive, University of Oregon Archive,
Box 62, Folder 28.
5
See for discussion of this, drawing on Mises comments in material in the Mises archive at Grove City
College, my ‘Mises, Ikeda and Interventionism’, http://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/lm-intervention.
6
The review appeared in the December 28th, 1957 edition of National Review, and is conveniently accessed
here: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/213298/big-sister-watching-you-whittaker-chambers.
7
See, in this context, Jerome Tucille’s It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand, New York: Stein and Day, 1972,
and Murray Rothbard’s ‘The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult’, available at:
http://archive.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard23.html. It is, in this context, striking that the closest
followers of Rand were linked – as is common in cults – by family relationships (as Rothbard notes).
Compare, for the role of affective relationships in the establishment of a religious sect, John Lofland’s
Doomsday Cult, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1966 (a study of what was in fact Sun Myung
Moon’s ‘Unification Church’ in its very first days in the United States), and for discussion of the full extent
of family relationships within Rand’s inner circle, Doherty’s Radicals for Capitalism.
8
See John Chamberlain, ‘A Reviewers Notebook: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand’, The Freeman, December
1957, pp. 53-56; compare John Chamberlain, ‘Ayn Rand's Political Parable and Thundering Melodrama’,
New York Herald Tribune (October 6, 1957). See also on this, Jennifer Burns, The Goddess of the Market,
New York: Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 164. That The Freeman published the review is significant,
just because FEE’s publications tended to represent the views of FEE, rather than their simply serving as a
publisher. (Compare, on this, the controversy around Milton Freidman and George Stigler’s Roofs or
Ceilings?, Irvington on Hudson, FEE, 1946, into which FEE inserted an editorial note distancing
themselves from an egalitarian aspect of the authors’ argument.)
9
It should be noted in this context that FEE, while acting as a publishing house, broadly speaking
published only material with which Read was in agreement, so that material which was controversial, even
when there had been agreement that it would be written, was say on.
10
In his Radicals for Capitalism, New York: PublicAffairs, 2007, p. 262, Doherty refers to Rothbard as
having credited Ayn Rand, in a letter of appreciation that he wrote in response to Atlas Shrugged, for
leading him ‘in the direction of natural rights thinking’.
11
See on this the correspondence between Rothbard and Harper in October 16, 1961; Memo to Luhnow,
Harper Archive, Box 3, Hoover Institution Archive.
12
See on this Michael J. Lacey and Knud Haakonssen (eds) A Culture of Rights, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1991.
13
See on this my ‘The Right to Subsistence in a “Lockean” State of Nature', Southern Journal of
Philosophy, Winter 1989, 21, No. 4, pp. 561-8.
14
See, for discussion and references, my Hayek and After, London etc: Routledge, 1996.
15 David Levy and Sandra Peart, Levy, David M., Sandra J. Peart, and Margaret Albert. 2012, ‘ Economic
Liberals as Quasi-Public Intellectuals: The Democratic Dimension’, Research in the History of
Economic Thought and Methodology 30(B): 1-116, and Sandra Peart, and David Levy, ‘F. A. Hayek and
the “Individualists”’, in F. A. Hayek and the Modern Economy. Economic Organization and Activity,
edited by Sandra J. Peart and David Levy, 29-58. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013; see also Luca
Fiorito and Cosma Orsi’s at yet unpublished ‘Survival Value and a Robust, Practical, Joyless
2
21
Individualism”: Thomas Nixon Carver, Social Justice, and Eugenics’. [There is also a separate issue as to
whether there was any influence from Merwin K. Hart; but I cannot pursue this on the present occasion.]
16
The sizable unpublished manuscript of a semi-popular book of his on the history of banking in the U.S.,
is in the Ingebretsen archive at the University of Oregon.
17
See, for example, Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism, p. 151 (and also the account in Mary Sennholz’s
biography of Read, Leonard E. Read: Philosopher of Freedom, Irvington on Hudson: FEE, 1993).
18
Leonard Read, The Romance of Reality, New York: Dodd, Mead, 1937, p. 9; he thanks them – and others
– for advice on issues in economics.
19
See Watts’ obituary at http://articles.latimes.com/1993-04-01/news/mn-17591_1_v-orval-watts.
20
Ingebretsen mentions in passing that an article of his on libertarian themes which was published in Faith
and Freedom had in fact been written by Read.
21
See Levy and ??
22
See Mises archive, Grove City College. It is striking that he was assailed, on this score, not just by Lane,
but also by Robert LeFevre – who espoused a form of individualist anarchism – and also by the libertarian
newspaper proprietor, R. C. Hoiles. Mises did not engage with any of his critics on this topic.
23
I simply have not done adequate research on Watts or Mullendore to know if this is also true of them.
24
For a recent useful survey and debate, see the material at: http://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/lm-intervention.
25
An interesting short interview with him in which he discusses his background and intellectual
development appeared in Religion and Liberty 7, no 5: http://www.acton.org/pub/religion-liberty/volume7-number-5/religion-morality-and-private-property-order.
26
In ‘The Issues: A Debate’ in Heard and Opitz’s The Kingdom Without God, Foundation for Social
Research V, No. 1, 1956, pp. 19-52, Opitz explains (p. 19), that it was Nock’s work, and the ideas to which
he referred, which led to Opitz’ resistance to ideas about the ‘social gospel’. It is, however, worth noting
that another enthusiast for Nock was Russell Kirk (he was a fellow member, with Opitz, of a Nock society).
27
He was at one point on the staff of the Fuller Seminary, and was subsequently Editor of Christianity
Today. It is also worth noting that the very hard-line Calvinist Rushdoony contributed articles to the early
editions of Faith and Freedom.
28
See ‘Religion, Morality and the Private Property Order’, Religion and Liberty, volum7 7, number 5:
http://www.acton.org/pub/religion-liberty/volume-7-number-5/religion-morality-and-private-property-order
29
Arlington House, 1970; second edition FEE, 1992. The text can be downloaded from FEE’s website.
30
The text is held in the Ingebretsen archives; an extract is published at
http://www.geraldheard.com/biblio.htm#The Philosophy of Gerald Heard: Highlights of His Writings
1924-1958.
31
Ingebretsen’s discussion in chapter 16 of his and Bill Youngs’ The Tall Preacher, Malibu, CA:
Pepperdine University Press, 1977, is not all that informative. Fifield stresses his contacts with senior
business people, the theme of Freedom Under God, and that he carried the expenses of the organization
personally from 1935-7, with the organization becoming incorporated in 1938 (see p. 122). Activities
included a newspaper column, radio broadcasts, Faith and Freedom from 1949, the operation of a
‘Freedom Club’ from his church, and television broadcasts from 1951. In 1951 Ingebretsen was appointed
executive vice president, and Fifield retired from involvement with the organization in 1954 (Ingebretsen,
Apprentice to the Dawn, Los Angeles: Philosophical Research Society, 2003 p. 38). Ingebretsen makes
clear, op cit., p. 39, that his initial interest was political not religious.
32
Pew, in addition to being a quite remarkable entrepreneur, was a devoted conservative Presbyterian, and
especially dedicated to combating ‘social gospel’ interpretations of Christianity. He put huge sums of
money, and also a great deal of his personal time, when he retired, into this cause, and was personally
involved – unsuccessfully – in lay committees in both the Presbyterian Church and the National Council of
Churches, which took issue with the social progressivism of these organizations’ administrations. See for
some useful discussion and references Eugene Toy, ‘The National Lay Committee and the National
Council of Churches’, American Quarterly, 21, No. 2, Part 1 (Summer, 1969), pp. 190-209.
33
Ingebretsen gives an account of these, in his Apprentice to the Dawn.
34
See The Kingdom Without God.
35
Reference from Opitz material in Oregon notes
36
See program photographed from Harper materials.
37
See Toy’s Ideology and Conflict in American Ultraconservatism 1945-60, University of Oregon Ph.D.
thesis 1965 and his ‘The conservative connection: the chairman of the board took LSD before Timothy
22
Leary’, American Studies (AMSJ) 21, No. 2: Fall 1980, pp. 65-77; Brian Doherty’s Radical for Capitalism,
and Rothbard’s The Betrayal of the American Right, https://mises.org/library/betrayal-american-right-0.
38
Murray Rothbard, The Betrayal of the American Right, pp. 168-70.
39
I should stress that, at this point, the kinds of deep divisions that later emerged between those who saw
themselves as libertarian and as conservative, were not present. While there were differences of emphasis,
and while points were vigorously debated – e.g. about McCarthyism and foreign policy – there was, at this
point, a single, overlapping group.
40
[Reference for this to come.]
41
Leonard Read, The Romance of Reality, New York: Dodd, Mead, 1937
42
As Doherty mentions (p. 288) Read was able to ‘attract… more and more money by the artful method of
not asking for it’. He spent a lot of time travelling the country, making presentations to groups of
businessmen whom supporters had assembled for this purpose. But it is interesting, in this context, to look
at the kind of efforts that this meant that Jasper Crane, and others, had to make to actually raise the money
from people who attended such gatherings!
43
Read Journals, 1960 June 28 onwards, August 17th, 1960.
44
Ibid., October 9th, 1960
45
Read, Journal, January 22nd, 1962 in Journals, January-May 1961.
46
Kenneth Templeton, a Volker Employee, was able to remove a limited amount of material, which is now
held at Duke; other material may be found in the archives of individuals who had an involvement with the
Fund. It would seem to me, however, that at least in some cases – e.g. that of Harper – archives may have
been weeded of Volker-related material, prior to their being deposited, as there is strikingly little
correspondence (or other material) which deals with these issues, despite their centrality to Harper’s
concerns.
47
E.g. he was wishing to bring in a group of academics who were sympathetic to classical liberalism to
discuss an important issue for libertarians: if developments have taken place in which people’s property
rights are infringed, what would be the best way to go about trying to redress the situation. It is worth
noting that IHS’s current activities, which are centred round offering support to undergraduate and graduate
students with an interest in classical liberalism, are very different from Harper’s own concerns.
48
I’d like to thank Walter Grinder for sharing this with me.
49
F.A. Harper Archive, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University, Box 66, Harper to C. W.
Anderson.
50
Cf. Gordon H. Clark, Historiography: Secular and Religious, Nutley, NJ: Craig Press, 1971. (It is
striking that Jasper Crane’s granddaughter, an intelligent woman who did not have an academic
background, when she became interested in classical liberalism and visited IHS, simply could not
understand what the relevance to classical liberalism of some of Harper’s concerns were. See her
correspondence with her grandfather in Jasper E. Crane Papers, 1416, Box 84, ‘R’ 1967-69, Hagley
Museum Manuscripts.)
51
An abbreviated and highly edited version of this appeared in The Freeman, September 1, 2015.
http://fee.org/articles/leonard-read-the-spiritual-economist/. See also the useful discussion in Brian
Doherty’s Radicals for Capitalism.