 Politics is the tail that tries to wag the dog. Politics is the tail that is indeed wagged by culture. Success in traditional politics comes when one jumps aboard the trends of culture. Success in ideological politics is a much harder process requiring identification of divergent cultures and the harnessing of appropriate elements of culture aligned with one's own values. Around this mass of rock and water and life called Earth, in Western worlds, in communist worlds, in third worlds, in cities, in villages, in the minds and actions and passions of women and men, there is something stirring. There is something growing. There is something calling. It is the culture of freedom. For some, it is a newly discovered series of ideas of human rights, of private property, as the main spring of human progress. For others, it is an old tradition of self-interest and privatization revitalized by practical awareness that controls and regulations and force result in oppression and famine and death. Still others only recently see that their long-held notions of man's nature and of voluntary community have an ideological framework and a name, laissez-faire. And these peoples are the culture of freedom. We hear it in the rhetoric of Reagan and Thatcher. We hear it in the calculations of Gorbachev's Gassnosts. It is in the hearts of young Koreans and Filipinos and solidarity workers. It is in the abstractions of Nobel Prize winners from Virginia and Parisian bestselling authors. Around the world and across this nation, a culture is stirring. A natural constituency for liberty is growing. And groups of people are discovering and living a body of truths and calling out for leadership. Fellow libertarians, I'm here today to tell you that you are that leadership, that they need and demand, and it is your politics that will inspire and lead their cultures of freedom into fruition and domination on this planet. I am honored to have been asked by this convention to be your keynote speaker at this crucial time in the history of the Libertarian Party. 1988 may very well decide whether this party will light the lamp of liberty around the world or fail the cultures of freedom in the world. Ideas, organization, work. Ideas, organization, and work. Ideas, organization, and work. This is why we are here at this convention. And I am to speak to you this morning about the way I perceive the world culture of freedom, the American culture of freedom, and the politics of freedom. I say again that I am very honored to have been asked to be your keynote speaker. I have called myself a libertarian for about 20 years. I have carried signs, distributed literature, debated, shouted, campaigned, petitioned, resisted, refused, educated, and entertained. But above all for 20 years in all of my thoughts and abstractions about public policies and current affairs, I have tried to do what I think all libertarians tried to do. Place liberty at the core of all values, all deliberations, all calculations, and all discussions. In a very real sense, this is what libertarian politics is all about. It is not the seizing of power to reshape society in our ideological mold. But rather, libertarian politics is the process of making human rights and individual liberty the common denominator in all formulation of public policy and social interaction. This morning, I will talk about the culture of freedom on a variety of levels. I will focus on what I see happening in this nation and in the world. I will focus on what I see happening in politics in America. And I will focus on what I see happening here within the libertarian party. Finally, I will address some eternal truths and unbankishable powers of liberty that underline the cultures of liberty in the world and in America. The theme of this convention is the culture of freedom. And what a perfect theme, indeed, upon which to build the politics of liberty. The politics of a society does nothing more than reflect the underlying values of those who live in that society. In a pluralistic society like our own, a myriad of values exist. Liberty is but one in conflict with others. Our society operates with a contrast and an interplay of society values. Liberty is one. Community collectivism is another. Nationalism is a third. And compulsory humanitarianism is another. These other values represent, on one level, challenges and enemies to freedom. But on another level, they can be viewed as a result of flawed responses to some basic human needs of stability and peace and caring. These flawed responses stem not from evil, as much as from the fact that their advocates are impatient, immature, and impetuous. The culture of freedom can address all of these needs and combat all of these flawed responses. I look at a nation and a society, both here and around the world, which is seeing a growing recognition that community collectivism does not bring stability, that nationalism does not bring peace, and that compulsory altruism is not caring. Of course, the task is a great one. Most thinking people in this culture cling to a bewildering collection and mixture of conflicting contradictory value systems. Conservatives and liberals and authoritarians dominate the politics of our society. Just recently, I was on the beach near my summer home with friends from California, who asked me what I thought should be done with the street people in American cities. I was told that in Los Angeles, hundreds of men and women roam the streets, begging, sleeping on benches, beaches, and that many of these human beings were former inmates of psychiatric wards, who had been freed by legal action. Well, I asked, what should be done? Well, Helen replied, perhaps they should all be shipped to some part of the nation that was warm, maybe Arizona. She said, and given food and shelter and putting camps there, or maybe just rounded up and put back in mental hospitals. Her husband, Robert, jumped into the conversation and pointed out that he really didn't advocate concentration camps, but that this was a real problem, a problem facing community. And he said, communities have the right to legislate basic levels of conduct, health standards, and what he called aesthetic values. Street people were a challenge to community standards. It takes many hours to combat such notions and to explain this source of frustration. A few weeks ago, I was watching on C-SPAN, the debate in Congress over the reflagging of Kuwaiti ships and the Reagan policy of USS Court. The vast majority of both Democrats and Republicans who spoke on the issue suggested that if we did not take up the role of world policemen in the Persian Gulf, the Russians would. And that would result in the decline of American prestige, a growth of communist power, a threat to oil supply, and in the long run, the destruction of America. Speaker after speaker rose to talk of the flag, the deaths of our sailors, the pride of being an American, and the need for tough action in a tough world. I saw frustration at a world that knew no peace, nor security. It takes many hours to combat such conceptual notions. Last month, I ran into a fellow educator in a nearby school who had been reading Charles Murray's Losing Ground and was impressed and upset by what he read. Ed had always been a traditional liberal, favoring generous welfare plans, busing quotas, urban renewal, but he was frustrated and he was angry because those inside the welfare state never seemed to leave it. And after reading Murray's book, he saw that the welfare state was not a social net but a social cage. He told me that volunteerism and free enterprise just couldn't work. People would not give enough on their own. He was frustrated and he was confused. It takes many hours of discussion to attack such conceptual notions. Yet there are those who want community standards and those who love their nation and those who care about the poor. And these people are increasingly frustrated because the old politics does not meet their real needs. Traditional politics has failed them and their frustrations and confusions can lead them to the culture of freedom. When we look at our society, we see conflicting values and hence conflicting cultures. And in the 20th century, the culture of freedom, those who feel that human liberty must be at the core of all social policy have been in decline and have had a rear guard role in politics. But something is changing. Something is growing. Something is different in the air. A frustration is sweeping the cultures that preach community collectivism, nationalism, compulsory altruism. In the arena of intellectual concepts, a strong new liberty voice is being heard. And the effects of the growth of intellectual movement is the growth of a social and cultural movement for freedom in our nation and around the world. Consider these developments. Since the birth of the modern libertarian movement, the Nobel Prize in economics has gone three times to advocates of free market theory. Increasing numbers of books, professional publications are now based on the freedom thesis being used in college courses, being used among public policy researchers. When Ronald Reagan was elected president on a rhetorical platform calling for deregulation, free marketplaces and individual responsibility, almost no scholarly institutions and think tanks existed that commanded the attention of public policy makers. And thus, no real source for the administrative staffing that could bring about solid freedom reform existed. Today is a far different story. Today, the Reason Foundation, Cato, the Heritage Foundation and other free enterprise think tanks in Washington, D.C. are creating a core of thinkers and policy spokesman needed to staff a libertarian real revolution. Today, the libertarian movement has a college network, a taxpayers union, professional publications, an evangelical outreach in the advocates for self-government and a variety of improvements as a cultural, social force that did not exist eight or 10 or 12 short years ago. And consider the Reagan error, spell it either way like, President Ronald Reagan for all of his betrayal of true individual liberty and inconsistent policy on economic matters has given a respectability to certain notions on the Washington political scene that have not had since the new deal. Inflation has become unacceptable policy. Tax, tax, tax, spend, spend, spend is a healthy aspect of American political discussion and has become taboo. The voluntary sector for all of Reagan's hypocrisy has still become a part of the political discussion and agenda. Where are today the advocates of the massive welfare state? The spokesman for new deal liberalism. The Democratic leaders like Franklin D. Roosevelt, Eubart Humphrey or Walter Mondale. The rhetoric of the administration of Ronald Reagan may sense that something is stirring. And if the culture of freedom in America is in the rise and we are all part of it, what is happening around the world? In the last decade, three startling new agendas have occurred on the world political scene. Serious challenges to Soviet empire in places like Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Mozambique, Cambodia and Goliath. A rejection in Western Europe of communist and socialist political parties with a resurgence in the forces of decentralization and marketplace politics. And most significantly, the emergence of middle class entrepreneurial behaviors in much of the third world. A process of the awakening of consumerism, property interest, trade economies and the resultant demands for participation by people in politics and more importantly, a breakdown in mercantilist economic systems. It is my firm belief that the social cultural changes that have occurred in Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines and Korea in recent years are all part of an emerging middle class culture of freedom around the world. And what about within the most authoritarian societies which are industrialized and yet politically anti-freedom? As the newspaper and media reports tell us daily, something interesting is going on within the power structures of the USSR and the People's Republic of China. Each week we hear rhetoric from the leaders of both communist nations that sound as if good healthy doses of Milton Friedman, Adam Smith or even Murray Rothbard had been somehow introduced into their political and economic rhetoric. On Thursday, June 25th, Mikhail Gorbachev declared that his nation's economy was in crisis and that there was a clear need to free local enterprises from central planning and to radically reform the pricing system of the USSR. In a statement that could have been drafted by Ein Rand, Gorbachev said, quote, there is only one criteria of justice, whether or not it is earned. Now it would be easy for libertarians to be cynical of this type of rhetoric coming from the USSR. And we certainly should be. After all, in 1980 Americans elected a man to the presidency who promised to deregulate, decentralize, and get government off your back. Clearly the most radical of Gorbachev's advisors, Nikolai Shmenov, still favors a welfare state with ultimate economic power in the hands of the state. But without proclaiming that laissez-faire has arrived in the USSR, let's look at the processes that are occurring within the USSR to learn something about the nature of economic values, cultural change. Within the central power circle of both the USSR and communist China, a small group of manhole all of its way over economic policies. In both societies, the communist parties represent a small percentage of the total population, but represent a large percentage of trained intellectuals, economists, and philosophers. The nature of the Communist Party political system makes ideological challenge to the party structure a very slow developing process. Since longevity and seniority play a greater role in the power base than do popular ideas in the minds of people. Hence in the USSR, as in China, we see clear age differences between the group that supports and opposes the Gorbachev reforms. In the USSR, an 11 member of Politburo presently finds itself pressed between the older party officials, the military, and a huge bureaucracy. On one hand, and young economic intellectual leaders on the other. Fortunately, the newest ideas coming from the young, bright thinkers in both nations are the type that we find refreshing and wish to see more of in our own society. Soviet economist Nikolai Shmelyov wrote a detailed analysis of the Soviet economy in the journal Noval Yemir, which stated that the May moderate reform suggested by Gorbachev do not go far enough. Shmelyov reported, suggested that all subsidies and price setting should be abolished in favor of a free market policy system. And this is in the USSR. Further, he suggested that all central planning be eliminated and that the ruble be placed on a floating exchange basis with world economies. We're trying to get an SIL club started now, in fact. He also argued that guaranteed employment be abolished. Quote, and this is in a Soviet economic journal and the man is still alive today, by the way. He said, quote, we should not close our eyes to the economic harm caused by our parasitic confidence and a guaranteed job. The real danger of losing one's job and taking temporary benefits or doing obligatory work is a very good medicine for laziness, drunkenness, and irresponsibility in the marketplace. Because of the advice of this kind of young thinker, Premier Gorbachev has proposed to the Soviet plenum and to the Politburo itself sweeping new changes. One of the key concrete changes would be shown in the suggestion that the $84 billion worth of subsidies presently given to food and social services by the USSR Central Committee be abolished. And Gorbachev, in fact, suggested that the Soviet Central Economic Bureau be cut from an employment level of 300,000 at present to 5,000, something that could be measured, in fact. One might wonder where and how men like Comrade Shmelyov could emerge as key leaders within the Communist Party of the USSR. It seems that about 20 of these prominent thinkers and academics have been active for the past 10 to 20 years in university discussion groups and in professional journals. These groups appear to have gotten the attention, if not the allegiance of two of Gorbachev's top advisors and associates. I would suggest that the appearance of these two prominent academics who are calling for radical decentralization might offer a few important lessons, whether or not we believe that in fact they will be successful. In nations such as Korea, the Philippines, the USSR, red China, the development of anti-authoritarian, pro-decentralist political forces is largely a result of social, cultural forces. A westernized middle class with consumer interests, rising levels of affluence and individual economic self-interest. I would argue that this social model is one which is directly linked to expanded world trade of goods and services and the ideas and patterns that traditional free traders have long suggested. Growing trade in goods, music, literature, ideas, produce social and cultural changes around the world that the Marcos, the Shahs, the Mao's and the Brezhnevs cannot resist. The 20 or so radical reformers in Moscow are well aware of the tools of economic analysis used in the rest of the world. They are aware of the microeconomic theories long at the heart of the capitalist system and coupled with the growth of consumer power and pressure, middle class values, even among the sons and daughters of the old Bolsheviks, a growing demand for change is inevitable. The politics and patterns that are sweeping the world today parallel in a strange way the early years of the Ronald Reagan administration. When we heard that serious reform was going to occur here in political America, for several decades the fruits of economic intervention in the US economy were inflation, deficits, debt, shrinking economic base of production and savings. A new administration in 1980 was swept into power fueled by popular discontent and pledged to balance the budget, cut government spending, cut taxes and deregulate the economy. A number of young academics, Anderson, Bandal, McCallery, Loeffler and others, heavily influenced the rhetoric of the new administration. Unfortunately, other baggage arrived in 1981 as well. Other agendas, boosting defense spending, worldwide anti-communist crusades, support for banking interests and an intolerant social agenda. One clear non parallel between the reformers of the Reagan years, early Reagan years and what is happening today in the USSR is that the Soviet intellectuals are not only writing about decentralization but in fact are being critical of Soviet military spending, nationalism and Soviet policy of expansion and still are alive today. Today in the Soviet Union, the fragile efforts of radical reformers is growing but faces immense pressure. Just as in 1981, the few libertarian spokesmen who came into the Reagan administration faced the powers of bureaucracy when they tried to dismantle the Department of Education and energy and cut budgets. It is my view that the emergence of reformism of the market variety within the power elite of the USSR in China suggests the ultimate power of two important themes of libertarian analysis. First, the power of free flow of goods and ideas in the world, particularly within controlled nations. And second, the linkage of free market principles of trade and self-interest to basic human nature and values. A fundamental distinction between the libertarian worldview and the bipartisan republican democratic interventionism is the idea that free trade and interaction not only is the proper mode of relationship between peoples promoting peace and prosperity but that ultimately free trade policies drive nations away from aggression and central planning. Even within the libertarian community there are those who argue that free trade does not apply to trade with communist dictatorships and slave labor states. Suggesting that the powerful impact of free exchange of goods works only when both partners are free. This view could not be more incorrect. The greatest impact of free trade is the effect it has in fundamentally altering the internal economics and values of all who use it. It creates middle class values, consumer interests, erodes inefficiency and command economies. All which create within authoritarian regimes the seeds of their own destruction. This should be one of the most important lessons learned from the pressures now surfacing within the Soviet Union and China. Finally, they show the truth of the long held natural law view that free exchange and self-interest modes of interpersonal relationships are the most effective because they most closely correspond to basic human nature. Opponents of reform in the Soviet Union argue that as decentralization of the economy occurs and price mechanisms are enacted, the result will be an erosion of Marxist values such as selflessness, egalitarianism and collective obedience and they are right. They are right because Marxist values are anti-man. The basic operation of initiative and supply and demand prove even among a people that has been brainwashed, educated, propagandized to reject basic human nature elements that freedom makes life possible and that control makes death and poverty inevitable. Each time an authoritarian regime wants to increase its food production, eliminate waste and inefficiency and produce what peaceful people need to survive they have to harness the powers of freedom. Libertarians should closely watch these developments in the Soviet Union and the communist China. There will be advances and reversals in the tide of reform but in both nations as in our culture there are powerful forces at work that will not be stopped. And so the cultures of freedom around the world are growing and the culture of freedom in America is growing and where do the cultures of freedom around the world look for inspiration to the culture of freedom in America? And where does the culture of freedom in America look for its inspiration to the Libertarian Party? And where does the Libertarian Party look for its realization to the election of 1988? At this convention you will elect a nominee to represent the culture of freedom in America before the American voters and the American public in this election of 1988. This representative must be an articulate spokesman for the ideals of personal, economic and cultural freedom. This representative must be able to wage a campaign to raise the funds needed to finance a campaign that can reach out to the cultures of freedom in America that are emerging. This representative must reflect the culture of freedom and the banner of liberty. Will the Libertarian Party be ready as an organization for the task ahead? Will it be lean and trim and efficient? 1988 will be a crucial year for the Libertarian Party. The two major obstacles to third party success are not going to be present this time, which hurt our efforts in 1980 and 1984. These two obstacles I refer to are those of fear and rhetorical co-optation. In 1988, Ed Clark and David Koch gathered almost one million votes running against a well-known man who talked about getting government off our backs, rolling back the size of government and deregulation. Millions of voters believed that Ronald Reagan stood for these ideas and just could not bring themselves to vote for a third party candidate. In 1984, David Berglund and Jim Lewis faced greater obstacles as millions of voters who had seen Ronald Reagan enact some of his promises saw a welfare state liberal named Walter Mondale as a threat to their prosperity. Those who did not fear Mondale feared Reagan for his militarism and rhetorical authoritarianism. We were hurt in 1980 by co-optation of our rhetoric. We were hurt in 1984 by the fear of a New Deal liberal. Well, Libertarians, I am here to tell you that the election of 88 will see neither a co-opting of our rhetoric or a New Deal liberal fear from either Republicans or Democrats. The seven dwarfs and the three Stooges represent the most boring alternatives to the American voter since Warren G. Harding ran against James Cox in 1920. There will be no Ronald Reagan to steal our message about taxes, deregulation, and individual responsibility. There will be no Walter Mondale to upset Americans with an agenda of the New Deal taxation spending and more welfare statism. The powers of the state are against us as a third party. We have to petition, we have to gain media attention, we have to raise money, but damn it, we will be heard. We are here in Seattle to serve notice to the media, to the politicians, to the American voters that the culture of freedom is stirring and alive and growing. We are here in Seattle to give the people of this nation a chance to say, liberty works and liberty is right. This convention is also charged with the task of electing a national committee, a national chairman, and this responsibility must be taken seriously. This party needs a national chairman who will inspire and lead. This party needs a national committee that will work and lead and make this party grow. This party needs to reach out to all of those who have burned out in the past or dropped out or lost interest and bring them back to activism. This party needs state organizations that are active, that run candidates, that gain ballot access, and that teach liberty. It will do freedom, no service at all for this convention to choose a candidate for president unless this party chooses itself to reform its structure into an efficient working organization. There is a culture of freedom waiting to hear what happens in Seattle. And who are the people who make up this culture of freedom? Who are our natural constituents? One is an 18 year old who holds his breath as he tears into little pieces and notice from selective service because he feels he owns his own life. One is a small entrepreneur buried in government tax forms and regulations trying to control a life dream. Every couple who want to buy a home, raise a family and be free from fear and war and inflation and politics. And our message to them is clear, liberty works and liberty is right. Or a 16 year old inner city black girl working at McDonald's after school, reading Shakespeare during breaks, earning good grades so that she can escape the welfare plantation that entraps her parents and her race. Or an illegal immigrant working in the fields, living with four other families to earn a living in the home of the brave and the land of the free. Or perhaps a consumer who wants to photograph his new German car with his Japanese camera while he smokes a Cuban cigar that he bought with Krugerans. And what is our message to these members of the culture of freedom? Liberty works and liberty is right. Or perhaps our constituent is a Vietnamese boat family living in Louisiana on a shrimp boat, sending their kids to school, earning their livelihood with hard work and sweat. Or two men cuddling in bed whose love is distracted by the sound of police cars on the streets outside their window. Or finally, a small farmer who wants to raise crops, own land and live life free from bureaucracy and management and public policy. And our message to these people is clear, liberty works and liberty is right. And the culture of freedom is found not only in our land. In Saigon, old farmers sell their vegetables in open free markets. 15 year old boys fight with the Contras in Nicaragua. Soviet economists write about firing central planners. Young black students in South Africa protest economic regulation. Chinese peasants sell their pigs and drink their cokes. Teenagers rot in Tehran prisons because they wanted to learn on computers rather than die for Allah. Polish workers, Bolivian shopkeepers, Filipino students, Israeli movie goers and millions of others are forming a worldwide culture of freedom and they are listening to what happens in Seattle. And our message to them is clear, liberty works and liberty is right. In 1886, a giant statue was erected in the New York Harbor facing not only the ships that entered that harbor but looking out at the world. Liberty enlightening the world was her name but her torch grew dim. She was built during a century when revolutionaries and radicals were cast in the mold of Henry and Payne and Jefferson, not Mao and Lenin and Fidel. She was built in a century when revolutionaries and radicals came to America to learn about liberty, to raise money, to buy weapons, to return to smash tyranny. The world of politics is the tale that cannot wag the dog. Cultural change always precedes political change. We live today in a nation and a world that has a growing culture of freedom. The time is ripe. The culture of freedom is calling out to us for leadership and inspiration and political voice. Liberty works and liberty is right.