Two More Potentially Interesting Witnesses

[woodyw...@my-deja.com]

Add the two former Deputy U.S. Marshals who transported TK during his
Sacramento incarceration. They have pending lawsuits, in U.S. Court,
Eastern District of California, against their then bosses, alleging
retaliatory harassment resultant from their formal whistle-blower claims
charging that corruption and fraud occurred within the U.S. Marshall's
office during the period of TK's so-called trial. One of the two male
Deputies is also suing his female former supervisor for sexual
harrassment, charging that she went as far as to try to destroy his
marriage by spreading rumors to his wife that he was involved in an
extramarital affair.

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

[jum...@my-deja.com]

From: Bryan Caplan <bca...@gmu.edu>
Subject: Anarchist Theory FAQ Version 5.2
Date: Friday, October 22, 1999 12:42 AM

Archive-name: anarchy/theory/faq
Posting-Frequency: monthly

---------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a slightly revised version of my FAQ on anarchist theory. As
always, comments, criticisms, and corrections will be much
appreciated. In particular, if you think that any argument or
viewpoint has been presented weakly or inadequately, please write me
at bca...@gmu.edu to discuss your preferred formulation.

To view the hypertext version of the FAQ (so the links work), go to
http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Anarchist Theory FAQ

or

Instead of a FAQ, by a Man Too Busy to Write One

by

Bryan Caplan

Version 5.2

I heartily accept the motto, - "That government is best which
governs least;" and I should like to see it acted up to more
rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to
this, which I also believe, - "That government is best which
governs not at all;" and when men are prepared for it, that will
be the kind of government which they will have.

--Henry David Thoreau,
"On the Duty of Civil Disobedience"

Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to
leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not
only different, but have different origins ... Society is in
every state a blessing, but Government, even in its best state,
is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.

--Thomas Paine,
Common Sense

They [the Marxists] maintain that only a dictatorship -- their
dictatorship, of course -- can create the will of the people,
while our answer to this is: No dictatorship can have any other
aim but that of self-perpetuation, and it can beget only slavery
in the people tolerating it; freedom can be created only by
freedom, that is, by a universal rebellion on the part of the
people and free organization of the toiling masses from the
bottom up.

--Mikhail Bakunin,
Statism and Anarchism

In existing States a fresh law is looked upon as a remedy for
evil. Instead of themselves altering what is bad, people begin by
demanding a law to alter it. If the road between two villages is
impassable, the peasant says, "There should be a law about parish
roads." If a park-keeper takes advantage of the want of spirit in
those who follow him with servile obedience and insults one of
them, the insulted man says, "There should be a law to enjoin
more politeness upon the park-keepers." If there is stagnation in
agriculture or commerce, the husbandman, cattle-breeder, or corn-
speculator argues, "It is protective legislation which we
require." Down to the old clothesman there is not one who does
not demand a law to protect his own little trade. If the employer
lowers wages or increases the hours of labor, the politician in
embryo explains, "We must have a law to put all that to rights."
In short, a law everywhere and for everything! A law about
fashions, a law about mad dogs, a law about virtue, a law to put
a stop to all the vices and all the evils which result from human
indolence and cowardice.

--Peter Kropotkin,
"Law and Authority"

[W]hoever desires liberty, should understand these vital facts,
viz.: 1. That every man who puts money into the hands of a
"government" (so called) puts into its hands a sword which will
be used against himself, to extort more money from him, and also
to keep him in subjection to its arbitrary will. 2. That those
who will take his money, without his consent, in the first place,
will use it for his further robbery and enslavement, if he
presumes to resist their demands in the future. 3. That it is a
perfect absurdity to suppose that any body of men would ever take
a man's money without his consent, for any such object as they
profess to take it for, viz., that of protecting him; for why
should they wish to protect him, if he does not wish them to do
so?... 4. If a man wants "protection," he is competent to make
his own bargains for it; and nobody has any occasion to rob him,
in order to "protect" him against his will. 5. That the only
security men can have for their political liberty, consists in
their keeping their money in their own pockets, until they have
assurances, perfectly satisfactory to themselves, that it will be
used as they wish it to be used, for their benefit, and not for
their injury. 6. That no government, so called, can reasonably be
trusted for a moment, or reasonably be supposed to have honest
purposes in view, any longer than it depends wholly upon
voluntary support.

--Lysander Spooner,
No Treason: the Constitution of No Authority

If we look at the black record of mass murder, exploitation, and
tyranny levied on society by governments over the ages, we need
not be loath to abandon the Leviathan State and ... try freedom.

--Murray Rothbard,
For a New Liberty

------------------------------------------------------------------

Table of Contents

1. What is anarchism? What beliefs do anarchists share?
2. Why should one consider anarchism in the first place?
3. Don't anarchists favor chaos?
4. Don't anarchists favor the abolition of the family, property,
religion, and other social institutions besides the state?
5. What major subdivisions may be made among anarchists?
6. Is anarchism the same thing as libertarianism?
7. Is anarchism the same thing as socialism?
8. Who are the major anarchist thinkers?
9. How would left-anarchy work?
10. How would anarcho-capitalism work?
11. What criticisms have been made of anarchism?
a. "An anarchist society, lacking any central coercive
authority, would quickly degenerate into violent chaos."
b. The Marxist critique of left-anarchism
c. The minarchists' attack on anarcho-capitalism
d. The conservative critique of anarchism
e. "We are already in a state of anarchy."
12. What other anarchist viewpoints are there?
13. What moral justifications have been offered for anarchism?
14. What are the major debates between anarchists? What are the
recurring arguments?
a. "X is not 'true anarchism.'"
b. "Anarchism of variant X is unstable and will lead to the
re-emergence of the state."
c. "In an anarchist society in which both systems X and Y
existed, X would inevitably outcompete Y."
d. "Anarchism of type X would be worse than the state."
e. Etc.
15. How would anarchists handle the "public goods" problem?
a. The concept and uses of Pareto optimality in economics
b. The public goods problem
16. Are anarchists pacifists?
a. Tolstoyan absolute pacifism
b. Pacifism as opposition to war
17. Have there been any historical examples of anarchist societies?
18. Isn't anarchism utopian?
19. Don't anarchists assume that all people are innately virtuous?
20. Aren't anarchists terrorists?
21. How might an anarchist society be achieved?
22. What are some addresses for anarchist World Wide Web sites?
23. What are some major anarchist writings?

---------------------------------------------------------------

1. What is anarchism? What beliefs do anarchists share?

Anarchism is defined by The American Heritage College
Dictionary as "The theory or doctrine that all forms of
government are unnecessary, oppressive, and undesirable and
should be abolished." Anarchism is a negative; it holds that
one thing, namely government, is bad and should be
abolished. Aside from this defining tenet, it would be
difficult to list any belief that all anarchists hold. Just
as atheists might support or oppose any viewpoint consistent
with the non-existence of God, anarchists might and indeed
do hold the entire range of viewpoints consistent with the
non-existence of the state.

As might be expected, different groups of anarchists are
constantly trying to define anarchists with different views
out of existence, just as many Christians say that their
sect is the only "true" Christianity and many socialists say
that their socialism is the only "true" socialism. This FAQ
takes what seems to me to be the impartial view that such
tactics are pointless and merely prevent the debate of
substantive issues. (N.B. The preceding definition has been
criticized a number of times. To view my appendix on
Defining Anarchism, click here.)

2. Why should one consider anarchism in the first place?

Unlike many observers of history, anarchists see a common
thread behind most of mankind's problems: the state. In the
20th-century alone, states have murdered well over
100,000,000 human beings, whether in war, concentration
camps, or man-made famine. And this is merely a continuation
of a seemingly endless historical pattern: almost from the
beginning of recorded history, governments have existed.
Once they arose, they allowed a ruling class to live off the
labor of the mass of ordinary people; and these ruling
classes have generally used their ill-gotten gains to build
armies and wage war to extend their sphere of influence. At
the same time, governments have always suppressed unpopular
minorities, dissent, and the efforts of geniuses and
innovators to raise humanity to new intellectual, moral,
cultural, and economic heights. By transferring surplus
wealth from producers to the state's ruling elite, the state
has often strangled any incentive for long-run economic
growth and thus stifled humanity's ascent from poverty; and
at the same time the state has always used that surplus
wealth to cement its power.

If the state is the proximate cause of so much needless
misery and cruelty, would it not be desirable to investigate
the alternatives? Perhaps the state is a necessary evil
which we cannot eliminate. But perhaps it is rather an
unnecessary evil which we accept out of inertia when a
totally different sort of society would be a great
improvement.

3. Don't anarchists favor chaos?

By definition, anarchists oppose merely government, not
order or society. "Liberty is the Mother, not the Daughter
of Order" wrote Proudhon, and most anarchists would be
inclined to agree. Normally, anarchists demand abolition of
the state because they think that they have something better
to offer, not out of a desire for rebellion as such. Or as
Kropotkin put it, "No destruction of the existing order is
possible, if at the time of the overthrow, or of the
struggle leading to the overthrow, the idea of what is to
take the place of what is to be destroyed is not always
present in the mind. Even the theoretical criticism of the
existing conditions is impossible, unless the critic has in
mind a more or less distinct picture of what he would have
in place of the existing state. Consciously or
unconsciously, the ideal, the conception of something better
is forming in the mind of everyone who criticizes social
institutions."

There is an anti-intellectual strain in anarchism which
favors chaos and destruction as an end-in-itself. While
possibly a majority among people who have called themselves
anarchists, this is not a prominent strand of thought among
those who have actually spent time thinking and writing
about anarchist theory.

4. Don't anarchists favor the abolition of the family,
property, religion, and other social institutions besides the
state?

Some anarchists have favored the abolition of one or more of
the above, while others have not. To some, all of these are
merely other forms of oppression and domination. To others,
they are the vital intermediary institutions which protect
us from the state. To still others, some of the above are
good and others are bad; or perhaps they are bad currently,
but merit reform.

5. What major subdivisions may be made among anarchists?

As should become plain to the reader of alt.society.anarchy
or alt.anarchism, there are two rather divergent lines of
anarchist thought. The first is broadly known as
"left-anarchism," and encompasses anarcho-socialists,
anarcho-syndicalists, and anarcho-communists. These
anarchists believe that in an anarchist society, people
either would or should abandon or greatly reduce the role of
private property rights. The economic system would be
organized around cooperatives, worker-owned firms, and/or
communes. A key value in this line of anarchist thought is
egalitarianism, the view that inequalities, especially of
wealth and power, are undesirable, immoral, and socially
contingent.

The second is broadly known as "anarcho-capitalism." These
anarchists believe that in an anarchist society, people
either would or should not only retain private property, but
expand it to encompass the entire social realm. No
anarcho-capitalist has ever denied the right of people to
voluntarily pool their private property and form a
cooperative, worker-owned firm, or commune; but they also
believe that several property, including such organizations
as corporations, are not only perfectly legitimate but
likely to be the predominant form of economic organization
under anarchism. Unlike the left-anarchists,
anarcho-capitalists generally place little or no value on
equality, believing that inequalities along all dimensions
-- including income and wealth -- are not only perfectly
legitimate so long as they "come about in the right way,"
but are the natural consequence of human freedom.

A large segment of left-anarchists is extremely skeptical
about the anarchist credentials of anarcho-capitalists,
arguing that the anarchist movement has historically been
clearly leftist. In my own view, it is necessary to re-write
a great deal of history to maintain this claim. In Carl
Landauer's European Socialism: A History of Ideas and
Movements (published in 1959 before any important modern
anarcho-capitalist works had been written), this great
socialist historian notes that:

To be sure, there is a difference between
individualistic anarchism and collectivistic or
communistic anarchism; Bakunin called himself a
communist anarchist. But the communist anarchists also
do not acknowledge any right to society to force the
individual. They differ from the anarchistic
individualists in their belief that men, if freed from
coercion, will enter into voluntary associations of a
communistic type, while the other wing believes that
the free person will prefer a high degree of isolation.
The communist anarchists repudiate the right of private
property which is maintained through the power of the
state. The individualist anarchists are inclined to
maintain private property as a necessary condition of
individual independence, without fully answering the
question of how property could be maintained without
courts and police.

Actually, Tucker and Spooner both wrote about the free
market's ability to provide legal and protection services,
so Landauer's remark was not accurate even in 1959. But the
interesting point is that before the emergence of modern
anarcho-capitalism Landauer found it necessary to
distinguish two strands of anarchism, only one of which he
considered to be within the broad socialist tradition.

6. Is anarchism the same thing as libertarianism?

This is actually a complicated question, because the term
"libertarianism" itself has two very different meanings. In
Europe in the 19th-century, libertarianism was a popular
euphemism for left-anarchism. However, the term did not
really catch on in the United States.

After World War II, many American-based pro-free-market
intellectuals opposed to traditional conservatism were
seeking for a label to describe their position, and
eventually picked "libertarianism." ("Classical liberalism"
and "market liberalism" are alternative labels for the same
essential position.) The result was that in two different
political cultures which rarely communicated with one
another, the term "libertarian" was used in two very
different ways. At the current time, the American use has
basically taken over completely in academic political theory
(probably owing to Nozick's influence), but the European use
is still popular among many left-anarchist activists in both
Europe and the U.S.

The semantic confusion was complicated further when some of
the early post-war American libertarians determined that the
logical implication of their view was, in fact, a variant of
anarchism. They adopted the term "anarcho-capitalism" to
differentiate themselves from more moderate libertarianism,
but were still generally happy to identify themselves with
the broader free-market libertarian movement.

7. Is anarchism the same thing as socialism?

If we accept one traditional definition of socialism --
"advocacy of government ownership of the means of
production" -- it seems that anarchists are not socialists
by definition. But if by socialism we mean something more
inclusive, such as "advocacy of the strong restriction or
abolition of private property," then the question becomes
more complex.

Under the second proffered definition, some anarchists are
socialists, but others are not. Outside of the Anglo-
American political culture, there has been a long and close
historical relationship between the more orthodox socialists
who advocate a socialist government, and the anarchist
socialists who desire some sort of decentralized, voluntary
socialism. The two groups both want to severely limit or
abolish private property and thus both groups fit the second
definition of socialism. However, the anarchists certainly
do not want the government to own the means of production,
for they don't want government to exist in the first place.

The anarchists' dispute with the traditional socialists -- a
dispute best illustrated by the bitter struggle between Karl
Marx and Mikhail Bakunin for dominance in the 19th-century
European workers' movement -- has often be described as a
disagreement over "means." On this interpretation, the
socialist anarchists and the state-socialists agree that a
communal and egalitarian society is desirable, but accuse
one another of proposing ineffective means of attaining it.
However, this probably understates the conflict, which is
also over more fundamental values: socialist anarchists
emphasize the need for autonomy and the evils of
authoritarianism, while traditional socialists have
frequently belittled such concerns as "bourgeois."

When we turn to the Anglo-American political culture, the
story is quite different. Virulent anti-socialist anarchism
is much more common there, and has been from the early
19th-century. Great Britain was the home of many intensely
anti-socialist quasi-anarchistic thinkers of the
19th-century such as Auberon Herbert and the early Herbert
Spencer. The United States has been an even more fertile
ground for individualist anarchism: during the 19th-century,
such figures as Josiah Warren, Lysander Spooner , and
Benjamin Tucker gained prominence for their vision of an
anarchism based upon freedom of contract and private
property. And in the 20th-century, thinkers residing within
the United States have been the primary developers and
exporters of anarcho-capitalist theory.

Still, this geographic division should not be over-stated.
The French anarchist Proudhon and the German Max Stirner
both embraced modified forms of individualism; a number of
left-anarchists (often European immigrants) attained
prominence in the United States; and Noam Chomsky and Murray
Bookchin, two of the most influential theorists of modern
left-anarchism, both reside within the United States.

8. Who are the major anarchist thinkers?

The most famous left-anarchists have probably been Mikhail
Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin. Pierre Proudhon is also often
included although his ideas on the desirability of a
modified form of private property would lead some to exclude
him from the leftist camp altogether. (Some of Proudhon's
other heterodoxies include his defense of the right of
inheritance and his emphasis on the genuine antagonism
between state power and property rights.) More recent
left-anarchists include Emma Goldman, Murray Bookchin , and
Noam Chomsky.

Anarcho-capitalism has a much more recent origin in the
latter half of the 20th century. The two most famous
advocates of anarcho-capitalism are probably Murray Rothbard
and David Friedman. There were however some interesting
earlier precursors, notably the Belgian economist Gustave de
Molinari. Two other 19th-century anarchists who have been
adopted by modern anarcho-capitalists with a few caveats are
Benjamin Tucker and Lysander Spooner. (Some left-anarchists
contest the adoption, but overall Tucker and Spooner
probably have much more in common with anarcho-capitalists
than with left-anarchists.)

More comprehensive listings of anarchist figures may be
found in a number of broad historical works listed later in
the FAQ.

9. How would left-anarchy work?

There are many different views on this. Among left-
anarchists, there are some who imagine returning to a much
simpler, even pre-industrial, mode of social organization.
Others seem to intend to maintain modern technology and
civilization (perhaps in a more environmentally sound
manner) but end private ownership of the means of
production.

To be replaced with what? Various suggestions have been
made. Existing firms might simply be turned over to worker
ownership, and then be subject to the democratic control of
the workers. This is the anarcho-syndicalist picture:
keeping an economy based upon a multitude of firms, but with
firms owned and managed by the workers at each firm.
Presumably firms would then strike deals with one another to
secure needed materials; or perhaps firms would continue to
pay money wages and sell products to consumers. It is
unclear how the syndicalist intends to arrange for the
egalitarian care of the needy, or the provision of necessary
but unprofitable products. Perhaps it is supposed that
syndicates would contribute out of social responsibility;
others have suggested that firms would elect representatives
for a larger meta-firm organization which would carry out
the necessary tasks.

It should be noted that Tom Wetzel disputes my
characterization of anarcho-syndicalism; he argues that very
few anarcho-syndicalists ever imagined that workers would
simply take over their firms, while maintaining the basic
features of the market economy. Rather, the goal has usually
been the establishment of an overarching democratic
structure, rather than a multitude of uncoordinated
firm-centered democracies. Or at Wetzel states,
"Anarcho-syndicalism advocates the development of a mass
workers' movement based on direct democracy as the vehicle
for reorganization of the society on the basis of direct
workers' collective power over social production, thus
eliminating the domination and exploitation of the producing
class by an exploiting class. Workers cannot have collective
power over the system of social production as isolated
groups competing in a market economy; rather, workers self-
management requires structures of democratic control over
social production and public affairs generally. Workers'
self- management thus refers, not just to self-management of
the individual workplace, but of the whole system of social
production. This requires grassroots bodies, such as
workers' congresses or conventions, through which
coordinated policies for the society can be developed in a
democratic manner. This is proposed as a substitute or
replacement for the historical nation-state." On this
interpretation of anarcho-syndicalism, the revolutionary
trade unions are a means for achieving an anarchist society,
rather than a proposed basis for social organization under
anarchy.

Many would observe that there is nothing anarchistic about
this proposal; indeed, names aside, it fits easily into the
orthodox state-socialist tradition. Bakunin would have
probably ridiculed such ideas as authoritarian Marxist
socialism in disguise, and predicted that the leading
anarchist revolutionaries would swiftly become the new
despots. But Wetzel is perhaps right that many or even most
historical anarcho-syndicalists were championing the system
outlined in his preceding quotation. He goes on to add that
"[I]f you look at the concept of 'state' in the very
abstract way it often is in the social sciences, as in
Weber's definition, then what the anarcho-syndicalists were
proposing is not elimination of the state or government, but
its radical democratization. That was not how anarchists
themselves spoke about it, but it can be plausibly argued
that this is a logical consequence of a certain major stream
of left-anarchist thought."

Ronald Fraser's discussion of the ideology of the Spanish
Anarchists (historically the largest European anarchist
movement) strongly undermines Wetzel's claim, however. There
were two well-developed lines of thought, both of which
favored the abolition of the State in the broad Weberian
sense of the word, and which did indeed believe that the
workers should literally have control over their workplaces.
After distinguishing the rural and the urban tendencies
among the Spanish ideologists, Fraser explains:

Common to both tendencies was the idea that the working
class 'simply' took over factories and workplaces and
ran them collectively but otherwise as before...
Underlying this vision of simple continuity was the
anarcho-syndicalist concept of the revolution not as a
rupture with, the destruction and replacement of, the
bourgeois order but as the latter's displacement. The
taking over of factories and workplaces, however
violently carried out, was not the beginning of the
revolution to create a new order but its final goal.
This view, in turn was conditioned by a particular view
of the state. Any state (bourgeois or working class)
was considered an oppressive power tout court - not as
the organization of a particular class's coercive
power. The 'state' in consequence, rather than the
existence of the capitalist mode of production which
gave rise to its particular form, often appeared as the
major enemy. The state did not have to be taken,
crushed, and a new - revolutionary - power established.
No. If it could be swept away, abolished, everything
else, including oppression, disappeared. The capitalist
order was simply displaced by the new-won workers'
freedom to administer the workplaces they had taken
over. Self-organized in autonomous communes or in
all-powerful syndicates, the workers, as the primary
factor in production, dispensed with the bourgeoisie.
The consequences of this were seen in the 1936
Barcelona revolution; capitalist production and market
relations continued to exist within collectivized
industry.

Overall, the syndicalist is probably the best elaborated of
the left-anarchist systems. But others in the broader
tradition imagine individuals forming communes and
cooperatives which would be less specialized and more self-
sufficient than the typical one-product-line anarcho-
syndicalist firm. These notions are often closely linked to
the idea of creating a more environmentally sound society,
in which small and decentralized collectives redirect their
energies towards a Greener way of life.

Many left-anarchists and anarchist sympathizers have also
been attracted to Guild Socialism in one form or another.
Economist Roger A. McCain thoughtfully explores Guild
Socialism as an alternative to both capitalism and the state
in "Guild Socialism Reconsidered," one of his working
papers. To view it, click here.

Kropotkin's lucid essay "Law and Authority" gives a
thoughtful presentation of the left-anarchist's view of law.
Primitive human societies, explains Kropotkin, live by what
legal thinkers call "customary law": an unwritten but
broadly understood body of rules and appropriate behavior
backed up primarily by social pressure. Kropotkin considers
this sort of behavioral regulation to be unobjectionable,
and probably consistent with his envisaged anarchist
society. But when centralized governments codified customary
law, they mingled the sensible dictates of tribal conscience
with governmental sanctions for exploitation and injustice.
As Kropotkin writes, "[L]egislators confounded in one code
the two currents of custom ... the maxims which represent
principles of morality and social union wrought out as a
result of life in common, and the mandates which are meant
to ensure external existence to inequality. Customs,
absolutely essential to the very being of society, are, in
the code, cleverly intermingled with usages imposed by the
ruling caste, and both claim equal respect from the crowd.
'Do not kill,' says the code, and hastens to add, 'And pay
tithes to the priest.' 'Do not steal,' says the code, and
immediately after, 'He who refuses to pay taxes, shall have
his hand struck off.'"

So perhaps Kropotkin's ideal society would live under the
guidance of a reformed customary law stripped of the class
legislation with which it is now so closely associated. But
Kropotkin continues to give what appear to be arguments
against even customary law prohibiting e.g. murder. Almost
all violent crime is actually caused by poverty and
inequality created by existing law. A small residual of
violent crime might persist, but efforts to handle it by
legal channels are futile. Why? Because punishment has no
effect on crime, especially such crimes of passion as would
survive the abolition of private property. Moreover,
criminals should not be judged wicked, but rather treated as
we now treat the sick and disadvantaged.

Most left-anarchists probably hold to a mix of Kropotkin's
fairly distinct positions on law and crime. Existing law
should be replaced by sensible and communitarian customs;
and the critic of anarchism underestimates the extent to
which existing crime is in fact a product of the legal
system's perpetuation of inequality and poverty. And since
punishment is not an effective deterrent, and criminals are
not ultimately responsible for their misdeeds, a strictly
enforced legal code may be undesirable anyway.

Some other crucial features of the left-anarchist society
are quite unclear. Whether dissidents who despised all forms
of communal living would be permitted to set up their own
inegalitarian separatist societies is rarely touched upon.
Occasionally left-anarchists have insisted that small
farmers and the like would not be forcibly collectivized,
but the limits of the right to refuse to adopt an
egalitarian way of life are rarely specified.

10. How would anarcho-capitalism work?

Most of the prominent anarcho-capitalist writers have been
academic economists, and as such have felt it necessary to
spell out the workings of their preferred society in rather
greater detail than the left-anarchists have. In order to
best grasp the anarcho-capitalist position, it is helpful to
realize that anarcho-capitalists have emerged almost
entirely out of the modern American libertarian movement,
and believe that their view is simply a slightly more
extreme version of the libertarianism propounded by e.g.
Robert Nozick.

FAQs on the broader libertarian movement are widely
available on the Net, so we will only give the necessary
background here. So-called "minarchist" libertarians such as
Nozick have argued that the largest justified government was
one which was limited to the protection of individuals and
their private property against physical invasion;
accordingly, they favor a government limited to supplying
police, courts, a legal code, and national defense. This
normative theory is closely linked to laissez-faire economic
theory, according to which private property and unregulated
competition generally lead to both an efficient allocation
of resources and (more importantly) a high rate of economic
progress. While left-anarchists are often hostile to
"bourgeois economics," anarcho-capitalists hold classical
economists such as Adam Smith, David Hume, and Jean-Baptiste
Say in high regard, as well as more modern economists such
as Joseph Schumpeter, Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Milton
Friedman, George Stigler, and James Buchanan. The problem
with free-market economists, say the anarcho-capitalists, is
not that they defend the free market, but merely that their
defense is too moderate and compromising.

(Note however that the left-anarchists' low opinion of the
famous "free-market economists" is not monolithic: Noam
Chomsky in particular has repeatedly praised some of the
political insights of Adam Smith. And Peter Kropotkin also
had good things to say about Smith as both social scientist
and moralist; Conal Smith explains that "In particular he
approved of Smith's attempt to apply the scientific method
to the study of morals and society, his critique of the
state in The Wealth of Nations, and his theory of human
sociability in The Theory of Moral Sentiments.")

Now the anarcho-capitalist essentially turns the
minarchist's own logic against him, and asks why the
remaining functions of the state could not be turned over to
the free market. And so, the anarcho-capitalist imagines
that police services could be sold by freely competitive
firms; that a court system would emerge to peacefully
arbitrate disputes between firms; and that a sensible legal
code could be developed through custom, precedent, and
contract. And in fact, notes the anarcho-capitalist, a great
deal of modern law (such as the Anglo-American common law)
originated not in legislatures, but from the decentralized
rulings of judges. (The anarcho-capitalist shares
Kropotkin's interest in customary law, but normally believes
that it requires extensive modernization and articulation.)

The anarcho-capitalist typically hails modern society's
increasing reliance on private security guards, gated
communities, arbitration and mediation, and other
demonstrations of the free market's ability to supply the
defensive and legal services normally assumed to be of
necessity a government monopoly. In his ideal society, these
market alternatives to government services would take over
all legitimate security services. One plausible market
structure would involve individuals subscribing to one of a
large number of competing police services; these police
services would then set up contracts or networks for
peacefully handling disputes between members of each others'
agencies. Alternately, police services might be "bundled"
with housing services, just as landlords often bundle water
and power with rental housing, and gardening and security
are today provided to residents in gated communities and
apartment complexes.

The underlying idea is that contrary to popular belief,
private police would have strong incentives to be peaceful
and respect individual rights. For first of all, failure to
peacefully arbitrate will yield to jointly destructive
warfare, which will be bad for profits. Second, firms will
want to develop long- term business relationships, and hence
be willing to negotiate in good faith to insure their
long-term profitability. And third, aggressive firms would
be likely to attract only high-risk clients and thus suffer
from extraordinarily high costs (a problem parallel to the
well-known "adverse selection problem" in e.g. medical
insurance -- the problem being that high-risk people are
especially likely to seek insurance, which drives up the
price when riskiness is hard for the insurer to discern or
if regulation requires a uniform price regardless of risk).
Anarcho-capitalists generally give little credence to the
view that their "private police agencies" would be
equivalent to today's Mafia -- the cost advantages of open,
legitimate business would make "criminal police"
uncompetitive. As David Friedman explains in The Machinery
of Freedom, "Perhaps the best way to see why
anarcho-capitalism would be so much more peaceful than our
present system is by analogy. Consider our world as it would
be if the cost of moving from one country to another were
zero. Everyone lives in a housetrailer and speaks the same
language. One day, the president of France announces that
because of troubles with neighboring countries, new military
taxes are being levied and conscription will begin shortly.
The next morning the president of France finds himself
ruling a peaceful but empty landscape, the population having
been reduced to himself, three generals, and twenty-seven
war correspondents."

(Moreover, anarcho-capitalists argue, the Mafia can only
thrive in the artificial market niche created by the
prohibition of alcohol, drugs, prostitution, gambling, and
other victimless crimes. Mafia gangs might kill each other
over turf, but liquor-store owners generally do not.)

Unlike some left-anarchists, the anarcho-capitalist has no
objection to punishing criminals; and he finds the former's
claim that punishment does not deter crime to be the height
of naivete. Traditional punishment might be meted out after
a conviction by a neutral arbitrator; or a system of
monetary restitution (probably in conjunction with a prison
factory system) might exist instead. A convicted criminal
would owe his victim compensation, and would be forced to
work until he paid off his debt. Overall,
anarcho-capitalists probably lean more towards the
restitutionalist rather than the pure retributivist
position.

[jum...@my-deja.com]

Probably the main division between the anarcho-capitalists
stems from the apparent differences between Rothbard's
natural-law anarchism, and David Friedman's more economistic
approach. Rothbard puts more emphasis on the need for a
generally recognized libertarian legal code (which he thinks
could be developed fairly easily by purification of the
Anglo-American common law), whereas Friedman focuses more
intently on the possibility of plural legal systems
co-existing and responding to the consumer demands of
different elements of the population. The difference,
however, is probably over-stated. Rothbard believes that it
is legitimate for consumer demand to determine the
philosophically neutral content of the law, such as legal
procedure, as well as technical issues of property right
definition such as water law, mining law, etc. And Friedman
admits that "focal points" including prevalent norms are
likely to circumscribe and somewhat standardize the menu of
available legal codes.

Critics of anarcho-capitalism sometimes assume that communal
or worker-owned firms would be penalized or prohibited in an
anarcho-capitalist society. It would be more accurate to
state that while individuals would be free to voluntarily
form communitarian organizations, the anarcho- capitalist
simply doubts that they would be widespread or prevalent.
However, in theory an "anarcho-capitalist" society might be
filled with nothing but communes or worker- owned firms, so
long as these associations were formed voluntarily (i.e.,
individuals joined voluntarily and capital was obtained with
the consent of the owners) and individuals retained the
right to exit and set up corporations or other
profit-making, individualistic firms.

On other issues, the anarcho-capitalist differs little if at
all from the more moderate libertarian. Services should be
privatized and opened to free competition; regulation of
personal AND economic behavior should be done away with.
Poverty would be handled by work and responsibility for
those able to care for themselves, and voluntary charity for
those who cannot. (Libertarians hasten to add that a
deregulated economy would greatly increase the economic
opportunities of the poor, and elimination of taxation would
lead to a large increase in charitable giving.)

For a detailed discussion of the economics of privatization
of dispute resolution, rule creation, and enforcement, see
my "The Economics of Non-State Legal Systems," which is
archived with my other economics writings.

11. What criticisms have been made of anarchism?

Anarchism of various breeds has been criticized from an
extremely wide range of perspectives. State-socialists,
classical liberals, and conservatives have each on occasion
examined anarchist theorists and found them wanting. After
considering the unifying argument endorsed by virtually all
of the critics of anarchism, we shall turn to the more
specific attacks of Marxist, moderate libertarian, and
conservative lineage.

a. "An anarchist society, lacking any central coercive
authority, would quickly degenerate into violent chaos."

The most common criticism, shared by the entire range
of critics, is basically that anarchism would swiftly
degenerate into a chaotic Hobbesian war of
all-against-all. Thus the communist Friedrich Engels
wonders "[H]ow these people propose to run a factory,
operate a railway or steer a ship without having in the
last resort one deciding will, without single
management, they of course do not tell us." He
continues: "The authority of the majority over the
minority also ceases. Every individual and every
community is autonomous; but as to how society, even of
only two people, is possible unless each gives up some
of his autonomy, Bakunin again maintains silence." And
his autonomy, Bakunin again maintains silence." And
similarly, the classical liberal Ludwig von Mises
states that "An anarchistic society would be exposed to
the mercy of every individual. Society cannot exist if
the majority is not ready to hinder, by the application
or threat of violent action, minorities from destroying
the social order. This power is vested in the state or
government."

Or to consider a perhaps less ideological writer,
Thomas Hobbes implicitly criticizes anarchist theory
when he explains that "Hereby it is manifest, that
during the time men live without a common Power to keep
them all in awe, they are in that condition which is
called Warre; and such a warre, as is of every man,
against every man." Hobbes goes on to add that "It may
peradventure be thought, there was never such a time,
nor condition of warre as this; and I believe it was
never generally so, over all the world: but there are
many places, where they live so now. For the savage
people in many places of America, except the government
of small Families, the concord whereof dependeth on
naturall lust, have no government at all; and live at
this day in that brutish manner, as I said before."
Since it is in the interest of the strong to take what
they want from the weak, the absence of government lead
inexorably to widespread violence and the prevention or
destruction of civilization itself.

Anarchists of all varieties would reject this argument;
sometimes claiming that the critic misunderstands their
position, other times that the critic's assumptions are
too pessimistic. Kropotkin, for example, would
seriously dispute the claim that war is the natural
state of ungoverned human beings; like many other
species of animals, cooperation is more common,
natural, and likely. Left- anarchists generally would
normally object that these criticisms rest upon
contingent cultural assumptions arising from a
competitive scarcity economy. Replace these
institutions with humane and egalitarian ones; then
poverty, the cause of crime and aggression, would
greatly decrease. Finally, many left- anarchists
envisage cooperatives and communes adopting and
enforcing rules of appropriate conduct for those who
wish to join.

The anarcho-capitalist would likely protest that the
critic misunderstands his view: he does believe that
police and laws are necessary and desirable, and merely
holds that they could be supplied by the free market
rather than government. More fundamentally, he doubts
the game- theoretic underpinnings of Hobbes' argument,
for it ignores the likelihood that aggressive
individuals or firms will provoke retaliation. Just as
territorial animals fight when defending their
territory, but yield when confronted on the territory
of another animal, rational self-interested individuals
and firms would usually find aggression a dangerous and
unprofitable practice. In terms of game theory, the
anarcho-capitalist thinks that Hobbes' situation is a
Hawk-Dove game rather than a Prisoners' Dilemma. (In
the Prisoners' Dilemma, war/non-cooperation would be a
strictly dominant strategy; in a Hawk-Dove game there
is normally a mixed-strategy equilibrium in which
cooperation/peace is the norm but a small percentage of
players continue to play war/non-cooperation.) Self-
interested police firms would gladly make long-term
arbitration contracts with each other to avoid mutually
destructive bloodshed.

(To view an excellent short related essay on anarchism
and game theory, click here.)

b. The Marxist critique of left-anarchism

One of the most famous attacks on anarchism was
launched by Karl Marx during his battles with Proudhon
and Bakunin. The ultimate result of this protracted
battle of words was to split the 19th-century workers'
movement into two distinct factions. In the 20th
century, the war of words ended in blows: while
Marxist-Leninists sometimes cooperated with anarchists
during the early stages of the Russian and Spanish
revolutions, violent struggle between them was the rule
rather than the exception. between them was the rule
rather than the exception.

There were at least three distinct arguments that Marx
aimed at his anarchist opponents.

First: the development of socialism had to follow a
particular historical course, whereas the anarchists
mistakenly believed that it could be created by force
of will alone. "A radical social revolution is
connected with certain historical conditions of
economic development; the latter are its
presupposition. Therefore it is possible only where the
industrial proletariat, together with capitalist
production, occupies at least a substantial place in
the mass of the people." Marx continues: "He [Bakunin]
understands absolutely nothing about social revolution
... For him economic requisites do not exist...He
wants a European social revolution, resting on the
economic foundation of capitalist production, to take
place on the level of the Russian or Slavic
agricultural and pastoral peoples ... Will power and
not economic conditions is the basis for his social
revolution." Proudhon, according to Marx, suffered from
the same ignorance of history and its laws: "M.
Proudhon, incapable of following the real movement of
history, produces a phantasmagoria which presumptuously
claims to be dialectical ... From his point of view man
is only the instrument of which the idea or the eternal
reason makes use in order to unfold itself." This
particular argument is probably of historical interest
only, in light of the gross inaccuracy of Marx's
prediction of the path of future civilization; although
perhaps the general claim that social progression has
material presuppositions retains some merit.

Second, Marx ridiculed Bakunin's claim that a socialist
government would become a new despotism by socialist
intellectuals. In light of the prophetic accuracy of
Bakunin's prediction in this area, Marx's reply is
almost ironic: "Under collective ownership the
so-called people's will disappears to make way for the
real will of the cooperative." It is on this point that
most left-anarchists reasonably claim complete
vindication; just as Bakunin predicted, the Marxist
"dictatorship of the proletariat" swiftly became a
ruthless "dictatorship over the proletariat."

Finally, Marx stated that the anarchists erroneously
believed that the government supported the capitalist
system rather than the other way around. In
consequence, they were attacking the wrong target and
diverting the workers' movement from its proper course.
Engels delineated the Marxist and left-anarchist
positions quite well: "Bakunin maintains that it is the
state which has created capital, that the capitalist
has his capital only by the grace of the state. As,
therefore, the state is the chief evil, it is above all
the state which must be done away with and then
capitalism will go to blazes of itself. We, on the
contrary, say: Do away with capital, the concentration
of the means of production in the hands of the few, and
the state will fall of itself." The left-anarchist
would probably accept this as a fair assessment of
their disagreement with the Marxists, but point out how
in many historical cases since (and before) Marx's time
governments have steered their countries towards very
different aims and policies, whereas capitalists are
often fairly adaptive and passive.

c. The minarchists' attack on anarcho-capitalism

Probably the earliest minarchist attack on anarcho-
capitalism may be found in Ayn Rand's essay "The Nature
of Government." ("Minarchism" designates the advocacy
of a "minimal" or nightwatchman state, supplying only
police, courts, a legal system, and national defense.)
Her critique contained four essential arguments. The
first essentially repeated Hobbes' view that society
without government would collapse into violent chaos.
The second was that anarcho-capitalist police firms
would turn to war as soon as a dispute broke out
between individuals employing different protection
agencies: "[S]uppose Mr. Smith, a customer of
Government A, suspects that his next-door neighbor, Mr.
Jones, a customer of Government B, has robbed him; a
squad of Police A proceeds to Mr. Jones' house and is
met at the door by a squad of Police B, who declare
that they do not recognize the authority of Government
A. What happens then? You take it from there." Her
third argument was that anarcho-capitalism was an
expression of an irrational subjectivist epistemology
which would allow each person to decide for himself or
herself whether the use of physical force was
justified. Finally, her fourth argument was that
anarcho-capitalism would lack an objective legal code
(meaning, presumably, both publicly known and morally
valid).

Rand's arguments were answered at length in Roy Childs'
"Objectivism and the State: An Open Letter to Ayn
Rand," which tried to convince her that only the
anarcho-capitalist position was consistent with her
view that the initiation of force was immoral. In
brief, Childs argued that like other free-market
institutions, private police would have economic
incentives to perform their tasks peacefully and
efficiently: police would negotiate arbitration
agreements in advance precisely to avoid the kind of
stand-off that Rand feared, and an objective legal code
could be developed by free-market judges. Childs
strongly contested Rand's claim that anarcho-capitalism
had any relation to irrationalism; an individual could
be rational or irrational in his judgment to use
defensive violence, just as a government could be
rational or irrational in its judgment to do so. As
Childs queried, "By what epistemological criterion is
an individual's action classified as 'arbitrary,' while
that of a group of individuals is somehow 'objective'?"

Robert Nozick launched the other famous attempt to
refute the anarcho-capitalist on libertarian grounds.
Basically, Nozick argued that the supply of police and
legal services was a geographic natural monopoly, and
that therefore a state would emerge by the "invisible
hand" processes of the market itself. The details of
his argument are rather complex: Nozick postulated a
right, strongly contested by other libertarians, to
prohibit activities which were exceptionally risky to
others; he then added that the persons whose actions
were so prohibited were entitled to compensation. Using
these two principles, Nozick claimed that the dominant
protection agency in a region could justifiably
prohibit competition on the grounds that it was "too
risky," and therefore become an "ultra-minimal state."
But at this point, it would be obligated to compensate
consumers who were prohibited from purchasing
competitors' services, so it would do so in kind by
giving them access to its own police and legal services
-- thereby becoming a minimal state. And none of these
steps, according to Nozick, violates libertarian
rights.

There have been literally dozens of anarchist attacks
on Nozick's derivation of the minimal state. To begin
with, no state arose in the manner Nozick describes, so
all existing states are illegitimate and still merit
abolition. Secondly, anarcho-capitalists dispute
Nozick's assumption that defense is a natural monopoly,
noting that the modern security guard and arbitration
industries are extremely decentralized and competitive.
Finally, they reject Nozick's principles of risk and
compensation, charging that they lead directly to the
despotism of preventive law.

d. The conservative critique of anarchism

The conservative critique of anarchism is much less
developed, but can be teased out of the writings of
such authors as Edmund Burke, Russell Kirk, and Ernest
van den Haag. (Interestingly, Burke scholars are still
debating whether the early Burke's quasi-anarchistic A
Vindication of Natural Society was a serious work or a
subtle satire.)

Burke would probably say that, like other radical
ideologues, the anarchists place far too much reliance
on their imperfect reason and not enough on the
accumulated wisdom of tradition. Society functions
because we have gradually evolved a system of workable
rules. It seems certain that Burke would apply his
critique of the French revolutionaries with equal force
to the anarchists: "They have no respect for the wisdom
of others; but they pay it off by a very full measure
of confidence in their own. With them it is a
sufficient motive to destroy an old scheme of things,
because it is an old one. As to the new, they are in no
sort of fear with regard to the duration of a building
run up in haste; because duration is no object to those
who think little or nothing has been done before their
time, and who place all their hopes in discovery." To
attempt to replace the wisdom of the ages with a priori
theories of justice is sure to lead to disaster,
because functional policies must be judicious
compromises between important competing ends. Or in
Burke's words, "The science of constructing a
commonwealth, or renovating it, or reforming it, is,
like every other experimental science, not to be taught
a priori. Nor is it a short experience that can
instruct us in that practical science; because the real
effects of moral causes are not always immediate." The
probable result of any attempt to realize anarchist
principles would be a brief period of revolutionary
zeal, followed by chaos and social breakdown resulting
from the impracticality of the revolutionary policies,
and finally ending in a brutal dictator winning
widespread support by simply restoring order and
rebuilding the people's sense of social stability.

Many anarchists would in fact accept Burke's critique
of violent revolution, which is why they favor
advancing their views gradually through education and
nonviolent protest. In fact, Bakunin's analysis of
Marxism as the ideology (i.e., rationalization for the
class interests of) middle-class intellectuals in fact
differs little from Burke's analysis: Bakunin, like
Burke, perceived that no matter how oppressive the
current system may be, there are always power-hungry
individuals who favor violent revolution as their most
practical route to absolute power. Their protests
against actual injustices must be seen in light of
their ultimate aim of imposing even more ruthless
despotism upon the people.

On other issues, anarchists would disagree strongly
with several of Burke's claims. Many forms of misery
stem from the blind adherence to tradition; and
rational thinking has sparked countless improvements in
human society ever since the decline of traditional
despotism. Moreover, anarchists do not propose to do
away with valuable traditions, but simply request
evidence that particular traditions are valuable before
they lend them their support. And what is to be done
when -- as is usually the case -- a society harbors a
wide range of mutually incompatible traditions?

Anarchists might also object that the Burkean analysis
relies too heavily upon tradition as a result rather
than a process. Cultural evolution may constantly weed
out foolish ideas and practices, but it hardly follows
that such follies have already perished; for the state
to defend tradition is to strangle the competitive
process which tends to make tradition sensible. As
Vincent Cook explains: "[I]t is precisely because
wisdom has to be accumulated in incremental steps that
it cannot be centrally planned by any single political
or religious authority, contrary to the aspirations of
conservatives and collectivists alike. While the
collectivists are indeed guilty of trying to
rationalistically reconstruct society in defiance of
tradition (a valid criticism of left-anarchists),
conservatives on the other hand are guilty of trying to
freeze old traditions in place. Conservatives have
forgotten that the process of wisdom accumulation is an
on-going one, and instead have opted for the notion
that some existing body of traditions (usually
Judeo-Christian) already represent social perfection."

Russell Kirk, noted Burke scholar, has written a brief
critique of the modern libertarian movement. (Another
conservative, Ernest van den Haag, wrote a lengthier
essay with a similar theme and perspective.) In all
likelihood, Kirk would apply many (but not all) of the
same arguments to left-anarchists.

Kirk faults the libertarians (and when he discusses
"libertarians" he usually seems to have the anarcho-
capitalists in mind) on at least six counts. First,
they deny the existence of a "transcendent moral
order." Second, order is prior to liberty, and liberty
is possible only after government establishes a
constitutional order. Third, libertarians assume that
self-interest is the only possible social bond,
ignoring the broader communitarian vision of human
nature found in both the Aristotelian and Judeo-
Christian traditions. Fourth, libertarians erroneously
assume that human beings are naturally good or at least
perfectible. Fifth, the libertarian foolishly attacks
the state as such, rather than merely its abuses. Sixth
and last, the libertarian is an arrogant egoist who
disregards valuable ancient beliefs and customs.

Left-anarchists would perhaps agree with Kirk on points
three and six. So if Kirk were to expand his attack on
anarchism to encompass the left-anarchists as well, he
might acquit them of these two charges. The remaining
four, however, Kirk would probably apply equally to
anarchists of both varieties.

How would anarchists reply to Kirk's criticisms? On the
"moral transcendence" issue, they would point out there
have been religious as well as non-religious
anarchists; and moreover, many non-religious anarchists
still embrace moral objectivism (notably anarchists in
the broader natural law tradition). Most anarchists
would deny that they make self- interest the only
possible social bond; and even those who would affirm
this (such as anarcho-capitalists influenced by Ayn
Rand) have a broad conception of self-interest
consistent with the Aristotelian tradition.

As to the priority of order over liberty, many
anarchists influenced by e.g. Kropotkin would reply
that as with other animal species, order and
cooperation emerge as a result, not a consequence of
freedom; while anarcho- capitalists would probably
refer Kirk to the theorists of "spontaneous order" such
as Hayek, Hume, Smith, and even Edmund Burke himself.

The FAQ addresses the questions of human perfectibility
and utopianism in sections 20 and 21. As for Kirk's
final point, most anarchists would reply that they
happily accept valuable customs and traditions, but
believe that they have shown that some ancient
practices and institutions -- above all, the state
--have no value whatever.

e. "We are already in a state of anarchy."

Under anarchy, it is conceivable that e.g. a brutal
gang might use its superior might to coerce everyone
else to do as they wish. With nothing more powerful
than the gang, there would (definitionally) be nothing
to stop them. But how does this differ from what we
have now? Governments rule because they have the might
to maintain their power; in short, because there is no
superior agency to restrain them. Hence, reason some
critics of anarchism, the goal of anarchists is futile
because we are already in a state of anarchy.

This argument is confused on several levels.

First, it covertly defines anarchy as unrestrained rule
of the strongest, which is hardly what most anarchists
have in mind. (Moreover, it overlooks the definitional
differences between government and other forms of
organized aggression; Weber in particular noted that
governments claim a monopoly over the legitimate use of
force in a given geographical region.) In fact, while
anarchism is logically compatible with any viewpoint
which rejects the existence of the state, there have
been extremely few (perhaps no) anarchists who combined
their advocacy of anarchism with support for domination
by those most skilled in violence.

Second, it seems to assume that all that particular
anarchists advocate is the abolition of the state; but
as we have seen, anarchism is normally combined with
additional normative views about what ought to replace
the state. Thus, most anarchist theorists believe more
than merely that the state should not exist; they also
believe that e.g. society should be based upon
voluntary communes, or upon strict private property
rights, etc.

Third, the argument sometimes confuses a definitional
with a causal claim. It is one thing to argue that
anarchy would lead to the rule by the strongest; this
is a causal claim about the likely results of the
attempt to create an anarchist society. It is another
thing entirely to argue that anarchy means rule by the
strongest. This is simply a linguistic confusion, best
illustrated by noting that under this definition
anarchy and the state are logically compatible.

A related but more sophisticated argument, generally
leveled against anarcho- capitalists, runs as follows.
If competing protection agencies could prevent the
establishment of an abusive, dominant firm, while don't
they do so now? In short, if market checks against the
abuse of power actually worked, we wouldn't have a
state in the first place.

There are two basic replies to this argument. First of
all, it completely ignores the ideological factor.
Anarcho- capitalists are thinking of how competing
firms would prevent the rise of abusive protection
monopolists in a society where most people don't
support the existence of such a monopolist. It is one
thing to suppress a "criminal firm" when it stands
condemned by public opinion and the values internalized
by that firm's employees; it is another thing entirely
to suppress our current "criminal firms" (i.e.,
governments) when qua institution enjoy the
overwhelming support of the populace and the state's
enforcers believe in their own cause. When a governing
class loses confidence in its own legitimacy -- from
the Ancien Regime in France to the Communist Party in
the USSR -- it becomes vulnerable and weak. Market
checks on government could indeed establish an
anarchist society if the self-confidence of the
governing class were severely eroded by anarchist
ideas.

Secondly, the critique ignores the possibility of
multiple social equilibria. If everyone drives on the
right side of the road, isolated attempts to switch to
the left side will be dangerous and probably
unsuccessful. But if everyone drives on the left side
of the road, the same danger exists for those who
believe that the right side is superior and plan to act
on their believe. Similarly, it is quite possible that
given that a government exists, the existence of
government is a stable equilibrium; but if a system of
competitive protection firms existed, that too would be
a stable equilibrium. In short, just because one
equilibrium exists and is stable doesn't mean that it
is the only possible equilibrium. Why then is the state
so pervasive if it is just one possible equilibrium?
The superiority of this equilibrium is one possible
explanation; but it could also be due to ideology, or
an inheritance from our barbarous ancestors.

12. What other anarchist viewpoints are there?

There is definitely another strand of anarchist thought,
although it is far vaguer and less propositional than the
views thus far explicated. For some, "anarchist" is just a
declaration of rebellion against rules and authority of any
kind. There is little attempt made here to explain how
society would work without government; and perhaps there is
little conviction that it could do so. This sort of
anarchism is more of an attitude or emotion -- a feeling
that the corrupt world of today should go down in flames,
without any definite view about what if anything would be
preferable and possible. For want of a better term, I would
call this "emotivist anarchism," whose most prominent
exponent is almost certainly Max Stirner (although to be
fair to Stirner he did briefly outline his vision for the
replacement of existing society by a "Union of Egoists").

For the emotivist anarchist, opposition to the state is just
a special case of his or her opposition to almost
everything: the family, traditional art, bourgeois culture,
comfortable middle-aged people, the British monarchy, etc.
This position, when articulated, is often difficult to
understand, for it seems to seek destruction without any
suggestion or argument that anything else would be
preferable. Closely linked to emotivist anarchism, though
sometimes a little more theoretical, is nihilist anarchism.
The anarcho-nihilists combine the emotivist's opposition to
virtually all forms of order with radical subjectivist moral
and epistemological theory.

To see Tracy Harms' criticism of my treatment of Stirner,
egoism, and nihilism, click here.

Related to emotivist anarchism is a second strand of less
intellectual, more emotional anarchist thought. It has been
called by some "moral anarchism." This view again feels that
existing statist society is bad; but rather than lay out any
comprehensive plans for its abolition, this sort of
anarchist sticks to more immediate reforms. Anarchism of
this sort is a kind of ideal dream, which is beautiful and
inspiring to contemplate while we pursue more concrete aims.

The emotivist anarchist often focuses on action and disdains
theorizing. In contrast, another breed of anarchists, known
as "philosophical anarchists," see few practical
implications of their intellectual position. Best
represented by Robert Paul Wolff, philosophical anarchism
simply denies that the state's orders as such can confer any
legitimacy whatever. Each individual must exercise his moral
autonomy to judge right and wrong for himself, irrespective
of the state's decrees. However, insofar as the state's
decrees accord with one's private conscience, there is no
need to change one's behavior. A position like Wolff's says,
in essence, that the rational person cannot and must not
offer the blind obedience to authority that governments
often seem to demand; but this insight need not spark any
political action if one's government's decrees are not
unusually immoral.

Yet another faction, strongly influenced by Leo Tolstoy,
refer to themselves as "Christian anarchists." (Tolstoy
avoided the term "anarchist," probably because of its
association with violence and terrorism in the minds of
contemporary Russians.) Drawing on the Gospels' themes of
nonviolence and the equality of all human beings, these
anarchists condemn government as contrary to Christian
teaching. Tolstoy particularly emphasized the immorality of
war, military service, and patriotism, challenging
Christians to live up to the radical implications of their
faith by withdrawing their support from all three of these
evils. Tolstoy's essay "Patriotism, or Peace?" is
particularly notable for its early attack upon nationalism
and the bloodshed that usually accompanies it.

Finally, many leftist and progressive movements have an
anarchist interpretation and anarchist advocates. For
example, a faction of feminists, calling themselves
"anarcha- feminists" exists. The feminists, calling
themselves "anarcha- feminists" exists. The Green and
environmentalist movements also have strong anarchist wings
which blend opposition to the state and defense of the
environment. Their primary theoretician is probably Murray
Bookchin, who (lately) advocates a society of small and
fairly autarchic localities. As Bookchin explains, "the
anarchist concepts of a balanced community, a face-to-face
democracy, a humanistic technology and a decentralized
society -- these rich libertarian concepts -- are not only
desirable, they are also necessary." Institutions such as
the town meeting of classical democratic theory point the
way to a radical reorganization of society, in which small
environmentally concerned townships regularly meet to
discuss and vote upon their communities' production and
broader aims. Doubtlessly there are many other fusions
between anarchism and progressive causes, and more spring up
as new concerns develop.

13. What moral justifications have been offered for anarchism?

Again, there are a great many answers which have been
offered. Some anarchists, such as the emotivist and
(paradoxically) the moral anarchists have little interest in
high-level moral theory. But this has been of great
interest to the more intellectual sorts of anarchists.

One popular argument for anarchism is that it is the only
way for true socialism to exist. State-socialism is unable
to actually establish human equality; instead it simply
creating a new ruling class. Bakunin prophetically predicted
the results of socialists seizing control of the state when
he wrote that the socialist elite would form a "new class"
which would be "the most aristocratic, despotic, arrogant,
and contemptuous of all regimes." Elsewhere Bakunin wrote
that "[F]reedom without Socialism is privilege and
injustice, ... Socialism without freedom is slavery and
brutality." Of course, socialism itself has been defended on
both deontological and utilitarian grounds, and there is no
need to repeat these here.

On the other hand, anarcho-capitalists have argued that only
under anarchism can the Lockean rights to person and
property so loudly championed by more moderate libertarians
be fully respected. Any attempt to impose a monopolistic
government necessarily prevents competing police and
judicial services from providing a legitimate service;
moreover, so long as government exists taxation will
persist. The government's claim to defend private property
is thus quite ironic, for the state, in Rothbard's words, is
"an institution that presumes to 'defend' person and
property by itself subsisting on the unilateral coercion
against private property known as taxation." Other anarcho-
capitalists such as David Friedman find these arguments from
natural Lockean rights unconvincing, and instead take up the
task of trying to show that Adam Smith's utilitarian case
for free-market capitalism applies just as well to free
markets in defense services, making the state useless as
well as dangerous.

Still other anarchists, such as Lysander Spooner and
Benjamin Tucker as well as Proudhon, have argued that
anarchism would abolish the exploitation inherent in
interest and rent simply by means of free competition. In
their view, only labor income is legitimate, and an
important piece of the case for anarchism is that without
government-imposed monopolies, non-labor income would be
driven to zero by market forces. It is unclear, however, if
they regard this as merely a desirable side effect, or if
they would reject anarchism if they learned that the
predicted economic effect thereof would not actually occur.
(Other individualist anarchists have argued that contrary to
Spooner and Tucker, free banking would lead to a much lower
rate of inflation than we experience today; that rent and
interest are not due to "monopoly" but to scarcity of land
and loanable funds; and that there is no moral distinction
between labor and rental or interest income, all of which
depend upon a mixture of scarcity, demand, luck, and
effort.)

A basic moral intuition that probably anarchists of all
varieties share is simply that no one has the right to rule
another person. The interpretation of "rulership," however,
varies: left anarchists tend to see the employer-employee
relationship as one of rulership, and anarcho-capitalists
are often dubious of the claim that envisaged anarchists
communes would be democratic and hence voluntary. A closely
related moral intuition, again widely shared by all sorts of
anarchists, is that each person should exercise personal
autonomy, or self-rule. One should question authority, and
make up one's mind for oneself rather than simply following
the herd. Again, the interpretation of "personal autonomy"
varies: the left-anarchist sees the employer-employee
relationship as inherently violating personal autonomy,
whereas the anarcho-capitalist is more likely to see
personal autonomy disappearing in the commune or collective,
regardless of how democratically they run themselves.

[jum...@my-deja.com]

14. What are the major debates between anarchists? What are the
recurring arguments?

Without a doubt, the most repeated debate among modern
anarchists is fought between the left-anarchists on one side
and the anarcho-capitalists on the other. Of course, there
are occasional debates between different left-anarchist
factions, but probably most of them would be content with an
anarchist society populated by some mixture of communes,
worker-controlled firms, and cooperatives. And similarly
there are a few internal debates between anarcho-
capitalists, notably the tension between Rothbard's natural
law anarcho-capitalism and David Friedman's more economistic
anarcho-capitalism. But it is the debate between the
left-anarchists and the anarcho-capitalists which is the
most fundamental and the most acrimonious. There are many
sub-debates within this wider genre, which we will now
consider.

a. "X is not 'true anarchism.'"

One of the least fruitful of these sub-debates is the
frequent attempt of one side to define the other out of
existence ("You are not truly an anarchist, for
anarchists must favor [abolition of private property,
atheism, Christianity, etc.]") In addition to being a
trivial issue, the factual supporting arguments are
often incorrect. For example, despite a popular claim
that socialism and anarchism have been inextricably
linked since the inception of the anarchist movement,
many 19th-century anarchists, not only Americans such
as Tucker and Spooner, but even Europeans like
Proudhon, were ardently in favor of private property
(merely believing that some existing sorts of property
were illegitimate, without opposing private property as
such).

As Benjamin Tucker wrote in 1887, "It will probably
surprise many who know nothing of Proudhon save his
declaration that 'property is robbery' to learn that he
was perhaps the most vigorous hater of Communism that
ever lived on this planet. But the apparent
inconsistency vanishes when you read his book and find
that by property he means simply legally privileged
wealth or the power of usury, and not at all the
possession by the laborer of his products."

Nor did an ardent anarcho-communist like Kropotkin deny
Proudhon or even Tucker the title of "anarchist." In
his Modern Science and Anarchism, Kropotkin discusses
not only Proudhon but "the American anarchist
individualists who were represented in the fifties by
S.P. Andrews and W. Greene, later on by Lysander
Spooner, and now are represented by Benjamin Tucker,
the well-known editor of the New York Liberty."
Similarly in his article on anarchism for the 1910
edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, Kropotkin again
freely mentions the American individualist anarchists,
including "Benjamin Tucker, whose journal Liberty was
started in 1881 and whose conceptions are a combination
of those of Proudhon with those of Herbert Spencer."

b. "Anarchism of variant X is unstable and will lead to
the re-emergence of the state."

A more substantive variation is to argue that the
opposing anarchism would be unstable and lead to the
swift re- emergence of government. Thus, the
left-anarchists often argue that the defense
corporations envisaged by anarcho- capitalists would
war with one another until one came out as the new
government; or else they would collude to establish
themselves as the new capitalist oligarchs. As Noam
Chomsky says in an interview with Ulrike Heider, "The
predatory forces of the market would destroy society,
would destroy community, and destroy the workforce.
Nothing would be left except people hating each other
and fighting each other." Anarcho-capitalists reply
that this grossly underestimates the degree of
competition likely to prevail in the defense industry;
that war is likely to be very unprofitable and
dangerous, and is more likely to be provoked by
ideology than sober profit-maximization; and that
economic theory and economic history show that
collusion is quite difficult to maintain.

Anarcho-capitalists for their part accuse the
left-anarchists of intending to impose their communal
vision upon everyone; since everyone will not go along
voluntarily, a government will be needed to impose it.
Lest we think that this argument is a recent invention,
it is interesting to find that essentially this
argument raged in the 19th- century anarchist movement
as well. In John MacKay's The Anarchists, we see the
essential dialogue between individualist and
collectivist anarchism has a longer history than one
might think:

"Would you, in the system of society which you
call 'free Communism' prevent individuals from
exchanging their labor among themselves by means
of their own medium of exchange? And further:
Would you prevent them from occupying land for the
purpose of personal use?"... [The] question was
not to be escaped. If he answered "Yes!" he
admitted that society had the right of control
over the individual and threw overboard the
autonomy of the individual which he had always
zealously defended; if on the other hand he
answered "No!" he admitted the right of private
property which he had just denied so emphatically
... Then he answered "In Anarchy any number of men
must have the right of forming a voluntary
association, and so realizing their ideas in
practice. Nor can I understand how any one could
justly be driven from the land and house which he
uses and occupies ... [E]very serious man must
declare himself: for Socialism, and thereby for
force and against liberty, or for Anarchism, and
thereby for liberty and against force."

There have been several left-anarchist replies. One is
to readily agree that dissenters would have the right
to not join a commune, with the proviso that they must
not employ others or otherwise exploit them. Another is
to claim that anarchism will change (or cease to warp)
human attitudes so that they will be more communitarian
and less individualistic. Finally, some argue that this
is simply another sophistical argument for giving the
rich and powerful the liberty to take away the liberty
of everyone else.

c. "In an anarchist society in which both systems X and Y
existed, X would inevitably outcompete Y."

Again, this argument has been made from several
perspectives. Left-anarchists have argued that if
workers had the genuine option to work for a capitalist
employer, or else work for themselves in a worker
cooperative, virtually all workers would choose the
latter. Moreover, workers in a worker-managed firm
would have higher morale and greater incentive to work
hard compared with workers who just worked for the
benefit of their employer. Hence, capitalists would be
unable to pay their workers wages competitive with the
wages of the labor-managed firm, and by force of
competition would gradually vanish.

Anarcho-capitalists find that the argument works in
precisely the opposite direction. For what is a
worker-owned firm if not a firm in which the workers
jointly hold all of the stock? Now this is a peculiarly
irrational portfolio to hold, because it means that
workers would, in effect, put all their eggs in one
basket; if their firm does well, they grow rich, but if
their firm goes bankrupt, they lose everything. It
would make much more sense for workers to exchange
their shares in their own firm to buy shares in other
firms in order to insure themselves against risk.
Thus, the probable result of worker-owned firms with
negotiable shares would be that workers would readily
and advantageously sell off most of their shares in
their own firm in order to diversify their portfolios.
The end result is likely to be the standard form of
capitalist organization, in which workers receive a
fixed payment for their services and the owners of the
firms' shares earn the variable profits. Of course,
alienation of shares could be banned, but this appears
to do nothing except force workers to live with
enormous financial risk. None of this shows that
worker-owned firms could not persist if the workers
were so ideologically committed to worker control that
their greater productivity outweighed the riskiness of
the workers' situation; but anarcho-capitalists doubt
very much that such intense ideology would prevail in
more than a small portion of the population. Indeed,
they expect that the egalitarian norms and security
from dismissal that left-anarchists typically favor
would grossly undermine everyone's incentive to work
hard and kill abler workers' desire for advancement.

Some anarcho-capitalists go further and argue that
inequality would swiftly re-emerge in an
anarcho-syndicalist economy. Workers would treat their
jobs as a sort of property right, and would refuse to
hire new workers on equal terms because doing so would
dilute the current workers' shares in the firm's
profits. The probable result would be that an elite
class of workers in capital-intensive firms would
exploit new entrants into the work force much as
capitalists allegedly do today. As evidence, they point
to existing "worker-controlled" firms such as law firms
-- normally they consist of two tiers of workers, one
of which both works and owns the firm ("the partners"),
while the remainder are simply employees ("the
associates" as well as the secretaries, clerks, etc.)

d. "Anarchism of type X would be worse than the state."

To the left-anarchist, the society envisaged by the
anarcho- capitalists often seems far worse than what we
have now. For it is precisely to the inequality,
exploitation, and tyranny of modern capitalism that
they object, and rather than abolishing it the
anarcho-capitalist proposes to unleash its worst
features and destroy its safety net. Noam Chomsky, for
instance, has suggested that anarcho-capitalists focus
incorrectly on state domination, failing to recognize
the underlying principle of opposition to all
domination, including the employer-employee
relationship. Overall, since anarcho-capitalism relies
heavily on laissez-faire economic theory, and since
left-anarchists see no validity to laissez-faire
economic theory, it seems to the latter that
anarcho-capitalism would be a practical disaster. Left-
anarchists often equate anarcho-capitalism with social
Darwinism and even fascism, arguing that the cruel idea
of "survival of the fittest" underlies them all.

The anarcho-capitalist, in turn, often suspects that
the left- anarchist's world would be worse than the
world of today. Under anarcho-capitalism, individuals
would still have every right to voluntarily pool their
property to form communes, worker-controlled firms, and
cooperatives; they would simply be unable to force
dissenters to join them. Since this fact rarely
impresses the left-anarchist, the anarcho-capitalist
often concludes that the left-anarchist will not be
satisfied with freedom for his preferred lifestyle; he
wants to force his communal lifestyle on everyone. Not
only would this be a gross denial of human freedom, but
it would (according to the anarcho-capitalist) be
likely to have disastrous effects on economic
incentives, and swiftly lead humanity into miserable
poverty. The anarcho-capitalist is also frequently
disturbed by the opposition to all order sometimes
voiced by left-anarchists; for he feels that only
coerced order is bad and welcomes the promotion of an
orderly society by voluntary means. Similarly, the
left-anarchists' occasional short time horizon,
emphasis on immediate satisfaction, and low regard for
work (which can be seen in a number of authors strongly
influenced by emotivist anarchism) frighten the
anarcho-capitalist considerably.

e. Etc.

A large number of arguments that go back and forth
basically duplicate the standard socialist vs.
capitalist debate. The need or lack thereof for
incentives, security, equality, regulation, protection
of the environment, and so on are debated extensively
on other sources on the Net, and there are several FAQs
which discuss these issues from a variety of
viewpoints. FAQs on the broader libertarian movement
are frequently posted on alt.individualism,
alt.politics.libertarian, and
talk.politics.libertarian. FAQs on socialism similarly
appear from time to time on alt.politics.radical-left
and alt.fan.noam-chomsky. Related FAQs sometimes appear
on talk.politics.theory. Hence, we will spend no
further space on these broader issues which are amply
addressed elsewhere.

15. How would anarchists handle the "public goods" problem?

Modern neoclassical (or "mainstream") economists --
especially those associated with theoretical welfare
economics -- have several important arguments for the
necessity or desirability of government. Out of all of
these, the so-called "public goods" problem is surely the
most frequently voiced. In fact, many academics consider it
a rigorous justification for the existence and limits of the
state. Anarcho-capitalists are often very familiar with this
line of thought and spend considerable time trying to refute
it; left- anarchists are generally less interested, but it
is still useful to see how the left-anarchist might respond.

We will begin by explaining the concept of Pareto
optimality, show how the Pareto criterion is used to justify
state action, and then examine how anarchists might object
to the underlying assumptions of these economic
justifications for the state. After exploring the general
critique, we will turn to the problem of public goods (and
the closely related externalities issue). After showing how
many economists believe that these problems necessitate
government action, we will consider how left-anarchists and
anarcho-capitalists might reply.

a. The concept and uses of Pareto optimality in economics

The most widely-used concept in theoretical welfare
economics is "Pareto optimality" (also known as "Pareto
efficiency"). An allocation is Pareto-optimal iff it is
impossible to make at least one person better off
without making anyone else worse off; a Pareto
improvement is a change in an allocation which makes
someone better off without making anyone else worse
off. As Hal Varian's Microeconomic Analysis explains,
"[A] Pareto efficient allocation is one for which each
agent is as well off as possible, given the utilities
of the other agents." "Better" and "worse" are based
purely upon subjective preferences which can be
summarized in a "utility function," or ordinal
numerical index of preference satisfaction.

While initially it might seem that every situation is
necessarily Pareto optimal, this is not the case. True,
if the only good is food, and each agent wants as much
food as possible, then every distribution is Pareto
optimal. But if half of the agents own food and the
other half own clothes, the distribution will not
necessarily be Pareto optimal, since each agent might
prefer either more food and fewer clothes or vice
versa.

Normally, economists would expect agents to voluntarily
trade in any situation which is not Pareto optimal; but
neoclassical theorists have considered a number of
situations in which trade would be a difficult route to
Pareto optimality. For example, suppose that each agent
is so afraid of the other that they avoid each other,
even though they could both benefit from interaction.
What they need is an independent and powerful
organization to e.g. protect both agents from each
other so that they can reach a Pareto-optimal
allocation. What they need, in short, is the state.
While economists' examples are usually more elaborate,
the basic intuition is that government is necessary to
satisfy the seemingly uncontroversial principle of
Pareto optimality.

Anarchists of all sorts would immediately object that
the very existence of deontological anarchists shows
that Pareto optimality can never justify state action.
If even the slightest increase in the level of state
activity incompensably harms the deontological
anarchist, then obviously it is never true that state
action can make some people better off without making
any others worse off. Moreover, virtually all
government action makes some people better off and
other people worse off, so plainly the pursuit of
Pareto improvements has little to do with what real
governments do.

Due to these difficulties, in practice economists must
base their judgments upon the far more controversial
judgments of cost-benefit analysis. (In the works of
Richard Posner, this economistic cost-benefit approach
to policy decisions is called "wealth-maximization"; a
common synonym is "Kaldor-Hicks efficiency.") With
cost-benefit analysis, there is no pretense made that
government policy enjoys unanimous approval. Thus, it
is open to the many objections frequently made to e.g.
utilitarianism; moreover, since cost-benefit analysis
is based upon agents' willingness to pay, rather than
on agents' utility, it runs into even more moral
paradoxes than utilitarianism typically does.

In the final analysis, welfare economists' attempt to
provide a value-free or at least value-minimal
justification of the state fails quite badly.
Nevertheless, economic analysis may still inform more
substantive moral theories: Pareto optimality, for
example, is a necessary but not sufficient condition
for a utilitarian justification of the state.

b. The public goods problem

The "public goods" argument is certainly the most
popular economic argument for the state. It allegedly
shows that the existence of government can be Pareto
optimal, and that the non-existence of the state cannot
be Pareto optimal; or at least, it shows that the
existence of government is justifiable on cost-benefit
grounds. Supposedly, there exist important services,
such as national defense, which benefit people whether
they pay for them or not. The result is that selfish
agents refuse to contribute, leading to disaster. The
only way to solve this problem is to coerce the
beneficiaries to raise the funds to supply the needed
good. In order for this coercion to work, it needs to
be monopolized by a single agency, the state.

Public goods arguments have been made not only for
national defense, but for police, roads, education,
R&D, scientific research, and many other goods and
services. The essential definitional feature of public
goods is "non- excludability"; because the benefits
cannot be limited to contributors, there is no
incentive to contribute. (A second definitional
characteristic often attributed to public goods is
"non-rivalrousness"; my own view is that this second
attribute just confuses the issue, since without the
non- excludability problem, non-rivalrousness would
merely be another instance of the ubiquitous practice
of pricing above marginal cost.)

The concept of externalities is very closely connected
to the concept of public goods; the main difference is
that economists usually think of externalities as being
both "positive" (e.g. R&D spill-overs) and "negative"
(e.g. pollution), whereas they usually don't discuss
"public bads." In any case, again we have the problem
that agents perform actions which harm or benefit other
people, and the harm/benefit is "non-excludable."
Victims of negative externalities can't feasibly charge
polluters a fee for suffering, and beneficiaries of
positive externalities can't feasibly be charged for
their enjoyment. Government is supposed to be necessary
to correct this inefficiency. (As usual, it is the
inefficiency rather than the injustice that economists
focus upon.)

Left-anarchists and anarcho-capitalists would probably
have remarkably similar replies to this argument,
although doubtlessly the tone and emphasis would vary.

Objection #1: The behavorial assumptions of public
goods theory are false.

It is simply not true that people always act in their
narrow self-interest. Charity exists, and there is no
reason to think that the charitable impulse might not
be cultivated to handle public goods problems
voluntarily on an adequate basis. Nor need charity as
such be the only motive: in Social Contract, Free Ride,
Anthony de Jasay lays out an "ethics turnpike" of
possible voluntary solutions to serious public goods
problems, moving from motivation from high moral
principles, to "tribal" motivations, to economic
motivations. As de Jasay writes, "On the map of the
Ethics Turnpike ... three main segments are marked off
according to the basic type of person most likely to
find his congenial exit along it. The first segment is
primarily for the type who fears God or acts as if he
did. The second segment has exits to suit those who are
not indifferent to how some or all their fellow men are
faring, and who value only that (but not all that)
which people want for themselves or for others. The
third is for homo oeconomicus, maximizing a narrowly
defined utility that varies only with the money's worth
of his own payoffs."

In short, much of the public goods problem is an
artificial creation of economists' unrealistic
assumptions about human nature. Anarchists would surely
disagree among themselves about human nature, but
almost all would agree that there is more to the human
character than Hobbesian self-interest. Some people
may be amoral, but most are not. Moreover, charitable
impulses can even give incentives to uncharitable
people to behave fairly. If the public boycotts
products of polluters, the polluters may find that it
is cheaper to clean up their act than lose the public's
business.

Interestingly, many economists have experimentally
tested the predictions of public goods theory.
(Typically, these experiments involve groups of human
subjects playing for real money.) The almost universal
result is that the central prediction of public goods
theory (i.e., that no one will voluntarily contribute
to the production of a public good) is totally false.
While the level of contributions rarely equals the
Pareto-optimal level, it never even approaches the
zero- provision level that public goods theory
predicts. Summarizing the experimental literature,
Douglas Davis and Charles Holt write "[S]ubjects rather
persistently contributed 40 to 60 percent of their
token endowments to the group exchange, far in excess
of the 0 percent contributions rate..." Subsequent
experiments examined the conditions under which
voluntary provision is most successful; see Davis and
Holt's Experimental Economics for details.

Objection #2: Government is not the only possible way
to provide public goods.

Even if individuals act in their narrow self-interest,
it is not true that government is the only way to
manage public goods and externalities problems. Why
couldn't a left- anarchist commune or an
anarcho-capitalist police firm do the job that the
neoclassical economist assumes must be delegated to the
government? The left-anarchist would probably be
particularly insistent on this point, since most
economists usually assume that government and the
market are the only ways to do things. But thriving,
voluntary communities might build roads, regulate
pollution, and take over other important tasks now
handled by government.

Anarcho-capitalists, for their part, would happily
agree: while they usually look to the market as a first
solution, they appreciate other kinds of voluntary
organizations too: fraternal societies, clubs, family,
etc. But anarcho-capitalists would probably note that
left-anarchists overlook the ways that the market might
take over government services -- indeed, malls and
gated communities show how roads, security, and
externalities can be handled by contract rather than
coercion.

Objection #3: Public goods are rarer than you might
think.

Anarcho-capitalists would emphasize that a large number
of alleged "public goods" and "externalities" could
easily be handled privately by for-profit business if
only the government would allow the definition of
private property rights. If ranchers over-graze the
commons, why not privatize the commons? If fishermen
over-fish the oceans, why not parcel out large strips
of the ocean by longitude and latitude to for
profit-making aquaculture? And why is education
supposed to create externalities any more than any
other sort of investment? Similarly, many sorts of
externalities are now handled with private property
rights. Tort law, for example, can give people an
incentive to take the lives and property of others into
account when they take risks.

Objection #4: Externalities are a result of the
profit-oriented mentality which would be tamed in an
anarchist society.

Left-anarchists would emphasize that many externalities
are caused by the profit-seeking system which the state
supports. Firms pollute because it is cheaper than
producing cleanly; but anarcho-syndicalist firms could
pursue many aims besides profit. In a way, the state-
capitalist system creates the problem of externalities
by basing all decisions upon profit, and then claims
that we need the state to protect us from the very
results of this profit-oriented decision-making
process.

While few left-anarchists are familiar with the
experimental economics literature, it offers some
support for this general approach. In particular, many
experiments have shown that subjects' concern for
fairness weakens many of the harsh predictions of
standard economic analysis of externalities and
bargaining.

Objection #5: The public goods problem is unavoidable.

Perhaps most fundamentally: government is not a
solution to the public goods problem, but rather the
primary instance of the problem. If you create a
government to solve your public goods problems, you
merely create a new public goods problem: the public
good of restraining and checking the government from
abusing its power. "[I]t is wholly owing to the
constitution of the people, and not to the constitution
of the government, that the crown is not as oppressive
in England as in Turkey," wrote Thomas Paine; but what
material incentive is there for individuals to help
develop a vigilant national character? After all,
surely it is a rare individual who appreciably affects
the national culture during his or her lifetime.

To rely upon democracy as a counter-balance simply
assumes away the public goods problem. After all,
intelligent, informed voting is a public good; everyone
benefits if the electorate reaches wise political
judgments, but there is no personal, material incentive
to "invest" in political information, since the same
result will (almost certainly) happen whether you
inform yourself or not. It should be no surprise that
people know vastly more about their jobs than about
their government. Many economists seem to be aware of
this difficulty; in particular, public choice theory in
economics emphasizes the externalities inherent in
government action. But a double standard persists:
while non-governmental externalities must be corrected
by the state, we simply have to quietly endure the
externalities inherent in political process.

Since there is no incentive to monitor the government,
democracies must rely upon voluntary donations of
intelligence and virtue. Because good government
depends upon these voluntary donations, the public
goods argument for government falls apart. Either
unpaid virtue can make government work, in which case
government isn't necessary to solve the public goods
problem; or unpaid virtue is insufficient to make
government work, in which case the government cannot be
trusted to solve the public goods problem.

David Friedman has a particularly striking argument
which goes one step further. Under governmental
institutions, he explains, good law is a public good
and bad law is a private good. That is, there is little
direct personal incentive to lobby for laws that
benefit everyone, but a strong personal incentive to
lobby for laws that benefit special interests at the
expense of everyone else. In contrast, under
anarcho-capitalist institutions, good law is a private
good and bad law is a public good. That is, by
patronizing a firm which protects oneself, one
reinforces the existence of socially beneficial law;
but there is little incentive to "lobby" for the
re-introduction of government. As Friedman explains,
"Good law is still expensive - I must spend time and
money determining which protection agency will best
serve me - but having decided what I want, I get what I
pay for. The benefit of my wise purchase goes to me, so
I have an incentive to purchase wisely. It is now the
person who wishes to reintroduce government who is
caught in a public goods problem. He cannot abolish
anarchy and reintroduce government for himself alone;
he must do it for everyone or for no one. If he does it
for everyone, he himself gets but a tiny fraction of
the 'benefit' he expects the reintroduction of
government to provide."

16. Are anarchists pacifists?

Again, this is a complicated question because "pacifism" has
at least two distinct meanings. It may mean "opposition to
all violence," or it may mean "opposition to all war (i.e.,
organized violent conflict between governments)." Some
anarchists are pacifists in the first sense; a very large
majority of anarchists are pacifists in the weaker, second
sense.

a. Tolstoyan absolute pacifism

The primary anarchistic inspiration for pacifism in the
first sense is probably Leo Tolstoy. Drawing his themes
from the Gospels, Tolstoy argued that violence is
always wrong, including defensive violence. This
naturally leads Tolstoy to bitterly denounce warfare as
well, but what is distinctive here is opposition to
violence as such, whether offensive or defensive.
Moreover, the stricture against defensive violence
would appear to rule out not only retribution against
criminals, but self-defense against an imminent attack.

This Tolstoyan theme appears most strongly in the
writings of Christian anarchists and pacifist
anarchists, but it pops up quite frequently within the
broader left-anarchist tradition. For example,
Kropotkin looked upon criminals with pity rather than
contempt, and argued that love and forgiveness rather
than punishment was the only moral reaction to criminal
behavior. With the self-described Christian and
pacifist anarchists, the Tolstoyan position is a firm
conviction; within the broader left-anarchist
tradition, it would be better described as a tendency
or general attitude.

Some left-anarchists and virtually all
anarcho-capitalists would strongly disagree with
Tolstoy's absolute opposition to violence. (The only
anarcho-capitalist to ever indicate agreement with the
Tolstoyan position was probably Robert LeFevre.)
Left-anarchist critics include the advocates of
revolutionary terrorism or "propaganda by the deed"
(discussed in section 22), as well as more moderate
anti- Tolstoyans who merely uphold the right to use
violence for self-defense. Of course, their definition
of "self-defense" might very well include using
violence to hinder immoral state actions or the
functioning of the capitalist system.

The anarcho-capitalist critique of Tolstoyan pacifism
distinguishes between initiatory force against person
or property (which he views as wrong), and retaliatory
force (which he views as acceptable and possibly
meritorious). The anarcho-capitalist condemns the state
precisely because it institutionalizes the initiation
of force within society. Criminals do the same,
differing only in their lack of perceived legitimacy.
In principle, both "private" criminals and the "public"
criminals who run the government may be both resisted
and punished. While it may be imprudent or
counter-productive to openly resist state authority
(just as it might be foolish to resist a gang of well-
armed mobsters), there is a right to do so.

b. Pacifism as opposition to war

Almost all anarchists, in contrast, would agree in
their condemnation of warfare, i.e., violent conflict
between governments. Left-anarchists and
anarcho-capitalists both look upon wars as grotesque
struggles between ruling elites who treat the lives of
"their own" people as expendable and the lives of the
"other side's" people as worthless. It is here that
anarchism's strong distinction between society and the
state becomes clearest: whereas most people see war as
a struggle between societies, anarchists think that war
is actually a battle between governments which greatly
harms even the society whose government is victorious.
What is most pernicious about nationalist ideology is
that is makes the members of society identify their
interests with those of their government, when in fact
their interests are not merely different but in
conflict. In short, anarchists of both sorts would
readily accede to Randolph Bourne's remark that "War is
the health of the state."

Left-anarchists' opposition to war is quite similar to
the general condemnation of war expressed by more
mainstream international socialists. On this view, war
is created by capitalism, in particular the struggle
for access to markets in the Third World. "Workingmen
have no country" and should refuse to support these
intra-capitalist struggles; why should they pay the
dire cost of war when victory will merely leave them
more oppressed and exploited than before? Moreover,
while Western democracies often advocate war in the
name of justice and humanitarianism, the aim and/or end
result is to defend traditional authoritarianism and
destroy the lives of millions of innocent people.
Within the Western democracies, the left- anarchist's
hatred for war is often intensified by some sense of
sympathy for indigenous revolutionary movements. While
these movements are often state-socialist in intent,
the left- anarchist often believes that these movements
are less bad than the traditional authoritarianism
against which they struggle. Moreover, the West's
policy of propping up local dictators leads relatively
non-authoritarian socialist movements to increasing
degrees of totalitarianism. Noam Chomsky is almost
certainly the most influential representative of the
left-anarchist approach to foreign policy: He sees a
consistent pattern of the United States proclaiming
devotion to human rights while supporting dictatorships
by any means necessary.

[jum...@my-deja.com]

The anarcho-capitalist critique of war is similar in
many ways to e.g. Chomsky's analysis, but has a
different lineage and emphasis. As can be seen
particularly in Murray Rothbard's writings, the
anarcho-capitalist view of war draws heavily upon both
the anti-war classical liberals of the 18th and 19th
centuries, and the long-standing American isolationist
tradition. Early classical liberal theorists such as
Adam Smith,Richard Cobden, and John Bright (and later
Norman Angell) argued that warfare was caused by
mercantilism, by the prevailing alliance between
governments and their favored business elites. The
solution, in their view, was to end the incestuous
connection between business and government. The
American isolationists were probably influenced by this
broader classical liberal tradition, but placed more
emphasis on the idea that foreign wars were at best a
silly distraction, and at worst a rationalization for
tyranny. Both views argued that "balance of power"
politics lead inevitably to endless warfare and
unrestrained military spending.

Building upon these two interrelated traditions,
anarcho- capitalists have built a multi-layered attack
upon warfare. Firstly, modern war particularly
deserves moral condemnation (according to libertarian
rights theory) for the widespread murderous attacks
upon innocent civilians -- whether by bomb or
starvation blockade. Secondly, the wars waged by the
Western democracies in the 20th- century had
disastrous, unforeseen consequences: World War I paved
the way for Communist, fascist, and Nazi
totalitarianism; and World War II, by creating power
vacuums in Europe and Asia, turned over a billion human
beings to Stalinist despotism. The anarcho-capitalist
sees these results as predictable rather than merely
accidental: just as rulers' hubris leads them to try to
improve the free- market economy, only to find that in
their ignorance they have wrecked terrible harm, so too
does the "fatal conceit" of the national security
advisor lead Western democracies to spend billions of
dollars and millions of lives before he finds that he
has inadvertently paved the way for totalitarianism.
The anarcho-capitalist's third point against war is
that its only sure result is to aid the domestic
expansion of state power; and predictably, when wars
end, the state's power never contracts to its original
limits.

17. Have there been any historical examples of anarchist
societies?

There have probably been no societies which fully satisfy
any anarchists' ethical ideals, but there have been a number
of suggestive examples.

Left-anarchists most often cite the anarchist communes of
the Spanish Civil War as examples of viable anarchist
societies. The role of the Spanish anarchists in the Spanish
Civil War has perhaps generated more debate on
alt.society.anarchy than any other historical issue. Since
this FAQ is concerned primarily with theoretical rather than
purely historical questions, the reader will have to search
elsewhere for a detailed discussion. Suffice it to say that
left-anarchists generally believe that: (a) The Spanish
anarchist political organizations and unions began and
remained democratic throughout the war; (b) That a majority
of the citizenry in areas controlled by the anarchists was
sympathetic to the anarchist movement; (c) That workers
directly controlled factories and businesses that they
expropriated, rather than being subject to strict control by
anarchist leaders; and (d) That the farm collectives in the
anarchist-controlled regions were largely voluntary, and
rarely exerted coercive pressure against small farmers who
refused to join. In contrast, anarcho-capitalist critics
such as James Donald normally maintain that: (a) The Spanish
anarchist political organizations and unions, even if they
were initially democratic, quickly transformed into
dictatorial oligarchies with democratic trappings once the
war started; (b) That the Spanish anarchists, even if they
initially enjoyed popular support, quickly forfeited it with
their abuse of power; (c) That in many or most cases,
"worker" control meant dictatorial control by the anarchist
elite; and (d) That the farm collectivizations in
anarchist-controlled regions were usually coercively formed,
totalitarian for their duration, and marked by a purely
nominal right to remain outside the collective (since
non-joining farmers were seriously penalized in a number of
ways). For a reply to James Donald's piece, click here.

For my own account of the controversy regarding the Spanish
Anarchists, see The Anarcho-Statists of Spain: An
Historical, Economic, and Philosophical Analysis of Spanish
Anarchism. For a reply to my piece, click here.

Israeli kibbutzim have also been admired as working examples
of voluntary socialism. Kropotkin and Bakunin held up the
mir, the traditional communal farming system in rural
Russia, as suggestive of the organization and values which
would be expressed in an anarchist society. Various
experimental communities have also laid claim to socialist
anarchist credentials.

Anarcho-capitalists' favorite example, in contrast, is
medieval Iceland. David Friedman has written extensively on
the competitive supply of defense services and anarchistic
character of a much-neglected period of Iceland's history.
Left-anarchists have occasionally criticized Friedman's work
on medieval Iceland, but overall this debate is much
sketchier than the debate over the Spanish Civil War. See Is
Medieval Iceland an example of "anarcho"-capitalism working
in practice?; for David Friedman's reply to an earlier draft
of this piece , click here.

A long stretch of medieval Irish history has also been
claimed to have pronounced anarcho-capitalist features.
Other anarcho-capitalists have argued that the American
"Wild West" offers an excellent illustration of
anarcho-capitalist institutions springing up only to be
later suppressed and crowded out by government. Anarcho-
capitalists also often note that while the United States has
never been an anarchist society by any stretch of the
imagination, that before the 20th-century the United States
came closer to their pure laissez-faire ideals than any
other society in history. America's colonial and
revolutionary period especially interests them. Murray
Rothbard in particular published a four-volume history of
the colonial and revolutionary eras, finding delight in a
brief period of Pennsylvania's history when the state
government virtually dissolved itself due to lack of
interest. (An unpublished fifth volume in the series
defended the "weak" Articles of the Confederation against
the strong, centralized state established by the U.S.
Constitution.)

One case that has inspired both sorts of anarchists is that
of the free cities of medieval Europe. The first weak link
in the chain of feudalism, these free cities became Europe's
centers of economic development, trade, art, and culture.
They provided a haven for runaway serfs, who could often
legally gain their freedom if they avoided re-capture for a
year and a day. And they offer many examples of how people
can form mutual-aid associations for protection, insurance,
and community. Of course, left-anarchists and
anarcho-capitalists take a somewhat different perspective on
the free cities: the former emphasize the communitarian and
egalitarian concerns of the free cities, while the latter
point to the relatively unregulated nature of their markets
and the wide range of services (often including defense,
security, and legal services) which were provided privately
or semi-privately. Kropotkin's Mutual Aid contains an
extensive discussion of the free cities of medieval Europe;
anarcho-capitalists have written less on the subject, but
strongly praise the historical treatments in Henri Pirenne's
Medieval Cities and Harold Berman's Law and Revolution.

The Enclopedia Brittanica article on Anarchism gives at best
a cursory summary of anarchist theory, but does contain
useful information on the history of left-anarchist
political and labor movements. Click here to view the
article.

18. Isn't anarchism utopian?

Utopianism is perhaps the most popular criticism made of
anarchism. In an atypically uncharitable passage in his
European Socialism, socialist historian Carl Landauer
states:

There is certainly one truth in anarchistic beliefs:
Every large organization contains an element of veiled
or open force, and every kind of force is an evil, if
we consider its effects on the human character. But is
it not the lesser evil? Can we dispense with force?
When this question is clearly put, the case for
anarchism seems extremely weak. It is true, that the
experiment of an entirely forceless society have never
been made. But such evidence as we have does not
indicate that ill intentions will cease to exist if
repressive force disappears, and it is clear enough
that one ill-intentioned person can upset a large part
of society if there is no repressive force. The fact
that some intelligent and highly idealistic men and
women have believed and still believe in anarchism
shows that there is a type of sectarianism which
accepts a belief in spite of, or perhaps because of,
its apparent absurdity.

As we have seen, however, virtually all anarcho-capitalists
and many left-anarchists accept the use of force in some
circumstances. Landauer's remark would be better directed at
absolute pacifists rather than anarchists in general.

Anarchists' supposed unwillingness to use force in any
circumstance is only one reason why they have been widely
perceived as utopian. Sometimes the utopian charge is
trivial; if, for example, any radical change is labelled
"utopian." If on the other hand "utopian" simply means that
anarchism could work if and only if all people were
virtuous, and thus in practice would lead to the imposition
of new forms of oppression, then the question is more
interesting. Interesting, because this is more or less the
charge that different types of anarchists frequently bring
against each other.

To the left-anarchist, for example, anarcho-capitalism is
based upon a truly fantastic picture of economics, in which
free competition somehow leads to prosperity and freedom for
all. To them, the anarcho-capitalists' vision of "economic
harmonies" and the workings of the "invisible hand" are at
best unlikely, and probably impossible. Hence, in a sense
they accuse the anarcho-capitalists of utopianism.

The anarcho-capitalists charge the left-anarchists
similarly. For the latter imagine that somehow a
communitarian society could exist without forcible
repression of dissenting individualists; think that
incentives for production would not be impaired by enforced
equality; and confusedly equate local democracy with
freedom. Moreover, they generally have no explanation for
how crime would be prevented or what safeguards would
prevent the rise of a new ruling elite. For the
anarcho-capitalist, the left-anarchist is again hopelessly
utopian.

But in any case, probably most anarchists would offer a
similar reply to the charge that they are utopians. Namely:
what is truly utopian is to imagine that somehow the
government can hold massive power without turning it to
monstrous ends. As Rothbard succinctly puts it: "the man who
puts all the guns and all the decision-making power into the
hands of the central government and then says, 'Limit
yourself'; it is he who is truly the impractical utopian."
Is not the whole history of the 20th century an endless list
of examples of governments easily breaking the weak bonds
placed upon their ability to oppress and even murder as they
see fit?

19. Don't anarchists assume that all people are innately
virtuous?

This is a perfectly reasonable question, for it is indeed
the case that some anarchists expect a remarkable change in
human nature to follow (or precede?) the establishment of an
anarchist society. This assumption partially explains the
frequent lack of explanation of how an anarchist society
would handle crime, dissenting individualists, and so on.

The belief in innate human virtue is normally found only
among left-anarchist thinkers, but of course it does not
follow, nor is it true, that all left-anarchist thinkers
believe in humanity's innate human virtue.

Anarcho-capitalists have a very different picture of human
nature. While they normally believe that people have a
strong capacity for virtuous action (and it is to people's
moral sense that they frequently appeal when they favor the
abolition of the state), they believe that it is wise and
necessary to cement moral virtue with material incentives.
Capitalism's system of unequal wages, profits and losses,
rent and interest, is not only morally justified but vitally
necessary for the preservation and expansion of the economy.
In short, anarcho-capitalists believe in and indeed must
depend on some reasonable level of human morality, but
prefer to rely on material incentives when feasible.
(Similarly, they morally condemn crime and believe that most
people have no desire to commit crimes, but strongly favor
some sort of criminal justice system to deter the truly
amoral.)

20. Aren't anarchists terrorists?

Aren't statists terrorists? Well, some of the them are; in
fact, the overwhelming majority of non-governmental groups
who murder and destroy property for political aims believe
that government ought to exist (and that they ought to run
it). And just as the existence of such statist terrorists is
a poor argument for anarchism, the existence of anarchist
terrorists is a poor argument against anarchism. For any
idea whatever, there will always be those who advocate
advancing it by violence.

It is however true that around the turn of the century, a
certain segment of anarchists advocated what they called
"propaganda by the deed." Several heads of state were
assassinated by anarchists, along with businessmen,
industrialists, stock-brokers, and so on. One of the most
famous instances was when the young Alexander Berkman tried
to murder the steel industrialist Henry Frick. During this
era, the left-anarchists were divided as to the
permissibility of terrorism; but of course many strongly
opposed it. And individualist anarchists such as Benjamin
Tucker almost always saw terrorist activities as both
counter-productive and immoral when innocents were injured
(as they often were).

The basic argument of the advocates of "propaganda by the
deed" was that anarchist terrorism would provoke governments
-- even avowedly liberal and democratic governments -- to
resort to increasingly harsh measures to restore order. As
governments' ruthlessness increased, their "true colors"
would appear for all to see, leading to more immediate
results than mere education and theorizing. As E.V. Zenker
notes in his Anarchism: A Criticism and History of the
Anarchist Theory, a number of Western governments were
driven to adopt anti-terrorist laws as a result of anarchist
terrorism. (Zenker goes on to note that Great Britain
remained true to its liberal heritage by refusing to punish
individuals merely for espousing anarchist ideas.) But as
one might expect, contrary to the terrorists' hopes, it was
the reputation of anarchism -- peaceful and violent alike --
which suffered rather than the reputation of the state.

Undoubtedly the most famous modern terrorist in the
tradition of "propaganda by the deed" is the so-called
Unabomber, who explicitly labels himself an anarchist in his
now-famous manifesto. In his manifesto, the Unabomber makes
relatively little attempt to link himself to any particular
figures in the anarchist tradition, but professes
familiarity and general agreement with the anarchistic wing
of the radical environmentalist movement. A large proportion
of this wide-ranging manifesto criticizes environmentalists'
cooperation with socialists, minority rights activists, and
other broadly left-wing groups; the point of this criticism
is not of course to propose an alliance with conservatives,
but to reject alliance with people who fail to reject
technology as such. The more positive portion of the
manifesto argues that freedom and technology are inherently
incompatible, and outlines a program for the destruction of
both modern industry and the scientific knowledge necessary
to sustain it.

The large majority of anarchists -- especially in modern
times -- fervently oppose the killing of innocents on purely
moral grounds (just as most non-anarchists presumably do,
though anarchists would often classify those killed in war
as murder victims of the state). Nonviolence and pacifism
now inspire far more anarchist thinkers than visions of
random terror. Anarchists from many different perspectives
have been inspired by the writings of the 16th-century
Frenchman Etienne de la Boetie, whose quasi-anarchistic The
Discourse of Voluntary Servitude spelled out a detailed
theory of nonviolent revolution. La Boetie explained that
since governments depend upon the widespread belief in their
legitimacy in order to rule, despotism could be peacefully
overthrown by refusing to cooperate with the state. Henry
David Thoreau influenced many nonviolent protest movements
with a similar theme in "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience."
As Thoreau put it: "If the alternative is to keep all just
men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will
not hesitate which to choose." The success of the nonviolent
anti-communist revolutions lends new support to the tactical
insight of la Boetie and Thoreau.

But anarchists have a more instrumental reason to oppose the
use of violence. Terrorism has been very effective in
establishing new and more oppressive regimes; but it is
nearly impossible to find any instance where terrorism led
to greater freedom. For the natural instinct of the populace
is to rally to support its government when terrorism is on
the rise; so terrorism normally leads to greater brutality
and tighter regulation by the existing state. And when
terrorism succeeds in destroying an existing government, it
merely creates a power vacuum without fundamentally changing
anyone's mind about the nature of power. The predictable
result is that a new state, worse than its predecessor, will
swiftly appear to fill the void. Thus, the importance of
using nonviolent tactics to advance anarchist ideas is hard
to overstate.

21. How might an anarchist society be achieved?

On one level, most modern anarchists agree fully that
education and persuasion are the most effective way to move
society towards their ultimate destination. There is the
conviction that "ideas matter"; that the state exists
because most people honestly and firmly believe that the
state is just, necessary, and beneficial, despite a few
drawbacks. Winston Churchill famously remarked that, "It has
been said that democracy is the worst form of government,
except all the others that have been tried." The anarchist's
goal is to disprove Churchill's claim: to show that contrary
to popular belief, Western democracy is not only bad but
inferior to a very different but realistic alternative.

Aside from this, the similarity between anarchist approaches
breaks down. In particular, what should the "transitional"
phase look like? Anarcho-capitalists generally see every
reduction in government power and activity as a step in the
right direction. In consequence, they usually support any
measure to deregulate, repeal laws, and cut taxation and
spending (naturally with the caveat that the cuts do not go
nearly far enough). Similarly, they can only hail the spread
of the underground economy or "black market," tax evasion,
and other acts of defiance against unjust laws.

The desirable transitional path for the left-anarchist is
more problematic. It is hard to support expansion of the
state when it is the state that one opposes so fervently.
And yet, it is difficult to advocate the abolition of e.g.
welfare programs when they are an important means of
subsistence for the oppressed lower classes of capitalist
society. Perhaps the most viable intermediate step would be
to expand the voluntary alternatives to capitalist society:
voluntary communes, cooperatives, worker-owned firms, or
whatever else free people might establish to fulfill their
own needs while they enlighten others.

22. What are some addresses for anarchist World Wide Web sites?

To begin with, there is my homepage at:
+ Bryan Caplan Archives
http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan

I keep the list of addresses short because the sites
provided allow easy access to a large number of related
sites.

Some starting points for discussion of left-anarchism are:

+ Anarchist Archives
http://www.miyazaki-mic.ac.jp/
faculty/dward/Anarchist_Archives/archivehome.html
The best page of its type, in my view.

+ Prominent Anarchists and Left-Libertarians
http://www.tigerden.com/~berios/libertarians.html

+ The Portland Anarchist Web Page
http://www.ee.pdx.edu/~jason/

+ An Anarchy Page
http://www.duke.edu/~eagle/anarchy/

+ Anarchist Yearbook -- Phoenix Press
http://web.cs.city.ac.uk/homes/louise/yearbk.html

+ Spunk Press Catalog
http://www.cwi.nl/cwi/people/Jack.Jansen/spunk/cat-us/Toplevel.html

+ Critiques of Libertarianism
http://world.std.com/~mhuben/libindex.html

+ Burn
http://burn.ucsd.edu/Welcome.html

+ All About Anarchism
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2419/index.html

Some starting points for discussion of anarcho-capitalism are:

+ Free-market.com
http://www.free-market.com

+ James Donald's Liberty Page
http://www.jim.com/jamesd/world.html

+ Institute for Humane Studies
http://mason.gmu.edu/~ihs

+ Niels Buhl Homepage
http://www.math.ku.dk/~buhl

+ Libertarian Web Page
http://lw3.ag.uiuc.edu/liberty/libweb.html

+ International Society for Individual Liberty
http://www.creative.net/~star/

+ Libertarian Alliance
http://www.digiweb.com/igeldard/LA/

+ David Friedman Homepage
http://www.best.com/~ddfr

There are several other anarchism FAQs available on the
web. None of them are to my complete satisfaction;
among other failings, they normally either ignore
anarcho-capitalism entirely, or attack a straw man
version thereof, and thus do little to clarify the most
heated of the net-related debates. On the positive
side, these other FAQs often have much more historical
information than mine does. See for yourself.

+ http://www.ibw.com.ni/~dlabs/anarquismo/every.html
+ http://tigerden.com/~berios/libsoc.html
+ http://www.art.net/Poets/Jennifer/anarchy/archyfaq2.html
+ http://www.vnet.net/users/goodag/birdo/ana.html
+ http://www.wam.umd.edu/~ctmunson/TEXT/sp000284.html

There does exist a FAQ written by Roger McCain on
libertarian socialism and left-anarchism of markedly higher
quality than the preceding five. It is archived at:

+ http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/top/personal/LSfaq/faq_ToC.html

A new, highly detailed FAQ from a left-anarchist perspective
has recently been set up, ostensibly in celebration of the
60th anniversary of the Spanish Revolution. It is available
at:

+ http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931

My FAQ is beginning to amass its share of critics who prefer
to write full-length replies. Those that I am aware of are:

+ Rebuttal to the Anarchism FAQ of Bryan Caplan by Lamont
Granquist

+ Replies to Some Errors and Distortions in Bryan Caplan's
Anarchist Theory FAQ version 4.1.1

My only comment is that it is simply untrue that I have
ignored criticisms of my FAQ. There are numerous points I
have altered or expanded it due to criticism I have
received; and when I disagree with a critic's claim, I
frequently ask permission to quote their reservations
verbatim in the next revision. It is however true that I
only respond to private e-mail criticisms; attacks simply
posted to Usenet are unlikely to come to my attention.

To my knowledge there is no page which contains a broad
survey along the lines of this FAQ. However, these sources
in combination should give a good picture of the wide range
of anarchist opinion, along with more information on history
and current events which I chose not to discuss in detail
herein. Examination of these sites can also give a
reasonable picture of how left-anarchism and anarcho-
capitalism intellectually relate to the broader progressive
and libertarian movements, respectively.

23. What are some major anarchist writings?

This list is by no means intended to be exhaustive; nor does
inclusion here necessarily indicate that the work is of
particularly high quality. In particular, both Heider's and
Marshall's works contain a number of embarrassing factual
errors. (Some of the more glaring errors from Marshall's
Demanding the Impossible appear to have been corrected in
this linked exerpt.)

Particularly well-written and canonical expressions of
different anarchist theories are noted with an asterisk (*).
Broad surveys of anarchism are noted with a number sign (#).

+ Mihail Bakunin. God and the State
+ * Mikhail Bakunin. The Political Philosophy of Bakunin
+ Mikhail Bakunin. Statism and Anarchy
+ Bruce Benson. The Enterprise of Law: Justice without the
State
+ Alexander Berkman. The ABC of Anarchism
+ Etienne de la Boetie. The Discourse of Voluntary
Servitude (also published as The Politics of Obedience:
the Discourse of Voluntary Servitude)
+ Burnett Bolloten. The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and
Counterrevolution
+ Murray Bookchin. Post-Scarcity Anarchism
+ Frank Brooks, ed. The Individualist Anarchists: An
Anthology of Liberty (1881-1908)
+ Roy Childs. Liberty Against Power
+ Frank Chodorov. Fugitive Essays
+ Noam Chomsky. American Power and the New Mandarins
+ Noam Chomsky. The Chomsky Reader
+ Tyler Cowen, ed. The Theory of Market Failure (also
published as Public Goods and Market Failures)
+ Douglas Davis and Charles Holt. Experimental Economics
+ Ronald Fraser. Blood of Spain: An Oral History of the
Spanish Civil War
+ * David Friedman. The Machinery of Freedom
+ William Godwin. The Anarchist Writings of William Godwin
+ Emma Goldman. Anarchism and Other Essays
+ *# Daniel Guerin. Anarchism: From Theory to Practice
+ # Ulrike Heider. Anarchism: Left, Right, and Green
+ Hans-Hermann Hoppe. A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism
+ Anthony de Jasay. Social Contract, Free Ride
+ Leonard Krimerman and Lewis Perry, eds.
Patterns of Anarchy
+ * Peter Kropotkin. The Essential Kropotkin
+ Peter Kropotkin. Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution
+ * Carl Landauer. European Socialism:

A History of Ideas and Movements

+ Bruno Leoni. Freedom and the Law
+ Wendy McElroy. Freedom, Feminism, and the State
+ # Peter Marshall. Demanding the Impossible: A History of
Anarchism
+ James Martin. Men Against the State: The Expositors of
Individualist Anarchism in America, 1827-1908
+ Gustave de Molinari. "The Production of Security"
+ Albert Jay Nock. Our Enemy the State
+ Albert Jay Nock. The State of the Union
+ Robert Nozick. Anarchy, State, and Utopia
+ Franz Oppenheimer. The State
+ David Osterfeld. Freedom, Society, and the State : An
Investigation into the Possibility of Society without
Government
+ *# J. Roland Pennock and John W. Chapman, eds. Anarchism,
Nomos vol.19
+ Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. What is Property?
+ Murray Rothbard.
Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature
+ Murray Rothbard. The Ethics of Liberty
+ * Murray Rothbard. For a New Liberty
+ Murray Rothbard. Power and Market
+ David Schmidtz. The Limits of Government: An Essay on
the Public Goods Argument
+ Lysander Spooner. The Lysander Spooner Reader
+ * Lysander Spooner. No Treason: The Constitution of No
Authority
+ Max Stirner. The Ego and Its Own
+ Morris and Linda Tannehill. The Market for Liberty
+ Henry David Thoreau. The Portable Thoreau
+ Leo Tolstoy.
Tolstoy on Civil Disobedience and Non-Violence
+ Benjamin Tucker.
Instead of a Book, by a Man Too Busy to Write One
+ Gordon Tullock, ed.
Further Explorations in the Theory of Anarchy
+ Robert Paul Wolff. In Defence of Anarchism
+ # George Woodcock.
Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements
+ # E.V. Zenker. Anarchism: A Criticism and History of the
Anarchist Theory

-----------------------------------------------------------

For comments, suggestions, corrections, etc., write
bdca...@gmu.edu. Thanks to Fabio Rojas, James Donald, David
Friedman, Robert Vienneau, Ken Steube, Ben Haller, Vincent Cook,
Bill Woolsey, Conal Smith, Jim Kalb, Chris Faatz, J. Shamlin,
Keith Lynch, Rose Lucas, Bruce Baechler, Jim Cook, Jack Jansen,
Tom Wetzel, Steve Koval, Brent Jass, Tracy Harms, Ian Goddard,
and I.M. McKay for helpful advice or other assistance.

Return to Bryan Caplan Homepage

[jum...@my-deja.com]

Review: Fight Club (1999) Author: Jon Popick <jpo...@sick-boy.com>
Date: 1999/10/15 Forum: rec.arts.movies.reviews

PLANET SICK-BOY: http://www.sick-boy.com

David Fincher’s (The Game) latest film begins at the end - in a
high-rise office building where protagonist and narrator Jack (Edward
Norton, American History X) is asked, with a pistol jammed into his
mouth, if he has any last words. The gunman is Tyler Durden (Brad
Pitt, Meet Joe Black), who explains to Jack that he has planted
explosives in several nearby buildings with the intent of leveling
several city blocks. We know this is the end of the film, and Jack’s
story is revealed through his nightmarish narrative flashback.

There is a reason we never learn Jack’s name; he’s supposed to
represent an anonymous 30-year-old single white professional male -
the kind that is slowly realizing that they have no purpose in life,
other than toiling away in a white-button-down-shirt job all day and
watching sitcoms from the comfort of their IKEA couch at night. They
are the middle generation – raised by women and without either a Great
War or a Great Depression. Their great depression is existence.

Once Jack takes us to the beginning of his tale, we learn that he
works for a major automobile manufacturer, investigating accidents
caused by faulty design to determine whether a recall would be cost
effective for the company. He also suffers from insomnia, a condition
that his doctor refuses to cure via prescription medication. The
doctor suggests depressed Jack get more exercise and tells him to
cheer up, implying that he check out a support group at St.
Christopher’s Church to see the real misery of the human condition.

The support group is for men that have been gelded due to testicular
cancer. Jack is paired up with Robert Paulsen (Meat Loaf, Black Dog)
a giant man with giant “bitch-tits” as a result of female hormone
treatments. After a weepy Robert pours his heart out to him, Jack
gets the best night of sleep he’s had in months. As a result, Jack
becomes somewhat of a support-group junkie, attending meetings for
victims of tuberculosis, sickle-cell anemia and melanoma, among other
afflictions.

After a year of touring the anguish and sorrow circuit, Jack meets two
people that will change his life forever. One is Marla Singer (Helena
Bonham Carter, Theory of Flight), a suicidal woman he notices at all
of the support group meetings. The second is Tyler, a soap salesman
with extensive knowledge in explosives that Jack meets on an airplane.
Because of a fire in his condo, Jack takes up residence with Tyler,
who lives in an immense dilapidated house in an abandoned part of the
city.

As Jack and Tyler bond, they discover that pummeling each other is a
great therapeutic way to unload all of the pressure of being young
white men. They regularly hold fistfights each Saturday outside a
dive bar called Lou’s Tavern and soon are joined by other
disillusioned young white men. Eventually, the “Fight Club” moves
into the dirt-floored basement of Lou’s Tavern and is subjected to
several rules (you probably already know the first one).

While Jack is thrilled at the idea of Fight Club and all it
represents, he suspects Tyler of deviant ulterior motives. Just who
is Tyler Durden and why do all of these complete strangers seem to
become his disciples so quickly? How did he manage to score Marla as a
sex partner? Jack also learns that Fight Club is open on nights other
than Saturday and has heard rumors that Durden has opened branches in
other cities, as well.

As their relationship fizzles, so does Jack’s remaining semblance of a
life. He comes to work disheveled, bloodied and without a tie. He
fantasizes about Marla and he grows increasingly suspicious of Tyler’s
nihilistic and mysterious goals of “freeing” men from the drudgery of
their lives.

Fight Club is one heck of a brutally graphic film. Visually, it’s
amazing, with Fincher pulling no punches in creating the gritty
underworld of indifferent men. The story is based on Chuck
Palahniuk’s novel, who allegedly wrote it long-hand while working as a
truck mechanic. Palahniuk’s story will leave some people slack-jawed,
some nauseous, some cold and some afraid to walk through the theater
parking lot to get to their cars. Thanks to Fincher’s direction (as
well as his production team – editor Jim Haygood and cinematographer
Jeff Cronenweth from The Game) you can almost feel every punch thrown
in the film.

Although there are plenty of fantastic scenes in the film, two in
particular have the misfortune of following recent pictures with
similar content - American Beauty and The Sixth Sense. I won’t say
what the similarities are, but after you see Fight Club, it will be
pretty obvious. Despite this bad luck, Fight Club is still a
fantastic flick and almost seems ahead of its time in terms of social
message and violent content.

2:19 – R for disturbing and graphic depiction of violent anti-social
behavior, sexuality and language

=============================================================

Review: Fight Club (1999) Author: Scott Renshaw
<ren...@inconnect.com> Date: 1999/10/14 Forum:
rec.arts.movies.reviews

FIGHT CLUB (20th Century Fox) Starring: Brad Pitt, Edward Norton,
Helena Bonham Carter, Meat Loaf. Screenplay: Jim Uhls, based on the
novel by Chuck Palahniuk. Producers: Art Linson, Cean Chaffin and Ross
Grayson Bell. Director: David Fincher. MPAA Rating: R (violence, gore,
profanity, sexual situations, nudity) Running Time: 139 minutes.
Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.

In this Year of Our Lord 1999, when all things millennial are hotter
than the coming Apocalyptic purges, I give you David Fincher --
official filmmaker of the dark night of our collective 21st century
soul. SEVEN was one of the decade's most chilling visions of societal
madness made flesh; THE GAME turned existential crisis into engrossing
suspense. No one in popular culture seems to understand our demons
better. No one more effectively shows the deceptive ease with which
our stable world can be yanked out from under us.

In his adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's savagely brilliant novel FIGHT
CLUB, Fincher delves once again into the bowels of our uber-psyche --
quite literally in the propulsive, Dust Brothers-scored opening
credits sequence -- and announces that a lot of us are walking very
close to the edge. Our narrator (Edward Norton) is not unnamed
without cause. He's an anonymous man driven to compulsive
designer-label shopping and chronic insomnia by a dehumanizing job (he
investigates malfunctions for an auto manufacturer, deciding whether a
recall will be more expensive than paying out-of-court personal injury
settlements), a man who attends illness support groups for cathartic
release he can find nowhere else. Then he meets Tyler Durden (Brad
Pitt), a man with a vision. After an evening of bonding during which
they gleefully beat each other up, Tyler and the narrator begin Fight
Club, an underground organization where ordinary men release their
inner beasts through bare-knuckle brawls, and ... well, the first rule
of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club.

It might surprise a lot of people to discover that FIGHT CLUB is
actually a comedy. Certainly it's not a comedy in the BIG DADDY or
MICKEY BLUE EYES sense, and not just because this one is actually
funny. It's a comedy like A CLOCKWORK ORANGE was a comedy, a social
satire so caustic you laugh with a sharp intake of breath. Norton's
wonderfully dry narration includes dozens of scathing punch lines,
many of them drawn directly from Palahniuk's text. Some of FIGHT
CLUB's conceits are outrageously inspired, like guerrilla theater
projectionist Tyler splicing single frames of pornography into family
films, or the creation of boutique soap from liposuctioned human fat
("We were selling rich ladies their own asses back to them at $20 a
bar"). As performed by Norton, a perfectly manic Pitt and Helena
Bonham Carter (the emotional burn-out who becomes Tyler's lover),
FIGHT CLUB is startlingly hilarious.

And it had to be; there's no other way to tell a story like FIGHT CLUB
without wallowing in didacticism. Many critics and social
conservatives have already offered up kill-the-messenger diatribes
against the film's brutality and anarchist sub-plots, yet another
depressing reminder that some people need their messages delivered to
them in solemn "isn't this a very, very bad thing" tones. At its
heart, FIGHT CLUB is a warning about the percolating discontent that
has exploded into well-publicized acts of violence in this country. It
also peeks into the capacity for violent action we may not even
realize we possess, the testosterone id bubbling beneath the veneer of
civilization. As Tyler becomes a messiah for his disaffected
devotees, FIGHT CLUB shows just how quickly fascism can materialize
when the rabble are roused. If the approach to those subjects had
ever become overtly preachy, FIGHT CLUB would have become a glossy
social science dissertation -- a big screen version of Susan Faludi's
emasculated-American-male study "Stiffed." Instead, FIGHT CLUB taps
into something primal, then takes it into the realm of the absurd --
subliminal penises, liposuction soap and all.

Weaving it all together is Fincher, as distinctive and unconventional
a filmmaker as any working in mainstream theatrical films. FIGHT CLUB
is a kinetic work with plenty of visual flourishes and jolting sound
design, yet it never feels like an all-out sensory pummeling -- it's
the film Oliver Stone probably wanted NATURAL BORN KILLERS to be, but
lacked the subtlety to pull of. The film only sags during a late
surge of exposition, a necessary evil that still feels awkward. When
Fincher is allowed to plunge into FIGHT CLUB's dizzying array of
themes and subtexts, the result is as provocatively entertaining a
film as you could hope for. If the violence unnerves -- or becomes
even more unnerving when accompanied by vicious wit -- that's only
because it should. FIGHT CLUB keeps you off balance, its incendiary
vision leavened by the unexpected humor. This time around, David
Fincher gets to whistle in the dark night of our collective 21st
century soul.

On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 soap operas: 9.

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Review: Fight Club (1999)
Author: Susan Granger <Ssg...@aol.com>
Date: 1999/10/14
Forum: rec.arts.movies.reviews

http://www.speakers-podium.com/susangranger.

Susan Granger's review of "FIGHT CLUB" (20th Century-Fox)

First rule of Fight Club: You do not talk about Fight Club. So, right
away, I'm in trouble with this bleak, profoundly disturbing,
testosterone-laden contemporary study of emasculation and insanity.
Edward Norton is the nameless narrator. He's a bored, bitter, yuppie
insomniac with no family or close friends. For company, he joins
cancer and other disease-support groups, while Brad Pitt is Tyler
Durden, a devious, charismatic anarchist who challenges him, taunting
"How much can you know about yourself if you've never been in a
fight?" He introduces Norton to the raw, animalistic instinct for
survival. When their bare-fist brawls outside a bar attract cheering
crowds, they create an underground network of secret, private clubs
where self-destructive, disillusioned professionals can seek solace
from despair by pummeling each other to smithereens. "This is your
life," Durden says, "and it's ending one day at a time." Soon Durden
becomes a subversive cult hero, a grungy messiah for the
sado-masochists of an emotionally-dead generation suffering from the
onslaught of consumerism and technology. And Helena Bonham Carter is
the funny, foul-mouthed, chain-smoking, self-help junkie who comes
between the two men. Adapted for the screen by Jim Uhls from Chuck
Palahniuk's gritty best-seller and directed by David Fincher
("Seven"), it's a fast-paced, stylized man's movie, exploring the
psychology of violence, complete with a sub-plot involving bath soap
made from human body fat from a liposuction clinic. Both Norton and
Pitt deliver knockout performances, relishing the wry, cruel nihilist
humor. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Fight Club" is an
insidious, cynical, savage 8. But it's socially irresponsible and
repellent in its graphic depictions of extreme violence and brutality.

==============

Source: Newsweek, Oct 18, 1999 p77.
Title: A Fistful of Darkness: David Fincher's bleak and angry 'Fight
Club' wants to disturb you--but it may be trying a little too
hard.(MOVIES)(Arts and Entertainment)(Review)_(movie reviews)
Author: David Ansen

People: Norton, Edward
Bonham Carter, Helena
Pitt, Brad

Full Text COPYRIGHT 1999 Newsweek, Inc.

Jack (Edward Norton), the narrator of David Fincher's seriously
wacked-out "Fight Club," is an insomniac wage slave so alienated from
his life he takes to frequenting support groups. He starts with Men's
Testicular Cancer. Sobbing in the arms of men whose afflictions he
pretends to share, he finds a temporary freedom by abandoning all
hope. Soon he's become a recovery-group addict. Every night he finds a
different group--sickle-cell therapy, bowel cancer--until his quest is
spoiled by the presence of another "tourist" like himself, the
ashen-faced, chain-smoking Marla (Helena Bonham Carter). How can he
cry with another faker in the room?

So begins, promisingly and perversely, this darkest of dark satires
from the director of the pitch-black "Seven" and the ultraparanoid
"The Game." But Fincher's alternately amazing and annoying movie,
written by Jim Uhls from a Chuck Palahniuk novel, has bolder
provocations to come. On a business flight Jack meets the nihilist
guru Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), an anarchic Pied Piper in pimp's
clothes who promises to lead this sorry Everyman to a higher Truth.
Tyler sees through the facade of consumerist culture, with its
meaningless devotion to materialism and self-improvement. He is given
to grand pronouncements: "It's only after we've lost everything that
we are free to do anything." "The things you own end up owning you."
This charismatic prankster is the sort of fellow who, working briefly
as a projectionist (in a bit stolen from Terry Southern's "The Magic
Christian"), inserts subliminal frames of a penis into Hollywood
family fare.

Taking Jack in when his apartment is destroyed by an explosion, Tyler
initiates him into the ultrasecret male society called Fight Club. In
parking lots and dark basement rooms, the members gleefully bash each
other to a bloody pulp, and we are meant to understand that some deep
atavistic warrior instinct is being satisfied. In the ecstatic blood
rites of Fight Club, emasculated, feminized modern man can find the
meaning corporate society denies him. (Susan Faludi should demand a
percentage: did someone slip the screenwriter an advance copy of
"Stiffed"?)

Already, however, strange subtexts are piling up. All these guys
masochistically lining up to be beaten by Brad Pitt... The
homoeroticism is off the charts, but "Fight Club" can't bring itself
to account for it. And when the movie, after satirizing the
gym-enhanced bodies of men in Gucci subway ads ("Self-improvement is
masturbation," Tyler pronounces), cuts to the impeccably lean and cut
body of its leading man, it is in the grips of a style-content
contradiction that this slick denunciation of surface values battles
throughout.

We are clued in by the dankly hallucinatory style that "Fight Club"
transpires somewhere to the left of the real world, like an emanation
of the untrammeled male id. Reality becomes even more tenuous when
Fight Club itself expands and transforms itself into Project Mayhem.
Armies of black-clad urban terrorists take to the streets smashing car
windows, trashing public art, building bombs. In the funniest outrage,
members are urged to go out and pick a fight with the first person
they come across: it plays like a satanic version of "Candid Camera."

What is the audience to make of Tyler Durden? Played with great
bravado by Pitt, he's a kind of Nietzschean Robin Hood, using violence
to restore dignity to the benighted American male. But when the real
deaths start to pile up, even Jack begins to have qualms about where
his bloodthirsty master is leading him.

By this point in Fincher's long fever dream of a movie, the audience's
qualms may be mounting as well. Just as he let "The Game" fritter away
its power in a preposterous conclusion, Fincher inflates "Fight Club"
with apocalyptic mayhem that's positively Wagnerian in its pretension.
There is a major plot twist a la "The Sixth Sense" that I won't
divulge. It's clearly meant to spin the movie into a provocative new
orbit of meaning, but it reads more as if the story has boxed itself
into a corner and can't find a way out. The movie doesn't so much end
as self-destruct. In the final frames, Fincher inserts the same porno
images Tyler had subversively projected, and it's hard not to think of
this as a gesture of contempt for the audience. No wonder we leave
feeling more surly and exhausted than satisfied. Yet this is not a
movie that can be easily dismissed--or forgotten. An outrageous
mixture of brilliant technique, puerile philosophizing, trenchant
satire and sensory overload, "Fight Club" is the most incendiary movie
to come out of Hollywood in a long time. It's a mess, but one worth
fighting about.

Fight Club. Twentieth Century Fox. Opens Oct. 15.

=============================================================

Source: Entertainment Weekly, Oct 15, 1999 i507 p24+.
Title: Blood, Sweat & Fears: WITH THEIR BLOODY BUDDY PICTURE,
FIGHT CLUB, BRAD PITT, EDWARD NORTON, AND BLEAK-CHIC
DIRECTOR DAVID FINCHER, GET READY TO RUMBLE.
People: Fincher, David - Interviews

Full Text COPYRIGHT 1999 Time, Inc.

"First rule of Fight Club: You do not talk about Fight Club. Second
rule of Fight Club: You do not talk about Fight Club." --TYLER DURDEN
IN FIGHT CLUB

First rule of interviewing David Fincher: talk all you want about
Fight Club. Ask him anything that pops into your head about his new
$65 million film starring Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham
Carter. About its unrelenting violence. Its murky morality. Its
provocative politics (which one outraged critic has already denounced
as "fascist"). Go ahead, ask. He won't hit you.

"This is the part of the interview where you ask who the hell do I
think I am and what the hell do I think I'm doing," correctly observes
the 37-year-old director of what could turn out to be the most
controversial release from a major studio since Natural Born Killers.
"But, you know, I honestly don't get what the big deal is. I've always
thought people would think the film was funny. It's supposed to be
satire. A dark comedy. I think it's funny. But I dunno," he goes on,
stumbling onto an epiphany, "maybe I have a different take on funny."

Oh, he has a different take all right, and not just on funny. As one
of the most subversive mainstream filmmakers in Hollywood--the man who
made moral ambiguity and psychological dubiety into a marketable
cinematic style with his 1995 serial-killer thriller Seven and his
1997 Michael Douglas mind trip The Game--you can always count on
Fincher for different.

Still, even by his sublimely warped standards, Fight Club is a
shocker, a film so harrowingly brutal and unabashedly out there it
makes that elephant-dung art at the Brooklyn Museum of Art look about
as disturbing as a big-eyed Walter Keane pixie. Norton (American
History X, The People vs. Larry Flynt) plays the movie's insomniac
narrator, a corporate drone alienated by his cookie-cutter job and
consumerist lifestyle; his only true joy is crashing support group
meetings for the terminally ill. Pitt (who's done Fincher's bleak
brand of "comedy" before, starring in Seven) plays his newfound pal
Tyler Durden, a mysterious (and none-too-hygienic) soap salesman who
helps Norton's character get in touch with his inner anarchist.
Together, they start a support group of their own--Fight Club--where
disillusioned men from all walks of life learn to work through their
pain and find emotional insight by beating each other's heads into
bloody pulps.

"There's something about getting hit in the face that gives you an
adrenalized version of life that's very profound," Fincher says as he
relaxes in the sunroom of the Los Feliz, Calif., rental where he's
spent the last few months putting a postproduction polish on his film.
"It's like nothing else you experience in life."

There's more. Like a story line about a cabal of anti-IKEA terrorists
scheming to bring down the evil home-furnishings empire (and other
oppressors, like Starbucks and Calvin Klein) by sabotaging corporate
art and blowing up office towers; a sadistic love triangle involving
Bonham Carter (Wings of the Dove) as a suicidal Goth goddess named
Marla (who's wearing what looks like Marilyn Manson's eye shadow); and
a surprise ending so shocking (and complicated) we'd have trouble
revealing it even if we wanted to. And all of it unspools in a
synapse-frying rush of flashbacks, jump cuts, and stylish special
effects that hang together more like a Mobius strip than a motion
picture. There's even not-quite-subliminal footage of X-rated body
parts, though perhaps subliminal inch-age describes some of the
inserts better.

"This isn't the sort of movie you just sit back and watch," Fincher
warns. "This is a movie that's downloaded in front of you. It doesn't
wait for you. If you don't keep up, you're lost. It's like you've
tripped and sprained your ankle. You have to tell the rest of the
audience, 'Go on, go ahead without me!'"

Some people will undoubtedly enjoy the ride. In fact, a few critics
have already declared Fight Club brilliant ("an orgiastic pop
masterpiece," according to American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis'
review). But when 20th Century Fox opens the film to the public on
Oct. 15, Fincher may be dealing with more than sprained ankles. In the
current post-Columbine climate, with Congress contemplating
legislation to regulate violence in entertainment and Oliver Stone
battling in court over crimes supposedly inspired by Natural Born
Killers, a movie this viscerally savage and morally fuzzy--a film that
could be misconstrued as actually advocating violence--is bound to be
explosive. The only question is, how loud will its boom be?

Even the film's biggest star recommends taking cover. "Fincher is
piloting the Enola Gay on this one," Pitt predicts. "He's got the
A-bomb."

"I want you to make me pregnant. I want to have your abortion."
--MARLA

Turns out the executive at Fox who discovered Fight Club, or at least
who purchased the film rights to the 1996 first novel by Oregon
mechanic Charles Palahniuk, was none other than Laura Ziskin, the
producer who launched her career nearly 10 years ago by reworking a
dark, edgy screenplay about a down-and-out prostitute in L.A. into a
frothy romantic bubble bath called Pretty Woman.

This time, though, Ziskin didn't slip any Roy Orbison songs onto the
soundtrack.

"I was sitting at the edge of my bed in the middle of the night
reading passages of this book to my family and calling up colleagues
on the phone saying, 'You have to hear this dialogue!'" says Ziskin,
recalling her first bout with Fight Club. "The ideas in the book were
so potent and compelling and original."

Fincher had spent a sleepless night with the novel as well--he'd even
tried to bid on the movie rights himself--so it wasn't long before he
was sitting in Ziskin's office pitching his directorial services. "It
was one of those jerk-off meetings where you come in and say how great
it's going to be," he recalls. "I told Laura we could do the movie a
number of different ways. We could do it for $3 million on videotape,
a sort of anarchist cookbook version. Or we could really go for it,
try to embrace everything in the book, like the scene with the plane
exploding in midair and the car crashing...."

Fox liked the second version, although originally the studio was
planning on embracing only about $50 million worth of the novel.
First-time screenwriter Jim Uhls was hired to translate Palahniuk's
prose into a shootable script ("A faithful fleshing out" is how the
novelist reviews the results), and Fincher started fishing around for
movie stars willing to take on the film's raunchy roles. Sean Penn was
briefly talked about for Pitt's part; Courtney Love was mentioned for
Marla, the movie's only significant female character ("Too busy," says
Norton, explaining why his ex-girlfriend didn't do the film).

Of course, back during those early stages of preproduction--in 1997
B.C. (Before Columbine)--the violence-in-entertainment debate wasn't
the front-burner political issue it is today. Nobody was particularly
troubled by the film's bone-crunching milieu, or even paid much
attention to it. Norton, for one, saw the movie as a '90s update of a
classic '60s love story. "It reminded me of The Graduate," he says.
"My grandfather was very uncomfortable with The Graduate. He thought
it was negative and inappropriate. But my father loved it, thought it
was a great metaphoric black comedy that dealt with his generation's
feeling of disjointedness. And that's exactly what Fight Club is. My
character is sort of like Benjamin, and Brad's character is like a
postmodern Mrs. Robinson."

One word: plastiques.

In any case, Pitt wasn't deterred by Fight Club's violence, either. In
fact, he was so elated at the prospect of working with Fincher again
(understandably, since Seven was the actor's last movie to hit $100
million at the box office) he sprinted to the director's house to seal
the deal. Recalls Fincher: "I hung up the phone and he was knocking at
my door in, like, four minutes. And I live in a gated community. I
don't know how he got past security."

"Finch is hyperbolizing the moment a little," Pitt semi-corroborates,
"but, yeah, I was pretty excited about doing it. I hadn't read
anything like it, and I read everything. It's an astounding,
extraordinary, amazing movie," he gushes, inventing his own Fight Club
rule (talk about Fight Club, but only in superlatives). "It's a
pummeling of information. It's Mr. Fincher's Opus. It's provocative,
but thank God it's provocative. People are hungry for films like this,
films that make them think."

The movie certainly forced Pitt into some heavy thinking. "Fincher,
Norton, and I had endless discussions about it before we started
filming," he goes on. "We sat around for months batting around ideas,
breaking apart every line like it was Shakespeare. It's such a hard
film to get a handle on. How do you characterize something you've
never seen before?"

Oddly enough, about the only thing Pitt didn't contemplate during
those long months of pre-filming rap sessions was what effect playing
Tyler Durden--by far the ugliest role this prettiest of movie stars
has ever undertaken--might have on his career. For an actor like
Norton, who made his name by slipping into dark, difficult parts
(earning his first Oscar nomination for his turn as a choirboy
psychopath in 1996's Primal Fear), Fight Club was a no-brainer. But
Pitt? Playing a nihilist antihero who shaves his head, urinates in
cafeteria food, and manufactures his soap in ways that are 99 44/100
percent impure? "Actually, I didn't think about that too much," he
says. "It didn't seem gutsy to me at all. It seemed like it would be
foolish not to do it."

"People who don't know Brad think he's a strange choice for the role,"
Fincher acknowledges. "But people who do know him--who know the Brad
Pitt who hangs out at his house with his five dogs, who chain-smokes,
who lives under an inch of dust--they think he's perfect."

As it happens, the only one who expressed any reservations about
appearing in Mr. Fincher's Opus was Bonham Carter. "I was the last one
on board," says the English actress. "I wanted to meet Fincher just to
ascertain that he wasn't a complete misogynist. The script was awfully
dark, and in bad hands it could have been immature or possibly even
irresponsible. But after meeting him, I could tell that it wasn't
going to be a concern. He's not just an all-out testost package. He's
got a healthy feminist streak."

During shooting, Fox maintained a mostly hands-off policy toward
Fincher. But there was one moment when Ziskin felt compelled to put
her foot down--when she saw dailies of a post-coital scene in which
Bonham Carter delivered that line about wanting to have Tyler's
abortion. Fincher remembers her reaction: "She came to me with her
voice quivering and said, 'You know, we just can't release a movie
that has that line in it. Will you please shoot something different.'"
He obliged, penning Bonham Carter's replacement line himself: "That
was the best f--- I've had since grade school."

"After we previewed the picture, Laura came up to me," Fincher says,
laughing. "She said, 'Please put the abortion line back in.'"

He didn't.

"This buttoned-down schizophrenic could probably go over the edge at
any moment in the working day and stalk from office to office with an
Armalite AR-180 carbine gas-operated semiautomatic." --FIGHT CLUB'S
NARRATOR TO HIS BOSS

Originally, Fox had slated Fight Club for release last July, opposite
Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. But last April, two lunatic
teenagers wearing black trench coats went on a shooting spree in
Colorado. Suddenly, fairly or not, Hollywood became ground zero in a
political and cultural battle over the roots of teen violence. A
frenzy of proposals aimed at curbing Hollywood's supposed excesses
whipped through both the Senate and the House (most were eventually
voted down, but a bill to begin a special congressional investigation
of Hollywood's creative practices, complete with subpoena powers, is
still under consideration).

None of the above had anything to do with Fight Club's release being
bumped back three months, at least according to Fincher. "It just
wasn't ready," he says. "There was a lot of concern about the length
of the movie. I had it down to two and a half hours, but we wanted to
get it down to two-nineteen. I needed more time."

Still, the Columbine tragedy (and the three other mass killings given
saturation media coverage since then) has put a distinct chill in the
air. And whatever else Fight Club may be--an orgiastic pop
masterpiece, a fascist rant, a remake of The Graduate--it will
definitely make a tempting bull's-eye.

At this writing, with the movie only just arriving in theaters, it's
too early for reaction from the usual Hollywood bashers. "I'm lucky if
I see one movie in six months," says former Family Research Council
leader Gary Bauer, reluctantly admitting that his jihad against the
entertainment-industrial complex may have lost some steam ("I cannot
find any constitutional case that I could make that would permit
government limitations on this sort of thing," he says). Conservative
moralist Bill Bennett hasn't viewed Fight Club either, although he was
quoted in Larry King's USA Today column blasting the film's "illicit,
pummeling free-for-alls." And while there's no word yet from Kathie
Lee Gifford--who, Pitt recalls, once advised her viewers that it was
their "moral imperative" not to see Fincher's Seven--you don't have to
get up early in the morning to figure out which way her thumb will
probably end up turning.

Of course, fundamentalist presidential candidates and perky
morning-talk-show hostesses aren't exactly Fight Club's target
demographic; in fact, they're precisely the sort of people the movie
hopes to offend. "I don't really care what Bill 'S---head' Bennett
thinks about this movie," Fight Club producer Art Linson lets loose.
"I don't care if he thinks it's irresponsible. It's not irresponsible.
The fact is, there's more violence in the first five minutes of Saving
Private Ryan than you'd see watching Fight Club four times. To me,
Spielberg's movie is the one bordering on irresponsible, with all
those limbs flying around on the beach."

"Art has always reflected society," Norton offers more calmly. "Art
doesn't invent violence. It doesn't inspire violence. This movie
examines violence and the roots of frustration that are causing people
to reach out for such radical solutions. And that's exactly the sort
of discussion we should be having about our culture. Because a culture
that doesn't examine its violence is a culture in denial, which is
much more dangerous."

Elegantly put. But you don't have to be a right-wing cinemaphobe to
wonder whether Fight Club's true target audience--young males in their
teens and 20s--will be quite so subtly Socratic in their
interpretation of the movie. Or to worry that some may walk away with
an entirely different message. Already there have been ominous
(although unsubstantiated) rumors of real-life versions of Palahniuk's
fictional Fight Clubs popping up in New York and California. If true,
Fincher may want to give Oliver Stone's lawyers a call.

Even New York City college professors have some concerns. "I found the
film fascinating and provocative, often scathingly funny, and
ultimately requiring a real leap of faith in psychological
projection," ruminates Annette Insdorf, director of undergraduate film
studies at Columbia University, who saw a sneek peek of Fight Club
last summer. "But, yeah, I am worried about young males. What bothers
me is that the body is rendered as an object upon which pain can and
should be inflicted. I can see people asking if impressionable young
men will be inclined to play Fight Club. But then," she says, adding a
caveat, "I was concerned when Rambo came out too."

Fincher, meanwhile, is still stuck on the comedy thing: "People say
this movie advocates violence, but did M*A*S*H advocate alcoholism?
That's how the characters in that movie dealt with their circumstances
in Korea. And this is how the characters in this movie deal with their
circumstances. This isn't A Clockwork Orange. It was never intended to
be. It's a fairy tale, a coming-of-age story about choosing a path to
maturity.

"You know, I'm 37 years old," he goes on. "I don't purport for a
second to know what a film should be, what entertainment should be,
how much it should teach, how much it should titillate. I'm just
trying to make a good, funny movie." And then the slightest glimmer of
what might be doubt creeps into his tired, red-around-the-edges eyes.
"You didn't think it was funny?"

What was that first rule of Fight Club again?

(Additional reporting by Daniel Fierman)

=============================================================

Source: Time, Oct 11, 1999 v154 i15 p83.
Title: Conditional Knockout: Fight Club packs a visual punch, but
its violent vision of male angst won't score with everyone.
(The Arts/Cinema)(Review)_(movie reviews)
Author: Richard Schickel
People: Norton, Edward
Pitt, Brad
Fincher, David

Full Text COPYRIGHT 1999 Time, Inc.

Let's say your life is so anonymous that the movie's credits list you
only as "Narrator." Let's also say the symptoms of that condition
include near terminal insomnia and an unsatisfiable urge for catalog
shopping. Might you not then join a support group for the victims of
TB or testicular cancer, just so you could hug, sob and generally
surface some feelings, even if you don't actually have one of those
diseases?

If your answer to that question is, "Are you kidding?" then Fight Club
is not for you, though it must be said that early on, it funnily
realizes the satirical possibilities of 12-stepping your way through
life. The film remains strong when Edward Norton's Narrator meets
Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) on an airplane. He's everything Norton
isn't--a bruising truth teller with a taste for urban anarchism. He's
the kind of guy who splices pornographic flash cuts into family movies
when he works as a projectionist, who pees in the soup when he works
as a banquet waiter.

His big idea is, well, yes, a fight club--a basement he commandeers
where ordinary guys can come and beat the crap out of each other in
bare-knuckle, no-holds-barred combat. This really puts them in touch
with their feelings, which are incoherently rageful.

It also puts viewers in touch with director David Fincher's preferred
mise-en-scene, which is almost always dark and, more important,
damp--with rusty water, gushing blood and other bodily fluids of less
determinable origins. It's definitely a style--see his Seven of a few
years ago--and it enforces the contrast between the sterilities of his
characters' aboveground life and their underground one. Water, even
when it's polluted, is the source of life; blood, even when it's
carelessly spilled, is the symbol of life being fully lived. To put
his point simply: it's better to be wet than dry.

Before long, Tyler has a chain of fight clubs up and running all over
the country and is molding their members into a paramilitary
organization that aims, finally, to blow up all the credit-card
companies and, just for good measure, TRW. It is along about here that
Fight Club, which is Jim Uhls' adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's novel,
lurches from satire into fantasy. For we begin to realize that the
hunky Pitt is the willowy Norton's doppelganger, a projection of
fantasies about masculine mastery.

The movie manages this smoothly enough--both actors are excellent--but
there's something conventionally gimmicky about the way it plays its
reality/unreality game--of a lazy piece with its failure to do
anything interesting with the woman in the story, Helena Bonham
Carter's neurotically gnarly representation of feminism's failures to
create a more sympathetic female.

Yet whatever its flaws--and they will, for some, include its brutal,
off-putting imagery--Fight Club can't be ignored. It is working
American Beauty-Susan Faludi territory, that illiberal, impious,
inarticulate fringe that threatens the smug American center with an
anger that cannot explain itself, can act out its frustrations only in
inexplicable violence.

--R.S.

===============================================================

[jum...@my-deja.com]

Source: Variety, Sept 13, 1999 v376 i4 p47.
Title: FIGHT CLUB.(Review)
Author: DAVID ROONEY
People: Fincher, David
Pitt, Brad

Norton, Edward
Bonham Carter, Helena

Full Text COPYRIGHT 1999 Cahners Publishing Company

(DRAMA)

A 20th Century Fox release of a Fox 2000 Pictures/Regency Enterprises
presentation of a Linson Films production. Produced by Art Linson,
Cean Chaffin, Ross Grayson Bell. Executive producer, Arnon Milchan.

Directed by David Fincher. Screenplay, Jim Uhls, based on the novel by
Chuck Palahniuk. Camera (Technicolor, Panavision), Jeff Cronenweth;
editor, James Haygood; music, the Dust Brothers; production designer,
Alex McDowell; art director, Chris Gorak; set decorator, Jay R. Hart;
costume designer, Michael Kaplan; sound (Dolby), Jeff Wexler; sound
design, Ren Klyce; special makeup effects supervisor, Rob Bottin;
associate producer, John S. Dorsey; assistant director, Mike
Topoozian; casting, Laray Mayfield. Reviewed at Venice Film Festival
(Dreams and Visions), Sept. 10, 1999. Running time: 139 MIN.

Tyler Durden Brad Pitt
Narrator Edward Norton
Marla Singer Helena Bonham Carter
Robert Paulsen Meat Loaf Aday
Angel Face Jared Leto

Rarely has a film been so keyed into its time -- in ways that,
commercially, will be both advantageous and damaging -- as "Fight
Club." On one hand, the Fox 2000 feature is the perfect reflection of
the millennium malaise that pits pervasive nihilism against an urgent
need for something to grasp onto; on the other, it caps off a period
in which the media and Washington have never been so assiduous in
pointing the finger at Hollywood over the impact of screen violence on
society and on youth in particular. But despite certain hostility from
some sectors, especially in the U.S., this bold, inventive, sustained
adrenaline rush of a movie about a guru who advocates brutality and
mayhem should excite and exhilarate young audiences everywhere in
significant numbers.

From "Alien3" through "Seven" and "The Game," David Fincher has always
been attracted to dark material. In Chuck Palahniuk's novel of the
same name about a cult of men who channel their pent-up physical
aggression into increasingly destructive pursuits, the director has
found his most disturbing subject matter yet. And in debuting
screenwriter Jim Uhls' clever, savagely witty script and the
unremitting volley of information it launches, Fincher has found the
perfect countermeasures to balance his coldly atmospheric, often
distancing style.

The position on violence here can be read on a number of levels.
Somewhat controversially in light of the post-Littleton, Colo.,
debate, "Fight Club" plays mischievously with film conventions, almost
winking at the audience to convey the characters' awareness of being
part of a movie that deals in hot-button issues. This rather
audaciously gives the impression of a film throwing the responsibility
for violence back onto society and refusing to accept blame.

Set in an unidentified, semi-stylized city, the story's nameless
narrator (Edward Norton) is introduced with a gun in his mouth before
backing up six months to recap his troubles with insomnia. Refusing to
treat him, a doctor instructs him instead to sit in on a testicular
cancer victims' group to put his own pain in perspective. He quickly
becomes addicted to support groups for a range of terminal illnesses,
freely weeping and embracing his "fellow" sufferers as a means to find
the release he needs to sleep.

But the arrival of another tourist, Marla Singer (Helena Bonham
Carter), makes him uncomfortable with his dishonesty. Her blithe
admission that the support groups are "cheaper than a movie and
there's free coffee" is one of many instances in which pitch-black,
corrosive humor touches subjects that will make many audiences blanch
with indignation.

Around this time, he meets enigmatic Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), who
makes and sells soap for a living while moonlighting as a
projectionist, splicing pornographic images into family films, and as
a waiter, sabotaging meals. When the narrator's apartment and all his
diligently accumulated material possessions are destroyed in a freak
explosion, he calls Tyler for a place to stay.

[Graphic omitted]They meet at a bar and get tanked together, after
which Tyler amicably picks a fight that seals their bond and marks the
beginning of a phenomenon that each week attracts new participants.
The narrator moves into the dilapidated mansion in a toxic waste area
that Tyler calls home, routinely continuing his job all week as an
auto safety checker but waiting for the charge that comes with
fighting each Saturday night in a club whose members are sworn to
secrecy.

A persuasive speaker who encourages a lost generation of men to access
pain as a remedy for contemporary despair and numbness, Tyler's
following quickly grows. Fight club chapters start springing up across
the country, and when Tyler begins assigning homework, the members
take their aggressive behavior into the outside world with acts of
violence, vandalism and subversiveness. His disciples start turning up
at the house to enlist in an army for Project Mayhem, the full extent
of which is only gradually revealed.

The narrator's feelings veer from rejection and abandonment after
Tyler's sudden disappearance to moral revulsion as he sets out to stop
a dramatic chain of events and is brought face to face with
discoveries regarding his true nature that provide the story's big
twist.

Uhls' stimulating screenplay explores its existential themes
articulately and accessibly, unleashing a steady stream of humor,
razor-sharp dialogue, droll popular culture references and wry
comments on consumerism, corporate culture and capitalism. These
qualities serve to temper the story's brutality, though many no doubt
will still find it repellent.

The film also contains pronounced homoerotic undercurrents. These are
present both on a surface level in the many toned bodies and
especially in the way Pitt is costumed, and less superficially in
themes of self-love, in the narrator's magnetic attraction to Tyler,
his almost jealous resentment first over Mafia, who invades their home
and Tyler's bed, and later over the legions of followers that
compromise his 2IC status, causing him to retaliate by destroying the
beauty of an angel-faced blond Oared Leto).

Performances by the three leads are uniformly potent, with Norton's
character demanding by far the greatest range. His journey from trying
to create an ordered, middle-class universe furnished by Ikea and
clothed by DKNY, CK and A/X to throwing it all in and finding meaning
only in violence represents an uncommonly challenging attack from a
major studio film on contemporary values and suppressed instincts.

Alert and edgy, Norton guides the narrator from the deadening
awareness that his life is ending a minute at a time through the
invigorating rush that comes when he embraces his dark side and
destructive urges to the ultimate confrontation with his own
responsibility for the out-of-control spiral of events. In one
especially remarkable scene, the actor literally pummels himself into
a bloody mess before his stunned boss.

Pitt is cool, charismatic and more dynamically physical perhaps than
he has been since his breakthrough role in "Thelma and Louise," while
Bonham Carter, outfitted like a gothic prom queen and spouting acerbic
maxims with attitude to burn, demolishes any residue of her
buttoned-up Merchant-Ivory image in a tough, sharp-edged turn.

In a film that requires the viewer to keep absorbing information for
most of its two-hours-plus duration, Fincher never loosens his grip on
the material, with editor James Haygood contributing to establish a
driving pace. As always with the director's work, visual aspects are
consistently impressive, from Alex McDowell's richly elaborate, at
times a little too slick production design to the drained, often
greenish or jaundiced tones of d.p. Jeff Cronenweth's extremely mobile
widescreen lensing, which includes several knockout sequences in which
the camera careens through skin tissue, electrical circuitry or bomb
wiring. Also notable are the complex sound design and dreamy techno
score by the Dust Brothers (Michael Simpson, John King).3

===============================================================

Source: Film Comment, Sept 1999 v35 i5 p58.
Title: INSIDE OUT.(Review)_(movie reviews)
Author: Gavin Smith
People: Fincher, David
Uhls, Jim
Palahniuk, Chuck

Full Text COPYRIGHT 1999 Film Society of Lincoln Center

gavin smith goes one-on-one with david fincher

We're designed to be hunters and we're in a society of shopping.
There's nothing to kill anymore, there's nothing to fight, nothing to
overcome, nothing to explore. In that societal emasculation this
everyman is created.

It's tempting to describe David Fincher's stunning, mordantly funny,
formally dazzling new movie Fight Club as the first film of the next
century and leave it at that. It certainly suggests a possible future
direction for mass-appeal cinema that could lead it out of the
Nineties cul-de-sac of bloated, corrupt mediocrity and bankrupt
formulas. Indeed, its vertiginous opening credits shot -- a camera
move hurtling backwards from the deepest recesses of its main
character's brain, out through his mouth and down the barrel of the
gun that is inserted into it -- could almost be a metaphor for the
cinema viewer's predicament.

Adapted from Chuck Palahniuk's novel by Jim Uhls, Fight Club is
ostensibly an anti-New Age satire on both the dehumanizing effects of
corporate/consumer culture and the absurd excesses of the men's
movement. Its main character is a twenty-something wage slave (Edward
Norton) whose voiceover discloses a sardonic, dissenting, but impotent
interior life beneath his subdued exterior conformity. Finding relief
from chronic insomnia by attending multiple self-help group meetings
under false pretenses, he leads a pallid, vampiric half-life, feeding
vicariously on the catharsis and suffering of others. He reluctantly
shares his perverse addiction with Maria, a despised fellow misery
"tourist" (Helena Bonham-Carter, whose damaged-goods-with-attitude
turn is something of a revelation). In the course of his travels as a
"recall coordinator" for a major car manufacturer (a job that deeply
implicates him in the casual cynicism and corruption of corporate
America), this unnamed protagonist encounters and falls in with an
elusive, slightly outrageous trickster individualist called Tyler
Durden (Brad Pitt).

For all his ironic distance, the nonconformism of Norton's character
pales in comparison. Durden, with his outlandish self-presentation and
ersatz-Nietzschean pronouncements, is everything our narrator isn't.
He answers to nobody, sees through the hypocrisies and agreed
deceptions of modern life, is given to casually mentioning, say, the
recipe for making nitroglycerin out of soap, and in his part-time job
as a movie projectionist amuses himself by splicing single frames of
pornography into family movies. In his best work to date, Pitt, who's
always good when he takes risks as an actor, relishes every juicy
moment.

The two men seal a kind of unspoken pact with a spontaneous fistfight
-- something that becomes a regular activity. Before long, other men
begin to participate, and a club is founded for weekly one-on-one
fight sessions. Durden also takes up with Maria, to our narrator's
disgust. In sharp contrast to the drab ambiance of the narrator's
prosaic daytime world of offices, hotels, and public spaces, Durden
inhabits a disorderly realm of eccentric dilapidation that suggests a
shadowy subconscious hinterland. As Durden's influence on him grows,
the protagonist becomes an accomplice in his escalating program of
antisocial pranks and subversive mischief, until they take an abrupt
left turn with the formation of a quasimilitary all-male cult with an
expressly antisocial, revolutionary agenda -- a kind of surreal prole
insurrection against bourgeois values.

For all their emphasis on hard surface, vivid texture, and sensational

effect, Fincher's previous films staked out suggestively dreamlike
psychic/narrative spaces: Ripley's rude awakening from cryogenic
suspension in [Alien.sup.3] (92), Somerset going to sleep to the tick
of a metronome in Seven (95), the living nightmare of The Game (97). A
tale told by an insomniac who doesn't know when he's asleep, Fight
Club takes things one step beyond into new realms of dissociation and
movie mindfuck. Suffice to say viewers might wonder just what they can
trust: Is Tyler Durden projecting this movie? And just how reliable is
this flipped-out narrator anyway?

To be sure, this film is the culmination of a recurrent Fincher
scenario: repressed straight white masculinity thrown into crisis by
the irruption of an anarchic, implacable force that destabilizes a
carefully regulated but precarious psychosocial order. In
[Alien.sup.3], a shaven-headed, celibate, all-male penal colony of
killers that anticipates Fight Club's "space monkey" cult of violent,
obsolete masculinity, is disturbed first by a woman, then by a
libidinously destructive organism. In Seven, locked in an endgame with
a killer who's equal parts deranged artist and Old Testament avenger,
Morgan Freeman's troubled, paternal detective seems to act with the
stoic understanding that an older civilization of culture, values, and
reason that he defends has been all but submerged in a Bosch-like
world of corruption and chaos. The sterile, controlled universe of
Michael Douglas's uptight millionaire tycoon in The Game unravels
until he is stripped of everything he relies upon to define himself --
though in the end, masculine power and privilege remain intact, indeed
reaffirmed, by the ordeal. In Fight Club, sweeping through the main
character's tidy, airless life like a tornado, Tyler Durden is a
galvanizing, subversive force dedicated to revolt against the
inauthenticity and mediocrity of modern life, seeking a nihilistic
exaltation of disenfranchised masculinity through abjection and
destructive transgression.

[Graphic omitted]Fincher's films seemingly repudiate the values he's
paid to uphold in his TV commercials. All his features, Fight Club
especially, seem to be reactions to or commentaries upon the
seductive, fabricated realities, spectacles of consumption, and
appeals to narcissism and materialism of commercials. The dreamlike
suspension, relative freedom from conventions and formats, and
formidable technique that distinguish Fincher's sensibility have been
honed or acquired from commercials and music videos, with their
routinization of spectacle and "style," conceit-based construction and
permissiveness in terms breaking down film grammar conventions.
(Fincher's 1989 Madonna video "Oh Father" demonstrates the potential
aesthetic discipline and integrity of the form at its best.) His
features apply these qualities to more complex, rigorous aesthetic
strategies: the starkness and fragmentation of [Alien.sup.3] with its
minimization of wideshots and spatial resolution; the gliding, hollow
sleekness of The Game; the luxuriating in painstaking degradation and
gloomy decay of Fight Club and Seven.

Fight Club belongs to a distinct moment of both dread and rupture in
American mainstream cinema, also manifested in The Matrix and
traceable at least as far back as Verhoeven's Starship Troopers. The
acceleration and dissolution potentially ushered in by digital cinema
are only a partial manifestation of this. There's a kind of
dissociative hyperrealism operating in Fincher's film, and a mocking
sense of flux and liminality in its attitudes and values both formally
and conceptually. Its recourse to evident digital imagery has less to
do with expanding the boundaries of what can be visualized than with a
derangement of or insolence toward cinematic codes and conventions
concerning authenticity and the narrative representation of space and
time. (In an early, defining scene, Fincher's protagonist, ironically
contemplating his consumerist lifestyle, moves through his condo as it
transforms around him into a living

Ikea catalog with prices floating in space.)

Is Fight Club the end of something in cinema, or the beginning?
Zeitgeist movie or cult item? Whether you find the state-of-the-art
cinematic values of this current moment liberating or oppressive,
radical or specious, of lasting significance or entirely transitory,
as the little girl in Poltergeist says: they're here.

What did you set out to do with this film?

I read the book and thought, How do you make a movie out of this? It
seemed kind of like The Graduate, a seminal coming of age for people
who are coming of age in their 30s instead of their late teens or
early 20s. In our society, kids are much more sophisticated at an
earlier age and much less emotionally capable at a later age. Those
two things are sort of moving against each other.

I don't know if it's Buddhism, but there's the idea that on the path
to enlightenment you have to kill your parents, your god, and your
teacher. So the story begins at the moment when tire Edward Norton
character is 29 years old. He's tried to do everything he was taught
to do, tried to fit into the world by becoming the thing that he
isn't. He's been told, "If you do this, get an education, get a good
job, be responsible, present yourself in a certain way, your furniture
and your car and your clothes, you'll find happiness." And he hasn't.
And so the movie introduces him at the point when he's killed off his
parents and he realizes that they're wrong. But he's still caught up,
trapped in this world he's created for himself. And then he meets
Tyler Durden, and they fly in the face of God -- they do all these
things that they're not supposed to do, all the things that you do in
your 20s when you're no longer being watched over by your parents, and
end up being, in hindsight, very dangerous. And then finally, he has
to kill off his teacher, Tyler Durden. So the movie is really about
that process of maturing.

Is the narrator a kind of everyman?

Yeah, definitely. Every young man. Again, The Graduate is a good
parallel. It was talking about that moment in time when you have this
world of possibilities, all these expectations, and you don't know who
it is you're supposed to be. And you choose this one path, Mrs.
Robinson, and it turns out to be bleak, but it's part of your
initiation, your trial by fire. And then, by choosing the wrong path,
you find your way onto the right path, but you've created this mess.
Fight Club is the Nineties inverse of that: a guy who does not have a
world of possibilities in front of him, he has no possibilities, he
literally cannot imagine a way to change his life.

Like The Graduate it's also a satire.

A stylized vision of our Ikea present. It is talking about very simple
concepts. We're designed to be hunters and we're in a society of
shopping. There's nothing to kill anymore, there's nothing to fight,
nothing to overcome, nothing to explore. In that societal emasculation
this everyman is created.

Tyler says, "Self-improvement is masturbation. Maybe self-destruction
is the answer." That's a pretty radical statement.

I totally believe in that. I love the way it was couched. In the book,
Tyler's already been on the journey. He's waiting impatiently for the
narrator to make the same trip that he has. And that was a thing we
consciously got rid of. One of the things that Brad brought to it --
and I think it was really smart -- was, you don't want to be pedantic.
You don't want to have a guy going, "No, don't you understand, this is
important and this is bullshit." You have to have a guy that's going,
"Well, I can see your point, but it seems to me ... You can look at
losing all of your stuff both ways. Yeah, it's all of your stuff;
yeah, it took you years to collect; yes, they were all tasteful,
interesting choices. But there's another side to it, and the other
side is, you don't have any of the responsibilities to that. Or to dig
deeper, you find responsibilities to that image of yourself. But it's
up to you -- maybe I'm wrong."

[Graphic omitted]You have the impression that he's making it up as he
goes along.

Kind of saying, "We're both on the same path together, there's
something in me that says it might be interesting if you just hit me.
I don't know where it's going, it's no big deal; if you really don't
want to do it, you don't have to."

Were you involved with the adaptation from the start?

Yeah, pretty much. A lot of the typical development-speak was being
thrown around: "You can't have it all in voiceover because voiceover's
a crutch." The first draft had no voiceover, and I remember saying,
"Why is there no VO?" and they were saying, "Everybody knows that you
only use vo if you can't tell the story." And I was like, "It's not
funny if there's no voiceover, it's just sad and pathetic." I remember
having a conversation early on when we were discussing what the feel
of the first act should be. I was saying, "It's not a movie, it's not
even TV, it's not even channel-changing, it's like pulldown windows.
It's like, pffpp, take a look at it, pffpp, pull the next thing down
-- it's gotta be downloaded. It's gotta move as quick as you can
think. We've gotta come up with a way that the camera can illustrate
things at the speed of thought."

[Graphic omitted]And that's one of the things that was interesting to
me, how much can you jump around in time and go: Wait, let me back up
a little bit more, okay, no, no, this is where this started, this is
how I met this person.... So there's this jumping around in time to
bring you into the present and then leaping back to go, Let me tell
you about this other thing. It's almost conversational. It's as
erratic in its presentation as the narrator is in his thinking.

I think maybe the possibilities of this kind of temporal and spatial
freedom point to a future direction for movies.

Well, I kind of do too in a weird way -- just in the amount of freedom
over content, and also how those different things are apportioned. You
don't necessarily have to make everything so concisely, narratively
essential. There are a lot of scenes that, although they feel
narratively redundant, are part of a thematic build.

What was the thinking behind the opening shot?

We wanted a title sequence that started in the fear center of the
brain. [When you hear] the sound of a gun being cocked that's in your
mouth, the part of your brain that gets everything going, that
realizes that you are fucked -- we see all the thought processes, we
see the synapses firing, we see the chemical electrical impulses that
are the call to arms. And we wanted to sort of follow that out.
Because the movie is about thought, it's about how this guy thinks.
And it's from his point of view, solely. So I liked the idea of
starting a movie from thought, from the beginning of the first fear
impulse that went, Oh shit, I'm fucked, how did I get here?

What was your attitude towards the use of CGI to accomplish these
impossible camera moves?

To me it was a selfish means to an end. It wasn't about, Oh it would
be cool to try something like this. In the book there are these long
passages of description about how nitroglycerin gets made, and what
could have happened to cause the explosion at the narrator's condo,
and we were going, How do we illustrate that? "The police would later
tell me the pilot light could have gone out, letting out just a little
bit of gas" -- but you can't just cut to a stove, you've got to become
the gas. I always loved the threatening nature of the telephone in
Scorsese's After Hours. Every time the phone rang, the camera rushed
right at it as somebody picked it up, and you didn't want to find out
who was going to be on the other end. Well, if we were talking about
how this tea smells, we'd just push in so we knew we were talking
about the tea, and show you the steam coming up, and then follow the
steam and see that there's other people in the room, and end up on
somebody sniffing. There s a way to tell that story as a narrator's
telling you that stuff. That's what makes Chuck's writing so funny --
there's this cynical, sarcastic overview, and at the same time when he
gets into detail about how things are done, it's sort of wonderfully
compulsive. Here's something you need to know, here's the recipe for
napalm.

It's the visual equivalent of stream of consciousness.

That's it, that's what the movie is, it's a stream of consciousness.
And that's the thing that makes it so fun to follow. Because he's just
doling out information as he thinks of it. We take the first forty
minutes to literally indoctrinate you in this subjective psychotic
state, the way he thinks, the way he talks about what's behind the
refrigerator, and you go there. He talks about the bomb, and you zip
out the window and the camera just drops thirty stories and goes
through the sidewalk, into the underground garage, through the
bullet-hole in the van, and out the side. We take the first forty
minutes to [establish], This is what you're gonna see, this is what
he's gonna say, those two things are inextricably tied, this one
comments on that one. And then we get to a point where we go: Oh yeah
-- remember where we were taking you and showing you this whole thing?
You only saw this much of it -- the other side of it is, this is what
was going on. [WARNING: If you haven't seen Fight Club yet and want to
have an optimal viewing experience, skip over the next section.]

I HAVE TO say I didn't see the twist coming.

You can't. I've had this argument with people who go, Yeah, well, I
knew. And I go, Bullshit, how could you possibly know? We spent tons
of money to get two different people to make sure that you wouldn't
know. The point is not whether you're stupid or smart because you
didn't see it coming, the point is that that's the realization that
this guy comes to. But if you trick people, it's an affront, and you
really better be careful about what you're doing. A wise friend of
mine once said, "What people want from the movies is to be able to
say, I knew it and it's not my fault." And it's so true. I've had this
argument with a couple people we've shown the movie to. Like, "Fuck
you man, this is like The Game, you're just looking for some way to
dick with me." It's not about tricking you, it's a metaphor, it's not
about a real guy who really blows up buildings, it's about a guy who's
led to feel this might be the answer based on an the confusion and
rage that he's suffered and it's from that frustration and bottled
rage that he creates Tyler. And he goes through a natural process of
experimenting with notions that are complicated and have moral and
ethical implications that the Nietzschean ubermensch doesn't have to
answer to. That's why Nietzsche's really great with college freshman
males, and unfortunately doesn't have much to say to somebody in their
early thirties or early forties. And that's the conflict at the end --
you have Tyler Durden, who is everything you would want to be, except
real and empathetic. He's not living in our world, he's not governed
by the same forces, he is an ideal. And he can deal with the concepts
of our lives in an idealistic fashion, but it doesn't have anything to
do with the compromises of real life as modern man knows it. Which is:
You're not really necessary to a lot of what's going on. It's built,
it just needs to run now. Thank you very much, here's your Internet
access.

[Graphic omitted]Is the Edward Norton character ever named?

In the screenplay we call him Jack. In the credits it says "The
Narrator."

Did you see him in terms of the literary device of the unreliable
narrator?

Oh, he's totally unreliable.

How does that affect the staging -- how do you hint at it?

[Graphic omitted]We had tons of little rules about Tyler. Tyler is not
seen in a two-shot within a group of people. We don't play it over the
shoulder when Tyler gives him an idea about something that's very
specific, that's going to lead him. It's never an over the shoulder
shot, it's always Tyler by himself. There's five or six shots in the
first two reels of Tyler, where he appears in one frame, waiting for
Edward Norton's character. When the doctor says to him, You wanna see
pain, swing by First Methodist Tuesday night and see the guys with
testicular cancer, that's pain -- and, boop, Brad appears over the
guy's shoulder for one frame. We shot him in the environment with the
people, and then we matted him in for one frame, so that Tyler
literally appears like his spliced-in penis shots, just dink, dink.
You can see it on DVD. We did a lot of that stuff. When Edward's on
the airplane and they have that little promotional Marriott television
loop, when they're showing all their banquet facilities, there's this
shot of all these waiters going "Welcome!" and Brad's in the middle of
those waiters.

I didn't know what the flash frames were but I took them to mean that
the movie we're watching has been tampered with by Tyler Durden.

True. Same thing. At the end, when the buildings blow up, we spliced
in two frames of a penis.

Do you see links to The Game in which he goes on this journey where
everything is stripped away and nothing is what it seems.

He's humiliated. Yeah, they're cousins. It's a "Twilight Zone"
episode. That's all it's supposed to be. In Fight Club it's even worse
-- having to contend with somebody who's powerful and you look up to
them and his ideas become all too questionable, but then to find out
that they are indeed your ideas, that this is your mess, that you are
the leader.

WHAT DID YOU envisage in terms of style?

Lurid was definitely one of the things we wanted to do. We didn't want
to be afraid of color, we wanted to control the color palette. You go
into 7-Eleven in the middle of the night and there's all that
green-fluorescent. And like what green light does to cellophane
packages, we wanted to make people sort of shiny. Helena wears
opalescent makeup so she always has this smack-fiend patina, like a
corpse. Because she is a truly romantic nihilistic.

[Cinematographer] Jeff Cronenweth and I talked about Haskell Wexler's
American Graffiti and how that looked, how the nighttime exteriors
have this sort of mundane look, but it still has a lot of different
colors but they all seem very true, they don't seem hyperstylized. And
we talked about making it a dirty-looking movie, kind of grainy. When
we processed it, we stretched the contrast to make it kind of ugly, a
little bit of underexposure, a little bit of resilvering, and using
new high-contrast print stocks and stepping all over it so it has a
dirty patina.

What's resilvering?

Lower-scale enhancement. Rebonding silver that's been bleached away
during the processing of the print and then rebonding it to the print.

What does that do?

[Graphic omitted]Makes it really dense. The blacks become incredibly
rich and kind of dirty. We did it on Seven a little, just to make the
prints nice. But it's really in this more for making it ugly.

We wanted to present things fairly realistically, except obviously the
Paper Street house -- there are no Victorians with 18-foot ceilings on
the West Coast. [Production designer] Alex McDowell and I looked at
books of [photographer] Philip-Lorca diCorcia because it just felt
like the motel-life world that you see. Marla's apartment, which was a
set, was literally like photographs of a room at the Rosalind
Apartments in downtown L.A. We just went in and took pictures of it
and said, "This is it, build this." As much as possible we tried to
incorporate real office buildings, just went down and said, "All
right, put some cubicles in and we'll shoot." Kind of a low-budget
approach.

Where did the Ikea catalog scene come from? That was the moment where
I knew I'd never seen a movie like this before.

In the book he constantly lists his possessions, and we were like, How
do we show that, how do we convey the culmination of his collecting
things, and show how hollow and flat and two-dimensional it is? So we
were just like, Let's put it in a catalog. So we brought in a motion
control camera and filmed Edward walking through the set, then filmed
the camera pan across the set, then filmed every single piece of set
dressing and just slipped them all back together, then used this type
program so that it would all pan. It was just the idea of living in
this fraudulent idea of happiness. There's this guy who's literally
living in this Ikea catalog.

Did you have a sense of biting the hand that feeds you, given that you
direct commercials?

Well, I'm extremely cynical about commercials and about selling things
and about the narcissistic ideals of what we're supposed to be. I
guess in my heart I was hoping people are too smart to fall for that
stuff. But it's unfortunate that it had to be presented in such a
low-budget way. I would have loved to have done a whole sequence of
it.

What gets you going as a director?

I don't want to be constrained by having to do something new. I look
at it as: What are the movies that I want to see? I make movies that
other people aren't making. I'm not interested in the Hero With a
Thousand Faces -- there's a lot of people that do that. A friend of
mine used to say there's a pervert on every block, there's always one
person in every neighborhood who's kind of questionable. You're
looking for that one pervert story.

Whats the most creative part of directing?

Thinking. It's thinking the thing up, designing all the sets, and it's
rehearsals, and then the creative process is fuckin' over. Then it's
just war, it's just literally, How do we get through this day? It's 99
percent politics and 1 percent inspiration.

I've had days of shooting where I went, Wow, that's what it is, that's
what it's like to be making a movie. Everything's clicking, people are
asking questions, and the clock's ticking, but you feel like you're
making progress. But most of the time it isn't that. Most of the time
it's, How do you support the initial intent of what it is you set out
to do, and not undercut that by getting pissed off and letting your
attention get away on that? It's priority management. It's problem
solving. Oftentimes you walk away from a scene going, Wasn't what I
thought it was gonna be. Often. But it's also knowing that you don't
have to get it exactly the way you see it.

[Graphic omitted]You want to be able to provide something, and you're
pissing down a fucking well. It will suck you dry and take everything
you have and, like being a parent, you can pour as much love as you
want, and your kid still says, "Just let me out right here, you don't
have to take me all the way." You're working to make yourself
obsolete. I'm not going to make Persona -- my movies are fairly
obvious in what the people want and what it is that's happening; it's
not that internalized. What's internalized is how you process the
information from the singular, subjective point of view. And that
becomes the subtext of it.

I'm not Elia Kazan; I'm probably not going to reinvent an actor for
the audience or for themselves. But I pay meticulous attention to
getting the environment right so that the people have to do less work
to pretend to be that person. It makes sense -- seeing them next to
that desk, and with that light. Michael Douglas and I went through
this on The Game a lot. He would say, But you need to be able to make
this turn, so that later on you can do this. And I would say, "You
know what? That may be narratively essential, but I don't believe that
somebody would do that at this point. So go ahead and take the
producer cap off and be the selfish actor and make me deliver what's
around it to make it make sense. You don't have to help me tell my
story. You don't have to get riled here, 'cause you're going to get
riled over here. You don't have to let people know what your potential
is for losing control." There are times when you, as the director,
need to say to the actor, "Be selfish, make me do this. Create a
hurdle for me to jump over instead of me creating a hurdle for you."

Any example where something turned out the way you wanted it?

No. [Laughs.] I think the master in Seven where they walk in and see
big Bob on the table with his face in spaghetti -- that was what I
thought it was going to be.

What about in Fight Club?

I went into it thinking, Grow up, stop trying to fucking control
everything and just let go. Try to give the guidance where you can and
be smart editorially about what you allow to happen -- directions that
you allow things to go in, so you don't create a fucking morass for
yourself. But don't try to overthink it, because it's the kind of
thing that's got a lot of truths in it, and those truths are going to
come through no matter what you do. You have a responsibility to the
schedule and the budget and those things, but you're not really
responsible for making everything happen. Create a good environment,
cast the thing as well as you can, and get the hell out of the way of
those people. This is a movie about 26-to-34-year-olds, and I think
that there's a definite generational division between Brad and Edward.
They're definitely about a different kind of thought process. I
thought, There's a thing that Edward Norton's going to bring to this
that's going to be really important, and he's safeguarding his
generational input, he's the caretaker of that.

Apart from the fact that directing pays the bills and you enjoy it --

I don't enjoy it at all.

Okay. So what need does it satisfy in you?

Filmmaking encompasses everything, from tricking people into investing
in it, to putting on the show, to trying to distill down to moments in
time, and ape reality but send this other message. It's got
everything. When I was a kid I loved to draw, and I loved my electric
football sets, and I painted little things and made sculptures and did
matte paintings and comic books and illustrated stuff, and took
pictures, had a darkroom, loved to tape-record stuff. It's all of
that. It's not having to grow up. It's four-dimensional chess, it's
strategy, and it's being painfully honest, and unbelievably deceitful,
and everything in between.

When I was a kid I would spend hours in my bedroom drawing. I could
never get my fucking hands to do it the way I had it in my head. I
used to always go, Someday you'll have the skill to draw exactly what
you see in your head, and then you'd be able to show it to somebody,
and if they like it, then you will have been able to transfer this
thing [in your head] through this apparatus to this, and then you'll
truly know your worth. And I gave up drawing and then painting and
then sculpture and then acting and then photography for things that
were that much more difficult -- to get that idea in your head out
there.

It's kind of a masochistic endeavor. I know that if I can put all this
together, record the sound the way I want to hear it.... You know, we
had such a hard time getting the timbre of Edward's voiceover, because
it has to sound like a thought. We ended up using five different
microphones trying to get this sound. You listen to it and it doesn't
sound like a thought, it sounds like a guy talking to you. The
voiceover in Blade Runner, if you listen to it, sounds like a guy
recorded on a toilet. It sounds like a guy reading prose while he's
sitting on the john. How do you avoid that? So it's all those things,
it's so challenging.

[jum...@my-deja.com]

http://archives.seattletimes.com/cgi-bin/texis.mummy/web/
vortex/display?storyID=380798ac28&query=genetic+engineering

Copyright © 1999 The Seattle Times Company
Science/Health : Friday, October 15, 1999

Potatoes and rats: a recipe for controversy

by Emma Ross
The Associated Press

LONDON - The publication of research claiming to provide evidence that
rats developed tissue damage after being fed genetically altered
potatoes has renewed a fierce debate over the safety of such modified
foods. Some hailed the publication as a vindication of the
researchers' claims, first aired in an interview on British television
last year. But others argued that the study was deeply flawed and that
publication gave it a credibility it doesn't deserve.

The editor of the Lancet, the prestigious British medical journal that
published the findings in this week's issue, felt compelled to write a
commentary defending his decision.

"We did not lower our standards," Dr. Richard Horton said. "We
published it both on grounds of scientific merit and on grounds of
public interest.

"A component of genetically modified food does seem to cause changes
in rat intestines. The question now is, are those changes harmful and
is it relevant to humans? I think if we hadn't published it, we'd be
accused of censorship."

The move toward genetically modified crops has caused great concern in
Europe, where anxiety about food technology runs high after a spate of
deaths related to so-called "mad-cow disease," brought on by eating
British beef - even though the beef was not genetically modified.
Genetic engineering involves introducing a gene from one organism to
another, often unrelated, plant or animal. Scientists hope to use the
technology to create more nutritious crops or food containing
vaccines. They already have genetically altered corn, soybeans and
other crops to resist insects and weed-killers.

Although genetic engineering has met relatively little resistance in
the United States, concern has grown since a Cornell University study
found evidence that pollen from a genetically modified corn can kill
larvae of the monarch butterfly.

Horton said that six experts scrutinized the British research before
it was published - twice the normal number - and that a majority
recommended publishing it because it had scientific merit.

Anticipating criticism, Horton wrote: "At least (the findings) are now
out in the open for debate."

The experiments were conducted by Dr. Arpad Pusztai, formerly of the
Rowett Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland, and Dr. Stanley Ewen, a
pathologist at the University of Aberdeen.

They fed six rats potatoes that had been genetically altered to
contain a gene that makes a protein, lectin, which increases the
potato's resistance to attacks from insects and worms.

They were compared with six rats fed normal potatoes and six fed
potatoes spiked directly with lectin.

Ten days later, the researchers found that the rats fed the potatoes
with the added gene had intestines that had thinned in some places and
thickened in others. They suggested the gene could have made the
potatoes poisonous.

The findings sparked debate last year when Pusztai described them in a
television interview. He was suspended from his job at the Rowett
Research Institute, which announced he would retire.

Pusztai was unavailable for comment and the University of Aberdeen
said Ewen declined to comment.

Copyright © 1999 Seattle Times Company

===========================================================

http://www.seattle-pi.com/pi/national/corn20.shtml
--------------------------------------------------

Genetically altered corn can be fatal for monarch butterflies
Thursday, May 20, 1999

By DAVID KINNEY
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Scientists have discovered a disturbing unintended consequence of
genetic engineering: Pollen from a widely planted, laboratory-designed
strain of corn can kill monarch butterflies.

Monarch caterpillars eating milkweed leaves dusted with pollen from
the altered corn plants ate less, grew more slowly and died more
quickly. After four days, 44 percent of them had died vs. none of the
caterpillars that didn't feed on the pollen.

Monarchs are not an endangered species. But environmentalists fear
that if the genetically engineered corn is killing the
orange-and-black butterflies, it may be killing other insects and
doing other unseen damage to the food chain.

The strain is called Bt corn and is manufactured by agricultural
giants Novartis AG, Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. and Monsanto
Co. The corn is genetically engineered to produce a natural pesticide
that kills the corn-destroying European corn borer.

It was approved by the Food and Drug Administration and hit the market
in 1996. It accounted for more than 25 percent of the 80 million acres
of U.S. corn planted in 1998.

Bt corn has been touted by the industry as a way to fight a major pest
without using chemicals.

The study was led by Cornell University entomologist John Losey and
published in today's issue of the journal Nature.

"It's very disturbing," said Jeremy Rifkin, whose Washington-based
Foundation on Economic Trends is pushing for a moratorium on
genetically engineered crops until their environmental effects can be
more thoroughly studied. "It's a smoking gun. This now is a red flag
everyone is going to have to look at."

Losey, however, said that while he thinks the crop's harm to other
insects deserves more research, studies have shown that the corn does
not harm humans or other mammals. He added, "I still think the proven
benefits of Bt corn outweigh the potential risks."

Monsanto spokesman Randy Krotz said the finding is not very important.
Many monarch butterflies would not be exposed to the toxic pollen, he
said, since most milkweed does not grow near corn fields.

And Val Giddings, vice president for the Biotechnology Industry
Organization, said: "Whatever the threat to monarch butterflies that
is posed by Bt corn pollen, we know it's less than the threat of
drifting pesticide sprays."

Industry officials said they were not surprised by the finding,
because the larvae of monarch butterflies are similar to the corn
borer. They also called the study sloppy because the researchers
didn't precisely measure the amount of pollen ladled onto the milkweed
leaves.

For 20 years, biotech laboratories have been altering the genetics of
vegetables to make them taste better or resistant to pests, raising
fears among environmentalists of "Frankenstein foods."

A Swiss study last year showed an indirect effect of Bt corn on the
food chain: Insects called lacewings died more quickly if they fed on
corn borers reared on Bt corn.

© 1999 The Associated Press.
All rights reserved.

© 1999 Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
All rights reserved.

========================================================

http://www.seattle-pi.com/pi/opinion/hungop.shtml
-------------------------------------------------

Genetically altered food won't conquer world hunger
Friday, September 3, 1999

By PETER ROSSET
SPECIAL TO THE POST-INTELLIGENCER

OAKLAND, Calif. -- In the debate over genetically altered foods,
proponents such as Sen. Richard Luger, the Indiana Republican, argue
that such products will be essential if we are to feed the world. But
this claim rests on two persistent misconceptions about hunger: first,
that people are hungry because of high population density, and second,
that genetic engineering is the best or only way to meet our future
needs. In fact, there is no relationship between the prevalence of
hunger in a given country and its population. For every densely
populated and hungry nation like Bangladesh, there is a sparsely
populated and hungry nation like Brazil.

The world today produces more food per inhabitant than ever before.
Enough is available to provide 4.3 pounds to every person every day:
two and a half pounds of grain, beans and nuts, about a pound of meat,
milk and eggs, and another of fruits and vegetables -- more than
anyone could ever eat.

The real problems are poverty and inequality. Too many people are too
poor to buy the food that is available or lack land on which to grow
it themselves.

The second misconception is that genetic engineering is the best way
to boost food production. There are two principal technologies on the
market. Monsanto makes "Roundup Ready" seeds, which are engineered to
withstand its herbicide, Roundup. These seeds -- usually soybeans,
canola or cotton -- allow farmers to apply the herbicide widely.

Monsanto and several other companies also produce "Bt" seeds --
usually corn, potatoes and cotton -- which are engineered so that each
plant produces its own insecticide.

Some researchers have shown that none of the genetically engineered
seeds significantly increase the yield of crops. Indeed, in more than
8,200 field trials, the Roundup Ready seeds produced fewer bushels of
soybeans than similar natural varieties, according to a study by Dr.
Charles Benbrook, the former director of the Board on Agriculture at
the National Academy of Sciences.

Far from being a solution to the world's hunger problem, the rapid
introduction of genetically engineered crops may actually threaten
agriculture and food security.

First, widespread adoption of herbicide-resistant seeds may lead to
greater use of chemicals that kill weeds. Yet, many noncrop plants are
used by small farmers in the Third World as supplemental food sources
and as animal feed. In the United States, the Fish and Wildlife
Service has found that Roundup already threatens 74 endangered plant
species.

Biological pollution from genetically engineered organisms may be
another problem. Monsanto is poised to acquire the rights to a genetic
engineering technique that renders a crop's seeds sterile, ensuring
that farmers are dependent on Monsanto for new seed every year.

Farming in the Third World could be crippled if these genes
contaminate other local crops that the poor depend on. And such genes
could unintentionally sterilize other plants, according to a study by
Martha Crouch, an associate professor of biology at Indiana
University. Half the world's farmers rely on their own saved seed for
each year's harvest.

A true solution to the problem of hunger depends on attacking poverty
and inequality among both producers and consumers of food. A food
system increasingly dependent on genetically altered seeds takes us in
the wrong direction.

Peter Rosset is director of the Institute for Food and Development
Policy and co-author of "World Hunger: Twelve Myths."
Copyright 1999 The New York Times.

Send comments to edit...@seattle-pi.com
© 1999 Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
All rights reserved.

===========================================================

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vortex/display?storyID=36d6f97925&query=genetic+engineering

Copyright © 1999 The Seattle Times Company
National/World News : Tuesday, February 16, 1999

Nations convene to regulate biotech trade

by Rick Weiss and Justin Gillis
The Washington Post

The U.S. government and scores of corporations are scrambling to
prevent a proposed international accord from sharply restricting the
global flow of hundreds of billions of dollars worth of genetically
engineered products, ranging from cotton seeds to soft drinks.

The intense lobbying effort will climax this week as negotiators from
more than 170 countries convene in Cartagena, Colombia, to draw up
final language on the pact, which would be the world's first accord to
regulate the spread of genetically manipulated organisms. Depending on
how the agreement is worded, it could promote or restrict the
burgeoning biotechnology industry worldwide.

Despite years of preparatory negotiations, however, philosophical
rifts loom between the handful of countries ready and eager to ship
genetically engineered products around the world and the many other
countries that remain wary of the biotechnology revolution.

Environmental groups see the proposed agreement as their first
opportunity to set ecological standards for trade in gene-altered
crops, livestock and other products. Yet many American companies -
along with the governments of the United States, Canada, Australia and
others - are alarmed about draft language they say could undermine the
global economy and severely disrupt trade.

But diplomats from several other countries contend the greater risk is
that unregulated trade in gene-altered seeds, microbes, plants or
animals will seriously harm the environment and human health. They say
scenarios of stymied world trade amount to scaremongering by
governments and commercial interests.

"Genetic pollution is considerably more dangerous than oil spills. You
can't just go out there and put a boom around it and put it back in,"
said Kristin Dawkins of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
in Minneapolis.

American hopes that the accord will ultimately favor less-stringent
trade rules were weakened Thursday as the European Parliament passed
new restrictions on the importation and use of genetically engineered
seeds and organisms.

No country has more to lose from strict regulation than the United
States. It is the world leader in biotechnology, making and exporting
a wide variety of products whose manufacture depends in some way on
organisms that have been genetically altered: Among them are the glue
in many cardboards, the corn sweetener in soft drinks, much of the
insulin that keeps diabetics healthy, many of the vaccines that
protect children from deadly ailments and thousands of other products.

Lately, however, concerns have grown about the potential ecological,
social and economic effects of world commerce in engineered seeds,
organisms and biotech products. Although there has been little public
controversy in the United States, genetic engineering has become
highly controversial in many European and developing countries.

Some fear that engineered microbes or plants will disrupt local
ecologies and undermine traditional farming practices. Others have
focused on perceived, albeit unproven, health threats from eating
genetically engineered grains or cereals. A third concern is that
important economic sectors in some developing countries could be
undermined by scientists' ability to grow rare food ingredients or
flavorings in the laboratory.

The "biosafety protocol" being negotiated in Cartegena is an outgrowth
of a treaty called the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity.
Unfortunately for the United States, the many U.S. government and
industry representatives traveling to Cartegena have no official
standing in the weeklong talks because the U.S. Senate never ratified
the Convention on Biological Diversity. President Clinton signed the
treaty in 1993, but lingering U.S. concerns have held up Senate
approval.

That means that although the United States would have to follow any
trade rules that participating countries impose, U.S. representatives
can only "observe" negotiations and try to influence them informally.

Copyright © 1999 Seattle Times Company

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vortex/display?storyID=36d6f8c016&query=genetic+engineering

Copyright © 1999 The Seattle Times Company
National/World News : Wednesday, February 24, 1999

International treaty talks on gene technology collapse

by Frank Bajak
The Associated Press

CARTAGENA, Colombia - Negotiations collapsed today on a treaty
regulating international shipments of genetically modified organisms.
A U.S.-led bloc, critics said, had stressed trade over environmental
protection. The European Union and more than 110 other nations at the
U.N.-initiated talks reached consensus late yesterday in an 11th-hour
attempt to forge a so-called Biosafety Protocol, an outgrowth of the
1992 Earth Summit in Brazil.

But the United States and its allies - Australia, Canada, Uruguay,
Argentina and Chile - refused to accept the proposed compromise after
10 days of talks, insisting on a more narrowly focused treaty that
would minimally impact a growing, multibillion-dollar industry.

"No deal was better than a bad deal, and that was the outcome," said
Rafe Pomerance, deputy chief of the U.S. delegation.

"History will not pardon what happened," said Cuba's deputy
environmental minister, Mario Fajardo Moros, lamenting that such a
small group had torpedoed a global treaty.

It was the first time in more than 20 years that an international
environmental negotiation had ended in such disarray, said Michael
Williams, spokesman for the U.N. Environmental Program.

The negotiations will resume within 16 months.

Many nations were angered at what they considered bullying tactics by
the United States and its allies - major exporters of biotech products
such as insect-resistant crops and vaccines produced by splicing
genes.

Proponents say biotech crops will ensure future global food security,
producing higher yields with fewer chemical insecticides and
herbicides. They insist the products are rigorously tested and have so
far presented no health or environmental risks.

But critics say the technology is too new, predicting a biological
time bomb if just one transgenetic product goes awry.

Although genetic engineering experimentation began two decades ago,
development of biotech foods, vaccines and byproducts has only
recently taken off. Worldwide, more than 66 million acres of
genetically altered crops were sown in 1998, up from 2 million in
1996.

Copyright © 1999 Seattle Times Company

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vortex/display?storyID=36d4e4133a&query=genetic+engineering

Copyright © 1999 The Seattle Times Company
Science/Health : Thursday, September 03, 1998

Research warns of genetically engineering plants, weeds

by Jeff Barnard
The Associated Press

A weed altered by scientists to resist an herbicide also has developed
far greater ability to pollinate other plants and pass on its traits,
raising the possibility of "superweeds" impervious to weedkillers.

The findings also have heightened environmentalists' fears about the
dangers of genetic engineering.

Joy Bergelson, a professor of ecology and evolution at the University
of Chicago, said the findings show that genetic engineering can
substantially increase the chances of "transgene escape," or the
spread of certain traits from one plant to another.

Her study was published in today's issue of the journal Nature.

Charles Margulis of Greenpeace said the results confirm fears that
genetically engineering cotton and soybeans to survive spraying with
herbicides to make weed-control easier will force farmers to spray
heavier doses of herbicides or use types that are less environmentally
safe. "It's just another chink in the armor of the industry, which
keeps saying environmentalists' claims of health concerns just aren't
justified," Margulis said.

Scientists have already recognized that when a genetically engineered
crop grows near a weed relative, the gene-engineered trait will
eventually transfer to the weed.

In a separate study, Ohio State University scientist Allison Snow
found that when weeds acquire herbicide resistance from genetically
engineered crops, they maintain their ability to pass these traits on,
rather than becoming less fertile, as some had believed.

Bergelson experimented with a weed called Arabidopsis thaliana, a
species commonly used in genetic research.

Copyright © 1999 Seattle Times Company

=========================================================

http://www-stud.enst.fr/~bellard/pi/pi1.c
-----------------------------------------

/*
* Computation of the n'th decimal digit of pi with very little memory.
* Written by Fabrice Bellard on February 26, 1997.
*
* We use a slightly modified version of the method described by Simon
* Plouffe in "On the Computation of the n'th decimal digit of various
* transcendental numbers" (November 1996). We have modified the
* algorithm to get a running time of O(n^2) instead of O(n^3log(n)^3).
*
* This program uses a variation of the formula found by Gosper in 1974:
*
* pi = sum( (25*n-3)/(binomial(3*n,n)*2^(n-1)), n=0..infinity);
*
* This program uses mostly integer arithmetic. It may be slow on some
* hardwares where integer multiplications and divisons must be done by
* software. We have supposed that 'int' has a size of at least 32 bits.
* If your compiler supports 'long long' integers of 64 bits, you may
* use the integer version of 'mul_mod' (see HAS_LONG_LONG).
*/

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <math.h>

/* uncomment the following line to use 'long long' integers */
/* #define HAS_LONG_LONG */

#ifdef HAS_LONG_LONG
#define mul_mod(a,b,m) (( (long long) (a) * (long long) (b) ) % (m))
#else
#define mul_mod(a,b,m) fmod( (double) a * (double) b, m)
#endif

/* return the inverse of x mod y */
int inv_mod(int x,int y) {
int q,u,v,a,c,t;

u=x;
v=y;
c=1;
a=0;
do {
q=v/u;

t=c;
c=a-q*c;
a=t;

t=u;
u=v-q*u;
v=t;
} while (u!=0);
a=a%y;
if (a<0) a=y+a;
return a;
}

/* return the inverse of u mod v, if v is odd */
int inv_mod2(int u,int v) {
int u1,u3,v1,v3,t1,t3;

u1=1;
u3=u;

v1=v;
v3=v;

if ((u&1)!=0) {
t1=0;
t3=-v;
goto Y4;
} else {
t1=1;
t3=u;
}

do {

do {
if ((t1&1)==0) {
t1=t1>>1;
t3=t3>>1;
} else {
t1=(t1+v)>>1;
t3=t3>>1;
}
Y4:
} while ((t3&1)==0);

if (t3>=0) {
u1=t1;
u3=t3;
} else {
v1=v-t1;
v3=-t3;
}
t1=u1-v1;
t3=u3-v3;
if (t1<0) {
t1=t1+v;
}
} while (t3 != 0);
return u1;
}

/* return (a^b) mod m */
int pow_mod(int a,int b,int m)
{
int r,aa;

r=1;
aa=a;
while (1) {
if (b&1) r=mul_mod(r,aa,m);
b=b>>1;
if (b == 0) break;
aa=mul_mod(aa,aa,m);
}
return r;
}

/* return true if n is prime */
int is_prime(int n)
{
int r,i;
if ((n % 2) == 0) return 0;

r=(int)(sqrt(n));
for(i=3;i<=r;i+=2) if ((n % i) == 0) return 0;
return 1;
}

/* return the prime number immediatly after n */
int next_prime(int n)
{
do {
n++;
} while (!is_prime(n));
return n;
}

#define DIVN(t,a,v,vinc,kq,kqinc) \
{ \
kq+=kqinc; \
if (kq >= a) { \
do { kq-=a; } while (kq>=a); \
if (kq == 0) { \
do { \
t=t/a; \
v+=vinc; \
} while ((t % a) == 0); \
} \
} \
}

int main(int argc,char *argv[])
{
int av,a,vmax,N,n,num,den,k,kq1,kq2,kq3,kq4,t,v,s,i,t1;
double sum;

if (argc<2 || (n=atoi(argv[1])) <= 0) {
printf("This program computes the n'th decimal digit of pi\n"
"usage: pi n , where n is the digit you want\n"
);
exit(1);
}

N=(int)((n+20)*log(10)/log(13.5));
sum=0;

for(a=2;a<=(3*N);a=next_prime(a)) {
vmax=(int)(log(3*N)/log(a));
if (a==2) {
vmax=vmax+(N-n);
if (vmax<=0) continue;
}
av=1;
for(i=0;i<vmax;i++) av=av*a;

s=0;
den=1;
kq1=0;
kq2=-1;
kq3=-3;
kq4=-2;
if (a==2) {
num=1;
v=-n;
} else {
num=pow_mod(2,n,av);
v=0;
}

for(k=1;k<=N;k++) {

t=2*k;
DIVN(t,a,v,-1,kq1,2);
num=mul_mod(num,t,av);

t=2*k-1;
DIVN(t,a,v,-1,kq2,2);
num=mul_mod(num,t,av);

t=3*(3*k-1);
DIVN(t,a,v,1,kq3,9);
den=mul_mod(den,t,av);

t=(3*k-2);
DIVN(t,a,v,1,kq4,3);
if (a!=2) t=t*2; else v++;
den=mul_mod(den,t,av);

if (v > 0) {
if (a!=2) t=inv_mod2(den,av);
else t=inv_mod(den,av);
t=mul_mod(t,num,av);
for(i=v;i<vmax;i++) t=mul_mod(t,a,av);
t1=(25*k-3);
t=mul_mod(t,t1,av);
s+=t;
if (s>=av) s-=av;
}
}

t=pow_mod(5,n-1,av);
s=mul_mod(s,t,av);
sum=fmod(sum+(double) s/ (double) av,1.0);
}
printf("Decimal digits of pi at position %d: %09d\n",n,(int)(sum*1e9));
return 0;

[jum...@my-deja.com]

http://archives.seattletimes.com/cgi-bin/texis.mummy/web/
vortex/display?storyID=36d4cb5822&query=genetic+engineering

Copyright © 1999 The Seattle Times Company

Opinion/Editorials : Sunday, October 11, 1998

The right to know what we eat

by Philip L. Bereano
Special to The Times

"I personally have no wish to eat anything produced by genetic
modification, nor do I knowingly offer this sort of produce to my
family or guests. There is increasing evidence that many people
feel the same way."
-- Prince Charles, London Telegraph, June 8, 1998.

Genetic engineering is a set of new techniques for altering the basic
makeup of plants and animals. Genes from insects, animals and humans
have been added to crop plants; human genes have been added to pigs
and cattle.

Although genetic-engineering techniques are biologically novel, the
industry and government are so eager to achieve financial success that
they say the products of the technologies are pretty much the same
("substantially equivalent") as normal crops. Despite the gene
tinkering, the new products are not being tested extensively to find
out how they differ and to be sure that any hazards are within
acceptable limits. These foods are now appearing in the supermarkets
and on our dinner plates, but the industry and government have been
vigorously resisting consumer attempts to label these "novel foods" in
order to distinguish them from more traditional ones.

The failure of the U.S. government to require that genetically
engineered foods (GEFs) be labeled presents consumers with quandaries:
issues of free speech and consumers' right to know, religious rights
for those with dietary restrictions, and cultural rights for people,
such as vegetarians, who choose to avoid consuming foods of certain
origins.

The use of antibiotic-resistant genes engineered into crop plants as
"markers" can contribute to the spread of antibiotic-tolerant disease
bacteria; this resistance is a major public-health problem, as
documented by a recent study of the National Academy of Sciences. Some
genetic recombinations can lead to allergic or auto-immune reactions.
The products of some genes which are used as plant pesticides have
been implicated in skin diseases in farm and market workers.

The struggle over labeling is occurring because industry knows that
consumers do not want to eat GEFs; labeled products will likely fail
in the marketplace. However, as the British publication The Economist
noted, "if Monsanto cannot persuade us, it certainly has no right to
foist its products on us." Labels would counter "foisting" and are
legally justifiable.

The government's rationale

In 1992, the government abdicated any supervision over GEFs. Under
Food and Drug Administration's rules, the agency does not even have
access to industry information about a GEF unless the company decides
voluntarily to submit it. Moreover, important information on
risk-assessment questions is often withheld as being proprietary,
"confidential business information." So "safety" cannot be judged in a
precautionary way; we must await the inevitable hazardous event.

According to a former FDA official, the genetic processes used in the
development of a new food are "NOT considered to be material
information because there is no evidence that new biotech foods are
different from other foods in ways related to safety."

James Maryanski, FDA biotechnology coordinator, claims that whether a
food has been genetically engineered is not a "material fact" and FDA
would not "require things to be on the label just because a consumer
might want to know them."

Yet a standard law dictionary defines "material" as "important,"
"going to the merits," "relevant." Since labeling is a form of speech
from growers and processors to purchasers, it is reasonable,
therefore, to interpret "material" as comprising whatever issues a
substantial portion of the consuming public defines as "important."
And all the polls show that whether food is genetically engineered
falls into such a category. Last May, several religious leaders and
citizen groups sued the FDA to change its position and to require that
GEFs be labeled.

Process labels

Some government officials have said that labeling should be only about
the food product itself, not the process by which it is manufactured.
Yet, the U.S. has many process food labels: kosher, dolphin-free, Made
in America, union-made, free-range (chickens, for example),
irradiated, and "green" terms such as "organic."

For many of these products, the scientific difference between an item
which can carry the label and that which cannot is negligible or
nonexistent. Kosher pastrami is chemically identical to non-kosher
meat. Dolphin-free tuna and tuna caught by methods which result in
killing of dolphins are the same, as are many products which are "made
in America" when compared to those made abroad, or those made by
unionized as opposed to nonunion workers.

These labeling rules recognize that consumers are interested in the
processes by which their purchases are made and have a legal right to
such knowledge. In none of these labeling situations has the argument
been made that if the products are substantially equivalent, no label
differentiation is permissible. It is constitutionally permissible for
government rules to intrude slightly on the commercial speech of
producers in order to expand the First Amendment rights of consumers
to know what is of significant interest to them.

`Substantial equivalence'

In order to provide an apparently rational basis for its refusal to
exercise regulatory oversight in this regard, the U.S. government has
adopted the industry's position that genetically engineered foods are
"substantially equivalent" to their natural counterparts. The FDA
ignores the contradictory practice of corporations in going to another
government agency, the Patent Office, where they argue that a GEF is
novel and different (in order to justify receiving monopoly
protection).

"Substantial equivalence" is used as a basis for both eliminating
regulatory assessment and failing to require labels on GEFs. However,
the concept of substantial equivalence is subjective and imprecise.
Most genetic engineering is designed to meet corporate - not consumer
- needs. Foods are engineered, for instance, to produce "counterfeit
freshness." Consumers believe engineered characteristics such as color
and texture indicate freshness, flavor and nutritional quality.
Actually the produce is aging and growing stale, and nutritional value
is being depleted. So much for "substantial equivalence."

`The precautionary principle'

Consumers International, a global alliance of more than 200 consumer
groups, has suggested that "because the effects (of GEFs) are so
difficult to predict, it is vital to have internationally agreed and
enforceable rules for research protocols, field trials and
post-marketing surveillance." This approach has become known as the
"precautionary principle" and has entered into the regulatory
processes of the European Union.

The principle reflects common-sense aphorisms such as "Better safe
than sorry" and "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." It
rests on the notion that parties who wish to change the social order
(often while making money or gaining power and influence) should not
be able to slough the costs and risks onto others. The new procedure's
proponents should have to prove it is safe rather than forcing
regulators or citizens to prove a lack of safety.

Look before you eat

For GEFs, labeling performs important functions in carrying out the
precautionary principle. It places a burden on industry to show that
genetic manipulations are socially beneficial and provides a financial
incentive for them to do research to reduce uncertainty about the
consequences of GEFs.

Democratic notions of free speech include the right to receive
information as well as to disseminate it. It is fundamental to
capitalist market theory that for transactions to be most efficient
all parties must have "perfect information." The realities of modern
food production create a tremendous imbalance of knowledge between
producer and purchaser. Our society has relied on the government to
redress this imbalance and make grocery shopping a fairer and more
efficient - as well as safer - activity.

In an economic democracy, choice is the fundamental prerogative of the
purchaser.

As some biologists have put it, "The risk associated with genetically
engineered foods is derived from the fact that, although genetic
engineers can cut and splice DNA molecules with precision in the test
tube, when those altered DNA molecules are introduced into a living
organism, the full range of effects on that organism cannot be
predicted or known before commercialization. The introduced DNA may
bring about unintended changes, some of which may be damaging to
health."

Numerous opinion polls in the U.S. and abroad in the past decade have
shown great skepticism about genetic alteration of foods; a large
proportion of respondents, usually majorities, are reluctant to use
such products. Regardless of whether they would consume GEFs,
consumers feel even more strongly that they should be labeled.

In a Toronto Star poll reported on June 2, 98 percent favored
labeling. Bioindustry giant Novartis surveyed U.S. consumers and found
93 percent of them wanted information about genetic engineering of
food.

Alice Waters, originator of the legendary Berkeley restaurant Chez
Panisse and recently selected to organize a new restaurant at the
Louvre in Paris, has said, "The act of eating is very political. You
buy from the right people, you support the right network of farmers
and suppliers who care about the land and what they put in the food.
If we don't preserve the natural resources, you aren't going to have a
sustainable society." However, the U.S. government has been resisting
attempts to label GEFs. Despite the supposed environmentalist and
consumer sympathies of the Clinton-Gore administration, the government
believes nothing should impede the profitability of biotech as a
mainstay to the future U.S. economy. The administration's hostility to
labeling may also be coupled to political contributions made to it by
the interested industries.

Regulation and free speech

The government is constrained by the First Amendment from limiting or
regulating the content of labels except for the historic functions of
protecting health and safety and eliminating fraud or
misrepresentation. The American Civil Liberties Union has noted that
"a simple distinction between noncommercial and commercial speech does
not determine the extent to which the guarantees of the First
Amendment apply to advertising and similar communications relating to
the sale or other disposition of goods and services."

Supreme Court decisions have warned against attaching "more importance
to the distinction between commercial and noncommercial speech than
our cases warrant." Can the government prohibit certain commercial
speech, such as barring a label saying "this product does not contain
genetically engineered components"?

In several recent cases, the Court has restricted government
regulation of commercial speech, in effect allowing more
communication. The First Amendment directs us to be skeptical of
regulations that seek to keep people in the dark for what the
government perceives to be their own good. Thus, it would be hard to
sustain the government if it tried to prohibit labeling foods as "free
from genetically engineered products," if the statement were true.

In 1995, the FDA's Maryanski took the position that "the FDA is not
saying that people don't have a right to know how their food is
produced. But the food label is not always the most appropriate method
for conveying that information." Is it acceptable for a government
bureaucrat to make decisions about what are appropriate methods of
information exchange among citizens?

The government and the industry suggest that labels on GEFs might
amount to "misrepresentation" by implying that there is a difference
between the genetically engineered and nongenetically engineered
foods. It is hard, however, to understand how a truthful statement can
ever amount to a "misrepresentation." (And of course, they are
different, by definition.) The first food product bearing a label "No
GE Ingredients," a brand of corn chips, made its appearance this
summer.

Some states have laws creating a civil cause of action against anyone
who "disparages" an agricultural product unless the defendant can
prove the statements were based on "reasonable and reliable
scientific" evidence. A Harvard analysis suggest that "at stake in the
dispute about food-safety claims is scientific uncertainty in an
uncertain and unpredictable world. Agricultural disparagement statutes
are supposed to regulate the exchange of ideas in that gray area
between science and the public good. The underlying approach of these
statutes is to regulate speech by encouraging certain kinds of
exchanges and punishing others. . . ."

According to the ACLU, "these so-called `veggie libel' laws raise
obvious First Amendment problems and threaten to chill speech on
important issues of public concern." Consumers Union argues that "such
laws, we believe, give the food and agriculture industry the power to
choke off concerns and criticism about food quality and safety."

Such enactments did not prevail in the suit by Texas cattle ranchers
against Oprah Winfrey and her guest Howard Lyman (of the Humane
Society) for their on-air conversations about "mad-cow disease"
possibilities in the United States. The lawsuit was widely seen as a
test of the First Amendment constitutionality of such state statutes,
although the case was actually resolved on much narrower grounds.

Consequences of regulation

As Prince Charles noted in his essay, "we cannot put our principles
into practice until there is effective segregation and labeling of
genetically modified products. Arguments that this is either
impossible or irrelevant are simply not credible."

Nonetheless, the biotech industry (and many governments, including our
own) make the argument that it is impossible to keep genetically
engineered foodstuffs separate from naturally produced ones. However,
the same industries actually require rigorous segregation (for
example, of seeds) when they are protecting their monopolies on
patented food items. Although it undoubtedly has related costs, the
segregation of kosher food products from non-kosher ones, for example,
has been routine in this country for decades. The only difference for
GEFs appears to be one of scale, not technique, in monitoring the flow
of foodstuffs, spot-testing and labeling them appropriately.

In support of mandatory labeling

Can the government mandate commercial speech - for example, requiring
GEFs to bear a label proclaiming their identity?

The government does require some label information which goes beyond
consumer health effects; not every consumer must need mandated
information in order for it to be required by law. These requirements
have never been judged an infringement of producers' constitutional
rights. For example:

-- Very few consumers are sensitive to sulfites, although all wine
must be labeled.

-- The burden is put on tobacco manufacturers to carry the surgeon
general's warning, even though the majority of cigarette smokers
will not develop lung cancer and an intended effect of the label
is to reinforce the resolve of nonconsumers to refrain from
smoking.

-- Labeling every processed food with its fat and calorie analysis
is mandated, even though vast numbers of Americans are not
overweight or suffering from heart disease.

-- Irradiated foods (other than spices) must carry a specific
logo.

-- Finally, the source of hydrolyzed proteins in foods must be on
a label to accommodate vegetarian cultural practices and certain
religious beliefs.

These legal requirements are in place because many citizens want such
information, and a specific fraction need it. An identifiable fraction
of consumers actually need information about genetic modification -
for example, as regards allergenicity - as the FDA itself has
recognized in the Federal Register, and almost all want it.

Foods which are comprised, to any but a trace extent, of genetically
altered components or products should be required to be labeled. This
can be justified in some instances on scientific and health grounds,
and for other foods on the social, cultural, religious and political
interest consumers may have in the processes by which their food is
produced.

Consumers' right to know is an expression of an ethical position which
acknowledges individual autonomy; it is also a social approach which
helps to rectify the substantial imbalance of power which exists in a
modern society where commercial transactions occur between highly
integrated and well-to-do corporations, on the one hand, and atomized
consumers on the other.

We should let labeled GEFs run the test of the marketplace.

Philip L. Bereano is professor of technical communication at the
University of Washington. He is active in the American Civil Liberties
Union, the Council for Responsible Genetics and the Washington
Biotechnology Action Council.

Copyright © 1999 Seattle Times Company

========================================================

http://www.seattle-pi.com/pi/local/biot20.shtml
-----------------------------------------------

Debate rages over labeling of genetically altered food
Thursday, May 20, 1999

By TOM PAULSON
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Both sides in the debate over agricultural biotechnology say Americans
likely and perhaps unwittingly eat more genetically engineered food
daily than consumers of any other country.

Critics of genetically modified foods say that's because the public is
not adequately informed. The United States, unlike other nations,
doesn't require labels that identify foods that have been genetically
modified. Proponents of agricultural biotechnology say such labeling
is unnecessary because U.S. consumers have faith in their system of
food safety.

"The industry has successfully fought labeling of genetically
engineered foods in this country," said Bill Aal, member of a consumer
advocacy group called Washington Biotechnology Action Council. "That's
because they know consumers wouldn't buy it."

Jeff Bergau, a spokesman for agri-chemical giant Monsanto Co, agreed
that most people eat genetically modified food every day. Bergau said
his company has opposed labeling such food because of the implicit
message. "Labeling genetically modified food could mislead consumers
by implying that such foods are different or not safe," he said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires labels if any
alterations compromise safety or change the nutritional
characteristics of the food, Bergau said. A label that simply states
the food was genetically altered in some way isn't reasonable or fair
and "implies something's wrong," he said.

But critics such as Aal contend that something is wrong if the
industry in the United States prevails in not informing consumers
about what they're eating.

Labeling was one of the main topics of discussion yesterday in the
first day of a two-day conference called Biodevastation 3. It is being
held at Seattle's Plymouth Congregational Church as a counterpoint to
Bio '99, the annual meeting of the international Biotechnology
Industry Organization. Bergau and thousands of others who celebrate
the power and progress of biotechnology have been meeting all week at
the Washington State Trade and Convention Center. Bio '99 closes today
as well.

The 100 or so people gathered for the Biodevastation 3 meeting were
outnumbered, but most of the speakers said they believed U.S.
consumers were finally awakening to an issue being debated in Europe
and in industrialized countries elsewhere in the world.

"We're at a crossroads," said Ronnie Cummins, director of the
Minnesota-based non-profit Campaign for Food Safety. The biotechnology
industry has promised to provide consumers with better drugs, seeds
and food, Cummins said, but many people are recognizing those as empty
promises.

The use of bovine growth hormone, he said, was rejected by the public
despite Monsanto's massive public relations and lobbying campaign.
Consumers in Europe and Britain have demanded labeling and are forcing
supermarkets to offer foods guaranteed free of genetically engineered
products, Cummins said.

Charles Margulis, a member of Greenpeace, said the biotechnology
industry assures the public that genetic engineering is no different
from selective breeding. But the scientific community isn't so
assured, he said.

Speaking yesterday, Margulis cited a report issued Monday by the
British Medical Association -- the U.K.'s equivalent of the American
Medical Association -- that urged caution and more study of
genetically modified food:

"The British Medical Association believes that any conclusion
upon the safety of introducing genetically modified materials
into the U.K. is premature as there is insufficient evidence to
inform the decision-making process at present," the report
stated.

Margulis said that while some genetically engineered foods are allowed
for distribution in the European Union, they are not allowed to be
grown as crops anywhere in Europe. Many Europeans, he said, view the
environmental risk from genetic engineering of crops as akin to
chemical pollution.

"What we're facing now is biological pollution," Margulis said.

Bergau and Libby Mikesell, spokeswoman for Bio '99, said Britain's
negative reaction to genetically engineered foods comes from broader
concerns and lack of confidence in food safety following the so-called
"mad cow disease" episode in which people were sickened by tainted
meat. "There's a lot of debate in Europe now about the safety of
biotechnology," Mikesell said. "Americans are more trusting of their
regulatory system." Dr. Peter Welters, chief executive officer of an
agricultural biotechnology company called Phytowelt, thinks the lack
of debate over agricultural biotechnology in the United States is
simply the result of ignorance.

"In Europe, Germany especially, we've been debating this for more than
10 years," said Welters, who is a German citizen and was one of the
speakers and exhibitors at Bio '99. "People are very informed about
it." Welters said he finds the U.S. biotech industry's opposition to
labeling curious and perhaps counter-productive.

"If there's nothing to fear from genetic engineering, why do they fear
labeling their products?" he asked.

Welters noted that the Germans do label genetically engineered foods,
and consumers don't appear too concerned.

"In Germany, I think many people are tired of hearing about the threat
of biotechnology," he said.

Send comments to newm...@seattle-pi.com

© 1999 Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
All rights reserved.

==========================================================

http://archives.seattletimes.com/cgi-bin/texis.mummy/web/
vortex/display?storyID=36d732273f&query=genetic+engineering

Copyright © 1999 The Seattle Times Company

National/World News : Thursday, February 18, 1999

Genetically altered food raises scare in Britain

by Ray Moseley
Chicago Tribune

LONDON - After the "mad-cow" scare, which put many Britons off eating
beef for a couple of years, comes the genetically modified-food scare.
It started with the disclosure that research into the effects of
genetically modified potatoes on rats apparently showed that they
suffered a weakened immune system and damage to vital organs.

From there it has snowballed into a major public-health scare, with
the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair on the defensive,
competing teams of scientists confusing the public with conflicting
reports as to whether genetically modified food is safe and newspapers
fanning the flames with reports of "Frankenstein foods."

Blair's response to the controversy is being compared with that of the
former Conservative government, which downplayed initial reports that
British cattle were suffering from what became known as mad-cow
disease. Later, a number of Britons died of a human variant of the
disease, called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and millions of cattle had
to be slaughtered after the European Union imposed a ban on British
cattle sales abroad.

Up to 60 percent of processed foods in Britain contain materials that
have been genetically modified, but until last week there was no
serious suggestion they could be bad for humans.

But the Guardian newspaper revealed that British scientist Arpad
Pusztai, internationally renowned in the field of protein research,
was forced to retire from his job with the government-funded Rowett
Research Institute after he produced the report on rats, which was
then suppressed. The newspaper said 20 international scientists had
signed a memorandum supporting his findings.

Philip James, Rowett's director, has been accused of firing Pusztai
because Monsanto, a leading producer of genetically modified crops,
donated $230,000 to the institute about two years ago. James denied
there had been any pressure from the St. Louis-based company.

With the government considering applications for the first commercial
planting of genetically modified crops in Britain, the scientists who
supported Pusztai called for a five-year moratorium on the sale of
such foods.

The government rejected that, but ruled out any commercial planting of
genetically modified crops this year, a decision that could be
overruled by the European Union. France already faces legal action
from the European Commission for trying to block genetic crops.

The government was so eager to calm the public that it commissioned a
scientist, Jonathan Jones, to write an article on the benefits of
genetically modified food. Jones works for a research laboratory
funded by a charitable trust administered by Lord Sainsbury, the Labor
science minister whose family owns one of Britain's biggest grocery
chains. Sainsbury is a leading advocate of biotechnology.

Officials said they were concerned that public fears would harm
Britain's bioscience industry. In an attempt to calm these fears, a
government statement said, "The prime minister is very strongly of the
view that this product is safe."

But Sir Crispin Tickell, Blair's chief scientific adviser, said he
"would hesitate" to eat genetically modified food.

Trouble for the government piled up yesterday when the Daily Telegraph
reported that a suppressed report written for the government last year
found that genetically modified crops could wipe out some farmland
birds, plants and animals.

The report was compiled by the biotechnology unit of the Environment
Department. The Telegraph said the government delayed its publication
indefinitely after the Agriculture Ministry expressed concern about
its contents. Seven environmental protesters were arrested today after
dumping four tons of genetically modified U.S. soy beans outside
Blair's official residence.

Lawsuit filed against EPA for approving altered crop

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - A coalition of environmentalists, organic farmers and
consumer groups filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection
Agency today to force the agency to end its approval of a type of
genetically altered crop.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court by Greenpeace International,
the Center for Food Safety and the International Federation of Organic
Agricultural Movements charges EPA with "wanton destruction" of Bt,
which it calls the "world's most important biological pesticide."

The complainants are concerned that using the pesticide in genetically
altered plants poses environmental risks. They complain that EPA has
failed to address their concerns since approving the product.

EPA approved the use of Bt in potatoes in 1995 and has since agreed to
its use in corn and cotton.

The lawsuit demands that EPA cancel registration of all genetically
engineered Bt plants, cease approval of any new Bt plants and
immediately perform an environmental-impact assessment.

Bt is actually a soil bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis, that produces
toxins to kill insects. It has been used for years as a spray by
farmers and gardeners who like the fact that it kills insects while
remaining nontoxic to mammals.

But the use of Bt has changed in recent years with advances in genetic
engineering. Scientists are now able to develop plants that contain a
gene for Bt toxin, giving the crops built-in protection.

Copyright © 1999 Seattle Times Company

=============================================================

http://archives.seattletimes.com/cgi-bin/texis.mummy/web/
vortex/display?storyID=36d4b3f85c&query=genetic+engineering

Copyright © 1999 The Seattle Times Company

National/World News : Thursday, May 28, 1998

FDA sued over genetically engineered food

by Jim Puzzanghera
Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - A diverse coalition has filed suit against the Food and
Drug Administration, seeking to have 36 genetically engineered foods
taken off the market until they are tested and labeled.

The suit, filed yesterday in U.S. District Court here, strikes at the
fast-growing number of foods being produced using genetic engineering
- ranging from slower ripening tomatoes to insect-resistant corn and
soybeans.

The new genetic technology, the suit claims, puts consumers at risk of
eating foods with a genetic composition that could cause an allergic
reaction. The suit also says consumers could eat foods that contain
genes from substances their religious guidelines prohibit. The
plaintiffs cited no specific cases of such foods reaching the market.

"By failing to require testing and labeling of genetically engineered
foods, the FDA has made millions of American consumers the guinea pigs
to test the safety of these foods," said Andrew Kimbrell, executive
director of the International Center for Technology Assessment, a
Washington-based public interest group that is among the scientists,
nonprofits and religious organizations filing the suit.

FDA says foods are safe

But FDA and industry officials say genetically engineered foods are
tested by the companies that produce them and are reviewed in
voluntary consultation with the FDA.

In addition, they say, mandating a label on a tomato or bottle of
cooking oil that says it was produced by genetic engineering would not
give consumers any substantive information about nutritional value or
other important characteristics.

"It's similar to saying whether grapes are picked by scab labor or
union labor," said Eric Flamm, a senior policy adviser at the FDA who
deals with biotechnology issues. "Some people are interested in it.
It's not within our jurisdiction to require labeling like that."

The groups backing the suit say the FDA requires labels when food
Director of the Consumer Policy Institute of Consumers Union undergoes
"material" changes - a condition they say exists under genetic
engineering. The suit also says that the insertion of genetic material
into foods should be considered a food additive, which requires
testing to determine safety.

Potential religious issue

The suit raises the possibility that not labeling genetically altered
foods could violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act because it
restricts the free exercise of religion by people such as Jews and
Muslims who have to avoid certain foods. For instance, they said, Jews
who maintain a kosher kitchen could unwittingly eat foods that have
dairy or pork genes, though no such food is currently on the market.

During a news conference here Wednesday, backers of the suit said they
are not opposed to genetic engineering - just the lack of regulation
of the growing numbers of products. They listed 36 genetically
engineered foods on the market.

"This is not all about fear and worry," said Jean Halloran, director
of the Consumer Policy Institute of Consumers Union, which publishes
Consumer Reports. "In general it is quite possible that much, a
majority, maybe even the vast majority of this food will turn out to
be safe. But what we need are the assessments and the information for
consumers."

Scott Thenell, director of regulatory affairs for DNA Plant Technology
in Oakland, Calif., said the FDA's process is adequate and that
consumers get the information they need - information about the
nutritional value in the foods that are genetically altered, not how
they got that nutritional value.

"It's imperative that foods that are marketed be safe for consumers,
and a developer is going to do everything that is reasonable and
logical to establish that safety," said Thenell, whose company has
genetically engineered a delayed-ripening tomato that could hit the
market next year.

He said he feared testing could delay these new varieties.

Copyright © 1999 Seattle Times Company

===========================================================

Re: "Beware! Healthy Foods Are Falling Prey to Frightening New Trends"
Author: Lise Norgren <li...@direct.ca>
Date: 1999/10/09
Forum: alt.sustainable.agriculture

Jules Pretty examines the myths and realities of sustainable farming's
quiet revolution.

Feeding the world?

Statements of fact

Ever since we started farming some 10,000 years ago, there has been a
constant struggle to make sure that enough food is produced to feed
everyone. This challenge has become ever more acute in the last half
of this century. Even though we can put people on the moon, we simply
cannot find a way to feed the world's population. And the problem will
get worse before it gets better. This much is agreed, but what we do
about it is highly contested. Let's start with some facts. The world
population is now 5.9 billion people. It is still increasing, and will
eventually stabilise somewhere between 8 and 11 billion. Most of this
growth will occur in the poorer countries of the world. Today, a
seventh of all the world's people are hungry, 800 million of them. A
quarter of these are children. Food production will have to increase,
otherwise we could be faced with crises of epic proportions. But it is
not a simple problem. We actually produce enough food in the world to
feed everyone with a nutritious and adequate diet now - on average 350
kg of cereal per person. A good deal of cereal is turned into meat,
milk and other animal products, which in energy terms is inefficient.
This reduces the total amount of food available. But a more important
factor is that most hungry people are poor and cannot afford to buy
food. Poor farmers cannot afford expensive `modern' technologies that
could increase their yields. What they need are readily available and
cheap means to improve their farms.

And there signs that a quiet revolution in the world food system is
beginning to occur.

The myth makers

First, though, it's important to look at the myth makers who believe
in the 'techno-fix' of genetic engineering as a solution to the
looming crisis. One of the biggest advocates for genetically
engineered crops is the American company, Monsanto. Their public
relations campaign, `Let the Harvest Begin' (sic), states that
Europeans should stop being selfish in refusing to accept GMOs
(genetically-modified organisms) because that is "a luxury our hungry
world cannot afford". They say that "agricultural biotechnology will
play a major role in realising the hope we all share. Accepting this
science can make a dramatic difference in millions of lives". Also,
advocates have not been slow to play the environmental card. But this
is done in a remarkably naïve way. It is a vital part of the public
relations management to persuade citizens in the North to accept the
GM technologies, yet it betrays a lack of understanding of developing
country agricultural, economic and social systems. Michael Wilson of
the Scottish Crops Research Institute said in 1997: "to feed 10.8
billion people by 2050 will require us to convert 15 million square
miles of virgin forest, wilderness and marginal land into
agro-chemical dependent arable land. GM crops hold the most important
key to solve future problems in feeding an extra five billion mouths
over the next 50 years".
--------------------------------------------------------------------
We actually produce enough food in the world to feed everyone with a
nutritious and adequate diet now
---------------------------------------------------------------------

To anyone who comes from developing countries or has worked in them,
this is simply nonsense. Replying to a comment in late 1997 by a
British scientist who said that "those who want it [GMOs] banned are
undermining the position of starving people in Ethiopia", Tewolde
Berhan Gebre Egziabher of the Institute for Sustainable Development in
Addis Ababa, said that "there are still hungry people in Ethiopia, but
they are hungry because they have no money, no longer because there is
no food to buy. we strongly resent the abuse of our poverty to sway
the interests of the European public". The huge number of people in
severe poverty and hunger is a dreadful indictment on all of us.
Something must be done.

But that something is not to say we must pursue a path of genetic
modification and hang the consequences. I am perfectly open to be
persuaded of the benefits of genetic modification - such as for novel
treatment of cystic fibrosis or cancers - but not when the feeding the
world myth is trundled out again and again.

Perhaps a cereal crop will be engineered to have bacteria in the roots
that fix free nitrogen from the air. This would be a tremendous
benefit for poor farmers. But unless this technology is cheap or
freely available, it seems very unlikely that the people who need it
most would ever have access. And what about the plans for
`terminator-technology'? These are seeds that die after one year so
that farmers cannot save the seed and use it again. Will this really
benefit the 2 billion people in developing countries currently relying
on largely 'unimproved' agricultural systems?

Biotechnology is not currently a necessary precondition for feeding
the world. However, it is fair to say that improvements to farming
will arise from genetic engineering if the research is public-funded
and for the public good. Biotechnology is therefore unlikely to
benefit the poor in the short term. These technologies are expensive
to develop, estimated at $1 million per gene, and companies are
expecting to recoup costs as well as make large profits on sales.

So who will feed all those people in developing countries? The answer
to this question is simple - farmers in those countries, using
sustainable methods of production.

Sustainable agriculture - the quiet revolution has started Quietly,
slowly and very significantly, sustainable agriculture is sweeping the
farming systems of the world.

Put simply, sustainable agriculture is 'farming that makes the best
use of nature's goods and service whilst not damaging the
environment.' It does this by integrating natural processes such as
nutrient cycling, nitrogen fixation, soil regeneration and pest
predators into food production processes. It minimises the use of
non-renewable inputs (pesticides and fertilizers) that damage the
environment or harm the health of farmers and consumers. And third, it
makes better use of the knowledge and skills of farmers, so improving
their self-reliance and capacities.
--------------------------------------------------------------------

...we strongly resent the abuse of our poverty to sway the interests
of the European public
---------------------------------------------------------------------

This sequence is very important. During this century, modern
agriculture has seen external inputs of pesticides, inorganic
fertilizer, animal feedstuffs, energy, and machinery become the
primary means to increase food production. These external inputs,
though, have substituted the free, natural control processes and
resources. Pesticides have replaced biological, cultural and
mechanical methods for controlling pests, weeds and diseases;
inorganic fertilizers have substituted for livestock manures,
composts, nitrogen-fixing crops and fertile soils; and fossil fuels
have substituted for locally-generated energy sources. What were once
valued local resources have all too often become waste products.

The basic challenge for sustainable agriculture is to maximize the use
of locally-available and renewable resources.

This sounds good - but does it work? Are there sufficient resources
and opportunities to turn unproductive farms into surplus-producing
ones? Remarkably, the best evidence comes from those very countries of
Africa, Asia and Latin America that are said to need most the `modern'
technologies produced by large companies. Where whole communities have
been involved in the complete redesign of farming and other local
economic activities, the sustainability dividend is very large. The
regenerative technologies and practices are hugely beneficial for both
farmers and rural environments. There is more natural capital from
fewer external inputs. More food output from fewer fossil-fuel derived
inputs.

The improvements are of two basic types. First, sustainable farming is
taking root in the resource-poor areas, those that have remained
largely untouched by modern technologies of the past 40 years. Here
there is a two to threefold increase in food output.

The second is occurring in the higher-input systems where the
so-called `Green Revolution' has already had an impact on food output,
but where there are concerns that yield increases have slowed or
stopped and where high use of pesticides causes damage to human health
and environments. Here the dividend comes from a greatly reduced use
of pesticides - they are replaced by natural predators, habitat
redesign, multiple cropping and the like - whilst increasing yields by
a small amount, typically 10%.

Recent evidence from 20 countries has found more than 2 million
families farming sustainable on more than 4-5 million hectares.

This is no longer marginal. It cannot be ignored. What is remarkable
is not so much the numbers, but that most of this has happened in the
past 5-10 years. Moreover, many of the improvements are occurring in
remote and resource-poor areas that had been assumed to be incapable
of producing food surpluses.

The myths and beyond

Another cog in the myth makers' wheel is the expected response of
industrialized countries to sustainable agriculture. At the beginning
of the 1990s, the former US Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Butz, said
we could move to more sustainable farming, but "before we move in that
direction, someone must decide which fifty million of our people will
starve. We simply cannot feed, even at subsistence levels, our 250
million Americans without a large production input of chemicals,
antibiotics and growth hormones".

Again, this view is simply nonsense, as it once again ignores what is
happening right now. In a study for my new book The Living Land, I
looked at projects in seven industrialized countries of Europe and
North America. Farmers are finding that they can cut their inputs of
costly pesticides and fertilizers substantially, varying from 20-80%,
and be financially better off. Yields do fall to begin with (by 10-15%
typically), but there is compelling evidence that they soon rise and
go on increasing. In the USA, for example, the top quarter sustainable
agriculture farmers now have higher yields than conventional farmers,
as well as a much lower negative impact on the environment.

The challenge is still massive. Sustainable farming can greatly
improve the productivity of the land. It has already done so for more
than two million families in the past five to ten years. Yet there is
still a very long way to go. And we need to inform our citizens about
what is happening, so that they can form fair judgements on the
alternatives we may or may not seek to promote in the name of `feeding
the world'.

Jules Pretty is Director of the Centre for Environment and Society at
the University of Essex. His most recent book, "The Living Land:
Agriculture, Food and Community Regeration in Rural Europe", is
published this month by Earthscan Publications of London. An earlier
book "Regenerating Agriculture: Policies and Practice for
Sustainability and Self-Reliance" (Earthscan, 1995) deals mainly with
sustainable agriculture in developing countries.

This article appeared in The Genetics Forum's magazine The Splice of
Life, Vol.4 Issue 6, August/September 1998. © The Genetics Forum.

=================================================================

http://www.seattle-pi.com/pi/opinion/ltrs091.shtml
--------------------------------------------------

Letters to the Editor
Wednesday, June 9, 1999

GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOODS

Negative consequences may be unintentional, not unforeseen Those of us
who have been raising serious scientific, ethical and public policy
questions about genetically modified foods certainly welcome your
editorial call for their assessment (June 2).

Your voice has sounded a bit late, however. More than 10 years ago,
the Ecological Society of America called for adequate environmental
studies before releasing altered plants and animals into the
environment. After all, they are living creatures -- they migrate,
multiply and mutate. But under the Reagan-Bush deregulation fever, the
Food and Drug Administration abdicated any pre-marketing oversight in
1992.

So we are the guinea pigs for the bio-industry. And they aren't even
genetically engineering those foods on our behalf to make them more
nutritious or cheaper or more abundant for the poor of the world --
just to satisfy corporate objectives (easier to ship, more compatible
with agro-chemicals that the companies also sell, etc.).

Europe tries to adhere to a policy we used to follow, the
"precautionary principle." As sensible as look before you leap, that
approach suggests (1) gathering relevant data and doing the analysis
in advance, and (2) putting the burden of proof of dispelling
uncertainties on the proponent of the new technology.

The negative consequences of genetically engineered foods, which you
decry (such as the threat to the Monarch butterfly) may have been
unintended; however, they certainly were not unforeseeable (for
example, the deaths of moths and butterflies was one of the specific
concerns raised by environmentalists). Our genetic diversity is too
precious to be handled so recklessly.

Philip L. Bereano
College of Engineering, UW

© 1999 Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
All rights reserved.

=========

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

[jum...@my-deja.com]

From: John <wh...@whaleto.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Prozac in Killer's Home
Date: Saturday, September 25, 1999 8:08 AM

The Truth Seeker Foundation
An Important Message

The Truth Seeker is a remarkable organization that has existed for 125
years.

As a freethought newspaper, we were there during the movement to give
women the right to vote, and during the pivotal Scopes trial; we were
there whenever arbitrary authority needed to be exposed and
dismantled.

Now, as a publisher, the Truth Seeker Foundation has begun to issue
position papers on exceptionally vital matters that have resisted
complete exposure in the national press.

Our number one paper in the series, written by investigative reporter
Jon Rappoport, takes up the submerged scandal involving the universal
use of highly toxic pharmaceuticals.

Mr. Rappoport pursues a trail that leads to violence among children
and the school shootings across America.

We want this truth to provoke real change.

To contact The Truth Seeker Foundation, call 619-676-0430, Erica
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Sincerely,

Bonnie Lange, President
The Truth Seeker Foundation

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The Truth Seeker Foundation

WHY DID THEY DO IT?
An Inquiry into the School Shootings in America

Position Paper #1
by
Jon Rappoport
Investigative Reporter

Why Did They Do It?
An Inquiry Into the School Shootings in America
is the first of a series of reports from
The Truth Seeker Foundation

The Truth Seeker Foundation sponsors investigations into vital matters
that have not risen to the level of open public debate.

The Foundation believes that in order to solve serious human problems,
we must commit ourselves to uncovering deeper strata of truth that
underlie public events, news and political discourse. Only in this way
can we all create a more just future.

(c)1999 Jon Rappoport.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
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Published by
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Why Did They Do It?
An Inquiry into the School Shootings in America
by Jon Rappoport

The massacre at Columbine High School took place on April 20, 1999.
Astonishingly, for eight days after the tragedy, during thousands of
hours of prime-time television coverage, virtually no one mentioned
the word "drugs." Then the issue was opened. Eric Harris, one of the
shooters at Columbine, was on at least one drug.

The NY Times of April 29, 1999, and other papers reported that Harris
was rejected from enlisting in the Marines for medical reasons. A
friend of the family told the Times that Harris was being treated by a
psychiatrist. And then several sources told the Washington Post that
the drug prescribed as treatment was Luvox, manufactured by Solvay.

In two more days, the "drug-issue" was gone.

Luvox is of the same class as Prozac and Zoloft and Paxil. They are
labeled SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors). They attempt
to alleviate depression by changing brain-levels of the natural
substance serotonin. Luvox has a slightly different chemical
configuration from Prozac, Paxil, and Zoloft, and it was approved by
the FDA for obsessive-compulsive disorder, although many doctors
apparently prescribe it for depression.

Had Eric Harris been on other drugs as well? Ritalin? Prozac?
Tranquilizers? As yet we don't know.

Prozac is the wildly popular Eli Lilly antidepressant which has been
linked to suicidal and homicidal actions. It is now given to young
children. Again, its chemical composition is very close to Luvox, the
drug that Harris took.

Dr. Peter Breggin, the eminent psychiatrist and author (Toxic
Psychiatry, Talking Back to Prozac, Talking Back to Ritalin), told me,
"With Luvox there is some evidence of a four-percent rate for mania in
adolescents. Mania, for certain individuals, could be a component in
grandiose plans to destroy large numbers of other people. Mania can go
over the hill to psychosis."

Dr. Joseph Tarantolo is a psychiatrist in private practice in
Washington DC. He is the president of the Washington chapter of the
American Society of Psychoanalytic Physicians. Tarantolo states that
"all the SSRIs [including Prozac and Luvox] relieve the patient of
feeling. He becomes less empathic, as in `I don't care as much,' which
means `It's easier for me to harm you.' If a doctor treats someone who
needs a great deal of strength just to think straight, and gives him
one of these drugs, that could push him over the edge into violent
behavior."

In Arianna Huffington's syndicated newspaper column of July 9, 1998,
Dr. Breggin states, "I have no doubt that Prozac can cause or
contribute to violence and suicide. I've seen many cases. In a recent
clinical trial, 6 percent of the children became psychotic on Prozac.
And manic psychosis can lead to violence."

Huffington follows up on this: "In addition to the case of Kip Kinkel,
who had been a user of Prozac [Kinkel was the shooter in the May 21,
1998, Springfield, Oregon, school massacre], there are much less
publicized instances where teenagers on Prozac or similar
antidepressants have exploded into murderous rages: teenagers like
Julie Marie Meade from Maryland who was shot to death by the police
when they found her waving a gun at them. Or Ben Garris, a 16-year old
in Baltimore who stabbed his counselor to death. Or Kristina Fetters,
a 14-year old from Des Moines, Iowa, who stabbed her favorite great
aunt in a rage that landed her a life sentence."

Dr. Tarantolo also has written about Julie Marie Meade. In a column
for the ICSPP (International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and
Psychology) News, "Children and Prozac: First Do No Harm," Tarantolo
describes how Julie Meade, in November of 1996, called 911, "begging
the cops to come and shoot her. And if they didn't do it quickly, she
would do it to herself. There was also the threat that she would shoot
them as well."

The police came within a few minutes, "5 of them to be exact, pumping
at least 10 bullets into her head and torso."

Tarantolo remarks that a friend of Julie said Julie "had plans to make
the honor roll and go to college. He [the friend] had also observed
her taking all those pills." What pills? Tarantolo called the
Baltimore medical examiner, and spoke with Dr. Martin Bullock, who was
on a fellowship at that office. Bullock said, "She had been taking
Prozac for four years."

Tarantolo asked Bullock, "Did you know that Prozac has been implicated
in impulsive de novo violence and suicidalness?" Bullock said he was
not aware of this.

Tarantolo writes, "Had she recently increased the dosage? Was she
taking other drugs? Drugs such as Ritalin, cocaine, amphetamine, and
tricyclic antidepressants (Tofranil, Pamelor, Elavil) could all
potentiate the effect of the SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake
inhibitors include Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil)."

In layman's language, mixing these drugs could tinker in ignorance
with basic brain chemistry and bring on horrendous violent behavior.

Tarantolo is careful to point out, "A change [in Julie's drug-taking
pattern] was not necessary, though, to explain her behavior. Violent
and suicidal behavior have been observed both early (a few weeks) and
late (many months) in treatment with Prozac."

The November 23rd, 1996, Washington Post reported the Julie Meade
death by shooting. The paper mentioned nothing about Prozac. This was
left to a more penetrating newspaper, the local PG County Journal-the
Maryland county in which the shooting took place.

Why did the Post never mention Prozac or interview any of a growing
number of psychiatrists who have realized the danger of giving these
drugs to children (and adults)?

Is it because major media outlets enjoy considerable support from
pharmaceutical advertisers? Is it because these companies have been
running successful PR campaigns to keep their drugs' names quiet when
suicides and murders are reported?

Another small paper, The Vigo Examiner (Terra Haute, Indiana), looked
into the May 21, 1998, murders in Springfield, Oregon. The shooter,
who had been on Prozac, Kip Kinkel, was a 15-year-old freshman. First
he killed his parents, then walked into his school cafeteria and
gunned down fellow students. He killed 2 and wounded 22. He is
awaiting trial.

Vigo Examiner reporter Maureen Sielaff covered this story. Showing
straightforward independence where many big-time reporters just don't,
Sielaff researched the book, Prozac and Other Psychiatric Drugs, by
Lewis A. Opler, MD. She writes, "The following side effects are listed
for Prozac: apathy; hallucinations; hostility; irrational ideas;
paranoid reactions; antisocial behavior; hysteria; and suicidal
thoughts." An explosive cocktail of symptoms.

A day or two after the Littleton, Colorado, shootings, a teenager in
Los Angeles, depressed about Littleton, hung himself. The boy had been
under treatment for depression. Did that mean Prozac? Zoloft? Luvox?
Will any reporter look into that incident?

The Jonesboro, Arkansas, school shooting took place on March 24, 1998.
Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, apparently faked a fire
alarm at Westside Middle School. Then when everyone came outside, the
boys fired from the nearby woods, killing four students and a teacher,
wounding 11 other people. Charged as juveniles, the boys were
convicted of capital murder and battery. They can be held in jail
until they are 21 years old. Dr. Alan Lipman, of Georgetown
University, one of the experts interviewed on network television after
Littleton, remarked that at least one of the boys who committed murder
in Jonesboro had been, before the incident, treated for violent
behavior. Treated how? With Prozac, with Zoloft, with a combination of
antidepressants? The action of these drugs-altering the supply of the
brain neurotransmitter serotonin-is touted by some people as a
potential cure for violence. The only problem is, there is no
acknowledged proof within the broad psychiatric profession that
serotonin is a causative factor in violence. That is an unproven
theory.

Not that unproven theories stop the dedicated from experimenting on
brains of the young.

We must get a complete review of the medical history of the two
Littleton shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.

In the aftermath of other school shootings, have parents tried to find
answers? With what responses have their efforts been met?

In Olivehurst, California, on May 1, 1992, Eric Houston, 20, killed 4
people and wounded 10 at his former high school. Houston was sentenced
to death.

On January 18, 1993, in Grayhurst, Kentucky, Scott Pennington, 17,
entered Deanna McDavid's English class at East Carter High School and
shot her in the head. He also shot Marvin Hicks, the school janitor,
in the stomach. Pennington was sentenced to life, without the
possibility of parole for 25 years.

In Richmond, Virginia, on October 30, 1995, Edward Earl Spellman, 18,
shot and wounded 4 students outside their high school.

On February 2, 1996, in an algebra class at Frontier Junior High
School in Mose Lake, Washington, Barry Loukaitas, 14, killed his
teacher and 2 teen-aged boys with an assault rifle, and wounded a
girl. Loukaitas was sentenced to 2 mandatory life terms.

In St. Louis, Missouri, on February 29, 1996, Mark Boyd, 30, fired
into a school bus when its doors opened, killed a 15-year-old pregnant
girl and wounded the driver.

On July 26, 1996, Yohao Albert, a high-school junior, shot and wounded
2 classmates in a stairwell at his Los Angeles school.

On February 19, 1997, in Bethel, Alaska, Evan Ramsey, 16, shot and
killed his high school principal Ron Edwards and one of his
classmates, Josh Palacious. Two students were wounded. Ramsey was
sentenced to 2 99-year terms. Authorities later accused 2 students of
knowing the shootings were going to happen.

On October 1, 1997, in Pearl, Mississippi, Luke Woodham, 16, started
shooting in his school cafeteria. He killed 2 students, including his
ex-girlfriend, and wounded 7 others. He also killed his mother.
Woodham was sentenced to life. Authorities later accused 6 friends of
conspiracy.

On December 1, 1997, at Heath High School in West Paducah, Kentucky,
Michael Carneal, 14, found students coming out of a prayer meeting.
Using a stolen pistol, he shot 8 of these students and killed 3. One
of the wounded girls is paralyzed.

On December 15, 1997, in Stamps, Arkansas, Joseph Todd, 14, was
arrested in the shooting of 2 students outside their high school. The
students recovered from their wounds. Todd faces trial.

In Edinboro, Pennsylvania, on April 24, 1998, Andrew Wurst, 14,
allegedly shot and killed his science teacher, John Gillette, at the
JW Parker Middle School at an 8th grade dance. Two students and
another teacher were wounded. Wurst is awaiting trial.

In Fayetteville, Tennessee, on May 19, 1998, several days before
graduation, Jacob Davis, 18, allegedly shot and killed Robert Creson,
a classmate at Lincoln County High School. Creson was dating Davis'
ex-girlfriend. Davis, who was an honor student, awaits trial.

A CNN story, dated May 21, 1998, authored by its Justice Dept.
correspondent, Pierre Thomas, offered the following statistics: "Ten
percent of the nation's schools reported one or more violent crimes in
the 1996-1997 school year, including murder, suicide, rape, robbery
and fights involving weapons." Even if these Justice Dept. figures are
self-serving and overblown, they point to a chilling landscape.

The availability of guns is a cause. No question.

The saturation of violence on TV is a cause. No question.

The breakup of families is a cause. No question. So is outright child
abuse.

The compartmentalization of children from their parents is a cause.

The absence of a good education is a cause.

The growing poverty and its atmosphere of hopelessness in America is a
cause.

The presence of lunatic ideologies (Nazism, Satanism) in the landscape
is a factor.

You can't assign numbers to these causes. You can't say one of the
above is a 23% cause or a 3% cause.

But is there another factor in pushing kids over the edge? Are some
children, angry and desperate and in proximity to weapons, who are
nevertheless quite able to maintain moral equilibrium, being jolted by
chemicals which are scrambling their brains and intensifying their
impulses and amplifying their dark thoughts?

The bulk of American media appears afraid to go after psychiatric
drugs as a cause. This fear stems, in part, from the sure knowledge
that expert attack dogs are waiting in the wings, funded by big-time
pharmaceutical companies. There are doctors and researchers as well
who have seen a dark truth about these drugs in the journals, but are
afraid to stand up and speak out. After all, the medical culture
punishes no one as severely as its own defectors, when defection from
the party line threatens profits and careers and reputations, when
defection alerts the public that deadly effects could be emanating
from corporate boardrooms.

And what of the federal government itself? The FDA licenses every drug
released for public use and certifies that it is safe and effective.
If a real tornado started at the public level, if the mothers of the
young killers and young victims began to see a terrible knowledge swim
into view, a knowledge they hadn't imagined, and if THEY joined
forces, the earth would shake.

After commenting on some of the adverse effects of the antidepressant
drug Prozac, psychiatrist Peter Breggin notes, "From the initial
studies, it was also apparent that a small percentage of Prozac
patients became psychotic."

Prozac, in fact, endured a rocky road in the press for a time. Stories
on it rarely appear now. The major media have backed off. But on
February 7th, 1991, Amy Marcus' Wall Street Journal article on the
drug carried the headline, "Murder Trials Introduce Prozac Defense."
She wrote, "A spate of murder trials in which defendants claim they
became violent when they took the antidepressant Prozac are imposing
new problems for the drug's maker, Eli Lilly and Co."

Also on February 7, 1991, the New York Times ran a Prozac piece
headlined, "Suicidal Behavior Tied Again to Drug: Does Antidepressant
Prompt Violence?"

In his landmark book, Toxic Psychiatry, Dr. Breggin mentions that the
Donahue show (Feb. 28, 1991) "put together a group of individuals who
had become compulsively self-destructive and murderous after taking
Prozac and the clamorous telephone and audience response confirmed the
problem."

Breggin also cites a troubling study from the February 1990 American
Journal of Psychiatry (Teicher et al, v.147:207-210) which reports on
"six depressed patients, previously free of recent suicidal ideation,
who developed `intense, violent suicidal preoccupations after 2-7
weeks of fluoxetine [Prozac] treatment.' The suicidal preoccupations
lasted from three days to three months after termination of the
treatment. The report estimates that 3.5 percent of Prozac users were
at risk. While denying the validity of the study, Dista Products, a
division of Eli Lilly, put out a brochure for doctors dated August 31,
1990, stating that it was adding `suicidal ideation' to the adverse
events section of its Prozac product information."

An earlier study, from the September 1989 Journal of Clinical
Psychiatry, by Joseph Lipiniski, Jr., indicates that in five examined
cases people on Prozac developed what is called akathesia. Symptoms
include intense anxiety, inability to sleep, the "jerking of
extremities," and "bicycling in bed or just turning around and
around." Breggin comments that akathesia "may also contribute to the
drug's tendency to cause self-destructive or violent tendencies ...
Akathesia can become the equivalent of biochemical torture and could
possibly tip someone over the edge into self-destructive or violent
behavior ... The June 1990 Health Newsletter, produced by the Public
Citizen Research Group, reports, 'Akathesia, or symptoms of
restlessness, constant pacing, and purposeless movements of the feet
and legs, may occur in 10-25 percent of patients on Prozac.'"

The well-known publication, California Lawyer, in a December 1998
article called "Protecting Prozac," details some of the suspect
maneuvers of Eli Lilly in its handling of suits against Prozac.
California Lawyer also mentions other highly qualified critics of the
drug: "David Healy, MD, an internationally renowned
psychopharmacologist, has stated in sworn deposition that `contrary to
Lilly's view, there is a plausible cause-and-effect relationship
between Prozac' and suicidal-homicidal events. An epidemiological
study published in 1995 by the British Medical Journal also links
Prozac to increased suicide risk."

When pressed, proponents of these SSRI drugs sometimes say, "Well, the
benefits for the general population far outweigh the risk," or, "Maybe
in one or two tragic cases the dosage prescribed was too high." But
the problem will not go away on that basis. A shocking review-study
published in The Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases (1996, v.184,
no.2), written by Rhoda L. Fisher and Seymour Fisher, called
"Antidepressants for Children," concludes: "Despite unanimous
literature of double-blind studies indicating that antidepressants are
no more effective than placebos in treating depression in children and
adolescents, such medications continue to be in wide use."

In wide use. This despite such contrary information and the negative,
dangerous effects of these drugs.

There are other studies: "Emergence of self-destructive phenomena in
children and adolescents during fluoxetine treatment," published in
the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
(1991, vol.30), written by RA King, RA Riddle, et al. It reports
self-destructive phenomena in 14% (6/42) of children and adolescents
(10-17 years old) who had treatment with fluoxetine (Prozac) for
obsessive-compulsive disorder.

July, 1991. Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Hisako
Koizumi, MD, describes a thirteen-year-old boy who was on Prozac:
"full of energy," "hyperactive," "clown-like." All this devolved into
sudden violent actions which were "totally unlike him."

September, 1991. The Journal of the American Academy of Child and
Adolescent Psychiatry. Author Laurence Jerome reports the case of a
ten-year old who moves with his family to a new location. Becoming
depressed, the boy is put on Prozac by a doctor. The boy is then
"hyperactive, agitated ... irritable." He makes a "somewhat grandiose
assessment of his own abilities." Then he calls a stranger on the
phone and says he is going to kill him. The Prozac is stopped, and the
symptoms disappear.

Recently I spoke with a psychologist at a major university about the
possibility that Prozac could have provoked some of the school
shootings. He said, "Well, in the case of Columbine High School, that
couldn't have been the case. The boy had a whole plan there. Prozac is
more of an impulse-causer." I said, "Suppose the plan was in the realm
of a maybe-fantasy and then Prozac pushed the whole thing over the
edge." After a pause he said, "Yes, that could be." As mentioned
above, grandiose ideas can be generated by a person taking Prozac, and
in the literature there is also mention of a "delusional system" being
the outcome in a case of a patient on the drug.

A December 1, 1996, newswire story from Cox News Service, by Gary
Kane, states, "Scores of young men and women across the country are
learning that the Ritalin they took as teen-agers is stopping them
from serving their country or starting a military career."

Kane continues, "All branches of the armed forces reject potential
enlistees who use Ritalin or similar behavior-modifying medications
... And people who
took Ritalin as teen-agers to treat ADD [Attention Deficit Disorder],
an inhibitor of academic skills, are rejected from military service,
even if they no longer take the medication."

Was this the case with Eric Harris? Was he rejected by the Marines
only because of the Luvox, or was Ritalin use, past or present,
involved as well?

Ritalin, manufactured by Novartis, is the close cousin to speed which
is given to perhaps two million American schoolchildren for a
condition called Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), or ADHD (Attention
Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). ADD and ADHD, for which no organic
causes have ever been found, are touted as disease-conditions that
afflict the young, causing hyperactivity, unmanageability, and
learning problems. Of course, when you name a disorder or a syndrome
and yet can find no single provable organic cause for it, you have
nothing more than a loose collection of behaviors with an arbitrary
title.

Correction: you also have a pharmaceutical bonanza.

Dr. Breggin, referring to an official directory of psychiatric
disorders, the DSM-III-R, writes that withdrawal from amphetamine-type
drugs, including Ritalin, can cause "depression, anxiety, and
irritability as well as sleep problems, fatigue, and agitation."
Breggin then remarks, "The individual may become suicidal in response
to the depression."

The well-known Goodman and Gilman's The Pharmacological Basis of
Therapeutics reveals a strange fact. It states that Ritalin is
"structurally related to amphetamines ... Its pharmacological
properties are essentially the same as those of the amphetamines." In
other words, the only clear difference is legality. And the effects,
in layman's terms, are obvious. You take speed and after awhile,
sooner or later, you start crashing. You become agitated, irritable,
paranoid, delusional, aggressive.

A firm and objective medical review needs to be done in all of the
school shootings, to determine how many of the shooters were on, or
had at one time been on, Ritalin.

In Toxic Psychiatry, Dr. Breggin discusses the subject of drug
combinations: "Combining antidepressants [e.g., Prozac, Luvox] and
psychostimulants [e.g., Ritalin] increases the risk of cardiovascular
catastrophe, seizures, sedation, euphoria, and psychosis. Withdrawal
from the combination can cause a severe reaction that includes
confusion, emotional instability, agitation, and aggression." Children
are frequently medicated with this combination, and when we highlight
such effects as aggression, psychosis, and emotional instability, it
is obvious that the result is pointing toward the very real
possibility of violence.

In 1986, The International Journal of the Addictions published a most
important literature review by Richard Scarnati. It was called "An
Outline of Hazardous Side Effects of Ritalin (Methylphenidate")
[v.21(7), pp. 837-841].

Scarnati listed over a hundred adverse affects of Ritalin and indexed
published journal articles for each of these symptoms.

For every one of the following (selected and quoted verbatim) Ritalin
effects then, there is at least one confirming source in the medical
literature:

¥ Paranoid delusions
¥ Paranoid psychosis
¥ Hypomanic and manic symptoms, amphetamine-like psychosis
¥ Activation of psychotic symptoms
¥ Toxic psychosis
¥ Visual hallucinations
¥ Auditory hallucinations
¥ Can surpass LSD in producing bizarre experiences
¥ Effects pathological thought processes
¥ Extreme withdrawal
¥ Terrified affect
¥ Started screaming
¥ Aggressiveness
¥ Insomnia
¥ Since Ritalin is considered an amphetamine-type drug, expect
amphatamine-like effects
¥ psychic dependence
¥ High-abuse potential DEA Schedule II Drug
¥ Decreased REM sleep
¥ When used with antidepressants one may see dangerous reactions
including hypertension, seizures and hypothermia
¥ Convulsions
¥ Brain damage may be seen with amphetamine abuse.

Many parents around the country have discovered that Ritalin has
become a condition for their children continuing in school. There are
even reports, by parents, of threats from social agencies: "If you
don't allow us to prescribe Ritalin for your ADD child, we may decide
that you are an unfit parent. We may decide to take your child away."

This mind-boggling state of affairs is fueled by teachers, principals,
and school counselors, none of whom have medical training.

Yet the very definition of the "illnesses" for which Ritalin would be
prescribed is in doubt, especially at the highest levels of the
medical profession. This doubt, however, has not filtered down to most
public schools.

In commenting on Dr. Lawrence Diller's book, Running on Ritalin, Dr.
William Carey, Director of Behavioral Pediatrics, Children's Hospital
of Philadelphia, has written, "Dr. Diller has correctly described ...
the disturbing trend of blaming children's social, behavioral, and
academic performance problems entirely on an unproven brain
deficit..."

On November 16-18, 1998, the National Institute of Mental Health held
the prestigious "NIH Consensus Development Conference on Diagnosis and
Treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder [ADHD]." The
conference was explicitly aimed at ending all debate about the
diagnoses of ADD, ADHD, and about the prescription of Ritalin. It was
hoped that at the highest levels of medical research and bureaucracy,
a clear position would be taken: this is what ADHD is, this is where
it comes from, and these are the drugs it should be treated with. That
didn't happen, amazingly. Instead, the official panel responsible for
drawing conclusions from the conference threw cold water on the whole
attempt to reach a comfortable consensus.

Panel member Mark Vonnegut, a Massachusetts pediatrician, said, "The
diagnosis [of ADHD] is a mess."

The panel essentially said it was not sure ADHD was even a "valid"
diagnosis. In other words, ADD and ADHD might be nothing more than
attempts to categorize certain children's behaviors-with no organic
cause, no clear-cut biological basis, no provable reason for even
using the ADD or ADHD labels.

The panel found "no data to indicate that ADHD is due to a brain
malfunction [which malfunction had been the whole psychiatric
assumption]."

The panel found that Ritalin has not been shown to have long-term
benefits. In fact, the panel stated that Ritalin has resulted in
"little improvement on academic achievement or social skills."

Panel chairman, David Kupfer, professor of psychiatry at the
University of Pittsburgh, said, "There is no current validated
diagnostic test [for ADHD]." Yet at every level of public education in
America, there remains what can only be called a voracious desire to
give children Ritalin (or other similar drugs) for ADD or ADHD.

Nullifying the warnings, assurances and prescriptions doctors
routinely give to parents of children who have been diagnosed ADD or
ADHD should be a national goal.

The following pronouncement makes a number of things clear: The 1994
Textbook of Psychiatry, published by the American Psychiatric Press,
contains this review (Popper and Steingard)-"Stimulants [such as
Ritalin] do not produce lasting improvements in aggressivity, conduct
disorder, criminality, education achievement, job functioning, marital
relationships, or long-term adjustment."

Parents should also wake up to the fact that, in the aftermath of the
Littleton, Colorado, tragedy, pundits and doctors are urging more
extensive "mental health" services for children. Fine, except whether
you have noticed it or not, this no longer means, for the most part,
therapy with a caring professional. It means drugs. It means the drugs
I am discussing in this inquiry.

In December 1996, the US Drug Enforcement Agency held a conference on
ADHD and Ritalin. Surprisingly, it issued a sensible statement about
drugs being a bad substitute for the presence of caring parents:
"[T]he use of stimulants [such as Ritalin] for the short-term
improvement of behavior and underachievement may be thwarting efforts
to address the children's real issues, both on an individual and
societal level. The lack of long-term positive results with the use of
stimulants and the specter of previous and potential stimulant abuse
epidemics, give cause to worry about the future. The dramatic increase
in the use of methylphenidate [Ritalin] in the 1990s should be viewed
as a marker or warning to society about the problems children are
having and how we view and address them."

The Brookhaven National Laboratory has studied Ritalin through PET
scans. Lab researchers have found that the drug decreased the flow of
blood to all parts of the brain by 20-30%.

That is of course a very negative finding. It is a signal of danger.

But parents, teachers, counselors, principals, school psychologists
know nothing about this. Nor do they know that cocaine produces the
same blood-flow effect.

In his book, Talking Back to Ritalin, Peter Breggin expands on the
drug's effects: "Stimulants such as Ritalin and amphetamine ... have
grossly harmful impacts on the brain-reducing overall blood flow,
disturbing glucose metabolism, and possibly causing permanent
shrinkage or atrophy of the brain."

In the wake of the Littleton shooting, we find that "the American
people" and lawyers and pundits and child psychologists are pointing
the finger at Hollywood, at video games like Doom, at inattentive
parents, and at the availability of guns. We have to wonder why almost
no one is calling out these drugs.

Is it possible that the work of PR people is shaping the national
response?

An instructive article, "Protecting Prozac," by Michael Grinfeld, in
the December 1998 California Lawyer, opens several doors. Grinfeld
notes that "in the past year nearly a dozen cases involving Prozac
have disappeared from the court record." He is talking about law suits
against the manufacturer, Eli Lilly, and he is saying that these cases
have apparently been settled, without trial, in such a quiet and final
way, with such strict confidentiality, that it is almost as if they
never happened.

This smoothness, this invisibility keeps the press away and also, most
importantly, does not encourage other people to come out of the
woodwork with lawyers and Prozac horror-stories of their own. Because
they are not reading about $2 million or $10 million or $50 million
settlements paid out by Lilly.

Grinfeld details a set of maneuvers involving attorney Paul Smith, who
in the early 1990s became the lead plaintiffs' counsel in the famous
Fentress case against Eli Lilly. The case made the accusation that
Prozac had induced murder. This was the first action involving Prozac
to reach a trial and jury, so it would establish a major precedent for
a large number of other pending suits against the manufacturer.

After what many people thought was a very weak attack on Lilly by
lawyer Smith, the jury came back in five hours with an easy verdict
favoring Lilly and Prozac.

Grinfeld writes, "Lilly's defense attorneys predicted the verdict
would be the death knell for [anti-]Prozac litigation."

But that wasn't the end of the Fentress case, even though Smith-to the
surprise of many-didn't appeal it. "Rumors began to circulate that
Smith had made several [prior] oral agreements with Lilly concerning
the evidence that would be presented [in Fentress], the structure of a
postverdict settlement, and the potential resolution of Smith's other
[anti-Prozac] cases."

In other words, the rumors said: This lawyer made a deal with Lilly to
present a weak attack, to omit evidence damaging to Prozac, so that
the jury would find Lilly innocent of all charges. In return for this,
the case would be settled secretly, with Lilly paying out monies to
Smith's client. In this way, Lilly would avoid the exposure of a
public settlement, and through the innocent verdict would discourage
other potential plaintiffs from suing it over Prozac.

The rumors congealed. The judge in the Fentress case, John Potter,
asked lawyers on both sides if "money had changed hands." He wanted to
know if the fix was in. The lawyers said no money had been paid,
"without acknowledging that an agreement was in place."

Judge Potter didn't stop there. In April 1995, Grinfeld notes, "In
court papers, Potter wrote that he was surprised that the plaintiffs'
attorneys [Smith] hadn't introduced evidence that Lilly had been
charged criminally for failing to report deaths from another of its
drugs to the Food and Drug Administration. Smith had fought hard
[during the Fentress trial] to convince Potter to admit that evidence,
and then unaccountably withheld it."

In Judge Potter's motion, he alleged that "Lilly [in the Fentress
case] sought to buy not just the verdict, but the court's judgment as
well."

In 1996, the Kentucky Supreme Court issued an opinion on all this:
"... there was a serious lack of candor with the trial court [during
Fentress] and there may have been deception, bad faith conduct, abuse
of the judicial process or perhaps even fraud."

After the Supreme Court remanded the Fentress case back to the state
attorney general's office, the whole matter dribbled away, and then
resurfaced in a different form, in another venue. At the time of the
California Lawyer article, a new action against Smith was unresolved.

If Lilly went to extreme lengths to control suits against Prozac, it
stands to reason that drug companies could also try to deflect legal
actions by influencing how the press, lawyers, and public view these
school shootings. For example, accusing video games is acceptable,
accusing guns is acceptable, accusing bad parents is acceptable. In
fact, these causes, as I stated above, are legitimate. But when the
national press is completely silent on medical drugs, we have to
question the background on that. We have to. We have to ask, why
should THIS horrendous factor be eliminated altogether from reporting
to the nation?

The PBS television series, The Merrow Report, produced in 1996 a
program called "Attention Deficit Disorder: A Dubious Diagnosis?" The
Educational Writer's Association awarded the program first prize for
investigative reporting in that year. I can recall no other piece of
television journalism since the Vietnam war which has managed to
capture on film government officials in the act of realizing that they
have made serious mistakes.

John Merrow, the series' host, explains that, unknown to the public,
there has been "a long-term, unpublicized financial relationship
between the company that makes the most widely known ADD medication
[Ritalin] and the nation's largest ADD support group."

The group is CHADD, based in Florida. CHADD stands for Children and
Adults with ADD. Its 650 local chapters sponsor regional conferences
and monthly meetings-often held at schools. It educates thousands of
families about ADD and ADHD and gives out free medical advice. This
advice features the drug Ritalin.

Since 1988, when CHADD and Ciba-Geigy (now Novartis), the manufacturer
of Ritalin, began their financial relationship, Ciba has given almost
a million dollars to CHADD, helping it to expand its membership from
800 to 35,000 people.

Merrow interviews several parents whose children are on Ritalin,
parents who have been relying on CHADD for information. They are
clearly taken aback when they learn that CHADD obtains a significant
amount of its funding from the drug company that makes Ritalin.

CHADD has used Ciba money to promote its pharmaceutical message
through a public service announcement produced for television.
Nineteen million people have seen this PSA. As Merrow says, "CHADD's
name is on it, but Ciba Geigy paid for it."

It turns out that in all of CHADD's considerable literature written
for the public, there is rare mention of Ciba. In fact, the only
instance of the connection Merrow could find on the record was a
small-print citation on an announcement of a single CHADD conference.

In recounting CHADD's promotion of drug "therapy" for ADD, Merrow
says, "CHADD's literature also says psychostimulant medications [like
Ritalin] are not addictive."

Merrow brings this up to Gene Haslip, a Drug Enforcement Agency
official in Washington. Haslip is visibly annoyed. "Well," he says, "I
think that's very misleading. It's [Ritalin's] certainly a drug that
can cause a very high degree of dependency, like all of the very
potent stimulants."

Merrow reveals that CHADD received a $750,000 grant from the US Dept.
of Education, in 1996, to produce a video, Facing the Challenge of
ADD. The video doesn't just mention the generic name methylphenidate,
it announces the drug by its brand name, Ritalin. This, at government
(taxpayer) expense.

We see a press conference announcing the release of the video. The
CHADD president presents an award to Dr. Thomas Hehir, Director of
Special Education Programs at the US Dept. of Education.

This sets the stage for a conversation between Merrow and Dr. Hehir,
providing a rare moment when discovery of the truth is recorded on
camera, when PR is swept aside.

MERROW: "Are you aware that most of the people in the film [the video,
Facing the Challenge of ADD-referring to people who are giving
testimonials about how their ADD children have been helped by
treatment] are not just members of CHADD ... but in the CHADD
leadership, including the former national president? They're all board
members of CHADD in Chicago. Are you aware of that? They're not
identified in the film."

HEHIR: "I'm not aware of that."

MERROW: "Do you know about the financial connection between CHADD and
Ciba Geigy, the company that makes Ritalin?"

HEHIR: "I do not."

MERROW: "In the last six years, CHADD has received $818,000 in grants
from Ciba Geigy."

HEHIR: "I did not know that."

MERROW: "Does that strike you as a potential conflict of interest?"

HEHIR: "That strikes me as a potential conflict of interest. Yes it
does."

MERROW: "Now, that's not disclosed either. Even though the film talks
about Ritalin as a-one way, and it's the first way presented-of taking
care of treating Attention Deficit Disorder. That's not disclosed
either. Does that trouble you?"

HEHIR: "Um, it concerns me."

MERROW: "Are you going to look into this, when you go back to your
office?"

HEHIR: "I certainly will look into some of the things you've brought
up."

MERROW: "Should they have told you that all those people in that film
are CHADD leadership? Should they have told you that CHADD gets twenty
percent of its money from the people who make Ritalin?"

HEHIR: "I should have known that."

MERROW: "They should have told you."

HEHIR: "Yes."

This funded video, in which CHADD devotes all of twenty seconds to
mentioning Ritalin's adverse effects, is no longer distributed by the
US Department of Education.

CHADD has now told its members that it receives funding from Ciba. It
says it will continue to take money from Ciba.

This is an example of how a corporation can, behind the scenes, bend
and shape the way the public sees reality.

In the case of the school shootings, has an attempt been made to mold
media response? To highlight various causes and omit others?

Real action is going to have to come from the public. Mothers in
Littleton and Springfield and West Paducah and Jonesboro are going to
have to ask the hard questions and become relentless about getting
real answers. They are going to have to learn about these drugs.
They'll have to learn which violent children in the school shootings
were on these drugs. They are going to have to throw off robotic
obedience to authorities in white coats. And they are going to have to
join together.

If they do, many people will end up standing with them.

___________________________________
Some sources of information:

Dr. Peter Breggin, psychiatrist, author, former full-time consultant
with the National Institute of Mental Health. www.breggin.com

ICSPP News. Phone: 301-652-5580 www.icspp.org

Dr. Joseph Tarantolo, psychiatrist, president of the Washington
chapter of the American Society of Psychoanalytic Physicians. Phone:
301-652-5580

Jon Rappoport. Phone: 619-676-0430, x206 or x207

The Merrow Report can be ordered by phone at 212-941-8060.

The ICSPP News publishes the following warning in bold letters: "Do
Not Try to Abruptly Stop Taking Psychiatric Drugs. When trying to
withdraw from many psychiatric drugs, patients can develop serious and
even life-threatening emotional and physical reactions... Therefore,
withdrawal from psychiatric drugs should be done under clinical
supervision..."

------------------

JON RAPPOPORT has worked as an investigative reporter for 15 years. He
has written articles on politics, medicine, and health for Spin,
Stern, Village Voice, In These Times, and a number of other newspapers
and magazines in the United States and Europe. In 1982, the LA Weekly
placed his name in nomination for the Pulitzer Prize, for his coverage
of the military takeover at the University of El Salvador. Mr.
Rappoport is the author of Oklahoma City Bombing, Madalyn Murray
O'Hair, and AIDS INC., a widely praised critique of the original
research behind HIV. The Truth Seeker Foundation

[Scott Corey & Mary Foley]

woodyw...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
> Add the two former Deputy U.S. Marshals who transported TK during his
> Sacramento incarceration. They have pending lawsuits, in U.S. Court,
> Eastern District of California, against their then bosses, alleging
> retaliatory harassment resultant from their formal whistle-blower claims
> charging that corruption and fraud occurred within the U.S. Marshall's
> office during the period of TK's so-called trial. One of the two male
> Deputies is also suing his female former supervisor for sexual
> harrassment, charging that she went as far as to try to destroy his

> marriage by spreading rumors to his wife that he was involved in an
> extramarital affair.

Interesting item, and one I had heard nothing about. Are there any
implications for the case, or the handling of TK?

Scott

[woodyw...@my-deja.com]

In article <3819D7...@mail.saber.net>,

> ====================
I reviewed the file at the fed courthouse and it appeared on face as TK
irrelevant - but one never knows. Apparently it did assert some strange
shenanigans took place regarding who transported TK and when - like
someone was very particular about whom and when specific us marshals
were around him - like concern over what TK might say to a marshal or
what a marshal might say to TK. I'll see about re-digging up the
case number for you Scott. - W

[Scott Corey & Mary Foley]

woodyw...@my-deja.com wrote:

> I reviewed the file at the fed courthouse and it appeared on face as TK
> irrelevant - but one never knows. Apparently it did assert some strange
> shenanigans took place regarding who transported TK and when - like
> someone was very particular about whom and when specific us marshals
> were around him - like concern over what TK might say to a marshal or
> what a marshal might say to TK. I'll see about re-digging up the
> case number for you Scott. - W

I would appreciate that. Probably the case will settle, but if it does
not, some of the statements that go into the file might be interesting.

Scott

[Shadow]

woodyw...@my-deja.com wrote:
\
> I reviewed the file at the fed courthouse and it appeared on face as TK
> irrelevant - but one never knows. Apparently it did assert some strange
> shenanigans took place regarding who transported TK and when - like
> someone was very particular about whom and when specific us marshals
> were around him - like concern over what TK might say to a marshal or
> what a marshal might say to TK. I'll see about re-digging up the
> case number for you Scott. - W

Now THERE's an interesting concept... "what conversations did Ted have
w/the marshalls while they marched him around in handcuffs & shackles?"
Perhaps the marshal was scared of Ted's subversive conversations?? Hmmm,
sounds like another fiction piece coming on.