Comments Elsewhere

“From the conservative position comes the position of libertarian reformism. It holds that, since there is a good base to build upon—the at least lip-service traditions of liberty in this country, for instance—that the way to avoid the dangers that might lurk on the other side of revolutionary change is to opt for evolutionary change. The repeal of certain laws is, in this position, held as crucial and, of course, it probably is true that if the withholding tax were repealed that the government would be bankrupted as millions of taxpayers simply found themselves unable to pay up.

“That is, this situation might be true if it were not for the amazing ingenuity of American state-monopoly-capitalism. Few if any corporation heads would stand idly by and see the source of their prosperity—a partnership with the state—seriously jeopardized. One can imagine a ‘voluntary’ tax withholding system going into effect which, if anything, might be more effective than the state system which, after all, is operated by businessmen anyway even though with a lot of wasteful bureaucratic interference. Same with the voluntary or even ‘corporate’ military concepts. A libertarian should be the first to recognize that such systems would, if anything, make imperialism more effective by making its military machine more efficient. Such reforms, in short, would not necessarily end injustices but might merely streamline them.

“More pertinent is the central error of reformism as a possible instrument of change. To reform a system you must, first of all, preserve it against attacks more precipitous than those called for in the reformist timetable. This position not only makes neutrality impossible, it makes siding with the system (the state) unavoidable in the long run.”

• Karl Hess, “Conservative Libertarianism” (Libertarian Forum, October 1, 1969, p. 2)