The Machinery Of Friedman

For a long time, I've felt bad that BlackCrayon.com never included a review of David Friedman's The Machinery of Freedom. I read it and Rothbard's For a New Liberty back to back, and Rothbard's book (which I also never reviewed) drew me into Austro-libertarianism and ultimately to The Ludwig von Mises Institute, which was the beginning of the end of my own anarchist website.

But now and again, I will add something to BlackCrayon.com (as I did yesterday) and today I'm adding Joseph Salerno's review of Friedman from back in 1973:

Summary:

"Suffice it to say that crippled in its inception, Friedman's analysis cannot but lead to lame conclusions."

Review:

The Machinery Of Friedman

By Joseph Salerno

[First published in The Libertarian Forum, 5.12, December 1973, available from Mises.org in PDF.]

In The Machinery of Freedom, David Friedman bases his apologia for anarcho-capitalism on solely "practical" considerations. In so doing, he eschews the bedrock foundation of the natural rights ethic and rests his theoretical structure on the dangerously shifting sands of utilitarianism. All this, we are told, to avert the popular disapprobation that attends ethical vis a vis practical concerns. Consequently, we find Mr. Friedman in chapter 34 equably discussing the production and utilization of retaliatory nuclear weapons in a free society, without recognition of the moral problem entailed in the very existence of weapons of indiscriminate mass annihilation. But this particular shortcoming bears an integral relation to an overriding general flaw in Friedman's exposition.

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