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The Libertarian Alliance has decided to create a web archive containing issues of
its magazine FREE LIFE which made its appearance in the late 1970s. Over the
years, FREE LIFE contained a large number of articles on Libertarianism which
were both entertaining and instructive. As issues are scanned in and edited for
presentation on the Web, they will appear in the list below.
NEW: Subject Index of Free Life
This page Free Life Volume 1-4
Next page Free life Volume 4 - 7 >>>
First Editorial - Judy Englander - Winter 1979
The launching of yet another "fringe" political magazine needs, perhaps, some
justification. While a greater or lesser degree of statism/collectivism is accepted by
all political parties and groups, our aim is to provide an - in Britain - unique forum for
ideas consistent with individual liberty.
Articles will not reflect a 'party line'. We hope that diverse interpretation of the
Libertarian philosophy will fill these pages, and that there will be a lively debate
between contributors.
Readers will, nevertheless, notice a thread of continuity in all the opinions expressed
- a common commitment to the core Libertarian principle that it is morally wrong, and
socially and economically detrimental, for any person or group of persons to initiate
force against others for any reason whatsoever. We believe that consent is the only
ethical and workable basis on which society can rest. We believe that each individual
owns his/her own person entirely and is absolute sovereign over it. Thus we believe
in the inviolability of private property - the extension of the person and the distilled
product of his/her talents
'Free Life' is not a 'right-wing' or a 'left-wing' magazine. Our commitment to individual
liberty includes both economic freedom and personal freedom; we are interested not
only in a free market but also in a free society. Articles will reflect our concern with
liberty 'across the board' - an honest alternative to those self-accredited 'champions
of freedom' who only support the liberty to do things of which they approve. This
hypocritical, selective approach - 'shopping around' for freedom one agrees with,
leaving the others "on the shelf" - is discussed in David Ramsay Steele's article, 'No
Computer Science Without Striptease'.
'Free Life' will support all legitimate (that is, non-coercive) ways in which individuals
choose to use their freedom, without necessarily approving of them. Our title was
first used from 1890- 1901 by a weekly newspaper published by the great British
Libertarian, Auberon Herbert. The first 'Free Life' was dedicated to the fight against
state coercion, which is "a mere survival of barbarian, a mere perpetuation of slavery
under new names, against which the reason and moral sense of the civilised world
have to be called into rebellion".
That, too, is our brief.
.
Free Life Volume 1. No .1 Winter 1979
What we want is a Government so small that it
doesn't matter where it is, what it does, who's in it,
or how they got there.
The case for nuclear energy David Ramsay Steele
Law shops Graham Smith
Deregulating the oldest profession Su Cunnington
No computer science without striptease David Ramsay
Steele
In praise of prejudice Bernard Adamczewski
National Front: Right or Left? Judy Englander
A Libertarian between the lines? Graham Smith
Free Life Volume 1. No .2 1980
Inside ...Anarcho-Capitalism
Jogging & more
The libertarian tradition No 1: Auberon Herbert: Chris R
Tame
Why anarcho-capitalism is a non-starter Geoffrey
Sampson
Reply to Sampson David Ramsay Steele
News from somewhere Lauri Rantala
Agonistic self-abuse: can Britain survive? The Free Life
Investigative Team
Killing freedom by stealth Judy Englander
Fly you to a free country? This is an aircraft, sister not a bleeding spaceship
Free Life Volume 1. No .3
Inside ... Pot, Landlords
& more ...
We're organising a state funeral
Editorial Graham Smith
Making a hash of pot Brian Micklethwait
Let the landlords let John Blundell
The destruction of the railways John Driver
The secret of God or the need for rules Bernard
Adamczewski
News from somewhere Lauri Rantala
Free Life Vol.1 No. 4 Autumn
1980
Monetarism - Special Issue
Editorial Graham Smith
Money out of control Richard Henderson
On monetarism and libertarianism John Burton
The birth and rebirth of monetarism David Ramsay
Steele
Money without the state Lauri Rantala
News from somewhere Lauri Rantala
Reviews Arthur Marwick on Class and P.S. Atiyah on Freedom of Contract
Free Life Vol.2 No. 1 Winter 1980 Who will own Space?
A bureaucratic empire? or free settlers?
Editorial David Ramsay Steele
Gun control? No thanks David Ramsay Steele
Freedom for children Brian Micklethwait
A new look at trade union immunities Graham Smith
A Soviet solar system? Andrew Nimmo
After the meltdown Richard Vaughan
Book reviews Reviews of "Knowledge and Decisions" by
Thomas Sowell and "The Causes of War" by Geoffrey Blainey also contains the
article MANUFACTURING CRIME (From Auberon Herbert’s libertarian paper, THE
FREE LIFE, June 20th, 1890)
Free Life Vol.2 No. 2 Spring 1981
Lessons of the Riots
Editorial - Lessons of the Riots David Ramsay SteeleLiberal objections to nuclear power Geoffrey SampsonImpossibility of anarcho-capitalism Tony HollickReply to Hollick David Ramsay SteeleMy anarchism S E ParkerAuthority and power under anarchy David McdonaghEconomics and ethics of music - M L RantalaA marxist re-think - James AlexanderPurpose and strategy of the Libertarian Alliance -
Executive
HAYEK ON PROPAGANDA "... I think Americans have long been mistaken (in thinking) that propaganda must be expensive because it must from the beginning be directed to the masses. Now, that is very expensive, and it's also useless ... If you want to be successful you have to educate what I call the intellectuals - the makers of opinions ..." (From an interview with Friedrich A.Hayek, Libertarian Review, September 1977)
Free Life Vol.2 No. 3 Autumn 1981
Report on Brandt
Brandt's report: no candour David Ramsay Steele
Freedom for children, a reply Sean Gabb
Rights and consequences Brian Micklethwait
Laissez-faire and the closed shop Graham Smith
Escape from the leviathan Christie Davies
Anti-progress Nick Beeching
Ireland: a great chance lost- (From Auberon Herbert's
libertarian paper, THE FREELIFE, May 24th 1890)
Free Life Vol.2 No. 4 1982
Poland What Next?
Unemployment and the dole James Alexander
Tebbit and the Unions James Alexander
Stromas interview on Poland THE FL Team
Nuclear safety and human fallibility Richard Vaughan
London County Council again: From Auberon Herbert's
libertarian paper, THE FREE LIFE, May 31st 1896
The London County Council are determined to distinguish them- selves in some fashion or another. It is a great temptation to a young governing body that has not cut its first teeth to have a finger in every pie; but the record of Governments who turn jack-of-all-trades, never has been an encouraging one. This first attempt generally seems to succeed. It is only later on that the difficulties disclose themselves; and when they do the Government in question has generally got tired of its little experiment, is fascinated by some new attraction, and feels inclined to use bad language about its folly in having produced a profitless tangle, about which nobody now cares. The Council have decided in a rash moment to build a model lodging-house. If they would have encouraged the spare capital in London to enter upon such an undertaking, they might have done real good. But this is just the thing they have not done, and do not care to do.
We were informed the other day, on good authority, that they attached such impossible conditions to the sale of some land they had in their possession that the trustees of the Guinness gift were obliged to retire from the negotiation. And this building resolution is probably the second chapter. Having discouraged the useful activity of others in one direction, they are determined to have their own little dabble in bricks and mortar in another direction. What an enterprising soul a London Councillor has! There is nothing in the wide circuit of heaven and earth that he does not feel himself capable of undertaking, so long as he can get hold of the taxes of the London citizen. Compulsory taxation! Whims of one man carried out at the cost of another - there is the whole secret of the mischief. :From Auberon Herbert's libertarian paper, THE FREE LIFE, May 31st, 1896
Free Life Vol.3 No. 1 1982
Sex and the Law
Contraceptives and drug regulation James Alexander
Sex and the Law Anthony Grey
Monetarism is still not enough John Burton
What good is the State? A Conservative View Gerry
Frost
The bankruptcy of conservatism - A reply to Frost Chris
R. Tame
The Libertarian Groupies International Executive
Committee
" … a State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes – will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished..." J. S. Mill
"And if my ways are not as theirs
Let them mind their own affairs.
Their deeds I judge and much condemn,
Yet when did I make laws for them?
Please yourselves, say I, and they
Need only look the other way.
But no, they will not; they must still
Wrest their neighbour to their will,
And make me dance as they desire
With jail and gallows and hell-fire."
- A E HOUSMAN
Free Life Vol.3 No. 2 1982
Porn - Rape
"Public" provision, contractors and the market James
Alexander
Porn, rape and justice David Ramsay Steele
Against nuclear energy Peter Bolwell
Anarcho-capitalism and its enemies Graham Smith
Libertarianism and the Falklands' war Stephen Berry,
David McDonagh
Free Life Vol.3 No. 3
Nuclear Fall-Out?
Plumbing the Depths for Fairness James Alexander
Aftermath of the Split Hillel Steiner
Attempted Theft of an Organisation David Ramsay
Steele
The Facts - a reply to Bolwell's Against Nuclear Energy
Julian Osborn
Review: Resources and Growth N S Beeching
Free Life Vol.3 No. 4
Hitler: Puppet of Ideology
Labour's Pains James Alexander
The Falklands' Dispute: A Reply David Barker -
Stephen Berry
Apocalypse? No David Ramsay Steele
No Tears for the Fuehrer Stephen Berry
A Scientific Approach to Race Relations Dan Aronoff
Libertarian Pollution Control Max T. O'Connor
Accidental Refutation of the Moral David Ramsay Steele
QUESTION: Which crackpot protectionist demagogue was responsible for the following piece of claptrap?
"When one watches how even Japan is now being beaten in ever more fields by South Korea and other newcomers ... one cannot but shudder when one asks how in a few years' time Britain is to get the food to feed her people".
QUESTION: Which ignorant Tory union-basher emitted the following soon-to-be refuted prophecy?
" . . . so long as general opinion makes it politically impossible to deprive the trade unions of their coercive powers, an economic recovery of Great Britain is also impossible".
I regret to say that the correct answer is: no protectionist demagogue and no Tory
politician, but a writer regarded in many quarters as an eminent free market
economist, F.A.Hayek.
Next Page Free life Volume 4 - 7 >>>
Articles will not
reflect a 'party
line'. We hope that
diverse
interpretations of
the Libertarian
philosophy will fill
these pages, and
that there will be a
lively debate
between
contributors.
.
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It is by the goodness of
God that we have in our
country three
unspeakably precious
things: freedom of
speech, freedom of
conscience, and the
prudence never to
practise either.
Mark Twain
The statesman who
should attempt to direct
private people in the
manner they ought to
employ their capitals,
would not only land
himself with a most
unnecessary attention,
but assume an authority
which could safely be
trusted, not only to no
single person, but to no
council or senate
whatever, and which
would nowhere he so
dangerous as in the
hands of a man who had
folly presumption
enough to fancy himself
fit to exercise it."
Adam Smith
The Wealth of Nations.
Democracy means
simply the bludgeoning
of the people by the
people for the people.
Oscar Wilde
The Soul of Man under
Socialism
List of contributors (as
they were then)
BERNARD
ADAMCZEWSKI Is a
freelance researcher
and writer, and is
currently working on a
new application of
micro-chip technology.
SU CUNNINGTON is
Lecturer In Social
Policy and
Administration at
Guildford College of
Technology and is on
the Home Office
Criminal Law Revision
Committee. Her
forthcoming book is
Prostitution in London
in the 1970s.
DAVID RAMSAY
STEELE is author of a
forthcoming book, The
Impossibility of
Communism.
JUDY ENGLANDER is
a political researcher
and writer.
GRAHAM SMITH is
head of the Research
Department of The
Freedom Association.
Just Fancy That!
A major war aside, I
cannot conceive
that the monetary
authorities will
permit the quantity
of money to rise at a
rate that would
produce inflation of
more than, say, 10
per cent a year. . .
Milton
Friedman 1966,
Dollars and Deficits,
1968, p. 120
Surely it is clear that
the Russian empire is in
its final throes and will
not live to see the turn
of the century. (For it to
survive the eighties
would require Political
genius of the
phenomenal stature of
Stalin, and present
methods of Politbureau
recruitment hardly
favour the emergence of
such a man.) Soviet
Russia is finished.
Socialism is finished.
Let us not live in the
past.
David Ramsay
Steele - writing in 1980
Freedom necessarily
means that many things
will be done which we
do not like. Our faith in
freedom does not rest on
the foreseeable results
in particular
circumstances but in the
belief that it will, on
balance, release more
forces for the good than
the bad."
F. A. Hayek
Constitution of Liberty.
The fruits of
nationalisation.
By 1947 the Southern
Railway possessed 140
Bulleid Pacifics, the
most modern,
powerful and efficient
express steam
locomotives ever to
run on British metals.
So revolutionary were
they in many ways,
(though not as good as
their builder said he
could make them) that
when one was placed
on BR's expensive
static test bed at
Rugby, it overdrove
the instruments, and
the operators never
succeeded in forcing
the boiler to reach its
maximum steaming
rate, so that this could
not be measured. Of
the total of 140
Bulleids, BR "rebuilt"
90 of these to
conventional design, at
great cost and with
some loss of
performance. Even
then, they were still
superb machines. In
the furious and
ill-considered panic to
abolish steam in the
sixties, all these bar a
preserved few went to
the cutting torch, with
twenty five years of
their lives still to run.
.
John Driver
Be it or be it not true
that Man is shapen in
iniquity and sin, it is
unquestionably true
that Government is
begotten of aggression
and by aggression
.
Herbert Spencer
1850
Vol 3. No. 2.
Libertarianism and
the Falklands' War"
'To say that the
unprovoked German
invasion of the Soviet
Union in 1941 was
wrong and that the
Russians had a right to
defend themselves is
not to implicitly
become a
propagandist for the
taxation and
conscription of
Russians. It does
recognise that
Russians would defend
themselves with the
institutions which were
available to them in
1941.'
.
Vol 3. No. 3.
"Attempted Theft of
an Organisation"
"Numerous other
attacks were made on
the LA by Hollick and
Tame. They got
possession of
manuscripts of FREE
LIFE and withheld
them from us, in order
to stop FREE LIFE
coming out. They
bombarded us with
threats of court action,
to try and suppress
discussion of what
they had done. When I
stated that the more
we were threatened
with litigation in an
attempt to stop
discussion of Tame's
misdeeds, the more
publicity would be
given to these
misdeeds, Tame had
me reported to the
Director of Public
Prosecutions for
blackmail. (The DPP,
obviously, decided
there was no case.)"