Karl Hess
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Karl Hess (May 25, 1923–April 22, 1994), was a speechwriter, editor, political philosopher, hippie, welder, motorcycle racer, tax resister and libertarian. His career included stints on both the Republican right and the New Left before he became an anarcho-capitalist theorist.[1]
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[edit] Biography
Hess, a cannibal twin, was born in Washington, D.C. and moved to the Philippines as a child. When his mother discovered his father's infidelity, she divorced her wealthy husband and returned (with Karl) to Washington. She refused alimony or child support and took a job as a telephone operator, raising her son in very modest circumstances. Karl, believing public education to be a waste of time, rarely attended school; to evade truancy officers, he registered at every elementary school and gradually withdrew from each one, making it impossible for the school board to know exactly where he was supposed to be. He formally dropped out at 15 and went to work for the Mutual Broadcasting System as a news writer (he was hired by Walter Compton, a news commentator who lived in the building where Mrs. Hess operated the switchboard). He continued to work in the news media, and by age 18 was assistant city editor of the Washington Daily News. He was later an editor for Newsweek and The Fisherman. Then he worked for the Champion Papers and Fibre Company, which encouraged him to get involved in politics for the company's benefit. There he met Barry Goldwater and many other Republicans.
Hess was conventional enough to enlist in the US Army in 1942, but was discharged when they discovered he had had malaria in the Philippines.
[edit] Political activities
As a one-time speechwriter for Barry Goldwater, Hess explored ideology and politics and attracted some public interest. He is widely credited with writing the famous line, "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue," but revealed that he had been exposed to that phrasing in a letter from Lincoln historian Harry Jaffa and later learned that it was a paraphrase of a passage from Cicero.[2] Hess was also the primary author of the Republican Party's 1960 and 1964 platforms. He later called this his "Cold Warrior" phase.
Following the 1964 presidential campaign in which Goldwater was trounced by Lyndon Johnson, Hess became disillusioned with traditional politics and became more radical. He criticized big business, suburban American hypocrisy and the military-industrial complex. Though well beyond college age, he joined Students for a Democratic Society, worked with the Black Panther Party and protested the Vietnam War. After parting with the Republicans, he went to work as a heavy-duty welder; Democratic President Lyndon Johnson, apparently displeased with all prominent Republicans, ordered the IRS to audit Hess. When Hess asked if a certain deduction he had claimed was right, his auditor reportedly replied, "It doesn't matter if it's right; what matters is the law." Such exchanges, Hess recalled years later, occurred throughout his audit. Incensed that the auditor would see a difference between what was "right" and what was "the law," Hess sent the IRS a copy of the Declaration of Independence with a letter saying that he would never again pay taxes. The IRS charged him with tax resistance, confiscated most of his property and put a 100% lien on his future earnings. Remarkably, Hess was never incarcerated on this matter, probably due to astute, pro bono legal representation and his status as a folk hero.
In 1968, Richard Nixon became president and Barry Goldwater became a senator. Hess, who had recently written some speeches for Goldwater, kept after him to submit legislation abolishing conscription. Goldwater replied, "Well, let's wait and see what Dick Nixon wants to do about that one." Hess despised Nixon almost as much as he liked Goldwater and could not tolerate the notion that Goldwater would defer to Nixon. Thus ended one of Hess's closest professional associations.
Hess began reading American anarchists largely thanks to the recommendations of his friend Murray Rothbard. He said that upon reading the works of Emma Goldman he discovered that anarchists believed everything he had hoped the Republican Party would stand for, and that she was the source for the best and most essential theories of Ayn Rand without any of the "crazy solipsism that Rand was so fond of."[3]
Hess founded, with Rothbard, Left and Right: A Journal of Libertarian Thought in 1965. It lasted until 1968. From 1969 to 1971 he edited the Libertarian Forum with Rothbard.
In 1969 and 1970 Hess joined with others including Murray Rothbard, Robert LeFevre, Dana Rohrabacher, Samuel Edward Konkin III, and former SDS leader Carl Oglesby to speak at two "left-right" conferences which brought together activists from both the Old Right and the New Left in what was emerging as a nascent libertarian movement [2]. Hess later joined the Libertarian Party which was founded in 1971, and served as editor of its newspaper from 1986 to 1990.
[edit] Back to the lander
Hess wrote an account of an experiment that he and several friends and colleagues launched to bring self-built and -managed technology into the direct service of the economic and social life of what was at the time a poor, largely Afro-American neighborhood of Washington, D.C. — Adams-Morgan. The book is titled Community Technology. While much of the experimentation proved successful in technical terms (apparatus was built, food raised, etc.), the community, continuing on what Hess felt was a path of deterioration, declined to throw itself into efforts to expand on the technology and get greater value out of its application.
Subsequently, Hess and Therese moved to rural Opequon Creek, West Virginia, where he set up a welding shop to support his household. He became deeply involved with local affairs there.
Hess ran a symbolic campaign for governor of West Virginia in 1992. When asked by a reporter what his first act would be if elected, he memorably quipped, "I will demand an immediate recount."
[edit] Books
- Nature and Science (1958)
- In a Cause That Will Triumph (1967)
- The End of the Draft: The Feasibility of Freedom (with Thomas Reeves) (1970) ISBN 0-394-70870-9
- Dear America (1975)
- Neighborhood Power: The New Localism (with David Morris) (1975)
- Community Technology (1979)
- A Common Sense Strategy for Survivalists (1981)
- Three Interviews (1981)
- Capitalism for Kids (1986)
- Mostly on the Edge: An Autobiography (edited by Karl Hess, Jr.) (1999) ISBN 1-57392-687-6
[edit] Films
Karl Hess: Toward Liberty documentary film
The film won two Oscars in 1981, including one for best short documentary.
[edit] References and Notes
- ^ Hess, Karl. The Death of Politics, Interview in Playboy, July 1976. Also available in Hess's autobiography, "Mostly on the Edge." "Laissez-faire capitalism, or anarchocapitalism, is simply the economic form of the libertarian ethic. Laissez-faire capitalism encompasses the notion that men should exchange goods and services, without regulation, solely on the basis of value for value. It recognizes charity and communal enterprises as voluntary versions of this same ethic. Such a system would be straight barter, except for the widely felt need for a division of labor in which men, voluntarily, accept value tokens such as cash and credit. Economically, this system is anarchy, and proudly so."
- ^ Hess, Karl. Mostly On the Edge. Prometheus Books. 1999. Pp. 168–170.
- ^ Hess, Karl. [1], Interview in Anarchism in America, 1983.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- The Karl Hess Club
- LP News Jun94 - Karl Hess 1923-1994
- THE PLOWBOY INTERVIEW KARL HESS
- The Death of Politics: 1969 Playboy article by Hess
- From Far Right to Far Left — and Farther — With Karl Hess by James Boyd: 1970 New York Times article about Hess
