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This was the lead article of Whole Number 13 of The Last Ditch (May 3,
1996), which was devoted to answering the question, "Who was
Walter Karp?"
"Any day
is a good day
to fight for liberty"
By RONALD N. NEFF
Walter Karp (b. 1934) was a contributing editor of Harper's
Magazine from 1978 until his sudden death in 1989. An
observer and analyst of the American political landscape, he
expressed a contempt for power, for those who held it, and for
those who courted it so scathing that, as Lewis Lapham
said in his obituary (Harper's Magazine, October 1989), "he
never earned more than $30,000 in any one year, and he
received few of the ornamental honors, subsidies, and
flattering reviews that the journalistic profession bestows
upon the virtues of solemn orthodoxy.... The world didn't trust
Walter Karp and rewarded him with nothing in its gift."
He was a latter-day populist — not like Pat Buchanan,
the centerpiece of whose "populism" lies in a restriction of
foreign trade (in traditional GOP mold), but more like Robert
La Follette, whom he held in high esteem. But Karp is a
difficult figure for libertarians: he believed that the Supreme
Court's decision in 1895 that no federal income tax was valid
was "one of the worst decisions in Court history" (POW, p. 42);
that Abraham Lincoln was "one of the noblest figures in
history" (POW, p. 10); and that so-called
entitlement programs do not make recipients dependent on
corrupt power (IE+, pp. 194-95). [1] So why is a
libertarian publication enthusiastic enough about him to
devote an issue to him?
Goodbye to
the "seven same things"
It is by no means uncommon to be able to predict a person's
political positions on the basis of very little information. Know
that Jones opposes the "assault rifle" ban, and you can be
pretty sure that he supports the 
Balanced Budget
Amendment and term limits, and opposes the incursion into
Haiti. Know that Smith favors the family leave act, and you
can be pretty sure that he also favors the "assault rifle" ban,
and opposes reducing the capital gains tax and giving block
grants to states for school lunches. Know that Brown thinks
that Clarence Thomas is a fine jurist, and you can be pretty
sure that he thinks Anita Hill was a liar. Yet not one of those
ideas logically implies any of the others. People simply buy
into package deals or, as I call them, "the seven same things":
a person who holds the same belief as another will also agree
with that other person on six unrelated issues; they will
believe the seven same things.
Walter Karp did not believe the seven same things as
anyone. His was a truly original analysis of American history
and polity, and you won't find anyone quite like him no
matter how much you dig through the library catalogues.
Above all, Karp understood that history is a record of the
deeds of men, that men intend the foreseeable
consequences of their actions, and that those who hold power
are not indifferent to the power they hold. Whether he would
have used the term or not, in his understanding of events he
was an Aristotelian: men cause events, and you cannot
understand events without understanding men and their
motives. In particular, you cannot understand history if you
lose sight of the universal fact of ambition and the lust for
power. An Athenian envoy quoted by Thucydides, a historian
Karp held in high regard, said: "Of the gods we believe, and
of men we know, that by a necessary law of their nature they
rule whenever they can." (BA, p. 47)
It is a theme that runs through the work of Karp's last two
decades: men do not make Herculean efforts to win offices
from which they exercise no power. Men in power cling to it
tenaciously and when they can, they enlarge it.
Other men he admired were the champions of the
Declaration of Independence (especially Jefferson) and
those who were in tune with its insights, especially Madison
and Adams. Their recognition of the corrupting power of
Power (to which Jefferson explicitly recognized himself to be
subject) is fundamental to understanding history, and it is an
insight that has by and large been lost among Americans.
Americans' faith in the political process may be stated easily:
they do not fear Power; if only the "right" man can win public
office, that Power will be in the service of Good. How Good
can be served when voters acknowledge year after dreary
year that they are voting for the lesser of evils remains a
mystery.
How Karp applied his analysis to American history from 1890
to 1920 in The Politics of War is the subject of David Wright's essay;
Strakon takes
on his withering dissection of the two-party system in
Indispensable Enemies. I shall examine Liberty
Under Siege and the posthumous collection of essays,
Buried Alive.
2:
The Carter debacle
3:
The Carter debacle, continued
4:
Another indispensable enemy
5:
The two Americas
and
Any day
...
Notes
Posted June 17, 2002
© 2002 by WTM
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