Live like a Libertarian: Karl Hess

Believing in libertarianism is, at least in a sense, straightforward; adopt a few principles about the inviolability of human rights and the efficiency of the market, and you are on your way. Living like a libertarian is far more complicated, and potentially extremely demanding. Despite wanting a radically different future, many libertarians adhere to the standards of their days with little resistance. To live like a libertarian, you have to put skin in the game. Many libertarians believe taxation is theft—few of them act on that belief by refusing to pay taxes. Merely holding a radical libertarian position is a low-​stakes affair, especially when radical libertarianism is likely to be far from political power and at the fringes of political discourse for the immediate future.

Ayn Rand wrote, “Anyone who fights for the future, lives in it today.” Libertarian activist and writer Karl Hess went a step further: he lived his life as though he already inhabited a stateless future. During his life, Hess was a ghostwriter and eventually a Republican speechwriter, but also an editor, welder, motorcycle racer, tax resister, author, and even a part-​time gun supplier and smith.

Hess lived a remarkably heterodox lifestyle that would be hopeless to cover in all its nuance in one episode. Treat this episode like an introduction to the broad strokes of Hess’s life, which he covers in more detail through his autobiography, finished posthumously by his son, and his 1975 classic Dear America. I hope this episode convinces you to go check them out.

Karl Hess was born in the Philippines on May 25th, 1954. He was named Carl with a ‘C’ but changed his name to Karl with a ‘K;’ his reasoning was something about the lines of ‘K’ being stronger. His mother and father were of Spanish and German descent. His mother came from a formerly well-​to-​do family that had fallen upon hard times. She married Hess’s father, an affluent man but ultimately a cold and unloving husband. He cheated on his wife with numerous mistresses. Hess’s mother packed her bags and left without a formal separation or divorce, taking Karl with her. She never pursued alimony or took a single cent from her former husband; she wanted to be entirely independent.

Hess and his mother moved to Washington, D.C, where she found a job working as a switchboard operator. The young Hess often accompanied his mother to work reading beneath her desk. Hess commented that for all practical purposes, he only had a mother; his father’s influence and presence were minimal. Hess fondly recalls that his mother was the most natural and complete small-’d’ democrat he had ever known, treating everyone as her equal regardless of their accomplishments or failures. Freedom to his mother was being human to the hilt as absolutely responsible for your choices in life.

Hess dedicates large sections of his autobiography to his mother’s unique practices during his upbringing. She taught him to read before he was old enough to begin attending school and emphasized the importance of reading throughout his youth. If the young Hess ever wanted a toy, his mother demanded he read a book first. Over time, the toy became less tempting as the books got more interesting. As a child, he spent significant time at Mount Pleasant’s libraries.

Being capable of reading from an early age, Hess became a fiercely independent thinker. He had little interest in public education and wished to quit. Surprisingly, his mother agreed with him but warned of how truancy officers would eventually force him to return to school. Hess hatched a scheme; he enrolled at multiple schools, weaving an impossibly complex web of paperwork that is probably still being unraveled today. Hess spent his days at the libraries of D.C. He viewed schools as a place that privileged teaching, while libraries promoted learning and thinking for one’s self. Looking back at his upbringing years later, he commented that his mother had raised him to become a classical liberal.

Leaving school at a young age, Hess began work at fifteen at the Mutual Broadcasting Company in Washington, D.C. He gained employment thanks to meeting a news commentator, Walter Compton, who lived in the apartment house where his mother worked. Compton never asked Hess his age, and soon enough, he was doing research and writing notes. His next job was at the Alexandria Gazette, where, under the mentorship of Thomas Moore Mcbride, Hess learned to hone his writing skills. Hess moved on again to the Washington Times Herald and then transitioned to writing freelance articles for a brief stint.

Through his freelance work and jobs as an editor for Newsweek and The Fisherman, Hess began writing for anti-​communist periodicals, establishing his political voice. He began to work for Champion Papers and was encouraged by his bosses to involve himself in Republican politics on the company’s behalf. During this time, Hess met the Arizona senator Barry Goldwater, beginning a new epoch of his life.

Barry Goldwater was a prominent figure in American politics, a five-​term U.S. Senator from Arizona, and eventually, the Republican nominee for President in 1964. Goldwater ran on a platform of limited government intervention, individual liberty, and a hawkishly anti-​communist foreign policy. Goldwater challenged the moderate wing of the Republican party; he supported the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960 but opposed the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, disagreeing with Titles II and VII on the grounds that they infringed upon freedom of contract in employment. Though Goldwater has been portrayed as the arch-​intellectual of the modern conservative movement, it is essential to note Goldwater also supported homosexuals serving openly in the military, gay rights, and the legalization of marijuana; he is not an easy character to fit into any particular label.

In 1964, Goldwater ran for President with Hess on his staff as a speechwriter. Goldwater was often accused of being too radical and extreme by his fellow Republicans. At the 1964 Republican convention, in a speech written by Hess, Goldwater rebuffed his moderate critics with a closing statement that would become famous: “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” To my surprise, Hess later admitted that the quote was a paraphrase from Cicero.

It is clear from Hess’s writings that he greatly admired Goldwater as a politician and a man. But this deep admiration also led Hess to deeply doubt the fundamentals of politics. Hess reported that Goldwater stood by Nixon after he was elected and even after the Watergate Scandal. When Hess asked Goldwater about action to abolish the draft, Goldwater replied, “Well, let’s wait and see what Dick Nixon wants to do about it.” For Hess, Nixon and Goldwater could not be compared, and the idea of such a man of character deferring to Nixon of all people sowed seeds of doubt in Hess’s mind.

But Hess also noted more fundamental contradictions in the conservative worldview. Conservatives rightly criticized concentrations of political power, but Hess believed many did not discuss or care to discuss the implications of concentrated economic power. Hess believed that without criticizing concentrated political and economic power, any right-​wing movement would be haunted by this contradiction, a critique of Hess’s that persists.

Hesses doubts were deepened through his budding relationship with the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think-​tank, where he encountered questions his old political views had no answers for. He read Richard J. Barnet’s book Intervention and Revolution. Previously, like Goldwater, Hess had taken the hardline stance of anticommunism and had adopted the conservative mantra of my country, right or wrong, supporting strong national security budgets. But learning of America’s dubious role in foreign affairs made Hess revise his unthinking patriotism and allegiance to the right wing’s insistence on the righteousness of America’s cause.

After Goldwater’s landslide defeat in the presidential race and Hess’s declining faith in conservative politics, Hess was at a low point, which was made worse by the IRS auditing him and other former Goldwater staffers. In protest against the IRS, Hess sent the IRS a copy of the Declaration of Independence and a letter explaining he would never pay taxes again. While this might sound like a libertarian dream, the consequences were brutal. Hess was eventually hit with a 100% lien on all future earnings. That meant that if Hess earned any money through traditional employment, every cent would be immediately seized. In effect, Hess could no longer use currency legally. This punitive measure had a knock-​on effect on Hess’s political views, which were becoming more multi-​dimensional and complex. Hess was transforming from a mere partisan into a fully-​fledged political thinker. Being denied property meant that Hess was no longer focused on accumulating possessions but rather on gathering skills to increase his independence, given the dire situation with the IRS.

Before beginning his resistance against taxes while living in the well-​to-​do suburbs of Virginia, Hess bought a motorcycle. At first, it was simply a means of transportation, but Hess fell in love with the sounds and speed of motorbikes. Though it brought the ire of his suburbanite neighbors, Hess began participating in motorcycle races. After races, his bikes would be banged up and need repairs. Hess began to study welding at night school in D.C., stumbling upon what would become a lifelong passion and profession.

During his exodus from political life, Hess began working welding jobs at night to make some extra money, repairing bulldozer blades, dump trucks, and trailers. Hess discovered that working on the construction site was a completely different dynamic than the corporate world of offices and spreadsheets. The experience led him to identify what he now considered contradiction in his thought. He believed people had enough common sense to run their lives without interference from government bureaucrats. However, Hess also believed people would only work efficiently with corporate bosses. But at work with other welders, mechanics, heavy-​equipment operators, carpenters, steel riggers, electricians, pipefitters, and engineers, he discovered that the people he met absolutely could manage themselves and undertake productive work. In fact, unlike the corporate world Hess was accustomed to, the workers he met were not insular and competitive but cooperative when dealing with concrete situations. After he confronted this tension, Hess’s thinking evolved: He believed people could function without being managed and, in fact, might work better.

But at work with other welders, mechanics, truck and heavy-​equipment operators, carpenters, steel riggers, electricians, pipefitters, and engineers, he discovered that people he met absolutely could manage themselves and undertake productive work. In fact, unlike the corporate world Hess was accustomed to, the workers he met were not insular and competitive but cooperative when dealing with concrete situations. Hess began to understand that political parties and political power treat people as if they were inherently flawed humans. The more time he spent working, the more he believed that any of the available political parties did not represent the average working person.

Hess turned away from conservatism and began to embrace what was then called the New Left, in part because it opposed America’s foreign interventions; Hess believed the New Left contained the isolationist tendencies of the old right. Hess began spending more time at the Institute for Policy Studies and connecting with groups such as the Black Panthers that emphasized community organization. However, Hess was no doctrinaire lefty. Thanks to the influence of Murray Rothbard, Hess began reading the works of the individualist anarchist Emma Goldman, finding in her what he wished the Republicans had represented all along: freedom without hierarchy superimposed on top of it.

In 1969, Hess published his most enduring and succinct essay, “The Death of Politics,” published initially in Playboy, where he discussed the nature of libertarianism. In this piece, Hess argues that freedom can only be secured “by a radical questioning of power itself, and by the libertarian vision that sees man as capable of moving on without the encumbering luggage of laws and politics that do not merely preserve man’s right to his life but attempt, in addition, to tell him how to live it.” Hess increasingly saw the New Left in a better light, writing that left-​wingers cared about how one lives, while right-​wingers cared more about how someone behaves. In “The Death of Politics,” Hess pointed towards the flawed human urge for leadership, writing, “You do not need or probably want a leader to tell you what meals to plan, what hobbies to pursue, what outlook on life to maintain, how to relate to your friends, what books to read, what dreams to dream. You certainly don’t feel that the leader could cure your common cold or set a broken bone. Would you want the leader to lead the handling of your personal finances? Why is a leader needed?”

By this time, Hess had become what he called an “anarchist without hyphens,” eschewing labels that would characterize his thought as more left or more righ. He explained, “anarchism, liberty, does not tell you a thing about how free people will behave or what arrangements they will make… It does not say how to be free. It says only that freedom, liberty, can exist.” However, while Hess was not a lefty, or at the very least wasn’t a conventional one, this does not mean left-​wing thinkers and movements did not profoundly influence his political views. Hess was a multi-​dimensional political thinker, eschewing dogmas and party lines; Hess sought to bring the best from all viewpoints together. His “anarchism without hyphens” was a way for peaceful, productive people to live together without political authority. Hess sincerely wished to combine freedom and responsibility. Still, Hess saw this as very difficult—not because of philosophical complexity, but because of the institutions that dominated people’s lives then and continue to dominate them today.

In his 1975 book Dear America, Hess disparages both corporate or crony capitalism and state socialism. Hess had a high opinion of free markets but a low opinion of businesses. Crony capitalism is naked theft where business interests and the political class collude to live extremely high off of the work and creativity of others. Less brazen, state socialism cloaks itself in the aspirations of humane and cooperative living. Those aspirations are betrayed, however, by state socialism’s ruling class: obsessive book-​keeping bureaucrats with absolute authority. Crony capitalism and state socialism, thought Hess, hold the same ultimate purpose: to produce a social order in which docile people follow the commands of a ruling class. Hess believed there were only two classes in America: the ruling and working classes. But for Hess, the working class is much larger than usually recognized by socialists and progressives. The working class starts with privileged professionals such as engineers, scientists, and managers insofar as they have much more in common with farmers, mechanics, and grocery clerks than the joint chiefs of staff, the leaders of political parties, and owners of corporate conglomerates. The world we live in is not a result of human caprice and a failure to live-​and-​let-​live; it is a failure of leadership, something Hess thought we could happily live without.

Because Hess wanted to find a way for communities of people to live in harmony with self-​sufficiency outside of traditional politics, he became an early proponent of the “back to the land” movement, calling for people to occupy plots of land to establish communities focused on self-​sufficiency and autonomy. Hess sought out small communities as a protest against the giantism of government institutions and of private corporations backed by those same institutions. Within the New Left, Hess encountered people who promoted affordable, energy-​efficient, and, most importantly, decentralized and locally autonomous technologies.

But Hess was never happy with mere theory; alongside friends and colleagues, he helped bring self-​built and community-​managed technology to the then predominantly African American neighborhood of Adams Morgan in D.C. His 1979 book Community Technology gives Hess’s account of this experiment, writing about how he installed solar energy on homes and even experimented with creating fish farms in the basement spaces of houses, with production peaking at five tonnes of rainbow trout per year! Hess recounts that during this time, the residents of Adams Morgan engaged in participatory democracy and hoped a budding autonomous community would form. Hess’s experiment was cut short by the Community Reinvestment Act, which funneled money towards property development and businesses, leading to the gentrification of a once predominantly black neighborhood. Adams Morgan is is now 68% white, in a city where nearly half the population is black.

Disheartened by the experience, Hess and his second wife Therese moved to rural Opequon Creek in West Virginia. Hess set up a welding workshop to help support their household. Hess and Therese built a 2000 sq. ft home for just 10,000 dollars; in today’s money, about 60,000 dollars. Hess collected second-​hand appliances and installed solar power, which he began to see as a symbol of decentralization. Living in West Virginia, he became deeply involved in his local community. He started a newsletter called Person Personal Survival Letter from 1977 to 1982 while writing a book called A Common Sense Strategy for Survivalists.

Over his long career, Hess delivered many lectures, wrote books, and received awards for his works. His life was lived to the fullest. On April 22nd, 1994, Hess passed away due to long-​standing heart problems.

To be clear, the stories I told here do not even scrape the surface of Hess’s life. I did not talk about his gun-​running for Cuban revolutionaries, his life on a communal houseboat, or his membership in Students for a Democratic Society SDS. Hess himself all best explains these things, so I implore anyone interested to check out his autobiography or Dear America by Hess.

Some might see Hess as an impractical dreamer, but to Hess, the practical person is the one who dreams of change; the impractical are those who seek comfort in the solutions of the past. Political power is not changing any time soon; Hess provides a practical example of how, instead of changing power, we change ourselves and, with time, the world. He sought to free the ruled from their rulers not by overthrowing the rulers but by strengthening communities—by showing with small examples that people do not need a state to survive but instead a community to participate and thrive within.