# Four Reforms: A Program for the ’70’s By William F. Buckley, Jr. **URL:** **By** Roy A. Childs, Jr. **Published:** February 1, 1974 --- “With this work, then, conservativism has taken an important step forward in strategic thinking, and in a general way, at least, libertarians can applaud the results.” This is Buckley’s latest book and, as far as libertarians are concerned, it must be considered far and away his best. _Four Reforms_ is a well-argued defense of proposed reforms in government in the areas of welfare, taxation, education and crime. The work is a serious one, and its focus is predominately positive, something lacking in the corpus of libertarian and conservative-libertarian literature. I should emphasize that proposals for reform per se are not missing, but for _strategic_ reforms, reforms which accept the fact that as of now, one must work from within an undesirable _status quo_. One blazing exception was the proposal for and battle over Proposition One in California, a measure which would have placed a Constitutional limitation on the state government’s power to tax, a proposal which has gone down to a temporary defeat. Buckley’s proposals for reform are even broader than that; as he points out, “This is not a book on how to solve the welfare problem, but on how to set the stage for solving it; not a bill of particulars on how large the public sector should be made through taxation, but a suggested order of taxation that would scrape away a generation’s rust, and lubricate the social imagination; not a formula for stopping crime, but a way to make the apprehension of the criminal likelier; not a way to teach people what they need to know, but a suggestion or two on how to encourage the development of schools in which people are freer than they now are to find education.” It is neither possible nor necessary to discuss the details of Buckley’s proposed reforms here; indeed, part of the value of this book is the pains to which Buckley goes to examine the nature and development of the problems we face in welfare, taxation, administration of justice and education. His proposed reforms emerge from within this, taking full consideration into account of current liberal prejudices, which have to be dealt with in any serious attempt at reform. With one possible exception, Buckley’s political reforms are fully consistent with the direction in which libertarians wish to see things move. Buckley fully exposes the entangled abuses of our present welfare system and shows that the results of federal“revenue sharing” have been messy indeed: revenue sharing has resulted in the subsidy of the wealthiest states (per capita income) by the poorest; New York is subsidized by Nebraska and Wisconsin, for example. Buckley urges, in part, that federal payments to states with _per capita_ incomes above the national average be suspended. In the field of taxation, Buckley shows that the per cent of income paid in taxes by those earning under $2000 per year is nearly equal to that paid by those earning over $50,000 per year, and that the lowest rate is paid by those in the $8 - 10,000 bracket. He proposes that the progressive features of the income tax be eliminated in favor of an across-the-board proportional tax of 15 per cent, among other things. His insightful chapter on education surveys the results of liberal views on forced integration, education and inequality, and tax credits to private schools, is similarly excellent. The one reform which is dubious, at best, is proposed in his chapter on crime. Focusing properly on the fact that the courts should be primarily concerned with questions of guilt or innocence, Buckley proposes several changes in the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, as presently interpreted by the courts. But he makes up for this with his corollary proposal that prosecution of victimless crimes be radically cut back. With this work, then, conservativism has taken an important step forward in strategic thinking, and in a general way, at least, libertarians can applaud the results. But the important point to grasp is not so much that each and every one of Buckley’s proposed reforms is purely libertarian in nature—they are not—but that it is good to see more positive thinking being done on serious strategic questions. How to get “from here to there” is one of the most fundamental and important questions which libertarians face, and politically-minded libertarians have just barely dipped beneath the surface on this issue. _Four Reforms_ is a useful and insightful guidebook for strategic thinking in defending liberty and is recommended reading for everyone concerned with the art and problem of achieving liberty in our time. _Reviewed by R. A. Childs, Jr. / Politics (128 pages) / BFL Price $4.95_