For those who search his monument, go searching.
I realized yesterday that Manny Klausner died not too long ago at age 85.
I keep in mind Murray Rothbard referring to H.L. Mencken because the “joyous libertarian.” For me, Manny was the joyous libertarian.
My late good friend Harry Watson and I got here down from Canada in September 1972 to begin within the Ph.D. economics program at UCLA. We had been studying Purpose journal repeatedly and following the libertarian motion that method and thru different publications. We had been charmed by a lot of what we learn. So we arrived considerably acquainted with the American libertarian panorama. We knew sufficient to know that Los Angeles was one of many hotbeds of libertarianism.
Naturally, we began trying round for libertarian occasions and we discovered concerning the Libertarian Supper Membership that met as soon as every week (or was it as soon as a month?) to debate points and developments. It met at a restaurant referred to as the Eaters’ Digest. There was a really constructive vibe on the time and so folks would rise up and briefly share one thing that they’d learn or heard within the mainstream press or on speak radio that was someplace between vaguely libertarian and really libertarian. I believe it was there that I first met Manny.
I do not forget that he handed out a pamphlet he had produced as a result of he was operating as a write-in candidate for Congress within the 1972 election. That makes him the primary candidate for Congress I ever met. I don’t keep in mind all of the coverage positions in his pamphlet, however I do do not forget that they weren’t hard-core libertarian however, fairly, one thing I discovered extra smart: laying out insurance policies that might take us nearer to freedom.
I bought a kick out of 1 specific place he took and I assumed it made sense. He proposed ending the federal civil service system and returning to a 19th century-style spoils system. I believe he instructed me, or perhaps it was within the pamphlet, that the benefit of such a system is that it could be cheaper: as a substitute of funding new applications to repay supporters, profitable politicians may fireplace the present staff and substitute them with their supporters. I’m not constructive any extra that it’s a good suggestion however I believe it’s.
I used to be speaking to my good friend Eric Garris this morning about Manny. Eric labored within the Purpose workplace in 1974-75 and bought to know Manny that method. Manny was a part of a bunch that had purchased Purpose from its founder, Lanny Friedlander, in 1970. It was a really small publication on the time. However Eric tells me that Manny was vastly vital in rising Purpose as a enterprise.
British architect Sir Christopher Wren’s well-known epitaph was “Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice.” Translation: Reader, in the event you search his monument, go searching. It’s inscribed on his tomb in St. Paul’s Cathedral, considered one of 56 church buildings he was instrumental in constructing, together with St. Paul’s Cathedral itself, after London’s large fireplace of 1666.
Equally, in the event you search Manny’s monument, have a look at Purpose and the Purpose Basis.
Notice: Each Brian Doherty and Bob Poole have carried out glorious remembrances of Manny.
P.S. Later at the moment, I’ll submit a extra private remembrance of Manny on my Substack. I’ll replace right here when that’s carried out.
Right here’s the hyperlink to my private appreciation of Manny.
