Howard Homan Buffett: Rothbard’s Favorite Anti–Cold War Warrior, Part 2
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Howard Homan Buffett’s concern about foreign intervention predated the Cold War, however. On March 2, 1944, he contested the wisdom of a bill in the House, which was meant to increase America’s oil reserves through the massive taxpayer funding of an Arabian pipeline. Buffett expressed a theme that would permeate his political career: empire versus freedom:
This proposal presents squarely to the American people the issue of empire versus freedom…. I use the phrase “empire versus freedom.” What does the term “freedom” have to do with empire? Simply this: that to defend this far-away imperialistic economic venture a volunteer army large enough could not be raised. This war has demonstrated that no modern government commands sufficient confidence of its people to depend on a volunteer army.
The importance of conscription
Conscription was a specific issue to which Buffet returned repeatedly because he believed it was the necessary prerequisite for militarism. A sustained imperialism will require eligible men to register for military service, he argued,
and this will result in the brutal form of slavery called “a draft”; without conscription, the government would simply not be strong enough to police the world.
A second reason that conscription often dominated Buffet’s narrative was expressed in an article entitled “An Opportunity For The Republican Party”. The piece appeared in the classical-liberal periodical New Individualist Review (Summer 1962), along with one by Rothbard. Buffett wrote:
In its abolition of freedom, peacetime conscription overshadows all other collectivism and regimentation. When the American government conscripts a boy to go 10,000 miles to the jungles of Asia without a declaration of war by Congress (as required by the Constitution) what freedom is safe at home? Surely, profits of U. S. Steel or your private property are not more sacred than a young man’s right to life.
Here, he argued that peacetime conscription is the worst imposition of statism and a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Article I, Section 8, Clause 11, called the war powers clause, gives Congress the sole authority “to declare war” so as to avoid placing such a destructive capability in the hands of one man — the president. Nevertheless, the last war declaration issued by Congress was during World War II. Since then, Congress has approved resolutions that authorized resorting to military force and funded them through appropriations. The need for a congressional declaration was sidestepped largely by using euphemisms; wars became “police actions”; battlefields became “theaters of conflict.”
Buffett also believed conscription violated the Declaration of Independence, which states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Militarism obliterated life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in a literal sense.
And, instead of fighting communism as promised, Buffet believed conscription strengthened communism by establishing “the totalitarian concept that the state owns the individual.” Totalitarianism thrived on war, while freedom and prosperity thrived on peace and cooperation. Just as World War I had set the stage for the Bolshevik Revolution so, too, would militarization usher in the American socialist state. It also played into the hands of the Soviet Union, which wanted the United States to expend forces and finances in military efforts that united communist nations, like China, against America.
As for corruption, if American forces and finances were at stake, every dictatorship or failing nation in the Third World would claim to be on the verge of a communist revolution in order to tap into the power and profit being offered. “Every ruler, be he tyrant or parliamentary politician, will claim the threat of communism is most dangerous in his land,” he said.
The danger of militarism
Buffett had good and practical cause to fear the domestic consequences of militarism because he witnessed so much of it being implemented during his four-terms (1943–1949 and 1951–1953) in the House. His opposition was not only philosophical but one of practical action against conscription. Shortly before his tenure in office, the Selective Training and Service of Act of 1940 became the first peacetime national conscription in U.S. history. It required eligible American males between 21 and 35 years of age to register and be inducted in an order set by a national lottery. Those drafted had to serve on active duty for 12 months and then in a reserve status for 10 years, unless they became 45 or were otherwise discharged. When America entered World War II, the draft expanded. Buffett witnessed the impact on internal politics, which included the suppression of a free press and free speech, massive interference in the free market, a combative and exploitive stance toward foreign nations, de facto slavery of productive young men, high taxes, inflation, and economic impoverishment.
In June 1948, the Selective Service Act of 1948 was debated in the House. The bill established the Selective Service as an independent government agency, which maintained the registration records of male Americans and residents who could then be subjected to conscription. Buffett rose to his feet again:
Congress would be surrendering to the militarism that it sent 400,000 to die fighting against [in WWII] — thereby outlawing the Declaration of Independence concept that man is endowed with certain inalienable rights. Having made this surrender of human liberty, Congress can no longer defend the rights of the people from aggrandizement by the state. You cannot enslave youth and then defend lesser individual right.
Buffett died of cancer at 60 years old in May 1964. In the end, Buffett and the Old Right fought a noble, albeit losing, battle for anti-interventionism. Because of their arguments against empire, they were smeared as Stalinists or, in modern terms, as “Russian agents.” It is impossible to know by how much they slowed down America’s steady sink into socialism. But they argued from the only stance that had a chance to slow or stop the march toward what Buffett once called the “unlicensed slaughter” of war; he spoke of the moral principles and the practical consequences surrounding war, always presenting moral principles as the filter through which to understand events. He and other anti–Cold War Warriors avoided being distracted by secondary issues, such as drafting women, and never lost sight of the basic theme: conscription is slavery.
His true legacy may not reside in congressional records, however. Buffet’s impact on Rothbard was instrumental in defining many of libertarianism’s specific antiwar positions. Through Rothbard and his circle, hundreds of thousands around the world now share the antiwar perspective of Buffett. Few people can boast of doing as much good and shining as much light on what Rothbard came to consider the one fundamental issue for freedom: peace versus war.
This article was originally published in the November 2025 issue of Future of Freedom.
The post Howard Homan Buffett: Rothbard’s Favorite Anti–Cold War Warrior, Part 2 appeared first on The Future of Freedom Foundation.
