Book Reviews

Hess places strong emphases on ethics and entrepreneurship. The capitalistic system is best, he says, because it encourages people to be open to new ideas, to be ready to change, and to be able to make choices which, from an economic perspective, are beneficial for all. In such a society each person is responsible for his or her actions and is encouraged to practice honesty, integrity, and fairness-aware that such actions foster practical and material suc cess. Hess encourages youngsters to start their own businesses, to plan well, to develop a strong work ethic, and to be ready to answer for mistakes and liabilities. This book fills a real void in the literature of freedom. I wish it had been around when I was a kid. [J Capitalism for Kids, by Karl Hess, is avail able in paperback for $9.95 or cloth for $14.95 (plus $1.00 U.S. mail or $2.00 UPS shipping and handling). To order, or to re quest a complete free catalogue of books on liberty, write Laissez Faire Books, Depart ment F, 532 Broadway, New York, NY 10012-3956. (212-925-8992) BOOKS 287 THE NEW CHINA: COMPARATIVE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN MAINLAND CHINA, TAIWAN, AND HONG KONG by Alvin Rabushka Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, 177 Post Street, San Francisco, CA 94108 • 1987 • 254 pages • $32.50 cloth, $12.95 paper Reviewed by Tommy W. Rogers W hy have Taiwan and Hong Kong ex perienced greater economic prog ress than mainland China? And why has the economic vitality of mainland China in creased since 1978? While the thriftiness, dili gence, and other virtues of the Chinese people have resulted in their flourishing almost every where they have setded, the Chinese culture thesis cannot account for sharply higher growth rates in Taiwan and Hong Kong than in main land China during the past three decades, nor ,account for the fact that per capita income in Hong Kong in 1985 was thirty times that of mainland China. In fact, mainland China en joys a greater abundance of natural resources than either Taiwan or Hong Kong, which sug gests that other factors, such as political sta bility, economic institutions, secure property rights, the rule of law, and individual incen tives play important roles.

The author concludes that the postwar devel opment experiences of mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong demonstrate that eco nomic institutions matter more than cultural traits and natural resources in fostering eco nomic growth and raising living standards. The Chinese, like other peoples, respond to incen tives. These incentives are determined by polit ical and economic institutions, which supply the rules and mechanisms for enforcement. The key rules include the definition and enforce ment of property rights, which ~ncourage im proved productivity and the expectation that in dividuals will reap the rewards of their own work or investments. The Chinese have flour ished where the economic environment has been free and competitive, with property rights secured under the rule of law. 0 288 THE FREEMAN • JULY 1988 RIGHT MINDS: A SOURCEBOOK OF AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE THOUGHT by Gregory Wolfe Regnery Books, 1130 17th Street N.W., Washington, DC 20036 1987 • 245 pages •$16.95 hardback Reviewed by William H. Peterson "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so," said Shake speare. But what thinking? And whose thinking? Ideas, Richard Weaver reminded us, have consequences. Right thinkers on thinking should be welcome, then, and Gregory Wolfe portrays them well.

To Wolfe, editor of The Intercollegiate Re view and an English professor at Christendom College, right thinkers are conservative, free market, limited-government types. Their an swers on such matters as family, media, crime, welfare, education, race, philosophy, sexu ality, communism, economics, foreign policy, and so on are based on traditional time-tested values and are referenced here, an incisive guide to the width and depth of the intellectual Last notice! framework undergirding today's conservative movement. The Wolfe sourcebook is America-oriented even if some of its thinkers are European in or igin-Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn and Ludwig von Mises, to name two examples. The book has three parts-an annotated bib liography of conservative writings from John Adams to Walter Williams, brief biographies of American conservative minds including Norman Podhoretz and Leonard Read, and cur rent sources of American conservative thought including the Liberty Fund and the Hoover In stitution on War, Revolution and Peace. The inclusions-and there are hundreds-make sense.

Inevitably, I suppose, Mr.Wolfe can be charged with some errors of omission if not commission in a work of this sort. But given his limitations of space, he, too, had to choose, i.e., to reject. In the foreword to this reference work, William F. Buckley Jr. reminds us how Samuel Johnson coped with the demand for an explanation of why he omitted some word or other from his Dictionary: "Ignorance, Madam, pure ignorance." Even so, this compilation of right thinkers and thinking should prove to be a valuable roadmap to conservative intellectualism. D F·E·E / 1988 Summer Seminar August 7-13 A few spaces are still available. Price: $225.00 (includes tuition, room, and board). Telephone Jacob G. Hornberger, Director of Programs, Foundation for Economic Education, (914) 591-7230.