Book Reviews

Rose was vivacious, lively, energetic, adventurous, a fascinating conversational ist, and a brilliant storyteller. A determined individualist, she was a rebel all her life. Rose was extremely bright and taught herself to read, she says, at three years of age. She rebelled against poverty and the hardships of her childhood. She also re belled against uninspiring teachers and her formal schooling ended at an early age. She left home at sixteen and was soon support ing herself on $2.50 per week as a telegra pher. She made her way to California where she worked in real estate and journalism and married briefly. After World War I, she went to Europe for the Red Cross and to the Middle East for the Near East Relief. She found poverty every where; Armenia was the worst. Repulsed by the suffering and destitution in war-tom Europe,· Rose was attracted by Commu nism. But in time she rebelled against that too and became what she called a rebel in the tradition of the American Revolution, an ad vocate of individual freedom. She described her philosophical transformation in a piece in the Saturday Evening Post which later gained widecirculationas a booklet, Give Me Liberty.

Rose's mother was Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the beloved series of Little House books for children. It now appears that Rose had much more to do with the success of those books than has previously been ac knowledged. Rose had long encouraged her mother to write, and Laura had had quite a few articles published in local Missouri newspapers and farm journals. Then she began writing down her childhood reminis cences. Laura sent Rose her handwritten manuscript and asked Rose to help. As a skilled ghostwriter, Rose took the story in hand, added descriptive material and con versation, fleshed out incidents described, enhanced the narrative, and gave the tale a suitable beginning and end. After Rose had "run her mother's manuscript through her typewriter" in this way, the first of her mother's Little House books, The Little House in the Big Woods, was accepted in 1932for publication by Harper's and named a Junior Literary Guild Selection.

Laura Ingalls Wilder continued her rem iniscences. In time there were eight books in the Little House series. * Laura sometimes resented her daughter's help, but she real ized Rose was making her manuscripts pub lishable. All of the Little House books have become best sellers and they are still kept in print by their publisher. It took Rose about a year to "run through her typewriter" each of the books that fol lowed the first one. As Rose worked on her mother's manuscripts, she introduced more and more of her developing philosophy of individual freedom. The extent of Rose's involvement became apparent only after Laura donated "her handwritten, fair-copy manuscripts" of several of the books to li braries (the Detroit Public Library named in her honor and the Pomona, California, Public Library) and scholars began to compare Lau ra's versions with the published books. Rose's opposition to government inter vention strengthened as the years rolled by. She became a strenuous opponent of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. Before *The First Four Years was published in 1971, after Rose's death, without benefit of her editing.

Pearl Harbor she opposed our entry into the war. During the war, she refused to apply for a ration card, relying on honey for sweet ening and canning her own garden fruits and vegetables. She even refused to accept a Social Security number. When a radio com mentator asked his listeners for their views on Social Security, she scribbled on a post card: "If [American] school teachers say to German [Nazi] children, 'We believe in Social Security,' the children willask, 'Then why did you fight Germany?' All these 'Social Security' laws are German, insti tuted by Bismarck and expanded by Hitler. Americans believe in freedom, in not being taxed for their own good and bossed by bureaucrats." The local postmaster, read ing the message, considered it subversive and notified the FBI which sent a state trooper to investigate. Rose's response was a newspaper article: "What Is This-the Gestapo?"

Rose presented her fully developed free dom philosophy in a book, The Discovery of Freedom, published during the war in 1943. It has just recently been republished with a new preface by FEE's President, Hans F. Sennholz. Partly because of this book, John Chamberlain credits her, along with Isabel Paterson, author of The God of the Ma chine, and Ayn Rand as having "rekindle[d] a faith in an older American philosophy." This book also inspired Henry Grady Weav er's Mainspring ofHuman Progress, which is a FEE bestseller. The freedom message Rose presented through her books has even reached people who don't read. Her novel, Let the Hurri cane Roar, later republished as Young Pio neers, which dealt as the Little House books did with life on the frontier, was dramatized for radio and broadcast with Helen Hayes as the star. The Little House books ran for several years as a television series, starring Michael Landon.

Rose was not only a rebel but a crusader. As she journeyed from Communism to free dom, she used every opportunity to con vince others of her particular brand of indi vidualism. She was a prolificcorrespondent. Two books of her letters have been pub~ 529 lished: one of those to DuPont's Jasper Crane, The Lady and the Tycoon, and the other, just published, edited by William Holtz, author of this biography, of Rose's correspondence with Dorothy Thompson, the prominent newspaper columnist. Econ omists V. Orval Watts, Jean-Pierre Hamil ius of Luxembourg, Robert LeFevre, and Hans F. Sennholz all came under her spell. She also gave LeFevre's Freedom School both spiritual and financial support. In the course of her life, Rose "adopted" several young men who became proteges. One of these, Roger MacBride, became her attorney, heir, and most loyal promoter. Elected to the Vermont State Legislature, MacBride proposed and argued for legisla tion to reduce the size of the state govern ment by disengaging the state from a host of enterprises. In 1972, as a presidential elec tor, MacBride surprised the nation by cast ing his vote, not for the Republican slate as expected, but for the Libertarian presiden tial and vice-presidential candidates, John Hospers and Toni Nathan. And in 1976, MacBride himself ran for U.S. president as the Libertarian Party's candidate.

Rose Wilder Lane lived a full and colorful life. She thrived on intellectual challenges. She suffered heartbreak and hardships. She traveled widely. In 1965, under the spon sorship of the Defense Department, she was sent as a correspondent for Woman's Day to Vietnam. In 1968, she was planning still another trip-to places in Europe she hadn't seen before. On October 29, she baked several loaves of bread in her Danbury, Connecticut, home and went upstairs to bed. As Holtz wrote, "Sometime during the dark hours just before dawn, her heart stopped." Her pilgrimage was over. WilliamHoltz, Professor of English at the University of Missouri-Columbia, has done a prodigious amount of research, digging through voluminous files, documents, notes, and letters, to produce a sympathetic, delightful biography of a fascinating, dy namic, and complex individual. D Mrs. Greaves, this month's guest editor, is resident scholar at The Foundation/or Economic Education.

530 THE FREEMAN • SEPTEMBER 1994 The God of the Machine by Isabel Paterson Introduction by Stephen Cox Transaction Publishers, Rutgers-the State University, New Brunswick, NJ 08903, 1993 • 308+ Ivii pages. $21.95 paperback Reviewed by John Attarian F irst published in 1943, when voices raised in defense of freedom were few, The God of the Machine, "a study of the flow of energy and the nature of government as mechanism," is both an ambitious and original interpretation of history and a bril liant defense of individual liberty. For Paterson, "Energy is the medium of life." It cannot be created, but it can be converted into useful forms, by the creative, acting individual. "In the social organiza tion, man is the dynamo, in his productive capacity. . . . He has a faculty for which no equivalent is found in the processes of inanimate nature. He is self-starting, and he can inhibit himself' (her italics). Man is "self-starting and self-acting." Paterson's conception resembles the "acting person"

at the core of Pope John Paul's endorsement of the free economy. With individuals as dynamos, economic life is an energy flow; Paterson uses an electrical circuit as a metaphor for the cir cular flow of production and exchange. For energy to flow, certain institutions are ap propriate. ' 'Personal liberty is the pre condition of the release of energy. Private property is the inductor which initiates the flow." Paterson contrasts the "Society of Contract" with the "Society of Status." Grounded in awareness of the individual's God-given, inalienable right to life, the former society leaves people free to act, bargain freely, and produce, hence is a prerequisite for prosperity. In the latter, people have no rights, and exist on suffer ance, making the Society of Status .at odds with reality. "The vital functions of a living creature do not wait on permission; and unless a person is already able to act of his own motion, he cannot obey a command."

Hence the Society of Status is "geared to a lower potential of energy than the Society of Contract, " resulting in lower economic per formance. Some government is necessary. "Initia tive is life itself. Complete inhibition is death. Yet a living creature incapable of inhibiting itself would speedily destroy it self. " Limited government, enforcing rights, protecting producers from predators so energy may circulate, acts as the inhibi tor-analogous to brakes and governors, which "are set to operate only if the motor and transmission goes wrong.... these are not preventive controls, but corrective; they are not primary but secondary," e.g. ,con tract laws. Excessive government drains too much energy from the circuit, so not enough gets through to resume the flow, resulting in economic decline; it may even short-circuit the economy altogether. Three great ideas brought humanity to the Society of Contract: science, law, and Christianity's stress on the individual. They came together in our Constitution, which Paterson interprets brilliantly as a great energy-liberator, albeit flawed by the com promise allowing slavery. But the 14th-18th Amendments disastrously concentrated power in the national government.

Paterson explains money and credit with enviable clarity, and brilliantly explodes the fiat money fallacy. "If it is said that anything will do for money, as long as people accept it, let it be asked, why willnot people accept 'anything?' Offer the man who says 'any thing will do for money,' a handful of pebbles in payment of a debt." As for inflating bad debt away: "If twenty million bushels of wheat were contracted for, and only ten millionbushels existed, there really would not be enough wheat to fulfill the contract; but in that case, nobody would argue that there must be something wrong with wheat as a commodity; much less that the situation could be remedied by calling half a bushel of wheat a bushel. . . . But that is what is done with money in a crisis. " Indeed, one of Paterson's many strengths is her demolition of so much collectivist nonsense: "the greatest good for the greatest number, " majority rule, "production for use and not for profit" ("as if there could be any profit if the product were not used"), public ownership, "all property is theft"

(' 'Theft presupposes rightfulownership. An object must be property before [her italics] it can be stolen. "), and so on. Her chapter' 'The Humanitarian With the Guillotine" tackles one of the worst falla cies: coercive compassion. While suffering is part of existence, successful life is the norm. "Therefore it cannot be supposed that the producer exists only for the sake of the nonproducer, the wellfor the sake of the ill, the competent for the sake of the incom petent; nor any person merely for the sake of another." Paterson upholds voluntary charity by religions, which "have always recognized the conditions of the natural order, " and calls for meeting the moral obligation of charity "out of the producer's surplus. That is, they make it secondary to production, " (her italics) since nothing can be given unless produced. And, recognizing the rights of producers, they obtain money by asking, not commanding.

Humanitarians, however, wish to com mand producers, so as to take credit for production. Moreover: If the primary objective of the philanthro pist, his justification for living, is to help others, his ultimate good requires that others shall be in want [her italics]. His happiness is the obverse of their mis ery. . . . The humanitarian wishes to be a prime mover in the lives of others. He cannot admit either the divine or the natural order, by which men have the power to help themselves. The humani tarian puts himself in the place of God. This courageous chapter alone is worth the price of the book. It should be read by everyone, especially welfare statists. Paterson's electrical metaphors are bril liant, but exasperating in their inadequate articulation. The latter flows from the book's major flaw: deficient organization, a forgivable failing in a pioneering work but well-nighcrippling. Since her metaphors are novel and demanding, she should have BOOKS 531 opened by presenting and explaining her frame of reference, instead of scattering it throughout the text. As it is, the reader must divine her framework in dribs and drabs by piecemeal epiphanies.

Nonetheless, The God of the Machine is magnificent. It deserves and richly repays the careful reading it requires. D John Attarian is afreelance writer in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with a Ph.D. in economics. Russian Currency and Finance: A Currency Board Approach to Reform by Steve H. Hanke, Lars lonung, and Kurt Schuler Routledge, 1993 • 238 pages. $49.95 cloth (also available from Laissez Faire Books at $21.95) Reviewed by William H. Peterson O nce upon a time-in 1959-1 pro pounded, in both Challenge and Na tional Review, Peterson's Law on inflation, as follows: History shows that money will multiply in volume and divide in value over the long run. Or expressed differently, the purchas ing power of currency will vary inversely with the magnitude of the public debt. In the intervening 35 years, depending on the country, inflation has forged ahead re lentlessly, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly but always ahead-a 5,000year-old story of multiplication of monetary volume and division in currency value. So curren cies rot and governments rat on their citi zens. That was my message.

Today virtually all currencies are un healthy, but the sickest by far is the Russian ruble. Notwithstanding considerable finan cial help from Western governments and the International Monetary Fund, Russia suf fers rapid inflation-some 15 percent a month since 1991 and recently 20 percent a month. Further acceleration is expected as the Yeltsin government, pressured by its 532 THE FREEMAN • SEPTEMBER 1994 statist parliament, increases lines of credit to its failing state industries. The authors (Messrs. Hanke and Schuler are with the Johns Hopkins University, Mr. Jonung with the Stockholm School of Eco nomics) worry. At some point, Russian industries will have to fire workers and consumers will have to pay higher real prices for formerly subsidized goods. Polit ical upheaval is in prospect. Write the au thors: "It is unclear whether the Russian public will blame the parliament, the exec utive branch or both for extreme inflation, but whatever the case, the result will be a new configuration of political forces."

Question: Is a new Stalin waiting in the wings? Much depends on Russia's coping realis tically with inflation. Inflation is a structural as well as a quantitative problem-too much money chasing too few goods. A price, after all, is but a ratio of money to a particular good. Slow down or stop monetary growth, and you tend to at least slow down or stop the rate of price rise for a broad spectrum of goods. The question for Russia is: How? Here's where structure comes in. The authors, addressing the Russian authorities, advance a two-pronged program. First, realize that sustainable economic growth underwrites political stability and that such growth is only possible with predictable money, a sound currency that at least reasonably maintains its value from one period to an other. Such a ruble would halt Russia's "rush into goods" and" dollarization" of its economy. It would command both domestic and international respect. It would permit saving, investment, foreign trade, and eco nomic growth to go forward.

Then second, with all deliberate speed, convert the Central Bank of Russia into a currency board such as prevails in Hong Kong. A currency board differs from a central bank in key ways. It supplies notes and coins only, while the central bank also supplies bank deposits, especially on behalf of the government. A currency board fixes an exchange rate with a reserve currency such as the U.S. dollar, while a central bank has a pegged or floating exchange rate. A currency board has foreign reserves of 100 percent and full convertibility, while the central bank has variable foreign reserves and limited convertibility. The point of these and other differences spelled out in the book is that a currency board cannot create inflation while the cen tral bank, usually a creature of a govern ment, often cannot fight off political pres sure for inflation. Short-run interests conquer long-run interests, as a painful rule.

And that's probably when the history of currency boards-and dozens are listed in Appendix C in this important volume shows them to be most helpful but of usually limited duration. The Philippines, for exam pie, had three episodes with currency boards. Besides Hong Kong today, cur rency board countries include Bermuda, Gibraltar, and Lithuania, though Argentina and Estonia have currency board features. All these countries have relatively low in flation and good growth. So Hanke, Jonung, and Schuler are un questionably right and deserve credit. Rus sian salvation likely lies in sound money and a currency board. The problem is: Do the Russian authorities, for all their large gold deposits, have the vision and courage to adopt them? Peterson's Law, foreboding though it may be, seems to prevail in the ~d. D Dr. Peterson, an adjunct scholar with the Heri tage Foundation, is completing a book on politics that broadens his original law,. it's called Peter son's Law: Why Things Go Wrong.

Angry Classrooms, Vacant Minds by Martin Morse Wooster San Francisco: Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, 1994 • 187 pages. $19.95 Reviewed by John Hood T he education reform debate in the United States has gotten stale. Schools need money, say the teachers' unions and the denizens of the education establishment. Schools need flexibility, say trendy reform ers. Schools need parental choice, say many conservative and libertarian activists. There appears to be little understanding on the part of one faction as to what is motivating the others. Arguments often seem pro forma, with no attempt at a true exchange of views and information. To combat the school-reform blahs, I would like to prescribe Martin Morse Wooster's Angry Classrooms, Vacant Minds, published by the Pacific Research Institute. Wooster's book carries the subti tle What's Happened to Our High Schools?, but in reality his analysis extends down to the primary grades, and deals with issues of concern to parents, educators, policy makers, activists, and other interested citi zens. Wooster, a former editor at Harper's, The Wilson Quarterly, and Reason who writes regularly on education issues for The Washington Times, brings a wealth of ex perience in journalism and public policy research to the subject of education reform.

One reason why we constantly spin our wheels in reform debates is a lack of atten tion to history-not the academic subject but the actual record of educational change and controversy in America during the past 150years. Many of the issues we face today, ranging from national curriculum standards and testing to public aid for private schools, have their antecedents in American history. Perhaps the most welcome parts of Woost er's book attempt to fill in these historical gaps. "Political correctness," for example, is only a new word-it's not a new concept. Assaults on the traditional course of study, motivated by ideology and social sensitiv ity, date back to the nineteenth century. Progressive education is one movement with a long history-Wooster reports that it was' 'the dominant educational philosophy in high schools" by the 1930s. "All across America," he explains, "reformers told school boards that 'the total life activity' of the child mattered more than what was taught, and that grading was purely mech anistic and did not reflect what the student really learned."

BOOKS 533 A key concern of many reformers across the political spectrum today is inculcating values in the educational process. They argue that schools must not only impart information but also build character. But we've tried to accomplish this goal before. The Character Education Institute was cre ated in 1911, and later changed its name to the National Institution for Moral Educa tion. This organization advocated school programs to instill values in schoolchildren, and during the 1920s,public school systems across the country introduced character education plans of various sorts. But studies of these early programs concluded that' 'the character education movement was at best ineffective and occasionally caused students to become more immoral by cheating on good conduct records." If the goal is for schools to teach lessons about values, Wooster argues, then they should not get involved in designing an elaborate "moral code" to impart to their students. The school's key responsibility is simply to "make their schools decent and humane places where students can be effec tive and productive. " Another solution, he adds, is to include classic works of literature in the curriculum, from which students can learn moral lessons: "Certainly more stu dents have been improved by great litera ture than by catch phrases."

The most contentious issue Wooster ad dresses is school choice. Again, he provides the historical background of the idea remarking that "the voucher is one of the few innovations in education whose found ing can be definitely traced" (to Milton Friedman's original proposal in 1955). Sur veying the range of policies encompassed by the term choice, Wooster observes that many experiments conducted so far have had limited scope and mixed results. Whether it is charter schools in California, public school choice in Minnesota and Mas sachusetts, or vouchers in Wisconsin, the clear predictions of both advocates and opponents have clashed with actual results. Students in these programs transfer from one school to another for varying reasons, some bearing little relationship to academic 534 THE FREEMAN • SEPTEMBER 1994 quality. Public school choice, particularly, is a reform that offers only modest potential because of the limited number of choices available. "Public school choice may be helpful in changing the schools," he writes, "but it cannot be a success in a homoge neous, monolithic school system."

Advocates of private education and rad ical changes in the way public funds are dispersed will find Wooster's conclusion striking: "School choice will not convince parents that education is worthwhile, tell students to do their homework, teach right and wrong, dissolve all red tape, or even ensure that students are as educated as their parents or grandparents. The available evi dence suggeststhat the benefitsschoolchoice willprovide Americanschoolsare moregrad ual and less dramatic than either friends or foes of the reform contend will take place." Wooster's analysis of the problems facing American education today, especially when placed in the context of 150years of' 'school reform," is both provocative and intriguing. I, for one, would have liked to see some analysis of the political dilemma facing school reformers today-particularly the challenge of overcoming the institutional advantages of government monopolists - but perhaps that subject merits its own book. In any event, a reader looking for answers to seemingly intractable problems would dowell to beginby reading Wooster's history of school reform. Understanding the past is a precondition for glimpsing the future. D John Hood is vice president of the John Locke Foundation, a state policy think tank in Raleigh, N.C.

Code Blue: Healthcare in Crisis by Edward R. Annis, M.D. Regnery Gateway, 1993 .278 pages. $21.95 Reviewed by Frank J. Primich, M.D. C ode Blue takes its name from the most common term used by hospital public address systems to signify cardiac arrest. The announcement sends an assortment of specially trained personnel scurrying to the designated site. Modern techniques and technology, when given the timely oppor tunity, have been highly successful in re storing life. While Code Blue is non-fiction, it cer tainly can be described as a "whodunit." In fact, the title and cover would be suitable for a Robin Cook medical horror mystery. The protagonist in Dr. Annis's book is the pri vate practice of medicine, which has been declared dead by some of its adversaries. Resuscitation requires an understanding of what has gone wrong, and what can be done about it. In every field, there is an internal rating system. Ed Annis is the acknowledged su perstar of those of us who have pleaded the cause of fee-for-service medical practice and maintenance of the traditional doctor patient relationship.

The past fifty years have brought mirac ulous health care advances in life-expect ancy and the quality of life. This is often obscured by focusing on misapplied statis tics such as infant mortality rates, which reflect harmful lifestyles and socioeco nomic factors which are beyond the control of the medical community. The same time span has seen a steady encroachment into the process from a vari ety of third parties, particularly govern ment. The concept of socialized medicine, discredited elsewhere in the world, has been introduced, through gradualism, to the point where we are now, in effect, semi-social ized. The current proposals for national health care threaten to push us beyond the point of no return. Code Blue presents a compelling analysis of the chameleon-like nature of the social istic forces. Each time they are rebuffed, we see the same individuals coming back with the same agenda, wrapped in the banner of their "new" politically correct organiza tion.

Annis ably explains the difference be tween insurance, which is normally de signed to protect against unexpected mis fortune, and prepaid health care that prevails today. He shows how the added costs associated with third party interven tion, while huge in and of themselves, are effectively doubled by the added costs of doing business on the part of the providers of service. The inequity of current standards of malpractice and product liability is ex posed for the costs engendered, but more critically for the progress forsaken. The flaws in the British and Canadian systems are reviewed, and a chapter is devoted to the half-truths of liberal press and media. The largely unjustified doctor bashing is also addressed. The highlighted cases of fraud and abuse have predictably arisen from the impersonal paper-based na ture of third party payment, which offers irresistible opportunities to the unethical.

My favorite portions are the examples of the way things were in the "good old days." Most doctors, under age fifty, have little comprehension of what has been lost. To anyone unfamiliar with the famous Annis-Kennedy "debate," in May 1962,the intrigue involved and the parallels to the contemporary political maneuvering should be interesting. Under the auspices of the National Council of Senior Citizens, orches trated by the AFL-CIO, Madison Square Garden was filled with 18,000 elderly sup porters of the King-Anderson (Medicare) bill. President John F. Kennedy was sched uled as the principal speaker. His speech was to be carried live and free by all three TV networks. The AMA asked for equal time, but was refused. They were able to buy time on one network for the following evening. They arranged to rent the Garden immediately following the spectacular presentation, with balloons, banners, and assorted debris still strewn among the now entirely empty seats.

Against that background, Ed Annis stood alone and made his impassioned plea. It was estimated that 30,000,000people, at or near a record for that era, witnessed the speech. The response was phenomenal. The AMA and legislators were deluged with support ive calls and letters. King-Anderson failed to pass! To find out what happened next, you'll have to read the book. BOOKS 535 Mter Dr. Annis has detailed what has gone wrong, he concludes with a chapter that offers the only true logical solution: a return to the free market. Dr. Annis recom mends the plans of the National Center for Policy Analysis and the Heritage Founda tion. Both plans put the patient back in the driver's seat, demand equity in income tax treatment, and promote Health Savings and Health IRA accounts. The author leans toward the NCPA plan because of its "com prehensive simplicity and logical consisten cy." I recall, less than five years ago, sitting at a table in Dallas with Dr. Annis, and Drs.

Francis Davis, Frank Rogers, and Jane Orient, while John C. Goodman sought our support for his fledglingNCPA. The prestige that this conservative/libertarian think tank has acquired in such a short time should offer hope to those who worry about the seemingly overwhelming forces arrayed against us. It may be wishful thinking, but I sincerely believe that if Ed Annis attained access to the talk-show circuit, there is no tellingwhat might happen. He has already proven once that the sincerely spoken word can sway the masses. Given the opportunity, he might once again be our savior. D Dr. Primichis a privatepractitionerofobstetrics and gynecology in West New York, New Jersey. Man and Nature The Foundation for Economic Education, Irvington-on-Hudson, New York. 1993 • 221 pages. $14.95 paperback Reviewed by Raymond J. Keating E nvironmentalists would have us believe that free individuals interacting in the marketplace destroy the environment. In fact, such radicals view man as intrinsically hostile to the environment. Unfortunately, much of the public, most of the media, and a majority of elected officialsin the United States, seem to have accepted this myth as truth.

536 THE FREEMAN • SEPTEMBER 1994 Man and Nature provides a valuable antidote to this perverse view of man and his environment. FEE has assembled some of the best essays published in The Freeman over the years that addressed environmental issues. And as many of us have come to expect from this monthly journal, these essays present well-reasoned and persua sive arguments from a free-market perspec tive. The issue of property rights lies at the very core of most environmental debates. Michael W. Fanning's outstanding essay "Attack in the Adirondacks" documents the destruction of property rights-and a way oflife-by New York state government in the Adirondacks. Similarly, Paul D. Ka menar provides a case study of the federal government's flagrant enforcement of the Clean Water Act against an individual in Morrisville, Pennsylvania. In addition to drawing attention to the dangerous whittling away of individuals' property rights, Man and Nature offers numerous examples of how the enforcement of private property rights and reliance on the marketplace can solve current environmen tal problems. For example, Elizabeth Lar son's essay, "Elephants and Ivory," illus trates a means of saving Africa's elephants from extinction. When the Zimbabwe gov ernment "transferred the responsibility for elephants from government and wildlife agencies to the farmers and herdsmen on whose land the elephants live, the elephant population in Zimbabwe grew by 5 percent a year, according to Zimbabwe's Depart ment of Wildlife." The critical point is that "[fjarmers and herdsmen in Zimbabwe own the elephants roaming their lands." Now, a big-game hunter buys a permit from a nearby villagein order to shoot an elephant.

Larson notes: "The hunters-by giving the rural Zimbabweans a reason to consider the elephants creatures of value instead of dan gerous pests-play a vital role in Zimba bwe's elephant management program." After reading this book, one gains an appreciation for how the breakdown of En glish common law regarding property rights-especially during the Progressive Era-translated into environmental woes. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, in his entry "Why Socialism Causes Pollution," tells the reader of two fundamental lessons derived from environmental degradation: "First, it is not free enterprise per se that causes environmental harm; if so, the socialist world would be environmentally pristine." He continues: "The heart of the problem lies with the failure of our legal institutions, not the free enterprise system. . . . The En glishcommon law tradition of the protection of private property rights-including the right to be free from pollution -was slowly overturned. In other words, many environ mental problems are not caused by 'market failure' but by government's failure to en force property rights.... Potential pollut ers must know in advance that they will be held responsible for their actions. "

DiLorenzo's second lesson, and a funda mental point emphasized throughout this book, "is that the plundering of the envi ronment in the socialist world is a grand example of the tragedy of the commons." That is, where there is no owner, there exists the inclination to abuse or deplete. Amongthe many other notable essays are George Reisman's and Robert James Bidi notto's entries. They provide in-depth crit icisms of the philosophies that undergird the environmental movement. In fact, Man and Nature tears down the foundations upon which the environmental movement rests. Myths surrounding social ism, overpopulation, animal rights, waste disposal, and much more are obliterated. The notion that government action is the only answer to environmental problems is not only refuted, but supplanted with proof that government action has generated many of these problems. Man and Nature illus trates that even in the case of the environ ment, a free market-with secure property rights-works best for ev.eryone. D Raymond J. Keating is Director of New York Citizens for a Sound Economy.