Book Reviews

54 BOOKS New Schools for a New Century: The Redesign of Urban Education edited by Diane Ravitch and Joseph Viteritti Yale University Press • 1997 • 320 pages. $30.00 Reviewed by George C. Leef S ocialism cannot work, Ludwig von Mises argued from the 1920s until his death, because of a central flaw-the lack of market prices. Socialists argued back that they could simulate market prices, but Mises countered that pretending to have a market could never come close to the real thing. Following the collapse of communism in Europe, even some hardcore statists admitted that he had been right. What does that have to do with a book on education in the United States? The two cases are remarkably similar. Socialism necessarily produces poor results because it does away with the market. No amount of tinkering can change that. Likewise, "public education" (another of those mushy phrases that get in the way of clear thinking) necessarily pro duces poor results because it does away with the market.

In place of property rights, competition, entrepreneurship, and the search for profit, the socialization of education gives us coercion, bureaucracy, taxation, and the search for political power. The incentives for quality and efficiency that drive market participants are diminished and perverted when schools and educators do not derive their revenues from willing customers, but instead derive them through the tax system. That's the ineradica ble, disastrous flaw in "public education." Market-imitating reforms in education are a shabby substitute for the market itself. This book, edited by Diane Ravitch, a Brookings Institution scholar, and Joseph Viteritti, a New York University professor of public administration, is typical of the books by educational theorists who, like the socialist intellectuals, know that the system isn't work ing, but want to modify and improve it with out giving up on the system itself. While there are many insightful points in the ten essays included, not one grapples with the funda mental problem: turning education from a pri vate investment into a government entitlement ensures politicization and decay. Popular ideas such as charter schools, contracting, vouchers, and choice abound, but conspicu ously missing is any radical, Mises-like author arguing against continued reliance on government education.

What I regard as the best essay in the book, Chester Finn's "The Politics of Change," comes rather close to arguing that trying to reform public education is a lost cause. He recounts numerous episodes in which defend ers of the system defeated changes that even remotely threatened their beloved status quo. Consider, for example, the reaction of the New Jersey education establishment when PepsiCo announced its participation in a pro gram to provide scholarships to poor young sters so they could get out of the Jersey City public schools. Suddenly, the company was faced with a union-instigated boycott of its products, and there was a mysterious wave of vandalism aimed at its vending machines. Pepsi backed down. The education establish ment presents a smiling face to the public, but turns into a pack of snarling Dobermans when anyone comes near its turf. Far worse is the incessant thought-control campaign waged by the educational establish ment. Finn writes that it "cleverly manipulates Americans' strong affection for the concept of public education while imposing a double standard on proposals to reform its reality."

The propaganda organs never stop informing voters that "their" schools are award-winning, progressive, and improving. Furthermore, they automatically label any proposed change that doesn't involve more money and authori ty for the schools anti-education. This works marvelously; opinion polls show that the great majority of parents are satisfied with the public schools their children attend and leery of "dangerous" changes. When all else fails, the public education crowd resorts to political intimidation. Finn recounts how one of those market-imitating reforms was beaten in Arizona when the edu cation lobby persuaded several Republicans in swing districts that it would be wise for them to vote against the bill. From this essay, one might conclude that the prospects for significant change in-much less the defeat of-public education through the political system, are nil. Finn is not quite so pessimistic, noting some "cracks in the glacier." He acknowledges, however, that a glacier can continue on, grinding down all in its path, even with some cracks in it. Perhaps people who care about education should just give up on the political process and concen trate instead on creating a modern version of the Underground Railroad to help children escape from the public education trap.

If you want to know more about the prob lems and prospects of the Milwaukee school choice plan, what has become of the Edison Project, or the battles over public school con tracting, this book will serve you well. If you want to raise your blood pressure over the venality of the teachers unions and their polit ical supplicants, this book will get you hot under the collar. But if you want a book on education that challenges the prevailing wis dom that public education is both necessary and reformable, look elsewhere. D George Leef, president ofPatrick Henry Associates: Liberty Consultants in East Lansing, Michigan, is book review editor ofThe Freeman. Those Dirty Rotten Taxes: Tax Revolts that Built America by Charles Adams The Free Press • 1998 • 242 pages. $25.00 Reviewed by James A. Woehlke and Nikolaus ~ Woehlke I RS reform has been a hot topic in Wash ington recently. Last spring, more than 80 legislators attempted to repeal the Internal Revenue Code-unsuccessfully. Fundamental tax reform, the attempt to replace the graduat ed income tax with a flat tax or national sales tax, was a guiding theme for the newly elect ed reformist Republican Congress in 1995.

55 Although the ponderous tax code is still very much alive, its future is in doubt. In this legislative milieu, Charles Adams has unleashed his new book, Those Dirty Rot ten Taxes, in which he shares his view of American history as a hotbed of tax revolt. The book tells of the injustice and oppression wreaked by tax collectors, and shows how tax avoidance and revolts have influenced our current tax system. The book abounds in historical detail. For instance, the whiskey rebellion of 1794: farmers were unfairly taxed for producing whiskey, which for some was the only viable means of transporting their corn. The farm ers quickly rebelled and refused to pay the tax. The new federal government, which had only recently been founded on, among other things, the principle of fair taxation, responded harshly by sending an entire army, led by President George Washington in general's garb, to force the farmers into compliance.

Adams emphasizes the role taxes played in causing the Civil War. The Republican Party's key plank in the 1860 election was the impo sition of a severe tariff, a disguised subsidy to northern industry that would have hurt the agrarian southern economy. Adams argues that the concessions Lincoln offered the South on the issue of slavery-including a constitutional amendment that would have preserved the "peculiar institution"-prove that economic exploitation of the South was a more significant cause of the war than was slavery. His view of the War Between the States makes this a particularly thought provoking counterweight to the typical U.S. history text, which presents slavery as the prime cause of the war. American history includes another tax on whiskey that led to yet another whiskey insur rection, this one a small-scale war between the moonshiners and the revenuers that began shortly after the Civil War. (At this point, the reader has to wonder if Americans were char acterized more for their hatred of taxes or their love of good whiskey!) This whiskey rebellion can be regarded as successful, since the government chose to repeal a tax that the people simply wouldn't pay.

56 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY • FEBRUARY 1999 Adams then comes to the ugliest monster of them all, the income tax. He blames it for intruding into the private lives of citizens and chasing some of our most prosperous busi nessmen out of the country. For Adams, the IRS is an abomination. He reveals, for instance, that it paid agents according to how many foreclosures they caused. How quick the IRS has been to take cars, homes, or money, yet unbearably slow to fix its mistakes or the damage it caused to innocent people's lives! Adams also discusses the high death tax and how it causes the elimination of over 90 percent of family businesses after the founders die. Those Dirty Rotten Taxes makes a strong case for abandoning intrusive direct taxation to the greatest extent possible. Adams, like the Founders before him, prefers indirect tax ation, such as a sales tax, and so is no fan of any of the various flat tax proposals.

Those Dirty Rotten Taxes is not a rigorous ly documented book, unlike Adams's previous work, For Good and Evil: The Impact ofTaxes on the Course ofCivilization. It is lighter, and at times prone to hyperbole. But its straight forward view of the ingrained American antipathy to taxation is exhilarating. There are lots of illustrations and political cartoons, and the writing is engaging and easily understood. We highly recommend this book to anyone interested in taxes, history, or government. D James Woehlke is counsel and director of technical services for the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants. Nikolaus Woehlke is a freelance writer from Poughkeepsie, New York. Enterprising Southerners: Black Economic Success in North Carolina, 1865-1915 by Robert C. Kenzer University Press of Virginia • 1997 • xvi + 178 pages • $30.00 Reviewed by Richard M. Gamble I n this meticulous and tightly argued vol ume, historian Robert Kenzer corrects what he describes as the prevailing "monolithic"

view of the economic condition of North Car olina blacks in the 50 years between the end of the Civil War and the First World War. By no means dismissing or even minimizing the impact of racism and the legacy of slavery in shaping the black experience in those years, Kenzer presents compelling evidence of "slow but steady progress" in land-ownership and business enterprises. Drawing imagina tively on extensive primary statistical evi dence' yet going far beyond mere quantitative history, Kenzer analyzes the range of eco nomic, cultural, and political factors that encouraged economic success among an exceptional group of blacks in the postbellum South, a success that they took pains to pass on to their children through higher education for careers in teaching, the ministry, medi cine, and business. Kenzer found that blacks' success in acquir ing land, launching viable businesses, and achieving political and social leadership in their communities was related to several clear ly identifiable factors, some economic, some cultural. Land-ownership, for example, was highest both in amount of and value of acreage among blacks who had been free before the war, were mulattos, held non-agricultural occupations, and lived in the more fluid real estate market of the cities. Similar patterns held true for success in business and politics.

To be sure, success was not limited to blacks who fit this statistical profile, but urban blacks who had been free before the war experienced the highest degree of success as landowners, businessmen, and political leaders. From the perspective of freemarket eco nomics, two important contributions stand out in Kenzer's work. While not the main point of his study, his observations about blacks' rela tionship to the market economy and their net work of self-help organizations bear noting. Black leaders in North Carolina defended an open market in real estate free from govern ment intervention and special-interest legisla tion. Faced with proposed legislation in 1915 designed to prevent blacks from buying land in majority-white districts, for example, black leaders argued for a free market for both blacks and whites in which to buy and sell property under the most favorable terms.

Blacks simply wanted the freedom to acquire land and homes in an open market. Under pressure from like-minded white landowners, who did not want their freedom restricted either, the state senate rejected the bill. In business enterprises as well, black entrepre neurs proved their business savvy by their ability to adapt to changing market condi tions, even in enterprises and localities for merly dominated by white Southerners. They understood that an open market was their friend, politics their enemy. More striking is Kenzer's discussion of black leaders' efforts to strengthen their com munities' economic and social well-being with a network of effective voluntary organi zations. Local chapters of the Masons, for example, provided financial assistance and emotional support in times of sickness, unem ployment, and bereavement. Drawing mem bers largely from the black economic and political elite, these voluntary societies encouraged success by providing a framework of moral and ethical accountability and help ful practical experience in managing lodge assets.

To advance their business opportunities further, enterprising blacks also founded banks, building and loan associations, and insurance companies, and joined state and national black industrial organizations. The extent of black economic success that Kenzer recounts is both remarkable and at odds with the prevailing notion that post-Civil War blacks all lived in grinding poverty. Beyond individual and collective economic success as landowners and businessmen, post bellum black elites in North Carolina also achieved a degree of political success. Begin ning as loyal party members, generally in the Republican ranks but later in the Populist movement as well, blacks often held patron age jobs (such as tax collectors) before seek ing elective office. They found political suc cess as local, state, and national officeholders and, not immune to the temptations of rent seeking behavior, used their positions to enhance their business opportunities, dis pense patronage jobs, and shape tax policy.

Kenzer's history is intended for the special ist in American economic history, and the BOOKS 57 general reader may be put off by its compre hensive detail. Nevertheless, his gift for orga nization, his sense of narrative flow, and his effective use of telling anecdotes combine to make this an accessible study of the period even for the non-specialist. Overall, Kenzer has provided historians and economists with a convincing account of the diverse world of postbellum black success, a commendable book that is lucid, grounded in extensive archival research, conversant with the sec ondary literature, and a pleasure to read and learn from. D Richard Gamble is a professor of history at Palm Beach Atlantic College. The Costs of War: America's Pyrrhic Victories edited by John ~ Denson Transaction Publishers • 1997 • 450 pages • $44.95 cloth; $29.95 paperback Reviewed by Doug Bandow A dvocates of limited government have long known that war and preparation for war are enemies of liberty. War obviously destroys lives and consumes wealth-new technologies have made genocide a simple matter of pushing a button. But war has another, long-lasting consequence: it central izes power. "War is the health of the state,"

observed Randolph Bourne. Many conservatives were willing to pay this high price during the Cold War because of the threat of hegemonic communism. But now America reigns supreme internationally. Those who believe in individual liberty must work to limit government power internation ally as well as domestically. John V. Denson's The Costs of War: Ameri ca sPyrrhic Victories provides a desperately needed call to arms. As he explains: "[B]ecause liberty is so fragile, its true defender recognizes that war is its greatest enemy, and therefore the true patriot is often the courageous individual who opposes a par ticular war because he recognizes that it is unjust-that it would be fought for the wrong 58 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY • FEBRUARY 1999 purposes or that the risk for the loss of liber ty is greater than any benefit to be gained by the war." The Costs of War emphasizes the fragility of liberty and chronicles the devastating impact of past conflicts. This comprehensive volume covers everything from the War of Northern Aggression (sometimes called the Civil War) to the role of conscription and the record of Winston Churchill.

Denson leads off with a sweeping essay on U.S. history. The nation's founders feared the costs of war, which is why they worked to pre vent intervention in foreign conflicts. Their fears were well founded: the Civil War and Spanish-American War both spurred the growth of federal power. World War I, howev er, was a truly epochal event. Not only did the national government institute mass conscrip tion and seize control of the economy, but, as Denson relates, "President Wilson followed Lincoln's example and ruthlessly crushed the civil liberties of those Americans who opposed his war." Although government power receded some after the conflict, World War II and the Cold War fueled state growth anew. The lack of serious opposition to warlike policies today conflicts with America's long anti-interventionist tradition, of which Justin Raimondo, of the Center for Libertarian Studies, writes: "It wasn't just the founders who opposed fighting other people's wars.

There was strong opposition to the Spanish American War and World War I-which is why Wilson resorted to jackboot tactics against his critics." What makes The Costs of War particularly valuable is its willingness to slaughter sacred cows. Such as Abraham Lincoln and his war for the Union-which ended up killing more than 600,000 people, distorting the constitu tional order, and violating civil and political liberties. History professor Richard Gamble explores Lincoln's ugly legacy of the "destruction of the old Republic, a more mod est federation with a regard for localism and states' rights, a sense of limits, and a relative freedom from foreign entanglement." Equally subversive, but also persuasive, is the analysis of Winston Churchill's record by historian Ralph Raico. There is perhaps no more venerated figure from World War II, but Raico's view is rather less positive. He con tends that "Churchill was from first to last a Man of the State, of the welfare state and of the warfare state." Indeed, argues Raico, war "was his lifelong passion." This is the record that virtually no one knows.

Some of the impacts of war are unintended and even unimagined. Allan Carlson of the Rockford Institute explains how war swells the state; in tum, "as the state grows, the fam ily declines." He warns that the military today is "being used to re-engineer our society to serve the total state." He therefore calls on conservatives to "cast off lingering delusions about the 'conservative traditions' of the mil itary." Real patriotism means risking the lives and wealth of Americans when their future as a free people is at stake. The Costs ofWar illus trates why there may be no more important duty today for advocates of limited govern ment than to steadfastly oppose war. D Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author ofTripwire: Korea and U.S. Foreign Pol icy in a Changed WorId. He formerly served as a spe cial assistant to President Reagan. Enviro...Capitalists: Doing Good While Doing Well by Terry A. Anderson and Donald R. Leal Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. • 1997 • 189 pages. $52.50 cloth; $16.95 paperback Reviewed by Bruce Yandle W riting about Austrian economics and the market process, Israel Kirzner explains how entrepreneurs playa crucial role in discovering .products, markets, and processes for improving human welfare (Journal of Economic Literature, March 1997). The interesting aspect of all this is surprise. In Kirzner's view, entrepreneurs identi fy profit opportunities that, once revealed, seem rather simple and obvious. An accompa nying expression of surprise usually characterizes the outcome. The question "Why didn't I think of that?" is more common than the statement "Boy, that surely is complicat ed; I can't imagine how they came up with it."

Paper clips with wrinkles, self-serve super markets, moving assembly lines applied to auto production, Post-It notes-all relatively simple things that reflect a combination of imagination and market savvy. This is the stuff that built America's market economy. Is it possible for this same creative energy to provide improved environmental quality? Readers of Enviro-Capitalists: Doing Good While Doing Well, by economists Terry Anderson and Donald Leal, will be convinced that the same unquenchable entrepreneurial spirit that delivers an abundance of food, clothing, communications, health, and other critical features of life can be relied on to deliver environmental quality-if only entre preneurs could be encouraged rather than delayed and discouraged by government action. The authors do not dwell on theories and assertions about freemarket environmental ism. Instead, they recount fact-filled stories about past and present activities of enviro capitalists. Those who erroneously cling to the idea that capitalism is inherently destruc tive to the environment will find their preju dices strongly challenged. This collection of stories about real people and their profit making ventures in environmental production reminds us again that capitalism works.

We learn, for instance, about Joseph Crisa fulli, a successful entrepreneur in Glendive, Montana, who established a paddlefish roe enterprise. He discovered that paddlefish roe would pass the market's test for caviar. Sens ing a profit opportunity, Crisafulli and other town business people began a paddlefish cleaning service for fishermen who prize the fish but dislike cleaning them; they obtained pounds of valuable roe in the bargain. However, Crisafulli and his associates had to work through a deep political bureaucracy. They needed permission from both state and federal regulators before beginning their enterprise. Moreover, the regulators insisted that net proceeds go to "community improvements" including the preservation of BOOKS 59 the habitat of the fish. They consented to these dictates, which happened to largely coincide with their plans, but it is easy to imagine that bureaucratic red tape and micromanagement could easily stifle other environmental projects.

Another case the authors discuss is Interna tional Paper's realization that large amounts of its forestland produced more wealth when managed and maintained as wildlife habitat and recreational space than when used as a source for cut timber. This led the firm to allo cate more than a million acres of land to those purposes. Why did International Paper do it? The same reason that causes the firm to search for lower-cost paper and timber products profit. Market forces are delivering environ mental quality. What about Yellowstone, that paragon of America's park system? Was it the unblem ished foresight of government that preserved this collection of natural wonders? Hardly. Instead, we learn that "robber baron" railroad capitalists recognized the market value of the territory that became Yellowstone Park. See ing a promising attraction for eco-tourism and rail traffic, railroad capitalists sought to pur chase the land from the federal government, but were prevented from doing so by an egal itarian federal law limiting land ownership to only 160 acres. Frustrated in their attempt to purchase the asset they wanted, the railroad ers then lobbied for Congress to establish Yel lowstone National Park and once it had done so, they promptly built the rail lines and hotels.

Anderson and Leal also explain how entre preneurs are finding market niches for pro tecting endangered species, such as the pere grine falcon. The common assumption that government action is the only means to pro tect species cannot survive a reading of this book. Enviro-Capitalists should be read both by environmentalists and friends of liberty. True environmentalists, those who seek to protect the precious biological envelopes that sup port life and are not simply dedicated to the replacement of individual freedom with command-and-control regulation, will be encouraged to know that markets are on their 60 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY • FEBRUARY 1999 side. Friends of liberty, who sometimes find themselves hard-pressed to defend markets in the face of attacks from environmentalists, will welcome the reinforcements provided by this excellent, if too-short book. D Bruce Yandle is Alumni Professor ofEconomics and Legal Studies at Clemson University.

Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science by Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt Johns Hopkins University Press • 1997 • 314 pages • $35.95 cloth; $16.95 paperback Reviewed by Thomas F. Bertonneau and Richard L. Cutler S cience, along with the technology that develops out of it, is a unique and vital source of the high civilization in which we dwell. Science is enthroned as the reigning model of Enlightenment thought; the methods of science represent an epistemology involv ing objectivity, realworld absolutes, and the pursuit of truth through hypothesis, observa tion, validation, replication, and prediction. Science presents an ordered, reasoned, rigor ous world marked by precision, unambiguous definition, and the established rules of logical argument. If science is the monarch of our world view, however, it is increasingly the target of would-be revolutionaries and regicides members of what Paul Gross (professor emer itus of life sciences at the University of Vir ginia) and Norman Levitt (professor of math ematics at Rutgers University) identify as the "academic left," who insist that there are no absolutes, that objectivity is a fiction used by vicious oppressors, and that the world is essentially chaotic.

Higher Superstitionis a defense of science against attempts by badly informed non scientists to dethrone and discredit the Western tradition of scientific investigation. They were not satisfied with their deconstructive waste laying among the treasures of Western art and literature. They make the same claims, say, for Newton and Darwin as they do for Shakespeare and Melville: all authority and claims to truth are but shams whose only purpose is to protect the unjust distribution of power that earmarks our "oppressive" society. Feminists, for example, indict Newton for attempting to master the universe by constraining it under "patriarchal" laws and Darwin for his "male" notion of the survival of the fittest. Gross and Levitt note that claims of this type are not entirely new-prototypes may be seen in Rousseau and Blake-but they argue that in America's colleges and universities the anti-science ideology has grown dangerously influential. Academic careers are now built on jeremiads against "sexist" canons of proof through-replication and the alleged exclusion of women (that is, feminists) from scientific debate. Ideas that used to be regarded as the rantings of reactionaries now find fulsome praise in the tracts of academicians who claim to be in the vanguard of radical liberation.

When one remembers the distortions that Soviet biology suffered under Lysenko's Stal inist genetics, it becomes clear that the real conflict is not between reactionism and sci ence but between power-mongering and sci ence. It is no coincidence that the left-wing professors who think that they can play the same games with the third law of motion that they do with Virgil and Shakespeare gener ally follow Michel Foucault, a pseudo Nietzschean who claims that there is no knowledge, only power, and that those who have power are, a priori, evil. That this posi tion entails a claim of knowledge and that its exponents themselves wantonly seek the very power that they denounce never enter the argument. Nuttiness among intellectuals flourishes perennially. So tight is the grip of the left on institutions of higher education, however, that Gross and Levitt fear an impending struggle in which affirmative action will force science departments to change their practices under naked political pressure. The authors also see another problem. Real science is so badly taught to undergraduates that many get only "science studies" courses concocted by the postmodern anti-scientists. Gross and Levitt decry the trendiness of schools of education that have embraced anti-science and that send into K -12 schools newly certified teachers whose knowledge of physics, chemistry, and biology is nugatory.

In their penultimate chapter, the authors speculate on the psychological origins of anti science. They trace the pretensions of the feminists, earth-worshipers, and "deep ecolo gists" to resentment. Precisely because sci ence succeeds, and because it so impressively informs the daily reality of modern life, the intelligentsia feel diminished; they exercise no similar influence. A feeling of inferiority breeds petulance, manifested in puffed-up vocabularies, moral posturing, and a need to disparage. Those who hate the West because they despise their own paltriness naturally attack science and scientists as ready scape goats. Representatives of the sciences, Gross and Levitt say, have too long stood on the side lines, amused perhaps by the display of folly. The time for that is over; the folly portends real danger. Science must begin to answer the absurd but pernicious claims of anti-science, if only to remind the public that the strutting peacocks of postmodernism are not free from chastisement, and that their fantail of claims collapses-epistemologically speaking-at the pressure of a glance. D Thomas Bertonneau is the author of Declining Stan dards at Michigan Public Universities and teaches lit erature at Central Michigan University. Richard Cut ler is president ofthe Michigan Association ofSchol ars and a former vice president of the University of Michigan.

Between Power and Liberty: Economics and the Law edited by Richard M. Ebeling Hillsdale College Press. 1998 • 169 pages • $9.95 paperback Reviewed by Philip R. Murray B etween Power and Liberty: Economics and the Law, is the publication of the 1997 Ludwig von Mises lectures at Hillsdale College. The book's title comes from James Madison's description of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights: "every word ... describes BOOKS 61 a question between power and liberty." The essays in this book brilliantly make the case for liberty over power. Three key points emerge: First, that private property is the key to individual liberty. Second, that the Consti tution was intended to protect private proper ty against government intrusions. And third, that we have reasons to be optimistic, despite the panoply of governmental restrictions on our private property and individual liberty. Richard Ebeling, chairman of Hillsdale's economics department, contrasts "The Free Market and the Interventionist State." The role of government in a free society, he argues, is to protect private property, maintain order, and thus maximize the incentive to cre ate wealth. Interventionism violates property rights so that government officials can redis tribute wealth according to their own plans.

Ebeling laments the conception of "public policy" as synonymous with government intervention. Discussions of public policy almost always center on "What can the gov ernment do?" instead of "What can we do as individuals?" or even "What did the govern ment do to get us in this mess in the first place?" Ebeling explains how to defend the free market against attacks based on spurious economic theory, "social justice," and "the public interest." Those who wish to improve their ability to defend the market will learn much from his essay. Several of these lectures make an excellent introduction to constitutional economics. Hillsdale President George Roche notes that the Declaration of Independence proclaims the "unalienable Rights" of individuals, as opposed to the idea that rights are grants from the state. He outlines the economic philoso phy of the Constitution: that government tax ation' borrowing, and spending should be kept to a minimum and that government should permit free trade to grow.

Cato Institute fiscal analyst Stephen Moore calls the Constitution "A Rulebook for Gov ernment." He says that "No matter how long one searches, it is impossible to find in the Constitution any language that authorizes at least 90 percent of the civilian programs that Congress crams into the federal budget." Moore relates that early in our' nation's histo62 THE FREEMAN/IDEAS ON LIBERTY • FEBRUARY 1999 ry members of Congress and presidents used to reject even charitable acts of government spending as unconstitutional. What led to the current high levels of government spending? The Sixteenth Amendment (which permitted a federal income tax), a glaring misinterpreta tion of the "general welfare" clause of the Constitution, and the New Deal. No discussion of economics and the law would be complete without recognition of the great French economist Frederic Bastiat. Harry Browne explains Bastiat's definitions of "the law" and "the law perverted." The law protects life, liberty, and property. The law perverted transfers property. For example, Social Security taxes the income of workers and transfers it to retirees. The law perverted plunders people rather than protecting them.

What are the results of using the political process instead of the market process to achieve what we want? Roche puts it well: "The average person no longer looks to his own talents to get ahead; he looks to the state." Despite the reduction in our property rights and the corresponding loss of liberty, we have reasons to be optimistic about the future. In his essay, "The Grassroots Legal Reform Movement," Clint Bolick of the Institute for Justice recounts his organization's successes in eliminating restrictions on economic liber ty through constitutional litigation. Likewise, Bernard Siegan sees promise in a revival of the "takings" clause of the Fifth Amendment, which bars government from taking property without paying for it. Perhaps the most valuable contribution these lectures make is their emphasis on self government. It is primarily the duty of each citizen to restore liberty through the practice of self-government. This means refusing to take assistance from government and using our own talents in conjunction with the vol untary cooperation of others to live the free, responsible life. D Philip Murray is an associate professor ofeconomics at Webber College in Babson Park, Florida.

The Foundations of Morality by Henry Hazlitt In this impressive work Hazlitt explores the proper foundation of morality. It would give the game away to reveal his conclusion, but suffice it to say that Hazlitt conducts a detailed and scholarly inquiry into the many possibilities. Leland B. Yeager, noted economist, has written a new foreword to the book, in which he says that The Foundations ofMorality "provides (in my view) the soundest philosophical basis for the humane society that is the ideal of classical liberals." This challenging work on ethics fits in the great tradition of Adam Smith's Theory ofMoral Sentiments and David Hume's Treatise ofHuman Nature. It is a well-reasoned, tightly argued book that amply rewards its readers. 398 pages Regular Price: $lg.95 Sale Price: $14.95 The Pursuit of Happiness The ILO's Strange Use of Words by CharlesW. Baird L ast June the International Labor Organi zation (ILO) put forth its "Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work."