Independent Review articles from January 2003

Independent Review archives from January 2003

Prophecy de novo: the nearly self-fulfilling doomsday forecast.(environmental catastrophism )
January 1, 2003... The Limits to Growth, by Donella H. Meadows and three coauthors (1972), sold nine million copies in twenty-nine languages (Suter 1999, 2). The book awakened anticipation of a cataclysmic end of the world by allegedly seeing that possibility...

Bagehot's lender of last resort: A Hollow Hallowed Tradition.(Walter Bagehot)
January 1, 2003... The lender-of-last-resort function of central banks frequently is defended by reference to Britain's financial stability following Walter Bagehot's persuasion of the Bank of England to "distinctly acknowledge that it is its duty" to support the...

Can the Internet promote open global societies?
January 1, 2003... The Internet has been proclaimed and cursed as a necessary but too expensive building block for modern development. Disparities in access to Internet infrastructure (networks, servers, and computers) and in the skills necessary to use the...

What is systemic risk, and do bank regulators retard or contribute to it?
January 1, 2003... One of the most feared events in banking is the cry of systemic risk. It matches the fear of a cry of "fire!" in a crowded theater or other gatherings. But unlike fire, the term systemic risk is not clearly defined. Moreover, unlike...

My time with supply-side economics. (Memoir & Defense).
January 1, 2003... Supply-side economics is a major innovation in economics. It says that fiscal policy works by changing relative prices and shifting the aggregate supply curve, not by raising or lowering disposable income and shifting the aggregate demand...

Has fractional-reserve banking really passed the market test? (Controversy).
January 1, 2003... The theory of free banking has experienced a great renaissance in recent years. The authors of many articles, books, and doctoral dissertations have made the case for the possibility and suitability of a purely private or competitive banking...

Accounting for fractional-reserve banknotes and deposits--or, what's twenty quid to the bloody midland bank? (Controversy).
January 1, 2003... For centuries--even before government guarantees came on the scene--Western payment systems predominantly have used banknotes and demand deposits backed by fractional rather that 100 percent reserves. Explaining the long historical prevalence...

Economics, love, and family values: Nancy Folbre and Jennifer Roback Morse on the Invisible Heart.('The Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values' and 'Love and Economics: Why the Laissez-Faire Family Doesn't Work')(Book Review)
January 1, 2003... Disagreements among economists, Milton Friedman has said, are empirical, not theoretical. I once had the pleasure of meeting Friedman, and he told me he had learned that truth from my former Cambridge supervisor, Joan Robinson. When Friedman...

Psychiatry's gentleman abolitionist.
January 1, 2003... The history of man's unsuccessful and sorry efforts to deal with his mental problems is well documented but seldom read. Moreover, its message has never been accepted and acted upon. We have learned little from our misguided efforts in the name...

Dependent on D.C.: the Rise of Federal Control over the Lives of Ordinary Americans.(Book Review)
January 1, 2003... By Charlotte A. Twight New York: Palgrave, 2002. Pp. x, 422. $26.95 cloth. A great fallacy dominating social thought today is the idea that democracy works--that is, that it translates popular desires into public policy in an intelligible,...

Up in Smoke: from Legislation to Litigation in Tobacco Politics.(Book Review)
January 1, 2003... By Martha A. Derthick Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2002. Pp. xii, 260. $21.95 paper. In Up in Smoke, Martha A. Derthick, former professor of government at the University of Virginia and author or coauthor of several studies of the U.S....

Medicare's Midlife Crisis.(Book Review)
January 1, 2003... By Sue A. Blevins Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 2001. Pp. x, 136. $16.95 cloth, $8.95 paper. This valuable book draws together key aspects of the Medicare story seldom combined in a single volume. Sue Blevins (R.N., M.P.H., M.S.),...

Putting "Defense" Back into U.S. Defense Policy: Rethinking U.S. Security in the Post-Cold War World.(Book Review)
January 1, 2003... By Ivan Eland Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2001. Pp. x, 242. $39.95 cloth. In January 2002, the Bush administration presented a defense budget to the Congress that called for spending approximately $400 billion on defense in the fiscal year...

Big Government and Affirmative Action: the Scandalous History of the Small Business Administration.(Book Review)
January 1, 2003... By Jonathan J. Bean Louisville: University Press of Kentucky, 2001. Pp. xii, 224. $29.95 cloth. In Big Government and Affirmative Action, Jonathan J. Bean tells the story of the role of small business in the growth of the American state....