Independent Review articles from January 2007

Independent Review archives from January 2007

Gold standards and the real bills doctrine in U.S. monetary policy.(Viewpoint essay)
January 1, 2007... [The English gold standard after Waterloo] was a perfectly "free" or "automatic" gold standard that allowed for no kind of management other than is implied in the regulatory power of any central bank that is a "lender of last resort."......

"All the people are now guerillas": the warfare of Sherman, Sheridan, and Lincoln, and the brutality of the twentieth century.(William Tecumseh Sherman, Philip Henry Sheridan and Abraham Lincoln)
January 1, 2007... Most observers would agree that the War Between the States went a long way in laying the groundwork for twentieth-century "total" warfare (see Royster 1993). Some emphasize technical aspects (trenches, railroads, infantry firepower, and the...

Stealing and killing: a property-rights theory of mass murder.(Viewpoint essay)
January 1, 2007... [H]e who would get me into his power without my consent, would use me as he pleased, when he had got me there, and destroy me too when he had a fancy to it. --John Locke, Second Treatise of Civil Government In the study of mass murder...

Kelo and its discontents: the worst (or best?) thing to happen to property rights.(Kelo v. City of New London )
January 1, 2007... The U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 decision in the property-rights case Kelo v. City of New London ignited more controversy than any issue decided during the court's 2004-2005 term--more than medicinal marijuana (Gonzales v. Raich), peer-to-peer file...

Prohibition versus legalization: do economists reach a conclusion on drug policy?
January 1, 2007... The policy of prohibiting the sale and consumption of cocaine, heroin, and marijuana is of great public interest, with much debate about the effectiveness of the "war on drugs" and alternative policies such as legalization, decriminalization,...

James M. Buchanan on public-debt finance.(PREDECESSORS)
January 1, 2007... When James M. Buchanan was awarded the 1986 Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his seminal contributions to public-choice theory, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences mentioned his work on public-debt finance in only a single...

The Market for Force: The Consequences of Privatizing Security.(Book review)
January 1, 2007... The title of Deborah D. Avant's book The Market for Force: The Consequences of Privatizing Security (2005) may be somewhat misleading. A more accurate description of the book's content would require something like "The International Market for...

Black Americans and Organized Labor: A New History.(Book review)
January 1, 2007... Black Americans and Organized Labor: A New History By Paul Moreno Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006. Pp. 334. $49.95 cloth. The intellectual and ideological follies of contemporary historical scholarship are especially...

The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black and White Southerners Transformed America.(Book review)
January 1, 2007... The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black and White Southerners Transformed America By James N. Gregory Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005. Pp. xiv, 446. $59.95 cloth, $19.95 paper. Imagine a century-long...

Blind Oracles: Intellectuals and War from Kennan to Kissinger.(Book review)
January 1, 2007... Blind Oracles: Intellectuals and War from Kennan to Kissinger By Bruce Kuklick Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2006. Pp. 241. $29.95 cloth. Blind Oracles is an informative and unsettling analysis of scholars' role in...

Inside the FDA: The Business and Politics behind the Drugs We Take and the Food We Eat.(Book review)
January 1, 2007... Inside the FDA: The Business and Politics behind the Drugs We Take and the Food We Eat By Fran Hawthorne New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2005. Pp. 338. $27.95 cloth. In October 1988, one thousand AIDS activists, patients, and supporters...

The Privatization of the Oceans.(Book review)
January 1, 2007... The Privatization of the Oceans By Rognvaldur Hannesson Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2004. Pp. 202. $35.00 cloth, $20.00 paperback. Rognvaldur Hannesson's Privatization of the Oceans is a fascinating story of the development of property...

The New, New Left: How American Politics Works Today.(Book review)
January 1, 2007... The New, New Left: How American Politics Works Today By Steven Malanga Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006. Pp. 157. $22.50 cloth. In The New, New Left, Steven Malanga argues that contemporary American politics is a battle between those who gain and...

Norms of Liberty: A Perfectionist Basis for Non-Perfectionist Politics.(Book review)
January 1, 2007... Norms of Liberty: A Perfectionist Basis for Non-perfectionist Politics By Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005. Pp. x, 358. $25.00. Douglas Rasmussen and Douglas Den Uyl do not shy...