Independent Review articles from June 1998

Independent Review archives from June 1998

A critique of group loyalty.
June 22, 1998... When someone describes a person as "loyal," this description is typically thought to be a form of compliment. Approbation seems to be a part of what many take to be the very meaning of the word. However, a close look at some cases of loyalty,...

Constitutional theory and the constitutional history of colonial America.
June 22, 1998... Constitutional economics provides a framework for evaluating constitutional rules, and many fundamental principles of constitutional economics relate to the properties of the collective decision rule of unanimity. Unanimity may not be the...

Antitrust and the commons: cooperation or collusion?
June 22, 1998... Long before Garrett Hardin (1968) explained the "tragedy of the commons," ordinary people were aware that unbridled access to fisheries and other natural resources could result in ruin for all. Whether by custom, kinship, or out right...

Is the study of complex adaptive systems going to solve the mystery of Adam Smith's "invisible hand"? (economic analyst)
June 22, 1998... Among the main tasks of economic theory are explaining the outcomes and understanding the fundamental mechanisms of trade in a decentralized economy. Perhaps the well-known difficulties of explaining the fluctuations in aggregate economic...

Population growth: disaster or blessing?
June 22, 1998... The twenty-third General Population Conference of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, which met in Beijing in October 1997, focused on overpopulation as a serious threat to human survival and a major cause of...

Is national rational?
June 22, 1998... Ruminating on the causes and consequences of ethnic strife, I was reminded of a young woman who at one time used to type my manuscripts. Before she learned to read my handwriting, she kept mistaking my r for n, so that when I wrote "rational"...

Explaining revolutions from below: East Germany in 1989.
June 22, 1998... Explaining the revolutions of 1989 and 1990 in East Germany and other East European countries presents a challenge to social scientists. Despite the likelihood of severe repression, hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens took to the...

Democracy and war: reply. (response to Ted Galen Carpenter, The Independent Review, vol. 2, Winter 1998)
June 22, 1998... I write here in response to Ted Galen Carpenter's negative review (The Independent Review 2 [Winter 1998]) of my book Power Kills: Democracy as a Method of Nonviolence (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1997). In that book I bring to...

Democracy and war: rejoinder. (response to R.J. Rummel, The Independent Review, vol. 3, p. 103, Summer 1998)
June 22, 1998... Professor Rummel continues his tradition of creative historical revisionism. Given the amount of space he devoted to the peaceful-democracies thesis in his book, it is misleading--at the very least--for him now to argue that that was merely...

Over-stating the Arab State: Politics and Society in the Middle East.
June 22, 1998... As the twentieth century draws to a close, many countries are making headline-grabbing attempts at economic and political liberalization. The former goal typically entails shrinking the reach of government, the latter the extension of...

Global Challenges: An Approach to Environmental, Political, and Economic Problems.
June 22, 1998... * Global Challenges: An Approach to Environmental, Political, and Economic Problems By Todd Sandler Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Pp. 234. $54.95 cloth (ISBN 0521583071), $16.95 paper (ISBN 0521587492). On the...

Money for Nothing: Politicians, Rent Extraction, and Political Extortion.
June 22, 1998... * Money for Nothing: Politicians, Rent Extraction, and Political Extortion By Fred S. McChesney Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997. Pp. xi, 224. $49.00 (ISBN 0674583302) In Money for Nothing, Fred McChesney ably describes...

The Making of Economic Policy: A Transaction-Cost Politics Perspective.
June 22, 1998... * The Making of Economic Policy: A Transaction-Cost Politics Perspective By Avinash K. Dixit Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1996. Pp. xvii. 192. $29.00. (ISBN 0262041553) The Center for Economic Studies of the University of Munich...

Taxing Women.
June 22, 1998... Taxing Women By Edward J. McCaffrey Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Pp. 328. $29.95. (ISBN 02265577) Taxing Women is an unusual book. Some parts of it appeal to accountants or others enamored with facts; other parts to...

Conspiracy: How the Paranoid Style Flourishes and Where It Comes From.
June 22, 1998... Ask most people what a conspiracy theory is, and they'll tell you it's a theory--natch--about conspiracies. Ask Daniel Pipes, the author of Conspiracy: How the Paranoid Style Flourishes and Where It Comes From, and he'll tell you it's "the fear...

The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation.
June 22, 1998... * The Origins of virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation By Matt Ridley New York: Viking, 1997. Pp. 304. $24.95 (ISBN 0670874493) Since at least the time of Plato and Aristotle, philosophers have debated the nature of...