Independent Review articles from June 2003

Independent Review archives from June 2003

Securing constitutional government: the perpetual challenge.
June 22, 2003... Every country in the world claims to have a constitution, but only some have constitutional government, and most of the world's people do not live under constitutional government. The term constitution once was synonymous with constitutional...

Truth and consequences: some economics of false consciousness.
June 22, 2003... When theory fails systematically to square with reality, theorists can reconcile the differences in various ways. In some cases, they can abandon the theory and then adopt more plausible theories. In others, they can reexamine and improve the...

Shame of the cities: setting aside justice for the "disadvantaged".(Small Business Administration minority set-aside program)
June 22, 2003... "We are from the government, and we are here to help." In 1992, that message from the Small Business Administration (SBA) heartened Rebecca Browne (not her real name). A divorced mother of two, Browne owned a small construction firm in St....

The failure of Federal Aviation Administration regulation.
June 22, 2003... The attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., in 2001 raised many questions about security in the United States. At that time, the nation's defenses were compromised by Islamic terrorists who commandeered commercial aircraft and used them...

Environmental colonialism: "saving" Africa from Africans.
June 22, 2003... Religious ideals have always been a central element in the interaction of the Western world with African society. Religion was a major motivation for the original fifteenth-century Portuguese explorations to discover the coast of Africa. Henry...

The aftermath of China's accession to the World Trade Organization.
June 22, 2003... After almost fifteen years of long and hard negotiations, the People's Republic of China was finally, at the end of 2001, admitted to the World Trade Organization (WTO) ("WTO Ministerial" 2001). By prior agreement, its accession was followed...

Reflections on reflections: a consensus about the Great Depression? (Review Essay).( Reflections on the Great Depression )(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... In Reflections on the Great Depression (2002), leading economists who lived through and wrote about the Great Depression are invited to reflect on that horrific and still-puzzling episode. Randall E. Parker of East Carolina University...

Justice and Its Surroundings.(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... By Anthony de Jasay Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Fund, 2002. Pp. xxx, 321. $10.00. Justice and Its Surroundings (the "surroundings" are concepts closely associated with justice and sometimes confused with it, such as equality or the state)...

Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth.(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... By Stephen F. Knott Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002. Pp. 344. $34.95 cloth. Since the publication of Forrest McDonald's biography of Alexander Hamilton in 1982, a wave has been rising in favor of the first secretary of the...

Our Secret Constitution: How Lincoln Redefined American Democracy.(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... By George P. Fletcher New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Pp. xi, 292. $30.00. George Fletcher's efforts can be viewed most profitably as an unmasking of U.S. constitutional development. Consider the title of his new work Our Secret...

Radio Goes to War: the Cultural Politics of Propaganda during World War II.(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... By Gerd Horten Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2002. Pp. xiv, 218. $45.00. When Salon revealed that federal officials had been bribing TV networks to slip drug war messages into their prime-time shows, a public...

Vicious Cycle: Presidential Decision Making in the American Political Economy.(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... By Constantine J. Spiliotes College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2002. Pp. xv, 212. $39.95. Two competing theories explain the types of decisions presidents make in their management of the U.S. macroeconomy. The first theory...

Transition: the First Decade.(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... Edited by Mario I. Blejer and Marko Skreb Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002. Pp. vi, 516. $60.00 cloth. Transition is a report card on the first decade of the transformation of central and eastern European countries into free-market,...

James Burnham and the Struggle for the World: a Life.(Book Review)
June 22, 2003... By Daniel Kelly Wilmington, Del.: ISI Books, 2002. Pp. 443. $29.95. Daniel Kelly's James Burnham and the Struggle for the World is a very useful study of his subject's life, contributions, and intellectual trajectory over a long career as a...