Independent Review articles from June 2006

Independent Review archives from June 2006

The apotheosis of American democracy.
June 22, 2006... "Marxism is a religion," wrote the economist Joseph Schumpeter (1942, 5), who used the equation to explain the political ideology's seductive appeal. Schumpeter's insight and argument apply equally well to the ideology of democratic...

Social welfare state intervention, and value judgments.
June 22, 2006... The state can promote efficiency--that is, the production of more goods and services; in a second stage, it can, if deemed necessary, redistribute the supplementary output made possible by its efficiency-enhancing interventions. Efficiency and...

Sociology and classical liberalism.
June 22, 2006... The sociology profession in the United States is a large tent, displaying methods, purposes, and topics in great variety. Variety is severely truncated, however, in the matter of political ideology. It has long been observed that sociologists...

Four years after Enron: assessing the financial-market regulatory cleanup.
June 22, 2006... Last year was the tenth anniversary of the beginning of the tech bubble in the stock market that began after the commercialization of the Internet and, through it, the development of a "new economy" led by "dot.coms" and other Internet-enabled...

Holding "governance" accountable: third-party government in a limited state.
June 22, 2006... Public-administration scholars and schools of public affairs increasingly use the term governance to describe the processes they study and teach. Governance, rather than the older word government, is thought to be a more accurate descriptor of...

Imperialism, noninterventionism, and revolution: opponents of the modern American empire.
June 22, 2006... From one angle of vision, nonintervention is the essential American perspective on foreign affairs. Honored in the breach more than in practice, nonintervention may nevertheless be the foreign-policy option most consistent with the broadly...

A marriage proposal: privatize it.
June 22, 2006... A fundamental problem with marriage is that it comes in only one size. As a legal relationship, matrimony is a monopoly product supplied by the government. s a personal relationship, however, the institution is one of unique, personal...

On eponymy in economics.
June 22, 2006... There is no spiritual copyright in scientific discoveries, unless they should happen to be quite mistaken. Only in making a blunder does a scientist do something which, conceivably, no one else might ever do again. --Peter Medawar, The...

Constructing Civil Liberties: Discontinuities in the Development of American Constitutional Law.(Book review)
June 22, 2006... Constructing Civil Liberties: Discontinuities in the Development of American Constitutional Law By Ken I. Kersch Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. 400. $75.00 cloth, $29.99 paperback. It has long been apparent that...

The Limits of Market Organization.(Book review)
June 22, 2006... The Limits of Market Organization Edited by Richard R. Nelson New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2005. Pp. viii, 386. $45.00. The quickest tip I can give the potential reader of Richard R. Nelson's collection The Limits of Market...

Saving Our Environment from Washington: How Congress Grabs Power, Shirks Responsibility, and Shortchanges the People.(Book review)
June 22, 2006... Saving Our Environment from Washington: How Congress Grabs Power, Shirks Responsibility, and Shortchanges the People By David Schoenbrod New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2005. Pp. x, 296. $28.00 cloth. Can the United States have...

Healthy Competition: What's Holding Back Health Care and How to Free It.(Brief article)(Book review)
June 22, 2006... Healthy Competition: What's Holding Back Health Care and How to Free It By Michael F. Cannon and Michael D. Tanner Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 2005. Pp. xi, 171. $9.95 paperback. There certainly is no shortage of critics of the...

Digital Phoenix: Why the Information Economy Collapsed and How It Will Rise Again.(Book review)
June 22, 2006... Digital Phoenix: Why the Information Economy Collapsed and How It Will Rise Again By Bruce Abramson Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005. Pp. xii, 366. $34.95 cloth. In case you haven't heard, the information economy has collapsed. It came...

Digital Crossroads: American Telecommunications Policy in the Internet Age.(Book review)
June 22, 2006... Digital Crossroads: American Telecommunications Policy in the Internet Age By Jonathan E. Nuechterlein and Philip J. Weiser Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005. Pp. xvii, 670. $40.00 cloth. Revolutionary improvements in computing and...

On "winning the war".
June 22, 2006... With fire and sword the country round Was wasted far and wide, And many a childing mother then, And new-born baby died; But things like that, you know, must be At every famous victory. --Robert Southey...