Independent Review articles from March 1999

Independent Review archives from March 1999

Of Stranded Costs and Stranded Hopes.
March 22, 1999... The Difficulties of Deregulation Given the manifest inefficiency of government regulation, why is there so little deregulation? Of course, some deregulation, including the privatization of state-owned industries, has occurred in recent...

Fixing the Endangered Species Act.
March 22, 1999... In a 1934 essay by Aldo Leopold, titled "Conservation Economics" (Flader and Callicott 1991, 193-202), we can find some direction for improving on the command-and-control approach embodied in the Endangered Species Act (ESA) as it stands in...

The Political Economics of Campaign Finance.
March 22, 1999... The public debate over campaign-finance reform is often framed as necessitating an unfortunate trade off between the liberal ideals of free speech and association on one side and the democratic ideals of equal representation and participation...

Privatization of Public-Sector Pensions.
March 22, 1999... The U.S. Navy Pension Fund, 1800-1842 Recent projections indicate that expenditures on Social Security retirement benefits will begin to exceed payroll-tax revenues and trust-fund earnings before the year 2020, and the Old Age, Survivors,...

Are We All Capitalists Now?
March 22, 1999... According to conventional wisdom, collectivism has been vanquished in all but a few infirm nations, and hence long-run economic prospects are far brighter for most of the world. The Wall Street Journal rejoices: "Capitalism is triumphant....

Michael Polanyi's Economics.
March 22, 1999... People familiar with Michael Polanyi are impressed by his intellectual powers, the range of his mind, and his ability to get to the heart of issues, often long before anyone else. These attributes also apply to his work in economics. In Full...

Can Anarchy Save Us from Leviathan?
March 22, 1999... These days, it seems that anarchy is everywhere. Its fans range from Yale law professors (Ellickson 1991) to pulp novelists (Ferrigno 1996; Mosley 1998). Last fall, it even showed up in the New Yorker, where it was touted it as "the next big...

The Great Depression Revisited.(Review)
March 22, 1999... Professors Thomas E. Hall and J. David Ferguson, both of Miami University of Ohio, have combined social history and macroeconomic theory to achieve an understanding of the world between the wars. Their book The Great Depression: An...

Congress: A Political-Economic History of Roll Call Voting.(Review)
March 22, 1999... Congress: A Political-Economic History of Roll Call Voting By Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Pp. xi, 297. $85.00 cloth. This is the most important book on Congress written in the 1990s. Its...

Privatizing Social Security.(Review)
March 22, 1999... Privatizing Social Security Edited by Martin Feldstein Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. Pp. 470. $60.00 cloth. Social security used to be called the third rail of American politics, because any politician who touched it was...

Nixon's Economy: Booms, Busts, Dollars, and Votes.(Review)
March 22, 1999... Nixon's Economy: Booms, Busts, Dollars, and Votes By Allen J. Matusow Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998. Pp. xii, 323. Over the last decade or so, there has been a substantial rethinking of the Nixon presidency. In the aftermath of...

Ethnic Diversity, Liberty and the State: The African Dilemma.(Review)
March 22, 1999... Ethnic Diversity, Liberty and the State: The African Dilemma By Mwangi S. Kimenyi Cheltenham, Eng., and Northampton, Mass.: Edward Elgar, 1997. Pp. viii, 126, paper. Few Africans today would not regard the state of African societies and...

The Noblest Triumph: Property and Prosperity through the Ages.(Review)
March 22, 1999... The Noblest Triumph: Property and Prosperity through the Ages By Tom Bethell New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998. Pp. 378. $29.95. Tom Bethell, Washington correspondent for the American Spectator, has written a valuable book for economists...

Privacy in the Information Age.(Review)
March 22, 1999... Privacy in the Information Age By Fred H. Cate Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1997. Pp. 248. $39.95 cloth, $16.95 paper. For advocates of the liberal social order--a society in which the rights to life, liberty, and property...

We're All Sick, and Government Must Heal Us.(Review)
March 22, 1999... In recent decades a portentous cultural change has been gathering momentum in the United States, giving rise to dangerous social and governmental developments. Increasingly, Americans have embraced a therapeutic ethos. Actions previously...