Independent Review articles from March 2005

Independent Review archives from March 2005

Promoting air power: the influence of the U.S. Air Force on the creation of the National Security State.
March 22, 2005... After nearly four years of global war, Americans yearned for a reversion to normality, but the years immediately following World War II brought instead a permanent state of crisis and a perceived need for continual preparedness. This mood led...

Black gold: the end of Bretton Woods and the oil-price shocks of the 1970s.
March 22, 2005... The U.S. dollar price for a barrel of oil rose from $3.35 in January 1970 to $32.50 by the end of the 1970s. On a single day, January 1, 1974, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) raised the U.S. dollar price of oil a...

Rightsizing Los Angeles Government.
March 22, 2005... The attempt by San Fernando Valley and Hollywood residents (numbering more than 1.3 million) to separate from Los Angeles (nearly 4 million) is the most recent manifestation of discontent with municipal structure in the greater Los Angeles...

Tariffs, immigration, and economic insulation: a new view of the U.S. Post-Civil War era.
March 22, 2005... [T]he protective tariff yields little gain to the laborer, because continued immigration brings him new competitors. --David Starr Jordan, "The Moral Aspect of the Protective Tariff" (1908) Immigration of epic proportions is a marker...

Is government inevitable? Comment on Holcombe's analysis.(Controversy)
March 22, 2005... Randall G. Holcombe's article "Government: Unnecessary but Inevitable" (2004) offers excellent insights into the sustainability of anarchy and the creation of government. Holcombe recognizes that "government was not created for the benefit of...

Is government inevitable? Reply to Leeson and Stringham.(Controversy)
March 22, 2005... I strongly support Peter Leeson and Edward Stringham's questioning of my conclusion that government is inevitable (Holcombe 2004), and I encourage others to raise similar questions. If government really is unnecessary (the first part of my...

Rational economic man and his dog set out to mow a meadow.(Reflections)
March 22, 2005... How do we recognize anyone's decisions as rational? To a mathematician, rationality implies logical deduction from axiomatic certainties; rationality is the application of rules of logic that define the pathway from a premise to a conclusion....

The prospects for democracy in high-violence societies.(Reflections)
March 22, 2005... What does it take to implant democracy in a foreign land? For more than a century now, the United States has been sending troops into troubled countries, holding elections, and hoping democracy will take root. The results, overall, have been...

Economic Freedom of the World, 2002.(Scholarly Resource)
March 22, 2005... For several years, the Economic Freedom of the World (EFW) annual reports published by a network of public-policy institutes, including the Fraser Institute and the Cato Institute, have presented an economic freedom index for a large set of...

Property Rights: Cooperation, Conflict, and Law.(Book Review)
March 22, 2005... Property Rights: Cooperation, Conflict, and Law Edited by Terry L. Anderson and Fred S. McChesney Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003. Pp. x, 398. $67.50 cloth, $32.95 paperback. Generally ignored since the mid-1930s, the...

Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments.(Book Review)
March 22, 2005... Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments By Benjamin Constant, translated by Dennis O'Keeffe Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2003 [1810, 1980]. Pp. 580. $22.00 cloth, $12.00 paperback. Dennis O'Keeffe is to be congratulated on...

The Constitution of Empire: Territorial Expansion and American Legal History.(Book Review)
March 22, 2005... The Constitution of Empire: Territorial Expansion and American Legal History By Gary Lawson and Guy Seidman New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004. Pp. x, 272. $40.00. The Constitution of Empire is a study of nineteenth-century...

The Christian Realists: Reassessing the Contributions of Niebuhr and His Contemporaries.(Book Review)
March 22, 2005... The Christian Realists: Reassessing the Contributions of Niebuhr and His Contemporaries Edited by Eric Patterson Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2003. Pp. x, 239. $39.00 paperback. The celebrated American theologian Reinhold...

Chasing the Wind: Regulating Air Pollution in the Common Law State.(Book Review)
March 22, 2005... Chasing the Wind: Regulating Air Pollution in the Common Law State By Noga Morag-Levine Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003. Pp. xv, 259. $35.00 cloth. Political scientist Noga Morag-Levine's new book Chasing the Wind...

Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do about It.(Book Review)
March 22, 2005... Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do about It By Peter G. Peterson New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004. Pp. xxviii, 239. $24.00 cloth. Hard evidence that...

Mega-Projects: the Changing Politics of Urban Public Investment.(Book Review)
March 22, 2005... Mega-Projects: The Changing Politics of Urban Public Investment By Alan Altshuler and David Luberoff Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press; Cambridge, Mass.: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2003. Pp. ix, 339. $54.95 cloth, $22.95...

The New Constitutional Order.(Book Review)
March 22, 2005... The New Constitutional Order By Mark Tushnet Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003. Pp. x, 265. $42.00 cloth, $22.95 paperback. Mark Tushnet, the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Constitutional Law at the Georgetown...

Benefits and costs of the U.S. government's war making.(Etceteras ...)
March 22, 2005... In 1795, James Madison observed that "of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.... No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual...