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Some of the most recognized voices in American writing and academia
contribute to this provocative forum concerning the terrorist
crisis and its causes. Moderated by Lewis H. Lapham, this timely
debate features conversations with noted author and vocal critic of
U.S. foreign policy Gore Vidal; historian Barton Bernstein of
Stanford University; economist and historian Robert Higgs of the
Independent Institute; and Thomas Gale Moore of the Hoover
Institution. Voicing opinions contrary to those espoused by the
present administration and seldom heard in mainstream media, they
discuss the definition of terrorism, the impact of U.S. foreign
policy on the terrorist crisis, and the long-term significance of
the September 11 attacks. Also examined are the potential
curtailment of basic civil liberties, the effects of a global U.S.
military presence, alternatives that would lessen the terrorist
threat, and a lively question and answer session.
Discussing how government has continually grown in size and scope
during the past century, this account demonstrates that the main
reason lies in government’s responses to national “crises”
(real or imagined), including economic upheavals and, especially,
war. The result, this book argues, is the ever-increasing
government power, which endures long after each crisis has passed,
impinging on both civil and economic liberties and fostering
extensive corporate welfare. Offering ideological explanations for
the ascension of the role of government out of a capitalist,
free-market economy, it will appeal to those with interests in
political economy, American history, and libertarian politics.
Exploring the politics and morality that pulled the United States
into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, this collection of essays,
stories, and satirical pieces lambasts the highest officials in the
executive branch for incompetence and moral blindness. Analyses of
both wars and the crisis following 9/11 portray the conflicts as
opportunities for special interests to entrench themselves in the
U.S. government at the expense of U.S. citizens' civil liberties
and tax dollars, and the lives of numerous Afghan and Iraqi
non-combatants. Pulling no punches, this work holds George W. Bush
and members of his cabinet accountable for acts that would have
been prosecutable were the defendants in question not government
entities.
In his academic work, Robert Higgs has dissected the government's
shrewd secret excesses that lead to the Welfare State, the Warfare
State, and the Administrative State. For several decades he has
unstintingly chronicled the federal, state, and local governments'
malfeasance in these many areas of life that all levels of
government have intruded upon without Constitutional mandate. In
this book, however, are essays that show a whimsical,
introspective, and personal side of this world renowned scholar.
From the myth that the government has derived its powers from the
consent of the governed to the role of independent experts in
formulating monetary and fiscal policy; from the government's
duplicity in announcing the unemployment rate in a given month to
how the state entraps us, if you want to see a true polymath at
work, these lofty, serious, sad, and illuminating essays will
educate you beyond what you had thought possible about life,
liberty, and the economy.
Some have described the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a
scientific bureaucracy with police powers. Does a "cult of
infallibility" exist within the FDA, leading to decisions that are
contrary to the best interests of patients and their physicians?
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is one of the most powerful
of federal regulatory agencies, if not the most powerful. It
regulates over 25% of all consumer goods sold in the United States.
It makes decisions on a daily basis that affect the lives of
millions of people. While the FDA was created to protect the
public, how well is it fulfilling this mission and whose interests
is it actually protecting? In this book, four outstanding scholars
examine how the FDA accumulated its enormous power and what effects
it has had on the public. It also explores who actually benefits
and loses from FDA actions, and whether alternatives exist to
safeguard the health of Americans. This book raises serious
questions about the wisdom of giving policing power to scientists
with little oversight or appeal process, as the FDA currently does.
It also argues forcefully that the FDA unnecessarily delays
beneficial medicines and medical devices, many of which are
routinely available in Europe, from being available to Americans.
The quest for freedom has always been as much a battle of ideas as
it is a popular struggle. Classical liberal pioneers such as John
Locke and Adam Smith stressed the inherent worth of the individual,
inalienable rights, and the benevolent consequences of the
cooperative, peaceful pursuit of one's own happiness. These ideas
became the intellectual scaffolding for much of the West's most
fundamental institutions and achievements. Yet after its
19th-century high-water mark, classical liberalism lost much of its
passion, focus, and popular support. Intellectual trends
increasingly began to support coercive egalitarianism, empire, and
central planning at the expense of individual liberty, personal
responsibility, private property, natural law, and free
institutions.
But the eclipse of classical liberalism by contemporary liberalism
and conservatism is passing. "The Challenge of Liberty" restores
the ideas and ideals of classical liberalism and shows how its
contemporary exponents defend such pillars of free societies as
individual rights, human dignity, market processes, and the rule of
law.
In his academic work, Robert Higgs has dissected the government's
shrewd secret excesses that lead to the Welfare State, the Warfare
State, and the Administrative State. For several decades he has
unstintingly chronicled the federal, state, and local governments'
malfeasance in these many areas of life that all levels of
government have intruded upon without Constitutional mandate. In
this book, however, are essays that show a whimsical,
introspective, and personal side of this world renowned scholar.
From the myth that the government has derived its powers from the
consent of the governed to the role of independent experts in
formulating monetary and fiscal policy; from the government's
duplicity in announcing the unemployment rate in a given month to
how the state entraps us, if you want to see a true polymath at
work, these lofty, serious, sad, and illuminating essays will
educate you beyond what you had thought possible about life,
liberty, and the economy.
Taking a close look at the dense fabric that our government weaves
between war, state power, and economics, this collection of essays
reveals the growing authority--and corruption--of the American
state. Covering topics from the Lyndon Johnson presidency to the
provocatively titled article "Military-Economic Fascism" on the
military-industrial-congressional complex, it argues that the U.S.
government consistently exploits national crises and then invents
timely rhetoric that limits the rights and liberties of all
citizens for the benefit of the few, be they political leaders or
various industrialists in the areas of defense and security. As its
title suggests, this book presents a clear narrative of trends and
events--from the United States' entry into World War II to the
origins of income tax--causing individuals to question whether
those in power are truly blind to the effects and causes of their
policies.
LARGE PRINT EDITION More at LargePrintLiberty.com.
The great historian of classical liberalism strips away the veneer
of exalted leaders and beloved wars. Professor Ralph Raico shows
them to be wolves in sheep's clothing and their wars as attacks on
human liberty and human rights. In the backdrop of this blistering
and deeply insightful and scholarly history is the whitewashing of
"great leaders" like Woodrow Wilson, Winston Churchill, FDR,
Truman, Stalin, Trotsky, and other collectivists. They are highly
regarded because they were on the "right side" of the rise of the
state. But do they deserve adulation? Raico says no: these great
leaders were main agents in the decline of civilization in the 20th
century, all of them anti-liberals who used their power to
celebrate and enhance state power.
Competition and Coercion: Blacks in the American economy, 1865 1914
is a reinterpretation of black economic history in the half-century
after Emancipation. Its central theme is that economic competition
and racial coercion jointly determined the material condition of
the blacks. The book identifies a number of competitive processes
that played important roles in protecting blacks from the racial
coercion to which they were peculiarly vulnerable. It also
documents the substantial economic gains realized by the black
population between 1865 and 1914. Professor Higgs's account is
iconoclastic. It seeks to reorganize the present conceptualization
of the period and to redirect future study of black economic
history in the post-Emancipation period. It raises new questions
and suggests new answers to old questions, asserting that some of
the old questions are misleadingly framed or not worth pursuing at
all.
Other books exist that warn of the dangers of empire and war.
However, few, if any, of these books do so from a scholarly,
informed economic standpoint. In Depression, War, and Cold War ,
Robert Higgs, a highly regarded economic historian, makes pointed,
fresh economic arguments against war, showing links between
government policies and the economy in a clear, accessible way. He
boldly questions, for instance, the widely accepted idea that World
War II was the chief reason the Depression-era economy recovered.
The book as a whole covers American economic history from the Great
Depression through the Cold War. Part I centers on the Depression
and World War II. It addresses the impact of government policies on
the private sector, the effects of wartime procurement policies on
the economy, and the economic consequences of the transition to a
peacetime economy after the victorious end of the war. Part II
focuses on the Cold War, particularly on the links between Congress
and defense procurement, the level of profits made by defense
contractors, and the role of public opinion andnt ideological
rhetoric in the maintenance of defense expenditures over time. This
new book extends and refines ideas of the earlier book with new
interpretations, evidence, and statistical analysis. This book will
reach a similar audience of students, researchers, and educated lay
people in political economy and economic history in particular, and
in the social sciences in general.
An unflinching critical analysis of government is contained in this
work, which distills complex economic and political issues for the
layperson. Combining an economist's analytical scrutiny with an
historian's respect for empirical evidence, the book attacks the
data on which governments base their economic management and their
responses to an ongoing stream of crises. Among the topics
discussed are domestic economic busts, foreign wars, welfare
programs such as social security, the arts of political leadership,
the intrusive efforts of governments to protect people from
themselves, and the mismanagement of the economy. Though focused on
U.S. government actions, the book also makes revealing comparisons
with similar government actions abroad and in China, Japan, and
Western Europe. This book furthers the disscussions in Higg's
bestseller "Crisis and Leviathan.
Taking a close look at the dense fabric that our government weaves
between war, state power, and economics, this collection of essays
reveals the growing authority--and corruption--of the American
state. Covering topics from the Lyndon Johnson presidency to the
provocatively titled article "Military-Economic Fascism" on the
military-industrial-congressional complex, it argues that the U.S.
government consistently exploits national crises and then invents
timely rhetoric that limits the rights and liberties of all
citizens for the benefit of the few, be they political leaders or
various industrialists in the areas of defense and security. As its
title suggests, this book presents a clear narrative of trends and
events--from the United States' entry into World War II to the
origins of income tax--causing individuals to question whether
those in power are truly blind to the effects and causes of their
policies.
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