June 2006
Volume 56, 2006FEATURES
Freedom and the Pitfalls of Predicting the Future
Our Inescapably Imperfect Knowledge Means We Can Never Predict Our Own Future
JUNE 01, 2006 by RICHARD EBELING
The prospects for freedom in America and in many other parts of the world appear dim. Government continues to grow bigger and more intrusive, imposing tax burdens that siphon vast amounts of private wealth. Extrapolating these trends out for the foreseeable future, it would seem that the chances for winning liberty are highly unlikely. There is only one problem with this pessimistic forecast: the future is unpredictable and apparent trends do change.
Jane Jacobs (1916-2006)
A Hero against the Pretensions of Social Engineering
JUNE 01, 2006 by SHELDON RICHMAN
Through nearly a dozen books, Jane Jacobs made an indelible contribution to our understanding of what makes cities vibrant and what makes them dull. She struck heroic blows in defense of the underlying order of cities and against the pretensions of social engineering. Alas,she died April 25 at age 89.
The History of "Underdevelopment"
Underdevelopment Theories Have Generated Disastrous Policies
JUNE 01, 2006 by STEPHEN DAVIES
Perhaps the most important feature of the modern world is its sustained, intensive economic growth. This produces most of the other distinctive features of modernity. Although there were earlier episodes of such economic efflorescence (to use Jack Goldstones term), it was only with the industrial revolution of late eighteenth-century Britain that it became a permanent and prominent feature of the world economy. Following the advent of this transformative process, questions soon arose elsewhere. The first was that of how to achieve the same kind of growth and dynamism. Soon this led to further questions: why other parts of the world did not show these qualities and why their attempts to do so ended in failure.
The End Run to Freedom
Implementing Private Solutions Can Help Us Market the Virtues of Freedom to the Skeptics
JUNE 01, 2006 by RUSSELL ROBERTS
What does the future hold for economic life in the United States? Will we move toward greater freedom or less? What role will ideas and rhetoric play, if any, in making sure that the direction is one that lovers of freedom prefer?
Belt and Braces in the Labor Market
An Iron-Clad Labor Code is a Major Cause of France's Chronic Unemployment
JUNE 01, 2006 by ANTHONY DE JASAY
Like every exchange, the exchange of labor for money is protected, as it were, by a belt, the contract. Labor, it is argued, must additionally be protected by the braces of justification. In even plainer English, this means that in order to dismiss a worker, an employer cannot simply rely on the contract telling him that he can do so by giving notice that will, so to speak, unbuckle the belt. He must also contrive to unbutton the braces by dealing with a requirement of justification.
The Greenspan Fed in Perspective
JUNE 01, 2006 by ROGER W. GARRISON
Some readers of the Wall Street Journal might have been led to believe that Alan Greenspan had somehow followed Milton Friedman's monetary rule. We now see, though, that there was no well-grounded rule; there was no standard.
Ludwig von Mises: The Political Economist of Liberty, Part II
JUNE 01, 2006 by RICHARD EBELING
Mises's defense of classical liberalism against the various forms of collectivism was not limited "merely" to the economic benefits of private property.
Book Reviews - June 2006
JUNE 01, 2006
The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good by William Easterly -- reviewed by Richard M. Ebeling
The Capitalist Manifesto by Andrew Bernstein -- reviewed by Gary M. Galles
Water for Sale: How Business and the Market Can Resolve the Worlds Water Crisis by Fredrik Segerfeldt -- reviewed by George C. Leef
Common Sense Economics: What Everyone Should Know About Wealth and Prosperity by James Gwartney, Richard L. Stroup, and Dwight R. Lee -- reviewed by Tom Lehman
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