Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration, and the Rule of Law

Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration, and the Rule of Law Review

Following a vast expansion in the twentieth century, government is beginning to creak at the joints under its enormous weight. The signs are clear: a bloated civil service, low approval ratings for Congress and the President, increasing federal-state conflict, rampant distrust of politicians and government officials, record state deficits, and major unrest among public employees.

In this compact, clearly written book, the noted legal scholar Richard Epstein advocates a much smaller federal government, arguing that our over-regulated state allows too much discretion on the part of regulators, which results in arbitrary, unfair decisions, rent-seeking, and other abuses. Epstein bases his classical liberalism on the twin pillars of the rule of law and of private contracts and property rights—an overarching structure that allows private property to keep its form regardless of changes in population, tastes, technology, and wealth. This structure also makes possible a restrained public administration to implement limited objectives. Government continues to play a key role as night-watchman, but with the added flexibility in revenues and expenditures to attend to national defense and infrastructure formation.

Although no legal system can eliminate the need for discretion in the management of both private and public affairs, predictable laws can cabin the zone of discretion and permit arbitrary decisions to be challenged. Joining a set of strong property rights with sound but limited public administration could strengthen the rule of law, with its virtues of neutrality, generality, clarity, consistency, and forward-lookingness, and reverse the contempt and cynicism that have overcome us.

(20120101)

Give Me Liberty

Give Me Liberty Review

The American Revolution is about to ignite!

Life is tough for thirteen-year-old Nathaniel Dunn, an indentured servant in colonial Virginia. Yet in a twist of luck, he meets Basil, a kind schoolmaster, and an arrangement is struck lending Nathaniel's labor to a Williamsburg carriage maker. Basil introduces Nathaniel to music, books, and philosophies that open his mind to new attitudes about equality. The year is 1775, and as colonists voice their rage over England's taxation, Patrick Henry's words "give me liberty, or give me death" become the sounding call for action. Should Nathaniel and Basil join the fight? What is the meaning of "liberty" in a country reliant on indentured servants and slaves? Nathaniel must face the puzzling choices a dawning nation lays before him.

Give Me Liberty!: The Story of the Declaration of Independence

Give Me Liberty!: The Story of the Declaration of Independence Review

Describes the events leading up to the Declaration of Independence as well as the personalities and politics behind its framing.

The Attack on the Liberty: The Untold Story of Israel's Deadly 1967 Assault on a U.S. Spy Ship

The Attack on the Liberty: The Untold Story of Israel's Deadly 1967 Assault on a U.S. Spy Ship Review

On June 8, 1967, as war raged between Israel and its neighbors, an American spy ship, the U.S.S. Liberty, eavesdropped on communications off the coast of Egypt. When Israeli fighter jets flew overhead, the Liberty's crew assumed that the ship's identifying markings and American flag would be visible to the pilots in the clear skies above. After several passes over a period of hours, the jets suddenly opened fire and began strafing and napalming the deck of the Liberty, which had minimal defenses. When the air attack ended, Israeli torpedo boats appeared and scored a direct hit. By the time the assault was over, 34 crewmen had been killed and 171-two-thirds of the crew-seriously injured. Only heroic efforts by the crew saved the ship from sinking.

Back in Washington, news of the attack on the Liberty was received with a mixture of shock and outrage. Many in the Pentagon and in Congress demanded that Israel be held accountable for the unprovoked attack in international waters. The Johnson administration initially responded by threatening Israel but soon softened its attitude. Israel's stunning victory in the Six-Day War, as it became known, was a source of pride to many American Jews, and their support was crucial to an administration mired in an increasingly unpopular war in Vietnam. With the death toll mounting daily in Vietnam, the attack on the Liberty was pushed to the back pages of the nation's newspapers and ultimately all but forgotten.

James Scott is a journalist and the son of a surviving Liberty officer. In this riveting book, he recounts the story of the horrifying attack and the tremendous impact it had on the lives of the crew. He puts the attack in context, showing how political considerations trumped the demands for justice from the survivors and their supporters in the military and in Congress. Drawing on new interviews and recently declassified documents, he demonstrates that Israel's initial insistence that the attack was a mistake caused by misidentification of the ship is implausible.

Scott documents, for the first time, the fact that the ship was correctly identified by at least one of the pilots prior to the attacks. His descriptions of the crew under fire and their frantic work to save the ship are dramatic and unforgettable. Scott takes readers into the conference rooms at the White House where the most senior officials in the government debated how to respond to the attack and then eventually devised a plan to protect Israel from public outrage.

The Attack on the Liberty is the finest account yet of this tragedy and a remarkable tale of men under fire in an incident that remains bitterly disputed after more than forty years.

Give Me Liberty!: An American History (Brief Third Edition) (Vol. 1)

Give Me Liberty!: An American History (Brief Third Edition) (Vol. 1) Review

The leading United States History survey text, now available in a brief, full-color edition.

Give Me Liberty! is the leading book in the market because it works in the classroom. A single-author book, Give Me Liberty! offers students a consistent approach, a single narrative voice, and a coherent perspective throughout the text. Threaded through the chronological narrative is the theme of freedom in American history and the significant conflicts over its changing meanings, its limits, and its accessibility to various social and economic groups throughout American history. This streamlined edition, revised by author Eric Foner, is 30 percent shorter and includes a new pedagogical feature to help students read and review.

The Liberty of Servants: Berlusconi's Italy

The Liberty of Servants: Berlusconi's Italy Review

Italy is a country of free political institutions, yet it has become a nation of servile courtesans, with Silvio Berlusconi as their prince. This is the controversial argument that Italian political philosopher and noted Machiavelli biographer Maurizio Viroli puts forward in The Liberty of Servants. Drawing upon the classical republican conception of liberty, Viroli shows that a people can be unfree even though they are not oppressed. This condition of unfreedom arises as a consequence of being subject to the arbitrary or enormous power of men like Berlusconi, who presides over Italy with his control of government and the media, immense wealth, and infamous lack of self-restraint.

Challenging our most cherished notions about liberty, Viroli argues that even if a power like Berlusconi's has been established in the most legitimate manner and people are not denied their basic rights, the mere existence of such power makes those subject to it unfree. Most Italians, following the lead of their elites, lack the minimal moral qualities of free people, such as respect for the Constitution, the willingness to obey laws, and the readiness to discharge civic duties. As Viroli demonstrates, they exhibit instead the characteristics of servility, including flattery, blind devotion to powerful men, an inclination to lie, obsession with appearances, imitation, buffoonery, acquiescence, and docility. Accompanying these traits is a marked arrogance that is apparent among not only politicians but also ordinary citizens.

For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto

For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto Review

A classic that for over two decades has been hailed as the best general work on libertarianism available. Rothbard begins with a quick overview of its historical roots, and then goes on to define libertarianism as resting "upon one single axiom: that no man or group of men shall aggress upon the person or property of anyone else." He writes a withering critique of the chief violator of liberty: the State. Rothbard then provides penetrating libertarian solutions for many of today's most pressing problems, including poverty, war, threats to civil liberties, the education crisis, and more.