Freeman back issues from December 2003:
Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science
Dec 01, 2003; ... Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science by Charles Wheelan W. W. Norton * 2002 * 288 pages * $25.95 hardcover; $15.95 paperback Charles Wheelan's goal in writing Naked Economies is to introduce people who might otherwise have avoided economics texts and courses larded with graphs ...
The Costs of Segregation to the Detroit Tigers
Dec 01, 2003; ... Many people know the remarkable and inspiring story of Jackie Robinson and how he endured racial insults to integrate major league baseball in 1947. In Robinson's first year alone he won the rookie-of-the-year award and led his Brooklyn Dodgers to the National League pennant. But ...
Civil Liberties and Civil Commitment
Dec 01, 2003; ... Defenders of civil liberties readily recognize when some state interventions-such as censorship of the press or forced religious observances-violate civil liberties. However, many of the same defenders of civil liberties are unable or refuse to recognize when certain other state ...
Alleviating the Organ Shortage
Dec 01, 2003; ... When the French social commentator Alexis de Tocqueville visited a young, bustling America in the 1830s, he was amazed to discover that its industrious and self-reliant citizens were constantly forming "associations" to advance the arts, build libraries and hospitals, and meet social needs of ...
School and State: A Neat Solution to the Neatby Dispute
Dec 01, 2003; ... Before there was Rudolf Flesch there was Hilda Neatby. In 1955 Flesch published Why Johnny Can't Read, a bestseller that charged the U.S. educational system with malfeasance for not correctly teaching young students how to read. Two years earlier Hilda Neatby (1904-75), a ...
California's Apprenticeship Scam
Dec 01, 2003; ... In 1937 Congress and President Roosevelt enacted the National Apprenticeship Act (NAA), which, sadly, is still in effect. It J enables "the [U.S.] Department of Labor to formulate and promote the furtherance of labor standards necessary to safeguard the welfare of apprentices and to cooperate ...
Stalin's Other War: Soviet Grand Strategy, 1939-1941
Dec 01, 2003; ... Stalin's Other War: Soviet Grand Strategy, 1939-1941 by Albert L. Weeks Rowman & Littlefield * 2002 * 201 pages * $60 hardcover; 24.95 paperback For most of the period since the end of World War II the general interpretation about the role of the Soviet Union in the events leading up ...
The Absurdity of "Saving Jobs"
Dec 01, 2003; ... In any period of economic distress there is a renewed search for political solutions to unemployment. It seems obvious that jobs must be saved, and the government must be the key to preserving those jobs. So we get another round of government intervention: economic stimulus packages, ...
Social Security: Mythmaking and Policymaking
Dec 01, 2003; ... As Social Security's critics know, the government program is robed in myths, for example, that it is "insurance" financed with a "trust fund," paying "guaranteed" benefits "as a matter of earned right." These myths have given most Americans a mistaken understanding of Social security. As a ...
Aviation, People, and Incentives
Dec 01, 2003; ... An economist once said that economics can be summed up in four words-"people react to incentives." Yes, and competition speeds the process. Incentives and competition working together generate money, effort, and progress. This has been particularly true during the last hundred ...
Feeling Their Oats
Dec 01, 2003; ... How inspiring it was to see nearly two dozen representatives of the poorest nations' governments walk out of September's World Trade Organization meeting to protest the rich countries' subsidies to farmers. I don't say this lightly. Governments rarely inspire anything in me. But here was a group ...
Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism
Dec 01, 2003; ... Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism by Joshua Muravchik Encounter Books * 2002 * 417 pages * $27.95. The history of socialism is a sad, bitter, and bloody story. Arguably it is mankind's greatest tragedy of all time. Joshua Muravchik notes that regimes calling themselves ...
Global Capitalism: Curing Oppression and Poverty
Dec 01, 2003; ... Although leftist agitators continue to protest global capitalism, they overlook the key points in the debate. Capitalism has been instituted on three continents-in western Europe, North America, and Asia. These nations-England, France, the United States, Japan, Hong Kong, and the others-are ...
The Birth of a Capitalist
Dec 01, 2003; ... When the new superintendent came to the orphanage where I was reared, he found that we kids were not allowed to earn or have any spending money. So one of the first things he did was to tell us that if we were able to earn any money in our spare time, we could keep it or spend it as we pleased ....
Thoughts of Miracles on the Plane
Dec 01, 2003; ... I am right now flying through the air. It is just me, just regular old me, just my mother's son, and yet I am flying 37,000 feet above the ground. It seems miraculous, and miracles give rise to questions. The first being-what forces keep me up here? Well, as I understand it, the air ...
It Just Ain't So!
Dec 01, 2003; ... In 1776 a reliable indicator of an American's opinion of the ideas expressed in the Declaration of Independence was his attitude toward the 1649 execution of England's King Charles I. Liberals, who shared Jefferson's principles, believed Charles to have been a tyrant and hence most deserving of ...
Ninety Years of Monetary Central Planning in the United States
Dec 01, 2003; ... Ninety years ago this month, on December 23, 1913, the Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act, establishing a national central-banking system in the United States. The governing board of the Federal Reserve was organized on August 12, 1914, and the Federal Reserve banks opened for operation on ...