Recently added articles from Independent Review:

The anatomy of Social Security and Medicare.(Essay)

Jun 22, 2008; Browning, Edgar K. ... Social Security in the United States is the largest government expenditure program in the world, with expenditures of $823 billion in 2005. That figure includes only the cash retirement benefits paid. Social Security's companion policy that covers the elderly's medical expenses, Medicare, ...

What do the terrorists want?(Essay)

Jun 22, 2008; Payne, James L. ... The mayhem of 9/11 has been the attention-getting event of modern times, the exclamation point that marks the end of security and the beginning of an age of anxiety. Alas, attention does not imply analysis. The very notoriety of the 9/11 attacks made us all feel we were experts on ...

Commerce is beautiful.(Essay)

Jun 22, 2008; Osborne, Evan ... In Soviet times, all this was a chaotic mess. In contrast, you'd fly over Western Europe and see miles of perfectly cultivated land .... Now Georgia is the same. It's beautiful to look at. That's the aesthetic look of the free market. --Georgia prime minister Mikheil Saakashvili, ...

Mystifying the concept of capital: Hernando de Soto's misdiagnosis of the hindrance to economic development in the Third World.(Critical essay)

Jun 22, 2008; Ahiakpor, James C.W. ... In his well-publicized book The Mystery of Capital (2000), Hernando de Soto claims to have discovered the explanation for poverty in countries of the Third World and the former Soviet Communist bloc. He claims it is the inability of the poor people in these countries to convert their "dead ...

Alvaro Florez Estrada: compromised liberalism in nineteenth-century Spain.(PREDECESSORS)(Critical essay)

Jun 22, 2008; Braun, Carlos Rodriguez ... The Asturian economist Alvaro Florez Estrada (1766-1853) has earned the title of "the most relevant theorist of liberalism" in nineteenth-century Spain by espousing liberal--even "extremely liberal"--ideas "that nobody questions" (Munarriz Peralta 1967, 11; Anes 1992, 17; Smith 2000, 323; ...

The life and works of Ludwig von Mises.(Biography)

Jun 22, 2008; Ebeling, Richard M. ... Ludwig von Mises ( 18 81 - 19 7 3) was one of the most important economists of the twentieth century. Even if he had made no other contribution over a professional lifetime that spanned seven decades, his place in the history of economic ideas would be assured by his devastating analysis ...

Economic analysis, moral philosophy, and public policy.(Book review)

Jun 22, 2008; Callahan, Gene ... Daniel M. Hausman, a philosopher, and Michael S. McPherson, an economist, have written Economic Analysis, _Moral Philosophy, and Public Policy (2d ed., New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006) to convince their readers, especially but not only economists, that current economic practice, ...

The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.(Book review)

Jun 22, 2008; Montanye, James A. ... The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy By John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. Pp. xii, 484. $26.00. America's favorite son, the indebted, slaveholding bon vivant Thomas Jefferson, set the tone for ...

The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies.(Book review)

Jun 22, 2008; Heath, Will Carrington ... The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies By Scott E. Page Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007. Pp. xx, 424. $27.95. During World War II, the British brought together ...

Globalization and Its Enemies.(Book review)

Jun 22, 2008; Powell, Benjamin ... Globalization and Its Enemies By Daniel Cohen Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006. Pp. 256. $27.95 cloth. In Globalization and Its Enemies, Daniel Cohen deals with an important and timely topic, but he does so inadequately. The title leads one to ...

Resisting the State: Reform and Retrenchment in Post-Soviet Russia.(Book review)

Jun 22, 2008; Maltsev, Yuri ... Resisting the State: Reform and Retrenchment in Post-Soviet Russia By Kathryn Stoner-Weiss New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. 167. $80.00 cloth. Kathryn Stoner-Weiss is associate director for research and senior research scholar at ...

Punishment and Inequality in America.(Book review)

Jun 22, 2008; Beito, David T. ... Punishment and Inequality in America By Bruce Western New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2006. Pp. xiv, 247. $29.95 cloth. Over the past decade or so, the rate of violent crime has reached lows unseen in the United States since the early 1960s ....

From the Corn Laws to Free Trade: Interests, Ideas, and Institutions in Historical Perspective.(Book review)

Jun 22, 2008; Nye, John V.C. ... From the Corn Laws to Free Trade: Interests, Ideas, and Institutions in Historical Perspective By Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006. Pp. xiv, 426. $47.50. In From the Corn Laws to Free Trade, Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey ...

The European Economy since 1945: Coordinated Capitalism and Beyond.(Book review)

Jun 22, 2008; Colombatto, Enrico ... The European Economy since 1945: Coordinated Capitalism and Beyond By Barry Eichengreen Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2006. Pp. xvii, 495. $35.00 cloth. Barry Eichengreen's book The European Economy since 1945 presents a detailed ...

Locke: A Biography.(Book review)

Jun 22, 2008; Skoble, Aeon J. ... Locke: A Biography By Roger Woolhouse Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Pp. xxx, 528. $39.99 It is common, even among philosophers, to joke about how little influence philosophers have on the world. But that isn't true. The ...

Military spending/gross domestic product = nonsense for budget policymaking.(Etceteras)(Editorial)

Jun 22, 2008; Higgs, Robert ... Had we been inclined to borrow a phrase from Ronald Reagan, we might have chided the Pentagon bigwigs by saying, "Well, there you go again." Early this year, as in virtually every year since the Korean War, the military chiefs tried to minimize the enormousness of their proposed basic ...