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Books Online

Category: Books - Economics

The Improving State of the World; Indur M. Goklany, pages 450.

Most economic texts (at least since Marx) have a dismal view of the world. Essayist Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) called economics The Dismal Science. I guess for the progressive minded, economics is a dismal scene since the economic programs advocated by the great progressives of history tend to make the world a worse place.

With my expensive progressive education, I've been trained to look first and foremost at all of the negative things in the world. For this reason, I am looking forward to the January 2007 release of The Improving State of the World by Irdur Goklany. Despite the fact that we all feel that the economy got worse during the Bush Administration, many, many things got better. This is largely do to liberal (by that I mean Classical Liberal) trade policies which have empowered people to make a difference in their community.

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The Big Ripoff; Timothy P. Carney, pages 285.

This fun read examines the various ways in which big business and big government work in cahoots at the cost of the American people. The book does an excellent job showing that both parties are complicit in the ripoff. The work attacks head on the myth that the Republican Party is the party of billionaires. The most politically active billionaires generally are Democrats, and millionaires line both sides of the halls of Congress. The work also savages the myth that the Republican party is the party of small business. Both parties routinely sell out their base for big business.

The meat of the book, however, is the detailed examinations of classic government ripoffs. The work shows how big business actively seeks regulation hoping that the regulation would lock in their market position and raise the barriers of entry to competitors. Everything from the labor laws to environmental laws get twisted for the purpose of giving the insiders advantage over the public at large.

Unforutnately, with both parties complicit in the ripoff, the work provides little in the way of solution. Of course, I find this a much better read than the standard left leaning text that would end with a demand that we expand government to prevent the abuses of big government.

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