Libertarian Book Reviews

Our First Revolution

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If your secondary education was like mine, British history was taught as part of “world history” (in my days, essentially Greco-Roman antiquity and Western European history). We were taught about William the Conqueror, the Magna Carta, the War of the Roses, Henry VIII and his marital troubles, Elizabeth I and her lack of marital troubles, Charles I and his head troubles, perhaps a mention of Cromwell, but that was about it with England. I think I learned more about Cromwell from a Monty Python song than I did from school. As far as the English-speaking world went, there was nothing of interest to an American classroom after Cromwell until WWII. The discussion shifted to Plymouth Colony and Puritans in America, and went on from there, with American history.

Now, to be sure, there are only so many hours a year available for teaching history in public schools, and it is proper for an American school to focus on American History, and that portion of world history that particularly influenced American history. But by these criteria I still believe I was short-changed by not having been exposed, in my early years, to the story of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the downfall of James II, the parliamentary election (essentially) of William and Mary as dual-monarchs, and the English Bill of Rights that followed.

The fact is, these events were American events as well as British events, since they came at a time when the colonies were still yoked to Mother England. Although they were not alive at the time, the American Founding Fathers were students of the the Glorious Revolution, internalized its lessons, and had it in their minds as they crafted a new government. You can see this in our own Bill of Rights, which essentially cribbed from the 1689 English Bill of Rights items such as the right to bear arms and the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. We cannot fully understand our own American history without understanding the Glorious Revolution.

Michael Barone’s Our First Revolution: The Remarkable British Upheaval that Inspired America’s Founding Fathers is an excellent introduction to the topic, and an easy and engaging read. He targets an American audience, which is most welcome. (Some other treatments, out of England, tend to assume greater background knowledge in English history.) He does a good job presenting the historical context, in England, the Netherlands, France, Scotland and Ireland (a big task), as well as the personalities involved, not only the principals but also the supporting cast, like John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, whose shift of allegiance tipped the balance in William’s favor.

Although neither this book nor the author are particularly libertarian in outlook, I recommend the book to libertarians for a few reasons:

  • It is important history that I suspect is missed by most American students.
  • It does provide important context for understanding our American Bill of Rights, for example understanding the 2nd Amendment. A good response to those who say the 2nd Amendment existed only to prevent slave revolts would be to point out its antecedent in the 1689 English Bill of Rights, where slavery was not even relevant to the debate.
  • Similarly, it helps understand why the Founders were skeptical of standing armies and instead favored militias.
  • There is ample material provided in Barone’s history to suggest a revisionist interpretation, where a tolerant monarch (James II) was overthrown by paranoid Protestant supremacists, bent on forming a military superpower, with a strong, central government, and a new Bank of England to fund it. It is worth exploring whether this was all as “glorious” as the Whigs would claim.

The Case Against Socialism

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There are several classic books that make the case for individual freedom over the collectivist state. Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom, Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, and Mises’s Liberalism come to mind. But for all the virtues they have, with the commanding sweep of their vision and their penetrating social analysis, the reader of today often struggles in understanding the argument due to the reliance on examples that today are dated, even obscure. The reader of 2019 reads these classics for their evergreen ideas, but often ends up baffled by discussions of 19th century English politicians, New Deal legislation, the Bretton Woods currency system, or Nixon-era price controls.

Against this background, Rand Paul’s new book, The Case Against Socialism, is a most welcome addition to the literature of freedom. He does not innovate—not need he—on the fundamental arguments in favor of liberty. Instead, Sen. Paul does an admirable job refreshing the argument for a reader of today, with 39 short, conversational chapters discussing topics such as Venezuela, Scandinavia, authoritarianism, economic inequality, climate alarmism and fake news.

The text is organized into six parts, containing 39 short, conversational chapters. The text is well-documented, with hundreds of footnotes citing sources, many of which I’ve copied down for further exploration.

This is a good, easy read, one I recommend heartily. It is the right argument, at the right time.

Overcharged: Why Americans Pay Too Much for Health Care

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I must confess.  I’m not a frequent reader of Cato Institute publications.  Many of them come off as overly-wonkish, Chamber of Commerce-approved reports.   But I had heard good things about Charles Silver’s and David A. Hyman’s new book, Overcharged: Why Americans Pay Too Much for Health Care, and decided to give it a good cover-to-cover read.   I’m glad I did.

It is easy to get angry reading this book.  I’m sure my blood pressure increased a few points as they went through their litany of examples of fraud, waste and abuse, across both public (Medicare, Medicaid ) and private insurance systems.  But it is an argument that must be made and that everyone should hear: Our system of 3rd party payers desensitizes healthcare consumers to costs and encourages over-consumption.  This is encouraged by political control over the public programs, which is captured by the healthcare industry, to maximize the amount of taxpayers dollars transferred to this sector.  The end result is the overly-costly system we have today.  It is working by design.

The solution?  The authors propose a range of approaches, from the Singaporean model of mandatory personal health savings accounts topped of by government contributions for the poor, a system of “prizes” for new drug development instead of patents, spurring market-based competition from private hospitals and clinics , domestic and international (the Surgery Center of Oklahoma and the Narayana Health Hospital in Bangalore both get props), and in general, focusing more on 1st party, individual spending for routine and predictable medical expenses, from band-aids to pregnancies,  reserving 3rd party insurance for truly unforeseen catastrophic cases.

Of course, the authors drive home the point that the “medicare for all” option, being discussed in some circles today, would just double down on failure.   I’d highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to win the argument the next time their Facebook friends spout off about the supposed virtues of such an expansion.

One last thing — The book, aside from the importance of the argument it makes, is a damn good read as well.  It is well-organized, keeps a good pace, the examples are vivid and memorable, and in general, it keeps the reader’s attention.

Confessions: An Innocent Life in Communist China

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When it comes to tales of life under communism, narratives of soul-killing repression, the most-read and most-heard ones deal with experiences in the former Soviet Union.  From Arthur Koestler’s fictional Darkness at Noon and Solzhenitsyn’s A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, to news stories of the repression of scientists like Andrei Sakharov and over-the-top Hollywood treatments in the 1980s, we’re familiar with that genre.

From China, however, we’ve heard far less.  Sire, we have a picture of pre-war China in Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth.  And we have Bertolucci’s evocative treatment in the movie The Last Emperor.  But these are views from the outside.  Where is the view from the inside? Where is a Chinese writer to stand with Solzhenitsyn and Pasternak?

For your consideration, I’d like to suggest Kang Zhengguo’s autobiographical Confessions: An Innocent Life in Communist China as a strong contender.

Kang was not (at least not until the end) a political dissident as we think of the term.  He was apolitical, bookish, shy, a Walter Mitty daydreamer of sorts.  But as his life progressed, from as an upper middle class childhood at the end of WWII, through the Communist Revolution, Civil War, the Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, etc., we see his insufficient embrace of the new political order drive him further and further downward, with greater and greater deprivations, from his expulsion from the university, to time in labor camps, to laboring on a collectivized farm, along the way losing status, friends, even his family.  (After a few surprising twists, he ultimately lands, in the 21st century, at Yale University, as a Chinese language instructor.)

This is the kind of book that is hard to put down.  Aside from the gripping portrayal of the psychological toll of communism, eerily familiar to students of the Soviet dissident narratives, this is a fine work of literature in its own right.  Susan Wilf’s marvelous translation, and ample footnotes that elucidate unfamiliar aspects of Chinese history, culture and allusions to Chinese classical literature, guide the reader to fuller appreciation of this autobiography.  Highly recommended.

Capitalism and Freedom

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When Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom came out in 1962, his was a rare voice defending classical liberal values and the free enterprise system.  For years his ideas were unloved in ruling circles, as the leviathan unleashed by F.D.R.’s  New Deal pressed its tentacles even further into the flesh of American society through Johnson’s Great Society and beyond.

But after nearly a generation wandering in the wilderness, Friedman lived to see the vindication of his ideas, as big government solutions repeatedly failed, and free market approaches out-performed.

The fall of the Soviet Union and communism in Eastern Europe should have sealed the argument.  But bad ideas never truly die.  They merely go dormant.  The anti-liberal contagion awaits the day to entice and poison new audiences, in new generations, with the false promise of heaven on earth, for the price of their soul and their freedom.

A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it does this task so well.  It gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.

The fascinating thing is how far ahead of his time Friedman was in 1962, and also how advanced his thinking remains, even for today.

Among the things Friedman proposed were: school vouchers to replace public school funding, elimination of agricultural price support programs, elimination of all tariffs and trade restrictions, repeal of rent control and minimum wage laws, elimination of Social Security, repeal of occupational licensure laws, ending military conscription, privatizing national parks and public toll roads,  reeling in the Federal Reserve System to remove discretionary powers (he’d essentially have it run on auto-pilot), eliminate foreign economic aid,  balance the federal budget, on average, year to year, elimination of public funding for state colleges and vocational/professional training, allowing equity-based investment (pay a percentage of future earnings) for college education, elimination of anti-discrimination laws, fair employment, fair housing laws, anti-segregation laws, application of antitrust laws to labor unions and other government-granted monopolies,  elimination of corporate income tax (but have tax on retained corporate earnings for individual income tax returns), a flat individual income tax rate, rejection of “social responsibility” instead of profit as the primary duty of corporate officials, elimination of estate taxes,  a negative income tax to replace other forms of welfare (in a way, similar to a UBI), etc.

It is amazing how much of these items has already been accomplished or are at the forefront of debate today, nearly 60 years later.

I’d recommend reading (or re-reading) Capitalism and Freedom to anyone interested in girding themselves for mental strife, to do battle with the modern opponents of freedom, whether they are Facebook friends, or college professors.  Friedman’s mastery of the economic matters (he won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1976) and his gift for explaining his arguments in a non-technical, but rigorous fashion, is unparalleled.