I've been reading a lot of political books recently, and I'll briefly review the most recent three.
"Capitalism and Freedom", by Milton Friedman. A classic. Written 50 years ago, it's amazing how relevant it still feels. Most of the major policy ideas of libertarians are laid out clearly here. [Friedman called himself a "liberal" rather than a "libertarian", but the meanings have clearly drifted over time.] By libertarian standards, Friedman is fairly moderate; he is willing to stand behind using taxation to alleviate poverty and to guarantee primary education, on the grounds that these [at least to him] have substantial externalities [which he charmingly calls "neighborhood effects"]. He is strongly in favor of vouchers rather than privileging government run schools, and he is strongly in favor of a negative income tax or cash transfers to the poor rather than provision of housing projects. He defends each of these clearly. The writing throughout is excellent; I appreciate how Friedman comes off as very humble about the things he doesn't know. I especially enjoyed the chapter on occupational licensure, where the relative merits of registration ["If you want to be a doctor, you have to tell the government"], certification ["The government certifies that you have passed some test"], and licensure ["You cannot practice as a doctor without the government's OK"] are discussed. The book is short and easy to read. Highly recommended. 5/5.
"Government's End", by Jon Rauch. Discusses how the United States government has become paralyzed by special interests, and how the special interests are really everybody. A little bit like Sowell's "Knowledge and Decisions", but not as smart. Offers no real policy prescriptions, other than "Expect government to be big and accomplish little, but keep fighting." For me, the most interesting parts were the discussions of the failed [or at best partially successful] reform efforts of Reagan, Gingrich, and Clinton, and his analysis about why they failed. The book was written in 1998, and I think Rauch would've been shocked by the government passing the PPAC. Meh. 3/5.
"The Battle: How The Fight Between Free Enterprise and Big Government Will Shape America's Future," by Arthur Brooks. Endorsed by Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove, I am apparently not enough of a conservative, or not the right kind of conservative, to appreciate this book. There were many things in the book I agreed with, notably its defense of free markets as one of humanity's greatest discoveries, but the writing was terrible. The book paid occasional lip service to the idea that Bush was as much a big government president as Obama, but it was really an anti-Democrat book in a not very convincing disguise. [I think the Democrats are doing a terrible job, but the Republicans did a terrible job too.] The book's basic thesis, that 70% of the populace wants small government and free markets and equality of opportunity while the other 30% wants big government and equality of outcomes, simply didn't ring true to me at all. Many of my friends support far more redistributionist policies than I do, but that doesn't mean it's black and white. This book ends up demonizing people unnecessarily, making the world appear far more polarized than it is. I guess that's what you need to do to sell books. 1/5.
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