Secession, State, and Liberty

Secession, State, and Liberty PDF

Author: David Gordon

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-09-29

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 1351491709

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The political impulse to secede - to attempt to separate from central government control - is a conspicuous feature of the post-cold war world. It is alive and growing in Canada, Russia, China, Italy, Belgium, Britain, and even the United States Yet secession remains one of the least studied and least understood of all historical and political phenomena. The contributors to this volume have filled this gap with wide-ranging investigations - rooted in history, political philosophy, ethics, and economic theory - of secessionist movements in the United States, Canada, and Europe.

Liberty's Nemesis

Liberty's Nemesis PDF

Author: Dean Reuter

Publisher: Encounter Books

Published: 2016-02-09

Total Pages: 576

ISBN-13: 1594038384

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If there has been a unifying theme of Barack Obama’s presidency, it is the inexorable growth of the administrative state. Its expansion has followed a pattern: First, expand federal powers beyond their constitutional limits. Second, delegate those powers to agencies and away from elected politicians in Congress. Third, insulate civil servants from politics and accountability. Since its introduction in American life by Woodrow Wilson in the 20th Century, the administrative state’s has steadily undermined democratic self-government, reduced the sphere of individual liberty, and burdened the free market and economic growth. In Liberty’s Nemesis, Dean Reuter and John Yoo collect the brightest political minds in the country to expose this explosive, unchecked growth of power in government agencies ranging from health care to climate change, financial markets to immigration, and more. Many Americans have rightly shared the Founders’ fear of excessive lawmaking, but Liberty’s Nemesis is the first book to explain why the concentration of power in administrative agencies in particular is the greatest – and most overlooked – threat to our liberties today. If we fail to curb it, our constitutional republic might easily devolve into something akin to the statist governments of Europe. President Obama’s ongoing efforts to encourage just such a devolution, and the problems his administration faces as a consequence, present a critical opportunity to defend the original vision of the Constitution.

The State

The State PDF

Author: Anthony De Jasay

Publisher: Collected Papers of Anthony de

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780865971714

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The State is a brilliant analysis of some of the fundamental issues of modern political thought from the perspective, not of individuals or subjects, but of the state itself. The author poses the query, "What would you do if you were the state?" The state usually is understood as an instrument, not a personality, and it is presumed to exist so that people can achieve their common ends. However, Jasay asks, what if we suppose the state to have a will and ends of its own? To answer these questions, the author traces the logical and historical progression of the state from a modest-sized protector of life and property through its development into an "agile seducer of democratic majorities, to the welfare-dispensing drudge that it is in many countries today ... Is the rational next step a totalitarian enhancement of its power?" The State presents what has been termed "a disturbingly logical 'agenda' for the state in pursuit of its 'self-fulfillment.'"--Inside jacket flap.

The Narrow Corridor

The Narrow Corridor PDF

Author: Daron Acemoglu

Publisher: Penguin Books

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 594

ISBN-13: 0735224382

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How does history end? -- The Red Queen -- Will to power -- Economics outside the corridor -- Allegory of good government -- The European scissors -- Mandate of Heaven -- Broken Red Queen -- Devil in the details -- What's the matter with Ferguson? -- The paper leviathan -- Wahhab's children -- Red Queen out of control -- Into the corridor -- Living with the leviathan.

Liberty for Latin America

Liberty for Latin America PDF

Author: Alvaro Vargas Llosa

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published: 2015-05-12

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 1466893737

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Latin America's Foremost Political Journalist Makes a Brilliant and Passionate Argument for Real Reform In the Economically Crippled Continent In Liberty for Latin America, Alvaro Vargas Llosa offers an incisive diagnosis of Latin America's woes--and a prescription for finally getting the region on the road to both genuine prosperity and the protection of human rights. When the economy in Argentina--at one time a model of free-market reform--collapsed in 2002, experts of all persuasions asked: What went wrong? Vargas Llosa shows that what went wrong in Argentina has in fact gone wrong all over the continent for over five hundred years. He explains how the republics of the nineteenth century and the revolutions of the twentieth-populist uprisings, Marxist coops, state takeovers, and First World-sponsored privatization-have all run up against the oligarchic legacy of statism. Illiberal elites backed by the United States and Europe have perpetuated what he calls the "five principles of oppression" in order to maintain their hold on power. The region has become "a laboratory for political and economic suicide," while comparable countries in Asia and Eastern Europe have prospered. The only way to change things in Latin America, Vargas Llosa argues, is to remove the five principles of oppression, genuinely reforming institutions and the underlying culture for the benefit of the disempowered public. In Liberty for Latin America, he explains how, offering hope as well as insight for all those who care for the future of this troubled region.

Modern Liberty: And the Limits of Government (Issues of Our Time)

Modern Liberty: And the Limits of Government (Issues of Our Time) PDF

Author: Charles Fried

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2011-02-07

Total Pages: 219

ISBN-13: 039307773X

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“An erudite, sharp-tongued libertarian, eager to do battle with censors, regulators ... and sanctimonious busybodies of every stripe.”—New York Times In this impassioned defense of liberty, renowned Harvard law professor Charles Fried argues that the seemingly unimpeachable goals of equality and community are often the most potent rivals of freedom. Declared a “spirited, sophisticated manifesto” by the New York Times Book Review, Modern Liberty demonstrates how the dense tangle of government regulations both supports and threatens our personal liberties. Armed with Fried’s insights, readers will be better able to defend themselves against those on both the left and the right who would, even with the best intentions, restrict their liberty.

The Illusion of Free Markets

The Illusion of Free Markets PDF

Author: Bernard E. Harcourt

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2012-11-12

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0674971329

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It is widely believed today that the free market is the best mechanism ever invented to efficiently allocate resources in society. Just as fundamental as faith in the free market is the belief that government has a legitimate and competent role in policing and the punishment arena. This curious incendiary combination of free market efficiency and the Big Brother state has become seemingly obvious, but it hinges on the illusion of a supposedly natural order in the economic realm. The Illusion of Free Markets argues that our faith in “free markets” has severely distorted American politics and punishment practices. Bernard Harcourt traces the birth of the idea of natural order to eighteenth-century economic thought and reveals its gradual evolution through the Chicago School of economics and ultimately into today’s myth of the free market. The modern category of “liberty” emerged in reaction to an earlier, integrated vision of punishment and public economy, known in the eighteenth century as “police.” This development shaped the dominant belief today that competitive markets are inherently efficient and should be sharply demarcated from a government-run penal sphere. This modern vision rests on a simple but devastating illusion. Superimposing the political categories of “freedom” or “discipline” on forms of market organization has the unfortunate effect of obscuring rather than enlightening. It obscures by making both the free market and the prison system seem natural and necessary. In the process, it facilitated the birth of the penitentiary system in the nineteenth century and its ultimate culmination into mass incarceration today.