The Joy of Freedom: An Economist's Odyssey (Financial Times Prentice Hall Books)

Sinopsis

Henderson (economics, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey) presents a manifesto of capitalist libertarianism. The book posits "freedom" as the underpinning of all economic justice and prosperity and touches upon the standard issues of capitalist libertarianism, attacking government interference in the relationships of property. Henderson uses his stunning revelation about the nature of freedom to condemn the minimum wage, social security, closed shop unions, and other bogeymen of capitalists. Two examples should suffice to show the nature of his commentary. In his chapter on unions, Henderson argues that unions are overly powerful today because the U.S. government put them in that position, ignoring the long history of battles by workers to establish unions while under attack by both employers and government. Additionally, he argues that the reason for income inequality in the world is a direct result of the amount that individuals produce, reasoning that the top five percent of individuals own the vast majority of assets, because they directly produce the vast majority of assets. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)