The Social Affairs Unit, London, UK
The Loss of Virtue , Digby Anderson, ed.
The Social Affairs Unit, London, UK, 1992
In the letter that accompanied the submission of The Loss of Virtue, Digby Anderson underscored the book’s important contribution to the free market movement, which has too often been perceived as ‘cold-hearted’ for its opposition to bad policies cloaked in emotional rhetoric. ‘The book,’ he wrote, ‘has been very good for the Social Affairs Unit. I humbly submit that it has also been good for the free market movement in that people will only begin to take our claims for liberty seriously when we convincingly demonstrate our commitment to personal responsibility and the informal sources of social order.’
A collection of essays, The Loss of Virtue explores how changing virtues affect the social problems of the United States and Britain, reclaiming, as one critic wrote, ‘the intellectual high ground from the radical/progressive factions who have established the permissive and welfarist orthodoxy upon which our social order is now based.’
The book found a wide audience, receiving extensive press coverage in both Britain and the United States and going through multiple printings. Reviews called the book ‘powerfully’ argued, ‘cogent, brave and timely.’ The success of the book led to an Atlas-sponsored lecture tour of the United States by institute director and book editor Digby Anderson. The 1994 National Review Institute’s Annual Conference, chaired by Margaret Thatcher, was devoted to the discussion of virtue, with the Social Affairs Unit’s book providing the central themes.
The Loss of Virtue was the first in a series on the problems of social order published by the Social Affairs Unit, an institute famous, according to an article in London’s The Times, ‘for raising questions which strike most people most of the time as too dangerous or too difficult to think about.’
The Locke Institute, Fairfax, VA
Property Rights and the Limits of Democracy , Charles K. Rowley, ed.
Edward Elgar Publishing , Aldershot England and Brookfield, VT, 1993
Property Rights and the Limits of Democracy examines the important relationship that exists between property rights and democracy.
Published at a time when the ex-Soviet bloc countries were breaking away from the yoke of collectivist-socialist ideas, this timely book presented essays by four American political economists evaluating a range of feasible reforms intended to breathe new life into constitutional republicanism.
Property rights, the authors argue, lie at the heart of national economic success and determine the extent to which a country’s citizens enjoy economic freedom. With that in mind, Property Rights and the Limits of Democracy asks, ‘How can the economic blessings of a liberal order grounded in private property and freedom of contract and association be secured. How can such an institutional framework be established, and maintained?’
The Institute of Economic Affairs, London
Federalism and Free Trade by Jean-Luc Migué
The Institute of Economic Affairs, London, UK, 1993
In Federalism and Free Trade, French-Canadian economist Jean-Luc Migué µses the theories of international trade and public choice to investigate both the benefits and the dangers of free-trade agreements within blocs of trading partners.
Federalism and free trade go hand in hand, Migué ¡rgues, inasmuch as they both strengthen governments’ power to do good, while restricting their power to abuse citizens. Attempting to show that the opening of national frontiers to freer movement of goods, services, capital and people will result in less use of other instruments of intervention in domestic affairs, the book contends that less reliance on protectionism by national governments will have an impact similar to reinforcing the devolution of power within federal states. Although Migué cautions that the competitive federalist model only works if national and local decisions are not superseded by vast central powers covering the same fields within trade blocs or at the supra-national level, he is confident that ‘true federalism coincident with free trade should contribute in a lasting way to the fulfillment of mankind’s goal of world peace and friendship, and to the realization of local aspirations to cultural and social development.’
Analyzing a fundamental problem that concerns everyone interested in preserving freedom by avoiding encroachment of the would-be centralizing state, Federalism and Free Trade has demonstrated an international appeal. Since its release in London, the monograph has been translated into several languages including Spanish and Portuguese.
Pacific Research Institute, San Francisco, CA
Grand Theft and Petit Larceny: Property Rights in America by Mark Pollot
Pacific Research Institute, San Francisco, CA, 1993
When the government takes private property to build a bridge or highway, the owner must be justly compensated. But every day thousands of Americans are prevented from fully exercising their rights as property owners by excessive government regulation and a slow-grinding legal process that blocks them from developing their land as they choose. In Grand Theft and Petit Larceny, Mark Pollot reveals the gradual undermining of the rights of property owners over the last century and outlines how continuing on this course will be fundamentally disastrous for all Americans’ property owners and non-property owners alike.
The Honorable Alex Kozinski, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, has called the Pacific Research Institute book, ‘a welcome step toward resuscitating the status of economic rights in the political and legal arenas.’
The book has reached a wide audience. In addition to general sales, the Pacific Research Institute distributed the book to government officials, members of the media, and other opinion leaders, and has used its expertise in marketing books to the academic market to make Grand Theft and Petit Larceny an important part of the curriculum at several U.S. law schools.
The Independent Institute, Oakland, CA
Out of Work: Unemployment and Government in Twentieth- Century America by Richard Vedder and Lowell Gallaway
Holmes & Meier, New York, NY, 1993
Unemployment has been used to justify ever-bigger government programs, from national industrial policies to continuing high military expenditures to a return to New Deal-type work agencies. But, in Out of Work, a study of government employment policies in the twentieth century, Richard Vedder and Lowell Gallaway present devastating evidence that the major cause of high unemployment is actually the government itself.
Contrary to the work of economists like John Maynard Keynes, who have sought the causes of unemployment outside the labor market, looking instead at consumer demand, the exchange rate, investment spending, and assorted other unrelated variable, Out of Work argues convincingly that throughout the twentieth century the main source of unemployment has been government intervention. Government policies meant to ‘help’ American workers, from minimum wage and unemployment compensation, to legal privileges for labor unions, have had a significant impact on the jobless rate.
The groundbreaking work has garnered critical praise and enjoyed wide circulation. The first edition of the book went through multiple printings, and an updated edition was released by New York University Press in 1998. It has been the subject of hundreds of articles and reviews in publications across the country. In a great example of the type of intellectual synergy Atlas encourages, Out of Work has been the basis of studies and conferences conducted by the Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, Manhattan Institute, Rockford Institute, National Institute, Ludwig von Mises Institute, Institute of Economic Affairs, National Center for Policy Analysis and a number of other policy groups around the country.
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