Essential Fall Reading from The Independent Review

The Fall 2011 issue of The Independent Review is hot off the press!

We have posted selected articles and all book reviews online, as indicated below.

This issue addresses a host of fascinating questions on topics as diverse as intellectual history, economic development, political theory, and government policy:

• Why do progressives and social democrats view government coercion differently than libertarians and conservatives? Read Daniel B. Klein’s article here.

• Why don’t American and European liberals hold the same views on democracy? Read a short summary of Gus DiZerega’s article here.

• Why is central planning in India in the mid-twentieth century mistakenly believed to have been a great success? Read G. P. Manish’s article here.

• What does history tell us about the prospects for a reversal of the trend toward bigger government? Read J. R. Clark and Dwight R. Lee’s article here.

• What can Sweden’s special tax system tell us about whether or not voters underestimate the costs of government spending? Read a short summary of Tino Sanandaji and Björn Wallace’s article here.

• Why do so many U.S. soldiers turn their guns upon themselves after they return home from a war? Read a short summary of Laurie Calhoun’s article here.

• What does political theorist Anthony de Jasay think about the prospects of limited government? Read a short summary of Aschwin de Wolf’s interview here.

• Why might the drive for politically correct language serve to increase offensive behavior and discourage thinking about individual merits? Read a short summary of Ben O’Neill’s article here.

• What were the greatest harms caused by the Smoot-Hawley Tariff? Read Donald J. Boudreaux’s review of Douglas A. Irwin’s Peddling Protectionism here.

• In what way is “fair trade” overrated as a means to promote economic development? Read Karol C. Boudreaux’s review of Sushil Morhan’s Fair Trade Without the Froth here.

• How has government funding compromised the ostensive goals of the U.S. space program? Read William N. Butos’s review of James T. Barnett’s The Doomsday Lobby here.

• What were Lysander Spooner’s contributions to the radical individualist tradition? Read Helen J. Knowles’s review of Steve J. Shone’s Lysander Spooner: American Anarchist here.

• What is it about war that makes one’s attitude about it a litmus test for libertarians? Read Robert Higgs’s article here.

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Happy reading!