[Polyarchy]  [Polyarchy : documents]

Sources : new additions (2007)


[1943] William Foote Whyte, Street Corner Society. The Social Structure of an Italian Slum. The University of Chicago Press, Second Edition 1955
- Contents: Part I.  Corner Boys and College Boys. Part II. Racketeers and Politicians. Part III. Conclusion. Appendix: On the Evolution of Street Corner Society.
- Comment: A classic of social research in group dynamics and a penetrating insight on the working of American democracy in the late thirties.


[1946] Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson, Laissez Faire Books, San Francisco, 2006
- Contents: Part One: The Lesson 1. The Lesson. Part Two: The Lesson Applied. 2. The Broken Window. 3. The Blessing of Destruction. 4. Public Works Mean Taxes. 5. Taxes Discourage Production. 6. Credit Diverts Production. 7. The Curse of Machinery. 8. Spread-the-Work Schemes. 9. Disbanding Troops and Bureaucrats. 10. The Fetish of Full Employment. 11.Who's Protected by Tariffs? 12. The Drive for Exports. 13. "Parity" Prices. 14. Saving the X Industry. 15. How the Price System Works. 16. "Stabilizing" Commodities. 17. Government Price-Fixing. 18. What Rent Control Does. 19. Minimum Wage Laws. 20. Do Unions Really Raise Wages? 21. "Enough to Buy Back the Product". 22. The Function of Profits. 23. The Mirage of Inflation. 24. The Assault on Saving. 25. The Lesson Restated. Part Three: The Lesson after Thirty Years. 26. The Lesson after Thirty Years. A Note on Books.
- Comment: Still powerful and anti-conventional as when it was first written, over fifty years ago.


[1987] Robert Higgs. Crisis and Leviathan. Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government, Oxford University Press, New York
- Contents: PART I. Framework. 1. The Sources of Big Government: A Critical Survey of Hypotheses. 2. How Much Has Government Grown? Conventional Measures and an Alternative View. 3. On Ideology as an Analytical Concept in the Study of Political Economy. 4. Crisis, Bigger Government, and Ideological Change: Toward an Understanding of the Ratchet. PART II. History. 5. Crisis under the Old Regime, 1893-1896. 6. The Progressive Era: A Bridge to Modern Times. 7. The Political Economy of War, 1916-1918. 8. The Great Depression: "An Emergency More Serious Than War". 9. The Political Economy of War, 1940-1945. 10. Crisis and Leviathan: From World War II to the 1980s. 11. Retrospect and Prospect. Selected Bibliography.
- Comment: The march towards statism in the USA. Full of data and insights.


[1990] Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons. The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2006
Contents: 1. Reflection on the Commons. 2. An Institutional Approach to the Study of Self-Organization and Self-Governance in Common-Pool Resources Situations. 3. Analyzing Long-Enduring, Self-Organized, and Self-Governed Common-Pool Resources. 4. Analyzing Institutional Change. 5. Analyzing Institutional Failures and Fragilities. 6. A Framework for Analysis of Self-Organizing and Self-Governing Common-Pool Resources. Notes. References
Comment: A very interesting text on how common resources can and are administered in a sensible and profitable way by voluntary organizations and voluntary agreements.


[1990] Bruce L. Benson, The Enterprise of Law. Justice without the State. Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, San Francisco, California
- Contents: 1. Introduction Part I. From Voluntary to Authoritarian Law. 2. Customary Legal Systems with Voluntary Enforcement. 3. The Rise of Authoritarian Law. Part II. A Public Choice Approach to Authoritarian Law. 4. Law and Justice as a Political Market. 5. The Demand Side of the Political Market. 6. The Supply Side of the Political Market. 7. Corruption of Law Enforcement Officials. Part III. Contracting Out for Law and Justice. 9. Current Trends in Privatization. 10. Benefits of Privatization. Appendix to Chapter 10. Part IV. Rationalizing Authoritarian Law. 11. Market Failure in Law and Justice. 12. The Legal Monopoly on Coercion. Appendix to Chapter 12. Part V. From Authoritarian to Private Law. 13. Political Barriers to Privatization. 14. Envisioning a Private System.
- Comment: One of the most articulated presentations in favour of a system of law elaboration and law administration based on voluntarily stipulated contracts between free individuals and free communities.


[1991] Robert C. Ellickson, Order Without Law. How Neighbors Settle Disputes. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts
- Contents: Introduction. Part I. Shasta County. 1 Shasta County and Its Cattle Industry. 2. The Politics of Cattle Trespass. 3. The Resolution of Cattle-Trespass Disputes. 4. Who Pays for Boundary Fences? 5. Disputes Arising out of Highway Collisions Involving Livestock. 6. The Effects of Closed-Range Ordinances. Part II. 7. A Theory of Norms. 7. The System of Social Control. 8. Shortcomings of Current Theories of Social Control. 9. The Puzzle of Cooperation. 10. A Hypothesis of Welfare Maximizing Norms. 11. Substantive Norms: Of Beef, Cattle, and Whales. 12. Remedial Norms: Of Carrots and Sticks. 13. Procedural and Constitutive Norms: Of Gossip, Ritual, and Hero Worship. 14. Controller-Selecting Norms: Of Contracts, Custom, and Photocopies. Part III. 15. Testing the Content of Norms. 16. Conclusions and Implications. Appendix. Research Methods.
- Comment: A lively essay on a matter we should be intuitively aware of, namely the fact that we are basically able to cooperate and solve controversies without the intervention of the state.


[1993] David G. Green, Reinventing Civil Society: The Rediscovery of Welfare Without Politics, Institute of Economic Affairs, London
Contents: Introduction. Part I: The Ideal of Liberty. 1. The Institutions Fundamental to Liberty. 2. The Indispensable Ethos of Liberty: Personal Responsibility.  Part II: The Lived Reality of Liberty. 3. The Evolution of Mutual Aid. 4. Character-Building Associations. 5. Cash Benefits and Family Independence. 6. Who Joined? 7. Medical Care. Part III: The Friendly Societies and the State. 8. The Classical-Liberal Heyday: 1834-1911. 9. 1911: National Insurance and the Crowding Out of Mutual Aid. 10. 1948: The Eradication of Mutual Aid. Part IV: Conclusions. 11 Re-Energising Civil Society.
Comment: An interesting essay on the suppression of Mutual Aid in England through the intervention of a suffocating state.


[1994] Hendrik Spruyt, The Sovereign State and Its Competitors, Princeton University Press, Princeton
Contents: Introduction. PART I: Contingency, Choice, And Constraint. 1. Structural Change in International Relations. 2. Organizational Variation and Selection in the International System. 3. Modes of Nonterritorial Organization: Feudalism, the Church, and the Holy Roman Empire. PART II: The Emergence of New Modes Of Organization. 4. The Economic Renaissance of the Late Middle Ages. 5. The Rise of the Sovereign, Territorial State in Capetian France. 6. The Fragmentation of the German Empire and the Rise of the Hanseatic League. 7. The Development of the Italian City-states. PART III: Competition, Mutual Empowerment, And Choice: The Advantages of Sovereign Territoriality. 8. The Victory of the Sovereign State. PART IV: Conclusion. 9. Character, Tempo, and Prospect for Change in the International System. Notes. Bibliography.
Comment: It shows that the emergence of the territorial nation state was not the outcome of a necessary historical process (more efficient, better organized) but the result of the state being abler at crushing opponents and exploiting rivalries.


[2003] Jim Powell, FDR's Folly, Three Rivers Press, New York
- Contents: 1. How Could Such Bright Compassionate People Be Wrong? 2. What Caused the Grat Depression? 3. What Fid FDR Borrow from Hoover? 4. Why Did New Dealers Break Up the Strongest Banks? 5. Why Did FDR Seize Everybody's Gold? 6. Why Did FDR Triple Taxes During the Great Depression? 7. Why Was So Much New Deal Relief and Public Works Money Channeled Away from the Poorest People? 8. Why Didn't New Deal Securities Laws Help Investors Do Better? 9. Why Did New Dealers Make Everything Cost More in the Depression? 10. Why Did the New Dealers Destroy All That Food When People Were Hungry? 11. How Did the Tennessee Valley Authority Depress the Tennessee Economy? 12. Why Did the Supreme Court Strike Down Every New Deal Laws? 13. How Did Social Security Contribute to Higher Unemployment? 14. How Did New Labor Laws Throw People Our of Work? 15. How Did FDR's Supreme Court Subvert Individual Liberty? 16. How Did New Deal Policies Cause the Depression of 1938? 17. Why Did New Deal Lawyers Disrupt Companies Employing Millions? 18. What Have Been the Effects of the New Deal Since the 1930's 19. What Can We Learn from FDR's Mistakes? - Notes. - Selected Bibliography
- Comment: A total reconsideration of the New Deal, beyond the propagandistic facade of state-oriented textbooks.


[2004] James Bartholomew, The Welfare State We're In Politico's Publishing, London, 2006
Contents: The welfare state quiz. Some major welfare dates. Growing up with the welfare state. 1. From Stanley Matthews to Vinnie Jones. 2. Social Security: Catherine's four dead boys and Frank's bingo blow-out. 3. The NHS: like a train crash every day. 4. Education: eleven years at school and still illiterate. 5. Housing: from 'homes fit for heroes' to Rachman and Damilola Taylor. 6. Parenting: Princess Diana and the habits of the apes. 7. Pensions: Octavia warned us. 8. Tax and growth: Harold Wilson versus John Who? 9. The reckoning. 10. If the welfare state is so bad, why don't we get rid of it? Afterword: Why do people talk more about 'poverty' now that there is less of it? Ten Things wrong with the welfare state. Ten explanations of the failure. Four reasons why the welfare state is never likely to succeed. Personal reflections on writing The Welfare State We're In. Selected Bibliography.
Comment: A powerful indictment of the disaster known as welfare state. Full of data and facts.


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