JEREMY LOTT
Hamowy, Ronald
bookS In revIew government monies run the very real and imminent risk that their mission and identity will be destroyed. The Establishment Clause has served religion in America well, from the...
...In Washington, D.C., recently, you could be near certain that any policy wonk charging valiantly but futilely against the massive government bailout was either a cranky conservative or an understandably angry libertarian...
...According to a 2008 survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, Americans are overwhelmingly religious...
...Some 78 percent identified themselves as Christians (with The Establishment Clause has served religion in America well, from the time of the Founders, right up to today...
...The Establishment Clause has served religion in America well, from the time of the Founders, right up to today...
...And the leadership in the civil rights movement was provided by religious figures...
...Readers will just have to make do with entries on the “Liberal Critique of Libertarianism...
...Despite all of Smith’s “strictures about the dangers of governments acting in league with producers,” the Economist reminded, “he proposes an enormous extension of the role of the state,” including “universal education, at public expense,” something like antitrust law, and “roads, canals, bridges and other works necessary for universal opulence but too costly to be undertaken at private expense...
...The volume can be used as a straight reference, but it’s at least as valuable as an intellectual curiosity...
...The entry on the economist and agitator Murray Rothbard—by freewheeling libertarian historian Brian Doherty—correctly notes that Rothbard believed “even such free-market icons as Adam Smith represented regressions from largely forgotten previous advances in economic thinking...
...He believes in the reasonableness of the American people and in the courts’ ability to compromise when prudent and necessary...
...bookS In revIew government monies run the very real and imminent risk that their mission and identity will be destroyed...
...This book is an invaluable historical resource, but more so, a tool for enlightened debate on church-state issues as they continue to confront our nation...
...In fact, there isn’t a single entry marked “Libertarianism” to consult...
...The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism (The Encyclopedia hereafter) doesn’t seek to give definitive answers where none exist...
...Faith has always played a role in the public square, with generally positive effect...
...Some radical libertarians see many of the towering figures of classical liberalism as tainted or not hard-core enough...
...Before there was the American Constitution, there was An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, or The Bling of Nations, as kids tend to shorten it these days (see “Smith, Adam...
...For its special Millennium issue in 1999, a writer for the classical liberal British newsweekly the Economist pretended to review The Wealth of Nations as if it were the year 1776 and this were the hot “new book…winning praise from every quarter...
...Many of America’s social justice concerns were motivated by religious sentiment, for example, the call for an end to slavery...
...and “Locke, John...
...Liberty in the Ancient World...
...The “L” Word W hat is libertarianism, and who, exactly, counts as a libertarian...
...However, the Introduction does tell us that libertarianism is big—huge...
...The General Introduction asks, “In what does libertarianism consist...
...History also shows how the nation has profited from religion...
...If anything, he says, the opposite is true...
...Smith’s book” may be remembered, in the long run, “for laying the intellectual foundations of, for want of a better term, big government...
...Writing for the editors, Manchester Metropolitan University’s Stephen Davies lays out five different ways that one could analyze the “major ideologies of modernity” and dances around a concrete definition of libertarianism...
...During the recent Republican primaries, cosmopolitan Catoistas were known for their hostility to former Libertarian Party nominee and antiwar candidate Ron Paul—because of his more populist positions on immigration and social issues...
...Waldman sees the ongoing tension regarding the reach of the First Amendment as a good thing...
...Liberalism, Classical...
...Four libertarians, five opinions...
...Except, except...
...He was previously manager of editorial services for the Cato Institute...
...My guess is, a workable consensus definition couldn’t be found...
...Other studies, such as those done by sociologists Rodney Stark and Roger Finke (see The Churching of America, 1776–1992), demonstrate unequivocally the extent to which churches in America have proliferated...
...4.7 percent belonging to religions other than Christianity), while 92 percent claimed to believe in some sort of universal spirit...
...Especially as The Encyclopedia has entries on three of those four topics— four entries total when you add in “Conservative Critique of Libertarianism...
...Why not just come out and say what libertarianism is, gentlemen...
...Though if you have, my friends, let me just warn you: it’s a slippery slope...
...This is exactly the sort of rabbit trailing The Encyclopedia encourages...
...It’s a product of the Cato Institute, that Beltway beachhead for sober free market thinking...
...However, it is intended to be broadly representative of libertarian thought and history...
...Now they have a whole foot-breaking reference book to help remind them of those old, tender memories...
...Paul’s entry in The Encyclopedia by Cato executive vice president David Boaz is all of seven column inches (a typical page has 18 column This book will appeal to libertarians of all stripes, of course, and intellectual history buffs, as well as to anyone who has ever wondered, “I wonder what libertarians would think about X.” inches), but it’s here—along with 546 pages full of entries on everything from the common law to the revolution in France to Puritanism to the accomplishments of Swedish economist Knut Wicksell...
...For years, anarcho-capitalists, minarchists, teenyarchists, Randroids, and assorted laissez-faire true believers have fought pitched battles over these vexing questions of ideology and identity...
...Despite its recent emergence as a popular term, libertarianism is no Milton-come-lately ideology either, argues Professor Davies: “Contemporary libertarianism is only the latest manifestation of an intellectual, cultural, and political phenomenon that is as old as modernity, if not older.…[It] is only the most recent chapter in a long story that, in the Anglo-Saxon world, traces itself back to classical liberalism...
...December 2008/January 2009 THe amerIcan SPecTaTor 95...
...At first pass, that seems a glaring omission...
...as well as the General Introduction...
...This book will appeal to libertarians of all stripes, of course, and intellectual history buffs, as well as to anyone who has ever wondered, “I wonder what libertarians would think about X,” or even “Why would libertarians think that...
...The reviewer predicted, “Mr...
...Difficult, maybe, but profound seems a bit of a pat on the back...
...Rarely a winning role, however...
...What’s that old Jewish saying...
...and answers, “This question is much more difficult and profound than one might at first suppose...
...O ne might apologize for the digression at this point, and normally I would...
...Most major libertarian figures are included here, if grudgingly...
...It usually succeeds at hitting that target...
...Waldman finds no indication of government hostility toward religion in America...
...Liberalism,German”;“Liberty, Presumption of...
...It’s hard to imagine encyclopedias of conservatism, fascism, feminism, or Buddhism that didn’t contain entries on…conservatism, fascism, feminism, or Buddhism...
...We could dismiss the radicals as freedom’s bitter enders but this reviewer happens to think they’re on to something when they posit a gulf between classical liberals and modern libertarians...
...94 THe amerIcan SPecTaTor December 2008/January 2009 bookS In revIew intellectual and political life…at one and the same time a movement in politics, a recognized philosophy, and a set of distinctive policy prescriptions” whose adherents “play a prominent role in intellectual and political arguments in several countries...
...Of course, not all libertarians will agree about that...
...It is “a major feature of Jeremy lott is author of The Warm Bucket Brigade: The Story of the American Vice Presidency (Thomas Nelson...
Vol. 41 • January 2009 • No. 10
