Textbook Discounter: Social Sciences: What It Means to Be a Libertarian

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What It Means to Be a Libertarian
	Author: Charles Murray Publisher: Broadway Category: Book List Price: ~~$15.00~~ Buy New: $8.96 You Save: $6.04 (40%) New (21) Used (15) from $8.84 Rating: 42 reviews Sales Rank: 82262 Media: Paperback Pages: 196 Number Of Items: 1 Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6 Dimensions (in): 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.5 ISBN: 0767900391 Dewey Decimal Number: 320.512 EAN: 9780767900393 ASIN: 0767900391 Publication Date: December 29, 1997 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Shipping: International shipping available Condition: Brand new item. Over 4 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Few left in stock - order soon. Code: R20081114232523H


Editorial Reviews: Amazon.com Review Charles Murray first got famous for his book Losing Ground's argument that welfare programs actually hamper the progress of poor people. Then he got even more famous for saying (along with his co-author Richard Herrnstein) in The Bell Curve that genetically-based IQ deficits also hamper their progress. This little book is worth the read because we get to see what he thinks the government should really do about all this: not much. On the plus side, Murray is a very clear writer. So we get, for instance, a nicely drawn discussion of the nature of public goods. But although this book is offered in the spirit of the Revolutionary pamphleteers, when it gets down to cases, Murray comes across as a man who's lost his common sense. For example, he claims that if all businesses were allowed to opt out of the current government regulatory scheme, provided that they display prominent signs saying UNREGULATED, "just about every small business will want to be unregulated. ... No more building inspectors, elevator inspectors, or restaurant inspectors. Owners of unregulated small businesses will have to answer to no one but their customers." He doesn't seem to notice that those customers will be running at top speed away from those clearly marked buildings, elevators, and restaurants. Product Description Charles Murray believes that America's founders had it right--strict limits on the power of the central government and strict protection of the individual are the keys to a genuinely free society. In What It Means to Be a Libertarian, he proposes a government reduced to the barest essentials: an executive branch consisting only of the White House and trimmed-down departments of state, defense, justice, and environment protection; a Congress so limited in power that it meets only a few months each year; and a federal code stripped of all but a handful of regulations. Combining the tenets of classical Libertarian philosophy with his own highly-original, always provocative thinking, Murray shows why less government advances individual happiness and promotes more vital communities and a richer culture. By applying the truths our founders held to be self-evident to today's most urgent social and political problems, he creates a clear, workable vision for the future.