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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.
From Publishers Weekly
Murray (coauthor of The Bell Curve) is a skilled polemicist, and his manifesto for a radically downsized government should both gather adherents and challenge opponents. He argues from two basic points: freedom (associated with responsibility) is our birthright; and in most cases, government intervention has been ineffectual. While Murray allows for some level of state and local government, he recommends scrapping most federal agencies that deal with domestic policies. Arguing that civil rights laws have actually retarded progress against racism, he cites evidence that discrimination against Jews and the Irish declined without legislation; but this ignores the special stigma of race. Murray advocates a $3000 education voucher for each child and suggests optimistically that medical patients paying full fees will subsidize the costs of the indigent; but this says nothing about those in between?the majority of the population. Welfare and Social Security payments should end, to be replaced by individual saving and community support from voluntary associations. Murray's proposals posit a more responsible populace?a worthy goal?yet they also assume a neighborly concern that may be lacking in our increasingly fragmented society. Moreover, his schema fails to address international comparisons (Canadian health care) and does not acknowledge how government has shaped an unequal status quo (e.g., mortgage interest deductions but little money for public housing). $100,000 ad/promo; author tour. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Murray, the controversial coauthor of The Bell Curve (Free Pr., 1994), is back with an essay on the political views of the modern libertarian. At a time when the Libertarian Party seems to be gaining in popularity, Murray's book could have served as a treatise for the cause. However, the text is fraught with contradictions and unsubstantiated claims. For example, while Murray concedes that seat belts have reduced the number of automobile injuries, he argues against government regulations and state laws requiring them because the number of injuries to passengers and pedestrians are up, without citing a single study or paper correlating these two issues. Murray also includes no footnotes in his book and has only two brief two-page bibliographic essays. Ironically, in The Bell Curve, Murray and coauthor Richard J. Herrnstein argued that race and class affects the results of IQ tests and defines an individual's role in life, without taking into consideration the environment in which the person was raised. Yet here, in calling for the dismantling of federal regulations, Murray argues that it is the very environment of big government that is the problem. Go figure. Marginally recommended, at best, for general collections. [See also David Boaz's Libertarianism: A Primer, reviewed above.?Ed.]?Patricia Hatch, Insurance Institute for Property Loss Reduction, Boston, Mass.-?Patricia Hatch, Insurance Institute for Property Loss Reduction, Boston, Mass.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Commentary Magazine, March 1997, Wilfred M. McClay
Charles Murray is principally known as the author of two influential and controversial critiques of recent American social policy, Losing Ground (1984) and, with the late Richard J. Herrnstein, The Bell Curve (1994). But he is also someone whose own world view is not well understood. Here he attempts to outline the philosophical principles of that world view and to show how they might be applied positively to present-day issues. But though he advances a compelling defense of freedom, as well as many specific proposals of the kind one would expect from a believer in minimal government, that is not all he attempts to do. Murray is also trying to rescue the name of libertarianism from the extreme positions commonly associated with it. Murray offers a brand of libertarianism designed to appeal precisely to those traditionalists and moderates who distrust it, and to convince them that the libertarian emphasis upon "spontaneous order" is an essential complement to their own aspirations. This, in a nutshell, is Murray's effort to present libertarianism as offering a pathway to a better world--one grounded, moreover, in venerable American political traditions. Interestingly, though, in his pursuit of that latter objective, Murray is obliged to push aside some nettlesome issues which a more severe libertarian would have engaged frontally. One of them is foreign policy, always a difficult subject for libertarians. Aside from a proposal to discontinue all foreign aid, there is virtually nothing said in the book about the conduct of foreign affairs. He also studiously avoids discussing some of the most divisive moral issues of our time, including abortion, physician-assisted suicide, same-sex marriage, and euthanasia. How he would answer such concerns, or how he might support the minimal (but essential) underlying consensus needed to sustain genuine diversity, is far from clear. One hopes so graceful and lucid a writer will see fit to visit these issues in the future.
The New York Times Book Review, James P. Pinkerton
Much of the book is a series of Milton Friedmanesque mini-lessons on the virtues of freedom in everything from pensions--Social Security is "a Ponzi scheme"--to private behavior: we should be free to "read, watch, say, listen to, eat, drink, inject or smoke" whatever we wish. Unlike either Losing Ground or The Bell Curve, this slim volume stakes no claim to original research; it is intended as a manifesto.
From Booklist
By libertarian, Murray (coauthor of The Bell Curve, 1994) means a nineteenth-century liberal--a believer in freedom--and not a capital-L member of the party of that name, for he is "too fond of tradition and the nonrational aspects of the human spirit" to embrace radical rationalist individualism. He upholds two principles of the American Founders: limited central government and protection of individual rights. The latter he conceives as positive freedoms (most important are the freedoms of enterprise and association, which enable other freedoms), and government is limited so that they may flourish. Practically, his libertarianism calls for canceling most federal efforts to enforce environmental protection, ensure fairness in employment, protect consumers, fight drug and other addictions, maintain schools, provide health care, and offer welfare to the needy and social security to the retired. Murray does not, however, believe in junking all government efforts for the public good. Instead, he urges the devolving of responsibility to the level that can exercise it most proximately, even if that level is not governmental. By this principle, for instance, schools should be regulated locally. Although what he advocates seems politically unrealistic, Murray sees hope in the appetite for freedom that such developments as the electronic information explosion are restimulating. If, years from now, there is no welfare but also greatly reduced poverty, no environmental police but also greatly increased environmental health, no affirmative action but also no bigoted discrimination, etc., then this lucid primer may be one reason for that situation. Ray Olson
From Kirkus Reviews
A book guarranteed to delight fans and infuriate foes of the coauthor of the controversial The Bell Curve. Murray's version of libertarianism embraces familiar themes. The ideal (i.e., limited) government created by the Founders has become a bloated bureaucracy that threatens individual freedom. Leftists have foisted welfare programs, environmental regulations, and affirmative action on American society. Not only are these policies pernicious, according to Murray, but their goals would be achieved more efficiently by a free market unimpeded by government. To make these arguments Murray employs the tactics of a polemicist: Empirical propositions are wedded to normative principles and assumed rather than proved; straw men are used to represent opposing viewpoints; conclusions are supported through highly selective use of statistics, ``thought experiments,'' and trendlines. The most intriguing example, given Murray's obsessive effort to correlate government growth with the worsening of virtually every conceivable national problem, is his failure to notice that government growth also correlates with what he acknowledges to be ``the phenomenal growth in national wealth during this century.'' Engaging on this level and analyzing specific arguments would be to misunderstand Murray's purpose, however. He is writing as an entertainer, and the relevant basis for assessment is amusement value. Those who share Murray's preconceptions will enjoy this book, for he trumpets the superiority of his position and the errors of opponents without doubt or any consideration of contrary complexities. Those who disagree may enjoy it even more, for opponents of the principles and assumptions Murray champions will find a clear target to attack. Evaluated on the proper grounds, this volume is a clear success. (For another view of this subject, see David Boaz, Libertarianism, p. TKTK.) ($100,000 ad/promo; author tour) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Book 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.
From the Publisher
Introduction
In the last quarter of the eighteenth century the American Founders created asociety based on the belief that human happiness is intimately connected withpersonal freedom and responsibility. The twin pillars of the system theycreated were limits on the power of the central government and protection ofindividual rights.
A few people, of whom I am one, think that the Founders' insights are as truetoday as they were two centuries ago. We believe that human happiness requiresfreedom and that freedom requires limited government. Limited government meansa very small one, shorn of almost all the apparatus we have come to take forgranted during the last sixty years.
Most people are baffled by such a view. Don't we realize that this ispostindustrial America, not Jefferson's agrarian society? Don't we realize thatwithout big government millions of the elderly would be destitute, corporationswould destroy the environment, and employers would be free once more to exploittheir workers? Where do we suppose blacks would be if it weren't for thegovernment? Women? Haven't we noticed that America has huge social problemsthat aren't going to be dealt with unless the government does something aboutthem?
This book tries to explain how we can believe that the less government, thebetter. Why a society run on the principles of limited government would advancehuman happiness. How such a society would lead to greater individualfulfillment, more vital communities, a richer culture. Why such a society wouldcontain fewer poor people, fewer neglected children, fewer criminals. How sucha society would not abandon the less fortunate but would care for them betterthan does the society we have now.
Many books address the historical, economic, sociological, philosophical, andconstitutional issues raised is pages. A bibliographic essay at the end of thebook points you to some of the basic sources, but the book you are about toread contains no footnotes. It has no tables and but a single graph. My purposeis not to provide proofs but to explain a way of looking at the world.
From the Inside Flap
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.
About the Author
Charles Murray is the author of two of the most widely debated and influential social policy books in recent decades, Losing Ground: American Society Policy 1950-1980 and, with the late Richard J. Herrnstein, The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life. The Bradley Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, Murray lives with his family near Washington, D.C.
From the Hardcover edition.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
In the last quarter of the eighteenth century the American Founders created a society based on the belief that human happiness is intimately connected with personal freedom and responsibility. The twin pillars of the system they created were limits on the power of the central government and protection of individual rights.
A few people, of whom I am one, think that the Founders' insights are as true today as they were two centuries ago. We believe that human happiness requires freedom and that freedom requires limited government. Limited government means a very small one, shorn of almost all the apparatus we have come to take for granted during the last sixty years.
Most people are baffled by such a view. Don't we realize that this is postindustrial America, not Jefferson's agrarian society? Don't we realize that without big government millions of the elderly would be destitute, corporations would destroy the environment, and employers would be free once more to exploit their workers? Where do we suppose blacks would be if it weren't for the government? Women? Haven't we noticed that America has huge social problems that aren't going to be dealt with unless the government does something about them?
This book tries to explain how we can believe that the less government, the better. Why a society run on the principles of limited government would advance human happiness. How such a society would lead to greater individual fulfillment, more vital communities, a richer culture. Why such a society would contain fewer poor people, fewer neglected children, fewer criminals. How such a society would not abandon the less fortunate but would care for them better than does the society we have now.
Many books address the historical, economic, sociological, philosophical, and constitutional issues raised is pages. A bibliographic essay at the end of the book points you to some of the basic sources, but the book you are about to read contains no footnotes. It has no tables and but a single graph. My purpose is not to provide proofs but to explain a way of looking at the world.
From the Hardcover edition.
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