By Steve Forbes, Elizabeth Ames
Crown Business, $15.00, 378 pages
ISBN 9780307463104
In this book the authors show that when free people in free markets have the energy to solve problems by meeting the needs and wants of others they develop innovations that are paramount in economic change.
“As Adrian Huffington stated in the Huffington Post in December 2008 “Lassiez-faire capitalism should be as dead as Soviet Capitalism.”
A chapter on health care denotes its effect on the congressional legislation of 2010. Analysis is made of the takeover of the automobile industry in chapter two. The authors maintain that the government’s solutions to economic problems have not worked because there has not been a political agenda provided. Chapter 8 explains how fear about uncertainty in the economy can paralyze an economy. People are speaking out in support of lower taxes, limited government and more economic freedom, according to the authors. Joseph Schumpeter, the great Austrian economist of the 20th century, also is discussed, building upon his concept on economics. Of interest to this reviewer is the chapter entitled “Aren’t the Rich Getting Richer at Other People’s Expense?” which denotes that as a privileged group they get special treatments and breaks. Further, it is pointed out that you cannot have a prosperous or innovative economy until people remain rich. Several policy questions can be asked after reading this impressive book, namely: Don’t regulators safeguard the public good? Are free trade and globalization destroying American jobs and other economies worldwide? Is America on the road to socialism?
Reviewed by Claude Ury
