Author Description

Series statement from jacket. Includes bibliographical references and index. Property or "property rights"? -- "Design faults" in Locke's theory of property taint ownership with guilt -- Is ownership a myth? -- How to get a free lunch? Just apply for it -- The problem of contract enforcement -- The public goods dilemma -- Trying a free market -- The statist legacy -- Your dog owns your house -- The Yakoubovich syndrome, or lies, damn lies, and economic policy -- Winning policy battles but losing the war against economic realities -- Paying ourselves more of their money -- The doctrine of "unequal exchange": the last refuge of modern socialism -- Corporate managers: are they going to kill capitalism? -- When the economy needs morals -- The political economy of force-feeding -- Hostile to whom? -- Mannesmann's courtesy could prove rare -- Can Putin build a real economy from oil and rigor? -- Russia and the new Europe: growing apart -- Russia hopping along on clay feet --^ The French tragicomedy -- How the French "social model" could self-destruct -- A little bit of history repeating -- There is no French exception -- The hobbling of private France -- The capitalism they hate -- Striving to get richer and poorer -- "Bread and circuses" in the modern welfare state -- Who minds the gap? -- Float or sink? The millstone of the "social market" in Germany -- How Germany and France, the sick men of Europe, torture themselves -- Shall we borrow from the children? -- Low pay -- Freedom to strike or right to strike? -- Stamp your feet and demand a fair deal -- Paternalism and employment -- The things labor unions are up to -- The instability of the welfare state -- Some bad news could be good news -- Built-in unemployment: social protection costs more than it is worth -- Let's throw this model away -- How to stifle employment by "social protection" -- Workable alternatives -- A tale of two models -- A vicious circle of social kindness --^ The economic consequences of a United States of Europe -- A giant free-trade area or a political counterweight to America? -- European crosscurrents and the federalist drift -- How confederacy could turn into a federal superstate -- Majority rule by any other name -- What now for "Europe"? Why the people failed their masters -- Free-riding on the euro -- Some democratic economics -- The Soviet legacy -- A war of attrition between economic reality and political dreams -- A brightening of the economic skies over Brussels? -- Turkey knocking on Europe's door -- Turkey and the EU club -- Europe: more secular and more Islamist -- A bill of rights Europe did not need -- Europe's social-democratic "government" -- Power corrupts, so let's make it absolute -- What price pride? On the hidden costs of economic illiteracy -- On the economics of protecting employment -- The costly mistake of ignoring opportunity costs -- "Globalization" and its critics: mutual gain vs. cloud-cuckoo land --^ Are high oil prices a form of exploitation? -- Immigration: what is the liberal stand? -- More nonsense on stilts: Mr. Bentham is at it again -- Risk, value, and externality.