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Freedom Book of the Month for June, 2001:
Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State
by Sheldon Richman, Future of Freedom Foundation 2001, paperback, 150 pp.
Stores and libraries are filled with books examining various aspects of public policy, and with books expounding total philosophical systems. What is often missing is the book that examines a particular system, as opposed to small parts of it, but that concentrates on that system instead of relegating it to one section in a larger work. Sheldon Richman and the Future of Freedom Foundation have been filling that niche for many years now. In "Tethered Citizens," Richman turns his eye toward the demolition of the welfare state.
The book is an uncompromising libertarian critique of government as parent and provider. Richman lays out the history and origins of the welfare state, explores its underlying rationales, and neatly disposes of them, making the case point by point for repeal of laws that attempt to "redistribute resources from those who produced them to those who did not."
I have often heard "pure" libertarian ideas characterized as "utopian." As moral, perhaps, but not practical. The level of detail and practical argument in Richman's book demonstrates the basic falsity of that description. Richman thoroughly documents the cost -- in money and essential liberty -- of the gargantuan bureaucracies which purport to "help" citizens by confiscating the product of their labor and disposing of it in ways that the citizens would not have chosen to themselves.
As with so many of FFF's offerings, "Tethered Citizens" makes a perfect introduction to the libertarian perspective on the issues. For those of you who haven't read the FFF editorials published in newspapers around the nation and the world, or the previous and equally worthy books from the Foundation's press: you should. They incorporate a perfect mix of genuine compassion and understanding with practical prescriptions for positive change, in a way that is accessible to the person who isn't a libertarian -- or didn't know he was a libertarian.
As Congressman Ron Paul says in the book's forward, "Sheldon Richman has produced a book that is essential reading for any American wishing to understand how the welfare state is incompatible with constitutional government and a free society. Such understanding is the first step toward reclaiming liberty."
Click here to order "Tethered Citizens" from Laissez Faire Books for $15.95.
Visit the Future of Freedom Foundation.
edited by Thomas L. Knapp
April 2001: The Cato Handbook for Congressfrom the Cato Institute
March 2001: The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand by David Kelley
February 2001: Crypto by Steven Levy
January 2001: Total Freedom by Chris Matthew Sciabarra
Freedom Book of the Year 2000: Forge of the Elders by L. Neil Smith
December 2000: The Mystery of Capital by Hernando de Soto
November 2000: Escape from Leviathan by J.C. Lester
October 2000: The Art of Political War by David Horowitz
September 2000: An Enemy of the State by Justin Raimondo
August 2000: The Triumph of Liberty by Jim Powell
July 2000: A Generation Divided by Rebecca Klatch
June 2000: Law's Order by David Friedman
May 2000: Forge of the Elders by L. Neil Smith
April 2000: Reciprocia by Richard G. Rieben
March 2000: The Art of Fiction: A Guide for Writers and Readers by Ayn Rand
February 2000: Addiction is a Choice by Jeffrey A. Schaler
January 2000: Revolutionary Language by David C. Calderwood
Special December 1999 Feature: The Freedom Book of the Year: Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998 by Vin Suprynowicz
November 1999: Conquests and Cultures by Thomas Sowell
October 1999: A Way To Be Free by Robert LeFevre, edited by Wendy McElroy
September 1999: Assassins (Left Behind) by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
August 1999: Don't Shoot the Bastards (Yet): 101 More Ways to Salvage Freedom by Claire Wolfe
July 1999: The Mitzvah by L. Neil Smith and Aaron Zelman
June 1999: The Incredible Bread Machine by R.W. Grant
May 1999: Send in the Waco Killers by Vin Suprynowicz
April 1999: It Still Begins with Ayn Rand by Jerome Tuccille
March 1999: The Dictionary of Free-Market Economics by Fred Foldvary
February 1999: Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand edited by Mimi Reisel Gladstein and Chris Matthew Sciabarra
In December 2004 this page was modified significantly from its original form for archiving purposes.
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