The Freeman 1989 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

48 THE FREEMAN. JANUARY 1989and stability. In so doing, the bureaucratic statehas severed both individuals and groups fromthe traditional networks of family, community,and religion that have historically taught, reinforced,and protected the ethical and social valuesessential for a sound, healthy, and growingsociety. Today the individual has fewer andfewer attachments to these traditional institutions.The individual has been increasingly,'atomized" as the State has destroyed or weakenedthe intermediary social institutions thathistorically separated and protected him frompolitical authority. Man in modem Americansociety has lost an Archimedean point to standon outside of himself. Hence, modem man collapsesinto an unending introspection abouthimself and how he "feels" about things, withnothing greater or more worthy outside· himselfto which he should aspire. His values have beenreduced to a narrow "cash nexus" and the pleasuresmoney can buy.The critical reader can find many points uponwhich to disagree with either the emphasis orthe argument in Professor Nisbet's analysis. Forexample, his conception of the "cash nexus" ina market economy ignores the positive role theanonymity of money transactions has played inenhancing and protecting individual liberty andfreedom of choice. His conception of the workingsof trading deals, and corporate takeovers infinancial markets, likewise, suffers from a fundamentalmisunderstanding of how a· competitivemarket establishes avenues for shifting controlof capital resources to more competenthands.But it is the general focus and orientation thatmake Professor Nisbet's reflections an insightfulcontribution to our understanding of latetwentieth-century America. The America of the1980s would have been radically different fromthe America of 1917 even without two WorldWars and the introduction of the Welfare State.What Professor Nisbet shows is that many ofthe most repellant features ofthe present age arethe unintended consequences of the plans ofthose in the political arena who wished to implementan American "new order" at home andabroad. The question now is, how do we undowhat has been done? 0Professor Ebeling holds the Ludwig von MisesChair in Economics at Hillsdale College.r\e"'\Basic Economics by Clarence B. Carson"Economics does not ... attempt to answer thequestion of why things are the way that they are. Itdoes, however, give help in answering a wholerange of other questions. It deals with an essentialand pressing aspect of life. Its subject matter is theproduction and distribution of goods and all that isentailed in it. Economics deals with such questionsas who gets what, with how prices are determined,with the operation of production, and evenwhy goods are goods. Since this is its field, it alsotreats of many matters that have to do with publicpolicy. Indeed, no single subject appears to occupymore attention in the issues that arise in thiscentury than economic questions."Order from:-CLARENCE B. CARSONBasic EconomicsThe Foundation for Economic Educationbvington-on-Hudson, New York 10533Basic Economics, unlike most present-daybooks on economic principles, is written in theAnglo-American and natural law tradition-a traditionwhich provided the foundations for theUnited States Constitution, which provided thepremises for full-fledged private property, free enterprise,free trade, and individual responsibility.paperback $12.00(The cloth edition of Basic Economics is available@ $24.95 from the publisher, The American TextbookCommittee, P.O. Box 8, Wadley, Alabama36276.)