Hoover Institution - Hoover Digest - Hoover Digest 1999 No. 2

Race and Responsibility
Thirty-one years after the death of Martin Luther King Jr., Hoover fellow Shelby Steele explains why King’s dream remains unfulfilled.

Black History Lesson
Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell on a generation of policies that have done black Americans far more harm than good.

Crime

Book ’Em
The biggest improvement in the lives of ordinary Americans during the last couple of decades? According to Hoover fellow Gary S. Becker, the drastic reduction in the rate of crime. The Nobel laureate explains how the United States finally did it.

Family

It Takes a Family
Recent reports claim that raising children in day care centers does them no harm. Hoover fellow Jennifer Roback Morse has a different report to file.

Taxes

The Greedy Hand
The era of big government may be over, but no one seems to have told the IRS. Hoover media fellow Amity Shlaes proposes a tax code overhaul.

Flatten the Payroll Tax—and Change the World
Hoover fellow Alvin Rabushka offers a tax reform proposal that would save the Social Security system, make the tax system flat and fair, and give taxpayers the opportunity to increase their retirement savings. Not bad for eight hundred words.

Budget

Surplus on the Surface, Trouble Underneath
Beneath the budget surplus lies a grabby tax collector—and federal spending that is still going up. By Hoover media fellow Peter Brimelow.

Politics

They Only Look Dead
The media portrayed the election last November as a Republican catastrophe. Yet the GOP did extremely well in races for the seats of real power—governors’ mansions. By Hoover media fellow Michael Barone.

The Economy

Whose Boom Is It, Anyway?
President Clinton and Hoover fellow Edward P. Lazear agree that the president deserves credit for the current economic expansion. They just disagree about which president.

Want High Returns? Take the Risks
As the stock market continues its unprecedented boom, Nobel laureate and Hoover fellow Gary S. Becker suggests that we all recall an economic truism: The greater the returns, the greater the risk.

The Best of All Possible Worlds
Every so often it’s worth pausing to reflect on just how good capitalism has been to us. Hoover fellow David R. Henderson compares average Americans with medieval kings—and concludes that the kings were paupers.

Megamergers—and Megafallacies
Is the recent wave of corporate megamergers cause for alarm? On the contrary, argues Hoover fellow David W. Brady. The new corporate giants are incorporating the best management techniques from around the world. Bigger isn’t better. Better is better.

Social Security

The Biggest Ponzi Scheme on Earth
The conventional wisdom regarding Social Security is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how the system does—and does not—work. Nobel laureate and Hoover fellow Milton Friedman explains why it is time to end Social Security as we know it.

Social Security Socialism
Investing Social Security funds in the stock market would be a fine idea, wouldn’t it? President Clinton thinks so. Nobel laureate and Hoover fellow Milton Friedman thinks not.

What We Should Have Learned by Now
Hoover fellow John F. Cogan looks at sixty years of Social Security—and explains how not to save the system.

Environment

Environmental Law 101
The best way to protect the environment? Consult common sense—and common law. By legal scholar Richard A. Epstein.

Regulation

Flying Friendlier Skies
In an earlier life, Hoover fellow John E. Robson helped to deregulate the American airline industry. The industry has flourished ever since. Yet the industry’s very success has prompted calls for reregulation, to Robson’s considerable chagrin. How deregulation worked—and why reregulation wouldn’t.

Choke Hold
The biotech industry is choking on FDA regulations. Hoover Fellow Henry I. Miller attempts a Heimlich maneuver.

Defense

It Can Happen Here
The prospect of a biological or chemical attack is no longer hypothetical. By Secretary of the Navy Richard J. Danzig.

Why We're Allowed to Hit Back
The legal basis for attacks on terrorists? In a word, self-defense. By Hoover fellow Abraham D. Sofaer.

International Relations

The Myth of Democratic Pacifism
Academics and pundits routinely assert that democracies do not wage wars against other democracies. If only it were so. By Thomas Schwartz and Hoover fellow Kiron Skinner.

Toward a New Foreign Policy
The Cold War world was dangerous and hostile but also predictable and tidy. Today’s world is likewise dangerous and hostile—but less predictable and far, far less tidy. Hoover fellow Ken Jowitt offers a new foreign policy for our uncertain times.

The Politics of Human Rights
Why do human rights organizations so rarely focus their ire on leftist regimes? By Hoover fellow William Ratliff.

Europe

A Continent out to Lunch
Europe’s chronic unemployment is a problem of Europe’s own making. Nobel laureate and Hoover fellow Gary S. Becker explains.

Britain

Thatcherism after Thatcher
A decade has passed since Thatcher and Reagan stepped down. With the Labour Party in power in Britain and a Democrat in the White House, the deputy leader of the British Conservative Party describes what conservatives must do to return to political—and moral—leadership. By the Right Honorable Peter Lilley, MP.

Russia

What Might Save Russia Yet
Can Russia still dig itself out of its economic morass? Hoover fellow Robert J. Barro thinks it can—if it follows his advice.

Asia

How Asia Fell
Had there been no IMF, many argue, the Asian financial crisis would have turned into a global catastrophe. Milton Friedman disagrees. Had there been no IMF, he argues, the Asian financial crisis wouldn’t even have taken place. The Nobel laureate and Hoover fellow explains himself.

History and Culture

In Celia’s Office
Hoover fellow Robert Conquest on men who fought on opposite sides of the Cold War—George Orwell and Alger Hiss—and on the legacy of their era. “Although the Cold War is over in reality, it is still being waged mentally in certain circles.”

Guilty as Charged
Hoover fellow Arnold Beichman surveys recently declassified Soviet documents. What Hiss and the Rosenbergs didn’t want you to know.

Sincerely, Mom
Grandma gets e-mail. By Hoover fellow Peter Robinson.

Interview

Teller Reflects
One of the century’s intellectual giants reflects on America’s past—and future. An interview with Hoover fellow Edward Teller by Lee Munson.