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Why Liberalism Works: How True Liberal Values Produce a Freer, More Equal, Prosperous World for All
An insightful and passionately written book explaining why a return to Enlightenment ideals is good for the world
The greatest challenges facing humankind, according to Deirdre McCloskey, are poverty and tyranny, both of which hold people back. Arguing for a return to true liberal values, this engaging and accessible book develops, defends, and demonstrates how embracing the ideas first espoused by eighteenth-century philosophers like Locke, Smith, Voltaire, and Wollstonecraft is good for everyone.
With her trademark wit and deep understanding, McCloskey shows how the adoption of Enlightenment ideals of liberalism has propelled the freedom and prosperity that define the quality of a full life. In her view, liberalism leads to equality, but equality does not necessarily lead to liberalism. Liberalism is an optimistic philosophy that depends on the power of rhetoric rather than coercion, and on ethics, free speech, and facts in order to thrive.
The greatest challenges facing humankind, according to Deirdre McCloskey, are poverty and tyranny, both of which hold people back. Arguing for a return to true liberal values, this engaging and accessible book develops, defends, and demonstrates how embracing the ideas first espoused by eighteenth-century philosophers like Locke, Smith, Voltaire, and Wollstonecraft is good for everyone.
With her trademark wit and deep understanding, McCloskey shows how the adoption of Enlightenment ideals of liberalism has propelled the freedom and prosperity that define the quality of a full life. In her view, liberalism leads to equality, but equality does not necessarily lead to liberalism. Liberalism is an optimistic philosophy that depends on the power of rhetoric rather than coercion, and on ethics, free speech, and facts in order to thrive.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published October 15, 2019
63 people are currently reading
585 people want to read
About the author
Deirdre Nansen McCloskey
60 books315 followersDeirdre Nansen McCloskey has been distinguished professor of economics and history and professor of English and communications at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is the author of numerous books, including Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions, Enriched the World.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
February 2, 2020
In this book, childlike naivete alternates with low malice, combining in an execrable stew. I read "Why Liberalism Works" because it claims to be an answer to Patrick Deneen’s "Why Liberalism Failed," a key text of today’s post-liberal Right. To my disappointment, other than in its title and one unbelievably stupid sentence inside, this book completely ignores Deneen’s book, and also ignores all claims and arguments of today’s post-liberals. Instead, it substitutes, for engaging with ideas, heated repetition of bogus ideological claims. It’s crushingly boring and tiresomely predictable. But reading this book made me understand more fully why and how we are all force fed propaganda, of which this is merely an exemplar, on a daily basis. I’m happy for that, at least.
I had written six more pages carefully eviscerating McCloskey. But it's not worth it. I don't need to write endless attacks on easy targets; I already know my enemies are wrong. So I will spare the world, and focus on writing about what the future will look like, not on shooting fish in a barrel—which, after all, does not accomplish anything that will build the future.
I had written six more pages carefully eviscerating McCloskey. But it's not worth it. I don't need to write endless attacks on easy targets; I already know my enemies are wrong. So I will spare the world, and focus on writing about what the future will look like, not on shooting fish in a barrel—which, after all, does not accomplish anything that will build the future.
May 25, 2020
Another excellent defense of true liberalism from economic historian Deirdre McCloskey. It's a collection of her articles, reviews, essays, on a wide array of topics. As usual, it's erudite, cogent, and compelling in its arguments. Definitely worth reading!
I've had the pleasure of interviewing Professor McCloskey twice on The Soul of Enterprise. You can listen to them both, here:
https://www.thesoulofenterprise.com/t...
https://www.thesoulofenterprise.com/t...
I've had the pleasure of interviewing Professor McCloskey twice on The Soul of Enterprise. You can listen to them both, here:
https://www.thesoulofenterprise.com/t...
https://www.thesoulofenterprise.com/t...
June 6, 2023
This was a highly disappointing and frustrating read. The general premise is a defense of libertarianism, or “liberalism”, as McCloskey calls it. The book is an odd collection of somewhat disjointed, repetitive and not terribly well-organized essays. I could forgive that if the content weren’t so weak, which is odd for me to say given that I agree with much of her worldview—just not in her specific defenses of it.
Chapter 1: McCloskey says that a fault of Hayek’s The Constitution of Liberty is that he depends on consequentialist reasoning. She says this is a fault because, apparently, “such utilitarian reasoning can also justify the worst tyrannies, as the tyrants regularly claim” (p. 21). Instead, she thinks it’s better “to justify free human life through the natural and equal and analytically modest dignity we should all learn in our adulthood”. This is extremely unconvincing to me. First, while tyrants can try to give consequentialist reasons for tyrannies, these arguments won’t succeed if we take a wide view of the relative success of democracies over non-democracies. Second, I never quite know what “dignity” entails or how it could possibly form the basis of a system’s defense. I think liberalism/libertarianism should and can be defended on consequentialist grounds—its merits are precisely because it does tend to produce better outcomes. Why else should we prefer it? This does not start things off well.
Chapter 2: “Understand that I am not saying that government has no role. But I am saying that we have in the past century fallen into thinking that it’s usually a good idea to make its role larger and larger. What do you call an economy in which the share of governmental expenditure has gone from single digits to large double digits, and a polity in which politicians compete to make the digits larger and larger? I suggest that it should be called double-digit socialism (not 100 percent, you see), and needs to be reduced in scope” (p. 25). This doesn’t even pretend to be a sophisticated or careful argument (it’s really just a claim). To me, “socialism” is a term reserved for the government’s or public’s ownership of the means of production, not for regulation of the market or for redistribution. Semantics, perhaps. But McCloskey doesn’t address the obvious counterargument that could be made here: the continued rise in quality of life must, in part, be attributable to certain government regulation—which has indeed infringed on market “freedom” more over the years. No doubt some of this regulation is unnecessary and even counterproductive, but what about things like the Clean Air Act, employment safety regulations, regulation of the safety and efficacy of drugs, and so forth? She does not address any of these obvious candidates for justified government “interference”.
In chapter 4, McCloskey equates liberalism/libertarianism with democracy. Her basis is again the “equal human dignity for everyone that is the core belief in […] liberalism”, which strikes me as circular / tautological. She simply doesn’t like consequentialist type argumentation, so her defense sounds sloppy. She disposes of Jason Brennan’s “epistocracy” proposal (rule of the knowledgeable) without much substance—and though I have criticism of Brennan’s epistocracy, it at least seems to me consistent with libertarianism.
In true libertarian fashion, McCloskey frequently mistakes or conflates ultimate goals with instrumental goals, regarding freedom “as a great good in itself” (p. 43). It always seems sloppy to me to regard freedom as an ultimate goal, especially when one can recognize—as McCloskey does—that there need to be some limits (i.e., “yes, I admit it: some imposition by governmental coercion is necessary. Not all laws are bad. Not all taxes, either. Got it. But perhaps then we can move to the question of exactly how much law, how much taxation, how much coercion” (p. 39). This shows that freedom is an instrumental goal for some deeper, ultimate goal—namely well-being. A high amount of freedom (from government coercion) just happens to, on average, deliver well-being—that’s why we should value freedom instrumentally.
McCloskey has many instances of blatantly straw manning her apparent intellectual opponents. For example, she takes issue with Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein’s “nudging” proposals, summarizing “nudgers” as those who “wish to use behavioral economics to deprive people of autonomy, for their own good, to manipulate them to a higher utility contour—rather than to alert or educate them and then let them choose for themselves. To hell with liberty” (p. 58). This isn’t remotely charitable or accurate. Thaler and Sunstein advocate shifting the “choice architecture” so that default rules are such that complacent people end up making better decisions. For example, rather than having to opt in for retirement savings, establish the default so that people have to opt out. To call this antithetical to liberty is to entirely miss the point.
It was around this point that I really started to become disillusioned with the book and stop taking notes.
I’ll make one more point about writing style. The tone of the book is frequently sneering. I guess this sort of snark works for some people—to me it just seems juvenile: “I will, by the way, refer frequently, as I already have, to “my friends” on the left or right or middle. I do not by this intend to sneer or condescend. I do in fact have many friends on the left and on the right and in the middle. I love them and respect their opinions, mistaken though they so often are. I stand ready to help them discover their true liberalism. You’re welcome” (p. 48). There are countless passages like this. While I think this style can work if you’re playful, the way I read McCloskey is to be dismissive, uncharitable, arrogant, and sloppy with her arguments.
Overall, while I agree with many of the overall points, the arguments deployed in this book are often half-baked, sloppy, uncharitable to her opponents, and just plain unsophisticated. I don’t know if I’ve ever given a 1-star rating to a book I have much to agree with, but here it is. I really do not recommend this book.
Chapter 1: McCloskey says that a fault of Hayek’s The Constitution of Liberty is that he depends on consequentialist reasoning. She says this is a fault because, apparently, “such utilitarian reasoning can also justify the worst tyrannies, as the tyrants regularly claim” (p. 21). Instead, she thinks it’s better “to justify free human life through the natural and equal and analytically modest dignity we should all learn in our adulthood”. This is extremely unconvincing to me. First, while tyrants can try to give consequentialist reasons for tyrannies, these arguments won’t succeed if we take a wide view of the relative success of democracies over non-democracies. Second, I never quite know what “dignity” entails or how it could possibly form the basis of a system’s defense. I think liberalism/libertarianism should and can be defended on consequentialist grounds—its merits are precisely because it does tend to produce better outcomes. Why else should we prefer it? This does not start things off well.
Chapter 2: “Understand that I am not saying that government has no role. But I am saying that we have in the past century fallen into thinking that it’s usually a good idea to make its role larger and larger. What do you call an economy in which the share of governmental expenditure has gone from single digits to large double digits, and a polity in which politicians compete to make the digits larger and larger? I suggest that it should be called double-digit socialism (not 100 percent, you see), and needs to be reduced in scope” (p. 25). This doesn’t even pretend to be a sophisticated or careful argument (it’s really just a claim). To me, “socialism” is a term reserved for the government’s or public’s ownership of the means of production, not for regulation of the market or for redistribution. Semantics, perhaps. But McCloskey doesn’t address the obvious counterargument that could be made here: the continued rise in quality of life must, in part, be attributable to certain government regulation—which has indeed infringed on market “freedom” more over the years. No doubt some of this regulation is unnecessary and even counterproductive, but what about things like the Clean Air Act, employment safety regulations, regulation of the safety and efficacy of drugs, and so forth? She does not address any of these obvious candidates for justified government “interference”.
In chapter 4, McCloskey equates liberalism/libertarianism with democracy. Her basis is again the “equal human dignity for everyone that is the core belief in […] liberalism”, which strikes me as circular / tautological. She simply doesn’t like consequentialist type argumentation, so her defense sounds sloppy. She disposes of Jason Brennan’s “epistocracy” proposal (rule of the knowledgeable) without much substance—and though I have criticism of Brennan’s epistocracy, it at least seems to me consistent with libertarianism.
In true libertarian fashion, McCloskey frequently mistakes or conflates ultimate goals with instrumental goals, regarding freedom “as a great good in itself” (p. 43). It always seems sloppy to me to regard freedom as an ultimate goal, especially when one can recognize—as McCloskey does—that there need to be some limits (i.e., “yes, I admit it: some imposition by governmental coercion is necessary. Not all laws are bad. Not all taxes, either. Got it. But perhaps then we can move to the question of exactly how much law, how much taxation, how much coercion” (p. 39). This shows that freedom is an instrumental goal for some deeper, ultimate goal—namely well-being. A high amount of freedom (from government coercion) just happens to, on average, deliver well-being—that’s why we should value freedom instrumentally.
McCloskey has many instances of blatantly straw manning her apparent intellectual opponents. For example, she takes issue with Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein’s “nudging” proposals, summarizing “nudgers” as those who “wish to use behavioral economics to deprive people of autonomy, for their own good, to manipulate them to a higher utility contour—rather than to alert or educate them and then let them choose for themselves. To hell with liberty” (p. 58). This isn’t remotely charitable or accurate. Thaler and Sunstein advocate shifting the “choice architecture” so that default rules are such that complacent people end up making better decisions. For example, rather than having to opt in for retirement savings, establish the default so that people have to opt out. To call this antithetical to liberty is to entirely miss the point.
It was around this point that I really started to become disillusioned with the book and stop taking notes.
I’ll make one more point about writing style. The tone of the book is frequently sneering. I guess this sort of snark works for some people—to me it just seems juvenile: “I will, by the way, refer frequently, as I already have, to “my friends” on the left or right or middle. I do not by this intend to sneer or condescend. I do in fact have many friends on the left and on the right and in the middle. I love them and respect their opinions, mistaken though they so often are. I stand ready to help them discover their true liberalism. You’re welcome” (p. 48). There are countless passages like this. While I think this style can work if you’re playful, the way I read McCloskey is to be dismissive, uncharitable, arrogant, and sloppy with her arguments.
Overall, while I agree with many of the overall points, the arguments deployed in this book are often half-baked, sloppy, uncharitable to her opponents, and just plain unsophisticated. I don’t know if I’ve ever given a 1-star rating to a book I have much to agree with, but here it is. I really do not recommend this book.
September 17, 2022
A charming, modern defence of neoliberalism in 50 essays by an economic historian. Although she didn't convince me, I'm glad that I read it.
April 16, 2022
The writing is quirky. And difficult. Lots of short sentences. Many kind of snarky parenthetical (like this) asides (get it?). The biggest irritant is the lack of simple, fundamental definitions - liberal, Liberal 1.0, liberal 2.0, tested betterment. On the other hand, a mostly compelling case for classic liberalism.
December 30, 2022
You could just title the book, “why naive view of the world doesn’t work.” I gave up after 1/3rd of the book. Author thinks buying cheap from abroad is the great, because free market. What if you are buying from someone who uses that money to conduct genocide, use slave labour, child labour, sponsor terrorism or just exploit workers? How do you factor in human rights into the price? Liberalism, rule of law, human rights, they don’t just happen.
November 24, 2019
The great Deirdre McCloskey offers an unapologetic, confident (perhaps arrogant) polemic defending liberalism (Classic, not leftist) against mostly leftist but also righty nationalist types. I've read many books on economics and political philosophy, this one is similar to the one I imagine I'd write if I were capable of such a thing.
February 20, 2020
Excellent book
The best possible review is actually quotes from this fantastic book.
Take the last essay, titled illiberalism, in short, is fact free, and mostly unethical.
“But anyone who after the twentieth century still thinks that thoroughgoing socialism, nationalism, imperialism, mobilization, central planning, rationalization, regulation, passports, immigration restrictions, occupational licensing, zoning, building codes, minimum wages, eugenics, prohibition, price controls, protectionism, subsidies, infrastructure spending, deficit spending, industrial policy, tax policy, tariffs, labor unions, official business cartels, marketing orders, import-export banks, government spending, intrusive policing, adventurism in foreign policy, faith in entangling religion and politics, or most of the other thoroughgoing nineteenth-century proposals for governmental action are still neat, harmless ideas for improving our lives is not paying attention.”
Brilliant.
The best possible review is actually quotes from this fantastic book.
Take the last essay, titled illiberalism, in short, is fact free, and mostly unethical.
“But anyone who after the twentieth century still thinks that thoroughgoing socialism, nationalism, imperialism, mobilization, central planning, rationalization, regulation, passports, immigration restrictions, occupational licensing, zoning, building codes, minimum wages, eugenics, prohibition, price controls, protectionism, subsidies, infrastructure spending, deficit spending, industrial policy, tax policy, tariffs, labor unions, official business cartels, marketing orders, import-export banks, government spending, intrusive policing, adventurism in foreign policy, faith in entangling religion and politics, or most of the other thoroughgoing nineteenth-century proposals for governmental action are still neat, harmless ideas for improving our lives is not paying attention.”
Brilliant.
Want to read
April 18, 2020This article brought the book to my attention and landed it on my to-reads...
https://lawliberty.org/capitalism-doe...
"McCloskey makes, as I suggest above, what is an obvious response:
Nothing would befall the market economy in the long run, says the modern [classical] liberal economist, if we tempered our desires to a thrifty style of life, one beat-up Volvo and a little house with a vegetable garden, and a moderate amount of tofu and jug wine from the co-op.
Market economies are entirely consistent with humble, ungrasping lifestyles. McCloskey correctly points out that there is nothing inherent in the notion of market equilibrium that requires the consumption of “more and more” (as Milbank and Pabst would have it)."
https://lawliberty.org/capitalism-doe...
"McCloskey makes, as I suggest above, what is an obvious response:
Nothing would befall the market economy in the long run, says the modern [classical] liberal economist, if we tempered our desires to a thrifty style of life, one beat-up Volvo and a little house with a vegetable garden, and a moderate amount of tofu and jug wine from the co-op.
Market economies are entirely consistent with humble, ungrasping lifestyles. McCloskey correctly points out that there is nothing inherent in the notion of market equilibrium that requires the consumption of “more and more” (as Milbank and Pabst would have it)."
December 28, 2019
It was an interesting book on liberalism. I wish that she would focus on other economists and their critique of liberalism and capitalism. All she did was critiquing Thomas Piketty. Also, she doesn't prove that liberalism is a actually a left-wing ideology and made it sound like more of a right-wing ideology, with her criticizing socialism and the likes of Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn and other socialists.
March 27, 2020
This was a tad more scholarly than I like, but, I wish it had existed years ago when I was in college. McCloskey makes the case that government should get out of the way and let the individual progress at their own rate. This has been shown to help more than just the single individual but group as a whole.
August 11, 2020
The book is fantastic but goes awry when it digresses from economics.
October 6, 2023
I just couldn't finish it...
August 24, 2025
A really good book on the subject.
Even though it doesn't show more than a few numbers, it brings many examples from historical facts and reflections about liberal ethics that, as a whole, paint a great picture of "Why Liberalism Works", and other systems don't.
A must-read for anyone marginally interested in the subject.
Of course, it won't convert socialists, but it might put some questions in the minds of some of them, so they can interpret future events in a less socialist light.
And for liberals like me, it brings good discussion points and a deeper understanding of how the "world goes round".
Deirdre's study is contemporary with many recent events used to explain some points. She also mentions many older authors and their works, but it doesn't dive deep into many of the examples it mentions, so if you want to know more details, you must seek these specific works.
Even though it doesn't show more than a few numbers, it brings many examples from historical facts and reflections about liberal ethics that, as a whole, paint a great picture of "Why Liberalism Works", and other systems don't.
A must-read for anyone marginally interested in the subject.
Of course, it won't convert socialists, but it might put some questions in the minds of some of them, so they can interpret future events in a less socialist light.
And for liberals like me, it brings good discussion points and a deeper understanding of how the "world goes round".
Deirdre's study is contemporary with many recent events used to explain some points. She also mentions many older authors and their works, but it doesn't dive deep into many of the examples it mentions, so if you want to know more details, you must seek these specific works.
October 10, 2024
When the author of this book says "liberalism", they are far closer to libertarian. They eschew any sort of government intervention and espouse a laissez-faire akin to "classic liberals" but not liberals in the contemporary sense.
I didn't find their arguments very compelling. On one hand, their defenses of social liberalism were good and agreeable. But they conflate that with economic intervention in a way that didn't seem convincing. It's easy to look abroad to authoritarians and how they can cause broad harm. But what about countries that protect minorities while intervening in the economy? The book seems to gloss over this.
Consider the US, which has solid diversity and a fair amount of intervention. You could debate that level of intervention, but the author doesn't. As such, the book feels too binary to be useful for intermediate readers.
I didn't find their arguments very compelling. On one hand, their defenses of social liberalism were good and agreeable. But they conflate that with economic intervention in a way that didn't seem convincing. It's easy to look abroad to authoritarians and how they can cause broad harm. But what about countries that protect minorities while intervening in the economy? The book seems to gloss over this.
Consider the US, which has solid diversity and a fair amount of intervention. You could debate that level of intervention, but the author doesn't. As such, the book feels too binary to be useful for intermediate readers.
July 27, 2025
El Liberalismo como política e historia sociopolítica.
Un recorrido histórico interesante sobre todo el proceso que conllevó, desde la Revolución Industrial, a la configuración de los mercados internacionales y la aceleración económica que vivimos a partir de la economía liberal. El mejor punto es la separación de los conceptos "Capitalismo" y "Liberalismo"
Muy completo en referencias y contenido histórico, es un libro que te hará sentir Juan Ramón Rallo después de leerlo. Por poner alguna pega, es demasiado idealista con el impacto positivo de la Revolución Industrial y la Globalización de los mercados.
Un recorrido histórico interesante sobre todo el proceso que conllevó, desde la Revolución Industrial, a la configuración de los mercados internacionales y la aceleración económica que vivimos a partir de la economía liberal. El mejor punto es la separación de los conceptos "Capitalismo" y "Liberalismo"
Muy completo en referencias y contenido histórico, es un libro que te hará sentir Juan Ramón Rallo después de leerlo. Por poner alguna pega, es demasiado idealista con el impacto positivo de la Revolución Industrial y la Globalización de los mercados.
May 16, 2021
[Imported automatically from my blog. Some formatting there may not have translated here.]
After seeing Deirdre Nansen McCloskey's book quoted numerous times at Don Boudreaux's blog, Cafe Hayek, I finally wangled a copy through Interlibrary Loan at the University Near Here. It appears that nobody at Williams College was interested in reading it, more fools they.
It's a collection of 50 short chapters/essays/articles, which I decided to read at a rate of two per day. Many first appeared in magazines, lightly adapted and updated for the book. Many are independent, a few link together. (For example, a fifty-page review of Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century is sliced up into seven chapters.)
Deirdre's overall purpose here is to update and defend her thesis about the cause and nature of "The Great Enrichment", started in northwest Europe in the 18th century: it was due to a newfound and unique respect for the tools of the marketplace, bourgeois moral values, and individual liberty. Hence what most people call "free market capitalism" was born, and proceeded to make the parts of the world that adopted it very very prosperous.
I should mention that Deirdre doesn't really care for the term "capitalism". She patiently explains that "capital" always existed, roughly since horse-traders traded horses. She prefers terms like "trade-tested betterment" (for the process) and "innovism" (for the attitude). And of course "liberalism" for the overall philosophy.
Deirdre is funny and insightful, and her unique prose style is something you have to read to appreciate. In my case, she was pushing on an unlocked door; I don't know her approach works on people more skeptical to her ideas.
I should mention one sore spot, Chapter 45, titled "Liberalism is Good For Queers". That's almost certainly true, but Deirdre goes into the jihad she and associates mounted against J. Michael Bailey, a Northwestern U psych prof. Wikipedia's article on Bailey has an overall description of the hubbub. Don't want to get into it here, but it seems that Deirdre's actions toward Bailey were reprehensible. And here she goes full Orwell, when she deems the National Academy of Science's publication of Bailey's work to be a (G. W.) Bush Administration homophobic plot. And falls into that great trap of equating "hate speech" with "speech I hate":
That's censorship, the encouragement of hate speech and then hate action by government-funded entities.
Well, no. Sorry, Deirdre, your lapse into illiberalism here mars your otherwise fine book.
November 19, 2021
What can we expect from an economic historian that has her starting point in what worked in the past? True, liberalism and the general betterment of life quality it brought to many people through commercially tested innovism and supported by a free market is undeniable. However, writing a whole book about this single idea felt very repetitive. But I guess as a free liberal you can do whatever you want, as long as it does not hurt other people or the planet. What also shines through is the idea of endless growth, which is simply not true on a planet with limited resources. Moreover, technological advances have always made people's jobs redundant, but advocating that training and education as well a free worker mobility - what worked in the past - will also work in the face of radically different computer intelligence technology is plainly naive and ignoring the evolving circumstances we find ourselves in.
May 25, 2023
I think she was aiming for an accessible snarky tone, but instead comes across as snide and demeaning. The same shallow arguments are presented multiple times, mostly because the book is cobbled together from an assembly of various essays, rather than organized into any sort of thematic structure. She redefines terms to fit her agenda, which magically make her interpretation correct by definition. Rather than deal with substantive counter-arguments, she knocks down strawmen and harps on barely relevant historical trends.
While there are a few interesting ideas, they are buried under so much disingenuous propaganda that it's hard to get much out of them.
While there are a few interesting ideas, they are buried under so much disingenuous propaganda that it's hard to get much out of them.
October 30, 2021
Café para cafeteros. Mucho mejor ir a Las Virtudes Burguesas. Deirdre tiene una grandísima erudición, pero el libro y su formato –50 artículos–, no terminan de hilar por qué el liberalismo funciona.
June 30, 2022
A sustained, redundant, and fairly unoriginal argument for libertarianism, or small “l” liberalism. The author seems to address few of the serious objections that might be raised against her creed. I had hopes that the author’s erudition and historical expertise would make this better than it was. But Milton’s old, succinct case for capitalism is better.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews