Joy of Freedom, The: An Economist's Odyssey [Hardcover]

I've been an advocate of freedom for many years and the last thing I need to read is another primer on why the free market is better than the heavy hand of government intervention. This intellectual argument has been won many times over, but we still live in a world dominated by pro-interventionist view points. Why is this? Because trying to win people's minds without also winning their hearts is futile. This is where we as freedom advocates have so often failed. We have been so busy concentrating on the intellectual arguments that we have forgotten that we are trying to appeal to people. Human beings that need to be reassured that we have values that they share and that we care about the same things that they care about.

This is where "The Joy of Freedom" is so wonderful. We don't just see into the author's mind, we also see into his heart. This book is not just an intellectual argument for freedom, but is also David Henderson's personal story and that is what sets the book apart from and clearly above other books that cover similar material.

I'm certain that there isn't a single economic explanation in this book that I've haven't heard before (as I said, I've been around this topic for awhile), but I still loved this book because it touched me on a personal level. I think it will also personally touch many readers for whom the intellectual arguments are new territory.

To David Henderson I can only say, "Thank you for sharing."

Henderson tells of his intellectual journey as a free-market economist and libertarian. Along the way he applies the principles of freedom and free-market economics to the vital issues of the past, present, and future. "This book", he writes, "is about freedom, about how well freedom works and how government, by crushing freedom, messes up our lives."

Henderson didn't take economics until his final year of college. His evaluation of introductory economics: "The course was a profound disappointment." The text and the lectures did not raise questions that were interesting to him about how markets work. The model of "perfect competition" turned him off, as it does many students. Fortunately, Henderson attended lectures by economist Harold Demsetz who did explain how markets work, which rekindled Henderson's interest in economics.

What sort of questions does Henderson find interesting? In 1969 he asked Hubert Humphrey: "Then how do you reconcile your belief in the Thirteenth Amendment [prohibiting slavery] with your belief in the draft?" Henderson devotes an entire chapter to property rights and emphasizes their efficacy throughout. He poses the following scenario: "You walk by a yard and see someone painting a house. Pointing a gun at him is another man who orders the first man to stop painting." Then he asks: "Who is in the right?" Henderson might alter your view of the world. Consider this way of thinking about taxes: "Imagine that a thief takes your money at gunpoint, uses your money to buy a steak, and then brings the steak to your house and gives it to you." His question is: "Would you say that he didn't steal from you?" He even dares to ask: "Should we have taxes at all?" He raises the question of why the standard of living in the U.S. rises despite the shortcomings of government schools. About schools, he also asks: "If you went to a government school, or if your children go to a government school, is 'exciting' the first adjective, or even the fifth adjective, you would use to describe the experience?" Concerning the environment, he asks: "How far could we go in the direction of using private property to solve environmental problems?"

A reader of this book can expect to encounter many thought-provoking points as well as serious contributions to policies on social security, health care, education, and the environment.