The Cost of Rights: Why Liberty Depends on Taxes
Author: Stephen Holmes, Cass R. Sunstein, Cass Sunstein
List Price: $24.95
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ISBN: 0393046702
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company (01 March, 1999)
Sales Rank: 146,766
Average Customer Rating: 2.47 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 5 out of 5
Interesting book that seems to induce knee jerk responses
This book covers an important issue that is rarely bought up: liberty, rights etc. depend of an enforcement mechanism. And this enforcement mechanism is government. Weak governments (such as those of the current Russia) cannot guarantee property rights or any other rights for their citizens. Anyone who feels they can establish their rights without government should visit Somalia and see how easy or difficult it is in the absence of government.
How would you establish right to a plot of land, for instance, without a title, some means of enforcing property laws ?
The Founding Fathers most certainly recognized the value of government -- thats why they wrote the Constitution, because the Articles of Confederation proved inadequate. They also provided the government with the means to fund itself -- through tarrifs, which are just another form of taxes. This is something the authors do indeed support, and at least two of the 1-star reviews lead me to conclude the authors never got beyond the title.
Finally, the Constition does indeed provide powers to the States. But is unclear why this should necessarily please someone who claims that governments take away all rights, since the states are also run by governments. In fact, historically, the states have had practically all the powers (public schools, eminent domain, property taxes) etc. etc. that libertarian types find distasteful.
This book is NOT a call for higher taxes, and it recognizes the tax-and-spend problems as well.
Rating: 5 out of 5
An Excellent Overview
The authors present a well written view of how the exercise of individual rights cost money if those rights are to be accomplished reasonably and in the abscence of armed force on the part of the individual. A number of previous reviewers have sanctimoniously and self righteously assumed for the book objectives far beyound its meager size and intent. I suspect they are the usual (1) "no gummint is good gummint" and (2) "no taxes is good taxes" types who feel that God, or something, made them exempt from cooperating with other people - a general description of so-called libertarians and far-right conservatives. In other words, their rights are paramount and they have no responsibilities or accountability. That road appears by magical thinking, as did garbage delivery and the sheriff's department in their view. They don't owe anyone anything for any reason, and they will shoot you to prove it. Sounds like they did not get socialized in K-12. Read the book for its intent, which is to object to "no gummint and taxes" movement in the US over the past decades which has brought us a really sorry pass and nearly into a form of fascism light. Holmes and Sunstein have done a great service here by raising substantive counter arguments to the "screw you, I got mine" groups in this era.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Revealing Explanation of the Necessities of Taxes
While it wasn't the most exciting book I've read, "The Cost of Rights" was a refreshing twist on the taxes issue. It challenged opponents of the current tax system or any tax system to think critically on the subject. I felt that Holmes' and Sunstein's approach was more effective than a listing of statistics. Rather than explaining economic reasons for taxes, they brought it to a level that related more to readers. Everyone has a reason to be interested in the preservation of his or her own rights. Without taxes for government support, we could not be guaranteed equal representation before the law. Taxes pay for law enforcement and other government services that are vital to our liberty. Without taxes, no one would every truly own property. Taxes serve as the standard for American's to exist and be governed by. They do not discern our morals, but instead preserve our rights. In "The Cost of Rights", the case for taxes was presented in such a way that I couldn't see liberty without some sort of tax system. Similar Products
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