Legal Commentary

The Ten Best Pro-Liberty Books of the Decade

By David Bernstein

Via the Atlas Foundation blog, a rather idiosyncratic list.  The top 3 are Bryan Caplan?s Myth of the Rational Voter, Brian Doherty?s Radicals for Capitalism,  and Hernando De Soto?s The Mystery of Capital.

Atlas also solicits suggestions for books not on the list.  Much to my delight, Damon Root of Reason responds:

Obviously any such list will have its omissions, but I?d like to nominate one additional book that deserves real attention: legal historian David Bernstein?s excellent Only One Place of Redress: African Americans, Labor Regulations, & the Courts from Reconstruction to the New Deal. Bernstein meticulously documents the ways that Progressive and New Deal economic regulations, including labor laws, occupational licensing laws, and prevailing wage laws, directly harmed African Americans. In contrast, on those occasions when state and federal courts actively protected economic liberty against this state abuse, blacks were among the prime beneficiaries, a process that the New Deal takeover of the Supreme Court brought to a disastrous end.

So that?s my vote for a book that should have made the cut.

UPDATE: For those who may be interested, Amazon has used copies for <$10, which is the cheapest I?ve seen it (retail is $49.95).

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on December 29, 2009 (boomark / email).