Table of Contents
Introduction Hartmut Kliemt ix
Part I Rights, Property, and Markets
Property or "Property Rights"? 3
"Design Faults" in Locke's Theory of Property Taint Ownership with Guilt 8
Is Ownership a Myth? 13
How to Get a Free Lunch? Just Apply for It 18
The Problem of Contract Enforcement 18
The Public Goods Dilemma 23
Trying the Free Market 32
The Statist Legacy 40
Your Dog Owns Your House 44
Part 2 The Common Sense of Non-Economics
The Yakoubovich Syndrome, or Lies, Damn Lies, and Economic Policy 53
Winning Policy Battles but Losing the War Against Economic Realities 57
Paying Ourselves More of Their Money 61
The Doctrine of "Unequal Exchange": The Last Refuge of Modern Socialism? 65
Corporate Managers: Are They Going to Kill Capitalism? 69
When the Economy Needs Morals 74
The Political Economy of Force-Feeding 78
Hostile to Whom? 83
Mannesmann's Courtesy Could Prove Rare 88
Part 3 French and Russian Tragicomedies
Can Putin Build a Real Economy from Oil and Rigor? 95
Russia and the New Europe: Growing Apart 99
Russia Hopping Along on Clay Feet 103
The French Tragicomedy 107
How the French "Social Model" Could Self-Destruct 111
A Little Bit of History Repeating 116
There Is No French Exception 119
The Hobbling of Private France 123
Part 4 The Capitalism They Hate
The Capitalism They Hate 129
Striving to Get Richer and Poorer 138
"Bread and Circuses" in the Modern Welfare State 142
Who Minds the Gap? 147
Float or Sink? The Millstone of the "Social Market" in Germany 153
How Germany and France, the Sick Men of Europe, Torture Themselves 157
Shall We Borrow from the Children? 161
Low Pay 165
Freedom to Strike or Right to Strike? 173
Part 5 Creating Unemployment
Stamp Your Feet and Demand a Fair Deal 177
Paternalism and Employment 180
The Things Labor Unions Are Up To 184
The Instability of the Welfare State 189
Some Bad News Could Be Good News 193
Built-in Unemployment: Social Protection Costs More Than It Is Worth 197
Let's Throw This Model Away 204
How to Stifle Employment by "Social Protection" 208
Workable Alternatives 212
A Tale of Two Models 215
A Vicious Circle of Social Kindness 218
Part 6 The Future of Europe
The Economic Consequences of a United States of Europe 223
A Giant Free-Trade Area or a Political Counterweight to America? 227
European Crosscurrents and the Federalist Drift 232
How Confederacy Could Turn into a Federal Superstate 236
Majority Rule by Any Other Name 240
What Now for "Europe"? Why the People Failed Their Masters 244
Free-Riding on the Euro 248
Some Democratic Economics 252
The Soviet Legacy 256
A War of Attrition between Economic Reality and Political Dreams 260
A Brightening of the Economic Skies over Brussels? 264
Turkey Knocking on Europe's Door 268
Turkey and the EU Club 273
Europe: More Secular and More Islamist 277
A Bill of Rights Europe Did Not Need 281
Europe's Social-Democratic "Government" 285
Power Corrupts, So Let's Make It Less Absolute 289
Part 7 Economics, True and False
What Price Pride? On the Hidden Costs of Economic Illiteracy 295
On the Economics of Protecting Employment 299
The Costly Mistake of Ignoring Opportunity Costs 303
"Globalization" and Its Critics: Mutual Gain vs. Cloud-Cuckoo Land 307
Are High Oil Prices a Form of Exploitation? 311
Immigration: What Is the Liberal Stand? 316
More Nonsense on Stilts: Mr. Bentham Is at It Again 320
Risk, Value, and Externality 324
Index 331
