The Right to Earn a Living: Economic Freedom and the Law [Hardcover]

Timothy Sandefur (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 16, 2010

America's founders thought the right to earn a living was so basic and obvious that it didn't need to be mentioned in the Bill of Rights. Yet today that right is burdened by a wide array of government rules and regulations that play favorites, rewrite contracts, encourage frivolous lawsuits, seize private property, and manipulate economic choices to achieve outcomes that bureaucrats favor. The Right to Earn a Living charts the history of this fundamental human right, from the constitutional system that was designed to protect it by limiting government's powers, to the Civil War Amendments that expanded protection to all Americans, regardless of race. It then focuses on the Progressive-era judges who began to erode those protections, and concludes with today's controversies over abusive occupational licensing laws, freedom of speech in advertising, regulatory takings, and much more.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 359 pages
• Publisher: Cato Institute (August 16, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1935308335
• ISBN-13: 978-1935308331
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #293,660 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Timothy Sandefur is a Principal Attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation. As the lead attorney in the Economic Liberty Project, he works to protect businesses against abusive government regulation. He also works to prevent the abuse of eminent domain, having litigated important eminent domain cases in California, Missouri, and elsewhere, and having filed briefs in many significant eminent domain cases, including Kelo v. New London. He is the author of two books, Cornerstone of Liberty: Property Rights in 21st Century America, published by the Cato Institute in 2006, and The Right to Earn A Living: Economic Freedom And The Law, which will be published in 2010. He has also authored some 30 scholarly articles on subjects ranging from eminent domain and economic liberty to copyright, evolution and creationism, and the legal issues of slavery and the Civil War. He is a graduate of Chapman University School of Law and Hillsdale College. He is an Adjunct Scholar with the Cato Institute, and his articles have appeared in Liberty, National Review Online, The Humanist, The San Francisco Chronicle, Regulation, and The Washington Times among other places. In February, 2006, he became one of the youngest attorneys ever featured on the cover of California Lawyer magazine. He is a frequent guest on radio and television programs, including the Jim Lehrer News Hour, The Armstrong and Getty Show, NPR's This American Life, CNBC's Street Signs, Now with David Brancaccio and CPSAN's Book TV.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic book!, July 31, 2010

By 

J. Latham - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Right to Earn a Living: Economic Freedom and the Law (Hardcover)

This book is an incredibly informative read. It points out all the defects in regulatory, licensing AND even common law that inhibit our ability to make our living as we see fit and how applying these laws limit the ability of business, large and small, to employ new workers.

Unfortunately, the present political and cultural climate is deeply ignorant of how these regulations have secondary, ripple effects. Timothy Sandefur points out what those ripple effects are and how harmful they can be. In short, this regulatory regime caps everyones potential and is an impediment to pursuing our happiness. In more extreme language, the current system violates our human rights.

On a side note I found it refreshing that this book points to the fact that we cannot look to the past for some golden age of economic liberty because it never existed. The idea of economic freedom is indeed for the future.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Law and Freedom, September 13, 2010

By 

D. W. MacKenzie (New London CT) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Right to Earn a Living: Economic Freedom and the Law (Hardcover)

The Right to Earn a Living provides interesting legal analysis and history. Sandefur deals effectively with the myth that free markets serve business interests. Freedom to trade translates directlyt into freedom to earn- and live. While this book is not primarily on economics, it is on solid ground. Modern prosperity coincided with the emergence of due process, secure proeprty rights, and economic freedom- by which I mean free choice in free markets. This is hardly coincidental. Sandefur explains how the movement towards the legal system of a free society broke the power of medieval monopolies, thus allowing a competitive and prosperous economy to emerge. The trend towards a politicized economy, where courts and politicians "regulate" entrepreneurs is a threat to freedom and prosperity. The examples in this book provide good lessons now that we are in the midst of yet another strong push towards politicizing commerce. We need more books like this one!