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.
The Right to Earn a Living: Economic Freedom and the Law
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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 has won important victories for free enterprise in California, Missouri, Oregon, and other states. He also works to prevent the abuse of eminent domain, having participated 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 (2006), and The Right to Earn A Living: Economic Freedom And The Law (2010), as well as some 40 scholarly articles on subjects ranging from eminent domain and economic liberty to copyright, evolution and creationism, slavery and the Civil War, and legal issues in Shakespeare and ancient Greek drama. 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, The San Francisco Chronicle, Regulation, and The Washington Times, among other places. 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.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 23 people found the following review helpful
By J. Latham
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
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.
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.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format: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!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By Mom
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
What a great, informative read. You don't have to be a lawyer or legal expert to garner essential information as to how far we have strayed from the founding fathers intent for a free country where every person can freely work. The over-regulations that were meant to protect us are now strangling the little guys and are spelled out so clearly in this book. Its mind boggling! This should be required reading in high schools and colleges. Hey, I wish we could pass out cc's of this book, when people apply for voter registration cards. Maybe many of the scoundrels in public office who are in cahoots with the lobbyists would be voted out!
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent book
In this book, Timothy Sandefur does an amazing job of explaining the history of the right to earn a living and how it is threatened today. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Miss Liberty
5.0 out of 5 stars
Individual Liberty=Respected Property Rights
A wonderful book that breaks down how true political/economic freedom can be found in simply respecting the original sense of the rights of an individual's property. Read more
Published 8 months ago by LibertyLion
