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The Not So Wild, Wild West: Property Rights on the Frontier (Stanford Economics & Finance) 1st Edition

by Terry L. Anderson (Author), Peter J. Hill (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars 40 ratings
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Mention of the American West usually evokes images of rough and tumble cowboys, ranchers, and outlaws. In contrast, The Not So Wild, Wild West casts America's frontier history in a new framework that emphasizes the creation of institutions, both formal and informal, that facilitated cooperation rather than conflict. Rather than describing the frontier as a place where heroes met villains, this book argues that everyday people helped carve out legal institutions that tamed the West.

The authors emphasize that ownership of resources evolves as those resources become more valuable or as establishing property rights becomes less costly. Rules evolving at the local level will be more effective because local people have a greater stake in the outcome. This theory is brought to life in the colorful history of Indians, fur trappers, buffalo hunters, cattle drovers, homesteaders, and miners. The book concludes with a chapter that takes lessons from the American frontier and applies them to our modern "frontiers"―the environment, developing countries, and space exploration.

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  1. ISBN-10
    0804748543
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0804748544
  3. Edition
    1st
  4. Publisher
    Stanford Economics and Finance
  5. Publication date
    May 4, 2004
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    6 x 0.9 x 9 inches
  8. Print length
    280 pages
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"This is a book that had to be written, and Anderson and Hill are the ones that had to write it. Literature on the American West has placed too much emphasis on wars, violence, and conflict. Rather time and time again, as this book shows, institutions were devised that peaceably allocated resources and resolved conflicts." (Mark Kanazawa Carleton College)

"[T]heoretically rich and factually entertaining." (Law and Politics Book Review)

"Far from being an anarchic free-for-all, the American West was a ferment of social innovation, a place where men and women strove to invent co-operative arrangements they could trust. Anderson and Hill powerfully undermine the pervasive idea that social order and property rights are imposed from above by the state, and reveal instead that they are usually achieved from below by free negotiation between individuals." (Matt Ridley Author of The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation and Nature via Nurture)

"The Not So Wild, Wild West is a beautifully written and printed volume that teaches us much about the American West, but also about human nature and the economic way of thinking. Congratulations to Terry Anderson and P.J. Hill for an outstanding book." (Regulation)

"I give the book high marks for shedding new light on old paradigms and for accumulating solid evidence for an economic interpretation of western history." (Utah HIstorical Quarterly)

"Emergent, self-ordering institutional arrangements and property right norms are commonplace. But they are invisible to all those who rely upon them to create wealth, and who may believe falsely that all such rules come from legislated law. Anderson and Hill have made visible an impressive array of examples from US frontier history." (Vernon L. Smith, George Mason University 2002 Nobel Laureate in Economics)

"This new book is more accessible to the historian and interesting to the general reader. It is essential reading for anyone with an interest in western history, political science, law, or economics." (Journal of American History)

"Hollywood will never be able to top this portrayal of the history of the West in the U.S. The history that Anderson and Hill depict is the current situation of the majority of entrepreneurs in developing and former Soviet countries. It is not only an extraordinary insight into the genesis of America, but also the key to understanding better the Middle East, Central Asia, and all the Third World today." (Hernando de Soto President of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy)

"The Not So Wild, Wild West represents the best of what the new institutional economics can contribute for understanding economics and political behavior in the American West." (Gary Libecap, Eller College of Business and Public Administration The University of Arizona)

"From wagon trains to wildlife and from mining rights to irrigation companies Not So again and again challenges conventional wisdom and challenges us all with its rigorous application of freely transferable property rights." (Economic Affairs)

From the Inside Flap

Mention of the American West usually evokes images of rough and tumble cowboys, ranchers, and outlaws. In contrast, The Not So Wild, Wild West casts America’s frontier history in a new framework that emphasizes the creation of institutions, both formal and informal, that facilitated cooperation rather than conflict. Rather than describing the frontier as a place where heroes met villains, this book argues that everyday people helped carve out legal institutions that tamed the West.
The authors emphasize that ownership of resources evolves as those resources become more valuable or as establishing property rights becomes less costly. Rules evolving at the local level will be more effective because local people have a greater stake in the outcome. This theory is brought to life in the colorful history of Indians, fur trappers, buffalo hunters, cattle drovers, homesteaders, and miners. The book concludes with a chapter that takes lessons from the American frontier and applies them to our modern “frontiers”—the environment, developing countries, and space exploration.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Stanford Economics and Finance
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 4, 2004
  • Edition ‏ : ‎ 1st
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 280 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0804748543
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0804748544
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.1 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.9 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 out of 5 stars 40 ratings

About the authors

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  1. Terry L. Anderson

    Terry L. Anderson

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    Terry Anderson is the John and Jean De Nault Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the executive director of PERC (the Property and Environment Research Center), a think tank in Bozeman, Montana, that focuses on market solutions to environmental problems. His research helped launch the idea of free-market environmentalism and has prompted public debate over the proper role of government in managing natural resources. He is the cochair of Hoover's Property Rights, Freedom, and Prosperity Task Force.

    Anderson is the author or editor of thirty-seven books. Among these, Free Market Environmentalism, coauthored with Donald Leal, received the 1992 Sir Antony Fisher International Memorial Award. A revised edition was published in 2001.

    His most recent publication is Tapping Water Markets (RFF Press, 2012). Other books include Greener Than Thou: Are You Really an Environmentalist? (Hoover Institution Press, 2008) and Property Rights: A Practical Guide to Freedom and Prosperity (Hoover Institution Press, 2003), both coauthored with Laura Huggins. His book, with Peter J. Hill, The Not So Wild, Wild West: Property Rights on the Frontier (Stanford University Press), was awarded the 2005 Sir Antony Fisher International Memorial Award. Anderson’s research, which has also focused on Native American economies, recently resulted in a coedited volume, Self-Determination: The Other Path for Native Americans (Stanford University Press, 2006). He has published widely in both professional journals and the popular press, including the Wall Street Journal, the Christian Science Monitor, and Fly Fisherman.

    In March 2011, Anderson received the Liberalni Institute Annual Award in Prague in the Czech Republic for his "Contribution to the Proliferation of Liberal Thinking, and Making Ideas of Liberty, Private Property, Competition, and the Rule of Law Come True.” Previous recipients include Nobel laureates Milton Friedman, Gary Becker, and Vernon Smith.

    Anderson received his BS degree from the University of Montana in 1968 and his PhD degree in economics from the University of Washington in 1972, after which he began his teaching career at Montana State University, where he won several teaching awards.

    Anderson is an avid outdoorsman who enjoys fishing, hiking, skiing, horseback riding, and archery hunting, especially in Africa.

    See more on the author's page
  2. Terry Lee Anderson

    Terry Lee Anderson

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    Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read book recommendations and more.

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Top reviews from the United States

  • PlushLatex
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great Examples of Western Anarchy
    Reviewed in the United States on June 12, 2025
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    The wild west is proof of anarchy working in reality. These private communities have proven to keep peace better than government/states controlled communities of people. Anarcho-Capitalism is, and will always be, the true anarchy and this proto-version of such a legal normative has proven to be more effective than our current legal norms.
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  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Relevant in the past as it is today
    Reviewed in the United States on November 26, 2018
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    This book treats about old subjetcs that are still relevant today and in every one of them it’s possible to see that the establish and enforcement of property rights is necessary to solve conflicts for scarce resources. It’s also clear how free associations and inciatives can do this work far better (low cost and more fairness) than any centralized authority.
    Already looking foward to read more from of Terry Anderson and Peter Hill!
    2 people found this helpful
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  • K. Smith
    5.0 out of 5 stars More law and order than Americans think.
    Reviewed in the United States on December 18, 2015
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    Explains how the Wild West managed to have way more law and order than Americans tend to think. It covers how interference by Washington, which was clueless about conditions in the West, ended logical rules that were working. Arizonans, and their environment, are still paying the price for water rights legislated by a wet Washington over the arid West. For all those with an open mind who want to know what would happen if Washington left the states alone to govern themselves.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Arthur Digbee
    4.0 out of 5 stars The debate over property rights made fun!
    Reviewed in the United States on December 17, 2006
    Format: Hardcover
    This book is written by two scholars who would describe themselves as free market environmentalists. If you don't know what that is, you should probably read this book. In contrast to other tomes on such matters, it engages the topic through inherently fun examples, taken from the "Wild West" in US history.

    In the first chapter, Anderson and Hill discuss various systems of property rights on the Wild West: tribal institutions, fur traders, miners in the Sierra Nevada, water rights of prior appropriation, and Cattlemen's associations.

    The second chapter provides a general review of the concept of property rights and how they are designed. Anderson and Hill recognize from the start that many people use systems of property rights to benefit themselves at the expense of others. This "rent-seeking" often involves messing with the market, and harms society as a whole. In short, Anderson and Hill recognize (at least in principle) that property rights may not always be efficient in economic terms. They are fair minded, at least in principle, allowing that government, local communities, and/or entrepreneurs might each provide solutions to these problems in both theory and practice.

    The next two chapters make this abstract argument concrete by looking at property rights in Indian country. Obviously, most Indian lands were taken by force or by the threat of force, an excellent example of rent-seeking by whites with tragic effects for Natives.

    After this, the authors turn to a series of other property rights issues in the West, from fur traders and wagon trains to mining camps and Mormon irrigation. The core claim is that American economic successes reflect the ability of local communities to develop new institutions of property rights to solve the novel problems that they found. In contrast, when rent-seekers establish property rights that benefit them at the expense of others, bad things happen.

    Given their own leanings, Anderson and Hill tend to see "good property rights leading to good outcomes" more than they see rent-seekers perverting markets and harming the environment. However, the misuse of both political and economic power is ubiquitous, and should have been acknowledged more in practice. They do recognize the bad treatment of Indians, but apparently don't find much bad behavior by whites against other whites.

    The book makes some pretense of presenting an overall theory, but it really has only a framework that allows the authors to tell a bunch of interesting "just-so stories." They also do not given any attention to research design or case selection, nor do they provide a justification for telling these particular stories as opposed to others. They pose the book as providing a revisionist history, against the myth of violence on the Wild West. They're successful in telling an alternative story, but to do that, they left some things out - - most notably the railroads.

    Though it's easy to read this book as part of the Right, there are elements of the argument that will provoke both sides of the political spectrum. On the one hand, the book often serves up a Pollyannish view of the glories of markets and private property that will annoy the Left. On the other hand, Anderson and Hill provide a very sympathetic view of Native American institutions, and are highly critical of how Indian land was forcefully taken and then mismanaged by whites - - issues that the Right would like to gloss over.

    Those on the Right will probably like this book because of its emphasis on property rights and markets. Still, those on the Left could also read this book as a powerful indictment of corporate welfare, reflected historically in subsidized grazing and continuing to subsidized mining and oil exploration today, all of which has devastated the environment. That should give the Right pause.

    In short, both sides of the debate over free markets and environmentalism could learn something from this book. But, people being the way they are, they probably won't.
    21 people found this helpful
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  • Jake K
    5.0 out of 5 stars An informative story
    Reviewed in the United States on July 5, 2011
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    The book reads quickly, almost like a novel. Anderson and Hill debunk the claims that the Old West was governed by anarchy and violence with numerous examples of how institutional arrangements provided ordered and security. It provides interesting insights on property rights development from de facto rights to de jure rights. I would recommend for those interested in economic history and the Old West.
    6 people found this helpful
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  • D. Schultz
    5.0 out of 5 stars Unbelievable - Buy it!
    Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2007
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    I don't have a lot of time to really give this review its due. However, I highly recommend this book to anyone trying to deepen their understanding of how property rights have affecteed and continue to affect our society. Hill is as gifted of a teacher as he is an economist and he and TA complement each other immensely.
    6 people found this helpful
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  • D. Cole
    5.0 out of 5 stars Facinating
    Reviewed in the United States on November 14, 2014
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    A fascinating book that debunks many claims and myths commonly propagated via the government agency controlled educational system.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Andrzej
    5.0 out of 5 stars Ok
    Reviewed in the United States on May 16, 2013
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    All was ok, quick and i thing that every thing was ok. Everyone could buy something and it will be ok.
    One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Darrin Lusk
    5.0 out of 5 stars Not the west you see in movies
    Reviewed in Canada on July 7, 2023
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    Oh sure, there was enough drama and violence to make for a few good movies, but there was also a surprising level of cooperation, coordination, and economic level-headedness to write an extremely entertaining and informative book!
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