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Robert Higgs
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Against Leviathan: Government Power and a Free Society (Independent Studies in Political Economy)

by Robert Higgs (Author)
4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 31 ratings
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An unflinching critical analysis of government is contained in this work, which distills complex economic and political issues for the layperson. Combining an economist's analytical scrutiny with an historian's respect for empirical evidence, the book attacks the data on which governments base their economic management and their responses to an ongoing stream of crises. Among the topics discussed are domestic economic busts, foreign wars, welfare programs such as social security, the arts of political leadership, the intrusive efforts of governments to protect people from themselves, and the mismanagement of the economy. Though focused on US government actions, the book also makes revealing comparisons with similar government actions abroad and in China, Japan, and Western Europe.
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  1. ISBN-10
    0945999968
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0945999966
  3. Publisher
    Independent Institute
  4. Publication date
    September 1, 2004
  5. Language
    English
  6. Dimensions
    6 x 1.03 x 9 inches
  7. Print length
    350 pages
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"I wish liberals and even radicals felt and wrote as strongly about the Iron Heel of government power..." -- Alexander Cockburn, columnist, The Nation; co-editor, CounterPunch

"One of the best books on economic policy in [recent] years...Higgs s case against government oppression is tight and persuasive." -- David Henderson, Professor of Economics, Naval Postgraduate School; author, The Joy of Freedom

"Robert Higgs is a gutsy, passionate, and learned defender of liberty. America the real country, not the rotten empire needs him." -- Bill Kauffman, Associate Editor, American Enterprise

"This hard-hitting book exposes the multitude of ways the growth of the welfare-warfare state threatens our freedom and prosperity." -- Ron Paul, U.S. Congressman

"This is a book that should be read by anyone concerned with American freedoms in the 21st century." -- Thomas Gale Moore, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution

About the Author

ROBERT HIGGS is Senior Fellow at The Independent Institute and Editor of the Institute’s quarterly journal, The Independent Review. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Johns Hopkins University and has taught at the University of Washington, Lafayette College and Seattle University. He is the author of "The Transformation of the American Economy 1865-1914, Competition and Coercion", and "Crisis and Leviathan", which is recognized as one of the classic works on the growth and abuse of government power.

His articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and San Francisco Chronicle, and he has been a guest on NPR, NBC, ABC, C-SPAN, CBN, CNBC, and Radio Free Europe. He lectures at universities and conferences around the world.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Independent Institute (September 1, 2004)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 350 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0945999968
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0945999966
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.5 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.03 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 31 ratings

About the author

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Robert Higgs

Robert Higgs

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Dr. Robert Higgs (born 1 February 1944) is an American economic historian and an economist of the Austrian school. His writings in economics and economic history have most often focused on the causes, means, and effects of government growth. Dr. Higgs has written extensively about the ratchet effect, the economic causes of the Great Depression, regime uncertainty, and the myth that World War II caused economic recovery in the late 1940s.

Currently Dr. Higgs is Senior Fellow in Political Economy for The Independent Institute and Editor of the Institute's quarterly journal The Independent Review. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Johns Hopkins University, and he has taught at the University of Washington, Lafayette College, Seattle University, and the University of Economics, Prague. He has been a visiting scholar at Oxford University and Stanford University, and a fellow for the Hoover Institution and the National Science Foundation.

Dr. Higgs is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Gary Schlarbaum Award for Lifetime Defense of Liberty, Thomas Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties, Lysander Spooner Award for Advancing the Literature of Liberty, Friedrich von Wieser Memorial Prize for Excellence in Economic Education, and Templeton Honor Rolls Award on Education in a Free Society.

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4.7 out of 5 stars
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Top reviews from the United States

  • Rob Kirk
    5.0 out of 5 stars I wish I would have read this years ago... Dated 2021
    Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2021
    Verified Purchase
    What a world we live in today!!! Well, this book has predicted the overreach of government and the ramifications. As you get older you read books that spark that lightbulb above your head. Ah, now I see it. This book is one of them. If you are questioning history, questioning politics, questioning government, read this book. It's smart, well researched, and most of all, it makes you think.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Robert M.
    5.0 out of 5 stars Well done...
    Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    A well done, easy to read series of "Austrian-style" essays. A modern day equivalent of Albert Jay Nock's "Our Enemy the State" and Frank Chodorov's "The Rise and Fall of Society." If only a mere fraction of the American people understood the real workings of the state, the position it has placed its host (the American people) in, and what the end result is going to be, there would be a revolution tomorrow.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • TRACY AHN RYAN
    4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
    Reviewed in the United States on April 11, 2017
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    very good read
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  • PatSquatch
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United States on October 4, 2017
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    Great collection of essays. Dr. Higgs is brilliant.
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  • Juan A. DelRio
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United States on May 28, 2017
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    Excellent service.Thanks
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  • Craig S. Marxsen
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2017
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    Good book!
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  • Alexander E. Paulsen
    5.0 out of 5 stars A Homerun
    Reviewed in the United States on October 6, 2004
    A very readable collection of essays and assorted writings that are an excellent companion to any of James Bovards works especially "Lost Rights".

    He explodes myths in a way that exposes the corrupt foundation of big government. Nothing from the Wefare state to the FDA, the Drug War and overall regulation escapes Higgs' scrutiny.

    There is something here for everyon and I plan to pass my copy to as many people as possible including my daughters college friends as an antidote to their years of being brainwashed.

    If you've veer wondered whether all these big expensive and liberty-destroying federal programs are worth it or can ever work, Higgs will certainly cure you of any doubts.

    The chapter of the FDA is alone worth the price of the book as many of my friends all use the FDA as the one thing that the federal government does right and we cannot live without. Higgs exposes that for the sad joke that it is. In reality the FDA had killed many more people than they've ever saved. Despite years of testing and hundreds of millions od dollars prescription drugs still kill thousands ( Voixx was approved by the FDA then recently pulled ) at the same time tens of thousands are dying while potential life saving drugs are denied patients by the FDA rules - all in the name of safety!

    The best thing about this book is that Higgs exposes the underlying issues without his own poitical axe to grind, and he is willing to give credit where credit is due. Overall his attack is relentless and his arguments very convincing. Even the most rabid Demo-publican will not be able to factually dispute anything presented here. Like Bovards works, this book is meticulously researched.

    Read this and it will become intuitively obvious to the most casual observer the futility of government action. Think of this book as a bull$h** vaccine. After digesting this work any reader will be more likely to pick out and filter the BS coming from DC and their media lapdogs.
    76 people found this helpful
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  • Robert A. Williams, PhD
    4.0 out of 5 stars Toward Freedom
    Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2006
    When Robert Higgs is attacking big government of the Hobbesian kind - i.e. "Leviathan", he is brilliant while also promoting the blessings of a free economy. "Against Leviathan" is a collection of 40 essays and reviews save one that were previously published in various journals, especially the Independent Institute's "Independent Review: A Journal of Political Economy" that is edited by Robert Higgs. The 40 pieces are grouped under seven topics: Welfare Statism, Our Glorious Leaders, Despotism, Soft and Hard, Economic Disgraces, The Political Economy of Crisis, Retreat of the State?, and Review of the Troops. The gist is that "few people in the United States today really give a damn about living as free men and women".

    Despite Junior Bush being selected as President by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 and Junior Bush next stealing votes in Ohio through corruption and cheating in 2004 to win that state's electoral votes and subsequently the national election, Higgs believes that Americans have free and honest elections: "Citizens in a democracy can always `throw the rascals out' at the next election". Ask a Libertarian or a Green about ballot access laws.

    Higgs blames the American voter for the Demo-publican monopoly in party politics: "Here in the United States we have been flinging rascals hither and yon for more than two centuries". Yet during the last election in 2004, this reviewer asked all of his sociology of law students at a very expensive private college in Ohio to name the 4 candidates for President to appear on the Ohio ballot - they could name only 2! That's a score of 50% - not a passing score. They only knew Bush and Kerry, they could not name Badnarik or Peroutka. Higgs does not see the covert struggles by Demopublican statists and their corporatist friends to maintain control of their monopoly, so he blames the U.S. voter! Having said that, however, Higgs does see the end result: "two revolving factions of a one-party state".

    Higgs does a good job of lambasting government and presidents, but pauses when he mentions Grover Cleveland who Higgs says "may have been the best of them all". Cleveland, former mayor of Buffalo and later governor of New York, built his anti-big government reputation by battling corruption and graft. Yet after Cleveland was elected President, his hostility towards the spoils system never translated into reforms. In fact, he nearly doubled the number of civil servants during his term of office and a majority of them represented his party of Democrats. Cleveland did veto a precedent-setting number of bills because they sought to enrich an elitist few at the expense of the general population. But then his increasing appetite for bigger government led him to create the Interstate Commerce Commission. Near the end of his term as President, Cleveland began to be viewed as a mercantilist, or British free trader, which was different from an American free enterpriser. And although the voters reelected Cleveland by a vote of 5,538,000 to 5,447,000, the Electoral College chose Harrison 233 to 168. But as we have already seen, Higgs blames the U.S. voter.

    After four years of Harrison, the voters managed to outmuscle the Electoral College and reelect Cleveland to an ill-fated second term beginning with the Depression of 1893. He let the British drain American gold reserves, thereby establishing the Gold versus Silver controversy. Cleveland showed his statist heavy hand when he terminated the Pullman Strike. And as Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. militaries, he failed to control his marines who deposed the Queen of Hawaii and took liberties with her daughters. In short, Cleveland was good at talking the talk but less able to walk the walk. Calvin Coolidge would have been a better choice because he slept more than the others and was awake less time to do statist damage, although his handling of the Boston Police Strike was abominable.

    In short, Higgs does a thorough job of railing against Big Government, collectivism, and welfarism. But by ignoring the creation of the corporation by the State and its resulting status as offspring of the state - thereby just as inefficient and bureaucratic as its parent, Higgs is telling only half the story. Leviathan is government AND its corporations. In a free market, there are no corporations; corporations are creations of the state - they are "artificial persons" that are granted Constitutional rights by its parent. This is a problem I hope Higgs will address one day soon.
    26 people found this helpful
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