Rating: 
Summary: A looming identity crisis for socialist utopians
Review: Stephen Moore, leader of the Club For Growth, and the recently deceased Julian Simon, made famous by his bet with Robert Ehrlich and also from his solution for airline overbooking, have contributed once again to the dragon-slaying of the social justice mythology. Their rigorous compilation of data on the continued ability of free market economies to create an ever rising surplus for all people is unsurpassed. I read Simon's "State of Humanity" a couple of years ago and it was equally as informative. Alm & Cox's "Myths of the Rich and Poor" also correlates with the data presented in this book.An interesting phenomena occurs when you present this book to die-hard socialists. They continue to disclaim its validity by eg. citing the disparity between CEO compensation and the bottom 25% of the population. In fact they present you with statistics of their own which seemingly refute the data in this book. When you probe and ask them how their statistics were compiled they become evasive and fuzzy, but they continue to rely on them to underpin their position. They engage in the fallacy of inductive logic which consists of reasoning from the particular to the general i.e. if they used the Canadian health care system for a cough and they were satisfied with the results of their medical care then ipso facto such a system is good. In addition it's better than the U.S. system because it's cheaper, etc. They ignore all the other inputs and outputs that any cursory economic study would investigate. It's almost like they would suffer an emotional crisis if they had to accept relity i.e. like the conclusions in this book. Why this is so would be worthy of continued discussion, but the need to denigrate solid evidence seems neccessary in order to retain their sense of self. Emotional trauma, provided by irrefutable evidence contrary to a belief system, seems to erode one's certainty in adhering to a false construct; but results are uneven and take long periods of time to penetrate society. Statistics, such as we have here, are younger than our century, and have only been subject to accurate number crunching coincident with the rise of the main frame computer (in the 60's). The authors should continue to educate the people. A constitutional republic such as ours works best with the input of an educated citizenry. Kudos to Moore and Simon, may he rest in peace.
Rating: 
Summary: Good information, but sometimes frustrating
Review: There is much excellent information here to gladden the heart of people who are gloomily convinced--as I once was--that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. This book is obviously intended as a reference guide. As such, sometimes the material seems a little shallow. And while very meticulously documented, on occasion the source citations are a little too vague for my tastes. For example, a chart on water pollution trends (on page 189) only cites the "various years" of the Council on Environmental Quality's Annual Report, and only shows numbers for 1972, 1982, and 1992, without showing us clearly whether an actual trend is visible. Despite these minor flaws, this is an excellent reference guide showing the often startlingly positive outlook for humanity on planet earth. It's a good reference that's worth having on your shelf.
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