Archive for James L. Payne
Contributing editor James Payne has taught political science at Yale,Wesleyan, Johns Hopkins, and Texas A&M. His latest book is Six Political Illusions: A Primer on Government for Idealists Fed Up with History Repeating Itself.
Do We Really Want More Policemen?
Contributing editor James Payne is working on a book about the history of the use of force. Curt Oldfield of Bonner County, Idaho, has perhaps the most unusually decorated car in the nation. It’s a 1986 Oldsmobile covered with 200 license plates carefully shaped and riveted to the hood, fenders, and doors. It’s driven mostly [...]
1Jul2000 | James L. Payne | 0 comments | ContinuedDrifting In and Out of Socialism: The Case of Ireland
National economic policy is generally thought to be set through an intellectual battle over social philosophy. Collectivists, with their ideology of greater government control, oppose individualists, with an equally comprehensive theory of limited government—and a nation’s level of taxation, regulation, and government ownership is assumed to reflect the relative strength of these contending forces. This [...]
1Apr2000 | James L. Payne | 0 comments | ContinuedWhy the War on Poverty Failed
Well, it’s now official: the war on poverty was a costly, tragic mistake. Ordinary people have suspected that for decades, of course, but we had to wait for the New York Times to decide this news was fit to print—which it finally did on February 9, 1998. In a front-page story on poverty in rural [...]
1Jan1999 | James L. Payne | 2 comments | ContinuedEmployers Swamped by Good Intentions
James Payne’s most recent book is Overcoming Welfare: Expecting More from the Poor—and from Ourselves (Basic Books). One of the hidden costs of regulation is the intellectual burden of keeping up with it. In many cases, finding out what the rules are can be more than a full-time job. Consider the area of employer-employee relations. [...]
1Oct1998 | James L. Payne | 0 comments | ContinuedBook Review: The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State and Other Essays by Auberon Herbert
Liberty Fund, 1978 Dr. Payne is Bradley Fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. The Right suffers from an awkward presentation of its vision. It declares itself for “liberty,” a word that for most people means “the power to do as one pleases.” So a great deal of effort is spent repudiating this meaning [...]
1May1996 | James L. Payne | 0 comments | ContinuedBook Review: Revolution at the Roots: Making Our Government Smaller, Better, and Closer to Home by William D. Eggers and John O’Leary
The Free Press • 1995 • 405 pages + index • $25.00 Dr. Payne, a contributing editor of The Freeman, is a Bradley Fellow at the Heritage Foundation and the author of Costly Returns: The Burdens of the U.S. Tax System. For the general reader, Revolution at the Roots provides a comprehensive survey of government-shrinking [...]
1Apr1996 | James L. Payne | 0 comments | ContinuedBook Review: The Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating America by Philip K. Howard
Random House • 1994 • 202 pages • $18.00 It is rare that a book should carry in its title a double entendre so embarrassing to the author. Howard intends to say that common sense has died in the morass of modern law and legal regulation, which he finds wasteful, counterproductive, and laughably ineffective. “Modern [...]
1Oct1995 | James L. Payne | 0 comments | ContinuedPerspective: Better Than Snake Oil
This issue of The Freeman emphasizes voluntarism and voluntary solutions to public problems, a topic of great interest to friends of limited government. When people have a problem to solve, they tend to reach for anything. When we’re ill, for example, there’s no limit to the remedies some of us are willing to try. Even [...]
1Oct1994 | James L. Payne | 0 comments | ContinuedDo English Cathedrals Need Government Help?
Dr. Payne, a Contributing Editor of The Freeman, is a free-lance writer and researcher who lives in Sandpoint, Idaho. One assumes that a great cathedral, having stood for centuries, will go on standing forever, but the truth is it is always falling down. If someone doesn’t shore up the shifting foundation and replace the eroded [...]
1Aug1994 | James L. Payne | 0 comments | ContinuedInside the Federal Hurting Machine
Dr. Payne is director of Lytton Research and Analysis in Sandpoint, Idaho. His latest book is Costly Returns: The Burdens of the U.S. Tax System, published by ICS Press. If politicians give someone $1,000, press reports emphasize the wonder of the gift and explain how it has eased suffering and restored hope. But when politicians [...]
1Mar1994 | James L. Payne | 0 comments | ContinuedPerspective: Voluntarism in Health: A Forgotten Solution
In a period of escalating medical and insurance costs, the working poor are faced with inadequate medical care. They are people who exist on the edge of poverty and live without government assistance. They arc proud and self-reliant . . . . The Bradley Free Clinic in Roanoke, Virginia, exists to meet the needs of [...]
1Nov1993 | James L. Payne | 0 comments | ContinuedPerspective: Advice to Youth Seeking to Go Down in History from the Editors of Time
Last fall, Time magazine put out a special issue on “The Millennium,” a survey of the history of the past one thousand years. Among the offerings is a list of the ten “Greatest People” of this entire period. The list comes as something of a surprise, when placed alongside Time’s weekly editions. In their regular [...]
1Jun1993 | James L. Payne | 0 comments | ContinuedCan Voluntarism Survive the Taxman?
James Payne is President of Friends of the Shelter in Sandpoint, Idaho, and author of a recent book on the burdens of the U.S. tax system, Costly Returns, published by ICS Press. The envelope from the Idaho State Department of Employment carne on a Friday. I remember because it was the day after our Thursday [...]
1Apr1993 | James L. Payne | 0 comments | ContinuedTough Love for the Needy
James L. Payne is director of Lytton Research and Analysis in Sandpoint, Idaho. He is the author of The Culture of Spending: Why Congress Lives Beyond Our Means, published by ICS Press. Why do government welfare programs keep failing? Much of the problem can be summed up in one word: dependency. Government programs reinforce social [...]
1Aug1992 | James L. Payne | 0 comments | ContinuedThrowing Money at Social Problems
Political scientist James L. Payne lives in Sandpoint, Idaho. His latest book is The Culture of Spending: Why Congress Lives Beyond Our Means. Otto von Bismarck once said that people fond of either laws or sausages shouldn’t look too closely into how they are made. His advice applies emphatically in today’s media era, where politicians [...]
1May1992 | James L. Payne | 0 comments | ContinuedHow Many Laws Are Enough?
James L. Payne, a political scientist, is the author of The Culture of Spending: Why Congress Lives Beyond Our Means. In the debate surrounding the Thomas-Hill episode in the Senate Judiciary Committee, . there was one point on which participants seemed to agree, namely that “sexual harassment in the workplace is an extremely serious matter.” [...]
1Apr1992 | James L. Payne | 0 comments | ContinuedSchool for Scandal
James L. Payne has taught political science at Wesleyan, Yale, Johns Hopkins, and Texas A&M University. His book The Culture of Spending: Why Congress Lives Beyond Our Means has been published this fall by the Institute for Contemporary Studies in San Francisco, and is reviewed on page 439 of this issue. Are wasteful scandals like [...]
1Nov1991 | James L. Payne | 0 comments | Continued-
The Latest
Paying for Tax Cuts?
“How will we pay for the tax cut?” I laugh when I hear that question because it’s so obviously... Read More
The Importance of History
Back in the classroom after a year-long sabbatical, I’m realizing how much I missed the direct... Read More
New Orleans: Victim of Government Neglect?
Five years ago Hurricane Katrina, a massive Category 3 storm, hit the Gulf Coast region, destroying property,... Read More
Trading for Security
Americans tolerate a costly global national-security apparatus in part because they believe the country... Read More
Not All Job Destruction Is Creative
In last week’s column I argued that we should not worry about saving jobs, but rather should celebrate... Read More
