Against Leviathan: Government Power and a Free Society

by Robert Higgs

Overview

What is fundamentally wrong with government today? In Against Leviathan, economist and historian Robert Higgs, offers an unflinching critical analysis of government power.

Against Leviathan combines an economist's analytical scrutiny, an historian's respect for the facts, and a refusal to accept the standard excuses and cruelties of government officialdom. Topics include Social Security, the paternalism of the FDA, the "War on Drugs," the nature of political leadership, civil liberties, the conduct of the national surveillance state, and governmental responses to a continuing stream of "crises," including domestic economic busts and foreign wars both hot and cold. Against Leviathan is a thorough and penetrating critique, and a significant contribution in this current time of crisis and unchecked expansion of government power.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781598134131
Publisher:	Independent Institute
Publication date:	10/07/2025
Series:	The Essential Robert Higgs
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	432
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Robert Higgs is Retired Senior Fellow in Political Economy, Founding Editor and former Editor at Large of the Independent Institute's quarterly journal The Independent Review: A Journal of Political Economy. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Johns Hopkins University, and he has taught at the University of Washington, Lafayette College, Seattle University, the University of Economics, Prague, and George Mason University. He has been a visiting scholar at Oxford University and Stanford University, and a fellow for the Hoover Institution and the National Science Foundation. His many books include Crisis and Leviathan; Depression, War, and Cold War; After Leviathan; Delusions of Power; Neither Liberty Nor Safety; Resurgence of the Warfare State; Taking a Stand; and multiple edited collections.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	ix
	Introduction	xv
Part I	Welfare Statism
Chapter 1	Is More Economic Equality Better?	3
Chapter 2	The Welfare State: Promising Protection in an Age of Anxiety	9
Chapter 3	Nineteen Neglected Consequences of Income Redistribution	21
Part II	Our Glorious Leaders
Chapter 4	The Mythology of Roosevelt and the New Deal	33
Chapter 5	Public Choice and Political Leadership	41
Chapter 6	Bolingbroke, Nixon, and the Rest of Them	45
Chapter 7	What Professor Stiglitz Learned in Washington	49
Chapter 8	Great Presidents?	53
Part III	Despotism, Soft and Hard
Chapter 9	The U.S. Food and Drug Administration: A Billy Club Is Not a Substitute for Eyeglasses	59
Chapter 10	Regulatory Harmonization: A Sweet-Sounding, Dangerous Development	75
Chapter 11	Puritanism, Paternalism, and Power	83
Chapter 12	We're All Sick, and Government Must Heal Us	89
Chapter 13	Lock 'Em Up!	95
Chapter 14	Government Protects Us?	101
Chapter 15	Coercion Is Not a Societal Constant	107
Part IV	Economic Disgraces
Chapter 16	Official Economic Statistics: The Emperor's Clothes Are Dirty	115
Chapter 17	A Tale of Two Labor Markets	123
Chapter 18	Death and Taxes	131
Chapter 19	A Carnival of Taxation	137
Chapter 20	Unmitigated Mercantilism	145
Chapter 21	Results of a Fifty-Year Experiment in Political Economy	153
Chapter 22	Results of Another Fifty-Year Experiment in Political Economy	155
Chapter 23	Pity the Poor Japanese	157
Part V	The Political Economy of Crisis
Chapter 24	War and Leviathan in Twentieth-Century America: Conscription as the Keystone	163
Chapter 25	Crisis and Quasi-corporatist Policymaking: The U.S. Case in Historical Perspective	177
Chapter 26	The Normal Constitution versus the Crisis Constitution	201
Chapter 27	The Myth of War Prosperity	219
Chapter 28	To Deal with a Crisis: Government Program or Free Market?	227
Chapter 29	Beware the Pork Hawk: In Pursuit of Reelection, Congress Sells Out the Nation's Defense	235
Chapter 30	The Cold War Is Over, but U.S. Preparation for It Continues	247
Part VI	Retreat of the State?
Chapter 31	Leviathan at Bay? (As Viewed in 1991)	271
Chapter 32	Escaping Leviathan?	283
Chapter 33	The Era of Big Government Is Not Over	289
Part VII	Review of the Troops
Chapter 34	The Bloody Hinge of American History	299
Chapter 35	The Rise of Big Business in America	311
Chapter 36	Origins of the Corporate Liberal State	319
Chapter 37	When Ideological Worlds Collide: Reflections on Kraditor's Radical Persuasion	339
Chapter 38	On Ackerman's Justification of Irregular Constitutional Change: Is Any Vice You Get Away With a Virtue?	351
Chapter 39	The So-Called Third Way	361
Chapter 40	Thank God for the Nation State?	367
	Index	377
	About the Author	407

What People are Saying About This

Tyler Cowen

A book by Robert Higgs on government and its growth is a sure thing. Against Leviathan is a superb treatment, and no one is better qualified to write on such a topic.

Thomas Gale Moore

This is a book that should be read by anyone concerned with American freedoms in the 21st century.

David Henderson

Against Leviathan is one of the best books on economic policy in the last few years. Higgs's case against government oppression is tight and persuasive. Virtually every page of this easy-to-read book tells something important about the economy or government.

Ron Paul

Defenders of liberty need look no further for intellectual ammunition. This hard-hitting book exposes the multitude of ways the growth of the welfare-warfare state threatens our freedom and prosperity. Higgs exposes the fallacies and lies used by politicians and statist intellectuals to justify big government and explains how politicians and bureaucrats use wars and other 'emergencies' to expand their power and violate our rights.

Anthony de Jasay

In a tireless indictment that surveys in scholarly detail most aspects of recent and current government ... Higgs brands the whole as a vicious and destructive fraud. His intellectual equipment as an economic historian serves him well, as does his lively and easy prose. If books could 'roll back the state' (and who knows, perhaps they can?) Against Leviathan would do a fair bit of rolling.

Paul Craig Roberts

In Against Leviathan, Robert Higgs colorfully describes government's many failures-and its one success: the manipulation of fear and patriotism on behalf of crises that increase government's power.

Steve H. Hanke

Provides a strong antidote for claims that the government is competent, protective and just. With forensic flair and lucidity, Higgs demonstrates why these received ideas are bunk and why he is a master of swimming against the tide.

Bill Kauffman

In an age of cowards and trimmers. Robert Higgs is a gutsy, passionate, and learned defender of liberty. America-the real country, not the rotten empire-needs him.

Alexander Cockburn

I wish liberals and even radicals felt and wrote as strongly about the Iron Heel of government power as does Robert Higgs in his marvelous book, Against Leviathan.

Editorial Reviews

"One of the best books on economic policy in [recent] years...Higgs s case against government oppression is tight and persuasive."

David Henderson

"Robert Higgs is a gutsy, passionate, and learned defender of liberty. America the real country, not the rotten empire needs him."

Bill Kauffman

"This is a book that should be read by anyone concerned with American freedoms in the 21st century."

Thomas Gale Moore

"This hard-hitting book exposes the multitude of ways the growth of the welfare-warfare state threatens our freedom and prosperity."

Congressman Ron Paul

"I wish liberals and even radicals felt and wrote as strongly about the Iron Heel of government power..."

Alexander Cockburn

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



"Against Leviathan is one of the best books on economic policy in the last few years. Higgs’s case against government oppression is tight and persuasive. Virtually every page of this easy-to-read book tells something important about the economy or government." —David Henderson, Professor of Economics, Naval Postgraduate School; author, The Joy of Freedom


"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


"Defenders of liberty need look no further for intellectual ammunition. 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

From the Publisher