Publishers Weekly's Review of
Reisman's CAPITALISM
(Reprinted in full from Publishers Weekly, November 18, 1996, p. 57.)

CAPITALISM:
A Treatise on Economics

George Reisman. Jameson/LPC, $95
(1096p) ISBN 0-915463-73-3

Reisman's ringing manifesto for laissez-faire capitalism free of all government influence is at once a conservative polemic and a monumental treatise, brimming with original theories, that is remarkable for its depth, scope and rigorous argument. He rejects the Keynsian doctrine that government must adopt a policy of budget deficits to cope with unemployment, contending, to the contrary, that federal intervention in the economic system is a root cause of inflation, credit expansion, depression and mass unemployment. Reisman staunchly defends capitalists as risk-takers who raise the average worker's real wages and living standards, increasing productivity and improving the quantity and quality of goods. Socialism, he says, is the system that exploits labor and causes stifling monopolistic control. Professor of economics at L.A.'s Pepperdine University, Reisman frequently espouses unfashionable, some would say "extreme," views; for instance, he opposes mandatory recycling, defends insider trading of stocks as justifiable and beneficial, and condemns laws banning child labor as an "inappropriate" response to a social ill. His call for a pro-capitalist political movement dedicated to the abolition of the welfare state, elimination of Social Security and Medicare, dismantling of public education, private ownership of all land, abolition of personal and corporate income taxes and a 90% cutback in government spending seems to put this tome beyond the pale of mainstream political debate--although it does come with raves from two Nobel laureats in economics. Conservative Book Club and Laissez Faire Book Club selection. (Jan.)