AEI Press
Pages: 152
Trim: 6 x 9
978-1-4422-6071-9 • Paperback • June 2016 • $16.95 • (£12.99)
978-1-4422-6072-6 • eBook • June 2016 • $15.99 • (£11.99)
Charles Murray is the W. H. Brady Scholar in Culture and Freedom at the American Enterprise Institute. His previous books include Losing Ground (1984), In Pursuit (1988), The Bell Curve (1994, with Richard J. Hernstein), What It Means to Be a Libertarian (1997), and Human Accomplishment (2003). He lives in Burkittsville, Maryland.
List of Illustrations
Ground Rules
Preface to the 2016 Edition
Introduction
Part I. Framework
1. The Plan
2. Basic Finances
Part II. Immediate Effects
3. Health Care
4. Retirement
5. Poverty
6. The Underclass
7. Work Disincentives
Part III . The Larger Purpose
8. The Pursuit of Happiness in Advanced Societies
9. Work
10. Family
11. Community
12. Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Appendixes
Bibliography
Notes
Index
About the Author
[Charles Murray] has done more to provoke serious debate on subjects ranging from welfare to IQ than any of the million or so members of American academe, and more to produce changes in America's welfare state than any of the army of professional politicians.
— The Economist
What causes poverty in America? Lack of money. It’s that simple. And Charles Murray is simple-minded. All geniuses are. Let King Gordius of Phygia stand for Congress, the courts, and the executive branch. The yoke of social welfare programs has been tied to the chariot of politics with a not so ingenious that no one can unite it. Now read In Our Hands and watch the sword of Alexander the Great—or, rather, the pen of Murray the Brilliant—sever policy’s tangled skein.
— P.J. O'Rourke
In a world of timid prevaricators and world-weary complacency, thank God for Charles Murray. In this brief, but profound tract, he restates the obvious: that government is in the way of longer, safer, happier lives for all of us, and that we have the power to remove it. . . . We need his voice now more than ever, and in this book, it is as piercing, honest, and rigorous as ever.
— Andrew Sullivan