Review of ‘Why Redistribution Fails’ by James Piereson


James Piereson, Why Redistribution Fails, Encounter Broadside No. 45 (New York: Encounter Books, 2015). According to American progressives, economic inequality is a social-justice problem for which income redistribution is a necessary political solution. In this Encounter Broadside, James Piereson sets the moral question about income redistribution to one side and focuses on a more practical question, whether government can do it well. He answers that it cannot. “[T]he progressive case is based upon a significant fallacy,” he writes; “it assumes that the U.S. government is actually capable of redistributing income from the wealthy to the poor. For reasons of policy, … Continue reading Review of ‘Why Redistribution Fails’ by James Piereson

Review of ‘Camelot and the Cultural Revolution’ by James Piereson


 James Piereson, Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism, 2nd ed. (New York: Encounter Books, 2013). Paperback / Kindle Had Lee Harvey Oswald been a member of the John Birch Society or Ku Klux Klan—or even just a disaffected Southern cracker—the historiography of John F. Kennedy’s assassination would not have been what it has been for the last 50 years, namely, the endless search for a conspiracy. Moreover, the politics of the last 50 years would have been different from what they have been, what with the “vital center” of liberalism steadily … Continue reading Review of ‘Camelot and the Cultural Revolution’ by James Piereson