Postrel makes the case for decentralized, dynamic systems. The obvious application of this is in free-market versus command-style economies, but she goes beyond these standard libertarian talking points to show how dynamic systems can create a better future in everything from urban planning to hair styling. Standing against the dynamists are the enemies of the future, the stasists: change fearing reactionaries and rule obsessed technocrats. These two flavors of stasists are often from opposite sides of the traditional political spectrum, but their shared belief that controlling outcomes only serves to stifle innovation and growth. This book is more than a decade old and yet it seems as fresh and vital as ever. A lot of what is advocated here I think comes from Hayek’s ideas of spontaneous order which I read about in his book The Fatal Conceit. That book was a difficult read for me, The Future and its Enemies was much more user-friendly and understandable. Highly recommended.

I like Andrew Klaven. His Klaven on the Culture videos are good natured and entertaining little bits of political satire that I will always watch regardless of the topic. Empire of Lies is a thriller which attempts to take on political correctness in our post 9/11 world. Klaven’s approach to the problem is to cast against type and make the protagonist an un-ironic born again Christian (with a somewhat unholy past). He soon finds himself confronting his past and getting caught up with a bunch of islamic terrorists. The book can be pretty jarring in its political incorrectness, but that’s the point: let’s face the facts and call out these “Islamofascists” for what they are. All this probing cultural analysis is fine and dandy, but the book falls a little flat in the thriller category. Many of the plot points just feel too ridiculous to me, and not in a hyperbolic/satirical way (That’s the kind of thing South Park does much better). It feels like that Mitchell and Webb skit where a couple ill-informed of British slackers who have never been to America, let alone in an American courtroom, write an American courtroom drama.

This book analyzes America’s proclivity towards an ever expansive and powerful executive branch—admittedly not the most exciting read. As one might expect, there’s plenty in here documenting the post 9/11 Bush White House’s power grabs. That’s fine, but I was expecting it to delve a little more deeply into public expectations of our Presidents. Do you really think the guy sitting in the Oval Office can create jobs? Change gas prices? End our social ills? I don’t think so, but since the Progressive era, each subsequent executive has grabbed more and more power in the name of fixing these things and Congress has more or less stood by while their powers were stripped. Despite the Bush-centric core of the book, it does make it clear that that administration’s actions were in no way atypical. The foundation was set with T. Roosevelt and kicked into high gear with Wilson and FDR. I now have a new respect for Calvin Coolidge.