Books, Arts & Manners

The Trap, by Sir James Goldsmith (Carroll & Graf, 207 pp., $11.95)

A STANDARD component of my mail consists of letters from successful businessmen, mostly retired, offering a solution for some major social problem—inflation, budget deficit, balance-of-payments deficit, Social Security, you name it. With rare exceptions, they are convinced that their success in business qualifies them to pronounce on social issues, without the need to investigate the extensive literature on the subject to which they have just turned their attention. The letters have a common quality. They are well-written, thoughtful, ingenious proposals by highly intelligent and wellmeaning people, and, almost without exception, consist of reinventing a defective wheel—offering a proposal that has a long academic pedigree, and was early on demonstrated to have serious flaws.

MF

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Milton Friedman

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The Trap, by Sir James Goldsmith (Carroll & Graf, 207 pp., $11.95)

A STANDARD component of my mail consists of letters from successful businessmen, mostly retired, offering a solution for some major social problem—inflation, budget deficit, balance-of-payments deficit, Social Security, you name it. With rare exceptions, they are convinced that their success in business qualifies them to pronounce on social issues, without the need to investigate the extensive literature on the subject to which they have just turned their attention. The letters have a common quality. They are well-written, thoughtful, ingenious proposals by highly intelligent and wellmeaning people, and, almost without exception, consist of reinventing a defective wheel—offering a proposal that has a long academic pedigree, and was early on demonstrated to have serious flaws.