STUDIES IN SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY AND POLICY

Economist Charles Baird conducts an exhaustive examination of the history of labor legislation in the United States. He argues that a labor market premissed on the natural rights of individuals and voluntary exchange would prove both more just to everyone involved in the labor market and more economically efficient.

In such a free market system, labor unions would have a place, for individuals would retain their rights to form any coalitions they might choose, but they would be deprived of the power of coercing nonunionized workers or management. Compulsory unionism, which affords unearned, monopoloy windfalls to some workers at the cost of the majority of nonunionized labor would cease to exist. Every worker would receive what he or his voluntary union could achieve through free bargaining.

Searching for Safety is unique in its exposition of a theory that explains how and why risk taking makes life safer. It also exposes the high risk in backwardness, whether it is a result of policy or inadvertent. The book covers a wide range, including how the human body, as well as plants, animals, and insects, cope with danger. Wildavsky addresses the master dilemma head on, asking whether piling on safety measures actually improves safety. While he agrees that society should sometimes try to prevent large harms from occurring, he explains why such anticipatory measures are usually inferior to a strategy of resilience -learning from error how to bounce back in better shape. His purpose is to shift the risk debate from passive prevention of harm to active search for safety.

Written for the intelligent layman, the book will be of special interest to individuals concerned with risk, technology, health, safety, environmental protection, regulation, and analysis of systems for making decisions.

Designed to appeal to a wide audience, "The Bloody Flag "combines inquiry into the nature of nationalism with historical illustrations of its influence. The Romanian context is exemplary of many newly liberated nations facing the possibility of ethnic violence and antidemocratic resurgence. As Pilon points out, numerous representatives of the old order remain entrenched in power and there is real danger that the defeated elites will attempt to harness nationalist energies for their own ends. If they succeed, the world may witness the rise of new authoritarian regimes to replace the old communist ones.

Pilon argues that the best hope for Romanians, and for all the peoples of Eastern Europe, is to embrace the positive aspects of nationalism while rejecting the negative. The political system that can allow them to do this is the classical-liberal model defended by such figures as Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek--a model that makes possible the peaceful coexistence of different nationalities by protecting the rights of individuals and leaving them free to pursue their own interests. Graced with a foreword by the eminent historian Robert Conquest, "The Bloody Flag "is an important contribution to the understanding of current and future events in Europe.

Teachers Evaluating Teachers explores the peer review phenomenon and the teacher unions' stake in perpetuating it. Lieberman examines the costs of peer review programs and seeks to determine whether their promised benefits have been realized. The true test of a program's success should be improvement in teacher competence, which would lead to gains in student achievement, but Lieberman argues that there is no evidence that student scores on standardized test have improved in districts with peer review. Indeed, he shows that peer review has had little or no impact on the number dismissed on grounds of poor performance.

Haar surveys the organization's history and demonstrates its longstanding tendency to involve itself in issues of little or no relevance to education policy. Throughout its formative years, the PTA pursued legislative goals on issues such as prohibition, cigarette smoking, and international relations -- topics that had little to do with educating students. In more recent years, Haar contends, when the PTA did address important educational issues, its positions merely reflected the policies of the powerful teacher unions: the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association. The modern PTA at the national and state levels rarely speaks with a truly independent voice, depriving parents of what could have been a constructive force for reform in public education.

Haar criticizes the PTA for defining meaningful parental involvement in education as fundraising, lobbying, and volunteering at schools in roles defined by teachers. Parental involvement should be viewed, Haar contends, primarily as activities that parents undertake to improve their children's academic performance. Ineffect, the PTA relegates parents to being little more than boosters of the educational status quo. With this dubious mission, it is not surprising that the organization's membership has dwindled, and with its tightly controlled governance structure, reform of the PTA is very improbable. Unable to stand up to the teacher unions or to represent parents' interests, the PTA seems destined for irrelevance, as its base in the schools is challenged by local parent organizations that choose not to be affiliated with the National PTA.