Two pamphlets

I recently read two pamphlets. There’s not much point in reviewing them, as both are under 100 pages, so instead I will give a brief description of each.

The first I’ve read is, on the recommendation of Bryan Caplan, “From prophecy to charity” by Lawrence Mead. The title refers to the author’s opposition to using the style of Old Testament prophecy to denounce the insufficiency of funding to counter the problem of American poverty, and instead supporting private and state charity with conditions attached. The point of the book is that modern American poverty is, unlike American poverty c. 1960, not a problem of a lack of opportunity, but of a lack of good incentives to work full time, as only 3% of full time workers in America are poor, and government programs based on improving job skills or giving aid with no conditions attached instead of incentivizing employment failed miserably. It’s not essential reading by any means, but it is useful if you want to get a good understanding of the Caplanian view of American poverty. It is, after all, in Caplan’s top ten favorite books on the subject of both global and American poverty.

The second pamphlet I’ve read is a 39 page ebook titled “Selected Passages from the Chinese Philosophers” by Michael Puett and Christine Gross-Loh. The only philosophers in that pamphlet whose quotations are of any worth are Mencius, and, to a lesser extent, Xunzi and, still to a lesser extent, Zhuangzi. Again, it’s useful if you want to get a brief impression of the classical Chinese philosophers’ thoughts, but is obviously inferior to actually reading the classics themselves (see bottom of the Google doc here) if one has the time or attention span.