THE ADVENTURES OF JONATHAN GULLIBLE
A FREE MARKET ODYSSEY
by Ken Schoolland
Illustrated by Randall Lavarius
Published by Sam Slom
(Modern Edition: Small Business Hawaii: Honolulu, Hawaii. 2001. 90 pages.)
This, the cover of the 1995 edition, is by David Friedman (the artist; not the economist). Art and cover design Copyright © 1995 Small Business Hawaii, Inc.
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I am proud to recommend this delightful and witty satire on government. In this string of humorous parables, we witness the travels of a young man by the name of Jonathan Gullible, who, one day while sailing, gets caught in a storm and washes ashore on the strange island of Corrumpo.
At first glance, Corrumpo appears to be a civilized place; it has the same basic level of technology as everywhere else, and its inhabitants speak the same language as Jonathan. What makes this island an unpleasant place to live is its large, bureaucratic government. To be sure, Corrumpo is not a police state (at least not yet), nor is it totalitarian or even consistently left-wing socialist. Rather, it is governed by a mixed economy which contains combined elements of capitalism, socialism, and fascism. Here, we find that individual rights are ignored in favor of uncontested democracy, and that special interest groups from all facets of society compete for the power to legally rob from everyone else through government coercion. Those who benefit from all of this insanity are the members of the Council of Lords, led by Lady Bess Tweed and Lord Carlo Ponzi. The fact that all of these legislators have been democractically elected in no way limits the power of the legislature as a whole to impose their own values on the population through the threat of force. Of course, these malefactors disguise their own exploitative agendas through their promulgation of "the public good"--as they see it.
Jonathan Gullible, as gullible as he is, at first assumes the best of these people. However, once he witnesses the logical consequences of government coercion upon people who have violated the rights of no one else, he then begins to understand the nature of bureaucracy and collectivism. He wanders the island in search of a voice to reason, only to witness one horrifying fiasco after another. Here is a world ruled by the Board of Digestion, the Democracy Gang, the Generic Party, public workers unions, sleazy lobbyists, government-granted monopolies, and unscrupulous (Keynesian) economists who care nothing of reality. Will the residents of Corrumpo discover the awful nature of their government before it is too late? Read and find out!
After Ayn Rand, Ken Schoolland is the most logical fiction writer I have ever come across. He is an enlightened professor of economics and political science, but he is in no way intimidating. I am ceaselessly amazed by his ability to explain the most complicated economic principles in words simple enough for anyone to understand. His sense of humor is so sharp and divine, that I find myself laughing out loud as I read the satires he writes.
The wisdom in The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible is especially relevant for those who live in Hawaii, which is where its author happens to live. There are many ominous parallels between Hawaii's current economic situation and the gradual deterioration of Corrumpo's social order. In this work of art, you'll discover the irrepairable flaws in such sacred cows as national trade barriers, "public" "education", "public property", zoning laws, the Federal Reserve System, the minimum wage, campaign "contributions", licensing, the National Endowment for the Arts, the U.S. Postal Service, income taxes, Keynesian economics, subsidies, welfare, child labor laws, the draft, social "security", prostitution laws, the War on Drugs, gambling prohibition, rent control, and democracy without individual rights. The cure to the problems caused by all of these, Jonathan learns, are free trade, personal conduct rights, the free market, and privatization of government "social services." Suffice to say, The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible is a book which succesfully challenges the status quo.
When you check out this book at amazon.com, please read the review by "A Reader from Mililani." If it gave the book five stars, then that's the review written by me.
The Libertarian Party's Jonathan Gullible Page
Artful Expressions.Com's Review of Jonathan Gullible
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The above written material is Copyright © 1999 Stuart K. Hayashi, and may not be reproduced by any means without his written consent. All Rights Reserved.