In Bootleggers & Baptists: How Economic Forces and Moral Persuasion Interact to Shape Regulatory Politics, economists Bruce Yandle and Adam Smith explain how money and morality are often combined in politics to produce arbitrary regulations benefiting cronies, while constraining productive economic activities by the general public. Yandle’s theory asserts that regulatory “bootleggers” are parties taking political action in pursuit of economic gain. Regulatory “Baptists” are parties participating in group action driven by an avowed higher moral purpose or desire to serve the public interest. By examining major regulatory activities including Obamacare, the recent financial crisis bailouts, climate change legislation, and rules governing “sinful” substances, Bootleggers & Baptists reveals that lasting regulations require moral and financial advocacy to survive the American political process. With countless regulatory initiatives on the horizon, this book is a must-read for all who are concern about over-regulation and government intrusion in our daily lives.

Policy analysts, academics, journalists, and even politicians lament the influence of money on politics. But in the political economy, politicians often carefully design regulations so that two very different interest groups will be satisfied. The Bootlegger and Baptist theory, an innovative public choice theory developed more than 30 years ago, holds that for a regulation to emerge and endure, both the bootleggers," who seek to obtain private benefits from the regulation, and the Baptists," who seek to serve the public interest, must support the regulation. Economists Adam Smith and Bruce Yandle provide an accessible description of the theory and cite numerous examples of coalitions of economic and moral interests who desire a common goal. The book applies the theory's insights to a wide range of current issues, including the recent financial crisis and environmental regulation, and provides readers with both an understanding of how regulation is a product of economic and moral interests and a fresh perspective on the ongoing debate of how special interest groups influence politics.

Ezekiel Wilson preaches in support of prohibition so that his flock will believe him to be an upstanding Baptist minister. And so that he can continue in his illegal bootlegging operation. But when prohibition is finally enforced, he finds himself pitted against immovable forces, including the God he’s so long claimed to serve. At the close of 1958, Ezekiel is preaching and bootlegging; Robert Arrington is coming to terms with his rebellious nature; Nigel Baxter is sent to enforce the tired prohibition laws in hopes of repealing them. As 1958 gives way to 1959, the fight for prohibition increases and all three lives are caught in the crosswires.

Set against the backdrop of the historic flooding of the Mississippi River, The Tilted World is an extraordinary tale of murder and moonshine, sandbagging and saboteurs, and a man and a woman who find unexpected love, from Tom Franklin, the acclaimed author of the New York Times bestseller Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, and award-winning poet Beth Ann Fennelly The year is 1927. As rains swell the Mississippi, the mighty river threatens to burst its banks and engulf everything in its path, including federal revenue agent Ted Ingersoll and his partner, Ham Johnson. Arriving in the tiny hamlet of Hobnob, Mississippi, to investigate the disappearance of two fellow agents who'd been on the trail of a local bootlegger, they are astonished to find a baby boy abandoned in the middle of a crime scene. Ingersoll, an orphan raised by nuns, is determined to find the infant a home, and his search leads him to Dixie Clay Holliver. A strong woman married too young to a philandering charmer, Dixie Clay has lost a child to illness and is powerless to resist this second chance at motherhood. From the moment they meet, Ingersoll and Dixie Clay are drawn to each other. He has no idea that she's the best bootlegger in the county and may be connected to the agents' disappearance. And while he seems kind and gentle, Dixie Clay knows full well that he is an enemy who can never be trusted. When Ingersoll learns that a saboteur might be among them, planning a catastrophe along the river that would wreak havoc in Hobnob, he knows that he and Dixie Clay will face challenges and choices that they will be fortunate to survive. Written with extraordinary insight and tenderness, The Tilted World is that rarest of creations, a story of seemingly ordinary people who find hope and deliverance where they least expect it—in each other.

Retells the story of America--and of its engagement with its neighbors and the rest of the world--as a series of highly contentious battles over clandestine commerce.

A veteran reporter lifts the curtain on the ongoing religious, political, educational, and business machine of the late Reverend Jerry Falwell.

In order to report his late father's real life EPA whistleblower crime, Kevin Neece confesses his life story to the FBI in the form of a Scandalous Filmmaker Tell All that's been described as Self Delusional, Self Destructive, and Surreal.