Globalizing L.A.: Trade, Infrastructure, and Regional Development. By Steven P. Erie. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004. 336p. $55.00 cloth, $21.95 paper.

Perhaps the dominant political rhetoric of our time is that which divides society into a self-correcting market and a government, one is the necessary and primary cause of our social ills. Government programs designed to mitigate or solve problems, we are told, unfailingly make the target problem worse and create additional, unforeseen problems. Better to leave well enough alone, even if later we lack the means to travel from our driveway to a workplace nearly one hour away on a good day.