How, then, has the decline in economic freedom-in recent years a remorseless degradation of individual liberty-played out day to day in corporations and small businesses, in Washington, DC, and city hall, on Wall Street and in the courts? What are the grim mechanics in America today of encroaching government control and the inevitable consequence of a shrinking of the domain of innovating, choosing, acting economic man? What specifically are we losing that we care about-or should care about? Those are the questions answered in these 18 essays, which range from a demonstration that government is "nationalizing the financial industry" to a close-up look at how one Long Island town exercises plenipotentiary power over property rights in the name of zoning.