The book closes with Stockman’s prescription. Put the dollar back on the gold standard. Move to a form of “narrow banking.” Amend the Constitution to provide for single six-year terms for all members of Congress and the president; outlaw most private political spending; forbid former holders of federal office from lobbying; and balance the federal budget on a two- year cycle.

Oh, and no more macroeconomic management. Abolish subsidies. Abolish Medicare and Medicaid. Abolish the income tax, replacing it with a tax on spending. Eliminate “much of the federal government.” Slash the defense budget and stop policing the world. Impose — get this — a one-time wealth tax of 30 percent to pay down the national debt once and for all. It really doesn’t do this view justice to call it utopian. It’s so flamboyantly impossible, it’s unhinged. Like Paul, Stockman is self-sufficient in his pessimism. Yes, he smiles, we’re doomed – – and if you should ever doubt it, here’s what it would take to save us.

The scope of the critique, while crazy, is undeniably impressive. It has a kind of logical integrity. Everything is worked out and all the connections explained. Stockman has been reading his economic history and his Austrian economics. Crucially, a lot of what he says really does make sense. In understanding the crash, for instance, the Austrian school’s emphasis on the role of the credit cycle looks right. Most of Stockman’s observations about Washington’s self-replicating morbidity are accurate.