Maybe inflation is one of the prices we pay for our cherished freedom to act in what appears to be our own self-interest, but while hurting others. (Other examples are pollution, unemployment, dangerous products, overpopulation, and the like.) Inflation becomes a national problem when its rate becomes so high that prominent people say should be done about it. The roots of inflation, thus conceived, are usually political, meaning that people with power to influence events have used that power with selfish interest. Sometimes this selfishness may be masked by custom (like passing along cost increases with a little added), by failing to do something preventive (like not raising taxes for fear of reprisals by campaign contributors or by a segment of voters different from those for whose benefit spending is being legislated), or by the misjudgment of well-intentioned people (like central bankers who don't make good predictions and then rationalize their monetary policy mistakes). The title of this volume indicates the viewpoint of a professor of law and economics with experience in regulatory agencies. People are said to lack discipline, meaning restraint in the fields of public finance, banking, and price-setting. Also, the book argues that in those areas could stop inflation. (Note the unconscious circular reasoning in the use of adjectives like sufficient and enough that could logically vitiate counter-arguments.) More precisely, Lovett sees possible causes of inflation as including at least eight factors: excessive government deficits; excess money supplies; increase in wages or prices without discipline from competition; expectational momentum; scarce resources, products, or specialized manpower; special wartime or postwar pressures; external price shocks in major commodities like oil or grain; and inflation in major trading partners abroad (see, for example, pp. 95, 104, 165). The author would generally excuse nations for the last five but certainly not the first three. He presents much evidence that countries like Japan, West Germany, and Switzerland have shown much better in the first three than the United States, Britain, France, and therefore have had less inflation.