Sometimes we think many of our ideas are original, when in reality, a countless number of sources have gone into the development of these ideas. This is a visualization to help better understand my own changes in thought.
Created by rromanchuk on Jul 10, 2008
Last updated: 03/11/10 at 02:19 PM
Tags: Books liberty freedom ryan romanchuk
The first book on Nietzsche ever to appear in English, this examination by legendary journalist H. L. Mencken is still one of the most enlightening. Mencken wrote this book while still in his 20s, but his penchant for thoroughness was evident even at that young age—in preparation for writing this book, he read Nietzsche's works in their entirety, mostly in the original German. A brief biographical sketch is followed by clear and thorough explanations of Nietzsche's basic concepts and attitudes. Analyzed are Nietzsche's much-misunderstood concept of the superman, his concept of eternal recurrence, his rejection of Christianity, and his basic rationalism and materialism. Included are two essays on Nietzsche that appeared in Mencken's magazine The Smart Set subsequent to the publishing of the original edition of this book. Nearly a century after its original publication, this remains one of the clearest, most concise, and entertaining introductions to Nietzsche to date.
http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Friedrich-Nietzsche-H-Mencken/dp/1884365310
We (Russian: Мы)[1] is a dystopian novel by Yevgeny Zamyatin completed in 1921.[2]
It was written in response to the author's personal experiences with the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, his life in the Newcastle suburb of Jesmond and work in the Tyne shipyards at nearby Wallsend during the First World War. It was on Tyneside that he observed the rationalization of labour on a large scale.
The first English translation of We was published in 1924.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel)
We (Russian: Мы)[1] is a dystopian novel by Yevgeny Zamyatin completed in 1921.[2]
It was written in response to the author's personal experiences with the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, his life in the Newcastle suburb of Jesmond and work in the Tyne shipyards at nearby Wallsend during the First World War. It was on Tyneside that he observed the rationalization of labour on a large scale.
The first English translation of We was published in 1924.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel)
What's all this fuss about free-market anarchism? Well, Professor Stringham didn't just introduce the topic in this massive book. He went the whole way to the end: he created what we've desperately needed for decades: a complete reader on the topic. A monumental book at 700 pages, fully indexed, this is collection we've always wanted. Why, oh why, didn't this appear years ago? Never mind: the point is that it is here. And the Mises Institute is just so very pleased to make it available, and to offer a special congratulations to Edward Stringham for taking on the seemingly impossible, making sound judgments, and spending the necessary hundreds of hours that it took to put this together. If you love the of free-market anarchism, hate it, or are just intrigued that so many are steeped in the rigor and logic of the prospects of a free society without the state, this is the collection that gives you all you need to find your way around this burgeoning line of thought. And at this price, the book is a steal (and, no, stealing would not be allowed under free-market anarchism; see Rothbard's chapter two). Roderick Long writes: This nearly 700-page book is quite simply the definitive collection on free-market anarchism. Its forty chapters include contributions from Randy Barnett, Bruce Benson, Bryan Caplan, Roy Childs, Anthony de Jasay, David Friedman, John Hasnas, Hans Hoppe, Jeff Hummel, Don Lavoie, Murray Rothbard, the Tannehills, and many more, including even your humble correspondent. It also features historical by Voltairine de Cleyre, Gustave de Molinari, Lysander Spooner, and Benjamin Tucker, among others. It covers both moral arguments and economic ones; it ranges over both abstract theory and historical examples. It even includes important criticisms of market anarchism, like Tyler Cowen’s and Robert Nozick’s, along with anarchist replies. This, here and now, is it. Wonder no more what is the market anarchist book to recommend to the anarcho-curious or wave menacingly at the statist heathen; it’s this one. Table of Contents 1. Introduction—Edward P. Stringham Section I: Theory of Private Property Anarchism 2. Police, Law, and the Courts—Murray Rothbard 3. The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism (excerpt)—David Friedman 4. Market for Liberty (excerpt)—Morris and Linda Tannehill 5. Pursuing Justice in a Free Society: Crime Prevention and the Legal Order—Randy Barnett 6. Capitalist Production and the Problem of Public Goods—Hans Hoppe 7. National Defense and the Public-Goods Problem—Jeffrey Rogers Hummel and Don Lavoie 8. Defending a Free Nation—Roderick Long 9. The Myth of the Rule of Law—John Hasnas Section II: Debate 10. The State—Robert Nozick 11. The Invisible Hand Strikes Back—Roy A. Childs 12. Robert Nozick and the Immaculate Conception of the State—Murray Rothbard 13. Objectivism and the State: An Open Letter to Ayn Rand—Roy Childs 14. Do We Ever Really Get Out of Anarchy?—Alfred G. Cuzan 15. Law as a Public Good: The Economics of Anarchy—Tyler Cowen 16. Law as a Private Good: A Response to Tyler Cowen on the Economics of Anarchy—David Friedman 17. Rejoinder to David Friedman on the Economics of Anarchy—Tyler Cowen 18. Networks, Law and the Paradox of Cooperation—Bryan Caplan and Edward Stringham 19. Conflict, Cooperation and Competition in Anarchy—Tyler Cowen and Daniel Sutter 20. Conventions: Some Thoughts on the Economics of Ordered Anarchy—Anthony De Jasay 21. Can Anarchy Save Us from Leviathan?—Andrew Rutten 22. Government: Unnecessary but Inevitable—Randall Holcombe 23. Is Government Inevitable? Comment on Holcombe’s Analysis—Peter Leeson and Edward Stringham Section III: History of Anarchist Thought 24. Gustave de Molinari and the Anti-statist Liberal Tradition (excepts)—David Hart 25. Vindication of Natural Society(excerpt)—Edmund Burke 26. The Production of Security—Gustave de Molinari 27. Individualist Anarchism in the United States: The Origins—Murray Rothbard 28. Anarchism and American Traditions—Voltairine de Cleyre 29. On Civil Government—David Lipscomb 30. No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority (excerpt)—Lysander Spooner 31. Trial by Jury—Lysander Spooner 32. Relation of the State to the Individual—Benjamin Tucker 33. Political and Economic Overview—David Osterfeld Section IV: Historical Case Studies of Non-Government Law Enforcement 34. Are Public Goods Really Common Pools? Considerations of the Evolution of Policing and Highways in England—Bruce Benson 35. Property Rights in Celtic Irish Law—Joseph Peden 36. Private Creation and Enforcement of Law: A Historical Case—David Friedman 37. The Role of Institutions in the Revival of Trade: The Law Merchant, Private Judges, and the Champagne Fairs—Paul Milgrom, Douglass North, and Barry Weingast 38. Legal Evolution in Primitive Societies—Bruce Benson 39. American Experiment in Anarcho-Capitalism: The Not So Wild, Wild West—Terry Anderson and P. J. Hill 40. Order Without Law (excerpt)—Robert Ellickson
Can the market fully manage the money and banking sector? Jesús Huerta de Soto, professor of economics at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, has made history with this mammoth and exciting treatise that it has and can again, without inflation, without business cycles, and without the economic instability that has characterized the age of government control. Such a book as this comes along only once every several generations: a complete comprehensive treatise on economic theory. It is sweeping, revolutionary, and devastating--not only the most extended elucidation of Austrian business cycle theory to ever appear in print but also a decisive vindication of the Misesian-Rothbardian perspective on money, banking, and the law. Jörg Guido Hülsmann has said that this is the most significant work on money and banking to appear since 1912, when Mises's own book was published and changed the way all economists thought about the subject. Its five main contributions: * a wholesale reconstruction of the legal framework for money and banking, from the ancient world to modern times, * an application of law-and-economics logic to banking that links microeconomic analysis to macroeconomic phenomena, * a comprehensive critique of fractional-reserve banking from the point of view of history, theory, and policy, * an application of the Austrian critique of socialism to central banking, * the most comprehensive look at banking enterprise from the point of view of market-based entrepreneurship. Those are the main points but, in fact, this only scratches the surface. Indeed, it would be difficult to overestimate the importance of this book. De Soto provides also a defense of the Austrian perspective on business cycles against every other theory, defends the 100% reserve perspective from the point of view of Roman and British law, takes on the most important objections to full reserve theory, and presents a full policy program for radical reform. It was Hülsmann's review of the Spanish edition that inspired the translation that led to this Mises Institute edition in English. The result is astonishing: an 875-page masterpiece that utterly demolishes the case for fiat currency and central banking, and shows that these institutions have compromised economic stability and freedom, and, moreover, are intolerable in a free society. De Soto has set new scholarly standards with this detailed discussion of monetary reform from an Austro-libertarian point of view. Huerta de Soto’s solid elaboration of his arguments along these lines makes his treatise a model illustration of the Austrian approach to the study of the relationship between law and economics. It could take a decade for the full implications of this book to be absorbed but this much is clear: all serious students of these subject matters will have to master this treatise. 875 page hardback CONTENTS * Preface to the English-Language Edition * Preface to the Second Spanish Edition * Introduction Chapter 1: The Legal Nature of the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract * A Preliminary Clarification of Terms: Loan Contracts (Mutuum and Commodatum)and Deposit Contracts * The Commodatum Contract * The Mutuum Contract * The Deposit Contract * The Deposit of Fungible Goods or "Irregular" Deposit Contract * The Economic and Social Function of Irregular Deposits * The Fundamental Element in the Monetary Irregular Deposit * Resulting Effects of the Failure to Comply with the Essential Obligation in the Irregular Deposit * Court Decisions Acknowledging the Fundamental Legal Principles which Govern the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract (100-Percent Reserve Requirement) * The Essential Differences Between the Irregular Deposit Contract and the Monetary Loan Contract * The Extent to Which Property Rights are Transferred in Each Contract * Fundamental Economic Differences Between the Two Contracts Fundamental Legal Differences Between the Two Contracts * The Discovery by Roman Legal Experts of the General Legal Principles Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract * The Emergence of Traditional Legal Principles According to Menger, Hayek and Leoni * Roman Jurisprudence * The Irregular Deposit Contract Under Roman Law Chapter 2: Historical Violations of the Legal Principles Legal Principles Governing the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract * Introduction * Banking in Greece and Rome * Trapezitei, or Greek Bankers * Banking in the Hellenistic World * Banking in Rome * The Failure of the Christian Callistus's Bank * The Societates Argentariae * Bankers in the Late Middle Ages * The Revival of Deposit Banking in Mediterranean Europe * The Canonical Ban on Usury and the "Depositum Confessatum" * Banking in Florence in the Fourteenth Century * The Medici Bank * Banking in Catalonia in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries: The Taula de Canvi * Banking During the Reign of Charles V and the Doctrine of the School of Salamanca * The Development of Banking in Seville * The School of Salamanca and the Banking Business * A New Attempt at Legitimate Banking: The Bank of Amsterdam. * Banking in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries * The Bank of Amsterdam * David Hume and the Bank of Amsterdam * Sir James Steuart, Adam Smith and the Bank of Amsterdam * The Banks of Sweden and England * John Law and Eighteenth-Century Banking in France * Richard Cantillon and the Fraudulent Violation of the Irregular-Deposit Contract Chapter 3: Attempts to Legally Justify Fractional-Reserve Banking * Introduction * Why it is Impossible to Equate the Irregular Deposit with the Loan or Mutuum Contract * The Roots of the Confusion * The Mistaken Doctrine of Common Law * The Doctrine of Spanish Civil and Commercial Codes * Criticism of the Attempt to Equate the Monetary Irregular-Deposit Contract with the Loan or Mutuum Contract * The Distinct Cause or Purpose of Each Contract * The Notion of the Unspoken or Implicit Agreement * An Inadequate Solution: The Redefinition of the Concept of Availability * The Monetary Irregular Deposit, Transactions with a Repurchase Agreement and Life Insurance Contracts * Transactions with a Repurchase Agreement * The Case of Life Insurance Contract Chapter 4: The Credit Expansion Process * Introduction * The Bank's Role as a True Intermediary in the Loan Contract * The Bank's Role in the Monetary Bank-Deposit Contract * The Effects Produced by Bankers' Use of Demand Deposits: The Case of an Individual Bank * The Continental Accounting System * Accounting Practices in the English-speaking World * An Isolated Bank's Capacity for Credit Expansion and Deposit Creation * The Case of a Very Small Bank * Credit Expansion and Ex Nihilo Deposit Creation by a Sole, Monopolistic Bank * Credit Expansion and New Deposit Creation by the Entire Banking System * Creation of Loans in a System of Small Banks * A Few Additional Difficulties * When Expansion is Initiated Simultaneously by All Banks * Filtering Out the Money Supply From the Banking System * The Maintenance of Reserves Exceeding the Minimum Requirement * Different Reserve Requirements for Different Types of Deposits * The Parallels Between the Creation of Deposits and the Issuance of Unbacked Banknotes * The Credit Tightening Process Chapter 5: Bank Credit Expansion and Its Effects on the Economic System * The Foundations of Capital Theory * Human Action as a Series of Subjective Stages * Capital and Capital Goods * The Interest Rate * The Structure of Production * Some Additional Considerations * Criticism of the Measures used in National Income Accounting * The Effect on the Productive Structure of an Increase in Credit Financed under a Prior Increase in Voluntary Saving * The Three Different Manifestations of the Process of Voluntary Saving * Account Records of Savings Channeled into Loans * The Issue of Consumer Loans * The Effects of Voluntary Saving on the Productive Structure * First: The Effect Produced by the New Disparity in Profits Between the Different Productive Stages * Second: The Effect of the Decrease in the Interest Rate on the Market Price of Capital Goods * Third: The Ricardo Effect * Conclusion: The Emergence of a New, More Capital-Intensive Productive Structure * The Theoretical Solution to the "Paradox of Thrift" * The Case of an Economy in Regression * The Effects of Bank Credit Expansion Unbacked by an Increase in Saving: The Austrian Theory or Circulation Credit Theory of the Business Cycle * The Effects of Credit Expansion on the Productive Structure * The Market's Spontaneous Reaction to Credit Expansion * Banking, Fractional-Reserve Ratios and the Law of Large Numbers Chapter 6: Additional Considerations on the Theory of the Business Cycle * Why no Crisis Erupts when New Investment is Financed by Real Saving (And Not by Credit Expansion) * The Possibility of Postponing the Eruption of the Crisis: The Theoretical Explanation of the Process of Stagflation * Consumer Credit and the Theory of the Cycle * The Self-Destructive Nature of the Artificial Booms Caused by Credit Expansion: The Theory of "Forced Saving" * The Squandering of Capital, Idle Capacity and Malinvestment of Productive Resources Credit Expansion as the Cause of Massive Unemployment * National Income Accounting is Inadequate to Reflect the Different Stages in the Business Cycle * Entrepreneurship and the Theory of the Cycle * The Policy of General-Price-Level Stabilization and its Destabilizing Effects on the Economy * How to Avoid Business Cycles: Prevention of and Recovery from the Economic Crisis * The Theory of the Cycle and Idle Resources: Their Role in the Initial Stages of the Boom * The Necessary Tightening of Credit in the Recession Stage: Criticism of the Theory of "Secondary Depression" * The "Manic-Depressive" Economy: The Dampening of the Entrepreneurial Spirit and Other Negative Effects Recurring Business Cycles Exert on the Market Economy * The Influence Exerted on the Stock Market by Economic Fluctuations Effects the Business Cycle Exerts on the Banking Sector * Marx, Hayek and the View that Economic Crises are Intrinsic to Market Economies * Two Additional Considerations * Empirical Evidence for the Theory of the Cycle * Business Cycles Prior to the Industrial Revolution * Business Cycles From the Industrial Revolution Onward * The Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression of 1929 * The Economic Recessions of the Late 1970s and Early 1990s * Some Empirical Testing of the Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle * Conclusion Chapter 7: A Critique of Monetarist and Keynesian Theories * Introduction * A Critique of Monetarism * The Mythical Concept of Capital * Austrian Criticism of Clark and Knight * A Critique of the Mechanistic Monetarist Version of the Quantity Theory of Money * A Brief Note on the Theory of Rational Expectations * Criticism of Keynesian Economics * Say's Law of Markets * Keynes's Three Arguments On Credit Expansion * Keynesian Analysis as a Particular Theory * The So-Called Marginal Efficiency of Capital * Keynes's Criticism of Mises and Hayek * Criticism of the Keynesian Multiplier * Criticism of the "Accelerator" Principle * The Marxist Tradition and the Austrian Theory of Economic Cycles: The Neo-Ricardian Revolution and the Reswitching Controversy * Conclusion * Appendix on Life Insurance Companies and Other Non-Bank Financial Intermediaries Life Insurance Companies as True Financial Intermediaries * Surrender Values and the Money Supply * The Corruption of Traditional Life-Insurance Principles * Other True Financial Intermediaries: Mutual Funds and Holding and Investment Companies * Specific Comments on Credit Insurance Chapter 8: Central and Free Banking Theory * A Critical Analysis of the Banking School * The Banking and Currency Views and the School of Salamanca * The Response of the English-Speaking World to these Ideas on Bank Money * The Controversy Between the Currency School and the Banking School * The Debate Between Defenders of the Central Bank and Advocates of Free Banking * Parnell's Pro-Free-Banking Argument and the Responses of McCulloch and Longfield * A False Start for the Controversy Between Central Banking and Free Banking * The Case for a Central Bank * The Position of the Currency-School Theorists who Defended a Free-Banking System * The "Theorem of the Impossibility of Socialism" and its Application to the Central Bank * The Theory of the Impossibility of Coordinating Society Based on Institutional Coercion or the Violation of Traditional Legal Principles * The Application of the Theorem of the Impossibility of Socialism to the Central Bank and the Fractional-Reserve Banking System * (a) A System Based on a Central Bank Which Controls and Oversees a Network of Private Banks that Operate with a Fractional Reserve * (b) A Banking System which Operates with a 100-Percent Reserve Ratio and is Controlled by a Central Bank * (c) A Fractional-Reserve Free-Banking System * Conclusion: The Failure of Banking Legislation * A Critical Look at the Modern Fractional-Reserve Free-Banking School * The Erroneous Basis of the Analysis: The Demand for Fiduciary Media, Regarded as an Exogenous Variable * The Possibility that a Fractional-Reserve Free-Banking System May Unilaterally Initiate Credit Expansion * The Theory of "Monetary Equilibrium" in Free Banking Rests on an Exclusively Macroeconomic Analysis * The Confusion Between the Concept of Saving and that of the Demand for Money * The Problem with Historical Illustrations of Free-Banking Systems * Ignorance of Legal Arguments * Conclusion: The False Debate between Supporters of Central Banking and Defenders of Fractional-Reserve Free Banking Chapter 9: A Proposal for Banking Reform: The Theory of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement * A History of Modern Theories in Support of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement * The Proposal of Ludwig von Mises * F.A. Hayek and the Proposal of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement * Murray N. Rothbard and the Proposal of a Pure Gold Standard with a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement * Maurice Allais and the European Defense of a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement * The Old Chicago-School Tradition of Support for a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement * Our Proposal for Banking Reform * Total Freedom of Choice in Currency * A System of Complete Banking Freedom * The Obligation of All Agents in a Free-Banking System to Observe Traditional Legal Rules and Principles, Particularly a 100-Percent Reserve Requirement on Demand Deposits * What Would the Financial and Banking System of a Totally Free Society be Like? An Analysis of the Advantages of the Proposed System * Replies to Possible Objections to our Proposal for Monetary Reform * An Economic Analysis of the Process of Reform and Transition toward the Proposed Monetary and Banking System * A Few Basic Strategic Principles * Stages in the Reform of the Financial and Banking System * The Importance of the Third and Subsequent Stages in the Reform: The Possibility They Offer of Paying Off the National Debt or Social Security Pension Liabilities * The Application of the Theory of Banking and Financial Reform to the European Monetary Union and the Building of the Financial Sector in Economies of the Former Eastern Bloc
Where does money come from? Where does it go? Who makes it? The money magicians' secrets are unveiled. We get a close look at their mirrors and smoke machines, their pulleys, cogs, and wheels that create the grand illusion called money. A dry and boring subject? Just wait! You'll be hooked in five minutes. Reads like a detective story — which it really is. But it's all true. This book is about the most blatant scam of all history. It's all here: the cause of wars, boom-bust cycles, inflation, depression, prosperity. Creature from Jekyll Island will change the way you view the world, politics, and money. Your world view will definitely change. You'll never trust a politician again — or a banker.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0912986395
The most powerful case against the American central bank ever written. This work begins with a mini-treatment of money and banking theory, and then plunges right in with the real history of the Federal Reserve System. Rothbard covers the struggle between competing elites and how they converged with the Fed. Rothbard calls for the abolition of the central bank and a restoration of the gold standard. His popular treatment incorporates the best and most up-to-date scholarship on the Fed's origins and effects. About the Author Murray N. Rothbard, the author of 25 books and thousands of articles, was a historian, philosopher, and dean of the Austrian School of economics. The S.J. Hall Distinguished Professor of Economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, he was also Academic Vice President of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama.
"Do not steal" is an excellent principle of ethics; it is also the first principle of sound economic systems. In our time, no one has done more than Hans-Hermann Hoppe to elaborate on the sociological implications of this truth. And this is his great work on the topic. The Austrian tradition is known for offering the most hard-core defense of private property, and the most consistent application of that principle, of any school of economics. The work of Hoppe--a leading student of Rothbard's whose books have been translated into a dozen languages--has focused heavy philosophical and economic attention on this principle. This book, the 2nd expanded edition after a long period in which it has been unavailable, collects his most important scholarly essays on the topic. The topics covered by Hoppe are wide ranging: employment, interest, money, banking, trade cycles, taxes, public goods, war, imperialism, and the rise and fall of civilizations. The core theoretical insight uniting the entire discussion is as consistently applied here as it is neglected by the economic mainstream: the absolute inviolability of private property as a human right as the basis of continuous economic progress. The right to private property is an indisputably valid, absolute principle of ethics, argues Hoppe, and the basis for civilizational advance. Indeed, it is the very foundation of social order itself. To rise from the ruins of socialism and overcome the stagnation of the Western welfare states, nothing will suffice but the uncompromising privatization of all socialized, that is, government, property and the establishment of a contractual society based on the recognition of private property rights. Hans Hermann-Hoppe is professor of economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and a senior fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. This edition is an expansion of the original edition (1993), with new essays on epistemology, ethics, and economics. Barron's writes: Hans-Hermann Hoppe's dryly titled The Economics and Ethics of Private Property (von Mises Institute, 2006), is anything but dry. When Ludwig von Mises brought "Austrian School" economics to the U.S., the American Murray Rothbard became his worthy disciple. With Rothbard's death in 1995, the German-born Hoppe, a professor of economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, became Rothbard's most important disciple by far. Hoppe's writings are like a laser beam. The clarity and force of his arguments seemingly can't fail to hit their targets. But be prepared for arguments that push you beyond your limits. For Hoppe is a Misesian of the Rothbardian kind: an anarcho-capitalist eager to convince you that anything useful that the state does, the market can do better -- in fact, that the state so abuses its appointed roles, there is really no contest between the two. 431 page hardbound volume, with index. CONTENTS Preface to the Second Edition Preface to the First Edition PART ONE – ECONOMICS * 1 Fallacies of the Public Goods Theory and the Production of Security * 2 The Economics and Sociology of Taxation * 3 Banking, Nation States, and International Politics: A Sociological Reconstruction of the Present Economic Order * 4 Marxist and Austrian Class Analysis * 5 Theory of Employment, Money, Interest, and the Capitalist Process: The Misesian Case Against Keynes * 6 How is Fiat Money Possible?—or, The Devolution of Money and Credit * 7 Against Fiduciary Media * 8 Socialism: A Property or Knowledge Problem? PART TWO – PHILOSOPHY * 9 On Praxeology and the Praxeological Foundation of Epistemology * 10 Is Research Based on Causal Scientific Principles Possible in the Social Sciences? * 11 From the Economics of Laissez Faire to the Ethics of Libertarianism * 12 The Justice of Economic Efficiency * 13 On the Ultimate Justification of the Ethics of Private Property * 14 Austrian Rationalism in the Age of the Decline of Positivism * 15 Rothbardian Ethics Appendix: Four Critical Replies * Demonstrated Preference and Private Property * Utilitarians and Randians versus Reason * Intimidation by Argument * On the Indefensibility of Welfare Rights
Professor Block's book is in a new edition from the Mises Institute, completely reset and beautifully laid out in an edition worthy of its contents. It is among the most famous of the great defenses of victimless crimes and controversial economic practices, from profiteering and gouging to bribery and blackmail. However, beneath the surface, this book is also an outstanding work of microeconomic theory that explains the workings of economic forces in everyday events and affairs. Murray Rothbard explains why: "Defending the Undefendable performs the service of highlighting, the fullest and starkest terms, the essential nature of the productive services performed by all people in the free market. By taking the most extreme examples and showing how the Smithian principles work even in these cases, the book does far more to demonstrate the workability and morality of the free market than a dozen sober tomes on more respectable industries and activities. By testing and proving the extreme cases, he all the more illustrates and vindicates the theory." F.A. Hayek agreed, writing the author as follows: "Looking through Defending the Undefendable made me feel that I was once more exposed to the shock therapy by which, more than fifty years ago, the late Ludwig von Mises converted me to a consistent free market position. … Some may find it too strong a medicine, but it will still do them good even if they hate it. A real understanding of economics demands that one disabuses oneself of many dear prejudices and illusions. Popular fallacies in economic frequently express themselves in unfounded prejudices against other occupations, and showing the falsity of these stereotypes you are doing a real services, although you will not make yourself more popular with the majority." The contents of this book include: * Foreword by Murray N. Rothbard * Commentary by F.A. Hayek * Introduction * Sexual o The Prostitute o The Pimp o The Male Chauvinist Pig * Medical o The Drug Pusher o The Drug Addict * Free Speech o The Blackmailer o The Slanderer or Libeler o The Denier of Academic Freedom o The Advertiser o The Person Who Yells "Fire!" in a Crowded Theatre * Outlaw o The Gypsy Cab Driver o The Ticket Scalper o The Dishonest Cop * Financial o The (Non-Government) Counterfeiter o The Miser o The Inheritor o The Moneylender o The Non-Contributor to Charity * Business and Trade o The Curmudgeon o The Slumlord o The Ghetto Merchant o The Speculator o The Importer o The Middleman o The Profiteer * Ecology o The Stripminer o The Litterer o The Wastemakers * Labor o The Fat Capitalist-Pig Employer o The Scab o The Rate Buster o The Employer of Child Labor
The Fountainhead has become an enduring piece of literature, more popular now than when published in 1943. On the surface, it is a story of one man, Howard Roark, and his struggles as an architect in the face of a successful rival, Peter Keating, and a newspaper columnist, Ellsworth Toohey. But the book addresses a number of universal themes: the strength of the individual, the tug between good and evil, the threat of fascism. The confrontation of those themes, along with the amazing stroke of Rand's writing, combine to give this book its enduring influence.
http://www.amazon.com/Fountainhead-Centennial-Hardcover-Ayn-Rand/dp/0452286751/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217791791&sr=1-1
Human Action is the most important book on political economy you will ever own. It was (and remains) the most comprehensive, systematic, forthright, and powerful defense of the economics of liberty ever written. This is the Scholars Edition: accept no substitute. You will treasure this volume. The Scholars Edition is the original, unaltered treatise (originally published in 1949) that shaped a generation of Austrians and made possible the intellectual movement that is leading the global charge for free markets. Made available for the first time in decades, exclusively through the Ludwig von Mises Institute, this edition is the one to own (the 2nd edition was thoroughly botched, while the 3rd deletes valuable material and introduces some ambiguities; the 4th edition, currently in print, is the 3rd edition with a new foreword). * The pagination of the original 1949 edition is preserved, but it also includes invaluable additions. * Using extraordinary materials and the best of modern technology, combined with ancient standards of craftsmanship in the tradition of Oxford University's Clarendon Press, this magnificent work is produced for the ages. * Includes the 1954 index prepared under Mises's supervision, the most complete ever published, united here with the book for the first time. * The introduction, by Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Jeffrey Herbener, and Joseph Salerno--based on newly discovered archives--tells of the tragic and glorious history of this seminal work, and of its bright future as the manifesto of liberty. * Protected by a strong slipcase from the famous Old Dominion company. All told, The Scholars Edition looks exactly like the work it is, ready for a lifetime (or two) of use. Mises himself wrote the following by way of explanation of why he wrote the book: Economics does not allow any breaking up into special branches. It invariably deals with the interconnectedness of all phenomena of acting and economizing. All economic facts mutually condition one another. Each of the various economic problems must be dealt with in the frame of a comprehensive system assigning its due place and weight to every aspect of human wants and desires. All monographs remain fragmentary if not integrated into a systematic treatment of the whole body of social and economic relations. To provide such a comprehensive analysis is the task of my book Human Action , a Treatise on Economics. It is the consummation of lifelong studies and investigations, the precipitate of half a century of experience. I saw the forces operating which could not but annihilate the high civilization and prosperity of Europe. In writing my book, I was hoping to contribute to the endeavors of our most eminent contemporaries to prevent this country from following the path which leads to the abyss.
Finally, here is an edition of Road to Serfdom that does justice to its monumental status in the history of liberty. It contains a foreword by the editor of the Hayek Collected Works, Bruce Caldwell. Caldwell has added helpful explanatory notes and citation corrections, among other improvements. For this reason, the publisher decided to call this "the definitive edition." It truly is. This spell-binding book is a in the history of liberal It was singularly responsible for launching an important debate on the relationship between political and economic freedom. It made the author a world-famous intellectual. It set a new standard for what it means to be a dissident intellectual. It warned of a new form of despotism enacted in the name of liberation. And though it appeared in 1944, it continues to have a remarkable impact. No one can consider himself well-schooled in modern political without having absorbed its lessons. What F.A. Hayek saw, and what most all his contemporaries missed, was that every step away from the free market and toward government planning represented a compromise of human freedom generally and a step toward a form of dictatorship--and this is true in all times and places. He demonstrated this against every claim that government control was really only a means of increasing social well-being. Hayek said that government planning would make society less liveable, more brutal, more despotic. Socialism in all its forms is contrary to freedom. Nazism, he wrote, is not different in kind from Communism. Further, he showed that the very forms of government that England and America were supposedly fighting abroad were being enacted at home, if under a different guise. Further steps down this road, he said, can only end in the abolition of effective liberty for everyone. Capitalism, he wrote, is the only system of economics compatible with human dignity, prosperity, and liberty. To the extent we move away from that system, we empower the worst people in society to manage what they do not understand. The beauty of this book is not only in its analytics but in its which is unrelenting and passionate. Even today, the book remains a source of controversy. Socialists who imagine themselves to be against dictatorship cannot abide his argument, and they never stop attempting to refute it. Misesians might find themselves disappointed that Hayek did not go far enough, and made too many compromises in the course of his argument. Even so, anyone who loves liberty cannot but feel a sense of gratitude that this book exists and remains an important part of the debate today. The Mises Institute was honored that Hayek served as a founding member of our board of advisers, and is very pleased to offer this book again to a world that desperately needs to hear its message.
Do public goods and services, such as streets, parks and dams, have to be provided by government? In Public Goods and Private Communities, Fred Foldvary's innovative application of public choice and spatial theory to questions of urban economics and governance shows how collective goods can be provided by agents in a market process. Rejecting the market-failure hypothesis, Dr. Foldvary argues that an entrepreneur can provide collective goods by consensual community agreements. Instead of studying particular services, as previous studies have done, this book concerns itself with entire private communities. A series of case studies demonstrates how real-world communities, such as Walt Disney World, the Reston Association in Virginia and the private neighbourhoods of St. Louis are in fact financing their own public goods and services in accordance with this theory. For such communities to rise and prosper, the author contends, government must eliminate zoning and many other restrictions, as well as the taxation of private services. After considering the implications of his work for urban economies - at a time when many of America's cities are plagued by decay, violence and poverty - Dr. Foldvary argues that prosperity can be restored to cities if private communities are allowed to develop. As an original response to an urgent, contemporary problem this well-written book will be welcomed by social scientists, policy makers and business leaders seeking solutions to problems of urban decay.
To those who, seeing the vice and misery that spring from the unequal distribution of wealth and privilege, feel the possibility of a higher social state, and would strive for its attainment. -Henry George,
http://books.google.com/books?id=3Ex_yT6hJtEC&dq=progress+and+poverty&pg=PP1&ots=QPyKLDZZAR&sig=V2c0ywhnRb6TyGfLFMbaLdr4VLo&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPP1,M1
Night is a work by Elie Wiesel, based on his experience, as a young Orthodox Jew, of being sent with his family to the German concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald during the Second World War.[1] Wiesel was 16 years old when Buchenwald was liberated in April 1945. Having lost his faith in God and humanity, he vowed not to speak of his experiences for ten years, at the end of which he wrote his story in Yiddish, which was published in Buenos Aires in 1955. In May that year, the French novelist François Mauriac persuaded him to write the story for a wider audience. Fifty years later, the 109-page volume, described as devastating in its simplicity, ranks alongside Primo Levi's If This Is a Man and Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl as one of the bedrocks of Holocaust literature.[2] Wiesel deploys a sparse and fragmented narrative with frequent shifts in point of view.[3] It is "the of the chroniclers of the ghettos," he writes, "where everything had to be said swiftly, with one breath. You never knew when the enemy might kick in the door ..."[4] The recurring themes are Wiesel's increasing disgust with mankind and his loss of faith in God, reflected in the inversion of the father-child relationship as his father declines to a helpless state and the teenager becomes his resentful caregiver. "If only I could get rid of this dead weight, so that I could use all my strength to struggle for my own survival ... Immediately I felt ashamed of myself, ashamed forever."[5] In Night, everything is inverted, every value destroyed. "Here there are no fathers, no brothers, no friends," a Kapo tells him. "Everyone lives and dies for himself alone."[6] Night is the first book in a trilogy — Night, Dawn, and Day — reflecting Wiesel's state of mind during and after the Holocaust. The titles mark his transition from darkness to light, according to the Jewish tradition of counting the beginning of a new day from nightfall, from Genesis (1:5): "And there was evening, and there was morning, one day."[7]"In Night," Wiesel said, "I wanted to show the end, the finality of the event. Everything came to an end — man, history, literature, religion, God. There was nothing left. And yet we begin again with night."[8]
Something Wicked This Way Comes is a 1962 novel by Ray Bradbury. It is about two thirteen-year-old boys, Jim Nightshade and William Halloway, who have a harrowing experience with a nightmarish carnival that comes to their Midwestern town one October. The carnival's leader is the mysterious "Mr. Dark" who bears a tattoo for each person who, lured by the offer to live out their secret fantasies, has become bound in service to the carnival. Mr. Dark's malevolent presence is countered by that of Will's father, Charles Halloway, who harbors his own secret desire to regain his youth. The novel combines elements of fantasy and horror, analyzing the conflicting natures of good and evil, and on how they come into play between the characters and the carnival. Unlike many of Bradbury's other works, including the tangentially related Dandelion Wine, which are collections of loosely related short stories, Something Wicked This Way Comes can be considered a full-length novel with a consistent plot.
Number the Stars is a novel about the Holocaust of the Second World War by award-winning author Lois Lowry. It focuses around ten-year-old Annemarie Johansen, who is living in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1943 and is caught up in the events surrounding the rescue of the Danish Jews. She and her family risk their lives to help Annemarie's best friend, Ellen Rosen, by pretending that she is Annemarie's older sister who died earlier in the war as part of the Resistance.
The title is taken from Psalm 147, in which the writer of the psalm relates that God has numbered all the stars in the universe. It is meant to tie into the Star of David, specifically to the character Ellen's necklace (Ellen is Jewish) which is symbolic to the story.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_the_stars
Shiloh is a first person children's novel by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. It won the 1992 Newbery Medal. The movie Shiloh was made based on the book in 1996. The story takes place in the small town of Friendly, West Virginia where an eleven year old boy named Marty Preston finds a stray beagle in the hills near his house. The dog follows him home so Marty takes the dog as his own and names him Shiloh. Shiloh's real owner is Judd Travers, who has several dogs that he uses for hunting. Marty does not want to return Shiloh because he fears for the dog's safety because Judd drinks and treats his dogs poorly. Judd tries to get his dog back by intimidating Marty. Marty is frightened, but determined. Somehow he must find a way to keep Shiloh away from Judd.
People often confuse the dog in this story with the imaginary friend featured in Neil Diamond's song, "Shilo". Even though the spelling is different, the song was written over 20 years before the book was published.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiloh_(novel)
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