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    Masterpieces  of  Economics  and  Philosophy  
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The Road to Serfdom. This masterpiece of Nobel Prize laureate Friedrich Hayek is an eye-opener, strongly advocating the free market principles. In this all-time classic Hayek persuasively warns against the authoritarian utopias of central planning and the welfare state. Fascism, communism and socialism share these utopias. For the implementation of their plans these authoritarian ideologies require government power over the individual, inevitably leading to a totalitarian state. Every step away from the free market toward planning reduces people's freedom and is a step toward tyranny. Planning also cannot assess consumer preferences with sufficient accuracy to efficiently co-ordinate production. In a free market "Price" is the all-inclusive source of information, guiding entrepreneurs to produce whatever is wanted and directing workers wherever they are most needed. Free markets also provide the entrepreneurial climate for a thriving economy and for releasing the creative energy of its citizens. Free individuals in their native endeavour to develop their talents and their eternal pursuit of better living conditions produce spontaneous progress. All public interference in the economic process disturbs the market equilibrium, distorts the optimal allocation of resources and consequently reduces the level of wealth. Where planning replaces free markets people do not only loose their freedom and individuality. Resulting slow growth also increases welfare demands causing dependence similar to slavery. In the end people's self-reliance and self-respect is ruined, and citizens are degraded to a means to serve the ends of the collective mass.

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  • Interventionism: An Economic Analysis  by Ludwig von Mises. Written in 1940 as part of his trilogy on economic systems, Ludwig von Mises foresaw that planned economies would fail.  He warns that all forms of government intervention in business create artificial scarcity, inflation, and price and market distortions, give rise to economic stagnation and ultimately political instability. He prooves that even mixed systemes through price control, credit expansion, subsidies, welfare, corporatism create scarcity and political instability. Particularly interesting is Mises insight into the political consequences resulting from state regulation of the market place.        Download as PDF      More Details here !

Interventionism: An Economic Analysis

  • Ludwig Von Mises: A Bundle of six short Essays. (22 pages). In his usual easy-to-read style, Von Mises explains the very basics of sound economics. The first essay vindicates the role of capital goods and saving. Mises explains how saving inaugurates a process toward prosperity. By consuming less than they produce, savers furnish resources for investment in machines and tools which make the laborers' efforts more efficient. Higher output per unit of input can so be achieved. The productivity gain of such investment allows for non-inflationary wage increases which is the sole road to real progress and prosperty for all. Public policy should therefor favour saving and investment, rather than stimulate growht through inflationary easy money policies. In the second essay "The Individual in Society" Mises pleads for a free market economy based on division of labour and strong property rights as the sole guarantee of liberty. For Mises, government intervention implies compulsion, exactly the opposite of liberty. In a market economy individuals are the supreme arbiters in matters of their needs, both material and spiritual. They alone decide what is more and what is less valuable. Central planning is unable to assess the individual's priorities so that planners permanently make wrong choices lessening consumer value and satisfaction. The government apparatus of coercion is not only costly and inefficient. Many also consider state compulsion as unbearable. Other excellent essays in this bundle:   The Economics and Politics Of My JobThe Elite Under CapitalismFacts about the Industrial Revolution  and   The Gold Problem.


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  • For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto   by Murray N. Rothbard.
    For A New Liberty begins with a fast overview of the historical roots of libertarianism: the Levelers, John Locke, classical liberalism packing an extraordinary amount of history in a few pages. Rothbard then defines libertarianism upon its prime axiom: that no man or group of men shall aggress upon the person or property of anyone else. He turns to a withering critique of the chief violator of liberty: the State. The lengthiest section of this book is devoted to showing how the free market and voluntary human action can do a far more efficient and fair job of supplying all the worthwhile services we have been told only government can provide. He provides penetrating libertarian solutions for many of today's most pressing problems, including pollution, poverty, war, threats to civil liberties, the education crisis, and others.   free download

  • Our Enemy The State   by  Albert J.Nock.  Just as the State has no money of its own, it has no power of its own. All the power and money it has is what society gives it, plus what it confiscates from time to time on one pretext or another. For Nock, "government" and "the state" are two different things. "Government" is a legitimate, impartial vehicle for the administration of justice, safeguarding life and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. By contrast, "the state" represents a corruption of democracy in which special interests groups use the coercive power of government in order to extract concessions and advantages not available to other citizens.  Ultimately, "the state" becomes an instrument of oppression, allowing those special interests to compel the rest of society to behave in ways they would not otherwise do. In doing so the state becomes a tool in the exploitation of the class of tax-payers by the class of tax eaters.  read more here   or here  
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  • America's Great Depression by Murray N. Rothbard.   Since it first appeared in 1963, it has been the definitive treatment of the causes of the depression. The book remains canonical today because the debate is still very alive. Rothbard opens with a theoretical treatment of business cycle theory, showing how an expansive monetary policy generates imbalances between investment and consumption. He proceeds to examine the Fed's policies of the 1920s, demonstrating that it was quite inflationary even if the effects did not show up in the price of goods and services. He showed that the stock market correction was merely one symptom of the investment boom that led inevitably to a bust.  The Great Depression was not a crisis for capitalism but merely an example of the downturn part of the business cycle, which in turn was generated by government intervention in the economy. Had the book appeared in the 1940s, it might have spared the world much grief. Even so, its appearance in 1963 meant that free-market advocates had their first full-scale treatment of this crucial subject. The damage to the intellectual world inflicted by Keynesian- and socialist-style treatments would be limited from that day forward.       Free pdf Download here


The Freeman.  "The Freeman" is the monthly journal of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE-NewYork). The FEE was the first organization to clearly support free markets principles, limited government, private property, and to oppose excessive government intervention. The exceptional FEE archive includes editorials, columns, essays and book reviews from their first 1955 edition up to the very latest and is a prime source for every free market enthousiast.  Downloads are free.   Access to the Archive here.
    Centesimus Annus. 100 years after "Rerum Novarum" this encyclique of John Paul II  actualises Christian teachings on social relations. Issued in the aftermath of the Communist defeat, to which Pope John Paul II contributed so decisively, "Centesimus Annus" offers Christians a fresh appreciation of private enterprise and the free market in societies equally committed to liberty and virtue. John Paul II severely critiques over-expansive social models as being incompatible with the very nature of our existence as free and responsable beings. The encyclique speaks favourably of a vigorous civil society leaving room for voluntary (as opposed to obligatory) solidarity. By depriving society of its responsibility, the wellfare State leads to a loss of human value. The inordinate increase of public agencies, where bureaucratic ways of thinking prevail rather than concerns for serving their clients, leads to waste. Centesimus Annus synthesises these arguments through grounding them upon the Christian understanding of man as a free, responsible, social, and sinful creature, capable of knowing the truth through faith and reason.


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The Wealth of Nations was recognized as a landmark of human thought upon its publication in 1776. As the first scientific argument for the principles of political economy, it is the point of departure for all subsequent economic thought. Smith's theories of capital accumulation, growth, and secular change, among others, continue to be influential in modern economics.
 
When Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations there were no economists, for he invented the science of Economics. Born in Kirkcaldy, Scotland, he became professor of logic and later of moral philosophy.
A personal friend of David Hume, his travels through Europe and his many contacts in business and government gave him the opportunity of making very detailed studies of the social forces giving rise to competition, trade, and markets. It is a remarkable achievement that, nearly 250 years on, this work, with its idea of the "invisible hand" of economic incentives, is still one of the essential basic texts of its field.             free pdf version
      
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Smith’s first and in his own mind most important work, outlines his view of proper conduct and the institutions and sentiments that make men virtuous. Here he develops his doctrine of the impartial spectator, whose hypothetical disinterested judgment we must use to distinguish right from wrong in any given situation. We by nature pursue our self-interest, according to Smith. This makes independence or self-command an instinctive good and neutral rules as difficult to craft as they are necessary. But society is not held together merely by neutral rules; it is held together by sympathy. Smith  argues that we naturally share the emotions and to a certain extent the physical sensations we witness in others. Sharing the sensations of our fellows, we seek to maximize their pleasures and minimize their pains so that we may share in their joys and enjoy their expressions of affection and approval       more titles, lectures and correspondence of Adam Smith Here

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This book concerns civil and social liberty or, the nature and limits of the power that can legitimately be exercised by society over the individual. Mill begins by retelling the history of struggle between rulers and ruled and suggests that social rather than political tyranny is the greater danger for modern, commercial nations. This social “tyranny of the majority” (a phrase Mill takes from Tocqueville) arises from the enforcement of rules of conduct that are both arbitrary and strongly adhered to. The practical principle that guides the majority “to their opinions on the regulation of human conduct, is the feeling in each person’s mind that everybody should be required to act as he, and those with whom he sympathizes, would like them to act.”  Such a feeling is particularly dangerous because it is taken to be self-justifying and self-evident.   Download as PDF         Nederlandstalige Samenvatting

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What Has Government Done to Our Money?   
Murray Rothbard 

After presenting the basics of money and banking theory, Rothbard traces the decline of the dollar from the 18th century to the present, and provides lucid critiques of central banking, New Deal monetary policy, Nixonian fiat money, and fixed exchange rates. He also provides a blueprint for a return to a 100 percent reserve gold standard.  The book made huge theoretical advances. He was the first to prove that the government, and only the government, can destroy money on a mass scale, and he showed exactly how they go about this dirty deed. But just as importantly, it is beautifully written. He tells a thrilling story because he loves the subject so much. The passion that Murray feels for the topic comes through in the prose and transfers to the reader. Readers become excited about the subject, and tell others.  Rothbard shows precisely how banks create money out of thin air and how the central bank, backed by government power, allows them to get away with it. He shows how exchange rates and interest rates would work in a true free market. When it comes to describing the end of the gold standard, he is not content to describe the big trends. He names names and ferrets out all the interest groups involved.                                                             Download as PDF
what has government done to our money

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George Orwell's 1984   (free audio book)  
George Orwell's classic was incredibly visionary. It is hardly fathomable that this book was written in 1948. Things that we take for granted today - cameras everywhere we go, phones being tapped, bodies being scanned for weapons remotely - all of these things were described in graphic detail in Orwell's book.  Now that we have the Internet and people spying on other people w/ webcams and people purposely setting up their own webcams to let others "anonymously" watch them, you can see how this culture can develop into the Orwellian future described in "1984."  

If you've heard such phrases as "Big Brother," "Newspeak," and "thought crime" and wondered where these phrases came from, they came from this incredible, vivid and disturbing book.  Winston Smith, the main character of the book is a vibrant, thinking man hiding within the plain mindless behavior he has to go through each day to not be considered a thought criminal. Everything is politically correct, children defy their parents (and are encouraged by the government to do so) and everyone pays constant allegiance to "Big Brother" - the government that watches everyone and knows what everyone is doing at all times - watching you shower, watching you having sex, watching you eat, watching you go to the bathroom and ultimately watching you die.




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Probably due to his study of Aristotle, Menger was meticulous in forming his economic principles from observations of reality. Thus he looked at man and his nature, and drew appropriate conclusions (much like philosopher Ayn Rand). Contrast this to the Platonist floating abstrations of modern mainstream economics. Note that Menger's principles are fundamental and therefore basic. He creates an excellent foundation and starting point for further study of economics. Unfortunately few economists have adopted his fundamental method and approach to economics (even the Austrians veered away). Yet this is the most promising path an economist could take. One example of the way Menger can spur a re-checking of premises: Menger disputed Adam Smith's assertion that division of labor was the fundamental cause of human economic progress- Menger announced that the most fundamental cause of human economic progress was a growing knowledge of the causal connections required to make goods, combined with the ability to act on that knowledge. A fantastic observation. 


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Speaking of Liberty is a collection of speeches delivered by Rockwell over a period of ten years. The book begins with economics, and explains why Austrian economics matters, how the Federal Reserve brings on the business cycle, why we need private property and free enterprise, the unrecognized glories of the capitalist economy, and why the gold standard is still the best monetary system. Other sections deal with war, Mises and his work, other important thinkers in the libertarian tradition, and the culture and morality of liberty.
Written in clear prose to reach a broad audience, Rockwell's new book is as pro-liberty as it is critical of government. It is rigorous enough to withstand the enemy's closest scrutiny, and chock full of the energy and enthusiasm that will keep you reading.  The book is united by a set of fixed principles: the corruption of politics, the universality and immutability of the ideas of freedom, the centrality of sound money and free enterprise, the moral imperative of peace and trade, the importance of hope and tenacity in the struggle for liberty, and the need for everyone to join the intellectual fight.     
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Introduction     Chapter 1     Chapter 2      Chapter 3      Chapter 4



Lew Rockwell is
founder-president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute

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The Law has been acclaimed for more than a century as the classic moral defense of individual liberty and limited government. Here is the timeless message of immutable principle – in the immortal words of one of history's most courageous thinkers and brilliant writers.
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The Law

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    Planned Chaos    by Ludwig von MisesGovernment interventionism, under various enticing labels, endangers voluntary society, the market economy, and constitutionally limited government. Mises explains the errors of those who believe that a system based on individual freedom can be "mixed" with socialism and collectivism. For Mises every socialist economy is doomed to fail because there is no way to calculate prices nor how to allocate resources. Government intervention in the economy causes distortions and shortages which inevitably lead to chaos. The book also describes the economic authoritarian nature of Naziism and its similarities to Communism. Hitler believed in a government controlled economy, even if he left the price system intact.    Download PDF
  • The Tragedy of the commons  by  Garrett Hardin   Free access and unrestricted demand for a finite resource ultimately dooms the resource through over-exploitation. This occurs because the benefits of exploitation accrue to individuals, each of which is motivated to maximise his or her own use of the resource, while the costs of exploitation are distributed between all those to whom the resource is available (which may be a wider class of individuals than those who are exploiting it). The theory itself is as old as Aristotle who said: "That which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it.      more here
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  • THE SOVEREIGN INDIVIDUAL:  by James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg.