‘Books’ Archives
Robert LeFevre’s Way To Be Free
"If men are good, you don’t need government; if men are evil or ambivalent, you don’t dare have one. " ~Robert LeFevre Robert LeFevre’s life taught him that we not only do we not need government protection and services, but that it is the great enemy of humanity. Though the temptation is to flee to a new location to be free, we need to [...]
Alongside Night by J. Neil Schulman
Pulpless.com; 305 pages; $14.95 at Amazon.com/$6.99 Kindle/Free PDF Winner of the 1989 Prometheus Hall of Fame Award I like science fiction, but don't read as much as I'd like. I was pleased to find out that there's a strong theme of libertarianism in science fiction, and in fact the Libertarian Futurist Society presents their annual [...]
Ludwig von Mises on Socialism, Part Two
Socialism and interventionism. Both have in common the goal of subordinating the individual unconditionally to the state. ~ Ludwig von Mises In the second part of his lecture on Socialism in Buenos Aires in 1958, Ludwig von Mises makes an obvious statement, but startling to most critics of capitalism, "In the market economy, everyone [...]
Ludwig von Mises on Socialism, Part One
"Freedom really means the freedom to make mistakes." ~Ludwig von Mises Ludwig von Mises began his second lecture in Buenos Aires on socialism, asking the question, "What does this system of economic freedom mean?" To him, it was obvious; it was the market economy. The market economy was a process in which individuals cooperated in the [...]
Ludwig von Mises on Capitalism
"Capitalism means free enterprise, sovereignty of the consumers in economic matters, and sovereignty of the voters in political matters." ~Ludwig von Mises What in the hell is wrong with capitalism? I am sick to death of people blaming it for all the problems in the world. It's responsible for greed. Oh really? There was no greed before [...]
Inclined To Liberty by Louis Carabini
Inclined to Liberty is a short primer on liberty and the free market. Louis Carabini introduces his book by telling how a dinner with a friend and two professors sympathetic to socialism, and even Marxism, inspired him to write his reflections on that evening’s discussion. The discussion of the class struggle between owners and workers reminded [...]
Reflections On Frédéric Bastiat’s The Law
“Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.” ~ Frédéric Bastiat I reread The Law today. For such a profound book, I'm at a loss to describe it. Nothing comes close to giving it justice. After reading it, I clearly see the world of politics in a new light. Such a [...]
Blogging Meltdown – Culprit 5: The Federal Reserve and Artificially Cheap Credit
After explaining the preceding four culprits: 1) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, 2) The Community Reinvestment Act and affirmative action in lending, 3) The government's artificial stimulus to speculation, and 4) The "pro-ownership" tax code, Dr. Woods gets to the major culprit, the Federal Reserve and artificially cheap credit. The previous four [...]
Blogging The Law by Frédéric Bastiat, Part 2
How has the perversion of law been accomplished? And what has resulted from it? Bastiat's answer is still true today. He says there are two very different causes to this perversion of law: "naked greed and misconceived philanthropy." Greed In the first case, he says that although self-preservation is normal for all, some wish to do so at [...]
Blogging: Gold: The Once and Future Money – Hard Money and Soft Money, Part 1
Currencies and Economies around the World - from the Seventh Century BC to the Twenty-First Century AD "After experience had shown that pieces of paper, of no intrinsic value, by merely bearing upon them the written profession of being equivalent to a certain number of francs, dollars, or pounds, could be made to circulate as such, and to produce [...]
Blogging Meltdown: Culprit 4 – The “pro-ownership” tax code
Professor Woods continues with the federal, state, and local governments' programs to encourage people to buy homes, which created more artificial demand in the housing sector. Developers received "handouts, free land, new roads, and tax privileges to build homes...even if nobody want to buy them." The federal government takes around 35 [...]
Blogging The Law by Frédéric Bastiat, Part 1
Bastiat begins with a call to arms, decrying the perversion of the law. Instead of checking avarice, it is its tool; instead of punishing iniquity, it is guilty of it. Life - physical, intellectual, and moral - comes from God, but He "has entrusted us with the care of supporting it, developing it, and of perfecting it." He has given us certain [...]
Blogging The Revolution: A Manifesto – The Foreign Policy of The Founding Fathers, Blowback in Iran
Blowback in Iran Ron Paul uses the overthrow of Prime Minister Muhammad Mossadegh of Iran in 1953 as a classic example of blowback. American and British intelligence worked together in overthrowing the legally and popularly elected government and replaced Prime Minister Mossadegh with the politically reliable but repressive Shah of Iran. A [...]
Blogging Gold: The Once and Future Money – Good Money is Stable Money, Part 3
The Fateful Day On 15 August 1971, Richard Nixon severed the dollar's link to gold and destroyed Bretton Woods, the world's monetary system. For three centuries before 1971, the world more or less had stable money. After a series of steps in the 1960s and early 1970s and ending on 15 August 1971, it no longer did. The capitalist economy long [...]
Blogging Meltdown: How Government Created the Housing Bubble – Culprit 3, The government’s artificial stimulus to speculation
Sub-prime, Prime Mortgages, and the FED Of the list of culprits, Woods believes that too much blame has focused on the sub-prime loans. Besides the government's push for minority home-ownership, the Fed's increase in reserves for the banks allowed lending innovations such as 100 percent loans to become institutionalized features in the banking [...]
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