Best Libertarian Books in Philosophy & Economics

By Christian | | Posted in Books
16835 Views, 3752 Total Votes, 2506 Anonymous Votes

Which books are your favorites? Links to the PDF and audiobooks are in the description. This list was sourced from the Mises Caucus Facebook group.

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Anatomy of the State, by Murray Rothbard

288

Net: 280
Score: 97%

Murray Rothbard was known as the state's greatest living enemy, and this audiobook is his most powerful statement on the topic. He explains what a state is and what it is not. He shows how it is an institution that violates all that we hold as honest and moral, and how it operates under a false cover. He shows how the state wrecks freedom, destroys civilization, and threatens all lives and property and social well-being, all under the veneer of "good intentions".

https://mises.org/library/anatomy-state
https://cdn.mises.org/Anatomy+of+the+...
https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-State-...
https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Anatom...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrOPB...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVEBr...

Economics in One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt

235

Net: 235
Score: 100%

With over a million copies sold, Economics in One Lesson is an essential guide to the basics of economic theory. A fundamental influence on modern libertarianism, Hazlitt defends capitalism and the free market from economic myths that persist to this day.

Considered among the leading economic thinkers of the “Austrian School,” which includes Carl Menger, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich (F.A.) Hayek, and others, Henry Hazlitt (1894-1993), was a libertarian philosopher, an economist, and a journalist. He was the founding vice-president of the Foundation for Economic Education and an early editor of The Freeman magazine, an influential libertarian publication. Hazlitt wrote Economics in One Lesson, his seminal work, in 1946. Concise and instructive, it is also deceptively prescient and far-reaching in its efforts to dissemble economic fallacies that are so prevalent they have almost become a new orthodoxy.

Economic commentators across the political spectrum have credited Hazlitt with foreseeing the collapse of the global economy which occurred more than 50 years after the initial publication of Economics in One Lesson. Hazlitt’s focus on non-governmental solutions, strong — and strongly reasoned — anti-deficit position, and general emphasis on free markets, economic liberty of individuals, and the dangers of government intervention make Economics in One Lesson every bit as relevant and valuable today as it has been since publication.

https://mises.org/library/economics-o...
https://www.liberalstudies.ca/wp-cont...
https://fee.org/media/14946/economics...
https://www.amazon.com/Economics-One-...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5MGR...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M2UR...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI8XX...

The Law, by Frederic Bastiat

176

Net: 173
Score: 98%

The Law was originally published as a pamphlet in 1850 by Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850). Bastiat wrote most of his work in the few years before and after the French Revolution of 1848. The Law is considered a classic and his ideas are still relevant today. The essay was published in French in 1850. This piece was published in English as part of Essays on Political Economy (G.P. Putnams & Sons, 1874) with authoritative translation by British economist Patrick James Stirling.

https://mises.org/library/law
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9z8u7...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Gob_...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlN4K...

For a New Liberty, by Murray Rothbard

133

Net: 129
Score: 97%

A classic that for over two decades has been hailed as the best general work on libertarianism available. Rothbard begins with a quick overview of its historical roots, and then goes on to define libertarianism as resting "upon one single axiom: that no man or group of men shall aggress upon the person or property of anyone else." He writes a withering critique of the chief violator of liberty: the State. Rothbard then provides penetrating libertarian solutions for many of today's most pressing problems, including poverty, war, threats to civil liberties, the education crisis, and more.

https://mises.org/library/new-liberty...
https://www.amazon.com/New-Liberty-Li...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV9fY...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ujAE...

No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority, by Lysander Spooner

109

Net: 107
Score: 98%

Lysander Spooner's discontentment with the Constitution of the United States led him to publish No Treason, which revises significant parts of that document to reduce the power of the state versus individuals.

The author was an anti-authoritarian philosopher and legal theorist who had spent his earlier life vigorously campaigning against slavery. Following the American Civil War however, he became horrified at the brutality and carnage that had been unleashed. Redoubling his criticisms, Spooner asserts his dismay that the U.S. government was rendered inert by its Constitution - slavery was only abolished after a long and bloody war, whereas had it been forbade at the outset, no such conflict would have arisen.

A strong proponent of natural law - the concept that all humans had rights endowed at the point of their birth - Spooner had a sense of revulsion at how American politics had ensued in the early-to-mid 19th century. It was thus that No Treason was written in the hope of moderating the Constitution to ensure that slavery and bloody recriminations for secession would never again occur.

In life, many of Spooner's actions versus authority were successful; his abolitionism consisted of circulating pamphlets including those suggesting guerrilla warfare by slaves, and prefaced the Civil War. Later in life his challenge to the postal monopolies successfully resulted in such monopolies being regulated to the point where mailing became much cheaper for all. Furthermore he advanced a cogent theory of self-employment, believing it a way to laborers avoiding or reducing their exploitation by employers.

https://mises.org/library/no-treason-...
https://www.libertarianism.org/public...
https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/spo...
https://www.amazon.com/No-Treason-Con...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdni9...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWESq...

Basic Economics, by Thomas Sowell

107

Net: 104
Score: 97%

In this fifth edition of Basic Economics, Thomas Sowell revises and updates his popular book on commonsense economics, bringing the world into clearer focus through a basic understanding of the fundamental economic principles and how they explain our lives. Drawing on lively examples from around the world and from centuries of history, Sowell explains basic economic principles for the general public in plain English.

Basic Economics,which has now been translated into six languages and has additional material online, remains true to its core principle: that the fundamental facts and principles of economics do not require jargon, graphs, or equations and can be learned in a relaxed and even enjoyable way.

https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Economic...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Basic-Econ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp7pE...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrPxE...

Democracy: The God that Failed, by Hans-Hermann Hoppe

113

Net: 102
Score: 90%

The core of this book is a systematic treatment of the historic transformation of the West from monarchy to democracy. Revisionist in nature, it reaches the conclusion that monarchy is a lesser evil than democracy, but outlines deficiencies in both. Its methodology is axiomatic-deductive, allowing the writer to derive economic and sociological theorems, and then apply them to interpret historical events.

A compelling chapter on time preference describes the progress of civilization as lowering time preferences as capital structure is built, and explains how the interaction between people can lower time all around, with interesting parallels to the Ricardian Law of Association. By focusing on this transformation, the author is able to interpret many historical phenomena, such as rising levels of crime, degeneration of standards of conduct and morality, and the growth of the mega-state. In underscoring the deficiencies of both monarchy and democracy, the author demonstrates how these systems are both inferior to a natural order based on private-property.

Hoppe deconstructs the classical liberal belief in the possibility of limited government and calls for an alignment of conservatism and libertarianism as natural allies with common goals. He defends the proper role of the production of defense as undertaken by insurance companies on a free market, and describes the emergence of private law among competing insurers.

Having established a natural order as superior on utilitarian grounds, the author goes on to assess the prospects for achieving a natural order. Informed by his analysis of the deficiencies of social democracy, and armed with the social theory of legitimation, he forsees secession as the likely future of the US and Europe, resulting in a multitude of region and city-states. This book complements the author's previous work defending the ethics of private property and natural order. Democracy - The God that Failed will be of interest to scholars and students of history, political economy, and political philosophy.

https://mises.org/library/democracy-g...
https://portalconservador.com/livros/...
https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Econ...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Democracy-...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqb-R...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmXca...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPJ_S...

End the Fed, Ron Paul

Net: 96
Score: 99%

Over 4,000 students gathered at the University of Michigan to hear Republican Party candidate Ron Paul speak. As he began to address the topics of monetary policy and the coming depression, a chant rose from the crowd, "End the Fed! End the Fed!" As dollar bills were lit on fire and thrown into the night skies, it became clear that the real problem, one that nobody in the media was talking about, was the central bank - an unconstitutional entity and a political, economic, and moral disaster.

Most people don't give a second thought to the Federal Reserve, but they should. In End the Fed, Ron Paul argues that the Fed is both corrupt and dangerously autonomous, inflating currency today at nearly a Weimar or Zimbabwe level. What most people don't realize is that the Fed is actually working against their own personal interests. Ron Paul's urgent appeal tells us how we went wrong and what we need to do fix America's economic structure for future generations.

https://www.amazon.com/End-Fed-Ron-Pa...
https://www.audible.com/pd/End-the-Fe...

Human Action, by Ludwig von Mises

Net: 91
Score: 98%

In Human Action, Mises starts from the ideas set forth in his Theory and History that all actions and decisions are based on human needs, wants, and desires and continues deeper and further to explain how studying this human action is not only a legitimate science (praxeology) but how that science is based on the foundation of free-market economics.

Mises presents and discusses all existing economic theories and then proceeds to explain how the only sensible, realistic, and feasible theory of economics is one based on how the needs and desires of human beings dictate trends, affect profits and losses, adjust supply and demand, set prices, and otherwise maintain, regulate, and control economic forces.

https://mises.org/library/human-action-0
https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/gre...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Human-Acti...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDZfO...

The Revolution: A Manifesto, by Ron Paul

Net: 82
Score: 99%

This much is true: You have been lied to. The government is expanding. Taxes are increasing. More senseless wars are being planned. Inflation is ballooning. Our basic freedoms are disappearing.

The Founding Fathers didn't want any of this. In fact, they said so quite clearly in the Constitution of the United States of America. Unfortunately, that beautiful, ingenious, and revolutionary document is being ignored more and more in Washington. If we are to enjoy peace, freedom, and prosperity once again, we absolutely must return to the principles upon which America was founded. But finally, there is hope.

In The Revolution, Texas congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul has exposed the core truths behind everything threatening America, from the real reasons behind the collapse of the dollar and the looming financial crisis, to terrorism and the loss of our precious civil liberties. In this book, Ron Paul provides answers to questions that few even dare to ask.

https://mises.org/library/revolution-...
https://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Man...
https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Revolu...

Man, Economy, and State, by Murray Rothbard

Net: 80
Score: 96%

Murray N. Rothbard's great treatise Man, Economy, and State and its complementary text, Power and Market, are here combined into a single audiobook edition as they were written to be. It provides a sweeping presentation of Austrian economic theory, a reconstruction of many aspects of that theory, a rigorous criticism of alternative schools, and an inspiring look at a science of liberty that concerns nearly everything and should concern everyone.

The Mises Institute's new edition of Man Economy, and State, united with its formerly sundered companion volume, Power and Market, is a landmark in the history of the institute. It takes this book out of the category of underground classic and raises it up to its proper status as one of the great economic treatises of all time, a book that is essential for anyone seeking a robust economic education.

The captivating new introduction by Professor Joseph Salerno frames up the Rothbardian contribution in a completely new way and reassesses the place of this book in the history of economic thought. In Salerno's view, Rothbard was not attempting to write a distinctively "Austrian" book but rather a comprehensive treatise on economics that eschewed the Keynesian and positivist corruptions. This is what accounts for its extraordinarily logical structure and depth. That it would later be called Austrian is only due to the long-lasting nature of the corruptions of economics that Rothbard tried to correct.

For years the Mises Institute has kept it in print and sold thousands of copies in a nice paperback version. Then we decided to take a big step and put out an edition worthy of this great treatise. It is the Scholar's Edition of Man, Economy, and State - an edition that immediately became definitive and used throughout the world. The index is huge and comprehensive.

https://mises.org/library/man-economy...
https://www.amazon.com/Man-Economy-St...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Man-Econom...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-0Wm...

The Anarchist Handbook, by Michael Malice

Net: 73
Score: 85%

Anarchism has been both a vision of a peaceful, cooperative society — and an ideology of revolutionary terror. Since the term itself — anarchism — is a negation, there is a great deal of disagreement on what the positive alternative would look like. The black flag comes in many colors.

The Anarchist Handbook is an opportunity for all these many varied voices to speak for themselves, from across the decades. These were human beings who saw things differently from their fellow men. They fought and they loved. They lived and they died. They disagreed on much, but they all shared one vision: Freedom.

https://www.amazon.com/Anarchist-Hand...
https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Anarch...

The Ethics of Liberty, by Murray Rothbard

Net: 72
Score: 97%

The authoritative text on the libertarian political position

In recent years, libertarian impulses have increasingly influenced national and economic debates, from welfare reform to efforts to curtail affirmative action. Murray N. Rothbard's classic The Ethics of Liberty stands as one of the most rigorous and philosophically sophisticated expositions of the libertarian political position.

Rothbard’s unique argument roots the case for freedom in the concept of natural rights and applies it to a host of practical problems. And while his conclusions are radical―that a social order that strictly adheres to the rights of private property must exclude the institutionalized violence inherent in the state―Rothbard’s applications of libertarian principles prove surprisingly practical for a host of social dilemmas, solutions to which have eluded alternative traditions.

The Ethics of Liberty authoritatively established the anarcho-capitalist economic system as the most viable and the only principled option for a social order based on freedom. This classic book’s radical insights are sure to inspire a new generation of readers.

https://mises.org/library/ethics-liberty
https://www.amazon.com/Ethics-Liberty...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N26yP...

The Road to Serfdom, F. A. Hayek

Net: 71
Score: 95%

An unimpeachable classic work in political philosophy, intellectual and cultural history, and economics, The Road to Serfdom has inspired and infuriated politicians, scholars, and the public for half a century. Originally published in 1944 - when Eleanor Roosevelt supported the efforts of Stalin, and Albert Einstein subscribed lock, stock, and barrel to the socialist program - The Road to Serfdom was seen as heretical for its passionate warning against the dangers of state control over the means of production. For F. A. Hayek, the collectivist idea of empowering government with increasing economic control would lead not to a utopia but to the horrors of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

First published by the University of Chicago Press on September 18, 1944, The Road to Serfdom garnered immediate, widespread attention. The first printing of 2,000 copies was exhausted instantly, and within six months more than 30,000 books were sold. In April 1945, Reader's Digest published a condensed version of the book, and soon thereafter the Book-of-the-Month Club distributed this edition to more than 600,000 readers. A perennial best seller, the book has sold 400,000 copies in the United States alone and has been translated into more than 20 languages, along the way becoming one of the most important and influential books of the century.

With this new edition, The Road to Serfdom takes its place in the series the Collected Works of F. A. Hayek. The volume includes a foreword by series editor and leading Hayek scholar Bruce Caldwell explaining the book's origins and publishing history and assessing common misinterpretations of Hayek's thought. Caldwell has also standardized and corrected Hayek's references and added helpful new explanatory notes. Supplemented with an appendix of related materials ranging from prepublication reports on the initial manuscript to forewords to earlier editions by John Chamberlain, Milton Friedman, and Hayek himself, this new edition of The Road to Serfdom is the definitive version of Hayek's enduring masterwork.

https://www.amazon.com/Road-Serfdom-D...
https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Road-t...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiHtR...

Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism, by Scott Horton

Net: 62
Score: 100%

"Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism is a masterly history of these chaotic, tragic and above all futile conflicts, ranging with his usual excoriating accuracy from Mali to Pakistan, from Iraq to Yemen by way of Syria and Libya. Millions are dead, disabled or languish desperately far from their homes as the direct result of our blunders, bewilderment and outright malicious stupidity. Thousands of our own soldiers have died or are disabled. Hundreds more of our citizens have died in the US and Europe in what Horton calls the 'backdraft' of our disastrous actions. Ignore the self-serving memoirs or grandiose academic tomes; if you listen to only one book on the so-called "'War on Terror', this must be that book." (Frank Ledwidge, author of Investment in Blood).

https://www.amazon.com/Enough-Already...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Enough-Alr...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liaV2...

What Has Government Done to Our Money? by Murray Rothbard

Net: 56
Score: 95%

The Mises Institute is pleased to present this audio edition of Rothbard's most famous monetary essay - the one that has influenced two generations of economists, investors, and business professionals. The Mises Institute has united this book with its natural complement: a detailed reform proposal for a 100 percent gold dollar. "The Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar" was written a decade before the last vestiges of the gold standard were abolished. Rothbard's unique plan for making the dollar sound again still holds up. Some people have said that Rothbard tells us what is wrong with money but not what to do about it. Well, with the addition of this essay, the problem and the answer are united in a comprehensive whole.

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. Rothbard 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 Rothbard feels for the topic comes through in the prose and transfers to the reader. Readers become excited about the subject and tell others. Students tell professors. Some, like the great Ron Paul of Texas, have even run for political office after having read it.

https://mises.org/library/what-has-go...
https://www.amazon.com/What-Has-Gover...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFz6n...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dh04Y...

Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand

Net: 54
Score: 73%

In a scrap heap within an abandoned factory, the greatest invention in history lies dormant and unused. By what fatal error of judgment has its value gone unrecognized, its brilliant inventor punished rather than rewarded for his efforts?
In defense of those greatest of human qualities that have made civilization possible, one man sets out to show what would happen to the world if all the heroes of innovation and industry went on strike. Is he a destroyer or a liberator? And why does he fight his hardest battle not against his enemies but against the woman he loves?

Tremendous in scope and breathtaking in its suspense, Atlas Shrugged is Ayn Rand's magnum opus, an electrifying moral defense of capitalism and free enterprise which launched an ideological movement and gained millions of loyal fans around the world.

https://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Shrugged...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Atlas-Shru...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Atlas-Shru...

I, Pencil, by Leonard Read

Net: 52
Score: 98%

In "I, Pencil," Leonard E. Read beautifully illustrates the marvelous interconnectivity of the global marketplace in this classic essay told from the viewpoint of a common pencil–an item nearly everyone uses, but no single person can make alone.

https://fee.org/resources/i-pencil/
https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/rea...
https://www.amazon.com/I-Pencil-Leona...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBdgO...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3W2v...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNf7r...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wMEx...

Liberty Defined, by Ron Paul

Net: 44
Score: 100%

In Liberty Defined, congressman and #1 New York Times bestselling author Ron Paul returns with his most provocative, comprehensive, and compelling arguments for personal freedom to date.

The term "Liberty" is so commonly used in our country that it has become a mere cliché. But do we know what it means? What it promises? How it factors into our daily lives? And most importantly, can we recognize tyranny when it is sold to us disguised as a form of liberty?

Dr. Paul writes that to believe in liberty is not to believe in any particular social and economic outcome. It is to trust in the spontaneous order that emerges when the state does not intervene in human volition and human cooperation. It permits people to work out their problems for themselves, build lives for themselves, take risks and accept responsibility for the results, and make their own decisions. It is the seed of America.

This is a comprehensive guide to Dr. Paul's position on fifty of the most important issues of our times, from Abortion to Zionism. Accessible, easy to digest, and fearless in its discussion of controversial topics, Liberty Defined sheds new light on a word that is losing its shape.

https://mises.org/library/liberty-def...
https://portalconservador.com/livros/...
https://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Define...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Liberty-De...

The Creature from Jekyll Island, by G. Edward Griffin

Net: 41
Score: 98%

This classic expose of the Fed has become one of the best-selling books in its category of all time. Where does money come from? Where does it go? Who makes it? The money magician's secrets are unveiled. Here is a close look at their mirrors and smoke machines, the pulleys, cogs, and wheels that create the grand illusion called money. A boring subject? Just wait. You'll be hooked in five minutes. It reads like a detective story - which it really is, but it's all true.

This book is about the most blatant scam of history. It's all here: the cause of wars, boom-bust cycles, inflation, depression, prosperity. Your world view will definitely change. Putting it quite simply, this may be the most important book on world affairs you will ever read.

The 5th Edition includes a no-holds barred analysis of bank bailouts under the Bush and Obama Administrations that are shown to be nothing less than legalized plunder of the American people. Many other updates have been added, including a revision to the list of those who attended the historic meeting at Jekyll Island, where the Federal Reserve was created.

https://www.amazon.com/Creature-Jekyl...
https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Creatu...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRueZ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXAW1...

The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, by Tom Woods

Net: 36
Score: 95%

Most Americans trust that their history professors and high school teachers will give students honest and accurate information. The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History makes it quite clear that liberal professors have misinformed our children for generations.

Professor Thomas E. Woods, Jr. takes on the most controversial moments of American history and exposes how history books are merely a series of clichés drafted by academics who are heavily biased against God, democracy, patriotism, capitalism and most American family values.

https://mises.org/library/politically...
https://www.amazon.com/Politically-In...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Nullificat...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dtTH...

The Definitive Guide to Libertarian Voluntaryism, by Jack Lloyd

Net: 35
Score: 95%

What does it mean to be a principled Libertarian Voluntaryist? Despite decades of scholarship and popular growth, few people can articulate with succinct precision what it means to identify as one. With this book, author Jack Lloyd condenses the big-picture ideas of individualism into a uniform philosophy that anyone can read and apply for themselves. His special insights gained from 15 years of research and engagement in libertarian culture will leave you with a sense of clarity on how the philosophy of property rights and consent can create a robust guide for ethical human action.

https://www.amazon.com/Definitive-Gui...

The Liberty Solution, by Derek Wills

Net: 34
Score: 76%

Present day American politics are at a historical state of divisiveness. Democrats and Republicans alike cling to their respective ideologies, their grip more firm today than yesterday. Both parties claim to only want what is best for the American people, but they ultimately fail the litmus test of whether or not their ideals align with the principles of liberty.

The Liberty Solution proposes a bold rekindling of the flame of liberty, while highlighting the various ways that the federal, state, and local governments usurp the natural rights belonging to each and every individual, whether they know it or are entirely unaware. Using both historical evidence and news stories of today, Wills presents his case of grievances against the state, and explains not only how, but why these acts usurp our natural rights.

This modern philosophical treatise concludes by illustrating how the world would actually look should the tree of liberty be allowed to grow, without the constricting hand of the state interfering in her growth. Liberty is not merely a solution to the issues, but the solution. If liberty were allowed to thrive, we would all find ourselves in a much more desirable state of being, regardless of the political party to which one subscribes.

https://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Soluti...
https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Libert...

Free to Choose, by Milton Friedman

Net: 34
Score: 92%

Milton Friedman and his wife, Rose, teamed up to write this most convincing and readable guide, which illustrates the crucial link between Adam Smith's capitalism and the free society. They show how freedom has been eroded and prosperity undermined through the rapid growth of governmental agencies, laws, and regulations. While a large central government may have good intentions, the results it produces are lamentable. More than another indictment of government planning and bureaucracy, however, Free to Choose offers several convincing and creative remedies to the world's woes.

http://www.proglocode.unam.mx/sites/p...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Free-to-Ch...
https://www.amazon.com/Free-Choose-St...

Nullification, by Tom Woods

Net: 32
Score: 100%

Citizens across the country are fed up with the politicians in Washington telling us how to live our lives and then sticking us with the bill. But what can we do? Actually, we can just say no. As New York Times best-selling author Thomas E. Woods, Jr., explains, "nullification" allows states to reject unconstitutional federal laws. For many tea partiers nationwide, nullification is rapidly becoming the only way to stop an overreaching government drunk on power.

From privacy to immigration to national health care, Woods shows how this growing and popular movement is sweeping across America and empowering states to take action against President Obama's socialist policies and big-government agenda.

https://mises.org/library/nullificati...
https://www.amazon.com/Nullification-...
https://tomwoods.com/books/nullificat...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Nullificat...

The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality, by Ludwig von Mises

Net: 30
Score: 100%

The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality by Austrian School economist and libertarian thinker Ludwig von Mises is an investigation into the psychological roots of the anti-capitalistic stance that is widespread in segments of the general population of the capitalist world. Von Mises suggests various reasons for this mentality, primarily his claim that free competition in the market economy allows no excuses of one's failures. Rather, he argues, it creates great incentive for one's desire for improvement and greater effort to succeed, as well as a greater reward for that success.

https://mises.org/library/anti-capita...
https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/gre...
https://www.amazon.com/Anti-Capitalis...
https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Anti-C...

How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World, by Harry Browne

Net: 29
Score: 97%

Harry Browne believed that a person’s happiness is the highest goal he/she can achieve in life. Freedom comes from living your life as you see fit. Happiness and freedom are attainable even if others remain unfree, and it’s never too late to change your life.

"If you’re not free now, it might be because you’ve been preoccupied with people or institutions that have restrained your freedom. I don’t expect you to stop worrying about them, merely because I suggest that you do. I do hope to show you, though, that those people and institutions are relatively powerless to stop you - once you decide how you will achieve your freedom. There are things you can do to be free, and if you turn your attention to those things, no one will stand in your way. But when you become preoccupied with those who are blocking you, you overlook the many alternatives you could use to bypass them. The freedom you seek is already available to you, but it has gone unnoticed.”

This book identifies life’s traps - unconscious thinking and habits that prevent people from being free - and explains in a language even a young person can understand how to escape these traps. It helps you navigate through life while being true to your beliefs while obtaining self-reliance, peace, freedom, prosperity, and happiness.

Many who have read or listened to this book believe it’s invaluable and should be required for every young person, so they can learn how to be free before others start to rule their life. Some believe it should be a required course in every high school, college, and university. Others believe every adult should try it. Still others claim it’s a must for all who seek freedom.

https://mises.org/library/how-i-found...
https://www.amazon.com/How-Found-Free...
https://www.audible.com/pd/How-I-Foun...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpmEU...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f508u...

Meltdown, by Tom Woods

Net: 29
Score: 97%

If you are fed up with Washington boondoggles, and you like the small-government, politically-incorrect thinking of Ron Paul, then you'll love Tom Woods's Meltdown. In clear, no-nonsense terms, Woods explains what led up to this economic crisis, who's really to blame, and why government bailouts won't work. Woods will reveal:

* Which brave few economists predicted the economic fallout--and why nobody listened
* What really caused the collapse
* Why the Fed--not taxpayers--should have to answer for the current economic crisis
* Why bailouts are band-aids that will only provide temporary relief and ultimately make things worse
* What we should do instead, to put our economy on a healthy path to recovery

With a foreword from Ron Paul, Meltdown is the free-market answer to the Fed-created economic crisis. As the new Obama administration inevitably calls for more regulations, Woods argues that the only way to rebuild our economy is by returning to the fundamentals of capitalism and letting the free market work

https://tomwoods.com/book/meltdown/
https://store.mises.org/Meltdown-P557...
https://www.amazon.com/Meltdown-Free-...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Meltdown-A...

Defending the Undefendable, by Walter Block

Net: 28
Score: 97%

Professor Block's book 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, in 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. Even now I am occasionally at first incredulous and feel that 'this is going too far,' but usually find in the end that you are right. 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 economics frequently express themselves in unfounded prejudices against other occupations, and in showing the falsity of these stereotypes you are doing a real service, although you will not make yourself more popular with the majority."

https://mises.org/library/defending-u...
https://www.amazon.com/Defending-Unde...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Defending-...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Defending-...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pVk0...

The Real Lincoln, by Thomas DiLorenzo

Net: 27
Score: 93%

Most Americans consider Abraham Lincoln to be the greatest president in history. His legend as the Great Emancipator has grown to mythic proportions as hundreds of books, a national holiday, and a monument in Washington, D.C., extol his heroism and martyrdom.

But what if most everything you knew about Lincoln were false? What if, instead of an American hero who sought to free the slaves, Lincoln were in fact a calculating politician who waged the bloodiest war in American history in order to build an empire that rivaled Great Britain's? In The Real Lincoln, author Thomas J. DiLorenzo uncovers a side of Lincoln not told in many history books and overshadowed by the immense Lincoln legend.

Through extensive research and meticulous documentation, DiLorenzo portrays the 16th president as a man who devoted his political career to revolutionizing the American form of government from one that was very limited in scope and highly decentralized - as the Founding Fathers intended - to a highly centralized, activist state. Standing in his way, however, was the South, with its independent states, its resistance to the national government, and its reliance on unfettered free trade.

https://www.amazon.com/Real-Lincoln-A...
https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Real-L...

Our Enemy, the State, by Albert Jay Nock

Net: 27
Score: 100%

What does one need to know about politics? In some ways, Albert Jay Nock has summed it all up in this astonishing book Our Enemy the State, the influence of which has grown every year since its publication. Albert Jay Nock was a prominent essayist at the height of the New Deal. In 1935, hardly any public intellectuals were making much sense at all. They pushed socialism. They pushed fascism. Everyone had a plan. Hardly anyone considered the possibility that the state was not fixing society but destroying it bit by bit. And so Albert Jay Nock came forward to write what needed to be written. And he ended up penning a classic of American political commentary, one that absolutely must be read by every student of economics and government, Our Enemy the State.

https://mises.org/library/our-enemy-s...
https://famguardian.org/Publications/...
https://www.amazon.com/Our-Enemy-Stat...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaKy_...

Choice: Cooperation, Enterprise, and Human Action, by Robert P. Murphy

Net: 25
Score: 93%

Unlike what usually passes for economics in many classrooms, government, the media and elsewhere, Choice is an engaging and intriguing book that provides something quite unique: a genuine treatise on economics that both instructs and entertains both economists and general readers. Drawing on the seminal volume by the “Austrian School” economist Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, and comparing classical and neoclassical approaches, Choice is a creative, comprehensive, and unusually lucid book on economic science and market processes. The book illuminates free economies as underpinning civilization, the folly of government central planning, the primacy of entrepreneurship and innovation, the nature of money and banking, the causes of the business cycle, the failures of government intervention, and more.

https://store.mises.org/Choice-Cooper...
https://www.amazon.com/Choice-Coopera...

The Machinery of Freedom, by David Friedman

Net: 24
Score: 86%

This audiobook argues for a society organized by voluntary cooperation under institutions of private property and exchange, with little, ultimately no, government. It describes how the most fundamental functions of government might be replaced by private institutions, with services such as protecting individual rights and settling disputes provided by private firms in a competitive market. It goes on to use the tools of economic analysis to attempt to show how such institutions could be expected to work, what sort of legal rules they would generate, and under what circumstances they would or would not be stable. The approach is consequentialist.

The claim is that such a society would produce more attractive outcomes, judged by widely shared values, than alternatives, including the current institutions of the US and similar societies. The second edition contained four sections; this third edition adds two more. One explores in greater depth some of the ideas already raised, including discussions of decentralized law enforcement in past legal systems, of rights seen not as a moral or legal category but as a description of human behavior, of a possible threat to the stability of the system not considered in the previous editions, and of ways in which a stateless society might defend itself from aggressive states. The final section introduces a number of new topics, including unschooling, the misuse of externality arguments in contexts such as population or global warming, and the implications of public key encryption and related online technologies.

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/The_Mac...
https://www.amazon.com/Machinery-Free...
https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Machin...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUvGg...

A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, by Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Net: 24
Score: 92%

Here is Hans Hoppe's first treatise in English - actually his first book in English - and the one that put him on the map as a social thinker and economist to watch. He argued that there are only two possible archetypes in economic affairs: socialism and capitalism. All systems are combinations of those two types. The capitalist model he defines as pure protection of private property, free association, and exchange - no exceptions. All deviations from that ideal are species of socialism, with public ownership and interference with trade. Within the structure of socialism, he distinguishes the left and right version. "Conservative" socialism favors high regulation, behavioral controls, protectionism, and nationalism. The "liberal" version tends more toward outright public ownership and redistribution. The consequences of socialism vary based on their degree and kind, but they have similarities: high costs, resource waste, low growth.

This treatise has long been out of print, but is now available again for use in comparative-systems classes, and for an orientation to the theory of economic systems. The theoretical apparatus is Rothbardian to the core, and its main contribution is to provide an organizing principle for understanding the structure of real-world economies as measured against pure types. A tour de force. This edition preserves the formatting from the original publisher, for reasons of citation. Though it was published by a major academic publishing house, the visuals are not what they might have been. Nonetheless, the book is well cited, and this edition makes it possible to navigate those citations.

https://mises.org/library/theory-soci...
https://www.amazon.com/Theory-Sociali...
https://www.audible.com/pd/A-Theory-o...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz89w...

Against Intellectual Property, by Stephan Kinsella

Net: 23
Score: 88%

This essay will change the way you think about patents and copyrights.

Few essays written in the last decades have caused so much fundamental rethinking. It is essential that libertarians get this issue right and understand the arguments on all sides. Kinsella's piece here is masterful in making a case against IP that turns out to be more rigorous and thorough than any written on the left, right, or anything in between.

Would a libertarian society recognize patents as legitimate? What about copyright? In Against Intellectual Property, Stephan Kinsella, a patent attorney of many years’ experience, offers his response to these questions. Kinsella is altogether opposed to intellectual property, and he explains his position in this brief but wide-ranging book.

https://www.stephankinsella.com/2010/...
https://mises.org/library/against-int...
https://www.amazon.com/Against-Intell...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Against-In...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAvbW...

Chaos Theory: Two Essays on Market Anarchy, by Robert P. Murphy

Net: 22
Score: 92%

Among the most advanced topics in the literature in the Austro-libertarian milieu is that which deals with the workings of the fully free society, that is, the society with no state, or anarcho-capitalism. Robert Murphy deals with this head on, and makes the first full contribution to this literature in the new century. Working within a Rothbardian framework, he takes up the challenge of Hans Hoppe regarding the role of market insurance in property security to extend the analysis to the security of person.His applications are part empirical and part speculative, but unfailingly provocative, rigorous, and thoughtful. The title itself refers to the supposed chaos that results from eliminating the state but Murphy shows that out of chaos grows an ordered liberty. Anyone interested in exploring the farthest reaches of anarchist theory must come to terms with Murphy's account.

https://mises.org/library/chaos-theor...
https://www.amazon.com/Chaos-Theory-E...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aUAI...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgXeP...

The Bitcoin Standard, by Saifedean Ammous

Net: 21
Score: 81%

When a pseudonymous programmer introduced “a new electronic cash system that’s fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party” to a small Online mailing list in 2008, very few paid attention. Ten years later, and against all odds, this upstart autonomous decentralized software offers an unstoppable and globally-accessible hard money alternative to modern central banks. The Bitcoin Standard analyzes the historical context to the rise of bitcoin, the economic properties that have allowed it to grow quickly, and its likely economic, political, and social implications.

While bitcoin is a new invention of the digital age, the problem it purports to solve is as old as human society itself: transferring value across time and space. Ammous takes the listener on an engaging journey through the history of technologies performing the functions of money, from primitive systems of trading limestones and seashells, to metals, coins, the gold standard, and modern government debt. Exploring what gave these technologies their monetary role, and how most lost it, provides the listener with a good idea of what makes for sound money, and sets the stage for an economic discussion of its consequences for individual and societal future-orientation, capital accumulation, trade, peace, culture, and art. Compellingly, Ammous shows that it is no coincidence that the loftiest achievements of humanity have come in societies enjoying the benefits of sound monetary regimes, nor is it coincidental that monetary collapse has usually accompanied the collapse of a civilization.

With this background in place, the book moves on to explain the operation of bitcoin in a functional and intuitive way. Bitcoin is a decentralized, distributed piece of software that converts electricity and processing power into indisputably accurate records, thus allowing its users to utilize the Internet to perform the traditional functions of money without having to rely on, or trust, any authorities or infrastructure in the physical world. Bitcoin is thus best understood as the first successfully implemented form of digital cash and digital hard money. With an automated and perfectly predictable monetary policy, and the ability to perform final settlement of large sums across the world in a matter of minutes, Bitcoin’s real competitive edge might just be as a store of value and network for final settlement of large payments - a digital form of gold with a built-in settlement infrastructure.

Ammous’ firm grasp of the technological possibilities as well as the historical realities of monetary evolution provides for a fascinating exploration of the ramifications of voluntary free market money. As it challenges the most sacred of government monopolies, bitcoin shifts the pendulum of sovereignty away from governments in favor of individuals, offering us the tantalizing possibility of a world where money is fully extricated from politics and unrestrained by borders.

https://www.amazon.com/Bitcoin-Standa...
https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Bitcoi...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIAr6...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRczb...

The Myth of National Defense, by Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Net: 21
Score: 91%

With 11 chapters by top libertarian scholars on all aspects of defense, this book edited by Hans-Hermann Hoppe it represents an ambitious attempt to extend the idea of free enterprise to the provision of security services. It argues that "national defense" as provided by government is a myth not unlike the myth of socialism itself. It is more viably privatized and replaced by the market provision of security.

https://mises.org/library/myth-nation...
https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Myth-o...
https://www.amazon.com/Myth-National-...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iB-2N...

Don't Hurt People and Don't Take Their Stuff, by Matte Kibbe

Net: 21
Score: 95%

In this essential manifesto of the new libertarian movement, New York Times bestselling author and president of FreedomWorks Matt Kibbe makes a stand for individual liberty and shows us what we must do to preserve our freedom.

Don't Hurt People and Don't Take Their Stuff is a rational yet passionate argument that defends the principles upon which America was founded—principles shared by citizens across the political spectrum. The Constitution grants each American the right to self-determination, to be protected from others whose actions are destructive to their lives and property. Yet as Kibbe persuasively shows, the political and corporate establishment consolidates its power by infringing upon our independence—from taxes to regulations to spying—ultimately eroding the ideals, codified in law, that have made the United States unique in history.

https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Hurt-Peop...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79byG...

Natural Law, by Lysander Spooner

Net: 21
Score: 95%

Lysander Spooner (January 19, 1808 - May 14, 1887) was an American political philosopher, essayist, pamphlet writer, Unitarian, abolitionist, legal theorist, and entrepreneur of the 19th century. He was a strong advocate of the labor movement and severely anti-authoritarian and individualist in political views.

Spooner was born on a farm in Athol, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1808, and died on May 14, 1887, in Boston. Spooner advocated what he called Natural law - or the "Science of Justice" - wherein acts of initiatory coercion against individuals and their property were considered criminal because they were immoral while the so-called criminal acts that violated only man-made (arbitrary) legislation were not necessarily criminal.

Natural law is a philosophy asserting that certain rights are inherent by virtue of human nature endowed by nature; traditionally God or a transcendent source, and can be understood universally through human reason. As determined by nature, the law of nature is implied to be universal, existing independently of the positive law of a given political order, society or nation-state.

Historically, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature to deduce binding rules of moral behavior from nature's or God's creation of reality and mankind. The concept of natural law first appeared in ancient Greek philosophy including Aristotle, and was referred to by Roman philosopher Cicero. It was subsequently alluded to in the Bible, and was then developed in the Middle Ages by Catholic philosophers such as Albert the Great, and Thomas Aquinas. During the Age of Enlightenment, modern natural law theories were further developed, combining inspiration from the Roman law, and alongside philosophies like social contract theory. It featured greatly in the works of Alberico Gentili, Francisco Suárez, Richard Hooker, Thomas Hobbes, Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf, Matthew Hale, John Locke, Francis Hutcheson, Jean Jacques Burlamaqui, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Emmerich de Vattel, Cesare Beccaria, and Francesco Mario Pagano. It was used to challenge the divine right of kings, and became an alternative justification for the establishment of a social contract, positive law, and government - and thus legal rights - in the form of classical republicanism. Conversely, the concept of natural rights is used by others to challenge the legitimacy of all such establishments.

https://cdn.mises.org/Left%20and%20Ri...
https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/spo...
https://www.amazon.com/Natural-Law-Ly...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Natural-La...

Omnipotent Government, by Ludwig von Mises

Net: 21
Score: 100%

Published in 1944, during World War II, Omnipotent Government was Mises’s first book written and published after he arrived in the United States. In this volume Mises provides in economic terms an explanation of the international conflicts that caused both world wars. Although written more than half a century ago, Mises’s main theme still stands: government interference in the economy leads to conflicts and wars. According to Mises, the last and best hope for peace is liberalism―the philosophy of liberty, free markets, limited government, and democracy.

https://mises.org/library/omnipotent-...
https://www.amazon.com/Omnipotent-Gov...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_LPj...

Real Dissent, by Tom Woods

Net: 20
Score: 95%

Nothing makes traditional left and right kiss and make up faster than when they're faced with an articulate libertarian. Avert your eyes from this dangerous extremist, citizen! Government is composed of wise public servants who innocently pursue the common good!

In Real Dissent, Tom Woods demolishes some of the toughest critics of libertarianism in his trademark way. In doing so he strays beyond what he calls the index card of allowable opinion, the narrow range within which the media and political classes permit debate to take place in America.

Should 40% or 35% of our income be taxed? That's the kind of debate the New York Times prefers. Should our income be taxed at all? Now that's out of bounds, citizen! In foreign policy, Americans are permitted to choose between bombing a despised country or starving its people to death. You favor peace? Why, you must be an "extremist"! On the Federal Reserve, the debate is over which policy the Fed should pursue. But what if the Fed is itself the problem? No answer, because the question isn't raised.

Real Dissent is organized into ten parts:

* Part I: War and Propaganda
* Part II: Capitalism and Anti-Capitalism
* Part III: Libertarianism Attacked, and My Replies
* Part IV: Ron Paul and Forbidden Truths
* Part V: End the Fed
* Part VI: History and Liberty
* Part VII: When Libertarians Go Wrong [on people who don't quite get their own philosophy]
* Part VIII: Books You May Have Missed
* Part IX: Talking Liberty: Selected Tom Woods Show Interviews
* Part X: Back to Basics
* Afterword: How I Evaded the Gatekeepers of Approved Opinion

The index card of allowable opinion forces Americans into narrow and pointless debates, and closes off discussion of plausible and humane alternatives. For the sake of American liberty, it’s time we set that thing on fire.

https://tomwoods.com/book/real-dissent/
https://store.mises.org/Real-Dissent-...
https://www.amazon.com/Real-Dissent-L...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Real-Disse...

How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes, by Peter Schiff

Net: 20
Score: 100%

How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes uses illustration, humor, and accessible storytelling to explain complex topics of economic growth and monetary systems. In it, economic expert and best-selling author of Crash Proof, Peter Schiff, teams up with his brother Andrew to apply their signature "take no prisoners" logic to expose the glaring fallacies that have become so ingrained in our country's economic conversation.

Inspired by How an Economy Grows and Why It Doesn't - a previously published book by the Schiffs' father Irwin, a widely published economist and activist - How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes incorporates the spirit of the original while tackling the latest economic issues. With wit and humor, the Schiffs explain the roots of economic growth, the uses of capital, the destructive nature of consumer credit, the source of inflation, the importance of trade, savings, and risk, and many other topical principles of economics.

The tales told here may appear simple of the surface, but they will leave you with a powerful understanding of How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes.

https://www.amazon.com/How-Economy-Gr...
https://riosmauricio.com/wp-content/u...
https://www.audible.com/pd/How-an-Eco...
https://www.audible.com/pd/How-an-Eco...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkMiu...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnM_m...

Liberalism, by Ludwig von Mises

Net: 20
Score: 100%

In 1927, classical liberalism, based on a belief in individualism, reason, capitalism, and free trade, was dying, when one of the 20th century's greatest social thinkers wrote this combative and convincing restatement. Nowhere are the key principles of Mises' philosophy better represented than in this timeless work.

Mises was a careful and logical theoretician who believed that ideas rule the world, and this especially comes to light in Liberalism.

"The ultimate outcome of the struggle" between liberalism and totalitarianism, say Mises, "will not be decided by arms, but by ideas. It is ideas that group men into fighting factions, that press the weapons into their hands, and that determine against whom and for whom the weapons shall be used. It is they alone, and not arms, that, in the last analysis, turn the scales."

https://mises.org/library/liberalism-...
https://www.amazon.com/Liberalism-Lud...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Liberalism...

Anarchy, State, and Utopia, by Robert Nozick

Net: 19
Score: 79%

In this brilliant and widely acclaimed book, winner of the 1975 National Book Award, Robert Nozick challenges the most commonly held political and social positions of our age - liberal, socialist, and conservative.

https://mises.org/library/anarchy-sta...
https://www.amazon.com/Anarchy-State-...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Anarchy-St...

The Theory of Money and Credit, by Ludwig von Mises

Net: 19
Score: 95%

Mises wrote this book for the ages, and it remains the most spirited, thorough, and scientifically rigorous treatise on money ever to appear. It made his reputation across Europe and established him as the most important economist of his age.

This Mises Institute edition is the first English edition, and it comes complete with an explanatory foreword by Murray Rothbard and a preface by Douglas French.

This classic treatise was the first really great integration of microeconomics and macroeconomics, and it remains the definitive book on the foundations of monetary theory. As Rothbard points out in his introduction to "the best book on money ever written," economists have yet to absorb all its lessons.

Mises shows that money had its origin in the market, and that its value is based on its usefulness as a commodity in exchange. Step by step, Mises presents the case for sound money without inflation and presents the beginnings of a full-scale business-cycle theory. This edition includes Mises' early blueprint, improved later in life, for a return to a fully backed gold standard and competitive banking.

https://mises.org/library/theory-mone...
https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/mis...
https://www.amazon.com/Theory-Money-C...
https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Theory...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAsqg...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUtAY...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxbDb...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J60FG...

Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional ...

Net: 19
Score: 95%

As schooling becomes increasingly standardized and test driven, occupying more of childhood than ever before, parents and educators are questioning the role of schooling in society. Many are now exploring and creating alternatives.

In a compelling narrative that introduces historical and contemporary research on self-directed education, Unschooled also spotlights how a diverse group of individuals and organizations are evolving an old schooling model of education. These innovators challenge the myth that children need to be taught in order to learn. They are parents who saw firsthand how schooling can dull children’s natural curiosity and exuberance, and others who decided early on to enable their children to learn without school. Educators who left public school classrooms discuss launching self-directed learning centers to allow young people’s innate learning instincts to flourish, and entrepreneurs explore their disillusionment with the teach-and-test approach of traditional schooling.

https://www.amazon.com/Unschooled-Wel...
https://open.spotify.com/track/3CnObQ...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Unschooled...

A Foreign Policy of Freedom, by Ron Paul

Net: 19
Score: 100%

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.

https://mises.org/library/foreign-pol...
http://www.culturaldiplomacy.org/acad...
https://www.amazon.com/Foreign-Policy...

The Most Dangerous Superstition, by Larken Rose

Net: 18
Score: 90%

The vast majority of theft, extortion, intimidation, harassment, assault, and even murder - in other words, the vast majority of man's inhumanity to man - comes not from the greed, hatred and intolerance that lurks in our hearts. Rather, it comes from one pernicious and almost universal assumption, one unquestioned belief, one irrational, self-contradictory superstition: the belief in "authority".

https://www.amazon.com/Most-Dangerous...
https://www.mensenrechten.org/wp-cont...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Most-Dange...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y460q...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHYcz...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymKiP...

The Economics and Ethics of Private Property, by Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Net: 18
Score: 95%

The paperback edition is available at the Mises Store. "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.

https://mises.org/library/economics-a...
https://www.amazon.com/Economics-Ethi...

Why Government Doesn't Work, by Harry Browne

Net: 18
Score: 100%

Harry Browne says 'ENOUGH!' In this book he shows why government fails so miserably at everything it touches. And he demonstrates how much better off we'd be by making government much smaller. Most important, he provides a realistic blueprint for getting from where we are now to a small government and a freer, more prosperous society.

https://www.amazon.com/Government-Doe...

The Virtue of Selfishness, by Ayn Rand

Net: 17
Score: 71%

Ayn Rand here sets forth the moral principles of Objectivism, the philosophy that holds human life - the life proper to a rational being - as the standard of moral values and regards altruism as incompatible with human nature, with the creative requirement of survival, and with a free society.

Ms. Rand's unique philosophy, Objectivism, has gained a worldwide audience. The fundamentals of her philosophy are set forth in this insightful piece of nonfiction.

https://www.amazon.com/Virtue-Selfish...
https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Virtue...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7_Wn...

The Case Against the Fed, by Murray Rothbard

Net: 17
Score: 89%

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 provides a succinct account of the origins of money, showing how money must originate from a commodity. Banking originated from goldsmiths, who issued warehouse receipts for gold deposited with them. From this a fractional reserve system developed, inherently prone to monetary expansion and panic.In the late nineteenth century, a movement toward bank centralization arose among both “progressives” and bankers, the latter eager to increase their profits. From these plans, the Federal Reserve System developed. Rothbard shows the dominate influence of the banking House of Morgan at the Fed’s inception. During the New Deal, Rockefeller interests took first place in influence, with the Morgan interests reduced to a subordinate though still potent role.The book concludes with an account of the Fed’s role in causing inflation and the business cycle. Abolition of this nefarious agency must be part of any agenda for genuine financial reform.

https://mises.org/library/case-agains...
https://www.amazon.com/Case-Against-F...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73cIc...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L86DX...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKJtC...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ105...

Vices are not Crimes, by Lysander Spooner

Net: 17
Score: 89%

Embellished with eloquent and pithy style, it states the defenses of freedom of choice. Spooner has blatantly offered a repudiation of proscription of the non-coercive vices and their effects on the human beings idiosyncratically. The book is rich with variety of opinion of mans dos and donts. Moreover, it is a rational evaluation of victimless crime laws.

https://mises.org/library/vices-are-n...
https://www.amazon.com/Vices-Are-Crim...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKhQv...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-PCm...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9R1G...

Nation, State, and Economy, by Ludwig von Mises

Net: 17
Score: 100%

Essential to Mises’s concept of a classical liberal economy is the absence of interference by the state. In World War I, Germany and its allies were overpowered by the Allied Powers in population, economic production, and military might, and its defeat was inevitable.

Mises believed that Germany should not seek revenge for the peace of Versailles; rather it should adopt liberal ideas and a free-market economy by expanding the international division of labor, which would help all parties. “For us and for humanity,” Mises wrote, “there is only one salvation: return to rationalistic liberalism.”

https://mises.org/library/nation-stat...
https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/gre...
https://www.amazon.com/Nation-State-E...

The Privatization of Roads & Highways, by Walter Block

Net: 16
Score: 100%

The Mises Institute is pleased to introduce Walter Block's remarkable new treatise on private roads that'll cause you to rethink the whole of the way modern transportation networks operate. It's bold, innovative, radical, and compelling and shows how free-market economic theory is the clarifying lens through which to see the failures of the state and see the alternative that's consistent with human liberty.

He shows that even the worst off-the-cuff scenario of life under private ownership of roads would be fantastic by comparison to the existing reality of government ownership of roads, which is awful in ways we don't entirely realize until Block fully explains them (think: highway deaths).

But that's only the beginning of what Professor Block has done. He has made a lengthy, detailed, and positive case that the privatization of roads would be socially optimal in every way. It would save lives, curtail pollution, save us (as individuals!) money, save us massive time, introduce accountability, and make transportation a pleasure instead of a huge pain in the neck.

Because this is the first-ever complete book on this topic, the length and detail are absolutely necessary. He shows that this isn't some libertarian pipe dream but the most practical application of free-market logic. Block is dealing with something that confronts us every day. And in so doing, he illustrates the power of economic theory to take an existing set of facts and help see them in a completely different way.

What's also nice is that the prose has great passion about it, despite its scholarly detail. Block loves answering the objections (aren't roads public goods? Aren't roads too expensive to build privately?) and making the case, fully aware that he has to overcome a deep and persistent bias in favor of public ownership.

https://mises.org/library/privatizati...
https://www.amazon.com/Privatization-...
https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Privat...

Capitalism and Freedom, by Milton Friedman

Net: 15
Score: 75%

How can we benefit from the promise of government while avoiding the threat it poses to individual freedom? In this classic book, Milton Friedman provides the definitive statement of his immensely influential economic philosophy - one in which competitive capitalism serves as both a device for achieving economic freedom and a necessary condition for political freedom. The result is an accessible text that has sold well over half a million copies in English, has been translated into 18 languages, and shows every sign of becoming more and more influential as time goes on.

https://ctheory.sitehost.iu.edu/resou...
http://pombo.free.fr/friedman2002.pdf
https://www.amazon.com/Capitalism-Fre...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Capitalism...

Healing Our World, by Mary J. Ruwart

Net: 15
Score: 94%

Through its win-win approach, Healing Our World illustrates how the rules of social interaction which we learned as children hold the secret to universal harmony and abundance. Visit Ruwart.com to sign up for Dr. Ruwart's blog.

https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Our-Wo...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Healing-Ou...

Death by Regulation, by Mary J. Ruwart

Net: 15
Score: 100%

The 1962 Amendments to the Food & Drug Act have probably shaved at least 5 years off of your lifespan without making drugs safer and more effective. They shifted our medical paradigm from inexpensive prevention to costly treatment, censored life-saving nutritional approaches to disease, added a decade to the time it takes to get a new drug from the lab bench to market place, destroyed over half of our medical/pharmaceutical/nutritional innovations, and caused the prices of drugs to soar without improving safety or effectiveness.

https://www.amazon.com/Death-Regulati...

The Mises Reader, by Ludwig von Mises

Net: 15
Score: 100%

Ludwig von Mises truly was an intellectual giant among men. He was perhaps the greatest economist of the 20th century and a tireless advocate for political liberalism and laissez-faire. Human Action, his magnum opus, stands among the truly great works of social science. But his work, based on the study of human action, transcends both economics and social theory.

Mises's scholarship is more relevant than ever today. His clarity, wisdom, and brilliance are the product of a once-in-a-generation mind. Every intelligent person will benefit from introducing - or reacquainting - themselves with that mind through the curated writings contained in this volume. Mises is required reading for anyone who seeks to understand the critical questions of our time or any time.

Each generation must learn anew from their predecessors the virtues of private property and the consequences of statism. Those ready to dive into deeper Misesian waters are encouraged to pick up The Mises Reader Unabridged, which contains all the material in The Mises Reader plus plenty of additional material, primarily from his more scholarly works.

If you are interested in things economic, you can do no better than to turn to Ludwig von Mises.

https://mises.org/library/mises-reader
https://www.amazon.com/Mises-Reader-L...
https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Mises-...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HszNW...

The Fatal Conceit, by F. A. Hayek

Net: 14
Score: 88%

Hayek gives the main arguments for the free-market case and presents his manifesto on the "errors of socialism." Hayek argues that socialism has, from its origins, been mistaken on factual, and even on logical, grounds and that its repeated failures in the many different practical applications of socialist ideas that this century has witnessed were the direct outcome of these errors. He labels as the "fatal conceit" the idea that "man is able to shape the world around him according to his wishes."

https://www.mises.at/static/literatur...
https://www.amazon.com/Fatal-Conceit-...
https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Fatal-...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqOO2...

Rothbard Reader, by Murray Rothbard

Net: 14
Score: 93%

Few economists manage to produce a body of work that boasts a serious following 20 years after their deaths. Murray N. Rothbard is a rare exception. More than two decades since his passing, his influence lives on, both in the work of a new generation of social scientists, and among a growing number of the general public.

One reason for Rothbard's continuing popularity is his ability to reach across disciplines, and to connect them: unlike many contemporary economists, who specialize in increasingly narrow fields within the science, Rothbard's research agenda was expansive and interdisciplinary, covering most of the social sciences and humanities.

Some listeners of this book will already be familiar with Rothbard's major works, such as his path-breaking treatise on economics, Man, Economy, and State. Yet Rothbard also produced hundreds of shorter works for both academic and popular audiences. Unfortunately, many lack the time to explore his writings; what's more, his oeuvre is so enormous it is often difficult to know where to begin.

This book aims to solve these problems by providing a window into Rothbard's achievements in the social sciences, humanities, and beyond. It includes introductory, intermediate, and advanced material, to ensure the book can be enjoyed by listeners of all levels of understanding and familiarity with Rothbard's work. Therefore although it is intended primarily for newcomers, veteran listeners will also find much to discover or re-discover in these minutes.

The individual articles in this collection can be heard in any order; with that in mind, we propose two ways to explore them. Those new to Rothbard's writing may want to begin with the shorter, more accessible chapters that interest them most, before continuing on to more difficult topics. However, we have intentionally arranged the articles and sections so that listeners who prefer a systematic discussion.

https://mises.org/library/rothbard-re...
https://www.amazon.com/Rothbard-Reade...
https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Rothba...

Against the Left, by Lew Rockwell

Net: 13
Score: 87%

Against the Left explores something basic to libertarianism that many people today have forgotten. As everyone knows, libertarians view the state and the individual as fundamentally opposed. People who freely interact in the market create on their own a wonderful society that advances progress.

In Against the Left, we examine some key battlegrounds in the struggle to preserve and advance real libertarianism against its enemies. These include the assault on the family, civil rights and "disabilities", immigration, environmentalism, economic egalitarianism, and the left-libertarian impostors who want to take libertarianism away from us.

https://mises.org/library/against-left
https://www.amazon.com/Against-Left-L...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Against-th...

A Conflict of Visions, by Thomas Sowell

Net: 13
Score: 93%

In this book, which the author calls a "culmination of 30 years of work in the history of ideas," Sowell attempts to explain the ideological difference between liberals and conservatives as a disagreement over the moral potential inherent in nature. Those who see that potential as limited prefer to constrain governmental authority, he argues. They feel that reform is difficult and often dangerous, and put their faith in family, custom, law, and traditional institutions. Conversely, those who have faith in human nature prefer to remove institutional and traditional constraints. Controversies over such diverse issues as criminal justice, income distribution, or war and peace repeatedly show an ideological divide along the lines of these two conflicting visions.

https://www.amazon.com/Conflict-Visio...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFFO5...

The Myth of the Rational Voter, by Bryan Caplan

Net: 13
Score: 93%

The greatest obstacle to sound economic policy is not entrenched special interests or rampant lobbying, but the popular misconceptions, irrational beliefs, and personal biases held by ordinary voters. This is economist Bryan Caplan's sobering assessment in this provocative and eye-opening book.

Caplan argues that voters continually elect politicians who either share their biases or else pretend to, resulting in bad policies winning again and again by popular demand. Boldly calling into question our most basic assumptions about American politics, Caplan contends that democracy fails precisely because it does what voters want. Through an analysis of Americans' voting behavior and opinions on a range of economic issues, he makes the convincing case that noneconomists suffer from four prevailing biases: they underestimate the wisdom of the market mechanism, distrust foreigners, undervalue the benefits of conserving labor, and pessimistically believe the economy is going from bad to worse. Caplan lays out several bold ways to make democratic government work better - for example, urging economic educators to focus on correcting popular misconceptions and reccomending that democracies do less and let markets take up the slack.

The Myth of the Rational Voter takes an unflinching look at how people who vote under the influence of false beliefs ultimately end up with government that delivers lousy results. With the upcoming presidential election season drawing nearer, this thought-provoking book is sure to spark a long-overdue reappraisal of our elective system.

https://www.issuelab.org/resources/28...
https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Rational-...
https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Myth-o...

The Private Production of Defense, by Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Net: 13
Score: 93%

Hans-Hermann Hoppe, a standout pupil of Murray Rothbard and now the foremost Austrian social theorist, is no stranger to seemingly insurmountable theoretical problems. In work after work, Hoppe has made remarkably pioneering insights into social order and the free market.

In The Private Production of Defense, Hoppe takes on one the most difficult subjects in economic and political theory: the provision of security. Addressing those who would claim that only the state can and should supply society with the service of protection, Hoppe argues that in fact it is better provided by free markets than government. In the process he tackles a hundred counterarguments. Here we have an important and exhilarating update and refinement of an argument rarely made even in the libertarian tradition.

And the stakes are high for us. As Hoppe states, "Without the erroneous public perception and judgment of the state as just and necessary and without the public's voluntary cooperation, even the seemingly most powerful government would implode and its powers evaporate. Thus liberated, we would regain our right to self-defense and be able to turn to freed and unregulated insurance agencies for efficient professional assistance in all matters of protection and conflict resolution".

https://mises.org/library/private-pro...
https://www.amazon.com/Private-Produc...
https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Privat...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vVvi...

Education, Free and Compulsory, by Murray Rothbard

Net: 12
Score: 92%

What is it about today's school system that so many find unsatisfactory? Why have so many generations of reformers failed to improve the educational system, and, indeed, caused it to degenerate further and further into an ever declining level of mediocrity?In this radical and scholarly monograph, out of print for two decades and restored according to the author's original, Murray N. Rothbard identifies the crucial feature of our educational system that dooms it to fail: at every level, from financing to attendance, the system relies on compulsion instead of voluntary consent.Certain consequences follow. The curriculum is politicized to reflect the ideological priorities of the regime in power. Standards are continually dumbed down to accommodate the least common denominator. The brightest children are not permitted to achieve their potential, the special- needs of individual children are neglected, and the mid-level learners become little more than cogs in a machine. The teachers themselves are hamstrung by a political apparatus that watches their every move.Rothbard explores the history of compulsory schooling to show that none of this is accident. The state has long used compulsory schooling, backed by egalitarian ideology, as a means of citizen control. In contrast, a market-based system of schools would adhere to a purely voluntary ethic, financed with private funds, and administered entirely by private enterprise.An interesting feature of this book is its promotion of individual, or home, schooling, long before the current popularity of the practice.As Kevin Ryan of Boston University points out in the introduction, if education reform is ever to bring about fundamental change, it will have to begin with a complete rethinking of public schooling that Rothbard offers here.

https://mises.org/library/education-f...
https://www.amazon.com/Education-Comp...
https://www.mises.at/static/literatur...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Riw6...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pln3q...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxdl-...

The Left, the Right, and the State, by Lew Rockwell

Net: 12
Score: 92%

Lew Rockwell's new manifesto is a clarion call — creative and thought-provoking on every page — for a principled liberty in our time. There are very few books in which you can open up any page and immediately find a quotable and inspiring passage that will make you think hard, laugh out loud, or see things in a completely new way. This is certainly one of them.

Rockwell covers every topic related to economics and politics, from the business cycle, to trade, to the drug war, to environmentalism. His central thesis is that the threat to liberty comes from both the Left and the Right, and that neither really offers a consistent way out. The real problem is much deeper than either the Right or the Left recognizes. It is the institution of the state itself, which everyone seems to want to use to his own philosophical advantage.

https://mises.org/library/left-right-...
https://www.amazon.com/Left-Right-Sta...

The Problem of Political Authority, by Michael Huemer

Net: 12
Score: 92%

The state is often ascribed a special sort of authority, one that obliges citizens to obey its commands and entitles the state to enforce those commands through threats of violence. This book argues that this notion is a moral illusion: no one has ever possessed that sort of authority.

https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Politi...

Planned Chaos, by Ludwig von Mises

Net: 12
Score: 100%

This new edition (completely reset) of Planned Chaos features a new introduction by Chris Westley of Jacksonville State University. The introduction brings this classic up to date - not that it has ever fallen out of date or ever will.The title comes from Mises's description of the reality of central planning and socialism, whether of the national variety (Nazism) or the international variety (communism). Rather than create an orderly society, the attempt to central plan has precisely the opposite effect. By short-circuiting the price mechanism and forcing people into economic lives contrary to their own chosing, central planning destroys the capital base and creates economic randomness that eventually ends in killing prosperity.This important work was written decades after Mises's original essay on economic calculation and includes the broadest and boldest attack on all forms of state control.

https://mises.org/library/planned-cha...
https://www.mises.at/static/literatur...
https://www.amazon.com/Planned-Chaos-...

The Production of Security, by Gustave de Molinari

Net: 12
Score: 100%

The introduction to this stunning work is by Murray Rothbard, who calls French radical Gustave de Molinari (1819-1912) the great innovator in the market provision of security. Indeed, he might be regarded as the first proponent of what is called anarcho-capitalism.Molinari was steeped in the old liberal worldview of Bastiat and hence was a dedicated champion of private property and free markets. But Molinari took matters further to argue that markets were also better at providing the service that the state claimed was its monopoly privilege: the provision of security itself.His singular contribution, then, was to lead us away from the false assumption of Hobbes that somehow the state was necessary to keep society from devolving into chaos. On the contrary, argued Molinari, the voluntary society is the source of order that comes from freedom itself. There is no contradiction or even tension between liberty and security. If free enterprise works well in one sector, it can work well in other sectors too.Molinari was indeed a radical but in the sense that foreshadowed the development of American libertarian thought: a radical for capitalism in all areas of life, which is another way of saying that he was a consistent champion of the fully free society.Perhaps there was a time when people could regard the government monopoly on police and courts as benign, part of the "night watchman" state advocated by the old-time classical liberals. But the march of the police state has changed that: we are more likely to understand that the state's "security" services are the gravest threat to liberty we face.In that sense, Molinari is the man of the hour.

https://mises.org/library/production-...
https://www.amazon.com/Production-Sec...

Conceived in Liberty, by Murray Rothbard

Net: 11
Score: 85%

The new single-volume edition of Conceived in Liberty is here! After so many years of having to juggle four volumes, the Mises Institute has finally put it all together in a single book. This makes it easier to listen to and makes clearer just what a contribution this book is to the history of libertarian literature.

There's never been a better time to remember the revolutionary and even libertarian roots of the American founding, and there's no better guide to what this means in the narrative of the colonial period than Murray Rothbard. For anyone who thinks of Murray Rothbard as only an economic theorist or political thinker, this giant book is something of a surprise. It is probably his least known treatise. It offers a complete history of the colonial period of American history, a period lost to students today, who are led to believe American history begins with the US Constitution.

Rothbard's ambition was to shed new light on colonial history and show that the struggle for human liberty was the heart and soul of this land from its discovery through the culminating event of the American Revolution. These volumes are a tour de force, enough to establish Rothbard as one of the great American historians.

This book is a detailed narrative history of the struggle between liberty and power, as we might expect, but it is more. Rothbard offers a third alternative to the conventional interpretive devices. Against those on the right who see the American Revolution as a "conservative" event and those on the left who want to invoke it as some sort of protosocialist uprising, Rothbard views this period as a time of accelerating libertarian radicalism. Through this prism, Rothbard illuminates events as never before.

https://mises.org/library/conceived-l...
https://www.amazon.com/Conceived-Libe...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Conceived-...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSNVj...

Applied Economics, by Thomas Sowell

Net: 11
Score: 92%

Applied Economics is an accessible guide to how our economic decisions develop. It explains the application of economics to major world problems, including housing, medical care, discrimination, and the economic development of nations. The book is based on an international view of economics, includes examples from around the world, and shows how certain incentives and constraints produce similar outcomes among disparate peoples and cultures.

https://www.amazon.com/Applied-Econom...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Applied-Ec...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqy_7...

Economic Science and the Austrian Method, by Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Net: 11
Score: 92%

A definitive defense of the praxeological view: economics as a purely deductive science. Hoppe rests his argument on the Kantian idea of the "synthetic apriori" proposition, thereby expanding an aim of Mises's in the methodology section of Human Action. Hoppe is the Austrian School's most prominent methodologist, and here he is in top form.

https://mises.org/library/economic-sc...
https://www.mises.at/static/literatur...
https://www.amazon.com/Economic-Scien...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulG5V...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPkUc...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMeCM...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETL-U...

Wealth, Poverty, and Politics, by Thomas Sowell

Net: 11
Score: 100%

In Wealth, Poverty, and Politics, Thomas Sowell, one of the foremost conservative public intellectuals in the country, argues that political and ideological struggles have led to dangerous confusion about income inequality in America. Pundits and politically motivated economists trumpet ambiguous statistics and sensational theories while ignoring the true determinant of income inequality: the production of wealth. We cannot properly understand inequality if we focus exclusively on the distribution of wealth and ignore wealth-production factors such as geography, demography, and culture. Sowell contends that liberals have a particular interest in misreading the data and chastises them for using income inequality as an argument for the welfare state.

Refuting Thomas Piketty, Paul Krugman, and others, Sowell draws on empirical data to show that the inequality is not nearly as extreme or sensational as we have been led to believe. Transcending partisanship through a careful examination of data, Wealth, Poverty, and Politics reveals the truth about the most explosive political issue of our time.

https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Poverty...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Wealth-Pov...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXdaW...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfaHq...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Vm7_...

From Aristocracy to Monarchy to Democracy, by Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Net: 10
Score: 83%

In this tour de force essay, Hans-Hermann Hoppe turns the standard account of historical governmental progress on its head. While the state is an evil in all its forms, monarchy is, in many ways, far less pernicious than democracy. Hoppe shows the evolution of government away from aristocracy, through monarchy, and toward the corruption and irresponsibility of democracy to have been identical with the growth of the leviathan state. There is hope for liberty, as Hoppe explains, but it lies not in reversing these steps, but rather through secession and decentralization. This pocket-sized, eye-opening pamphlet is ideal for tabling, conferences, or sharing with friends. It can revolutionize the way a listener sees society and the state.

https://mises.org/library/aristocracy...
https://www.amazon.com/Aristocracy-Mo...
https://www.audible.com/pd/From-Arist...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KymI0...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-8xp...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyIzr...

No, They Can't, by John Stossel

Net: 10
Score: 100%

The government is not a neutral arbiter of truth. It never has been. It never will be. Doubt everything. John Stossel does. A self-described skeptic, he has dismantled society's sacred cows with unerring common sense. Now he debunks the most sacred of them all: our intuition and belief that government can solve our problems. In No, They Can't, the New York Times best-selling author and Fox News commentator insists that we discard that idea of the "perfect" government - left or right - and retrain our brain to look only at the facts, to rethink our lives as independent individuals -and fast.

With characteristic tenacity, John Stossel outlines and exposes the fallacies and facts of the most pressing issues of today's social and political climate - and shows how our intuitions about them are, frankly, wrong:

* The unreliable marriage between big business, the media, and unions
* The myth of tax breaks and the ignorance of their advocates
* Why "central planners" never create more jobs and how government never really will
* Why free trade works - without government interference
* Federal regulations and the trouble they create for consumers
* The harm caused to the disabled by government protection of the disabled
* The problems (social and economic) generated by minimum-wage laws
* The destructive daydreams of "health insurance for everyone"
* Bad food vs. good food and the government
* Intrusive, unwelcome nanny sensibilities
* The dumbing down of public education and teachers' unions
* How gun control actually increases crime

. . . and more myth-busting realities of why the American people must wrest our lives back from a government stranglehold.

Stossel also reveals how his unyielding desire to educate the public with the truth caused an irreparable rift with ABC (nobody wanted to hear the point-by-point facts of ObamaCare), and why he left his long-running stint for a new, uncensored forum with Fox. He lays out his ideas for education innovation as well and, finally, makes it perfectly clear why government action is the least effective and desirable fantasy to hang on to. As Stossel says, it’s not about electing the right people. It’s about narrowing responsibilities. No, They Can't is an irrefutable first step toward that goal.

https://www.amazon.com/They-Cant-Gove...
https://www.audible.com/pd/No-They-Ca...

The Case Against Education, by Bryan Caplan

Net: 10
Score: 100%

Despite being immensely popular - and immensely lucrative - education is grossly overrated. In this explosive book, Bryan Caplan argues that the primary function of education is not to enhance students' skill but to certify their intelligence, work ethic, and conformity - in other words, to signal the qualities of a good employee.

Learn why students hunt for easy A's and casually forget most of what they learn after the final exam, why decades of growing access to education have not resulted in better jobs for the average worker but instead in runaway credential inflation, how employers reward workers for costly schooling they rarely if ever use, and why cutting education spending is the best remedy.

Caplan draws on the latest social science to show how the labor market values grades over knowledge and why the more education your rivals have, the more you need to impress employers. He explains why graduation is our society's top conformity signal and why even the most useless degrees can certify employability. He advocates two major policy responses. The first is educational austerity. Government needs to sharply cut education funding to curb this wasteful rat race. The second is more vocational education, because practical skills are more socially valuable than teaching students how to outshine their peers.

https://www.amazon.com/Case-against-E...
https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Case-A...

Against Intellectual Monopoly, by Michele Boldrin, David Levine

Net: 9
Score: 90%

“Intellectual property” – patents and copyrights – have become controversial. We witness teenagers being sued for “pirating” music – and we observe AIDS patients in Africa dying due to lack of ability to pay for drugs that are high priced to satisfy patent holders. Are patents and copyrights essential to thriving creation and innovation – do we need them so that we all may enjoy fine music and good health? Across time and space the resounding answer is: No. So-called intellectual property is in fact an “intellectual monopoly” that hinders rather than helps the competitive free market regime that has delivered wealth and innovation to our doorsteps. This book has broad coverage of both copyrights and patents and is designed for a general audience, focusing on simple examples. The authors conclude that the only sensible policy to follow is to eliminate the patents and copyright systems as they currently exist.

https://www.amazon.com/Against-Intell...
https://www.researchgate.net/publicat...
https://nakamotoinstitute.org/static/...

Discovery of Freedom, by Rose Wilder Lane

Net: 9
Score: 100%

Rose Wilder Lane an American journalist, travel writer, novelist, and political theorist, lived from 1886 until 1968. She was the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder, and widely considered a silent collaborator on the Little House series. She is noted – with Ayn Rand and Isabel Paterson – as one of the founding mothers of the American libertarian movement. This is her non-fiction book (1943), one that had a huge impact on American libertarian thought in the 20th century. Here we have an eloquent hymn to human energy and its creative power. Her prose is stark and strong, the product of decades of experience in attempting to get readers to listen, and succeeding.

https://mises.org/library/discovery-f...
https://www.amazon.com/Discovery-Free...

Private Governance, by Edward Peter Stringham

Net: 9
Score: 100%

From the first stock markets of Amsterdam,London, and New York to the billions of electronic commerce transactions today, privately produced and enforced economic regulations are more common, more effective, and more promising than commonly considered.

In Private Governance, prominent economist Edward Stringham presents case studies of the various forms of private enforcement, self-governance, or self-regulation among private groups or individuals that fill a void that government enforcement cannot. Through analytical narratives the book provides a close examination of the world's first stock markets, key elements of which were unenforceable by law; the community of Celebration, Florida, and other private communities that show how public goods can be bundled with land and provided more effectively; and the millions of credit-card transactions that occur daily and are regulated by private governance. Private Governance ultimately argues that while potential problems of private governance, such as fraud, are pervasive, so are the solutions it presents, and that much of what is orderly in the economy can be attributed to private groups and individuals. With meticulous research, Stringham demonstrates that private governance is a far more common source of order than most people realize, and that private parties have incentives to devise different mechanisms for eliminating unwanted behavior.

Private Governance documents numerous examples of private order throughout history to illustrate how private governance is more resilient to internal and external pressure than is commonly believed. Stringham discusses why private governance has economic and social advantages over relying on government regulations and laws, and explores the different mechanisms that enable private governance, including sorting, reputation, assurance, and other bonding mechanisms. Challenging and rigorously-written, Private Governance will make a compelling read for those with an interest in economics, political philosophy, and the history of current Wall Street regulations.

https://www.amazon.com/Private-Govern...

The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State, by Auberon Herbert

Net: 9
Score: 100%

Auberon Herbert (1838–1906) is an eloquent, forceful, and uncompromising defender of liberty―indeed, in the judgment of Richard M. Ebeling he is “one of the most important and articulate advocates of liberty in the last two hundred years.” Herbert was a major participant in the profound and wide-ranging intellectual ferment of the late Victorian age. He formulated a system of “thorough” individualism that he described as “voluntaryism.” To Herbert, “you will not make people wiser and better by taking liberty of action from them. A man can learn only when he is free to act.” As Eric Mack writes, “Carrying natural rights theory to its logical limits, Herbert demanded complete social and economic freedom for all noncoercive individuals and the radical restriction of the use of force to the role of protecting those freedoms―including the freedom of peaceful persons to withhold support from any or all state activities.” There are ten essays.

https://libertas.org/books/rightwrong...
https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/her...
https://www.amazon.com/Right-Compulsi...

Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? by Richard Maybury

Net: 9
Score: 100%

Https://mises.org/library/whatever-happened-penny-candy
https://youtu.be/HjeYK9DN-Lo

Spontaneous Order, by Chase Rachels

Net: 8
Score: 73%

A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case for a Stateless Society is an astonishingly concise, rigorous, and accessible presentation of anarcho-capitalist ideals. It covers a wide range of topics including: money and banking, monopolies and cartels, insurance, health care, law, security, poverty, education, environmentalism, and more! To enjoy this compelling listen requires no previous political, philosophical, or economic knowledge as all uncommon concepts are defined and explained in a simple yet uncompromising manner. Take heed, this work is liable to cause radical paradigm shifts in your understanding of both the state and free market.

https://www.amazon.com/Spontaneous-Or...
https://www.audible.com/pd/A-Spontane...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRSLy...

Fascism versus Capitalism, by Lew Rockwell

Net: 8
Score: 80%

Fascism has become a term of general derision and rebuke. It is tossed casually in the direction of anything a critic happens to dislike.

But fascism is a real political and economic concept, not a stick with which to beat opponents arbitrarily. The abuse of this important word undermines its true value as a term referring to a very real phenomenon, and one whose spirit lives on even now. Fascism is a specific ideology based on the idea that the state is the ideal organization for realizing a society's and an individual's potential economically, socially, and even spiritually.

The state, for the fascist, is the instrument by which the people's common destiny is realized, and in which the potential for greatness is to be found. Individual rights, and the individual himself, are strictly subordinate to the state's great and glorious goals for the nation. In foreign affairs, the fascist attitude is reflected in a belligerent chauvinism, a contempt for other peoples, and a society-wide reverence for soldiers and the martial virtues.

https://mises.org/library/fascism-ver...
https://www.amazon.com/Fascism-versus...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Fascism-Ve...

Libertarian Anarchy: Against the State, by Gerard Casey

Net: 8
Score: 80%

Political philosophy is dominated by a myth, the myth of the necessity of the state. The state is considered necessary for the provision of many things, but primarily for peace and security. In this provocative book, Gerard Casey argues that social order can be spontaneously generated, that such spontaneous order is the norm in human society and that deviations from the ordered norms can be dealt with without recourse to the coercive power of the state.

Casey presents a novel perspective on political philosophy, arguing against the conventional political philosophy pieties and defending a specific political position, which he identifies as 'libertarian anarchy'. The book includes a history of the concept of anarchy, an examination of the possibility of anarchic societies and an articulation of the nature of law and order within such societies. Casey presents his specific form of anarchy, undergirded by a theory of human action that prioritises liberty, as a philosophically and politically viable alternative to the standard positions in political theory.

https://mises.org/library/libertarian...
https://www.amazon.com/Libertarian-An...

Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy, by Murray Rothbard

Net: 8
Score: 80%

Official Mises Institute EditionThis fiery monograph shows a side of Murray Rothbard not seen in his theoretical treatise: his ability to employ "power elite" analysis to understand the relationship between money, power, and war.Rather than allow the left to dominate this approach to history; Rothbard shows how wealthy elites are only able to manipulate world affairs via their connection to state power. Those mainstream historians might deride Rothbard's history as a "conspiracy" approach, Rothbard himself is only out to show that world affairs are not random historical forces but the consequence of choices and paths chosen by real human beings.Here he gives the grim details of how a network of banks, bond dealers, and Wall Street insiders have both favored war and profited from it.The contents of this volume include a long and thoughtful introduction by Anthony Gregory and an afterword by Justin Raimondo.

https://mises.org/library/wall-street...
https://www.mises.at/static/literatur...
https://www.amazon.com/Street-Banks-A...

Lies the Government Told You, by Andrew Napolitano

Net: 8
Score: 89%

You've been lied to by the government....

We shrug off this fact as an unfortunate reality. America is the land of the free, after all. Does it really matter whether our politicians bend the truth here and there?When the truth is traded for lies, our freedoms are diminished and don't return.

In Lies the Government Told You, Judge Andrew P. Napolitano reveals how America's freedom, as guaranteed by the US Constitution, has been forfeited by a government more protective of its own power than its obligations to preserve our individual liberties.

https://www.amazon.com/Lies-Governmen...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Lies-the-G...

The Market for Liberty, by Linda Tannehill, Morris Tannehill

Net: 8
Score: 89%

Some great books are the product of a lifetime of research, reflection, and labored discipline. But other classics are written in a white heat during the moment of discovery, with prose that shines forth like the sun pouring into the window of a time when a new understanding brings in the world into focus for the first time.

The Market for Liberty is that second type of classic, and what a treasure it is. Written by two authors—Morris and Linda Tannehill—just following a period of intense study of the writings of both Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard, it has the pace, energy, and rigor you would expect from an evening's discussion with either of these two giants.

https://mises.org/library/market-libe...
https://www.amazon.com/Market-Liberty...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDgcv...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGKxp...

Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity, by John Stossel

Net: 7
Score: 88%

Now in paperback: The major national bestseller that the New York Times says "tosses sand on liberal sacred cows"John Stossel -- award-winning journalist, tireless consumer-rights crusader, and anchor of ABC's newsmagazine 20/20 -- has built his reputation on his willingness to debunk conventional wisdom, no matter the source. In his latest New York Times bestseller, which has sold more than 200,000 copies in hardcover, he busts the myths, lies, and downright stupidity clogging media outlets on all sides of the spectrum. Taking a shovel to the heaps of misinterpretations and outright mistakes passing for "fact" these days, Stossel proves:--That contrary to popular belief, Americans have more free time now than ever before; --How DDT could actually save millions of lives annually, if only we hadn't been wrongly convinced it caused cancer; --That Republicans don't shrink government -- they expand it; --Why bottled water is a rip-off (hint: not only doesn't it taste better than tap, it's no healthier either!); --How "defective product" lawsuits end up depriving us of safer products; --Why it's okay to marry your cousin; --And much, much more.Bursting with facts, sharp insights, and plain old common sense, Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity is a modern muckraking classic.

https://www.amazon.com/Myths-Lies-Dow...

Short Answers to the Tough Questions, by Mary J. Ruwart

Net: 7
Score: 88%

Do you have questions about the libertarian philosophy? Do you want to explain it to family and friends in a short but compelling way? Do you want examples of how liberty works in the real world rather than just an ivory-tower theory?

In Short Answers to the Tough Questions, Dr. Ruwart has compiled hundreds of questions and her short, succinct answers from her 15-year web column with The Advocates for Self-Government.

Short Answers is a great resource for libertarians, candidates, and those who are exploring what libertarianism is all about. Dr. Ruwart's award-winning book, Healing Our World, which is available on Amazon, makes a great complement to this audiobook.

https://www.amazon.com/Short-Answers-...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Short-Answ...

Separating School and State, by Sheldon Richman

Net: 7
Score: 100%

In "Separating School and State," Sheldon Richman effectively and comprehensively analyzes the failures of public schooling in America and explains the ideas and ideology behind the case for compulsory education. But beyond a historical interpretation and a critical evaluation of the state of public education in America today, Mr. Richman offers a vision of what a fully privatized educational system might look like - and in what ways it would solve many, if not most, of the problems that parents, students, and even a sizable number of professional educators see as the fundamental shortcomings of the present system. This book moves the debate over education in America to a higher and more fruitful level of discussion.

https://www.amazon.com/Separating-Sch...

The God of the Machine, by Isabel Paterson

Net: 7
Score: 100%

The God of the Machine "does for capitalism what Das Kapital does for the Reds and what the Bible did for Christianity." -- Ayn Rand

In "The God of the Machine," Isabel Paterson makes a comprehensive case arguing in favor of individual rights, free trade, and free markets. Considered a foundational work on the subject of individualism and libertarianism, it is said to have influenced Ayn Rand, Russel Kirk, William F. Buckley, and Ron Paul.

https://mises.org/library/god-machine
https://fee.org/media/22562/paterson-...
https://www.amazon.com/God-Machine-Li...

Bourbon for Breakfast, by Jeffrey A. Tucker

Net: 6
Score: 75%

The state makes a mess of everything it touches, argues Jeffrey Tucker in Bourbon for Breakfast. Perhaps the biggest mess it makes is in our minds. Its pervasive interventions in every sector affect the functioning of society in so many ways, we are likely to intellectually adapt rather than fight. Tucker proposes another path: See how the state has distorted daily life, rethink how things would work without the state, and fight against the intervention in every way that is permitted.

Whether that means hacking your showerhead, rejecting prohibitionism, searching for large-tank toilets, declining to use government courts, homeschooling, embracing alternative micro-cultures, watching pro-freedom movies, baking at home, maintaining manners and standards of dress, publishing without copyright, and just living outside what he calls the "statist quo", we should not lose touch with what freedom means, even in these times.

The essays in Bourbon for Breakfast cover commercial life, digital media, culture, food, literature, religion, music, and a host of other issues - all from the perspective of a Misesian-Rothbardian struggling to get by in a world in which the walls of the state have been closing in. Tucker writes about the glories of commerce, the horrors of jail, and the joy of private life - and he defends a kind of aristocratic radicalism in times of increasingly restricted choices.

https://mises.org/library/bourbon-bre...
https://www.amazon.com/Bourbon-Breakf...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Bourbon-fo...

The Ethics of Anarcho-Capitalism, by Kristopher Borer

Net: 6
Score: 75%

Anarcho-capitalism is the most exciting social philosophy of modern times. But how does it work? This book illuminates the ethical system at the heart of anarcho-capitalism. It builds the nonaggression principle from praxeological foundations and develops techniques for applying it to real-world conflicts. It explores the edges of libertarianism to show where it shines and where it fails.

https://www.amazon.com/Ethics-Anarcho...
https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Ethics...

The Real Crash, by Peter Schiff

Net: 6
Score: 86%

You might be thinking everything’s okay: The stock market is on the rise, jobs are growing, the worst of it is over. You’d be wrong. In The Real Crash, New York Times best-selling author Peter D. Schiff argues that America is enjoying a government-inflated bubble, one that reality will explode... with disastrous consequences for the economy and for each of us.

Schiff demonstrates how the infusion of billions of dollars of stimulus money has only dug a deeper hole: The United States government simply spends too much and does not collect enough money to pay its debts, and in the end, Americans from all walks of life will face a crushing consequence. We’re in hock to China, we can’t afford the homes we own, and the entire premise of our currency - backed by the full faith and credit of the United States - is false.

Our system is broken, Schiff says, and there are only two paths forward. The one we’re on now leads to a currency and sovereign debt crisis that will utterly destroy our economy and impoverish the vast majority of our citizens. However, if we change course, the road ahead will be a bit rockier at first, but the final destination will be far more appealing. If we want to avoid complete collapse, we must drastically reduce government spending - eliminate entire agencies, end costly foreign military escapades and focus only on national defense - and stop student loan or mortgage interest deductions, as well as drug wars and bank-and-business bailouts. We must also do what no politician or pundit has proposed: America should declare bankruptcy, default on its debts, and reform our system from the ground up.

Persuasively argued and provocative, The Real Crash explains how we got into this mess, how we might get out of it, and what happens if we don’t. And, with wisdom born from having predicted the Crash of 2008, Peter Schiff explains how to protect yourself, your family, your money, and your country against what he predicts.

https://www.amazon.com/Real-Crash-Pet...
https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Real-C...

A Nation of Sheep, by Andrew Napolitano

Net: 5
Score: 71%

In A Nation of Sheep, Judge Andrew P. Napolitano frankly discusses how the federal government has circumvented the Constitution and is systematically dismantling the rights and freedoms that are the foundation of American democracy. He challenges Americans to recognize that they are being led down a very dangerous path and that the cost of following without challenge is the loss of the basic freedoms that facilitate our pursuit of happiness and that define us as a nation.

Judge Napolitano reminds listeners what America is all about, that the purpose of government is to protect freedom, and freedom is the ability to follow your own free will and not the will of government bureaucrats. He asks the simple question, which are you, a sheep or a wolf? Do you blindly follow behind where you are led, or do you challenge the government at every pass, forcing it to make decisions that will protect our freedoms?

https://www.amazon.com/Nation-Sheep-A...
https://www.audible.com/pd/A-Nation-o...

The Conscience of an Anarchist, by Gary Chartier

Net: 5
Score: 83%

Anarchy happens when people organize their lives peacefully and voluntarily— without the aggressive violence of the state. This simple but powerful book explains why the state is illegitimate, unnecessary, and dangerous, and what we can do to begin achieving real freedom. Gary Chartier is Associate Dean of the School of Business and Associate Professor of Law and Business Ethics at La Sierra University. He is the author of Economic Justice and Natural Law and The Analogy of Love. His byline has appeared in journals including Legal Theory, the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, and the Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence.

https://www.amazon.com/Conscience-Ana...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4JUE...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4JUE...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4JUE...

Cooperation & Coercion, by Antony Davies, James R. Harrigan

Net: 4
Score: 80%

There are only two ways that humans work together: They cooperate with one another or they coerce one another. And once you realize this fundamental fact, it will change how you see the world.

In this myth-busting book, Antony Davies and James R. Harrigan display their wisdom and talent for explaining complex topics; these skills have attracted a devoted audience to their weekly podcast, Words & Numbers, and made them popular speakers around the country.

By looking for cooperation and coercion in everyday life, they help make sense of a wide range of issues that dominate the public debate. You'll come away from this book with a clear understanding of everything from the minimum wage to taxes, from gun control to government regulations, from the War on Terror to the War on Drugs to the War on Poverty.

It turns out that coercion is necessary...sometimes. Even in a democracy, we all abide by rules, including plenty that we don’t agree with, in the name of getting along. But in the end, Davies and Harrigan show that cooperation, without question, is the key to human happiness and progress. The more we encourage it, the better off we all are.

https://www.amazon.com/Cooperation-Co...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Cooperatio...

100

Capitalism by George Reisman

Net: 4
Score: 100%

George Reisman was a student of Mises's, a translator of his work, and, as he demonstrates in this outstanding treatise, a leading theorist in the Misesian tradition. This mammoth exposition deals with the method and theory of economics, and particularly excels in its application to matters of policy. Its sections on price controls, money, banking, and environmentalism apply Misesian theory to new times and new literature. The author deals patiently but devastatingly with the arguments of the interventionists. The end result is an integrated understanding of the theory and ethics of the capitalist economy.

Reisman's ringing manifesto for laissez-faire capitalism free of all government intervention is at once a conservative polemic and a monumental treatise, brimming with original theories. that is remarkable for its depth, scope and rigorous argument. He rejects the Keynesian doctrine that government must adopt a policy of budget deficits to cope with unemployment, contending, to the contrary, that federal intervention in the economic system is a root cause of inflation, credit expansion, depression and mass unemployment. Reisman staunchly defends capitalists as risk-takers who raise the average worker's real wages and living standards, increasing productivity and improving the quantity and quality of goods. Socialism, he says, is the system that exploits labor and causes stifling monopolistic control. Professor of economics at L.A.'s Pepperdine University, Reisman frequently espouses unfashionable, some would say "extreme," views; for instance, he opposes mandatory recycling, defends insider trading of stocks as justifiable and beneficial and condemns laws banning child labor as an "inappropriate" response to a social ill. His call for a pro-capitalist political movement dedicated to the abolition of the welfare state, elimination of Social Security and Medicare, dismantling of public education, private ownership of all land, abolition of personal and corporate income taxes and a 90% cutback in government spending seems to put this tome beyond the pale of mainstream political debate -- although it does come with advance raves from two Nobel laureates in economics. Conservative Book Club and Laissez Faire Book Club selection.
https://capitalism.net/#description
https://mises.org/library/capitalism-...

101

FDR's Folly, by Jim Powell

Net: 4
Score: 100%

Think FDR was a great president? Think again.
In the minds of historians and the American public alike, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was one of our greatest presidents, not least because he supposedly saved America from the Great Depression. But as historian Jim Powell reveals in this groundbreaking book, Roosevelt's New Deal policies actually prolonged and exacerbated the economic disaster, swelled the federal government, and prevented the country from turning around quickly.

In today's turbulent domestic and global environment, eerily similar to that of the 1930s, it's more important than ever before to uncover and understand the truth of our history, lest we be doomed to repeat it. You'll never look at FDR in the same way again.

https://www.amazon.com/FDRs-Folly-Roo...
https://www.audible.com/pd/FDRs-Folly...

102

The Quest for Community, by Robert Nisbet

Net: 4
Score: 100%

One of the leading thinkers to emerge in the postwar conservative intellectual revival was the sociologist Robert Nisbet. His book The Quest for Community, published in 1953, stands as one of the most persuasive accounts of the dilemmas confronting modern society.

Nearly a half century before Robert Putnam documented the atomization of society in Bowling Alone, Nisbet argued that the rise of the powerful modern state had eroded the sources of community—the family, the neighborhood, the church, the guild. Alienation and loneliness inevitably resulted. But as the traditional ties that bind fell away, the human impulse toward community led people to turn even more to the government itself, allowing statism—even totalitarianism—to flourish.

https://www.amazon.com/Quest-Communit...

103

The Thousand Year War in the Mideast, and How It Affects You Today

Net: 4
Score: 100%

104

Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought, by Jonathan Rauch

Net: 3
Score: 100%

"A liberal society stands on the proposition that we should all take seriously the idea that we might be wrong. This means we must place no one, including ourselves, beyond the reach of criticism; it means that we must allow people to err, even where the error offends and upsets, as it often will." So writes Jonathan Rauch in Kindly Inquisitors, which has challenged listeners for more than 20 years with its bracing and provocative exploration of the issues surrounding attempts to limit free speech. In it, Rauch makes a persuasive argument for the value of "liberal science" and the idea that conflicting views produce knowledge within society.

In this expanded edition of Kindly Inquisitors, a new foreword by George F. Will strikingly shows the book's continued relevance, while a substantial new afterword by Rauch elaborates upon his original argument and brings it fully up to date. Two decades after the book's initial publication, while some progress has been made, the regulation of hate speech has grown domestically - especially in American universities - and has spread even more internationally, where there is no First Amendment to serve as a meaningful check. But the answer to bias and prejudice, Rauch argues, is pluralism - not purism. Rather than attempting to legislate bias and prejudice out of existence or to drive them underground, we must pit them against one another to foster a more vigorous and fruitful discussion. It is this process that has been responsible for the growing acceptance of the moral acceptability of homosexuality over the last 20 years. And it is this process, Rauch argues, that will enable us as a society to replace hate with knowledge, both ethical and empirical.

https://www.amazon.com/Kindly-Inquisi...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Kindly-Inq...

105

The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, by Matt Ridley

Net: 3
Score: 100%

The Rational Optimist is a 2010 popular science book by Matt Ridley, author of The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature. The book primarily focuses on the benefits of the innate human tendency to trade goods and services.

https://www.amazon.com/Rational-Optim...

106

When in the Course of Human Events, by Charles Adams

Net: 3
Score: 100%

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with one another, and to assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect of the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

With these words, thirteen of the British colonies in North America unanimously declared independence from British rule. Eighty-five years later, adhering to principles articulated by their revolutionary forebears, the 11 Confederate States of America seceded from the United States, plunging the country into the bloodiest war of its history. Until the publication of this highly original book, most attempts to explain the origins of the American Civil War relied heavily on regional sympathies and mythology—that the South abandoned the Union to maintain slavery while President Lincoln's primary goal was to preserve the nation. Prominent scholar Charles Adams challenges this traditional wisdom.

https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780847697236...

107

The Libertarian Mind, by David Boaz

Net: 2
Score: 25%

A revised, updated, and retitled edition of David Boaz's classic book Libertarianism: A Primer, which was praised as uniting "history, philosophy, economics, and law - spiced with just the right anecdotes - to bring alive a vital tradition of American political thought that deserves to be honored today". (Richard A. Epstein, University of Chicago)

Libertarianism - the philosophy of personal and economic freedom - has deep roots in Western civilization and in American history, and it's growing stronger. Two long wars, chronic deficits, the financial crisis, the costly drug war, the campaigns of Ron Paul and Rand Paul, the growth of executive power under presidents Bush and Obama, and the revelations about NSA abuses have pushed millions more Americans in a libertarian direction. Libertarianism: A Primer, by David Boaz, the longtime executive vice president of the Cato Institute, continues to be the best available guide to the history, ideas, and growth of this increasingly important political movement - and now it has been updated throughout and with a new title: The Libertarian Mind.

Boaz has updated the book with new information on the threat of government surveillance; the policies that led up to and stemmed from the 2008 financial crisis; corruption in Washington; and the unsustainable welfare state. The Libertarian Mind is the ultimate resource for the current, burgeoning libertarian movement.

https://www.amazon.com/Libertarian-Mi...
https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Libert...

108

Hidden Order, by David Friedman

Net: 2
Score: 50%

The book is for listeners who would like to learn economics for the fun of it - economics understood not as the study of the economy but as a tool for understanding human behavior: crime, marriage, politics, and much else.

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academi...
https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Order-E...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Hidden-Ord...

109

Cato's Letters, by John Trenchard, Thomas Gordon

Net: 2
Score: 67%

Almost a generation before Washington, Henry, and Jefferson were even born, two Englishmen, concealing their identities with the honored ancient name of Cato, wrote newspaper articles condemning tyranny and advancing principles of liberty that immensely influenced American colonists. The Englishmen were John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon.

https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Libert...

110

Corona-Fascism, by Alu Axelmann

Net: 2
Score: 67%

How dangerous is the coronavirus really? How contagious is it? How have total death rates not increased if the virus is the deadliest disturbance in the history of humanity? Sociopaths in Washington DC and their cronies in the ‘private’ sector, seized the opportunity that COVID presented and used that narrative to support their mission and accelerate their goals: destroy our freedom, eliminate our privacy, and enrich themselves and their allies. This book uses data and logical reasoning to destroy the mainstream talking points that cultivated the age of perpetual paranoia and the widespread acceptance of corona-fascism.

111

Presumed Guilty

Net: 2
Score: 67%

After a few years of analyzing and writing about politics, Alu discovered that the civics lessons we all learned as children are very far from the reality of our world. Though we all learned that Americans are ‘presumed innocent until proven guilty’ and convicted by a jury in a court, that is not how it works. When cops approach you, they determine that you are guilty, and they punish you before you could blink, let alone talk about the natural right to due process or the Constitution. From traffic law to self-defense, it seems like we are often punished before being convicted in court. Is there one common root cause for all of the violations of due process? What could we do to restore justice? Or is it a lost cause?

112

The Blueprint For Liberty, by Elliot Axelman

Net: 2
Score: 67%

I am sorry to inform you that the country that you once knew and loved is irredeemably broken. This means that it is so ruined that it could not ever be fixed. The US is in terrible condition in many ways and on multiple levels. Part one of the book will delve into each way the US is broken. Part two will explain the methods that have consistently failed to ‘fix’ the united states. Part three will discuss the only solution that could allow freedom to live on beyond this generation.

113

Why Not Capitalism, by Jason Brennan

Net: 2
Score: 67%

Most economists believe capitalism is a compromise with selfish human nature. As Adam Smith put it, "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." Capitalism works better than socialism, according to this thinking, only because we are not kind and generous enough to make socialism work. If we were saints, we would be socialists.

https://www.amazon.com/Why-Not-Capita...

114

Eat the Rich, by P. J. O'Rourke

Net: -1
Score: 0%

Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics is a 1998 book by P. J. O'Rourke which explains economics in a humorous way.

https://www.amazon.com/Eat-Rich-Treat...

115

Freedom, by Adam Kokesh

Net: -3
Score: 0%

The wisdom within these pages has the power to unlock our potential as a species and establish an enduring civilization based on peace, self-ownership, and nonviolence.

You, as a free, beautiful, independent human being with inalienable rights, own yourself! You can do what you want with your own body and the product of your labor. All human interactions should be free of force and coercion, and we are free to exercise our rights, limited only by respect for the rights of others. Governments rely on force, and force is a poor substitute for persuasion. When you learned "don't hit," "don't steal," and "don't kill," it wasn't, "unless you work for the government." Governments frighten us into thinking we need them, but we are moving past the statist paradigm and rendering them obsolete.

This book will empower you to be more happy, free, and prosperous, while putting you in a position to help shape our destiny.

https://www.amazon.com/Freedom-Adam-K...
https://www.audible.com/pd/Freedom-Au...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OobMG...

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