Showing posts with label Libertarian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Libertarian. Show all posts

Friday, July 1, 2011

The Road to Serfdom

The Road to Serfdom
by F. A. Hayek

An unimpeachable classic work in political philosophy, intellectual and cultural history, and economics, The Road to Serfdom has inspired and infuriated politicians, scholars, and general readers 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 twenty languages, along the way becoming one of the most important and influential books of the century.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Liberty Defined

Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues That Affect Our Freedom
by Ron Paul

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.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Atlas Shrugged

Atlas Shrugged
by Ayn Rand

The book's female protagonist, Dagny Taggart, struggles to manage a transcontinental railroad amid the pressures and restrictions of massive bureaucracy. Her antagonistic reaction to a libertarian group seeking an end to government regulation is later echoed and modified in her encounter with a utopian community, Galt's Gulch, whose members regard self-determination rather than collective responsibility as the highest ideal.

Published in 1957, Atlas Shrugged was Ayn Rand's greatest achievement and last work of fiction. In this novel she dramatizes her unique philosophy through an intellectual mystery story that integrates ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, politics, economics, and sex.
Set in a near-future U.S.A. whose economy is collapsing as a result of the mysterious disappearance of leading innovators and industrialists, this novel presents an astounding panorama of human life-from the productive genius who becomes a worthless playboy...to the great steel industrialist who does not know that he is working for his own destruction...to the philosopher who becomes a pirate...to the woman who runs a transcontinental railroad...to the lowest track worker in her train tunnels.

Peopled by larger-than-life heroes and villains, charged with towering questions of good and evil, Atlas Shrugged is a philosophical revolution told in the form of an action thriller.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

"The Private Production of Defense"

"The Private Production of Defense"
by Hans-Hermann Hoppe

"Among the most popular and consequential beliefs of our age
is the belief in collective security. Nothing less significant than
the legitimacy of the modern state rests on this belief.
I will demonstrate that the idea of collective security is a
myth that provides no justification for the modern state, and
that all security is and must be private. Yet, before coming to the
conclusion let me begin with the problem. First, I will present a
two-step reconstruction of the myth of collective security, and at
each step raise a few theoretical concerns."

"Never during its entire history has the continental U.S.
been territorially attacked by any foreign army. (Pearl Harbor
was the result of a preceding U.S. provocation.) Yet the U.S. has
the distinction of having possessed a government that declared
war against a large part of its own population and engaged in the
wanton murder of hundreds of thousands of its own citizens. Moreover,
while the relations between American citizens and foreigners do not appear to be unusually contentious, almost from its very
beginnings the U.S. government pursued relentless aggressive expansionism.
Beginning with the Spanish–American War, culminating
in World War I and World War II, and continuing to the
present, the U.S. government has become entangled in hundreds
of foreign conflicts and risen to the rank of the world’s dominant
imperialist power. Thus, nearly every president since the turn of
this century also has been responsible for the murder, killing, or
starvation of countless innocent foreigners all over the world. In
short, while we have become more helpless, impoverished,
threatened, and insecure, the U.S. government has become ever
more brazen and aggressive. In the name of national security, it
defends us, equipped with enormous stockpiles of weapons of aggression
and mass destruction, by bullying ever new “Hitlers,” big
or small, and all suspected Hitlerite sympathizers anywhere
and everywhere outside of the territory of the U.S."

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Healing Our World

Healing Our World: The Other Piece of the Puzzle
by Mary Ruwart

We've seen the power of win-win strategies in our personal lives. As a result, enlightened self interest includes loving our neighbor and taking responsibility for our thoughts, words, and deeds.

When we deal with groups of individuals through social actions, however, we inadvertently ignore these time-honored principles. Instead of seeking solutions where everybody benefits, we erroneously assume that poverty can only be alleviated by taking from the rich, that a compromised environment is the inevitable result of material progress, and that societal well-being is inconsistent with the selfish nature of humankind. We set the poor against the rich, the industrialist against the environmentalists, the special interests against the common good. We create enemies where friends should be, Like a house divided against itself, we inevitably fall into a state of poverty and strife.

Dr. Ruwart shows us how to transcend these win-lose scenarios by systematically applying the win-win tactics to our social interaction that have proves so successful in our personal lives. HEALING OUR WORLD is the first book to integrate the common elements of our Judeo-Christian heritage, the personal self-responsibility of the Aquarian Age, and the political self-responsibility of the worldwide libertarian movement. "The Easy Way Out" os the realization that others do not create our global harmony and abundance any more than they create our inner peace and enrichment; our reactions to others determine our fate.

By basing our social action on the same principles that govern our individual relationships, we can create a win-win world of peace and plenty, where everyone comes out ahead, With historical examples, Dr. Ruwart meticulously documents the effectiveness of this approach in the mist stringent testing ground of all- the real world. Startling in its simplicity, powerful on its application, HEALING OUR WORLD provides 'the ammunition that a thinking and acting (activist) person needs to make a difference on all fronts of the social struggle occurring in America today."

Friday, October 29, 2010

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
by Robert A. Heinlein

Robert A. Heinlein was the most influential science fiction writer of his era, an influence so large that, as Samuel R. Delany notes, "modern critics attempting to wrestle with that influence find themselves dealing with an object rather like the sky or an ocean." He won the Hugo Award for best novel four times, a record that still stands. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress was the last of these Hugo-winning novels, and it is widely considered his finest work.

It is a tale of revolution, of the rebellion of the former Lunar penal colony against the Lunar Authority that controls it from Earth. It is the tale of the disparate people—a computer technician, a vigorous young female agitator, and an elderly academic—who become the rebel movement's leaders. And it is the story of Mike, the supercomputer whose sentience is known only to this inner circle, and who for reasons of his own is committed to the revolution's ultimate success.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is one of the high points of modern science fiction, a novel bursting with politics, humanity, passion, innovative technical speculation, and a firm belief in the pursuit of human freedom.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Radicals for Capitalism

Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement
by Brian Doherty

This illuminating, lively history of an influential political movement—told through the life stories of its standard bearers— casts new light on the intellectual and political history of postwar America

Brian Doherty is a senior editor at Reason magazine. His articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in dozens of magazines, newspapers, and books, including the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Mother Jones, and The Weekly Standard. He is also the author of This is Burning Man: The Rise of a New American Underground. He lives in Los Angeles.

Monday, September 6, 2010

The Conscience of a Libertarian

The Conscience of a Libertarian: Empowering the Citizen Revolution with God, Guns, Gambling and Tax Cuts
by Wayne Allyn Root

In today's turbulent economy, more and more people are growing concerned about their financial future and looking for answers that make sense. While the government attempts to "fix" the problems created by the credit crunch and subprime crisis, the fact is that in order to improve America's economic future, government intervention must be limited.

In The Conscience of a Libertarian, Libertarian Party vice presidential nominee and frontrunner for the 2012 Presidential nomination Wayne Allyn Root presents a passionate case for the dramatic overhaul of governmental programsand policies that are essential for the continued survival of the American Dream. Focusing on the need to shrink the size of government—including the elimination of the IRS—Root proposes the dramatic reduction of government spending, lowering entitlements, reducing bureaucracy, increasing market freedom, reducing the tax burden on all Americans, and an end to the nanny state among many other ideas.

Divided into four comprehensive parts—A Revolution Is Brewing, Let's Talk Money and Politics, Solutions for the Mess We Are In, and Protecting and Preserving Our Inalienable Civil Liberties—The Conscience of a Libertarian puts our current situation in perspective and reveals what it will take to overcome the enormous obstacles we face.

Throughout these pages, Root also shares his thoughts on what he believes the government should do to improve our situation—and bring money back to the American taxpayer—including: upgrade the education system on the state level; foster investment to provide workers with more capital; lower the income tax rate to empower Americans to save the money needed to invest in stocks, real estate, and business start-ups; encourage reasonable risk and entrepreneurship; and eliminate corporate welfare.

It's time for a new revolution, a Citizen Revolution led by a Citizen Politician. Just as our Founding Fathers intended, Root's goal is to give the power back to you, the citizens and taxpayers. Focusing in part on his home state of Nevada—which represents smaller government, has among the lowest tax rates in America, and continuously promotes personal and economic freedom—Root examines what happens when his principles are applied to state government, and reveals how the American Dream can survive and thrive during this current economic crisis.


Wayne Allyn Root is one of the most charismatic, fiery, outspoken, and controversial political personalities in America today. He was the 2008 Libertarian Party vice presidential nominee. A college classmate of Barack Obama at Columbia University, he is now the leading contender for the Libertarian presidential nomination in 2012. Root is the son of a butcher, small businessman, and homeschool dad—the quintessential "Citizen Politician" envisioned by America's Founding Fathers. A former anchorman and host on Financial News Network (now known as CNBC), his business and political careers have been profiled by CNBC, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Time magazine, among others.