The Virtue of Selfishness - Ayn Rand

http://www.filesbowl.com/5Gh/The-Virtue-Of-Selfishness-A-New-Concept-Of-Egoism.mobi


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

Thomas Paine's Rights of Man: A Biography

https://www.rapidshare.com/files/3515613462/Christopher.Hitchens-Thomas.Paines.Rights.of.Man.rar

Thomas Paine's critique of monarchy and introduction of the concept of human rights influenced both the French and the American revolutions, argues Vanity Fair contributor and bestselling author Hitchens (God Is Not Great) in this incisive addition to the Books That Changed the World series. Paine's ideas even influenced later independence movements among the Irish, Scots and Welsh. In this lucid assessment, Hitchens notes that in addition to Common Sense's influence on Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence, Paine wrote in unadorned prose that ordinary people could understand. Hitchens reads Paine's rejection of the ministrations of clergy in his dying moments as an instance of his unyielding commitment to the cause of rights and reason. But Hitchens also takes Paine to task for appealing to an idealized state of nature, a rhetorical move that, Hitchens charges, posits either a mythical past or an unattainable future and, Hitchens avers, disordered the radical tradition thereafter. Hitchens writes in characteristically energetic prose, and his aversion to religion is in evidence, too. Young Paine found his mother's Anglican orthodoxy noxious, Hitchens notes: Freethinking has good reason to be grateful to Mrs Paine.

Bitcoin for Dummies

The last addition to our archives was Denationalisation of Money by Murray Rothbard. This blog post is about how that denationalisation might be closer to happen than you think. The reason is Bitcoin. Cryptocurrency that no central bank can control.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/424091/what-bitcoin-is-and-why-it-matters/

What do you think about Bitcoins? My two cents are that in addition to its many other great libertarian potentials everyone should consider it as tool to store value, because right now politicians are printing more of  your friendly neighbourhood fiat-money in order to tax your savings away. 

Denationalisation of Money: The Argument Refined - Friedrich A. Hayek

http://library.mises.org/books/Friedrich%20A%20Hayek/Denationalisation%20of%20Money%20The%20Argument%20Refined.pdf

What if the government let anyone use a currency of his or her choosing? What if the government permitted entrepreneurs to innovate in the monetary sector, such as by creating digital currencies or minting commodity money?

This is precisely what F.A. Hayek argues.

By special arrangement with the Institute for Economic Affairs, the Mises Institute is pleased to offer a new printing of F.A. Hayek's most radical case for the complete privatization of money: The Denationalisation of Money. He wrote this near the end of his career, after thinking through all the economic arguments for monetary reform and examining the political viability of various proposals. He shows the essential unviability of government money, and calls for a complete free market in the production and distribution and management of money.

This book is the very core of the Hayekian approach to monetary policy, and the book that drew the world's attention to this radical thinker following his Nobel Prize in economics. The argument is substantively similar to Mises's but rather than a gold standard, Hayek argues for completely abandoning government attempts to reform money. The result would be competitive private currencies that permits the market alone to choose the dominant currency the world over.

In the digital age, his argument takes on new significance, as experimentation in digital currencies continues apace.

When ideas have sex

Matt Ridley shows how free market creates prosperity for everyone.

Milton Friedman - Why Drugs Should Be Legalized

Milton Friedman eloquently presents why Colorado and Washington made the right choice. No victim. No crime.

Human Action: Ludvig Von Mises

Human Action is widely considered Mises' Magnun Opus and it's easy to see why. This book makes truly a case for capitalism. 

Human Action is probably the most important book on political economy you will ever own. It was (and remains) the most comprehensive, systematic, forthright, and powerful defense of the economics of liberty ever written.

Read the book


In the foreword to Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, Mises explains complex market phenomena as "the outcomes of countless conscious, purposive actions, choices, and preferences of individuals, each of whom was trying as best as he or she could under the circumstances to attain various wants and ends and to avoid undesired consequences." It is individual choices in response to personal subjective value judgments that ultimately determine market phenomena—supply and demand, prices, the pattern of production, and even profits and losses. Although governments may presume to set "prices," it is individuals who, by their actions and choices through competitive bidding for money, products, and services, actually determine "prices". Thus, Mises presents economics—not as a study of material goods, services, and products—but as a study of human actions. He sees the science of human action, praxeology, as a science of reason and logic, which recognizes a regularity in the sequence and interrelationships among market phenomena. Mises defends the methodology of praxeology against the criticisms of Marxists, socialists, positivists, and mathematical statisticians.

Mises attributes the tremendous technological progress and the consequent increase in wealth and general welfare in the last two centuries to the introduction of liberal government policies based on free-market economic teachings, creating an economic and political environment which permits individuals to pursue their respective goals in freedom and peace. Mises also explains the futility and counter-productiveness of government attempts to regulate, control, and equalize all people's circumstances: "Men are born unequal and ... it is precisely their inequality that generates social cooperation and civilization."

Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) was the leading spokesman of the Austrian School of Economics throughout most of the twentieth century. He earned his doctorate in law and economics from the University of Vienna in 1906. In 1926, Mises founded the Austrian Institute for Business Cycle Research. From 1909 to 1934, he was an economist for the Vienna Chamber of Commerce. Before the Anschluss, in 1934 Mises left for Geneva, where he was a professor at the Graduate Institute of International Studies until 1940, when he emigrated to New York City. From 1948 to 1969, he was a visiting professor at New York University.