Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

Mises said that teaching the public was just as important as addressing scholars maybe more so.That is what Lew Rockwell specializes in: history and theory and analysis in defense of the free society, written in clear prose to reach a broad audience. Rockwells new book is as pro liberty as it is brutally critical of government. It is relentlessly forthright yet hopeful about the prospects for liberty. It is rigorous enough to withstand the enemys closest scrutiny, and chock full of the energy and enthusiasm that will keep you reading. As a collection of speeches delivered over a period of ten years, Speaking of Liberty is long (470 pages), but it is the kind of book people will want to see in the hands of friends, family, and students. The book begins with economics, and explains why Austrian economics matters, how the Federal Reserve brings on the business cycle, why we need private property and free enterprise, the unrecognized glories of the capitalist economy, and why the gold standard is still the best monetary system. The remaining sections deal with war, Mises and his work, other important thinkers in the libertarian tradition, and the culture and morality of liberty. The book is united by a set of fixed principles: the corruption of politics, the universality and immutability of the ideas of freedom, the centrality of sound money and free enterprise, the moral imperative of peace and trade, the importance of hope and tenacity in the struggle for liberty, and the need for everyone to join the intellectual fight. We all have searched for the book we could give to friends and neighbors, business associates and family members, to explain why we believe in the cause of liberty. Speaking of Liberty is that book. "Critics of the free market are therefore the Wile E Coyotes of our day: sitting on the stool in comfort, they systematically saw away at the legs beneath them, on the absurd assumption that they will be able to hang in the air indefinitely after their work is done. Along comes Lew Rockwell and shouts as loud as he can: Beep, beep." Gary North

Speaking of Liberty

LARGE PRINT EDITION! More at LargePrintLiberty.com. “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. Lew Rockwell, in this new volume, examines the starkly contrasting systems of capitalism and fascism, noting pro-fascist trends in recent decades as well as the larger historical trends in the United States and internationally. In Section One, Rockwell focuses on the nature of fascism and its influence in Western society, with a focus on American political and economic institutions. In Section Two, Rockwell examines capitalism as the enemy of, and antidote to fascism. Combining economics, history, and political philosophy, this book doesn't just provide a diagnosis of what ails American and Western society, but also sheds light on how we might repair the damage that has been done, and with the help of the intellectual work of great minds like Murray Rothbard and Ron Paul, we might as a society shed the fascism of our times and look to freedom instead.

Fascism Vs. Capitalism

Walter Block

LARGE PRINT EDITION! More at LargePrintLiberty.com. Walter Block has been writing on the economics of discrimination - and in defense of discrimination, rightly understood - for more than 30 years. This large hardcover collects nearly all of this writing to present a radical alternative to the mainstream view. His thesis is that discrimination -- choosing one thing over another -- is an inevitable feature of the material world where scarcity of goods and time is the pervasive feature. There is no getting around it. You must discriminate, and therefore you must have the freedom to discriminate, which only means the freedom to choose. Without discrimination, there is no economizing taking place. It is chaos. The market embeds institutions that assist people in making the wisest possible choices given the alternatives. In this sense, discrimination is rational and socially optimal. For the state to presume to criminalize it based on social and political priorities amounts to a subversion of the market and of human liberty that leads to social conflict. The empirical detail in this work is as rigorous as the argument is radical. What politics regards as a dangerous inequality, Block regards as perfectly rational given existing realities. In essence, Block's book is a specialized application of the libertarian perspective on society, as applied to a particular controversy in our times. It is supremely rare in tackling this issue head on, and offering a no-compromise alternative: abolish all anti-discrimination law on grounds that it makes no economic sense and only generates conflict where none need exist. Will this book cause controversy? Most assuredly. But that it is not its goal. Its goal is the uprooting of a flawed and failed social theory and its replacement by a realistic one that is rooted in a genuine concern for human rights and the good of all.

The Case for Discrimination

Murray N. Rothbard

Joann B. Rothbard

LARGE PRINT EDITION! More at LargePrintLiberty.com Summing up the work of libertarian economist and historian Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995) and noting its stunning range, philosopher David Gordon once wondered "if there are really three, four, or five geniuses writing under his name." The lively essays collected in this book display one of those geniuses: Rothbard the journalist, cultural critic, political observer, and movement organizer. Even more remarkable, they represent just a fraction of what he wrote in his spare time, for just one publication, and in just the last few years of his life.His articles combined libertarian antigovernment economics, decentralist local patriotism, antiwar isolation, and a dissident/reactionary cultural outlook that saw the growth of government as the key to the loss of the Old Republic. He defended land-rights groups against environmentalists, citizen militias against gun grabbers, isolationists against imperialists, paleoconservatives against neoconservatives, populists against party regulars, anti–New World Order conspiracy theorists against the establishment, nationalists against internationalist planners, states' righters against libertarian centralists, the Christian Right against its own leadership, and much more.These essays show not only Rothbard's intellectual vigor but the complete joy with which he embraced life, and how his extreme optimism made even the most severe setbacks tolerable. He experienced great disappointments and great successes, but through it all he was heroic, undaunted, and irrepressible.

The Rothbard-Rockwell Report, Essays of Murray N. Rothbard

The Irrepressible Rothbard

In 1986, a remarkable party was held on Murray Rothbard's sixtieth birthday, and papers written in his honor were presented. Two years later the book was released. It contained many wonderful essays--both scholarly and humorous--on his work and life. At last it is back in print. Essays by Armentano, Arnold, Block, Christiansen, Garrison, Hoppe, Kirzner, North, Pasour, Ron Paul, Ellen Paul, Yeager, Den Uyl, Gordon, Machan, Jeffrey Paul, Holcombe, Osterfeld, Ekirch, Raico, Richman, Doenecke, Kephart, McCaffrey -- and JoAnn Rothbard as well as Margit von Mises (yes, she was there!)

Essays in Honor of Murray N. Rothbard

Man, Economy, and Liberty

Fascism vs. Capitalism: The Central Ideological Conflict of Our Times "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. Lew Rockwell, in this new volume, examines the starkly contrasting systems of capitalism and fascism, noting pro-fascist trends in recent decades as well as the larger historical trends in the United States and internationally. In Section One, Rockwell focuses on the nature of fascism and its influence in Western society, with a focus on American political and economic institutions. In Section Two, Rockwell examines capitalism as the enemy of, and antidote to fascism. Combining economics, history, and political philosophy, this book doesn't just provide a diagnosis of what ails American and Western society, but also sheds light on how we might repair the damage that has been done, and with the help of the intellectual work of great minds like Murray Rothbard and Ron Paul, we might as a society shed the fascism of our times and look to freedom instead.

Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

About

Books

Join the club