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Defending The Undefendable
Professor Block's book is in a new edition from the Mises Institute, completely reset and beautifully laid out in an edition worthy of its contents.
It 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, 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. … 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 economic frequently express themselves in unfounded prejudices against other occupations, and showing the falsity of these stereotypes you are doing a real services, although you will not make yourself more popular with the majority."
It 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, 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. … 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 economic frequently express themselves in unfounded prejudices against other occupations, and showing the falsity of these stereotypes you are doing a real services, although you will not make yourself more popular with the majority."
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James O'Keefe
American Pravda: My Fight for Truth in the Era of Fake News
The one real difference between the American press and the Soviet state newspaper Pravda was that the Russian people knew they were being lied to. To expose the lies our media tell us today, controversial journalist James O’Keefe created Project Veritas, an independent news organization whose reporters go where traditional journalists dare not. Their investigative work–equal parts James Bond, Mike Wallace, and Saul Alinsky―has had a consistent and powerful impact on its targets.
In American Pravda, the reader is invited to go undercover with these intrepid journalists as they infiltrate political campaigns, unmask dishonest officials and expose voter fraud. A rollicking adventure story on one level, the book also serves as a treatise on modern media, arguing that establishment journalists have a vested interest in keeping the powerful comfortable and the people misinformed.
The book not only contests the false narratives frequently put forth by corporate media, it documents the consequences of telling the truth in a world that does not necessarily want to hear it. O’Keefe’s enemies attack with lawsuits, smear campaigns, political prosecutions, and false charges in an effort to shut down Project Veritas. For O’Keefe, every one of these attacks is a sign of success.
American Pravda puts the myths and misconceptions surrounding O’Keefe’s activities to rest and will make you rethink every word you hear and read in the so-called mainstream press.
Ludwig Von Mises
The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality
In 1954, after a lifetime of serious theoretical work in economic science, Mises turned his attention to one of the great puzzles of all time: discovering why the intellectuals hate capitalism. The result is this socio-psycho-cultural analysis informed by economic theory. Mises explores answers from a wide variety of angles, and discusses the nature of academic institutions, popular culture, and how vices like jealousy and envy affect theory. All play a role in preventing people from seeing the self-evident benefits of economic freedom relative to controls. His comments on the resentment of the intellectuals cut very deeply. Mises shrewdly teases the anti-capitalist bias out of contemporary fiction and popular culture generally. In the course of his narrative, he explains aspects of the market that have generally eluded even its defenders. For example, is it true that markets dumb down the culture, exalting trashy novels and movies over higher-brow fare? Mises points out that the tastes of the masses will always and everywhere be lower than those educated and cultivated to love higher culture. But, he says, the glory of capitalism is that it brings to every sector what it wants and needs, and more of it than any other system. So, yes, there will be more trash, but also more great work as well. It is a matter of availability: Under socialism, nothing is available. Under capitalism, choice seems nearly infinite. His is quite subtle in his analysis here and throughout. It's remarkable how his narrative applies in our time, even more than when it was written. The style of this volume is more casual than you will find elsewhere. In some sense, it is more thrilling for it. The reader senses that Mises has unleashed a lifetime of frustration here, and shined a very bright light on some dark corners of opinion. The contents of this volume include: I. The Social Characteristics of Capitalism and the Psychological Causes of Its Vilification 1. The Sovereign Consumer 2. The Urge for Economic Betterment 3. Status Society and Capitalism 4. The Resentment of Frustrated Ambition 5. The Resentment of the Intellectuals 6. The Anti-capitalistic Bias of American Intellectuals 7. The Resentment of the White-Collar Workers 8. The Resentment of "Cousins" 9. The Communism of Broadway and Hollywood 10. The Non-Economic Objections to Capitalism 11. Ant-Communism vs. Capitalism II. The Ordinary Man's Social Philosophy 1. Capitalism as it is and as it is Seen by the Common Man 2. The Anti-capitalistic Front III. Literature Under Capitalism 1. The Market for Literary Products 2. Success on the Book Market 3. Remarks about the Detective Stories 4. Freedom of the Press 5. The Bigotry of the Literati 6. The "Social" Novels and Plays
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Murray Rothbard
For A New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto
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.
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