Good Economic Books?

Murray Rothbard's Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market is a the best economics text I ever read. He is from the Mises Institute like Ron Paul.

You can get a print edition here:
http://www.amazon.com/Eco...

Or you get get a free e-copy here:
http://mises.org/rothbard...

Murray Rothbard's Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market is a the best economics text I ever read. He is from the Mises Institute like Ron Paul.

You can get a print edition here:
http://www.amazon.com/Eco...

Or you get get a free e-copy here:
http://mises.org/rothbard...

1) Economics in One Lesson..... by Henry Hazlitt

2) Libertarianism in One Lesson....by David Bergland

3) Selected Essays in Political Economy .... by Frederic Bastiat
(Includes "The Law" and "What is seen and what is not seen", the two essays which Doctor Paul often credits for much of what he writes)

Go to the libertarian bookstore and talk to Jim. TELL Jim that "Treg sent you" and you might just get a discount off their already better than Amazon low prices. Jim has every libertarian book and economic book that you could imagine. Even the good ones written by Thomas Sowell and "Free to Choose" written by Dr Milton Friedman.

Talk to Jim here:

laissezfairebooks@gmail.com

1-800-326-0996

1-707-746-8797 fax in your order.

Laissez Faire Books
836-B Southampton Rd #299
Benicia, CA 94510

In Peace & Liberty,
Treg

by Ellen Hodgson Brown, J.D.? Below are excerpts from the book. I'm not saying that I support fiat. But, I just thought this info might be new to many people here.

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At opposite ends of the debate over the money question in the 1890s were the "Goldbugs," led by the bankers, and the "Greenbackers," who were chiefly farmers and laborers. The use of the term "Goldbug" has been traced to the 1896 Presidential election, when supporters of gold money took to wearing lapel pins of small insects to show their position. The Greenbackers at the other extreme were suspicious of a money system dependent on the bankers' gold, having felt its crushing effects in their own lives. As Vernon Parrington summarized their position in the 1920s:

To allow the bankers to erect a monetary system on gold is to subject the producer to the money-broker and measure deferred payments by a yardstick that lengthens or shortens from year to year. The only safe and rational currency is a national currency based on the national credit, sponsored by the state, flexible, and controlled in the interests of the people as a whole.

I am reading "The road the serfdom" by F.A. Hayek - it is one of the books that Dr Paul recommended in the back of "The Revoultion" . It talks mainly about how "economic planning" leads to authoritarian governments and builds the case for a free market society. It was written in 1944 and uses the example of Germany and Italy, but also warns against the trend that he was seeing in America and the UK. I am not an economics expert, but I have been able to get a lot of good info out of this book. Check it out!

www.mises.org

That site has a ton of books in downloadable .pdf format.

Definitely check out Rothbards The Great Depression. Also, Thomas Woods Politically Incorrect Guide to American History might be of interest to you, albeit not an *economics* book per se.

and Austrian economic principles pick up Economics for Real People by Gene Callahan. It uses current and familiar examples (like TV's Surivor) to illustrate that economics at the heart boils down to the study of real choices being made by real people. You can order it from the Mises site listed below.

Basically, it depends on whether you aspire to understand theoretical economics or to speak authoritatively on public policy issues.

Hazlitt was not an economist, he was a journalist. Every chapter of his book addresses a different public policy issue. Hazlitt is similar to Krugman in that his "book" is actually a collection of newspaper articles; the difference, of course, is that Hazlitt was a libertarian and Krugman is a Keynesian.

Hazlitt spoke authoritatively and articulately on many issues but he did not have a coherent overall theory of economics - his later attempt at a "treatise" was ridiculed.

Economics in One Lesson is an inexpensive paperback and you can also read excerpts from each chapter online at http://jim.com/econ/conte... And no, Cameron, none of the chapters are about the gold standard.

Menger was an economist; the best one, in my opinion. His Principles is definitely required reading for any aspiring economist. In fact, I would go so far as to deny the title "economist" to anyone who has not read it. However, it is a bit theoretical and it does not serve well as a reference book for people who just wish to speak on the issue du jour, as Hazlitt's book does.

On the distinction between economists and essayists, I write in footnote #1 of my Critique:

"It is significant that Friedman’s 'Methodology of Positive Economics' was the first chapter of a book titled Essays in Positive Economics (1953) and that his classic statement of economic philosophy (1982) was also a collection of essays. His was a methodology for an essayist, not an economist. Before Friedman the most popular economics writer was Hazlitt and after him it was Krugman. Hazlitt was a journalist and could only be expected to write essays, but that cannot be said of either of his successors. It is to their shame that neither man ever wrote a treatise. For all of his weaknesses, at least Rothbard had the courage to 'carve out of economic theory an architectonic... an edifice for beginners to see, for colleagues to adopt or criticize' (1970, p. vii). Only by criticism does science advance. The first step towards winning that race is to enter a horse. Essayists are not in the race because, without common assumptions, debunking one of their papers still leaves the others intact."

So, you decide Cameron. But I think it should be one of these two books. The others mentioned in this thread are okay too, but these two are definitely at the top of the list.

This is next on my reading list:

Economics of Liberty

http://www.mises.org/stor...

Just reading the contents was enough to entice me to order it (and at $5:00 you can't go wrong).

I am currently reading "Economics in One Lesson" by Henry Hazlitt

http://www.amazon.co.uk/E...

Below are excerpts from THE GRIP OF DEATH, A study of modern money, debt slavery and destructive economics by Michael Rowbotham. They are not the best excerpts to describe the book, but I have already posted excerpts from Goodbye America! in the previous post and they are actually very good introduction to this book, THE GRIP OF DEATH. I'm posting these excerpts below as additional ideas. This is one of the best books that described the problems of today's debt based money system. And it is very well worth reading, but you don't have to agree with his solution. I don't.

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‘The Grip of Death’ is a literal translation of ‘mortgage’, when the owner of a house pledges his or her house to another with a handshake…until death.

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Trust in money

It is assumed by everyone - and clearly by economists - that money is a neutral and accurate medium; that money does no more than reflect the economic facts. This trust is shown by the unquestioning acceptance, not just of unrealistic debts, but of a whole range of other monetary data. For example, America is currently expanding its already colossal output - but not to supply itself - simply driven by the need to obtain export revenues to improve its balance of payments. At the same time, many Third World nations are striving to develop a stronger export sector, again not producing goods for themselves, but to improve their balance of payments in order to fund debt repayments. Thus we have the bizarre situation in which the richest nation in the world is seeking to increase output simply to remain financially viable, whilst the poorest nations, who desperately need to improve their domestic agriculture and industrial infrastructure, are orienting their economies towards a glutted world market - all this being driven by monetary considerations. This again places economics, and financial economics in particular, quite simply in the realm of unreality.

It is not just in the macro-economic sphere that questionable monetary statements prevail. Every budget and every election is dominated by spending plans, spending cuts, savings made here, and accusations of money wasted there. ‘The other party’s spending plans don’t add up’ they all chorus. Scores of economists and political commentators then huddle around their calculators to check whether one party’s promises have more financial credibility than the other’s. With a triumphant shout, the claim is made that ‘there isn’t enough money’…So we can’t do it. Money is trusted. Money is accepted as the final arbiter. Money is the overall economic truth; the limiting reality. And if there isn’t enough money, well that’s that…

But this perennial shortage of government funds, enshrined in the repetitive cry ‘We haven’t got the money’, has got to be challenged. Money is a man-made device, and for an entire economy to be perpetually in the position of not being able to do what it wants, simply for lack of bits of paper with numbers on them, is strong evidence that the shortage of those bits of paper and numbers lacks all validity. Consider some of the decisions taken in pursuit of cuts in expenditure… The building is already there, the equipment is in place, the people that are employed there can be good at their jobs, providing a much valued service to local residents. And then along comes a ‘Grey Suits’ who tells us that the hospital, collage, library, post office, coastguard station, research laboratory, swimming pool or whatever has to be closed for lack of money. But in what possible sense can we not afford what we already have, and which is already there? A town can be in desperate need of a school, community centre, or repairs to its roads and drains. The raw materials may be lying idle in a builder’s yard, people may be desperate for work, but there isn’t enough money… so we can’t do it. In what possible sense can we not afford to do what we plainly can, in physical terms, achieve?

Michael Rowbotham is the author of THE GRIP OF DEATH A study of modern money, debt slavery and destructive economics.

Below are excerpts from Goodbye America! Globalisation, debt and the dollar empire also by Michael Rowbotham.

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The lost debate

At the time of the depression, critics of the monetary system claimed that an economy based upon banking found itself in a position of perpetual instability. It was inherently vulnerable to slumps and booms, driven or depressed by the rate of borrowing. It would surge, then crash as businesses and consumer confidence waxed and waned, and as banks’ lending policy altered. However, the monetary reformers’ arguments went far deeper than the issue of ‘boom-slump-boom’. Monetary reformers mounted a wholesale attack on the adequacy of the financial system.

The most provocative and hotly contested claim by monetary reformers was that, with the use of bank credit as the dominant form of money, the economy was not self-liquidating. In other words, the economy suffered from a recurrent ‘lack of effective demand’ and was unable to sell all the goods it was capable of producing.

This was clearly a radical and disturbing concept. For an economy to be capable of producing goods and services, yet incapable of selling them to its consumers, would indeed be a bizarre circumstance. The monetary reformers pointed to the ‘poverty amidst plenty’ of the depression, when food was left to rot in the fields or burnt as fuel, whilst people starved and industry collapsed for want of sales to a population with no way to express its ‘real demand’ for the abundant goods and services of their own economy. The lack of effective demand, or ‘lack of purchasing power’, from which the economy suffered was blatant for all to see. But the criticism of monetary reformers went yet further. They argued that even outside a recession, when the economy did appear to be functioning properly, this was only because of perpetual investment and growth. There was still an underlying ‘lack of effective demand’ from the established economy. This was only being compensated for by growth, since the investment injected essential fresh bank credit into the economy.

The underlying ‘lack of effective demand’ made the economy reliant upon this constant investment. Economic stability was impossible. Simply to continue functioning, the economy had become dependent upon constant development, constant borrowing, and constant growth involving the speculative production of additional goods. This pursuit of economic change was directed neither by genuine demand nor sensible purpose.

People were caught up in this pattern of growth, ever more firmly tied to fulltime wage-earning by debt and lack of purchasing power. Those displaced from employment by new technology would find themselves recycled into new jobs, producing new goods which were not necessarily needed or wanted, but for which markets would have to be created. An age of perpetual growth, speculative production and reliance of the economy on ‘marketing strategies’ was prophesied. Work, employment and production were becoming an end in themselves, justified by little more than being a route for distributing incomes to a population increasingly wage-dependent as their debt grew.

The lack of effective demand and pointless over-production forced nations to search for overseas markets, both as outlets for their unsold goods, and in pursuit of revenues to bolster their illiquid economies. Since all nations were under such pressure, they became locked into an impossible and irreconcilable economic conflict - export warfare - where each nation attempted to become a net exporter. But since for every net exporter there must be a net importer, in aggregate, nations were searching for markets that didn’t exist.

It was further argued that a bank-based money supply had a dramatic impact on government revenue and the nature of taxation. The perpetual scarcity of money in a debt economy let to a shortfall of taxation revenues and annual government borrowing. Meanwhile, the cumulative backlog of an interest-bearing national debt resulted in taxation becoming ever more predatory and oppressive.

There were micro-economic effects too. Monetary shortage not only drove people and businesses further into debt, but this gave a pronounced advantage to cheap, low-cost products. Thus, the financial system was accused of being responsible for the many ‘jerry-built’ products of the inter-war depression years.

So unbalanced was the financial system that banking - which ought to reflect economic activity rather than dominate it - had actually become a focus of policy, exerting growing centralized control over both the economy and individuals. Ultimately, this was because banks administered the debt bondage in which all were held, and banks were the source of fresh debt upon which the economy was becoming increasingly dependent.

In summary, the monetary reformers claimed that the monetary economy had come to dominate and distort the real, productive economy. Conflicts, pressures and a cycle of development were being fostered by a financial system that did not reflect reality. Banking had secured a ‘monopoly of credit creation’ and government, by refusing to create and circulate a sufficient medium of exchange free from debt, was neglecting its primary fiscal responsibility. Governments had thereby abandoned their peoples to perpetual economic slavery in a dysfunctional, out-of-control economy.

From these assertions, it is clear that this was not just an economic critique, but a highly charged socio-political debate. The significance of these arguments is further emphasized when they are placed in a broader historical context.

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The drive behind globalisation
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As discussed in the opening chapter, the dominance of the international market and the recent upsurge in international trade is seen as one of the most damaging features of globalisation. Of curse, it is not trade per se that is the focus of concern, but that involving
(a) the international exchange of near-identical products, and
(b) the importing of goods and services that could be produced locally.
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As a related, geographical example, why is it profitable to grow vegetables in the southern hemisphere and air-lift them to Europe? This is a vastly inefficient use of resources. Apart from the gross wastage of the transport involved, the misuse of land is glaringly apparent. Land desperately needed in southern Africa to feed indigenous populations is directed to producing foodstuffs for export, whilst in Europe 10% of land is currently out of production under set-aside and Europe’s farmers are struggling to survive.
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Under-consumption does not mean that consumers are buying too little, but that they are unable to buy all of the goods that their economy is producing.
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Extensive marketing and globalisation

Overproduction, under-consumption and intense competition for scarce consumer purchasing power all have a critical effect on commerce, particularly on marketing. These factors constitute the main drive behind globalisation by creating an ubiquitous pressure towards extensive marketing. This involves the use of transport as a competitive strategy - a device for securing adequate sales in a cut-throat market.

This is most easily outlined as the international level. If an economy suffers from a lack of effective demand, and difficulty in selling the goods and services it produces, the obvious solution is to try to sell some of its products to another economy - i.e. to export. Another economy offers an increased customer base and additional consumer purchasing power.

Of course, this instantly creates a problem. Commerce attempting to export in search of additional sales will come into conflict with domestic commerce in another country. That nation’s domestic commerce, already suffering from the lack of purchasing power within its own economy, will find its sales reduced by foreign goods. Commerce in that nation will have to respond, and one of the strategies it will use will be to attempt to find its own export outlets. But if all economies suffer from debt and under-consumption, and their commerce is seeking overseas sales, commerce is still, in aggregate, seeking sales that do not exist.

This analysis explains two phenomena. First, the conflict that is all too evident in the constant effort to ‘capture’ foreign markets whilst ‘defending’ domestic markets in a global economy dominated by surpluses and inadequate sales. Second, it explains the cross-border exchange of near-identical goods and services, since to the extent that each firm is successful in its export drive, this will inevitably lead to an exchange of customers.

This pressure to export is more accurately described, not in terms of international trade, but in geographical terms, since the export imperative also operates within a national economy. Globalisation is an extension into the international domain of trends that have dominated domestic economies for many years - released by the free trade ethic that has progressively removed protectionist barriers.

The intense competition for sales in a debt economy places pressure on firms to supply goods and services to a wide geographical area, since this will offer them a wide potential customer base. If a firm initially serves a local market, the lack of purchasing power within the local area will pressure it to seek a wider regional market. If a firm has a regional market, there is pressure it to seek the additional purchasing power of a national market. If a firm cannot obtain sufficient sales from within its national market, it will be obliged to seek a foreign market for its products. Firms in all localities, regions and nations are under the same pressure - driven by the lack of effective demand within their existing market range, and in response to invasion by competitor firms from further afield.

This offers us a powerful explanation for the intense conflict over trade in the world as a whole and the trend towards the increasing ’overlap’ of markets. With all firms using transport as a competitive device to seek further markets, the final result is a thin spread of national or international supply by firms, with massive transport costs incurred and shared, and near-identical goods from many different manufacturing sources available in most areas.

Awesome guys...thanks..I'll check those out.

I read ECONOMICS IN ONE LESSON by Henry Hazlitt ... it's a great economics book but it is not a story book ... it's economics but it was indeed a very enjoyable read ... i'm sure dr. paul has read it no doubt

The new one by John Perkins, something about American Empire, is right up your ally if Hitman is the model. Its an extension of Hitman.

Asking for economics books here, but not wanting gold standard stuff, is going to be tough. Most Austrian economics books mention it somewhere.

If you haven't read "The Road to Serfdom" by Hayek I highly recommend it.
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"Freedom suppressed and again regained bites with keener fangs than freedom never endangered." -- Cicero

was Carl Menger's Principles.

I read it in 1981 when it was first translated into English (I was 15 at the time) and, as the say, the rest is history:

I basically wasted my life writing and then promoting an economics book (whose title I can't mention here lest Lisa C. or Oruval denounce me for "peddling" it) when I could have spend my life more sensibly as a ranch hand.

What a dolt! If I'd just stayed a ranch hand, I wouldn't today have Oruval perched on my back like a monkey chanting "Shaka Laka Ding Dong" every time I express an opinion on something.

Do you think it's too late to return my copy of Principles?