ACTON, LORD. _Essays on Freedom and Power._ Beacon Press. 1948. 452 pp.
Lord Acton (1834-1902) is chiefly remembered today through a single
quotation: “All power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts
absolutely.” But he was one of the most deeply learned men of his time,
and recognized as few have ever done the true nature and value of
liberty. It is, he declared, “not a means to a higher political end. It
is itself the highest political end.”
His lifelong object was to write a great “History of Liberty,” but
he immersed himself so deeply in reading and research that he never
lived to complete it. Only two essays resulted from all this laborious
preparation: “The History of Freedom in Antiquity” and “The History of
Freedom in Christianity.” Both are included in this collection selected
by Gertrude Himmelfarb, who contributes an excellent introduction. In
the opinion of F. A. Hayek, the tradition of true individualism is most
perfectly represented in the nineteenth century in the work of Alexis
de Tocqueville in France and Lord Acton in England.
ACTON, LORD. _The History of Freedom and Other Essays._ Macmillan.
1907. 638 pp.
An earlier collection of Acton’s essays.
ADAMS, JOHN. _The Political Writings of John Adams._ Edited by George
A. Peek, Jr. Liberal Arts Press. 1955. 223 pp.
John Adams’ enduring title to fame was his grasp of the principles of
republican conservatism. He “vindicated with vigor and consistency such
basic ideas of the American Constitution as the balanced and limited
powers of the government, the right of the minority to protection
against the tyranny of the majority and the inseparable connection
between liberty and property.... The heart of the second President’s
political philosophy is summed up in one brief sentence in his _Defense
of the American Constitution_. ‘Power is always abused when unlimited
and unbalanced.’”--William Henry Chamberlin, in _The Freeman_.
ALLEN, C. K. _Law and Orders._ London: Stevens. 1946. 385 pp.
An inquiry into the nature and scope of delegated legislation and
executive powers in England. “In this scholarly study Dr. Allen, who
holds to the liberal view of the state, wrestles with the problem of
how a proper balance between the legislative and executive powers
in Britain’s government can be restored and maintained.”--_Foreign
Affairs._ The book is valuable for Americans because this problem of
balance has become even more serious for us than for Britain.
ALLEN, C. K. _Bureaucracy Triumphant._ Oxford University Press. 1931.
156 pp.
“This little collection of essays is highly instructive to both the
lawyer and legislator and while its references are solely to the
situation as it exists in England, its lesson is one that might well
be heard in the United States.”--S. H. Hofstadter, in _Columbia Law
Review_.
ANDERSON, BENJAMIN M. _Economics and the Public Welfare._ Van
Nostrand. 1949. 602 pp.
An economic and financial history of the United States from 1913 to a
little beyond the end of World War II. I take the liberty of quoting
from my own foreword to the book: “[Anderson’s] _The Value of Money_
[1917] is one of the classics of American economic writing.... The
present work is destined to take a similar rank among American economic
and financial histories. It is already the outstanding economic and
financial history for the period it covers.... Few economic histories
have ever interlaced theory and interpretation so completely and
successfully with the record of the facts.... Its sense of drama, its
unfailing lucidity, its emphasis on basic economic principles, its
recognition of the crucial roles played by outstanding individuals,
its realistic detailed description of the disastrous consequences
of flouting moral principles or of trying to prevent the forces of
the market from operating, combine to give this book a sustained
readability seldom found in serious economic writing.”
ANDREWS, MATTHEW PAGE. _Social Planning by Frontier Thinkers._ Richard
R. Smith. 1944. 94 pp.
A satire on social planning and planners by an historical scholar. It
consists in large part of quotations from recent writings by so-called
“advanced thinkers.”
ANGELL, NORMAN. _The Great Illusion._ Putnam. 1911.
Several years before the outbreak of World War I, Norman Angell
challenged the then almost universally accepted theory that military
and political power give a nation commercial and social advantages.
He contended that the wealth of our modern world is founded upon
credit and commercial contract which vanishes before an invading host
and leaves nothing to reward the conqueror, but involves him in its
collapse. His theme, in brief, was that nobody wins a modern war. “It
may be doubted whether, within it entire range, the peace literature
of the Anglo-Saxon world has ever produced a more fascinating or
significant study.”--A. S. Hershey, in _American Political Science
Review_, 1911.
ANGELL, SIR NORMAN. _After All: The Autobiography of Norman Angell._
Farrar, Straus and Young. 1952. 370 pp.
“Although Sir Norman is wholly unconscious of this, the picture is of
a rarely elevated and noble life. Besides the record of that life,
this book is enriched by Sir Norman’s reflections--veritable little
essays in some cases--on a wide variety of topics ... [including] The
Incredible Gullibility of Believers in Freedom under Socialism.”--Max
Eastman, in _The Freeman_.
ANGELL, NORMAN. _The Public Mind._ Dutton. 1927. 232 pp.
“A stimulating book.... Its importance to Individualists lies in the
emphasis it indirectly gives to the desirability of restricting State
action to spheres in which popular passion and prejudice, and the
ability of politicians to exploit them can have least effect.”--PI.
ANSHEN, RUTH NANDA (ed.). _Freedom: Its Meaning._ Harcourt. 1940. 686
pp.
A symposium in which forty-one contributors have expressed their views
on what freedom means to them. The volume runs to over a quarter of a
million words. The contributions reflect little consistency with each
other in viewpoint or philosophy.
ARENDT, HANNAH. _Origins of Totalitarianism._ Harcourt. 1951. 477 pp.
A search by a German-born author and scholar for the deeper roots of
anti-semitism, imperialism, and totalitarianism. Virginia Kirkus called
it “a highly serious and commanding study.” One reviewer objected to it
on the ground that “too much of her interpretation is taken from the
particular experience of Germany”; and another reviewer on the ground
that: “She attempts to give scholarly support to the increasingly
widely held dictum that Soviet Communism is nothing but Red fascism.”
ARISTOTLE. _Politics._ 330 B.C. Many editions. 337 pp.
In his introduction to the 1920 Oxford edition (translated by Benjamin
Jowett), H. W. C. Davis reminds us that this classic embodies
“theories of perennial value, and refutations of fallacies which are
always re-emerging.” There is a brilliant answer to Plato’s proposals
to abolish private property and to communize wives and children.
ASHTON, E. B. _The Fascist: His State and Mind._ Putnam. 1937. 320 pp.
“Helps one to understand the system of ideas ruling our enemies and the
differences which separate their minds from ours.”--F. A. Hayek.
ASHTON, T. S. _The Industrial Revolution._ Oxford University Press.
1948. 167 pp.
For at least a century (in part under the influence of Karl Marx) most
of the economic historians have portrayed the Industrial Revolution
as a catastrophe which caused the working class untold misery and
brought about a sort of economic and spiritual Age of Darkness. In this
remarkable little book Dr. Ashton, professor of economic history at
the University of London, with more careful scholarship presents the
Industrial Revolution as what it was--an achievement which, through the
application of science to industry and the increased use of capital,
led not only to a rapid growth of population but to a rise in the real
incomes of a considerable section of the working class. Dr. Ashton
stresses the intellectual and economic as well as the technical aspects
of the movement. (See also his contribution to _Capitalism and the
Historians_, listed under F. A. Hayek.)
AUSTIN, BERTRAM H., AND LLOYD, W. F. _The Secret of High Wages._ Dodd.
1926. 124 pp.
In 1925, at a time of great industrial depression in Britain, the
authors, two English engineers, came to the United States in an effort
to discover the secret of our unprecedented prosperity. Their inquiry
was mainly concerned with the causes of high wages in industry combined
with low cost of production. The book was originally a confidential
report, but was published following a suggestion from the City Editor
of the London _Times_.
BACKMAN, JULES. _Wages and Prices._ Irvington, N. Y.: Foundation for
Economic Education. 1947. 88 pp.
An excellent statistical reference work on the levels and relationships
of wages, prices, costs and profits in recent years. The author points
out how these facts are ignored or misread by those who are trying to
fix or change wages and prices by force. The evils of price-control,
labor monopolies and currency inflation are dealt with incidentally.
BAGEHOT, WALTER. _Physics and Politics._ 1869. Several editions.
(Knopf. 1948.) 230 pp.
An original and penetrating study of the impact of science and
invention on politics, and of political institutions on knowledge.
Bagehot shows how in the early history of mankind blind obedience to
usage and custom seemed necessary to social cohesion and survival, but
after the transition from the principle of status to that of contract
was finally achieved, it was liberty that ensured the greatest social
strength and progress. “As soon as governments by discussion have
become strong enough to secure a stable existence, and as soon as they
have broken the fixed rule of old custom, and have awakened the dormant
inventiveness of men, then, for the first time, almost every part of
human nature begins to spring forward.... And this is the true reason
of all those panegyrics on liberty which are often so measured in
expression but are in essence so true to life and nature. Liberty is
the strengthening and developing power.”
BAGEHOT, WALTER. _The English Constitution._ 1867. Oxford University
Press. 1933. 312 pp.
This classic work was the first to make clear the real nature of the
British constitution in its modern development. That constitution is
not based, as Montesquieu thought, on the “separation of powers,” but,
on the contrary, on “the close union, the nearly complete fusion,
of the executive and legislative powers.” In this respect Bagehot
contrasted the British and American constitutions to the disadvantage
of the latter. As the preservation of ordered liberty depends upon the
existence of a sound political system, Bagehot’s book deserves the
close study of Americans as well as Englishmen. He was a brilliant
stylist as well as a brilliant thinker.
BAGEHOT, WALTER. _Economic Studies._ 1880. Stanford, Calif.: Academic
Reports. 1953. 236 pp.
The essays in this book mainly elaborate classical English
_laissez-faire_ economics. They deal with Adam Smith, Malthus, Ricardo,
“the late Mr. Mill,” and such subjects as “The Postulates of English
Political Economy” and “The Growth of Capital.” “Bagehot, Editor of
_The Economist_, was one of the finest thinkers and writers of his
time. He was always an advocate of individual and commercial freedom.
His best known books are on the _English Constitution_ and _Lombard
Street_.”--PI.
BAILWARD, W. A. _The Slippery Slope and Other Papers._ London: Murray.
1920. 236 pp.
“A collection of essays and articles written over a period of twenty
years during which the author was engaged in Poor Law and charitable
administration. By ‘the slippery slope’ is meant the path of least
resistance in dealing with social problems, that is, the path of
pauperism and Socialism.”--PI.
BAILWARD, W. A., AND LOCH, C. S. _Old Age Pensions._ 1903.
“A well-argued case against old age pensions. Its interest is chiefly
historical, but it might well be read by students interested in the
history of ideas.”--PI.
BAKER, JOHN R. _Science and the Planned State._ Macmillan. 1945. 120
pp.
Dr. Baker, a lecturer in zoology at Oxford University, contends that
central planning and direction of scientific research do more to
inhibit than to promote the growth of true scientific knowledge and
discovery.
BARBER, THOMAS H. _Where We Are At._ Scribner’s. 1950. 255 pp.
The author, who has been a lawyer, city official, and cowpuncher,
describes his book as “a guide for enlightened conservatives.” He urges
removal of all price-fixing, subsidies and special group privileges and
return to a free market economy.
BASTABLE, C. F. _The Theory of International Trade._ 1897, etc.
Macmillan. 197 pp.
This short book, which first appeared in 1897, long held the field as
the standard exposition of the “classical” theory of foreign trade
and policy. It is balanced, vigorous and lucid, and uncompromisingly
defends freedom of trade. Bastable’s “principal conclusion as to
conduct” is that “Governments in their dealings with foreign trade
should be guided by the much-vilified maxim of _laissez faire_. To
avoid misinterpretation, let it be remembered that the precept rests
on no theory of abstract right, or vague sentiment of cosmopolitanism,
but on the well-founded belief that national interests are thereby
advanced, and that even if we benefit others by an enlightened policy,
we are ourselves richly rewarded.”
BASTER, A. S. J. _The Little Less._ London: Methuen. 1947. 161 pp.
A witty and well-informed little book on “the political economy of
restrictionism.” It consists mainly of a satiric history of the
“lunatic years” in Great Britain between 1919 and 1939, when various
ingenious devices were introduced by which everybody expected to get a
little more for producing a little less. The story is told under the
separate chapter headings of Producing Less, Growing Less, Working
Less, Transporting Less, and Trading Less. There are also chapters on
The Politics of Restrictionism and The Political Economy of Freedom.
BASTIAT, FRÉDÉRIC. _Economic Sophisms._ 1843-1850. Many editions. 2
vols. 548 pp. 564 pp.
“Bastiat, a friend of Cobden, was opposed to all descriptions of public
waste and government interference. Both by his writings and by his
action as a politician, he waged unceasing war against Bureaucracy,
Protection and Socialism. The book cited above gained a great
reputation; it is very witty and written in an attractive style. The
Petition of the Candlemakers against the sun, which interfered with
their industry, is well known. Each short study attacks some economic
error, or pleads for the removal of some restrictions. The truth to be
brought out is often enforced by dialogue or some other lively method.
Bastiat was an optimist. His view was that the various human impulses
and activities would, under free competition and an honest and peaceful
government, result in steady progress and increasing prosperity and
happiness. This was the theme of his _Harmonies Économiques_, of which
only the first volume appeared owing to his untimely death.
“His complete works with introductory biography were published in
France in 1855 shortly after his death. They include many brilliant
pamphlets and articles against the fallacies of State Socialism and
Communism, which were rampart in Paris in the last years of Bastiat’s
life.”--PI.
“In _Sophismes Économiques_ we have the completest and most effective,
the wisest and wittiest exposure of protectionism and its principles,
reasonings, consequences which exists in any language. Bastiat was the
opponent of socialism. In this respect also he had no equal among the
economists of France.”--_Encyclopedia Americana._
BASTIAT, FRÉDÉRIC. _The Law._ 1850. Irvington, N. Y.: Foundation for
Economic Education. 1950. 75 pp.
A separate publication of a new translation (by Dean Russell) of one of
Bastiat’s most famous pamphlets. “Law,” Bastiat maintains, “is solely
the organization of the individual right of self-defense which existed
before law was formalized. Law is justice.” But the law has been
perverted, and applied to annihilating the justice it was supposed to
maintain. Protectionism, socialism and communism are all forms of legal
plunder.
BAUDIN, LOUIS. _L’Aube d’un Nouveau Libéralisme._ Paris: Librairie de
Médicis. 1953. 220 pp.
An acute, scholarly, documented, but extremely readable account of
“the dawn of a new liberalism”--a liberalism resting economically on
faith in the free market and politically on individual freedom within
a proper framework of law and morals. On pages 144 to 150 the author
presents a useful survey of the literature of “neo-liberalism” and
mentions several French-language works not included in the present
bibliography.
BAUDIN, LOUIS. _Les Incas du Pérou._ Paris: Librairie de Médicis.
1947. 188 pp.
A shorter study of the same subject that Professor Baudin covered
so thoroughly in his _L’Empire Socialist des Incas_, in 1928. When
the Spaniards overcame the Incas of Peru they found that a socialist
society had existed there in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
more totalitarian than perhaps any other known to history. Baudin
analyzes this society and shows the consequences of that total
socialization, many of which have remained with the native Indian
population to the present day--the complete suppression of family
sentiment, the immobilization of the individual, the disappearance
of initiative and foresight, the complete petrifaction of life, the
creation of a slave mentality. The book is written with great lucidity
and vigor. Professor Baudin has a final chapter discussing the lessons
of the empire of the Incas for our own time.
BEAULIEU, P. LEROY. _Collectivism._ London: Murray. 1908. 343 pp.
“An important analysis and criticism of Collectivism. That progress has
always followed the substitution of individual ownership for collective
ownership is clearly brought out. The relatively simple example of
collective ownership in land is first dealt with and industrial
collectivism is then examined. Schäffle’s _Quintessence of Socialism_
is taken as the only available source of information on the _practical
application_ of Collectivism, and yet Leroy Beaulieu succeeds in
proving its inherent incapability of performing its duties mainly by
quotations from the book itself.”--PI.
BECK, JAMES MONTGOMERY. _Our Wonderland of Bureaucracy._ Macmillan.
1933. 290 pp.
A study, by a former Solicitor General of the United States, of the
growth of bureaucracy in the federal government, and its destructive
effect upon the Constitution.
BENDA, JULIEN. _The Treason of the Intellectuals._ Morrow. 1928. 244
pp.
This celebrated book first appeared in France under the title _La
Trahison des clercs_. “That the intellectuals of the world have sold
out to utilitarianism, leaving their proper devotion to truth and
humanity, is the theme of Julien Benda’s scorching analysis of the
current leaders of thought. By taking on political passions, the
intellectuals have played the game of the state, espoused war and
conflict and lost that universalism which is their true reason for
existence.”--_World Tomorrow._
Greatly needed today is a study with a title and theme similar to
Benda’s, which would not only cover developments in the twenty-five
years since his book appeared, and describe the intellectual and
sometimes quite literal treachery of some present-day physical
scientists, but would cover the whole drift of our litterateurs and
other intellectual leaders over the last three-quarters of a century
into a sentimental socialism--including Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, and
the Webbs in England, Anatole France in France, and the corresponding
figures in Germany and America. It would be important to analyze
not merely individual figures but the mob psychology of our modern
intellectuals and the ease with which they were blown about by the
fashionable winds of doctrine.
BENHAM, FREDERIC, AND BODDY, F. M. _Principles of Economics._ Pitman.
1947.
A textbook intended for an introductory course, to provide “the simple
tools of modern economic analysis.” Considerable attention is also
given to the effects of government intervention upon a capitalistic
system.
BENN, SIR ERNEST. _Confessions of a Capitalist._ London: Hutchinson.
1925. 287 pp.
“A telling defense of individual initiative.”--_London Financial News._
“A book which is unique in economic literature. Sir Ernest’s pen is
as vivid as his mind is fearless and independent.... He tells us the
most intimate details of his business.... The whole is accompanied by
a running line of argument on the fundamental problems of economics,
which is set out so skillfully as to be as entertaining and arresting
as the autobiographical details.”--Lionel Robbins.
BENN, SIR ERNEST. _The Return to Laisser Faire._ London: Ernest Benn.
1928. 221 pp.
An argument against the extension of governmental activity and
interference in England and a plea for a return to individualism.
Public aid to housing and the growing burden of bureaucracy are special
targets. Even reviewers hostile to the author’s thesis paid tribute to
“the entertaining style, the caustic wit, the arresting illustration.”
BENN, SIR ERNEST. _The State the Enemy._ London: Ernest Benn. 1953.
175 pp.
The author reviews the British experiment in state intervention and
socialism all the way from Lloyd George, who inherited a budget of
£100 million, to Attlee, who left it at £4,000 million, and sums up
the record of failure: “Nationalization has not brought the expected
smile to the face of the worker, full employment has not encouraged
production, the management of money has not improved its quality;
in fact, all the anticipations of the original Fabian Essays, the
bases of modern Socialism, have proved disappointing, if not entirely
fallacious.” The style is lively, witty and aphoristic.
BENTHAM, JEREMY. _Works._ Edited by John Bowring. 1838-1843.
Edinburgh: Tait. 11 vols.
“A considerable amount of Bentham is still worthy of study. He may be
considered as the philosophic founder of modern British democracy.
He held that the State exists to promote the individual happiness of
the citizens who compose it and that ministers are the servants of
the electors. For our purposes, the more important works are: (1) _A
Fragment on Government_ (1776), (2) _Defense of Usury_ (1787), (3) _An
Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation_ (1789). As a
Utilitarian, an Individualist, and a reformer of laws and institutions,
he deserves more attention than he now receives. Bentham is, like
Locke, influential, but known chiefly through the work of his pupils
and disciples.”--PI.
BENTHAM, JEREMY. _Defense of Usury._ 1787. Many editions. 232 pp.
Jeremy Bentham, whose reputation has hitherto been that of a moralist,
a founder of Utilitarianism, a logician, a great political and legal
philosopher and reformer, was also, it is now being discovered, an
outstanding economist. Until very recent years, by far the greater part
of Bentham’s economic work was completely unknown--locked up in chaotic
and illegible manuscripts. The Royal Economic Society commissioned Dr.
W. Stark to make a closer scrutiny of this material, which in 1952 was
published in three volumes under the title _Jeremy Bentham’s Economic
Writings_ (London: Allen and Unwin).
The _Defense of Usury_, however, which is included in these volumes,
was published in 1787 and acquired immediate celebrity. Bentham was a
great admirer of Adam Smith, whom he called “the father of political
economy” and “a writer of consummate genius.” But he was not an
uncritical admirer, and in the _Defense of Usury_, which he published
eleven years after the appearance of _The Wealth of Nations_, he
ventured to take the master to task for his inconsistency in approving
so-called anti-usury laws while opposing government price-fixing in
practically every other field.
“The liberty of bargaining in money matters,” wrote Bentham, is “a
species of liberty which has never yet found an advocate.” Yet “fixing
the rate of interest, being a coercive measure, and an exception to the
general rule in favor of the enforcement of contracts, it lies upon the
advocates of the measure to produce reasons for it.” Examining the
reasons that had been offered, Bentham rejected them as invalid, and
proceeded to explain the positive “mischiefs” done by the anti-usury
laws. He concluded that there is “no more reason for fixing the price
of the use of money than the price of goods.”
BENTLEY, ELIZABETH. _Out of Bondage._ Devin-Adair. 1951. 311 pp.
In this autobiographical account Miss Bentley, an American college
girl, describes how she entered the Communist party, took part in its
secret underground for ten years, and later collaborated with the
Federal Bureau of Investigation after she left the party. Although
her story on its appearance was ridiculed by some reviewers as
“school-girlish” and “phoney,” many of her most startling charges have
been confirmed by later investigation.
BERGER-PERRIN, RENÉ. _Vitalité Libérale._ Paris: Éditions SÉDIF. 1953.
93 pp.
M. Berger-Perrin is Secretary General of _L’Association de l’Enterprise
à Capital Personnel_. “After a quarter of a century of the predominance
of authoritarian and collectivist ideas,” he writes, “liberal thought
today is reappearing with increased force and profundity.” To prove
this he has put together a little anthology of excerpts from more
than fifty writers--French, English, American, German, Norwegian,
Swiss, Dutch, Mexican, etc. These include not only economists, but
sociologists, historians, journalists, and businessmen.
BERLIN, ISAIAH. _Historical Inevitability._ Oxford University Press.
1954. 79 pp.
The main purpose of this lecture is to consider a tendency which has,
in the West, been growing since the eighteenth century, to regard human
history as the product of impersonal “forces” obeying “inexorable”
laws; with the implied consequence that individual human beings are
seldom responsible for bringing about situations for which they are
commonly praised or blamed, since the real culprit is “the historical
process” itself--which individuals can do little to influence. “A
magnificent assertion of the reality of human freedom, of the role of
free choice in history.”--London _Economist_.
BLUM, WALTER, AND KALVEN, HARRY, JR. _The Uneasy Case for Progressive
Taxation._ University of Chicago Press. 1953. 107 pp.
“Progressive-tax theory has been due for an overhauling, and the
authors do a highly competent job.... The work is distinguished by
penetrating analysis, comprehensive coverage of sources, and excellent
documentation.... Rates high honors in the field.”--_Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Science._
BÖHM-BAWERK, EUGEN VON. _Karl Marx and the Close of His System._ 1896,
etc. London: Unwin. 221 pp.
Until the appearance of _Socialism_ by Ludwig von Mises (q.v.), this
was by far the best criticism of the economics of Karl Marx. For the
points that it covers--chiefly the fallacies of the Marxian labor
theory of value--it is still superb, unanswerable, and irreplaceable.
BÖHM-BAWERK, EUGEN VON. _The Positive Theory of Capital._ 1888.
(Macmillan. 1891.) 428 pp.
One of the most brilliant and original contributions--if not the
most brilliant and original--ever made to the theory of capital and
interest. Böhm-Bawerk, declares the _Encyclopedia of the Social
Sciences_, “was at a very early age one of the first to accept the
teaching of Karl Menger, giving all his powers to the development
and the defense of the subjective theory of value: it is to him that
both the success and the formulation of the theory are largely due.”
According to Frank W. Taussig, _The Positive Theory of Capital_ “is a
landmark in the development of thought. As an intellectual performance,
there are few books on economics in any language that can be ranked
with it. One may not agree with all that is said, but the book bears
the unmistakable impression of a great mind.”
BOWLEY, A. L. _The Division of the Product of Industry. The Change in
the Distribution of the National Income, 1880-1913._ Oxford: Clarendon
Press. 1919. 1920. 60 pp. 27 pp.
“The Socialist case obtains support primarily through the existence of
a widespread idea that wealth is so unfairly distributed that a large
and permanent improvement in the material condition of the working
classes could be obtained merely by means of a redistribution....
These two works attempt to determine, by a careful examination of all
the existing relevant data, what the true position is. The following
quotations, although not fairly indicating the nature of Professor
Bowley’s conclusions, show the immense importance of these essays to
those who believe that social amelioration is to be sought along the
lines of redistribution.
“Discussing the problem of an advance in the scale of wages, he says:
‘In the majority [of industries] no such increase as would make
possible the standards of living now urgently desired, and promised in
the election addresses of all the political parties, could have been
obtained without wrecking the industry.’
“As regards the change in distribution over the thirty-three
year period analyzed, he says: ‘The constancy of so many of the
proportions and rates of movement found in the investigation seems
to point to a fixed system of causation and has an appearance of
inevitableness.’--_The Change in the Distribution of the National
Income, 1880-1913._”--PI.
BOWLEY, A. L., AND STAMP, SIR JOSIAH. _The National Income._ Oxford:
Clarendon Press. 1924. 1927. 59 pp.
“The general conclusion of this book is that comparing the years 1911
and 1924, the real Social Income of [Britain] was very nearly the same
at the two dates, and that although real income per head had fallen
a little, distribution had altered slightly in favor of the manual
worker. After allowing for taxation, there was definitely less real
income available in the hands of the rich for saving or expenditure,
and whilst luxurious expenditure by the rich had diminished, a good
deal of income was available for cheaper amusements. The standard of
living of the employed working classes had clearly risen.”--PI.
BOWLEY, A. L. _Wages and Income in the United Kingdom Since 1860._
Macmillan. 1938. 151 pp.
“Professor Bowley is to be congratulated on publishing this short
résumé of a lifetime’s research into wages and incomes.... A
comprehensive and systematic guide.”--London _Economist_. “The best
reference on wage and employment indices is to the outstanding work of
A. L. Bowley.”--Joseph A. Schumpeter.
BRADFORD, GOV. WILLIAM. _Of Plymouth Plantation._ 1622. (Knopf. 1952.)
448 pp.
When the Pilgrim Fathers landed on the shores of Massachusetts they
established a communist system of land holding and cultivation, and
were soon brought to a state of famine. The governor of the colony, in
his contemporary account, describes how they finally decided that they
“should set corne every man for his owne perticuler ... and so assigned
to every family a parcell of land.” The result was an immediate
transformation in their habits of industry; and at the next harvest,
“instead of famine, now God gave them plentie ... so as any generall
wante or famine hath not been amongest them since to this day.”
BRANDT, KARL. _Reconstruction of World Agriculture._ Norton. 1945. 416
pp.
An exiled German scholar, now professor of agricultural economics at
the Food Research Institute of Stanford University, surveys the history
of world agriculture and food supply from the beginning of the first
European war to the present, and offers suggestions and programs for
libertarian agricultural policies in the postwar world. “This book,
by one of the world’s foremost agricultural economists, should be
required reading for all post-war planners.”--E. deS. Brunner, in the
_Political Science Quarterly_.
BRANT, IRVING. _Life of James Madison._ Bobbs-Merrill. 1941. 1950. 4
vols.
“A very comprehensive biography; thoroughly reliable as well as
readable.”--Felix Morley. “The third volume of Brant’s _Madison_ is a
magnificent study of one of our greatest statesmen at the climax of his
career ... and a startlingly original account of that much-discussed
document, the Constitution of the United States.”--Douglass Adair, in
the _New York Herald Tribune_.
BRESCIANI-TURRONI, CONSTANTINO. _The Economics of Inflation._ 1931.
London: Unwin. 1937. 464 pp.
Inflation not only wipes out the purchasing power of savings but
always constitutes a threat to economic liberty. This is the most
comprehensive and authoritative account of the great German inflation
from 1914 to 1923. As Lionel Robbins writes in his foreword: “It was
the most colossal thing of its kind in history: and, next probably
to the Great War itself, it must bear responsibility for many of the
political and economic difficulties of our generation. It destroyed
the wealth of the more solid elements in German society: and it left
behind a moral and economic disequilibrium, apt breeding ground for
the disasters which have followed. Hitler is the foster-child of the
inflation.”
BRIGHT, JOHN. _Speeches on Questions of Public Policy._ Macmillan.
1878.
“Eloquent expositions of public policy on many subjects. The principles
are Individualistic, favoring peace, free trade and public economy on
the lines of his friend Richard Cobden.”--PI.
BROMFIELD, LOUIS. _The Farm._ Harper. 1933. 346 pp.
A novel, probably in part autobiographical, dealing with the fortunes
of four generations of a family living on a farm in northern Ohio. It
begins in 1815 and ends a century later. “Surpasses many sociological
treatises in insight.”--Wilhelm Röpke.
BROMFIELD, LOUIS. _Pleasant Valley._ Harper. 1945. 302 pp.
Partly autobiographical reminiscence, and partly an exposition of the
author’s theories of farming and farm life. He relates how, after many
years spent abroad, he returned to his native Ohio and there built up a
new home and a new way of life founded on the old ways of the pioneer
American farmer. Mr. Bromfield puts great stress on the virtue of
self-reliance in a climate of economic liberty.
BROMFIELD, LOUIS. _A New Pattern for a Tired World._ Harper. 1953. 314
pp.
“Vigorously written by an obviously sincere and devoted American, who
is neither isolationist nor suspected on any other score, but who
profoundly believes that the key to our future existence and our future
happiness lies in improving our economic status and the economic status
of our neighbors by achieving the ultimate in free trade.”--C. W.
Weinberger, in _San Francisco Chronicle_.
BROOKINGS, R. S. _Industrial Ownership._ Macmillan. 1925. 107 pp.
“The Economic Emancipation of Labor” is suggested by the author as
an alternative title for this book. It deals principally with the
remarkable tendency toward diffusion in the ownership of property
taking place in the United States, a movement that Professor Carver
regarded as “an economic revolution.”
BROOKINGS INSTITUTION. _Economics and Public Policy._ Washington, D.
C. 1955. 157 pp.
These are the Brookings Lectures for 1954 as delivered by four
American economists, Arthur Smithies, Joseph J. Spengler, Frank H.
Knight and Jacob Viner, and by two British economists, John Jewkes and
Lionel Robbins. Two of the lectures bear especially on the subject
of the present bibliography. Professor Knight’s lecture on “Economic
Objectives in a Changing World” is instructive, but rather for the
questions it raises than for those it answers. Professor Robbins’
lecture on “Freedom and Order” is lucid and illuminating.
BRUTZKUS, BORIS. _Economic Planning in Soviet Russia._ London:
Routledge. 1935. 234 pp.
An acute discussion, by an exiled Russian economist, of the
difficulties and problems of central economic planning. It is
especially valuable because the author combines theoretical insight
with a wide factual knowledge of Russian conditions. He explains, for
example, why the great Dnieprostroy dam and hydroelectric plant, the
prewar pride of Soviet Russia, was not justified economically.
BRYCE, JAMES. _The American Commonwealth._ Macmillan. 1888, etc. 2
vols. 743 pp. 963 pp.
A classic work on the American political and social system, written
half a century after de Tocqueville’s _Democracy in America_ and
surpassed only by that work insofar as their fields overlap. Viscount
Bryce declared that his purpose, unlike de Tocqueville’s, was less
to discuss the merits of “democracy” than “to paint the institutions
and people of America as they are.” In this he succeeded far beyond
any native observer of the time. His interpretations are made from the
standpoint of the liberal tradition.
BRYNES, ASHER. _Government Against the People._ Dodd, Mead. 1946. 265
pp.
“A scholarly and well written study of the growth and development of
the police systems in Russia, Great Britain and the United States as
illustrative of a basic factor making for war or peace in the modern
world.”--F. R. Dulles. The author contends that where people are free,
the police force is decentralized, limited in scope, and nonpolitical.
BUBER, MARGARETE. _Under Two Dictators._ Dodd, Mead. 1951. 331 pp.
In 1925 the author and her husband, Heinz Neumann, deposed leader
of the German Communist party, went to Moscow to translate for the
Comintern. In 1937 her husband was arrested and she never saw him
again. She herself was arrested the next year. Her book is the account
of her sufferings in the Soviet slave camp of Karaganda, and in the
Nazi concentration camp at Ravensbruck, where she spent five years. In
1945 she was liberated by the American Army. “This book can destroy
the last outposts of the Soviet apologists in the West. It should be
read by all the fellow-travelers, the Stalinoids, the double-standard
‘liberals’ and the phoney ‘progressives’ who have acted as Stalin’s
stooges when humanity needed every decent man and woman to defend
itself against the onslaughts of those who thirst for concentrated
power.”--Peter Blake, in _The New York Times_.
BUCKLEY, WILLIAM F., JR. _God and Man at Yale._ Regnery. 1951. 240 pp.
A recent Yale graduate examines and criticizes the teaching of religion
and economics at his university. As John Chamberlain sums up in his
Introduction, Mr. Buckley concludes that the values inculcated at
Yale “are agnostic as to religion, ‘interventionist’ and Keynesian
as to economics, and collectivist as applied to the relation of the
individual to society and government.” Of the five chapters in the
book, the most important for the purposes of this bibliography is the
second, “Individualism at Yale,” in which the author takes telling
quotations from the leading textbooks used in Yale undergraduate
economics courses to prove his case that the teaching is dominantly
collectivist. What broadens the significance of this chapter is the
probability that a like case could be made out against the economics
teaching in many other leading American universities today.
BUDENZ, LOUIS F. _The Techniques of Communism._ Regnery. 1954. 342 pp.
“The present book,” declares the author in his Introduction, “is an
analytical and critical study of Communism. It deals with Communist
ideology, strategy, and ‘movement’ as presented by the Marxist-Leninist
classics themselves and by current Communist documents and
directives.... It analyzes Communist activities as the Communist is
instructed to carry them out.”
Various chapters deal with the communist philosophy and apparatus;
communist phraseology (“Aesopian language,” involved “scientific”
argumentation, double-talk, definitions turned on their heads, and
the Big Lie technique); the strategy and tactics of communism; the
training of communists; the role of the communist press; and various
other methods of affecting public opinion and infiltrating unions, the
schools, minority groups, and government agencies. There is a final
chapter on “How to Fight Communism.” The book is vigorous, clear and
carefully documented. Every Congressman, high government official, and
newspaper editor ought to master the lessons it contains.
BUDENZ, LOUIS F. _This Is My Story._ Whittlesey. 1947. 379 pp.
The former managing editor of _The Daily Worker_, the American organ of
the Communist party, describes how he joined the party in 1935, served
in various editorial capacities, became for six of his ten years with
the party a member of the Communist National Committee, broke and was
converted to Catholicism in 1945.
BUDENZ, LOUIS F. _Men Without Faces._ Harper. 1950. 305 pp.
Here the former high-ranking communist, who returned to the Roman
Catholic Church in 1945, discusses the operations of the Communist
party in the United States, describes in detail the methods it
employed, and accuses it of forming a fifth column directly under
the control of Soviet Russia. In a chapter on “The Capture of the
Innocents” he explains how “some of our best minds are moved around by
the Communists like pawns.” “The master key to the Soviet conquest of
the United States,” he concludes, “might well be our own complacency.”
BUDENZ, LOUIS F. _The Cry Is Peace._ Regnery. 1952. 242 pp.
An exposure of the Soviet “crusade for peace” and a criticism of
American “appeasement” policies. “This is by all odds one of the best
available books on the important subject of the Communist conspiracy
against the United States.”--W. H. Chamberlin.
BUER, MABEL C. _Health, Wealth and Population: 1760-1815._ London:
Routledge. 1926. 290 pp.
“A critical contribution to the study of economic history. Its
importance is wider than the ... title would suggest, and it is a book
with which all students of social history should be acquainted. Miss
Buer holds that the Industrial Revolution has become the ‘villain of
the drama of economic history’ through the habit of ‘writing history
backwards’; she shows that the positive assertion at the end of the
period by Francis Place that the habits and conditions of the working
classes showed a great improvement on their condition half a century
previously, was amply justified.... The period was one of enterprise
and experiment in social betterment in many spheres, and one in which
philanthropy and benevolence ‘were never more assiduously preached’ and
practiced. This attitude is contrasted with the extreme callousness on
the part of the governing classes in the previous century.”--PI.
BURCKHARDT, JAKOB. _Force and Freedom: Reflections on History._
Pantheon Books. 1943.
Jakob Burckhardt (1818-1897), a Swiss historian and humanist, was one
of the great individualist philosophers of the nineteenth century.
His profound and searching mind foresaw the coming of collectivism.
“People today,” he wrote in 1875, “feel lost and they shudder if they
are not together in their thousands.” He predicted the coming of the
Mussolinis, Hitlers and Stalins: “My mental picture,” he wrote in a
letter in 1889, “of those terrible _simplificateurs_ who will one day
descend upon our old Europe is not an agreeable one. In my imagination
I can visualize these ruffians in the flesh.” The present book is the
first English translation of a collection of short pieces. It contains
a valuable introduction by James Hastings Nichols. “It is a book which
ranks among the classics of historico-political writing, comparable to
Edmund Burke, de Tocqueville and Fustel de Coulanges.”--Karl Lowith, in
the _Journal of Philosophy_.
BURGESS, JOHN W. _The Reconciliation of Government with Liberty._
Scribner’s. 1915. 394 pp.
A scholarly study of modern constitutional government in Europe and
America. The author, who was dean of the faculty of political science
at Columbia University, saw in the tendency to increase the authority
and functions of those holding public office a very real menace to
liberty. “We are further away today from the solution of the great
problem of the reconciliation of government and liberty,” he wrote in
1915, “than we were twenty years ago.”
BURGESS, JOHN W. _Recent Changes in American Constitutional Theory._
Columbia University Press. 1923.
Dr. Burgess takes the position that any movement contrary to limiting
the powers of government and defining and guaranteeing individual
liberty is in the wrong direction. The book traces the development of
constitutional law between 1898 and 1918.
BURKE, EDMUND. _Works._ Oxford University Press. 6 vols.
“The man who to me seems to be one of the greatest representatives of
true individualism.”--F. A. Hayek. “To do Burke justice, it would be
necessary to quote all his works; the only specimen of Burke is, _all
that he wrote_.”--William Hazlitt. For individualists, however, the
most important and most representative of his works are: _Thoughts
on the Present Discontents_ (1770); address _To the Electors of
Bristol_ (1774); the speech on _Conciliation with America_ (1775); and
_Reflections on the French Revolution_ (1790). Even William Hazlitt,
who was vehemently opposed to Burke’s stand on the French Revolution,
said: “In arriving at one error, Burke discovered a hundred truths.”
BURNHAM, JAMES. _The Coming Defeat of Communism._ John Day. 1950. 278
pp.
The author believes that communism can and will be defeated, and
without large-scale war--if the western nations, and particularly the
United States, follow some such plan of action as he presents. Even
reviewers who refused to accept this plan acknowledged the skill and
brilliance of Burnham’s writing.
BURNHAM, JAMES. _The Web of Subversion._ John Day. 1954. 248 pp.
A study based on examination of the records of Congressional
investigations since 1948 of communist underground networks in the U.
S. Government. “It would be less than just to call Mr. Burnham’s new
book a good digest of an enormous amount of material, deftly arranged,
and neatly presented. It is indeed that, to begin with--but it is also
a penetrating analysis which reveals the pattern of the fatal web
spread for us by traitors and their associates.”--Joseph McSorley, in
the _Catholic World_.
BYE, RAYMOND T. _Principles of Economics._ Crofts. 1941. 632 pp.
A well-known college textbook that presents the free enterprise point
of view.
CAIRNES, J. E. _The Character and Logical Method of Political
Economy._ Macmillan. 1857. 229 pp.
John Elliott Cairnes (1823-1875) in his day held an authority in
economics second only to that of John Stuart Mill, and is usually
regarded as the last of the English classicists. The book here listed
represents the part of his work that is still most alive; it deserves
far more study than it gets. Another leading work was _The Slave Power_
(1862), in which Cairnes expounded the inherent disadvantages of slave
labor and helped to turn British opinion in favor of the North in the
American Civil War. He accepted _laisser faire_ in government economic
policy “not as based on a scientific doctrine ... but as the surest and
most practical rule of conduct.”
CALHOUN, JOHN C. _A Disquisition on Government._ 1851. (Included in
_Calhoun: Basic Documents_. State College, Pa.: Bald Eagle Press.
1952. 329 pp.)
Calhoun (1782-1850) openly defended slavery as a positive good, and
frankly repudiated the doctrine of human equality as expressed in the
Declaration of Independence. This fact has thrown into undeserved
neglect his brilliant defense of States’ rights and the rights of
minorities. “Calhoun was concerned with one of the permanent problems
of government; and whatever one may think of the practical results of
his logic, it should be recognized that the theoretical analysis which
he presented in his _Disquisition on Government_ was a contribution
to political theory of permanent importance. The protection of
minority rights had been one of the main objectives of the American
Constitution.... The powers of the Federal government must be limited,
and a minority section must be allowed to block action detrimental
to its interests.”--Henry Bamford Parkes, in _The United States of
America: A History_.
CANNAN, EDWIN. _Wealth._ 1914, etc. Staples Press. 292 pp.
“One of the best expositions of the elements of economics ever
published. It is much more than a textbook; it is the result of
deliberate and original thought by a master economist able to see his
subject in perspective and distinguish the most essential and relevant
considerations.... It might well be made a sort of Individualist’s
bible, more especially because it does _not_ advocate Individualism or
any other system of social organization.... It is nevertheless true
that nearly all Collectivist proposals obtain support through the
existence of misconceptions which an understanding of this book would
dispel.”--PI.
CANNAN, EDWIN. _History of the Theories of Production and
Distribution._ London: King. 1924. 422 pp.
“A critical account of the writings of the classical economists. The
study of an acute history of economic theory such as this will prove
useful to those who wish to acquire the ability to detect the many
fallacies that lurk in discussions of economic problems by politicians
and popular writers. Apart from this, the book is useful as a work of
reference and the summing up in the last chapter should be read by all.
The last sentence of the book is worth quoting as representing Prof.
Cannan’s views in 1903, when the second edition was published. ‘[The
economist] is certain to disagree frequently with both Socialist and
Individualist fanatics, who support and oppose changes, not on their
merits, but according to the opinion they have formed, often on wholly
insufficient grounds, as to their being movements towards or away from
their ideal.’”--PI.
CANNAN, EDWIN. _Money._ 1918, etc. Staples Press. 136 pp.
This little work was projected as a supplementary chapter to the same
author’s _Wealth_. It is a model of lucidity and economic reasoning,
and particularly good in explaining the connection between monetary
policy and rising and falling prices. Although I would dissent from one
or two of its conclusions, it seems to me to be still the best book on
money of its length. It has gone through more than eight editions.
CANNAN, EDWIN. _An Economist’s Protest._ London: King. 1927. 438 pp.
A collection of papers written over fourteen years. “Nothing that has
been published in recent years will do so much to clarify doctrine
and promote a grasp of essentials in Economics; while amateurs of
literature, who are commonly repelled by an economic title, will find
in the collection much that will hold its own among the classics of
controversial literature.”--London _Times Literary Supplement_.
CANNAN, EDWIN. _A Review of Economic Theory._ London: King. 1929. 448
pp.
A lively but authoritative history of economic theory. It begins with
the ideas of ancient and medieval philosophers and discusses the
doctrines of the classical economists and others up to the time of the
book’s publication.
CANNAN, EDWIN. _The Economic Outlook._ London: Unwin. 1912. 312 pp.
F. A. Hayek writes of the essays in this book, as well as those in _An
Economist’s Protest_ (1927), that they “deserve, even now, renewed
and wider attention, and translation into other languages. Their
simplicity, clarity and sound common sense make them models for the
treatment of economic problems, and even some that were written before
1914 are still astonishingly topical.” Among the pupils of Edwin Cannan
who have since exerted considerable influence are Sir Theodore Gregory,
Lionel Robbins, F. C. Benham, W. H. Hutt and F. W. Paish.
CANNAN, EDWIN. _Coal Nationalisation._ London: King. 1919. 36 pp.
“This is a précis of evidence given before the Sankey Commission.
Only parts were read aloud by the Chairman, who obviously failed to
grasp its importance and relevance. Professor Cannan concluded that
nationalization would not benefit the taxpayer, the consumers of
coal or the miners themselves. As he indicated, the Commission and
the Government had ‘apparently decided “that something must be done”
before finding out whether they knew of any remedy better than the
disease.’”--PI.
CARLSON, OLIVER. _Handbook on Propaganda._ Los Angeles: Foundation for
Social Research. 1953. 110 pp.
The purpose of this handbook is “To make available to alert citizens
in all walks of life ... some basic facts about propaganda--what it
is--how it functions--and how to combat it.” There is a discussion
of the vehicles of propaganda, and separate chapters on nationalist
and internationalist, racist, government, collectivist and communist
propaganda.
CARR-SAUNDERS, SIR ALEXANDER M. _The Population Problem._ Oxford:
Clarendon Press. 1922. 516 pp.
“This is thought by some to be the most important book dealing with
the problem of numbers of mankind that has appeared since the days of
Malthus.”--PI.
CARVER, T. N. _The Present Economic Revolution in the United States._
Little, Brown. 1926. 270 pp.
“Professor Carver foresees the beginning of a new economic revolution
in the world, which appears to be developing first in the United States
of America, as the Industrial Revolution came first in England at the
close of the eighteenth century. R. Boeckel and R. S. Brookings had
already called attention to this movement, but this is the work of the
Professor of Political Economy at Harvard.... ‘It is just as possible
[he writes] to attain equality under Capitalism as under any other
system,’ and in consequence, ‘The apostles of discontent are being
robbed of their thunder....’ This study of an Individualist society is
one of the most suggestive writings on Individualism that exists.”--PI.
CARVER, T. N. _Essays in Social Justice._ Harvard University Press.
1915. 429 pp.
----. _Principles of National Economy._ Ginn. 1921. 773 pp.
Other works which expound Professor Carver’s vigorous individualistic
free enterprise philosophy.
CASSEL, GUSTAV. _From Protectionism Through Planned Economy to
Dictatorship._ London: Cobden-Sanderson. 1934. 26 pp.
This lecture, by an eminent Swedish economist who died in 1945,
is included in this list (in violation of my general rule against
including pamphlets) because it points out, with a persuasiveness,
power and compactness surpassed by no other writer, how “planned
economy,” long enough continued, must lead to despotism. “The
leadership of the State in economic affairs which advocates of Planned
Economy want to establish is, as we have seen, necessarily connected
with a bewildering mass of governmental interferences of a steadily
cumulative nature. The arbitrariness, the mistakes and the inevitable
contradictions of such policy will, as daily experience shows, only
strengthen the demand for a more rational coordination of the different
measures and, therefore, for unified leadership. For this reason
Planned Economy will always tend to develop into Dictatorship.” Cassel
explains this process step by step. “If we allow economic freedom and
self-reliance to be destroyed,” he goes on to point out, “the powers
standing for Liberty will have lost so much in strength that they will
not be able to offer any effective resistance against a progressive
extension of such destruction to constitutional and public life
generally.”
CATLIN, GEORGE. _The Story of the Political Philosophers._ Whittlesey.
1939. 802 pp.
Reviewing this book in _The New York Times_ (Jan. 7, 1940) I wrote:
“In dealing with successive political philosophers it presents their
biographies and their theories in judicious proportions. It is written
with wit and humor and contains some arresting characterizations. It is
learned, crowded, discursive, allusive, but it is not always clear.”
Felix Morley calls it: “An encyclopedic study, gracefully written and
useful to all who are interested in political theory.”
CECIL, LORD HUGH. _Liberty and Authority._ London: Edward Arnold.
1910. 70 pp.
“A brief and thoughtful plea for ordered liberty; the ideal is a
society held together not by coercion, but ‘by the spontaneous cohesion
of virtuous wills.’”--PI.
CHAMBERLIN, WILLIAM HENRY. _America’s Second Crusade._ Regnery. 1950.
372 pp.
The author describes this work as an attempt “to examine without
prejudice or favor the question why the peace was lost while the war
was won.” It is a brilliant and well-documented history of the blunders
and misconceptions that were responsible for Teheran, Yalta and
Potsdam, and led to a “peace” that mainly realized the aims of Russian
communism and totalitarianism at the expense of the aims, or of what
should have been the aims, of a democratic and freedom-loving America.
CHAMBERLIN, WILLIAM HENRY. _Collectivism: A False Utopia._ Macmillan.
1937. 265 pp.
“Mr. Chamberlin comes vigorously to the defense of democratic
institutions, with all their faults. He regards fascism and communism
as similar examples of a collectivist state, and argues that progress
is possible in the long run only on the basis of political liberty and
wisely controlled individual enterprise.”--_Springfield Republican._
CHAMBERLIN, WILLIAM HENRY. _The Russian Revolution._ Macmillan. 1935.
2 vols. 511 pp. 556 pp.
“What Mr. Chamberlin, Moscow correspondent of _The Christian Science
Monitor_ from 1922 to 1934, has done with admirable clarity and
scrupulous objectivity is not so much to offer sensational new
judgments as to knit and co-ordinate a positively staggering amount of
information based on source material, much of which had not previously
been examined by scholars in this field, and to marshal the confused
events of 1917-1921 in orderly fashion, giving chapter and verse for
every important statement of fact or opinion.”--_Books._
CHAMBERS, WHITTAKER. _Witness._ Random House. 1952. 808 pp.
This is Whittaker Chambers’ own account of his life, of the
Hiss-Chambers trial, and of his connection with the Communist
party and his repudiation of it. It is powerfully and eloquently
written. Chambers joined the Communist party primarily for emotional
and quasi-religious reasons and left it because of his religious
conversion. This points to the one serious shortcoming of the book,
which is its failure to understand or to explain adequately the
_economic_ case against communism and in favor of freedom.
“The name of the author, the theme of his work, the nature of our
times all conspire to make this volume one of the most significant
autobiographies of the twentieth century.”--Sidney Hook, in _The New
York Times_.
“This is a great book; one of the greatest written by a contemporary
American.... Whittaker Chambers has composed an ‘_apologia pro vita
sua_’ ... [and] also one of the best and most readable accounts
of life both in the ‘open’ Communist Party and in its auxiliary
underground organizations.... The Communist Party, in America as in
every non-Communist country, is a criminal conspiracy, with its members
pledged to stop at nothing, espionage or sabotage, murder or treason,
which will advance the interests of the foreign power, the Soviet
Union, to which Communists everywhere are blindly subservient.”--W. H.
Chamberlin, in _Human Events_.
CHANCE, SIR WILLIAM. _The Better Administration of the Poor Law._
London: Sonnenschein. 1895. 260 pp.
“Sir William Chance has written several books on Poor Law
administration, all from an emphatically Individualist standpoint. In
the above he wrote: ‘The principles which underlie the grant of Poor
Relief which it--the Poor Law Relief Report of 1834--lays down are good
for all time. Had the Poor Law been administered since 1834 strictly on
those principles ... pauperism would probably have been reduced to a
negligible quantity.’”--PI.
CHODOROV, FRANK. _One Is a Crowd._ Devin-Adair. 1952. 176 pp.
Reflections of an individualist.
CLAPHAM, J. H. _An Economic History of Modern Britain._ Cambridge
University Press. 1926. 623 pp.
“An understanding of the _laissez-faire_ and early industrial period
is much needed. In this learned work Dr. Clapham, a leading authority,
exposes ‘the legend that everything was getting steadily worse for
the working man down to some unspecified date between the drafting of
the People’s Charter and the Great Exhibition.’ This legend seems to
have been largely responsible for a tendency to a kind of unconscious
Socialist bias in economic and social thinking, and it has, with a
few exceptions, been spread by economic history textbooks. Knowles’
_Industrial and Commercial Revolutions in the Nineteenth Century_ is
the most notable exception. Dr. Clapham’s contribution represents the
culmination of a reaction which has come in recent years as a result
of modern historical research. (See also: GEORGE. _London Life in the
18th Century._ BUER. _Health, Wealth and Population (1760-1815)._
TALBOT GRIFFITHS. _Population Problems in the Age of Malthus._ VAUGHAN
WILKINS. _Sidelights on Industrial Evolution._)”--PI.
(See also in this bibliography T. S. ASHTON, F. A. HAYEK, etc.)
CLARK, COLIN. _Welfare and Taxation._ Oxford: Catholic Social Guild.
1955. 80 pp.
Dr. Clark, the eminent Australian statistician and economist, now
Director of the Institute of Research in Agricultural Economics at
Oxford, argues in this little book that the tax rate in Britain is
reducing incentives, productivity, and national income, and points out
that even those with lower incomes are really paying for their own
“free” social services. He concludes that we should “give the State,
not the maximum, but the minimum of powers and duties.... Concentration
of political power is always dangerous.... We should realize that, if
we go on building up the power of the State ... giving it more and more
control over every detail of our lives ... we create a State which will
not merely tax us to excess but eventually enslave us completely.”
CLARK, FRED G. _Magnificent Delusion._ Whittlesey. 1940. 152 pp.
An analysis of present economic and social ills in America, based
on the thesis that we are in danger of losing our democracy through
over-insistence on humanitarianism, the idea that the government owes
all of us a living. “Mr. Clark has made an effective case.”--Nicholas
Roosevelt.
CLARK, F. G., AND RIMANOCZY, R. S. _How We Live._ Van Nostrand. 1944.
39 pp.
A short, clear, and vigorous primer on how the capitalist system works.
The authors emphasize the importance of capital accumulation--the
constant need for more and better tools to increase man’s ability to
utilize natural resources and so to increase his material welfare. The
same authors have written other primers: _Money, How to Be Popular
Though Conservative_, and _How to Think About Economics._
CLARK, JOHN BATES. _The Distribution of Wealth._ Macmillan. 1899. 445
pp.
A work of epoch-making importance: a theory of wages, interest and
profits which seeks to show that “free competition tends to give
to labor what labor creates, to capitalists what capital creates,
and to entrepreneurs what the coordinating function creates.” It is
thus indirectly an answer to the socialist contention that under
competitive capitalism labor is “exploited” and “workmen are regularly
robbed of what they produce.” “It is not too much to say,” wrote the
economist Henry R. Seager in 1900, “that the publication of Professor
Clark’s _Distribution_ marks an epoch in the history of economic
thought in the United States. Its inspiration, its illustrations,
even its independence of the opinions of others, are American; but
its originality, the brilliancy of its reasoning and its completeness
deserve and will surely obtain for it a place in world literature.”
COBDEN, RICHARD. _Speeches on Questions of Public Policy._ London:
Unwin. 1908. 2 vols.
“Cobden [1804-1865] was of all English statesmen the most powerful and
persuasive exponent of the Individualistic view of Government. See his
_Life_ by John Morley.”--PI.
COLE, FRANKLIN P. _They Preached Liberty._ Revell. 1941.
Significant excerpts from the sermons of New England ministers during
the late Colonial period.
COLLINGWOOD, R. G. _The Idea of History._ Oxford University Press.
1946. 339 pp.
“With the death of R. G. Collingwood in 1943 British philosophy lost
one of its most distinguished minds. His most original work grew
out of his reflections on the special characteristics of historical
thinking.”--_Manchester Guardian._
COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL. _Blueprint for World Conquest._ Washington:
Human Events. 1946. 263 pp.
This is designed to serve as a warning to anti-communists of the plans
and tactics that they must learn to combat. It contains the theses and
statutes of the Communist International, as adopted at the second world
congress at Moscow in 1920; the program of the Communist International
as adopted by the sixth world congress at Moscow on Sept. 1, 1928, and
the constitution and rules of the Communist International. There is an
introduction by William Henry Chamberlin.
CONSTANT, BENJAMIN. _De l’Esprit de Conquête._ 1813. Paris: Librairie
de Médicis. 1947. 68 pp.
Benjamin Constant (1767-1830) was the author of a celebrated
autobiographical novel, _Adolphe_. He was the lover of the famous
Madame de Staël and later acquired an infatuation for Madame Récamier.
The literary and amorous side of his career has unfortunately
overshadowed his prophetic contributions in support of liberalism
and freedom of the press, especially his _De l’esprit de conquête et
de l’usurpation_, directed against Napoleon. In 1829 he wrote: “For
forty years I have defended the same principle: liberty in everything,
in religion, in philosophy, in literature, in industry, in politics;
and by liberty I mean the triumph of individuality, as much over the
authority that seeks to govern by despotism as over the masses who
claim the right to enslave the minority to the majority.” An English
translation of _Conquest and Usurpation_ was published by Reynal &
Hitchcock in 1941.