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Personal and economic liberty

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"It is therefore the inhabitants of countries who allow themselves to be coerced who are unnatural, since freedom is their natural state; and their slavery is born of their own fault, not of any lack of courage, but rather of some scorn of their natural condition and some unaccountable failure of good sense."

de La Boétie, Étienne event 1576

menu_book Discourse on Voluntary Servitude

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"Be resolved to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces."

de La Boétie, Étienne event 1576

menu_book Discourse on Voluntary Servitude

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"If there is one well-established truth in political economy, it is this: That in all cases, for all commodities that serve to provide for the tangible or intangible needs of the consumer, it is in the consumer's best interest that labor and trade remain free, because the freedom of labor and of trade have as their necessary and permanent result the maximum reduction of price."

de Molinari, Gustave event 1849

menu_book Evenings on Saint-Lazare Street

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"No government should have the right to prevent another government from going into competition with it, or to require consumers of security to come exclusively to it for this commodity."

de Molinari, Gustave event 1849

menu_book The Production of Security

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"Every act of coercion that creates obstacles to exchange is a destroyer of wealth."

Salin, Pascal event 2000

menu_book Libéralisme

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"There are indeed only two possible visions of society and its organization: a liberal vision and a constructivist one."

Salin, Pascal event 2000

menu_book Libéralisme

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"The State has no moral or scientific justification; it is the pure product of the emergence of violence in human societies."

Salin, Pascal event 2000

menu_book Libéralisme

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"If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism."

Sowell, Thomas event 1980

menu_book Knowledge and Decisions

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"Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference, while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude."

Tocqueville, Alexis de event 1835

menu_book Democracy in America

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auto_stories Books

The Constitution of Liberty

person Hayek, Friedrich event 1960

A comprehensive treatise on the principles of a free society, exploring the nature of freedom, the rule of law, and the conditions necessary for in...

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Democracy in America

person Tocqueville, Alexis de event 1835

A profound analysis of American democratic society and its implications for the future of democracy, exploring the nature of equality, individualis...

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The Law

person Bastiat, Frédéric event 1850

Influential pamphlet arguing that law should protect individual rights rather than redistribute wealth, introducing the concept of legal plunder wh...

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Law, Legislation and Liberty

person Hayek, Friedrich event 1973

A three-volume work exploring the relationship between law, individual liberty, and social order in free societies

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Libéralisme

person Salin, Pascal event 2000

A systematic and uncompromising defence of classical liberalism, arguing that all social questions resolve into one fundamental choice between a li...

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Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments

person Constant, Benjamin event 1815

Major work on political philosophy distinguishing between ancient and modern liberty, arguing for constitutional limits on government power and ind...

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The Production of Security

person de Molinari, Gustave event 1849

Molinari's short but explosive 1849 essay, the first systematic argument that security and defense, like any other commodity, should be produced by...

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Evenings on Saint-Lazare Street

person de Molinari, Gustave event 1849

A series of Socratic dialogues in the style of Bastiat, Molinari's contemporary and colleague, in which an economist, a conservative, and a sociali...

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La Tyrannie fiscale

person Salin, Pascal event 2014

Exposes the French tax system as arbitrary, economically destructive, and morally indefensible, showing that high taxation is not a neutral technic...

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person Authors

Constant, Benjamin

Swiss-French political thinker, writer, and politician, key figure in classical liberalism and defender of individual liberty

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Friedman, Milton

American economist and statistician, Nobel laureate in Economics (1976), leading advocate of free-market capitalism and monetarism

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Hayek, Friedrich

Austrian-British economist and philosopher, Nobel laureate in Economics (1974), key figure in Austrian School of economics

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de Molinari, Gustave

Belgian-born French economist, editor of the Journal des Économistes, and the first thinker to propose a fully free market in security and defense,...

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Tocqueville, Alexis de

French political philosopher and historian, author of Democracy in America (1835-1840), renowned for his analysis of American democracy and warning...

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