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"What is properly human is the capacity to step back from oneself — to take a distance from one's own drives, one's own history, one's own perspective — and to ask whether what one is doing is good. No animal can call itself into question."
menu_book What Is Distinctive to Man
Read Full Quote"To be rational is not simply to calculate correctly. It is to be able to ask what is true — not only what is useful. The animal that solves a problem has no interest in truth as such. The human being who asks a question is already asking whether reality is really what it appears to be."
menu_book What Is Distinctive to Man
Read Full Quote"The human being is the only animal that asks what it is for. Not what it is good for — that is a question every living thing resolves in practice — but what the whole enterprise of its existence is aimed at, and whether that aim is worthy."
menu_book What Is Distinctive to Man
Read Full Quote"Ethics is not one capacity among others. It is the capacity that makes all others specifically human. To reason, to make art, to use language — all these can be done well or badly, and the judgment of well or badly is always already an ethical judgment."
menu_book What Is Distinctive to Man
Read Full Quote"If we speak of human dignity, we must be able to say what it is grounded in. It cannot be grounded in mere membership in a biological species. It must be grounded in what is specifically human — in those capacities by which the human being rises above the rest of nature while remaining part of it."
menu_book What Is Distinctive to Man
Read Full Quotemenu_book What Is Distinctive to Man
Brague's inquiry into what distinguishes the human being from all other animals. Drawing on philosophy, biology, and theology, he examines the capacities — for reason, ethics, self-distancing, and transcendence —...
View Book"The ethical life needs a ground that ethics alone cannot provide. What motivates me to be good — not merely to act well — cannot come from a moral law that I give to myself. It requires a relationship to something prior to me and greater than me."
menu_book On Religion
Read Full Quote"Religion is not a form of ethics. It is not morality applied to the relationship with God. Ethics deals with what I owe to other human beings; religion deals with what I owe — or rather, receive — from the principle of my existence itself."
menu_book On Religion
Read Full Quote"Modernity does not simply challenge religion from outside. It has grown, in large part, from within the religious tradition it now contests. The secularization of the West is not an escape from its Christian heritage but a transformation of it — one that has forgotten its own sources."
menu_book On Religion
Read Full Quote"At the heart of every religious act there is something that resembles gratitude — an acknowledgment that what I am and what I have has not been produced by myself, that I exist in a relationship of dependence which is not servitude but recognition."
menu_book On Religion
Read Full Quote"Religion is not primarily a set of beliefs, nor a system of practices, nor a community. These are its expressions. Its essence lies in a certain relationship — to a source of goodness and being that one has not produced oneself and from which one continues to receive."
menu_book On Religion
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A philosophical examination of what religion actually is — its essence, structure, and necessity. Brague asks what distinguishes the religious relationship from mere ethics or philosophy, and why religion cannot...
View Book"Problems are soluble. Given the right knowledge, any problem can be solved. The key is that we must be open to creating that knowledge through conjecture and criticism."
menu_book The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World
Read Full Quote"Optimism is, in the first instance, a way of explaining failure, not prophesying success. It says that there is no fundamental barrier, no law of nature or supernatural decree, preventing progress."
menu_book The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World
Read Full Quote"Everything that is not forbidden by laws of nature is achievable, given the right knowledge."
menu_book The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World
Read Full Quotemenu_book The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World
Exploration of how explanatory knowledge grows and transforms our understanding, arguing that all progress comes from the quest for good explanations
View Bookmenu_book The Ethics of Money Production
Analysis of the moral implications of money production, arguing that fiat money and fractional reserve banking involve moral hazards and violate property rights
View Bookmenu_book Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System
The foundational whitepaper introducing Bitcoin as a decentralized digital currency. Proposes a system for electronic transactions without relying on trust or centralized intermediaries, solving the double-spending problem through a peer-to-peer...
View Bookmenu_book Democracy: The God That Failed
Controversial critique of democracy from a libertarian perspective, arguing that monarchy is economically and ethically superior to democracy, and that both are inferior to a natural order based on private...
View Bookmenu_book Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy
Comprehensive introduction to economic principles written for the general public, explaining how markets work and the effects of various economic policies without technical jargon
View Book"The vision of the anointed is not simply a vision of the world and its functioning in descriptive terms, but is also a vision of themselves and of their place in the world. Self-congratulation is part of that vision, as is a disdain for the benighted masses who do not share it."
menu_book The Vision of the Anointed
Read Full Quote"The pattern is: (1) The anointed assert that there is some grave danger or crisis. (2) The anointed propose some course of action to deal with it. (3) Evidence that the proposed course of action has made things worse is either ignored or explained away. (4) The anointed proceed as if the policy were working, blaming any remaining problems on the inadequacy of commitment to the policy."
menu_book The Vision of the Anointed
Read Full Quotemenu_book The Vision of the Anointed
The 1995 sequel to *A Conflict of Visions*, focusing specifically on the unconstrained vision as held by a self-appointed intellectual elite — 'the anointed' — who view themselves as morally...
View Book"The future is open. It is not predetermined and thus cannot be predicted — except by accident. The possibilities that lie in the future are infinite."
menu_book The Myth of the Framework: In Defence of Science and Rationality
Read Full Quotemenu_book The Myth of the Framework: In Defence of Science and Rationality
Collection of essays defending scientific rationality and critical discussion against relativism and the idea that meaningful communication is impossible between different conceptual frameworks
View Book"What I call the 'secondarity' of European culture is not a defect. It is, on the contrary, a constitutive feature — perhaps the most essential one. A culture that knows how to receive is not impoverished; it is enriched by what it takes in and makes its own."
menu_book Eccentric Culture: A Theory of Western Civilization
Read Full Quote"Rome is not the origin of European culture. It is the instrument of its transmission. Rome receives from Greece and from Israel, and passes on to the Latin West what it has received. To be Roman is to come in second place."
menu_book Eccentric Culture: A Theory of Western Civilization
Read Full Quote"The model of European identity is not exclusive but inclusive. Europe is defined not by what it excludes but by what it is capable of integrating. Its capacity to welcome the foreign without ceasing to be itself is what constitutes its originality."
menu_book Eccentric Culture: A Theory of Western Civilization
Read Full Quote"Europe is characterized by what I shall call its eccentricity. I mean by this that Europe does not have its center in itself. Its source and its norm lie elsewhere, before it, and outside it."
menu_book Eccentric Culture: A Theory of Western Civilization
Read Full Quote"Europe has never been a producer of origins. It has been a consumer and a transmitter. Its genius lies not in invention ex nihilo but in the capacity to digest what it receives and to pass it on transformed, deepened, made available for new generations."
menu_book Eccentric Culture: A Theory of Western Civilization
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Brague's foundational work arguing that European culture is fundamentally "eccentric" — it has always received its cultural substance from outside itself (from Greece and Jerusalem via Rome). Rome is not...
View Bookmenu_book A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism: Economics, Politics, and Ethics
Systematic comparison of capitalism and socialism, examining the economic and ethical foundations of different property systems and their consequences for prosperity and freedom
View Book"In the unconstrained vision, human nature is not fixed but is capable of being changed by social institutions and social policies. If human beings are capable of improvement — even of perfection — then the question of how to design the best society, with the best social institutions, is a much more open-ended question than if human nature is treated as a given constraint."
menu_book A Conflict of Visions
Read Full Quote"The constrained vision sees the evils of the world as deriving from the limited and biased nature of man himself — and therefore sees the social challenge as being to make the best of the possibilities which exist within that constraint, rather than to try to change human nature."
menu_book A Conflict of Visions
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Sowell's landmark 1987 work arguing that the deepest divide in political and social thought is not between left and right, but between two fundamentally different visions of human nature. The...
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menu_book The Ethics of Liberty
Comprehensive philosophical treatise establishing a natural rights foundation for libertarianism, deriving property rights from self-ownership and the homesteading principle
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menu_book Knowledge and Decisions
Analysis of how knowledge is used in economic decision-making, examining the role of prices, incentives, and institutions in coordinating dispersed knowledge across society
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menu_book Anatomy of the State
Concise treatise analyzing the nature and origins of the state, arguing that the state is fundamentally an organization based on aggression rather than voluntary cooperation
View Bookmenu_book Anarchy, State, and Utopia
Influential defense of libertarian political philosophy arguing for the minimal state limited to protection against force, theft, and fraud, and exploring rights-based constraints on state action
View Book"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."
menu_book Law, Legislation and Liberty
Read Full Quote"Nothing distinguishes more clearly conditions in a free country from those in a country under arbitrary government than the observance in the former of the great principle known as the Rule of Law."
menu_book Law, Legislation and Liberty
Read Full Quotemenu_book Law, Legislation and Liberty
A three-volume work exploring the relationship between law, individual liberty, and social order in free societies
View Bookmenu_book The Virtue of Selfishness
Collection of essays arguing for rational egoism as a moral foundation, challenging conventional views on altruism and self-interest
View Book"The inheritance of property is an important factor in maintaining family unity and in providing incentives for accumulation."
menu_book Capitalism and Freedom
Read Full Quote"Freedom is a rare and delicate plant. Our minds tell us, and history confirms, that the great threat to freedom is the concentration of power."
menu_book Capitalism and Freedom
Read Full Quote"The free market is the only mechanism that has ever been discovered for achieving participatory democracy."
menu_book Capitalism and Freedom
Read Full Quote"A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both."
menu_book Capitalism and Freedom
Read Full Quotemenu_book Capitalism and Freedom
A seminal work arguing that economic freedom is a prerequisite for political freedom, exploring the role of capitalism in a free society
View Book"From the fact that people are very different it follows that, if we treat them equally, the result must be inequality in their actual position, and that the only way to place them in an equal position would be to treat them differently. Equality before the law and material equality are therefore not only different but are in conflict with each other; and we can achieve either one or the other, but not both at the same time."
menu_book The Constitution of Liberty
Read Full Quotemenu_book The Constitution of Liberty
A comprehensive treatise on the principles of a free society, exploring the nature of freedom, the rule of law, and the conditions necessary for individual liberty to flourish
View Bookmenu_book I, Pencil: My Family Tree as Told to Leonard E. Read
A classic essay illustrating the concept of spontaneous order through the story of a pencil's creation, demonstrating how no single person possesses all the knowledge required to make even this...
View Bookmenu_book Atlas Shrugged
Epic novel depicting a dystopian United States where industrialists and entrepreneurs mysteriously disappear, exploring themes of individualism, capitalism, and the role of the mind in human existence
View Book"Value is not intrinsic, it is not in things. It is within us; it is the way in which man reacts to the conditions of his environment. Neither is value in words and doctrines. It is reflected in human conduct. It is not what a man or groups of men say about value that counts, but how they act."
menu_book Human Action: A Treatise on Economics
Read Full Quote"The paradox of 'planning' is that it cannot plan, because of the absence of economic calculation. What is called a planned economy is no economy at all. It is just a system of groping about in the dark. There is no question of a rational choice of means for the best possible attainment of the ultimate ends sought. What is done is simply to muddle through."
menu_book Human Action: A Treatise on Economics
Read Full Quote"Human action is purposeful behavior. Or we may say: Action is will put into operation and transformed into an agency, is aiming at ends and goals, is the ego's meaningful response to stimuli and to the conditions of its environment, is a person's conscious adjustment to the state of the universe that determines his life."
menu_book Human Action: A Treatise on Economics
Read Full Quote"What distinguishes the successful entrepreneur and promoter from other people is precisely the fact that he does not let himself be guided by what was and is, but arranges his affairs on the ground of his opinion about the future. He sees the past and the present as other people do; but he judges the future in a different way."
menu_book Human Action: A Treatise on Economics
Read Full Quote"Economics is not a thing of the past, nor is it a thing of the future. It is the science of every kind of human action. Choosing determines all human decisions. In making his choices man determines both his scale of values and the means he employs for the attainment of the ends he is aiming at. Thus economics, as the general science of acting man, reaches far beyond the boundaries of economic science as ordinarily circumscribed."
menu_book Human Action: A Treatise on Economics
Read Full Quote"The direction of all economic affairs is in the market society a task of the entrepreneurs. Theirs is the control of production. They are at the helm and steer the ship. A superficial observer would believe that they are supreme. But they are not. They are bound to obey unconditionally the captain's orders. The captain is the consumer."
menu_book Human Action: A Treatise on Economics
Read Full Quote"The boom can last only as long as the credit expansion progresses at an ever-accelerated pace. The boom comes to an end as soon as additional quantities of fiduciary media are no longer thrown upon the loan market. But it could not last forever even if inflation and credit expansion were to go on endlessly. It would then encounter the barriers which prevent the boundless expansion of circulation credit. It would lead to the crack-up boom and the breakdown of the whole monetary system."
menu_book Human Action: A Treatise on Economics
Read Full Quotemenu_book Human Action: A Treatise on Economics
Ludwig von Mises' magnum opus and the most comprehensive systematic treatment of economics from the Austrian School perspective. Mises develops praxeology—the science of human action—from first principles, deriving the entire...
View Bookmenu_book Economics in One Lesson
Classic introduction to economic thinking, demonstrating that good economics considers both the immediate effects and the longer-term effects on all groups, not just the special interests
View Book"We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than that only freedom can make security secure."
menu_book The Open Society and Its Enemies
Read Full Quote"We may become the makers of our fate when we have ceased to pose as its prophets."
menu_book The Open Society and Its Enemies
Read Full Quotemenu_book The Open Society and Its Enemies
A defence of liberal democracy against totalitarian ideologies, arguing that no one possesses ultimate truth and that society must remain open to criticism and reform
View Book"Money has not been generated by law. In its origin it is a social, and not a state institution. Sanction by the authority of the state is a notion alien to it."
menu_book On the Origin of Money
Read Full Quotemenu_book On the Origin of Money
Menger's influential essay explaining how money emerged spontaneously from barter as the most marketable commodity, without need for government decree or social contract. This work laid the foundation for understanding...
View Book"The task of the theoretician in the realm of economy is above all to teach us to understand concrete phenomena of human economy as exemplifications of a certain regularity in the succession of phenomena, i.e., as exemplifications of laws of phenomena."
menu_book Investigations into the Method of the Social Sciences
Read Full Quotemenu_book Investigations into the Method of the Social Sciences
Menger's methodological work defending the Austrian approach to economics against the German Historical School. This book established the theoretical foundations for studying economics as a science, emphasizing deductive reasoning and...
View Book"Value is nothing inherent in goods and no property of them, but merely the importance we first attribute to the satisfaction of our needs, and in consequence carry over to economic goods as the exclusive causes of the satisfaction of our needs."
menu_book Principles of Economics
Read Full Quotemenu_book Principles of Economics
Menger's groundbreaking work that founded the Austrian School of Economics, introducing the theory of marginal utility and subjective value. This revolutionary text challenged classical economic theories and established the foundation...
View Bookmenu_book The Coal Question: An Inquiry Concerning the Progress of the Nation, and the Probable Exhaustion of Our Coal-Mines
Landmark work in which Jevons examined Britain's dependence on coal and argued that improvements in fuel efficiency would not reduce consumption but instead increase it, a principle now known as...
View Book"When a portion of wealth passes from the person who possesses it, without his consent and without compensation, to anyone who does not possess it, whether by force or by fraud, I say that property is violated, that plunder is committed."
menu_book The Law
Read Full Quote"In the economic sphere, an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects. Of these effects, the first alone is immediate; it appears simultaneously with its cause; it is seen. The other effects unfold only subsequently; they are not seen. Between a bad and a good economist, this is the whole difference: one confines himself to the visible effect; the other takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen."
menu_book That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen
Read Full Quote"No man has a natural right to demand that another work for him."
menu_book The Law
Read Full Quotemenu_book The Law
Influential pamphlet arguing that law should protect individual rights rather than redistribute wealth, introducing the concept of legal plunder when law is perverted to violate property rights
View Bookmenu_book That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen
Famous essay introducing the concept of opportunity cost and the broken window fallacy, arguing economists must consider both immediate visible effects and longer-term hidden consequences
View Book"Society will develop a new kind of servitude which covers the surface of society with a network of complicated rules, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate. It does not tyrannise but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd."
menu_book Democracy in America
Read Full Quote"When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness."
menu_book Democracy in America
Read Full Quote"Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom."
menu_book Democracy in America
Read Full Quote"There is a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom."
menu_book Democracy in America
Read Full Quote"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."
menu_book Democracy in America
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A profound analysis of American democratic society and its implications for the future of democracy, exploring the nature of equality, individualism, tyranny of the majority, and the delicate balance between...
View Bookmenu_book Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments
Major work on political philosophy distinguishing between ancient and modern liberty, arguing for constitutional limits on government power and individual rights
View Book"The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it."
menu_book An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Read Full Quote"He intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention."
menu_book An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Read Full Quote"Great nations are never impoverished by private, though they sometimes are by public prodigality and misconduct."
menu_book An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Read Full Quote"No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable."
menu_book An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Read Full Quote"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."
menu_book An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Read Full Quotemenu_book An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Foundational work of modern economics examining the mechanisms of free markets, division of labor, and the role of self-interest in creating prosperity
View Book"How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it."
menu_book The Theory of Moral Sentiments
Read Full Quotemenu_book The Theory of Moral Sentiments
Adam Smith's foundational work on moral philosophy, exploring how human sympathy and the impartial spectator guide ethical judgment, long before he wrote on economics
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menu_book An Essay on the Nature of Trade in General
Pioneering work in economic theory written around 1730, covering entrepreneurship, market pricing, monetary economics, and the circular flow, considered by many as the first complete treatise on economics
View Bookmenu_book The Spirit of the Laws
Influential treatise on political theory developing the concept of separation of powers and examining how laws should reflect the nature of government and society
View Bookmenu_book Two Treatises of Government
Foundational work of liberal political philosophy establishing natural rights, the social contract, and the right to revolution against tyrannical government
View Book"When a prince seizes sovereign power by force and arms without any legal title, without popular consent, and without the approval of the better part of the commonwealth, he may be killed by any man whatsoever — for he is a public enemy who has broken the bond that holds human society together."
menu_book De Rege et Regis Institutione (On the King and the Royal Institution)
Read Full Quote"The prince is not the owner of the private property of his subjects. To impose new taxes or to increase old ones without the consent of the people is an act of tyranny, contrary to natural law and destructive of the commonwealth."
menu_book De Rege et Regis Institutione (On the King and the Royal Institution)
Read Full Quote"What difference does it make whether a man is despoiled of his fortune openly and by force, or secretly, by stealth — whether through a bandit on the road or through a prince who debases the currency by which all things are measured?"
menu_book De Rege et Regis Institutione (On the King and the Royal Institution)
Read Full Quotemenu_book De Rege et Regis Institutione (On the King and the Royal Institution)
Juan de Mariana's major work of political theory, published in 1599. Mariana argues that political power originates in the community and is held in trust for the common good; a...
View Book"A thing is worth as much as it can be sold for without fraud or coercion. The value of goods is not determined by their intrinsic nature, but by the estimation which men commonly put upon them — and this estimation varies with time, place, and circumstance."
menu_book De Iustitia et Iure (On Justice and Law)
Read Full Quote"If a merchant knows that goods will soon be cheaper in a particular place, or that supply will increase, he is not obliged to inform buyers of this. It is not unjust to sell at the current market price, since the price is set by common estimation, not by future conditions."
menu_book De Iustitia et Iure (On Justice and Law)
Read Full Quote"When buyers and sellers are free to act, and neither fraud nor force is present, the price that results from their voluntary agreement is just — for justice in commerce consists in the freedom of exchange, not in the equality of the things exchanged."
menu_book De Iustitia et Iure (On Justice and Law)
Read Full Quotemenu_book De Iustitia et Iure (On Justice and Law)
Luis de Molina's six-volume masterwork on justice and law, completed in 1593. Molina's most enduring economic contribution is his clear formulation of subjective value theory: that the just price of...
View Book"He who thus domineers over you has only two eyes, only two hands, only one body, no more than is possessed by the least man among the infinite numbers dwelling in your cities; he has indeed nothing more than the power that you confer upon him to destroy you. From where has he acquired enough eyes to spy upon you, if you do not provide them yourselves?"
menu_book Discourse on Voluntary Servitude
Read Full Quote"This single tyrant need not be combated, need not be defeated; he is automatically defeated if the country refuses to consent to its own enslavement. It is not necessary to deprive him of anything; simply give him nothing. There is no need for the country to do anything for itself, provided it does nothing against itself."
menu_book Discourse on Voluntary Servitude
Read Full Quote"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."
menu_book Discourse on Voluntary Servitude
Read Full Quote"For the present I should like merely to understand how it happens that so many men, so many villages, so many cities, so many nations, sometimes suffer under a single tyrant who has no other power than the power they give him; who is able to harm them only to the extent to which they have the willingness to bear with him; who could do them absolutely no injury unless they preferred to put up with him rather than contradict him."
menu_book Discourse on Voluntary Servitude
Read Full Quote"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."
menu_book Discourse on Voluntary Servitude
Read Full Quote"The first reason why men serve willingly is that they are born serfs and are reared as such. From this there follows another result, namely that people easily become cowardly and submissive under tyrants. For the people, being numbed and having been made sleepy, are little by little lulled into insensibility, and accustomed to the idea of serving."
menu_book Discourse on Voluntary Servitude
Read Full Quote"Tyrants have never ceased to display great mutual friendship, because they know very well that they themselves spread the seeds of discord, and that the people who bear the burden of their yoke are in a state of mind to be easily stirred up. Good men love each other, and tyrants can only fear one another."
menu_book Discourse on Voluntary Servitude
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Written around 1549 by the young French magistrate Étienne de La Boétie and first published posthumously in 1576, this founding text of libertarian political philosophy asks a single radical question:...
View Book"A sum of money today is worth more than the same sum to be received in the future. This is not only the common estimation of men, but is grounded in reason: present goods are available for present needs; future goods must be awaited, and in the meantime their possession is uncertain."
menu_book Comentario Resolutorio de Cambios (Commentary on Exchange)
Read Full Quote"We see by experience that in France, where money is scarcer than in Spain, bread, wine, cloth, and labour are worth much less. And even in Spain, before the discovery of the Indies, goods and labour were much cheaper than they are today, for the reason that there was then much less money."
menu_book Comentario Resolutorio de Cambios (Commentary on Exchange)
Read Full Quote"In countries where money is plentiful, all other things being equal, a greater quantity of money is given for goods and services than where money is scarce. Whence it follows that money itself, like any other commodity, is worth more where it is scarce than where it is abundant."
menu_book Comentario Resolutorio de Cambios (Commentary on Exchange)
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Martín de Azpilcueta's 1556 treatise on monetary exchange, containing the earliest clear statement of what would become the quantity theory of money. Azpilcueta observed that in countries where money is...
View Book"Private ownership of goods is not contrary to natural law, but was introduced by human reason for the utility of human life. For natural law does not forbid private possession; rather, it requires that what is acquired by legitimate means be respected as belonging to its possessor."
menu_book De Iustitia et Iure (On Justice and Law)
Read Full Quote"To sell below the just price is loss to the seller; to buy above it is loss to the buyer. The prince cannot without injustice compel men to sell below the common price, for this is to force them to give what is theirs to others without compensation."
menu_book De Iustitia et Iure (On Justice and Law)
Read Full Quote"The just price of things is not determined by the nature or quality of things in themselves, but by the common estimation of men — that is, by what buyers and sellers commonly agree to give and receive in exchange."
menu_book De Iustitia et Iure (On Justice and Law)
Read Full Quotemenu_book De Iustitia et Iure (On Justice and Law)
Domingo de Soto's systematic treatment of justice and law, published in 1553. Soto develops a rigorous natural law analysis of property rights, the just price, usury, and commercial ethics. His...
View Book"The barbarians undoubtedly possessed true dominion, both public and private, before the arrival of the Spaniards among them, just as Christians possess it. Neither their princes nor private persons could be despoiled of their property on the ground that they were not true owners."
menu_book De Indis (On the Indians)
Read Full Quote"The whole world, which is in a sense a single republic, has the power to enact laws that are just and convenient for all persons, such as are the rules of the law of nations."
menu_book De Indis (On the Indians)
Read Full Quote"Not every kind or degree of wrong is sufficient justification for war. The degree of the punishment must be in proportion to the degree of the fault."
menu_book De Indis (On the Indians)
Read Full Quotemenu_book De Indis (On the Indians)
Francisco de Vitoria's landmark 1532 lecture at the University of Salamanca, laying the groundwork for international law and natural rights theory. Vitoria argued that the indigenous peoples of the Americas...
View Bookmenu_book Treatise on the Origin, Nature, Law, and Alterations of Money
Medieval treatise criticizing currency debasement and government manipulation of money, one of the earliest works in monetary economics
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