The title of this book has become one of the most recognizable shorthand expressions for the fundamental ideas of classical liberalism and free markets. Read, the founder of the Foundation for Economic Education, wrote a number of books and essays over his career, but this is in many ways his summation of his beliefs. He lays out a defense of the free market against all forms of interventionism and socialism, defending the proposition in the title that humans should be free to engage in anything that is peaceful. Read’s analysis of the way the state is the source of, and not the solution to, social strife is particularly important and very relevant to our own time in which debates over what government should do have become even more feverish. It also contains a version of Read’s classic essay “I, Pencil,” which illustrates the power of markets to create undesigned order.
Also from the FEE Library
“Is it Worth the Price?” By Henry Hazlitt by Henry Hazlitt
“Is it Worth the Price?” By Henry Hazlitt. October 8, 1962 Business Tide column article in Newsweek about whether the space race is worth the price we pay for it.
Hazlitt’s Newsweek, Best of the Free Man’s Library List by Henry Hazlitt
Hazlitt’s Newsweek, Best of the Free Man’s Library List. Complies a short list of the best books on economics from Hazlitt’s book The Free Man’s Library.
Israel Kirzner Lecture on Advertising by Israel Kirzner
Israel Kirzner Lecture on Advertising from August 5, 1971 before summer seminar participants at FEE. George Roche gives an introduction.
Cliches of Socialism Number 47 by Henry Hazlitt
“Socialism is the wave of the future.”
Clichés of Socialism Number 21 by Leonard E. Read
“Big Business and Big Labor Require Big Government”
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