The Liberty Collection includes: The Law by Frederic Bastiat (1 hour 20 minutes). Bastiat (bawst ya) (1801-1850) was an economist, a member of the French assembly, and an influential libertarian speaker and writer. The Law, Bastiat's most famous work, argues that the purpose of the law is the protection of individual rights, and that when governments adopt policies favoring particular industries or groups, the law becomes an instrument of injustice and oppression.
Things Seen and Things Not Seen by Frederic Bastiat (1 hour 9 minutes). Bastiat considers the value of a broken window in promoting industry; the value of armies, public works, and government credit guarantees in increasing employment; the danger that better machinery poses to employment; the use of tariffs to protect industry and other economic fallacies.
Cyrus McCormick, Inventor of the Reaper by Christopher Crennen (34 minutes). McCormick (1809-1884) demonstrated a workable reaper in 1831 and spent the rest of his life expanding the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company. McCormick's reapers had profound effects on the alleviation of US and world hunger.
The Way to Wealth by Benjamin Franklin (23 minutes). Franklin (1706-1790) grew rich publishing Poor Richard's Almanack, under the pseudonym Richard Saunders, from 1732 to 1758. Besides calendar and weather information, Franklin's almanacs had many sayings, proverbs, and aphorisms. A selection of these sayings was added to the 1757 almanac as The Way to Wealth, a speech by an old man to buyers at an auction.
The Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson (9 minutes). Jefferson (1743-1826) was the principal author of the Declaration, which asserts that all men are endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that the only proper purpose of government is to secure these rights. The United States Constitution and Bill of Rights by James...
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"This excellent work by John Stewart Mill makes a vigorous defense of tangible individual liberty which is quite compelling. While in many senses he surveys the norms of British imperial life, he emphasizes that through the variation in individual preferences and the eventual adoption of new ones that society progresses and improves. One of the most compelling arguments is that of the absurdity of enforced belief (through social insistence and tangible enforcement) and the great harm it does to society. He says rightly that instead of suppressing individual opinion, we should work to understand what we think and what we should do given the freedom to do so."
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Erik (5 out of 5 stars)