A Beginner’s Guide to Liberty – Dr. Richard Wellings

This book is designed for students and lay people who want to understand the concept of liberty.

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Adam Smith: A Primer – Eamonn Butler

This text provides an excellent summary of the ideas of Adam Smith, placing him in context as a social philosopher who understood the moral position of Man in a free world.

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Foundations of a Free Society – Eamonn Butler

This is an introductory text for those who would like to understand the indispensible principles and foundations on which a free society must be based.

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Economics in One Lesson – Henry Hazlitt

A primer on economics which analyses common and widespread fallacies which are used as a justification for government intervention.

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Free Your Mind: A Beginner’s Guide to Political Economy – Sauvik Chakraverti

Designed for people who would like to understand more about economics and politics and generally become better informed citizens

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I, Pencil: My Family Tree – Leonard Reed

Not a single person in the world knows all the processes required to make a pencil and yet voluntary exchange enables hundreds of people to cooperate together in their production without any central direction.

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The Road to Serfdom – Friedrich Hayek

Collectivism, where ever it is found, destroys personal liberty. In this popular work Hayek explains the process by which freedom is lost through central planning.

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Letter to a Grandson – Mr. Kent

Are profits earned at the expense of someone else?

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Principles of a Free Society – Nigel Ashford

This brief text provides a superb outline description of the institutions that help create a free society and the underlying principles on which free societies are based.

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The Candlemakers’ Petition – Frédéric Bastiat

A satirical essay mocking the arguments of those who petition government to protect their products from competing imports.

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The Principles of Job Creation – Mohammed Amin

Many countries have a pressing need to create more jobs.

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What is Seen and What is not Seen – Frédéric Bastiat

An explanation of the unforeseen consequences of government action.

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The Seven Principles of Sound Public Policy – Lawrence Reed

Seven principles which, if followed readily by policymakers, would make the world stronger, freer and more prosperous.

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Why Liberty? – Tom Palmer

This book presents a view of politics ‘not of force, but of persuasion, of live and let live, rejecting both subjugation and domination’.

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The Law – Frédéric Bastiat

The law and morality are centrally important for a free society but government threatens freedom when it uses ‘the law’ to become too active in the economy.

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Property Rights – Armen A. Alchian

Private property rights are the rights of humans to use specified goods and to exchange them. They do not conflict with human rights. They are human rights.

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Liberalism, liberal policy and private property – Stefan Melnik

The crucial role that property plays in creating prosperity and lifting people from poverty.

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Religious Tolerance – Voltaire

Harmony is only possible where there is complete religious freedom.

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Society and Self-Interest – Adam Smith

We are all more likely to provide goods and services for others in society if we benefit by doing so.

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The Tragedy of the Commons – Garrett Harding

Why is common property so often ruined and private property carefully maintained?

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Von MISES: Tolerance – Ludwig von Mises

Those who believe in freedom must be intolerant of every sort of intolerance.

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Equality – Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay

Some differences between people are created by the rules of nature and these must be accepted, whilst those differences created by laws should be challenged, particularly those relating to women.

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A Marvel of Cooperation – Russell Roberts

Building on Bastiat’s ‘What is seen and what is not seen’ this text explains how it is that the food and other goods needed by us all arrive in our shops without anyone being in charge.

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Competition – Wolfgang Kasper

Competition tames concentrations of economic power and redistributes wealth

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Creating Jobs versus Creating Wealth – Dwight R. Lee

Jobs are a means to the end of creating wealth and if provided by government and paid for with taxes they may destroy more jobs than they create.

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Economic Freedom and Development – Wolfgang Kasper

Some countries prosper while others do not. The difference between the two can be explained by the different sets of rules of coordination, or institutions, that govern their economies.

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Free Market – Murray Rothbard

A free market is an endless series of voluntary exchanges between two parties who both expect to benefit from them.

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Jonathan Gullible: A Free Market Odyssey – Ken Schoolland

This modern fable explains the principles of a market economy in a simple manner and illustrates how unlimited government generates misery and poverty.

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Austrian Economics – Eamonn Butler

Austrian economists believe that the role of economics is to understand choice and its effects, and we can only understand choice if we focus on how individuals make decision.

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Not a Zero Sum Game – Manuel Ayau

In a market economy a person can only get rich by enriching others and offering them what they believe is a good deal.

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On Commerce – Voltaire

Merchants are of more use to all of us than princes or politicians.

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The Invisible Hand – Adam Smith

The invisible hand of free market prices leads humans to produce those goods and services that are desired by others in society even if they do not know them personally.

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The Morality of Capitalism – Tom G Palmer

The term “capitalism” refers not just to markets for the exchange of goods and services, but to the system of innovation, wealth creation, and social change that has brought to billions of people prosperity that was unimaginable to earlier generations of human beings.

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Public Choice A Primer – Eamonn Butler

‘Market failure’ is a term widely used by politicians, journalists and students and teachers. However, those who use the term often lack any sense of proportion about the ability of government to correct market failures.

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Readings in Liberalism – Detmar Doering

This book collates some of the most important arguments about liberty by some of the most important writers on the subject.

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Make Poverty History: Tackle Corruption – Wolfgang Kasper

The abuse of political power for private benefit is profoundly unjust to the poor and other honest citizens. Singapore and Estonia are examples of two countries who have tackled the blight of corruption by promoting economic growth.

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Price Controls – Hugh Rockoff

Government price controls on goods and services prevent prices from balancing supply and demand and create shortages or surpluses, depending on whether they are set above or below those that would have prevailed in a free market.

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Rent Control – Walter Block

Economists agree that rent controls, which limit the price that a landlord may charge a tenant, cause a shortage of housing.

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The Use of Knowledge in Society – Friedrich Hayek

One of the greatest challenges for societies is how to make the best use of all the knowledge that exists. One way to approach the issue is through central planning by the state and the other is with dispersed planning through free markets.

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Water Provision for the Poor: How Ideology Muddies the Water – Alex Nash

More than a billion people lack access to clean and safe water, and 2.6 billion are without basic sanitation facilities. According to the World Health Organisation, water-related diseases cause 80% of all illnesses and deaths in the developing world – with water-related diarrhea alone causing just under 2 million deaths.

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