Capitalism, Historians, and Lessons for Liberty
ABSTRACT
In 1951 Friedrich Hayek organized a session at the Mont Pelerin Society meeting with speakers Bertrand de Jouvenel, Louis Hacker, and T. S. Ashton. In 1954 their presentations, along with two other reprinted articles by Ashton and H. W. Hutt, were published as the book Capitalism and the Historians. This colloquium attempted to address the question of the book’s continuing relevance to current debates about the nature of free competitive institutions, combining the original work with some cogent current historical reflections on the nature of history and the history of capitalism.
READING LIST
From Liberty Fund
The Anti-capitalistic Mentality
by
By Ludwig von Mises
Edited by Bettina Bien Greaves
In The Anti-capitalistic Mentality, the respected economist Ludwig von Mises plainly explains the causes of the irrational fear and hatred many intellectuals and others feel for capitalism. In five concise chapters, he traces the causation of the misunderstandings and resultant fears that cause resistance to economic development and social change.…
Additional Readings
Appleby, Joyce Oldham. “The Vexed Story of Capitalism Told by American Historians.” Journal of the Early Republic 21, no. 1 (2001): 1-18.
Appleby, Joyce, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob. Telling the Truth About History. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1995.
Ashton, T.S., “The Treatment of Capitalism by Historians” In Capitalism and the Historians, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954. 33-63.
De Jouvenel, Bertrand, “The Treatment of Capitalism by Continental Intellectuals” In Capitalism and the Historians, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954. 93-123.
Hacker, Louis, “The Anti-Capitalist Bias of American Historians” In Capitalism and the Historians, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954. 64-92.
Hayek, Friedrich A, “History and Politics” In Capitalism and the Historians, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954. 3-29.
Mises, Ludwig von. Theory and History: An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution. Edited by Bettina Bien Greaves. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005.