Fordyce’s Elements of Moral Philosophy was a notable contribution to the curriculum in moral philosophy and was one of the most widely circulated texts in moral philosophy in the second half of the eighteenth century.
Hosgskin began his interesting career as a radical individualist and natural rights defender of the free market with this pamphlet criticising the British naval policy of impressing (i.e. conscripting) sailors into the navy and using corporal punishment to discipline them. He based this account on his own personal experiences while serving the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars.
A good modern edition of all of Shakespeare’s sonnets and A Lover’s Complaint accompanied by a scholarly introduction and notes on the poems.
An example of one of Hodgskin’s popular lectures to a working class audience, this time on the benefits of free trade.
Following the rise of socialism in France during the 1840s and the 1848 Revolution, one of France’s leading free market economists wrote a fictitious “dialogue” between an economist, a conservative, and a socialist, in order to expose the folly of socialism, to demonstrate how economic laws operated, and to defend the right of property. Les Soirées is also famous for the 11th conversation in which Molinari argues for the first time that many public goods, even police and defence services, might be provided voluntarily by the free market. This book has been translated and will be published by Liberty Fund in the near future. A draft is available online here.
Written nearly fifty years ago, at a time when the world was still wrestling with the concepts of Marx and Lenin, The Illusion of the Epoch is the perfect resource for understanding the roots of Marxism-Leninism and its implications for philosophy, modern political thought, economics, and history.
George was not just an advocate of the single tax on the unimproved value of land, but also a strong defender of free trade, as this work demonstrates.
Thomas Hodgskin, an officer in the British Navy who left and subsequently worked for The Economist, was one of the earliest popularizers of economics for audiences of non-economists. He gave lectures on free trade, the corn laws, and labor to “mechanics institutes” (which we might now call adult education groups) even before Jane Haldimand Marcet wrote pamphlets for similar groups. Hodgskin passionately cared about the concerns of laborers after his experience with the maltreatment of sailors. His discussions of the labor theory of value followed up on David Ricardo and pre-dated John Stuart Mill’s expositions on similar themes.
A one volume collection of Ricardo’s most important writings, edited by the great English classical economist J.R McCulloch who has a lengthy introduction on the life and work of Ricardo.
The State is a brilliant analysis of modern political arrangements that views the state as acting in its own interest contrary to the interests of individuals and even of an entire society.
