Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt explains economic reasoning in a clear and concise way, using concrete examples. A more systematic book, but one from which the reader will learn a lot is Carl Menger’s Principles of Economics. Whoever wants to delve deeper into how a society “works” should take the time to read Human Action by Ludwig von Mises.

 

But economics is nothing more than human interaction within an institutional framework. This is why it is very important to understand how institutions like the law, property and money function. Bruno Leoni’s Freedom and the Law is one of those gems that allows the reader to grow in less than 300 pages. Henri Lepage wrote an excellent book, Why Property, that takes the reader through the most important details of this fundamental institution. Also worth reading are Richard Pipes’ book Property and Freedom and Tom Bethell’s great work The Noblest Triumph. If you want to talk about institutions and liberalism, Friedrich Hayek is the place to start. To get a grasp on his thoughts without wading through his more difficult works, the best to read is The Fatal Conceit.   

 

To understand a free society, it is important to capture the essence of its opposite, socialism. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom and Pipes’ short, but useful Communism are both good places to begin. To go further, read Ludwig von Mises’ criticism of socialist theory in Socialism and the historic Black Book of Communism in addition to Cesar Vidal’s excellent work The Holocaust.

 

It is important to know how we got here and perhaps the best guide is David Landes’ The Wealth and Poverty of Nations. The best history of the 20 century remains Modern Times by Paul Johnson while to understand our current situation read Johan Norberg’s In Defense of Global Capitalism. If the reader is interested in questions of political economy make sure to check out Free to Choose by Milton Friedman. Also, George Gilder’s Wealth and Poverty is wonderful.  

 

And since not everything is in books and we are in the Internet era, in addition to Libertad Digital, take a look at the articles in liberalismo.org, the commentaries at the Instituto Juan de Mariana, and even Webinversor to get the gist of the philosophy of investment. It isn’t for a lack of options –and that is what free societies are about.