THE FREE MAN’S LIBRARY
Reading edition
A Descriptive and Critical Bibliography
by
HENRY HAZLITT
D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY, INC.
PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY
TORONTO LONDON NEW YORK
D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY, INC. 120 Alexander St., Princeton, New Jersey 257 Fourth Avenue, New York 10, New York 25 Hollinger Rd., Toronto 16, Canada Macmillan & Co., Ltd., St. Martin’s St., London, W.C. 2, England All correspondence should be addressed to the principal office of the company at Princeton, N. J. Copyright, ©, 1956 by D. VAN NOSTRAND COMPANY, Inc. Published simultaneously in Canada by D. Van Nostrand Company (Canada), Ltd. All Rights Reserved This book, or any parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without written permission from the author and the publishers. Library of Congress Catalogue Card No.: 56-9010 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
Introduction 1
Acknowledgments 18
Arrangement and Abbreviations 19
Individualism in Politics and Economics 21
The Free Man’s Library 33
Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power vested in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things, when the rule prescribes not, and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another man.
—John Locke
It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.
—David Hume
The common people of England ... so jealous of their liberty, but like the common people of most other countries never rightly understanding wherein it consists....
—Adam Smith
The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.
—Edmund Burke
The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it.... A State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes, will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished; and that the perfection of machinery to which it has sacrificed everything will in the end avail it nothing, for want of the vital power which, in order that the machine might work more smoothly, it has preferred to banish.
—John Stuart Mill