The Digital Library of Liberty & Power
incorporating the Guillaumin Collection of the Great Books of Liberty
Histories of the discipline of sociology usually give short shrift to the classical liberal tradition. ((See for example the massive and comprehensive (weighing in at 5 vols. and over 5,000 pages) The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. Edited by George Ritzer (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007); The Handbook of Economic Sociology. Second Edition. Neil J. Smelser and Richard … Read more
Here we have an official a portrait of Charles Stuart (1600-1649) done in the studio of Anthony van Dyck c. 1636. He is of course at the height of his powers and in his full regal regalia. He ruled from 1625 to 1649 when he was executed by Parliament. When he was in prison awaiting … Read more
This is another post of my collection of National Anthems which began with the Australian: Australia Day: Girted, Skirted, and Alerted (27 Jan. 2021) and Rewriting and Resinging Australia Day (30 Jan. 2021). God save the Guillotine Till England’s King and Queen Her power shall prove: Till each appointed knob Affords a clipping job Let … Read more
[Delacroix’s “Liberty leading the People on the Barricade” (1830)] Date: 20 May, 2021 Revised: 22 Apr. 2022 [Note: This post is part of a series on the History of the Classical Liberal Tradition] An Essential Reference Work An accessible and very comprehensive introduction to CL /Libertarianism can be found in the Cato Institute’s The Encyclopedia … Read more
During my first bladder operation I was struck by the conversations among the nursing staff and doctors in which my urine was judged according to the colour of wine. My twisted mind of course turned to Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22 and his account of the predicament of “The Soldier in White”. I thought my situation … Read more
One of the most prolific and persuasive critics of socialism in the late 1840s was the economists and free trade campaigner Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850). Between May 1848 and July 1850 he wrote a series of over a dozen anti-socialist pamphlets, or what the Guillaumin publishing firm marketed in their Catalog as the “Petits pamphlets de … Read more
[The cartoonist “Cham” ridicules the plans of the French socialists like Ledru-Rollin who dreams of a new socialist Terror. See, Amédée de Noé, dit Cham, “Ce qu’on appelle des idées nouvelles en 1848” (Paris?: Imp. Aubert & Cie, 1848).] Before turning to the criticism of socialism by the French political economists it is important to … Read more