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Defending The Undefendable
''Defending the Undefendable'' is a 1976 book by American economist Walter Block. It has been translated into ten foreign languages. The book advances the thesis that various people are stigmatized for engaging in acts that are often illegal or disreputable yet do not involve violence or violation of property. Block further proposes these people may in fact benefit society. Each chapter examines a different type of person, including prostitutes, blackmailers, misers and litterers. The original edition included illustrations by Charles Rodrigues and a foreword from Murray Rothbard, with commentary provided by F. A. Hayek. The book's 2013 sequel, ''Defending the Undefendable II: Freedom in All Realms'', included a foreword by Ron Paul. Reception Economist Murray Rothbard thought that by emphasizing marginal scenarios, ''Defending the Undefendable'' "does far more to demonstrate the workability and morality of the free market than a dozen sober tomes on more respectable industries ...
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Walter Block
Walter Edward Block (born August 21, 1941) is an American Austrian School economist and anarcho-capitalist theorist. He was the Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair in Economics at the School of Business at Loyola University New Orleans and a former senior fellow of the non-profit think-tank Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama. Personal life Walter Block was born in Brooklyn, New York to Jewish parents Abraham Block, a certified public accountant, and Ruth Block, a paralegal, both of whom Block has said were liberals. He attended James Madison High School, where Bernie Sanders was on his track team. Block earned his PhD degree in economics from Columbia University and wrote his dissertation on rent control in the United States under Gary Becker. Block identifies himself as a "devout atheist". In an interview, Block stated, "In the fifties and sixties, I was just another commie living in Brooklyn." Block credits his shift to libertarianism to his having a ...
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Ron Paul
Ronald Ernest Paul (born August 20, 1935) is an American author, activist, and politician who served as the U.S. representative for Texas's 22nd congressional district from 1976 to 1977, and again from 1979 to 1985, as well as for Texas's 14th congressional district from 1997 to 2013. On three occasions, he sought the presidency of the United States, first as the Libertarian Party nominee in 1988, and then as a candidate for the Republican Party in 2008 and 2012. A self-described constitutionalist, Paul is a critic of several of the federal government's policies, especially the existence of the Federal Reserve and tax policy, as well as the military–industrial complex, the war on drugs, and the war on terror. He has also been a vocal critic of mass surveillance policies such as the Patriot Act and the NSA surveillance programs. In 1976, Paul formed the Foundation for Rational Economics and Education (FREE), and in 1985 was named the first chairman of the cons ...
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The American Journal Of Economics And Sociology
''The American Journal of Economics and Sociology'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal established in 1941 by Will Lissner with support from the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation. The purpose of the journal was to create a forum for continuing discussion of the issues raised by Henry George, a political economist, social philosopher, and political activist of the late 19th century. The editor-in-chief is Clifford W. Cobb. Abstracting and indexing The journal is abstracted and indexed in: * CAB Abstracts *Current Contents/Social & Behavioral Sciences *Scopus *Social Sciences Citation Index According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the journal has a 2018 impact factor The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a type of journal ranking. Journals with higher impact factor values are considered more prestigious or important within their field. The Impact Factor of a journa ... of 0.455, ranking it 328th out of 363 in the category "Econo ...
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Robert P
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' () "fame, glory, honour, praise, renown, godlike" and ''berht'' "bright, light, shining"). It is the second most frequently used given name of ancient Germanic origin.Reaney & Wilson, 1997. ''Dictionary of English Surnames''. Oxford University Press. It is also in use as a surname. Another commonly used form of the name is Rupert. After becoming widely used in Continental Europe, the name entered England in its Old French form ''Robert'', where an Old English cognate form (''Hrēodbēorht'', ''Hrodberht'', ''Hrēodbēorð'', ''Hrœdbœrð'', ''Hrœdberð'', ''Hrōðberχtŕ'') had existed before the Norman Conquest. The feminine version is Roberta. The Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish form is Roberto. Robert is also a common name in many Germanic languages, including En ...
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Tibor Machan
Tibor Richard Machan (; 18 March 1939 – 24 March 2016) was a Hungarian-American philosopher. A professor emeritus in the department of philosophy at Auburn University, Machan held the R. C. Hoiles Chair of Business Ethics and Free Enterprise at the Argyros School of Business & Economics at Chapman University in Orange, California until 31 December 2014. He was a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, a research fellow at the Independent Institute, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, and an adjunct faculty member of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Machan was a syndicated and freelance columnist; author of more than one hundred scholarly papers and more than forty books, among them ''Why is Everyone Else Wrong?'' (Springer, 2008). He was, until spring 2015, senior contributing editor at ''The Daily Bell''. He was senior fellow at the Heartland Institute in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Machan rejected any division of libertarianism into '' ...
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Reason (magazine)
''Reason'' is an American libertarian monthly magazine published by the Reason Foundation, with the tagline "Free Minds and Free Markets". The magazine aims to produce independent journalism that is "outside of the left/right echo chamber." As of 2016, the magazine had a circulation of around 50,000 and received about 2.5 million monthly unique website visitors. History ''Reason'' was founded in 1968 by Lanny Friedlander (1947–2011), a student at Boston University, as a more-or-less monthly mimeographed publication. In 1970, it was purchased by Robert W. Poole Jr., Manuel S. Klausner, and Tibor R. Machan, who set it on a more regular publishing schedule. During the 1970s and 1980s, the magazine's contributors included Milton Friedman, Murray Rothbard, Thomas Szasz, and Thomas Sowell. In 1978, Poole, Klausner, and Machan created the associated Reason Foundation, in order to expand the magazine's ideas into policy research. Marty Zupan joined ''Reason'' in 1975, and serv ...
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American Spectator
''The American Spectator'' is a conservative American magazine covering news and politics, edited by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. and published by the non-profit American Spectator Foundation. It was founded in 1967 by Tyrrell (the current editor-in-chief) and Wladyslaw Pleszczynski (its editorial director as of 1980). The magazine has featured the writings of the several authors such as Malcolm Gladwell, Greg Gutfeld and Dinesh D'Souza. Current frequently contributing writings include Daniel Flynn, Paul Kengor, Robert Stacy McCain, Scott McKay, George Neumayr, and George Parry. It gained popularity in the 1990s during its investigation of Bill Clinton under what became known as its Arkansas Project. During this same time period, ''The American Spectator'' received a $1.8 million donation from Richard Mellon Scaife. Despite this success, the magazine has not been able to maintain the circulation it reached at this time and has since been accused of "hit jobs", An entire chapter ...
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Libertarianism
Libertarianism (from ; or from ) is a political philosophy that holds freedom, personal sovereignty, and liberty as primary values. Many libertarians believe that the concept of freedom is in accord with the Non-Aggression Principle, according to which each individual has the right to live as they choose, as long as they do not violate the rights of others by initiating force or fraud against them. Libertarians advocate the expansion of individual autonomy and political self-determination, emphasizing the principles of equality before the law and the protection of civil rights, including the rights to freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of thought and freedom of choice. They generally support individual liberty and oppose Political authority, authority, State (polity), state power, warfare, militarism and nationalism, but some libertarians diverge on the scope and nature of their opposition to existing Economic system, economic and political systems. Schools of li ...
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John Stossel
John Frank Stossel (born March 6, 1947) is an American libertarian television presenter, author, consumer journalist, political activist, and pundit. He is known for his career as a host on ABC News, Fox Business Network, and Reason TV. Stossel's style combines reporting and commentary. It reflects a "small L" libertarian political philosophy and views on economics which are largely supportive of the free market. He began his journalism career as a researcher for KGW-TV, was a consumer reporter at WCBS-TV in New York City, and then joined ABC News as a consumer editor and reporter on ''Good Morning America''. Stossel became an ABC News correspondent, joining the weekly news magazine program '' 20/20'', and later became a co-anchor. In October 2009, Stossel left ABC News to join the Fox Business Network. He hosted a weekly news show on Fox Business, '' Stossel'', from December 2009 to December 2016. In 2019, Stossel launched StosselTV, an online channel distributed on socia ...
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Ayn Rand
Alice O'Connor (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum; , 1905March 6, 1982), better known by her pen name Ayn Rand (), was a Russian-born American writer and philosopher. She is known for her fiction and for developing a philosophical system which she named ''Objectivism''. Born and educated in Russia, she moved to the United States in 1926. After two early novels that were initially unsuccessful and two Broadway theatre, Broadway plays, Rand achieved fame with her 1943 novel ''The Fountainhead''. In 1957, she published her best-selling work, the novel ''Atlas Shrugged''. Afterward, until her death in 1982, she turned to non-fiction to promote her philosophy, publishing her own Objectivist periodicals, periodicals and releasing several collections of essays. Rand advocated reason and rejected faith and religion. She supported Rational egoism, rational and ethical egoism as opposed to Altruism (ethics), altruism and hedonism. In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immor ...
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Sharon Presley
Sharon Presley (March 23, 1943 – October 31, 2022) was an American libertarian feminist, writer, activist, and lecturer in psychology. Education and work Presley received a B.A. in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley, and an M.A. in psychology from San Francisco State. In 1981, she received a Ph.D. in social psychology from City University of New York. Between 1982 and her retirement in 2009, she had a succession of instructor, adjunct, and visiting, positions at thirteen different schools, including California State University, East Bay where she was a lecturer. According to , much of Presley's research focuses on "issues of power, obedience, and resistance to authority". Activism Presley was apolitical until she read Ayn Rand at the age of nineteen. She was radicalized when her boyfriend, who was leader of the Cal Conservatives for Political Action, was arrested in Berkeley, California. She joined the Free Speech Movement, Students Opposed to Co ...
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Free Market
In economics, a free market is an economic market (economics), system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of Forms of government, government or any other external authority. Proponents of the free market as a normative ideal contrast it with a regulated market, in which a government intervenes in supply and demand by means of various methods such as taxes or regulations. In an idealized free market economy, prices for goods and services are set solely by the bids and offers of the participants. Scholars contrast the concept of a free market with the concept of a Coordinated market economy, coordinated market in fields of study such as political economy, new institutional economics, economic sociology, and political science. All of these fields emphasize the importance in currently existing market systems of rule-making institutions external to th ...
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