Governments may begin modest and limited but not remain that way. This has been the case in the United States. In size and scope, the federal government over the decades has grown enormously. Thomas Jefferson said that The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground. Why?
The reason can be reduced to one word: crisis. Emergencies, real or otherwise, create conditions ripe for coercive government response. This means not simply ad hoc temporary responses intended to get past an emergency, but permanent institutional changes that expand government power, transfer control of resources from private owners to public authorities, and diminish the scope of individual liberty.
In each war the U.S. government not only raised taxes, but it also assumed significant control over peaceful economic activities and private property. Shooting wars were not necessary to accomplish this same result. Preparation for war has also precipitated the expansion of political power over society. Military crises have not been the only boost to power. Economic emergencies have play the same role. Most notably, the Great Depression brought the New Deal (which in fact, if not in name, began under Herbert Hoover), a series of measures that imposed government on all aspects of economic life.
Crises provide fertile ground for the growth of government because national political leaders are uniquely able to appear to respond on behalf of the entire population with highly visible measures ostensibly calculated to eliminate the threat and hardship. Government can raises taxes to finance an army to defend against an apparent enemy. Or it can launch large-scale programs to relieve mass unemployment and loss of income. Once people believe that government can counteract crises (which often are of the governments making), their relationship with the state radically changes. Government is now seen as savior. Thus the United States changed from a place where government was small and the scope of individual liberty large to one where power exercised in the name of need takes precedence over freedom. Political leaders may see the potential that crises hold for expanding their power and may exploit actual crises or even create them in order to assume greater authority and prestige.
Denson, John V., ed. Reassessing the Presidency: The Rise of the Executive State and the Decline of Freedom. Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2001.
Dombrowski, Peter J., Eugene Gholz and Andrew L. Ross. Military Transformation and the Defense Industry After Next: The Defense Industrial Implications of Network-Centric Warfare. Strategic Research Department, Center for Naval Warfare Studies, U.S. Naval War College, September 2002.
Ekirch, Jr., Arthur A. The Decline of American Liberalism. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1967.
Higgs, Robert, ed. Arms, Politics, and the Economy: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. New York: Holmes & Meier for The Independent Institute, 1990.
. Nineteen Neglected Consequences of Income Redistribution, The Freeman, December 1994.
. U.S. National Security: Illusions versus Realities. Oakland, Calif.: The Independent Institute, June 30, 2002.
Hoppe, Hans-Hermann. Democracy, the God that Failed: The Economics and Politics of Monrachy, Democracy, and Natural Order. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2001.
Mitchell, William C. and Randy T. Simmons. Beyond Politics: Markets, Welfare and the Failure of Bureaucracy. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press for The Independent Institute Book, 1994.
Rummell, Rudolph J. Death by Government. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1997.
Seldon, Arthur. The Dilemma of Democracy: The Political Economics of Over-Government. London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1998.
von Mises, Ludwig. Bureaucracy. Grove City, Penn.: Libertarian Press, 1962.
Beito, David. Taxpayers in Revolt: Tax Resistance During the Great Depression. Chapel Hill, N.C. University of North Carolina Press, 1989.
Brands, H. W. The Strange Death of American Liberalism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.
Bresler, Robert J. The Ideology of the Executive State: Legacy of Liberal Internationalism. Menlo Park, Calif.: Institute for Humane Studies, n.d.
Collins, Robert. The Business Response to Keynes, 1929-1964. New York: Columbia University Press, 1981.
Diggins, John P. Flirtation with Fascism: American Pragmatic Liberals and Mussolinis Italy, American Historeical Review, Vol. LXXI, No. 2 (January 1966).
. Mussolini and Fascism: The View From America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972.
Dorfman, Joseph. Economic Mind in American Civilization, Vol. 3 and 4. Clifton, N.J.: Augustus M. Kelley, 1959.
Fairgate, Alan. Non-Marxist Theories of Imperialism, Reason (February 1976), pp. 45-52.
Fine, Sidney. Laissez-Faire and the General-Welfare State: A Study of Conflict in American Thought. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1964.
Flynn, John T. As We Go Marching. New York: Free Life Editions.
. The Roosevelt Myth: A Critical Account of the New Deal and Its Creator. San Francisco: Fox & Wilkes, 1998. [Online Book]
Garrity, John A. The New Deal, National Socialism, and the Great Depression, American Historical Review, Vol. 78 (October 1973). The New Deal in the U.S. was very similar to European fascist economic policies.
Grinder, Walter E. and John Hagel III. Toward a Theory of State Capitalism: Ultimate Decision-Making and Class Structure, Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 1 No. 1.
Hersh, Seymour M. The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House. New York: Summit, 1983.
. The Dark Side of Camelot. Boston: Little Brown & Company, 1997.
Higgs, Robert. Carters Wage-Price Guidelines: A Review of the First Year. Policy Review 11 (Winter 1980).
. Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987).
. Crisis and Quasi-Corporatist Policy-Making: The U.S. Case in Historical Perspective, The World & I, November 1988.
. Crisis, Bigger Government, and Ideological Change: Two Hypotheses on the Ratchet Phenomenon, Explorations in Economic History, Vol;. 22 (1985).
. Crisis-Induced Losses of Liberties, Wall Street Journal, January 31, 2002.
. The Government Needs to Get Its Own Accounting House in Order. Oakland, Calif.: The Independent Institute, July 9, 2002.
. How FDR Made the Depression Worse, The Free Market, March 1995.
. If Were Really in Danger, Why Doesnt the Government Act as if Were in Danger? Oakland, Calif.: The Independent Institute, October 28, 2002.
. In the Name of Emergency, Reason, July 1987.
. Inflation and the Destruction of the Free Market Economy, The Intercollegiate Review (Spring 1979).
. Regime Uncertainty: Why the Great Depression Lasted So Long and Why Prosperity Resumed after the War, The Independent Review, Vol. I, No. 4 (Spring 1997), pp. 561-590.
. To Deal with a Crisis: Government Program or Free Market?, Ideas on Liberty, September 1986.
. Where Figures Fail: Measuring the Growth of Big Government, Ideas on Liberty, March 1983.
Higgs, Robert and Charlotte Twight. Economic Warfare and Private Property Rights: Recent Episodes and Their Constitutionality, Journal of Private Enterprise, Fall 1987.
. National Emergency and the Erosion of Property Rights, Cato Journal, Winter 1987.
. National Emergency and Private Property Rights: Historical Relations and Present Conditions, Journal of Private Enterprise, Fall 1996.
Holcombe, Randall G. From Liberty to Democracy: The Transformation of American Government. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 2002.
Hughes, Jonathan. American Economic History. Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman, 1983.
Katz, Michael B. Class, Bureaucracy and Schools: The Illusion of Educational Change in America. New York: Praeger, 1975.
Kousser, J. Morgan. Review of the book Southern Paternalism and the American Welfare State: Economics, Politics, and the Institutions in the South, 1865-1965 by Lee J. Alston and Joseph P. Ferrie, The Independent Review, Vol. IV, No. 3 (Winter 2000), pp. 452-456.
Lee, Benson. Merchants, Farmers and Railroads: Railroad Regulation and New York Politics, 1850-1887. New York: Russell & Russell, 1969.
Leebaert, Derek. The Fifty-Year Wound: The True Price of Americas Cold War Victory. Boston: Little, Brown, 2002.
Oglesby, Carl. In Defense of Paranoia, Ramparts.
. The Yankee and Cowboy War: Conspiracies from Dallas to Watergate. Kansas City, MO: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 1976.
Payne, James L. Review of the book Dependent on D.C.: The Rise of Federal Control over the Lives of Ordinary Americans by Charlotte A. Twight, The Independent Review, Vol. VII, No. 3 (Winter 2003), pp. 461-463.
Raico, Ralph. FDR: The Man, the Leader, the Legacy, Future of Freedom Foundation, 2001.
Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. The Imperial Presidency. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973.
Sellers, Charles. The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815-1846. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Spring, Joel H. The American School, 1642-1985: Varieties of Historical Interpretation and the Foundations and Development of American Education. New York: Longman Publishing Group, 1986.
. Education and the Rise of the Corporate State. Boston: Beacon Press, 1972.
Timberlake, James H. Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, 1900-1920. New York: Atheneum, 1970.
Twight, Charlotte. America's Emerging Fascist Economy. New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1975.
. Dependent on D.C.: The Rise of Federal Control Over the Lives of Ordinary Americans. New York: Palgrave St. Martins Press, 2002.
Weinstein, James. The Corporate Ideal in the Liberal State: 1910-1918. Boston: Beacon Press, 1968.
Adams, Charles. For Good and Evil: The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization. Madison Books, 1999.
. Those Dirty Rotten Taxes: The Tax Revolts that Built America. New York: Free Press, 1998.
Anderson, Terry L. and Fred S. McChesney, ed. Property Rights: Cooperation, Conflict, and Law. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.
Appleby, Joyce. Capitalism and a New Social Order: The Republican Vision of the 1790s. New York: New York University Press, 1984). An important book on the liberal, anti-statist program of the Jeffersonian Republicans.
Axelrod, Robert. The Evolution of Cooperation. New York: Basic Books, 1985.
Barry, Norman. The Tradition of Spontaneous Order, Literature of Liberty, Vol. V, No. 2, Summer 1982, pp. 7-58.
Bennett, James T., and Manuel H. Johnson. The Political Economy of Federal Government Growth, 1959-1978. College Station, Tex.: Center for Education and Research in Free Enterprise, 1980.
Buchanan, James M. and Geoffrey Brennan. The Power to Tax: Analytical Foundations of a Fiscal Constitution. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2001.
Buchanan, James M. and Richard E. Wagner. Democracy in Deficit: The Political Legacy of Lord Keynes. New York: Academic Press, 1977. [Online Book]
Carneiro, Robert L. A Theory of the Origin of the State, Science, Vol. 169 (August 1970), pp. 733-738; reprinted in Kenneth S. Templeton, Jr., ed. The Politicization of Society. Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1979, pp. 27-51.
de Jouvenel, Bertrand. The Ethics of Redistribution. Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1990.
. On Power: The Natural History of Its Growth. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1993.
. The Pure Theory of Politics. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2000.
Grinder, Walter E. and John Hagel III. Toward a Theory of State Capitalism: Ultimate Decision-Making and Class Structure, Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 1 No. 1.
Gurantz, Ron. Look Whos Looking. Oakland, Calif.: The Independent Institute, October 22, 2001.
Hayek, F. A. The Fortunes of Liberalism: Essays on Austrian Economics and the Ideal of Freedom, ed. by Peter Klein. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Higgs, Robert. The Myth of Failed Policies, The Free Market, March 1995.
. On Crackpot Realism: An Homage to C. Wright Mills. Oakland, Calif.: The Independent Institute, February 19, 2003.
Hoff, Trygve J. B. Economic Calculation in the Socialist Society. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Press, 1981.
Hughes, Jonathan R. T. The Governmental Habit: Economic Controls from Colonial Times to the Present. New York: Basic Books, 1977.
Hülsmann, Jörg Guido. Political Unification: A Generalized Progression Theorem, Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Summer 1997), pp. 81-96.
Kennedy, Paul. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000. New York: Vintage Books, 1989.
Littlechild, Stephen. The Fallacy of the Mixed Economy: An Austrian Critique of Conventional Mainstream Economics and of Economic Policy. London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1986.
Lukacs, John A. The Monstrosity of Government, in Kenneth S. Templeton, Jr., ed., The Politicization of Society. Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1979, pp. 391-408.
Michels, Robert. Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy. New York: Free Press, 1962.
Mills, C. Wright. The Power Elite. New York: Oxford University Press, 1956. The triumph of military state-capitalism in transforming American society during the course of various wars.
Montemartini, Giovanni. The Fundamental Principles of a Pure Theory of Public Finance, in Classics in the Theory of Public Finance, ed. by Richard A. Musgrave and Alan T. Peacock. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1967.
Morley, Felix. State and Society, in Kenneth S. Templeton, Jr., ed., The Politicization of Society. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Press, 1979, pp. 53-82.
Mosca, Gaetano. The Ruling Class. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1939. Classic book on the emergence of ruling elites.
Moss, Laurence S. The Power Elite Revisited, Left & Right, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Spring-Autumn 1967).
Muravchik, Joshua. Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002.
Oppenheimer, Franz. The State: Its History and Development Viewed Sociologically. New York: Ayer Co., 1972.
Pareto, Vilfredo. The Rise and Fall of the Elites: An Application of Theoretical Sociology. Totowa, N.J.: Bedminster Press, 1968.
. Sociological Writings, ed. by S. E. Finer. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1976.
Payne, Stanley G. A History of Fascism, 1914-1945. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995.
Quigley, Carroll. The Evolution of Civilizations. Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1979.
Rockoff, Hugh. Drastic Measures: A History of Wage and Price Controls in the United States. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984.
Smith, Hedrick. The Power Game: How Washington Works. New York: Ballantine Books, 1996.
Templeton, Jr., Kenneth S. The Politicization of Society. Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1979.
Tullock, Gordon, Arthur Seldon and Gordon L. Brady. Government Failure: A Primer in Public Choice. Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 2002.
Van Creveld, Martin. The Rise and Decline of the State. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
von Humboldt, Wilhelm. The Limits of State Action. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Classics, 1993.
von Mises, Ludwig. Nation, State and Economy: Contributions to the Politics and History of Our Times. New York: New York University Press, 1983. [Online Book]
Weinberg, Albert K. Manifest Destiny: A Study of Nationalist Expansion in American History. Gloucester, Mass.: P. Smith, 1935.
Wittfogel, Karl. Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1957.
Acton, H. B. The Illusion of the Epoch: Marxism-Leninism as a Philosophical Creed. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2003.
. The Morals of Markets and Related Essays, ed. by David Gordon and Jeremy Shearmur. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1993.
. What Marx Really Said. London: MacDonald & Co., 1967.
Arieli, Yehoshua. Individualism and Nationalism in American Ideology. Baltimore: Penguin, 1966.
Bailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1992.
Bannister, Robert C., ed. On Liberty, Society, and Politics: The Essential Essays of William Graham Sumner. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1992.
Barnett, Randy E. Pursuing Justice in a Free Society: Part One--Power vs. Liberty, Criminal Justice Ethics, Summer/Fall 1985.
. Pursuing Justice in a Free Society: Part Two--Crime Prevention and the Legal Order, Criminal Justice Ethics, Winter/Spring 1986.
. The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of Law. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
. Toward a Theory of Legal Naturalism, Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2.
Barry, Norman P. On Classical Liberalism and Libertarianism. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987.
Bastiat, Frederic. Selected Essays on Political Economy. Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education, 1964.
Benson, Bruce L. Customary Law With Private Means of Resolving Disputes and Dispensing Justice: A Description of a Modern System of Law and Order Without State Coercion ,Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 9, No. 2.
. Enforcement of Private Property Rights in Primitive Societies, Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 9, No. 1.
. The Enterprise of Law: Justice Without the State. San Francisco, Calif.: Pacific Research Institute, 1990.
. Reciprocal Exchange as the Basis for Recognition of Law, Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 10, No. 1.
. Restitution in Theory and Practice, Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1.
. To Serve and Protect: Privatization and Community in Criminal Justice. New York: New York University Press for The Independent Institute, 1998.
Berman, Harold J. Law and Revolution. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985.
Bethell, Tom. The Noblest Triumph: Property and Prosperity Through the Ages. New York: St. Martins Press, 1999.
Boaz, David, ed. The Libertarian Reader: Classic and Contemporary Writings from Lao Tzu to Milton Friedman. New York: Free Press, 1998.
. Libertarianism: A Primer. New York: Free Press, 1998.
Böhm-Bawerk, Eugen von. The Exploitation Theory of Socialism-Communism: The Idea That All Unearned Income (Rent, Interest and Profit) Involves Economic Injustice. Wilmington, Del.: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 1975.
Bramsted, E. K. and K. J. Melhuish, ed. Western Liberalism: A History in Documents from Locke to Croce. New York: Longman, 1978.
Burke, Edmund. A Vindication of Natural Society: A View of the Miseries and Evils Arising to Mankind. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1982.
Clark, Henry C. Commerce, Culture & Liberty: Readings on Capitalism Before Adam Smith. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2003.
Cobden, Richard. The Political Writings of Richard Cobden, 2 Vol. New York: Garland Publishing, 1973.
Comte, Charles. Traité de Législation, 4 vols. Paris: A. Sautelet et Cie, 1827
. Traité de la Propriété, 2 vols. Paris: Chamerot, Ducollet, 1834.
Constant, Benjamin. Political Writings, ed. by Biancamaria Fontana. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Coser, Rose Laub. In Defense of Modernity: Role Complexity and Individual Autonomy. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991.
Coulson, Andrew J. Market Education: The Unknown History. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1999.
Creveld, Martin van. The Rise and Decline of the State. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Croce, Benedetto. History as the Story of Liberty. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2001.
Cuzan, Alfred G. Do We Ever Really Get Out of Anarchy?, Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2.
Dalberg-Acton, John E. E. [Lord Acton]. Essays on Freedom and Power. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1948.
. Essays in Religion, Politics, and Morality, ed. by J. Rufus Fears. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1988.
. Essays in the History of Liberty, ed. by J. Rufus Fears. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1985.
. Essays in the Study and Writing of History, ed. by J. Rufus Fears. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1986.
. Selected Writings of Lord Acton: Essays in the History of Liberty, ed. by J. Rufus Fears. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1985.
de Jasay, Anthony. Against Politics: On Government, Anarchy, and Politics. London: Routledge, 1998.
. Choice, Contract, Consent: A Restatement of Liberalism. London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1991.
. Is National Rational?, The Independent Review, Vol. III, No. 1 (Summer 1998), pp. 77-89.
. Justice and Its Surroundings. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2002.
. On Treating Like Cases Alike,The Independent Review, Vol. IV, No. 1 (Summer 1999), pp. 107-118.
de Molinari, Gustave. The Society of Tomorrow: A Forecast of Its Political and Economic Organisation. New York: Garland, 1972.
de Tracy, Destutt. A Commentary and Review of Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws. New York: Burt Franklin, 1969.
. A Treatise on Political Economy. New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1970.
dEntreves, A. D. Natural Law: An Introduction to Legal Philosophy. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1994.
Domhoff, G. William. Who Rules America? Power and Politics. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001.
Dorn, James and Henry Manne, ed. Economic Liberties and the Judiciary. Fairfax, Va.: George Mason University Press, 1987.
Dye, Thomas R. Oligarchic Tendencies in National Policy-Making: The Role of the Private Policy-Making Organizations, Journal of Politics, 40 (May 1978), pp. 309-31.
Eshelman, Larry. Might versus Right, Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1.
Evers, Williamson M. Toward a Reformulation of the Law of Contracts, Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1.
Ferguson, Adam. An Essay on the History of Civil Society. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publisher, 1980.
Fitzgerald, Randall. When Government Goes Private: Successful Alternatives to Public Services. New York: Universe Books, 1988.
Flew, Antony. Equality in Liberty and Justice. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2001.
Flynn, John T. Forgotten Lessons: Selected Essays by John T. Flynn. Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education, 1995. Statism promotes militarism and war to distract the public from economic failure.
Foner, Phillip, ed. The Complete Writings of Thomas Paine. New York: Citadel Press, 1945.
Friedman, David. The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism. New York: Harper Colophon, 1973.
Friedman, Milton and Rose. Free to Choose: A Personal Statement. New York: Harvest Books, 1990.
Fuller, Lon. The Morality of the Law. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1964.
Goodman, Paul. Compulsory Miseducation and the Community of Scholars. New York: Vintage, 1964.
Gordon, David, ed. Secession, State & Liberty. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1998.
Hamilton, Charles H., ed. Fugitive Essays: Selected Writings of Frank Chodorov. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Press, 1980.
Hamowy, Ronald, ed. Cato's Letters or Essays on Liberty, Civil and Religious, and Other Important Subjects. Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1994. Annotated edition of the writings by the radical Whig authors John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, who popularized classical liberal and revolutionary ideas in colonial America.
. The Scottish Enlightenment and the Theory of Spontaneous Order. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987). The thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment, including Adam Ferguson, Bernard Mandeville, David Hume, and Adam Smith, who advanced the scientific basis for the free order of markets and human choice.
Hanke, Steve, ed. Prospects for Privatization. New York: Academy of Political Science, 1987.
. Ludwig von Mises, Money, and the Fall and Rise of Classical Liberalism in the 20th Century, Literature of Liberty, Vol. V, No. 3 (Autumn 1982).
Hayek, F. A. The Road to Serfdom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.
. The Road to Serfdom in Cartoons, Look Magazine, April 1945.
Herbert, Auberon. A Politician in Trouble With His Soul. London: Chapman and Hall, 1884.
. Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State and Other Essays, ed. by Eric Mack. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1978.
Hewett, Edgar L. Man and the State. Albuquerque, N.M.: University of New Mexico Press, 1944.
Hobson, J. A. Richard Cobden: International Man. London: Ernest Benn, 1968.
Holmes, Stephen. Benjamin Constant and the Making of Modern Liberalism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984. The key writings of great French classical liberal thinker.
Jacobson, David L., ed. The English Libertarian Heritage: From the Writings of John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon in the Independent Whig and Catos Letters. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965.
Koch, Adrienne Koch and William Peden, eds. The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson. New York: Random House, 1993.
Krimerman, Leonard and Lewis Perry, eds. Patterns of Anarchy: A Collection of Writings on the Anarchist Tradition. New York: Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1966.
La Boétie, Étienne de. The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude. Black Rose Books, 1997. [Online Book]
Lane, Rose Wilder. The Discovery of Freedom: Mans Struggle Against Authority. New York: Ayer Company Publishers, 1972.
Leggett, William. Democratick Editorials: Essays in Jacksonian Political Economy, ed. by Lawrence H. White. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1984. [Online Book]
Leoni, Bruno. Freedom and the Law. Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1991.
Lester, J.C. Escape from Leviathan: Liberty, Welfare and Anarchy Reconciled. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000.
Liggio, Leonard P. Charles Dunoyer and French Classical Liberalism, Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 1, No. 3.
Locke, John. Second Treatise of Government (or An Essay Concerning Civil Government. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Lomasky, Loren E. Persons, Rights, and the Moral Community. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
Machan, Tibor R., ed. The Libertarian Reader. Lanham. MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1982.
Mack, Eric. Voluntaryism: The Political Thought of Auberon Herbert, Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 2, No. 4.
Mackay, Thomas, ed. A Plea for Liberty: An Argument Against Socialism and Socialistic Legislation. D. Appleton and Company, 1891. [Online Book]
Macfarlane, Alan. The Origins of English Individualism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978. Demonstrates that individualism and the market order are not recent inventions, but have roots stretching far back into history.
Mallock, W. H. A Critical Examination of Socialism. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1989.
Martin, James J. Men Against the State: The Expositors of Individualist Anarchism, 1827-1908. Colorado Springs, Colo.: Ralph Myles Publisher, 1970.
Mayer, Milton. On Liberty: Man v. The State. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, 1969.
McElroy, Wendy, The Abolitionist Adventure, Future of Freedom Foundation, July 2003.
. The Culture of Individualist Anarchism in Late 19th-Century America, Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 3.
. The Debates of Liberty: An Overview of Individualist Anarchism, 1881-1908. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 2003.
. Étienne de La Boétie, Future of Freedom Foundation, May 2003.
Molinari, Gustave de. The Production of Security. New York: Center for Libertarian Studies, 1977. [Online Book]
. The Society of Tomorrow: A Forecast of Its Political and Economic Organisation. New York: G.P. Putnams Sons, 1904. [Online Book]
. Soirées on the Rue Saint-Lazare: Conversations on Economic Laws and Defense of Property. 1849. Enlightening dialogues between a socialist, a conservative and a libertarian. [Online Book]
Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat de. The Spirit of the Laws. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Murray, Charles. In Pursuit of Happiness and Good Government. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988.
Narveson, Jan. The Libertarian Idea. Broadview Press, 2001.
. Respecting Persons in Theory and Practice. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing, 2002.
Nisbet, Robert A. The New Despotism, Commentary (June 1975); reprinted in The Twilight of Authority. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
. The Quest for Community: A Study in the Ethics of Order and Freedom. San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies, 1990.
. The Twilight of Authority. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Nock, Albert Jay. Our Enemy the State. Tampa, FL: Hallberg Publishing, 2001.
. The State of the Union: Essays in Social Criticism, ed. by Charles Hamilton. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1991.
Nozick, Robert. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books, 1974.
Osterfeld, David, Anarchism and the Public Goods Issue: Law, Courts, and the Police, Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 9, No. 1.
. Class Analysis and Economic Systems, Libertarian Forum, October 1975, pp. 5-7.
Paine, Thomas. Common Sense, The Rights of Man and other Essential Writings. New York: New American Library, 1988. [Common Sense Online Book]
. The Age of Reason. Lyle Stuart, 1989.
Paterson, Isabel. The God of the Machine. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1993.
Polanyi, Michael. The Logic of Liberty: Reflections and Rejoinders. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1951.
Popper, Karl. The Poverty of Historicism. London: Routledge, 2002.
Raico, Ralph. Classical Liberal Exploitation Theory, Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 1, No. 3.
Rothbard, Murray N. The Anatomy of the State, in Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays. Auburn, Alabama: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2000, pp. 55-88.
. Conceived in Liberty, 4 Vol. Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2000.
. Concepts of the Role of Intellectuals in Social Change Toward Laissez Faire, Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 9, No. 2.
. Education: Free and Compulsory. Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1999.
. The Ethics of Liberty. New York: New York University Press, 2002.
. How and How Not to Desocialize, Review of Austrian Economics, Vol. 6, No. 1 (1992), pp. 65-70.
. Karl Marx: Communist as Religious Eschatologist, Review of Austrian Economics, Vol. 4, No. 1 (1990), pp. 123-179.
. Left and Right: The Prospects for Liberty, Left & Right, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Spring 1965).
. Nations by Consent: Decomposing the Nation-State, Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1.
. The Politics of Obedience, introduction to Étienne de La Boétie, The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude. New York: Free Life Editions, 1975. [Online Book]
. War, Peace and the State, in Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays. Auburn, Alabama: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2000, pp. 115-132.
Rustow, Alexander. Freedom and Domination: A Historical Critique of Culture. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.
Schoeck, Helmut. Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Press, 1987.
Schumpeter, Joseph A. Imperialism and Social Classes. New York: Meridian, 1955.
Simmons, A. John. Justification and Legitimacy: Essays on Rights and Obligations. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
. The Lockean Theory of Rights. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992.
. Moral Principles and Political Obligations. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981.
. On the Edge of Anarchy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995.
Smith, George H., ed. The Lysander Spooner Reader. San Francisco: Fox & Wilkes, 1992.
Spencer, Herbert. Facts and Comments. Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1970.
. The Man Versus the State: With Six Essays on Government, Society, and Freedom. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1982. [Online Book]
. Principles of Ethics. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1980.
. The Right to Ignore the State, from Social Statics: The Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, and the First of Them Developed. New York: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, 1954.
. Social Statics: The Conditions Essential to Human Happiness Specified, and the First of Them Developed. New York: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, 1954.
Spooner, Lysander. No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority. Boston, 1870. [Online Book]
Sprading, Charles T. Liberty and the Great Libertarians: An Anthology on Liberty. New York: Arno Press, 1913.
Steiner, Hillel. An Essay on Rights. London: Blackwell Publishers, 1994.
Stigler, George J. The Citizen and the State: Essays on Regulation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975.
Stringham, Edward. Market Chosen Law, Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 14, No. 1.
Sumner, William Graham. On Liberty, Society, and Politics: The Essential Essays of William Graham Sumner, ed. by Robert C. Bannister. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1992.
Trakman, Leon E. The Law Merchant: The Evolution of Commercial Law. Littleton, Colo.: Fred B. Rothman & Co., 1983. The spontaneous evolution of commercial law, a system of law created outside of the state by merchants and founded on the principle of freedom of contract.
Tucker, Benjamin K. Instead of a Book by a Man Too Busy to Write One: A Fragmentary Exposition of Philosophical Anarchism. New York: Haskell House, 1969.
Walker, Michael A., ed. Privatization: Tactics and Techniques. Vancouver, B.C.: Fraser Institute, 1988.
Watner, Carl. The Proprietary Theory of Justice in the Libertarian Tradition, Journal of Libertarian Studies, Vol. 6, No. 3-4.
West, Edwin G. Education and the State: A Study in Political Economy. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1994.
Yeager, Leland. Ethics as Social Science. The Moral Philosophy of Social Cooperation. Northampton, Mass.: Edward Elgar Publishers, 2001.
Bacevich, Andrew J. American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002.
Bensel, Richard Franklin. Yankee Leviathan: The Origins of Central State Authority in America, 1859-1877. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Bourne, Randolph. War and the Intellectuals: Collected Essays, 1915-1919, ed. by C. Resek. New York: Harper and Row, 1964.
Bovard, James. Terrorism and Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice and Peace to Rid the World of Evil. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
Brewer, John. The Sinews of Power: War, Money and the English State, 1688-1783. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ Press, 1990.
Chamberlin, William Henry. War--Shortcut to Fascism, American Mercury, December 1940, pp. 391-400.
Chomsky, Noam. For Reasons of State. New York: New Press, 2003.
Cole, David D. Enemy Aliens. New York: New Press, 2003.
. Terrorism and the Constitution: Sacrificing Civil Liberties in the Name of National Security. New York: New Press, 2002.
Denson, John V., ed. The Costs of War: America's Pyrrhic Victories. Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1999.
Ebeling, Richard M. and Jacob Hornberger, eds. Liberty, Security and the War on Terrorism. Fairfax, VA: Future of Freedom Foundation, 2003.
Eland, Ivan. Resist Giving FBI More Authority in Cyberspace, Oregonian, February 17, 2000.
. Terrorism: Cohens Terrifying Trade-Off. Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, September 2, 1998.
Fulbright, J. William. The Pentagon Propaganda Machine. New York: Vintage Books, 1971.
Giddens, Anthony. The Nation-State and Violence. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.
Goldstein, Robert J. Political Repression in Modern America, From 1870 to the Present. Cambridge: Schenkman, 1978.
Hayek, F. A. Socialism and War: Essays, Documents, Reviews, ed. by Bruce Caldwell. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.
Hentoff, Nat. The War on the Bill of Rights and the Gathering Resistance. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003.
Higgs, Robert. Beware the Pork-Hawk: In Pursuit of Reelection, Congress Sells Out the Nations Defense, Reason, June 1989.
. The Bloody Hinge of American History, Liberty (May 1997).
. The Cold War Economy: Opportunity Costs, Ideology, and the Politics of Crisis, Explorations in Economic History, July 1994.
. The Cold War is Over, but U.S. Preparation for It Continues, The Independent Review, Vol. VI, No. 2 (Fall 2001), pp. 287-305.
. The Cold War: Too Good a Deal to Give Up. Oakland, Calif.: The Independent Institute, 2002.
. Defending the Homeland, The Free Market, May 2002.
. Free Enterprise and War, a Dangerous Liaison. Oakland, Calif.: The Independent Institute, January 22, 2003.
. From Central Planning to the Market: The American Transition, 1945-1947, The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 59, No. 3 (September 1999).
. Hard Coals Make Bad Law: Congressional Parochialism Versus National Defense, Cato Journal, Spring/Summer 1988.
. How War Amplified Federal Power in the Twentieth Century, The Freeman, July 1999.
. Peace on Earth, The Free Market, December 1994.
. Some Other Costs of War, The Free Market, March 1991.
. A Strong Defense Against Whom?, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 6, 1995.
. War and Leviathan in Twentieth-Century America: Conscription as the Keystone, from The Costs of War: Americas Pyrrhic Victories, edited by John V. Denson. Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1999.
. Wartime Prosperity? A Reassessment of the U.S. Economy in the 1940s, The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 52, No. 1 (March 1992).
. Wartime Socialization of Investment: A Reassessment of U.S. Capital Formation in the 1940s, Working Paper No. 45. Oakland, Calif.: The Independent Institute, February 2003.
. World War II and the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex, Freedom Daily, May 1995.
Higgs, Robert and Anthony Kilduff. Public Opinion: A Powerful Predictor of U.S. Defense Spending, Defence Economics, Vol. 4 (1993).
Hummel, Jeffrey Rogers. Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War. Chicago: Open Court Publishing Company, 1996.
Jones, Carolyn C. Class Tax to Mass Tax: The Role of Propaganda in the Expansion of the Income Tax During World War II, Buffalo Law Review, Vol. 37 (Fall 1988-89), pp. 685-737.
Kaplan, Sidney. Social Engineers as Saviors: Effects of World War I on Some American Liberals, Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. XVII, No. 3 (June 1956).
Karp, Walter. Indespensable Enemies: The Politics of Misrule in America. New York: Franklin Square Press, 1993.
Koistinen, Paul A. C. Mobilizing for Modern War: The Political Economy of American Warfare, 1865-1919. Lawrence. KS: University Press of Kansas, 1997.
Lane, Frederic C. Economic Consequences of Organized Violence, Journal of Economic History, Vol.18, No.4, (December 1958), pp. 401-410.
Mayer, Kenneth R. The Political Economy of Defense Contracting. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1991.
McCormick, Thomas J. Drift or Mastery? A Corporatist Synthesis for American Diplomatic History, Reviews in American History, Vol. 10, No. 4 (December 1982), pp. 318-330.
McElroy, Wendy. Wars Other Casualty, The Freeman, July 1999.
. World War I and the Suppression of Dissent, Fairfax, Virginia: Future of Freedom Foundation, 2002.
McNeill, William Hardy. The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society Since 1000 A.D. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.
Nef, John U. War and Human Progress: An Essay on the Rise of Industrial Civilization. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. 1968.
Nisbet, Robert A. The Present Age: Progress and Anarchy in Modern America. New York: Harper & Row, 1988.
Pettigrew, Richard F. Imperial Washington: The Story of American Public Life from 1870-1920. Chicago: Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1922.
Pilisuk, Marc and Thomas Hayden. Is There a Military-Industrial Complex Which Prevents Peace?, Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 67-117.
Porter, Bruce. War and the Rise of the State: The Military Foundations of Modern Politics. New York: Free Press, 1994.
Schaffer, Ronald. America in the Great War: The Rise of the War Welfare State. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Schmitt, Carl. The Concept of the Political. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
Tilley, Charles. Coercion, Capital and European States, AD 990-1992. London: Blackwell Publishers, 1992.
. War Making and State Making as Organized Crime, in Peter Evans, Dietrich Roueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol, eds., Bringing the State Back In. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990. The striking parallels between state making and organized crime, and that the growth of state power is inseparable from war.
Trevino, Ruben and Robert Higgs. Profits of U.S. Defense Contractors, Defence Economics, Vol. 3 (1992).
Twight, Charlotte. Conning Congress: Privacy and the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, The Independent Review, Vol. VI, No. 2 (Fall 2001), pp. 185-216.
. Evolution of Federal Income Tax Withholding: The Machinery of Institutional Change. Cato Journal, Vol. 14 (Winter 1995), pp. 359-395.
. Watching You: Systematic Federal Surveillance of Ordinary Americans, The Independent Review, Vol. IV, No. 2 (Fall 1999), pp. 165-200.
von Mises, Ludwig. Omipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1944.
Wiebe, Robert. Businessmen and Reform: A Study of the Progressive Movement. Chicago: Quandrangle Books, 1962.
Wilson, Edmund. The Cold War and the Income Tax: A Protest. New York: Farrar, Straus and Company, 1963.