The Business Of Liberty

What makes freedom valuable to us? Through an interdisciplinary lens, this book gives an original account of the relationship between freedom and knowledge and offers new perspectives on debates surrounding privacy, corporate culture, consumer protection, freedom of speech and more

Two key arguments for the value of freedom are that freedom contributes to desire satisfaction and to personal responsibility. But what if we do not know about our freedoms? Or if we do not acknowledge each other's freedoms? This book shows that what is really of value are the ideals of known freedom and acknowledged freedom. The book demonstrates the importance of these two ideals in many contexts, including neuromarketing, skilled work, discrimination, education, environments with stereotype threats, informed consent, consumer protection, socially responsible investing, climate-related financial disclosure, law, professional oaths, freedom of speech, and privacy. To argue that known freedom is crucial to satisfy our desires and assume responsibility, the book combines work in psychology on choice with work in philosophy on the value of knowledge. It is shown that known freedom is compromised when salespeople deploy consumer obfuscation or when news shows use contextual framing techniques to steer the way their audiences will process the information. And it is shown how carefully developed consumer protection and information disclosure regulation can foster known freedom. Using insights from economics and ethics, the book argues that acknowledged freedom offers protection to our freedoms. It makes our freedoms more stable. Acknowledged freedom embodies an ideal of mutual recognition that underlies informed consent and the ethics of communication, and can also contribute to a flourishing corporate culture. Most books discuss either freedom or knowledge. This unique book shows that when we think about the value of freedom, we should think about the value of knowledge too.

There appears to be a decline in confidence in the market economy as the engine of prosperity for all. A renewed focus on solidarity - love of others - in the marketplace could draw more people into the "circle of exchange" (Pope John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, 34), strengthen confidence in the market economy, and drive greater liberty and prosperity. But do the concepts of liberty and solidarity really belong together in commercial activity? An individualistic perspective sees them as opposing one another: solidarity, to the extent that it obliges me to "lose myself " in the service of others, seems to put a limit on my economic freedom. By contrast, the Church teaches that we become more free the more we commit ourselves to the service of others, and also that without solidarity we would not be able to maintain the conditions necessary for the operation of a free market. The CUA School of Business and Economics co-sponsored a conference with The Napa Institute titled, "Liberty and Solidarity: Living the Vocation to Business." Presenter's and participants comprised business and academic leaders who sought to discuss the practical and theoretical aspects of living the vocation to business in 2014. Each of the 16 30-minute presentations focused on answering a key question. The macro questions the conference intended to answer were: (a) What can we do to foster both liberty and solidarity in the contemporary economy?; (b) What ideas should be (re) proposed and what practical steps taken?; and (c) How should one live the vocation to business?

"Originally delivered as a lecture at Princeton University, October 1958, at the 9th meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society"--Page 7. Includes bibliographical references.

Why would sovereigns ever grant political or economic liberty to their subjects? Under what conditions would rational rulers who possess ultimate authority and who seek to maximize power and wealth ever give up any of that authority? This book draws on a wide array of empirical and theoretical approaches to answer these questions, investigating both why sovereign powers might liberalize and when. The contributors to this volume argue that liberalization or democratization will only occur when those in power calculate that the expected benefits to them will exceed the costs. More specifically, rulers take five main concerns into account in their cost-benefit analysis as they decide to reinforce or relax controls: personal welfare, personal power, internal order, external order, and control over policy--particularly economic policy. The book shows that repression is a tempting first option for rulers seeking to maximize their benefits, but that liberalization becomes more attractive as a means of minimizing losses when it becomes increasingly certain that the alternatives are chaos, deposition, or even death. Chapters cover topics as diverse as the politics of seventeenth-century England and of twentieth-century Chile; why so many countries have liberalized in recent decades; and why even democratic governments see a need to reduce state power. The book makes use of formal modeling, statistical analysis, and traditional historical analysis. The contributors are Paul Drake, Stephen Haggard, William Heller, Robert Kaufman, Phil Keefer, Brian Loveman, Mathew McCubbins, Douglass North, Ronald Rogowski, and Barry Weingast.

Mises said that teaching the public was just as important as addressing scholars maybe more so.That is what Lew Rockwell specializes in: history and theory and analysis in defense of the free society, written in clear prose to reach a broad audience. Rockwells new book is as pro liberty as it is brutally critical of government. It is relentlessly forthright yet hopeful about the prospects for liberty. It is rigorous enough to withstand the enemys closest scrutiny, and chock full of the energy and enthusiasm that will keep you reading. As a collection of speeches delivered over a period of ten years, Speaking of Liberty is long (470 pages), but it is the kind of book people will want to see in the hands of friends, family, and students. The book begins with economics, and explains why Austrian economics matters, how the Federal Reserve brings on the business cycle, why we need private property and free enterprise, the unrecognized glories of the capitalist economy, and why the gold standard is still the best monetary system. The remaining sections deal with war, Mises and his work, other important thinkers in the libertarian tradition, and the culture and morality of liberty. The book is united by a set of fixed principles: the corruption of politics, the universality and immutability of the ideas of freedom, the centrality of sound money and free enterprise, the moral imperative of peace and trade, the importance of hope and tenacity in the struggle for liberty, and the need for everyone to join the intellectual fight. We all have searched for the book we could give to friends and neighbors, business associates and family members, to explain why we believe in the cause of liberty. Speaking of Liberty is that book. "Critics of the free market are therefore the Wile E Coyotes of our day: sitting on the stool in comfort, they systematically saw away at the legs beneath them, on the absurd assumption that they will be able to hang in the air indefinitely after their work is done. Along comes Lew Rockwell and shouts as loud as he can: Beep, beep." Gary North

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