The History and Mystery of Money & Economics-250 Books on DVDrom

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Contents of disk: 

The Wealth of Nations, Volume 1 by Adam Smith 1910

The Wealth of Nations, Volume 2 by Adam Smith 1910

The Wealth of Nations, Abridged, 1884 (Students Edition)

The Rothschilds - the Financial rulers of nations by John Reeves 1887

A Treatise on Political Economy by Jean Baptiste Say 1830

The Dismal Science, a Criticism on Modern English Political Economy by William Dillon 1882

Social Value - a study in economic theory, critical and constructive by Benjamin Anderson 1911

The Value of Money by Benjamin Anderson 1917

Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Volume 1 by Charles Mackay 1850

Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Volume 2 by Charles Mackay 1850

Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Volume 3 by Charles Mackay 1850 (a classic work that discusses the Tulip Bubble in the 17th century)

Man, Money, and the Bible - Biblical Economics by John R Allen 1891

Unto this Last & other Essays on art and Political Economy by John Ruskin 1907

Principles of political economy by Thomas Malthus 1821

An Essay on the Principle of Population, Volume 1 by Thomas Malthus 1817

An Essay on the Principle of Population, Volume 2 by Thomas Malthus 1817

An Essay on the Principle of Population, Volume 3 by Thomas Malthus 1817

The Coins of the Bible and its Monetary Terms by James R Snowden 1864

The Money of the Bible by George C Williamson 1894

Capital and Interest, a critical history of economical theory by Eugen Von Bahm-Bawerk 1890

Karl Marx and the Close of His System by Eugen Von Bahm-Bawerk 1898

Lombard Street, a description of the Money Market by Walter Bagehot 1920

The Principles of Economics with applications to practical problems by Frank A Fetter 1904

Source book in Economics by Frank A Fetter 1913

Principles of economics, Volume 1 by Alfred Marshall

Elements of Economics of Industry 1 by Alfred Marshall 

Industry and Trade by Alfred Marshall 1920

Capital by Karl Marx 1904

Manifesto of the Communist Party by Karl Marx 1906

Political Economy, by Simonde de Sismondi, 1847

An Inquiry into the Principles of political Economy by Sir James Steuart, Volume 1, 1767

An Inquiry into the Principles of political Economy by Sir James Steuart, Volume 2, 1767

A Select Collection of Scarce and Valuable Economical Tracts (Defoe, Elking, Franklin, Turgot, Anderson, Schomberg, Townsend, Burke, Bell) 1859

Principles of Political Economy with some of their applications to social philosophy by John Stuart Mill 1920

An Introduction to the Theory of Value on the lines of Menger, Wieser, and Bohm-Bawerk by William Smart 1891

Belgian Democracy by Henri Pirenne 1915

The Works of David Ricardo 1888

The principles of political economy & taxation by David Ricardo 1912

Essays on some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy by John Stuart Mill 1874

On the Concept of Social Value by Joseph Schumpeter 1909

Socialism and the social movement by Werner Sombart 1909

Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy 1917 (the classic fictional story of Julian West, a young American who, towards the end of the 19th century, falls into a deep, hypnosis-induced sleep and wakes up 113 years later. He finds himself in the same location but in a totally changed [Socialistic] world)

The People's Marx (Abridged version of Capital) 1921

The Marxian Economic Handbook and Glossary by WH Emmett 1922

The Political Theories of P.J. Proudhon by Shi Yung Lu 1922

What is Property, By Pierre Joseph Proudhon 1840

The State - Its Nature, Object, and Destiny By Pierre Joseph Proudhon 1849

The Vatican - its History, its Treasures by Ernesto Begni 1914

The Tithe in Scripture by Henry Landsdell 1908

Mediaeval Socialism by Jarrett Bede 1914

An Introductory Lecture on Political Economy by Nassau William Senior 1827

Three lectures on the rate of wages by Nassau William Senior 1830

The engineers and the price system by Thorstein Veblen 1921

The Theory of the Leisure Class, an economic study of institutions by Thorstein Veblen 1918

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Max Weber 1920

The Physiocrats, 6 lectures on the French économistes of the 18th century by Henry Higgs 1897

The Gentle Art of Train Robbery by Jack Comegys 1905

Professional Criminals of America by Thomas Byrnes 1886

Economic History of the United States by Ernest L Bogart 1914

Economic History of England by M Briggs 1914

The Theory and History of Banking by Charles Dunbar 1922

Train and Bank Robbers of the Wild West 1889

True History of the so-called £1,000,000 Forgery, the bank duped: how the impregnable Bank of England showered its bags of gold on George Bidwell

The Economic Interpretation of History by Edwin Seligman 1902

Guild Socialism by Niles Carpenter 1922

The Case for Capitalism by Hartley Whithers 1920

Both Sides of the Tariff Question by the world's leading men 1890

Protectionism, the -ism which teaches that waste makes wealth by William Graham Sumner 1885

History of Economic Thought by Lewis Haney 1922

The Evolution of Modern Capitalism by JA Hobson 1907

The Roosevelt Panic of 1907 By Adolph Edwards 1907

The Causes of the Panic of 1893 by W. Jett Lauck 1907

A Short History of Coins and Currency by Sir John Lubbock 1902

United States Notes - a History of the various issues of paper money by the Government of the United States by John Jay Knox 1899

The Gold Standard by Gold standard defence association 1898

The Gold Standard: its causes, its effects, and its future by Wilhelm von Kardorff-Wabnitz 1880

New View Of Society by Robert Owen 1813

Letters to Malthus on Political Economy by Jean Baptiste Say 1821

Elements of Political Economy by James Mill 1826

Overproduction and Crises by Johann Karl Rodbertus 1908

General Theory of Political Economy by William Stanley Jevons 1886

Imperialism - A Study by John A Hobson 1902

Dictionary of Political Economy, Volume 1 by Sir Robert Palgrave 1915

Dictionary of Political Economy, Volume 2 by Sir Robert Palgrave 1915

Dictionary of Political Economy, Volume 3 by Sir Robert Palgrave 1915

Economic interpretation of history by James E Rogers 1888

Economic Determinism by Lida Parce 1913

The philosophy of wealth by John Bates Clark 1894

Principles of the economic philosophy of society, government and industry by Van Buren Denslow 1888

History of economics by Joseph Dewe 1908

Jesus an Economic Mediator bA treatise on political economy; (1830)y James Darby 1922

On the Principles of Political Economy by David Ricardo 1821

Outline of Economic by Richard Ely 1918

Political Economy For Beginners by MG Fawcett 1911

The Austrian Economists and their View of Value, article in the Journal of Economics 1889

Popular fallacies regarding trade by Frederic Bastiat 1882

Fallacies of protection by Frederic Bastiat 1909

Popular Fallacies Regarding General Interests by Frederic Bastiat 1849

An Introduction to the Study of Political Economy by Luigi Cossa 1893

The cause of business depressions as disclosed by an analysis of the basic principles of economics by Hugo Bilgram 1914

The federal reserve system by Henry Parker Willis 1920

The Federal reserve monster by Sam Clark 1922

The economics of socialism by HM Hyndman 1921

The economics of Herbert Spencer by Owen William 1891

LIBERTY AND TAXATION by Benjamin Tucker

Calumet K

This 1901 book is the story of one man's ingenuity, perseverance and struggle in the construction of a grain elevator and of his exhilarating triumph.

Ayn Rand considered this her favorite novel, and wrote that "it has one element that I have never found in any other novel: the portrait of an efficacious man."

Political Economy For Beginners by MG Fawcett 1900

The Austrian Economists, article in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 1890

Facts and figures, the basis of economic science by E Atkinson 1904

The Case against Protection by E Cooke 1909

Fair trade unmasked by the Cobden Club 1887

Principles of Scientific Management by Frederick Winslow Taylor 1911

Inflation by J Shield Nicholson 1919 (The Abandonment of the Gold Standard During the War)

How the Federal Reserve was Evolved by 5 Men in Jekyl Island, article in the Current Opinion 1916

An Economic History of Rome by Tenney Frank 1920

Currency inflation and public debts by Edwin Seligman 1921

Fiat Money Inflation in France, how it came, what it brought and how it ended by Andrew Dickson White 1914

A Brief History of Pawnbroking by Alfred Hardaker 1892

Sound Money Monographs by William C Cornwell 1897 (Should Government Retire from Banking?, Gold Standard etc)

The History of Money in America by Alexander Del Mar 1899

The Science of Money by Alexander Del Mar 1899

Lorenzo de Medici and Florence in the 15th century by Edward Armstrong 1908

The Elements of the Science of Money by John Prince Smith 1813

Historical Summary of Metallic Money by Robert N Toppan 1884

The Mississippi Bubble: a Memoir of John Law by Adolphe Tiers 1859

John Law of Lauriston, Financier and Statesman, founder of the Bank of France, originator of the Mississippi Scheme by AW Wiston-Glynn 1907

The Financial Philosophy - The Principles of the science of money by George Wilson 1895

The Economic Principles of Confucius by Chen Huan-Chang 1911

The Law of Oresme, Copernicus, and Gresham by Thomas W Balch 1908

The Life Story of J. Pierpont Morgan by Carl Hovey 1911

Bulls and Bears of New York: With the Crisis of 1873 by Matthew Hale Smith - 1874

Economic Essays by Charles F Dunbar 1904 (Economic science in America, 1776-1876, The reaction in political economy, Ricardo's use of facts, Some precedents followed by Alexander Hamilton, The direct tax of 1861, The new income tax, Early banking Schemes in England, The bank of Venice etc)

My Adventures with Your Money by George Graham Rice 1913 (Dedicated to: To The American Damphool Speculator, surnamed the American Sucker, otherwise described herein as The Thinker - Who Thinks He Knowsi But Doesn't - Greetings. This book is for you! Read as you run, and may you run as you read.)

A History of Banking in all the Leading Nations, Volume 1 by William Graham Sumner 1896

A History of Banking in all the Leading Nations, Volume 2 by William Graham Sumner 1896

A History of Banking in all the Leading Nations, Volume 3 by William Graham Sumner 1896

A History of Banking in all the Leading Nations, Volume 4 by William Graham Sumner 1896

Coins & Medals as Aids to the Study and Verification of Holy Writ by Stanley Clark Bagg 1863

Mohammedan (Islamic) Theories of Finance by Nicolas P Aghnides 1916

Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie 1920

The Gospel of Wealth by Andrew Carnegie 1901

The Rise and Progress of the Standard Oil Company by Gilbert H Montague 1903

Life of P. T. Barnum, Written by himself, Including his golden rules for Money-making 1888

The Story of Money - A Science Hand-book of Money Questions by E.C. Towne 1900

Gold and Silver as Currency - in the light of experience, historical, economical, and practical by James G Patterson 1896

Bimetallism -  a summary and examination of the arguments for and against a bimetallic (Gold and Silver) system of currency by Leonard Darwin 1898

Monetary Economics by William W Carlile 1912

Economic method and economic fallacies by William W Carlile 1904

Monetary and industrial fallacies by John B Howe 1878

Abraham Lincoln - Protectionist 1916

Financial History of the United States by Davis R Dewey 1920

The Gilded Age by Mark Twain 1873

Acres of Diamonds by Russell Conwell 1915

My Life and Work by Henry Ford 1922

Way to Wealth by Benjamin Franklin 1814

The Art of Worldly Wisdom by Baltasar Gracián y Morales 1904

Pushing to the Front - Success under difficulties by Orison S Marden 1911

Paper against Gold - the Mystery of the Bank of England of the debt of the stocks of the sinking fund and of all the other tricks and contrivances carried on by the means of paper money by William Cobbett 1846

Legal Tender, a study in English and American Monetary History by Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge, 1903

Great Britain in the latest Age, from laisser faire to State Control by AS Turberville 1921

The Story of Modern Progress by Willis M West 1920

The Struggle for Bread by Victor W Germains 1913

The Corner in Gold - Its History and Theory by FW Bain 1893

History of the Terrible Financial Panic of 1873

The History of Currency, 1252 to 1894 by William Arthur Shaw 1895 

A History of Commerce by Clive Day 1916

A History of the Precious Metals by Alexander Del Mar 1902

History of Monetary Systems, record of actual experiments in money made by various states of the ancient and modern world by Alexander Del Mar 1895

Paper Money, the money of civilization by James Harvey 1877

Money and Civilization by Alexander Del Mar 1886

The Mystery of Money Explained By James Taylor 1862

Tendencies in American Economic Thought By Sidney Sherwood 1897

The Economics of Laissez Faire by Harris Gilbert Franklin 1920

A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy by Karl Marx 1904

Economic Liberalism by Hermanm Levy 1913 (keep in mind that 100 years ago "Liberalism" had a more libertarian [Laissez Faire] definition)

The Industrial Revolution by Charles Beard 1919

Marxian (Karl Marx) Economics by Karl Untermann 1911

The Remarkable History of the Hudson's Bay Company by George Bryce - 1900

Paper Money, the Root of Evil by Charles A. Mann - 1872

Benjamin Franklin as an Economist by WA Wetzel 1895

Contributions of Alchemy to Numismatics by Henry Carrington Bolton 1890

Economics for the People - Plain Talks on Economics by RR Bowker 1892

Economics for Beginners by Henry Dunning Macleod 1879

Political Economy for Beginners by Millicent Garrett Fawcett 1911

Antiquity of Coins by William Hume 1856

The President and the Motto on our Coins 1908 (In God We Trust)

Psychology of the Stock Market by GC Selden 1912

The Pitfalls of Speculation by Thomas Gibson 1916

Wall Street Speculation, its Tricks and its Tragedies by Francis C Keyes 1904

Betting and gambling by Seton Churchill 1894

Gambling (Fortuna) -The True Philosophy and Ethics of Gambling by James H Romain 1891

The New Philosophy of Money by Alfred B Westrup 1895

The Financial Philosophy - The Principles of the Science of Money by George Wilson 1895

The Mercantile System and Its Historical Significance by Gustav von Schmoller 1896

History of American Socialisms by George Noyes 1870 ("The only laudable object any one can have in rehearsing and studying the histories of the socialistic failures, is that of learning from them practical lessons for guidance in present and future experiments.")

Lectures against Socialism 1840

Economics and Socialism by Frederick Uttley Laycock 1895

Marxian Economics by Ernest Untermann - 1907

The Fallacy of Marx's Theory of Surplus-value by Henry Seymour - 1897

The Economic Theory of Risk and Insurance by Alan Herbert Willett - 1901

The Profits of Religon by Upton Sinclair 1918

Introduction to Economics by Alvin Saunders Johnson 1909

Introduction to Economics by John R Turner 1919

The Economics of Laissez Faire by Harris Gilbert Franklin 1920

History of the Great American Fortunes, Volume 1 by Gustavus Myers 1910

History of the Great American Fortunes, Volume 2 by Gustavus Myers 1910

History of the Great American Fortunes, Volume 3 by Gustavus Myers 1910

Great Riches by Charles William Eliot 1906

Inspired Millionaires; an Interpretation of America by Gerald Stanley Lee 1908

The Money God - Chapters of Heresy and Dissent Concerning Business Methods and Mercenary ideals in American Life by John C Van Dyke 1908

The Things that are Caesar's - a Defense of Wealth by Guy M Walker 1922

American Individualism by Herbert Hoover 1922

A Study of John D. Rockefeller: The Wealthiest Man in the World by Marcus Monroe Brown 1905

The Masters of Capital - a Chronicle of Wall Street by John Moody 1919

Men who are making America by BC Forbes 1917

John D. Rockefeller and his Career by Silas Hubbard 1904

Random Reminiscences of Men and Events by John D. Rockefeller 1909

Famous American Fortunes and the men who Have Made Them by Laura C Holloway 1889

The Life of George Peabody by Phebe A Hanaford 1870

The Gospel of Wealth by Andrew Carnegie - 1901

The Life of James J. Hill - Volume 1 by Joseph Gilpin Pyle - 1917

The Life of James J. Hill - Volume 2 by Joseph Gilpin Pyle - 1917 (James J. Hill built the Great Northern Railroad without any government aid, even the right of way, through hundreds of miles of public lands, being paid for in cash)

Hidden Treasures - Why some Succeed while others Fail by Harry A Lewis 1887

The Vanderbilts and the Story of Their Fortune by WA Croffut 1886

The Life and Ventures of the original John Jacob Astor by Elizabeth Gebhard 1915

Life of John Jacob Astor by James Parton 1865

Men and Mysteries of Wall Street by James K Medbery 1870

Some Successful Americans by Sherman Williams 1904

The Age of Big Business - a Chronicle of the Captains of Industry by Burton J Hendrick 1920

The Life story of J. Pierpont Morgan by Carl Hovey 1911

Millionaires and Kings of Enterprise by James Burnley 1901

Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie 1920

The Rise and Progress of the Standard Oil Company by Gilbert H Montague 1903

Bulls and Bears of New York by William Hale Smith 1874

Financial History of the United States by Davis R Dewey 1920

America at Work by John F Fraser 1903

The Model T Ford Car by Victor W Page 1915

Industrial History of the United States by Louis Ray Wells 1922

The Economic History of the United States by Ernest Ludlow Bogart 1914

The Industrial Evolution of the United States by Carroll D Wright 1901

Captains of Industry by James Parton 1896

The Oil-well Driller: A History of the World's Greatest Enterprise By Charles Austin Whiteshot 1905

The Story of Oil by Walter S Tower 1909

The Carnegie Millions and the Men who Made Them - being the inside history of the Carnegie Steel Company by James H Bridge 1903

The Romance of Steel - the Story of a Thousand Millionaires by Herbert N Casson 1907

Life of Jay Gould, how he Made his Millions by Murat Halstead 1892

Wizard of Wall Street and his Wealth - The Life and Deeds of Jay Gould by Trumbull White 1893 

Financial Giants of America, Volume 1 by George F Redmond, 1922

Financial Giants of America, Volume 2 by George F Redmond, 1922

American Millionaires 1892

The Great Industries of the United States by Horace Greeley 1872

Jacob Henry Schiff - A Biographical Sketch 1921

Men of Business by William O Stoddard 1893

Readings in the Economic History of the United States by Ernest Lublow Bogart 1917

The Story of Bethlehem Steel by Arundel Cotter 1916

For a list of all of my disks, with links click here

 Only $5.99 (I only ship to the United States)

Karl Marx: An Irrelevant Man

Karl Marx: An Irrelevant Man

Mr. Smith is a writer living in Santa Maria, California. He has been a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal.
I remember reading Karl Marx in college. The assignment was, to understate the case, a tedious experience. There is a quality about this ponderously dull man that makes the eyelids heavy, and his work is not recommended for a pleasant afternoon at the beach. In defense of Marx, however, the writing that we see is a translation, and the passage of thought from one language to another often has the effect of squeezing out the pithy phrases and the clever shades of meaning. I doubt that this happened to any significant degree with Marx, but it is still possible that he is more of a thundering bore in English than in the original German. Let’s give him the benefit of a doubt on this one.

Over the years I have also remembered Marx as a man who was simply wrong in the conclusions that he reached, but here was another judgment that couldn’t be put to rest that easily. I have always had some trouble with the word wrong in regard to Karl Marx because he wasn’t one for hitting nails squarely on heads, and his oblique phraseology didn’t lend itself to the simplicity of right and wrong. Adolf Hitler was wrong throughout Mein Kampf, but not in the sense that the word would apply to Marx. There is a certain specificity to being wrong that applies to a Hitler but not to a Marx.
It is wrong, for example, to say that Altoona is the capital of Pennsylvania, but the word cannot be so easily applied to the proposition that Altoona is, or is not, a nice place to live. Hitler would have gone with the first statement and gasped his last mortal breath insisting that it was correct. Marx would have preferred the other proposition, making fuzzy and ill-conceived statements that have no basis in fact but are hard to support or refute.

I have been rereading Marx in recent weeks, and I am turned off to the same extent that I was in my undergraduate days. I now believe, however, that I can pinpoint the reason that Karl and I just don’t get along. The word that I had sought for so many years was not dull and it was not wrong. The word for Karl Marx is irrelevant.

One will note that Marx prattled incessantly about the great class struggle. This might have had some meaning for 19th-century Europeans, but it means absolutely nothing to Americans of any century. We are a nation of individuals with very little concept of social or economic class. Our group affiliations are temporal: an afternoon cheering for the home team, a lodge meeting, or a get-together with the property owners’ association, but it ends when we step outside and become individuals again. I suppose that a contemporary American could hold his or her income up to some economic scale and find a place in a pre-selected bracket, but it really doesn’t mean much to anyone. Certainly there is no class struggle, and I don’t think that I know anyone who could define the term, or who cares enough to find out.

The Irrelevance of Labels
Marx uses the words bourgeoisie and proletarian repeatedly, and both are about as relevant to our lives as hoop skirts and butter churns. I know what the words mean, or what they meant to Karl Marx, but there are too many people who fit into both categories, or neither, for the words to have any applicability. I would be hard put to label anyone I know as one or the other. If a man repairs shoes, for example, he is probably a proletarian, but what if he owns the shop and he is the only employee? This makes him the boss and also the one who does all the work. In the great revolution, Marx would probably have him destroy himself.

Marx was obsessed with the idea of class, but to most Americans this is a vague, if meaningless, concept. We see the world as individuals, a group of divergent entities, each with a unique value and making up a collective body that is less important than its parts.

If one would ask the proverbial man-on-the-street American to pinpoint himself on a class scale, he would probably come up with an answer of sorts, but it would be offered with a shrug of the shoulders and a “Who cares?” tone of voice. Class loyalty is about one step below loyalty to a bowling team or an alumni association in human intensity. Certainly no American is going to take to the streets for the honor of the citizens in his salary bracket.

This, I believe, is the reason that Karl Marx has made so little impact on American thought processes. No one is quite sure what the man was talking about, and if they ever found out, they wouldn’t care anyway. He wasn’t evil, he wasn’t insane, and he certainly wasn’t stupid. On our side of the Atlantic, he is merely irrelevant. To put it succinctly, Karl Marx is a man with nothing to say to the American people.

Donald Smith

Mr. Smith, a frequent contributor to The Freeman, lives in Santa Maria, California.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

13 Essential Books to Shape the Libertarian Worldview

13 Essential Books to Shape the Libertarian Worldview

There are books that every libertarian should read and books every libertarian has read, but those circles don’t perfectly overlap. Here are 13 diverse book recommendations for well-rounded thinkers.

Economic Sophisms – Frederic Bastiat
The great French liberal and economist Frederic Bastiat is best known for his pamphlet The Law — a scathing indictment of the threat that socialism poses to justice and the rule of law. But he produced another great work in Economic Sophisms, a collection of essays meticulously exposing and ridiculing the economic fallacies committed by his fellow deputies in the French National Assembly.
Sophisms includes his satirical “Petition From the Manufacturers of Candles, Tapers, Lanterns…and Generally of Everything Connected with Lighting” to the French legislature, asking for the government to blot out unfair foreign competition from a cheaper source of light — the sun.
Ahead of his time in many fields, he ruthlessly demolished fallacious arguments for protectionism, socialism, and redistribution with wit, humor, and incisive analysis.

Basic Economics + Applied Economics – Thomas Sowell
Thomas Sowell’s Basic Economics is one of the clearest introductions to the economic way of thinking and how it can be applied to a vast number of real world problems. Don’t be intimidated by its brick-like dimensions — it’s written with common sense and plain English. It’s highly readable and easy to digest in pieces, if you don’t finish it off in one sitting. If you get to the end and want more, don’t worry — you can continue “thinking beyond stage one” with Sowell’s Applied Economics.

Beyond Politics: The Roots of Government Failure – Randy Simmons
Public Choice is the most important branch of economics for understanding how and why governments work the way they do. Public Choice is essentially the science of political skepticism: using economic analysis to examine how the incentives of democracy guide the decision making of politicians, bureaucrats, voters, and special interests.
Randy Simmons’ Beyond Politics is the best and most accessible survey of Public Choice, explaining in clear and concrete terms just what things government cannot do — and what the consequences are when it tries to do them anyway.

The Problem of Political Authority – Michael Huemer
In this text, philosopher Michael Huemer exposes the shaky foundations of the most basic premises of government. Carefully tracing the implications of basic moral tenets that nearly everyone accepts, Huemer shows that the authority of the state is a chimera: there is no way to get from the ethical rules that govern how individuals should treat each other to a system that empowers a few people — “the state” — with the privileged moral position to issue coercive commands, while imposing on everyone else the moral duty to obey them. Huemer throws down the gauntlet and challenges the very notion of political authority — and with it, the special standard to which government actions are held.

The Myth of the Rational Voter – Bryan Caplan
The biggest reason why democracies choose bad policies is not selfishness, corruption, or lobbyists — it’s the voters themselves. Bryan Caplan documents the overwhelming empirical evidence that voters are not just ignorant about the most basic aspects of law, government, and economics, but they are also actively irrational in their preferences. In other words, voters are not just wrong but passionately and systematically wrong.
Worse, Caplan shows that these problems are inherent to the democratic system: voters have no incentive to be rational, well-informed, or coolheaded, and politicians have every reason to stoke prejudice and exploit voters’ ignorance. Limiting the scope of democratic power is the only sure way to limit the damage irrational voters can do.

The Theory of Moral Sentiments – Adam Smith
Everyone knows Adam Smith’s magisterial work The Wealth of Nations, but his first book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, is essential for laying the ethical, psychological, and sociological groundwork for his later work in economics and philosophy. Today, Adam Smith is frequently demonized as the patron saint of greed and selfishness, but Moral Sentiments shows that Smith had a nuanced and deep understanding of human nature, our drives for virtue and vice, and the spirit and sympathies that help human beings thrive.
This book, published in 1759, was vastly ahead of its time in many fields, foreshadowing later developments in social science, moral philosophy, and social psychology. But it is also packed with deep and practical insights for any student of human nature. If you find Smith a little too daunting on the first attempt, Russ Roberts’ How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life is a short and friendly introduction to some of the insights in Moral Sentiments.

The God of the Machine – Isabel Paterson
First published in 1943, The God of the Machine was one of four books that emerged in the depths of World War II — along with Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, F.A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, and Rose Wilder Lane’s The Discovery of Freedom — that launched the modern libertarian movement and helped turn the intellectual tide against collectivism.
At a time when socialism and fascism were conquering whole continents, Paterson set out a defense of individualism, the free market, and limited government that remains powerful and timely to this day. By tracing the role of individual freedom in the rise and fall of civilizations, the book re-centered the discussion of human history on its true subject: the individual.

No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority – Lysander Spooner
Legal theorist Lysander Spooner wrote this devastating critique of the U.S. Constitution in 1867. It remains one of the most thoughtful and hard-hitting criticisms of the American government and federal power. Spooner illustrates why the Constitution can carry no binding authority as a “contract” among “we the people.” At most, he argued, it could only bind and apply to the people who were actually alive at the time of its adoption, and then only to those who explicitly consented to its adoption. Therefore, breaking away from the union of states is “no treason.”
No Treason is also one of the most quotable individualist anarchist works. Any anarchist worth his or her salt knows by heart Spooner’s concise indictment of the Constitution: “But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.”

Radicals for Capitalism – Brian Doherty
Radicals for Capitalism is a weighty tome, summarizing centuries of classical liberal and libertarian history in one book. Reason magazine senior editor Brian Doherty goes to great lengths to capture the varying influences and factions within the broader libertarian movement. This book is an essential part of any collection on American political history, and friends of liberty will find a lot to learn and enjoy in its eyewitness histories and firsthand accounts of the motley crew that created and compose the modern American libertarian movement.

Democracy in America – Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville came to the United States to study prisons for the French government, but he ended up making his most important contributions by studying America’s free society in action. De Toqueville toured the country for nine months, observing how U.S. political, economic, religious, and social institutions worked together to foster human cooperation, and how that process of cooperation led to a thriving social order.
As Daniel J. D’Amico explains, “America’s early and rapid rate of economic development and its functioning social order resulted from a life spring of vibrant civil society. Families, clubs, churches, and various community groups provided early Americans with diverse opportunities to practice the art of association.”
The text, first published in 1835, endures as an influential and insightful account of American society and culture — it has been called the best book ever written about America — but more importantly, it describes the principles underlying social order itself. “In democratic countries the science of association is the mother science,” De Tocqueville wrote, “the progress of all the others depends on the progress of that one.”

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress – Robert Heinlein
This novel explores a futuristic society in which a lunar colony revolts against rule from Earth. It is widely regarded as one of the best science fiction novels of all time, but its compelling portrait of a dystopian future and discussion of libertarian ideas make it an essential part of a libertarian bookshelf. Characters in the book range in their politics from self-proclaimed anarchist to would-be authoritarian, and the novel touches on libertarian themes such as spontaneous order, natural law, and individualism. Harsh Mistress would go on to win various awards, including the Hugo Award for best science fiction novel.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
“The days rolled by in the camp — they were over before you could say ‘knife.’ But the years, they never rolled by; they never moved by a second.”
In this short novel, Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn lays out — in brutal detail — an ordinary day in the life of one prisoner held in Stalin’s Siberian gulags: the bitter cold, the pervasive hunger, the savage punishments, the powerlessness, despair, and fear. Solzhenitsyn himself spent ten years in the gulag for insulting Stalin, and his own personal experience sharpens the story with heartbreaking detail. Tens of millions were churned through the gulags and slave labor camps in the Soviet Union; more than one million people would die there. Ivan Denisovich helps to humanize an ocean of terror and human suffering that all too easily blurs into a pile of statistics.

This piece ran at the LearnLiberty Blog

Daniel Bier

Daniel Bier is the editor of the LearnLiberty blog, and contributing editor of FEE. He writes on issues relating to science, civil liberties, and economic freedom.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Judaism, Karl Marx and Socialism by Israel Zangwill 1895

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The Jews and Early Socialism, from Children of the Ghetto: A Study of a Peculiar People By Israel Zangwill 1895

Singly we are sand-grains, together we are the simoom. Our great teacher, Moses, was the first Socialist. The legislation of the Old Testament — the land laws, the jubilee regulations, the tender care for the poor, the subordination of the rights of property to the interests of the working-men — all this is pure Socialism!...Socialism mean(s) shorter hours and higher wages and was obtainable by marching with banners and brass bands — what need to inquire further?

In short, Socialism is Judaism and Judaism is Socialism, and Karl Marx and Lassalle, the founders of Socialism, were Jews. Judaism does not bother with the next world. It says, 'Eat, drink and be satisfied and thank the Lord, thy God, who brought thee out of Egypt from the land of bondage.' But we have nothing to eat, we have nothing to drink, we have nothing to be satisfied with, we are still in the land of bondage. My brothers, how can we keep Judaism in a land where there is no Socialism? We must become better Jews, we must bring on Socialism, for the period of Socialism on earth and of peace and plenty and brotherly love is what all our prophets and great teachers meant by Messiah-times.

When Hillel the Great summed up the law to the would-be proselyte while standing on one leg, how did he express it? 'Do not unto others what you would not have others do unto you.' This is Socialism in a nut-shell. Do not keep your riches for yourself, spread them abroad. Do not fatten on the labor of the poor, but share it. Do not eat the food others have earned, but earn your own. Yes, brothers, the only true Jews in England are the Socialists. Phylacteries, praying-shawls— all nonsense. Work for Socialism — that pleases the Almighty. The Messiah will be a Socialist. ~ Israel Zangwill

From The American Jewish Chronicle, May 10 1918

What remains today of Karl Marx is not his Philosophy of History, not his sociology and not his economic theories but a great wonderful personality of an apostle and tribune, of a prophet and teacher. As such he will continue to be admired and honored for many generations. What has remained of Marx is his powerful personality, his motives of thought, his virile and gigantic mentality and his puritan earnestness which is so typically Jewish that even those who do not believe in racial theories find it hard to overlook the Jew in him. Even his appearance reminds us of the figure of a medieval rabbi—-earnest, patriarchal, dignified. Just as his outer appearance was typical, so is the motive of his thought and his entire disposition of mind typically Jewish. What he has in common with the Jewish race most is his boundless optimism and belief in a better future for humanity; the bells of a happy future were constantly ringing in his ears. It was this indestructible belief in a better future for humanity that became the basis of all his philosophies and theories. As a philosopher and a theoretician he was inspired by Gentiles—-by English and French economists and by German philosophers, notably Hegel, whose philosophy of history he materialized. But his personality, his mind and soul and his ethical makeup are gifts of our race. What his mind borrowed from Gentile minds has been destroyed by time. The philosophic inspirations he drew from Gentiles have proven of short duration. Men and time have helped destroy it and did destroy it, but what he has received from our race—-his personality—-is indestructible. None will destroy it, none will attempt to destroy it, because it is as strong as concrete and granite.

From The American Jewish Chronicle Vol 3 No 1-26, 1917

Herrmann Cohen, the founder of neo-Kantianism, who is at the same time a learned and serious-minded Jew, knows what he is talking about when he sings the praise of Marx in such a manner. Karl Marx was not only the Abgesandter der Geschichte, but a great Jew; he personified the renaissance of classic Jewish sociological thought. He did not know Judaism and therefore shared the opinion of his contemporaries with regard to Judaism; but his intellect was cut from the granite of ancient Jewish genius. In him lived the fire of the prophetic soul; he was the great reminder of prophetic thought in the nineteenth century. Paul was the real anti-Jew. Marx, however, was not an anti—Jew in substance, though he was in form; as a matter of fact he was the greatest Jew the Jewish people has ever produced during its Diaspora life. He was by far greater than Spinoza.

From A History of the Jews in Modern Times By Max Raisin 1919

Socialism itself was largely a product of the Jewish mind. In theory and scientific analysis it was the work of Karl Marx, while as a political factor in the empire it claims another Jew, Ferdinand Lassalle, as its organizing genius.

5 Great Books on Politics and Public Policy from 2016

5 Great Books on Politics and Public Policy from 2016

A lot of interesting books on politics, economics, and public policy were published over the last twelve months. It can be difficult, though, finding the gems among the extremely large number of books about public affairs that hit bookstore (and Amazon warehouse) shelves each year. For every volume as eagerly anticipated as Deirdre McCloskey’s Bourgeois Equality, engaged readers must sift past a dozen volumes of hot-take pop commentary like Thomas Friedman’s Thank You for Being Late. That said, here are a few new titles that caught our attention at CEI in 2016.

The Intimidation Game: How the Left Is Silencing Free Speech by Kimberley Strassel. Reviewed this week by Fred L. Smith, Jr. for the Claremont Review of Books:

Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel has written an insightful, important book on the Left’s efforts to drive market-friendly voices from the public square. A skilled investigative journalist, Strassel documents the extensive efforts to suppress political opposition, intimidate dissidents, and weaken the First Amendment.

Strassel notes that attacks on speech—and defenders of it—have come from both parties. She traces the history of campaign “reform” initiatives, accompanying court challenges, and bipartisan support for “transparency” and “accountability.” Readers will gain clarity, but little comfort, from her chronicle of culture and politics conspiring to weaken free speech.

Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future by Johan Norberg, summarized here by Ryan Young:

Norberg is a Swedish economist and political commentator who has hosted documentaries for the BBC and other outlets. His latest book updates CEI hero Julian Simon’s work showing why the world is getting better, not worse. And he does so in a friendly, easy-to-read style. Norberg remains pessimistic about a scare-obsessed media’s ability to accurately report on the human condition. But the facts on the ground give him no choice but to be optimistic about humanity’s future, from declining disease rates to rising life expectancies to mass prosperity finally reaching the developing world. Pairs well with any of Julian Simon’s work, as well as Matt Ridley’s The Rational Optimist and Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature.

Real Heroes: Inspiring True Stories of Courage, Character, and Conviction by Lawrence W. Reed. Reviewed by Kent Lassman here at Open Market in October:

About a dozen years ago, I developed a habit of asking the same question when I interviewed someone for a job. Typically, about two-thirds of the way through the allotted time, I ask a candidate if he or she has a hero.

The specific answers have never mattered as much the humanity expressed through the answer. If you have a hero, I am willing to bet you have a strong connection to that person. The non-traditional interview question seeks to understand the humanity and passion of the candidate. It also clearly signals that I’m not interested in hiring just a set of skills or a resume, I need to hire a person with a real beating heart, who has lived and thought about life. Try it sometime – you’ll find that it is not a question where it is easy to fake the answer.

As a result, I was delighted to find an early copy of a new book that serves as primer on what it takes to make a hero.

With Real Heroes, his latest book for the Foundation for Economic Education, Lawrence W. Reed brings to life dozens of stories where high character animates courage and triumph. Reed has mastered the maxim that people think analytically but learn analogically. He carefully makes the case that we need real heroes and they can be found all around, if we are willing to see them.

Rivalry and Central Planning by Don Lavoie. Summarized here by Ryan Young:

Lavoie played a major role in building up George Mason University’s economics department before he passed away in 2001. The Mercatus Center’s new reissue of his 1985 book, originally published at the height of the Cold War, remains relevant to today’s debate between spontaneous orders versus central planning; some old debates never die. Mercatus also recently reissued Lavoie’s National Economic Planning: What Is Left?, which focuses on similar themes.

And by way of honorable mention, I also include my own review, for Cato Journal, of Markets without Limits: Moral Virtues and Commercial Interests by Jason Brennan and Peter M. Jaworski. The book was originally released in 2015, but the review was published this year:
The authors do a good job of separating incidental objections from the fundamental moral questions at the heart of the anticommodification debate. In a section titled “Business Ethics vs. What Can Be for Sale,” we are asked to consider objections to a couple of scenarios. Some critics of the fast food chain Chick-fil-A, for example, object to the company’s political opposition to marriage equality. Other critics have been appalled at reports of abusive working conditions at facilities operated by Apple’s Chinese contractor FoxConn. If we deem these companies’ products to be worthy of a boycott, that would represent a kind of limit on the market for chicken and smartphones, but not the kind of limit that concerns the authors.

Their primary question is whether there are things that categorically cannot be legitimately bought and sold. They are not concerned, in this book at least, with the objectionable actions or business practices of particular companies. To date, the anti-market critics have not yet argued that chicken sandwiches and iPhones are inherently immoral items to sell.

That distinction, along with the understanding that Brennan and Jaworski are not necessarily arguing for unregulated markets, sets the stage for considering the anti-commodification theorists’ real objections. And while ultimately they conclude that all of those objections can be answered and refuted, they do take them seriously. For example, Brennan and Jaworski engage in fascinating discussions on whether public betting on the likelihood of future terrorist attacks should be legal, as well as on more well-trod debate topics like legalizing sex work and the moral status of surrogate motherhood.

Republished from CEI.

Richard Morrison

Richard Morrison is the program manager of the Center for Advancing Capitalism, a project of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Contracts with the Devil by George Holyoake 1896

Contracts with the Devil by George Jacob Holyoake 1896

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The Devil, fighting with God for the possession of mankind, was supposed to have a special passion for catching souls. Being the prince of the world he could easily grant even the most extravagant wishes of man, and was willing to pay a high price for his soul. Thus originated the idea of making compacts with the Devil; yet it is worthy of note that in these compacts the Devil is very careful to establish his title to the soul of a man by a faultless legal document. He has, as we shall learn, sufficient reason to distrust all promises made him by men and saints. Following the authority of the old legends, we find that even the good Lord frequently lends his assistance to cheating the Devil out of his own. He is always duped and the vilest tricks are resorted to to cheat him. While thus the Devil, having learned from experience, always insists upon having his rights insured by an unequivocal instrument (which in later centuries is to be signed with blood); he, in his turn, is fearlessly trusted to keep his promise, and this is a fact which must be mentioned to his honor, for although he is said to be a liar from the beginning, not one case is known in all devil-lore in which the Devil attempts to cheat his stipulators.

He appears as the most unfairly maligned person, and as a martyr of simple-minded honesty.

The oldest story of a Devil-contract is the story of Theophilus, first told by Eutychian, who declares he had witnessed (!) the whole affair with his own eyes.

Theophilus, an officer of the Church and a pious man, living in Adana, a town of Cilicia, was unanimously selected by the clergy and by the laymen as their bishop, but he refused the honor from sheer modesty. So another man became bishop in his stead. The new bishop unjustly deprived Theophilus of his office. The latter deeply humiliated went to a famous wizard and made with his assistance a compact with Satan, renouncing Christ and the Holy Virgin. The bishop at once restores Theophilus to his position, but Theophilus repents his crime and takes refuge in the Holy Virgin. After forty days fasting-and praying he is rebuked for his crime but not comforted; so he fasts and prays thirty more days, and receives at last absolution. Three more days and the fatal document is returned to him. Now Theophilus relates the whole story in the presence of the bishop to the assembled congregation in church; and after having divided all his possessions among the poor dies peacefully and enters into the glories of paradise.

Even popes are said to have made compacts with the Devil. An English Benedictine monk, William of Malmesburg, says of Pope Sylvester II., who was born in France, his secular name being Herbert, that he entered the cloister when still a boy. Full of ambition, he flew to Spain where he studied astrology and magic among the Saracens. There he stole a magic-book from a Saracen philosopher, and returned flying through the air to France. Now he opened a school and acquired great fame, so that the King himself became one of his disciples. Then he became Bishop of Rheims, where he had a magnificent clock and an organ constructed. Having raised the treasure of Emperor Octavian which lay hidden in a subterranean vault at Rome, he became Pope. As Pope he manufactured a magic head which replied to all his questions. This head told him that he would not die until he had read Mass in Jerusalem. So the Pope decided never to visit the holy land. But once he fell sick, and asking his magic head, was informed that the church's name in which he had read Mass the other day was "The Holy Cross of Jerusalem." The Pope knew at once that he had to die. He gathered all the cardinals around his bed, confessed his crime, and, as a penance, ordered his body to be cut up alive and the pieces to be thrown out of the church as unclean.

Sigabert tells the story of the Pope's death a different way. There is no penance on the part of the Pope, and the Devil takes his soul to hell. Others tell us that the Devil constantly accompanied the Pope in the shape of a black dog, and that this dog gave him the equivocal prophecy.

The most famous, most significant, and the profoundest story among the legends of devil-contracts is the saga of Dr. Johannes Faustus. Whether the hero of the Faust legend derives his name from the well-known Strassburg goldsmith Faust, the companion of Gensfleisch vom Gutenberg, the inventor of printing, or whether he was a historical personality is an open question. Certain it is that all the stories of the great naturalists and thinkers whom the people at the time regarded as wizards were by and by attributed to him, and the figure of Dr. Faustus became the centre of an extensive circle of traditions. The tales about Albertus Magnus, Johannes Teutonious (Deutsch), Trithemius, Abbot of Sponheim, Agrippa of Nettesheim, Theophrastus, and Paracelsus, were retold of Faust, and Faust became a poetical personification of the great revolutionary aspirations in the time immediately preceding and following the Reformation. The original form of the legend represents the Roman Catholic standpoint. Faust is allied with the Devil, he worked his miracles by black art, and has to pay for its practice with his soul. Faust begins his career in Wittenberg, the university at which Luther taught. Faust is the embodiment of natural science, of historical investigation, of the renaissance, and of modern discoveries and inventions. As such he subdues nature, restores to life the heroes of ancient Greece, gathers knowledge about distant lands, and receives Helena as the ideal of classic beauty.

As the fall of the Devil is, according to biblical authority, attributed to pride and ambition, so progress and the spirit of investigation was denounced as Satan's work and all inquiry into the mysteries of nature was regarded as magic. Think only of Roger Bacon, that studious, noble monk, and a greater scientist than his more famous namesake, Lord Bacon! When Roger Bacon made some experiments with light, and the rainbow-colors of light, at the University of Paris, the audience ran away from him terrified, and his life was endangered because he was suspected of practising the black art.

Faust is the representative of scientific manliness. He investigates, even though it may cost him heavenly bliss; he boldly studies nature, although he will be damned for it to hell; he seeks the truth at the risk of forfeiting his soul. According to the mediaeval theology Satan fell simply on account of his manly ambition and high aspiration, and yet Faust dares to break and eat of the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge. According to Marlow's Faustus Lucifer fell, "not only by insolence, but first of all by aspiring pride." Mephistopheles seems to regret, but Faustus comforts him, saying:

 "What is great Mephistopheles so passionate,
  For being deprived of the joys of heaven?
  Learn thou of Faustus manly fortitude,
  And scorn those joys thou never shalt possess."

The oldest Faust book, dated 1587, is preserved in one single copy only which is now carefully preserved in Ulm. Scheible has published it in his work Dr. Johannes Faust (3 Vols., Stuttgart, 1846). The preface states that the publisher had received the manuscript from a good friend in Speyer, and that the original story had been written in Latin. The contents of this oldest version of the Faust legend are as follows:

Faust, the son of a farmer in Rod, near Weimar, studied theology at Wittenberg. Ambitious to be omniscient and omnipotent like God, he dived into the secret lore of magic, but unable to make much progress, he conjured the Devil in a thick forest near Wittenberg. Not in the least intimidated by the Devil's noisy behavior, he forced him to become his servant. Faust, being the master of demons, did not regard his salvation endangered, and when the Devil told him that he should nevertheless receive his full punishment after death, he grew extremely angry with him and bade him quit his presence, saying: "For your sake I do not want to be damned." When the Devil had left, Faust felt an emptiness not experienced before, for he had become accustomed to his services. Accordingly, he ordered the Devil to return, who now introduced himself as Mephistopheles. The name is derived from the Greek MH TO FWS FILHS, "not-the-light-loving," and was afterwards altered into Mephistopheles. He now made a compact with the Devil who consented to serve him for twenty-four years, Faust allowing him afterwards to deal with him as he pleased. The contract was signed by Faust with his blood, which he drew with a pen-knife from his left hand. The blood, running out of the wound, formed the words: Homo fuge (man, fly!). This startles Faust, but he remains resolute.

Mephistopheles entertained his master with all kinds of merry illusions, with music and visions. He brought him dainty dishes and costly clothes stolen from royal households. Faust became luxurious and desired to marry. The Devil refused, because marriage is a sacrament. Faust insisted. Then the Devil appeared in his real shape which was so terrific that Faust was frightened. He gave up the idea of marriage, but Mephistopheles sent him devils who assumed the shape of beautiful women, and made him dissolute.

Faust conversed with his servant about eschatological subjects, and heard many things which greatly displeased his vanity. The Devil said, "I am a Devil and act according to my nature. But if I were a man, I would rather humiliate myself before God than before Satan."

Faust became sick of his empty pleasures. His ambition was to be recognised in the world as a man who can explain nature, presage future events, and so excite admiration. Having received sufficient information concerning the other world, he wanted to come into direct contact with it, and Mephistopheles introduced to him a number of distinguished devils. When the visitors left, the house was so full of vermin that Faust had to withdraw. But he did not neglect his new acquaintances on that account, but paid them a visit in their own home. Riding upon a chair built of human bones, he visited hell and contemplated with leisure the flames of its furnaces and the torments of the condemned.

Having safely returned from the infernal region, he was carried in a carriage drawn by dragons up to heaven. He took a ride high in the air, first eastwards over the whole of Asia, then upwards to the stars, until they grew before his eyes on his approach into big worlds, while the earth became as small as the yolk of an egg.

His curiosity being satisfied in that direction, he concentrated his attention to the earth. Mephistopheles assumed the shape of a winged horse upon which he visited all the countries of our planet. He visited Rome and regretted not having become pope, seeing the luxuries of his life. He sat down at his table invisible and took away the daintiest morsels, and the wine from the pope's very lips. The pope, believing himself beset by a ghost, exorcised its poor soul, but Faust laughed at him. In Turkey he visited the Sultan's harem, and introduced himself as the prophet Mohamet, which gave him full liberty to act as he pleased. Beyond India he saw at a distance the blest gardens of paradise.

Faust, being invited in his capacity of magician to the Emperor Charles the Fifth, made Alexander the Great, the beautiful Helen, and other noted persons of antiquity appear before the whole court. Faust fell in love with Helen, so that he could no longer live without her. He kept her in his company and had a child by her, a marvellous boy who could reveal the future.

When the twenty-four years had almost elapsed, Faust grew melancholy, but the Devil mocked him. At midnight, on the very last day, some students who had been in his company heard a frightful noise, but did not dare to enter his room. They found him on the next morning torn to pieces in his room. Helen and her child had disappeared, and his famulus Wagner inherited his books and magic art.

This briefly is the contents of the Volksbuch.

A transcription of the Faust-book in rhymes was published as early as 1587 in Tubingen. Another version of the Faust legend was Widmann's Hamburg-edition of 1599. It is less complete than the first Faust book and lacks in depth of conception while it abounds rather more in coarse incidents. Widmann's version became the basis of several further editions, 1674 by Pfitzer in Nurnberg, 1728 in Frankfurt and Leipsic. Faust must have appeared on the stage, for the clergy of Berlin filed a complaint that Faust publicly abjured God on the stage. The puppet-play Faust was compiled for the amusement of peasants and children, in fairs and market places. Yet it was powerful enough to inspire Goethe who saw it still performed when a boy, to write the great drama which became the most famous work of his life.

English editions appeared very early, and Marlowe, the greatest pre-Shakespearian dramatist, used the Faust story for one of his dramas, which is still extant.

Goethe's Faust represents the Protestant stand-point. Goethe's Mephistopheles is not as grand as Milton's Satan, but he is not less ingenious in conception. Mephistopheles is "the principle that denies." He is not a hero, not a noble-souled rebel like Milton's Lucifer, but the spirit of criticism, of destruction, of darkness. As such he plays an important part in the economy of nature. Says the Lord in the Prelude to Faust:

"Man's active nature seeks too soon the level;
  Unqualified repose he learns to crave;
 Whence, willingly, the comrade him I gave,
 Who works, excites, and must create, as Devil."

And Mephistopheles characterises himself in these words:

"I am the spirit that denies!
 And justly so: For all things from the void
  Called forth, deserve to be destroyd:
 T'were better, then, were naught created.
 Thus, all which you as sin have rated,—
  Destruction,—aught with evil blent,—
 That is my proper element."

In Goethe's conception, Faust allies himself with the spirit of negation and promises to pay the price of his soul on condition that he should find satisfaction; but Faust finds no satisfaction in the gifts of the spirit that denies. However, he does find satisfaction after having abandoned the chase for empty pleasures in active and successful work for the good of mankind. Goethe's Faust uses the Devil, but Faust rises above his negativism. However, he inherits from the revolutionary movement the love of liberty. Says the dying Faust:

"And such a throng I fain would see, —
  Stand on free soil among a people free."

This Faust cannot be lost. His soul is saved. Mephistopheles now ceases to be a mere incarnation of badness, his negativism becomes the spirit of critique. The spirit of critique, although destructive, leads to the positivework of construction; and thus Faust becomes a representative of the bold spirit of investigation and progress which characterises the age of the Reformation.

We ask in fine: How can we explain the origin of devil-stories and devil-contracts, and what is their significance? Our answer in brief is: The devil-stories are myths in which Christian mythology is carried to the extreme. Symbols are taken seriously, and from the literal belief of the Christian dogmas the imagination weaves these pictures which to our ancestors were more than mere tales that adorn a moral.

In modern times, the figure of the Evil One begins to lose the awe he exercised during the middle ages upon the imagination; he develops more and more into a harmonious character. Victor Hugo uses him as a relief for his political satire. No more trenchant sarcasm in poetic form can be imagined than his lines on Napoleon III. and Pope Pius IX. He says:

"One day the Lord was playing
For human souls (they're saying)
With Satan's Majesty.
And each one showed his art:
The one played Bonaparte,
The other Mastai.

An abbot sly and keen,
A princelet wretched mean,
And a rascal, upon oath.
God Father played so poorly,
He lost the game, and surely
The Devil won them both.

'Well, take them !' cried God Father,
'You'll find them useless rather!'
The Devil laughed and swore:
'They'll serve my cause, I hope.
The one I'll make a pope,
The other emperor!'"

The Devil in the literature of to-day is of the same kind: a harmless fellow at whose expense the reader enjoys a hearty laugh. Lesage's novel The Devil on Two Sticks is a poor piece of fiction, and Hauff's Memoirs of Satan are rather lengthy. Hell up to Date is a genuine Chicago production of modern style. The author introduces himself as a newspaper reporter who interviews "Sate," and is shown round the Inferno. He finds that "Hell is now run on the broad American plan." "Captain" Charon, who began his career as a ferryman with a little tub of a "rowboat," is now running big steamers on the Styx, "the only navigable river in hell." Judge Minos sits in court, and an Irish policeman introduces the poor wretches one by one. The lawyers are condemned to be gagged, and their objections are overruled by Satan; the inventor of the barbwire fence is seated naked on a barbwire fence; tramps are washed; policemen are clubbed until they see stars; quack doctors are cured according to their own methods; poker fiends, board of trade gamblers, and fish-story tellers are treated according to their deserts; monopolists are baked like pop-corn, and clergymen are condemned to listen to their own sermons which have been faithfully recorded in phonographs.

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