Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Individual Liberty by Benjamin R. Tucker

Status: Almost Complete (v.2)

The PDF scan of this had a ton of scanning artifacts. Just running the images through a cleaning algorithm, I was able to shave off ~5 MBs of pure speckles.

Comparison of page vii:
Original
After Algorithm

A lot of the markings were cleaned manually as well.

Size Comparison (PDF):
Original: 22.0 MB
Finereader: 15.1 MB (31% reduction)
Cleaned + Finereader + Bookmarks: 11.2 MB (~50% reduction)

EPUB: https://mega.co.nz/#!rEwGEIbA!QIBqIQJ--XGG7MgwsubmkgS3KFNe-659mvHwroQmciE
PDF: DEAD LINK (If you are interested, please leave a comment)

Fix Notes:


Page 10: individuals

[...] the government to certain individuals, or to indivduals holding certain kinds of property, of issuing the circulating medium, a privilege which is now enforced in this country by a national tax of ten per cent. upon all other persons who attempt to furnish a circulating medium, and by State laws making it a criminal offence to issue notes as currency.

Page 10: therefore

[...] but equally good, credits of the customers, and a charge therefor of less than one per cent., not as interest for the use of capital, but as pay for the labor of running the banks.

Page 21: aggression

Seeking, then, the elements common to all the institutions to which the name “State” has been applied, they have found them two in number: first, agression; second, the assumption of sole authority over a given area and all within it, [...]

Page 51: astonishment

Now the only as-stonishment is—at least in the United States—that the church is allowed to stay at any other level. But the political superstition has replaced the religious superstition, and Mr. Read is under its sway.

Page 55: unnecessary

Nearly all the evils with which mankind was ever afflicted were products of this "grand race experience,” and I am not aware that any were ever abolished by showing it any unneccessary reverence.

Page 67: prohibitionists

Yes, just as despotic as the prohibtionists who believe it is their right to defend themselves from drunkards and rumsellers.”

Page 80: necessary

Of the superior effectiveness of passive resistance to arbitrary and invasive policies it is hardly necesary to speak.

Page 81: advantage

Local autonomy in taxation and direct local rates are very advantageous to passive resisters, and labor is short-sighted in giving up the adavantage.

Page 85: Newcastle

But to say all this to Mr. Donisthorpe is like carrying coals to Newcatsle.

Page 92: addition

[...] thus causing coin to flow into the vaults of the banks and add to their reserve; that this additon had enabled them to add further to their circulation, until, by a continuation of the process, [...]

Page 112: therefore

[...] which each of them could obtain in exchange for his equally good but less reputable individual credit, having to pay therefor nothing but the cost of this exchange of credits.

Page 124: approaching

The hypothesis of free and mutual banking excludes on the one hand any legal limitation of the supply of currency whereby each note would acquire an extra value due to the enforced scarcity of the tool of exchange, and, on the other hand, any inflation of the currency to a volume exceeding the basis or sufficiently aproaching the limit of the basis to inspire an appreciable fear that the notes are in danger from a possible depreciation of the security.

Page 126: borrower

In the existing unideal world the collateral securing a mutual-bank note would guarantee its holder that, unless the original borower buys back the note in order to cancel therewith his own note held by the bank, the bank itself will ultimately convert the collateral into the commodity [...]

Page 138: extent

The solvency of the Scotch banks is due mainly to the following facts: first, that the stockholders in every bank except the three oldest of these institutions are liable to the whole exent of their personal fortunes for the bank’s debts; [...]

Page 142: impression

I was greatly interested in it, and the pamphlet made a deep impresion on me, suggesting to me a thousand thoughts; [...]

Page 144: attention

The question of the redemption of mutual bank notes in specie was still engaging the attenion of some of the students of the problem, [...]

Page 153: monopoly

[...] when he says that the present value of money depends upon monoply or scarcity, he is speaking of merchandise money.

Page 155: monopoly

A voluntary custom of selling preferentially for gold would not be a monoply, but there is no such voluntary custom.

(UNCHANGED) Page 155: Missing smallcaps and indentation at the bottom of the page. Every other "reply" has a paragraph which starts with smallcaps words and no indentation.

Mr. Fisher’s article is nothing but a string of assertions, [...]

(UNCHANGED) Page 157: Missing smallcaps and indentation.

A laborer’s product is such portion of the value of that which he delivers to the consumer as his own labor has contributed.

Page 159: accomplish

I know that it is a crime in this country, and I believe that the laws of England contain restrictions that oc-complish virtually the same result.

Page 159: alcoholic

If whiskey were the only alchoholic drink allowed to be used as a beverage, it would command a higher price than it commands now.

(UNCHANGED) Page 175: Missing smallcaps and indentation.

Let me suppose a case for Mr. Benton.

(UNCHANGED) Page 185: Missing smallcaps and indentation

This smacks of Henry George.

Page 191: happiness

—in other words, that man derives more happines from freedom than from luxury,—

Page 193: monoply

And when you have abolished the money monoply, and when, in consequence, the wages of the man with the bit of land have begun to rise above the cost of living, the labor question will be nine-tenths solved.

Page 204: propose

But if the community does not proprose to go to this extreme; if it proposes to recognize the individual and treat with him, [...]

Page 227: occupancy

—not occupany or use, as Mr. Byington seems to have understood.

Page 250: therefore

If they have their foundations in justice, why should men guilty of nothing but a legitimate act of coöperation and partnership be punished therefor by having their just rights taken from them?

Page 255: understood

[...] they thoroughly understod their course, we, at any rate, have pretty nearly forgotten their understanding.

Page 256: monopoly

The most serious of these four monopolies is unquestionably the money monoply, and I believe that perfect freedom in finance alone would wipe out nearly all the trusts, or at least render them harmless, and perhaps helpful.

Page 260: partly

[...] we got very angry with Carlyle for patly putting the American Iliad in a nutshell and epigrammatically establishing the substantial similarity between the condition of slave labor at the South and that of so-called “free” labor at the North.

Page 270: referred

I understand that there was some doubt in Chicago whether the millionaire refered to "meant business” and was entitled to serious consideration.

(UNCHANGED) Page 270: Missing smallcaps and indentation

I understand that there was some doubt in Chicago whether [...]

Page 274: Professor

Again I ask you, Profesor Sumner, does your anxiety lest the individual be interfered with cover the field of finance?

(UNCHANGED) Page 275: Missing smallcaps and indentation

Liberty welcomes and criticises in the same breath the series of papers [...]

Page 278: magnificent

The book is a magificent assault on the majority idea, a searching exposure of the inherent evil of State systems, [...]

Page 284: accomplishment

There are some invasive acts or threats which cannot be executed by individuals, but require crowds—or conspiracies, if you will—for their acccomplishment.

PDF ONLY:



Bookmark Errors:

Page 84: Subchapter in the bookmark was missing "a Remedy".

Page 244: Method was placed in the wrong section

Added these subchapters:

Sociology - I. - How Far They Agree, and Wherein They Differ
Sociology - I. - Postscript
Economics - I. - The Redemption of Paper Money
Economics - II. - Liberty, Land, and Labor
Economics - III. - The Postoffice and Private Mail Service
Economics - III. - Competition and Co-operation
Economics - III. - Liberty and the Boycott
Economics - III. - Anarchism and Copyright

Sunday, January 27, 2013

The Return to Laisser Faire by Sir Ernest Benn

Status: Almost Complete (v.2)

Thank you to myhumangetsme for requesting this EPUB on the Mises Forums.

EPUB: http://www.mediafire.com/?lz9b1wv23xiw6bi

Fix Notes:


Page 94: analogous

If the eloquence that is applied to misrepresenting the character of competition were applied to the corresponding and analagous force of gravity, I do not doubt that the same ignorant enthusiasm could in time be developed on behalf of an effort to abolish that also.

Page 136: Missing period at the very end of Chapter XI.

Page 174: English

It may be that as there is no alternative we have accustomed ourselves to Post Office methods, just as perforce we have to accustom ourselves to the Engish climate; there is nothing else that we can do, and nobody seriously suggests that the service of the Post Office should be undertaken by private enterprise.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Debt: Private and Public, Good and Bad by Sir Ernest Benn

Status: Almost Complete (v.2)

Thank you to myhumangetsme for requesting this EPUB on the Mises Forums.

EPUB: http://www.mediafire.com/?64k80wdst4qvvbd

Fix Notes:


Page 49: Housing

The House-ing Acts of 1930 and ’31 permitted local authorities to borrow for eighty years to build houses, a more doubtful proceeding since few would be found to imagine that the houses will be acceptable to anybody in eighty years’ time.

Page 96, 111: right single quote before "bus" and "buses" (?) (UNCHANGED)

The average housewife, for example, peels 4,380 potatoes in a year; our trams carry the equivalent of the total population of Asia; the London ’buses and coaches convey, in the course of a year, almost as many people as there are in the world; 35s. is spent in this country every second of the day and night in the purchase of confectionery; 400,000,000 transactions are carried through in this little island every day of the year, each of them involving the sale and purchase of paper and so on.

Friday, January 25, 2013

The Discovery of Freedom by Rose Wilder Lane

Status: Almost Complete (v.4)

Thank you to fegeldolfy for requesting this EPUB on the Mises Forums.

EPUB: https://mega.co.nz/#!2F5WhIgS!GPQ4gQ38iezy62kH27rMRXiY1ktXk2xzzDN9P52VVPE

Fix Notes:


Page 249: No idea, but it seems like it is a mistake. I can't find any such a thing as "hyro-compasses" anywhere. Pehraps "hydro-compasses" (?) (UNCHANGED)
Thanks to Jason for mentioning it was most likely "gyro-compasses"

Americans are now creating the power age; they are gathering the power of gravitation that keeps the stars in their places, and transforming it into streams of power flowing through the machines and driving the stream-lined trains and the hyro-compasses and the radio beams, and lighting the cities and the farmers’ barns and toasting the bread for breakfast.

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Give Me Liberty by Rose Wilder Lane

Status: Accepted on Mises.org (03.06.2013)

Thank you to myhumangetsme for requesting this EPUB on the Mises Forums.

eISBN: 978-1-61016-597-6

Mises.org: https://www.mises.org/document/7017/Give-Me-Liberty

Fix Notes:


Intro: socialist (Thank you Bill Starr)

This was the first candid, personal account of the changing of an American’s mind, from an uncritical acceptance of solialist-communist—New-Deal philosophy to an understanding of American values.

Page 5: referendum

In the United States, for example, Liberals gained equal suffrage, popular election of nearly all public officials, initiative, refedendum, recall, and the primaries.

Page 5: tyranny:

But now, we confront economic tryanny.

Page 19: Accidental '.' instead of ',' (?)

No employer had stamped them during the past three days. men and women were loaded into the patrol wagon.

Page 22: efficient

If he had let Frenchmen waste and quarrel, and cheat and lose, as Americans were then doing in equally primitive markets, French department stores certainly would not have been made as briskly effi-cent and time-saving as America’s.

Page 25: Appalachians

Nevertheless, before tea went overboard in Boston harbor the lawless settlers had penetrated to the crests and valleys of the Applachians and were scouting into forbidden lands beyond.

Page 27: transfer

How is it possible to tranfer the power of the ruler to each man in this multitude?

Page 32: catastrophes

Each of them, amid the uncertainties, dangers, risks, opportunities and catastrophies of a free society, has been creating his own life and his own status as best he could.

Page 43: percentage

I read also that a hundred years ago 80 per cent of our population owned property and that today the percentge is 23.

Confessions of a Capitalist by Sir Ernest Benn

Status: Almost Complete (v.3)

Thank you to myhumangetsme for requesting this EPUB on the Mises Forums.

EPUB: http://www.mediafire.com/?7z1bn7zx7tw9jao

Fix Notes:


Page 15: discussion

In all this dicussion the business man is silent.

Page 20: community:

[...] agree with the wildest revolutionary that the annihilation of a certain class of money-owner would remove an eyesore and a blemish from the social structure, provided such an operation could be performed without damage to the whole comniunity.

Page 61: installs

But who can say that in ten years' time anybody will be willing to accept and use this particular type of button and put upon it the value which it is calculated to possess at the time when the maker first instals his machinery?

Page 99: therefore publish

I thereforep ublish on pages 100 and 101 three specimens of actual newspaper accounts. I do not ask the reader to waste much time over them.

Page 102: advertisement

These profits arise from the fact that the industry with which the paper is connected discovered that it suits its purpose to make full use of the advertisement pages, although the circulation is small and the editorial expenses almost negligible.

Page 105: Missing italics and period after 'd':

Friday by Friday, to pay 6d for a paper that cost 2s. or 3s.

Page 109: Italics added to the multiple "s." (shillings) inside of the table, to match the rest of the book.

Page 163: approaching

A hundred years ago we had a population of 8,000,000 and probably not more than a score of them with incomes approacing £10,000 a year.

Page 191: elements

The test of competition, the freedom of choice, the checks on extravagance, and the incentives to betterment, which are essential elments of private business, are absent in dealings with a public body.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

The State, the Enemy by Sir Ernest Benn

Status: Almost Complete (v.2)

Thank you to myhumangetsme for requesting this EPUB on the Mises Forums.


EPUB: http://www.mediafire.com/?8izws9101fgnmlg

Fix Notes:


Page 149: completely

The most careful business calculations are liable to be upset at the whim of a government department which is empowered “to do anything,” but when two or three departments divide the jurisdiction of a trade the possibility of “confidence” com-letely disappears.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Planning For Freedom by Ludwig von Mises

Status: Almost Complete (v.3)

Thank you to fegeldolfy for requesting this EPUB on the Mises Forums.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 62-14881
ISBN: 0-910884-02-1

EPUB: https://mega.co.nz/#!XNgQCLJI!OI2IJDAG7J_r_s-36ptEc3jzU8hTqvLFl5hshIexedc

Fix Notes:


Page 53: nineteenth

Those born in the eighties of the ninteenth century and later were merely epigones of the university and parlor Socialists of the late Victorian period.

Page 56: awkward

But it puts the adversary in the awkard position of either leaving an apparent argument unanswered or of employing the tools of logic and discursive reasoning against sparkling wit.

Page 125: improvement

It is their saving that is the vehicle of economic improv-ment, that makes the employment of technological innovations possible and raises productivity and the standard of living.

Page 153: misconstrues

Yet this popular doctrine miscontrues every aspect of economic reality.

Page 166: impossible

What makes it imposible for me to present the operation of the market economy in a short lecture [...]

Page 186: practically

So Mises was pratically unknown here, and, as the fashionable economic ideology then was Keynesianism and its New Deal offspring, he was shrugged off as a reactionary.

Friday, January 18, 2013

The People's Pottage by Garet Garrett

Status: Almost Complete (v.2)

Library of Congress Card Number: 53-5405

EPUB: https://mega.co.nz/#!nMI32BoL!bYa4RhxAIySMZAxZry14R1H3r8VSDyMGrENpwvODYmQ

Fix Notes:


Page 15: American

Worse outwitted were those who kept trying to make sense of the New Deal from the point of view of all that was implicit in the Amercan scheme, charging it therefore with contradiction, fallacy, economic ignorance, and general incompetence to govern.

Page 39: confiscated

In his message to Congress asking for the law that con-ficated the gold the President said:

Page 43: defeated

For example, if the propagandist said, “Down with the Constitution!”—bluntly like that—he would be defeat-el because of the way the Constitution is enshrined in the American conscience.

Page 44: fallen

Values have shrunk to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has follen [...]

Page 45: attacked

But never was it directly atacked or named;

Page 55: would

“Long before Inauguration Day I became convinced that individual effort and local effort and even disjointed Federal effort had failed and of necessity woul fail, and, therefore, that a rounded leadership by the Federal Government had become a necessity both of theory and of fact.”

Page 106: ¢

The amounts settled on were generally arbitrary. One day, for instance, the bedside conference decided on a rise of 21c;

Page 109: guarantee

To the farmers it gave cheap money and credit, a system of price supports the cost of which is met out of the public treasury, and a guaraantee of “parity,” which means that if other prices rise so shall the level of farm prices be raised by more subsidies [...]

Page 133: agencies

This number does not include the independent agenices in their quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative functions.

Page 141: afflict

And certainly never before could people have felt, so helpless about it, as if this were not the harvest of our foreign policy but Jehovah acting through the Russians to affiict us—and nobody else responsible.

Page 145: implicitly

When we cease to scrutinize them, when we appropriate implicity every dollar that is asked of us, then we shall have passed from being a representative democracy into being a militarized nation in which the General Staff makes the decisions.”

The Blue Wound by Garet Garrett

Status: Nearly Complete (v.2)

EPUB: http://www.mediafire.com/?7hda9wvbx9160gw

Fix Notes:


Page 152: evolution

It was almost entirely conducted in submarine vessels, the evolu-toin of which had been rapid and amazing. The reasons were quite natural.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

A Time Is Born by Garet Garrett

Status: Nearly Complete (v.2)

EPUB: http://www.mediafire.com/?pskwrk3ncuw2p78

Fix Notes:


Page 42: notwithstanding

Besides the migration of people from the soil to the cities, population actually increased in an extraordinary manner because food was increasingly plentiful, nothwithstanding the fact that more and more of it came from overseas in exchange for machine products.

Page 128: install

The makers of fifty-dollar watches throw away their old machines, instal new ones, increase their production, reduce their costs, and not only make what was a fifty-dollar watch for twenty-five but contribute also, in a competitive manner, to the supply of ten-dollar watches.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

The New Argument In Economics by Helmut Shoeck

Status: Almost Complete (v.3)

EPUB: http://www.mediafire.com/?5ca2oec8h16qd92

Fix Notes:


Page 10: Footnote 3: Mississippi

“In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Missisippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles.

Page 17: question

This is largely an empirical quesion, and again it is one to which little systematic analysis has been devoted.

Page 102: Footnote 10: discussion

For a more complete dicussion,

Page 103: Footnote 6: Hopkins

Bruce C. Netschert, The Future Supply of Oil and Gas (Baltimore: Johns Hokins Press, 1958).

Page 104: Footnote 22: Publishing

New York: McGraw-Hill Pubishing Co., Inc., 1952

Page 206: with

Of course, if the Secretary of Terpsichore moves down into Southern Michigan and the other forty-nine States, it’s going to cost a pretty penny. But this paper does not deal directly wtih profligacy, only with its aftermath—tyranny.

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Notes On Democracy by H.L. Mencken

Status: Almost Complete (v.2)

Thanks to commenter "Sergei" on God of the Machine for requesting an EPUB of this book, and also supplying the scan of the original 1926 edition.

I have cleaned up some of the marks/dots from the PDF as well, and now the text backend matches the EPUB. On top of that, the PDF version is smaller (9.29 MB -> 5.05 MB).

EPUB: https://mega.co.nz/#!vhAFgR4S!Sbst5HOcKMjGvumjyIJCgU-_aBcvB4ki7UHKPKaYU2c

PDF: https://mega.co.nz/#!WdoinR5B!7gEYM_Pj933Nbx24dR56YWPbJhnGYGBA4Hle787eW3I

Fix Notes:


Page 14: uncomfortable

Confronted by uncom-fortabe facts, it invariably tries to dispose of them by appeals to the highest sentiments of the human heart.

Page 23-24: confined

If Bryan had com-fined himself, in 1896, to the chase of the bugaboo of plutocracy, it is very probable that he would have been elected.

Page 83: accomplished (Changed... potentially spelled with one 'c' in 1926?)

It has substituted adultery for drunkenness as the principal divertissement at political conventions, but it has acomplished little else.

Page 117: common

Our laws are made, in the main, by men who have sold their honour for their jobs, and they are executed by men who put their jobs above justice and comon sense.

Page 203: aristocracy

It lacks all the essential characters of a true aristorcracy: a clean tradition, culture, public spirit, honesty, honour, courage—above all, courage.

Economics In One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt

Status: Almost Complete (v.2)

It seems like FEE took down the HTML version of the book that was on their site. The free PDF/DOC is located here now:

http://www.fee.org/library/detail/economics-in-one-lesson-pdf-doc-audio

The PDF (and thus my EPUB) seems to be a scan of the 1952 "Pocket Book Edition" created for FEE.

EPUB: http://www.mediafire.com/?k94850gwl82g5g2

NOTE: Random House hunts down all copies of Economics In One Lesson EPUBs (even hunted down that HTML backup I made of FEE's old version), through a middleman company called Attributor, Inc.

I would recommend reading the free PDF version on FEE's site, even though the scan is full of artifacts (I bet Random House would take down a version of the PDF that I cleaned as well). The .doc version is riddled with errors and I would avoid it at all costs.

If you want to read the book in HTML, a kind Anonymous user left a link to a very nice HTML version, but it is quite locked down.

If you want a physical copy of the book, I would recommend going to Mises.org and purchasing the physical version.

If you want to read it in EPUB, I would recommend downloading versions out there from your favorite P2P program, although all of the ones I have found are nothing compared to my quality.

Sad to see one of the most influential books of all time get locked down so badly by copyright.

Friday, January 11, 2013

God of the Machine by Isable Paterson

Status: Almost Complete (v.3)

Thanks to the commenter "Jason" on Governmnent: An Ideal Concept for requesting an EPUB of this book.

EPUB: https://mega.co.nz/#!DBJVgIwJ!OSy23AEV8jnE3s2IDFRrLU_dLewM2_Yv9Ccy3B8hnIw

Fix Notes:


Page 106: recurrent

In the long run, England was to make the most successful adjustment in the Old World, but not without a continuous struggle and recurrrent crises of violence, over five centuries.

Page 180: answers

Individual ownership anwers exactly to the conditions of physical phenomena.