Bøger udgivet af Ludwig Von Mises Institute

Butler Shaffer has, over the course of several years, written 51 wonderful essays observing the dissolution of Western culture and civilization. They have been assembled in the The Wizards of Ozymandias a captivating work full of entertaining epigrams and anecdotes, as well as enlightening commentary on current events, and historical episodes, that will keep you engaged and immersed from the first to last page. Shaffer's intellectual prowess and deep well of life experience enlightens and rouses introspection at every turn. It is immediately evident that the author has been writing on law, economics, and history for decades. This book will challenge you to more deeply contemplate the ideals of liberty. The title may be foreboding, but for all that, the book is an uplifting and gratifying read.In his great poem "Ozymandias" Percy Shelley pictures for us the eponymous tyrant whose arrogance of power could not save him from historical oblivion. Ozymandias is a reminder of the fragile nature of every system-be it biological, institutional, or cosmic in character. As we are learning from the advanced course in history in which we seem now to be enrolled, this precariousness also applies to civilizations. It is difficult for intelligent minds to doubt that this current system is in the process of joining Ozymandias in the dust-bin of history.Western culture has produced material and spiritual values that have done so much to humanize and civilize mankind. Unfortunately, it has also produced highly-structured institutions and practices that not only impede, but reverse these life-enhancing qualities. Is it possible for us to energize our intelligence in order to rediscover, in the debris of our dying civilization, the requisite components for a fundamentally transformed culture grounded in free, peaceful, and productive systems that sustain rather than diminish life?In the introduction Shaffer describes how civilizations are created by individuals. In following chapters, he explains how they are destroyed by collectives which are good for little more than the destruction of what others have created. Seen in the sharp contrasts between market economies and state socialism; the fundamental struggles are between the creative energies unleashed by liberty, and the repressive forces of politics. Shaffer explores the impact that institutionalism may have on the decline of civilization.Shaffer methodically takes the reader through the rise and decline of Western civilization using references that range from the construction of an Islamic cultural center a few blocks from the site of the former World Trade Center, to the BP disaster, to the 1951 motion picture, The Day the Earth Stood Still and on to experiments in removing road signs and traffic lights.What is likely to follow from this imminent "decline and fall?" Might the remnants of our terminal culture-like an estate bequeathed us by a rich benefactor-provide the foundations for a fundamentally transformed culture; one that does not cannibalize itself?Can conditions of peace and liberty replace the wars, coercive regulation, and worship of violence that have combined to destroy our present civilization? The book ends with such questions, and invites the reader to contemplate how such a life-centered culture might arise.If after reading this book you are not convinced that the fall of western civilization is upon us, don't grieve just yet! Shaffer is optimistic that such a collapse could be the turning point for a social transformation toward a society that embraces individual liberty and private property, and that is free from collectivism and institutionalization. Shaffer can already see the seeds of such a transformation.

New edition with an introduction by Roger Garrison and an index. Booms and busts are not endemic to the free market, argues the Austrian theory of the business cycle, but come about through manipulation of money and credit by central banks. In this monograph, Austrian giants explain and defend the theory against alternatives. Includes essays by Mises, Rothbard, Haberler, and Hayek. In his later years, Professor Haberler distributed many of these monographs to friends and associates.

In 1920, Ludwig von Mises dropped a bombshell on the European economic world with his article called "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth." It argued that socialism was impossible as an economic system. It set off two decades of debate, so by the time the essays appeared in English, in this very book here, in 1935, the debate was still raging. This volume edited by F.A. Hayek dug the knife into socialism's heart unlike any book to ever appear. It contains essays by Mises along with a foreword and afterword by Hayek. It also contains more commentary by N.G. Pierson, George Halm, and Enrico Barone. It is exceptionally well edited and beautifully argued, and has not been in print for many years. The contents are nothing short of prophetic. The so-called "Calculation Argument" has never been answered. It shows that without private property in capital goods, there can be no prices and hence no data available for cost accounting. Production becomes random at best, and completely irrational. Mises had convinced his generation and this book completely devastates the whole socialist apparatus from a theoretical point of view. No one interested in this debate can afford not to be well-versed in the contents of this book.

En 1954, después de una vida de intenso trabajo teórico en la ciencia económica, Mises dirigió su atención a uno de los mayores acertijos de todos los tiempos: descubrir el porqué del odio de los intelectuales hacia el capitalismo. El resultado es este análisis socio-psico-cultural basado en la teoría económica basado en la ciencia económica.Mises explora respuestas desde una amplia variedad de ángulos y expone cómo la naturaleza de las instituciones académicas, la cultura popular y vicios tales como celos y envidia influyen la teoría. Todos desempeñan un rol en prevenir que la gente vea los beneficios autoevidentes de la libertad económica en oposición a los controles. Sus comentarios sobre el resentimiento de los intelectuales cortan profundamente. Mises expone astutamente el sesgo anticapitalista de la ficción contemporánea y la cultura popular en general.En el transcurso de su narrativa, explica aspectos del mercado que en general han eludido incluso a sus defensores. Por ejemplo, ¿es cierto que los mercados idiotizan la cultura, exaltando novelas y películas basura por encima de espectáculos más refinados? Mises señala que los gustos de las masas siempre y en todas partes serán más bajos que los de los educados y cultivados para amar la cultura superior. Pero, dice, la gloria del capitalismo es aportar a cada sector lo que quiere y necesita en mayor cantidad que cualquier otro sistema. Entonces, sí, habrá más basura, pero también más trabajos refinados. Es una cuestión de disponibilidad: bajo el socialismo, nada está disponible. Bajo el capitalismo, la elección de alternativas parece casi infinita.Es bastante preciso su análisis aquí y en todas partes. Es notable cómo su narrativa aplica también en nuestro tiempo, incluso más que cuando fue escrita.El estilo de escritura de este volumen es más informal de lo que encontrará en otros lugares. En cierto sentido, es más emocionante por esto. El lector sentirá que Mises ha desatado toda una vida de frustración aquí y ha arrojado una luz muy brillante sobre algunos rincones oscuros de la opinión

Ludwig von Mises said that there can never be too much of a good theory. Salerno proves it in this sweeping and nearly comprehensive book on applied Austrian monetary theory. He uses the Mises/Rothbard theory of money to reinterpret historical episodes, reevaluate the history of thought, closely examine the Federal Reserve policy, seek out cause and effect in business cycles, provide a new understanding of war and social unrest, and clarify the relationship between the state and the central bank.But it is not just about the past. He presents a great model for the future too with essays on how to tell real from fake gold standards, how to calculate the money supply and follow what the Fed is up to, and how to reform the international monetary system to keep money from the destructive hands of the state.This book might be considered an intermediate text on the topic. If you have read Menger, Rothbard, Mises, or Hayek on the topic of money and you want to know what is next, this is your answer. Joseph Salerno is the master of the subject, and he demonstrates absolute virtuosity in these pages.Salerno's yardstick concerns the soundness of money. He is speaking of a subject too rarely raised: the quality of the money itself. Money originated as a commodity out of market exchange. The further the government and central bank drive money from its original soundness, toward a paper money and finally toward digits that government can manufacture out of nothing, the less sound the money becomes, and the more instability, inflation, false signalling, and economic chaos that results.As he makes clear, money is either absolutely sound (meaning, part of the market order) or it is headed on that slide toward destruction. In the final commentary section, Salerno directly addresses modern monetary madness and speculates on the future.The doyen of Austrian monetary economics, Prof. Joseph Salerno, has produced a great contribution to scholarship -- one that merits careful study. Even though I don't endorse all of Prof. Salerno's analyses or embrace all of his conclusions, every chapter in his anthology is lucid, interesting, reflective and thought-provoking. - Steve H. Hanke, The Johns Hopkins UniversityA must-read in these times of monetary and financial crisis. Joseph Salerno is a grand master of monetary economics, unparalleled in combining state-of-the-art theory with profound knowledge of the history of economic thought, and a balanced judgment of policy issues. - Jorg Guido Hulsmann, University of Paris, Angers"Money, Sound and Unsound" by Joseph Salerno is modern Austrian monetary economics at its best. It appears at a time when monetary policy is about to commit again all the errors of the past that are so clearly exposed in this book. - Antony Mueller, Instituto Ludwig von Mises BrasilThis tome covers nearly thirty years of important contributions by Professor Salerno defining and defending sound money from its critics and pseudo friends. The volume be a must in the library of anyone, whether scholar, pundit, policy wonk, or educated laymen, who truly wants to understand our current crisis and participate in a meaningful way in a program for a return to sound money. - John P. Cochran, Metropolitan State College of DenverThis is an astoundingly thorough, incisive and even inspired book. It deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Mises's The Theory of Money and Credit and Hulsmann's the Ethics of Money Production. I have known and admired Joe Salerno for many years. May this be the first of many more of his books. If we are to attain monetary sanity, this publication will be one of only a very few that will lead the way. - Walter Block, Loyola University, New Orleans

The Skyscraper Curse is Dr. Mark Thornton's definitive work on booms and busts, and it explains why only Austrian economists really understand them. It makes business cycle theory accessible to a whole new 21st-century audience. And they need it, especially those under 40. Many of the brilliant quants working on Wall Street and at the Fed barely remember the Crash of 2008, much less understand it.But Mark Thornton does, and his book is a warning about overheated equity markets, over-inflated housing prices, and clueless central bankers. Given the shaky stock markets lately, 2018 may be the year the Fed's latest bubble bursts. And when it does, it will be even more painful than 10 years ago. In fact, US household and business debt is now one trillion dollars higher than 2008.Mark is well known as an expert on bubbles and Fed malfeasance. His work appears in outlets like Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Forbes, The Economist, Barron's, and Investor's Business Daily. His now-infamous Skyscraper Index theory draws the connection between loose monetary policy, artificially low interest rates, and vanity construction projects. Put the three together and it doesn't turn out well.And let's not forget that Dr. Thornton was among only a handful of economists to warn about the dangerous housing bubble in 2004, and again in 2006. Cabbies and waiters bought up condos with no money down in places like Las Vegas. Prices rose 25 percent or more every year in some coastal markets. Even people with terrible credit financed houses at five or seven times their annual income. All of it was made possible by the Fed and its mania for low interest rates.So when the experts said "Nobody could have seen this coming," the Mises Institute had Mark's articles and papers ready to go. The housing crash, and the meltdown in equity markets less than a year later, were thoroughly explained by Austrian business cycle theory. And Mark was the capable face of the Mises Institute during it all.Without a lay-friendly book like The Skyscraper Curse, millions more Americans will be duped by the next crash. Dr. Thornton's book tells the story that needs to be told. It will be among the only alternative explanations available when the next crisis comes.

This pioneering work, in hardback, by Jörg Guido Hülsmann, professor of economics at the University of Angers in France and the author of Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism, is the first full study of a critically important issue today: the ethics of money production.There is a reason that this book has been translated to Chinese, German, Spanish, Czech, and there are many more on the way. This book hits the intellectual sweet spot, speaking to the issues that are driving economic events right now. We MUST deal with the money problem in a principled way, else we never get back on the course of sustainable prosperity.By "money production," the author is speaking not in the colloquial sense of the phrase "making money," but rather the actual production of money as a commodity in the whole economic life. The choice of the money we use in exchange is not something that needs to be established and fixed by government.In fact, his thesis is that a government monopoly on money production and management has no ethical or economic grounding at all. Legal tender laws, bailout guarantees, tax-backed deposit insurance, and the entire apparatus that sustains national monetary systems, has been wholly unjustified. Money, he argues, should be a privately produced good like any other, such as clothing or food.In arguing this way, he is disputing centuries of assumptions about money for which an argument is rarely offered. People just assume that government or central banks operating under government control should manage money. Hulsmann explores monetary thought from the ancient world through the Middle Ages to modern times to show that the monopolists are wrong. There is a strong case in both economic and ethical terms for the idea that money production should be wholly private.He takes on the "stabilization" advocates to show that government management doesn't lead to stability but to inflation and instability. He goes further to argue against even the theoretical case for stabilization, to say that money's value should be governed by the market, and that the costs associated with private production are actually an advantage. He chronicles the decline of money once nationalized, from legally sanctioned counterfeiting to the creation of paper money all the way to hyperinflation.In his normative analysis, the author depends heavily on the monetary writings of 14th-century Bishop Nicole Oresme, whose monetary writings have been overlooked even by historians of economic thought. He makes a strong case that "paper money has never been introduced through voluntary cooperation. In all known cases it has been introduced through coercion and compulsion, sometimes with the threat of the death penalty. . . . Paper money by its very nature involves the violation of property rights through monopoly and legal-tender privileges."The book is also eerily prophetic of our times: Consider the current U.S. real-estate boom. Many Americans are utterly convinced that American real estate is the one sure bet in economic life. No matter what happens on the stock market or in other strata of the economy, real estate will rise. They believe themselves to have found a bonanza, and the historical figures confirm this. Of course this belief is an illusion, but the characteristic feature of a boom is precisely that people throw any critical considerations overboard. They do not realize that their money producer-the Fed-has possibly already entered the early stages of hyperinflation, and that the only reason why this has been largely invisible was that most of the new money has been exported outside of the U.S . . . Because a paper-money producer can bail out virtually anybody, the citizens become reckless in their speculations; they count on him to bail them out, especially when many other people do the same thing. To fight such behavior effectively, one must abolish paper money. Regulations merely drive the reckless behavior into new channels.

Advancing social ideas that do not demand obedience or compliance requires far more personal patience than simply forcing others to comply via the political ballot box. The widely held idea that dicta and force can serve a useful purpose will eventually fade into backward thinking in the so-called public sector as it has in the private sector. Time, nature, reason, and the human spirit will see to that. Irrespective of good intentions or the approval by consensus, nature's unrelenting feedback will gradually drive ruling political authorities to extinction.

Useful as a brief statement of where Hoppe stands on the most important issues within the libertrarian movement - and the most important issues of our age. Some regard Hoppe as the greatest living libertarian, others as the devil. The only point of agreement is that he is a thinker who cannot be ignored.

Vampires are not just mythical creatures that come out and prowl for victims during a full moon. Today's vampires are the politicians and bureaucrats who drain the lifeblood out of businesses through taxation, regulation, inflation, price controls, trade interference, fiat money, and attacks on private property. The Vampire Economy provides a frightening look at the consequences of state economic management

The Austrian School of Economics was founded by Carl Menger in Vienna during the last third of the nineteenth century. From that time until today, its vibrant teaching tradition has had a significant influence on the formation and further development of the modern social sciences and economics in Europe and the United States. Its research agenda was characterized by an astonishing multitude of diverse, and in some cases even contradictory, conclusions. All branches of the school shared the conviction that the subjective feelings and actions of the individual are those which drive economic activity. Based on this conviction, explanations for economic phenomena such as value, exchange, price, interest, and entrepreneurial profit were derived, and step by step expanded into a comprehensive theory of money and business cycles. Because of their subjectivist-individualistic approach, economists of the Austrian School regarded any kind of collective as unscientific in rationale. This led to fierce arguments with the Marxists, the German Historical School, and later with the promoters of planned economy and state interventionism. In the modern Austrian School of Economics, questions regarding knowledge, monetary theory, entrepreneurship, the market process, and spontaneous order placed themselves in the foreground. This book endeavors to trace the development of this multifaceted tradition, with all of its ideas, personalities, and institutions.

This rare study by C.A. Phillips, together with T.F. McManus and R.W. Nelson, appeared in 1937 as an Austrian-style analysis of the stock market crash and the great depression that followed.It explores the many theories tossed about at the time, and concludes that the theory "here developed may be called a 'central banking' explanation of the depression. The depth and duration of the depression are held to be the ineluctable consequences of the preceding boom. That boom could never have lasted as long as it did, nor could it have assumed the proportions it attained, under the old National Banking System. The boom and depression were therefore proximately caused by central bank credit expansion."We can see, then, why Austrian economists have long held this book in high esteem, though it has been nearly impossible to find for many years. Murray Rothbard himself picked it as among the 20 most significant economics books of the 20th century.

This new edition (completely reset) of Planned Chaos features a new introduction by Chris Westley of Jacksonville State University. The introduction brings this classic up to date - not that it has ever fallen out of date or ever will.The title comes from Mises's description of the reality of central planning and socialism, whether of the national variety (Nazism) or the international variety (communism). Rather than create an orderly society, the attempt to central plan has precisely the opposite effect. By short-circuiting the price mechanism and forcing people into economic lives contrary to their own chosing, central planning destroys the capital base and creates economic randomness that eventually ends in killing prosperity.This important work was written decades after Mises's original essay on economic calculation and includes the broadest and boldest attack on all forms of state control.

Walter Block has for decades been one of the most effective and indefatigable defenders of libertarianism. One feature in his writing stands out, from his classic Defending the Undefendable to the present. He consistently applies the principles of libertarianism to every situation in a bold and original way. Readers of Toward a Libertarian Society, a collection of his articles from lewrockwell.com, will find this feature abundantly on display.Block believes that libertarianism has three components: foreign policy, economic policy, and policies on personal liberties. He devotes a separate part of the book to each of these components.In foreign affairs, Block is a resolute non-interventionist. He is an anarchist who rejects the state altogether; but, so long as a state exists, it should confine its foreign policy to defense against invasion. Doing so is in line with the tradition of Washington and John Quincy Adams. In our own day, Ron Paul has been the foremost champion of non-intervention; and Paul has few, if any, more ardent advocates than Walter Block.In economic policy, Block defends the free market against all types of interference. One issue especially concerns him: the activities of labor unions. Against union advocates, Block emphasizes that wages depend on workers' marginal productivity. Block is equally decisive in macroeconomics. He calls for the total abolition of the Fed.Block, never one to avoid controversy, argues that much in the contemporary feminist movement is antithetical to libertarianism. Readers will learn his views about abortion, stem-cell research, and punishment theory. He is a firm advocate of the possibility and desirability of political secession.Reading Toward a Libertarian Society is the equivalent of a college course in libertarianism, taught by a master teacher.

This little gem is a complete economics education for high-school age students. It provides lessons, study questions, activities, and an excellent list of readings for each topic under consideration. Bettina chose well because the readings all hold up, even though the syllabus came out in 1974. It still works as an excellent course in economics.It is meant to be used alongside the book of readings also available from Mises.org. Together the set will put any student on the road to a lifetime of economic understanding.Bettina Greaves was Mises's secretary and assistant but also an excellent economist in her own right.

Before Austrian economics came on the scene, monetary theory was a hodge-podge of disjointed insights. Nobody knew how to integrate those insights into a system, much less how to integrate monetary theory with the rest of economics.Carl Menger, founder of the Austrian School of Economics, started to unravel the mystery of money in the late 19th century. Ludwig von Mises finally cut the Gordian knot with his first magnum opus, The Theory of Money and Credit (1912), the most important single advance in monetary theory in the history of economic thought.In that treatise, Mises erected a theory of money of astounding originality that was complete and internally integrated: as well as externally integrated with modern, subjectivist economics in general. With this book, Mises completed the victory of the "marginal revolution" by extending its conquest to the monetary realm. In doing so, Mises finally made economics whole. In his later treatise, Human Action, Mises developed his theory further, making it even more rigorous.While Mises' monetary writings should be required reading for any educated citizen, it can be challenging to parse some of the technical language. That is where Gary North comes in. In Mises on Money, Dr. North lucidly explains all the essential tenets of Mises' monetary theory, with his inimitable incisiveness and style. He methodically walks the reader through such topics as the origin of money, Mises' "regression theorem," fractional reserve banking, and the Austrian Business Cycle Theory. He explains why money is not "neutral," and why price stabilization is a chimera. After reading this short work, you will have a firm understanding of Austrian monetary theory, and will be in prime condition to tackle Mises' own writings on the subject.Dr. North writes: "In summarizing Mises's theory of money, I cover five themes: the definition of money; the optimum quantity of money and its corolary, stable prices; fractional reserve banking, and how to inhibit it; and the monetary theory of the business cycle. They are closely interrelated. Mises's system was a system."

In 1913, Charles T. Sprading (1871-1959) wrote a book of remarkable prescience that anticipated the systematic development of an American libertarian tradition. He called it Liberty and the Great Libertarians. What he provided was a biography and intellectual analysis of some thirty great thinkers. Most valuable is his extraordinary job of editing. He chooses the best and most enlightening of their writings and brings them to life. The thinkers covered include Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, William Godwin, Wilhelm von Humboldt, John Stuart Mill, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Josiah Warren, Max Stirner, Henry D. Thoreau, Herbert Spencer, Lysander Spooner, Henry George, Benjamin Tucker, Pierre Kropotkin, Abraham Lincoln, Auberon Herbert, G. Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Maria Montessori, and others. Now, not all of these people would be considered libertarians by the modern understanding. Some even called themselves socialists, as absurd as that may sound to us today. But they all exhibited in their writings a deep and abiding attachment to the idea of human liberty. They agree in the primacy of the individual. They agreed that the greatest threat to individual rights is the state. And they believed in fighting for these rights. They believed in the freedom of assembly, freedom of press, freedom of religion, freedom to think and act. They hated war and social control. They rejected every form of authoritarianism, and, in all these areas, they made huge contributions. As Sprading says in his introduction: The greatest violator of the principle of equal liberty is the State. Its functions are to control, to rule, to dictate, to regulate, and in exercising these functions it interferes with and injures individuals who have done no wrong. The objection to government is, not that it controls those who invade the liberty of others, but that it controls the non-invader. It may be necessary to govern one who will not govern himself, but that in no wise justifies governing one who is capable of and willing to govern himself. To argue that because some need restraint all must be restrained is neither consistent nor logical. Governments cannot accept liberty as their fundamental basis for justice, because governments rest upon authority and not upon liberty. To accept liberty as the fundamental basis is to discard authority; that is, to discard government itself; as this would mean the dethronement of the leaders of government, we can expect only those who have no economic compromises to make, to accept equal liberty as the basis of justice. The introduction alone is extraordinary, given the times. On war he writes: "How is war to be abolished? By going to war? Is bloodshed to be stopped by the shedding of blood? No; the way to stop war is to stop going to war; stop supporting it and it will fall, just as slavery did, just as the Inquisition did. The end of war is in sight; there will be no more world wars. The laboring-man, who has always done the fighting, is losing his patriotism; he is beginning to realize that he has no country or much of anything else to fight for, and is beginning to decline the honor of being killed for the glory and profits of the few. Those who profit by war, those who own the country, will not fight for it; that is, they are not patriotic if it is necessary for them to do the killing or to be killed in war. In all the wars of history there are very few instances of the rich meeting their death on the battlefield." This is a fat book, 542 pages, with a vast index. It remains the best chronicle of libertarian thought ever put together, which is why Murray Rothbard chose this book as one of his favorites. This edition is a reprint of the original 1913 volume.

New 2nd Edition w/ new Intro by Hans Hoppe Here is Hans Hoppe's first treatise in English - actually his first book in English - and the one that put him on the map as a social thinker and economist to watch. He argued that there are only two possible archetypes in economic affairs: socialism and capitalism. All systems are combinations of those two types. The capitalist model he defines as pure protection of private property, free association, and exchange - no exceptions. All deviations from that ideal are species of socialism, with public ownership and interference with trade. Within the structure of socialism, he distinguishes the left and right version. "Conservative" socialism favors high regulation, behavioral controls, protectionism, and nationalism. The "liberal" version tends more toward outright public ownership and redistribution.The consequences of socialism vary based on their degree and kind, but they have similarities: high costs, resource waste, low growth. This treatise has long been out of print, but is now available again for use in comparative-systems classes and for an orientation to the theory of economic systems. The theoretical apparatus is Rothbardian to the core, and its main contribution is to provide an organizing principle for understanding the structure of real-world economies as measured against pure types. A tour de force. This edition preserves the formatting from the original publisher, for reasons of citation. Though it was published by a major academic publishing house, the visuals are not what they might have been. Nonetheless, the book is well cited and this edition makes it possible to navigate those citations.

It is conventional wisdom that alcohol prohibition failed, but the economic reasons for this failure have never been as extensively detailed or analyzed as they are in this study by Mark Thornton.The lessons he draws apply not only to the period of alcohol prohibition but also to drug prohibition and any other government attempt to control consumption habits. The same pattern is repeated again and again.Thornton's treatment of the topic is methodical. He first examines the history of prohibition laws, primarily focusing on American implementation of prohibitionist policies. He examines the prime movers in the alcohol, narcotics, and marijuana prohibition movements. He then examines the theoretical premises upon which prohibition advocates depend, and thoroughly exposes them as fallacious.After examining the history and theory of prohibition, Thornton reveals the effects of such policies on the potency of illegal drugs. He explains how prohibition inevitably creates incentives for producers to increase the potency of drugs and alcohol products distributed via the black market.Also investigated in this book are the effects of prohibition policies on crime rates and government corruption rates. Finally, Thornton discusses the repeal of prohibition, offering both public policy alternatives and truly free-market solutions.According to Murray N. Rothbard, "Thornton's book... arrives to fill an enormous gap, and it does so splendidly... The drug prohibition question is... the hottest political topic today, and for the foreseeable future... This is an excellent work making an important contribution to scholarship as well as to the public policy debate."