There are countless important books to consider, but the following are an excellent starting point: The Law by Frédéric Bastiat ; Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt ; What has Government Done to our Money?

Works by Bastiat, de Molinari, and others were written before the terms " anarcho-capitalism " or " libertarian " existed.

This scheme was vehemently objected to by others in the legislature, including Frédéric Bastiat ; the reason given for the income tax's rejection was that it would result in economic ruin and that it violated " the right of property.

Bastiat argues that people actually do endorse activities which are morally equivalent to the glazier hiring a boy to break windows for him:

As Bastiat shows, the simple accomplishment of useful work can never make such projects a net positive ; the glazier also performed useful work.

Based on a parable by the 19th-century French economist Frédéric Bastiat, it points out that if a person broke a grocer's window then some people could argue that it was a benefit to the town, as it would provide a job for a glazier, who would then buy more from the tailor and so on.

The next year, when Bastiat was 24, his grandfather died, leaving the young man the family estate, thereby providing him with the means to further his theoretical inquiries.

On 24 December 1850, Bastiat called those with him to approach his bed.

Gustave de Molinari ( 3 March 1819 – 28 January 1912 ) was an economist born in Belgium associated with French laissez-faire liberal economists such as Frédéric Bastiat and Hippolyte Castille.

Ayn Rand called it a " magnificent job of theoretical exposition ," while Congressman Ron Paul ranks it with the works of Frédéric Bastiat and F. A. Hayek.

During FEE's early years, it published essays, pamphlets and booklets, all dealing with some aspect of libertarian philosophy, by both classical liberals of the past, such as Frédéric Bastiat and Andrew Dickson White, as well as the early work of contemporary authors such as Milton Friedman, George Stigler and Ayn Rand.

It is the work for which Bastiat is most famous, along with the Petition of the Candlemakers and the parable of the broken window.

" In his debates with Bastiat, Proudhon did once propose funding a national bank with a voluntary tax of 1 %.

Bastiat developed intellectual interests in several areas including " philosophy, history, politics, religion, travel, poetry, political economy and biography.

Economist Murray Rothbard wrote that " Bastiat was indeed a lucid and superb writer, whose brilliant and witty essays and fables to this day are remarkable and devastating demolitions of protectionism and of all forms of government subsidy and control.

The 19th century economist and philosopher Frédéric Bastiat expressed the idea that trade deficits actually were a manifestation of profit, rather than a loss.

By reductio ad absurdum, Bastiat argued that the national trade deficit was an indicator of a successful economy, rather than a failing one.

Bastiat predicted that a successful, growing economy would result in greater trade deficits, and an unsuccessful, shrinking economy would result in lower trade deficits.

The graph indicates that, as Frédéric Bastiat predicted, the deficit slackened during recessions and grew during periods of expansion.

Classical liberals generally opposed colonialism ( as opposed to colonization ) and imperialism, including Adam Smith, Frédéric Bastiat, Richard Cobden, John Bright, Henry Richard, Herbert Spencer, H. R. Fox Bourne, Edward Morel, Josephine Butler, W. J.

Claude Frédéric Bastiat (; 30 June 180124 December 1850 ) was a French classical liberal theorist, political economist, and member of the French assembly.

Bastiat was born in Bayonne, Aquitaine, a port town in the south of France on the Bay of Biscay, on 30 June 1801.

His father, Pierre Bastiat, was a prominent businessman in the town.

The Bastiat estate in Mugron had been acquired during the French Revolution and had previously belonged to the Marquis of Poyanne.

Pierre Bastiat died in 1810, leaving Frédéric an orphan.

He was taken in by his paternal grandfather and his maiden aunt, Justine Bastiat.

Bastiat began to develop an intellectual interest.

Bastiat accompanied him and took care of him.

" " After the middle-class Revolution of 1830, Bastiat became politically active and was elected justice of the peace of Mugron in 1831 and to the Council General ( county-level assembly ) of Landes in 1832.

Bastiat had contracted tuberculosis, probably during his tours throughout France to promote his ideas, and that illness eventually prevented him from making further speeches ( particularly at the legislative assembly to which he was elected in 1848 and 1849 ) and took his life.

Bastiat was the author of many works on economics and political economy, generally characterized by their clear organization, forceful argumentation, and acerbic wit.

" On the other hand, Bastiat himself declared that subsidy should be available, but limited: " under extraordinary circumstances, for urgent cases, the State should set aside some resources to assist certain unfortunate people, to help them adjust to changing conditions.

Bastiat wrote the work while living in England to advise the shapers of the French Republic on pitfalls to avoid.

Among others, Friedrich von Hayek, Lawrence Fertig, and Henry Hazlitt also assisted in both its construction and continued scholarly development.

The phenomenon developed during the Romantic era, when Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, William Hazlitt, and others all described Shakespeare as a transcendent genius.

Nicholas Poussin's painting Landscape with Polyphemus was the subject of a famous essay by William Hazlitt.

He knew Charles and Mary Lamb, and afterwards became acquainted with Shelley, Leigh Hunt, Coleridge and Hazlitt.

The family had strong literary ties: novelist Elizabeth Gaskell enjoyed her visits to the Procter household, and Procter's father was friends with poet Leigh Hunt, essayist Charles Lamb, and novelist Charles Dickens, as well as being acquainted with poet William Wordsworth and critic William Hazlitt.

Dodsley is, however, best known as the editor of two collections: Select Collection of Old Plays ( 12 vols., 1744 ; 2nd edition with notes by Isaac Reed, 12 vols., 1780 ; 4th edition, by William Carew Hazlitt, 1874 – 1876, 15 vols.

In the early 1920s, he was financial editor of The New York Evening Mail, and it was during this period, Hazlitt reported, that his understanding of economics was further refined by frequent discussions with former Harvard economics professor Benjamin Anderson who was then working for Chase National Bank in Manhattan.

Later, when the publisher W. W. Norton suggested he write an official biography of their author Bertrand Russell, Hazlitt spent " a good deal of time ," as he described it, with the famous philosopher both in New York City and London.

In connection with his work for The Nation, Hazlitt also edited A Practical Program for America ( 1932 ), a compilation of Great Depression policy considerations, but he was in the minority in calling for less government intervention in the economy.

After a series of public debates with socialist Louis Fischer, Hazlitt and The Nation parted ways.

Due to increasing differences with the publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, Sr., he served in that role for only a brief time, but Mencken wrote that Hazlitt was the " only competent critic of the arts that I have heard of who was at the same time a competent economist, of practical as well as theoretical training ," adding that he " is one of the few economists in human history who could really write.

From 1934 to 1946, Hazlitt was the principal editorial writer on finance and economics for The New York Times, writing both a signed weekly column along with most of the unsigned editorials on economics, producing a considerable volume of work.

According to Hazlitt, the greatest influence on his writing in economics was the work of Ludwig von Mises, and he is credited with introducing the ideas of the Austrian School of economics to the English-speaking layman.

Along with the efforts of his friends, Max Eastman and John Chamberlain, Hazlitt also helped introduce F. A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom to the American reading public.

Prior to his becoming editor, The Freeman had supported Senator Joseph McCarthy in his conflict with President Harry Truman on the issue of communism, " undiscriminatingly " according to some critics, but upon becoming editor, Hazlitt changed the magazine's policy to one of support for President Truman.

Even prior to her success with The Fountainhead, the novelist Ayn Rand was a friend of both Hazlitt and his wife, Frances, and it was Hazlitt who introduced Rand to Mises, bringing together the two figures who would become most associated with the defense of pure laissez-faire capitalism.

When he finally left Newsweek in 1966, the magazine replaced Hazlitt with three university professors: " free-market monetarist Milton Friedman of the University of Chicago, middle-of-the-roader Henry Wallich of Yale, and Keynesian Paul A. Samuelson of M. I. T.

In A New Constitution Now ( 1942 ), published during Franklin D. Roosevelt's unprecedented third term as President of the United States, Hazlitt called for the replacement of the existing fixed-term presidential tenure in the United States with a more Anglo-European system of " cabinet " government, under which a head of state who had lost the confidence of the legislature or cabinet might be removed from office after a no-confidence vote in as little as 30 days.

In 1981, President Ronald Reagan in his speech before the Conservative Political Action Conference ( or " CPAC ") named Hazlitt as one of the " ntellectual leaders " ( along with Hayek, Mises, Friedman, Russell Kirk, James Burnham and Frank Meyer ) who had " shaped so much of our thoughts ..."

This organization was named in honor of Hazlitt because he was known for introducing a wide range of people to libertarian ideas through his writing and for helping free-market advocates connect with each other.

* The Wisdom of the Stoics: Selections from Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, with Frances Hazlitt, 1984