Libertarian Thinker Frank Chodorov on This Day in History

 

This Day In History: Frank Chodorov, a libertarian thinker, was born on this day in 1887. He wrote a book that became an American classic, _Income Tax: The Root of All Evil_. 

He also wrote: "Freedom is essentially a condition of inequality, not equality. It recognizes as a fact of nature the structural differences inherent in man – in temperament, character, and capacity – and it respects those differences. We are not alike and no law can make us so."

Mises.org writes: "Frank Chodorov was an extraordinary thinker and writer, and hugely influential in the 1950s. He wrote what became an American classic arguing that the income tax, more than any other legislative change in American history, made it possible to violate individual rights, one of the founding principles.

He argues that income taxes are different from other forms because they deny the right of private property and presume government control over all things."

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Libertarian Satirist H.L. Mencken on This Day in History

 

Today in History: American journalist and writer H.L. Mencken was born on this day in 1880. Though he was considered very controversial, Mencken earned respect as America’s foremost newspaperman and literary critic. He produced an estimated ten million words: some 30 books, contributions to 20 more books and thousands of newspaper columns. He wrote some 100,000 letters, or between 60 and 125 per working day. Mencken weighed in with wit on topics about politics, literature, food, health, religion, sports etc., and he ranks among the most frequently quoted American authors.

He had a way with words that can only be attributed to a man of letters. He once described the ugliness of the buildings during his trip on a train this way: "I am not speaking of mere filth. One expects steel towns to be dirty. What I allude to is the unbroken and agonizing ugliness, the sheer revolting monstrousness, of every house in sight. From East Liberty to Greensburg, a distance of twenty-five miles, there was not one insight from the train that did not insult and lacerate the eye."

H.L. Mencken also held governments and politicians in the lowest regard:

"Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods."

"The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression."

"A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar."

"A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground."

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance."

"Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of jackals by jackasses."

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."

"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under."

"If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner."

"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and hence clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

"Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies."

"A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier."

"All government, of course, is against liberty."

"When a new source of taxation is found it never means, in practice, that the old source is abandoned. It merely means that the politicians have two ways of milking the taxpayer where they had one before."

"A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable."

"The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable."

"It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office."

"Democracy is only a dream: it should be put in the same category as Arcadia, Santa Claus, and Heaven."

"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule."

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Libertarian Canadian Prime Minister Wilfred Laurier on This Day in History

 

This day in history: Wilfrid Laurier oversees Alberta and Saskatchewan joining the Confederation of Canada as its 8th and 9th Canadian provinces on this day in 1905.

From Lawrence W. Reed: 

Owing to where most Americans trace their ancestry from, we tend to know more European history than the history of our immediate neighbors to the north and south, Canada and Mexico. We can name famous entrepreneurs and political leaders from across the sea but rarely one from right next door.

Last May in a casual dinner conversation with Canadian libertarians in Vancouver, I named the better presidents and prime ministers, respectively, of the United States and Great Britain. It suddenly occurred to me that I couldn’t name a single Canadian counterpart.

So I asked my dinner friends, “Among Canada’s political leaders, did you ever have a Grover Cleveland or a William Ewert Gladstone, a prime minister who believed in liberty and defended it?”

One name emerged, almost in unison: Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Embarrassed by my ignorance, I had to admit I had never heard of him. Never mind that he’s the guy with the bushy hair on the Canadian five-dollar bill; I just never noticed. Now that I’ve done a little research, I’m a fan.

Laurier’s political resume is impressive: fourth-longest-serving prime minister in Canada’s history (1896–1911, the longest unbroken term of office of all 22 PMs). Forty-five years in the House of Commons, an all-time record. Longest-serving leader of any Canadian political party (almost 32 years). Across Canada to this day, he is widely regarded as one of the country’s greatest statesmen.

It’s not his tenure in government that makes Laurier an admirable figure. It’s what he stood for while he was there. He really meant it when he declared, “Canada is free and freedom is its nationality” and “Nothing will prevent me from continuing my task of preserving at all cost our civil liberty.”

A new think tank in Ottawa honors Laurier and another Canadian PM, John MacDonald, in its name: the MacDonald-Laurier Institute. Founders Brian Crowley, Jason Clemens, and Niels Veldhuis have authored a new book, The Canadian Century: Moving Out of America’s Shadow, in which they explain the political principles and institutions the great Laurier stood for: limited government, light taxes, fiscal discipline, free trade, private property, and the rule of law.

At a time when others in the British Commonwealth had begun to emulate the welfare-state policies of Bismarckian Germany, Laurier had a better idea. Crowley, Clemens, and Veldhuis write:

Laurier’s objection to such schemes, like that of his Liberal colleagues, was one of principle: when people were expected to take responsibility for themselves and their famil[ies], they made better provision for their needs and directed their productive efforts where they would do the country and themselves the greatest good. When this natural necessity to strive was diluted by an easy access to the public purse, the ever-present danger was of the enervation of the individual and the stagnation of the progress of society. “If you remove the incentives of ambition and emulation from public enterprises”—by which he meant the economic undertakings of individuals and businesses, not state enterprises—Laurier said on the subject in 1907, “you suppress progress, you condemn the community to stagnation and immobility.”

Born in Quebec in 1841, Laurier rose in popularity in spite of his expressed belief in the separation of church and state. The province’s Roman Catholic bishops urged voters to steer clear of him but he built a firm base of local support. The people appreciated his solid character and his desire for goodwill and conciliation among the disparate cultures of Canada. As prime minister he worked to keep the country together by keeping the central government small. Toleration and decentralized federalism became hallmarks of his long legacy in politics.

Relying on Markets

To help Canadians compete with the colossus to the south, Laurier hoped the country would rely on private enterprise and open markets. A key ingredient, he believed, would have to be a lower cost of government and a lower tax burden in Canada than in the United States. He made it clear, in the words of Crowley, Clemens, and Veldhuis, “that people who came to Canada from south of the border or beyond the seas would find in the Dominion a society of free men and women where everyone was expected to work hard, and where, if they did so, they would keep more of the fruits of their labours than anywhere else, including the United States of America.”

Laurier never achieved the degree of free trade his conscience supported, but against powerful opposition he pushed Canada away from high protectionist tariffs. He wanted lower duties aimed more to raise revenue than to favor certain industries or regions at the expense of others. He made progress on some other fronts as well. He proposed balanced budgets as a way to keep Canada’s debt low and manageable. His policies opened the door for an explosion of immigration. Half a million hard-working immigrants rushed to Canada during his tenure, building a strong economy and a melting pot of countless cultures in the process.

Laurier’s record was not perfect from a libertarian perspective. For example, he supported subsidies to transcontinental railroads, a major departure from his otherwise pro-enterprise, limited-government philosophy. But as twentieth-century Canadian prime ministers go, he clearly stands apart and above. My friends in Vancouver don’t believe any PM since Laurier did as much for liberty as he did.

I now keep a Canadian five-dollar bill in my wallet just for those occasions when I meet a Canadian and the conversation turns to politics. We will lament the caliber of more recent politicians on both sides of the border but at least I can now point to Laurier’s picture and say, “We can do better, and indeed, you have.”

Lawrence W. Reed

Lawrence W. Reed is FEE's President Emeritus, Humphreys Family Senior Fellow, and Ron Manners Global Ambassador for Liberty, having served for nearly 11 years as FEE’s president (2008-2019). He is author of the 2020 book, Was Jesus a Socialist? as well as Real Heroes: Incredible True Stories of Courage, Character, and Conviction and Excuse Me, Professor: Challenging the Myths of Progressivism. Follow on LinkedIn and Like his public figure page on Facebook. His website is www.lawrencewreed.com.

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

Barry Goldwater on This Day in History

The Republican convention selected Barry Goldwater as Presidential candidate on this day in 1964.

From Lawrence Reed:

Arizona native Barry Goldwater once visited a golf club on the East Coast that would not allow Jewish people on its links. When he was informed that he couldn’t play the 18 holes he came for, he famously responded, “Well, my father was Jewish but my mother was Episcopalian, so can I play nine holes?”

He despised stereotypes, collectivism, and groupthink in all forms and never shrank from saying so, no matter who it offended.

That was classic Goldwater in many ways. A successful businessman, author, and five-term US senator, he was well known for enlisting humor in the service of a powerful point. He believed all his life that each and every individual should be judged, as Martin Luther King put it so well, by “the content of his character.” He despised stereotypes, collectivism, and groupthink in all forms and never shrank from saying so, no matter who it offended.

The 1964 Goldwater campaign for president still resonates in my mind, though I was just eleven at the time. My father loved the guy. When I came home from government school one day and told him that all my teachers said Lyndon Johnson was the man to vote for, my dad instilled in me a healthy skepticism of classroom authority that’s only grown in the decades since.

The official slogan of the Goldwater campaign was: “In your heart, you know he’s right.” Democrats sneered in response, “In your guts, you know he’s nuts.” That was funny, but the policies they dumped on us when they beat Goldwater in the election were anything but. They said if the Arizonan were elected, we’d get a huge escalation in the Vietnam War; Johnson won and we got a huge escalation in the Vietnam War. They said if Goldwater won, the federal government wouldn’t care for people anymore; Johnson was elected and we ended up with a welfare state that broke families apart, trapped millions in lives of dead-end poverty, and foisted mountains of debt on generations yet unborn.

Barry Goldwater died 20 years ago, in 1998, at the age of 89. He lost a presidential election, but he fired up millions to the importance of things like limited government, rugged individualism, fealty to the Constitution, and sticking to principles. He thought of himself as a “conservative” (his best-known book, still a great read, The Conscience of a Conservative), but that was before the term “libertarian” came into wide use. I think today he might be more comfortable with the libertarian label, or perhaps “libertarian constitutionalist.”

Two decades after his passing, I can think of no better way to remember Barry Goldwater than to offer readers a selection of his own words:

“It is a fact that Lyndon Johnson and his curious crew seem to believe that progress in this country is best served simply and directly through the ever-expanding gift power of the everlastingly growing Federal Government. One thing we all know, and I assure you I do: that’s a much easier way to get votes than my way. It always has been. It’s political Daddyism, and it’s as old as demagogues and despotism.”

_____

“I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is ‘needed’ before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents’ ‘interests,’ I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.”

_____

“The legitimate functions of government are actually conducive to freedom. Maintaining internal order, keeping foreign foes at bay, administering justice, removing obstacles to the free interchange of goods—the exercise of these powers makes it possible for men to follow their chosen pursuits with maximum freedom. But note that the very instrument by which these desirable ends are achieved can be the instrument for achieving undesirable ends—that government can, instead of extending freedom, restrict freedom.”

_____

“Surely the first obligation of a political thinker is to understand the nature of man. The Conservative does not claim special powers of perception on this point, but he does claim a familiarity with the accumulated wisdom and experience of history, and he is not too proud to learn from the great minds of the past. The first thing he has learned about man is that each member of the species is a unique creature. Man’s most sacred possession is his individual soul—which has an immortal side, but also a mortal one. The mortal side establishes his absolute differentness from every other human being. Only a philosophy that takes into account the essential differences between men, and, accordingly, makes provision for developing the different potentialities of each man can claim to be in accord with Nature. We have heard much in our time about ‘the common man.’ It is a concept that pays little attention to the history of a nation that grew great through the initiative and ambition of uncommon men. The Conservative knows that to regard man as part of an undifferentiated mass is to consign him to ultimate slavery.”

_____

“Throughout history, government has proved to be the chief instrument for thwarting man’s liberty. Government represents power in the hands of some men to control and regulate the lives of other men. And power, as Lord Acton said, corrupts men. ‘Absolute power,’ he added, ‘corrupts absolutely.’”

_____

“Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed. Their mistaken course stems from false notions of equality, ladies and gentlemen. Equality, rightly understood, as our Founding Fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences. Wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.”

_____

“The graduated tax is a confiscatory tax. Its effect, and to a large extent its aim, is to bring down all men to a common level. Many of the leading proponents of the graduated tax frankly admit that their purpose is to redistribute the nation's wealth. Their aim is an egalitarian society—an objective that does violence both to the charter of the Republic and the laws of Nature. We are all equal in the eyes of God but we are equal in no other respect. Artificial devices for enforcing equality among unequal men must be rejected if we would restore that charter and honor those laws.”

_____

“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”

Lawrence W. Reed

Lawrence W. Reed is FEE's President Emeritus, Humphreys Family Senior Fellow, and Ron Manners Global Ambassador for Liberty, having served for nearly 11 years as FEE’s president (2008-2019). He is author of the 2020 book, Was Jesus a Socialist? as well as Real Heroes: Incredible True Stories of Courage, Character, and Conviction and Excuse Me, Professor: Challenging the Myths of Progressivism. Follow on LinkedIn and Like his public figure page on Facebook. His website is www.lawrencewreed.com.

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

Satanist Anton LaVey on this Day in History

 

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This Day in History: Anton LaVey (Howard Stanton Levey) was born on this day (April 11) in 1930. Anton LaVey was the founder of the Church of Satan and the religion of Satanism. He also authored The Satanic Bible.

Historian of Satanism Gareth J. Medway described LaVey as a "born showman", with anthropologist Jean La Fontaine describing him as a "colourful figure of considerable personal magnetism". The academic scholars of Satanism Per Faxneld and Jesper Aagaard Petersen described LaVey as "the most iconic figure in the Satanic milieu". LaVey was labeled many things by journalists, religious detractors, and Satanists alike, including "The Father of Satanism", the "St. Paul of Satanism" and "The Black Pope".

I'm going to go with "showman" and "provocateur." 

Adherents to the Church of Satan don't actually believe in Satan. LaVey was an atheist, and a libertarian who admired Ayn Rand. Like Rand, he was also Jewish. Sammy Davis Jr., who was also Jewish (by choice) also joined the Church of Satan for a while. American pianist Liberace was also a member of the Church of Satan, as was Jayne Mansfield.

Ironically, Anton Lavey died in 1997, at St. Mary's Medical Center in San Francisco...a Catholic hospital.

Hollywood Conservative Clark Gable on This Day in History

 

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This day in history: Clark Gable was born on this day [February 1] in 1901. Gable often referred to as "The King of Hollywood". He had roles in more than 60 motion pictures in multiple genres during a career that lasted 37 years, three decades of which was as a leading man. Gable died of a heart attack at the age of 59; his final on-screen appearance was as an aging cowboy in The Misfits, released posthumously in 1961. Despite his reluctance to play the role, Gable is best known for his Oscar-nominated performance in the Academy Award-winning best picture Gone with the Wind (1939).

Clark Gable was also one of many Republicans that dominated early Hollywood. Gable however kept quiet about his political views, and he even married a liberal Democratic activist, Carole Lombard, who cajoled him into supporting Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal. "While it may seem as though Hollywood has always been liberal, it hasn’t. Very few people today realize that at one point in the development of American cinema, conservatives ruled the movie-making industry. Even today, conservative celebrities make successful movies for their millions of fans. Santa Monica College Professor Larry Ceplair, co-author of 'The Inquisition in Hollywood,' wrote that during the ‘20s and ‘30s, most studio heads were conservative Republicans who spent millions of dollars to block union and guild organizing. Likewise, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, the Moving Picture Machine Operators, and the Screen Actors Guild were all headed by conservatives, as well." Source

Other movie stars that were Republicans were: Ginger Rogers, James Cagney, Fred Astaire, Loretta Young, Jane Russell, James Stewart, Lou Costello, Charlton Heston, William Holden, John Wayne, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Pat Boone, Gary Cooper, Frank Sinatra (he endorsed Ronald Reagan), Barbara Stanwyck, Shirley Temple, Hedda Hopper, Ronald Reagan (of course), Walter Brennan, Gloria Swanson, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Doris Day, Eva Gabor, Steve McQueen, Jerry Lewis, Jane Wyman, Claudette Colbert, Betty Grable, Mickey Rooney, Rosalind Russell, Red Skelton, Robert Mitchum, Cesar Romero, Joan Crawford, Jackie Gleason, Ethel Merman, Walter Pidgeon, William Powell, Agnes Moorehead, Glenn Ford, Buster Keaton, Fred MacMurray, Dean Martin, Lillian Gish, Yvonne De Carlo, Fay Wray, Maureen O'Hara and Lionel Barrymore to name but a few.

There are many Libertarian celebrities as well, such as Clint Eastwood, Tom Selleck, Gene Simmons, Kurt Russell, Penn & Teller, Raquel Welch, Denis Leary, John Malkovich, Christina Ricci, Keanu Reeves, Drew Carey, Frank Zappa, Vince Vaughn, Kelly Clarkson, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Gary Oldman, Dwight Yoakam etc. 

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Libertarian Anarchist J.R.R. Tolkien on This Day in History

J.R.R. Tolkien as a Libertarian

Today in History: English writer, poet, philologist, and academic J.R.R. Tolkien was born on this day in 1892. He is best known for writing The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit books, but he also had a part in translating the book of Jonah in the Catholic Jerusalem Bible, a task for which he learned a considerable amount of Hebrew. 

In life Tolkien despised political power. In a letter to his son he wrote: "My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) – or to ‘unconstitutional’ monarchy . . . Anyway, the proper study of man is anything but man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity. And at least it is done only to a small group of men who know who their master is. The medievals were only too right in taking nolo episcopari as the best reason a man could give to others for making him a bishop. Give me a king whose chief interest in life is stamps, railways, or race-horses; and who has the power to sack his Vizier (or whatever you care to call him) if he does not like the cut of his trousers. And so on down the line. But, of course, the fatal weakness of all that — after all only the fatal weakness of all good things in a bad corrupt unnatural world — is that it works and has worked only when all the world is messing along in the same good old inefficient human way." 

The Ring in his Lord Of The Rings series may reflect his views on this. The invisibility that the ring grants its wearer represents state power: "power isn’t simply about the exertion of unjust force. It is about what happens next, after the exertion. Does the perp generally get away with, or not? Systematically getting away with it—or impunity—is where power truly lies. And that is what makes agents of the state different from any other bully. State agents can aggress with reliable impunity because a critical mass of the state’s victims consider the aggression of state agents to be exceptional and legitimate. That is power.

And that is why invisibility is such an apt analogue for state power. The public’s moral vision has a complete blind spot when it comes to the state. It detects acts of theft, enslavement, and murder whenever they are perpetrated by anyone else, but it is blind to the criminality involved whenever the same exact acts are committed by agents of the state. It is blind to state theft, instead seeing 'taxation,' 'fees,' and 'citations.' It is blind to state enslavement, instead seeing 'mandates,' 'prohibitions,' and 'regulations.' And it is blind to state murder, instead seeing 'war in pursuit of the national interest.'"~Dan Sanchez

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The Libertarian C.S. Lewis on This Day in History

Today in history: C.S. Lewis was born on this day in 1898.

David V. Urban writes:

Most of us are familiar with C. S. Lewis and his enduringly popular Chronicles of Narnia, his Space Trilogy, his various works of Christian apologetics such as Mere Christianity, and his natural law classic, The Abolition of Man. But only a small fraction of Lewis' readers are aware that Lewis, for all his personal distaste for politics, fits soundly within the classical liberal and libertarian tradition of limited government and individual freedom.

Lewis' libertarian views spring from his distrust in human nature.

Thankfully, in the past decade, several scholars have produced works that highlight Lewis' libertarian views.

Two of the most helpful discussions of Lewis' libertarianism are offered by David J. Theroux, C. S. Lewis on Mere Liberty and the Evils of Statism and Justin Buckley Dyer and Micah J. Watson's C. S. Lewis on Politics and the Natural Law. My own discussion draws significantly from both these sources.

Distrust of Human Nature
First, we must recognize that Lewis' libertarian views spring from his distrust in human nature, a distrust grounded firmly in Lewis' Christian belief system. This is specifically true regarding the doctrine of humanity's fall and enduring sinfulness.

Lewis begins his Spectator essay Equality by pronouncing, "I am a Democrat because I believe in the Fall of Man." He specifically contrasts his philosophical motivations for democracy (as opposed to monarchy) with "people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government."

Rather, Lewis argues, "The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters."
Lewis believed that since humanity was corrupted by sin, it was a grave mistake to consolidate too much power into one person.

Significantly, Lewis explicitly includes himself among the unworthy would-be rulers. He writes, "I don't deserve a share in governing a hen-house, much less a nation." Lewis also believed that fallen human nature could undermine democracy.

In Screwtape Proposes a Toast, Lewis specifically cautions against democracy's tendency to foster envy and punish individual achievement.

Lewis Compared to Madison and Bastiat
Lewis believed that because humanity was corrupted by sin, it was a grave mistake to consolidate too much power into one person or a small group. In this sense, Lewis' concerns resemble those which motivated James Madison in Federalist 51 to argue for the separation of governments and powers. Because of "human nature," writes Madison, men are not "angels," and therefore "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition."

Similarly, Lewis' understanding of how corrupted human nature necessarily corrupts government leaders resembles that of Frédéric Bastiat, who writes in The Law:

If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?

The Natural Law Tradition
Lewis' firm belief in human moral imperfection was a central aspect of his overall adherence to the natural law tradition, which holds that human conduct should be based on a set of unchanging moral principles.

Lewis' own writings display a belief in limited government and a distrust of government-enforced morality.

As Dyer and Watson observe and as Lewis' English Literature of the Sixteenth Century demonstrates, one great natural law influence of Lewis was the Anglican clergyman Richard Hooker. But Dyer and Watson also stress Lewis' indebtedness to John Locke, whose classical liberalism stood in contrast to Thomas Hobbes' "statist solution" for resolving civil strife.

Dyer and Watson wrote that "Locke's project was to limit government to the protection of individual natural rights." They note that "Locke explicitly tied" this belief to Hooker's natural law teachings even as they observe that Locke, unlike many in the classical natural law tradition, deemphasized "government's perfecting role."

Against Theocracy and Technocracy
Reflecting Locke's influence, Lewis' own writings display a belief in limited government and a distrust of government-enforced morality, a distrust again grounded in Lewis’ convictions regarding fallen humanity. In particular, Lewis was distrustful of theocracy and its abuses wrought by sanctimonious self-justifications. In his posthumously discovered "A Reply to Professor Haldane," Lewis writes:

I believe that no man or group of men is good enough to be trusted with uncontrolled power over others. And the higher the pretensions of such power, the more dangerous I think it to the rulers and to the subjects. Hence, theocracy is the worst of all governments . . . the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voices of Heaven will torment us infinitely because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations.

But Lewis' fear of theocracy was exceeded by his fear of a moralistic scientific technocracy, a system Lewis believed a much greater threat to his day and age. In his 1959 letter to Chicago newspaperman Dan Tucker, Lewis writes:

I dread government in the name of science. That is how most tyrannies come in. In every age the men who want us under their thumb, if they have any sense, will put forward the particular pretension which the hopes and fears of that age render most potent. They "cash in." It has been magic, it has been Christianity. Now it will certainly be science.

In both these pieces, Lewis makes clear his concerns that a ruling elite will try to exert power over the populace as a whole by using the pretense of superior knowledge and moral, supernatural, and/or scientific authority.

Not surprisingly, Lewis also articulates such apprehensions in his writings published during World War II, a period that saw significant expansion of government power throughout Europe and America.

In The Abolition of Man, Lewis highlights his concerns about the machinations of seemingly benevolent but ultimately totalitarian scientific bureaucracy that would seek to make obsolete church, family, and virtuous self-government. And in the final book of his Space Trilogy, That Hideous Strength, Lewis depicts a group of intellectual elites who attempt to use science to supplant the natural order.

Lewis' larger concern was to decry state intrusion upon matters of personal morality.

State-Enforced Morality
Buckley and Watson also highlight how Lewis' beliefs regarding state enforcement of morality resemble the classical liberal convictions of John Stuart Mill and his harm principle, articulated in On Liberty, that "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."

For Lewis, the harm principle manifests itself specifically regarding the controversial topics of divorce and homosexuality. For, despite Lewis' beliefs regarding both matters, he did not think the state should render either divorce or homosexual practice illegal. Rather, Lewis' larger concern was to decry state intrusion upon matters of personal morality.
In a 1958 letter, Lewis writes:

No sin, simply as such should be made a crime. Who the deuce are our rulers to enforce their opinion of sin on us? . . . Government is at its best a necessary evil. Let's keep it in its place." In an earlier letter addressing homosexuality--which was not decriminalized in the UK until 1967--Lewis writes that criminalizing homosexual practice helps "nothing" and "only creates a blackmailer's paradise. Anyway, what business is it of the State's?

Addressing Great Britain's then-severe restrictions against divorce, Lewis in Mere Christianity warns Christian voters and members of Parliament against trying "to force their views on the rest of the community by embodying them in the divorce laws."

Quite simply, Lewis writes, people who are not Christians "cannot be expected to live Christian lives." Addressing marriage in the same paragraph, Lewis advocated for an explicit distinction between church and state. He writes: There ought to be two distinct kinds of marriage: one governed by the State with rules enforced on all citizens, the other governed by the Church with rules enforced by her on her own members. The distinction ought to be quite sharp so that a man knows which couples are married in a Christian sense and which are not.

In light of Lewis' statements on these matters, certain scholars have speculated that Lewis would stand on the contemporary matter of same-sex marriage. Norman Horn suggests that Lewis would propose an approach to same-sex marriage that would emphasize freedom of association and would reflect the distinction between church and state that he made in Mere Christianity.

With this distinction in mind, we may suggest that Lewis' objections regarding same-sex marriage would be more directed toward the practices of Christian churches than state legalization.

At the same time, in light of Dyer and Watson's observation that, for Lewis, "The first purpose of limited government is to safeguard the sanctity of the Church," we may also surmise that Lewis would oppose any government mandate that would penalize churches or individual Christians that would refuse to participate in same-sex marriage ceremonies. For Lewis, any such mandate would be another manifestation of the state tyrannically enforcing morality and violating its appropriate limits.

David V. Urban

David V. Urban is Professor of English at Calvin College. His earlier article on Shakespeare's problematic Henry V appears in Liberty Matters. He is a member of the FEE Faculty Network.

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

300 Books to Download for Libertarians, Objectivists and Voluntaryists

Only $3.00 (I only ship to the United States) - You can pay using the Cash App by sending money to $HeinzSchmitz and send me an email at theoldcdbookshop@gmail.com with your information. You can also pay using Facebook Pay in Messenger

Books mostly Scanned from the Originals into PDF format for Libertarians, Objectivists, Anarcho-Capitalists, Voluntaryists and Individualists

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Contents:

Resist not evil by Clarence Darrow 1903 (The Nature of the State - "Endless volumes have been written, and countless lives been sacrificed in an effort to prove that one form of government is better than another; but few seem seriously to have considered the proposition that all government rests on violence and force, is sustained by soldiers, policemen and courts, and is contrary to the ideal peace and order which make for the happiness and progress of the human race.)

The World's Legal Philosophies by Fritz Berolzheimer 1912

The Tyranny of Socialism by Yves Guyot 1894

Liberty and the Great Libertarians by Charles Sprading 1913

Essays on political economy - Bastiat
"Socialism, like the old policy from which it emanates, confounds Government and society. And every time we object to a thing being done by Government, it concludes that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of education by the State — then we are against education altogether. We object to a State religion — then we would have no religion at all. We object to an equality which is brought about by the State — then we are against equality etc., etc. They might as well accuse us of wishing men not to eat, because we object to the cultivation of corn by the State."

Principles of Social Economy by Yves Guyot 1892

Economic prejudices by Yves Guyot 1910

Where and why Public Ownership has Failed by Yves Guyot 1914

The Inherent Evils of all State Governments Demonstrated by Edmund Burker 1858

Pictures of the Socialistic Future by Eugene Richter 1912

A Study in Socialism by Benedict Elder 1915

The Voluntaryist Creed by Herbert Spencer and Auberon Herbert 1908

The Principles of Voluntaryism and Free Life by Auberon Herbert 1897

A Plea for Liberty, an Argument against Socialism and Socialistic legislation by Thomas Mackay 1891

Why I am Opposed to Socialism by Edward Silvin 1913

Popular Fallacies Regarding Trade by Frederic Bastiat 1882

The Federal Reserve Monster by Jim Jam Jems 1922

A Disquisition on Government by John C Calhoun 1851

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

The Society of Tomorrow: a forecast of its political and economic organisation by Gustav Molinari 1904 (Molinari is considered by some to be the first anarcho-capitalist)

The Production of Security Gustav Molinari 1849

No Treason, Volume 1 by Lysander Spooner 1867 (individualist anarchist)

No Treason, Volume 2 by Lysander Spooner 1867 (Spooner argued that the Constitution was a contract of government which could not logically apply to anyone other than the individuals who signed it, and was thus void)

No Treason, Volume 3 by Lysander Spooner 1867

Vices Are Not Crimes by Lysander Spooner 1875

History of Economic Thought by Lewis Haney 1922

The Evolution of Modern Capitalism by JA Hobson 1907
"All the productive economies tend as before to pass into the hands of the consumer in reduced prices of commodities."

The Decline of Self-Onwership by Frank C Woodward, Litt. D 1904

THE DEFECTS OF THE SHERMAN ANTITRUST LAW by Charles Gates Dawes 1907

State Socialism and Anarchism: HOW FAR THEY AGREE, AND WHEREIN THEY DIFFER 1888, by Benjamin R. Tucker

The Law of Private Right By George Hugh Smith 1890

Man or the state?  A group of essays by Famous Writers 1919

Shakespeare and the Founders of Liberty in America by Charles Gayley 1917

History of the Origin, Formation, and Adoption of the Constitution of the United States Volume 1 by G. Curtis 1861

History of the Origin, Formation, and Adoption of the Constitution of the United States Volume 2 by G. Curtis 1861

The Men who Found America by FH Hutchison 1909

Industrial Combination by David Hutchison MacGregor 1906

The New Democracy by Walter Weyl 1920, with a chapter on THE INDIVIDUALISTIC SPIRIT OF AMERICA

The American Credo by HL Mencken 1922

The State; its History and Development Viewed Sociologically by Franz Oppenheimer 1922

The Jeffersonian Cyclopedia 1900 "With all the defects of our constitutions, whether general or particular, the comparison of our governments with those of Europe, is like a comparison of heaven and hell."

Positive Theory of Capital by Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk

Principles and Problems of Government by Bertha Haines 1921

The Greatest Failure in all History, a Critical Examination of the Actual Workings of Bolshevism in Russia by John Spargo 1920

My Dear Wells: being a Series of Letters addressed by Henry Arthur Jones to Mr. H.G. Wells, upon Bolshevism, Collectivism, Internationalism and the Distribution of Wealth by Henry Arthur Jones 1921

LIBERTY AND TAXATION by Benjamin Tucker

Plus You Get:

The Man Versus the State by Herbert Spencer 1902
Spencer stressed individuality and self-interest. In his view, government should get out of the way, or at most serve as a "night-watchman", and allow human beings freedom to compete. In this competition, the weak would die and the strong survive, to the eventual improvement of the human race.

The divine drama of history and civilisation by James E Smith 1854
Although an early Owenite socialist, he eventually rejected its collective idea of property, and found in individualism a "universalism" that allowed for the development of the "original genius."

Men versus the Man; a Correspondence between Robert Rives La Monte, Socialist, and H.L. Mencken, Individualist 1910

The Slavery of Our Times by Leo Tolstoy
THE slavery of our times results from three sets of laws-those about land, taxes, and property. And, therefore, all the attempts of those who wish to improve the position of the workers are inevitably, though unconsciously, directed against those three legislations.

Economic sophisms by Frederick Bastiat 1873

Essays on Political Economy by Frederick Bastiat

Harmonies of political economy by Frederick Bastiat 1860

What is free trade by Frederick Bastiat 1867 (searchable pdf)

Bastiat was the author of many works on economics and political economy, generally characterized by their clear organization, forceful argumentation, and acerbic wit. Among his better known works is Economic Sophisms, which contains many strongly-worded attacks on statist policies. Contained within Economic Sophisms is the famous satirical parable known as the "Candlemakers' petition" which presents itself as a demand from the candlemakers' guild to the French government, asking the government to block out the Sun to prevent its unfair competition with their products. He also facetiously "advocated" the cutting off of everyone's right hand, based on the assumptions that more difficulty means more work and more work means more wealth.

A Modest Proposal: For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick, commonly referred to as A Modest Proposal, is a satirical essay by Jonathan Swift in 1729. Swift appears to suggest in his essay that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling children as food for rich gentlemen and ladies. By doing this he mocks the authority of the British officials. This is when Britain had taken over Ireland and put heavy restrictions on their trade, stifling their economy. The essay has been noted by historians as being the first documented satirical essay.

On the Principles of Political Economy by David Ricardo 1821
Ricardo was an early free market economist

The Sphere and Duties of Government (The Limits of State Action) by William von Humboldt 1854

On the Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau 1849, original title: Resistance to Civil Goverment

Life without Principle by Henry David Thoreau

The Gospel of Superman: The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche by Henri Lichtenberger 1912

On Liberty by John Stuart Mill 1878

Elements of Individualism by William Maccall 1847

The State; its History and Development Viewed Sociologically by Franz Oppenheimer 1922

Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche

The Case for Capitalism by Hartley Withers 1920

The Big List of Libertarian Quotes

THE WORLD'S BEST ORATIONS Volume 10
"a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned This is the sum of good government."

Woman, Church and State by Matilda Joslyn Gage 1893

Two Treatises of Government by John Locke 1821
John Locke argued that legitimate authority depended on the consent of the governed.

The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith 1759 (searchable text)

Select Chapters and Passages from the Wealth of Nations of Adam Smith, 1776 by Adam Smith - 1894

The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

The Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche, 1887

Seligman/Nearing Debate - Capitalism has more to Offer the workers of the USA than has Socialism

Socialism, the Creed of Despair" Joint Debate 1909

The Autobiography of an Individualist by James Octavius Fagan 1912

Individualism vs Socialism by William Jennings Bryan in the Century Magazine 1906

The Constitution of the USA and the Decaration of Independence in German, French and English in Parallel Columns 1888

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo

Ninety-three by Victor Hugo 1874
[Victor Hugo] is a Romanticist who presents life "as it might be and ought to be." He is the worshipper and the superlative portrayer of man's greatness. - Ayn Rand

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."

Rights of Man by Thomas Paine

The Right to Ignore the State by Herbert Spencer 1851

Political Economy For Beginners by MG Fawcett 1900

On the Law of Identity..............

Elements of Deductive Logic by Noah Knowles Davis 1893

The Metaphysics of Aristotle 1896
"Therefore, in sooth, the investigation why this thing is the thing which it is, is no investigation at all; for it is
necessary that the wherefore, and the existence of a thing, should inhere as manifest entities. Now, I say, for instance,
the moon undergoes an eclipse: and of the inquiry why a thing is that thing which it is, there is one principle and one cause in the case of all things, as on what account a man is a man, or a musician a musician, except some one say that each
thing is indivisible in regard to itself; but this would be to constitute unity: but this is both common in the case of
all things, and is a thing that is concise."

Principles of logic by George Hayward Joyce 1908
"Among mediaeval authors the Spanish Scotist Antonius Andreae argues that the first place should belong to the principle Every Being is a Being. But the authority both of St. Thomas and of Scotus (Quaest. sup. Met. IV., Q. 3) was against him:
and he is expressly refuted by Suarez. Leibniz however makes the principle of Identity, which he gives
as Everything is what it is, the first of the primitive truths of reason which are affirmative..."

The Monadology and Other Philosophical Writings by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 1898
"A is A (every real thing is identical with itself) at all times, in all circumstances, throughout all changes, in every variety of relations. Strictly speaking, then, A can never become B. A is always A, B is always B; each is for ever exclusive of the other.

Institutes of Logic by John Veitch 1885

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke Volume 1

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke Volume 2

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke Volume 3 1801
"whatsoever is, is"

An examination of Sir William Hamilton's philosophy by John Stuart Mill 1845
"Whatever is true in one form of words, is true in every other form of words, which conveys the same meaning"

On the Non-Aggression Principle

Epicureanism By William Wallace 1880
Natural justice is a contract of expediency, so as to prevent one man doing harm to another. Those animals which were incapable of forming an agreement to the end that they neither might injure nor be injured are without either justice or injustice. Similarly, those tribes which could not or would not form a covenant to the same end are in a like predicament. There is no such thing as an intrinsic or abstract justice.

Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Men 1790
"The birthright of man ... is such a degree of liberty, civil and religious, as is compatible with the liberty of every other individual with whom he is united in a social compact, and the continued existence of that compact."

On the Duty of Man and Citizen by Samuel von Pufendorf 1682

The Principles of Ethics by Herbert Spencer 1898

The Principles of Ethics by Herbert Spencer 1898 Volume 2
Every man is free to do that  which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man.

PLUS YOU GET:

An Exposure of Socialism by Max Hirsch

A Critical Examination of Socialism by WH Mallock 1906

Why I am Opposed to Socialism - original papers by leading men and women (1913)

Fallacies of Socialism Exposed by Samuel Smith 1885

Socialism - Its Fallacies and Dangers by F Millar 1906

Socialism - Its Nature, Its Dangers and its Remedies Considered by M Kaufmann 1874

Socialism - the Creed of Despair, Debate between George Hugo and James Carey 1909

Socialism Exposed and Refuted by Victor Cathrein 1892

The Inhumanity of Socialism by Edward F Adams 1913

Where Socialism Failed  - An Actual Experiment by S Grahame 1913

The Case against Socialism by Arthur James Balfour 1908

Eugenics and Other Evils by GK Chesterton 1922 (deals also with Socialism)

The Social Interpretation of History- a Refutation of the Marxian Economic interpretation of history by Maurice William 1921

The Superstition Called Socialism by GW de Tunzelmann 1911

Socialism on Trial by Morris Hillquit 1920

A Challenge to Socialism, article in the Fortnightly Review 1908

Socialism and its perils by William Cooper 1908
("It is a matter for astonishment to every person outside the ranks of Socialism why it is that Socialist reform should seem to depend upon a disbelief in the existence of an Almighty Being, the destruction of religious faith, and the repudiation of
Christianity.")

A Plain Examination of Socialism by G Simonson 1900 ("under socialism, everybody would have to suffer not only from his own mistakes, but from the mistakes of everybody else.")

Notes on fallacies by FRANCIS LIEBER (Communism, however, annihilates individualism, and is against our very nature. Protection is veiled communism, as far as it goes.) 1869

The Balance Sheet of Sovietism by Boris Brasol 1922 (Marxism, fallacious as it is in theory, when applied to practice produces dismal conditions. Chaos, Misery and Death are the three monsters — the three symbols of Bolshevism.)

The Fallacy of Marx's Theory of Surplus-Value By Henry Seymour 1897

The Danger of the Republic from Atheism, Communism and Socialism, article in the Reformed quarterly review

Socialism and the American Spirit by NP Gilman 1893

New Fallacies of Midas by Cyril Robinson 1919
"Marx's forecast has been demonstrably untrue to fact; even if the rich have become richer the poor have certainly not become poorer."

The Return of Christendom 1922 (has a chapter on The failure of Marxism)

The Socialist Illusion; being a Critical Review of the Principles of State Socialism - Reginald Tayler

Review of Karl Marx's 'Capital' in The Eclectic Magazine 1888

Socialism: a Critical Analysis by Oskar Skelton 1911

Socialistic Fallacies by Yves Guyot 1910

Was Marx Wrong? by Issac Max Rubinow 1914

Is the Death of Marxism at Hand? Article in the American review of reviews 1911

A History of Socialism by Thomas Kirkup 1892

A Short Study of State Socialism by RJ Bryce 1903

A Study in Socialism by Benedict Elder 1915 ("On its negative side, Socialism is profoundly atheistic. Throughout the breadth and intricacy of its sea of literature, which would school mankind to a new life in art, science, and government, there is scarce a page but in one way or another implies, if it does not teach, unbelief in God.")

False Hopes or, Fallacies Socialistic and semi-socialistic by Goldwin Smith (This is the main source of that' extreme sort of Communism which may be called Satanism, as it seeks, not to reconstruct, but to destroy and to destroy not only existing institutions, but established morality—social, domestic, and personal—putting evil in place of good.)

Twentieth Century Socialism; what it is not; what it is; how it may come by Edmon Kelly 1910

Socialism - It's Harm and its Apology, article in the American Catholic Quarterly Review 1893

Harmonies of political economy by Frederick Bastiat 1860 (The Economists observe man, the laws of his organization, and
the social relations which result from those laws. The Socialists conjure up an imaginary society, and then create a human heart to suit that society.)

Sophisms of protection by Frederick Bastiat 1874 (If I am mistaken in this, Socialism is a vain dream. I add, it is a dream, in which the people are tearing themselves to pieces. Will it, therefore, be a cause for surprise, if, when they awake, they find themselves mangled and bleeding?)

Karl Marx and Modern Socialism by FR Salter 1921

Socialism, Atheism and Christianity by Chapman Cohen - 1908

Karl Marx and the Close of his System by Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk (first 217 pages only)

Selected Readings in Economics (articles by Frederic Bastiat) 1907

The Austrian Economists and their View of Value, article in The quarterly journal of economics 1889

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

The Forgotten Man by William Graham Sumner 1918 (government has a lot of grandiose plans, but the forgotten man is the one who has to pay for it all)

Facts and fallacies of Compulsory Health Insurance by Frederick Ludwig Hoffman 1920

More Facts and Fallacies of Compulsory health insurance by Frederick Ludwig Hoffman 1920

Equality a Socialist-radical Fallacy by Henry Strickland Constable 1897

The Distribution of Wealth by John R Commons 1893

Our Irrational Distribution of Wealth by BC Matthews 1908

Individualism, a system of Politics by W Donisthorpe 1889

Dangers of Socialism, article in the Gateway 1918

Outlines of Economics by Richard Theodore Ely 1893

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

Economic Moralism - an essay in Constructive Economics by James Haldane Smith 1917 (The Errors and Dangers of Socialism)

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

The Case against Protection by E Cooke 1909

Historic failures in applied Socialism By Daniel Joseph Ryan 1920

The Menace of Socialism by WL Wilson 1909

The "Scientific" Tariff - an Examination and Exposure by the Cobden Club 1909

Free Trade Tracts - a Series of Essays by the Cobden Club 1882

The Effect of Tariffs on Unemployment by the Cobden Club 1910

Fair trade unmasked by the Cobden Club 1887

Free trade versus Fair trade by Thomas Farrer 1904

The Fundamental Fallacy of Socialism by Arthur Preuss 1908

Fallacies of Socialism Exposed by Samuel Smith 1885

Three Socialist Fallacies, article in The Month 1898 (Catholic Magazine)

The Economics of Socialism, article in The Accountant 1908 ("It is the creed of Socialism that all wealth is produced by labour and that consequently to labour all wealth belongs. Many of those who profess this creed have some other ingenious tenets, but one illustration of the hare-brained fallacies of this blatant policy will suffice. Mr. Blatchford, the editor of the Clarion, says: "Just as no man can have a "right to land because no man makes the land, so no man "has a right to his self because he did not make that self."")

The Red Conspiracy by Joseph Mereto 1920

Lectures on the History of Protection in the United States by William Graham Sumner 1877

A List of Books for the Study of the Social Question (Catholic central union of America Central bureau) 1915

Jean Jacques Rousseau, a new criticism, Volume 1, by Frederika Richardson Macdonald 1906

Jean Jacques Rousseau, a new criticism, Volume 2, by Frederika Richardson Macdonald 1906

Four Phases of Morals - Socrates, Aristotle, Christianity, Utilitarianism by John Stuart Blackie 1874

Progressivism and After by William English Walling 1914

Recent Literature on Interest by Eugen von Bohm Bawerk 1903 (early Austrian Economist)

Value and Distribution - an historical, critical, and constructive study in Economic Theory by CW Macfarlane 1900

An Exposition of Socialism and Collectivism 1902

Collectivism a study of some of the leading social questions of the day by Paul Leroy-Beaulieu 1908

Collectivism and industrial evolution by E Vandervelde 1907

Government or Human evolution, Volume 1 by E Kelly 1900

Government or Human evolution, Volume 2 by E Kelly 1900

Guild socialism by Niles Carpenter 1922

Socialism and Collectivism 1902

The Collectivist State in the Making by Emil Davies 1914

The conflict between individualism and collectivism in a democracy by Charles Eliot 1910

Plus you get: Sixty Books that Ayn Rand read, with a few she might have, books mostly scanned from the originals into pdf format.
Contents of CDROM, these books are here because she has mentioned them in her writings:

Aristotle Works Volume 8 1910 (When doesn't she mention Aristotle, her favorite philosopher?)

Aristotle Works Volume 9 1910

Aristotle Works Volume 10 1910

On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music by Hermann Helmholtz 1875

Architecture and democracy by Claude Bragdon 1918

The Man Versus the State by Herbert Spencer 1902

The School and Society, being Three Lectures, supplemented by a statement of the University Elementary School by John Dewey 1907

Thinking as a Science by Henry Hazlitt 1916

The Egoist, A Comedy in Narrative by George Meredith 1897

History of Ancient Philosophy by Wilhelm Windelband 1910

Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason Volume 1
(She read Kant, but she certainly didn't like him)

Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason Volume 2

Kant's Critique of Practical Reason and Other Works on the Theory of Ethics 1898

System of Positive Polity by August Comte 1875 (she despised Mr. Altruism even more)

Ninety-three by Victor Hugo 1874

The Metaphysics of Ethics by Kant 1898

The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Case for Capitalism by Hartley Withers 1920
This is a book I can imagine her reading, I don't know if she ever did. The same goes for the next book:

Socialism: The Creed of Despair by George Hugo and James Carey 1909

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo

Immanuel Kant, his Life and Doctrine 1902 by Freidrich Paulsen

Plato's Republic

The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

On liberty by John Stuart Mill 1878 (She didn't like this one either)

The Myth of a Guilty Nation by Albert Jay Nock 1922

The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and in Peoples 1921

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-glass by Lewis Carroll 1898

The Ego and its Own by Max Stirner 1913

The Elements of Politics by Henry Sidgwick 1897

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None
by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - 1896

The Case of Wagner: The Twilight of the Idols; Nietsche Contra Wagner
by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thomas Common - 1896 - 341 pages

The Will to Freedom: Or, The Gospel of Nietzsche and the Gospel of Christ
by John Neville Figgis - 1917 - 310 pages

The Radical - An Autobiography of John Galt 1832
plus Autobiography of John Galt (Volume 1) 1833
I am not sure if Rand even knew of this John Galt, but it is interesting to me that there was such a person and had some renown.

The Gospel of Superman: The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche
by Henri Lichtenberger, John McFarland Kennedy - 1912

On the Future of Our Educational Institutions: Homer and Classical Philology
by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, John McFarland Kennedy - Education - 1909 - 160 pages
 
Nietzsche and Other Exponents of Individualism
by Paul Carus 1914 - 161 pages

Egoists, a Book of Supermen: Stendahl, Baudelaire, Flaubert, Anatole France
by James Gibbon Huneker, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Henrik Ibsen- 1909 - 362 pages
Partly republished from various periodicals.

The birth of tragedy, or Hellenism and pessimism (1923) Nietzsche

On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense (text format)

The Great Instauration by Francis Bacon 1620

The Advancement of Learning by Francis Bacon

Preparative toward a Natural and Experimental History by Francis Bacon

The New Organon by Francis Bacon

The New Atlantis by Francis Bacon

Hamlett by Shakespeare (19th Century Publication)

Othello by Shakespeare (19th Century Publication)

Macbeth by Shakespeare (19th Century Publication)

The Works of Shakespeare (Julius Caeser) (19th Century Publication)

GULLIVER'S TRAVELS by Johnathan Swift

Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 1886

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Altruism, Its nature and varieties 1919 by George Palmer
(I don't know is she read this, but it would have been something she might have liked to.)

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells 1898

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas by Jules Verne

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

The Constitution of the USA and the Decaration of Independence in German, French and English in Parallel Columns 1888



Plus you get: Communism in America by Henry Ammon James 1879

Capitalism and Communism by Rev. John Learned 1887

The Socialist Review 1905

Socialism and Communism in Their Practical Application by Moritz Kaufmann 1883
[Features "Communism and Early Christianity"]

Communism and Socialism in Their History and Theory by Theodore Dwight Woolsey 1880

The Jews and Modern Capitalism by Werner Sombart 1913

Debate Between Tom Mann and Arthur M. Lewis at the Garrick Theatre, Chicago - That Economic Organization is Sufficient and Political Action Unnecessary to the Emancipation of the Working Class (1914)

The Case for Capitalism by Hartley Withers 1920

Socialism, the Creed of Despair" Joint Debate 1909

The Collapse of Capitalism by Herman Cahn 1918

Capital and Interest: A Critical History of Economical Theory by Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk 1922

Socialism, Utopian and Scientific by Friedrich Engels - 1907

Socialism: An Examination of Its Nature, Its Strength and Its Weakness by Richard Theodore Ely 1894

Socialism: Promise Or Menace? by Morris Hillquit, John Augustine Ryan 1914

The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism by Max Weber

An exposure of socialism, three addresses on socialism and a Debate on socialism between Mr. Max Hirsch and Mr. H. Scott Bennett (1904)

State Socialism: is it just and reasonable? 1893 Debate

Current economic problems; a series of readings in the control of industrial development (1915) by Walton Hale Hamilton

The Evolution Of Modern Capitalism by John Hobson 1906

Socialism: Critical and Constructive by James Ramsay MacDonald 1921

Socialism and Christianity by Percy Stickney Grant 1910

Articles on banking and currency from "The Economist" newspaper by Thomas Joplin 1838
In nineteenth century Britain, laissez-faire capitalism found a small but strong following by such Manchester Liberals as Richard Cobden and Richard Wright. In 1867, this resulted in a free trade treaty being signed between Britain and France, after which several of these treaties were signed among other European countries. The newspaper The Economist was founded, partly in opposition to the Corn Laws, in 1843, and free trade was discussed in such places as The Cobden Club, founded a year after the death of Richard Cobden, in 1866.

Cobden's work and opinions by Reginal Welby 1904

Reminiscences of Richard Cobden by Julie Salis 1895

Why No Good Catholic Can Become a Socialist by Kenelm Digby Best 1909

The Real Wealth of Nations by John S. Hecht 1921

Americanized Socialism: A Yankee View of Capitalism by James MacKaye 1918

The Economics of Communism: With Special Reference to Russia's Experiment by Leo Pasvolsky 1920

Select Chapters and Passages from the Wealth of Nations of Adam Smith, 1776 by Adam Smith - 1894

The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

Seligman/Nearing Debate - Capitalism has more to Offer the workers of the USA than has Socialism

The Evolution of Man by Wilhelm Boelsche
Featured in an ad in the Socialist Review 1907, with this caption: "Modern Socialism is closely allied to the modern scientific theory of evolution, and it is impossible to understand it without knowledge of the theory. Now evolution is accepted as a working basis in every university in Europe and America, and no one with a scientific basis wastes time in questioning it. Nevertheless, there has been until now been no popular explanation of the evolution of man in simple form at a low price. There is very good reason for this. If laborers understand science, they become socialists, and the capitalists who control most publishing houses naturally do not want them to understand it."
 
Principles of political economy and taxation by David Ricardo 1919

Between eras from Capitalism to Democracy 1913 by Albion Small
 
The Laborer and the Capitalist by Freeman Otis Willey 1897

Catechism of Karl Marx's "Capital" by Lewis Cass Fry 1905

Principles of Economics by Alfred Marshall 1890

History of Economic Thought by Lewis Henry Haney 1920
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell 1917

The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith 1759 (searchable text)

Capitalism and Communism by John Calvin Learned 1887

Liberalism by L.T. Hobhouse 1919

Anglican Liberalism by I. H. Handley 1908

Liberalism and the Social Problem by Winston Churchill (searchable PDF)

ESSAYS IN LIBERALISM - Being the Lectures and Papers which were delivered at the Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 (searchable PDF)

Clement of Alexandria - A Study in Christian Liberalism Volume 1 by R.B. Tollinton B.D.

Clement of Alexandria - A Study in Christian Liberalism Volume 2 by R.B. Tollinton B.D.

The Crisis of Liberalism: new issues of democracy by J. A. Hobson

Liberalism, modernism and tradition, Bishop Paddock lectures 1922

Liberal Christianity: its origin, nature and mission (1903) by Jean Réville

The God of the Liberal Christian by Daniel Robinson

Modernism in religion by James Sterett 1922

Conversations on Liberalism and the Church by Augustus Brownson Orestes 1904

Some Modern ISM's by Thos. Cary Johnson 1919