Memoirs of a Superfluous Man, by Albert Jay Nock–which might be one of the most secretly influential books of the last half century, a mature book of remarkable power–now online in full text PDF.
If a regime of complete economic freedom be established, social and political freedom will follow automatically; and until it is established neither social nor political freedom can exist. Here one comes in sight of the reason why the State will never tolerate the establishment of economic freedom. In a spirit of sheer conscious fraud, the State will at any time offer its people ‘four freedoms,’ or six, or any number; but it will never let them have economic freedom. If it did, it would be signing its own death-warrant, for as Lenin pointed out, “it is nonsense to make any pretense of reconciling the State and liberty.” Our economic system being what it is, and the State being what it is, all the mass verbiage about ‘the free peoples’ and ‘the free democracies’ is merely so much obscene buffoonery.
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This is a remarkable addition to an already unbelievable online library. Congratulations to the Mises Institute for making this excellent book and many others available. I am sure it is a very labor intensive activity, but one that will bear much fruit in the future.
A must read!
I’m delighted to see this. Come for the libertarianism, but stay for the provocative ideas on marriage, which prefigure (influenced?) those Harry Browne put forth much later in How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World.
I wish to thank the Mises Institute for making this incredible book available. Though this book made me feel how woefully inadequate my education has been, I still could appreciate Nock’s viewpoints and the way he expressed himself. I too feel superfluous, but having read Nock I don’t feel so badly about it.
Your reply is refreshing (and illuminating–no doubt it will help starkly differentiate us here–for the lurkers, they’ll see I’m essentially right that there is always a resort to statism in the types of qualifications you are trying to set forth here–nothing’s for free).
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