Government Against the Economy

Originally published in 1979, and later incorporated into the author's magnum opus, Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics as Chapters 6-8, this is a powerful and convincing book which explains the essential principles of free-market price theory along with leading applications of those principles. Again and again, it illustrates the economic coordination of a free economy by contrasting it with the chaos produced by price controls and, as the ultimate culmination of price controls, socialism.

Written for the intelligent layman who may have no previous knowledge of basic economic theory, this book not only shows where government policy went wrong in imposing price controls, it also shows how free-market prices are essential to the success of our economic system in producing for the benefit of everyone. Included are explanations of: how a free market would progressively reduce the cost of energy, along with that of all other goods; why the Arab oil embargo would not have been a threat to a free economy; how price controls actually raise prices; how partial price controls lead to universal price controls; how universal price controls represent de facto socialism; why Nazi Germany was a socialist country; and why socialism, rather than representing any kind of genuine economic planning, is in fact chaotic and necessarily tyrannical.

For those who want to understand how a free-market economy really works and how price controls and socialism create chaos and poverty, this book is mandatory reading.