The Discovery of Freedom by Rose Wilder Lane -a thrilling and even dangerous book--dangerous to anyone who aspires to rule over others.
Posted by freedomforall 4 years, 5 months ago to Books
Excerpt:
For sixty known centuries, multitudes of men have lived on this earth. Their situation has been the everlasting human situation. Their desire to live has been as strong as ours. Their energy has always been enough to make this earth at least habitable for human beings. Their intelligence has been great.
Yet for six thousand years, most men have been hungry. Famines have always killed multitudes, and still do over most of this earth. Ninety-five years ago, the Irish were starving to death; no one was surprised. Europeans had never expected to get from this earth enough food to keep them all alive.
Why did men die of hunger, for six thousand years?
Why did they walk, and carry goods and other men on their backs, for six thousand years, and suddenly, in one century, only on a sixth of this earth's surface, they make steamships, railroads, motors, airplanes, and now are flying around the earth in its utmost heights of air?
Why did families live six thousand years in floorless hovels, without windows or chimneys, then, in eighty years and only in these United States, they are taking floors, chimneys, glass windows for granted, and regarding electric lights, porcelain toilets, and window screens as minimum necessities?
Why did workers walk barefoot, in rags, with lousy hair and unwashed teeth, and workingmen wear no pants, for six thousand years, and here--in less than a century--silk stockings, lip sticks, permanent waves, sweaters, overcoats, shaving cream, safety razors. It's incredible.
For thousands of years, human beings use their energies in unsuccessful efforts to get wretched shelter and meager food. Then on one small part of the earth, a few men use their energies so effectively that three generations create a completely new world.
What explains this?
The Discovery of Freedom
Download it: https://cdn.mises.org/The%20Discovery...
For sixty known centuries, multitudes of men have lived on this earth. Their situation has been the everlasting human situation. Their desire to live has been as strong as ours. Their energy has always been enough to make this earth at least habitable for human beings. Their intelligence has been great.
Yet for six thousand years, most men have been hungry. Famines have always killed multitudes, and still do over most of this earth. Ninety-five years ago, the Irish were starving to death; no one was surprised. Europeans had never expected to get from this earth enough food to keep them all alive.
Why did men die of hunger, for six thousand years?
Why did they walk, and carry goods and other men on their backs, for six thousand years, and suddenly, in one century, only on a sixth of this earth's surface, they make steamships, railroads, motors, airplanes, and now are flying around the earth in its utmost heights of air?
Why did families live six thousand years in floorless hovels, without windows or chimneys, then, in eighty years and only in these United States, they are taking floors, chimneys, glass windows for granted, and regarding electric lights, porcelain toilets, and window screens as minimum necessities?
Why did workers walk barefoot, in rags, with lousy hair and unwashed teeth, and workingmen wear no pants, for six thousand years, and here--in less than a century--silk stockings, lip sticks, permanent waves, sweaters, overcoats, shaving cream, safety razors. It's incredible.
For thousands of years, human beings use their energies in unsuccessful efforts to get wretched shelter and meager food. Then on one small part of the earth, a few men use their energies so effectively that three generations create a completely new world.
What explains this?
The Discovery of Freedom
Download it: https://cdn.mises.org/The%20Discovery...
Collectivism, which includes socialism, communism, fascism, totalitarianism, runs completely counter to individualism. It is not that "socialism has been tried and failed ... but we need the right kind of socialism" -- it is that socialism cannot possibly ever be effective since it runs counter to reality. Individuals work for their own self-interest. This is an axiom. It is a basic fact.
The diversity of individuals, in terms of their innate IQ, creativity, ambition, energy, vision and self-direction is vast. Those individuals that reside on the far right side of the bell-curve, in terms of multiple achievement indicators, can be, and often are, fabulously successful. The vast mass of the population will be mired somewhere in the middle of mediocrity. It is not for the mediocre to envy their betters, but to acknowledge that given a life lived on the foundation of personal freedom, even the mediocre can live with air-conditioning, fresh produce, efficient transportation, and the great abundance that is provided by the free-market when producers are allowed to do what they do best: create, develop, innovate, scale, market and sell the products of their minds.
Ayn Rand was able to communicate these ideas so clearly in Atlas Shrugged. That is why the text is esteemed by producers and vilified by parasites. The book shines a bright light of objectivity on reality, and in so doing, it reveals the truth.
What a difference a century makes!
When was the last time that we heard about a famine that was not caused by the recent institution of socialism?
This book is available at archive.org
Download pdf linked in topic text above and:
https://cdn.mises.org/The%20Discovery...
The name looked familiar and it is! She is the daughter of Laura Wilder, author of "Little House On The Prairie"
https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
Whew, I've got a lot of reading to do!
Individuals are as different as their fingerprints. To treat them collectively, as though all have the same talent and interests prevents the most talented to create the best inventions, concepts, and actions that benefit all of that individual's society. Markets and trade are complex, with so many degrees of freedom that they are impossible to effectively control from any central authority, which is why all authoritarian controlled commerce fails.
https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
Human nature.