The Market for Liberty

Some great books are the product of a lifetime of research, reflection, and discipline. Others are written during a moment of passionate discovery, with prose that shines forth like the sun when new understanding first brings the world into focus.

The Market for Liberty is that second type of classic. Written by Morris and Linda Tannehill after intensive study of the writings of Ayn Rand and Murray Rothbard, it has the pace, energy, and rigor you would expect from an evening's discussion with these two giants.

This book is radical in the true sense of that term: it gets to the root of the problem of government and rethinks the whole organization of society. Starting with the idea of the individual and his rights, the Tannehills work their way through the market, expose government as the enemy of mankind, and then — surprisingly — offer a dramatic expansion of market logic into areas of security and defense.

Also remarkable is their plan for desocialization, or transition to a fully free society. The Tannehills argue against privatization as it is usually understood, on grounds that government is not the owner of public property and so cannot sell it. Instead, they say, public property should be seized by people with the strongest interest in it, then put on the open market. If that seems crazy, you might change your mind after reading.

Remarkably, this book actually predates Rothbard's For A New Liberty. It had a huge impact when it came out in 1970, especially among the generation that was debating whether the state needed to provide basic functions or be eliminated all together. Rothbard even chose it as one of the top 20 libertarian books of all time, to be printed in his Arno Press series.

This book makes a bracing read for a person who has never been introduced to these ideas. For the person who has an appreciation of free enterprise, this book completes the picture, pushing the limits of market logic as far as they can go. No reader will be left unchanged by it.