The Mises meet-up group I attend (see: “Grassroots for Mises”) is finising up Power & Market and as such we are moving on to a new book. I offered to run a series of lectures on George Reisman’s book, Capitalism (nineteen chapters, spread out over a maximum of eighteen days, or eighteen weeks [we meet once a week]), and they agreed.
The problem is that the book is rather expensive (even a used copy on Amazon.com runs for $75), and PDF doesn’t translate well on Kindle (I guess, I don’t own one, but that’s what I heard). Does anybody know if there is an e-pub version, or any electronic version which will read well on the Kindle?
If not, do you think contacting Reisman or the publisher would be of any value?
I contacted Reisman once to try and get and unlocked PDF so I could split it up to bite sized pieces. Suffice it to say, he pointed me over towards purchasing the CDs. I opted just to use the PDF on my laptop, as that book is monstrous to carry around.
According to economist George Reisman, patents do not constitute monopolies. “[Patents] reserve markets, or parts of markets, to the exclusive possession of the owners of the patents, …, and they do so by means of the use of physical force inasmuch as it is against the law to infringe on these rights. None of these constitutes monopoly, however, because none of them is supported by the initiation of physical force… The fact that the government is ready to use force to protect patents … is fully as proper as that it stands ready to use force to protect [for example] farmers and businessmen in the ownership of their physical products, and to come to their rescue when they are set upon by trespassers or attacked by robbers.” [10]
Honestly, if it was up to me everyone would carry a hardback copy (like I do), but it’s not up to me. I wouldn’t mind if the publisher made a Kindle version that you have to pay for. It would still be half as cheap as the hardback version.
I’ve never purchased that book precisely because of that price. I’ve spent that much on books before (J.C. Lester’s Escape from Leviathan: Liberty, Welfare, and Anarchy Reconciled comes to mind), but there are good, cheaper econ books available.
I chose it because it departs from the Austrian School in some way. The group I’m lecturing has already read Human Action and Man, Economy, and State, so this is supposed to be a new challenge. I want to see if they are able to defend Austrian theory (although, admittedly, on the whole Reisman is still an Austrian), or at least recognize where Mises may have been wrong (although, Reisman commits some specific mistakes, as well). From this perspective, there is no better book than Reisman’s.
Out of curiosity will you put up your lecture notes online? As one day, I mean to slog through Reisman’s book and something like a studyguide would be pretty excellent.
After reading through Capitalism, I felt I gained a better understanding of Austrian Economics, and even the Classicals, as opposed to just reading Human Action and MES.