HN Books @HNBooksMonth

The best books of Hacker News.

Hacker News Comments on
The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism

David D. Friedman · 2 HN comments
HN Books has aggregated all Hacker News stories and comments that mention "The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism" by David D. Friedman.
View on Amazon [↗]
HN Books may receive an affiliate commission when you make purchases on sites after clicking through links on this page.
Amazon Summary
This book argues for a society organized by voluntary cooperation under institutions of private property and exchange with little, ultimately no, government. It describes how the most fundamental functions of government might be replaced by private institutions, with services such as protecting individual rights and settling disputes provided by private firms in a competitive market. It goes on to use the tools of economic analysis to attempt to show how such institutions could be expected to work, what sort of legal rules they would generate, and under what circumstances they would or would not be stable. The approach is consequentialist. The claim is that such a society would produce more attractive outcomes, judged by widely shared values, than alternatives, including the current institutions of the U.S. and similar societies. The second edition contained four sections, this third edition adds two more. One explores some of the ideas already raised in greater depth, including discussions of decentralized law enforcement in past legal systems, of rights seen not as a moral or legal category but as a description of human behavior, of a possible threat to the stability of the system not considered in the previous editions, and of ways in which a stateless society might defend itself from aggressive states. The final section introduces a number of new topics, including unschooling, the misuse of externality arguments in contexts such as population or global warming, and the implications of public key encryption and related online technologies.
HN Books Rankings

Hacker News Stories and Comments

All the comments and stories posted to Hacker News that reference this book.
The PDF is the 2nd edition. There is a 3rd edition on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Machinery-Freedom-Guide-Radical-Capit...

I haven't read it, but I think I'll read the 3rd Edition.

If anyone reading this is genuinely interested in a perspective on how many core government functions (law, police, defense, roads, etc) could work in a society without government, check out The Machinery of Freedom [1] by David Friedman.

Even if you don't agree with removing government 100%, it gives you a new way of thinking about these services. There are a lot of fascinating examples of societies in history where many of these systems were not primarily controlled by the state. It is also a great mind-bending thought game to try and figure out how you would structure, say, a defense organization or a road company if the government disappeared tomorrow.

I had a lot of fun reading this book, and I think it provides a lot of useful ideas for thinking about how government should function.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Machinery-Freedom-Guide-Radical-Capita...

HN Books is an independent project and is not operated by Y Combinator or Amazon.com.
~ yaj@
;laksdfhjdhksalkfj more things
yahnd.com ~ Privacy Policy ~
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.