The Machinery of Freedom
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
The Machinery of Freedom
| Full title | The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism |
|---|---|
| Author | David D. Friedman |
| Published | 1973 |
| Pages | 254 |
| Recommended | Once |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | David Friedman’s consequentialist case for a society with no state at all — competing private protection agencies and courts, the hard problem of national defence, and medieval Iceland as evidence that decentralised law can work. Short on moral assertion and long on institutional design; it asks what is actually load-bearing about the state. |
Where I heard about it
- Brendan McCord — on his Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List, opening the Anarcho-Capitalism section ahead of Benson’s The Enterprise of Law and Rothbard’s For a New Liberty. Shared March 2026; full transcription on The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List.
About this edition
The author is an economist and the son of Milton Friedman.
Connections
- Milton Friedman — the author’s father, whose more moderate case for markets this book pushes past.
- Government — the institution the book proposes to do without.
- Capitalism — the system whose radical form the subtitle names.
- Man, Economy, and State — Rothbard’s treatise, the Austrian foundation for the same section of McCord’s list.
- The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List — the curriculum this came from.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.