Welcome to the Online Library of Liberty

The OLL brings books and ideas together so they can converse with each other and with you. We’ve gathered together collections of texts from historical movements and about big ideas that have changed the world to make it easier to allow our texts to “talk” to each other.

Featured Titles

The Declaration of Independence: A Study on the History of Political Ideas

Carl Lotus Becker (author)

An examination of the political ideas behind the Declaration of Independence. Becker examines the theory of natural rights, the view the colonists had of their place in the British Empire, and the literary qualities of the…

The Fable of the Bees or Private Vices, Publick Benefits, 2 vols.

Bernard Mandeville (author)

Mandeville is a witty satirist who used a poem to make the profound economic point that “private vices” (or self-interest) lead to “publick benefits” (such as orderly social structures like law, language, and markets).

Justice and Its Surroundings

Anthony de Jasay (author)

Author of The State, Anthony de Jasay, has been described as one of the few genuinely original minds in modern political philosophy. He breaks new ground with Justice and Its Surroundings - a new collection of essays that seek to…

The Alchemy of Happiness

Al Ghazali (author)

Al Ghazali attempted to reconcile the Muslim faith with Aristotelian logic in this work on simple piety.

The Reading Room

The OLL blog explores the fascinating, vital, and often surprising texts and people that fill our library. Come talk in our library!

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Utilitarianism: Pleasure or Preference?

By: Bill Glod Nov 07, 2024

Spend much time in discussion of ethics and you’ll likely hear standard objections to various utilitarian theories. In their single-minded drive to maximize some version of the good (e.g., desirable conscious states like pleasure), utilitarian theories are said to run afoul of situations that seem…

Liberty Matters

The OLL brings people together to debate and discuss important texts and big ideas about liberty.

Contrasting Views of Liberty in Hume and Rousseau (November 2024)

By: OLL Editor Nov 12, 2024

David Hume’s skepticism and rigorous empiricism confront Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s idealism and passionate romanticism in this series about their perspectives on liberty. Hume and Rousseau were two of the most notorious and influential thinkers of their time. They were also very briefly friends.

Featured Quotes

Socialism & Interventionism

The moving parts are men, that is, beings capable of learning, reflecting, reasoning, of making errors and of correcting them, and consequently of making the mechanism itself better or worse. They are capable of pain and pleasure,…

Frédéric Bastiat

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Food & Drink

Chagrined a little that we have been hitherto able to produce nothing in this way of use to mankind; and the hot weather coming on, when the electrical experiments are not so agreeable, it is proposed to put an end to them for this…

Benjamin Franklin

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Taxation

Under the auspices of tyranny the life of the subject is often sported with, and the fruits of his daily toil are consumed in oppressive taxes, that serve to gratify the ambition, avarice, and lusts of his superiors. Every court…

Alexander Hamilton

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All People

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References and Guides

Goodrich Seminar Room

In the Goodrich Seminar Room in the Lilly Library at Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana the limestone walls are engraved with the names of the political and legal documents and authors which Pierre Goodrich, the founder of Liberty Fund, believed had most contributed to our understanding of…

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Washington: Marshall's Life

Montaigne: A Sketch

Chronology: the Life and Times of William Penn

Adam Smith and the Wealth of Nations

Watch the video on our YouTube channel.

Watch the Spanish version of the video on our YouTube channel.

Related Links:

Adam Smith Subject Area: Economics School of Thought: Classical School of Economics Essays on Adam Smith

Our sister site, AdamSmithWorks

Of special note, please see also…

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Hume, Smith, and Ferguson: Wealth, Commerce, and Corruption

This is a Reading List based upon a Liberty Fund Conference on “Wealth, Commerce, and Corruption in Hume, Smith, and Ferguson.”

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Homer's Iliad: Liberty and Responsibility

This is a Reading List based upon a Liberty Fund Conference on “Liberty and Responsibility in Homer’s Iliad.”

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Essays on Key Authors

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Forgotten Gems

Over the course of time some particularly noteworthy essays, chapters or sections of books are forgotten. This section is an attempt to revive these “forgotten gems”.

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Socialism: A Study Guide and Reader

Introduction

This Study Guide examines the long-standing clash between Socialism and Marxism, and Classical Liberalism over the past 200 years or so. It provides a brief history of the tradition, some of its main criticisms of the free market, the classical liberalresponse to these criticisms,…

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The Intellectual Portrait Series: A Conversation with Jacques Barzun

One of our most distinguished contemporary cultural historians, Jacques Barzun reflects on his long academic career and the movement of ideas he helped to shape through his seminal writings on liberal education in America.

Watch the video version on our YouTube channel.

Below are some prompts for…

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