Library of Congress

Here is something that may help those with a research question. It is possible to use the Library of Congress website to ask a librarian reference questions at http://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/

Given that it takes 5 days for a response, you may wish to check the LOC's faq page for researchers first at http://www.loc.gov/rr/res-faq.html

Bentley, Elizabeth

Bentley, Elizabeth. Out of Bondage. Devin-Adair. 1951. 311 pp.

In this autobiographical account Miss Bentley, an American College girl, describes how she entered the Communist party, took part in its secret underground for ten years, and later collaborated with the Federal Bureau of Investigation after she left the party. Although her story on its appearance was ridiculed by some reviewers as "schoolgirlish" and "phoney," many of her most startling charges have been confirmed by later investigation.

Point to Ponder

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"Liberty is about us as social beings, and so it is a social concept."

Charles Fried, Modern Liberty, 2007 p. 76.

BK: Think about this - (a) Many advocates of liberty focus on egoism and individualism as the foundation of liberty. Fried does as well by grounding liberty in our individual autonomy. The claim that liberty is a social concept is debatable. (b) This debate is both political and metaphysical - 1. Is the nature of my liberty, as an ethical restraint on you, and the state, socially determined? 2. Is the source of our concept of liberty, so that it is part of our language that we can talk about, formed through social interaction.

Could Crusoe, without Friday, be said to have any liberty? Would Friday, without Crusoe, ever have formed the idea of liberty?

Bentham, Jeremy

Bentham, Jeremy. Works. Edited by John Bowring. 1838-1843. Edinburgh: Tait. 11 vols.

"A considerable amount of Bentham is still worthy of study. He may be considered as the philosophic founder of modern British democracy. He held that the State exists to promote the individual happiness of the citizens who compose it and that ministers are the servants of the electors. For our purposes, the more important works are: (1) A Fragment on Government (1776), (2) Defense of Usury (1787), (3) An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789). As a Utilitarian, an Individualist, and a reformer of laws and institutions, he deserves more attention than he now receives. Bentham is, like Locke, influential, but known chiefly through the work of his pupils and disciples." - PI.

Bentham, Jeremy, Defense of Usury. 1787. Many editions. 232pp.

Jeremy Bentham whose reputation has hitherto been that of a moralist, a founder of Utilitarianism, a logician, a great political and legal philosopher and reformer, was also, it is now being discovered, an outstanding economist. Until very recent years, by far the greater part of Bentham's economic work was completely unknown - locked up in chaotic and illegible manuscripts. The Royal Economic Society commissioned Dr. W. Stark to make a closer scrutiny of this material, which in 1952 was published in three volumes under the title Jeremy Bentham's Economic Writings (London: Allen and Unwin).

The Defense of Usury, however, which is included in these volumes, was published in 1787 and acquired immediate celebrity. Bentham was a great admirer of Adam Smith, whom he called "the father of political economy" and a writer of consummate genius." But he was not an uncritical admirer, and in the Defense of Usury, which he published eleven years after the appearance of The Wealth of Nations, he ventured to take the master to task for his inconsistency in approving so-called anti-usury laws while opposing government price-fixing in practically every other field.

"The Liberty of Bargaining in money matters," wrote Bentham, is "a species of liberty which has never yet found an advocate." Yet "fixing the rate of interest, being a coercive measure, and an exception to the general rule in favor of the enforcement of contracts, it lies upon the advocates of the measure to produce reasons for it." Examining the reasons that had been offered, Bentham rejected them as invalid, and proceeded to explain the positive "mischiefs" done by the anti-usury laws. He concluded that there is "no more reason for fixing the price of the use of money than the price of goods."

Notable Quote: Adam Smith

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantage" (Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter ii, Section 2).

Benn, Sir Ernest

Benn, Sir Ernest. Confessions of a Capitalist. London: Hutchinson. 1925. 287 pp.

"A telling defense of individual initiative." - London Financial News. "A book which is unique in economic literature. Sir Ernest's pen is as vivid as his mind is fearless and independent. ... He tells us the most intimate details of his business. ... The whole is accompanied by a running line of argument on the fundamental problems of economics, which is set out so skillfully as to be as entertaining and arresting as the autobiographical details." - Lionel Robbins.

The Return to Laisser Faire. London: Ernest Benn. 1928. 221 pp.

An Argument against the extension of governmental activity and interference in England and a plea for a return to individualism. Public aid to housing and the growing burden of bureaucracy are special targets. Even reviewers hostile to the author's thesis paid tribute to "the entertaining style, the caustic wit, the arresting illustration."

The State the Enemy. London: Ernest Benn. 1953. 175 pp.

The author reviews the British experiment in state intervention and socialism all the way from Lloyd George, who inherited a budget of L100 million, to Attlee, who left it at L4,000 million, and sums up the record of failure: "Nationalization has not brought the expected smile to the face of the worker, full employment has not encouraged production, the management of money has not improved its quality; in fact, all the anticipations of the original Fabian Essays, the bases of modern Socialism, have proved disappointing, if not entirely fallacious." The style is lively, witty and aphoristic.

Liberty of Man in Society

"The Liberty of Man, in Society, is to be under no other Legislative Power, but that established, by consent, in the Common-wealth, nor under the Dominion of any Will, or Restraint of any Law, but what the Legislative shall enact, according to the Trust put in it" (Bk II, Chap IV, Sec 22).


BK: Note there is no requirement that the Legislative enact only that which is consistent with Natural Liberty. The requirement here is that the legislative power is established by consent and is constrained by the "Trust" placed in it, presumably to keep the terms of the agreement.

Natural Liberty

"The Natural Liberty of Man is to be free from any Superior Power on Earth, and not to be under the Will or Legislative Authority of Man, but to have only the Law of Nature for his Rule."

Locke, The Second Treatise of Government, Bk. II, Chap IV, Sec 22.


BK: I just want to put this up for pondering for a day because I am not sure how well it fits with, or relates to, what follows in this chapter.

Benham, Frederic, and Boddy, F.M.

Benham, Frederic, and Boddy, F.M. Principles of Economics. Piman. 1947.

A textbook intended for an introductory course, to provide "the simple tools of modern economic analysis." Considerable attention is also given to the effects of government intervention upon a capitalistic system.

Modern Liberty

Those considering whether to purchase Charles Fried's new book may find this review in the New York Times interesting. The publisher's summary can be found here.

I have just purchased the book and will enter my two cents after I have read it.


Charles Fried, Modern Liberty and the Limits of Government, W.W. Norton & Company, 2007, 217 pp.

Benda, Julien

Benda, Julien. The Treason of the Intellectuals. Morrow. 1928. 244 pp.

This celebrated book first appeared in France under the title La Trahison des clercs. "That the intellectuals of the world have sold out to utilitarianism, leaving their proper devotion to truth and humanity, is the theme of Julien Benda's scorching analysis of the current leaders of thought. By taking on political passions, the intellectuals have played the game of the state, espoused war and conflict and lost that universalism which is their true reason for existence." - World Tomorrow.

Greatly needed today is a study with a title and theme similar to Benda's, which would not only cover developments in the twenty-five years since his book appeared, and describe the intellectual and sometimes quite literal treachery of some present-day physical scientists, but would cover the whole drift of our literateurs and other intellectual leaders over the last three-quarters of a century into a sentimental socialism - including Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, and the Webbs in England, Anatole France in France, and the corresponding figures in Germany and America. It would be important to analyze not merely individual figures but the mob psychology of our modern intellectuals and the ease with which they were blown about by the fashionable winds of doctrine.

BK: I do not like this type of critique. While individuals can sell out, it has been my experience that intellectuals believe what they believe to be true or right. No one sold out to utilitarianism anymore than they sold out to Kantianism. Furthermore, to claim someone believes in something simply because it is fashionable is to avoid the issue by calling someone a simpleton. This type of critique is not a critique at all. It assumes what needs to be proven - here that socialism is untenable. Furthermore, it assumes that the theory is so wrong, the only way to explain intellectual support is by nuanced references to payoffs and shallowness of character. The astute reader will notice that both of these claims are being levied against libertarian intellectuals today.

Beck, James Montgomery

Beck, James Montgomery. Our Wonderland of Bureaucracy. Macmillan. 1933. 290 pp.

A study, by a former Solicitor General of the United States, of the growth of bureaucracy in the federal government, and its destructive effect upon the Constitution.