Compulsory Commitment
One of the most shameful areas of involuntary servitude in our society is the widespread practice of compulsory commitment, or involuntary hospitalization, of mental patients. In former generations this incarceration of noncriminals was frankly carried out as a measure against mental patients, to remove them from society.
2. Monetary Stabilization and Cyclical Policy (1928)
In recent years the problems of monetary and banking policy have been approached more and more with a view to both stabilizing the value of the monetary unit and eliminating fluctuations in the economy. Thanks to serious attempts at explaining and publicizing these most difficult economic problems, they have become familiar to almost everyone. It may perhaps be appropriate to speak of fashions in economics, and it is undoubtedly the “fashion” today to establish institutions for the study of business trends.
Part A: Stabilization of the Purchasing Power of the Monetary Unit
I. THE PROBLEM
1. “Stable Value” Money
Gold and silver had already served mankind for thousands of years as generally accepted media of exchange—that is, as money—before there was any clear idea of the formation of the exchange relationship between these metals and consumers’ goods, i.e., before there was an understanding as to how money prices for goods and services are formed. At best, some attention was given to fluctuations in the mutual exchange relationships of the two precious metals.
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The State and the Intellectuals
The answer is that, since the early origins of the State, its rulers have always turned, as a necessary bolster to their rule, to an alliance with society’s class of intellectuals. The masses do not create their own abstract ideas, or indeed think through these ideas independently; they follow passively the ideas adopted and promulgated by the body of intellectuals, who become the effective “opinion moulders” in society.
Chapter 2: Property and Exchange
Preface
When the original edition of this book was published (1973), the new libertarian movement in America was in its infancy. In half a dozen years the movement has matured with amazing rapidity, and has expanded greatly both in quantity and quality. Hence, while the discussion of libertarianism in this book has been strengthened and updated throughout, the greatest change is in our treatment of the libertarian movement.
