Efficiency and Externalities in an Open-Ended Universe: A Modern Austrian Perspective

First I’d want to thank my wife Karen Palasek and my daughter Stephanie—for everything—and, as always, my parents, now deceased, Joseph and Mary Cordato.

A very special thanks also goes to the Ludwig von Mises Institute for always showing support for this book. In 1992 when the book first came out they bought hundreds of copies and made them available at a very affordable price. More recently, as soon as they were informed that the original copyright had been released the Institute offered to republish the book, making it available for the first time in a decade.

Thanks also to Dominick Armentano, my teacher and mentor, for writing the “Forward,” which also appeared in the original publication of the book. His endorsement was and is highly valued.

There are a number of people whose comments enlightened me during the process of writing this book. I especially want to thank Sheldon Richman, Michael Krauss, Peter Boettke, Norman Ture, John Egger, Michael Schuyler, Bill Butos, Jeffrey Tucker, Larry White, Richard Langlois, Don Lavoe, Tom DiLorenzo, Jack High, Dwight Lee, Bharat Kolluri and John Sullivan.

For past financial support on this project I want to thank The Institute for Humane Studies and the now dissolved Center for the Study of Market Process at George Mason University.

Finally I want to thank all the Austrian School economists whose work inspired me to think about these issues, especially Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, Friedrich Hayek, and most importantly, in terms of this project, Israel Kirzner.