Business & Economics
Principles of Economics, Book 4: The Agents of Production
Read by LibriVox Volunteers
Alfred Marshall
Principles of Economics was a leading economics textbook of Alfred Marshall (1842-1924), first published in 1890. Marshall began writing the…
War Is a Racket
Read by John Greenman
Smedley Butler
Marine Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler's expose of American Corporate Imperialism. Butler said, “I served in all commissioned ranks from second lie…
The Eight Pillars of Prosperity (Version 2)
Read by SweetHome
James Allen
“Prosperity, like a house, is a roof over a man’s head, affording him protection and comfort. A roof presupposes a support, and a support ne…
Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy
Read by Gary Gilberd
John Stuart Mill
This is Mill’s first work on economics. It foreshadows his Political Economy which was the standard Anglo-American Economics textbook of the…
Eryxias
Read by Geoffrey Edwards
Plato
Eryxias (ΕΡΥΞΙΑΣ) may not have been written by Plato (ΠΛΑΤΩΝ). The dialogue discusses whether wealth has value and what the aim of philosoph…
Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Wealth
Read by Jeff Dumas
Anne Robert Jacques Turgot
"This Essay May be Considered as the Germ of the Treatise on The Wealth of Nations, Written by the Celebrated Smith"—Condorcet's L…
Capital and Interest
Read by Michele Fry
Frédéric Bastiat
Frédéric Bastiat was an early 19th century French economist/statesman whose common sense essays tried to battle the rise of so…
Principles of Political Economy
Read by LibriVox Volunteers
John Stuart Mill
The Principles of Political Economy, first published in 1848, was one of the most important texts on the subject of economy at that time. I…
Principles of Economics, The Appendices
Read by LibriVox Volunteers
Alfred Marshall
Principles of Economics was a leading economics textbook of Alfred Marshall (1842-1924), first published in 1890. Marshall began writing the…
The Poverty of Philosophy
Read by Tray
Karl Marx
This work is a scathing criticism of the economic and philosophical arguments of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's The Philosophy of Poverty. (Summar…
Food Guide for War Service at Home
Read by Maria Kasper
Katherine Blunt
"The long war has brought hunger to Europe; some of her peoples stand constantly face to face with starvation. To meet all this great f…
Sophisms of the Protectionists
Read by Katie Riley
Frédéric Bastiat
"To rob the public, it is necessary to deceive them," Bastiat said and believed. He reasoned, employing repetition to various appl…
Social Statics
Read by LibriVox Volunteers
Herbert Spencer
Social Statics, or The Conditions essential to Happiness specified, and the First of them Developed is an 1851 book by the British polymath …
U.S. Money vs. Corporation Currency, "Aldrich plan."
Read by LibriVox Volunteers
Alfred Owen Crozier
In 1908, the National Monetary Commission was established by Congress to study financial boom-and-bust cycles. Senator Nelson Aldrich (Repub…
The Gospel of Wealth
Read by Michele Fry
Andrew Carnegie
What is the proper mode of administering great wealth? It is to address this question that steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie's famous essay "…
The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier, Part 1
Read by LibriVox Volunteers
Charles E. Flandrau
"It has been a little over fifty years since the organization of the Territory of Minnesota, which at its birth was a very small and un…
A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
Read by LibriVox Volunteers
Karl Marx
As a precursor to Capital, Marx outlines his analysis of capitalism and critiques classical economic theories. - Summary by Tray
The Challenge of Waste
Read by progressingamerica
Stuart Chase
"The Challenge of Waste" examines the wasteful nature of the competitive market system, particularly from a Veblenian point of vie…
What Shall We Do?
Read by Joanna Michal Hoyt
Leo Tolstoy
A vivid description of wealth and poverty in Russia in Tolstoy's day, an inquiry into the root causes of economic inequality, and a vision o…
Thrift
Read by LibriVox Volunteers
Samuel Smiles
"This book is intended as a sequel to Self-Help and Character. It might, indeed, have appeared as an introduction to these volumes; for…