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Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics
Aimed at both the intelligent layman and the professional economist, this book is the most comprehensive and intellectually powerful explanation of the nature and value of laissez-faire capitalism that has ever been written. It represents a twofold major integration of truths previously discovered by other writers, combined with numerous original contributions made by the author himself. Within economic theory, it integrates leading ideas of the Austrian school with needlessly abandoned doctrines of the British classical school. It further integrates such reconstituted economic theory with essential elements of Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism.
On the foundation of these integrations, Dr. Reisman is able to develop the numerous major original contributions that the book presents on the subjects of profits, wages, saving, capital accumulation, aggregate economic accounting, monopoly, and natural resources, among other vital subjects. Based on the same foundation, the book presents the most powerful critiques of Marx, Keynes, the pure-and-perfect competition doctrine, and environmentalism to be found anywhere.
A leading part of its trenchant economic analysis is a consistent demonstration of the natural harmony of the rational self-interests of all men under capitalism--of businessmen and wage earners, of consumers and producers, of men of all races and nationalities, including immigrants and the native born, and of competitors of all levels of ability--consonances most will find astonishing, given the prevailing misunderstandings of capitalism.
The book's importance and appeal to a general audience are evident in its description of prevailing attitudes toward capitalism and its challenge to learn why they are all completely wrong and the cause of self-destructive political behavior on a massive scale. For those with the intellectual courage to accept a challenge of having many of their firmest and most cherished beliefs reduced by unanswerable logic to the status of Dark-Age superstitions, here are some of the beliefs that Reisman's book The profit motive is the cause of starvation wages, exhausting hours, sweatshops, and child labor; of monopolies, inflation, depressions, wars, imperialism, and racism. Saving is hoarding. Competition is the law of the jungle. Economic inequality is unjust and the legitimate basis for class warfare. Economic progress is a ravaging of the planet and, in the form of improvements in efficiency, a cause of unemployment and depressions. War and destruction or additional peacetime government spending are necessary to prevent unemployment under capitalism. Economic activity other than manual labor is parasitical. Businessmen and capitalists are recipients of "unearned income" and are "exploiters." The stock and commodity markets are "gambling casinos"; retailers and wholesalers are "middlemen," having no function but that of adding "markups" to the prices charged by farmers and manufacturers; advertisers are inherently guilty of fraud--the fraud of attempting to induce people to desire the goods that capitalism showers on them, but that they allegedly have no natural or legitimate basis for desiring.
Reisman's book flies in the face of all such anticapitalistic ideas and demands. Its thesis is that never have so many people been so ignorant and confused about a subject so important, as most people now are about economics and capitalism. It argues that in its logically consistent form of laissez-faire capitalism--that is, with the powers of government limited to those of national defense and the administration of justice--capitalism is a system of economic progress and prosperity for all, and is a precondition of world peace. Following an exhaustive economic analysis of virtually every aspect of capitalism, the book's concluding chapter is devoted to the presentation of a long-range political-economic program for the achievement of a fully capitalist society.
On the foundation of these integrations, Dr. Reisman is able to develop the numerous major original contributions that the book presents on the subjects of profits, wages, saving, capital accumulation, aggregate economic accounting, monopoly, and natural resources, among other vital subjects. Based on the same foundation, the book presents the most powerful critiques of Marx, Keynes, the pure-and-perfect competition doctrine, and environmentalism to be found anywhere.
A leading part of its trenchant economic analysis is a consistent demonstration of the natural harmony of the rational self-interests of all men under capitalism--of businessmen and wage earners, of consumers and producers, of men of all races and nationalities, including immigrants and the native born, and of competitors of all levels of ability--consonances most will find astonishing, given the prevailing misunderstandings of capitalism.
The book's importance and appeal to a general audience are evident in its description of prevailing attitudes toward capitalism and its challenge to learn why they are all completely wrong and the cause of self-destructive political behavior on a massive scale. For those with the intellectual courage to accept a challenge of having many of their firmest and most cherished beliefs reduced by unanswerable logic to the status of Dark-Age superstitions, here are some of the beliefs that Reisman's book The profit motive is the cause of starvation wages, exhausting hours, sweatshops, and child labor; of monopolies, inflation, depressions, wars, imperialism, and racism. Saving is hoarding. Competition is the law of the jungle. Economic inequality is unjust and the legitimate basis for class warfare. Economic progress is a ravaging of the planet and, in the form of improvements in efficiency, a cause of unemployment and depressions. War and destruction or additional peacetime government spending are necessary to prevent unemployment under capitalism. Economic activity other than manual labor is parasitical. Businessmen and capitalists are recipients of "unearned income" and are "exploiters." The stock and commodity markets are "gambling casinos"; retailers and wholesalers are "middlemen," having no function but that of adding "markups" to the prices charged by farmers and manufacturers; advertisers are inherently guilty of fraud--the fraud of attempting to induce people to desire the goods that capitalism showers on them, but that they allegedly have no natural or legitimate basis for desiring.
Reisman's book flies in the face of all such anticapitalistic ideas and demands. Its thesis is that never have so many people been so ignorant and confused about a subject so important, as most people now are about economics and capitalism. It argues that in its logically consistent form of laissez-faire capitalism--that is, with the powers of government limited to those of national defense and the administration of justice--capitalism is a system of economic progress and prosperity for all, and is a precondition of world peace. Following an exhaustive economic analysis of virtually every aspect of capitalism, the book's concluding chapter is devoted to the presentation of a long-range political-economic program for the achievement of a fully capitalist society.
1096 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 1996
61 people are currently reading
730 people want to read
About the author
George Reisman
36 books41 followersGeorge Reisman, Ph.D., is Pepperdine University Professor Emeritus of Economics, and the author of Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics (Ottawa, Illinois: Jameson Books, 1996; Kindle Edition, 2012), The Government Against the Economy; Warren Buffett, Class Warfare, and the Exploitation Theory; The Benevolent Nature of Capitalism and Other Essays; Labor Unions, Thugs, and Strom Troopers; and, most recently, Piketty's Capital: Wrong Theory/Destructive Program. His website is capitalism.net. His blog is georgereismansblog.blogspot.com. See his Amazon.com author's page and follow him on Twitter @GGReisman.
Dr. Reisman is married to Edith Packer, J.D., Ph.D., a clinical psychologist, with whom he lives in Laguna Hills, California.
He was personally a student of Ludwig von Mises, whose NYU seminar he attended for eight years and under whom he obtained his doctorate in economics in 1963. He is the translator of von Mises's Epistemological Problems of Economics (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1960). From1957 until her death in 1982, he was an associate of Ayn Rand.
Dr. Reisman is married to Edith Packer, J.D., Ph.D., a clinical psychologist, with whom he lives in Laguna Hills, California.
He was personally a student of Ludwig von Mises, whose NYU seminar he attended for eight years and under whom he obtained his doctorate in economics in 1963. He is the translator of von Mises's Epistemological Problems of Economics (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1960). From1957 until her death in 1982, he was an associate of Ayn Rand.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
May 31, 2014
This gets an honorable mention in "Books that don't suck."
If EVER you wanted to know the proper application of capitalism in its purest form - this is the read for you. Exceedingly dry, but awesome - even if you are not an economist.
The Ludwig von Mises Institute has a true scholar and philosopher here in Professor Reisman.
I recommend the hard copy.
If EVER you wanted to know the proper application of capitalism in its purest form - this is the read for you. Exceedingly dry, but awesome - even if you are not an economist.
The Ludwig von Mises Institute has a true scholar and philosopher here in Professor Reisman.
I recommend the hard copy.
September 13, 2014
A comprehensive apologia of capitalism. Taken together with Principles of Economics by Karl Menger and Human Action by von Mises, we have here a quite complete little library of economic master-works.
September 22, 2012
As a layman with limited time, I have only read portions of George Reisman's lengthy and analytical, yet in parts bold and dramatic, book "Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics," but what I read provided great insight and solid evidence of the rightness of Capitalism for human life. Reisman's mentors were Ayn Rand and Ludwig Von Mises.
August 8, 2018
Uma das apologias mais sólidas e mais completas do capitalismo de "laissez-faire". Não há praticamente nenhum grande problema da ciência económica que não seja tratado no livro com inexpugnável coerência. O autor faz o tratamento dos temas de uma forma que por vezes transcende o âmbito da Economia, casos esses em que se percebe o quão fortemente está o seu entendimento ancorado numa filosofia mais vasta, que para Reisman é o Objectivismo de Ayn Rand.
Particularmente interessantes são a sua reformulação das teses da escola clássica (na qual recupera a doutrina dos fundos do capitalista como origem dos salários), a sua comparação entre as teses da escola clássica e a economia política marxista, a sua refutação da teoria da mais-valia marxista (que supera a de E. Böhm-Bawerk), a reabilitação do papel do empresário na produção económica (por oposição à excessiva ênfase conferida à "soberania dos consumidores") e a crítica implacável do keynesianismo.
Fora das considerações técnicas, Reisman presenteia ainda o leitor com uma breve memória, inserida na introdução da obra, das suas relações pessoais com Mises, Rothbard e Rand, e das relações de cada um destes entre si (especialmente a de Rothbard com Rand, que viria a resvalar para inimizade declarada). São apontamentos biográficos de grande interesse que compõem um retrato do ambiente intelectual nos círculos em que Rand e Rothbard ascenderam à proeminência enquanto defensores intelectuais do livre mercado e de uma ética individualista.
Particularmente interessantes são a sua reformulação das teses da escola clássica (na qual recupera a doutrina dos fundos do capitalista como origem dos salários), a sua comparação entre as teses da escola clássica e a economia política marxista, a sua refutação da teoria da mais-valia marxista (que supera a de E. Böhm-Bawerk), a reabilitação do papel do empresário na produção económica (por oposição à excessiva ênfase conferida à "soberania dos consumidores") e a crítica implacável do keynesianismo.
Fora das considerações técnicas, Reisman presenteia ainda o leitor com uma breve memória, inserida na introdução da obra, das suas relações pessoais com Mises, Rothbard e Rand, e das relações de cada um destes entre si (especialmente a de Rothbard com Rand, que viria a resvalar para inimizade declarada). São apontamentos biográficos de grande interesse que compõem um retrato do ambiente intelectual nos círculos em que Rand e Rothbard ascenderam à proeminência enquanto defensores intelectuais do livre mercado e de uma ética individualista.
July 29, 2018
The most comprehensive and potent Economics treatise out there. Prof. Reisman creates a swiping synthesis of British Classical, Austrian Continental and Randian insights with components that prof. Jesús Huerta de Soto has described as "brilliant". Prof. Reisman refutes the errors in several schools of economics and adds contributions of his own to the edifice that his late teacher, Ludwig von Mises, set for humane and realistic economics. A master's course and a doctoral program both compressed in a book.
August 9, 2013
This isn't a defense of capitalism as it is the entire explanation of capitalism, freedom, life, liberty, and the markets, and those forces that seek to under-mind that freedom for their own gain. Reisman does an amazing job of taking the reader line by line through every single topic imaginable in this amazing tome. I rate it third only next to Human Action by Mises and Man, Economy, and State by Rothbard.
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July 29, 2011An excellent defense of economic freedom and fascinating for its integration of Austrian and Classical economics. Extraordinarily thorough, though this double-columned 1,000 page tome is definitely a long-range reading project.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews