New Steam Age Curriculum (NSAC)
The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide
that you are not going to stay where you are.
—J.P. Morgan
To put it rather bluntly, in many critical ways, much of the 20th Century was a mistake.
The 20th Century had its moments in popular culture in the 1920s, 1960s, and 1980s, but otherwise it was, in too many ways, a wrong turn in history. This is especially true in the social sciences that ended the 19th Century more or less on the correct foot, and then veered into some curious directions that would have been comical, if they had not been so tragic. One can only imagine how much human suffering has been caused by quack theories in Economics, Psychology, and Sociology over the past century.
Where one marks the dividing line between the 20th Century and what came before it is not critical — the Treaty of Versailles, the establishment of the Federal Reserve System in the USA, the Communist Revolution in Russia, the institution of passports, the Great Depression — take your pick. What matters is that the ancien regime gave way to the avant garde, English supplanted French as the language of Diplomacy (imperium) and International Business (dominium), and everything more or less went downhill from there, for whatever reasons.
Now, imangine for a moment that we could turn back the clock and start over. How might the study of Economics, Finance, Management, etc. have developed, if the 20th Century were just some kind of bad dream? Imagine a world without 'Keynesianism', which even John Maynard Keynes held in disdain at the end of his life, and its handmaidens: fiat national currencies, inflationary monetary policies, deficit-spending fiscal policies, bureaucratization, pop-psychology, and the social-welfare regulatory state that undermines individual responsibility.
We cannot know how such a world would look, but we can imagine.
The New Steam Age Curriculum (NSAC) is based on the assumption that The Classics were essentially on the right track, and that those of us who embrace their lessons can flourish in a postmodern, spontaneously organizing, transcultural global community, by scraping social science down to the metal and starting afresh. Below are links to some texts that are available to anyone online, and that can serve as the basis for courses in Pecuniology—study of money, in the broadest sense—historical, theoretical, and entrepreneurial.
Some of the texts below technically were published in the 20th Century, but their authors are not of the 20th Century. Our goal is to base our courses on the NSAC and to conduct research into emerging institutions based on the classics.
NSAC is related to, but not the same thing as Free Culture, Open Source, or Open Educational Resources, in the strictest sense. While the focus is on texts that are in the public domain, we are open to using texts that are covered by copyright—whether conventional copyright or so-called 'copyleft'—so long as those texts are freely available on the Internet. Over time, we will prefer truly free & open resources, and will consider commissioning free & open substitutes for copyrighted materials as needed. However, as a first iteration, the orthodoxy is on the content of classical social science, rather than the licensing.
Invest accordingly.
Prof. Evans
CLASSIC TEXTS
- Nicolas Prodromou Aghnides
- Mohammedan Theories of Finance (1916)
- Benjamin Anderson
- Cheap Money (1924)
- The Value of Money (1917)
- Walter Bagehot
- Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market (1873)
- Frédéric Bastiat
- Economic Harmonies (1850, 1996)
- Economic Sophisms (1845, 1996)
- The Law (1850, 1998)
- Selected Essays on Political Economy (1848, 1995)
- Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
- How to Analyze People on Sight (1921)
- Nikolai Bukharin
- Imperialism and World Economy (1917)
- Gustav Cassel
- The Theory of Social Economy (1932)
- Anders Chydenius
- The National Gain (1765, 1931)
- Clarence Darrow
- Resist Not Evil (1903)
- Frank Fetter
- Capital, Interest, and Rent: Essays in the Theory of Distribution (1897, 1977)
- Irving Fisher
- The Purchasing Power of Money (1911, 1922)
- The Theory of Interest (1930)
- Henry George
- Progress and Poverty (1912)
- Protection or Free Trade (1905)
- Henry Hazlitt
- Thinking as a Science (1916, 1920)
- John Hobson
- Imperialism: A Study (1902)
- William Stanley Jevons
- Money and the Mechanism of Exchange (1876)
- The Theory of Political Economy (1871)
- John Maynard Keynes
- A Treatise on Probability (1921)
- Frank Knight
- Risk, Uncertainty & Profit (1921)
- Nicolò Machiavelli
- The Prince (1532, 2006)
- Charles Mackay
- Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1848, 1852)
- Alfred Marshall
- Principles of Economics (1890, 1920)
- Karl Marx
- Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. I. The Process of Capitalist Production (1867, 1906)
- Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. II. The Process of Circulation of Capital (1885, 1909)
- Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. III. The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole (1894, 1909)
- Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
- Communist Manifesto (1888)
- Carl Menger
- Investigations into the Method of the Social Sciences (1883, 1963)
- On the Origins of Money (1892)
- Principles of Economics (1871, 1970)
- John Stuart Mill
- Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy (1844, 1874)
- On Liberty (1859, 1869)
- Principles of Political Economy with some of their Applications to Social Philosophy (1848, 1909)
- Ludwig von Mises
- The Theory of Money and Credit (1912, 1981)
- Simon Newcomb
- The A B C of Finance (1877)
- Franz Oppenheimer
- The State: Its History and Development Viewed Sociologically (1914, 1922)
- Thomas Paine
- The Complete Writings, Vol. 1 (1766-1809)
- The Complete Writings, Vol. 2 (1766-1809)
- Jean-Baptiste Say
- A Treatise on Political Economy (1803, 1855)
- Joseph Schumpeter
- Imperialism and Social Classes (1919 & 1927, 1951)
- Methodological Individualism (1908)
- George Bernard Shaw
- Fabian Essays in Socialism (1889, 1891)
- Adam Smith
- An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776)
- The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759, 1790)
- Herbert Spencer
- Essays on Education (1911, 1961)
- Essays: Scientific, Political & Speculative (1891)
- The Man Versus The State, with Six Essays on Government, Society, and Freedom (1843-1891)
- The Philosophy of Style (1852)
- The Principles of Ethics, Volume I (1896)
- The Principles of Ethics, Volume II (1896)
- The Right to Ignore the State (1850, 1913)
- Lysander Spooner
- Essay on the Trial by Jury (1852)
- No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority (1870)
- William Graham Sumner
- Folkways (1906)
- What Social Classes Owe to Each Other (1883)
- Frank Taussig
- Some Aspects of the Tariff Question (1915)
- Jacob Viner
- Some Problems of Logical Method in Political Economy (1917)
- Studies in International Trade (1937)
- Max Weber
- Essays in Sociology (1920, 1946)
- The Methodology of the Social Sciences (1920, 1949)
- The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1920, 1930)
- Knut Wicksell
- The Influence of the Rate of Interest on Prices (1906)
- Philip Wicksteed
- The Common Sense of Political Economy (1910)
MODERN TEXTS
- Dominick Armentano
- Antitrust: The Case for Repeal (1999)
- Walter Block
- Defending the Undefendable (1976, 1991)
- Geoffrey Brennan and James M. Buchanan
- The Power to Tax: Analytical Foundations of a Fiscal Constitution (1980, 2000)
- Reason and Rules (1985, 2000)
- James Buchanan
- Cost and Choice: An Inquiry in Economic Theory (1969, 1999)
- The Demand and Supply of Public Goods (1968, 1999)
- The Limits of Liberty: Between Anarchy and Leviathan (1975, 1999)
- Public Finance in Democratic Process: Fiscal Institutions and Individual Choice (1967, 1999)
- Public Principles of Public Debt: A Defense and Restatement (1962, 1999)
- James Buchanan and George Thirlby
- L.S.E. Essays on Cost (1934, 1981)
- James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock
- The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy (1958, 1999)
- James Buchanan and Richard Wagner
- Democracy in Deficit: The Political Legacy of Lord Keynes (1977, 1999)
- Frank Chodorov
- Income Tax: Root of All Evil (1954)
- One Is a Crowd (1952)
- Out of Step (1962)
- The Rise and Fall of Society (1959)
- Edwin Dolan
- Austrian Economics as an Extraordinary Science (1976)
- Ludwig Erhard
- Prosperity through Competition (1958)
- R. Buckminster Fuller
- Grunch of Giants (1983)
- Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (1969)
- Roger Garrison
- Austrian Macroeconomics: A Diagrammatical Exposition (1978)
- Friedrich Hayek
- Collectivist Economic Planning (1935, 1963)
- Competition as a Discovery Procedure (1968, 2002)
- Denationalisation of Money: The Argument Refined (1976, 1990)
- A Free-Market Monetary System and The Pretense of Knowledge (1974, 1978, 2008)
- Individualism and Economic Order (1948, 1958)
- Monetary Nationalism and International Stability (1937, 1989)
- Monetary Theory and the Trade Cycle (1933)
- Prices & Production and Other Works (1929-1937, 2008)
- The Road to Serfdom (1949, 1999)
- The Use of Knowledge in Society (1945)
- Frances Hazlitt and Henry Hazlett
- The Wisdom of the Stoics (1984)
- Henry Hazlitt
- The Conquest of Poverty (1973, 1996)
- The Critics of Keynesian Economics (1977, 1995)
- Economics in One Lesson (1946, 1952)
- The Failure of 'The New Economics' (1959)
- From Bretton Woods to World Inflation: A Study of Causes and Consequences (1934-1945, 1984)
- Man versus the Welfare State (1969)
- Time Will Run Back (1951, 1966)
- The Foundations of Morality (1964, 1994)
- What You Should Know about Inflation (1960, 1965)
- Robert Higgs
- The Transformation of the American Economy, 1865-1914 (1971)
- William Hutt
- Politically Impossible? (1971)
- A Rehabilitation of Say's Law (1974)
- The Theory of Idle Resources (1939)
- Stephan Kinsella
- Against Intellectual Property (2001, 2008)
- Israel Kirzner
- The Economic Point of View: An Essay in the History of Economic Thought (1960, 1976)
- Ludwig Lachmann
- Capital, Expectations, and the Market Process (1977)
- Capital and Its Structure (1956, 1978)
- The Legacy of Max Weber (1971)
- Macro-Economic Thinking and the Market Economy (1973)
- Rose Wilder Lane
- The Discovery of Freedom (1943)
- Give Me Liberty (1954)
- Fritz Machlup
- The Stock Market, Credit, and Capital Formation (1931, 1940)
- Ludwig von Mises
- Human Action: A Treatise on Economics (1949, 1996)
- Money, Method, and the Market Process (1990)
- Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis (1922, 1981)
- Oskar Morgenstern
- The Limits of Economics (1934, 1937)
- Albert Jay Nock
- Jefferson (1926)
- The Myth of a Guilty Nation (1922)
- On Doing the Right Thing (1928)
- Our Enemy, The State (1935, 1950)
- The Theory of Education in the United States (1931)
- Isabel Paterson
- God of the Machine (1943)
- Never Ask the End (1933)
- Leonard Read
- I, Pencil (1958, 1999)
- George Reisman
- Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics (1996)
- Lionel Robbins
- The Economic Causes of War (1939, 1968)
- The Theory of Economic Development (1968)
- The Theory of Economic Policy (1952, 1965)
- Wilhelm Röpke
- Against the Tide (1969)
- Crises and Cycles (1936)
- Economics of the Free Society (1937, 1963)
- A Humane Economy (1958, 1961)
- International Order and Economic Integration (1959)
- The Social Crisis of Our Time (1942, 1950)
- Two Essays: The Problem of Economic Order Welfare, Freedom, and Inflation (1951 & 1957, 1987)
- George Selgin
- Less than Zero: The Case for a Falling Price Level in a Growing Economy (1997)
- Hans Sennholz
- The Underground Economy (1982)
- Vera Smith
- The Rationale of Central Banking and the Free Banking Alternative (1936, 1990)
SECONDARY TEXTS
- Bruce Benson
- Customary Law with Private Means of Resolving Disputes and Dispensing Justice (1990)
- Enforcement of Private Property Rights in Primitive Societies: Law without Government (1989)
- An Evolutionary Contractarian View of Primitive Law (1991)
- Reciprocal Exchange as the Basis for Recognition of Law (1991)
- Walter Block
- My Case for Coauthoring (2005)
- Peter Boettke
- Calculation and Coordination: Essays on Socialism and Transitional Political Economy (2001)
- Mark Crovelli
- A Challenge to Ludwig von Mises's Theory of Probability (2010)
- Has David Howden Vindicated Richard von Mises's Definition of Probability? (2009)
- On the Possibility of Assigning Probabilities to Singular Cases, or: Probability Is Subjective Too! (2009)
- Nils Goldschmidt & Hermann Rauchenschwandtner
- The Philosophy of Social Market Economy: Michel Foucault's Analysis of Ordoliberalism (2007)
- Wendy McElroy
- Contra Copyright, Again (2009)
- The Schism between Individualist and Communist Anarchism in the Nineteenth Century (2000)
- Gerald O'Driscoll
- Economics as a Coordination Problem: The Contributions of Friedrich A. Hayek (1977)
- Pavel Pelikan
- Markets vs. Government when Rationality is Unequally Bounded: Some Consequences of Cognitive Inequalities for Theory and Policy (2006)
- Public Choice with Unequally Rational Individuals (2007)
- Richard Stroup and John Baden
- Property Rights and Natural Resource Management (1979)
- Viktor Vanberg
- Competition among Governments: The State's Two Roles in a Globalized World (2010)
- The Freiburg School: Walter Eucken and Ordoliberalism (2004)
- Rational Choice, Preferences over Actions, and Rule-Following Behavior (2007)
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