The Ghost of Garet Garrett

Brian Doherty | November 14, 2007

The Mises Institute continues its redoubtable efforts in digitizing important lost parts of America's libertarian heritage. Up now are issues of American Affairs, a journal of mostly free-market proto-libertarian thought published by the National Industrial Conference Board and edited by Old Right journalist Garet Garrett.

They've got three issues up so far, from 1945, and they provide great insight into the concerns of free-marketeers as the war was winding down, with contributions from, among others, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, and Isabel Paterson.

Wouldn't you know it, more about all those characters and their concerns can be found in my book Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement.

Comments

|11.14.07 @ 2:19PM|#

Isabel Paterson

Speaking of, the Mises Institute has made The God of the Machine available as a PDF.

|11.14.07 @ 2:42PM|#

Brian, I don't have your book...yet. I haven't purchased it even though you plug it quite often. I did buy The Libertarian Reader from CATO. Sounds like your book might be sort of the same thing?

|11.14.07 @ 2:58PM|#

Not at all---The Libertarian Reader is an anthology of writings by libertarianish thinkers through history. Mine is a narrative intellectual and political history of the thinkers and activists of the movement, mostly focused on the 1940s-1980s but with the earlier and later years getting a less-thorough going over. The reviews on the Amazon page, and the reviews linked on the right column at radicalsforcapitalism.com, should explain it.

x,y|11.14.07 @ 3:02PM|#

Julian,

PDF link not working for me. Anyone else?

Pinette,

Brian's book is fantastic. I recommend it as a holiday gift to yourself. How was The LR?

|11.14.07 @ 3:03PM|#

Pinette,

Brian Doherty also explained it over at Cato (mp3). Very nicely, I think. Although I don't understand why they disliked the index.

|11.14.07 @ 3:04PM|#

You know, I may buy Brian's book but I was really hoping for something on the Burning Man Festival instead.

|11.14.07 @ 3:05PM|#

x,y

mises.org runs a too-clever Microsoft server, and probably it is telling you base lies. To wit: I can't see the pdf with w3m, but I can download it with wget.

|11.14.07 @ 3:16PM|#

Thanks Brian.
I think I'll buy it.

X,Y,
The LR was very inspiring, and really helped with my ability to articulate arguments for libertarianism. I skipped around in it (since it's just excerpts you don't have to read it start to finish) and I've probably read 80% of it.

|11.14.07 @ 3:37PM|#

I'm confused. Most the works they are publishing in this format and in POD are still in copyright and not in public domain. Nothing in the new versions implies that they have the rights to publish this material. And several of the titles would appear to be very difficult to get permission to use. So are there legal agreements allowing this or this just someone ignoring, and thus violating, the property rights of others? Or have they come up with a new revised version of copyight (like they have on immigration) to justify it?

Normally when a group has the actual rights to a new edition they publish it with their own imprint inside the publication stating that they have the rights to do this. What I find odd here is that they are copying previous editions from other publishers with the copyright information of those publishers inside instead of their own. At the very least that gives the appearance of stealing and they ought to correct it. If, on the other hand, they are stealing property that belongs to others by reprinting, either in POD or PDF, books to which they have no permissions, then others shouldn't be encouraging them by giving them publicity.

|11.14.07 @ 4:02PM|#

Most the works they are publishing in this format and in POD are still in copyright and not in public domain.

How did you determine that? You can't tell from the date, unless it's after 1964 (before that, whether it's PD or not depends on whether the copyright was renewed).

Marcvs|11.14.07 @ 4:23PM|#

There is some really interesting stuff in there. Especially the interview discussing how the "moneyless economy" was disregarded early on after the revolution in the Soviet Union.

|11.14.07 @ 6:39PM|#

We don't have time for a history lesson, Mr. Doherty. This is The No-Spin Zone.

|11.14.07 @ 7:10PM|#

Wouldn't you know it...

Admit it Brian, you're just shilling for Big Doherty!

|11.15.07 @ 10:43AM|#

Max: If you want to check you will find that the copyright did not expire on many of the works. One rights-holder confirmed that they did not know this was being done and had not been contacted in regards to it.

|11.15.07 @ 11:33AM|#

If you want to check you will find that the copyright did not expire on many of the works. One rights-holder confirmed that they did not know this was being done and had not been contacted in regards to it.

Frankly, I don't believe you. But if you really do spend your spare time laboriously researching copyrights, post the proof.