Welcome to the Online Library of Liberty

The OLL brings books and ideas together so they can converse with each other and with you. We’ve gathered together collections of texts from historical movements and about big ideas that have changed the world to make it easier to allow our texts to “talk” to each other.

Featured Titles

an ANSWER to a PAMPHLET, entitled Taxation no Tyranny. addressed to the AUTHOR, and to PERSONS IN POWER

Anonymous Pamphleteer 1775 (author)

As with other respondents to Johnson’s Taxation No Tyranny, the author of this pamphlet takes on Johnson’s towering literary reputation head on, asserting in his second sentence, “The very title of your pamphlet is delusion.” The…

Universal Economics

Armen A. Alchian (author)

Universal Economics shows the critical importance of property rights to the existence and success of market economies.

Theory of Moral Sentiments and Essays on Philosophical Subjects (1869)

Adam Smith (author)

This edition contains an abridged biographical essay by Dugald Stewart, the Theory of Moral Sentiments, and seven “Essays on Philosophical Subjects.”

Democracy in America: Historical-Critical Edition, 4 vols. (LF ed. 2010)

Alexis de Tocqueville (author)

A new 4 volume edition of Tocqueville’s classic text De la Démocratie en Amérique. The Liberty Fund bilingual edition includes Eduardo Nolla’s historical-critical edition of the French text and notes on the lefthand pages and James…

The Reading Room

The OLL blog explores the fascinating, vital, and often surprising texts and people that fill our library. Come talk in our library!

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Ilia Chavchavadze on Adam Smith, Free Trade, and the Future of the United States

By: Irakli Javakhishvili Oct 04, 2024

In a previous article, we have already talked about the views of the founder of Georgian liberal thought, Prince Ilia Chavchavadze, on private property. It should be noted that his reviews were not limited to only internal issues; in 1887, Ilia dedicated a series of articles to issues related to…

Liberty Matters

The OLL brings people together to debate and discuss important texts and big ideas about liberty.

Oakeshott and Liberal Education (October 2024)

By: OLL Editor Oct 08, 2024

Michael Oakeshott was an English political theorist and philosopher who is admired by many conservatives and classical liberals. In this Liberty Matters series, Elizabeth Corey relates Oakeshott's ideal categories of civil and enterprise associations to his ideas about education.

Featured Quotes

Socialism & Interventionism

The moving parts are men, that is, beings capable of learning, reflecting, reasoning, of making errors and of correcting them, and consequently of making the mechanism itself better or worse. They are capable of pain and pleasure,…

Frédéric Bastiat

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Food & Drink

Chagrined a little that we have been hitherto able to produce nothing in this way of use to mankind; and the hot weather coming on, when the electrical experiments are not so agreeable, it is proposed to put an end to them for this…

Benjamin Franklin

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Taxation

Under the auspices of tyranny the life of the subject is often sported with, and the fruits of his daily toil are consumed in oppressive taxes, that serve to gratify the ambition, avarice, and lusts of his superiors. Every court…

Alexander Hamilton

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All People

Quotes by Author

Quotes by Category

References and Guides

Goodrich Seminar Room

In the Goodrich Seminar Room in the Lilly Library at Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana the limestone walls are engraved with the names of the political and legal documents and authors which Pierre Goodrich, the founder of Liberty Fund, believed had most contributed to our understanding of…

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Washington: Marshall's Life

Montaigne: A Sketch

Chronology: the Life and Times of William Penn

Adam Smith and the Wealth of Nations

Watch the video on our YouTube channel.

Watch the Spanish version of the video on our YouTube channel.

Related Links:

Adam Smith Subject Area: Economics School of Thought: Classical School of Economics Essays on Adam Smith

Our sister site, AdamSmithWorks

Of special note, please see also…

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Hume, Smith, and Ferguson: Wealth, Commerce, and Corruption

This is a Reading List based upon a Liberty Fund Conference on “Wealth, Commerce, and Corruption in Hume, Smith, and Ferguson.”

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Homer's Iliad: Liberty and Responsibility

This is a Reading List based upon a Liberty Fund Conference on “Liberty and Responsibility in Homer’s Iliad.”

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Essays on Key Authors

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Forgotten Gems

Over the course of time some particularly noteworthy essays, chapters or sections of books are forgotten. This section is an attempt to revive these “forgotten gems”.

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Socialism: A Study Guide and Reader

Introduction

This Study Guide examines the long-standing clash between Socialism and Marxism, and Classical Liberalism over the past 200 years or so. It provides a brief history of the tradition, some of its main criticisms of the free market, the classical liberalresponse to these criticisms,…

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The Intellectual Portrait Series: A Conversation with Jacques Barzun

One of our most distinguished contemporary cultural historians, Jacques Barzun reflects on his long academic career and the movement of ideas he helped to shape through his seminal writings on liberal education in America.

Watch the video version on our YouTube channel.

Below are some prompts for…

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