Human action is usually driven by the desire to obtain more for less, and, ideally something for nothing. This has sometimes been called the economic principle. The wish to “get free stuff” pervades all times and places, all sectors of the economy, all ages, and all social backgrounds. The very selfishness for which the market economy is often chided is, at bottom, a universal quest to obtain goods for free. Jörg Guido Hülsmann sets out to explore the boundaries of this endeavor. He investigates the nature, forms, causes, and consequences of gratuitous goods and concludes that they thrive within a free economy. But generosity and gratuitous abundance tend to be undermined and reversed by central banking and the welfare state.
Autor: Jörg Guido Hülsmann
Año: 2024
Encuadernación: tapa blanda/dura
Páginas: 453
Idioma: Inglés
Editorial: Ludwig von Mises Institute
Contenido
Introduction
A Matter of Balance
Selective Literature Review
Caritas in Veritate
PART ONE: THE NATURE OF GRATUITOUS GOODS.
1. Gratuitous Goods
Providing and Receiving.
Gratuitousness and Justice.
Private Property and Gratuitous Goods ..
The Origins of Gratuitous Economic Goods.
A Motive of Human Action Observation on Gratuitous Evil.
2. The Nature of Donations
Devotion
Gratuitousness
Justice
Sacrifice
False Gifts
3. Motivations of Donations
Love
Customary Gifts
Moral Hazard
Altruism
The Rejection of Gifts.
4. Reciprocations
Donation Sequences
Reciprocal Relationships
The Mantle of Prices
Gifts According to Marcel Mauss
PART TWO: GRATUITOUS GOODS IN A FREE ECONOMY
5. The Economics of Donations
Donating as a Category of Human Action
The Subjective Value of Donations.
Donations and the Market Economy Donations and Economic Organization
The Sharing Economy
6. Beneficial Side Effects of Human Action.
Pure Side-Effect Goods
Material Benefits of Leisure
Cultural Commons
Ownership
Good Examples.
Other People's Errors
Side Effects of Exchange.
Side Effects of Savings
Gratuitous Evil Resulting from Market Activities
7. The Equivalence Postulate.
Aristotelian Origins.
Toward a New Meson
Aristotle's Long Shadow.
Positive Externalities as Market Failures
8. Natural Limits to Gratuitous Goods.
Withering Donations
Privatization
Quacks and Muggers • Robust Gratuitousness
PART THREE: GRATUITOUS GOODS AND THE STATE
9. Interventionism
Private Government versus the Modern State Repressive and Permissive Interventions.
Interventionism and Gratuitous Goods
The Neglect of Interventionism
10. The State as a Provider of Gratuitous Goods
Legal Monopolies.
Public Goods
Charity versus the Welfare State.
The Enabling State.
Fiscal Illusions.
Selfless State Agents
11. Haunted Donations
Impoverished Households.
Generosity Discouraged
Depleting the Sources of Donations.
Crowding Out Private Welfare Services.
Philanthro-Cronyism
Donations Today
Sterile Examples
12. Interventionism and Side-Effect Goods.
Privatization of Pricing Effects
Privatization of Cultural Commons
Sterile Examples
The Inflation Culture
The Evaporation of Ownership.
Evasion
Under the Mantle of Stability.
Conclusion
