A new page at my site; I need more suggestions for it.  They're just not at the top of my head right now.

Fraudulent Controversial Books

Part of the propaganda program of libertarianism has been a steady flow of books based on fraudulent claims that take months or years to debunk. Some are directly produced or financed by libertarians, others by academics or conservatives are heavily endorsed by libertarians.

All of these tend to go directly to print without peer review. They all tend to appeal to conservative (including libertarian) gut feelings.

Here's a partial list: see how many you have heard of.

2009 "This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly" by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff.

Endorsed heavily by Cato and Mercatus, this has been the major academic work backing the claims that austerity is the way out of the great recession. It took 4 years to debunk decisively, when the spreadsheet was finally examined. The important false claim was that when debt exceeded 90% of GNP, growth was sharply reduced.

1998 "More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws" by John Lott.

The polite way to say it was that their statistical conclusions were "not robust": more data or slightly different coding collapse their results.

1994 "The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life" by Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein.

The argument was based on numerous faulty assumptions, statistical monkey business and appeal to racist inclinations. Not peer reviewed before publication. No support for the genetic claims made in this book has ever been found.

1977 "Anarchy, State, and Utopia" by Robert Nozick.

A major libertarian text. Two major frauds, brilliantly concealed: (1) it denies, yet resorts to consequentialism and (2) it completely fails to justify initial acquisition, needed for property rights.

1944 "The Road to Serfdom" by Friedrich von Hayek.

Another fundamental libertarian text. A comically failed prediction of the coming totalitarian socialist state in western nations. Important in the Thatcher and Reagan administrations.

Please suggest more!

What's New...

NEW 4/18/2013: Bibliography on Methodological Individualism [More...]

A critical, extended bibliography. [more...]

NEW 4/18/2013: The Strange Case of Dr Hayek and Mr Hayek [More...]

An excellent overview of Hayek's life and career, giving good weight to his failures and inconsistencies. There is also a long appendix about the socialist calculation debate. [more...]

NEW 4/18/2013: Socialist Calculation Debate

A debate about how a socialist economy would be able to allocate resources between goals without resort to capitalism. The debate tends to ignore the fact that Communist and wartime command economies did very well with centralized planning. Not to mention Walmart. [more...]

NEW 4/17/2013: 12 Rules of Goldbuggery [More...]

"Ignore the risks of being a gold bug at great peril to your portfolio..." [more...]

NEW 4/15/2013: Libertarian And Objectivism Are Both Stolen Terms

Libertarianism has been used by philosophers about free will for 200 years. Libertarian was used by anarchists for roughly 100 years before it was recently co-opted by right-wing American libertarians. Objectivism was used by Gottlob Frege for his philosophical realism decades before Rand's adoption. The Objectivist Poets also used the term before Rand did.[more...]

NEW 4/14/2013: Freedom in the World [More...]

A respectable index of freedom, and a good alternative to libertarian, neoliberal and corporatist indexes. Produced by Freedom House. Based on 10 political rights questions and 15 civil liberties questions. [more...]

NEW 4/14/2013: Free, Free at Last [More...]

"An "Economic Freedom Index" that tells us little about economic growth or political freedom is a slipshod measure that would seem to have no other purpose other than to sell the neoliberal policies that stand in the way of most people gaining control over their economic lives and obtaining genuine economic freedom in today's global economy." [more...]

NEW 4/14/2013: The Questionable Record of Neoliberalism [More...]

"I’ll take a brief look at [...] the US & UK, Chile, Hong Kong & Singapore, and Scandinavia. I believe that in none of these instances do we get a clear example of neoliberal policies succeeding economically." [more...]

NEW 4/14/2013: Bitcoin is ludicrous, but it tells us something important about the nature of money [More...]

Bitcoin's inelasticity of supply means it would have the same macroeconomic problems as gold, causing deflation. [more...]

NEW 4/14/2013: Adam Smith Hates Bitcoin [More...]

"[...] people think it’s smart, nay cutting-edge, to create a sort of virtual currency whose creation requires wasting real resources in a way Adam Smith considered foolish and outmoded in 1776." [more...]

NEW 4/13/2013: Why should anyone have to read your goofy holy book? [More...]

If you are arguing against a libertarian position, you don't need to have read "collections of rationalizations, inconsistent and incoherent" to take an opposing position. All you need is to identify where the position is wrong. [more...]

NEW 4/13/2013: Criticisms of the Non-Libertarian FAQ

Over 20 years, numerous libertarians have criticized A Non-Libertarian FAQ. Their criticisms are surprisingly lame, with rather obvious errors. [more...]

NEW 4/13/2013: Gish Gallop [More...]

The debating technique of drowning the opponent in such a torrent of half-truths, lies, and straw-man arguments that the opponent cannot possibly answer every falsehood in real time.[more...]

NEW 4/13/2013: The Courtier’s Reply [More...]

PZ Meyers' description of how "The Emperor has no clothes!" is defended by sycophants, and why that defense is fallacious. You don't have to be an expert in libertarianism to know it is baseless. [more...]

NEW 4/13/2013: Libertarian Apologetics

Libertarians have standard techniques for defending their absurd ideas that overlap strongly with the techniques employed by religious believers. [more...]

NEW 4/13/2013: Libertarian Experiment in Iceland Fails [More...]

"In fact, economists are already using Iceland as a textbook case of how to ruin a nation's economy. As Paul Krugman recently noted, there is an "almost eerie correlation between conservative praise two or three years ago and economic disaster today." " [more...]

NEW 4/13/2013: Modern Iceland

Iceland's Independence Party made radical reforms inspired by and praised by Milton Friedman. These ended with a spectacular banking crash in 2009. [more...]

NEW 4/13/2013: Polycentric Law

Non-monopolistic, competing law. We actually already have that, with federal, state, and local law plus commonlaw. Some libertarian academics have made careers describing historical examples. Polycentric Law tends to be supplanted by more centralized law. [more...]

NEW 4/12/2013: Is Medieval Iceland an example of "anarcho"-capitalism working in practice? [More...]

An anarchist rebuttal: "Ironically, medieval Iceland is a good example of why "anarcho"-capitalism will not work, degenerating into de facto rule by the rich." [more...]

NEW 4/12/2013: Medieval Iceland

Many libertarians, reading David Friedman's paper on medieval Icelandic institutions, consider them to be an example of how anarcho-capitalism could work. [more...]

NEW 4/12/2013: Free Banking in Scotland [More...]

Supposed examples of free banking turn out to have other agencies acting as lenders of last resort. [more...]

NEW 4/12/2013: Free Banking

The idea of replacing central banks by allowing banks to issue their own currencies, with or without various backings. An idea revived by Friedrich von Hayek, with a literature of supposed historical examples. Free banking has many problems. [more...]

NEW 4/09/2013: There is no such thing as redistribution [More...]

"There is no default distribution. All distributions are the consequence of any number of institutional design choices, none of which are commanded by the fabric of the universe."[more...]

NEW 4/07/2013: The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time

Explains the socially constructed nature of "free markets", as opposed to "spontaneous order". A major work of economic history. [more...]

NEW 4/07/2013: Ten Modes of Individualism-- None of Which Works-- And Their Alternatives [More...]

Individualism comes in at least 10 modes, with flaws and merits for each. It is argued that systemism has all the virtues and none of the defects of individualism and holism. [more...]

NEW 4/07/2013: Philosophical Individualism

Individualism is merely one viewpoint in an enormous hierarchy of viewpoints ranging from Planck length to the universe. Individualism as a tenet of a philosophy transforms that philosophy into a Procrustean bed that cannot model the real world well, because the real world is not based on individuals. [more...]

What's New...

It has been a productive month for adding and reorganizing indexes as I look for places to add new articles.  The big change is that Libertarian Blind Spots has been moved to the front page after Issues.  I don't want the front page to get too enormous, but it does provide fairly speedy access to the most important topics.

NEW 4/07/2013: Bitcoin is no Great Mystery [More...]

"One wonders why any libertarian would get excited about it (as it turns out, most do not!). [...] Bitcoins are just another speculative activity for those producing and buying them. It is just another type of gold buggery -- except even more ridiculous. [more...]

NEW 4/04/2013: Hodgson on the Essence of Old Institutional Economics [More...]

The neoclassical idea of basing economics on the individual utility-maximising agent is mistaken. Individuals and their action can be shaped by social and cultural factors and institutions. [more...]

NEW 4/04/2013: Hodgson on Methodological Individualism [More...]

What is it about complex social relations that invalidates both “methodological individualism” [...] The answer is “emergent properties” [...] [more...]

NEW 4/04/2013: Rochester Professor Wonders Why Rapists Shouldn’t Be Allowed to ‘Reap the Benefits’ of Passed Out Girls [More...]

Steven Landsburg attempts to compare and contrast potential "psychic harms" associated with pornography, environmentalism, and being raped while you are passed out.[more...]

NEW 4/04/2013: In which Steven Landsburg utterly flips out [More...]

Noah Smith assings us to read a Steven Landsburg post and assigns us to "think of four reasons why Landburg's post is utter nonsense." [more...]

NEW 4/04/2013: Just when you thought Libertarians couldn’t get any more revolting [More...]

Steven Landsburg asks if it is OK to rape somebody unconscious, as long as nothing tips off the victim. [more...]

NEW 4/04/2013: Steven Landsburg

A self-declared libertarian economist whose obliviousness defies belief. [more...]

NEW 4/03/2013: Capitalism Is Very Productive

With few exceptions, most people agree. But libertarians tend not to see the flip side of the coin that others see: capitalism needs government services and has huge flaws. Capitalism is only one tool, not an ultimate goal. [more...]

NEW 4/02/2013: Predictions That Never Come True

Medicare will cause the end of freedom! We're on the road to serfdom! The market will end discrimination! Regulation will bankrupt business! Libertarians are loaded with predictions and promises that will never come true, and ignore all the historical evidence they won't come true. [more...]

Private Property Is Not The Only Liberty

Many libertarians root all rights and freedoms in self-ownership and other property rights. The few who recognize other rights consider them trumped by even the slightest association with property. Property uber alles! [more...]

What they really care about [More...]

[...] what they really care about is low taxes, unfettered capitalism and private property. (Also too, guns.) The rest is apparently just window dressing so they don't look like mirthless, right wing drudges. [...] they won't grant that half the population even owns their own bodies or is free to control their own procreation. [more...]

Nozick's Natural Rights And Other Gut Feelings

Any time a natural rights author uses the term rights, you might as well substitute the word fairies. [more...]

The Entitlement Theory of Justice

Like most of Nozick's arguments in Anarchy, State and Utopia, the strength of the Entitlement Theory of Justice is illusory. It suffers critically from a lack of foundations and vulnerability to simple counterexamples. [more...]

Huben on Nozick

Robert Nozick's "Anarchy, State and Utopia" can be quickly summarized as a game of hide-the-fallacy. After almost 40 years, it is still easy to identify new fallacies or describe the fallacies more obviously. [more...]

Index of Economic Freedom [More...]

The Heritage Foundation's and Wall Street Journal's annual report: a piece of ideological punditry masquerading as academic research. An international comparison, irrelevant to ordinary people. [more...]

Economic Freedom of the World [More...]

The Cato Institute's and Fraser Institute's annual report that gives a pseudoscientific measure of what the extremely rich and international corporations value. An international comparison, irrelevant to ordinary people. [more...]

Yglesias 2: A Robert Nozick Followup Or; How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Quit Ideal Theory [More...]

[...] I think the reason his remarks on politics were so brief and his argument in favor of his favored position so threadbare is precisely because he didn’t think it was possible to draw many interesting policy conclusions from his philosophical position. [more...]

Yglesias 1: Robert Nozick Was A Smart Man -- Too Smart To Embrace The Doctrine Of Anarchy, State, and Utopia [More...]

The fact that these kind of “harcore” views do such a poor job of withstanding scrutiny that the author of their most academically influential defense backed away from them is something people ought to be aware of. [more...]

Brian Barry on Robert Nozick [More...]

Excerpts from Brian Barry’s amusing review of Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia, from 1975. (Political Theory August 1975 3: 331-336) Can you say "spurious intellectual respectability"? [more...]

Praxeology

Ludwig von Mises' anti-scientific, axiomatic, a priori methodology for supporting his preferred conservative political economy. Also used by Murray Rothbard. Ignored by academia, promoted by the crank vanity press Ludwig von Mises Institute. [more...]

Human Action

(The Scholar's Edition) Ludwig von Mises' enormous rant in favor of the pseudoscience of praxeology. A self-study course in convincing yourself you understand economics and all the academic and professional economists are mistaken. [more...]

The Turing Test: Who Can Successfully Explain Robert Nozick? [More...]

Brad DeLong provides a succinct explanation of the major reason why nobody should take Robert Nozick seriously. This is ridicule done right. [more...]

Electronic Frontier Foundation [More...]

Defending consumer rights in the digital world against corporate and industry attempts to profit by lawmaking to limit how we use products. A very dynamic organization as watchdog, muckraker, researcher, sponsor of bills and amicus in legal cases. [more...]

Is "Intellectual Property" a Misnomer? [More...]

"[...] there is room for considerable discussion of the most appropriate ways to subsidize innovation[...] None of the questions about "intellectual property" can be answered yelling "it's my property." [more...]

Intellectual Property Reform

Many others besides libertarians propose reform or abolition of intellectual property. Libertarians oppose it ideologically because it is obviously a government creation, but many others pragmatically question whether it actually advances the useful arts. [more...]

Academic Resources

Periodically, libertarians claim many criticisms are not of good quality. While there is no guarantee of quality (nor perfection) for academic publications, they do at least tend to be better documented and better argued. [more...]

Why libertarians apologize for autocracy [More...]

Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich von Hayek, Milton Friedman, the Cato Institute and Hans-Hermann Hoppe all have expressed preferences for autocratic rule instead of democratic rule. [more...]

Dictators And Other Anti-Democratic Authoritarians

A large number of notable libertarians have supported dictators and other anti-democratic authoritarians, primarily because they support big-business over the interests of ordinary people. [more...]

The Libertarian Map of Freedom [More...]

Corey Robin points out a few of the howlers in the Mercatus Center's “Freedom in the 50 States.” "Libertarian freedom: no abortion, everyone in jail, and the lights are on all the time. Free at last, free at last." [more...]

Libertarian Indexes Of Freedom

Over the years, many libertarian think-tanks and other Koch-funded organizations have created indexes of freedom that invariably represent the interests of large multinational corporations and the rich while ignoring the interests of ordinary people. This is obviously opposed to democratic ideas of political freedom. The entries in this index are evidence, not criticism. [more...]

Freedom in the 50 States [More...]

Classic pseudoscientific propaganda aimed at freedom of business from the democratic desires of real people. From the Mercatus Center. [more...]

Mises on Mixed Economies and Socialism: He is Incoherent [More...]

"On this subject, Mises was an ignorant and muddle-headed idiot, and it is not surprising that after 1945 he was ignored by serious economists." [more...]

Liberapedia: Libertarianism [More...]

A liberal community's analysis of libertarianism. [more...]

RationalWiki: Libertarianism [More...]

The skeptical community's analysis of libertarianism. [more...]

Mises and Hayek Dehomogenized?: A Note on a Schism in Modern Austrian Economics [More...]

Some fratricidal minutiae of Austrian economics. "Both Misesians and Hayekians live in a fantasy world, with respect to the price system." You can skip the technical parts to appreciate the fanaticism of both sides. [more...]

The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult [More...]

Murray Rothbard's scathing description of 1972 Objectivism as a cult. "Thus, power not liberty or reason, was the central thrust of the Randian movement." Excellent reporting. [more...]

Detroit's Libertarian Belle Isle Plan: Basically Gayer Fire Island With Lower Taxes [More...]

"... the endless passages of stilted dialogue about half-baked libertarian theory got boring, all and all, “Belle Isle: Detroit’s Game Changer” is the best homoerotic vanity press propaganda novel written by a senior housing developer yr Wonket has ever read." [more...]

Hell Isle [More...]

Rodney Lockwood wants to convert 982-acre Belle Isle park in Detroit into an independent nation, selling citizenships at $300,000 per. [more...]

Libertarian Mugged by Reality [More...]

Alex Beinstein, a U. of Chicago student, gets a job and loses his libertarianism. [more...]

The Classical Gold Standard Era was a Myth [More...]

"In reality, credit money (mostly unbacked by metal) was the predominant form of money through the entire period of the Classical Gold Standard." [more...]