Disse tre tænkere burde indgå i pensum på statskundskab og økonomi:

Ludwig von Mises

Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) var økonom, videnskabsteoretiker og forfatter til den økonomiske grundbog og videnskabelige afhandling Human Action. Mises har skrevet omkring 25 bøger og utallige artikler om økonomiske sammenhænge og økonomiens betydning for menneskers velfærd og velstand. Mises arbejde kendetegnes ved, at økonomiske lovmæssigheder gives liv ved at blive integreret med historiske, sociologiske og politiske eksempler fra Mises' samtid eller længere tilbage i historien. En grund til at give sig i kast med Mises kunne derfor blot være, at man ønsker nye vinkler på ens eget fagområde herunder sociologi, politik eller historie.Ludwig von Mises har med sit arbejde bidraget betydeligt til at gøre økonomi til en levende og vedkommende videnskab - også for ikke-økonomer. Læs hele kommentaren her

Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand (1905-1982) kan uden problemer kaldes vor tids største oplysningsfilosof. Motivationen for begunstigelse af den titel skal findes i, at ingen i vor tid på så omfattende vis har beskæftiget sig med så mange fagområder herunder filosofi, æstetik, kunst, økonomi, politik, videnskabsteori, etik med mere, og samtidig har formået at integrere det teoretiske arbejde, sådan at det udgør et sammenhængende hele. Læs mere her.

George Reisman

George Reisman er økonomiprofessor og forfatter til hovedværket Capitalism - A complete and integrated understanding of the nature and value of human economic life. George Reismans bog "Capitalism" samt hans artikler er ved adskillige lejligheder blevet fremhævet på www.coin.dk, og ved flere lejligheder i dagspressen. Reismans forfatterskab er kendetegnet ved en klarhed og konsistens, som man skal lede længe efter at finde noget tilsvarende til. George Reisman er født i 1937 og studerede fra en tidlig alder under en af verdens måske største økonomer, Ludwig von Mises. Han nød også personlig tilknytning til filosoffen og forfatteren, Ayn Rand. Begge disse tænkere har netop været centrale for George Reismans arbejde, Læs artikler af Reisman her.

– Hvorfor er det blevet "højreorienteret" at slås for friheden og bekæmpe religiøse fanatikere?

"Det spørger jeg også mig selv om hver eneste dag. Det er da højst mærkværdigt, også når man tænker på erfaringerne fra 2. Verdenskrig. Venstrefløjen falder mere og mere sammen og har tilsyneladende opgivet at forsvare friheden. Så vidt, at det i dag kan opleves som et adelsmærke at være højreorienteret, takket være venstrefløjen."

Ud af boblen
http://www.sappho.dk/ud-af-boblen.htm

COIN-bloggen skal i denne sammenhæng gøre opmærksom på at nazisterne var venstreorienterede (de var national-SOCIALISTER). Og at det var relativt højreorienterede, der vandt 2. verdenskrig.

Se George Reisman: Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism is Totalitarian
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHpXjm78Pjs

It is important to realize that when the environmentalists talk about destruction of the "environment" as the result of economic activity, their claims are permeated by the doctrine of intrinsic value. Thus, what they actually mean to a very great extent is merely the destruction of alleged intrinsic values in nature such as jungles, deserts, rock formations, and animal species which are either of no value to man or hostile to man. That is their concept of the "environment." If, in contrast to the environmentalists, one means by "environment" the surroundings of man -- the external material conditions of human life -- then it becomes clear that all of man's productive activities have the inherent tendency to improve his environment -- indeed, that that is their essential purpose.

From The Toxicity of Environmentalism by George Reisman

More:

Artikler af George Reisman

Essays by George Reisman

[W]here is the outcry against Anita Dunn? Her remarks were not limited to a casual comment that had vicious implications. Rather they constituted a prolonged, blatantly explicit, and far more fundamental endorsement of an incalculably worse person and program than did those of Trent Lott. She has dared to say that one of her “favorite political philosophers” is one of the greatest mass murderers in the history of the world, a man whose takeover of China was responsible for as many as 70 million deaths during his reign. She has dared to present the words of this monster as a source of inspiration to youth!

George Reisman
http://georgereisman.com/blog/2009/10/maoist-in-white-house.html

[T]he entire world physically consists of nothing but chemical elements. These elements are never destroyed. They simply reappear in different combinations, in different proportions, in different places. Apart from what has been lost in a few rockets, the quantity of every chemical element in the world today is the same as it was before the Industrial Revolution. The only difference is that, because of the Industrial Revolution, instead of lying dormant, out of man's control, the chemical elements have been moved about, as never before, in such a way as to improve human life and well-being. For instance, some part of the world's iron and copper has been moved from the interior of the earth, where it was useless, to now constitute buildings, bridges, automobiles, and a million and one other things of benefit to human life. Some part of the world's carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen has been separated from certain compounds and recombined in others, in the process releasing energy to heat and light homes, power industrial machinery, automobiles, airplanes, ships, and railroad trains, and in countless other ways serve human life. It follows that insofar as man's environment consists of the chemical elements iron, copper, carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, and his productive activity makes them useful to himself in these ways, his environment is correspondingly improved. All that all of man's productive activities fundamentally consist of is the rearrangement of nature-given chemical elements for the purpose of making them stand in a more useful relationship to himself--that is, for the purpose of improving his environment.

George Reisman

http://mises.org/literature.aspx?action=author&Id=143

More essays by George Reisman

There are two sorts of limits to medical care. One is reality, which encompasses the state of scientific and technological knowledge, the state of capital accumulation, the resulting productivity of labor, and the relative performance of different individuals cooperating together under economic competition and the pursuit of individual self-interest. Under capitalism, as the result of the pursuit of self-interest and competition, this limit is continually pushed outward and the level of care for everyone continually improves. [...]

The other kind of limit to medical care is arbitrary government fiat. The government takes over medical care and it decides who is to receive care and to what extent. Under government control, the limit to medical care tends to be frozen, indeed, declining. Progress in medical care is largely prohibited as a threat to the government’s budget and decline accompanies the coming to the fore of doctors who are content to be mere tools of government policy; it also accompanies the general economic decline that results from related government policies that are hostile to capital accumulation and economic efficiency. -- George Reisman:

http://georgereisman.com/blog/2009/08/replies-to-readers-of-my-article-on.html

Larry Elder: “There is no disagreement,” said then-President-elect Barack Obama Jan. 9, “that we need action by our government, a recovery plan that will help to jump-start the economy.” No disagreement? During the last economic downturn — seven years ago — I interviewed economics professor George Reisman, author of the book Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics. He reacted to a newspaper article that called government spending a “potent recession cure when administered properly.” Read more in: Do Economists Agree with Obama?

Richard Rahn: The argument is made that many Americans are suffering from a decline in income, and thus the government should give them money so they can buy more and put others back to work. Sounds good - but where does the government get the money? It must either tax someone else now or borrow more money, which diverts productive saving to current consumption. Either way, it is less than a zero-sum game. [...] When one person is taxed more to pay another person, the incentive to work diminishes and so the total income enjoyed by both people declines.

George Reisman: The great majority of people continued to believe that an economically insignificant city - Washington - which is utterly lacking in industry and is not a center of commerce or the performance of any other economic service, is nevertheless somehow capable of "bailing out" the economic system. "Washington" was and is thought to be capable of rescuing major companies and entire industries and undertaking the economic redevelopment such as major cities as New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Cleveland, and even that of whole states and entire geographic regions. [Capitalism pp. 944. From the Welfare State Mentality, chapter 19 - Gold versus Inflation ].

[T]he massive increase in the quantity of money the government is currently bringing about will fuel sharply rising prices and give birth to a new crisis. This time, a crisis of inflation. Then, the government will either have to be content with a US economy that resembles the economic system of a Latin American country or it will have to rein in its inflation. If it chooses the latter quickly, we’ll be back to the situation that prevailed in the early 1980s and have to undergo a fresh economic contraction, though probably one of much greater size than then, because of the unfinished business left over from the present crisis.

[...]

[T]here is no good way out of the present crisis other than by meeting it through the free-market’s means of a fall in wage rates and prices, mitigated to the maximum extent possible in ways consistent with the principle of economic freedom. What is required is a way out that once and for all ends the boom-bust cycle of inflation and credit expansion followed by deflation and contraction. The free market, a freer market than we have had up to now, is the only such solution. George Reisman .

The myth that laissez faire exists in the present-day United States and is responsible for our current economic crisis is promulgated by people who know practically nothing whatever of sound, rational economic theory or the actual nature of laissez-faire capitalism. They espouse it despite, or rather because of, their education at the leading colleges and universities of the country, When it comes to matters of economics, their education has steeped them entirely in the thoroughly wrong and pernicious doctrines of Marx and Keynes. In claiming to see the existence of laissez faire in the midst of such massive government interference as to constitute the very opposite of laissez faire, they are attempting to rewrite reality in order to make it conform with their Marxist preconceptions and view of the world. -- George Reisman