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“Our civilization depends, not only for its origin but also for its preservation, on what can be precisely described only as the extended order of human cooperation.”1 – Friedrich von Hayek “Men are qualified for civil liberties, in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their appetites: in proportion as their love of justice is above their rapacity.” – Edmund Burke2
“The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.”– Thomas Jefferson
ETERNAL VIGILANCE is a renewed call for eternal vigilance in the defense of liberty, whether against simple tyranny or vis-à-vis the state as a predatory agent. Its central argument is that man’s discovery of ways to successfully cooperate with his fellow man on community, national, and global scales in the face of ubiquitous predatory instincts is his greatest achievement and the foundation for all advanced civilizations.
Other Books By Author
LIBERTY, SCIENCE AND WEALTH
Liberty, Science and Wealth describes how the extended order arose out of mankind’s atavistic past to produce free markets, institutions securing liberty, the possibility of more empowered individuals, and modern science. It examines in some detail all the world’s major cultural groupings to show how values, worldviews, and institutions necessary to the workings of the modern world did or did not evolve, and why. That analysis helps one to gain insight into a host of related issues: why some poorer countries continue to languish, why attempts at nation building confound us, and why trillions of dollars of Western financial assistance to less developed countries have failed to assist. In other words, by examining the worldviews of different cultural groups, the specific hurdles they face in adopting the predicates of the extended order become much more evident. At the same time, we get to appreciate the virtues of our affluent societies so as to better protect and nurture them.
“Ralph Bayrer’s new book, Free People-Free Markets: Their Evolutionary Origins, is a timely reaffirmation of freedom’s central role in the creation of American prosperity and the most celebrated advances of western civilization. Relying on the thorough scholarship and clarity of argument, Bayrer makes the compelling case that mankind’s progress in the last millennium rests on a narrow foundation of freedom, a lesson people forger at their peril.”
“This book is a compelling, new perspective on economic and political history, which can be expected to make a contribution to both academic and popular understanding. But its most important contribution will be in helping guide current governmental decisions away from avoidable errors.”
—Phillip Scribner,
Associate Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, American University