Audio book descriptionIn his monumental work, Das Kapital, Karl Marx (1818-1883) tried to show that capitalism was both inefficient and immoral. His key to explaining capitalism is his labor theory of value, which he developed from ideas of Adam Smith and David Ricardo. Marx argued that all profit, rent, and interest are "surplus-value", obtained by paying workers less than the value of their products. He maintained that the living conditions of the workers always tend to deteriorate, that competition automatically creates monopoly, and that the business cycle demonstrates the wastefulness of capitalism.
Audio book descriptionThis classic statement of economic liberalism or the policy of laissez-faire was first published in 1776. It is an engrossing analysis of the economic facts of life. Several fundamental principles, many of which are now referred to as axioms, were introduced in this work, the division of labor, supply-and-demand, and free market capitalism being among the most obvious. Smith's political economy is primarily individualistic; self-interest is the incentive for economic action. However, he shows that universal pursuit of self-interest contributes to the public interest.
Audio book descriptionGeorge Soros is unquestionably the most powerful and profitable investor in the world today. Dubbed by BusinessWeek as "The Man Who Moves the Markets, " Soros has made a billion dollars going up against the British pound. Now, in The Alchemy of Finance, he shares the investment strategies he uses to read the mind of the market.
Audio book descriptionTens of millions of Americans, from Generation X-ers to baby boomers and beyond, are rediscovering libertarianism, a visionary alternative to the tired party orthodoxies of left and right. In 1995, a Gallup poll found that 52 percent of Americans said, "t