My latest book, Future Imperfect, is now out

A video of my Google talk on it


My Blog

A Virtual Bardic Circle with some of my storytelling



David D. Friedman's Home Page

This is the home page of David Friedman. Not the Hawaiian artist David Friedman, or the composer David Friedman, or the fix-what's-wrong-with- government David Friedman (050) or the fifteen year old David Friedman or the eighteen year old David Friedman or the legendary film pornographer David Friedman or even the economic journalist David Friedman but the anarchist-anachronist-economist David Friedman.

Now you know why I included my middle initial.

This page has links to my work in a variety of areas, published and unpublished. It is still under construction--and always will be.

My Four Worlds


Quote of the Month

When persons are presumably robbers and all their property is presumably obtained by robbery, because they are robbers by occupation, such as tax collectors and bandits, it is forbidden to benefit from them since the presumption is that their occupation involves robbery.

(qualified a little later in the text, however)

...

Why is it that it is generally assumed that the owner abandons hope of recovery in the case of an Israelite brigand but not in the case of a heathen? Because the owner knows that heathen courts reclaim property from a robber on the basis of circumstantial evidence and conjecture, even though there are no witnesses that he comitted robbery.

(Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Sefer Nezikin, The Book of Torts, Hyman Klein tr.)

Previous Quotes.

Living Paper: An Open Source Project to produce computer programs that teach economic ideas.
My Books
Work in Progress: My Recent Drafts
My Courses
My Recent Talks
Products I Would Like to See
Story Ideas
Me
Miscellaneous

My first novel, published by Baen, is historical fiction set in an invented historical background (or, if you prefer, fantasy without magic). It has a web page showing the lovely map created for me by Chris Porter. A very late draft of the early chapters is available online, for those who like to try before they buy as well as podcasts of the entire book, read by me. There is also a webbed interview with me about the book.

I've written a second novel, this time a fantasy with magic, although I don't yet have a publisher for it. The first two chapters are webbed. Comments appreciated.

I have now webbed the online version of my new book, Future Imperfect. New 10/15/08
My book Law's Order: What Economics Has to Do with Law and Why It Matters, published by Princeton University Press, is accompanied by a
book web page, which contains images of the entire book along with an extensive system of links--think of them as virtual footnotes--to additional material. An earlier draft is also webbed, in a somewhat more readable form, but without the links.
An earlier book was Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life, published by Harper-Collins. Click to see the
Table of Contents and a sample chapter (on the economics of crime). Copies are available from Laissez-Faire books and Amazon.com as well as many local bookstores. There is even a webbed transcript of my appearance on Book Notes discussing the book. German and Japanese translations of the book are also in print.

Click here for the online errata--errors corrected as they come in, starting with Figure 3-1b.


All of one earlier book of mine, Price Theory: An Intermediate Text, is now webbed, including the two chapters of the first edition that were left out of the second edition. So are some sample chapters of my first book, The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism.
I have recently written a drafts of an articles on The Market for Students and the future of stateless societies; a few years ago I delivered a paper dealing with market failure and arguments for and against government at the Mont Pelerin Meeting in Reykjavik.

Why We are Getting Smarter: A Conjectural Explanation

A conjectural explanation for concealed ovulation in humans.

Ideas for research projects in economics that other people might like to do.


I teach at Santa Clara University in  the Law School and (sometimes) the Business School Spring of 2009 I taught courses on Analytic Methods for Lawyers  and Economic Analysis of Law. This spring I am teaching a seminar on Legal Systems Very Different from Ours and one on Legal Issues of the 21st Century.

 

My wife says that when someone points a camera at me I look as if was facing a firing squad. I am not sure if this (from at talk I gave at Texas Christian University entitled "In Defense of Anarchy") is an improvement.

If you prefer color, this one was taken on a visit to Iceland some years back, and this was taken, and webbed, by Declan McCullagh.


In October of 1997, I had a televised debate on encryption regulation with Ed Meese. The transcript is now webbed.


I can be reached at DDFr@DavidDFriedman.com

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