This monograph is justifiably considered a modern classic. It is by Stephan Kinsella who caused a worldwide rethinking among libertarians of the very basis of intellectual property. Mises had warned against patents, and Rothbard did too. But Kinsella goes much further to argue that the very existence of patents are contrary to a free market, and adds in here copyrights and trademarks too. They all use the state to create artificial scarcities of non-scarce goods and employ coercion in a way that is contrary to property rights and the freedom of contract.
Many people who read this essay for the first time were unprepared for the rigor of his argument, which takes time to settle in simply because it seems so shocking at first. But Kinsella makes his case with powerful logic and examples that are overwhelming in their persuasive power.
The relevance in a digital age can't be overstated. The state works with monopolistic private producers to inhibit innovation and stop the progress of technology, while using coercion against possible competitors and against consumers. Even U.S. foreign policy is profoundly affected by widespread confusions over what is legitimate and merely asserted as property. What Kinsella is calling for instead of this cartelizing system is nothing more or less than a pure free market, which he argues would not generate anything resembling what we call intellectual property today. IP, he argues, is really a state-enforced legal convention, not an extension of real ownership.
Few essays written in the last decades have caused so much fundamental rethinking. It is essential that libertarians get this issue right, and understand the arguments on all sides. Kinsella's piece here is masterful in making a case against IP that turns out to be more rigorous and thorough than any written on the left, right, or anything in between.
Read it and prepare to change your mind.

This Hugo and Nebula Award winner tells the sweeping tale of a desert planet called Arrakis, the focus of an intricate power struggle in a byzantine interstellar empire. Dune is one of the most famous science fiction novels ever written, and deservedly so. The setting is elaborate and ornate, the plot labyrinthine, the adventures exciting.
(from Amazon.com)

"On the Road" chronicles Jack Kerouac's years traveling the North American continent with his friend Neal Cassady, "a sideburned hero of the snowy West." As "Sal Paradise" and "Dean Moriarty," the two roam the country in a quest for self-knowledge and experience. Kerouac's love of America, his compassion for humanity, and his sense of language as jazz combine to make "On the Road" an inspirational work of lasting importance.
Chronicles Jack Kerouac's years traveling the North American continent with his friend Neal Cassady, "a sideburned hero of the snowy West."
On the Road, Jack Kerouac's whirling, swirling celebration of the generation we call Beat, was first published in 1957, by The Viking Press in the States, and André Deutsch in the UK. To celebrate its fiftieth birthday, we're publishing the unexpurgated scroll for the first time, in a beautiful hardback edition that is absolutely exquisite. Legend has it that Kerouac wrote the novel in a fury of movement: fuelled by caffeine and cigarettes, he typed this magisterial work on a series of pieces of paper, taped together to make a rudimentary `scroll', flowing down the page, unstoppable, rather like the energetic road trip he and his friend, Neal Cassady, took across America, and that he documents in the novel.
For the first time, you can finally read exactly what Kerouac wrote - the edition we all know and love was strongly edited, to excise the more racy bits that were deemed to be too strong meat for the `50s crowd. References to sex and drugs - though not entirely expunged - were toned down and tempered. The text was chopped up into neat paragraphs, to be easy on the eye. But now you can read the full, out-of-breath paean to the heady joys of living with the wind in your hair and only a dollar in your pocket.
In the New York Times, Luc Sante writes that `The novel that "On the Road" became was inarguably the book that young people needed in 1957, but the sparse and unassuming scroll is the living version for our time.' Too right. If you haven't read the scroll yet, I envy you hugely.

Have you ever noticed that trying to calm down before a high-stakes event often just produces more agitation? That trying to change troublesome habits can seem difficult or impossible? Or that real fulfillment and well-being can be elusive, despite living a successful life?

A surprising number of such difficulties stem from an inherited propensity of the human brain—our automatic, hardwired tendency to seek pleasure and to anticipate and avoid pain. Modern science demonstrates that this mental hardwiring, traceable to the survival needs of our earliest ancestors, is at the root of many of the psychological and behavioral problems that we face today.

For thousands of years, people have used mindfulness practices—techniques to develop awareness of present experience with acceptance—to deal effectively with a wide range of life challenges. And, a large and fascinating body of scientific research now validates the remarkable benefits of mindfulness practice for psychological as well as physical health.

But how exactly does mindfulness work, in scientific terms? How can understanding the science and practice of mindfulness improve everyday life? And how can the human brain, whose very functioning gives rise to so many of the problems we struggle with, actually provide a solution?

Now, in the 24 fascinating lectures of The Science of Mindfulness , Professor Ronald D. Siegel, a clinical psychologist on the faculty of Harvard Medical School, reveals the science behind mindfulness in compelling detail and demonstrates its application to an extraordinary range of human problems—psychological, social, and medical. You’ll closely examine the neurobiology involved, leaving you with a clear knowledge of the science underlying ancient practices that are now profoundly influencing the contemporary world. And you’ll learn many practical ways you can use mindfulness techniques in your own life.

Book by Frans Eemil Sillanpaa