David Friedman is an academic economist with a doctorate in physics retired from twenty-three years teaching in a law school. His first book, The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism, was published in 1973 and includes a description of how a society with property rights and without government might function. There as elsewhere, he offers a consequentialist defense of libertarianism. His most recent non-fiction book is Legal Systems Very Different from Ours, covering systems from Periclean Athens through modern Amish and Romany. He is also the author of three novels, one commercially published and two self-published, and, with his wife, a self-published medieval and renaissance cookbook and a larger self-published book related to their hobby of historical recreation. Much of his published work, including journal articles, essays, drafts of forthcoming work and the full text of several books, can be read on his web page: www.daviddfriedman.com.
Editor’s note: This piece is penned by Dr. David Friedman, an American economist who will be the March 16 keynote speaker at the Northwood University Freedom Seminar. All societies face the coordination problem: In order to do anything complicated you have to somehow get millions of people to coordinate their activities. To make automobiles you need...