Monetary Statecraft in Brazil, 1808-2014 - Kurt Mettenheim; review by Gail Triner

Published by EH.Net (September 2017)

Kurt Mettenheim, Monetary Statecraft in Brazil, 1808-2014. New York: Routledge, 2016. xi + 206 pp. $131 (hardcover), ISBN: 978-1-84893-619-2.

Reviewed for EH.Net by Gail Triner, Department of History, Rutgers University.

Kurt Mettenheim’s Monetary Statecraft in Brazil, 1808-2014 tackles a useful and under-examined topic: the politics involved in making monetary policy in Brazil over the broad sweep from the origins of Brazil (in 1808, with the transfer of the monarchy from Portugal to Lisbon) through the early twenty-first century. The book’s central tenet is that politics, independently of economic circumstance and ideology, has driven monetary policy. Mettenheim takes the idea further in two directions by finding that monetary policy has been, first, the result of “muddling through and adapting ideas from abroad” (p.2; Mettenheim’s emphasis, although its relevance is not clear) and second, “central to democratisation and political development” (p. 171.)

The book offers a detailed continuous history of Brazilian monetary policy, and the politics that produced policy. In parallel with Brazilian political history, the rules governing money successively represented the interests of monarch, oligarchs, populist leaders, dictators, and emerging democrats/technocrats. This interpretation gives heavy weight to the original sin of monetary absolutism at the beginning of the nineteenth century, which initiated a path-dependent process that endured for two centuries. By responding to the interests of political elites and selectively adapting ideas developed elsewhere, monetary policy contributed to Brazilian poverty and inequality until the late twentieth century. At the end of the twentieth century, the politics of reaction against deeply embedded, long-term inflation and global financial crises facilitated fundamental monetary reform that has resulted in monetary stability and modernized central banking. With time, these reforms also created new monetary channels that responded to a wide range of social groups, including the working class and those aspiring to the working class.

The second important contribution of Monetary Statecraft is to articulate the role of monetary decisions in social welfare. Mettenheim emphasizes the benefits of monetary stability after decades of high inflation and of financial inclusion (policies extending access to the financial system) allowed widespread improvement in the standard of living in Brazil. The “positive sum relations between political development and monetary policy” (p. 169) generated large political returns to stability and financial inclusion. Monetary historians seldom make the connection between monetary policy and broader political aims; asserting a causal direction from monetary policy to political democracy occurs even more rarely. This conclusion is one that has the potential for engaging much future debate.

Methodologically and analytically, Monetary Statecraft reflects Mettenheim’s perspective as a political scientist in the School of Business Administration (Social and Legal Studies Department) at the Fundação Getúlio Vargas in São Paulo. The monograph is a model of clarity about is methods: it relies on historical analysis of monetary institutions and on recursive policy tracing in preference to the economist’s tools of quantitative analysis. Since its goal is to trace politics, this choice of methods is commonsensical. Economic historians may find that asserting the primacy of politics comes at a cost to understanding the interrelationship of politics with ideology, economic dynamics and circumstances. Additional research to integrate Mettenheim’s questions and perspective with existing literature may provide a follow-up to the current book.

Perhaps as a result of the disciplinary divide between the orientations of the author and readers of this review, much of the book’s terminology may be unfamiliar and merits more attention than it receives. Mettenheim defines monetary statecraft as “a theory that accounts for the open-ended, autonomous character of politics” (p. 1.) Some may wonder about the value-added of the term “statecraft” relative to “policy-making.” Further examples of the concern about terminology include: “policy tracing,” “epistemic communities,” “national liberalism,” “Kemmerer coalitions” (especially confusing, since Edwin Kemmerer did not ply his trade in Brazil) and most importantly “muddling through.”

We all know what “muddling through” means when we have not prepared for a class or read a seminar paper; in this context, Mettenheim seems to mean that short-term political reaction shaped monetary policy more than economic circumstance or ideology. One wonders how policy-making and governing could, at a first approximation, proceed otherwise. The argument does not take seriously the possibility that shifting ideological competition, emerging economic ideas and economic circumstance could define short-term politics. The framework minimizes the relevance of ideas and ideology in monetary policy-making. Ignoring the importance of the (dynamic) history of Brazilian economic thought deserves justification. Such late twentieth-century economic experiences as hyperinflation, debt and petroleum crises, and state-led developmentalism created economic circumstances that deeply implicated monetary policy. Insistence on the primacy of political competition, rather than the economic dynamics of these circumstances, relegates the economic effects to the background. Economic historians will approach that view with a great deal of skepticism. A deeper dive into the underlying economic and ideological formation of immediate politics would have been useful in this regard.

Finally, the presentation of the narrative is of concern. Scholars of Brazilian economic history will be able to work with the book’s ideas. The uninitiated may have trouble making sense of the (unexplained) importance of specific individuals and organizations, as well as accommodating the inconsistencies of naming conventions, currency denominations and some terminology. The book’s clarity also would have benefited from comprehensive editing of the text, graphs and tables.

Monetary Statecraft in Brazil: 1808-2014 traces two centuries of Brazilian monetary history in detail and addresses important issues in the formulation of policy. It can serve to open a spirited debate about the political and economic roles of monetary policy-making.

Gail Triner is the author of Mining and the State in Brazilian Development (Pickering & Chatto, 2010) and Banking and Economic Development: Brazil, 1889-1930 (Palgrave, 2001) as well as articles on Brazilian economic history.

Copyright (c) 2017 by EH.Net. All rights reserved. This work may be copied for non-profit educational uses if proper credit is given to the author and the list. For other permission, please contact the EH.Net Administrator (administrator@eh.net). Published by EH.Net (September 2017). All EH.Net reviews are archived at http://www.eh.net/BookReview.

Rubens Ricupero e a construcao do Brasil por sua diplomacia: apresentacao-debate de livro: 10/10, 14h30, UnB

25 set 2017 por Antônio Carlos Lessa

iREL promove mesa redonda sobre “A diplomacia na construção do Brasil – 1750 – 2016” – novo livro de Rubens Ricupero

O Centro de Estudos sobre as Relações Internacionais do Brasil Contemporâneo, laboratório do programa de Pós-Graduação em Relações Internacionais da Universidade de Brasília, convida para a Mesa Redonda “A diplomacia na construção do Brasil – 1750 – 2016”, a propósito do lançamento do livro de autoria do Embaixador Rubens Ricupero.

Programa, DIA 10 DE OUTUBRO, Terça-feira

14h 30 min – Abertura

• Prof. José Flávio Sombra Saraiva, diretor do Instituto de Relações Internacionais da Universidade de Brasília

14h 40 min – Mesa Redonda

• Embaixador Rubens Ricupero – A diplomacia na construção do Brasil (1750 – 2016)
• Prof. Estevão Chaves de Rezende Martins, professor titular do Departamento de História da Universidade de Brasília – Debatedor
• Ministro Paulo Roberto de Almeida, diretor do Instituto de Pesquisa de Relações Internacionais da Fundação Alexandre de Gusmão (Ministério das Relações Exteriores).

Moderador

• Prof. Antônio Carlos Lessa, professor do Instituto  de Relações Internacionais da Universidade de Brasília.

Sessão de autógrafos do livro A diplomacia na construção do Brasil (1750 – 2016)

O evento terá lugar no Auditório do Instituto de Relações Internacionais da Universidade de Brasília (Campus Universitário Darcy Ribeiro – Asa Norte – Brasília – DF), no dia 10/10/2017, das 14h 30 min às 16h 40 min.

Independencia do Curdistao: saiba quem sao os curdos, o que pretendem, o que vai acontecer na regiao depois do plebiscito

Uma matéria quase completa sobre a questão curda.

What To Know About The Independence Referendum In Iraqi Kurdistan

National Public Radio,September 22, 2017 

 

Jane Arraf

A campaign poster next to a Kurdish flag in Irbil urges people to vote yes Monday on independence from Iraq.

Balint Szlanko/AP 

 

Iraqi Kurdish leaders plan to hold a controversial independence referendum on Monday. Kurds are expected to overwhelmingly vote in favor of separating from Iraq. The United States and other allies have warned them not to go ahead.
Here's what to know:
Who and where are the Kurds?
An estimated 30 million Kurds live in territory overlapping northern Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria. They are the fourth-biggest ethnic group in the region after Arabs, Persians and Turks.
About 6 million Kurds — almost 20 percent of the the Iraqi population — live in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, as well as in Baghdad and a swath of territory claimed by both the Kurds and the Iraqi government.

Rogesh Adnan Yasin, a Syrian Kurd, holds a Kurdish flag and her 2-year-old niece at a pro-referendum rally in Irbil, Iraq. Yasin believes that if Iraqi Kurds achieve independence, her Kurdish region of Syria will be next.

Jane Arraf/NPR

Kurds generally speak different dialects of the Kurdish language — although in Turkey, it was once considered a crime to speak Kurdish.
Have the Kurds ever had their own country?
When the Ottoman Empire was dissolved after World War I, Kurds demanded their own state, but hundreds of thousands were expelled from their traditional areas and dispersed to other parts of Turkey instead.
After World War II, the Soviet Union backed a Kurdish self-governing state in what is now Iran. That state, the Republic of Mahabad, lasted less than a year.
The most autonomy Kurds have had since then is in Iraq. In the three northern Kurdish provinces, Kurds control the land borders with neighboring countries, elect their own parliament, maintain their own security forces (known as the peshmerga) and draft their own laws.
What was the U.S. role in helping to create modern Iraqi Kurdistan?
After Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, the U.S. formed a coalition to drive him out in 1991. The Kurds (and Iraqi Shiites in the south) rose up against him.

The Iraqi army attacked the north, and more than 1 million Kurds fled their homes and tried to escape over the mountains in winter. Thousands died.
That year, the U.N. Security Council approved a U.S.-led no-fly zone preventing Iraqi planes from flying over the north and south of Iraq. In 1992, Iraqi Kurds established their own regional government.
The decade that followed was a tough time. The Iraqi government punished the Kurds with trade sanctions, and the Kurdish region was included in an international trade embargo against Iraq.
After 2003, when Saddam was toppled, Kurds started rebuilding and foreign investment poured in.
Why do Iraqis Kurds insist on independence?
Most Kurds say they will never feel safe as part of Iraq.
From 1986 to 1988, Iraqi forces destroyed thousands of Kurdish villages in a campaign by Saddam's Arab Socialist Baath party to "Arabize" northern Iraq. At a conservative estimate, more than 100,000 Kurds were killed. Chemical gas attacks in the town of Halabja in 1988 killed thousands of women and children.

"You will lose nothing if you vote yes, but if vote no, you will lose something," says Saad Abdul Razak at his shop in Irbil's historic market.

Jane Arraf/NPR

Saddam is long gone — he was convicted of war crimes and executed in 2006. But many Kurds believe they will always face threats from an Iraqi Arab government.
They also blame Iraqi Arabs for the rise of ISIS, which has massacred members of the ancient Yazidi minority. The Kurds consider Yazidis to be Kurds.
An estimated 2,000 Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces were killed fighting ISIS.
The Kurds also want to control their own economy. When ISIS attacked three years ago, Iraqi forces refused to fight. Kurdish fighters moved in to push ISIS back and took control of some of the biggest northern oil fields, as well as the disputed city of Kirkuk.
The Kurdish government accuses Baghdad of reneging on an agreement to give it a share of oil revenues. Baghdad says the Kurdistan region is illegally exporting oil. That has led to an economic crisis in the Kurdish region.
Which countries are supporting the Kurdish independence referendum?
Israel is the only country that has come out in favor of it. Israel has long-standing security and business ties to the Kurdistan region and would love to have a non-Arab ally in the Middle East.
In a more lukewarm endorsement, France — after initial opposition — recently said it wouldn't oppose the vote taking place.
But the United States and some of Iraq's neighbors oppose the referendum. Iran and Turkey have warned the Kurds not to go ahead with the vote. The U.S. wants to avoid the prospect of another conflict between Baghdad and the Kurdish government while they are still fighting ISIS. After 2003, Kurdish leaders agreed to an Iraqi constitution that calls for negotiations over disputed areas, so holding the referendum in Kirkuk and other cities now is seen as provocative.

Kurds wave Israeli flags at a Kurdish independence rally. Israel is the only country in the region to support the referendum.

Jane Arraf/NPR

Iraq's neighbors are worried that a Kurdish state would encourage their own Kurdish populations to try to break away.
The Iranian, Turkish and Iraqi foreign ministers announced Friday they would take coordinated measures against the Kurds — likely economic sanctions — if they go through with the vote.
Why is the referendum controversial within the Kurdistan region?
The vote is being driven by regional President Massoud Barzani, whose Kurdistan Democratic Party controls the Kurdish regional government. Barzani is 71, and many believe he wants the referendum to be part of his legacy.
But there are deep divisions among Kurdish political parties.
Although Barzani still holds the position and power of president, his term actually ended two years ago. Until last week, Parliament hadn't met for two years after the Parliament speaker, who is from an opposition party, was blocked from entering.
Some Kurds believe that their political leaders should be working on strengthening democracy and rescuing the economy instead of holding a referendum. There is also discontent about corruption among Kurdistan's political dynasties while people like teachers and the peshmerga go without salaries because of the economic crisis.
Is there a chance that voters won't support independence?
No. There is a "No for Now" campaign that argues this isn't the right time — but even Kurds who are on the fence are overwhelmingly expected to vote yes.
So what does holding the referendum actually mean in the end?
It's a signal and a statement of intent that Kurdish leaders plan to pursue independence. But there's no timeline, and the vote doesn't trigger any moves to independence. It's likely though to trigger retaliation from Iraq's neighbors and allies. The Kurds supporting this, though, believe it's worth it.

Legislacao eleitoral: tratado internacional permitindo candidatura sem partido?

Interessante esta questão: a legislação eleitoral no Brasil não permite candidaturas avulsas, mas se o STF se pronunciar, isso pode mudar.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Tratados internacionais

Juiz libera candidatura sem partido para advogado que quer ser eleito em 2018

Consultor Jurídico, 24 de setembro de 2017, 12h13

Por Matheus Teixeira

Os tratados internacionais ingressam no ordenamento jurídico brasileiro com força de lei ordinária. E, como o Brasil é signatário da Convenção Americana de Direitos Humanos, o Pacto de São José da Costa Rica, que não prevê a filiação partidária como requisito para ser votado, as candidaturas avulsas são legais e têm amparo jurídico.

Questão das candidaturas avulsas também aguarda decisão do Supremo.
^{Tribunal Superior Eleitoral}

Com esse argumento, o juiz Hamilton Gomes Carneiro, da 132ª Zonal Eleitoral de Goiás, em Aparecida de Goiânia, acolheu ação ordinária interposta pelo advogado Mauro Junqueira e permitiu que ele participe das eleições de 2018 mesmo sem ter vínculo partidário. O tema também está no Supremo Tribunal Federal, em sede de Recurso Extraordinário com Agravo, sob relatoria do ministro Luís Roberto Barroso.
Carneiro sustentou que essa regra já deveria estar em vigor, porque um acordo internacional, após ser assinado, passa a ter aplicação imediata, sendo desnecessária a aprovação da norma em dois turnos do Congresso Nacional. O artigo 5º da Constituição Federal, argumentou, é uma cláusula aberta com a finalidade de incorporar tratados de direitos humanos ao rol das garantias constitucionalmente protegidas e, por isso, são equiparadas a emendas constitucionais. Na decisão, ele também citou a Convenção sobre Direitos de Pessoas com Deficiência, que segue o mesmo entendimento sobre o tema e do qual o Brasil faz parte.
“Sendo assim, o cidadão não pode ficar a mercê dos dirigentes partidários e partidos políticos em suas regras que excluem àquelas pessoas ditas independentes”, avaliou. Como qualquer alteração em regra eleitoral deve estar vigente um ano antes da eleição, “é eminente a urgência da tutela pleiteada”, decidiu o magistrado.
O presidente da União Nacional dos Juízes Federais, Eduardo Cubas, que é amicus curiae no processo, comemora a decisão do juiz: “É um avanço do ponto de vista da cidadania. E ainda aguardamos respostas em relação a ações similares em tramitação em outros estados, como São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso, Distrito Federal. Além, claro, do STF, onde ingressamos como amicus curiae”.
MP entra em campo
Também nesta semana, o Ministério Público de Goiás ingressou com uma ação civil pública na primeira instância da Justiça Federal com o mesmo objetivo: liberar as pessoas sem filiação partidária a concorrer a cargos públicos. Segundo a instituição, a ação se justifica pelo fato de as notícias recentes demonstrarem a existência de um “relevante movimento social” nesse sentido, além de, só em Goiás, ter quase uma dezena de processos parecidos.
Do ponto de vista jurídico, o promotor eleitoral Fernando Krebs, autor da ação, usa o mesmo argumento apresentado na decisão do juiz Hamilton Carneiro: a prevalência dos acordos internacionais em relação à lei que proíbe os candidatos independentes: “A obrigatoriedade de filiação não é constitucional, mas apenas da lei ordinária vetusta e já sem eficácia jurídica pelos termos da noviça redação da emenda à constituição oriunda dos tratados”, diz.  
Clique aqui para ler a íntegra da decisão do juiz.
Clique aqui para ler a íntegra da ação do MP-GO.

EUA: a mais rica economia do mundo, falhando em educacao e infraestrutura - Democracy Journal

Para alimentar pensões, aposentadorias e outros gastos com pessoal, os estados nos EUA estão reduzindo despesas com educação e infraestrutura.

The Monster Eating Our States and Cities

To feed the pension beast, state and local governments are starving education and infrastructure. But yes, something can be done.

BY RICHARD VAGUE

  FROM  
Democracy Journal, FALL, NO. 46
http://democracyjournal.org/magazine/46/the-monster-eating-our-states-and-cities/?utm_source=Democracy+Journal&utm_campaign=09%2F25%2F17&utm_medium=email

Today's selection -- from Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, "The Monster Eating Our States and Cities" by Richard Vague.     Our economic research group recently departed from its normal work on global debt levels to take a closer look at state and local budgets and the growing challenge in education and infrastructure spending. Our work appears in the current issue of the Democracy Journal (click here). An excerpt from the article appears below:   "With a GDP of $19 trillion, America is the richest country in the world. However, the IMD World Competitiveness Center recently ranked our education system as 24th out of 61 countries, and the American Society of Civil Engineers recently rated our infrastructure -- the roads, bridges, and water systems that were once the envy of the world -- as a D+.   "These failings are so often cited that we have become numb to them. If our education and infrastructure systems, which are largely managed and paid for by state and local governments, were improving, these poor ratings would be easier to tolerate. But the opposite is true.   "We all know that the federal budget is under tremendous pressure, but the budgets of states, cities, and other local governments (SLGs) are under even greater pressure. This pressure will not ease for a generation, if then. The inescapable consequence is that the funding of education and infrastructure will continue to be under immense pressure for as far into the future as we can realistically see.   "The issue is this -- for years SLGs' expenses have been relatively constant as a percent of GDP, yet their pension and Medicaid costs have been skyrocketing, crowding out investment in education and infrastructure. It will take a radical, perhaps even heretical, new approach to these expenses to restore our ability to properly invest in these two areas.  "[The first such heresy is this:] Why do we need to fully pre-fund our future SLG pension obligations? I ask this question only in light of the $1.9 trillion size of the pension funding deficit and the acuteness of the need in education and infrastructure. ... The answer is this: the reason to pre-fund retirement obligations in the form of a pension fund is to guarantee that the funds will be there when the pensioner retires. It's a credit guarantee. But it isn't a given that we have to have the credit guarantee for state pensions that a fully funded pension provides. After all, states (which are 82 percent of all SLG pension dollars) can't declare bankruptcy, and the full taxing authority of the states serves as a guarantee that pensions will be paid. ...   "[A different approach] would reduce the current annual aggregate SLG employer contribution requirement by over $100 billion each year over the next twenty years from the level truly required to become fully funded [freeing those funds for investment in education and infrastructure].   "[The second heresy regards the necessity of increasing research to reduce health care costs] Americans are getting older and the percent living at or under the poverty line remains stubbornly high. An estimated 80 percent of health-care costs are associated with just four disease categories -- cancer, heart disease, diabetes and Alzheimer's -- and as we age, the frequency of these diseases inevitably increases. "We will not be able to make radical, breakthrough reductions in health-care costs until we make substantial progress toward cures in those four areas. It is within our grasp to do so, but only through concerted, well-funded academic medical research. Yet, astonishingly, we have been reducing federal support for this research in real dollars. If we look over any long time horizon, there will be a direct link between federal spending on research for cures and our ability to curb the rising trend in Medicaid and health-care costs." To subscribe, please click here or text "nonfiction" to 22828.

Democracy: A Journal of Ideas "The Monster Eating Our States and Cities" Author: Richard Vague Fall, No. 46.

Marx 1818-2018, uma conferencia de e para marxólogos

Para marxistas, marxianos, marxólogos, filomarxistas, marxofóbicos ou quaisquer outros curiosos.
Haverá algo novo a ser dito? Dificilmente, mas saudosistas sempre inventam alguma previsão genial do filósofo social que transformou o século XX, para pior...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Marx 1818 / 2018. A Bicentenary Conference, Lyon, 27-29 September 2017.

Programa:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5sWJW-vTDzlOEpoc3VrakNzak0

Right-Wing Collectivism: The Other Threat to Liberty - Jeffrey Tucker

Right-Wing Collectivism: The Other Threat to Liberty  

Kindle Edition

by Jeffrey Tucker (Author), Deirde McCloskey (Preface) 

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Um livro preocupante. Na Alemanha, um partido de extrema-direita entra no parlamento, pela primeira vez desde a Primeira Guerra Mundial, em especial entre 1930 e 1945. Nos EUA, nazistas marcham pelas ruas de Charlottesville, e fascistas se agitam em vários outros lugares, inclusive se regojizando pela eleição de um dos seus à presidência.
No próprio Brasil, um candidato declaradamente de direita -- mas mais apropriadamente fascista, saudosista da ditadura militar -- recolhe apoios em diversos setores da sociedade. Pessoas que se pretendem anti-petistas -- algumas até que se acreditam "liberais" ou "conservadoras" -- apoiam abertamente o candidato direitista que possui tantos neurônios quanto a petista derrocada da presidência.
Preocupante, na verdade, é a situação. O livro é um alerta.
Prefaciado por Deirdre McCloskey, a economista liberal do momento...
Cabe ler...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida 


Presentation:
 

The rise of the so-called alt-right is the most unexpected ideological development of our time. Most people of the current generation lack a sense of the historical sweep of the intellectual side of the right-wing collectivist position. Jeffrey Tucker, in this collection written between 2015 and 2017, argues that this movement represents the revival of a tradition of interwar collectivist thought that might at first seem like a hybrid but was distinctly mainstream between the two world wars. It is anti-communist but not for the reasons that were conventional during the Cold War, that is, because communism opposed freedom in the liberal tradition.

Right-collectivism also opposes traditional liberalism. It opposes free trade, freedom of association, free migration, and capitalism understood as a laissez-faire free market. It rallies around nation and state as the organizing principles of the social order—and trends in the direction of favoring one-man rule—but positions itself as opposed to leftism traditionally understood.

We know about certain fascist leaders from the mid-20th century, but not the ideological orientation that led to them or the ideas they left on the table to be picked up generations later. For the most part, and until recently, it seemed to have dropped from history. Meanwhile, the prospects for social democratic ideology are fading, and something else is coming to fill that vacuum. What is it? Where does it come from? Where is it leading?

This book seeks to fill the knowledge gap, to explain what this movement is about and why anyone who genuinely loves and longs for liberty classically understood needs to develop a nose and instinct for spotting the opposite when it comes in an unfamiliar form. We need to learn to recognize the language, the thinkers, the themes, the goals of a political ethos that is properly identified as fascist.

"Jeffrey Tucker in his brilliant book calls right-wing populism what it actually is, namely, fascism, or, in its German form national socialism, nazism. You need Tucker’s book. You need to worry. If you are a real liberal, you need to know where the new national socialism comes from, the better to call it out and shame it back into the shadows. Now."
— Deirdre McCloskey

• File Size: 1977 KB
• Print Length: 192 pages
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Publisher: Foundation for Economic Education (September 19, 2017)
• Publication Date: September 19, 2017
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
• Language: English
• ASIN: B075MRH3W5

More about the author

› Visit Amazon's Jeffrey Tucker Page

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Biography

Jeffrey Tucker is Director of Content for the Foundation for Economic Education. He is also Chief Liberty Officer and founder of Liberty.me, Distinguished Honorary Member of Mises Brazil, research fellow at the Acton Institute, policy adviser of the Heartland Institute, founder of the CryptoCurrency Conference, member of the editorial board of the Molinari Review, an advisor to the blockchain application builder Factom, and author of five books, most recently Right-Wing Collectivism: The Other Threat to Liberty, with an preface by Deirdre McCloskey (FEE 2017) . He has written 150 introductions to books and many thousands of articles appearing in the scholarly and popular press.

He created the first commercial service of online book distribution that published entirely in the commons (The Laissez Faire Club) and he was an early innovator in online distribution of literature during his tenure as builder and editor of Mises.org from 1996 until 2011. He created the first live classroom in the liberty-oriented ideological space and assembled the official bibliography of famed economic writer Henry Hazlitt, a project that included more than 10,000 entries. Early in his career, following his degree in economics and journalism, he served as research assistant to Ron Paul at his private foundation.

Jeffrey Tucker gave the Franz Čuhel Memorial Lecture at the Prague Conference on Political Economy in 2017, has been a two-time featured guest on John Stossel’s show, interviewed on Glenn Beck’s television show, spoken at Google headquarters, appeared frequently on Huffington Post Live and Russia Today, been the two-time Master of Ceremonies at Libertopia, been featured at FreedomFest and the International Students for Liberty Conference, the featured speaker at Liberty Forum three years, keynoted the Young Americans for Liberty national convention, has spoken at many dozens of colleges and universities in the U.S. and around the world including Harvard University and Boston University, has been quoted in the New York Times and Washington Post, appears regularly in Newsweek and many other popular venues, and is in constant demand as a headline speaker at libertarian, technology, and monetary conferences around the world.

His books are: Bourbon for Breakfast: Living Outside the Statist Quo (2010), It’s a Jetson’s World: Private Miracles and Public Crimes (2011), Beautiful Anarchy: How to Create Your Own Civilization in the Digital Age (2012), Freedom Is a Do-It-Yourself Project (2013), Sing Like a Catholic (2009), Right-Wing Collectivism (2017). Four of his books have been translated into many languages.

Publishing site: http:fee.org
Email: jeffrey.a.tucker@gmail.com
Skype: Jeffrey.A.Tucker
Twitter: JeffreyATucker
FB Official: jeffreytucker.official
G Plus: Jeffrey.A.Tucker@gmail.com

 










Reviews:

5.0 out of 5 starsNot Reading Tucker is Courting Willful Ignorance

ByC. Edward Kelsoon September 19, 2017

Format: Kindle Edition

Jeffrey Tucker was a confirmed man of the American Right. Cutting his teeth on an early Ron Paul, helping to build the Ludwig von Mises Institute,
(LvMI) and generally engaging in Rothbardian mischief throughout the 90s and into the 00s, Tucker began a slow but unavoidable sea change. He didn't move Left, as some have accused dismissively. He became much more intellectually powerful. He embraced an unabridged anarchism, stateless utterly worldview. He began this evolution very publicly, curating what was the most engaging and interesting liberty-related website for many years, Mises.org (it retains much of Tucker's vision, but has since gone its own way). His books celebrated seemingly profane and banal subjects, such as shaving and hacking a shower head, replacing typical tomes written in the usual way about the usual subjects. By the present decade, he was free from LvMI altogether, and sought to rebuild Laissez Faire Books from the dead. He also jumped into the market, leaving pure theory behind to start Liberty.Me, a social media platform for the liberty space. All along, he further branched out, embracing cryptocurrencies and other new and excited innovations. He was often first to these adoptions, cluing-in a whole milieu. Roughly three years ago, Tucker began to express in essay form what he saw as a troubling phenomenon, Brutalism. It was his pushing blunt architectural forms into a metaphor for the civil war brewing in libertarian movements. He was challenged. He was called out. Lesser bulbs went after him, but Tucker left personal squabbles behind. When the Trump phenomenon and things AltRight ascended, it was Tucker who again was out early with heavy warnings. Well, now the AltRight is a force, just how much is debatable, in US politics, and AltRighters are for sure poaching from libertarian ranks. How did this happen? If the two are so very distinct, so utterly different, why is there this very obvious pipeline? Tucker explores the intellectual rationale and genesis of this 'new' fascism, old wine in new bottles. Read Tucker. I'd say heed Tucker, but that's the choice you're going to have make on your own. And I mean it.

5.0 out of 5 starsJeffrey Tucker is first and foremost a good person; second

ByPritchardon September 21, 2017

Format: Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase

Jeffrey Tucker is first and foremost a good person; second, a person of principle. This book is a wake up call and a kick in the a** for lovers of freedom and individuals. This book is a spoonful of that good stuff--reason. Tucker looks at the world of freedom and authority. He doesn't pull punches whether right or left authoritarianism. It just so happens the emperor with no clothes, and the base dressing him are righties. Get it, Tucker is addressing the Klan in the closet, the Nazi neighbor, the white pride putz because they're feeling vindicated by the 2016 election of a racist. The book points these events out, and shows how history is there, and how right-wing collectivism is nothing new--that it's been resting long enough that the townsfolk barely recognize it when it walks out of the woods.
After all the Trump apologism from certain folks at Mises, neo-Confederate Paleo-conservatives, and "Blood and Soil" dog whistlers, it is refreshing to pick up a book that challenges political power. Libertarians have a struggle on their hands, and Tucker has painted its picture, has made copies, and has nailed them to every freedom lovers front door. Read up.