Leonard Read on Violence, Liberty, and Love

Timely article here at Mises.org. Writes Pepperdine University’s Gary Galles, “Virtue is widely preached and admired. Most consider themselves virtuous. Yet in our society, virtue is being progressively crowded out by coercion.”

“In Students of Liberty, Leonard Read drew out the superiority of a society whose organizing principle is virtue—love voluntarily acted out in practical terms toward those we interact with—over one whose organizing principle is the threat of violence. Unfortunately, we have been heading down the wrong path. Read’s insights can help us reverse course. And the alternative is not appealing:

The principle of love prospers in a condition of liberty….[T]he principle of violence thrives in the absence of the principle of love….[T]he principle of violence is destructive of ourselves, of civilization, and of mankind.”

Below is a picture explanation of this important work by Leonard Read.