From time to time I will publish here various classic texts and artifacts of the past. Consider it my homage to humanism.

First off? A synopsis of Tom Paine’s Common Sense. It seems odd that it was never assigned reading in a class during my years of state direction. Though a mere 45-page pamphlet, maybe it’s just too long for most readers, today. So I offer it up in a small fraction of the original size. All the major ideas, condensed.

Second: William F. Lloyd’s 1833 lecture on basic economic theory, “The Notion of Value.” This fascinating essay disentangles most of the thorny knot of ideas that confused economists in the classical and socialist traditions, and even confused some of the Third School economists as well. It deserved wider readership amongst economists before the work of Gossen, Jevons, Menger, and Walras.