Peter J. Boettke is Associate Professor at George Mason University, where he also serves as the Deputy Director of the James M. Buchanan Center for Political Economy.

List of illustrations, Copyright acknowledgments, Acknowledgments, 1 Introduction, 2 Why are there no Austrian Socialists? Ideology, science, and the Austrian school, 3 Economic calculation: the Austrian contribution to political economy, 4 Hayek's The Road to Serfdom revisited: government failure in the argument against Socialism, 5 Coase, Communism, and the "Black Box" of Soviet-type economies, 6 The Soviet experiment with pure Communism, 7 The political economy of utopia: Communism in Soviet Russia, 1918-21, 8 Soviet venality: a rent-seeking model of the Communist state, 9 Credibility, commitment, and Soviet economic reform, 10 Perestroika and public choice: the economics of autocratic succession in a rent-seeking society, 11 The reform trap in economics and politics in the former Communist economies, 12 Promises made and promises broken in the Russian transition, 13 The Russian crisis: perils and prospects for post-Soviet transition, 14 The political infrastructure of economic development, 15 Why culture matters: economics, politics, and the imprint of history, 16 Concluding remarks, Appendix 1: Economic freedom and wealth, Appendix 2: Economic wealth and welfare, Notes, Index

This collection of essays from one of the major Austrian economists working in the world today brings together in one place some of his key writings on a variety of economic issues.