Walter Block's amusing and popular "Defending the Undefendable" offers an intentionally shocking collection of short chapters, each praising a different "rogue" of modern society-including the pimp, slumlord, and corrupt cop-from a libertarian viewpoint. However, Block's defense of the "heroic"...

Even the most passionate defenders of free trade, such as Mises and Rothbard, claim that trade cannot occur under conditions of strict homogeneity of land, labor, and capital. We show that specialization, trade, and the division of labor can emerge even when resources are initially homogenous,...