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This novel takes place twenty years in the future (the edition I read was published in 1979 and set in the year 2001). The setting is the United States, which is in the midst of an economic apocalypse. Since the government printed a glut of paper-money, inflation runs rampant: a cup of coffee costs $500, a short cab-ride goes for $2,000, a night in a motel fetches over $10,000. The value of the (fiat) US dollar to the (gold-based) Eurofranc is dropping like a rock. The price of gold is skyrocketing.
In a futile attempt to dampen the inflation, the government has imposed iron-fisted wage-and-price controls. This only leads to a shortage of basic goods; if anyone wants to buy anything, they have to resort to trade in the illegal black market (which the Libertarians call the "counter-economy").
And soon, the government is resorting to more and more dictatorial measures to impose its will and "restore order."
Against this backdrop, the (libertarian) Aurora Cadre strives to overthrow the US government, and replace it with a system which safeguards true social and economic freedom.
The result is a book which the Sci-Fi Review called "the best Libertarian novel since Atlas Shrugged." Author Anthony Burgess praised the pace of the book--revealing that he read the book cover-to-cover in one 8-hour sitting.
My own experience with the book wasn't quite as exciting as Burgess's, but the book nonetheless held my interest. It was an interesting airing of Libertarian economic principles (a la Milton Friedman).
My edition of the book closes with an economic speech by the author, J. Neil Schulman, entitled "Are We Alongside Night?", published in New Libertarian in 1980.
In the speech, Schulman describes his book this way:
My intent with Alongside Night was to show, by dramatic example, the major preconditions for the achievement of a free society
My theme: freedom works
My context: the political-economic mess that the theories of Austrian economics say must end in collapse...the sort of economic collapse that historically has led to a Man on Horseback taking over Napoleon after the 1790s hyperinflation in France; Hitler after the crack-up in 1923 Weimar Germany.
My plot: the events leading up to and culminating in the collapse of the American economy, and the arising of the underground economy given conscious identity by libertarian revolutionaries.
Mr. Schulman indeed succeeds at the foregoing aims. I enjoyed--and was informed by--this book.
It's also worth noting that, in Schulman's speech, he praises the books On the Brink by Ben Stein and The Crash of '79 by Paul Erdman. I think it would be interesting to compare and contrast Schulman's book with Stein's and Erdman's.
In a futile attempt to dampen the inflation, the government has imposed iron-fisted wage-and-price controls. This only leads to a shortage of basic goods; if anyone wants to buy anything, they have to resort to trade in the illegal black market (which the Libertarians call the "counter-economy").
And soon, the government is resorting to more and more dictatorial measures to impose its will and "restore order."
Against this backdrop, the (libertarian) Aurora Cadre strives to overthrow the US government, and replace it with a system which safeguards true social and economic freedom.
The result is a book which the Sci-Fi Review called "the best Libertarian novel since Atlas Shrugged." Author Anthony Burgess praised the pace of the book--revealing that he read the book cover-to-cover in one 8-hour sitting.
My own experience with the book wasn't quite as exciting as Burgess's, but the book nonetheless held my interest. It was an interesting airing of Libertarian economic principles (a la Milton Friedman).
My edition of the book closes with an economic speech by the author, J. Neil Schulman, entitled "Are We Alongside Night?", published in New Libertarian in 1980.
In the speech, Schulman describes his book this way:
My intent with Alongside Night was to show, by dramatic example, the major preconditions for the achievement of a free society
My theme: freedom works
My context: the political-economic mess that the theories of Austrian economics say must end in collapse...the sort of economic collapse that historically has led to a Man on Horseback taking over Napoleon after the 1790s hyperinflation in France; Hitler after the crack-up in 1923 Weimar Germany.
My plot: the events leading up to and culminating in the collapse of the American economy, and the arising of the underground economy given conscious identity by libertarian revolutionaries.
Mr. Schulman indeed succeeds at the foregoing aims. I enjoyed--and was informed by--this book.
It's also worth noting that, in Schulman's speech, he praises the books On the Brink by Ben Stein and The Crash of '79 by Paul Erdman. I think it would be interesting to compare and contrast Schulman's book with Stein's and Erdman's.
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