Latest Loans from Adam Smith Benevolent Fund

Angel

Ester

The Moorfield Storey Institute regularly makes small loans to entrepreneurs in developing nations. We believe that the best way to solve social ills in the world is with economic development. The greater the income the more health care, education, food, etc., that individuals are able to provide themselves.

These entrepreneurs often create jobs that benefit the entire community. Profit-seeking on their part encourages the kind of values necessary for a free society to flourish. A portion of income from book sales made at our site Fr33minds.com goes to benevolent purposes that encourage individuals to better their lives through self-initiative.

We have added two loans to our list today:

Ester is 64 and a single woman. She has run a general store in Tanjay, Philippines for the last 9 years. She is using her loan to expand the business by purchasing additional goods that she can sell.

Angel sells electrical supplies in San Ignacio, Paraguay. He wishes to expand his business with more supplies so customers can always find what they need in his business. He is also hoping to expand into home improvement goods.

By purchasing books from Fr33minds you not only help the Storey Institute in promoting the values of a free society, but a portion is used to encourage the growth of market-based solutions in the developing world. Economic prosperity not only betters the lives of individuals but it leads to a more peaceful, interconnected world, something in the self-interest of everyone. Donations may be made to the Storey Institute here.

The Role of Fiction in Promoting a Free Society

Note: Some video links we had have disappeared leaving blank spaces. Continue below the blank spaces to finish reading. We shall try to repair this shortly.

A woman sat down with some paper, pen in hand, and started to write. Line by line she wrote out in longhand the plot she had devised. The characters she would invent would become known to a large percentage of the public.

She had a message, something she wanted to say. And, when she was finished, she had written a novel that helped spawn a political movement that changed the face of America.

Many viciously attacked her. The literary elite would pan the novel, claiming it was too melodramatic, yet in the century it was written its influence was only second to the Bible. The novel created a firestorm, with many praising it highly, while others seemed obsessed with attacking it. In the first years it sold some 300,000 copies. Some years later, during a time of national crisis, it suddenly became a best seller once again.

The woman was Harriet Beecher Stowe, and the novel was Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Stowe was appalled at the existence of slavery, and wrote in a white heat, trying to show the world the evil of this thing called slavery.

Many antislavery books had previously been written. Serious books discussing the detrimental effects of slavery were not uncommon. Theological treatises, for and against, were published and barely read. But, within one year of publication, Stowe’s little book had sold 300,000 copies. Although, only published in book form in 1852, no other book, except the Bible, sold more copies during the entire 19th century.