Harry Browne
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Harry Browne (17 June 1933 – 1 March 2006) was an American libertarian writer, politician, and free-market investment analyst. He was a U.S. Presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party in 1996 and 2000.
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Early life and writing career
He was born in New York City to Bradford and Cecil Margaret Browne and, at the time of his death, resided in Franklin, Tennessee. Browne worked as an investment adviser for much of his life.
He came to prominence in 1970 with his first book, How You Can Profit From The Coming Devaluation, which correctly predicted the devaluation of the dollar and subsequent inflation. Browne's second book was 1973's How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World, which focused on maximizing personal liberty. This book became an instant classic in libertarian circles. You Can Profit from a Monetary Crisis was Browne's third book and reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. He continued to author books and articles on investing through the late 1990s. In all, Browne wrote 13 books and sold 2 million copies of his books.
Books authored by Harry Browne
(All book-descriptions come from the Books Page on Harry Browne's website.)
- How You Can Profit from the Coming Devaluation (1970) "A clear and extensive explanation of how the government money system perverts the free market."
- How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World (1973) "How you can apply libertarian principles to your personal life to have greater freedom from those who would like to tell you how to live your life — whether the government, relatives, friends, or just nosey people."
- You Can Profit from a Monetary Crisis (1974) "A clear and extensive explanation of how government intervention perverts the free market."
- Harry Browne's Complete Guide to Swiss Banks (1976) "A lot of useful information about Switzerland; however, the bank information is now outdated."
- New Profits from the Monetary Crisis (1978) "An outdated explanation of the investment markets."
- Inflation-Proofing Your Investments (with Terry Coxon, 1981) "The introduction of the Permanent Portfolio plan. The investments suggested have been superseded by the latest version of Fail-Safe Investing."
- Investment Rule #1 (privately published, 1985) "What is the one investment rule you can rely on no matter what?"
- Why the Best-Laid Investment Plans Usually Go Wrong (1987) "A critique of all the investment and speculative trading systems that purport to beat the markets. Guess what — none of them can be relied upon."
- The Economic Time Bomb (1989) "The dangers that investors worry about, and how to be protected against all of them."
- Why Government Doesn’t Work (1995) "Why all those government programs have failed to live up to the promises made when they were enacted — a program by program critique of government health care, education, crime control, foreign policy, and much more."
- Fail-Safe Investing (1998) "How you can create a bulletproof portfolio you can walk away from — while protecting you from inflation, deflation, or recession, while allowing you to profit from prosperous periods."
- The Great Libertarian Offer (2000) "A summary of how libertarian programs can solve America's problems."
- Liberty A to Z (2004) "872 libertarian soundbites you can use right now."
Unfinished books
Political candidacy
Browne was the presidential candidate of the United States Libertarian Party in 1996 and 2000. He received 485,798 votes or 0.5% of the vote in 1996 and 384,516 votes or 0.4% of the vote in 2000. His campaign qualified for matching funds during each election, but didn't accept them. During both of these elections, the Libertarian Party managed to get on the ballot in all fifty states and the District of Columbia. Browne did not appear on the 2000 Arizona ballot, however, as the Arizona Libertarian Party chose to run L. Neil Smith instead.
Controversy
Claims of wrongdoing within Browne's 1996 presidential campaign surfaced during his second run in 2000. In 2001, it was revealed that Perry Willis had worked on behalf of Browne's 1996 campaign while serving as national director of the Libertarian Party. To avoid potential conflicts of interest, party bylaws prohibits any party staffer from working for a campaign before a nominee is officially decided. After an investigation, the party leadership [1] censured Willis and admonished Browne, who has responded in detail to allegations surrounding the controversy.
Policy advocate
Image:Harry Browne Wheelchair pulling Bush statue down, 05-11-11.jpg
More recently, Harry Browne had continued working to increase the popularity of libertarian goals to reduce the size and scope of government. In addition to writing and making appearances on behalf of the Downsize DC Foundation (an organization he helped to co-found and for which he served as Director of Public Policy for a year and a half), he hosted two weekly network radio shows, one on Saturdays dealing with politics, which he often called “The Libertarian Conversation” (since listeners were encouraged to call in), and the other on Sundays dealing with financial topics. Both of these radio programmes were on the Genesis Communications Network. Browne also worked with the Free Market News Network, of which he was the President for much of 2005, and a Senior Political Analyst. Via Free Market News, he had his own internet-based television show called This Week In Liberty, which ran for 25 episodes[2].
He was also working on a book called The War Racket just prior to his death, but had stated that the book was not near completion, with no definite publishing date. Prior to his death, he had completed the section on World War I, but it is unknown whether or not the sections of the book he had completed will ever be published. The book was to focus on specifically the wars which the United States had been involved, and why Browne believed the promises made by the politicians trying to get the public to support the wars never became reality. (For example, it was said by American politicians that WWI would be "the war to end all wars," but this clearly wasn't the case.) War, contended Mr. Browne, was just another government programme, and was essentially flawed because "government never solves anything."
According to Jim Babka, “Harry Browne went to work on a book he intended to call, The War Racket. But it was, as Harry explained to me, a book unlike any other he’d ever written. Harry was well-read in his history, but after starting on the project he realized that 'well-read’ wasn’t enough. He collected literally dozens of books, read them all, and made copious notes. He struggled with the structure – often the hardest thing about writing a book. He wrote a great deal, and then re-wrote, only to rewrite again as he was unable to deliver a manuscript on time. The publisher canceled the deal.”[3]
Harry Browne also authored thousands of articles, most of which can be found on his website[4]. As well, he was a contributor to the news and opinion blog LewRockwell.com, to Antiwar.com, and to World Net Daily. The Harry Browne Special Reports was a financial newsletter he published from 1974 to 1997.
An column[5] he wrote titled “When Will We Learn” discussing the September 11 attacks persuaded Larry Elder to break with the Libertarian Party and join the Republican Party. Browne, however, always tried to make it clear that his opinions were his own, and not necessarily reflective of the Libertarian Party. It was his most-read column, ever, and was also published in foreign languages.
According to Jim Babka, “Harry had warned that a day like [September 11, 2001] was coming and he was actually surprised that some of those who’d listened to him and supported him were shocked. He thought the anger should’ve been directed at the geniuses who’d managed our nation’s foreign policy.”
Death
In June 2005, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease) confined him to a wheelchair. After spending a considerable amount of time in the hospital, he resumed some of his writing and speaking. He died at his home on the evening of March 1 2006 at the age of 72. [6] He is survived by his wife, Pamela Browne, and his daughter, Autumn Browne.