We are on the cusp of a dramatic wave of technological change - from blockchain to automated smart contracts, artificial intelligence and machine learning to advances in cryptography and digitisation, from Internet of Things to advanced communications technologies.

These are the new technologies of freedom. These tools present a historical unprecedented opportunity to recapture individual freedoms in the digital age - to expand individual rights, to protect property, to defend our privacy and personal data, to exercise our freedom of speech, and to develop new voluntary communities.

This book presents a call to arms. The liberty movement has spent too much time begging the state for its liberties back. We can now use new technologies to build the free institutions that are needed for human flourishing without state permission

The New Technologies of Freedom is part of a joint project between the RMIT Blockchain Innovation Hub, an academic research centre based at RMIT University in Melbourne Australia, and the Mannkal Economic Education Foundation. Mannkal's mission is developing future free market leaders. Mannkal promotes free enterprise, limited government and individual initiative for the benefit of all Australians.

About the Authors

Dr Darcy W.E. Allen is a Research Fellow at the RMIT Blockchain Innovation Hub at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is an economist and writer working on the economics of new technologies. Dr Allen has published across law and economics including in journals such as Research Policy and the Harvard Negoriation Law Review. His recent books are Unfreeze: How to Create a High Growth Eocnomy After the Pandemic (AIER, 2020), and Cryptodemocracy: How Blockchain Can Radically Expand Democratic Choice (Lexington, 2019). He has appeared many times as an expert witness before Australian parliamentary inquiries, his opinion pieces and commentary have appeared widely across the electronic and print media, and he sits on the editorial board of several blockchain journals. Twitter:@DrDarcyAllen.

Dr Chris Berg is a Senior Research Fellow and Co-Director of the RMIT Blockchain Innovation Hub. He is the author of ten books, including The Libertarian Alternative (Melbourne University Press), Understanding the Blockchain Economy: An Introduction to Institutional Cryptoeconomics (Edward Elgar) and The Classical Liberal Case for Privacy in a World of Surveillance and Technological Change (Palgrave Macmillan). He is an Adjunct Fellow with the Institute of Public Affairs, an Academic Fellow with the Australian Taxpayers' Alliance, and a Research Fellow with the University College London Centre for Blockchain Technologies.

Professor Sinclair Davidson is Professor of Institutional Economics at the RMIT Blockchain Innovation Hub at RMIT University. His research focuses on public finance, institutional economics, econometrics, and public choice economics. He has published in academic journals such as the European Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Economic Affairs, and The Cato Journal. His opinion pieces have been published in The Age, The Australian, Australian Financial Review, The Conversation, Daily Telegraph, Sydney Morning Herald, and Wall Street Journal Asia.

The American Institute for Economic Research in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, was founded in 1933 as the first independent voice for sound economics in the United States. Today it publishes ongoing research, hosts educational programs, publishes books, sponsors interns and scholars, and is home to the world-renowned Bastiat Society and the highly respected Sound Money Project. The American Institute for Economic Research is a 501c3 public charity.