THE LONELY LIBERTARIAN
Turning Ideas into Gold – then Gold into Ideas
RON MANNERS
Limited Edition Hardback, 250 pages
ISBN 9781925826579
$49.95 (includes GST)
August 26th, 2019 RELEASE
Ron’s experiences and ideas are a roadmap and warning sign for entrepreneurs and citizens alike, we do not encourage and embrace entrepreneurship at our peril. There is so much to play for, so much to be won and lost – Ron’s journey helps light the path. -- Steve “Shark Tank” Baxter, Early stage tech investor
From the Foreword:
To travel is to grow….
It is a long way in distance, culture and perspective from the wide, parched expanse of Australia’s ‘outback’ Kalgoorlie, to the narrow winding paths up the Peak in humid Hong Kong. It takes special insight to love both cities and explain the reasons why that sense has a common cause.
Ron once observed that neither Kalgoorlie nor Hong Kong was a “cry baby city”. He elaborated that both were subject to world prices for their goods, be it gold, nickel, elaborate manufactures or human talents. When prices change, these cities have no choice but to adapt, seek new horizons and thereby transform themselves. They don’t have the luxury of standing still. They discover and assemble what is needed for success with new prices in a different world.
That unusual transcendence of their economic base comes from values of self-reliance. Survival, dramatic change and progress for both cities don’t come from benevolent government, but from adaptation by individuals and their enterprises, despite the impediments of governments and the self-proclaimed wisdom of misguided intellectuals.
The personal escapades of Ron Manners exemplify these city’s tales of success against the odds. As Don Boudreaux wrote in the introduction to Heroic Misadventures, Ron is a “searcher”, but more than that he has been an assembler of the skills, connections and resources internationally that he has needed for a personal mission exemplified by Leonard Read’s phrase “education for one’s own sake”.
Those who cherish liberty and self-education will find this work an invaluable resource as they seek to adapt to a changing world where the right for individuals to pursue “anything that’s peaceful” seems ever more under threat.
-- Bill Stacey, Inaugural Chairman, Lion Rock Institute, Hong Kong, August 2019
Chapters
Foreword - Bill Stacey
Acknowledgements
Preface
Introduction
PART I Starting Out!
1 Why the lonely theme?
2 Turning accidents into opportunities
3 Why didn’t someone tell me (life has no shortcuts)?
4 Mannwest’s 124-year journey as a family firm
5 Northern Australia: the next powerhouse of the global economy?
PART II My ‘Fugitive’ Years (1975-1982)
6 The alienated Australians
7 Adventures in taxation (help feed a starving bureaucrat) 91
PART III Mining – ‘Turning Ideas Into Gold’
8 Triumphs and tragedies of Australia’s mining industry: 1960’s - 2015
(The birth of Australia’s nickel industry)
9 Croesus Mining (Playing a part in Australia’s great gold renaissance)
PART IV ‘Turning Gold Into Ideas’
10 Russia; ‘Seven days that shook the world’ (Sept. 1990)
11 Liberty could be good for you too!
Bibliography
Index
About Ron Manners
Ronald B. Manners is an Australian businessman. He is the founder and formerly the Chairman of Croesus Mining, at one point Australia's third-largest gold producer. Wikipedia