John Allen Pugsley (January 5, 1934 – April 8, 2011) was an Americanvoluntaryistlibertarian political, economics commentator, lecturer,[1] and best-selling author.
Pugsley was born inMinnesota. He attendedEl Camino Junior College, theUniversity of Florida, and graduated fromUCLA. After serving in theU.S. Army, he spent a year cruising on a 38-foot sailboat, and another year living inMexico with his wife and children. He then returned to the U.S. and spent the next two decades as a businessman.[2]
In the late 1950s to mid 1960s Pugsley worked at General Dynamics – Astronautics Sycamore Canyon Rocket Test facility as a technical writer. Among other projects, he wrote countdown procedures for Atlas and Centaur Rocket tests.[citation needed]
In the late 1960s Pugsley entered the investment business, founded a publishing company, the Common Sense Press, and wrote his first book,Common Sense Economics. It sold over 150,000 hardcover copies. His second book,The Alpha Strategy (1980), was on theNew York Times bestseller list for nine weeks in 1981.[3] Pugsley distributed a PDF edition of the book free of charge[4] (as of 2012, the author's domain has expired. A reposting of the PDF has been provided by fans[5]). Even after 31 years in circulation as of 2012,The Alpha Strategy is considered a standard reference on stocking up on food and household goods as a hedge againstinflation. This has made it popular withsurvivalists.[6][7]
InCommon Sense Economics Pugsley cites as influencesMurray Rothbard,Henry Hazlitt, andLudwig von Mises,[8] and subsequent works also citeAndrew J. Galambos. In 1995 he authored an open letter toHarry Browne advising him against running forpresident; Pugsley's argument was based on the principles ofvoluntaryism andnon-voting.[9]
In 1975 he began a newsletter on economic and political events,Common Sense Viewpoint (1974), which had 30,000 subscribers at its peak. In 1988 he began publishingJohn Pugsley's Journal, an investment-economic newsletter covering political, economic, and investment topics.[10]
In the mid-1970s, after readingE.O. Wilson's bookSociobiology: The New Synthesis, Pugsley began to study evolutionary biology. As his study continued over the next 25 years, he founded The Bio-Rational Institute.[10]
Pugsley was one of the founding members of The Eris Society.[11] In 1997, he helped found The Sovereign Society, an international organization dedicated to maintaining and protecting its members' privacy, wealth and liberty. The society is primarily geared towardexpatriate relocation,offshore banking andtrusts. Pugsley was the society's chairman at the time of his death and wrote a monthly column for its e-newsletter,The Sovereign Individual. In 2006, he founded "The Stealth Investor", a weekly e-letter stock advisory letter.[12]
Near the end of his life, Pugsley lived inCarlsbad, California,[10] and just before moving there he lived aboard a 50-foot sloop namedEris Island in the Abacos, Bahamas, with Kiana Delamare. Delamare has written forEscapeArtist.com[13] and theInternational Living e-newsletter.
Pugsley died at age 77 on April 8, 2011.[14]
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