Draft of a Liberal Reading List.
Introduction and Beggining
Intermediate
Advanced
Other or Final
I'd like some comments on the first few books. Are these appropriate angles to take for a liberal getting introduced to these idea's? What if we switched animal farm for 1984. I feel that some liberal's immediately dismiss Animal Farm as they consider it 'not factually correct' despite the fact it's a fiction. 1984 seems to be a bit further down the fiction line by not representing a specific time in history unlike animal farm.
Would anyone like to give a recommended reading list for reading Mises.
Ie, a suggested order for reading his works (read x first; read y before reading w). Maybe also suggestions to read certain works by others before tackling certain works by Mises.
While I have several of his works, the only one I've read totally was "Planning for Freedom". I have been recently getting many of his other works, and want to start tackling them, but not sure which ones I should read before others.
Here is a basic example of what I wanted to accomplish. This tree is specifically for monetary theory.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/rp-reading-list.html
I am writing a book that analyzes Marx as a classic liberal (as he was) in order to convert Marxists using their own premises. It isn't finished yet, but in the meanwhile you may send those leftists to read "The German Ideology", one of Marx's early books. Then present them the essay written by Hoppe on Marxism without polylogism, or Schumpeter's theory of classes.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/
http://blog.mises.org/archives/010560.asp
With some tact you could show them that after arriving to London Marx changed from a scholar into a politician. He wasn't looking for wisdom any more, but looking for power. Previously he had say that socialist theory must denounce injustice and try to erase it, not try to build magnificent utopian systems. When he started pursuing power using workers as his platform/lobby, he started his construction of an utopic communist system.
We believe in class war too, but we got it right. That should be enough to get the guy on track.
Pity the theory which sets itself up in opposition to the mind!
Carl Von Clausewitz
I think your stance on liberals is disingenuous. As a libertarian, many liberals despise me just as much as conservatives.
If anything, libertarians have more to gain with the Republican Party than the Democratic Party, but we must not jeopardize principles. Therefore, you must be winning over Republicans, not liberals. Winning over social conservatives, pro-liberty, fiscal discipline conservatives is not easy.
Anyways, I digressed.
The Law and Chapter 19 from Locke's The Second Treatise Civil Government are classics and High School level.
http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html
http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtr19.htm
The intent originally was to have an education learning/path/tree geared to each political side, not just liberals alone. I had hoped to construct somethign that would reach many, not just conservatives.
Seeing how drawing conservatives can sometimes be naturally easier I wanted to take the more difficult route first. That said I would say many liberals haven't the first idea as to what modern liberalism is or means, and libertarianism is or means anyways.
Any how the project hasn't picked up much interest.
After reading this topic, I have an idea that may be viable, to link our two ideas together;
[REQUEST] www.Mises.org Knowledge-base
To get specific, having a nice, searchable list of topics on a well formatted [mises] subdomain, with links, for instanced, down to Taxation. Then from there to be able to pick [from a design point of view, top-centre or top-right would be the best place] previous education level.
This is the aforementioned idea;
The [1] signifies a footnote || endnote, which could be furthered to more than just the book the quote is from, but also to a list of recommended books [for that skill-level].
From there, it wouldn't be too hard to have many pages of topics with questions [& answers], and even to have the option to show it in Tree format. The Visual Theasurus did that last part nicely, so why can't we?
Maybe only the theme is what you can take from the idea, however it would be worth thinking about linking the idea further.
Good Luck on getting this project underway,
Chip D. Panarchy
I have essentially had to put this project down in favor of other more exciting ones!
Panarchy I am wondering if it would make more sense to take advantage of the Mises Stack exchange which is already out there?
here was my post on a sort of similar idea:
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/16898.aspx
filc: I have essentially had to put this project down in favor of other more exciting ones! Panarchy I am wondering if it would make more sense to take advantage of the Mises Stack exchange which is already out there?
You've got an excellent idea in place! I've had some experiences in converting statists to minarchists - and am now working on a primer text for converting Minarchists.
I notice that before such a conversation can even take place, some knowledge is required about where someone falls politically. Quiz2d.com is a good site for finding out how much and what kind of statist someone is.
For Liberals, it's simply a matter pointing out how market regulations create more problems then they solve, and that tax-funded operations are simply legitimized theft and inefficientcy. Conservatives may need some brushing up on the market system, but I notice that what is more important is showing that people will behave one way or another regardless of what the law is.
Bringing someone from Minarchy to Anarcho-Capitalism requires that you show that there is literally nothing whatsoever that the government does that market-based institutions cannot produce on thier own. Perhaps some information on how Somalia has improved without a state might be a little persuasive?
At any rate, all Minarchists should read the following article:
http://mises.org/daily/1855
And to gain some trust in the power of the Austrian school, this video speaks for itself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I0QN-FYkpw
HUMAN ACTION is the most important work of economic or social theory written in the twentieth century. It is also the most important defense of laissez faire capitalism ever written. It is put into the advanced section of the Liberal Reading List...
Is it really too difficult to read that you should be at advanced level?
No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent. - wise idea which I used working for 4G phones blog
I was actually thinking about reviving this thread myself. I would really like to see at least one of these trees finished.
But to address your question, if might help if you actually read the book before calling it one of the most important works of the 20th century. I think if you actually tried, you'd find the answer to you question on whether it's an advanced text or not.