Greetings,
I'd like to compile a methodical list of literature by people who came from the liberal prespective. If you have been converted from Liberalism to Minarchism, or Liberalism to Anarchy of some sort I need your input.
What I need is the list of books you read which ultimately got you to where you are today and in the specific order you read them in.
You can send me a PM or post them here as a reply to this thread.
I'll use your feedback for this project here. I can then compile a list and build a recommended reading list for liberals. We can use our reading lists to help us make recommendations to friends/families/others ect...
Read human action, became an old fashioned libertarian.
Read Democracy: The God that Failed, and that was the end of statism for me.
This path will only work for people who have a strong interest in economics.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
Roderick T Long's seminar on an anarchist legal order really nailed it for me. I was a confused socialist before.... But RTL was really appealing to me because I had such a strong background in philosophy. I don't think that most people would appreciate him.
Thanks guys, keep these coming please!
Stranger:Read human action, became an old fashioned libertarian.
Human Action is not ideal I think for starters. What about prior to human action that will get people excited about it?
Snowflake:Roderick T Long's seminar on an anarchist legal order really nailed it for me. I was a confused socialist before.... But RTL was really appealing to me because I had such a strong background in philosophy. I don't think that most people would appreciate him.
Can you direct me to which seminar's your referring to specifically?
Good books for Classical Liberalism:
Jean-Baptiste Say's A Treatise on Political Economy
Benjamin Constant The Cambridge Political Writings of Benjamin Constant
Alexis de Tocqueville Democracy in America
John T Flynn As We Go Marching, While You Slept, Country Squire in the White House
Robert Higgs Crisis and Leviathan
Walter Block Defending the Undefendable
Murray Rothbard Betrayal of the American Right, History of Economic Thought, For a New Liberty, Ethics of Liberty, Conceived in Liberty, History of Money and Banking in the United States, America's Great Depression
Garet Garrett People's Pottage
John Denson Costs of War, Reassessing the Presidency
Ludwig von Mises Liberalism, Marxism Unmasked, Theory and History
Lysander Spooner Let's Abolish Government, Natural Law
Herbert Spencer The Man vs The State
Albert Jay Nock Our Enemy, The State
David Gordon Secession, State & Liberty
Franz Oppenheimer The State
Hans Hoppe The Myth of National Defense
'Men do not change, they unmask themselves' - Germaine de Stael
Hey! Your going to end up doing my job for me. :)
That's just the classical liberal books I am reading right now. There are a whole bunch of socialist critiques but that is for another topic.
filc:Can you direct me to which seminar's your referring to specifically?
Karl Popper was a Social Democrat in his younger days in Austria, back when the Social Democrats still adhered to the tenets of Marxism.
As for non-famous people,I was until about a year ago still a card-carrying member of Iceland's left-green party, mainly because they were the only party who had a firm anti-war, anti-NATO stance. No libertarian tradition here unfortunately, so I plan to build one :D
Ludwig Von Mises Socialism , that's it. All the rest came afterwards.
My liberalism (in the Pelosi sense) was quickly remedied by these two books:
"If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion."
"That which is seen, and that which is not seen" by Frederic Bastiat and "Economics in one lesson" by Henry Hazlitt are still very good and very quick reads for people without the slightest understanding of economics.
Thanks Everyone! I'll be compiling a list a bit later today. Keep em comin if you have em!
Liberal
Animal Farm - Orwell
Capitalism and Freedom by M. Friedman
The Road to Serfdom
Libertarian
Economics In One Lesson
Constitution of Liberty - Hayek
Socialism - Mises
Fatal Conceit - Hayek
Minarchist
No Treason - Spooner
What Has Gov't Done To Our money - Rothbard
Power and Market - Rorhbard
For A New Liberty -Rothbard
The State - Oppenhiemer
An-Cap
Enterprise Of Law - Bruce L. Benson
Democracy is nothing more than replacing bullets with ballots
If Pro is the opposite of Con. What is the opposite of Progress?
I definitely qualify as such. I just started reading tons of Mises and Cato, and now I'm an ancap. Whodathunkit?
Periodically the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots.
Thomas Jefferson
Cam Nedland: I definitely qualify as such. I just started reading tons of Mises and Cato, and now I'm an ancap. Whodathunkit?
Is there anything that first kicked it off?
An article in relation to a specific issue? Someone posted you something to read?
A man named Matthew Jones and I were talking on an Obama discussion board on facebook, and he kept using Mises links. It started for me with the concept of self-ownership and the non-aggression principle. Does that help at all?
Cam Nedland: It started for me with the concept of self-ownership and the non-aggression principle. Does that help at all?
It started for me with the concept of self-ownership and the non-aggression principle. Does that help at all?
Yes it does. Cheers.
Kind of got caught up on some things last night. I'm going to compile a list of everything everyone posted here and than I will need some help ordering that list from beginner-advanced. Thanks guys!
I have a friend that I've been working on for years...
Last month I had him and his wife read Why Government Doesn't Work by Harry Browne.
Solid conversion to Minarchism.
last week he read Chaos Theory by Robert Murphy.
He is now an Anarchist.
wow, that easy? Can you elaborate on the experience at all. Basically our project needs to be catered to accomplish what you did.
I was a liberal, three books specifically helped me get to an anarchocapitalism position I am in today
First I read a short book Economic is One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt
That got me onto a more minarchist path, then I read a short article The Anatomy of the State by Murray Rothbard which really got me questioning why we need a state at all.
Then I read the Market for Liberty by Morris and Linda Tannehill, a short book which helped me explain how a anarchic society really could function practically. That was the final bullet that put death to any belief in the necessity of any state whatsoever. They were are relatively short, so I what recommend it for people who want to start out, idk, it helped me a lot.
Robbery: The nation's fastest growing career!
Duties: Giving the people their bread and circuses, extracting payment by force, validating legitimacy, etc.
Job Outlook: Ever increasing and shows no signs of stopping!
filc: wow, that easy?
wow, that easy?
Well like I said , I've been working on him for YEARS. It seems to me that no person with a brain can make a case for government being able to accomplish squat after reading Harry Browne's book.
After that I think people simply (Ha!) have to fill in some of the gaps in their imagination and answer the what if's. Who will provide service X? What would happen in situation A? That is why I asked him to read Chaos Theory. It is very short and provides a very basic map of how a free society might function.
Not sure how this would work with a mass audience, I'll leave that up to you.
By the way, I think this is a great idea. Good luck.
Alright I think we have a good list. Now comes part 2. Organizing them from Beggining, Intermediate, Advanced. Here is what I have as a preliminary list.
If you haven't done so yet you should read what we are trying to accomplish on this thread here.
That said I want to take the following list I will post below and attempt to filter them out to the most relevant reading list pertaining to a modern liberal. My concept was to find the books they will most relate to first and gradually tear down the walls over time. Here is the list you all provided for me in a rudimentarily organized by me. Let me know what needs to be changed/moved/removed/added. The list will act as a reading guide/lesson plan. I'd like to keep the books limited between 15-30 if possible so we can leave room for video's and other types of media.
Introduction and Beggining
Intermediate
Advanced
Other or Final
Obviously things need to be weighted out a bit. I don't have many books in the beggining and have too many in advanced. I am reluctant to introducte something too radical however too soon as some folks may not understand Murphy's "Chaos Theory" if they are still stuck on other beleifs.
Also most moder liberals seem to follow some type of philanthropist or altruistic ideology. I am wondering if we need to add some literature specifically addressing those issues early on so they can see that economic growth will not best be realized under such a concept.
In addition the Intermediate section may be split up into sub-categories. So we may want to categorize the literature out for what it will most specifically address. Specifically (History, Philosophy, Economics). If you have read any book on the above list I'd appreciate your recommendations on where a book should be placed and what category tag or tags it should have. Thanks!
Economics in One Lesson and Bastiat's essay are both beginner level material - they are very easy to understand, all it takes is the willingness to read through them and consider the positions, and the lesson they teach is essential to distinguish economic truth from nonsense.
Also, I think these are intermediate, not advanced:
Snow Crash, The Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon (all by Neal Stephenson) served as good introduction to libertarianism for me. They work especially well on people who are into Science Fiction. Also, The Cathedral And The Bazaar by Eric S. Raymond, although I should stress that this one will only work on people with a computer science background.
You can't take the sky from me.