Danny Sanchez:Not really. I just need to plumb my brain for mental notes on non-free books I've been meaning to read.
Maybe something by Jane Jacobs? Or maybe Rework?
Political Atheists Blog
The Bible, cover to cover. I do book reviews on my blog and a friend of mine, tongue-in-cheek, said I should review it.
Finishing Americas great depression by rothbard (it's awesome) and I have economics for real people and MES with PM in the mail.
Threat? I guess reading is usually threatening to those in power.
Actively reading: Twenty Questions: An Introduction to Philosophy - G. Lee Bowie Overcoat and Other Tales of Good and Evil - Nikolai Gogol The Mosquito Coast - Paul Theroux The Road to Serfdom - Hayek
Have stopped, but plan to resume: Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in our Times - Dr. Carroll Quigley The Roots of Obama's Rage - Dinesh D'Souza Elementary Number Theory - David M. Burton Ethics - Spinoza Madame Guyon's Spiritual Letters
http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/887347
I'm currently reading - Justice and its Surroundings by Anthony de Jasay, and rereading Human Action. For anyone else that has read Justice and its Surroundings what do you make of Chapter 5 (the very short chapter). Unless I've read it wrongly it seems a little incongruous, and quite statist.
Hmm? He's mocking those who say, "there's no use in theorizing/trying to bring about an anarchic order, since there's always been a state and it looks like there always will be a state." Human beings have also always suffered from illness and probably always will suffer from illness, but that doesn't invalidate measures to cure or prevent illness.
Currently The God Question By Andrew Pessin then after that , Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?- By Michael Sandel which I had to buy because flicking through I saw what appeared to be an attempted critique of libertarianism.
Recently finished Nick Turse's The Complex
I don't really want to comment or read anything here.I have near zero in common with many of you.I may return periodically when there's something you need to know.
Near Mutualist/Libertarian Socialist.
Jiddu Krishnamurti - Questioning Krishnamurti
Paul Johnson - Intellectuals
Gore Vidal - Burr
Cleopatra: A Biography - Duane W. Roller
Any good?
Intellectuals is a great work of iconoclasm. Though it is somewhat blunt and judgmental, though these people deserve it. I don't know much about Paul Johnson, but he seems to have a reputation as a conservative. And with the research that went into this book, it would surprise me if he was 'conservative' (ala idiots like Hannity) or 'anti-intellectual'. Don't let the title fool you, it is more in the definition of 'intellectual': doing one thing well, and then wanting to change the behavior of everyone else in addition to that. There is also a dose of hypocrisy inherant to all of them and loving 'humanity' while hating actual 'humans'.
Road to Serfdom
Human Action, for the second time
Sirens of Titan
I just finished The Road to Serfdom, I have to now decide which of these two books I'm going to read next: Rothbard's What Has Government Done to Our Money or Mises' Human Action. Any suggestions as to which one I should read first??
Human Action. Haven't read much Rothbard, he's good, but don't be intimidated by HA's length. The ideas can be complex but Mises is an excellent teacher. His prose is fluid, concise, and easily parsed.
And with the research that went into this book, it would surprise me if he was 'conservative' (ala idiots like Hannity) or 'anti-intellectual'.
Kind of what I was afraid of. As much as the subject interests me there are far to many 3rd rate conservatives who are best to be avoided.
There is also a dose of hypocrisy inherant to all of them and loving 'humanity' while hating actual 'humans'.
lol, indeed, there are many (most) times an "Ivan Karamazov" feel to most intellectuals. That may be the reason I tend to read the blatant misanthropic ones more, the ones who start off hating humanity from the get go.
-Max Stirner, The Ego and His Own
The heinous mistranslation of Stirner's book's title really annoys me.
The most accurate translation, going by his intent, would be "The Individual and Private Property". The best, going literally, would be "The Individual and His Property".
The Ego and His Own is a nonsense title...I seem to recall that Benjamin Tucker translated it years before the official American printing in 1907...I wonder if he committed the same error with it.
I think the more "literal" translation is "The Unique One and His Property" (as how it is titled in France)
But in Tucker's own words:
In particular, I am responsible for the admittedly erroneous rendering of the title. "The Ego and His Own " is not an exact English equivalent of "Der Einzige und Sein Eigentum." But then, there is no exact English equivalent. Perhaps the nearest is "The Unique One and His Property." But the unique one is not strictly the Einzige, for uniqueness connotes not only singleness but an admirable singleness, while Stirner's Einzigkeit is admirable in his eyes only as such, it being no part of the purpose of his book to distinguish a particular Einzigkeit as more excellent than another. Moreover, "The Unique One and His Property " has no graces to compel our forgiveness of its slight inaccuracy. It is clumsy and unattractive. And the same objections may be urged with still greater force against all the other renderings that have been suggested, -- "The Single One and His Property," "The Only One and His Property," "The Lone One and His Property," "The Unit and His Property," and, last and least and worst, "The Individual and His Prerogative." " The Ego and His Own," on the other hand, if not a precise rendering, is at least an excellent title in itself; excellent by its euphony, its monosyllabic incisiveness, and its telling -- Einzigkeit. Another strong argument in its favor is the emphatic correspondence of the phrase "his own" with Mr. Byington's renderings of the kindred words, Eigenheit and Eigner. Moreover, no reader will be led astray who bears in mind Stirner's distinction: "I am not an ego along with other egos, but the sole ego; I am unique." And, to help the reader to bear this in mind, the various renderings of the word Einzige that occur through the volume are often accompanied by foot-notes showing that, in the German, one and the same word does duty for all.
I don't know German, but I am told it is a very expressive language and can be very difficult to translate at times. When poetry is called for in translation, it ought be done. I wouldn't call it nonsense, but poetry assuming Tucker got the concept at least somewhat right. German raised poet and Stirner biographer John Henry Mackay, an intimate friend of Tucker's never seemed to have a problem with how Tucker translated the title.
That said, on a practical note it does no good for me to write "The Unique One and His Property" as it is not the common name of a book title even if it is more correct. Likewise, The Trojan War hero Ajax would not be called Aias due to convenience of accepted language translations.
It is possible we (English speakers) may have lucked out with such an interesting translation.
when i'm not reading selgin's theory of free banking.
Awesome. They really need to re-publish it with a new publisher, who preferrably sells it for less (i.e. Mises Institute?). I got lucky and found a used copy for $30.
Just finished Garrison's book (which I will have to re-read in about two years), so I'm moving on to Israel Kirzner's The Economic Point of View.
Will probably spend most of the rest of my bn.com gift certificate on the ebook of Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling by John Taylor Gatto.
Let me second my support of Gatto's books. His two previous ones (titles escape me at the moment) are ingenious. I highly recommend them.
Finished Power and Market!
Just finished The Law, by Frederic Bastiat. Was a little slow getting started at first but he finished the essay very strong. I'll probably read this one again sometime, only because I actually found it a little difficult to follow at times.
Next up; What Has Government Done to our Money! Murray Rothbard
I just finished Great Wars & Great Leaders by Raico, and Libertarianism Today by Huebert. Next possibilities are The Rise and Fall of Society by Chodorov, The Failure of the New Economics by Hazlitt, or Planning for Freedom by Mises. Any recommendations of these?
Love, love, LOVE (!) Gatto! Dumbing Us Down was the first of his that I read, but Underground History of American Education is my favorite - Weapons of Mass Instructions is a condensed version of that. I was homeschooled, so I just love that kind of stuff.
I'm currently reading Laurence Vance's "Christianity and War" with Butler Shaffer's "Boundaries of Order" waiting in the wings.
"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it" - Thomas Jefferson.
Danny Sanchez wrote the following post at Sat, Jan 15 2011 3:25 AM: Finished Power and Market!
Nice! As if you don't have enough on your plate, read Boundaries of Order next (its free via mises online). I can't find anyone else whose read it and IMO its indispensable. Feel free to skip to chapter 3 as its where the book really delivers
Read until you have something to write...Write until you have nothing to write...when you have nothing to write, read...read until you have something to write...Jeremiah
Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel's War Against the Palestinians by Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappe
After that, I'm reading Washington Rules by Andrew Bacevich.
My personal Anarcho-Capitalist flag. The symbol in the center stands for "harmony" and "protection"-- I'm hoping to illustrate the bond between order/justice and anarchy.
Michael Darnell: I just finished Great Wars & Great Leaders by Raico, and Libertarianism Today by Huebert. Next possibilities are The Rise and Fall of Society by Chodorov, The Failure of the New Economics by Hazlitt, or Planning for Freedom by Mises. Any recommendations of these?
If you are like semi-established with libertariansim and austrian economics, the Chodorov book won't add that much. I use it to give to people who want to get a gest of like 'what' this liberty thing you are talking about', but it's really not that new/fundamental. It's about how socity is made of individuals, cooperating and so and so forth.
Hazlitt's book really is a point by point refutationof Keynes book. If you are interested in that, go for it. But I didn't get that much our of it.
The state is not the enemy. The idea of the state is.
How is this book?
I've only just begun it, but I like it quite a bit thus far. If you don't have a lot of background information on the topic, you might be subject to getting lost-- but the authors do provide some for the uninitiated.
Schumpeter's Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Tabbarock's Entrepreneurial Economics, and Redbeard's Might is Right or Survival of the Fittest.
I just finished Political Philosophy, Clearly by de Jasay.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is actually one of my favorite areas of study, since half of my father's side of the family (the paternal side) is extremely pro-Israel and extremely anti-Palestinian, and I'm far, far away from their position (one of my family's friends actually told my dad when I was younger that he should moderate my views).
Much of the material collected here precedes Israel's recent military attack on a Gaza-bound international flotilla of embargo-breaking humanitarian aid, so it isn't entirely up-to-date, but it is still very good. I don't know how it is for someone who finds it a favorite subject, but it offers a lot of context and fairly recent events.
Now listening to the audiobook of The Story of Civilization, Volume 1: Our Oriental Heritage by Will Durant. After so many pages of Rothbard's pugnacious, prosaic style, returning yet again to Durant's exquisite wordcraft is wonderfully refreshing.
My bed-time book has been P. J. O'Rourke's On the Weath of Nations. It's an entertaining summation of Adam Smith's great book, which he spices up with Smith's other writings, and what people wrote about Smith at the time. Steven Landsburg's Fair Play is on the mail, and will follow that one. Anyhow, I still got other books lying around like a couple by Michael Crichton and Richard Feynman.
I am resuming my econ self-study by going through Steven Landsburg's Macroeconomics textbook, whose applications and all I've found to make a nicer reading than even Mankiw's. Next I will be finishing up my econ study with Samuelson's Economics -- or will be finishing up a game theory textbook I bought awhile back and advance to some other topics, or even other disciplines like evo biology or physics.
Equality before the law and material equality are not only different but are in conflict with each other; and we can achieve either one or the other, but not both at the same time. -- F. A. Hayek in The Constitution of Liberty
A People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn on History, Freakonomics, The Evolution of Integral Consciousness and a book outlining Frederich Nietzsche.
Moving on to The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939
Reading Matt's book, Withur We.
I am also casually goign through Bob Murphy's HA study guide, while reviewing HA again, and some Aristotle thanks to some other recommendations.
Started The Foundations of Morality yesterday and ended up reading a lot more than I intended; I'm about 50 pages in today. Great stuff so far.
I also browsed Hulsmann's The Last Knight of Liberalism, and was similarly engrossed. It was really pleasant reading (despite the subject - I read about Mises' final years); as intimidating as its length is, I'm going to have to read it soon.
What are your thoughts on Jiddu Krishnamurti?
"An Archeology of Knowledge" by Michel Foucault and "Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language" by Saul Kripke.
krazy kaju: Danny Sanchez:Not really. I just need to plumb my brain for mental notes on non-free books I've been meaning to read. Maybe something by Jane Jacobs? Or maybe Rework?
Rework is a great title. I haven't read it but I am very familiar with the Jason Fried and DHH's business methodology as I use elements of it daily. Danny might find some value in it as the chief of the Academy, as organizational culture and standards have a lot to do with success once you grow beyond the bootstrapping phase of any new enterprise.
There generally doesn't seem to be a lot of interest in non-ideological, non-academic, non-fiction capitalist literature here, but the guys behind Rework are part of a cultural capitalist and entrepreneurial renaissance on the internet, and I feel, deserve a lot of consideration.
I don't have much time to read these days. When I get time, I will finish reading all of Garet Garrett's novels, then probably David Friedman's "Future Imperfect".
Thanks Kaju and LS! I'll put Rework on my list. But it might be a while. Now that I've finished all the major works of Mises (and nearly all of Rothbard's), my next big projects are to read all the major works of David Hume (I've read innumerable excerpts of them, but never cover-to-cover), listen to the rest of the major works of Will Durant (which, at this point, consists of his huge The Story of Civilization series), and go into Hazlitt some more (after Foundations of Morality, I want to at least read Economics in One Lesson, if not his other stuff).