Any recommendations? I read The Economics of Liberty, and I really liked it, so something similar to that possibly. I’m a bit sick of reading books that focus completely on economics, so anything with libertarian theory would be awesome as a little break. I’m thinking a book by Block might be best, but I figured I’d take recommendations.
It’s best if I can buy it from this website so I can support the Mises Institute.
honestly, i’m starting to worry about when people want to get something that doesn’t address economic issues because I feel the movement is being brought down by moralizers - people who simply get mad at people and say “You’re EVIL/IMMORAL for thinking that!” because
there’s no way to prove that morality is anything other than subjective
in terms of strategy, it doesn’t help(that’s my hypothesis that I’ve made because of my personal experiences), and is likely to just bring in people who already lean towards agreeing with us and/or hold the same or similar moral principles to the same degree that we do(this isn’t very many people, otherwise moral arguments would’ve made everyone libertarian already).
that being said, I think if you go “i don’t think that’s moral” or “I don’t like X” or whatever, or “I value such and such” then that’s fine and can help, in my opinion.
I also think that the arguments work best when coupled together. But anyways, my guess is something by Block would be nice, though I’m not sure if he has anything strictly on libertarianism. Jacob Huebert wrote Libertarianism Today, which I found to be an excellent book though.
My 2 favorite books who both give a general introduction are David Boaz ‘Libertarianism: A Primer’ and Rothbard’s ‘For a New Liberty’, which are very complementary books. Rothbard’s a bit more radical and focusses more on specific topics, while Boaz lays down some general foundations - and is a bit less radical. All in all: 2 good introductions.
Anarchy and the Law is a very good reader in the possibilities of an anarchist legal order. If you’re into that discussion, this is an absolute most. read. You really can’t engage in to the argument without at least be familiar with the arguments in this book. (There are, of course, other ways to get familiar with the arguments, but still.)
I would advise Hayek’s ‘constitution of liberty’ and ‘Law, Legislation and Liberty’ (parts 1 and 2) if you’re interested into the Hayekian flavour. I do advise critical reading, but nonetheless I do advise reading it.
The Tannehils ‘The market for liberty’ is not to bad itself, too.
Also: ‘The Enterprise of Law’ (Bruce Benson) is quite good too on the anarchist discussion.
‘The politicization of Society’ is a book with some good essays - each and every one really makes you think on the functions of society.
Could you give some more information in what kind of topics you are interested? Than I can be more precise.