With the holiday shopping season kicking off tomorrow, I figured now would be a good time to ask for book suggestions.
As of right now my austrian/libertarian library consists of the following:
The Revolution: A Manifesto, For a New Liberty, The Ethics of Liberty, Socialism, Man Economy & State w/ Power & Market (and study guide), Intro. to Economic Reasoning, Economics in One Lesson, Meltdown, Economics for Real People, and The Creature from Jekyll Island. I have Atlas Shrugged as well.
I have read the following:
The Revolution: A Manifesto, For a New Liberty, Into. to Economic Reasoning, Economics in One Lesson, Meltdown, and I’m about 20% through Economics for Real People.
I’m definitely going to be asking for Democracy: The God that Failed.
Also, if there are any other books (outside of AE and libertarianism) that you’d like to suggest, go right ahead. I have Carl Sagan’s Contact and The Demon-Haunted World on my list as well.
And is the Kindle any good? There are a bunch of books I’d like to read, but don’t necessarily care to buy (mostly from the “opposing side.” I wouldn’t mind skimming through the Communist Manifesto, but I don’t want to buy it), so an e-reader would work great. I’ve heard that the screen on the Kindle is hard to read and the page-flipping function is wonky.
Yeah, I can’t recommend Hoppe’s “Democracy: The God that Failed” highly enough. It’s actually the book that drove the final nail in the coffin of my statism. Also, if you’re into fiction, go track down some of Garett Garrett’s work (at least, I think that’s how his name is spelled…). The Mises store sells his books and they are exemplary pieces of free market fiction. “The Driver” I’d have to recommend highest.
Theory and History by von Mises; Capitalism, Socialism, And Democracy by Schumpeter; Justice and it’s Surroundings, or anything by de Jasay*; Reflections on the Revolution in France by* Edmund Burke
to the above excellent choices, i’d add hülsmann’s the ethics of money production, to appreciate the step-by-step substitution of good money by poor. and also bruce benson’s the enterprise of law, which gives examples of successful stateless legal systems, as well as explaining the underlying theory. the provision of justice is probably the last barrier most face when thinking about completely jettisoning the state, benson helps knock down that obstacle.
the other stumbling block that is good to overcome is that of defense. i’d recommend the hoppe-edited the myth of national defense.
You can read the Communist Manifesto here: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/. I read it, though not online, as soon as I got into libertarianism. Pretty interesting, and helpful when you want to understand the mind of a Marxist. Also helpful for understanding Marxists is Schumpeter’s Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, which William mentioned. Very good book, too.