A good friend of mine, who is very progressive/liberal, is often willing to have intelligent discussions with me about my anarcho-capitalist views. Recently, she said she was willing to learn more.
I told her I have about 25 books, and it would take reading most of them to really get the whole picture. She said “give me the two best”.
She is college educated, and pretty smart. Like most Americans, she believes most of the mainstream “conventional widom” about politics and government, though she does admit that all governments are full of corruption and deceit.
The books can’t be too narrowly focused, or too huge (no way she’ll read Human Action).
I was thinking Economics for Real People, and The Ethics of Liberty. But, there may be better choices.
One to show them the failure of government and fill them with skepticism. One to show them the libertarian alternative and the inherent evil of the state.
You’ve got to get economics in there for these leftist types, it’s the root of their flawed thinking. So I’ll endorse Econ in One Lesson too, though I also really like Sowell’s Basic Economics.
And I think For a New Liberty superior to Ethics of Liberty, FaNL also includes a lot of material from EoL.
First off, thanks for the replies. I really need to use the Mises.org forums more often. I’m an IT professional, and I’m having huge problems figuring out how to make basic posts and replies. I feel like an idiot.
As for the recommendations:
I’m a bit surprised at the recommendations for Economics in One Lesson. No knock against Hazlitt – I love him – but I didn’t find Economics in One Lesson to be all that compelling, or to do enough to comprehensively explain the Misesian views of human action. Maybe I’m wrong, it’s been a while since I read it, but I just felt like I was reading a mainstream Republican argument against government spending.
I agree with For A New Liberty, but I would include either Bob Murphy’s Lessons for the Young Economist or Gene Callahan’s Economics for Real People rather than Economics in One Lesson. Hazlitt’s book is more of a refutation of interventionist policies and not really a good intro to the austrian school.
As for the Ethics of Liberty, I think that it’s too large, not succinct enough, and that it doesn’t cover a wide enough range of material in this case.
In terms of the Machinery of Freedom. Even though it is entirely void of an ethical case, and my therefore appear more “practical”, the vast majority of For a New Liberty is spent on dealing with current issues. I think that it does a much better job of explaining the problems as well as the libertarian solution. I didn’t find Machinery nearly as compelling as For a New Liberty, rather a good complement to For a New Liberty.
Economics in One Lesson does have some republican undertones, but it still does a great job of destroying a lot of statist arguments, however it also does an amazing job of putting forward the one fact that will convert almost anyone to free market capitalism: Markets and their structure exist for a reason. They are not arbitary constructions whcih can be fixed by the government. I also have to say that the short chapter dealing with economic calculation and entrepreneurship is literally one of the greatest chapters written in the history of Austrian Economics
Economics for Real People is a pretty bad book. It deals with too many things too quickly for beginners. It also presents these things too superficially for anyone experienced enough to understand what the author is talking about to gain from reading from the book. It’s more or less useless except in some of the background information it gives.
I know it’s three books but Beyond Democracy is really small – 2-3 hour read tops. Have had a lot of success recommending that one to non-libertarians.
I will give an honorable mention to Bastiat’s The Law… the only reason I put Politics of Obedience ahead of it is that Economics in One Lesson covers most of the arguments that Bastiat puts forward in The Law and without the obsolete references to 19th-century French political arguments which few people today are familiar with.
With Politics of Obedience, I would challenge her to ask herself the following two questions:
Even assuming that democratic governments are mostly non-tyrannical, how many modern governments can truthfully be said to be enlightened and not tyrannical in the sense that Boetie discusses? Is it even a majority (more than 100 out of the 200 existing?)
Modern Democratic governments still wield all the same instruments of power that medieval tyrants wielded, including capital punishment and now torture, disappearance, and so on. So, how is it that these governments are somehow magically immune from the abuses that Boetie describes in Politics of Obedience? Given the headlines we see constantly coming out regarding abuses of government power, is it not possible that we are only seeing the tip of a much larger iceberg?
As a final note, you said she’s educated so I hope she’s read The Prince. If not, I would recommend to bundle The Prince and Politics of Obedience as one book… after all, Politics of Obedience is very short.
I think you can’t really be a libertarian unless you understand economics; and if you do understand economics, you will inevitably be a libertarian. Hence:
Actually, i think this is not true and it’s one of the common beliefs among libertarians that reduces the influence that libertarians could have. I’m convinced that “all paths lead to liberty”. Nobody is actually in favor of tyranny. Let me explain what I mean by that. If you’re justifying some tyrannical, anti-property rights policy, there are only a few possibilities:
a) You’re the tyrant (or one of his associates), in which case, I’m not surprised and I never expect to “persuade” you of the error of your ways… but neither do I care to persuade you because you are an insignificant minority
b) You’re planning to become the tyrant or one of his agents- that is, you haven’t yet achieved power but you think you’re on your way. The key here is that the very fact that you’re dreaming up your own tyranny shows that you are not happy with the tyranny that is.
c) You understand your subjugated situation with respect to the tyrant power but you are suffering from Stockholm syndrome
d) You don’t understand your subjugated situation with respect to the tyrant: you’re confused.
Libertarians can easily reach out to groups (c) and (d) and I think these groups are much bigger than people realize. In fact, I’m of the opinion that they are larger than group (b). Group (b) is a little more challenging - this is your typical, mainstream Republicrat. However, I think that illustrating the fact that tyranny is the reason we have the problems we have and more tyranny has never solved them (economics is definitely useful here) can help.
Of course, there’s no hope for group (a). Break out the guillotines, baby.
What about Anatomy of the State and The Prince? Nobody here seems to talk about The Prince. Monarchism isn’t dead, all you have to do is walk into a grocery store magazine lane and you’ll see idiots reading stuff about the Royal Tools.
Yes, I agree that an understanding of economics is not going to make rulers or would-be rulers libertarians, I should have included that caveat.
Anyway, I’m not saying that a person can’t, for example, be in favor of libertarian policies without understanding economics. Lots of people voted for Ron Paul who really don’t understand anything about economics. Their libertarianism is purely ethical. I guess what I’m saying is that IMO economics is essential to libertarianism, and so one cannot fully understand libertarianism without understanding economics, though of course people can certainly favor something which they don’t understand. That goes for many of the people who support libertarian policies, and obviously goes for most of the people cheering on corporatism.
