They just put up Walter Block’s Defending the Undefendable on Mises media.
Thanks for the update [B]
It’s a great book for liberals and conservatives alike. Both will find their own heroes in the market, and maybe even change their opinion on some of the popular partisan villains.
It’s written at a level accessible to any adult regardless of economic knowledge.
I was listening to Block’s introduction to libertarianism lecture today and it seemed kind of standoffish at the beginning. With things like ‘murder park’ but after reflecting his points are very valid.
I’ve got this book and I don’t think it’s a good introduction to libertarianism. I also think Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson is over-rated as an introduction. This is primarily because of the dry, academic prose used by both authors.
Better to give them an author who writes simply, like Tom Woods Meltdown or Bob Murphy’s Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism.
For an introduction to economics, I’d recommend Thomas Sowell’s Basic Economics: A Citizen’s Guide to the Economy, because he explains a lot of the terminology that Hazlitt simply takes for granted.
Defending the Undefendable is a great easy read. It is a great source of pro-market counter-arguments that are more specific to a paticular type of industry or voluntary transaction..
I thought meltdown was a great read and Thomas Woods a great author. However I don’t think I would suggest this book for a greater view of austrian economics or libertarian idealogy.
I liked Defending The Undefendable, but I wouldn’t recommend it to people not already familiar with economics. I find it useful for counter-arguments for whenever somebody condemns speculators, advertisers, middlemen, etc, but I don’t give them the book itself - I just keep the arguments in my debating arsenal. The uninitiated will just laugh at a book that regards pimps, drug-pushers and litterers as heroes.
You can’t beat Hazlitt’s One Lesson for an introduction to economics, IMO.
Hehehe… It is nice someone thought I was a “Hero”
I really like Block. There are a bunch of public policy debates and interviews in his Mises channel from when he was working in Canada for the Fraser Institute. What I like about Dr. Block is that he is unafraid to go out and debate in public. He’s not some ivory tower intellectual lecturing people on how they will never contribute anything meaningful to science. He’s out there rubbing elbows with socialists and statists, agitating for liberty.
Yeah, I agree, Defending the Undefendable is simply not good for the uninitiated. I gave it to a friend and she simply didn’t “get it” - she got so mad at the defenses of evil vices that she stopped reading.
They left out track 3. The Introduction!
[:|]