I haven’t touched Economics for Real People or The Demon-Haunted World in months. I just don’t have the patience to physically read anything at the moment. Instead, I’ve been listening to a Lord of the Rings audiobook. I’m about halfway through The Two Towers. Very enjoyable book.
Now, to the extent that protection was offered and/or fighting was more expensive than just paying the tribute, such a ‘state’ is inevitable as well as not threatening. So what Openheimer gives us is an account of how mafia arose, not the State. Everyone can see that the state today is far more expensive to maintain that it would to be fight.
So, I cannot disprove Openheimer’s thesis, but I just don’t find it likely for a mafia-type regional gang to evolve into the modern state. It just doesn’t click.
Just finished A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism by Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Currently reading The Constitution of Liberty by F.A. Hayek and about to start The Ethics and Economics of Private Property by Hoppe (after which I’ll have read all of Hoppe’s 4 most important treatises).
Continuing my Education investigations I recenty finished The Case for Classical Christian Education which is a reasonable defence of the classical model though it lacks detailed argument in parts. It had some good references so I now have A History of Education Before the Middle Ages by Frank Graves.
I’m presently reading Claw of the Concilliator by Gene Wolfe (2nd book in the Book of the New Sun quadriliogy). It’s a facinating book although it hasn’t hit the heights of the first yet; that said I’m only 60 pages in. And again this isn’t a crazy Goodkind/ Jordan rainforest destroyer: the fours books overall are only 1200 pages so it’s not a huge investment in comparison to other works. Oh and George RR Martins calls it “one of the great science fanatsy epics of all time”.
I’m about to finish Intellectuals and Society by Thomas Sowell. It’s pretty good, but he is quite a collectivist/nationalist hawk.
I am reading an ebook: How to Disappear - Erase Your Digital Footprints, Leave False Trails, and Vanish Without a Trace by Frank Ahearn. A must read book on preventing identiy theft. Written by an ex-identity hacker himself. Should insure greater personal freedom in your lives and that’s what Misians want.
There is another book similar to this, but written in 2000. I forgot the title, but it’s readily available for free download.
Daniel, could you please tell me in a few words what you think of each book? Thank you
Sorry I am new here. I wanted to reply directly to Daniel’s post but somehow couldn’t do it.
I just got done with Paul Mooney’s Black is the New White – funny book. Lots of details about Richard Pryor and comedians, and American in general, in the 60s to the present. Lots of Hollywood from a black perspective. Mooney is of course one of my favorite comedians of all time: plenty of info about his own life. I love autobiographies, and this is one of the best I’ve read this year.
I just started in on two books: Lucifer Principle by Howard Bloom about why people do evil things; from an evolutionary standpoint. And the Portable Hannah Arendt: a sample of her books, speeches, letters, articles and interviews. Both are very good so far.
I haven’t been reading much either, recently. I acquired Wages of Destruction, but have so much to read in front of it that I’m not sure I’ll ever get to it (I still have to finish The General Theory). I’ve been too busy writing other people’s term papers – business has been a’boomin’.
I just ordered 70 bucks worth of books from Amazon out of pure boredom. They are as follows:
The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals and Politics (stories of Heidegger, Derrida, and Foucalt getting involved with the State and the unfortunate aftermath of that)
Sick Societies: Challenging the Myth of Primitive Harmony (makes the case that primitive societies aren’t as lovey-dovey as the romanticized view many have of them today)
The Evolution of Morality (Life and Mind: Philosophical Issues in Biology and Psychology) (Richard Joyce’s take on the subject, should be a good read)
The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism (a book about how Europe’s population has a giant guilt trip for colonialism and how that is damaging their political systems)
What’s Wrong with Democracy? From Athenian Practice to American Worship (as the title implies)
Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes
Anarchy and the Law edited by Edward Stringham
Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement by Brian Doherty
Written by a warmonger who supported the super-moralized wars on Bosnian Serbs, FR Yugoslavia and Iraq. Certainly people remembering Western colonialism makes it a little bit harder for him to endulge in these hobbies of his.
True, but he did come out against the abuses of the military and places like Guantanamo. Like I said earlier, I’m not even against mercenaries getting engaged in removing dictators, I’m against a) the way the funds are extracted to fund overseas operations and b) blowback since it is done in the name of a State and its population.
What about liberal do-gooders bombing semi-exotic countries for the purpose of feeling good about themselves? Are you in favour of that?
Reading Carl Menger’s Principles of Economics.
EDIT: Btw, anybody know if there has ever been a project to put together Menger’s manuscript for a new edition of the book into something cohesive?
Just started the Wisdom of Crowds, and finished UPB: Universally Preferable Behavior.
Sorry for the delayed response. Hoppe is a stimulating theorist and an excellent writer. His prose is just as clear and direct as Rothbard’s, and much more elegant. And while I don’t agree with much of Hoppe’s system (I’m a pretty thorough-going Misesian), it is much more challenging and rigorous than Rothbard’s. I think he’s the most profound social theorist alive today, and I heartily recommend anyone interested to take Stephan Kinsella’s upcoming online course The Social Theory of Hoppe.
As for the particular books, Democracy: the God That Failed is his most theoretically fascinating work and The Economics and Ethics of Private Property (at least as far as I’ve read) is the most systematic and instructive. His methodological treatise was intriguing. His Theory of Socialism and Capitalism is not quite as good as EEPP, but the part about “conservative socialism” is very interesting, especially in contrast to his later embrace of the term “conservatism” as something consonant with libertarianism.
I recently finished Will Durant’s marvelous The Age of Faith, and am now listening to his book on the Renaissance. Everyone should read this series (The Story of Civilization). Still working my way through EEPP and Hayek’s Constitution of Liberty. Hayek, of course, is brilliant.
So how did you find UPB? Am I the only one to find the book failing miserably in its endeavor?
I got a Kindle recently (birthday present), and put a bunch of books on it. Right now I’m reading The Hobbit by Tolkien, Atheism: The Case Against God by George H. Smith, and The Betrayal of the American Right by Rothbard. I decided to shelf Economics for Real People for the time being after I realized I wouldn’t be doing it any justice by trying to finish it after not touching it for a few months. I plan on finally getting through The Demon-Haunted World and rereading Economics in One Lesson by at least July.