I recently read and uploaded notest to Lachmann’s The Market as an Economic Process. Since it’s my intention to peddle the book as an important contribution here is the review: Lachmann’s Kaleidoscopic Market.
Cool beans. It nice to know Lachmann is still catching people’s interest
I am reading “Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling” by John Gatto. I’ve only read one chapter so far. But here are some of my favorite passages:
… the truth is that reading, writing, and arithmetic only take about one hundred hours to transmit as long as the audience is eager and willing to learn.
The continuing cry for “basic skills” practice is a smoke screen behind which schools preempt the time of children for twelve years.
School takes our children away from any possibility of an active role in community life in fact, it destroys communities by relegating the training of children to the hands of certified experts - and by doing so it ensures our children cannot grow up fully human. Aristotle taught that without a fully active role in community life one could not hope to become a healthy human being … School, as it was built, is an essential support system for a model of social engineering that condemns most people to be subordinate stones in a pyramid that narrows as it ascends to a terminal of control.
Unfortunately, these passages bothered me:
From Colonial days through the period of the Republic we had no schools to speak of read Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography for an example of a man who had no time to waste in school and yet the promise of democracy was beginning to be realized. We turned our backs on this promise by bringing to life the ancient pharaonic dream of Egypt.
In every important material respect our nation is self-sufficient, including in energy … Global economics does not speak to the public need for meaningful work, affordable housing, fulfilling education, adequate medical care, a clean environment, honest and accountable government, social and cultural renewal, or simple justice.
Lessons for the young economist.
great book so far, i believe it is the only one of its kind.
The Present Age: Progress and Anarchy in Modern America - Robert Nisbet.
then it is on to
Logic, Metaphysics, and the Natural Sociability of Mankind - Francis Hutcheson.
The Expanding Circle - Peter Singer
A Billion Wicked Thoughts, Ogi Aggas and Sai Gaddam. This is a look at male and female sexuality, using data from the internet.
Defending the West, Ibn Warraq. A critique and rebuttal of Edward Said’s 'Orientalism. Defends western intellectuals from the charge that they are not disinterested, but only serve imperialism. A good history of western philosophy and intellectualism since ancient Greece.
First and Last Freedom, Jiddu Krishnamurti. Search for freedom, intelligence, and truth begins only without the aid of thoughts or dogma.
Thinker on Stage: Nietzsche’s Materialism, Peter Sloterdijk. A discussion of Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy, and what Nietzsche’s thoughts about the Greeks differ from his contempories, and what they mean today.
Dawn to Decadence, Jacques Barzun. A history of Europe since 1500.
Anarchy as Order, Mohammed A. Bamyeh. A history and future of civic humanity. Probably one of the best books I’ve read on anarchism. Got this years ago, but only recently started to read it.
I recently finished Lawrence White’s The Clash of Economic Ideas; here is my review.
I am also reading, The Creature From Jekyll Island by Ed Griffin. I have finally tackled this big book. I am reading the free pdf version. Unfortunately this edition dates from 1998. Does anybody know the current edition differs?
Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters by Alan Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa and also Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose by Deirdre Barrett. I haven’t really gotten into the second one yet but the first is absolutely amazing.
Also I’m reading The Machinery of Freedom by David Friedman.
It’s actually not true that beautiful people have more daughters.
I really have no idea. I’ve just found evolutionary psychology to be riveting lately.
Jackson LaRose: Homage to Catalonia - George Orwell
Just finished reading this myself. I liked it quite a bit.
Atlas Shrugged for now.
Lots of summer reading ahead. I’ll tentatively say: Man, Economy, and State by Rothbard; Human Action by Mises; Democracy: the God That Failed by Hoppe; Trinity by Leon Uris, and; The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr are in the very-near future, but I’ll have to see where time leads me.
With regard to MES and HA, and the last post above where I said I was reading them, I got sort of sidetracked with other stuff around page 300 for both of them (I must learn to focus on one work at a time) and put them on pause and have since decided it would probably be best to reread from the beginning. Ah well.
Just finished reading The Leaderless Revolution by Carne Ross. The book is aimed at the mainstream audience. Ross was a British diplomat who dealt primarily in issues dealing with terrorism and the Afghan and second Iraq wars. Coming into what he thought was his dream job, he sincerly believed that government was the most effective way to solve the world’s most pressing problems. But after years on the job, he came to the conclusion that government was the problem, not the solution. Ross thus became an anarchist. He felt guilt in not doing more for easing the sanctions against Iraq during the 90s, which contributed to thousands of deaths. Ross eventually called it quits and helped formed a private non-profit diplomatic agency. Some passages from the book:
When working for government, you feel insulating against wrongdoing, because it wasn’t your choice, but the choice of your superior, you are just merely doing things the boss ordered you to do, you feel you are not responsible for your actions, furthermore your decision making does not happen at the site, but from a huge distance, further insulating yourself against your actions.
I wondered why Britain refused to lift a finger to help the Saharawis (Western Sahara dispute), even though the ministers and officials concerned were decent people (most of them, anyway). I knew them, some of them were my friends. They would stop to save an injured child on the street. But transport that child to the realm of “foreign policy” and she is ignored, rendered irrelevant, inconvenient to the dominating calculus of what matters to states, not people.
…it is the perpetuation of the existing way of doing things, not anarchism, that may pose the greater risk to our peace and security. It is the alienation of government from people, and us from each other, that more endangers our fragile stability.
Unfortunately, Ross, does not possess much understanding of economics:
…likewise, capitalism offers the great deception that thanks to its machinations everyone will be richer in the future, thus justifying gross inequality and humiliation today.
Communism offered a spurious equality at the sacrifice of individual liberty. Capitalism offers liberty at the expense of social justice, harmony and that essential sense of individual or shared meaning.
A while ago I finished Acemoglu’s and Robinson’s Why Nations Fail, and now I’m slowly working at Steve Keen’s Debunking Economics.
Just finished Bourbon for Breakfast by Jeff Tucker. Now starting A Tiger by the Tail by Hayek/Shenoy. Also recently finished Garet Garrett’s The Bubble That Broke the World.
Just finished 3 books, two for study and one for fun.
Fun: Last of the Dog Team, A really good novel which follows the life of a Special Forces soldier.
Study: SENSEational Sex, It’s about your sense of smell and sex with a good section on aromatherapy
Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
Currently reading Mises’s “Theory of Money and Credit” and I’m going to start a western in the “Mountain Man” series.
Jonathan, I found 3 typos in your post about the clash of economic ideas but my iPad ate my post. Do you care to fix them or should I not bother reposting?
Eyewitness Travel Guide books on Europe. I’m looking at the nooks and crannies of Norway and Sweden right now. I want to see how these societies provide to those that live in them to get the full picture on what those countries offer.
I did find a copy of Anarchy, State, and Utopia by Nozick but seeing as how he rejected his libertarian views later on (no that little snippit interview doesn’t change a thing) I decided it’s best left in the trash bin along with Hayek and Boortz.
Wheylous, I’ve found some too (probably the same ones). I mean, I should fix them…