I promise, I did read all the FAQs and reading lists. But you will appreciate it’s hard to chose from a range of books with no description.
I’ve read Capitalism and Freedom by Friedman, am reading The Road to Serfdom and For a New Liberty at the moment. I’m really enjoying the latter, and I was wondering if the Ethics of Liberty is worth getting. Is it different enough to For a New Liberty to justify buying it? Are there any other books as eminent as FaNL (supposedly the libertarian manifesto)? Also, please don’t recommend “classics” such as On Liberty, etc etc etc.
Yes, TEOL is worth getting, though it will not give you an ethical basis for libertarianism. What it will do is show you what follows from the NAP, once taken as established. It is the groundwork for many of the key debates in libertarianism. How advanced is your philosophical knowledge?
I guess the question is what you are interested in most. Economic theory, economic policy, literature, politics, law, foreign policy? There are thousands and thousands of books here. Maybe you are right that we need descriptions. Oh actually there is a book with good descriptions: The Freeman’s Library. We would republish it but the cold war stuff in there is really dated and, well, not quite right.
My only problem with getting TEOL was that I was worried it’d be too similar to FANL, but apparently it isn’t. My philosophical knowledge isn’t very advanced unfortunately - I have never studied it at any level.
jtucker - at the moment, I’d say I’m most interested in foreign policy, law and politics. I’ll have to learn more economics before I get into any of that stuff.
Okay. Then I recommend Henry Veatch’s For an Ontology of Morals and Rational Man on ethics and Two Logics on epistemology. None assumes too specialized a knowledge in either area of philosophy. If you can get hold of a good primer on metaethics, follow it up with Rasmussen and den Uyl’s Norms of Liberty and Liberty and Nature. Anything by Ayn Rand is worth reading even without a background in the topic.
Her “discreditors” (is there such a word?) tend to be idiots, no offence to any reading this thread. She, like any other philosopher, had her flaws (in no greater quantity than any other thinker.) Any negative press her philosophy gets is due to fanatics that adhere to it and, partly due to her own encouragement, block out any exterior thinking or influences. However, she is clear and she does get a lot of things right, so she’s worth reading. She’s a good preliminary to any more advanced readings on neo-Aristotelian approaches to liberalism, as is Veatch (in the writings I mentioned - some of his work is much more advanced.)
Alex Miller has a good primer to it, titled An Introduction to Metaethics IIRC. It can get a bit difficult, so make sure to have a dictionary of Philosophy nearby.
I would suggest Defending the Undefendable by Walter Block if you haven’t yet already read it. An excellent expansion on For a New Liberty, giving many, many more applications of libertarianism as well as a groundwork for looking at the problems arising due to state intervention.
Ludwig von Mises’ essay “Middle of the Road Policy Leads to Socialism” is excellent as well, if you want to buy a hardcopy of it, the Mises store sells it with another essay “Liberty and Property” in a book called something to the effect of Two Essays by Ludwig von Mises.