/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.8108100]

What are some good books about libertarian philosophy and individualism?

[Anonymous No.8108103]

>>8108100
Das Kapital

[Anonymous No.8108113]

If you were to defecate in your fist, smear it on the wall, and decipher some political philosophy from it, you'd have a more effective, realistic philosophy than Libertarianism

[Anonymous No.8108124]

>>8108100

[Anonymous No.8108167]

if you're into that sort of thing...(I may or may not be or I might just maymay >>>/s4s/)

marcstevens.net/
Adventures in Legal Land
Marc Stevens

freedomainradio.com/
Stefan Molyneux
Stefan Molyneux is the founder and host of Freedomain Radio, the largest and most popular philosophical show in the world

praxeology.net/LS-NT-6.htm
Lysander Spooner

[Anonymous No.8108181]

>implying modern third wave liberals are in any way unique over one another

[Anonymous No.8108182]

Try Ron Paul's "The Revolution: A Manifesto." It's an excellent intro book and sometimes even convincing.
Peter Schiff is another good contemporary libertarian who predicted the 2008 recession before it happened you could read "The Real Crash." Which are his afterthoughts on what inspired the recession and is relevant to current political debates.
Finally, I would recommend Rothbard. He's one of the OG's but he's kind of prolific and a little loquacious. However a quick read he did is called "What Has the Government Done With Our Money" which can be finished in one sitting and chronicles the change from gold and coin systems of currency to paper and how the government can exploit the paper system more.

These are one's we started with in my class this semester but there is a lot more out there! If you're feeling particularly disenfranchised with current political thought these books may inspire you to find more on the subject.
Good luck.

[Anonymous No.8108185]

Mein Kampf

[Anonymous No.8108227]

>>8108100
If liberals are so unique, why do they all browse reddit or tumblr, and have the exact same taste in literature, music, and film (usually stuff that critics say is good and intellectuals like)

[Anonymous No.8108348]

Stay away from memes like Molyneux, Schiff, Ron Paul etc. Pundits and YouTube philosophers don't make good books. Read Hayek, David/Milton Friedman, Kinsella on IP, Thomas Szasz, Kevin Carson, Markets not Capitalism, Stirner, Hazlitt, Sowell, Konkin etc. Also you should read Marx, Engels, Lenin, Bakunin etc. and other commies so you dont make shit arguments against them like every libertarian in existence does

[Anonymous No.8108470]

>>8108227
they only like the most popular and critically acclaimed things, because they have an unwavering belief in the free market.

it's kind of a chicken and egg thing as well. a lot of libertarians i've met have used their terrible taste in the arts as proof that the free market works.

[Anonymous No.8108755]

>>8108100
Robert Nozick

Anarchy, State and Utopia

[Anonymous No.8108786]

>>8108348

this is good advice

there are decent libertarians out there, it's a shame that idiots on the internet seem to have gravitated to the likes of molyneux and then the likes of rothbard and mises more than hayek or friedman

though i would probably say don't really read left anarchists and marxists and just shut up about them as they're largely irrelevant in modern day politics, unless you really must win internet arguments against internet marxists

t. non libertarian

[Anonymous No.8108884]

>>8108100
>Goy Gary Johnson

[Anonymous No.8109116]

>>8108124
Please don't put Hayek with Rand and rothbard. Sure he got his economics wrong ( can we gas all Austrians please?) But he deserves more than to be put with those lot.

[Anonymous No.8109150]

>>8108884
True, theyre going to need to update that to President Gary Johnson next edition

[Anonymous No.8109157]

>>8108470
That's not how it works. The market allocates the most resources to the musical genres that people are willing to pay for, fulfilling their demands. Supporting markets does not mean liking what most people like. One could allow others to choose what they want using the market mechanism but have a different taste in music.

The libertarians you know must be pretty stupid if they think markets are always right. I would consider myself a libertarian but only from a utilitarian pov, none of that natural rights nonsense. Allowing people to choose themselves is the best way to make people happy. When markets fail then governments can step in (e.g healthcare).

[Anonymous No.8109180]

>>8109116
There was a lot that the Austrians got right. The problem is, that what was right has been integrated into the mainstream for a long time. What they got wrong, though, was really wrong, and it's all that modern Austrians have to talk about.

In any case, Hayek and Road to Serfdom especially fell more on the side of political philosophy than strict economics.

[Anonymous No.8109194]

How can anyone ironically believe in libertarianism? I can understand supporting free markets and civil liberties, but acting as if government needs to take a hands-off approach to every situation is insane.

[Anonymous No.8109206]

>>8109180
That's why I like Hayek, as a political theorist, not as an economist (aside from price signals).

What did the Austrians get right?
I know subjective theory of value
Marginal revolution (but Jevons and Walras came up with it at the same time independently)
That central planning doesn't work due to information??

That said, I like Schumpeter's work. The real problem is how Mises still has influence online.

[Anonymous No.8109216]

>>8109180
Mainstream economics is the worst possible combination of all the traditions. It's Autism: the subject.

[Anonymous No.8109224]

It seems most self proclaimed "libertarians" are just straight up boring liberals but don't want to call themselves so!


The economic basis of politics by Charles A. Beard [short history on various theories on property]
https://archive.org/details/economicbasisofp00bearrich

On Liberty by John Stuart Mill [Mill despite his flaws is still essential]

"Labour Defended against the Claims of Capital" by Thomas Hodgskin [this is a very interesting article from 1825 that attacked the wage-fund theory that was prevalent at the time and had a very idiocentric capital formation theory. it was getting at the notion of "free market socialism", kinda in the sense of Proudhon but way better. I think Engels in a footnote somewhere called Hodgskin the most important economist pre-Marx]
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/hodgskin/labour-defended.htm

Triumph of Conservatism by Gabriel Kolko [interesting revisionist history on the progressive era]

The United States as a Developing Country: Studies in U.S. History in the Progressive Era and the 1920s by Martin J. Sklar

[Anonymous No.8109231]

>>8109216
t. Man who can't do maths.

[Anonymous No.8109236]

Surprised Benjamin Tucker has not been mentioned. One of my personal favs.

Others in the american individualist tradition: Josiah Warren, Ezra Heywood, Lysander Spooner, William B. Greene.. Then there is the European tradition of 'libertarianism' which can be said to have developed more in line with, and/or in response to socialist/communist thought.

But ultimately the roots of american individualists can be traced back to french mutualism and british owenite influence which is also the roots of european social anarchism and the coop movement. The dichotomy between socialist and individualist 'libertarian' gets blurred when you dig in.

[Anonymous No.8109250]

>>8109206
>I know subjective theory of value
>Marginal revolution (but Jevons and Walras came up with it at the same time independently)
actually that goes way back. i'm convinced the marginalists really just stole their ideas from an early obscure anti-Ricardian economist named Samuel Bailey. marx actually talks about him in his Theories of Surplus Value in chapter 20 [marx never lived to have a response to marginaism so this is as close as you get interstingly to what marx would have probably responded to the likes of the austrians himself]

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/ch20.htm#vol32-p312

>That central planning doesn't work due to information??

the only people who think "central planning" could work is if you really believe in neoclassical mathemathical models and that you can formalize everything and remove the dialectical human element which is impossible

[Anonymous No.8109269]

>>8109231
I have a BA in math. There is nothing wrong with applying mathematical modelling in an empirical setting to generate predictions that can be tested. Mainstream economics, in contrast, takes what is essentially a moral and political subject and imposes unverifiable faith-based mathematical structures that smuggle in a capitalist ideology under the pretext of 'idealization'. It's just fundamentally not an intellectually honest discipline.

[Anonymous No.8109333]

>>8109180

[Anonymous No.8109350]

>>8108124
I fell for the Economic in One Lesson meme. It's the only economics book I own, and I'm entirely ignorant in the subject. What should I read after it?

[Anonymous No.8109380]

>>8109350
Greg Mankiw's principles of economics. I pic attached is the Uk version I think.

The only good thing about EiOL is the title, I would not bother reading it.

[Anonymous No.8109401]

>>8109333
Hilarious.

[Anonymous No.8109410]

>>8108124
keke

[Anonymous No.8109413]

>>8109269
Howdo you know? The accusations of ideology tend to come from people who are themselves very ideological.

So what evidence do you have as a BA to dismiss the entire field of economics? Do you write off even people like Picketty and Stiglitz?

[Anonymous No.8109462]

>>8109269
t. Man who dislikes capitalism.

[Anonymous No.8109526]

>>8108167
Libertarianism is dead. The mainstream of the movement has pretty much fused with the neoliberal establishment. Oligarchy+gays & legal weed. While the right-wing represented by ancaps/rothbard etc. has gone full redpill
and neofascist

[Anonymous No.8109563]

>>8109526
Neoliberalism does not mean oligarchy. Competition is essential to neoliberalism.

[Anonymous No.8109595]

>>8109563
Lmao. Keep telling yourself that while you try to suck VC cock to fund your startup.

[Anonymous No.8109654]

Robert Nozick

[Anonymous No.8110272]

>>8108100
Libertarianism is the least aesthetic, least literary philosophy.

The most is probably monarchy or fascism or something.

[Anonymous No.8110389]

>>8109333

Thats some pretty S+ grade alt right trolling material desu

[Anonymous No.8110395]

>>8110272
Yeah, I'm sure the Brownshirts were serious bookworms.

[Anonymous No.8110409]

>>8110395
Even Islamism or national socialism have a greater spiritual drive, even if it's total bullshit. Libertarianism is muh gumbmint gonna take mah shit oh noes! It's a form of secular Protestant moralism blended with autistic right wing pseudo Marxism and fedora tipping 'rationality'

[Anonymous No.8110414]

>>8108100
Anarchism: a documentary history of libertarian ideas
PDFs of vol. 1 and 2 here
https://libcom.org/library/anarchism-documentary-history-libertarian-ideas-volume-1-2

[Anonymous No.8110665]

>>8110272
Are you retarded? Libertarianism doesn't tell you to do certain things, it allows you to make up your own mind and do it so long as it doesn't harm any unconsenting people.

[Anonymous No.8110728]

>>8110665
Libertarianism does imply humans are utilitarian profit maximizing units. In a 'libertarian' society, power is based on property. this is unlikely to result in a Jeffersonian pothead utopia but in a pseudo feudal regime where landowners/employers hold unrestricted power over their tenants. This is justified with vague moralizing platitudes (capital='hard work', property='freedom')

[Anonymous No.8110932]

>>8110728
If following a certain philosophy makes you more happy than the alternatives/you would rather do that then a rational utilitarian agent would follow that philosophy. My argument wasn't about property. The problem is that people mix up libertarianism with Anarchocapitalism (worst system possible). Libertarianism does have a role for the state, especially preventing monopolies. A proper libertarian system would have a land value tax anyway as the rent from unimproved land doesn't come from ones own efforts. That tax could be used to fund some sort of minimum standard of living.

[Anonymous No.8110978]

>>8109116
This. Even Foucault liked Hayek.

The Constitution of Liberty is a neat book.

[Anonymous No.8111090]

>>8110978
What did Foucault have to say about Hayek?
I'm guessing something to do with biopolitics and spontaneous order. But I don't know much about Foucault.

[Anonymous No.8111119]

>>8111090
I know he talks about him in The Birth of Biopolitics. He commends him and the classical liberals on their dislike of government. They have things in common. Both F and H studied power, and F tells his students to read H carefully.

[Anonymous No.8111423]

>>8109116
What did they get wrong?

[Anonymous No.8111488]

>>8111423
Praxeology
Rejection of mathematics and empirical evidence from economics.

[Anonymous No.8112112]

>>8108100

[Anonymous No.8113326]

>>8112112
Fuck off Ancap

[Anonymous No.8113509]

>>8108100

[Anonymous No.8113743]

>>8109350
>>8109380
Fuck outta here reading Mankiw

[Anonymous No.8113749]

>>8108124
i laughed

[Anonymous No.8113752]

>>8109333
so many levels on that

[Anonymous No.8113758]

>>8109462
Well no shit, every intellectual does.

[Anonymous No.8113777]

>>8110665
>>8110932
>private property
lmao

[Anonymous No.8113892]

>>8113777
>Incentives don't exist
Lmao

[Anonymous No.8113896]

>>8113892
>still thinking in terms of property
lol

[Anonymous No.8115609]

>>8108100
Essential for any anti-statist, gold buying, ammo-hoarding survivalist individual.