Here’s a list of books and articles about libertarianism which I recommend.
Books
- Walter Block — Defending the undefendable — a tale on negative social / economic issues with governments prohibitions. Block defends pimps, drug dealers, blackmailers, corrupt policemen, and loan sharks as “economic heroes”.
- Heinlein — The Moon is a Harsh Mistress — tale of revolution, of the rebellion of a former penal colony on the Moon against its masters on the Earth.
- Murray Rothbard — What Has Government Done to Our Money? — the not-so-brief history of economics in XIX-XX centuries. How central banks were created, how people lost power over their own earnings.
- David Bergland — Libertarianism in one lesson — the basics about libertarian philosophy.
Other must-read books on economics:
- Frédéric Bastiat - That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen
- Ludwig von Mises - The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality
- Friedrich von Hayek - The Road to Serfdom, The Fatal Conceit
- Murray Rothbard — The Case Against the Fed. Tells history of american federal reserve system, reasons of its shittiness and a bit more.
Other nice readings:
- David Friedman — The Machinery of Freedom — utilitarian consequentialist view on anarcho-capitalism.
- Hans-Hermann Hoppe — Myth of National Defense — why states are inefficient in providing security. Describes private free-market defense and law production & how state-less societies may defend themselves from states.
- Frank Karsten — Beyond Democracy — why democracy does not lead to solidarity, prosperity and liberty but to unrest, runaway spending and a tyrannical government.
- Murray Rothbard — The Ethics of Liberty. Describes ethics of libertarian philosophy, natural rights (freedoms). Contains a bit about rights of mother on her child and responses to consequentialist critics of non-aggression principle. Pretty similar to “Defending the undefendable”, although less interesting.
- Walter Block — The Privatization of Roads and Highways. Big book about benefits & detailed description of how roads will function if they will be freed from government monopolies.
- Meganezia. Book series about a fictional future libertarian state Meganesia. The action takes place in the 2040-2050. All the books, except the first one are very large, ~1.5-2.5K pages each. Contains a lot of interesting science fiction esp. about space exploration and genetic engineering.
Articles
- The Myth of Natural Monopoly — facts on unnaturalness and ineffectiveness of “natural monopolies”.
- This is why I don’t give you a job — a hungarian entrepreneur’s cry from the heart on the lack of freedom.
- Authority as a commodity and its markets — small dive into the admitistrative markets theory with description of USSR’s authority market.
- Open the door, it’s military police! — why pluralism is important.
- The Coming Generational Storm — briefly about USA’s economic future.
P.S.
Anarchy, n. 4. a theory which regards the union of order with the absence of all direct or coercive government as the political ideal. 5. confusion in general; disorder.
Government produces all order.
Under anarchy there is no government.
Therefore anarchy is chaos.
In Washington there isn’t any plan
With “feeding David” on page sixty-four;
It must be accidental that the milk man
Leaves a bottle at my door.
It must be accidental that the butcher
Has carcasses arriving at his shop
The very place where, when I need some meat,
I accidentally stop.
My life is chaos turned miraculous;
I speak a word and people understand
Although it must be gibberish since words
Are not produced by governmental plan.
Now law and order, on the other hand
The state provides us for the public good;
That’s why there’s instant justice on demand
And safety in every neighborhood.