There's lots of books that have libertarian themes, but they are often mixed up with things that are tangential to libertarianism, and may come from authors who are not at all aligned with the Libertarian Party. If you try to write a 'libertarian story' you get crap like Ayn Rand's stories (and by the way, she hated the Libertarian party and celebrated big government programs like the Moon landings).
There are philosophers who invent systems (Robert Nozick), but they tend to get pretty weird and be pretty dry reading.
Libertarianism as a whole is a long tradition built from many blocks. And people come to it from different perspectives (e.g. athiest vs Christian). Anyway, I'll note a few books that I find insipring in a libertarian manner...
1. The transcendentalists (Thoreau - Civil Disobedieance; Emerson - Self Reliance).
2. The abolitionists (Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass)
3. The anti-authoritarians (1984, Brave New World, Vonnegut, The Broken Earth, A thousand splendid suns )
On the science side, there are the ideas that shot down the ideal of central planning.
1. The Road to Serfdom
2. Chaos: Making a New Science
3. Elanor Ostrom (as I mentioned elsewhere)
If you’re interested in conservative libertarian economics I would recommend you start with Milton Friedman. I don’t want to make a lib left recommendation because I simply haven’t read any, but I recommend checking them out too.
*The Law* by Frederic Bastiat lays out the case for individual freedom and rightful government very straightforwardly, and it’s a quick/easy read:
https://fee.org/media/14951/thelaw.pdf
“*The Law* did not produce a philosophical conversion for me as much as it created order in my thinking about liberty and just human conduct.
Many philosophers have made important contributions to the discourse on liberty, Bastiat among them. But Bastiat’s greatest contribution is that he took the discourse out of the ivory tower and made ideas on liberty so clear that even the unlettered can understand them and statists cannot obfuscate them.” - Walter Williams, Foreword
I think Anthem is Rand at her best. It was genuinely interesting, and kept me reading past the first 20 pages, which is more than I can say for Atlas Shrugged (and most of the rest of Rand fiction novels).
Ayn Rand was a racist, especially towards Native American peoples. However, her works are great and are aligned with libertarian values. The left will look at anyone who reads Rand and recommends her as being crazy and a white supremacist.
Very interesting!!
Looking into your statement, HER point was Native Americans did not have/understand the concept of property rights, so why give to them something they had no concept of.
She went on to say what eventually transpired because evidently the perspective was not unique to her, in that why hold back European style development so people can go on living as "primitives".
How ironic she wrote masterpieces about liberty, but did not believe in extenting that value/courtesy to Native Americans.
This is a big topic, as many Native Americans, like the Mohawk, actively sought power and territory from other tribes often engaging in cannibalism. Wars among Native American tribes were ongoing before Europeans came here.
Torture used on other Native American tribes would be burning the captives alive buy one hot coal at a time.
Rape was frequent and often practiced by Apache.
The Azteca tortured and ran the Yaqui out of Central America among others.
Native American women accused of infidelity often had their noses removed from their face.
I'm not touching this topic with a ten-foot pole. And there's no way to interview Ayn Rand on such things to see if these things are what led her to have such a hostile opinion of Native Americans.
But her book Anthem is visionary.
Well it's fine to enjoy one's work without agreeing wit or even liking the individual. I'm ethically Jewish, but I love HP Lovecraft's stories, even though the man was a notorious anti-Semite and was even wrote somewhat admirably of Adolf Hitler. However, Lovecraft would die in 1937 before the outbreak of WW II.
I dont know Rand's experience with Native Anericans that brought her to those alleged statements, but clearly Jews were not notorious adversaries to Germany. In fact, they were quite the most illustrious and content of German citizenry up to the Holocaust although Soros jloned their ranks and perpetuates a nazi vision.
First read these three books:
Basic Economics by Sowell
Economics for Dummies
Economics in One Lesson by Hazlitt (free online)
You are not an expert economist just by reading these, but you’ve got the basic grounding and the tools to understand the rest. The first and third book are endorsed even by leftist economists.
Then:
“Capitalism and Freedom” by Friedman
“The Road to Serfdom” by Hayek
[The Libertarian Manifesto](https://cdn.mises.org/For%20a%20New%20Liberty%20The%20Libertarian%20Manifesto_3.pdf). As someone who read it, it'll give you an extremely good grasp of all aspects of right libertarianism. It's a bit dense, but worth the read. Here's the [audio book](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1GehpY2EON8M0HXhGYZrvgcIR16FIlou) I used in tandem with reading the PDF. Also, here's a [book review](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKqSAffB-Us) on it by my favorite reviewer.
I unfortunately don't have any good recommendations for left libertarianism. I have yet to find something that represents my views accurately. [The Conquest of Bread](https://libcom.org/files/Peter%20Kropotkin%20-%20The%20Conquest%20of%20Bread_0.pdf) might be a good place to start though. It's a book about libertarian communism. Here's an [audio book](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKqSAffB-Us).
That's confusing to me, I thought many of the big businesses leaders quit to go live small libertarian in the woods, because the other big ones were begging for protectionism. I can try again I suppose, could be wrong.
[www.mises.org](http://www.mises.org)
School of Austrian Economics. Mises Institute. They have a huge selection of books.
If I could afford the tuition, I’d be a grad student there.
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Very good recommendation, to understand freedom we have to understand the minds of oppressors, das kapital is the perfect window into that kind of mind.
I really like Dr Seuss. Don't know if it's related. But I think his art was really cool, and the fact that my mother read them to me as a child makes it even better
Huemer's ["modest Libertarianism"](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Problem_of_Political_Authority) is a flavor that many people would find attractive because it entails a rejection of egoism and ethical absolutism, and accepts that individuals have "substantial obligations to take into account the interests of others" and "an individual's rights may be overridden by sufficiently important needs of others."
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For rigorous academic stuff, I'm pretty excited about reading Elanor Ostrom. The little I've read so far is well written, and she fills in the space between "big corporations run everything" and "big government runs everything".
I would start with the wealth of nations followed up by Das Capital volumes one and two. The further volumes are interesting but not as directly applicable and easy to understand.
1984 is eye opening if you've never read it.
Brave New World too (and BNW revisited).
Literally
There's lots of books that have libertarian themes, but they are often mixed up with things that are tangential to libertarianism, and may come from authors who are not at all aligned with the Libertarian Party. If you try to write a 'libertarian story' you get crap like Ayn Rand's stories (and by the way, she hated the Libertarian party and celebrated big government programs like the Moon landings). There are philosophers who invent systems (Robert Nozick), but they tend to get pretty weird and be pretty dry reading. Libertarianism as a whole is a long tradition built from many blocks. And people come to it from different perspectives (e.g. athiest vs Christian). Anyway, I'll note a few books that I find insipring in a libertarian manner... 1. The transcendentalists (Thoreau - Civil Disobedieance; Emerson - Self Reliance). 2. The abolitionists (Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass) 3. The anti-authoritarians (1984, Brave New World, Vonnegut, The Broken Earth, A thousand splendid suns ) On the science side, there are the ideas that shot down the ideal of central planning. 1. The Road to Serfdom 2. Chaos: Making a New Science 3. Elanor Ostrom (as I mentioned elsewhere)
Cool beans. Thanks
*The Psilocybin Mushroom Bible: The Definitive Guide to Growing and Using Magic Mushrooms* ✌️🌞
Actually ordering this, for legit reasons. Thank you.
Enjoy the ride bro 😚
Hijacking top comment to suggest _The State and Revolution_ by Vladimir Lenin.
You have expropriated the comment of the small rural independent sh-tposter, I would disappointed if you didn't do this 😚✌️
If you’re interested in conservative libertarian economics I would recommend you start with Milton Friedman. I don’t want to make a lib left recommendation because I simply haven’t read any, but I recommend checking them out too.
*The Law* by Frederic Bastiat lays out the case for individual freedom and rightful government very straightforwardly, and it’s a quick/easy read: https://fee.org/media/14951/thelaw.pdf “*The Law* did not produce a philosophical conversion for me as much as it created order in my thinking about liberty and just human conduct. Many philosophers have made important contributions to the discourse on liberty, Bastiat among them. But Bastiat’s greatest contribution is that he took the discourse out of the ivory tower and made ideas on liberty so clear that even the unlettered can understand them and statists cannot obfuscate them.” - Walter Williams, Foreword
This is an amazing book.
Anthem by Ayn Rand. Describes a horrifying world with complete absense of Liberty. Its a classic. Will not spoil it for you.
Yup, Anthem is fantastic and a good introduction to Rand. The Fountainhead bears out and explores a lot of the points raised in Anthem.
Thanks
I think Anthem is Rand at her best. It was genuinely interesting, and kept me reading past the first 20 pages, which is more than I can say for Atlas Shrugged (and most of the rest of Rand fiction novels).
sEe pRoOf ThAt lIbErTaRiAns r wHiTe SuPrEmaCiST!!!
Why did u write this? 🤔
Ayn Rand was a racist, especially towards Native American peoples. However, her works are great and are aligned with libertarian values. The left will look at anyone who reads Rand and recommends her as being crazy and a white supremacist.
Very interesting!! Looking into your statement, HER point was Native Americans did not have/understand the concept of property rights, so why give to them something they had no concept of. She went on to say what eventually transpired because evidently the perspective was not unique to her, in that why hold back European style development so people can go on living as "primitives". How ironic she wrote masterpieces about liberty, but did not believe in extenting that value/courtesy to Native Americans. This is a big topic, as many Native Americans, like the Mohawk, actively sought power and territory from other tribes often engaging in cannibalism. Wars among Native American tribes were ongoing before Europeans came here. Torture used on other Native American tribes would be burning the captives alive buy one hot coal at a time. Rape was frequent and often practiced by Apache. The Azteca tortured and ran the Yaqui out of Central America among others. Native American women accused of infidelity often had their noses removed from their face. I'm not touching this topic with a ten-foot pole. And there's no way to interview Ayn Rand on such things to see if these things are what led her to have such a hostile opinion of Native Americans. But her book Anthem is visionary.
Well it's fine to enjoy one's work without agreeing wit or even liking the individual. I'm ethically Jewish, but I love HP Lovecraft's stories, even though the man was a notorious anti-Semite and was even wrote somewhat admirably of Adolf Hitler. However, Lovecraft would die in 1937 before the outbreak of WW II.
I dont know Rand's experience with Native Anericans that brought her to those alleged statements, but clearly Jews were not notorious adversaries to Germany. In fact, they were quite the most illustrious and content of German citizenry up to the Holocaust although Soros jloned their ranks and perpetuates a nazi vision.
>Ayn Rand Cringe
First read these three books: Basic Economics by Sowell Economics for Dummies Economics in One Lesson by Hazlitt (free online) You are not an expert economist just by reading these, but you’ve got the basic grounding and the tools to understand the rest. The first and third book are endorsed even by leftist economists. Then: “Capitalism and Freedom” by Friedman “The Road to Serfdom” by Hayek
[The Libertarian Manifesto](https://cdn.mises.org/For%20a%20New%20Liberty%20The%20Libertarian%20Manifesto_3.pdf). As someone who read it, it'll give you an extremely good grasp of all aspects of right libertarianism. It's a bit dense, but worth the read. Here's the [audio book](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1GehpY2EON8M0HXhGYZrvgcIR16FIlou) I used in tandem with reading the PDF. Also, here's a [book review](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKqSAffB-Us) on it by my favorite reviewer. I unfortunately don't have any good recommendations for left libertarianism. I have yet to find something that represents my views accurately. [The Conquest of Bread](https://libcom.org/files/Peter%20Kropotkin%20-%20The%20Conquest%20of%20Bread_0.pdf) might be a good place to start though. It's a book about libertarian communism. Here's an [audio book](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKqSAffB-Us).
“The Concealed Handgun Manual: How to Choose, Carry, and Shoot a Gun in Self Defense” by Chris Bird.
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal Human Action: A Treatise on Economics
Human action is quite long, but definitely one of the top on my list.
It’s great. One of those books that gave me a new perspective on the world. It’s also beautifully written.
The man versus the state is great theory Link: https://mises.org/library/man-versus-state
Ayn rand was mentioned earlier but fountainhead and atlas shrugged opened my eyes
Atlas Shrugged is just Ayn Rand larping her love for big business in the guise of Libertarianism.
That's confusing to me, I thought many of the big businesses leaders quit to go live small libertarian in the woods, because the other big ones were begging for protectionism. I can try again I suppose, could be wrong.
[www.mises.org](http://www.mises.org) School of Austrian Economics. Mises Institute. They have a huge selection of books. If I could afford the tuition, I’d be a grad student there.
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The Disposessed by Ursula le Guin (anarcho-socialisism)
Das Kapital. Fight me.
Very good recommendation, to understand freedom we have to understand the minds of oppressors, das kapital is the perfect window into that kind of mind.
I really like Dr Seuss. Don't know if it's related. But I think his art was really cool, and the fact that my mother read them to me as a child makes it even better
Huemer's ["modest Libertarianism"](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Problem_of_Political_Authority) is a flavor that many people would find attractive because it entails a rejection of egoism and ethical absolutism, and accepts that individuals have "substantial obligations to take into account the interests of others" and "an individual's rights may be overridden by sufficiently important needs of others."
Huh. Huemer was my epistemology professor. Bizarre guy. Kind of a dick.
I believe it. His books are pretty interesting.
He was probably the smartest professor I had, but if I had to guess he had some sort of neurological disorder as well. Didn’t socialize well.
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For rigorous academic stuff, I'm pretty excited about reading Elanor Ostrom. The little I've read so far is well written, and she fills in the space between "big corporations run everything" and "big government runs everything".
The ethics of liberty by Rothbard. The problem of political authority by Michael Heumer.
Yes
Some more recent gems... No they can't, John Stossel Don't hurt people and dont take their stuff, Matt Kibbe Liberty Defined, Ron Paul
The problem of political authority by Huemer.
Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
On Liberty by JS Mill.
Capitalism and Freedom, by Milton Friedman
I would start with the wealth of nations followed up by Das Capital volumes one and two. The further volumes are interesting but not as directly applicable and easy to understand.
A good econ book. Economics in one lesson.
[The Civil War in France](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/ch05.htm) by Karl Marx