Thursday, November 6, 2008

Libertarian reading list



Courtesy of libertarian legal theorist Stephan Kinsella:

The following are listed in the order I would recommend reading them, or in order of appropriateness for an introductory text:

    1.    Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt.

    2.    For a New Liberty by Murray N. Rothbard.

    3.    The Machinery of Freedom by David Friedman (Milton's son).

    4.    Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.

    5.    The Virtue of Selfishness and Capitalism:  The Unknown Ideal by Ayn Rand.

    These are probably the most important ones.  Other good introductory books are:

    6.    Capitalism and Freedom and Free to Choose by Milton Friedman.

    7.    The Law by Frederick Bastiat.

    8.    In Pursuit:  of Happiness and Good Government by Charles Murray.

    9.    Libertarianism in One Lesson, 5th edition (1990) by David Bergland.

    10.    The Libertarian Alternative, collection of essays edited by Tibor Machan.

    11.    The Free Market Reader edited by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

    12.    Libertarianism by John Hospers (though I have never read this one).

    13.    The Freedom Philosophy, collection of essays published by the Foundation for Economic Education.

    How about some excellent libertarian fiction (I already mentioned Atlas Shrugged):

    14.    The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.  Also We, the Living and Anthem.

    15.    The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein, the grandmaster of science fiction.

    16.    Alongside Night by J. Neil Schulman.

    For some more sophistocated books, past the introductory level, I would recommend highly these:

    17.    Anarchy, State and Utopia by Robert Nozick.

    18.    A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism:  Economics, Politics and Ethics, and The Economics and Ethics of Private Property, by Hans-Hermann Hoppe.

    19.    The Ethics of Liberty by Murray Rothbard.

    20.    The Market for Liberty by Morris and Linda Tannehill.

    21.    Freedom and the Law by Bruno Leoni.

    22.    The Libertarian Idea by Jan Narveson.

    23.    Persons, Rights, and the Moral Community by Loren Lomasky.

    24.    "Ordering Rights Consistently:  Or What We Do and Do Not Have Rights To," by Roger A. Pilon, in 13 Georgia Law Review 1171 (1979).

    25.    Human Rights and Human Liberties and Individuals and Their Rights by Tibor Machan.

    26.    The God of the Machine by Isabel Paterson.

    27.    The Discovery of Freedom by Rose Wilder Lane (mother of Laura Ingalls Wilder, who wrote the Little House on the Prairie series)


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