~~~ Must Read Books ~~~

[PreDeadMan]

what's a good book on the rankings of the us presidents... not in the mainstream sense if you know what i mean, from sort of libertarian thinkers lol?

[bobbyw24]

Read the Introduction for an eye-opening look at what's really going on with your money!
Or listen to it here...

Excerpts

LESSONS FROM
THE WIZARD OF OZ

"The great Oz as spoken! Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! I am the great and powerful Wizard of Oz!"
In refreshing contrast to the impenetrable writings of economists, the classic fairytale The Wizard of Oz has delighted young and old for over a century. It was first published by L. Frank Baum as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900. In 1939, it was made into a hit Hollywood movie starring Judy Garland, and later it was made into the popular stage play The Wiz. Few of the millions who have enjoyed this charming tale have suspected that its imagery was drawn from that most obscure and tedious of subjects, banking and finance. Fewer still have suspected that the real-life folk heroes who inspired its plot may have had the answer to the financial crisis facing the country today!

The economic allusions in Baum's tale were first observed in 1964 by a schoolteacher named Henry Littlefield, who called the story "a parable on Populism," referring to the People's Party movement challenging the banking monopoly in the late nineteenth century.1 Other analysts later picked up the theme. Economist Hugh Rockoff, writing in the Journal of Political Economy in 1990, called the story a "monetary allegory."2 Professor Tim Ziaukas, writing in 1998, stated:

"The Wizard of Oz" . . . was written at a time when American society was consumed by the debate over the "financial question," that is, the creation and circulation of money. . . . The characters of "The Wizard of Oz" represented those deeply involved in the debate: the Scarecrow as the farmers, the Tin Woodman as the industrial workers, the Lion as silver advocate William Jennings Bryan and Dorothy as the archetypal American girl.3
The Germans established the national fairytale tradition with Grimm's Fairy Tales, a collection of popular folklore gathered by the Brothers Grimm specifically to reflect German populist traditions and national values.4 Baum's tale did the same thing for the American populist (or people's) tradition. The Wizard of Oz has been called "the first truly American fairytale."5 It was all about people power, manifesting your dreams, finding what you wanted in your own backyard. According to Littlefield, the march of Dorothy and her friends to the Emerald City to petition the Wizard of Oz for help was patterned after the 1894 march from Ohio to Washington of an "Industrial Army" led by Jacob Coxey, urging Congress to return to the Greenback system initiated by Abraham Lincoln. The march of Coxey's Army on Washington began a long tradition of people taking to the streets in peaceful protest when there seemed no other way to voice their appeals. As Lawrence Goodwin, author of The Populist Moment, described the nineteenth century movement to change the money system:

[T]here was once a time in history when people acted. . . . [F]armers were trapped in debt. They were the most oppressed of Americans, they experimented with cooperative purchasing and marketing, they tried to find their own way out of the strangle hold of debt to merchants, but none of this could work if they couldn't get capital. So they had to turn to politics, and they had to organize themselves into a party. . . . [T]he populists didn't just organize a political party, they made a movement. They had picnics and parties and newsletters and classes and courses, and they taught themselves, and they taught each other, and they became a group of people with a sense of purpose, a group of people with courage, a group of people with dignity.6

http://www.webofdebt.com/excerpts/chapter-1.php

[RSLudlum]

what's a good book on the rankings of the us presidents... not in the mainstream sense if you know what i mean, from sort of libertarian thinkers lol?

You can try
Recarving Rushmore by Ivan Eland and Reassessing the Presidency published by Mises Institute

[Morgan Brykein]

The Cult of the Presidency
By Gene Healy

The evolution of the presidency, from a simple chief magistrate to the leader of the free world.

Gaming the Vote: Why Elections aren't Fair
By William Poundstone

Why our system of plurality voting is not the best possible system. There are other alternatives, especially one the author endorses: range voting.

The House
By Robert Remini

The history of the U.S. House of Representatives.

[ronpaulhawaii]

Gutenburg.org has MEMOIRS OF EXTRAORDINARY POPULAR DELUSIONS online

[Baptist]

Tom Wood's Nullification and Peter Schiff's How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes.

[georgiaboy]

Gotta get a Thomas Wood book next.

The Forgotten Man - Amity Shlaes. real winner, takes the reader through the Depression 1929 - 1939 loosely. Basically says that the estraordinary gov't programs of Hoover and FDR were not successful in doing what they were expected to do. The book chronicles the events through the major players of the era, people I hadn't been introduced to before - Tugwell, Ickes, Chase, Wilkie, Lilienthal, and on and on. Highly recommended.

[2young2vote]

Just got done with "The Unincorporated Man." It is a science fiction book based in the future. It is about a modern day billionare who wakes up in the 2300s. The world is basically a libertarian utopia where everyone generally respects the property rights of everyone else. The government is extremely limited to the point that we would all like and corporations and much larger than they are now because they are allowed to be that big. The only problem is that the main character finds out that they have a social system built upon a person having stock and that stock can be bought and sold by anyone or anything (corporations) else. That means that if a person does not have majority in themselves then their shareholders can force them to do basically whatever they want.

The book also has private competing currencies and it goes into great detail about the social system at work.

There aren't too many books that are like this that i know of, so I very much suggest this to anyone who wants science fiction with a bit of libertarian philosophy.

It is a trilogy and i have yet to read the second on in the series.

[Sola_Fide]

Truth is axiomatic, not empirical:





The public education system is the training ground for future State-worshippers:





Christianity solves the philosophical problem of order and ultimacy:





Value is found in the subject, not the object:

[lester1/2jr]

fiction

The Pyramid



Albanian novelist Kadare (The Concert), living in political exile in France since 1991, spins cogent tales about the temptations and evils of totalitarian bureaucracy. His latest carries a universal message. Set in ancient Egypt-where Pharaoh Cheops oversees the construction of his tomb, the highest, most majestic pyramid ever, to be built by tens of thousands of his brainwashed subjects-the novel's hypnotically Kafkaesque narrative exposes the alienating, destructive effects of investing unquestioned power in a ruler, a state or a religion. The massive pyramid devours Egypt's resources and energies. Thousands die as it rises ever higher, and Cheops, depicted as a power-mad lunatic who craves adulation, periodically unleashes waves of arrests and torture of those falsely accused of sabotaging the project. Analogies to Stalin's paranoia, bloody purges and other terrors spring to mind, but the story takes on a broader meaning, demonstrating how a state or a ruling elite can mold public opinion so that its citizens willingly act against their own best interests.

[JackieDan]

Crash proof by peter schiff is a good one.

[Black Mamba]

Have any of you guys heard of The Cult of the Presidency by Gene Healy?

[2young2vote]

Does anyone know of any books specifically about private competing currencies? I read a Science Fiction book called The Unincorporated Man that was based in the future and it gave a pretty good example of private competing currencies, but i would like something that focuses just on that.

[teacherone]

miss you conza

[IDefendThePlatform]

Does anyone know of any books specifically about private competing currencies? I read a Science Fiction book called The Unincorporated Man that was based in the future and it gave a pretty good example of private competing currencies, but i would like something that focuses just on that.

I haven't actually read it myself, but this one looks decent:


http://www.amazon.com/Free-Banking-L...ref=pd_sim_b_5

[Suzu]

Reagan: In Pursuit of the Presidency 1980 by Doug Wead - fascinating

[Conza88]

miss you conza

Haha thanks .

I actually forgot about this thread. Might go back and edit things up. Although I think there's been a wiki created to do the same thing.

[talkingpointes]

Haha thanks .

I actually forgot about this thread. Might go back and edit things up. Although I think there's been a wiki created to do the same thing.

Good to see you back.

[Sjmfury]

This is a great list of books for anyone interested in politics.

[Todd]

One of the best books about our fall to ignornance I ever read.



Neal Postman - Amusing Ourselves To Death. Public discourse in the age of show business.

Neil Postman’s groundbreaking polemic about the corrosive effects of television on our politics and public discourse has been hailed as a twenty-first-century book published in the twentieth century. Now, with television joined by more sophisticated electronic media—from the Internet to cell phones to DVDs—it has taken on even greater significance. Amusing Ourselves to Death is a prophetic look at what happens when politics, journalism, education, and even religion become subject to the demands of entertainment. It is also a blueprint for regaining controlof our media, so that they can serve our highest goals

[jasonxe]

So many books, i dunno where to start, especially for someone who is just getting into this. Any suggestions? (non-fiction)

[Conza88]

So many books, i dunno where to start, especially for someone who is just getting into this. Any suggestions? (non-fiction)

Good day sir. What are you interested in specifically? How the world works? How it should work? Justice?

Political philosophy? Austrian Economics? History?

[jasonxe]

Good day sir. What are you interested in specifically? How the world works? How it should work? Justice?

Political philosophy? Austrian Economics? History?

(in no particular order)
Im partially intrigue with this conversation of self government and free markets/current debt today. Also Liberation philosophy which I like to study about. On the side history.

I'm not sure where to start.

[Conza88]

(in no particular order)
Im partially intrigue with this conversation of self government and free markets/current debt today. Also Liberation philosophy which I like to study about. On the side history.

I'm not sure where to start.

-> . Well, Ron Paul recommends - For A New Liberty, by Murray N. Rothbard. That'd be a great start imo. Free pdf at the link, and here is the audiobook if you're interested.

In terms of free markets / current debt - possibly; "What Has Government Done to Our Money?", which Ron Paul also recommends.

You'll get a great grasp of the fundamentals.

[Original_Intent]

I think Frederic Bastiat's "The Law" is a great starting point. pdf at http://www.fee.org/pdf/books/The_Law.pdf and free audiobook at http://freeaudio.org/fbastiat/thelaw.html

[Revolution0918]

just finished AFTERSHOCK, great book about the bubbles and what is coming in the near future

[Conza88]

I think Frederic Bastiat's "The Law" is a great starting point. pdf at http://www.fee.org/pdf/books/The_Law.pdf and free audiobook at http://freeaudio.org/fbastiat/thelaw.html

Yep. Also one of the very first books I read.

[Wesker1982]

(in no particular order)
Im partially intrigue with this conversation of self government and free markets/current debt today. Also Liberation philosophy which I like to study about. On the side history.

I'm not sure where to start.

For a New Liberty is definitely the best. Nowhere near as detailed and extensive, but a great intro is Chaos Theory by Bob Murphy. It is really short but gives a good basic outline.

I also recommend checking out my thread here.

[Theocrat]

I'm currently reading Son of Hamas, and it is an excellent chronicle of the political/religious culture of the conflicts between Jews and Arabs. It was written by one of the sons of one of the founding members of Hamas, and he does a wonderful job of sharing his experiences inside the world of the "War on Terrorism," taken from both sides.

[bolil]

If I were you, I would start with Plato's Republic paying special attention to his allegory of the cave and to the "noble lie" he explains. The cities he builds in the Republic, demonstrate accurately enough the exponential increase in complexity necessarily seen in a society as the factors of production are diversified to provide means to achieving diversified ends. Best thing I've learned in my vacuous life is to always read with a dictionary handy, a good collegiate level dictionary.