Book picks similar to
Cooperation and Coercion: How Busybodies Became Busybullies and What that Means for Economics and Politics by Antony Davies
economics
non-fiction
politics
politics-and-social-sciences
The Law
Frédéric Bastiat - 1849
More specifically, the problem of law that itself violates law is an insurmountable conundrum of all statist philosophies. The problem has never been discussed so profoundly and passionately as in this essay by Frederic Bastiat from 1850. The essay might have been written today. It applies in ever way to our own time, which is precisely why so many people credit this one essay for showing them the light of liberty. Bastiat's essay here is timeless because applies whenever and wherever the state assumes unto itself different rules and different laws from that by which it expects other people to live. And so we have this legendary essay, written in a white heat against the leaders of 19th century France, the reading of which has shocked millions out of their toleration of despotism. This new edition from the Mises Institute revives a glorious translation that has been out of print for a hundred years, one that circulated in Britain in the generation that followed Bastiat's death. This newly available translation provides new insight into Bastiat's argument. It is a more sophisticated, more substantial, and more precise rendering than any in print. The question that Bastiat deals with: how to tell when a law is unjust or when the law maker has become a source of law breaking? When the law becomes a means of plunder it has lost its character of genuine law. When the law enforcer is permitted to do with others' lives and property what would be illegal if the citizens did them, the law becomes perverted. Bastiat doesn't avoid the difficult issues, such as why should we think that a democratic mandate can convert injustice to justice. He deals directly with the issue of the expanse of legislation: It is not true that the mission of the law is to regulate our consciences, our ideas, our will, our education, our sentiments, our sentiments, our exchanges, our gifts, our enjoyments. Its mission is to prevent the rights of one from interfering with those of another, in any one of these things. Law, because it has force for its necessary sanction, can only have the domain of force, which is justice. More from Bastiat's The Law: Socialism, like the old policy from which it emanates, confounds Government and society. And so, every time we object to a thing being done by Government, it concludes that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of education by the State - then we are against education altogether. We object to a State religion - then we would have no religion at all. We object to an equality which is brought about by the State then we are against equality, etc., etc. They might as well accuse us of wishing men not to eat, because we object to the cultivation of corn by the State. How is it that the strange idea of making the law produce what it does not contain - prosperity, in a positive sense, wealth, science, religion - should ever have gained ground in the political world? The modern politicians, particularly those of the Socialist school, found their different theories upon one common hypothesis; and surely a more strange, a more presumptuous notion, could never have entered a human brain. They divide mankind into two parts. Men in general, except one, form the first; the politician himself forms the second, which is by far the most important. Whether you buy one or one hundred, you can look forward to one of the most penetrating and powerful essays written in the history of political economy.
Democracy in America
Alexis de Tocqueville - 1835
Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat, came to the young nation to investigate the functioning of American democracy & the social, political & economic life of its citizens, publishing his observations in 1835 & 1840. Brilliantly written, vividly illustrated with vignettes & portraits, Democracy in America is far more than a trenchant analysis of one society at a particular point in time. What will most intrigue modern readers is how many of the observations still hold true: on the mixed advantages of a free press, the strained relations among the races & the threats posed to democracies by consumerism & corruption. So uncanny is Tocqueville’s insight & so accurate are his predictions, that it seems as tho he were not merely describing the American identity but actually helping to create it.
FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression
Jim Powell - 2003
For generations, the collective American consciousness has believed that the former ruined the country and the latter saved it. Endless praise has been heaped upon President Franklin Delano Roosevelt for masterfully reining in the Depression’s destructive effects and propping up the country on his New Deal platform. In fact, FDR has achieved mythical status in American history and is considered to be, along with Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln, one of the greatest presidents of all time. But would the Great Depression have been so catastrophic had the New Deal never been implemented?In FDR’s Folly, historian Jim Powell argues that it was in fact the New Deal itself, with its shortsighted programs, that deepened the Great Depression, swelled the federal government, and prevented the country from turning around quickly. You’ll discover in alarming detail how FDR’s federal programs hurt America more than helped it, with effects we still feel today, including:• How Social Security actually increased unemployment• How higher taxes undermined good businesses• How new labor laws threw people out of work• And much moreThis groundbreaking book pulls back the shroud of awe and the cloak of time enveloping FDR to prove convincingly how flawed his economic policies actually were, despite his good intentions and the astounding intellect of his circle of advisers. In today’s turbulent domestic and global environment, eerily similar to that of the 1930s, it’s more important than ever before to uncover and understand the truth of our history, lest we be doomed to repeat it.From the Hardcover edition.
Conservatives Without Conscience
John W. Dean - 2006
Bush, offered the former White House insider's telling perspective on George W. Bush's presidency. Once again, he employs his knowledge & understanding of Washington politics & process to examine the conservative movement's current inner circle of radical Republican leaders--from Capitol Hill to Pennsylvania Ave to K Street & beyond. In Conservatives without Conscience, he not only highlights specific right-wing-driven GOP policies but also probes the conservative mindset, identifying recurring qualities such as the unbridled viciousness toward those daring to disagree with them, as well as the big business favoritism that costs taxpayers billions. He identifies specific examples of how court-packing seeks to form a judiciary that is biased by its very nature, how religious piety is producing politics run amok & how concealed indifference to the founding principles of liberty & equality is pushing America further & further from its constitutional foundations. By the end, he paints a vivid picture of what's happening at the top levels of the Republican Party, a party corrupted by leaders who cloak their actions in moral superiority while packaging their programs in blatant propaganda. He finds disturbing signs that current right-wing authoritarian thinking, when conflated with the domineering personalities of the conservative leadership, could take the USA toward its own version of fascism.
Stronger: Courage, Hope, and Humor In My Life With John McCain
Cindy Mccain - 2021
He had more tenacity and resolve than anybody I ever met. Being with him didn’t hold me back—it gave me flight, a courage I never would have felt on my own.Cindy Hensley was just out of college when she met and fell in love with the celebrated Navy hero John McCain. They embarked on a thrilling life together that put her at the center of American politics for over four decades. In this moving and inspiring memoir, Cindy McCain tells the story of her adventurous life with John for the first time. Raising their four children in Arizona while John flourished as a six-term senator in Washington, D.C., Cindy brought her own flair to the role of political wife. She eagerly supported John’s career even as she tried hard to stay out of the spotlight and maintain her own health and well-being. She is honest in revealing her own successes and missteps, discussing how she dealt with political attacks targeting her children, her battle with opioid addiction, and the wild whirl of campaigning for president. As they built their life together, Cindy and John continued the multi-generation McCain tradition of service to country. With both immense pride and deep worry, she sent two sons off to active duty in the military. She describes her own brave efforts bringing medical support to countries in crisis and empowering women in Africa and around the world. And she reveals her feelings about the tumultuous effects of the Trump presidency on the military. Most important, this book shares how John’s humor and strength helped Cindy grow into the confident woman she is now. More than a political story, Stronger is the unforgettable journey of one woman who believes in family, honor, and country—and is willing to stand up for all of them.
10 Books That Screwed Up the World: And 5 Others That Didn't Help
Benjamin Wiker - 2008
From Machiavelli's The Prince to Alfred Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, from Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto to Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa, these "influential" books have led to war, genocide, totalitarian oppression, the breakdown of the family, and disastrous social experiments. And yet the toxic ideas peddled in these books are more popular and pervasive than ever. In fact, they might influence your own thinking without your realizing it. Fortunately, Professor Benjamin Wiker is ready with an antidote, exposing the beguiling errors in each of these evil books. Witty, learned, and provocative, 10 Books That Screwed Up the World provides a quick education in the worst ideas in human history and explains how we can avoid them in the future.
Imperium
Francis Parker Yockey - 1948
It is inspired by Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West. Imperium advocates the creation of a pan-European empire governed by sound principles or 'absolute politics'. It is divided into five parts, which are concerned with History, Politics, 'Cultural Vitalism', America and the World Situation. Imperium deals with doctrinal matters as well giving a survey of the 'world situation' in the 20th century. "In this book," writes Yockey, "are the precise, organic foundations of the Western soul, and in particular, its Imperative at the present stage." "...What is written here is also for the true America, even though the effective America of the moment, and of the immediate future is a hostile America, an America of willing, mass-minded tools in the service of the Culture-distorting political and total enemy of the Western Civilization." "The mission of this generation is the most difficult that has ever faced a Western generation. It must break the terror by which it is held in silence, it must look ahead, it must believe when there is apparently no hope, it must obey even if it means death, it must fight to the end rather than submit. ...The men of this generation must fight for the continued existence of the West..." "The soil of Europe, rendered sacred by the streams of blood which have made it spiritually fertile for a millennium, will once again stream with blood until the barbarians and distorters have been driven out and the Western banner waves on its home soil from Gibraltar to North Cape, from the rocky promontories of Galway to the Urals." The book's Chicago-born author, Francis P. Yockey, was just 30 years old when he wrote Imperium in six months in a quiet village on Ireland's eastern coast. His masterpiece continues to shape the thinking and steel the will of readers around the world.
The Trigger Men: Assassins and Terror Bosses in the Ireland Conflict
Martin Dillon - 2003
Over three decades he has interviewed and investigated some of the most professional, dangerous and ruthless killers in Ireland. Now Dillon explores their personalities, motivations and bizarre crimes.Many of Ireland's assassins learned their trade in fields and on hillsides in remote parts of Ireland, while others were trained in the Middle East or with Basque separatist terrorists in Spain. Some were one-target-one-shot killers, like the sniper who terrorised the inhabitants of Washington State in the autumn of 2002, while others were bombers skilled in designing the most sophisticated explosive devices and booby traps. Another more powerful group of 'trigger men' were the influential figures in the shadows, who were experts in motivating the killers under their control. All of these men, whether they squeezed the trigger on a high-powered rifle, set the timer on a bomb or used their authority to send others out to commit horrific and unspeakable acts of cruelty, are featured in this book. The Trigger Men takes the reader inside the labyrinthine world of terrorist cells and highly classified counter-terrorism units of British Military Intelligence. The individual stories are described in gripping, unflinching detail and show how the terrorists carried out their ghastly work. Dillon also explores the ideology of the cult of the gunmen and the greed and hatred that motivated assassins in their killing sprees. There are penetrating insights into the mindset of the most infamous assassins: their social and historical conditioning, their callousness......
Bannon: Trump's Rebel in the White House
Keith Koffler - 2017
Born to working-class Democrats in Virginia, Bannon has barrelled through the Navy, Harvard, Wall Street, and Hollywood; he is fluent in esoteric philosophies and political theories; and he has diagnosed the problem with today's America---the rot that has eaten away at working Americans' hopes, opportunities, and freedoms---and developed a winning strategy for taking America back.With inside information on Bannon's current White House projects and his relationships with other figures in the Trump orbit---and with President Trump himself---Bannon: Trump's Rebel in the White House is not only a three-dimensional guide to one of the most fascinating figures of modern American history; it's also a guide to understanding the Trump administration's plans for our future.
The End of All Evil
Jeremy Locke - 2006
Evil is found in words such as force, compulsion, tax, violence, theft, censure, and politics. Notice that in such things, there is no joy. None have any value to humanity. This book defines the doctrine of liberty, and teaches you why choices that affect your life can only rightfully be made by you.
The Money Mafia: A World in Crisis
Paul T. Hellyer - 2014
It further urges an immediate worldwide mobilization to replace the energy source in every car, truck, tractor, ship, airplane, and house on Earth in seven years in a desperate effort to save the planet from further overheating. The book blasts government secrecy, and more than 65 years of supposed lies and disinformation, and demands full disclosure of what they know about visitors from other realms and their technology and the extent of their collaboration, including any treaties that may have been signed by them. With more than 65 years of participation in and observation of political and economic systems—beginning with the Great Depression, extending through World War II, the postwar era of hope for a better life, the Cold War, the subjugation of democracy by oligarchy, and the subtle but continuous militarization of America—Paul T. Hellyer analyzes what he believes has gone wrong with the world and its economy and suggests radical measures to introduce a universal culture of peace and cooperation.
Only One Thing Can Save Us: Why America Needs a New Kind of Labor Movement
Thomas Geoghegan - 2012
Geoghegan makes his argument for labor with stories, sometimes humorous but more often chilling, about the problems working people like his own clients—from cabdrivers to schoolteachers—now face, increasingly powerless in our union-free economy. He explains why a new kind of labor movement (and not just more higher education) is the real program the Democrats should push—not just to save the middle class from bankruptcy but to revive Keynes’s original and sometimes forgotten ideas for getting the rich to invest and reducing our balance of trade, and to promote John Dewey’s vision of a “democratic way of life,” one that would start in the schools and continue in our places of work.A “public policy” book that is compulsively readable, Only One Thing Can Save Us is vintage Geoghegan, blending acerbic, witty commentary with unparalleled insight into the real dynamics (and human experience) of working in America today.
American Cause
Russell Kirk - 1957
Russell Kirk, whose life and thought has recently been featured in C-SPAN's acclaimed American Writers series -- intended this little book to be an assertion of the moral and social principles upholding our nation. Kirk's primer is an aid to reflection on those principles -- political, economic, and religious -- that have united Americans when faced with challenges and threats from the enemies of ordered freedom. In this new age of terrorism, Kirk's lucid and straightforward presentation of the articles of American belief is both necessary and welcome. Gleaves Whitney's newly edited version of Kirk's work, combined with his insightful commentary, make The American Cause a timely addition to the literature of liberty.
Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear... and Why
Sady Doyle - 2016
She’s Britney Spears shaving her head, Whitney Houston saying, “crack is whack,” and Amy Winehouse, dying in front of millions. But the trainwreck is also as old (and as meaningful) as feminism itself. From Mary Wollstonecraft—who, for decades after her death, was more famous for her illegitimate child and suicide attempts than for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman—to Charlotte Brontë, Billie Holiday, Sylvia Plath, and even Hillary Clinton, Sady Doyle’s Trainwreck dissects a centuries-old phenomenon and asks what it means now, in a time when we have unprecedented access to celebrities and civilians alike, and when women are pushing harder than ever against the boundaries of what it means to “behave.” Where did these women come from? What are their crimes? And what does it mean for the rest of us? For an age when any form of self-expression can be the one that ends you, Sady Doyle’s book is as fierce and intelligent as it is funny and compassionate—an essential, timely, feminist anatomy of the female trainwreck.
Free to Choose: A Personal Statement
Milton Friedman - 1980
In this classic discussion, Milton and Rose Friedman explain how our freedom has been eroded and our affluence undermined through the explosion of laws, regulations, agencies, and spending in Washington. This important analysis reveals what has gone wrong in America in the past and what is necessary for our economic health to flourish.