Opposing Books

[CELMX]

Hey guys,

I was wondering if anyone could recommend some (relatively easy, for i'm kinda a beginner) books kind of opposite to Karl Marx, etc.

Something along the lines of Adam Smith, Friedman, etc.

thx:)

[danyboy27]

Hey guys,

I was wondering if anyone could recommend some (relatively easy, for i'm kinda a beginner) books kind of opposite to Karl Marx, etc.

Something along the lines of Adam Smith, Friedman, etc.

thx:)

i guess leviathan by thomas hobbes is a must.
if you consider communism seek the abolition of state, you wil find a lot of good stuff in it.

[maya]

"Free to choose" by Milton Friedman is probably the only free market book I have read in full. An easy read, and summarizes the mainstream position well.

More extreme is "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal" which is a collection of essays by Ayn Rand, Alan Greenspan and others. More extreme still is the "Virtue of Selfishness" which tries to morally justify capitalism as superior to everything else.

Just remember when you are reading this sort of stuff to notice what angle they are coming from. They will always praise things as being 'efficient' or 'profitable' or whatever, but never answer: profitable to who?

Hope this helps!

[Bankotsu]

Let me give you a few examples of how the lack of adequate paradigms blocks our understanding of the history of our subject.

The area of political action in our society is a circle in which at least four actors may intervene: the government, individuals, communities, and voluntary associations, especially corporations.

Yet, for the last century, discussion of political actions, and especially the controversies arising out of such actions, have been carried on in terms of only two actors, the government and the individual. Nineteenth century books often assumed a polarization of the individual versus the state, while many twentieth century books seek to portray the state as the solution of most individuals' problems.

Conservatives, from von Hayek to Ayn Rand, now try to curtail government in the excuse that this will give more freedom to individuals, while liberals try to destroy communities with the aim of making all individuals identical, including boys and girls.

And since what we get in history is never what any one individual or group is struggling for, but is the resultant of diverse groups struggling, the area of political action will be increasingly reduced to an arena where the individual, detached from any sustaining community, is faced by gigantic and irresponsible corporations.

http://www.carrollquigley.net/Lectures/The-State-of-Communities-AD-976-1576.htm




The administrative system and elections are dominated today by the private power of money flows and corporation activities.

I want to read you a summary from James Willard Hurst’s "The Legitimacy of the Business Corporation in the Law of the United States from 1780 to 1970". He points out that there was powerful anti-corporation feeling in the United States in the 1820's. Therefore, it was established by the states that corporations could not exist by prescription: they had to have charters. They had to have a limited term of life and not be immortal. Corporations today are immortal: if they get charters, they can live forever and bury us all. They had to have a limited purpose. Who is giving us this bread made of sawdust? ITT: International Telephone and Telegraph, the same corporation that drove Ivar Kreuger to suicide in Paris in April 1931, when it actually was an international telegraph corporation, controlled by J P. Morgan.

I won't take time to read all these things, but certain thin regulations were established in the United States regarding corporations: restricted purpose and activities especially by banks and insurance companies; prohibition on one corporation's holding the stock of another without specific statutory grant; limits on the span of the life of the corporation, requiring recurrent legislative scrutiny; limits on total assets; limits on new issues of capital, so that the proportion of control of existing stockholders could be maintained; limits on the votes allowed to any stockholder, regardless of the size of his holding; and so forth.

By 1890 all of these had been destroyed by judicial interpretation which extended to corporations -- fictitious persons -- those constitutional rights guaranteed, especially by the Fifteenth Amendment, to living persons. This interpretation was made possible by Roscoe Conklin, known as "Turkey Strut Conklin," who told the Supreme Court that there were no records kept by the committee of the Senate that had drawn up the Fifteenth Amendment. But he had kept private notes which showed they had the intended the word "person" to include corporations. It was most convenient. The corporation that was hiring him to do this suitably rewarded him.

Now I come to my last statement. I regret ending on what is, I suppose, such a pessimistic note -- I'm not personally pessimistic. The final result will be that the American people will ultimately prefer communities...

http://www.carrollquigley.net/Lectures/The-State-of-Individuals-AD-1776-1976.htm





This advantage became so great in the period 1865-1880 that the forces of finance, commerce, and industry were forced to contribute ever-increasing largesse to the political machines in order to obtain the services from government which they regarded as their due, services such as higher tariffs, land grants to railroads, better postal services, and mining or timber concessions.

The fact that these forces of finance and business were themselves growing in wealth and power made them increasingly restive under the need to make constantly larger contributions to party political machines.

Moreover, these economic tycoons increasingly felt it to be unseemly that they should be unable to issue orders but instead have to negotiate as equals in order to obtain services or favors from party bosses.
By the late 1870's business leaders determined to make an end to this situation by cutting with one blow the taproot of the system of party machines, namely, the patronage system.

This system, which they called by the derogatory term "spoils system," was objectionable to big business not so much because it led to dishonesty or inefficiency but because it made the party machines independent of business control by giving them a source of income (campaign contributions from government employees) which was independent of business control.

If this source could be cut off or even sensibly reduced, politicians would be much more dependent upon business contributions for campaign expenses.

At a time when the growth of a mass press and of the use of chartered trains for political candidates were greatly increasing the expense of campaigning for office, any reduction in campaign contributions from officeholders would inevitably make politicians more subservient to business.

It was with this aim in view that civil service reform began in the Federal government with the Pendleton Bill of 1883.

As a result, the government was controlled with varying degrees of completeness by the forces of investment banking and heavy industry from 1884 to 1933.

This period, 1884-1933, was the period of financial capitalism in which investment bankers moving into commercial banking and insurance on one side and into railroading and heavy industry on the other were able to mobilize enormous wealth and wield enormous economic, political, and social power. Popularly known as "Society," or the "400," they lived a life of dazzling splendor.

Sailing the ocean in great private yachts or traveling on land by private trains, they moved in a ceremonious round between their spectacular estates and town houses in Palm Beach, Long Island, the Berkshires, Newport, and Bar Harbor; assembling from their fortress-like New York residences to attend the Metropolitan Opera under the critical eye of Mrs. Astor; or gathering for business meetings of the highest strategic level in the awesome presence of J. P. Morgan himself...

http://real-world-news.org/bk-quigley/02.html#6




Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act

The Pendleton (investment) Civil Service Reform Act (ch. 27, 22 Stat. 403) of 1883 United States federal law established the United States Civil Service Commission, which placed most federal government employees on the merit system and marked the end of the so-called spoils system. The act provided for some government jobs to be filled on the basis of competitive exams...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendleton_Civil_Service_Reform_Act



This system, which they called by the derogatory term "spoils system," was objectionable to big business not so much because it led to dishonesty or inefficiency but because it made the party machines independent of business control by giving them a source of income (campaign contributions from government employees) which was independent of business control.

If this source could be cut off or even sensibly reduced, politicians would be much more dependent upon business contributions for campaign expenses.

At a time when the growth of a mass press and of the use of chartered trains for political candidates were greatly increasing the expense of campaigning for office, any reduction in campaign contributions from officeholders would inevitably make politicians more subservient to business.

It was with this aim in view that civil service reform began in the Federal government with the Pendleton Bill of 1883.

As a result, the government was controlled with varying degrees of completeness by the forces of investment banking and heavy industry from 1884 to 1933...


When the business interests, led by William C. Whitney, pushed through the first installment of civil service reform in 1883, they expected that they would be able to control both political parties equally.

Indeed, some of them intended to contribute to both and to allow an alternation of the two parties in public office in order to conceal their own influence, inhibit any exhibition of independence by politicians, and allow the electorate to believe that they were exercising their own free choice.

Such an alternation of the parties on the Federal scene occurred in the period 1880-1896, with business influence (or at least Morgan's influence) as great in Democratic as in Republican administrations.

But in 1896 came a shocking experience. The business interests discovered that they could control the Republican Party to a large degree but could not be nearly so confident of controlling the Democratic Party.

The reason for this difference lay in the existence of the Solid South as a Democratic section with almost no Republican voters.

The inability of plutocracy to control the Democratic Party as it had demonstrated it could control the Republican Party, made it advisable for them to adopt a one-party outlook on political affairs, although they continued to contribute to some extent to both parties and did not cease their efforts to control both.

In fact on two occasions, in 1904 and in 1924, J. P. Morgan was able to sit back with a feeling of satisfaction to watch a presidential election in which the candidates of both parties were in his sphere of influence. In 1924 the Democratic candidate was one of his chief lawyers, while the Republican candidate was the classmate and handpicked choice of his partner, Dwight Morrow.

Usually, Morgan had to share this political influence with other sectors of the business oligarchy, especially with the Rockefeller interest (as was done, for example, by dividing the ticket between them in 1900 and in 1920).

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

Hey guys,

I was wondering if anyone could recommend some (relatively easy, for i'm kinda a beginner) books kind of opposite to Karl Marx, etc.

Something along the lines of Adam Smith, Friedman, etc.

thx:)

I'm not a big reader of anti-Marxist literature. I only get conservative viewpoints from my education. Occasionally, I will read something on my own.

Hobbes: The Leviathan

This offers contract theory justifications for oppression. The arguments aren't particularly astounding, but his idea of a state of nature can be used in opposition to the possibility of communism.

John Locke: Two Treatises on Human Nature.

Locke argues property rights are the reason states exist. Arguments for this aren't amazing, but he is a bit better than Hobbes.

Robert Nozick: Anarchy, State, and Utopia

He responds to John Rawls, a liberal, but his arguments can apply to communist theory. He argues that people would willingly consent to a capitalist economic system in order to reward the most talented people and encourage them to improve society. He also has a few arguments such as a "society on an island" that make a decent case against wealth redistribution.

John Rawls:

Argues that people can consent to inequality. He is a liberal, but some of his ideas are in opposition to communist theory.

Oakeshot: I completely forget what he wrote about. Something conservative.

Burke: I think he wrote about generational responsibility and the idea that your ancestors can consent to government for you (yes, he actually said that).

[Manifesto]

Theres Mussolini a bit obvious though.

[Havet]

Hey guys,

I was wondering if anyone could recommend some (relatively easy, for i'm kinda a beginner) books kind of opposite to Karl Marx, etc.

Something along the lines of Adam Smith, Friedman, etc.

thx:)

The Machinery of Freedom - David D. Friedman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machinery_of_Freedom) (basically its about anarcho-capitalism) *not free*

Studies in Mutualist Political Economy - Kevin Carson (http://www.mutualist.org/id112.html) (basically about mutualism/market anarchism) *free*

The Market for Liberty Audiobook (http://freekeene.com/free-audiobook/) (about right-libertarianism in general) *free*

New Libertarian Manifesto - Samuel Konkin III (http://www.agorism.info/NewLibertarianManifesto.pdf) (the introduction of Agorism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agorism)) *free*

Agorist Class Theory - Samuel Konkin III (http://www.agorism.info/AgoristClassTheory.pdf) (the title explains what its about) *free*

[mikelepore]

"The Road to Serfdom" by Friedrich Hayek, published 1944, was a major influence on the later 20th century conservative movement, warning about socialism being a form of slavery. He gave conservatives a package of claims to insert mindlessly into their speeches, such as socialism equals big government equals inefficient, unlike a capitalist company, which as we all know is progress and flexibility, etc., etc.