Bitcoin Forum

This subforum is about discussing views on politics. What book would you recommend for others to read that you consider significant?

I would go with this http://www.amazon.com/Against-Intellectual-Monopoly-Michele-Boldrin/dp/0521879280 . Currently IPR's are the biggest issue for me.

THE LAW by Frederic Bastiat

Atom shared this book with me:

http://www.amazon.com/Starfish-Spider-Unstoppable-Leaderless-Organizations/dp/1591841437

Many here would do well to read this book: http://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Edward-Bernays/dp/0970312598

This isn't a book specifically about politics, but the most important and most enlightening book I ever read about anything was The Creature from Jekyll Island by Edward G. Griffin, which is available on sites like piratebay as a .pdf torrent, or on Amazon for about 20 bucks

http://www.amazon.com/Creature-Jekyll-Island-Edward-Griffin/dp/091298645X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1309142357&sr=8-1

If you have never heard of it, it's worth watching the 12 part talk/summary given by the author in the early 90s, it does a damn good job of explaining where we came from and where we'd go (and now have gone)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu_VqX6J93k

In political fiction: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein.

"History of Money and Banking from the Colonial Era to the IIWW" (http://www.amazon.com/History-Money-Banking-United-States/dp/0945466331) by Murray Rothbard

Perfect to understand how different monetary systems work in reality. Also in pdf (http://mises.org/resources/1022).

But... But.... I was going to read Spider & Starfish again today, and out of nowhere you throw a rothbard book on the history of banking at me in an instantly available .pdf?   Not fair.

;)

+1

it even has some applicability to Bitcoin.

The Ethics of Liberty by Murray Rothbard

(Or anything by Murray Rothbard)

Murray Rothbard is my hero.

Anything by Rothbard is great, for that matter.  He is my ideological hero as well.

Nice....

Another sci-fi that makes for an interesting study of Anarchism is this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dispossessed


Also worth a read is Diplomacy by Henry Kissinger.

For a New Liberty - Murray Rothbard

How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes - Peter D Schiff

The Revolution: A Manifesto - Ron Paul

End the Fed - Ron Paul

Life can be tought...

After reading that book, I recomend to read something from the free banking school (something from Lawrence Whilte or George Selgin, I personally prefer the style of the later), because IMHO its an advance on monetary theory from Rothard. Free banking is in my opinion the most important advance in austrian theory of the present day austrian schoolars.

More political fiction:
Alongside Night (http://www.alongsidenight.net) by L. Niel Schulman

For the Non-fiction, I recommend The New Libertarian Manifesto. Most of the online versions have a typo in the first chapter which, once you know about it, really jars, So if you're not going to buy a hardcopy, let me know and I'll get you a good electronic one.

The "Very Short Introduction" series is actually highly readable and not at all dumbed down (not comprehensive, but not dumbed down). I highly recommend

A VSI to Anarchism is excellent

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Hardt and Negri's trilogy Empire / Multitude / Commonwealth is very good, though may be a bit too Marxist for most folks here

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Ursula LeGuin's The Dispossessed is my favorite piece of anarchist dystopia/utopia fiction

"The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment"

Here's a quote from the author:

"The scale of the human socio-economic-political complex system is so large that it seriously interferes with the biospheric complex system upon which it is wholly dependant, and cultural evolution has been too slow to deal effectively with the resulting crisis."

http://www.amazon.com/Dominant-Animal-Human-Evolution-Environment/dp/1597260975

Here's another one:

"Ecological Economics, Second Edition: Principles and Applications"

You can get the gist of what he's saying here: http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/rethinking_growth/

http://www.amazon.com/Ecological-Economics-Second-Principles-Applications/dp/1597266817

"Confessions of An Economic Hitman"

"The Rational Optimist" by Matt Ridley (not 100% political, but a great read)

John Stuart - On Liberty

Its short and perfectly sets out a political philosophy of freedom.