1. Sebastian Mallaby, The Man Who Knew. A very readable biography of Alan Greenspan. It corrects many misconceptions. It offers useful lessons on the history of economic policy, on the role of economists in Washington, and above all on the effect of politicians on economists. I have a review essay forthcoming.
2. Thomas Leonard, Illiberal Reformers. A highly original and devastating account of how American economics was “born bad,” so to speak. The founders and early stars of the American Economic Association were filled with hubris and racism, quite the opposite of Adam Smith and the English liberals. Here is my review essay.
3. Yuval Levin, The Fractured Republic. There is at least implicit in Levin’s book the claim that libertarianism has unwittingly served the cause of statism by helping the left in its project of undermining intermediating institutions such as the family and organized religion. I wrote a review essay and, in addition, I decided to read and review Robert Nisbet’s 1953 work, The Quest for Community, which is a major influence on Levin.
4. Erwin Dekker, The Viennese Students of Civilization. This book offers some novel and provocative analysis of early 20th century Austrian economics. It is marred by Dekker’s lack of facility with the English language, a problem which Cambridge University Press does not seem to have bothered to address. Here is my review essay.
5. Joel Mokyr, A Culture of Growth. Mokyr takes the view that leading Enlightment thinkers helped to pave the way for industrialization by putting forth notions of progress aided by the combination of science and commercial innovation. It is marred by Mokyr’s heavily academic writing style, with citations and asides constantly interrupting the flow. I can barely imagine even specialists plowing through the entire book, much less general readers. My review essay is forthcoming.
In addition, I would like to mention two other books. One is my own Specialization and Trade, which I was happy with and has actually grown on me since it appeared this summer. The other is Martin Gurri’s The Revolt of the Public, which appeared in 2014 but only came to my attention this year. As I argued in my review essay, Gurri is one of the few analysts who can legitimately claim to have anticipated something like the Trump phenomenon.
#3. Libertarianism doesn’t mean individualism in opposition religion and the family. The more libertarian the governance in a state, the better it is for deeply religious, family-oriented groups like the Amish and Mennonites. When a government is libertarian enough to allow home-schooling, most who take advantage are religious conservatives. Yes, if you wander into the comments section over at ‘Reason’, you’ll find of lots of snark and blasphemy. But that certainly didn’t characterize most who supported Ron Paul in his presidential runs. Notably, the most libertarian members of Congress (Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Justin Amash, Thomas Massie) all hail from conservative, religious states or districts.
“His idea of paradise would be a nation in which these institutions are allowed to experiment with a variety of ways of trying to help nurture and educate citizens who are capable of exercising freedom.”
That sounds like a very libertarian, rather than conservative vision to me.
I don’t remember now whether I ever commented about your book, but I liked it. My chief complaint is that it’s too short! To be a much better read for the not-already-entirely-convinced it could use a lot more specific examples.
I also thought it could have been longer since a very important topic that I haven’t seen in one book but maybe more people read it since only about 210 pages and can be read in one or two sittings. It was interesting that the financial crisis was an appendix and that also may have encouraged more to read it since seen as an option. It doesn’t easily fit in as a chapter but for me one of the most interesting parts.
3. Things like opposing gay marriage are difficult to articulate. Even though “marriage is a right” isn’t logical it is hard to argue against. I think things that are difficult to articulate lose in the short term and maybe the long-term. But in the mid-term we get reactions like Brexit and Trump.
Apparently, I should give up trying to figure out the puzzle of how to win elections through peaceful revolution and paradigm change, considering how powerful we are without a single elected representative.
“t libertarianism has unwittingly served the cause of statism by helping the left in its project of undermining intermediating institutions such as the family and organized religion.”
Yes.
What is the meaning of Life? If it’s not religion, or family, what is it?
Few admit to coneheadish “consume mass quantities”, yet without family and religion this seems the almost inevitable.
Of course, the real chosen alternative is to create a non-written, non-codified, but never-the-less opposed to heresy “religion of political correctness”. The “Left” of the world are essentially creating a secular religion of PC, because they feel that emptiness. The “God shaped” hole in most people’s heart.
I’m filling mine with Christianity, but observe that my non-religious peers fill theirs with many varied other beliefs, most which support more (God granted?) power to the gov’t.
Limited gov’t will NOT come from Libertarians, who fail to see that in most cases they’re attempting to substitute belief in Liberty for belief in God. Libs can, indeed, provide excellent policies and good rational arguments for those policies. But getting any of those policies enacted will require more believers than the Libs have ever had.
It does seem unlikely that Trump will enact many, if any, Lib policies. Still, I prefer him over Clinton.
It is marred by Mokyr’s heavily academic writing style, with citations and asides constantly interrupting the flow. I can barely imagine even specialists plowing through the entire book, much less general readers
Funny you should say that, as most of my thought on it can be summed as, “An incredible book but destined to be more often cited than read. No man would wish it to be longer than it is.”
In a way, I imagine Mokyr’s books and McCloskey’s recent books to be one gigantic super-book.