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Topic: "Book club" (Read 6513 times)

full member
Activity: 196
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July 24, 2012, 11:33:54 AM
I just bought all these books in the physical sense, which was a little bit expensive, but I probably spend a few hundred on books every month, so I don't feel the sting as much - I'm used to that financial pain.  I'm still resisting the eReader technology, I'll be the last hold out.

 Tongue

The problem with the Google version of "harmony" is that it is a PDF with pictures of pages rather than pages of text. PDF is the worst format to covert from, and that's the worst kind of PDF. The other two both have epub versions, which essentially means my work on them will be limited to making sure the formatting isn't screwed. So, while I'm doing that, if you could find a PDF version of "harmony" that has text, or better yet, a plain text version of some kind, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Hi, how far are you along with those books?

 Smiley

They are essentially complete, but you showed no further interest, so I have left them sit in my dropbox folder. I'm not motivated to search down a legible copy of "harmony", but if you want, I can add those two links to the OP.

So you are not reading them then?  Why is that?  What am I supposed to read that you posted other than Agorism and Steven Molyneux's "Universally Preferable Behavior"?
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Activity: 532
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July 23, 2012, 06:41:02 PM
I just bought all these books in the physical sense, which was a little bit expensive, but I probably spend a few hundred on books every month, so I don't feel the sting as much - I'm used to that financial pain.  I'm still resisting the eReader technology, I'll be the last hold out.

 Tongue

The problem with the Google version of "harmony" is that it is a PDF with pictures of pages rather than pages of text. PDF is the worst format to covert from, and that's the worst kind of PDF. The other two both have epub versions, which essentially means my work on them will be limited to making sure the formatting isn't screwed. So, while I'm doing that, if you could find a PDF version of "harmony" that has text, or better yet, a plain text version of some kind, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Hi, how far are you along with those books?

 Smiley

They are essentially complete, but you showed no further interest, so I have left them sit in my dropbox folder. I'm not motivated to search down a legible copy of "harmony", but if you want, I can add those two links to the OP.
full member
Activity: 196
Merit: 100
July 23, 2012, 06:29:20 PM
I just bought all these books in the physical sense, which was a little bit expensive, but I probably spend a few hundred on books every month, so I don't feel the sting as much - I'm used to that financial pain.  I'm still resisting the eReader technology, I'll be the last hold out.

 Tongue

The problem with the Google version of "harmony" is that it is a PDF with pictures of pages rather than pages of text. PDF is the worst format to covert from, and that's the worst kind of PDF. The other two both have epub versions, which essentially means my work on them will be limited to making sure the formatting isn't screwed. So, while I'm doing that, if you could find a PDF version of "harmony" that has text, or better yet, a plain text version of some kind, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Hi, how far are you along with those books?

 Smiley
full member
Activity: 196
Merit: 100
July 10, 2012, 03:12:30 PM
I just bought all these books in the physical sense, which was a little bit expensive, but I probably spend a few hundred on books every month, so I don't feel the sting as much - I'm used to that financial pain.  I'm still resisting the eReader technology, I'll be the last hold out.

 Tongue

The problem with the Google version of "harmony" is that it is a PDF with pictures of pages rather than pages of text. PDF is the worst format to covert from, and that's the worst kind of PDF. The other two both have epub versions, which essentially means my work on them will be limited to making sure the formatting isn't screwed. So, while I'm doing that, if you could find a PDF version of "harmony" that has text, or better yet, a plain text version of some kind, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Yeah, my books was basically just printed scans of these pages and had a bunch of artifacts and nastiness.

But this is the real history of the USA's prosperity, the ruling oligarchy that we presently labor under did a heck of a job burying this history and removing it from the realm of academia.  It's this hard to find an actual unmutilated copy of it.

(I'll post it if I find it)
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July 09, 2012, 06:53:37 PM
I just bought all these books in the physical sense, which was a little bit expensive, but I probably spend a few hundred on books every month, so I don't feel the sting as much - I'm used to that financial pain.  I'm still resisting the eReader technology, I'll be the last hold out.

 Tongue

The problem with the Google version of "harmony" is that it is a PDF with pictures of pages rather than pages of text. PDF is the worst format to covert from, and that's the worst kind of PDF. The other two both have epub versions, which essentially means my work on them will be limited to making sure the formatting isn't screwed. So, while I'm doing that, if you could find a PDF version of "harmony" that has text, or better yet, a plain text version of some kind, I'd greatly appreciate it.
full member
Activity: 196
Merit: 100
July 09, 2012, 06:33:48 PM
For "Harmony of Interests", I cannot find an intact text. The most inclusive excerpts I could find are here: http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/D/1851-1875/carey/harmxx.htm
Will that be sufficient?

I believe this is the entire text of "Report on Manufacturers" by Alexander Hamilton:
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch4s31.html

Looks like Archive.org has already done most of my work for me on "Sophisms of Free Trade":
http://archive.org/details/sophismsoffreetr032056mbp

If these documents meet your approval, I'll add them to the top posting once I'm done converting them.

Here is Hamilton's "Report on Manufacturers", although that one you have looks like it may be intact, it posted me on Chapter 4.  If it's a complete work then that's great too.

http://books.google.com/books/about/Report_on_manufactures.html?id=gCk5AAAAMAAJ

This looks good for "Sophisms", although it's missing the first chapter for some reason:  http://books.google.com/books/about/Sophisms_of_free_trade_and_popular_polit.html?id=iZYBAAAAQAAJ .  If your link doesn't work for some reason, use this one I found.

As for "Harmony of Interests", does this work?  http://books.google.com/books?id=UukpAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false

I just bought all these books in the physical sense, which was a little bit expensive, but I probably spend a few hundred on books every month, so I don't feel the sting as much - I'm used to that financial pain.  I'm still resisting the eReader technology, I'll be the last hold out.

 Tongue

hero member
Activity: 532
Merit: 500
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July 09, 2012, 06:18:10 PM
For "Harmony of Interests", I cannot find an intact text. The most inclusive excerpts I could find are here: http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/D/1851-1875/carey/harmxx.htm
Will that be sufficient?

I believe this is the entire text of "Report on Manufacturers" by Alexander Hamilton:
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch4s31.html

Looks like Archive.org has already done most of my work for me on "Sophisms of Free Trade":
http://archive.org/details/sophismsoffreetr032056mbp

If these documents meet your approval, I'll add them to the top posting once I'm done converting them.
full member
Activity: 196
Merit: 100
July 09, 2012, 04:35:20 PM
*  "National System of Political Economy" by F. List
*  "Harmony of Interests" by Henry C. Carey
*  "Report on Manufacturers" by Alexander Hamilton
*  "Sophisms of Free Trade" by John B. Byles
*  "Surviving the Cataclysm" by Webster G. Tarpley

Excellent. Are any of these other than the first available online? I'd be more than willing to provide the same service as I have for it.

Yes, you should be able to find all of them quite easily online as a PDF except Webster Tarpley's book.  He's the only person living on this list and therefore still has to make a living at his work.

Good. I'll put turning them into epubs on my "to do" list.

Also, before the accusations start flying about, I am most in line with the spirit of Hamilton, Carey and Tarpley.  F. List and J.B. Byles both had imperial aspirations but both give exquisite and throughout debunking of the then "traditional economics" (the father of modern Neo-Liberal or Washington Consensus schools) found in Smith, J.B. Say, Ricardo and Malthus.  That is why I recommend, and admire their works, because their insights and deconstruction of that mass of sophistry that was (and is) traditional (establishment) economics is admirable.
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Activity: 532
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July 09, 2012, 04:03:24 PM
*  "National System of Political Economy" by F. List
*  "Harmony of Interests" by Henry C. Carey
*  "Report on Manufacturers" by Alexander Hamilton
*  "Sophisms of Free Trade" by John B. Byles
*  "Surviving the Cataclysm" by Webster G. Tarpley

Excellent. Are any of these other than the first available online? I'd be more than willing to provide the same service as I have for it.

Yes, you should be able to find all of them quite easily online as a PDF except Webster Tarpley's book.  He's the only person living on this list and therefore still has to make a living at his work.

Good. I'll put turning them into epubs on my "to do" list.
full member
Activity: 196
Merit: 100
July 09, 2012, 03:57:39 PM
*  "National System of Political Economy" by F. List
*  "Harmony of Interests" by Henry C. Carey
*  "Report on Manufacturers" by Alexander Hamilton
*  "Sophisms of Free Trade" by John B. Byles
*  "Surviving the Cataclysm" by Webster G. Tarpley

Excellent. Are any of these other than the first available online? I'd be more than willing to provide the same service as I have for it.

Yes, you should be able to find all of them quite easily online as a PDF except Webster Tarpley's book.  He's the only person living on this list and therefore still has to make a living at his work.

Although I would read Tarpley's book last.  It is like 600 -700 pages and is very dense and assertive of a writing style.  The guy's clearly a grade-A genius, but his writing may come across a little abrasive because he doesn't have much sympathy debating those that he should be instructing.  I've talked to him on a few occasions (I was let into his secret little club of activists) and he conducts his meetings like he writes his books, odds are, if you are disagreeing with him you better reconsider your premise.  He's who Jeff Rense calls "the greatest living historian" and it seems pretty accurate to me.
full member
Activity: 196
Merit: 100
July 09, 2012, 03:48:51 PM
Yes sir!  Although debunking what is traditional "Leftism" will be a topic of a later book I intend to write, so I hope they come at it from a different approach.  Why I'll be writing that one later is that the traditionally "Leftist" ideologies are more complex and, some, are even more abstract so it's going to be harder to make that case.

I just can't imagine you attempting to write a book on Libertarianism without a thorough debunking of all of the following:

- Heartland Institute
- Cato Institute
- George C. Marshall Institute
- Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine
- The Oregon Petition
- Frederick Seitz

That's a great point.  I haven't done the sufficient research to show the backing of all these artificially created flavors of Libertarianism, although that is a part of the book I intend to write, it is a part to which I'm going to need to do sufficient research.

That is, unless you'd like to help me write it.  It's more for the public good that I'm embarked on such a project than anything else.

 Cheesy
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July 09, 2012, 12:24:27 PM
*  "National System of Political Economy" by F. List
*  "Harmony of Interests" by Henry C. Carey
*  "Report on Manufacturers" by Alexander Hamilton
*  "Sophisms of Free Trade" by John B. Byles
*  "Surviving the Cataclysm" by Webster G. Tarpley

Excellent. Are any of these other than the first available online? I'd be more than willing to provide the same service as I have for it.
hero member
Activity: 812
Merit: 1000
July 09, 2012, 11:51:39 AM
Yes sir!  Although debunking what is traditional "Leftism" will be a topic of a later book I intend to write, so I hope they come at it from a different approach.  Why I'll be writing that one later is that the traditionally "Leftist" ideologies are more complex and, some, are even more abstract so it's going to be harder to make that case.

I just can't imagine you attempting to write a book on Libertarianism without a thorough debunking of all of the following:

- Heartland Institute
- Cato Institute
- George C. Marshall Institute
- Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine
- The Oregon Petition
- Frederick Seitz
full member
Activity: 196
Merit: 100
July 09, 2012, 11:24:22 AM
The first post has been updated with two new books, sadly both from my perspective, I am beginning to wonder if niemivh was serious in offering me anything to read. In the mean time, I suppose there's always Alongside Night.

I tried to find my earlier post, but can't, it vanished.

So, I guess the top five books closest to "what I believe" would be the following:

*  "National System of Political Economy" by F. List
*  "Harmony of Interests" by Henry C. Carey
*  "Report on Manufacturers" by Alexander Hamilton
*  "Sophisms of Free Trade" by John B. Byles
*  "Surviving the Cataclysm" by Webster G. Tarpley

These books I mostly agree with, although there are plenty of books which I agree very much with certain elements of that would make this list quite long.
full member
Activity: 196
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July 09, 2012, 11:12:24 AM
Well I'm about half done with the book.  Outside of some of the interesting things he says about the school system this book is total garbage.  It's ideological drivel, he spends (in some cases) single paragraphs on something as complex as import tariffs and leaves the reader to a conclusion based on something so brief.

This book, leads the reader to believe that he is somehow qualified to talk about the myriad of topics that DF glosses over in typical ideologue fashion.  He can never actually talk about a single thing in depth, because if he did he would run out of rhetoric and actually have to start discussing details.

He's also very lazy, many things in the book say "I think" or "I believe" about things that aren't hypothesis but relatively easily verifiable facts.

If you pick a page of this book I can likely expose it for the ideological fraud that it is - and this should be evident to anyone, that isn't already a 'true believer'.

Put the book down and read one of these:

Out of those books which do you think would be the most important for a Libertarian to read?

All of them. Seriously. I've never heard a libertarian even be aware of the information, data, and dynamics presented in all of those works.

For a comprehensive overview of humanity's footprint all over the world, Paul Ehrlich's book The Dominant Animal would be a good one.

For a solid understanding of economics as it should be studied and taught, Herman Daly's Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development would be recommended.

For a very detailed study of the importance of life on this planet, Edward O. Wilson's book The Future of Life is an excellent recommendation.

For a solid understanding of the dynamics and importance of a balanced ecosystem, I'd suggest The Wolf's Tooth: Keystone Predators, Trophic Cascades, and Biodiversity by Cristina Eisenberg.

Tim Flannery's The Weather Makers is a solid tour of climate change science.

I would, but right now I'm trying to focus on Libertarianism as much as I can. It is for a much larger project that I am working on that I try and direct my attention in this direction first.

Thus the reason you should read the books. Now. Each and every one of those books presents real world data and issues which demand solutions libertarianism cannot offer, and essentially denies. Attacking libertarianism as an exercise in one philosophy against another is not enough. Working one's way through the concept of money and monetary policy is not enough.

Ehrlich's book does a thorough job of exposing the libertarian think tanks for what they are - sham organizations masquerading as authorities in the subject under discussion. More importantly, he provides such a comprehensive and thorough grand tour of humanity, and the development of the social structures it has created, and the problems it has created, you couldn't help but find material therein on nearly every page to arm yourself for the self assigned job ahead.

Daly's work does a thorough job of debunking the concept of economic growth as driven by the free market.

Flannery's book makes a mockery of the libertarian think tanks' absurd agenda of denying climate change.

The other two are equally important. Delay reading them, and your book on libertarianism will only be weaker.

Yes sir!  Although debunking what is traditional "Leftism" will be a topic of a later book I intend to write, so I hope they come at it from a different approach.  Why I'll be writing that one later is that the traditionally "Leftist" ideologies are more complex and, some, are even more abstract so it's going to be harder to make that case.
full member
Activity: 196
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July 09, 2012, 11:09:18 AM
If I had that much to say about Paul's little manifesto then I would have to write about a 30,000+ word summary of "The Machinery of Freedom", which hopefully I won't feel impelled to do.

At that point, really, you should just write your own book. And I honestly have to say that I would like to read that.

That's what I'm going part time at my job to do.

 Grin

I've read about 110 books in preparation on the relevant topics yet will have to probably read another 200 to 300 books to write the book that I intend to write; it's going to be a well-researched, well-argued book if I can pull it off.
full member
Activity: 196
Merit: 100
July 09, 2012, 11:06:15 AM
Well I'm about half done with the book.  Outside of some of the interesting things he says about the school system this book is total garbage.  It's ideological drivel, he spends (in some cases) single paragraphs on something as complex as import tariffs and leaves the reader to a conclusion based on something so brief.

This book, leads the reader to believe that he is somehow qualified to talk about the myriad of topics that DF glosses over in typical ideologue fashion.  He can never actually talk about a single thing in depth, because if he did he would run out of rhetoric and actually have to start discussing details.

He's also very lazy, many things in the book say "I think" or "I believe" about things that aren't hypothesis but relatively easily verifiable facts.

If you pick a page of this book I can likely expose it for the ideological fraud that it is - and this should be evident to anyone, that isn't already a 'true believer'.

Finished the book, the 2nd half was better than the first.  Such a strange book, he dispels many tenants of what people would refer to as Libertarian ideas yet still calls himself Libertarian.  This sort of proves my point that if you had a room of 100 different Libertarians you'd have at least 100 (if not more) different conceptions of what the policy would be and probably at least half as many theories of the what the ideology actually is.

But what I said quoted above still stands, it's mostly drivel and I had to resist writing between every margin.
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July 09, 2012, 06:36:51 AM
Downloading.

Maybe I'll give these a read if I can ever get myself to read a book anytime soon. Game guides and forums are one thing... Smiley
hero member
Activity: 532
Merit: 500
FIAT LIBERTAS RVAT CAELVM
July 09, 2012, 05:29:28 AM
The first post has been updated with two new books, sadly both from my perspective, I am beginning to wonder if niemivh was serious in offering me anything to read. In the mean time, I suppose there's always Alongside Night.
hero member
Activity: 812
Merit: 1000
July 06, 2012, 10:01:30 PM
Well I'm about half done with the book.  Outside of some of the interesting things he says about the school system this book is total garbage.  It's ideological drivel, he spends (in some cases) single paragraphs on something as complex as import tariffs and leaves the reader to a conclusion based on something so brief.

This book, leads the reader to believe that he is somehow qualified to talk about the myriad of topics that DF glosses over in typical ideologue fashion.  He can never actually talk about a single thing in depth, because if he did he would run out of rhetoric and actually have to start discussing details.

He's also very lazy, many things in the book say "I think" or "I believe" about things that aren't hypothesis but relatively easily verifiable facts.

If you pick a page of this book I can likely expose it for the ideological fraud that it is - and this should be evident to anyone, that isn't already a 'true believer'.

Put the book down and read one of these:

Out of those books which do you think would be the most important for a Libertarian to read?

All of them. Seriously. I've never heard a libertarian even be aware of the information, data, and dynamics presented in all of those works.

For a comprehensive overview of humanity's footprint all over the world, Paul Ehrlich's book The Dominant Animal would be a good one.

For a solid understanding of economics as it should be studied and taught, Herman Daly's Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development would be recommended.

For a very detailed study of the importance of life on this planet, Edward O. Wilson's book The Future of Life is an excellent recommendation.

For a solid understanding of the dynamics and importance of a balanced ecosystem, I'd suggest The Wolf's Tooth: Keystone Predators, Trophic Cascades, and Biodiversity by Cristina Eisenberg.

Tim Flannery's The Weather Makers is a solid tour of climate change science.

I would, but right now I'm trying to focus on Libertarianism as much as I can. It is for a much larger project that I am working on that I try and direct my attention in this direction first.

Thus the reason you should read the books. Now. Each and every one of those books presents real world data and issues which demand solutions libertarianism cannot offer, and essentially denies. Attacking libertarianism as an exercise in one philosophy against another is not enough. Working one's way through the concept of money and monetary policy is not enough.

Ehrlich's book does a thorough job of exposing the libertarian think tanks for what they are - sham organizations masquerading as authorities in the subject under discussion. More importantly, he provides such a comprehensive and thorough grand tour of humanity, and the development of the social structures it has created, and the problems it has created, you couldn't help but find material therein on nearly every page to arm yourself for the self assigned job ahead.

Daly's work does a thorough job of debunking the concept of economic growth as driven by the free market.

Flannery's book makes a mockery of the libertarian think tanks' absurd agenda of denying climate change.

The other two are equally important. Delay reading them, and your book on libertarianism will only be weaker.
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