Monday, September 19, 2011

Classical Liberal Reading Group

Okay, CL fans, I need your help.

An extremely earnest and enthusiastic student just wrote to me, and asked about starting a reading group in Classical Liberalism. This student wants the movement to spread, and wants the readings to be good. And s/he also wants Progressive counterpoint.

So, let me ask the smartest people I know, the readers of KPC!

In comments, please give the BEST (most important, but also most readable) books or articles for these categories (these are my correspondent's categories, btw). And NO MORE THAN THREE per category, please. Have at you!

Classical Liberal authors of history: _____

Classical Liberal authors of the contemporary period: ____

And Progressive authors of history: _____

And Progressive authors of the contemporary period: _____

10 comments:

Kevin said...

Classical Liberal Authors in contemporary political theory:

Loren Lomasky, Persons, Rights and the Moral Community

David Schmidtz, The Elements of Justice

Gerald Gaus, The Order of Public Reason

John Tomasi, Free-Market Fairness

Older Stuff:

Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia

Murray Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty

F.A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty or, better, Law, Legislation and Liberty Vols. I-III

Contemporary Progressive Political Theory:

Philip Van Parijs, Real Freedom for All, What (if anything) can Justify Capitalism

David Miller, Principles of Social Justice

Ronald Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue

Amartya Sen, Inequality Reexamined

Thomas Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights

Thomas Nagel and Liam Murphy, The Myth of Ownership (not good)

Great Progressive/Classical Liberal Debate Book on the Welfare State:

David Schmidtz and Robert Goodin, Social Welfare and Individual Responsibility

Older Progressive Stuff:

John Rawls, A Theory of Justice
John Rawls, Political Liberalism

Much Older Progressive Stuff:

L.T. Hobhouse, Liberalism
John Dewey, Liberalism and Social Action

Anonymous said...

Contemporary:
Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell
Actual Ethics by James Otteson
Fatal Conceit by F.A. Hayek

Historical:
Common Sense by Thomas Paine
The Declaration of Independence
Thomas Jefferson: A Life by Willard Randall or a similar biography of one of the Founders

Ryan said...

Historical:
On Liberty by J.S. Mill
Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke
Second Treatise on Government by John Locke

Contemporary:
The Constitution of Liberty by F.A. Hayek
Anarchy, State, and Utopia by Robert Nozick
A Conflict of Visions by Thomas Sowell

akon said...

I would echo Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke.

Also, stressing readability, Hazzlit's Econ in One Lesson and Bastiat's The Law (or anything by Bastiat really).

capitalism and freedom by friedman is a readable and informative more modern work.

kb said...

the moral sciences club as per Will Wilkinson:

http://bigthink.com/ideas/40153

good start

kb

Anonymous said...

The list would be worthless if you didn't include Milton Friedman in there somewhere...

Anonymous said...

Teddy Rooseveldt's autobiography has some really good explanations of progressive values set in a context of noblesse oblige / "traditional moral values".

Tal said...

For historical classical liberal, don't forget Faustino Ballve's Essentials of Economics. Very readable, very important book.

MaxSpeak said...

Progressive historians: Lawrence Goodwyn (The Populist Persuasion), Rick Perlstein (Nixonland), Nelson Lichtenstein (Walter Reuther book), Steve Fraser (Every Man A Speculator).

Anonymous said...

Neglected by CL's is the work on political obligation and Locke by A. John Simmons. Rothbard's The Ethics of Liberty is not very good.

Contemporary "progressive" work I recommend is Christiano's The Rule of the Many and his Constitution of Equality.

I always find wisdom in Jeremy Waldron, even though I usually disagree.