Alright, I guess its my turn to do the ten influential book list. Ill go chronological with the disclaimer that the books that had the most impact on my intellectual development dont necessarily represent my current views on any particular topic. I’ll stick to non-fiction. 1) The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. I’m a bit embarrassed by this one – not because I have any problem admitting that I was ever swayed by Marx (I still hold him in high esteem) – but because this was the least mature of his works. As a lower middle class suburban teenager, this all made so much sense. I was so convinced by the Manifesto that I didn’t bother reading Kapital until university. Despite the fact that I had swung in the opposite direction by that point, I still admired his wit and insight. I blew through all three volumes during a long weekend (that’s how I rolled…). He was wrong in his analysis, but he was among the most important contributers to the development of political economy. 2) The Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith. I read this very soon after having read the Manifesto. My social sciences teacher in high school had taught us a one class lesson on economics in which he claimed that there are three views of economics: Marxism, which holds that workers should own the means of production, neo-classical economics, which holds that shareholders should own the means of production, and Keynesianism, which is correct (such balance!). He singled out Adam Smith, so I decided to give the Wealth of Nations a read. I was not at all receptive, scoffing at various points, but I grudgingly began to see the contradictions of (vulgar) Marxism. 3) Various writings by J.S. Woodsworth. As I wrestled with the tensions between Marxism and its critics, I spent a lot of time reading about socialist political activism. What better way to reconcile competing theories than observing the impact of real life socialist activists. Woodsworth in particular inspired me at the time, since he was the intellectual leader of the CCF, which had a tangible impact on public policy in Canada (even if, in hindsight, this was a very mixed blessing). Reading about Woodsworth (and a chance encounter with Jack Layton) is what convinced me to study political science. 4) The City After the Automobile, by Moshe Safdie. This was the first book that ever got me thinking at all about urban development. I was still pretty optimistic about the prospects for central planning, and this seemed like a really neat vision for the future. While, in hindsight, it’s extremely utopian, it does still contain some interesting ideas (I imagine one could trace Zipcar and other ridesharing services back to this book, since he had very similar ideas). 5) Principles of Economics, by Carl Menger. I can’t honestly recall how it was that I stumbled upon Menger (I think one of the socialists authors I was reading critiqued the Principles, so I decided to read it to make sense of the critique). I’m not sure this was precisely the moment my flirtation with socialism ended, but this was at least the beginning of the end. 6) The Use of Knowledge in Society, by F.A. Hayek. I can’t recall when I first read this essay, but it stands among the most important eleven pages ever written. It’s easy to take things like prices for granted (can’t we just allocate a quota to everyone?!?) until you consider their deeper function. Prices are information – more information that any particular person has at any time. I don’t have to know that Florida’s orange crops weren’t up to snuff to know that I should switch from orange juice to apple juice. Prices tell me all I need to know! And orange farmers outside of Florida will also get the message. Seemingly simple, yet revolutionary. 7) Conjectures and Refutations, by Karl Popper. I was lucky to have a few professors during undergrad who were very interested in the philosophy of science and were very insistent that I read the philosophy of science literature beyond just Popper. This consumed most of my last two years of undergrad. 8) Leviathan, by Thomas Hobbes. By the time I got to university I was flirting with market anarchism. Wrestling with Hobbes (and the neo-Hobbesians) was the perfect cure. As I wrote my undergraduate thesis on game theoretic approaches to Hobbes I reluctantly began to accept that some sort of centralized authority is inevitable and important. This line of inquiry also deepened my insight into the functioning of Westminster style democracies and international relations theory (which I subsequently wound up spending a lot of time on for no practical reason). 9) Nicomachean Ethics, by Aristotle. It took me awhile to fully embrace my inner Aristotelian. The doctrine of the Golden Mean is particularly useful, but was something I was reluctant to accept. As someone who was interested in absolute right and wrong (both in terms of morality and science), the notion that competing virtues need to be balanced seemed too wishy-washy for me at the time. I don’t think I fully appreciated Aristotle until I stumbled onto Natural Goodness by Philippa Foot. I’m not generally a fan of ideological labels, but I fundamentally consider myself an Aristotelian. 10) The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs. As you can tell from the list, several books have changed my mind about some pretty broad topics. But this book changed what I wanted to do with my life. I was too lazy to read the precise instructions, but I believe Im supposed to tag Jess and Toban for nominating me. Im not sure who has and has not done this to date (Ive seen a lot of your lists), but I dont recall seeing lists from Matthew, Matthew, Alain, or Grant.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Sep 2014 19:13:40 +0000
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