Booklog: Liberal Books
I have started work on a piece analyzing the rights and wrongs of the classical liberal tradition. To do it properly, I am going to review a number of major works in that tradition, specifically, Mandeville, Condorcet, Smith, Godwin, JS Mill, Fitzjames Stephen, and Hayek. I do not intend to spend a great deal of time on each author, perhaps a week or so, so it will be a lightening survey.
If readers are up to it, this could restart and refocus an old conversation in a less polemical vein. My intention is to show the extent to which liberalism reflects certain decent aspirations of Western Christendom, but ultimately creates a movement that undermines and destroys the foundations. Mandeville's Fable of the Bees is as good as any place to start.
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Dr. Fleming,
I look forward, in great anticipation, to this discussion. As a side note, I have been mining the posts and comments of this web site for topical 'recommended reading' lists. Is there any chance we might see such lists on the Rockford Institute site?
Thank you.
Some years ago on the TRI site, I posted the Autodidact's Reading List. In various format changes to the site the fonts have been somewhat corrupted and it has slipped out of sight, but it is still there. I promise to get to work adding to it. I'd appreciate your initial comments.
PS I think it is under resources on the Rockford Institute site.
I'm game for it, and hopefully our busy season at work wont prevent my participation come September, and thereafter.
Fable of the Bees is rather short, so maybe I can keep up.
I have a copy of the Autodidact's Reading List on my desk. I have found its recommendations useful, both for my personal reading and for the reading I do with my young children. I will collect my comments on the current list and post them soon. Thank you, Dr. Fleming.