Reading Suggestions for a Progressive Friend

I tend to find myself in the minority among friends with the viewpoints I hold as a libertarian and a Christian. I can frustrate my conservative and progressive friends at the same time in a single statement. I have had to learn to navigate the high seas of conservatism and progressivism, knowing that I can find some common ground among both.

A progressive friend of mine is the supervising an independent study for a doctoral student, and asked me to suggest some reading materials from the free market/Austrian economics perspective. There are plenty of materials I had to forego, not because I found them lacking in value (I really wanted to suggest everything ever written by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.!), but because it was a doctoral student looking for some academic works. After consulting with Art Carden and Norman Horn, I responded with the following list:

Bastiat Collection – Best works from within are The Law and That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen

Human Action by Ludwig von Mises

Man, Economy, and State by Murray Rothbard

Capital and Interest by Bohm-Bawerk

Principles of Economics by Carl Menger

Individualism and Economic Order by F.A. Hayek

There’s also a wealth of materials on econlib.org

I also added the following: “You can read Keynes’s General Theory, but honestly Keynes is part of the reason we have a consumerism problem (The whole, ‘Feed the addiction to keep economy growing’ approach!).”

For those of you looking to suggest reading materials for your friends, mind your audience. If the author labels every minor deviation from complete and total free markets as “socialist,” then that author will be unlikely to speak meaningfully to the progressive. Likewise, a conservative reader may be rather turned off by harsh criticism of those who adhere to a “God and country” viewpoint. Remember that everyone is at a different point in a journey, and if you wish to reach them, then meet them where they are. Otherwise, you are probably wasting your time.