Tuesday, November 23, 2010

A Suggested Reading List

A friend of mine, who wanted to debate the "fairness" of a flat (Proportional) tax proposal, was surprised to hear me cite Adam Smith as to why an overall progressive income tax structure was "fair". He asked me to send him links to various economists & moral philosophers, which I did (drowning him in a deluge of fully commented suggestions, including some names who I believe to be ultimately flawed).

Thinking about it sometime later, I started pasting together a more organized, ordered list. Here it is:


Leviathan Thomas Hobbes
Two Treatises on Government John Locke
The Social Contract Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Treatise of Human Nature David Hume
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations Adam Smith
A Treatise on Political Economy Jean-Baptiste Say
Principles of Political Economy and Taxation David Ricardo
Principles of Political Economy John Stuart Mill
Elements of Pure Economics Leon Walras
Capital: A Critique of Political Economy Karl Marx
The Protestant Ethic and Spirit of Capitalism Max Weber
The Division of Labor in Society Emile Durkheim
Money, Credit and Commerce 
The Debt Deflation Theory of Great Depressions

Alfred Marshall
 Irving Fisher

The Theory of Credit and Money Ludwig von Mises
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money John Maynard Keynes
The Road to Serfdom Friedrich A. Hayek
Human Action: A Treatise on Economics Ludwig von Mises
Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy Joseph A. Schumpeter
The Economics of Information George J. Stigler
The New Industrial State John Kenneth Galbraith
The Affluent State John Kenneth Galbraith
A Theory of Justice John Rawls
Capitalism and Freedom Milton Friedman
The Conscience of a Liberal Paul Krugman
Stabilizing An Unstable Economy Hyman Minsky
Debunking Economics Steve Keen
Crisis Economics Nouriel Roubini
Irrational Exuberance Robert J. Shiller
Freefall Joseph E. Stiglitz
The Predator State James K. Galbraith
Animal Spirits George A. Akerloff
Predictably Irrational Dan Ariely
Neuroeconomics Ernst Fehr
The Conservative Nanny State Dean Baker
Fault Lines Raguram G. Rajan
ECONned Yves Smith


There are, of course, others that I would include on a fuller list.  What others would you include?  Suggestions welcome.

1 comment:

  1. Hobbes, Locke & Rousseau were all High School & University subjects in political science (my co-major at Rutgers). Hume through Schumpeter were covered in my undergrad micro econ classes (which featured Paul Samuelson's Economics textbook), though von Mises and Hayek were largely ignored [due to praexological method that didn't fit with quant-loving mathematicians?]. Rawls and Galbraith the Elder were influential during my early childhood, which I came back to after absorbing my fill of Chicago School teachings. Friedman was all the rage during the Reaganomics / supply-side revolution, leading me to Stigler on my own. The rest I discovered on my own personal journey during adulthood... a journey that continues.

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