Difference between revisions of "A Non-Libertarian FAQ"

;A. B. Atkinson "The Economic Consequences of Rolling Back the Welfare State":

MIT Press, 1999. Points out unintended negative side effects of reduction of government.

James Arnt Aune "Selling The Free Market"

Guilford Press, 2000. Explains the neoliberal rhetoric of markets, and how "economic correctness" is used harmfully to trump all other values. Criticizes Nozick, Rand, Murray, and Posner.

Nicholas Barr "The Economics of the Welfare State"

Stanford University Press, 1999. A thorough overview of the real world economics of market failures and government interventions.

Norman P. Barry "On Classical Liberalism and Libertarianism"

MacMillan 1987

Jeremy Bentham "Anarchical Fallacies"

David C. Berliner and Bruce J. Biddle "The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America's Public Schools"

Rebuts propaganda against public schools recited by libertarians.

Colin Bird "The Myth of Liberal Individualism"

Classical liberalism was not what libertarians claim it was.

John R. E. Bliese "The Greening of Conservative America"

A conservative refutes common conservative anti-environmental claims that are much parroted by libertarians.

Paulina Borsook "Cyberselfish: A Critical Romp Through the Terribly Libertarian Culture of High Tech"

A thorough and humorous skewering of the libertarian pretensions of the digerati.

Frank Bourgin "The Great Challenge: The Myth of Laissez-Faire in the Early Republic"

Harry Brighouse "Justice (Key Concepts)"

Contains 20 pages of criticism of Friedman and Nozick's ideas of justice.

Peter G. Brown "Restoring Public Trust"

A progressive refutation and alternative to Milton Friedman's "Free To Choose".

John Bryant "Libertarian Dirt"

Socratic Press, 1995. A ranting pamphlet about Murray Rothbard; 2/3 self promotion and blank pages. Not recommended.

Allen Buchanan "Ethics, Efficiency, and the Market"

Rowman & Littlefield, 1985. From the cover: "... contains the most thorough and systematic analysis of economic and moral arguments both for and against the market as an instrument of resource allocation." The chapter, "Moral Arguments For and Against the Market" occupies most of the book.

David Card and Alan B. Krueger "Myth and Measurement: The New Economics Of The Minimum Wage"

Princeton Univ. Press, 1997. Libertarians claim the minimum wage destroys jobs: real-world evidence points the other way.

George W. Carey, editor "Freedom & Virtue : The Conservative Libertarian Debate"

Intercollegiate Studies Inst., 1998. Conservatives and Libertarians duke it out.

Noam Chomsky "Profit Over People: Neoliberalism And Global Order"

Seven Stories Press 1999. Places the current ascendsncy of neoliberalism in historic context as yet another form of oppression by elites.

G. A. Cohen "Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality (Studies in Marxism and Social Theory)"

Cambridge Univ Press, 1995.

Joseph Collins and John Lear "Chile's Free-Market Miracle: A Second Look"

Food First, 1995. A major criticism of the neoliberal makeover of Chile.

Stephanie Coontz "The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap"

Basic Books, 2000. How many modern claims of family "institutions" are historically incorrect.

Charles Derber "Corporation Nation: How Corporations Are Taking Over Our Lives, And What We Can Do About It"

St. Martin's Press 1998. Ascendency of corporate power is decried as illiberal, and a new positive populism is prescribed.

George W. Downs and Patrick D. Larkey "The Search For Government Efficiency: From Hubris to Helplessness"

Random House, 1986. A serious, scholarly study of efficiency. Not a polemic but very necessary to balance the government as inefficient polemics.

William A Edmundson "Three Anarchical Fallacies : An Essay on Political Authority"

Cambridge University Press 1998. Exposes fallacies inspired by the ideas of obedience, coercion, and intrusion. Challenges many assumptions of libertarians and others.

Albert Ellis "Is Objectivism A Religion?"

L. Stuart, 1968.

Peter Erickson "The Stance of Atlas: An Examination of The Philosophy of Ayn Rand"

Herakles Pub. 1997. Shows some fundamental errors in Rand's philosophy, and identifies some earlier alternatives that are supposedly correct.

Sidney Fine "Laissez-Faire and the General Welfare State"

UMP, 1956. History of the triumph of progressivism over laissez-faire.

Thomas Frank "One Market Under God: Extreme Capitalism, Market Populism, and the End of Economic Democracy"

Doubleday 2000. Deflates the propaganda and hype for markets that are the new justification for ever-growing inequality.

Barbara H. Fried "The Progressive Assault On Laissez Faire: Robert Hale And The First Law And Economics Movement"

Harvard University Press 1998. The first, full-length study of Hale's work, which showed that "private", unregulated economic relations were in fact determined by a state imposed regime of property and contract rights which were hard to square with common-sense notions of social justice.

Jeffrey Friedman "What's Wrong With Libertarianism" [PDF] and "The Libertarian Straddle: Rejoinder to Palmer and Sciabarra" [PDF]

The editor of Critical Review magazine details how libertarian philosophy and economics rely on each other, and neither can bear the weight.

John Kenneth Galbraith "The Good Society: the Humane Agenda"

Houghton Mifflin Co. 1997. The "why"s of liberalism, illustrating the competing goals in society and how to resolve them compassionately. A book of pragmatic compromise, that asks what is wanted by people rather than what ideology demands.

Willard Gaylin and Bruce Jennings "The Perversion of Autonomy : The Proper Uses of Coercion and Constraints in a Liberal Society"

Free Press, 1996. Discusses the balance in a liberal society between the autonomy of the individual against the responsibility of individuals toward the community at large.

Charles T. Goodsell "The Case for Bureaucracy: A Public Administration Polemic"

Chatham House, 1994. Reexamines empirical findings on U.S. bureaucratic performance, noting how well the American system really works.

John Gray "Beyond the New Right: Markets, Government and the Common Environment"

Routledge 1994. John Gray once held views very close to libertarianism, but in this book he repudiates both neoclassical liberalism and libertarianism. Chapter 3, "The Moral Foundations of Market Institutions" contains some strong criticisms of the libertarian position.

John Gray "False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism"

New Press 1999. A critique of the politics of neo-liberalism that shows the ideological connections between neo-liberalism and Marxism.

Donald P. Green "Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory"

Yale University Press, 1994. A serious, scholarly study of the intellectual failures of Rational Choice Theory.

William Greider "One World, Ready or Not : The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism"

Simon & Schuster 1997. A liberal examination of the implications of the global industrial revolution.

Alan Haworth "Anti-Libertarianism: Markets, Philosophy, and Myth"

Routledge 1994.

Dennis Henigan, Bruce Nicholson, David Hemenway "Guns and the Constitution"

Aletheia Press 1995. A book-length FAQ of refutations of the gun-ownership propaganda and mythology promulgated by the NRA and gleefully parroted by libertarians. Essential reading. The "Guns And The Judiciary" section is now available online.

Richard Hofstadter "Social Darwinism in American Thought"

Beacon Press, 1992. Rebukes Spencerian Social Darwinist arguments for laissez-faire.

Stephen Holmes, Cass Sunstein "The Cost of Rights: Why Liberty Depends on Taxes"

W. W. Norton 1999. Legally enforceable rights cost money, a fact ignored by libertarian ideologues.

William E. Hudson "American Democracy in Peril"

Chatham House, 1996. Chapter 3 "The second challenge: radical individualism" has a subsection "The flaws of libertarianism."

Thomas Parke Hughes "Rescuing Prometheus"

Pantheon Books 1998. An analysis of how four large-scale government projects basically invented and then transformed modern systems management and operations research while also developing much of the core technology of the post-modern world.

Attracta Ingram "A Political Theory of Rights"

Oxford University Press 1994. Ingram argues that the libertarian concept of self-ownership is inadequate, and proposes a (much more complex) theory of rights based in a principle of self-government. Chapters 1-3, form a useful exposition and critique of the standard libertarian position.

Jane Kelsey "Rolling Back the State: Privatisation of Power in Aotearoa/New Zealand"

Paul & Co Publishing Consortium 1996. And "Economic Fundamentalism: The New Zealand Experiment - A World Model for Structural Adjustment?"

Pluto Press 1996. Two books that detail the unhappy consequences of a real-world libertarian economic experiment.

Naomi Klein "No Logo: Taking aim at the Brand Bullies"

Picado USA 2000. Discusses the ill effects of allowing popular culture to be shaped by branding in the quest for corporate profits.

Roland Kley "Hayek's Social and Political Thought"

Oxford University Press 1994. Shows that Hayek's concept of a spontaneous order doesn't stand up to scrutiny, undermining a body of theory libertarians often draw upon to show that free markets work.

Harold Kyriazi "Libertarian Party at Sea on Land"

Robert Schalkenbach Foundation 2000. A libertarian criticizes the Libertarian Party positions regarding ownership of natural resources for inconsistency with its own principles.

Robert Kuttner "Everything for Sale: The Virtues and Limits of Markets"

Knopf, 1997. Why mixed economies would outperform pure markets. Essential for countering libertarian economic arguments.

Will Kymlicka "Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction"

Oxford University Press, 1991. Now the standard text in the field; very highly regarded. Has a long chapter on libertarianism. Not at all kind to it.

William Leach "Land of Desire"

Vintage Books, 1993. Discusses the rise of America's consumerist culture and shows how our capitalist system has depended on government support at every stage of its development.

Lawrence Lessig "Code: And Other Laws of Cyberspace"

Basic Books, 1999. A non-libertarian view of the threats to freedom in cyberspace both from government and the market. Makes the point that freedom comes from a particular kind of government, not no government.

Charles E. Lindblom "The Market System: What It Is, How It Works, and What To Make of It"

Yale Univ. Pr. 2001. The big picture of what markets do well and poorly, their benefits and harms. Very balanced.

Steven Luper-Foy "The Possibility of Knowledge: Nozick and His Critics"

Linda McQuaig "The Cult of Impotence: Selling the Myth of Powerlessness in the Global Economy"

Viking 1998. Why economic globalization and its effects are not inevitable, and why democratic government can and should ameliorate those effects.

Irving S. Michelman "The Moral Limitations of Capitalism"

Proposes criteria for establishing positive economic rights.

Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel "The Myth of Ownership: Taxes and Justice"

Explains property rights as government creations, and taxes as part of property.

Stephen L. Newman "Liberalism at Wits' End: The Libertarian Revolt Against the Modern State"

Cornell University Press in 1984

William J. Novak "The People's Welfare: Law and Regulation in Nineteenth-Century America"

Univ. of North Carolina Pr., 1996. "Blasts to pieces... the libertarian fantasy that until the twentieth century the American state left private property owners and economic entrepreneurs alone." --Robert W. Gordon, Yale Law School.

Greg S. Nyquist "Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature"

iUniverse.com, 2001. Perhaps the most extensive criticism of Rand. Finds that her assumptions about human nature do not match scientific knowledge of human nature. Link to online text!

William F. O'Neill "With Charity Toward None: An Analysis Of Ayn Rand's Philosophy"

Littlefield, Adams, 1972.

Philippe Van Parijs "Real Freedom for All: What (If Anything) Can Justify Capitalism?"

Oxford University Press, 1998. Policy implications for resolving the conflict between capitalism's unacceptable inequality and the paramount importance of real freedom.

Philippe Van Parijs et al. "What's Wrong With a Free Lunch?"

Beacon Press, 2001. 16 widely varied points of view on the idea of a Universal Basic Income as an antidote to the extreme inequalities of capitalism.

Jeffrey Paul, editor "Reading Nozick"

Michael Perelman "The Invention of Capitalism : Classical Political Economy and the Secret History of Primitive Accumulation"

An academic examination of how governments created the preconditions for capitalism by separating peasants from their land, following the advice of classical economists such as Adam Smith.

Karl Polanyi, Joseph E. Stiglitz, Fred Block "The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time"

Explains the socially constructed nature of "free markets", as opposed to "spontaneous order".

Margaret Jane Radin "Contested Commodities: The Trouble with Trade in Sex, Children, Body Parts, and Other Things"

An examination of how non-market values are important to personhood, and how social and economic inequality threaten those values, necessitating regulation.

Jack N. Rakove "Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution"

Pullitzer Prize winning background that helps to understand the fallacies in simplistic libertarian constitutional interpretations.

Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber "Trust Us, We're Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles With Your Future"

Details of the public relations and brownlash manipulations of CATO, Steven Milloy, and others.

Elton Rayack "Not So Free To Choose"

An extensive criticism of Milton Friedman's economic and social philosophy.

John W. Robbins "Answer to Ayn Rand : [a critique of the philosophy of objectivism]"

John W. Robbins "Without a Prayer: Ayn Rand and the Close of Her System"

Apparently a rebuttal from a religious point of view.

L.A. Rollins "The Myth of Natural Rights"

Douglas Rushkoff "Coercion: Why We Listen to What 'They' Say"

The coercive and manipulative arms race between marketers and the public.

Scott Ryan "Objectivism and the Corruption of Rationality: A Critique of Ayn Rand's Epistemology"

A technical analysis that finds Objectivism to be both incoherent and unoriginal.

Schwartz, Peter "Libertarianism: The perversion of liberty"

An article reprinted in "The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought".

Amartya Sen "Development As Freedom"

A Nobel prize-winning economist explains elimination of "capability deprivation" in five categories as being crucial to freedom. Shows libertarian ideas of economic freedom to be dreadfully incomplete for liberty or freedom.

Thomas A. Spragens, Jr. "The Limitations of Libertarianism."

Responsive Community (Spring 1992)45-47. (Part 2.)

James P. Sterba "Contemporary Social and Political Philosophy"

Wadsworth, 1994. His chapter on libertarianism makes the argument that, "... the right to a social minimum endorsed by welfare liberals is also required by the libertarian's own ideal of liberty."

James P. Sterba "Morality in Practice"

Fifth edition, Wadsworth, 1997. Another statement of the above argument. A longer version of this article will appear as "Reconciling Liberty and Equality or Why Libertarians must be Socialists" in Liberty and Equality, edited by Larry May and Jonothan Schonsheck (MIT, 1996).

Jean Stefancic and Richard Delgado "No Mercy: How Conservative Think Tanks and Foundations Changed America's Social Agenda"

(Temple Univ. Press 1996). The influence of Cato and Heritage Foundations.

Cass Sunstein "Free Markets and Social Justice"

(Oxford Univ. Press 1997). Takes on the claims of the Law and Economics camp, libertarians such as Epstein and Posner.

Rick Tilman "Ideology and Utopia in the Social Philosophy of the Libertarian Economists (Contributions in Economics and Economic History, No. 223)"

(Greenwood Publishing Group 2001). Challenges libertarian definitions of freedom and democracy, and shows how libertarianism undermines democracy, civil liberties, and social equality.

Lars Udehn "The Limits of Public Choice: A sociological critique of the economic theory of politics"

(Routledge 1996).

Jeff Walker "The Ayn Rand Cult"

(Open Court 1998). Questions the originality of Rand's ideas, and presents the cult-like organization of Objectivism.

Gary Wills "A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government"

(Simon & Schuster 1999) A strong refutation of historical revisionist interpretations of the Founders and Constitution as supporting antigovernment positions.

Robert Anton Wilson "Natural Law"

Donald A. Wittman "The Myth of Democratic Failure: Why Political Institutions Are Efficient"

University of Chicago Press, 1995. "... refutes one of the cornerstone beliefs of economics and political science: that economic markets are more efficient than the processes and institutions of democratic government."

Jonathan Wolff "Robert Nozick: Property, Justice and the Minimal State"

Blackwell 1991. Summarizes and invents numerous philosophical refutations of Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia, a much parrotted work. Libertarians are generally unaware of the flaws and incompleteness of their "best" philosophy.

John Cunningham Wood and Ronald N. Woods "Milton Friedman: critical assessments"

Routledge 1990.