I just finished Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism (finally); it doesn't typically take me this long to finish a book. This was the first book on economics that I've read, and it sounded like fun from the title (and a lot of it is actually fun), but it was a bit of a choppy read. Here's the thing; economists aren't writers. Friedman seems like a decent economist, and he might be a good professor, but he takes his time really getting into the meat of the subject matter, and in most cases, narrowly avoids being interesting at the last, crucial moment. The actual composition and layout of information is embarrassing (just plain poor writing), but the numbers embedded within tell the real story - if only they weren't outdated by about 30 years.

Friedman draws a lot of inspiration from Heinlein's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, as well as Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and The Romantic Manifesto, which caught my interest. The thing is, this book could have been written so well, but it still stands out, simply because it was published at a time when Libertarianism, privatization and laissez-faire capitalism were frowned on by the post-1960's, Socialistic, Liberal masses (on the other hand, when were they not?) While I read it, I was constantly thinking "Ok, that's a sloppy way to present that idea, but I get it - but I would have worded it (x) instead of (y)".

I guess I was looking for a book that laid a foundation for Anarcho-capitalist principles, customs instead of laws, on-the-fly trials, neighborhood militias and volunteer police - instead, I got an economists treatment of these very ideas, with a focus on numbers and statistics instead of real-world comparisons. Still, for anyone the slightest bit interested in the subject I recommend reading it, bearing in mind that it was written in the 1970's (with an update in the late 1980's) and the numbers presented don't even come close to our modern economic climate.

I'm excited to start in on some fiction now, beginning with Heinlein's Waldo and Magic, Inc.

Labels: Anarcho-capitalism, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, books, capitalism, David D. Friedman, economics, Heinlein, Libertatianism, Machinery of Freedom, Moon is a Harsh Mistress, The Romantic Maniofesto

posted by tangentbot @ 11:03 AM 


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