We'll do chapter seven for Thursday. If you need to get up to speed, here are previous installments in the series.
By the way, what do you all want for the *next* book club?
We resume with Keynes’s *General Theory*
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The Race Between Education and Technology
Roger Garrison, _Time and Money_.
How about a Peter Schiff book? “Crash Proof” perhaps?
I would much appreciate a sustained engagement with the ideas of Schiff and the ABCTers. I am not necessarily a huge fan, but I am naturally curious to learn more given his apparent prognosticatory capabilities.
“Capitalism & Freedom” or “The Road to Surfdom”
The Magician’s Book: A Skeptic’s Adventures in Narnia by Laura Miller
I second *Road to Serfdom*
The Calculus of Consent.
Thanks for catching my mistake, Jeff. Careless error.
Wealth of Nations
Hayek or Smith
Please!
Thorstein Veblen’s “The Theory of the Leisure Class”, please!
Definitely something austrian… Theory of Money and Capital or Road to Serfdom?
“I think it would be especially interesting if the readings relied heavily on and/or contradicted each other. Anything that builds on or responds to Keynes’s General Theory would make for an interesting new edition.”
I guess if you follow the above logic, Friedman/Schwartz would be an obvious choice. However I do not view the reading list as a chain of reasoning, sui generis.
I personally lean on the reading group as a counterweight to the clutter in the financial media. By reading great economists I clean the cobwebs of hastily-proposed economic logic we see so frequently in the media and rely instead on those who thought long and well of the same problems but in a different time.
So I would prefer a step backwards, in the direction of the worldly philosophers: Mandeville, Smith, etc.
I disagree we should “build” on Keynes. Rather the readings should be inspired by policy debates (this was, after all, the original impetus that led us towards the General Theory).
And what with all these talks of deficits mattering, why not try Ricardo?
I vote for Capitalism & Freedom, pick something by Douglas North, or pick something by Schumpeter.
Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy?
Human Action, Mises.
Oh, oh, oh! If you would like to do some Hayek, I’d reccomend Prices and Productiona and other essays!
Human Action
If you are going to read Keynes, go the next step.
I reoommend Axel Leijonhufud “Keynesian Economics and the Economics of Keynes.”
Then something by Minsky.
The trillion dollar question is whether modern finance economies are inherently prone to asset price booms and busts with associated banking booms and bust which produce business cycles.
If we want the readings to come in pairs that dialogue with each other (dialectical literature, you could say) then I would vote for Hazlitt’s Failure of the New Economics, given the Austrian leaning of the Mason community and many who frequent this blog. It is a more direct economic critique than Road to Serfdom, I think.
Many of the other suggestions would be a lot of fun too though.
*Development, Geography, and Economic Theory* by Krugman
I’ll third for Adam Smith – Theory of Moral Sentiments
Also, selections from Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy may be good, if daunting.
Thorstein Veblen’s “The Theory of the Leisure Class”, please!
The Theory of the Business Enterprise might be a more timely choice.
I vote “The Road to Serfdom”
Hayek’s Monetary Nationalism. That is an immensely important and under-rated book. And it is available free online. And it is a perfect antidote to Keynes.
I would guess the General Theory series was sparked by the view that the problems of today are somewhat like the 1930s. If so I would suggest Friedman and Schwartz’s “A Monetary History of the US” might put the Keynes book and errors in it in context.
Thomas Schelling – Micromotives and Macrobehavior
Hayek, The Fatal Conceit — for a good summary of his ideas
A few years ago I read Henry George’s Progress and Poverty, which I found to be much more interesting than I expected it to be. It has interesting ideas, errors to find, the works. And it wouldn’t have the baggage that people will bring to a discussion on Mises, Hayek, etc.
The daddy of all economics textbooks, Alfred Marshall’s Principles.
I agree with Bob Murphy and believe that the choice of the next book is both natural and obvious. It should be The Failure of the “New Economics,” by Henry Hazlitt. In the book Hazlitt takes apart General Theory and provides a line-by-line refutation that shows just how poor Keynes’ thinking really was.
Road to Serfdom, or maybe for a mini book club you could do Bastiat’s The Law.
What else but “Das Kapital”?
Perhaps after this highly critical review of Bernanke’s Essays on the Great Depression, by Yves Smith, we should look at that book. Or maybe some of the others she cites.
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