/lit/ - Literature

>>20503948
thank you, thank you. i try my best

Sorry, haven't been posting much recently haha...

>Selected Speeches - Demosthenes
>The Book of Lord Shang - Shang Yang
>Commentaries on the Gallic War - Caesar
>The Republic, The Laws, On Obligations - Cicero
>Meditations - Marcus Aurelius
>Arthashastra - Chanakya
>The Political Testament - Cardinal Richelieu
>The Prince, Discourses on Livy, Art of War - Machiavelli
>Utopia - More
>Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times - Lord Shaftesbury
>Political Writings - Jefferson
>The Federalist Papers - Hamilton, Madison
>Reflection on the Revolution in France - Burke
>Clisson and Eugénie - Napoleon
>Anti-Machiavel - Frederik the Great
>Political Writings - Lincoln
>State as Revolution, What is to be Done, Imperialism - Lenin
>Mein Kampf - Hitler
>Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung - Mao
>Diplomacy - Kissinger
>Islamic Government - Khomeini
>Green Book - Gaddafi
That's all i can think of. Many of them weren't that great but were still statesmen of some renown

ANIMEUS WILL ANSWER WITH THIRTY SHIPS. HOWEVER, PARTWAYS ON THE JOURNEY WE STOPPED AT AN ISLAND AND ANIMEUS WAS BITTEN BY A SNAKE SO HE WILL BE LATE.

>>16336816
>>16336995
>>16337016
>>16337027
>>16337933
>>16341583
haha, thanks anons. just trying to give back to the board that has given me so much.

>>16318022
On second thoughts, I think you can drop Sider if you just want introductory stuff.

>>16305871
That you enjoyed it is enough for me.

>>16282510
Politics. But any adequate understanding of politics requires an understanding of Sociology, philosophy, ethics, political economy, history, among other subjects. Though I've found being generally interested—but not ideologically committed—in politics in the current year can be quite isolating, at least in terms of meaningful discussion.

>>16241013
I can't give a sophisticated defense at the moment as my copy is a few thousand kilometers away and it's been a while since i've read it. But i think it is consistent. I guess we'll just have to disagree on that. But i enjoyed our chat. Thanks—i haven't had too many lately.

>>16233506
I guess i'll ad that there is some contention is how literally we're meant to take the text. Socrates mentions explicitly that the entire conceit of the exercise is to discover Justice through making the Justice in the individual writ large in the form of a city. And there are numerous references to the tripartite theory of the soul from phaedrus. Stuff like controlling the passions by limiting what modes of music and poetry makes more sense in this context, as indulging in vices corrupts one's character, etc. But there is stuff that doesn't seem to fit into this allegory at all, like the birth lottery, talk of property, and his account of the distribution of labour. Even thought the authenticity of the letters with the tyrant of Syracuse are in question, we also have the Critias+Timaeus dialogues and the possible unwritten Hermocrates which was to portray Athens as the ideal republic defeating the far more powerful Atlantis, which seem to suggest Plato was serious about it. But then you have the Laws where Plato walks back quite a few things in Republic. It is all quite confusing.
My current position is that the republic is meant to be both a work of political philosophy and personal ethics. So the original conceit that Socrates makes is to be taken literally, that the justice of an individual and the justice of a city are the same.

>>16212372
This is an interesting part of rational choice theory. In a perfect market, every exchange is pareto optimal—that is, there is no exchange where both parties are not at their maximum marginal utility. There cannot be any exchange that reduces the marginal utility of anyone. This is because of the premises of the perfect market: perfectly rational, taken to mean that they will always make decisions in the pursuit of maximising their utility; perfectly knowledgeable, so they know all the relevant information regarding the respective value and bargaining position of each exchange; no externalities, so all exchanges will only effect the individuals it involves, no costs will be incurred or passed onto third parties; all exchanges are voluntary, so no individual will be forced to make an exchange if they don't want to. Taken together, this results in an actor who will only make exchanges which objectively maximize their utility, and will never be affected by other's exchanges (directly, anyway). Further, it is a system where there is no free-riding or parasitical exchange. So, necessarily, every exchange is pareto optimal because no rational actor would voluntarily conduct an exchange that was detrimental to them.
But of course, your outcome in this system depends entirely on your initial endowment; And, as you well pointed out—and i carefully worded to specify—not all of those endowments are material. But, the public choice theorist doesn't think this is a problem. Naturally, differences in natural endowment will allow some individuals to accrue comparatively larger amounts of material wealth than others. But, crucially, there is no possible situation where any individual will be worse off, not only from their initial position, but in any exchange they ever make; Even if they only gain 1% of what another gets from an exchange, they will always end up more than they had; they will always be at maximum marginal utility.
The classic rejoinder would be: What about situations where individuals have an absolute advantage in natural initial endowments over another and as such have no reason to engage in an exchange with them? in this situation, the fact that every exchange necessarily leaves one better off means nothing if an exchange never occurs, and particular members of this society are essentially excluded from the market due to their poor initial endowments. Anyone who has done ECON101 will recognize this problem (and that it isn't one)—comparative advantage! in this case, even the greatest endowed individual would exchange with a least for the purposes of freeing up (even the tiniest fraction, as perfect rationality requires) part of their own resources to put it to better use elsewhere. So everyone will still be better off; the hypothetical disabled man has something to gain and nothing to lose.
At least, that is how i imagine a rational choice guy would answer it. Sorry i rambled a bit.

>>16155524
haha, i'm not erudite at all. That post was all over the place. But if you want to learn, just read the canon books on political philosophy, political science, sociology, and ethics. There are plenty of good charts and reading lists out there that will point you in the right path.