/lit/ - Literature

Since most of what I read are PDFs, Ebooks, audio books when I do actually splash for a paper back I want THE edition with the best translations and coolest looking cover for my own vanity.

Not taking the piss her but smash through The Law by Bastiat since it's small and an entertaining read then get stuck into Hayek and Mises. They are both completely different personalities so write in different ways but they've both been huge opponents of Socialism and they've got really good books for spelling out the Classical Liberal/Libertarian alternative from a basis of explaining the ideals first rather than just trying to bash you over the head with pure logic like a Rothbard might.

I genuinely think these 3 guys are good decent people and incredibly smart even if you disagree with them.

The Law has a really powerful section early on where he goes over why people are clamouring for universal suffrage and the tendency to use it for revenge and so on, it dropped some pennies for me, it might for you, especially if you're of the current view that everyone else is misguided and/or evil.

For Hayek dabble in the Fatal Conceit and Constitution of Liberty and for Mises you can't go wrong with Liberalism. At least those are my suggestions for being open minded to a different set of ideas and to get some interesting perspectives on Socialism/Communism from the earlier writers when Communism was a lot more popular.

I don't have any suggestions for you with modern writers because I find them extremely antagonistic towards socialism, they'd prefer to just destroy it in a way that makes many marxists very defensive when they read it. There are some around though just depends on what you're looking for.

Have a go at this one next, it's a thick tome and quite difficult to get through but you'll be awake when you're done.