/lit/ - Literature

So, true story. I took part in the Koch Scholars program in fall of 2012 at my university. I got paid a grand to meet once a week for most of the semester and discuss a book. Some of the books are by the usual suspects: Thomas Sowell, Henry Hazlitt, Hayek. Some are classics: Adam Smith, John Locke, Rousseau. One week we read "The Hunger Games." Some are extreme: "The Machinery of Freedom."

At the end of it all I concluded: libertarians are either crazy or ignorant or both. I'm on board with legalizing drugs. I'm on board with same sex marriage, loosening border control and reducing bureaucracy. But when they started advocating abolishing government completely and seriously discussing private for hire police forces and intimating that Lincoln was a bad guy/corrupt for not accepting the Confederate secession and refusing to accept that an totally unregulated market might result in a monopoly, my brain shut down.

They talked about their positions with an almost religious fervor, as if everything wrong in the world would be solved if everybody accepted them. Also, it is ironic that the Koch Brothers, billionaires who inherited their father's company and money, fund groups that champion free enterprise and deregulation; oligarchs masquerading as meritocrats. I don't know which is scarier: that they are fooling people or that they actually believe what they preach.

What is the straight dope on it all /lit/? What are the books that shaped you political/economic viewpoint?

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I'll just leave this here.

I've been on a sci-fi reading binge. Sadly though I've developed a problem. It seems like everything I've read has a distinctly Libertarian (in the American sense) and/or free market fundamentalist approach. Sometimes this is okay when the entire book isn't about advancing their ideology. But, it's starting to grate on me and I'd like a change of pace.

It seems like it's all either, I, FOR ONE, GLADLY WELCOME OUR NEW CORPORATE OVERLORDS, or OH SHIT I BET YOU WISHED WE HAD CORPORATE OVERLORDS INSTEAD OF TOTALITARIAN GOVERNMENTS, HUH BITCH?

I'd greatly appreciate recommendations for sci-fi books, preferably "good" (read: as not pulp from early-mid 1900's) ones that are not steeped in Libertarian/Free Market Fundamentalism.

Thanks.

TL;DR: Recs for sci-fi books where the author doesn't worship Ayn Rand and etc.

The main problem that I have with these groups is their quasi-religious devotion to lassiez-faire capitalism and unwillingness to understand the basic tenants of market economics.
Free market theory operates under four assumptions:
1. An infinite number of competitors
2. No barrier to entry
3. No product differentiation
4. Perfect flow of information
However, these conditions may not exist for every industry, so straight-up lassiez-faire capitalism may not work in every case. In these cases, government intervention or government ownership can increase market efficiency (i.e. railroads are often best run as government services, regulatory agencies make sure advertising about products is truthful).
There are many admirable qualities to the libertarian ideology, such as reducing the defense budget or ending the drug war. However, libertarians seem to focus more often on ending programs which benefit the market like education or the FDA. They almost never focus on serious market issues, such as government subsidies to major oil and automotive companies, which have caused stagnation in the energy and transport industries, or corn subsidies, which are an even greater problem.
They also tend to be quick to abandon their social libertarian roots.

>>1527559
which one? we have a very big catalogue

Which one are you, Randroid?