A reader's list

At the baseball game this evening I was asked to compile a reading list. So here goes (with an explanation)

On Globalization - The Lexus and the Olive Tree and The World is Flat - both by Tom Friedman. The Lexus presents the clash of civilizations thesis that Samuel Huntington is famous for in a much more readable format. The World is Flat presents a series of trends which are breaking down barriers between countries. Friedman links trade liberalization and technology in a way that is fundamentally sound. I heard him speak while we were in Hawaii and one of the best lines he had in that speech was "don't cede a century to a country that censures Google." There is some reason to think that Friedman may be a bit optimistic. Lord Keynes wrote in the early part of the 20th Century that liberalized trade was a good thing and likely to continue while there are primative forces at work in today's world, I believe in the power of technology. If you are really interested in the technology part of the equation look also to Kevin Kelly's New Rules for the New Economy - although it is a bit dated it is still excellent. If you are interested in the long term trends of globalization read almost anything by Kenichi Ohmae - the Japanese management consultant - The End of the Nation State was a real eye opener when I read it many years ago.

Terrorism - Unfortunately, in my opinion there is a lot of baloney in the field. I think the best I have seen, to give you an idea about what we are really up against is Bernard Lewis' What Went Wrong - Lewis is the foremost American scholar of the Middle East. His books are well researched and written.

Governmental Structure - The Federalist Papers - every American should read these 85 essays written to convince the people of New York to adopt the proposed Constitution about once a year. James Buchanan (the 1986 winner of the Nobel in Economics) has a bunch of great writing - his original exposition of public choice theory is in the Calculus of Consent. The Limits of Liberty is a bit more dense but well worth the effort. I would also recommend Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand - Rand was not a very good novelist - this is about 400 pages too long - the John Galt speech alone is way to verbose and she seems to lapse into these kinds of perorations all through the book. But the substance of the novel is excellent (soon to be a major motion picture). Mancur Olson also had a couple of good books about governmental structure. The Rise and Decline of Nations was a really wonderful treatment of the role of interest groups in hamstringing creative activity.

Social Thinking - James Suroweicki's The Wisdom of Crowds explains a novel theory about why groups make better decisions that individuals under the right conditions. I tend to agree with that conclusion and Suroweicki has an entertaining way of explaining the theory. Lawrence Lessig's either The Future of Ideas or Free Culture presents some interesting thought on the risks of the new copyright policy in the US which could stifle our economic growth. Virginia Postrel's The Future and Its Enemies was a wonderful book about negative trends in progress. Her Substance of Style is an all out attack (effective at that) in favor of the consumer economy. Julian Simon (with Olson also a member of the U or Maryland department of economics and like Olson also died too young) did a couple of books worth reading, Simon had the annoying (to liberals) habit of looking at actual data to understand whether the loons on the left knew what they were talking about. He made the famous wager with chief loon Paul Ehrlich on the scarcity of materials in the world and won. He wrote two books - one about the Ultimate Resource- which is a series of essays of first rate statistical work on the abundance of our globe and the second on the economics of immigration - that should be read by any serious social theorist.

Economics - I have two favorites here - the long and the short. Henry Hazlett wrote Economics in One Lesson - which explains the market in wonderfully simple terms (If you want the argument reduced to a pamphlett hunt up - I Pencil which Leonard Read did). The longer stuff is almost anything by Frederich von Hayek - who was the first Nobel in Economics. I think Hayek was the intellectual of the 20th Century. The Constitution of Liberty is a very tough read but worth the effort. I would also recommend Adam Smith - The Wealth of Nations and the Theory of Moral Sentiments. Unfortunately, Smith is quoted more than he is read. (Both by the right and the left).

Tax Policy - Buchanan again with the Power to Tax is good but a bit obtuse. George Gilder's Wealth and Poverty is a pretty good explanation of supply side theory. Jude Wanninski's The Way the World Works is a bit of an overstatement but I found it entertaining. Showdown at Gucci Gulch is a wonderful story - written like a novel by two WSJ reporters - which explains how the 1986 Tax Reform Act came to be.

Novels - I like Dickens and Twain - both have a wonderful command of the language and a great eye for absurdity. They actually both worked hard in the US to extend copyright laws.

Those are seven categories and admittedly an incomplete list of things which have influenced my thinking.