Liberty Literature - The Literature that Instituted and Sustains Liberty

[Thomas Paine]

Recently, I've begun to study works of literature that encapsulate the Western idea of Liberty. Most of the authors I've read are from the Colonial and Enlightenment eras. This includes authors from all around the Western world including mainland Europe, Britain, and America. I want to open a thread where others can post their recommendations for Literature regarding individual rights, Liberty, freedom of speech, religion, etc. The works can be from any country or period, there are no real stipulations. I would like to broaden my world view on this topic as well. I'll start with what I know best below:

Thomas Paine:
Rights of Man
Common Sense
The American Crisis
The Age of Reason

Jean-Jacques Rousseau:
The Social Contract

Roger Williams:
Letter to the town of Providence
The Bloody Tenet of Persecution for Cause of Conscience

Upon further posts/discussions I'll update the OP accordingly.

I'll leave you with an excerpt:

"These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it Now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, more glorious the triumph."

 

[betterbullocks]

I came across a pod of wild libertarians who insisted there's no such thing as the social contract because they "never signed any contract"
Are there books on liberty for people with lukewarm IQs or are we just doomed

 

[break these cuffs]

I came across a pod of wild libertarians who insisted there's no such thing as the social contract because they "never signed any contract"
Are there books on liberty for people with lukewarm IQs or are we just doomed

Sadly they got those ideas from readings blogs written by people who read books on liberty written for people with lukewarm IQs.

 

[spurger king]

Are there books on liberty for people with lukewarm IQs or are we just doomed

A guy I know is reading Patriots by James Wesley Rawles, it seems to fit the bill pretty nicely. It's a mix of masturbatory survivalist fantasy, insane sovereign citizen manifesto, and post-apocalypse novel.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I came across a pod of wild libertarians who insisted there's no such thing as the social contract because they "never signed any contract"
Are there books on liberty for people with lukewarm IQs or are we just doomed

But they're right. The social contract is basically pretending that the government is a voluntary institution despite the fact that you have no option to opt out. Government is a protection racket, not a business.

 

[Bibendum]

• On Liberty - John Stuart Mill
• The Structure of Liberty - Randy E. Barnett
• Anarchy, State, and Utopia - Robert Nozick
• New Libertarian Manifesto - S. E. Konkin III
• For A New Liberty - Murray Rothbard
• Principles for a Free Society - Richard Epstein
• The Machinery of Freedom - David D. Friedman (this one's not for beginners)
• Free To Choose, Capitalism and Freedom - Milton Friedman
• Economics In One Lesson - Henry Hazlitt
• Basic Economics - Thomas Sowell (all his books are fantastic)
• Human Action - Ludwig von Mises
• The Road to Serfdom - F. A. Hayek (his works are really important, read them)
• No Treason - Lysander Spooner
• Defending the Undefendable - Walter Block

I could list so many, I may as well just list authors whose works you should devote significant time to: F. Bastiat, the Friedmans, F. A. Hayek, Wendy McElroy, R. A Heinlein, Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, Thomas Sowell, Lysander Spooner, Jeffrey Tucker, Ludwig von Mises.

 

[The best and greatest]

But they're right. The social contract is basically pretending that the government is a voluntary institution despite the fact that you have no option to opt out. Government is a protection racket, not a business.

Sure you have options. Move to another nation-state more in line with your beliefs, or run out into the wild and live as a hermit away from society and its tyrannies.

 

[MZ 052]

Have you read Locke?

 

[Oskar Dirlewanger]

For uncucked (as opposed to cringe and bluepilled "western") idea of liberty, refer to:

• D.A.F. de Sade - 120 Days of Sodom
• D.A.F. de Sade - Juliette
• Nietzsche - Nachlass
• Nietzsche - Antichrist
• Max Stirner - The Ego and Its Own
• Austin Osman Spare - Book of Pleasure

 

[The best and greatest]

For uncucked (as opposed to cringe and bluepilled "western") idea of liberty, refer to:

• D.A.F. de Sade - 120 Days of Sodom
• D.A.F. de Sade - Juliette
• Nietzsche - Nachlass
• Nietzsche - Antichrist
• Max Stirner - The Ego and Its Own
• Austin Osman Spare - Book of Pleasure

Anyone who doesn't subscribe to natural rights is an automatic cuck, sorry.

 

[Charls did nothing wrong]

The Road to Serfdom - F. A. Hayek (his works are really important, read them)

This book is good.

In relation to just the Austrian stuff. I first read Advanced introduction to the Austrian school of economics by Randall G. Holcombe. Wasn’t a bad introduction.

What I’ve read of Kirzner (An essay called Austrian Subjectivism (I think) in particular) I liked but Hayek is probably better and (I think) is more widely accepted.

I’m reading The Trend of Economic Thinking a bunch of Hayek’s stuff published by liberty fund now which has a really interesting overview of the trend of economic thinking.

There’s a podcast of Mises’ Human Action but it’s pretty heavy for a podcast.

 

[TheWatchfulFurfag]

Areopagitica by John Milton

 

[XYZpdq]

if you want Rand shit and you don't want twenty million pages of it Anthem is pretty short

 

[Distant Stare]

H Beam Piper was an an cap who wrote about "future history". this includes glorious McNukes

"He actually knows what has to be done and how to do it, and he's going right ahead and doing it, without holding a dozen conferences and round-table discussions and giving everybody a fair and equal chance to foul things up for him."

I attached my favorite book of his. It is about a pair of planets that orbit each other. One planet is home to race of statist communists, and others are an caps. It is written as a historical anthology.

 

[Strine]

Rousseau will just turn you into more of a Romanticist than globalists already want you to be.

Read Freud, Sade, and Paglia.

 

[AnOminous]

I can't believe this isn't in the OP.

The Federalist Papers - Congress.gov Resources - Congress.gov Resources

www.congress.gov

Read these in conjunction with the Constitution and you'll know more about freedom and how to make a government that can do its job and not trample on it (at least for a while) than most people.

 

[TaimuRadiu]

Anything by Ayn Rand.

She may have been an autistic crazy Russian, but my God did she love America.

 

[Pop-Tart]

Necroing this thread

I have inspired by trad fags to read pre enlightenment era takes on liberty.

I just got a copy of In Defense of the Republic by Cicero. I plan on getting more of his stuff. I know Marcus Aurelius mentions it a bit in Meditations. I also have heard to read Epicurus (and that his work is a lot less hedonistic then you would think of the name).

Sides that I have found various historical stuff on jstor like this

Also I am thinking of maybe getting Lust for Liberty: The Politics of Social Revolt in Medieval Europe, 1200-1425: Italy, France, and Flanders when I have money to piss away.

I can't believe this isn't in the OP.

The Federalist Papers - Congress.gov Resources - Congress.gov Resources

www.congress.gov

Read these in conjunction with the Constitution and you'll know more about freedom and how to make a government that can do its job and not trample on it (at least for a while) than most people.

Don't forget the anti federalist papers too.

 

[Kosher Dill]

How about turning it around and suggesting some classics of anti-liberty?

Obviously the list would have to include Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto - there's endless amounts of communist literature, but this is the strongest, most concise statement of the idea that this "liberty" thing is a failed experiment.
Sir Robert Filmer's Patriarcha - the monarchist/divine-right theory that Locke was countering in the first of his "Two Treatises on Government".
The Chinese Legalists, particularly the Book of Lord Shang - which endorsed a ruthless state keeping its people ignorant and fearful in order to funnel them entirely into agriculture and warfare.
Increase Mather's Testimony against prophane customs - a reasonably concise exemplar of the "No Fun Allowed" Puritanism of early New England.
Herbert Marcuse's Repressive Tolerance - a formal academic treatment of the idea that "we don't have to tolerate intolerance", which of course has metastatized widely by now.
The roots of fascism are mostly a muddled hodgepodge, but Richard Griffiths' "An Intelligent Person's Guide to Fascism" (hat tip to the Kiwi who recommended this to me) can point you to many of the movement's more prominent forerunners.
And for that matter, on the fictional side, how about Sir Thomas More's Utopia? The "ideal" state it describes is far from what we'd call a free one.

I'm sure others can suggest more.

 

[D_Tractor]

I came across a pod of wild libertarians who insisted there's no such thing as the social contract because they "never signed any contract"
Are there books on liberty for people with lukewarm IQs or are we just doomed

Unintended Consequences by John Ross. And the John Milius screenplay for the original 1984 Red Dawn movie. And Boston's Gun Bible.