Essay reading group (Anarchism / Economics essays)
What are various approaches to organizing and structuring human activity that fulfill human needs and make the good life possible?
This is the guiding question of this reading group - and we will investigate it by reading selections of classic texts in the history of economics and capitalism. We’ll read selections of the texts below, keeping the weekly reading to around 1 hour, and probably spend the first 30 minutes of each meeting collecting our thoughts (read: quickly skimming) before discussion.
We’ll start with Hayek’s "The Use of Knowledge in Society”, which skillfully lays out one of the most vexing problems inherent in any kind of social organizing - differing degrees of incomplete information - and makes one of the most beautiful theoretical cases for decentralized market economies I’ve read.
We’ll then move to Adam Smith in his book The Wealth of Nations, with an eye towards the sort of person Smith thinks humans are, and how capitalism harnesses those traits.
After Smith, we’ll move to some critiques of capitalism, starting with Marx’s Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, paying close attention to his theories of human nature. I may add a sprinkling of the Manifesto or Capital in our reading selections, and this will likely be our heaviest week in terms of reading.
It will then be time to turn to the anarchists. But understanding the history of anarchy requires familiarization with the history of property and property rights, so we will take a slight detour and look at Henry George’s Progress and Poverty, and some critiques of property arrangements under capitalism. Tbh, this is the text I’m most excited about.
After George, we’ll turn to Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, largely considered the “first” anarchist in the modern sense of the word - or, at least, the first person to refer to himself that way. He’s best known for his phrase “Property is theft!”. I’m thinking of reading his essay “The Birth of Anarchy: the Death of Property,” but I may elect to read something else by him.
Our last week will be another anarchist, but I’m not sure who yet - there are many options. We could read another classical anarchist thinker, like Kropotkin or Bakunin. The other option is to accelerate course to the modern day, and read someone like Graeber. We’ll make a game-time decision here.