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Columbia University taught me everything I've ever needed to know about socialism, but here are the books they don't teach you in the classroom. My name's Lisa and you're watching Pens and Poison.
So, in the English department at Columbia, we read every single socialist theorist under the sun from Theodor Adorno to Jacques Derrida to Karl Marx himself. And as a result, I am so well versed in every single argument imaginable in favor of socialism. And until fairly recently, I knew absolutely nothing about the other side, which is a huge problem with our education system. Like, they do not teach you the dangers of socialism basically at all, and that's why you got to subscribe to Pens and Poison to get all the good stuff.
So, if you believe in capitalism or are just curious to learn from intellectuals who aren't radical Marxists, here are my seven favorite books that will get you started in understanding the pillars of capitalism and a free society.
So, first up is Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman. Start here if you want a broad overview of capitalism and how it plays out in different parts of the society. So, Friedman is an economist in the Chicago school and in the general public, he's probably the most well-known for his 1970 essay, "The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Its Profits," which makes pretty much that argument. There was a lot of talk obviously after the '60s about the social responsibility of business, and Friedman basically goes out and says, well, that's BS. If a business focuses on increasing its profits, it will end up doing the most social good as a result, which is generally true, guys, because nothing motivates humans to do good like earning money. Capitalism and Freedom was written well before that essay, but it's a basic overview of capitalism that's very accessible to the general public and it has a lot of great abstract arguments that Friedman then puts in action through various examples. It's a little bit dated, but I think there's some really, really great stuff here, especially if you're new to understanding the theories of capitalism.
Next up is The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek, which will give you a more intellectual deep dive into the dangers of planned economies. So, Hayek wrote this book in response to the claim that socialism is the answer to Nazism. And what you have to understand about the 20th century, especially in Europe, is that there were basically two primary ideologies: socialism and Nazism, and you were either a socialist or a Nazi, and there was basically nothing in between unless you went to America. So, a lot of people who rightfully hated Nazism became convinced that socialism was the answer, and Hayek basically demonstrates that Nazism is actually just socialism under disguise. And the reason that the Nazis hated the communists and the socialists was not because of their economic convictions, which were virtually identical, but because they represented cosmopolitanism, which was basically a fancy way of saying that many Jews at the time were communists. But, if you look at the name Nazism, national socialism, it literally has socialism in the name, and both promote a centrally planned economy, which is what Hayek talks about in this book. And guys, what I love about Hayek is that he writes so clearly, especially compared to other theorists of the same time, especially the Marxists writing in the 20th century, because they always hide behind so much obscurantism, and that is because none of them actually know what they're trying to argue. You can tell the strength of an argument based on how clearly it's laid out. I always say the mark of an intelligent person is to be able to lay out a complex idea in a way that is accessible to the general public. And of course, Foucault and many of his friends routinely fail this test, and don't even get me started on Jacques freaking Derrida. Hayek writes very clearly, love him for that.
Next up is The Captive Mind by Czesław Miłosz. I hope I am pronouncing that correctly, someone will have to correct me if I'm not. But, this book is an overview of the dangers of totalitarianism with a specific focus on the Soviet Union. Miłosz won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1980 for his fiction, but he's actually most well known today for this book, which is beautifully written and describes the psychology of Soviet authoritarianism. The most well-known concept from this book is probably ketman, which is a word that Miłosz borrows from Arabic to mean the outward conforming to totalitarianism while secretly maintaining different beliefs. I think you see a lot of this today, so this guy's super relevant.
Okay, next up is not a work of theory, but a novel. This is Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler, which tells the story of a political prisoner in a state much like the USSR. So, Koestler fought in the Spanish Civil War alongside George Orwell and came to many similar conclusions and wrote very similar books, but the reason you don't hear about this guy as much as you hear about Animal Farm and 1984 is that this book is overtly anti-socialist in terms of the morality structure of the practice, whereas Orwell's stuff is basically just like anti-authoritarian. I actually like Koestler more than Orwell because I think he really gets that individual psychology, especially the psychology of the authoritarian, a lot better than Orwell. Orwell just basically describes the collective psychology of totalitarianism, which is a little bit different. I did a deep dive into this book last year, so I'll link the video in the description somewhere if you want to check it out.
All right, number five is The Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand. I know, I know, we hate Ayn Rand, but she gets a bad rap. I don't agree with everything she has to say, but you cannot hate Ayn Rand until you've actually read her, and I think it's absolutely crucial to read her ideas just to get a feel for what she's actually trying to say. Like, I think she is caricatured a lot, but if you take her Soviet background and understand her philosophy from the context of the world she was escaping, I think she has a lot of valid points. Also, guys, look at this. It's so short. If you hate it, it's only like three hours of your life. Check it out.
Number six is The Power of the Powerless by Václav Havel, the former Czech president who warned us of the dangers of totalitarianism. So, this book is probably most famous for its depiction of the greengrocer. So, Havel imagines a hypothetical greengrocer who puts a sign on his window with the slogan, "Workers of the world, unite." And he basically says that the sign isn't there because he believes in the message. The sign is a sort of social and political signal to everyone around him that he is doing the right thing. In other words, Havel described virtue signaling way before we had people putting Palestinian flags in their Blue Sky bios. Really great read. Check it out.
And finally, we have The Open Society and Its Enemies by Karl Popper. Popper was a friend of Hayek and a notable opponent of Karl Marx. I'm actually in the middle of reading this one right now. As you can see, it is very large. I don't agree with him on a lot of things and of course he decides to open the book by blaming the Jews for everything. But I guess everyone blamed the Jews for everything back then and they still do. It's a little bit understandable because his family was actually Jewish and they converted to assimilate and he basically believed that Jews should just assimilate into society and leave behind their Judaism. But as we know, that didn't work so well either, especially in the places where the Jews were the most assimilated. We can overlook this part of his argument and there actually is some other things that I disagree with, but he has a great takedown of Plato's bad ideas from what I've read so far and I'm really excited to get further into it where he's going to talk about Marx. Got to read people you disagree with. Popper, I definitely disagree with on a lot of things, agree with on some things. Worth checking out. This is a book that is not very widely recommended, but I still think worth the read and I will get back to you guys once I've finished it completely.
So there you have it, the starter pack to anti-socialist intellectuals. Let me know which one you guys are starting with in the comments and don't forget to subscribe for more contrarian literary and cultural takes.