Maybe setting the bounds of the problem would help some. I’m assuming:
Some form of representative democracy as political context, in the absence of any better systems.
A system of law protecting most property rights—no arbitrary expropriations.
Socialism no more extreme than in (say) postwar Scandinavian countries.
Libertarianism no more extreme than (say) late 19th century USA.
Regulated capitalism. The question is how much regulation or taxation.
Given those parameters, I don’t need the Communist Manifesto or any radical anarchist works. North Korea, the USSR, pre-1980 China aren’t so relevant.
If people disagree with any of those limits on the problem, I suppose just stating that would be of interest, perhaps with a link or two. I realize getting into arguments about such things could be counterproductive, but knowing of the existence of views outside of those bounds would be helpful.
I think you’ll find the extreme cases (totalitarian economic controls vs. complete laissez faire) to be helpful to look at so as to challenge the way you’re framing the spectrum.
Also, politics and economics go hand in hand, economics being—in terms of what it is usually actually used for—the study of how political actions affect the economy. For example, David Friedman argues that courts would produce better rulings if they were not run as a monopoly, and that the same is true with laws and regulations themselves. So at the limit it is not easy to separate them.
Another example is the libertarian argument that pollution is largely enable by weakened property rights due to laws passed in the 19th century (in the US case) preventing torts against polluters, and from the basic fact that the government essentially owns the waters and airways. These types of arguments tend to undercut the whole divide between economics and politics.
Maybe setting the bounds of the problem would help some. I’m assuming:
Some form of representative democracy as political context, in the absence of any better systems.
A system of law protecting most property rights—no arbitrary expropriations.
Socialism no more extreme than in (say) postwar Scandinavian countries.
Libertarianism no more extreme than (say) late 19th century USA.
Regulated capitalism. The question is how much regulation or taxation.
Given those parameters, I don’t need the Communist Manifesto or any radical anarchist works. North Korea, the USSR, pre-1980 China aren’t so relevant.
If people disagree with any of those limits on the problem, I suppose just stating that would be of interest, perhaps with a link or two. I realize getting into arguments about such things could be counterproductive, but knowing of the existence of views outside of those bounds would be helpful.
I think you’ll find the extreme cases (totalitarian economic controls vs. complete laissez faire) to be helpful to look at so as to challenge the way you’re framing the spectrum.
Also, politics and economics go hand in hand, economics being—in terms of what it is usually actually used for—the study of how political actions affect the economy. For example, David Friedman argues that courts would produce better rulings if they were not run as a monopoly, and that the same is true with laws and regulations themselves. So at the limit it is not easy to separate them.
Another example is the libertarian argument that pollution is largely enable by weakened property rights due to laws passed in the 19th century (in the US case) preventing torts against polluters, and from the basic fact that the government essentially owns the waters and airways. These types of arguments tend to undercut the whole divide between economics and politics.