TOP TEN MOST IMPORTANT NON-FICTION BOOKS, 3-4

4. The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli, 1532. This book is one of the most important books on political theory, Machiavelli discussed the way to gain and keep power. According to Machiavelli, what a state needs the most to thrive is stability, and any action is justified no matter how cruel if it brings stability. This is what justifies the Prince to rule his kingdom with force rather than law.

How it applies to us, according to Maciavelli a good Prince (president) must have a strong enough military to withstand an enemy and if necessary to attack. We can not rely on other nations for help or wait for the enemy to come to us, such a prince is weak (Iraq). A true prince must be seen as humane and religious, but can not actually believe in these, for a good prince may be called to act against them. It is good for a prince to be both loved and feared, but if it is only possible for one of these, he should be feared. Being feared will bring more stability to the state than love. But Maciavelli does warn against being hated, so rule by fear if necessary but he should not harm his subjects women or take their life without good cause. Finaly a good prince needs good councliers and must be able to desipher between good men and those trying to flatter. But the final decesion needs to be make by the prince and carried out without wavering, or the prince will look soft.

As a republic we do not have a prince, yet many of these qualities have crept into our leadership. I believe our president needs to be seen as strong and not a straw man the way Clinton was. I like the last area, I am not sure Bush always had the best advice, but when he makes a decesion, he has always stuck to it and has not wavered. We have much at stake in the future, and maybe it will take a prince as strong as Machiavelli’s to achieve victory. Yet if we follow Machiavelli what will be the price of such victory?

3. The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith, 1776, and The Communists Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, 1848. Again these two go so well together that I decided to combine them.

Wealth of Nation is the first book written on economics and introduced the world to the concept of capitalism. It was written for the common man and so compared to most books on the subject it is accessible to us today. The most important concept in Wealth of Nation is the Invisible Hand. What he meant was there are natural forces that control economic cycles, what we call today the business cycle. It is like a roller coaster, sometimes the economy is good and sometimes it is bad. When the economy is bad, just wait it out and the private business world will correct itself and all will be right until the next down turn. Smith believed in what will be called laissez-faire government, or that government should not interfere in the economy, if they do they might break it. The Invisible Hand has to be free to work and not be restrained by government interference. It is supply and demand that set prices, government not only does not need to set prices, but should not. Gas prices are high today because we still buy gas, when prices get to the point where we can not pay, what the market can bear, then prices will drop. Or if we stop buying gas from some vendors then they will have to drop their prices.

Smith wrote about how people looking out for their own self interest was not as negative as once believed. When everyone looks out for themselves they will personally do what is necessary to make the economy perform well; so by helping yourself you are helping everyone. These princples are still part of our ecomony today, just adjusted. Starting with the Progressive period, Americans wanted more government oversite in the economy, they wanted to government to regulate the economy. It was not until FDR that government really took an active role in manipulating the economy. Even during the depression, Hoover did little to help, believing it was the private sector, the Invisible Hand, that needed to fix the depression, not government. Today we still argue over these prinples. The housing crisis is the best example. The Democrats want the government to fix it, while Republcians believe the private sector needs to work it out. Based on the fact that we live in a free market capitalist system, Wealth of Nations makes the number three spot

Marx and Engles will use the Wealth of Nations as the jumping off point for their own work. Much of the Communists Manifesto deals with economic and political history. During the middle ages there were serfs, nobles, and guilds. With the rise of industry the industrialists and the guilds clashed and what grew out of that conflict was the bourgeoisie or capitalists. Marx and Engles saw Adam Smith’s capitalists important because they killed feudalism and brought us one step closer to the final conflict, that of the bourgeoisie verses the proletate, or the working class. The problem with capilolism is the conflict between those who work (proletate) and those who own the means of production and make all the money (bourgeoisie). This conflict could not continue for long and ultimately would clash and springing from that conlict was communism. Under communism there would be no classes, instead there would be equality. The best way to guarntee equality was to do away with ownership of land so no one could have more than anyone else. Next all industry was to be taken over by the state to eliminate the have and the have nots.

The theories of Marx and Engles led to Lenin’s October Revolution in Russia which after WW II began America’s longest war, the Cold War. The Cold War played a part in everyting Americans did for the rest of the Century. Whether we talk about Civil Rights or 1950 sitcoms, the Cold War had an influence. We needed to win the hearts and minds of the third war, and prove our way of life and economy was better than the Russians. So we helped Dr. King get released from jail, so the Russians could not use it against us in Africa, and pushed family orientated sitcoms, with stay at home moms and white collar dads, to show our superiority. The great struggle in the 20th century was between Capitalists and Communists as we went on an ecomonic roller coaster and tried to figure out the best way possible to prosper. I would argue that in some ways communism has won out. The invisible hand in many ways no longer exists. We may not have moved as far as communism, but we have left the world of Adam Smith and laissez-faire government years ago. What we have now is a highbred of a free markket world controlled by government regulations.