Mitch Daniels picks five books

Erik Kain

Erik writes about video games at Forbes and politics at Mother Jones. He's the contributor of The League though he hasn't written much here lately. He can be found occasionally composing 140 character cultural analysis on Twitter.

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6 Responses

  1. Joe Carter says:

    Nothing wrong with his choices, but Daniels doesn’t seems confused about conservatism. He was asked to choose “5 Books on Conservatism” and instead, he selects five books by libertarians. He even says he regrets not including Hayek’s “Why I Am Not a Conservative”!

    I don’t have anything against libertarians (and least nothing that I don’t hold against all utopianists) but that ideology is in no way related to conservatism.

    Daniels may be sharper then most politicians, but his embrace of libertarianism shows that he is likely to be too enthralled with abstractions to be an effective President.Report

  2. Joe Carter says:

    Aargh. Why I don’t I proof comments before posting them? I meant to say that “Daniels seems confused about conservatism.”Report

  3. Koz says:

    I think Joe exaggerates the point a little bit, but it’s interesting to note how Gov Daniels hedges his bet wrt the moral superiority of private property and free economies (and why).

    I think that’s a mistake, an irrelevant one in most circumstances but profound one in others. Instead what we can say is that the autonomy of the individual is not necessarily our highest value, but that the exceptions to it ought to be rare and carefully considered. In particular, that supposedly good intent does not make collectivization acceptable. And with that in mind, we ought to confidently assert the moral superiority of free economies relative to the alternatives.Report