100 Books Like Democracy in Chains

This book resonated with me deeply.

Klein focuses on the most crucial issue we face today, climate change, fueled by a system obsessed with profits and constant growth, which resonated very deeply with me. This book is imperative because it shows how the consumption of resources and materials is what drives powerful states around the world to dominate and make modern colonies of weaker countries in the name of profit and at any cost. 

I really liked how Klein breaks down ways that show us how our current economic system is at the heart of this crisis and that change will have to be made. I loved the insights she gave, and they made me think about how we can truly turn things around and create a sustainable world. I like how she explains clearly why late capitalism cannot be sustainable. This book is must read, especially by those who… show more.

The book that gave birth to the slogan... This is an iconoclastic look at the capitalist economy from a man who trained as an academic economist and worked for the National Coal Board. Schumacher thought creatively and wrote and spoke in a lively and engaging way and the book is an accessible introduction to a different way of thinking about what the purpose of an economy, or economics, is.

Also, Schumacher was invited to become the first Director of the Anglo-German Foundation for the Study of Industrial Society, but felt that he was already too old for the job. Many years later, I became the Foundation’s last Director.

I was drawn to this powerful, contemporary, Marxian analysis, which fits so well with After Capitalism. It opens with a section on “Capitalism and Unsustainable Development,” followed by “Ecological Paradoxes,” then “Dialectical Ecology,” (which includes evidence of Marx’s own concern with what we now call “ecology”). It concludes with “Ways Out.” It’s a long read, but well worth the effort.

I read this book to stay true to my commitment, inspired by John Stuart Mill, to always make an effort to understand the strongest against your own convictions (a key reason for always including Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom in my political philosophy courses). Like most progressives in the 70s, I was part of the anti-nuclear movement, not just opposition to nuclear weapons, but to nuclear power as well. I did not expect this book to radically shift these commitments—but it did. Not the first one, but the second. I realized on reading this book that I had not thought seriously about these issues in decades. The issue of climate change was not on the table in those days, and I had not paid much attention to the development of nuclear power since then. The issue today is too urgent to ignore. Looking at the evidence presented in this book… show more.

This excellent book is especially useful to those intrigued about the political ideas that currently dominate self-styled liberal western democracies such as the US, the UK, and Canada. Rather than lionize classical Greek or Roman history, this book instead provides nuanced narratives that are intelligible to the non-expert.

These narratives can be drawn on to understand the contested nature of the relationship between citizen and state and some of the historical roots of influential ideas such as justice, republicanism, and sovereignty.

I loved Bruce Ackerman’s recent book because he is also a professor of constitutional law reflecting on the state of democracy today but in an existential way, looking laterally at possible solutions to our political problems. Our starting points are similar, but proposed solutions different and complementary—I learned a tremendous amount from this book.

Downs does a great job of explaining how democratic decision-making links voter preferences to public policy outcomes. He looks at political preferences as existing on a left-to-right continuum and concludes that democratic elections tend to select the candidates whose preferences most closely reflect the median voter—the voter whose preferences fall in the middle of that left-right continuum. He offers a few caveats, one being that because one vote has a vanishingly small chance to affect an election outcome, voters tend to be rationally ignorant on political matters. There is no payoff to becoming informed because an election outcome will be the same regardless of how any individual voter votes.

De Tocqueville’s book is the first and probably still the best examination of the genius of America. At times like these, it's good to be reminded of what makes America work. Frankl would firmly understand and concur. The essence of America is our responsibility. Frankl would break it up into two words: “response-ability.”

I first read this book when I was in college. I have read it at least once in every subsequent year. It’s nice to be reminded of who we are. Ultimately, De Tocqueville teaches that this country will be whatever we make it. If we don’t like what’s going on, it’s our responsibility to change it.  

All through my school years, I heard that democracy began in Athens, in ancient Greece. But I never understood how that could have happened. To me, constitutions and democracy began with the American and French Revolutions. It turns out that Athenian democracy too began with a revolution! And it was a situation very similar to our own origins: A democratic revolution in a slave-owning society! And at a time when a “national” identity was just being formed out of local and regional ones. This is a book of essays, and you don’t have to read them all. But Josiah Ober is the foremost modern expert on Athenian society and the origins of its democracy, and his essays on that topic in this book are the best accounts we have.

He clearly presents a world that is thousands of years away from us and very strange, but shows how they confronted… show more.

This book is a gem. It stretches across thousands of years and explores the question of what makes a stable state—state-building, rule of law, and accountable government.

I love this book for its comprehensiveness, scathing criticism of tribalism, and scrutiny of corruption. I promise you will find it a great read.