Finished one of The Teaching Company's lectures on western thinkers. It was a long one, close to 40 hours of 'lectures'. I don't get much out of this stuff, it is rather boring. I subject myself to it because I don't have anything more interesting to listen to at the moment, and there may be ideas for further reading. One of the last bits was on a guy called Nozick, which was very interesting. A search took me to wikipedia of course, which took me to other things which focus on libertarianism and capitalism. One website here promises some interesting reading, some guy that advocates libertarianism collects critiques of same.

What I find interesting about free markets and libertarianism is how people justify their arguments. Everyone expounds on the virtues of this or that system of government, but very little is said about how intricate things become with the human element. For instance, free markets in theory will work because they take into account the individual need for improving one's situation. The implication is that nobody will act to the detriment of others, or that such a system wouldn't tolerate it. This of course doesn't work in practice, as has been obvious throughout history.

I also came across a book that looks very interesting. Mistakes Were Made is the topic of discussion on the Center For Inquiry website. They do a podcast, and talk to one of the co-authors of the book.