• Shrike502@lemmygrad.ml
    ·
    8 months ago

    Oh geez, where do I begin. I've actually read the bloody thing, about a decade ago, during my cringe youth. And it's horrid. It's just okay enough written to hook in impressionate minds - you know, the kind that would think libertarians have some good ideas.

    As for contents... Reading it as a Marxist might be actually good for a peek into the mind of an ancap. The author is quite blatant in a few moments, if you're paying attention.

    For example there's a bit in the foreword (I think), where Robert boasts about meeting some unnamed journalist (likely a collective image to make a strawman). The journalist criticised Robert for writing drivel, to which he pointed out that the cover said "Author of bestseller". It was, of course, an "and then the bus clapped" tale, but it is very telling where the author's priorities lie - and where he posits the reader's priorities should be.

    It goes on like that. At one point the author regales a story of himself as a child. Together with a friend they've been trying to make some pocket money by selling stuff door to door (IIRC), and then had a "brilliant idea" of just making money, by carving coins out of toothpaste tubes. Despite it being inane, both got chewed by their respective dads, who wrung their hands about how that would be "counterfeit". As Marxists, we have an inkling of how money printers work, but here it is treated as the most heinous crime. Pretty sure Marx had something to say about capitalism ascribing "magical properties" to money.

    So to summarise: shit book, horrid advices, but could be a peculiar study of the liberal mind. It is also pretty short and blatant, which makes it an easier case study than shit like Atlas Shrugged.