Trade a Book With a Friend!

I got a chance to trade books with a friend who has several differences in beliefs and opinons with me. He gave me Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty by Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo (seen below). And to him, I shared Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt.

What a great intellectual exercise, I realized! You get to promote your own advocacy at the same time showing you are open to the ideas of others. The fact that you can trade books makes it all very non-partisan and non-dogmatic. It's a good way of having a check and balance of one's own beliefs and biases. 

I did tell him about Walter Block's overly cheesy introduction of the version of Economics in One Lesson I gave him. It's understandable, I guess, because this is the book that converted him into libertarianism. He was an economics student then. So this book really is perfect for those who have had training in economics and those interested in social issues and political philosophy.

When I asked to trade books, I mentioned that I wanted something I might disagree with or has the potential in persuading me. This makes me really excited to start reading the book. Maybe I can even write about what I learn here in this blog. 

I also got to use the Kindle Cloud Reader for the first time. It has such an awesome interface. I should seriously get a Kindle soon.

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2. The Philosophy of Liberty 
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