I know Lemmy isn’t normally the best place to search for this, but are there any high-quality right-wing explainers, or modern books, or media outlets?

I myself am ultra-left (quite literally communist, to the dictionary sense of the word), but I’d like to quit the bubble that inevitably forms around and look at good arguments of the opposing side, if there are any.

Is there anything in there beyond temporarily embarrassed millionaires and fears that trans people will destroy humanity? Is there rational analysis, something closer to academic research, behind modern ideas of laissez-faire capitalism and/or political conservatism?

I’ve tried outlets like PragerU, but they are so basic they seem to target a very uncritical audience.

I’d like to see the world in the eyes of an enlightened right-winger, and see where they possibly fail (or if suddenly they have valid arguments).

  • ThrowawayPermanente@sh.itjust.works
    231·
    7 months ago

    Frankly, anything explicitly marketed to American conservatives these days is mostly ragebait for stupid people and I doubt you’ll find any of it the least bit convincing. As other have mentioned, Thomas Sowell is a great place to start if you want something serious but modern and clearly written. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose or Capitalism and Freedom are both widely recommended classics. If you managed to read Marx without dying of boredom you should also be able to get through Ludwig von Mises’ Human Action or Socialism.

    • NewNewAccount@lemmy.world
      12·
      7 months ago

      Describes PragerU. I follow their YouTube and Instagram accounts and it’s almost exclusively bad faith arguments or rage bait.

      99% of the comments buy into it as well. I wonder if they’re quick to clean up (read:remove) dissenting voices or if it is actually an echo chamber.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
      62·
      7 months ago

      Thomas Sowell is a great place to start

      My man was churning out ragebait before ragebait was cool.

      Who lost Iraq? Look to Obama

      Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose or Capitalism and Freedom are both widely recommended classics.

      Mr. Pencil Man, the guy who was convinced a command economy couldn’t churn out writing implements because they had too many parts.

      If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.

      Is one of my favorite Friedmanisms. My guy simply could not conceive of a central authority doing anything right (unless that thing was standing up military juntas in formerly democratic Latin American and Middle Eastern states).

      If you managed to read Marx without dying of boredom you should also be able to get through Ludwig von Mises’ Human Action or Socialism.

      He’s got some bangers.

      Children and Rights

      Applying our theory to parents and children, this means that a parent does not have the right to aggress against his children, but also that the parent should not have a legal obligation to feed, clothe, or educate his children, since such obligations would entail positive acts coerced upon the parent and depriving the parent of his rights. The parent therefore may not murder or mutilate his child, and the law properly outlaws a parent from doing so. But the parent should have the legal right not to feed the child, i.e., to allow it to die.

      • ThrowawayPermanente@sh.itjust.works
        2·
        6 months ago

        Fair enough, don’t start with that article! Pinning his guy’s mistakes on the other guy is not a great look. I should have specified that his books on economics are where someone should look first, not his tabloid opinion columns. Friedman’s point about pencils was not that a command economy would be unable to produce them but rather that the free market produces them spontaneously, at low cost and in great quantity, of good quality and variety, with everyone along the way acting voluntarily and better off for having participated in the process. I don’t think an offhand comment about sand is really the best representative of his work. I think the quote from Children and Rights might actually belong to Murray Rothbard, but either way I disagree with whoever wrote it and think it’s a perfect example of someone following a generally good principle off a cliff.

      • barsquid@lemmy.world
        21·
        6 months ago

        I haven’t seen anything about children that insane since I saw that libertarian article pleading the case that we should be allowed to buy and sell children on the free market.

    • PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.comEnglish
      2·
      7 months ago

      Mises’ Socialism and the economic calculation problem threw me for a loop for a while. It really rocked my preference for socialism at the time. Then I realized modern corporations with modern computing power are doing exactly what Mises says a theoretical central planner can’t do.

      • ThrowawayPermanente@sh.itjust.works
        2·
        6 months ago

        That’s funny, I see large corporations as being similar to a planned economy, but bringing the same problems. Corruption is widespread and gets worse the more layers of middle management there are. Economies of scale are what save them. Internal goods and services are mispriced and misallocated because political considerations replace the price mechanism. Man, I really hated that part of my life.