Help With Book I Want To Write

tellyw posted on Fri, Oct 2 2009 12:09 PM

rated by 0 users

For the past almost three years I've been doing a bit of re-education (I guess) and have been trying to understand the world better and why things are the way they are.  I pretty much stumbled upon Austrian Economics (Man, Economy, and State, MES) in January '08 while looking for a book so that I could understand economics better than what I learned at West Point, which I felt I didn't learn anything from.

I've read the book twice so far, and I have a very general idea of what I want my thesis to be.  It is going to be concerned with the so-called Black Leaders (Black Caucus?) in the US and how their goals to ensure "equity" for African Americans is self-contradictory in that it 1) gives privileges to a set of people at the expense of another and 2) that they have the audacity to go to the State for legislation to further their goals while the State is notorious for lowering the standard of living, subsidizing groups at the expense of others, etc.  I wanted to analyze this through Austrian Economical theory.  Hopefully that makes sense to you. 

Right now I'm reading an Intro to Afro-American studies (http://eblackstudies.org/intro/contents.htm) so that I can get a better idea of where black thought is at.

Honestly, when I was in college, I didn't really care about that much, at least to the extent that I would investigate what I was told, that went on in the world.  After leaving the military (actually I got fired because I didn't agree with what was going on) I decided to go back and re-think everything I was taught.  MES was seriously an accident.  At that time I was still reading alot of Socialist books (I didn't really know this at the time) and thought that it was the way to go.  I'm still new at this, so I apologize if I seem naive.  However, as a black person living in the US, I feel like I have been misled not only by the State, but by the black "mentors" throughout my life who consistently pleaded the case for a more Socialist America in order to ensure equality for blacks without ever telling me what the effects of what we wanted to do would impact others.  I'm not racist, just a little pissed off.

I would like to get advice on what other sources I should look at.  I've read MES twice and was finally able to focus more on what I want to write.  I'm feeling all alone over here, so ANY advice or guidance would really help me.  Besides MES, I've looked at two of DiLorenzo's Lincoln books, the Disadvantages of Being Educated, Economics in One Lesson, The Theory of Education in the US, The Art Of Nonfiction (to help with writing this book), and I'm about to start God Of The Machine.  I'm still not feeling confident in:

     - Will economic history help me in any way?  It seems like only economic theory will pertain to my work.

     - Is there anything that can help me interpret economic history?  For instance, I've seen blogs talk and analyze the Fed Housing Boom with all these figures and I can't really see how they got their point(s).

     - I REALLY need some books that analyze slavery pertaining primarily to African Americans and secondarily pertaining to slavery with other races, so that I can see how they fared, as well.

     - Any books that discuss the NAACP and the Black Caucus.  I can't find anything that logically analyzes their goals.

     - Should I read Mises' Human Action, or will MES suffice (as far as a basics in economics)?

     - Anything on the Civil Rights Acts.  I was shocked when I had heard someone suggest repealing these, but, after more understanding, I'm VERY interested in what is to be said on this.

     - What questions shouldn't I ask here?  For instance, some months ago I tried reading Rothbard's The Depression book and I was like, "What the heck is he saying here?"  I might need to ask some basic questions that seem silly but I really don't know or realize the answers to.

Sorry for the long post.  I've never even written a thesis (I only have a BS in Engineering), and this is starting to seem like a project that's going to take me longer than I thought (already about 2.5 years in reading, though I'm learning computers at the same time), and it's starting to look like I'm going to have at least 30-40 sources.  I don't mean to sound like I'm in a rush, but, I just feel that this stuff needs to be discussed more, and I want to put this book up on an upcoming website that I'm working on.  I'm working on pure determination and will here.  Thanks for ANY input that I get in this.  I hope you look forward to the hundreds of questions I'll post here.