whoa, i thought everyone knew this by now. chicken, you're a smart guy, i think you'd enjoy and maybe agree with fa hayek, ludwig von mises, milton friedman and some others i can think of if you like those dudes. if you're looking for a more humanistic and current author, amartya sen's shit fits the bill and doesn't make you feel all evil and dirty like the smith/keynesyian guys.

ice-t may have summed it up best in the line"i got a dope-ass pit bull named felony/i'll never go broke i got property". property being the big deal. it's basically freedom-so lie, cheat and steal to get it-nobody remembers where the kennedy's got their money from after a generation or 2 so you're in the clear after a while.

socialism also doesn't take into account monetary calculation or market signals, which you need to get big stuff done. all socialist economists have had to look outside of their own countries when appraising values of shit and most involved projects like railroads have basically been done by slaves.

the fact is no nation with a multi-party political system, property ownershit, and transparent(people are actually informed of financial stats, etc.) media has EVER seen a period of famine. that's a big fucking deal.

i hope you get a chance to check some of them out, glad to have you back--make sure to call porn chicks the "lumpenproletariat" from now on. btw, i think the ones i'd rec. are pretty much anything by mises(ec. calc...human action...soc) hayek's road to serfdom and the collected stuff from hayek and friedman.