Boulder Great Books

Welcome to
Boulder Great Books

We are a group of active minds exploring a wide variety of topics
We meet year-round on the first and third Thursday nights
from 6PM until 8PM, via remote conferencing
New? Try us out!

As Eric Aarons points out in our last book, Hayek versus Marx, Hayek thought any attempt to influence or restrain the market would destroy the economic system and lead straight to totalitarianism. One "influence" he would approve of, however, is marketing and the sacrosanct freedom of speech evinced in its advertising. In the not quite trenches during World War II, future science fiction writer, then teenager, Frederik Pohl mused on the manipulations of the advertising industry which had grown from its early days as Edward Bernays' so-called public relations industry to the full blown ~~propaganda~~ communications arm of the business community.

And so near the beginning of his 75 (!) year career, Pohl wrote a novel satirizing advertising which he later burned, page by page because it was so dreadful. But the flames inspired him to begin again (multiple times...) and, eventually with the help of Cyril Kornbluth, in 1952 he produced The Space Merchants, a "classic", cutting, award winning novel that ranges well beyond its center mercantile post: Ten years before Silent Spring, he impugns industry's assault on our environment. Thirty-six years before The Best Congress Money Can Buy, his members of Congress "represent" not Missouri and Minnesota but Disney and DuPont.

The literary tone of Pohl and Kornbluth's novel is decidedly 1950's science fiction but the assessment of society is markedly contemporary and the core theme, marketing the colonization of a planet, is, if the world's biggest ego has his way, not far off.

Join us Thursday, April 16 at 6

Two of the most influential social and economic thinkers of the last 2 centuries are Karl Marx and Friedricch von Hayek. In many ways they sit at opposite ends of the intellectual spectrum and dutifully polarize their audiences: Conservatives are rushed to the hospital at the mere mention of marks on some archeological object. Hayek himself eschews anything "social" from seemingly obsessive fear of a slippery slope adding 3 more characters to the end of the word. Liberals, on the other hand, wouldn't be caught dead even glancing out of the corner of their eye at the title of a book by the enemy in a library or bookstore.

Yet Marx, critiquing and building on then extant socialist ideas, created a body of work that shaped much of the late 19th century and most of the 20th while continuing to play a role in the 21st. And Hayek, once considered a fringe if not crackpot economist, somehow, through the ascent of the Iron Maiden and the so-called "Great Communicator" in the 1980s (together with massive backstage manipulations), promulgated simple-minded ideas that rose to prominence and seem to have achieved near-cult status in the Western political mind.

How should we go about understanding the enormous footprints of these two iconoclasts?

In attempt to bridge this divide, we turn to Eric Aarons's Hayek versus Marx. Aarons, who spent a decade studying Hayek after decades of working for the Australian Communist Party, is curiously balanced in his presentation: he thinks Hayek is partially correct in his model of prices as the communication solvent for economic information and he thinks that Marx is partially wrong in his tilt toward centralized planning. At the same time, he thinks Marx is partially right in his characterization of the social and economic forces driving both workers and capitalists, and he thinks Hayek is wrong about just how universal and encompassing that communications solvent really is.

Through all this, Aarons provides substantial background on the two thinkers, drawing heavily on their own words. He is surprisingly charitable and critical of both sides and while I do not agree with various of his assessments, he provides a useful basis for considering these thinkers and their impact.

Join us Thursday, April 2 at 6

With a slight shuffle in the schedule, on Thursday, March 19, we will follow the Socratic admonition to "Know Thyself" in a way Socrates could never have imagined. No, we are not contemplating our navels, we are going inside our navels, inside our bodies -- and the bodies of plants and animals and, for that matter seemingly all other life forms -- to understand the complex, intricately orchestrated world of microbes. Last November, we read Ed Yong's recent book An Immense World which focused on the enormous variety in the ways animals have adapted to living on this planet.. On Thursday, March 19, we will read his I Contain Multitudes in which he brings the same entertaining wit and mind-bending insights to the perhaps even more startling ways microbes have adapted to living in us (and in all other forms of life). From squids that carry their own (microbial) lanterns to the bizarre transformations of Hydroides elegans to pangolins and plankton to humans (inside and out) and beyond, Yong describes a world with a seemingly infinite variety not only of micro-organisms and some of their truly "alternative lifestyles" but of the symbioitic relationships between them and all other life forms.

Join us March 19!

Next in the shuffle will be Eric Aaron's Hayek versus Marx on April 2 followed on April 16 by Frederik Pohl and CM Kornbluth's The Space Merchants. See the schedule for details.

In our last episode, we discussed Bryan Caplan's highly opinionated The Myth of the Rational Voter in which Caplan applies economic decision making ideas to the franchise and finds it woefully wanting. After critiquing the existing voting analyses by economists and political theorists, Caplan framed the problem as voter ignorance and irrational economic beliefs that drive bad voting.

David Van Reybrouck has a different critique: democracy suffers from a spectrum of problems. While the vast majority of people in non-democratic countries aspire to democratic governance, 2/3 to 3/4 of people in the European Union distrust their most important political institutions. Elected officials are not giving people what they want. Responsible citizens feel like ballot fodder. Voter participation is sagging..

Unlike Caplan*, in Against Voting, Van Reybroick actually has a proposed solution: sortition. No, I didn't replace "ed" in that word with "ort". Van Reybrouck digs back to ancient Anthens for what might be the simplest way of selecting a representative body. He promotes

a consciously neutral procedure whereby political opportunities can be distributed fairly and discord avoided. The risk of corruption reduces, election fever abates and attention to the common good increases

Join us March 5!

P.S. Van Reybrouck reaks quite quickly. If you are interested in a fascinating look at alternatives to representational governance, check out Brend Reiter's The Crisis of Liberal Democracy and the Path Ahead.

* OK, Caplan does have a solution that includes force feeding voters mainstream economics by IV and restricting voting to the sufficiently educated and intelligent.

We are a group of active minds exploring a wide variety of topics
New? Try us out!

We read diversely across history, anthropology, cognitive psychology, economics, philosophy, contemporary biology, cultural evolution, international relations and more. In the fictional realms, we have read classic literature and poetry from the Greeks through the Renaissance and into the 21st century including many Nobel Laureates as well as lesser known international authors.

We like to keep our conversations focused with the close-to-the-text analysis that thoughtful books require. We revel in making connections among the ideas in a book and between the many books we read. If you are looking for interesting discussions of idea filled books, come join us!

Boulder Great Books meets year-round on first and third Thursday nights from 6PM until 8PM, via remote conferencing -- for details, contact us The group is free and open to the public. Newcomers are welcome anytime!

Selections sometimes evolve as we read so please see the current schedule. Better yet, join out mailing list to receive (sometimes) entertaining announcements about upcoming readings
We'd love to know your thoughts on our current and future readings -- send us an email

Boulder Great Books takes its name from its focus at its founding in 1988 on materials from the Great Books Foundation. Having read the Great Books 5 year series twice (!), followed by other materials from the Foundation, we shifted our focus to read a cross-section of thought provoking works, ancient and contemporary, fiction and non-fiction, in English and in translation.

For video conferencing information, to join our mailing list or to share your wisdom, e-mail Rick	For help with video conferencing, reach out to 34994946
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