“It's
embarrassing when you try to overthrow the government and you wind up on the
Best-Sellers list.”
Abbie Hoffman
on his success with Steal This Book
on his success with Steal This Book
While Abbie Hoffman may not be so
much be someone I look up to these days, when I was younger I wanted to be a
lot like him. What made me look up to him was his book titled “Steal This Book”
which as the title implies, meant you stole that book and did not buy it. In
fact when the book was published he very much advocated people stealing the
book because he didn’t write it for the money.
Because of this attitude he ended up having his book not only
historically stolen, but it because a national best seller. I love this because
the irony is thick enough to choke on and shows the true character of the man
for good and ill. He was a rebel with both political savvy and charisma and looked
up to what he was able to accomplish within the “hippie” subculture.
These days I don’t look up to him
for the more unethical situations and philosophy he advocated but I still look
up to him for bucking a corrupted system that needs to be fixed. Under all the
hippie dippy stuff in the book I like how it advocated for looking after the
little guy and having charity for one another, enough to turn it into a
lifestyle (even if it was a misguided one).
Lastly I believe we need more people like Abbie Hoffman in the world to
challenge the status quo but do so ethically and with a purpose to help us all
become better people in a world where corruption rules. As an entrepreneur, I
would want to be the Abbie Hoffman for my own cause.
To
keep in the spirit of the man, here is a free PDF version of “Steal This Book”
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