Jon Irenicus: Let's try keep it in perspective? Reisman has got some weird ideas (I'm not sure what his musings on opportunity cost are, yet) but he also has some damn good work out there, particularly on exploitation. -Jon
Let's try keep it in perspective? Reisman has got some weird ideas (I'm not sure what his musings on opportunity cost are, yet) but he also has some damn good work out there, particularly on exploitation.
-Jon
How worth reading is Capitalism?
Edit: I'm also sort of reading Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays by Rothbard.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"
Bob Dylan
Haven't read it yet, but I definitely plan on doing so. Just read his articles and his blogposts. I find the former consistently good, whilst the latter can be rushed rants sometimes.
To darkness I condemn you...
The Machinery of Freedom by David Friedman
Enterprise of Law by Bruce L. Benson
Democracy is nothing more than replacing bullets with ballots
If Pro is the opposite of Con. What is the opposite of Progress?
I'm reading "Generations of Winter" by Aksyonov for a class. It's a pretty good work of Russian fiction. Great dialog from it:
"Have you ever read even one book by Marx in your life?"
"Of course I haven't, and I'm not going to! And I hope my ears never need a bicycle like that!"
Outside class I'm reading Democracy: the God that Failed and HL Mencken's, "The American Language."
I think I'm probably the wrong guy to ask about Dr. Reisman, given his vehement and outspoken antipathy towards a number of things which I am (an environmentalist, a non-methodological individualist, etc.). But his attack on the concept of opportunity cost is, I think uncontroversially, one of the single worst pieces of economic thinking that I have ever read. I'm actually pretty sure you'd get expelled from school if you submitted something like it in an economics class. It basically amounts to Reisman claiming that opportunity cost is ridiculous because it's possible that a relatively unfortunate individual is faced with low opportunity costs in making her life choices, while a relatively well-off individual might face high opportunity costs. This is taken as proof of the absurdity of the concept of opportunity cost because clearly the well-off person is better off, despite facing higher opportunity costs, and that's preposterous. In other words, Reisman doesn't understand what an opportunity cost is.
http://libertarian-left.blogspot.com/
I forgot to mention that I'm also reading Stephen King's Dark Tower septilogy. I'm about 1/3 of the way through book 4 right now.
...Is anyone else reading something that isn't academic? We don't always have to try and out-geek each other here. >_>
Pro Christo et Libertate integre!
MacFall: I forgot to mention that I'm also reading Stephen King's Dark Tower septilogy. I'm about 1/3 of the way through book 4 right now. ...Is anyone else reading something that isn't academic? We don't always have to try and out-geek each other here. >_>
Actually, I've noticed that with each year I've used (or "lived in", to some extent) the internet, I read less & less novels, & more & more explatorary books (essays, manifestos', biographies, articles, etc.). I actually have to force myself to *not* read something academic, but I view this a good problem that will eventually sort itself out.However, I recently re-read High Fidelity for the 12th time, which is one non-academic novel I seem to frequently go back to, lol... Oh yeah, I also re-read some Star Wars books recently (The Han Solo Trilogy, set before & leading up to the IV th movie). Much more satisfying than the "prequels" that were made :\ .
WARNING: This signature violates Rule 5. Stay classy!
I broke out of my typical reading patterns and started "The Alchemist" by Coehlo.
my blog
Non-Academic?
Les Aventures de Tintin
One Hundred Years of Solitude (which Latin American does not re read this?)
Astérix
Histoire de la Corse
Histoire du Québec
Art transcends ideology.
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/ruben
jmw: I broke out of my typical reading patterns and started "The Alchemist" by Coehlo.
The Fifth Mountain, also by Coelho (Five or six times already)
As for non-academics, I'm reading through the complete fiction works of HP Lovecraft bit by bit.
'fraid not...I have a Jeremy Clarkson book on my to-read pile, but I haven't started it yet. I read Sail (James Patterson), Harvest of Stars (Poul Anderson) and a couple of Jeffery Archers recently (A Prisoner of Birth, False Impression)
Paul: 'fraid not...I have a Jeremy Clarkson book on my to-read pile, but I haven't started it yet. I read Sail (James Patterson), Harvest of Stars (Poul Anderson) and a couple of Jeffery Archers recently (A Prisoner of Birth, False Impression)
What did you think of Harvest of Stars? I have it lying around somewhere, but I haven't read it yet.
I'm struggling through Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time book five. The characters, especially women, are getting more annoying with more books. It's like he was thinking that all women have nothing else to do but hate all the men around them and bitch with each other.
I guess I'll drop it in favor of the last couple book in the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik. Or maybe one of the Heinlein's books I haven't read yet. Can't get enough of his rants against the taxes :)
If I hear not allowed much oftener; said Sam, I'm going to get angry.
J.R.R.Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
Non Academic... just finished "The Six Sacred Stones" by Matthew Reilly.. no. 1 Best seller... epic action packed thrillers.
In terms of Academic...
Our Enemy The State, Albert Jay Nock...!
In the to do list... Human Action , and then maybe the Illiad by Homer.. go for something classical.
Having been reading much lately... audio and media section is where I've been... Hahah, for the last 4 months.. 533 items (16.1 days worth of audio) 5GB of listening.. completed.
I've probably got a few weeks to go!
The Leferve commentaries I've nearly completed..
Learnt so much in that media section.. I'll have to donate when I am done for sure.
Hoppe's Economics and Ethics of Private Property in my free time, and a text in an area of algebraic geometry (and topology) and its application to mathematical physics.
Diminishing Marginal Utility - IT'S THE LAW!
MacFall: What did you think of Harvest of Stars? I have it lying around somewhere, but I haven't read it yet.
The characters speak in a very artificial way, but I'm not sure it detracts from the story - I can see Guthrie in particular just being very eccentric; but I'm not a fan of the way science fiction writers make "futuristic" language by dropping the odd foreign word (and almost always Spanish and Japanese!) into English. And whenever I read a book I find myself picking out all the economic faults (e.g., here machines can apparently do central planning!). Nevertheless, I'd give it 9.5/10
Paul:I'm not a fan of the way science fiction writers make "futuristic" language by dropping the odd foreign word (and almost always Spanish and Japanese!) into English.
I found the use of Mandarin in _Firefly_ quite effective. But that wasn't random words, nor Japanese/Spanish.
And whenever I read a book I find myself picking out all the economic faults (e.g., here machines can apparently do central planning!).
I was half-way through the first chapter of, I think, Stephenson's _Snow Crash_, where he goes into how the (paraphrased) "love affair that governments had with Austrian and free market economics" had led to multiple depressions and vast corruption.
At that point I simply threw the book away.
Every time I run into someone who thinks that if a government changes regulations to favor a contributor, or sells/gives a government function to some crony, it's "rampant privatization", it means someone has seen some buzzwords but otherwise has done no reasearch other than occassionaly listen to NPR.
Paul: . . . I'm not a fan of the way science fiction writers make "futuristic" language by dropping the odd foreign word (and almost always Spanish and Japanese!) into English.
. . .
I'm not a fan of the way science fiction writers make "futuristic" language by dropping the odd foreign word (and almost always Spanish and Japanese!) into English.
Oh good, so I'm not the only one who is annoyed by that.
w8, wasn't Poul Anderson an AnCap by the time he wrote that? >_> Anyway, I do like his later stuff.
I am, however, planning to read Un-Man because the Nationalist vs. Globalist theme plays a large role in a book I am writing, and I hope to find some gems of inspiration there.
Although in my story's case, Nation vs. Globe is presented as a false yet pervasive political paradigm, as in liberal vs. conservative today. The people who reject that paradigm and believe in the individual are marginalized, and so live mostly in self-imposed exile in Antarctica, the only place not controlled by the Global Union.
He actually wrote that?
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