Mises Book Club

"Throttling the Railroads" by C. B. Carson (1971)

willybrin — Sun, 27 May 2012 22:26:47 GMT

Calculus of Consent -some questions.

fakename — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 08:41:24 GMT

If anyone is reading this I just have one question: What does "Uncertainty" mean in this book? (If you're not reading it and want to help, I think econlib has it online.) Anyway, on page 78, or the last section of the "Economic Theory of Constitutions" called "Some Qualifications" the authors state: "essential to the analysis is the presumption that the individual is uncertain as to what his precise role will be in any one of the whole chain of later collective choices that will actually have to be made. For this reason...he cannot predict with any degree of certainty whether he is more likely to be in a winning or a losing coalition on any specific issue. Therefore he will...choose rules that will maximize the utility of an individual in a series of collective decisions with his own preferences on the separate issues being more or less randomly distributed." If they are saying that individuals will choose constitutional rules that will bring greater "happiness" to any arbitrary person, that prefers the same thing as they do and who vary their preferences randomly due to uncertainty; then why would they assume at the chapter's beginning that, "the specific institutional structure through which collective action is to be carried out is exogenously fixed" and that "the choice among the...[constitutional] rules is not independent of the choice as to the method of organization [which I take, to mean the same as "specific institutional structure]." For if this is what they really meant, then wouldn't the choice of constitutions, be already dependent on the institutional structure? and if that is true, then wouldn't the rational individual predict a certain set of outcomes based on this institutional structure and not any random outcome; that is, wouldn't uncertainty be non-existent? Note: in the book the constitution is different from the institutional structure.

Man, Economy, and State w/ Power and Market

Subdivisions — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:57:38 GMT

I was just wondering if anyone else is reading/has read this, and would like to discuss it.

Human Action

hollering — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:47:31 GMT

By popular demand, here is a place to discuss Human Action by Ludwig von Mises.

The Mises Institute has a great page set up for this book here: http://mises.org/resources/3250

It includes links to purchase or download the book in many formats, including a free MP3 audio download (with an excellent narrator). You will also find some supplemental material there, such as the study guide by Robert P. Murphy.

Defending the Undefendable

Briggs — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:20:43 GMT

Defending the Undefendable is a very special book. It is perfectly suited for anyone who has been exposed to libertarian ideas but is still "hung up" on certain issues. It is also a very exciting and educational read for even die hard libertarians. Chapter 6, "The Blackmailer" is one of my favorites. I was still fairly new to libertarian philosophy when I first read this book and The Blackmailer really surprised me. I was certain, before I began the chapter, that there was simply no way that Dr. Block could convince me that blackmailers were worthy of defense. I am pleased to say that I now see the truth, thanks to Dr. Block. As he explained, blackmailers are much preferable to the local gossiper.

The Blackmailer chapter was not an isolated incident for me and I suspect that most everyone who reads this book will have a similar chapter in which he or she thinks "wow I can't believe he convinced me." That is part of what makes the book such an enjoyable read; the surprise one feels when Dr. Block slowly leads you to the edge of a cliff then suddenly shoves you over. The whole process of discovery is really quite enjoyable.

Please share you thoughts about Defending the Undefendable. Did you like the book? Do you have a favorite chapter?

Chaos Theory

Constittuionalist — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 00:44:14 GMT

I was reading Robert Murphy's book Chaos Theory and I find that he comes up short and is somewhat incoherent with his reasoning in "the case for private anarchist society". Several things that I wanted to ask If there was such a thing as "aggressor protector insurance" how would the insurance company protect you in the event that there was some nuclear attack by another nation or person? Is that even insurable? Second, would there be uniform law and if so, how is it enforced? I have a problem with the fact that there could be 15 different interpretations of the law by 15 different agencies of private courts. Who follows what? I don't want to get into too much detail but if someone can explain to me what the whole argument/point or the case for a private law society that would be great. I have trouble understanding his point because what he says is vague to a certain extent. I would also like to know what people on the mises forum would say with regards to this associated content article rebutting Murphys arguments http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/233184/33_challenges_to_robert_murphys_theory.html?cat=37 Thanks

Bureaucracy

Kris Morgan — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 15:45:12 GMT

I'll start off by saying I think this is probably the most under-valued books written by Mises. But here is my thought to those who have read it; doesn't Mises make a good argument for anarchy in this book? This is the book that won me over from "Classical-Liberalism" to Anarcho-Capitalism, and here is why: It is the argument of Classical Liberals that we need government to protect our person and property via rule of law and enforcement. Does this not mean that we are merely arguing that we need to make bureaucrats out of everyone in order to protect liberty? I personally believe that teaching morality, perhaps even objectivist morality of the Ayn Rand style, will go farther than making bureaucrats out of everyone because making bureaucrats out of people, even when done in such a way to provide protection against private property infringements, plants the seeds for future control (in other words, we're telling people to follow the rule of law to increase liberty and happiness. What is to stop any government from passing bad laws and telling its population "to increase liberty and happiness, you must follow these laws as well"?) Just some food for thought. I also came to the conclusion that the status of a nation, rule of law or anarchy, will reflect the opinion of its people.

help me understand this statement in human action pls.

Renboy — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 17:33:36 GMT

I just started on this fantastic book but I cant help but think this statement is wrong. I know that maybe he is just not saying what he means in a way that is accurate, or I'm just wrong. Both are possible. I'm inclined to believe that I'm wrong but I just cant see how. So I'm hoping someone can explain it to me better. here goes.... "Cool reasoning must show the gambler that he does not improve his chances by buying two tickets instead of one of a lottery in which the total amount of the winnings is smaller than the proceeds from the sale of all tickets." Now I agree that buying more tickets does not increase the winnings necessarily, but buying more tickets DOES increase the CHANCES of winning. Lets boil it right down and say that there is a lottery with only two tickets.. Right? If you buy one you have a 50% chance of the ticket you buy being the winning ticket. If you buy both the CHANCE of you buying the winning ticket is a 100%. Now if it is a lottery with a hundred or a million tickets the CHANCE of buying the winning ticket will increase with the number bought. No one can argue that if you buy them all you have 100% chance of having the winning ticket. You would of made a massive loss, but you would of won the lottery. Maybe I'm just missing the point he is trying to make, (probably) but it really bugging me. :-) P.S I think the lottery is for people that are bad at math, so I'm not looking to convince myself its a good idea to throw my money away. Thanks

The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism, by F.A. Hayek

econ student — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 16:48:03 GMT

I purchased this book a while back and before encountering the controversy surrounding it. At any rate, I have finally started to read this work. So far, it's not very good. Does anyone have any thoughts on the contents of this book?

"Book of the Month"

Jonathan M. F. Catalán — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:41:25 GMT

Would anybody be interested in collectively reading a book over a period of a month (well, you can read it at any pace you want, but discussion would take place after the end of that month; that way people can read whatever else they want to read, apart from the book chosen)? We would choose a book, give a couple of weeks for everybody to get a copy (whether for free or by buying it), and then take a month to read it individually, and then come back and discuss.

I tried this over at shelfari, but with my group of two people obviously I did not get too far, lol.

The Great Austrian Economists

Kris Morgan — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 14:28:11 GMT

Has anyone read this book? I just started it, and wondering if anyone would like to discuss it. I'm through the first 3 economists/chapters... I think it's great so far!

Economics In One Lesson

Kris Morgan — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 14:13:23 GMT

This was the first book I read on economics, and still find it to be a great starting place for economic studies. What say you?

How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes by Peter Schiff

Corey Derby — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 02:15:52 GMT

A great read, that uses a simple witty story to explain; how capital is built, the importance of savings and free trade, and the issue with consumer credit and inflation. A great book for some one that wants a basic explanation on how an economy works.

Libertarian Fiction

Bryan Christopher Sawyer — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 16:46:12 GMT

We all read it. Let's discuss it. Suggest books to each other, critique stuff that's out there. I just read "Farnham's Freehold" by Robert Heinlein. It was great. I noticed that Hugh, the lead character, often takes the stance that he can't tell people what to do, but he will refuse to participate in a way that would help someone achieve something he saw as wrong. I should probably say, that the story is about an American Patriot that gets his family into a bomb shelter before the USSR strikes and the bombs end up catapulting them 2000 years into the future where white people are slaves and people speak some evolved form of Arabic. Generally, whites were blamed for the war and devastation. It deals with racial issues in a way that is challenging and not offensive. The story is a fascinating look at human nature, and there are even parts where some of the characters discuss introducing a price system into the economy. I would say that Hugh is a libertarian style hero. Has anyone else read this? Or do you have something else you'd like to discuss? I got the idea to check out Heinlein after I listened to the Libertarian Tradition podcast about the author.

Economic Harmonies - Wages ~ Bastiat

Curius Dentatus — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 05:19:24 GMT

Anyone know what the Left's solution/reply to Bastiat's Wages? I personally think that this is Bastiat's greatest treatise against all the multitudes of Socialism. Basically the treatise explains how any form of socialism will deteriorates into stagnation due to the innate nature of mankind to find comfort and protection in fixity. An ominous sign for Free-market (Freedom) Anarchy. It should be required reading on par with Government, The Law, Seen and Unseen, What is Money?, Broken Window, might as well recommend everything Bastiat wrote :p.

What Has Government Done to Our Money?

cold hard cash — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 04:40:01 GMT

What a great little gem of a book - Rothbard, with his pithy wit, concisely describes the origin and development of money, and briefly chronicles various government interventions in the free currency market and its inflationary effects. This is the first LvMI book I've read (after frequenting the site) and what a great introduction to the work of economist-philosopher-historian Rothbard. It's a quick read, but worthy of an at-length discussion.

Reading order for the Ten Must Haves

bmoiles — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:31:42 GMT

I recently purchased the "Ten Must Haves"

Mises - Hulsmann
Socialism - Mises
Epistemological Problems of Economics - Mises
Theory and History - Mises
Human Action - Mises
Money, Bank, Credit, and Economic Cycles - de Soto
Man, Economy, and State... - Rothbard
What Has Government Done to Our Money - Rothbard
America's Great Depression - Rothbard
Classical Economics/Economic Thought Before Adam Smith - Rothbard

Does anyone have a suggested reading order? It will obviously take me quite some time to get through all of these, but would like to work up the ladder so to speak.

Socialism - Ludwig von Mises - some questions concerning the LVM's ethics and religious views

Christopher — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:03:15 GMT

I'm currently reading LVM's Socialism, and was a bit surprised by some of the content in Part IV: Socialism as Moral Imperative. To begin with, it seemed as if some of von Mises' ethical learnings were reminiscent of Ayn Rand's. I saw this with, for example, his identification of "Morality" with human "Happiness" (359), his assertion that "egoism is the basic law of society" (361), his reference to the "energistic conception of the moral" which "sees the highest good in fulfilling oneself, in the full exercise of one's powers" (361), and his claim that "War carried on... for our altars and our hearths... demands no sacrifice from the individual" (362). I understand that Mises' distances himself from these positions in a way which Rand does not. But could anyone possibly describe for me what von Mises' explicit or implicit ethical views were, and how they compared to Rand's? Furthermore, does anyone know what school of thought Mises is refering to when he talks about "the energistic conception of the moral"?

A second aspect of Part IV which surprised me concerns the attitudes expressed by von Mises in Chapter 29, Christianity and Socialism. Here he makes some pretty contentious statements. One instance of this is when he argues that "[t]oday, the Islamic and Jewish religions are dead... They suppress the soul, instead of elevating and saving it" (370). Later, he blasts Christianity as well, saying that it "prohibits and concern for sustenance and work, while it expresses fierce resentment against the rich, preaches hatred of the family, and advocates voluntary castration" (380). What do you make of this apparent antipathy toward the world's three largest religions, especially given the sympathy expressed by later Austrian authors (e.g. Rothbard, Woods) with the Christian religion? Also--and I would really like to have an answer to this, in order to help me make sense of this chapter--what were von Mises' own religious beliefs?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

-Christopher

Where Keynes Went Wrong

Dennis Aceto — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 05:02:12 GMT

Impressions? I thought it was a great tribute to Hazlett's more rigorous Failure of the New Economics. I don't think the term Austrian School is mentioned once in the book although it is obvious where he is coming from

The law - bastiat

David P. — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 08:20:10 GMT

My god. This book empowered me. I am going to buy five and hand them out during my speech about state sovereignty, come the 13th.

Time will run back -Henry Hazzlit-

Michael — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 02:15:16 GMT

While I agree with every word that came from this book, I thought of it as dry literature. He kept using his book as a lecture post and prevented letting his characters move along in the story. While I enjoy books on economics, I felt he tried too hard to make a point. It is my general understanding of fictional literature that the story is more about the characters than anything else. The parts I did enjoy were the struggles Peter was going through fighting against the socialist including his main rival. However, the author just let that struggle stay i limbo. I believe Ann Rand was much better at keeping her stories moving. Her characters were always struggling against the "moochers" and demagogues of her books.I thought Hazzlit should have taken clues from her work, however, I hear those Rand people are vehement about IP . Maybe I'm being too hard but I believe that Hazzlit should have focused on making the book non fiction as he is good at explaining things clearly. However, what makes him and Rand different is the way they incorporated their philosophies in their literature. I critique this book because I believe fictional works play an important part of spreading the message and we should learn how to do so in a way that will keep readers captivated in ways that non-fiction may not be able to do. I hope to hear some feed back.

An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought

Daniel James Sanchez — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 16:29:07 GMT

In the Introduction to Human Action, Mises says economics is the youngest of the sciences, and he characterizes its birth as, "The discovery of a regularity in the sequence and interdependence of market phenomena."

Given what we've read in aAPotHoET, approximately when do people here think this discovery was made? In terms of economics as a "young science" Mises obviously means economics as a systematically, rigorously approached subject. Rothbard associated the birth of economics according to that definition with the work of Richard Cantillon (as opposed to the everyman conception of Smith being the father of economics). But he gave the honor of "earliest economic thinker" to the ancient poet Hesiod. This site proclaims Salamanca, Spain as being the birthplace of economic theory. The School of Salamanca did have predecessors in medieval economic scholarship, however. And of course, the scholastics did not produce a book entirely focused on economics as Cantillon did; their economic thought, though surprisingly deep, was scattered across more general works.

What do you all think?

One of the books I'm reading (question)

Annie — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 12:16:00 GMT

I'm reading an economics book, based on another book by English autors called Wendy Carlin & David Soskice (macroeconomics). The book I'm reading it's basically the same, so another version. It's the keynesian economic rules, and other models assuming some technical things about the "macroeconomic" way of life, considering nations and law...

Does anybody have read something about WS, PS and NAIRU models? What do you think?

For a New Liberty - Murray N. Rothbard

Patrick — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 04:04:36 GMT

I have read approximately the first 100 pages of this book. I thought it would be nice to have a discussion going while I read it. Sometimes I take notes while I read, but I feel so much information is covered that if I wait until I've completed a book, I forget much of the details of what really interested, confused or bothered me. So please, give your critiques, questions, anything at all about the book.

This is the first book by Rothbard that I have read. Surprisingly, I feel like the introductory portion of this book was a bit lacking in substance. Statements such as: "In all societies, public opinion is determined by the intellectual classes, the opinion moulders of society (p. 13)", are just so sweeping and general. That being said, the main reason for my choice of this book is it's discussion of a society without a group that has a monopoly on violence and taxation. For me, if this book is a little weak on explaining why the predatory state is a bad thing, I won't mind as long as it delivers on the Anarcho-capitalist vision of society.

The Constitution of Liberty - F.A. Hayek

Patrick — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 03:28:17 GMT

It has been a couple years since I read this book. This was my introduction to the whole Austrian way of thinking. I wanted to start this discussion because: 1) I have read this book, I read slowly, so there aren't many others to my credit!. 2) I don't often hear this book mentioned and would really love to hear other's critiques of this work. I really loved it.

I found this book in a Borders book store. I wanted to read something about politics that was more than just "George Bush is evil" or "Democrats are dumb." I chose it because of it's simple presentation on the cover and the title. I was not disappointed! This book coupled with several other factors has revolutionized my thinking about economics, government and liberty. I'll follow up with my own little critique after I take a little time to think about it. I've been meaning to add something to this Mises community, so here is my humble beginning.