Both books seek to explain the strange elitism of the Left and its opposition to capitalism for the masses. And they both discern that the answer lies in the way that the market is so slavishly devoted to serving the needs of the average person as opposed to society's philosopher kings.
In his own critical work, Hayek was not satisfied with a challenge to the main thesis of an opponent. He responded to every argument advanced in the adversary's work.
Right now, as the economy reshuffles, there are more opportunities to generate change than ever — the kind of dynamic change that we need to grow out of this slump.
In 1956, Mises showed how the supposed failures of the market economy were failures of the state and documented the traits of anticapitalism. In 2009, the facts have changed but the message remains the same.
We once did have private roads, several centuries ago.
"You libertarians are really nuts. … Why depend on the willy-nilly whims of some capitalist exploiter when the state is there to provide this wonderful service for free?"
Austrian economists like Ludwig von Mises and F.A. Hayek opposed government intervention in the macroeconomy because that intervention leads to distorted relative prices and malinvestment.
Carabini admits in the first chapter that in his opinion people are in general attracted to one of two opposing camps — those inclined to liberty and those inclined to mastery — and it is rare that exposure to additional evidence and facts sways anyone to switch camps.
It is time for highway privatization, with MADD taking a lead role in this initiative.
Simultaneous discoveries tend to be the rule rather than the exception.
