Philosophy and Methodology

Although evils exist in both the shared and private forms of a city, it is only in the private form that the virtues of temperance, love, and generosity can be exercised.

"We know of no force which could act for the satisfaction of human desires so as to make the satisfaction equal for a number of men…"

Recorded at the Mises Circle in Seattle, September 12th, 2009. Includes introductory and closing remarks by Douglas French. Sponsored by James M.

Rothbard's willingness to engage in frank criticism of bad ideas from any source only underscores his insistence on honesty and independence of mind.

Then the welfare, the relief, the compensation, instead of being nationally sponsored cash prizes for idleness and ineptitude, could go where the old independent uncompromising fathers themselves would have intended it and blessed it.

Pages 347-362. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach.

But the "right people" aren't (and won't be) running for office. Instead, we will continue to have "the average American legislator [who] is not only an ass," as Mencken wrote, "but also an oblique, sinister, depraved and knavish fellow."

The battle between Rand and Branden, moreover, is really no contest. Rand created something, whereas Branden has lived his entire life parasitically off Rand, first as a worshipful disciple and cult organizer, then as a neo-Randian shrink who set up shop in California with the solid initial base of the RandCult's Nathaniel Branden Institute mailing list.

There was just something too utilitarian and results oriented in Rand's purportedly principled case for IP, and something too artificial about the state's copyright and patent statutory classifications.

The mathematical economists are therefore framing assumptions which are admittedly false or partly false, but which they hope can serve as useful approximations, as they would in physics. The important thing is not to be intimidated by the mathematical trappings.