Philosophy and Methodology

Recorded at the Toronto Stock Exchange; September 16-17, 1999.

Inclined to Liberty is an important confidence booster for people involved in commerce, providing answers to their colleagues who criticize freedom, and pointing to other resources.

Libertarianism, as Rothbard often emphasized, is firmly committed to natural law and is not an antinomian theory. Elshtain is right to stress the dangers of the sovereign self, which holds itself not bound by moral limits.

Presented at the 2008 Economics and Government Seminar at the University of Waterloo, sponsored by the Institute for Liberal Studies.

The title of G.A. Cohen's remarkable book suggests an obvious question. Cohen wishes to rescue justice and equality; but from whom or what are these in danger? Cohen's target will strike many readers as surprising: 

Lest I be accused of writing an unduly negative review, I shall conclude by recommending his discussion of the Progressives and the New Deal (pp. 293ff.) If Krannawitter were to expand these remarks, he would write a valuable book.

Economists of this century of the broadest vision and the keenest insight — men such as Ludwig von Mises, Frank H. Knight, and F.A.

"Those of libertarian inclinations tend not to hold it unfair for those with superior talents to benefit from them."

"The egalitarian world would necessarily be a world of horror fiction — a world of faceless and identical creatures, devoid of all individuality, variety, or special creativity."

Even zero inflation is too much when an economy is experiencing overall improvements in productivity. Sound policy in that case calls for deflation at minus the rate of productivity growth.