Philosophy and Methodology

Many say that markets are fine from day to day but not during exceptional events. But Lew Rockwell finds that markets love nothing more than a challenge that offers a profit opportunity.

Presented on 29 September 2004 at the Library of the Metropolitan Club, New York, New York. Sponsored by Mr. Kenneth M. Garschina.

In a famous essay written in 1906, Werner Sombart asked, Why Is There No Socialism in the United States? Whether one agrees with his analysis, his premise cannot be disputed: 

In a lifeboat situation, writes Murray Rothbard, we apparently have a war of all against all, and there seems at first to be no way to apply our theory of self-ownership or of property rights.

Americans have something in common with Iraqis, writes Lew Rockwell: experience has told us that when the government promises to bring us security, it means only that it wants more control over our lives.

The road to serfdom — in both Norway and America— is no coincidental detour, writes Ilana Mercer, but rather a well-charted destiny and often flows through mass political participation.

Ideological factors, especially comparative religions, are considered. Until 1500, China was the most developed region on the globe. Confucianism has no promise of an afterlife. There are no miracles for them. They are realistic and rational. Confucius is not a god or prophet. He is revered as a great teacher. His teachings are compatible with capitalism.

Ralph Raico covers classical liberalism’s growth, development and possible future. Liberalism arose in Europe entwined with Christianity. Why Europe? The East lacked the idea of freedom from the state and never established the legal system that could protect wealth. Europe had multiple, decentralized competing powers, not a universal empire.

Germany surrendered conditionally in 1919 under the Treaty of Versailles. Everybody opposed the treaty, but it was forcibly implemented. Revisionism is necessary to combat state propaganda, e.g. the lie in WWII that FDR was surprised by Pearl Harbor.

It was thought that the ultimate antidote to war was universal democracy. It was not. Spencer defined liberal democracy as an individual free to control the product of his own efforts on the market. Welfare societies could not rationally be termed democracies.