When today's clergymen expound on issues of political economy we are often given a stark choice. Will we allow companies to selfishly pursue profits or will they recognize a wider social mission? Will workers be paid the barely subsistent market wage or will they be paid a more Christian "living wage"? Even conservatives tell us we must choose between markets and compassion.
Those of us who know some economics are used to wincing when the typical clergyman makes a pronouncement on political economy. So it comes as a bit of a shock to read Late Medieval religious figures, avowedly concerned with justice and morality, and find that not only are they economically literate but that in many cases their economic theory was far more advanced than many professional economists who came after them.
Closely linked to the issue of gay marriage is the issue of gay adoption. The subject raises the stakes in the current national controversy, and, as usual, state intervention complicates the picture enormously.
Almost all academics, unless libertarians themselves, associate libertarianism with one person: the philosopher Robert Nozick. What better way, then, to arouse interest among students
As every reader of Human Action knows, Ludwig von Mises devoted much attention to methodology. Many people interested in Austrian economics turn from his discussions of the a priori and verstehen in bafflement and boredom.
Several times recently, Gene Callahan has found himself engaged, directly or indirectly, in discussions about exactly what implications follow from the existence of human action, the foundation of economic science. The effort to draw out those implications is called praxeology.
The journalist's skill as an observer can only take him so far, if he is observing with the wrong theory in mind. As Thomas Friedman's "Theory of Everything" shows, without the distinction between power and market—the very core of the libertarian idea—a theory of everything can easily turn into a theory of nothing.
The merchant class has been the most reviled in the history of political thought. Their very existence sticks in the craw of those who, like Marxists and modern-day militarists, believe that history should be about great conflicts, and winners and losers. Why? Because the merchant class views history in a more mundane way: as a series of small steps by which people are provided the goods and services they need to overcome the great economic problem of scarcity.
In a free market, what a person is is determined by how well a person does. But it's different in state-controlled professions. You can be a great doctor but without the license to practice, you are guilty of a serious crime. The same is true in aviation and law. It is not enough to be good at what you do. You must jump through hoops held by politicians and bureaucrats.
In the same way that the advent of peace makes it easier to talk about the horror of war, a new technology that has changed the world of typing, making it possible to actually speak publicly about our wounds from typing class.
