Philosophy and Methodology

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Frank Shostak

Statistical data is merely history, but a competent historian does not simply let the events speak for themselves. He arranges them according to the ideas underlying the general notions he uses in their presentation. He does not report facts as they happened, but only relevant facts.

David Gordon

Karl Marx agreed with Rothbard that individual rights lead to inequality. For Marx, though, this was an argument against rights.

Murray N. Rothbard

Only Spooner realized that it would be compounding crime and error to try to use government to right the wrongs committed by another government.

David Gordon

State agents are wrong when they claim, "If you stay here, you must follow our rules. If you do follow our rules, you have tacitly consented to obey us."

Frank Shostak

Many modern economists think the standard for a "good" economic theory is how well it predicts future trends. Not only are most economists terrible at making predictions, but the whole premise of economics as being about predicting things is a flawed idea.

David Gordon

Even if we find that property was privatized by violence back in the mists of the past, it is not the slightest proof that the abolition of ownership is necessary, advisable, or morally justified.

Joakim Book

Taleb maintains he’s a statistically-oriented orthodox economist. But I don’t think he understands what people mean by “orthodoxy.”

David Gordon

John Rawls claimed "justice" demands governments use their power to benefit the least well off in a given society. But then he arbitrarily restricts the scope of these programs to particular nation-states. This betrays a fundamental problem with his idea of inequality.

Joakim Book

Jeff Deist pithily describes Taleb’s prose as “Rothbard meets Hayek.” But Taleb shares some ideas in common with Ludwig von Mises as well.