Matt Zwolinski, a libertarian political philosopher and the founder of the Bleeding Heart Libertarians blog, has a surprising proposal. Libertarians, he suggests, should drop the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP). The NAP holds that “aggression against the person or property of others is always wrong, where aggression is defined narrowly in terms of the use or threat of physical violence.”
In a recent review of David Stockman’s new book, The Great Deformation, Bloomberg columnist Clive Cook seeks to discredit Stockman by comparing him to Ron Paul. This is to be expected from a mainstream media pundit. What I did not expect and what set my heart aflutter was the following remark — more so because of its casual delivery:
In 2009, Lee Ohanian published the article, “What—or Who—Started the Great Depression,” in the prestigious Journal of Economic Theory (JET) in which he cited Murray Rothbard. For this article, Ohanian spent four years poring over wage data and culling information from sources related to Hoover and his administration.
The HAYEK LECTURE SERIES at Duke University will feature the 2012 Manhattan Institute’s 2012 Hayek Prize winner John B. Taylor. The lecture titled “Why We Still Need To Read Hayek” will be delivered Wednesday, April 10, 2013 12:00 noon in the Breedlove Room‐Perkins Library.
Taylor delivered a similarly titled lecture last year at the Manhattan Institute available here:
The 1920s was a period when price stabilization proposals a la Irving Fisher were influential in policy and central banking circles.
Thomas J. DiLorenzo in this 2004 Mises Daily, “The New Deal Debunked (again)”, provides detail on the work by Cole and Ohanian behind the Ohanian video highlighted on Mark Thornton’s Circle Bastiat post “The Rothbard/Higgs/Vedder and Gallaway Thesis. Highlights from DiLorenzo:
Murray Rothbard argued that the cause of the Great Depression was the result of Herbert Hoover’s New Deal policies which sought to keep wages and profits high. Robert Higgs, Richard Vedder and Lowell Gallaway extended this thesis to FDR’s New Deal policies which created artificially high prices and profits and prevented the normal market correction processes, reduced employment and consumer demand.
John O’Donnell interviews Walter Block. The interview begins around the 7 minute mark. Rothbard, the inflation-deflation debate, Ron Paul, and Walter’s new book are discussed.
