[This article is excerpted from Conceived in Liberty (1975), chapter 22, “Suppressing Heresy: The Flight of Anne Hutchinson.” An MP3 audio file of this chapter, narrated by Floy Lilley, is available for download.]

The logic of liberty had drastic implications. If the individual conscience is supreme in religious matters, why shouldn’t it extend to civil matters as well?

Paul Krugman, in a most recent post, argues “Backward moves the macroeconomic debate” with “the result that our economic discourse is significantly more primitive now that it was 70 years ago.” Per Krugman, this backward movement is apparent in the use by some opponents of active demand management policy, such as Amity Shlaes, and of the “supposed legacy of Milton Friedman.”

For senior scholars with a little spare time, or younger folks who like slaying fallacies, here are two articles to refute.

First, Fareed Zakaria, “The Savior of Europe.” (He’s referring to Mario Draghi, the new head of the ECB.) This is your classic something-for-nothing article: we can create stability, stave off crises, and restore economic health just with a little manipulation by the ECB.

Ever heard of social imperialism? That’s an old name for the aggressive foreign policy of governments wishing to deflect attention from the fact that they are unable to solve domestic problems. If you just cannot quite get yourself to repair a public pension system, or a public health system, well, then you might consider invading a few foreign countries to improve things over there. The late Kaiser Wilhelm II was a pioneer of social engineering. In our day he has found emulates all over the western world.

The Politically Incorrect Guide series includes many excellent books, but unfortunately Kevin Williamson’s Politically Incorrect Guide to Socialism is not among them. One turns to the book with interest, as the author is a firm opponent of socialism and has read Mises, Hayek, and Rothbard. Unfortunately, the book cannot be recommended. Williamson lacks the ability to report facts accurately and his work contains preposterous errors.

Here are some examples. Williamson writes:

A number of things have served as money throughout history: shells, tobacco leaves, even cigarettes in POW camps and prisons. Now those operating in the urban drug trade are using Tide detergent as currency.

Supermarkets and drug stores in some areas of the country can’t keep the detergent on the shelves. During a recent police raid on a drug dealer’s home in Washington D.C., the police found what they expected—cocaine—but also noted the 20 large bottles of Tide on the dealer’s shelves.

Mises Institute adjunct scholar Terry Ridgway passed away on March 13th.  Professor Ridgway taught economics at UNLV for 30 years.  Although I never had Ridgway as an instructor, my thesis chairman Murray Rothbard suggested that I select Prof. Ridgway to be the third member of my committee from the economics department.  Hans Hoppe was the second.

Phillip Bagus, interviewed on RT, discusses the second Greek bailout. (Jump to 16:15.) I’ve transcribed the interview below. Bagus explains the logic of imports and exports by bringing the analysis down to an individual level, much as Rothbard does in Man, Economy, and State, Chapter 3, Section 5. He also makes a Rothbardian call for Greek national repudiation.