I met my first Austrians, and first libertarians, at Stanford University in the summer of 1988, at the Mises Institute’s Advanced Instructional Program in Austrian Economics, which evolved into the annual Mises University. There were about 40 students, mostly PhD students in economics, with four instructors: Murray Rothbard, Hans Hoppe, Roger Garrison, and David Gordon. Lew Rockwell, Pat Barnett, and Jeff Tucker were there too.
“In Defense of Flash Trading” by James E. Miller As society and technology progress, the instantaneous sharing of knowledge and information is not something to fear but to celebrate. |
I’ve written before about the quirky scientistic California libertarian guru Andrew J. Galambos, and his extreme, crazy IP ideas.
Hoppe has explained how Marx was “essentially correct” in his theory of history and class analysis. His main mistake was his understanding of exploitation, which was based on a flawed understanding of the labor theory of value. As Hoppe argues, drawing on Rothbardian libertarian and Austrian insights, the only meaningful exploitation is aggression against private property. Once you understand exploitation in this light, a Marxian style class analysis and understanding of history makes sense.
As noted previously, I was on the IP panel of the Open Science Summit last weekend. I was please to meet co-panelist Andrew Torrance, a law professor at the University of Kansas School of Law. My presentation was libertarian and theoretical, while his was empirical. He presented the results of a complicated and detailed simulation he did to test the effect of patent law on innovation.
NPR solicited a 500-word column from me on the new document from the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. Hard to say much in 500 words, but I did my best.
