What follows is a short article on the Austrian rationale behind both Wikipedia and the new Mises Wiki. This article introduces some important concepts, explains the virtues of Wikipedia, and then illustrates the key differences between it and Mises Wiki. This is not so much an exposition of Mises Wiki as it is a Misesian and Hayekian interpretation of the project.
Given the standard accounts of the origins of economics, the claim that the Scholastics made a significant contribution to economic theory may seem somewhat surprising, even perverse.
[Excerpted from “Harry S. Truman: Advancing the Revolution,” in Reassessing the Presidency: The Rise of the Executive State and the Decline of Freedom]
Gerard Casey is a Professor in the School of Philosophy at University College Dublin, Adjunct Professor at the Maryvale Institute (Birmingham, UK) and Adjunct Scholar at the Ludwig von Mises Institute (Auburn, Alabama, USA). He was Head of Department/School from 2000 to 2006. He was previously a faculty member of the School of Philosophy in The Catholic University of America (Washington, D.C.), 1983-1986. He received his BA from University College Cork, then went on to receive an MA and PhD from the University of Notre Dame.
As discussed in previous posts, the state grants monopolies (patents and copyright) then penalizes companies for using (“abusing”) them, in contravention of state antitrust law–so that there is a “tension” between these state laws.[1] (And of course the state exempts its own monopoly powers from antitrust regulations, and partially exempts the IP monopolies it hands out to supplicants.) On Techdirt, Mike Masnick points out another example of this “tension”:
Here’s my Division of Labour co-blogger (and fellow Wash U economics PhD) Michael Munger doing his usual kvetching about this or that pointless and expensive invasion of privacy. As there have now been naked pictures of me taken at several airports (San Francisco, most recently), all I can say to poor Mike is that these encroachments on and invasions of our basic liberties are the price we pay for freedom.
Nothing has come of it, but if it was more than one paragraph then it is not a free-trade agreement—it is a managed-trade agreement.
