The Italian economist who had perhaps the most influence on the Austrian School was Ferdinando Galiani (1728–1787). Born in Chieti, he became a leader of the Italian Neopolitan School.

The other day I ran across Jeff Tucker’s 2005 article The Myth of Cell Phone Addiction, and re-read it. It’s a really great piece. What I like about it is its optimism about technology; the spirit of embracing it rather than grumbling and griping about change, like some Luddite conservative stuck in the ways of immediate past. Many things in life can be abused, and technology is no exception. But we do not need, Marxist-like, to view modern technology as “alienating.”

The New York Times says they’re wealthy and more educated than average folks. Members of the Tea Set are angry about government taking over healthcare and all that. But they think Social Security and Medicare are Oaky Doaky.

I met Antony Flew at a Mises Institute conference in 2001. He did not share the admiration common among philosophers for John Rawls. For him, The Theory of Justice was a travesty: Rawls’s failure to define justice until late in the book especially upset him. His vehemence, combined as it was with great charm, made an unforgettable impression. After my own talk, also an attack on Rawls, I said to him, “You’ll probably say I was too easy on Rawls.” “Well, you were rather”, he replied.

Daniel Gross says in his cover article forget about the negative economic indicators, the current recovery is “pretty remarkable.” After all, the stock market is up, the government said job creation was positive in March, productivity is high and GDP is supposedly roaring ahead.

[Morality, Political Economy, and American Constitutionalism • By Timothy P. Roth • Edward Elgar, 2007 • X + 194 pages. An MP3 audio file of this article, narrated by Donna Orlando, is available for download.]
 

[Bomb Power: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State • By Garry Wills • Penguin Press, 2010 • 278 pages]

America’s first central bank was borne of a corrupt political deal, but that particular act of political corruption pales in comparison to what Hamilton and the Federalists really had in mind.

Dean Baker, codirector of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, ubiquitous columnist and blogger, is a unique economist who advocates progressive policies framed in terms of free-market ideals. In a manner reminiscent of the Chicago School of economics, he has no fundamental compunction about state force but has an affinity for laying a glossy veneer of market concepts over the cheap particleboard of brute interventionism.

The first class meeting, the maiden voyage, of the live classroom of the Mises Academy was a thrilling, daring, revealing experience. It had a feeling that I only know as a “Jetson’s Moment” as Robert Murphy energetically lectured to 200 students gathered from all over the world in one digital spot, with Bob at his desk teaching like an Oxford don. On the right side of the window, the multitasking students listened, tittered with stream of consciousness commentary that couldn’t be heard, and greeted each other with wild enthusiasm.