A lot of blogposts have been flying around the libertarian blogosphere about the fall of the Berlin Wall twenty years ago. Those looking for truly thoughtful commentary should read the article by Hans-Hermann Hoppe, “De-Socialization in a United Germany” Review of Austrian Economics, Vol. 5, No. 2 (1991).
[Originally published in Dissent on Keynes: A Critical Appraisal of Keynesian Economics, edited by Mark Skousen. New York: Praeger (1992). Pp. 171–198.
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[Excerpted from Human Action, Scholar’s Edition, pp. 423–425]
In a blog post here a few years ago (Friedman and Socialism), I mentioned a 1991 Liberty article by Friedman that I remembered where he said he was in favor of liberty and tolerance of differing views and behavior because we cannot know that the behavior we want to outlaw is really bad. In other words, the reason we should not censor dissenting ideas is not the standard libertarian idea that holding or speaking is not aggression, but because the we can’t be sure the ideas are wrong.
Ever since the Obama administration released its report detailing the number of jobs “saved or created” from the $787 billion stimulus package, cynics have been having a field day playing with the numbers.
A wonderful video recommended by Sean Malone
