Forbidden Thoughts from Mencken

Mencken wrote mountains of material and all of it is stunningly good. It was a wonderful day when Murray Rothbard recommended that I read anything by his favorite author, Mencken. And although it is hard to pick a favorite book of his, for me, Notes on Democracy is his best, perhaps because there is no bigger sacred cow than democracy.

There are No Good Arguments for Intellectual Property

There are some decent arguments out there that argue in favor of a state, welfare rights, war, democracy, drug laws, and so on. They are all flawed, since libertarianism is right, but there are coherent, honest arguments that we libertarians have to grapple with.

But it is striking that there are no decent arguments for IP--as Manuel Lora remarked to me, “You know, I haven’t seen a good pro IP article ever.” This is true. One sees the same incoherent or insincere claims made over and over, such as:

Mises on Intellectual Property

In this comment on a post here, I was accused of hiding or avoiding mention of one of Mises’s comments about copyrights and patents. I suppose the commentor was unaware of my extensive quotes of Mises in this comment on another thread, which quoted a large deal of Mises’s remarks on IP, including the one in question. So much for suppression. Since this extensive comment is buried on a thread, I reprint it below as a standalone post.

Blowing Bubbles

Mainstream economists either deny that financial bubbles can occur or that the “animal spirits” of market participants are to blame. Economists running central banks even claim that it is impossible to identify asset bubbles. Meanwhile, the Austrian school stands alone in pointing the finger at government intervention in monetary affairs as the culprit.

Is This America’s Dark Knight?

Obama is playing the part of the Joker to perfection, aided and abetted by the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. The only difference being that, instead of wearing a clown’s face, he has chosen to look promising and speak lofty words of nothingness as he and the other leaders push the nation ever closer to economic collapse. Ignoring any sound economic principles, these leaders have carved a path of prodigality unmatched in American history. It seems as if they desire the total economic failure of the country.
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