The Rise of An Anti-Statist Mass Movement
Brian Doherty writes that the Ron Paul movement is the most exciting development in libertarian politics in a century, or maybe ever.
Why Cicero?
According to the Mises.org Freedom Calendar, Marcus Tullius Cicero was born 2,115 years ago yesterday. (According to Wikipedia, it was 2,114 years ago.)
Gary Galles wrote,
Objectivist Law Prof Mossoff on Copyright; or, the Misuse of Labor, Value, and Creation Metaphors
In my posts Owning Thoughts and Labor and Thoughts on Intellectual Property, Scarcity, Labor-ownership, Metaphors, and Lockean Homesteading, I discuss several problems with over- or mis-use of various metaphors in political theorizing, especially the idea that we “own” our labor and “therefore” come to own things we “mix our labor with”; the idea that we own things we “
Rejoinder to David Frum on the Gold Standard
David Frum — former Bush speechwriter, ambitious author, American Public Radio commentator, and all-around guru — has been lecturing Ron Paul supporters about the gold standard.
“Last Knight” Live Blog 18 -- Greg Ransom
Hulsmann has written a 1143 page book chock full facts and insights, yet we’re dealing with Mises here, a man who probed the fundamentals of his discipline like few before or since. So I feel less awkward pointing to a few things in Mises’ book on money that in a longer book (!) might have been worth attending to.
A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism
Here is Hans Hoppe’s first treatise in English - actually his first book in English - and the one that put him on the map as a social thinker and economist to watch. He argued that there are only two possible archetypes in economic affairs: socialism and capitalism. All systems are combinations of those two types. The capitalist model he defines as pure protection of private property, free association, and exchange - no exceptions.Gold, Money, and Price Volatility
Murphy’s latest response to Frum is excellent. There is one point that he did not meet that merits special attention. Frum says:
Gold is a commodity. Like all commodities, its price is highly volatile. A money fixed to gold must be highly volatile too. Signing up for a true gold currency would be signing up for an unending monetary roller-coaster ride.However, it is not true that the volatility in the purchasing power of gold-as-it-is-now would be the same as gold-as-money.
IP = right to profits. Nothing more and nothing less.
IP is the manifestation on creativity of an underlying Marxist theme: the labor theory of value.
What if I discover/invent something but others market it first? What if they market it better?
Am I not entitled to profits for my discovery or invention?Answering yes to the last question is what lies at the core of so called Intellectual Property.
Well, one does not have a guarantee in any other activity, so why in invention? Shouldn’t that area too be subjected to the rigors of the free market? But of course, I say.
1.- What if another copies my machine?
Credit Expansion and Submarginal Investments
Markets are ruthlessly efficient, meaning in large part that people will not undertake investment projects with risk characteristics that are not aligned with savers’ preferences. All profitable opportunities will be exploited in equilibrium, and no potentially profitable projects will be left undone. One of the unfortunate consequences of credit expansion is that many projects which were formerly passed over by investors will be undertaken because of the incorrect signal sent into capital markets by artificially reduced interest rates.
2007: Year in Review
One cannot arguably begin a new year without insightful retrospection from Dave Barry. While typically bullish on pop-culture bologna, Barry is apparently an economic bear:
On the economic front, the dollar continued to lose value against all major foreign currencies and most brands of bathroom tissue.
A million apologies for the pun.
