The Battle of the Century

Now available for immediate download: Karl Marx and the Close of His System, by Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk. The book is also newly in print.

Marx had said that the value of commodities reflect their labor input. The problem is that, well, reality doesn’t seem to reflect that at all. Marx had promised to explain why but he never really got around to it. Böhm-Bawerk seizes on this point and hammers it relentlessly to lay out the entire Austrian theory of capital and price.

Did FDR Forget The Forgotten Man?

William Graham Sumner wrote:

All schemes for patronizing “the working classes” savor of condescension. They are impertinent and out of place in this free democracy. There is not, in fact, any such state of things or any such relation as would make projects of this kind appropriate. Such projects demoralize both parties, flattering the vanity of one and undermining the self-respect of the other.

All together now: price controls cause shortages!

Zimbabwe is the latest nation to experiment with price controls as a method to make food affordable. It is an unspeakable tragedy that Zimbabwe’s people should end up being a object lesson in what happens when someone tries to wish away the laws of human action. And yet, when it comes to price controls, everything old is new again. I learned about the magic of price controls in a class where we were discussing Allende’s Chile.

Listen to America’s first action hero

Americans define themselves as principled people of action. That is one reason we revere George Washington, who was essential to our revolution’s success, the creation of our Constitution, and the precedent of how to govern under it, yet voluntarily stepped down from power out of principle (which King George said made him the man of the age). But his words as well as his deeds reflect America’s essence, and we would be wise to celebrate his February 22 birthday by remembering his insights.

Foie Gras Bust

Doug Sohn, owner of Hot Doug’s, was busted on the morning of Feburary 17th for disobeying Chicago city law by continuing to offer foie gras-laced hot dogs at his restaurant. Dough Sohn had been defying the city’s anti-foie gras ruling since it passed last year on August 22nd and has disregarded a number of warnings by city health inspectors. Mr. Sohn was issued a citation on Feb. 17th and is facing a maximum fine of $500.

The Vietnam Solution for Drug Victory

Mark Thornton asks us to look at the problems in drug-producing areas of the world such as Mexico, South America, the Middle East and Afghanistan. What would these nations be like absent our drug war? We know very well that the drug war and illegal drug money is helping to undermine local institutions, spread dangerous ideologies, and fuel anti-Americanism. The same applies to the inner city ghettos. Most importantly, Americans are dying from illegal drugs at rising and alarming rates. These deaths are also the result of the drug war because government prohibition makes drugs more potent, more impure, more dangerous, more addictive, and more deadly.

The Republicans and their Doomed Ideology

Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. asks: Why are Republicans so bad? There are interesting class-based reasons, but the core problem is philosophical. Their meta-understanding of politics bypassed the liberal revolution of the 18th century and embraced the anti-liberal elements of the Enlightenment. Up with Hobbes, down with Locke: that is their implied creed. Liberty is fine but order, ORDER, is much more important, and order comes from the state. They can’t even fathom the truth that liberty is the mother, not the daughter, of order. That thought is too complex for the Manichean mind.
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