Rothbard as Intellectual Inspiration
Doug French discusses what it was like to be a student of Murray Rothbard. He didn’t take roll, or hand out a syllabus. Murray didn’t have time for that; he had centuries of history to cover.
The Reid Effect
Every time I take off my shoes in the security screening process at the airport, I find it consoling to remind myself that at least Richard Reid wasn’t wearing an underwear bomb.
Sweet Home for Austrian Economics
Kyle Wingfield’s wonderful article on the Mises Institute appears in the US edition of the Wall Street Journal today. For subscribers here is the link. And here is a link that is free (new)
The Problem of Accuracy of Economic Data
In his classic book On the Accuracy of Economic Observation Oskar Morgenstern deals with a common, yet widely neglected problem with which economic historians are faced, namely the quality of economic data. For the economic historian in the Austrian tradition, the quality of economic data is of utmost importance, since false data or belief in inaccurate data can lead the economic historian to faulty interpretations of the past.
Alan Reynolds’ Defense of the Fed
Cato Institute senior fellow, Alan Reynolds, who writes pretty good columns on non-monetary issues but who writes terrible columns on monetary issues unfortunately chose to write about monetary issues today, attacking those who “second-guess” the Fed.
Are Capitalists Bamboozling the Poor?
Tom Woods writes: whenever the private sector introduces an innovation that makes the poor better off someone will call for curbing or abolishing it.
Bring Back Fiscal Corruption
Nostalgia for a lost but better world is what one feels when following the growing state-pension scandal, writes Lew Rockwell. It’s all so delightfully 19th century. The Federal Government faces no such pressure.
on indifference
the main problem I have with Hans on indifference is that he seems to let Nozick off the hook. Nozick says that in order to define a good, you’ve got to have indifference in economics, since a good is defined as that which with regard to all members of the class, we are indifferent between them. to say this in other words, if butter is a good, then we are indifferent between all units of butter. I think that my admittedly coarse analysis succeeds in overturning Nozick, while I think that Hans’ admittedly far more sophisticated analysis does not.
Do “stand your ground” laws exceed libertarian proportionality?
About a dozen U.S. states have passed laws that allow their citizens to use lethal defensive force in their homes and vehicles (in the Florida version, this applies even to public areas) if they are fearing for their lives. Previously, the standard had been that they had a duty to retreat before resorting to defensive violence.
Trading Victims, Increasing State Power
By most reports, Israeli bombings of Lebanon are strengthening Hezbollah’s support among Lebanese civilians, while Hezbollah bombings of Israel are strengthening the Israeli government’s support among Israeli civilians.
