This fascinating story in the NYT tells of the proliferation of cellphones and how they are used to make life better. But how strange that the journalist was not even slightly curious about the companies and entrepreneurs who make this possible.
In a free market, science originates in the minds of individual scientists, who have studied and thought about problems that interest them and who from time to time arrive at new insights, which they develop further and verify. In the course of their work and in the dissemination of its results, they often need more funds than they can personally provide. In such cases, inspired by the value they see in their work, they attempt to obtain the necessary funds from those other individuals whom they can persuade to share their understanding of their work and its value.
After our previous discussion of this topic, I published The Greatest Libertarian Books, today on LewRockwell.com. I’ve received several emails in response, some of which provoked this idea: the standard “top ten libertarian books” lists are kind of boring by now--they quite often just list “the usual suspects”. What would be interesting would be some other type of “top ten” (or whatever) book lists for libertarians, such as:
Once again the capitalists, entrepreneurs, petty-bourgeois, and associated travelers exploited those in need of goods and services; they ripped me off by selling school supplies at an outrageous price. These profiteers recognized the increased demand for education wares as school fast approaches so they acted just as the interventionist predicted; they lowered priced, outrageously. Oh, well, I guess that means that they actually acted opposite of what was predicted.
If you pay an employee a fat salary, give him a prestigious title, and then pump up his package with perks like free mailing privileges, well, you feel like he owes you some work. Maybe you need to give him an occasional assignment.
That’s why I wrote my Representative in Congress, Mr. “Bud” Cramer, to help me solve a bureaucratic conundrum. I waited nervously for the response, since it was my first assignment to him. I was anxious to evaluate his performance, as well as solve the mystery.
In February 1999, for research he was doing on postwar libertarianism, Brian Doherty interviewed Lew Rockwell. The interview was published in the May 12, 1999, issue of SpintechMag.com.
Doherty: How and under what circumstances did you first become interested in political philosophy/work? Was it of an individualist/libertarian orientation from the beginning?
Update: see this post for more on this.
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I asked recently of some colleagues if anyone recalled where Mises said that economics or catallactics is the most developed or highly elaborated branch of praxeology, but that someone was working (at the time) on applying praxeology to the study of conflict, or war. Sudha Shenoy pointed me to the answer: in Mises’ Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science Mises writes:
I posted the following perhaps intelligent, somewhat educational comment in response to a plethora of posts denouncing Chuck Hagel’s stand on the Israeli-Lebanese conflict and his call for a withdrawal of US troops in Iraq within 6 months:
