The big web story of the day is the FTC’s fight against spyware (or should we call it a War on Ads), charging a company with having deployed software that “changed users’ home pages, installed advertising and software programs on the users’ computers, and caused a deluge of pop-up windows to appear on computer screens — without the users’ consent.
Quoting Mises, Jack Crooks writes in the Asia Times: “In a country where voters know they can vote themselves the goodies and have accepted the term ‘war on terror’, it’s highly unlikely the US can get its fiscal side under control for many years to come. Thus the howls for China to do something with its currency grow louder.”
I woke up this morning to an apparently normal universe. I saw what looked like the usual fair over at CNN, an article titled “A return to gas lines and rationing?”. Upon reading it I discovered I was in an alternate universe where news articles actually contain sound economic reasoning. I haven’t decided yet if I wish to get back to my own dimension.
Alone on his island, Robinson Crusoe can do whatever he pleases. For him, the question concerning rules of orderly human conduct—social cooperation—simply does not arise. Naturally, this question can only arise once a second person, Friday, arrives on the island. Yet even then, the question remains largely irrelevant so long as no scarcityexists. Suppose the island is the Garden of Eden; all external goods are available in superabundance.
Murray Rothbard gave a lecture at Polytechnic University in the 1970s on the economics of labor and labor regulation. I assume it was part of his regular teaching duties for basic economics. You can download the audio file here.
Two of my favorite-ever Rothbard quotes are in that one lecture, and I can’t find them written out anywhere, so I’ve transcribed them:
