Abstract: The paper describes the colonization cost theory of anarchic emergence. The theory states that when the state incurs high costs of directly colonizing land, it may be beneficial for it to allow anarchy to emerge and settle distant frontiers. Once enough land is settled by the anarchic community, the state can then use one of the two following strategies: 1) appropriate this land cheaply by a coercive takeover; 2) wait for the anarchic communities to assimilate into the state, given the state’s low time preference.

Abstract:  Economics has long history of “rehabilitations,” including W.H. Hutt’s rehabilitation of Say’s law, and Alfred Marshall’s attempt to rehabilitate David Ricardo. The rehabilitation of Frank A. Fetter should be as important as either of these, especially for economists working in the contemporary Austrian tradition. The historical records reveal that for the last century there has been underway a nearly unbroken series of efforts, especially by Austrian economists, to rehabilitate Fetter’s contributions and use them to revitalize economic theory.

Abstract: This newly translated tribute to Ludwig von Mises was written by Hans Mayer on the occasion of Mises’s 70th birthday in 1951. It was published in the Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie in 1952. In it, Mayer expresses a surprisingly favorable opinion of Mises as an accomplished scholar, despite some misgivings regarding the latter’s policy stance and the incorrect–in his view–characterization of the Austrian School as the ‘School of Liberalism.’

Anatomy of Liberty in Don Quijote de la Mancha: Religion, Feminism, Slavery, Politics, and Economics in the First Modern Novel
by Eric Clifford Graf
Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2021, 290 pp.

The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes
by Zachary D. Carter
New York: Random House, 2020, 656 pp.

In the aftermath of the Virginia gubernatorial elections, armchair pundits are still offering their spin on the upset that Republican challenger Glenn Youngkin pulled off against former governor Terry McAuliffe. While there’s a lot of talk about the results of this election being a referendum on the Biden administration’s plummeting approval rate and mishandling of the economy, education is one local contributing factor behind Republicans’ strong performance in the Old Dominion that cannot be overlooked.

The latest quarterly filing statement of the Swiss National Bank (SNB) has been issued. Switzerland’s publicly traded central bank had a decrease in the value of its US stock holdings by around $5 billion in Q3 of 2021, ending the quarter with a value of $157 billion. SNB currently has a profit of over $40 billion for the 9 months ended in the year. Perhaps subjective, it looks like a banner year for an entity who turns a profit through currency manipulation.

You will not be surprised to learn that my answer is no, but what I’d like to discuss in this week’s column is an argument by an eminent philosopher that we should. Robert Hanna is an authority on Kant (Objectivist readers will already see trouble ahead), and in an article published online this month, “Gun Crazy: A Moral Argument for Gun Abolitionism,” he calls for the repeal of the Second Amendment.