Media and Culture

Recorded from The Mises Circle in Phoenix, Arizona, April 10th, 2010. Sponsored by James M. Rodney.

We've all encountered the rival theories Hunt is talking about here — the thinkers like Max Weber, who believed that the rise of liberalism was caused by the Puritan work ethic, the thinkers who believe that the rise of liberalism was made inevitable by Christian ideas about the individual soul, and so forth.When you're attempting to explain market processes, whether in the marketplace for goods and services or the marketplace of ideas, it's never that simple.

George's own attachment to the land tax, rightly critiqued by Rothbard, is a clear case of Rothbard's Law: the tendency of people to specialize in what they are worst at.

Socrates' conversation illustrates the logic of the politics of plunder and injustice in the polis. Socrates is able to do this because of his audience's lack of a definition of justice.

Although he writes with confidence, David Frum's rejection of the gold standard is based on faulty history, bad economics, and a belief in the power of Washington to manage the economy.

It was Misesian (myself) vs. Rothbardians (nir, wilderness, and Conza), and it got rocky a few times. But tempers cooled, concessions were made, compliments were passed, common ground was discovered, and new ways of looking at the issue were found by both sides.

In the America of Thomas Jefferson's Declaration these categories and institutions were to have the opportunity which they were never fully to achieve in their constricted English home.

"Socialism and legislation seem to be inevitably connected if socialist societies are to keep alive."

It may be difficult to understand at first why the members of the Texas Board of Education consider Aquinas, Calvin, and Blackstone more worthy of study than Thomas Jefferson.

Jeffrey Tucker interviews John Papola. Recorded 13 March 2010.