Guest post by Michael Phillip
The liberal right are attracted to order and plurality (e.g. F. A. Hayek), the anti-liberal Right are attracted to order and unity (e.g. Auguste Comte), the liberal Left to turbulence and plurality (e.g. John Stuart Mill) and the anti-liberal Left to turbulence and unity (e.g. Karl Marx).
[I] couldn’t care less about social justice and equality. I despise the terms and the feelings that inspire them.
But when a young man who is willing and able to work, and work hard, to feed his family cannot find work, and the only reason that he cannot is low trust, no credit, and low economic velocity – that makes me angry.
I know too many men here who want to work, are willing to work, at ANY work, to feed and house their families, that cannot find it. And they cannot find it while government bureaucrats seek pervasive rents and participate in pervasive corruption.
And it makes me want to kill every living soul in that government that I can get my hands on.
We need to bring back the guillotine.
[I] couldn’t care less about social justice and equality. I despise the terms and the feelings that inspire them.
But when a young man who is willing and able to work, and work hard, to feed his family cannot find work, and the only reason that he cannot is low trust, no credit, and low economic velocity – that makes me angry.
I know too many men here who want to work, are willing to work, at ANY work, to feed and house their families, that cannot find it. And they cannot find it while government bureaucrats seek pervasive rents and participate in pervasive corruption.
And it makes me want to kill every living soul in that government that I can get my hands on.
We need to bring back the guillotine.
You know I couldn’t care less about social justice and equality. I despise the terms and the feelings that inspire them. But when a young man who is willing and able to work, and work hard, to feed his family cannot find work, and the only reason that he cannot is low trust, no credit, and low economic velocity – that makes me angry.
I know too many men here who want to work, are willing to work, at ANY work, to feed and house their families, that cannot find it. And they cannot find it while government bureaucrats seek pervasive rents and participate in pervasive corruption.
And it makes me want to kill every living soul in that government that I can get my hands on.
We need to bring back the guillotine.
Source date (UTC): 2014-12-12 04:49:00 UTC
[I] would present it (as I do) as a last ditch desperate attempt to reach the enlightenment utopia embodied in both cosmopolitan middle class universalism, and anglo puritanical middle class universalism. But that both movements were failures and had to be, because universalism and equality are merely utilitarian merchant philosophies of self interest made possible by temporary economic advantage….
It is cheaper to believe everyone is your friend rather than your competitor. It’s not only the europeans who have converted the cost of defense to consumption – it’s all of western civilization.
Writing up presentation on Mises, Rand and the 20th Century. In a very un-Rand thing to do, crowd source, what points would you stress? If you‘re at all familiar with me you will know where I‘d go in this, but where would you go?
– Peter Boettke
[I] would present it (as I do) as a last ditch desperate attempt to reach the enlightenment utopia embodied in both cosmopolitan middle class universalism, and anglo puritanical middle class universalism. But that both movements were failures and had to be, because universalism and equality are merely utilitarian merchant philosophies of self interest made possible by temporary economic advantage….
It is cheaper to believe everyone is your friend rather than your competitor. It’s not only the europeans who have converted the cost of defense to consumption – it’s all of western civilization.
Writing up presentation on Mises, Rand and the 20th Century. In a very un-Rand thing to do, crowd source, what points would you stress? If you‘re at all familiar with me you will know where I‘d go in this, but where would you go?
– Peter Boettke
[M]y objective is the achievement of liberty. But there are very few means of achieving it. For all intents and purposes, classes are genetic in origin: reproductive desirability, intelligence, impulsivity, aggression determine your class as much as do your parents norms.
[M]y objective is the achievement of liberty. But there are very few means of achieving it. For all intents and purposes, classes are genetic in origin: reproductive desirability, intelligence, impulsivity, aggression determine your class as much as do your parents norms.
[P]eter Boettke posted an article by Paul Krugman yesterday which referred to the divisions in economics – with derision.
And it’s been bothering me all night:
Progressives, libertarians, and conservatives demonstrate an inter-temporal division of reproductive labor in their moral biases and cognitive biases.
So why wouldn’t economists follow the same moral, inter-temporal division of labor?
Well, they do. All humans do.
Austrians represent the conservative long term: accumulation and competitiveness, and new Keynesian progressives the short term: consumption and reproduction.
The question is whether consumption/dysgenia or accumulation/eugenia is preferable.
This is the central proposition. And we avoid answering it just as much as our ancestors avoided the question of the existence of gods.
Until we answer that question all economic debate is just obscurant deception as a means of avoiding the central question of economics: what is it that we are solving for?
I can answer that question because western history answered it for us.
https://www.coleurope.eu/content/studyprogrammes/eco/publications/BEER/BEER10.pdfECONOMIC DISPARITY AS RESULT OF REGIONAL DIFFERENCES IN FAMILY TYPES (H/T Johannes Meixner )
Family Types and the Persistence of Regional Disparities in Europe
Gilles Durantona, Andrés Rodríguez-Poseb, and Richard Sandallb
BEER paper March 2007
Source date (UTC): 2014-12-09 09:46:00 UTC