Archive for Rothbard
Potpourri
==> My thoughts on Earth Day. ==> In the context of the standard debates, I would be classified as an “open borders” kind of guy, but I think that is a terrible label. Somebody should ask Bryan Caplan why they don’t call it “freedom of migration” or “no CheckPoint Charlies” or something. “Open borders” sounds [...]
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==> If you’re interested in the economics of climate change, I throw out some factoids in this blog post that may surprise you. ==> Somebody asked me to find this (I had cited it in my Rothbard study guide), so I thought I’d relay it to y’all: It’s a wonderful essay by Bohm-Bawerk that includes [...]
Read moreInside a Mob Family
I was listening to this Fresh Air interview with the son of mobster Frank Calabrese. The interview was from 2011 but Frank Sr. apparently just died on Christmas, so they re-broadcast it. It’s pretty good stuff; there are details about loan sharking and killing a guy who is wily, etc. The mob movies are always [...]
Read moreClarification on Cantillon Effects
Steve Horwitz’s thoughts reinforced my own inkling that I should spell out what I had always filed away as “the Austrian point about Cantillon effects.” So the following is what I would have said, had you asked me a month ago. Note that I speak for myself, and I’m not even saying this is what [...]
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==> Nick Rowe agrees with me that Steve Landsburg’s analysis of paying down government debt is only true if we assume perfect certainty. (Steve I think would totally agree, and that’s why I said in my original post that this was an argument over specifying assumptions for the reader, not about the implications of those [...]
Read moreLibertarians Love Homesteading Theory Except If God Exists
I don’t want to link to our comments because nothing he said was unusual, but last week I got into it with a critic here about God violating people’s natural rights. In other words, my critic was claiming that we can use our reason to derive rights that human beings possess, and that’s how we [...]
Read moreI Think Bryan Caplan Should Tweak His Quality Control Setting
Yesterday at EconLog Bryan Caplan had a post entitled “Optimal Open-Mindedness” in which he wrote: Lately a few people have accused me of being “closed-minded.” As they’d predict, I reject the accusation. I say my degree of openness is close to optimal. Consistent with Bayesian reasoning, I am as reluctant to claim vindication by events as I [...]
Read moreNFL Referee Lockout and Private Law
This is a message I just sent to an email List, which I thought some of you might enjoy too: Just a thought for those of you who teach and discuss private law with your students: It seems to me that the NFL lock-out is a great opportunity to talk about private legal systems and [...]
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