03
Nov
2014
Last Call for Acton Institute Lecture
Just a reminder, tomorrow (Tuesday) I’ll be giving a 12pm lecture on “sound money” at the Acton Institute. It’s my first time and the place is really impressive (I toured it today). If you’re in the Grand Rapids area, come check it out. Much better use of your time than voting.
1. I was there and learned something new for use against the Graeber-ites. I had never focused on the notion that in order for someone to accept money in exchange for his/her precious goods and services, there must be a pre-existing social consensus regarding a pre-existing approximate value of that money. Otherwise, no one would trade away their valuable stuff for a handful of magic beans, even if the emperor declared the beans to be money.
http://tinyurl.com/q9phtxg
2. They have a beautiful new auditorium. The last time I was there in 2010, Tom Woods spoke in a glorified lunchroom.
1. All you need to do to use against the Graeber-ites is to quote some of the confused passages from his book Debt. I’ve dropped a few here in the past.
2. Wow, Murphy trumped Woods. Bob did a little dance when he became aware of that, I’m sure.
Every argument against sound money includes the argument, “But David Graeber………”.
You didn’t build that.
The market? Government did it.
Money? Government did it.
The real rub is that Graeber fancies himself an anarchist. He rejects all of the things that happened voluntarily as a consequence of the human condition, but this is only because he “supposedly” rejects the state, and claims that these things only exist because of the state. But he doesn’t realize that the conditions that *he* defines as “anarchy” are entirely unnatural to human and social evolution, that they didn’t arise due to the state, thus, he does not realize that those things are the mechanism of the state. This is why you can easily see that he’s actually a statist. But then, what an-com isn’t ultimately a statist?
*
“those things” being those that he decries.
I remember going to Acton U a month before Mises U. It set the bar pretty high for accommodation, but the karaoke was terrible.
Looks great Bob,
I am posting this just because it amused me so much.
As we all know everyone has a point of view and Faber’s is fairly well known but just the way he speaks caused me to chuckle..
http://www.businessweek.com/videos/2014-11-03/faber-japan-is-engaged-in-a-ponzi-scheme