Rothbard

Archive for Rothbard

Potpourri

* If you’re the type of person who thinks it’s obvious that the Titanic should have had more lifeboats, then you’re obviously not an economist. (I’m not being snarky; I’ve often thought along the same lines as Steve Landsburg on this topic.) * When people criticize my theories on private police and judicial services, they […]

Near-Miss On Stossel

Well here was the guy (David Barker) I was talking to in the green room at my taping with John Stossel. So far as I can tell, my clip is not available. It’s the man keeping me down! Anyway as this guy and I talked, we slowly realized that we were each as crazy as […]

Mankiw vs. Rothbard

This was a Mises Daily I had last week that I forgot to post. An excerpt: In a recent New York Times piece, bestselling textbook author, Harvard professor, and Mitt Romney advisor Greg Mankiw offered four principles of tax reform that are almost universally endorsed by professional economists, even extremely free-market ones. In the present […]

The First (of Several?) Posts on Romans 13

Atheist libertarians love to quote Romans 13: 1-7 at me. I have been delaying addressing it for a long time, not because I have nothing to say, but because it’s such an important passage and requires a long answer. However, after at least 6 months of doing this, it’s clear that I’m never going to […]

In Defense of the Mises Institute

A while ago I was a signatory to a truce between (for lack of better terms) the GMU Austro-libertarians and the Auburn Austro-libertarians. I pledged that not only would I not engage in conflict escalation between the two camps, but that I wouldn’t even make any internet comments that would likely induce others to do […]

Don’t You Dare Show Scott Sumner This Rothbard Excerpt

I’m working on tomorrow’s lecture from Chapter 11 of Man, Economy, and State, and came across this passage on page 849: It is thus clear that the exchange-value of money cannot be quantitatively separated from the exchange-value of goods. Since the general exchange-value, or PPM, of money cannot be quantitatively defined and isolated in any […]

Follow-Up on Rothbard and Consumption Taxes

Incidentally, Bob Wenzel and I have been exchanging emails that are as chummy as the bounds of heterosexuality permit. I think we are in 99% agreement on Rothbard’s views towards a consumption tax. So this isn’t me “attacking” anybody, just making sure people don’t draw erroneous inferences from some of Rothbard’s arguments. In this piece […]

Potpourri

Lots of links have been piling up here… * You know how Keynesians liked that one journal article showing that businesses were more worried about bad sales than regulations? Well, when a survey shows the exact opposite, they still take it as further evidence that the demand-side story is right. (Note that I’m not saying […]