"The answer to constraining rent-seeking expendtures is to constrain the ability of government to create rents."
— Allen Dalton
"In scholarship it is not perhaps necessity, but prejudice, that is the mother of invention."
— Mancur Olson
Be Wary
The invisible hand will smite you.
"Then I ask you, I plead with you, I beg you all, walk out of here [the Fed] with me, never to come back. It’s the moral and ethical thing to do. Nothing good goes on in this place. Let’s lock the doors and leave the building to the spiders, moths, and four-legged rats."
— Robert Wenzel
"The government is good at one thing. It knows how to break your legs, and then hand you a crutch and say, ‘See if it weren’t for the government, you wouldn’t be able to walk’"
"Suppose the tax were levied by the town … and the full value on the amount were to be returned the next day to each payer in bread. Would it not be a sacred duty in every man, in the virtuous integrity of his nature, to deny such a proceeding? Doubtless it would. All but the meanest souls would thereby be raised to dis-annex themselves from the false and tyrannous assumption, that the human will is to be subject to the brute force which the majority may set up. It is only tolerated by public opinion because the fact is not yet perceived that all the true purposes of the corporate state may as easily be carried out on the revolutionary principle, as all the true purposes of the collective church. Every one can see that the Church is wrong when it comes to men with the Bible in one hand and the sword in the other. And is it not equally diabolical for the State to do so? The name is of small importance. When Church and State are divorced by public opinion, they may still carry on an adulterous intercourse."
— Charles Lane
"Know all men by these presents, that I, Henry Thoreau, do not wish to be regarded as a member of any incorporated society which I have not joined."
— Henry David Thoreau
"Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks which are
Weapons of unvanquished war.
And if then the tyrants dare,
Let them ride among you there,
Slash, and stab, and maim and hew,
What they like, that let them do.
With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear, and less surprise
Look upon them as they slay
Till their rage has died away
Then they will return with shame
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek.
Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you-
Ye are many—they are few."
Like a forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks which are
Weapons of unvanquished war.
And if then the tyrants dare,
Let them ride among you there,
Slash, and stab, and maim and hew,
What they like, that let them do.
With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear, and less surprise
Look upon them as they slay
Till their rage has died away
Then they will return with shame
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek.
Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you-
Ye are many—they are few."
— Percy Shelley
"Loyalty to ideas is not a good thing for … anyone."
— Nassim Taleb, Fooled by Randomness
David Friedman at Boise State part 1 of 4. Samuel Wonacott gave the introduction.
Enjoy. It’s an interesting lecture. I feel the Q&A could have been better. But all and all, it was a good event.
On Bourgeois Logic
Interesting take if only for its interpretive differences. Obviously the quote Dave presented lacks the full context. However, the summation accurately represents that section of Theory & History. There are other portions of the text that I feel should be included to elaborate further and benefit interpretation.
Mises is talking about Marxist class analysis and differentiates between the caste system (in which birthright determines social status) and class system (not disregarding birth as a contributing fact, but allowing for greater freedom in changing social status). So here is the important differentiation (equality in law):
[A]ll members of every caste but the most privileged have one interest in common, viz., to wipe out the legal disabilities of their own caste. … But no such conflicts are present in a society in which all citizens are equal before the law.
The following quote would be better phrased by placing “legal” before “privileges,” “protection,” and “barriers.” Mises is at that point differentiating between the two systems: Caste and Class.
Another quote from this section that I really enjoy is:
What has to be shown is how the individuals are induced to act in such a way that mankind finally reaches the point the productive forces want it to attain.
So Mises is hinting at comparative institutional analysis and the utility possibilities of different institutional structures. Because, in his understanding, the contemporary system doesn’t provide goods and services as efficiently (meaning the fulfillment of demands for the maximum utility of the consumer).
“In the unhampered market economy there are no privileges, no protection of vested interests, no barriers preventing anybody from striving after any prize.”—
Justin, Henry, this is what I’m talking about. Rash Dave injects his prejudices into this statement. He isn’t thinking about what hampers market activity, he’s thinking about what hampers his market activity.
I don’t see how you’ve come to that conclusion, Ben. I certainly haven’t followed your discussion with him, if this was a portion of it. However, I’m pretty sure that he perceives impeding on his market activity as impeding on market activity, as they’re one and the same when it comes to legislated restrictions.
"If the utility to the individual cannot be measured, it would seem to be at least as difficult to measure the total utility for the community even approximately, for purposes of comparison with the total sacrifice which, in its turn, is always a definite sum for each given or projected distribution of taxes (even though this sum in turn may not always be easy to ascertain). Such comparisons are nevertheless made, for otherwise the deliberations of the tax-approving assemblies, that ‘bargaining between the Government and Parliament’ (Wagner), about whether or not this or that public expenditure is to be accepted or rejected, would be completely without purpose."
— Knut Wicksell, A New Principle of Just Taxation, 1896
I really enjoyed this.
My friends,
In the last week or two, I have heard frequently from you that the current financial mess has been caused by the failures of free markets and deregulation. I have heard from you that the lust after profits, any profits, that is central to free markets is at the core of our problems. And I have heard from you that only significant government intervention into financial markets can cure these problems, perhaps once and for all. I ask of you for the next few minutes to, in the words of Oliver Cromwell, consider that you may be mistaken. Consider that both the diagnosis and the cure might be equally mistaken.
Consider instead that the problems of this mess were caused by the very kinds of government regulation that you now propose. Consider instead that effects of the profit motive that you decry depend upon the incentives that institutions, regulations, and policies create, which in this case led profit-seekers to do great damage. Consider instead that the regulations that may have been the cause were supported by, as they have often been throughout US history, the very firms being regulated, mostly because they worked to said firms’ benefit, even as they screwed the rest of us. Consider all of this as you ask for more of the same in the name of fixing the problem. And finally, consider why you would ever imagine that those with wealth and power wouldn’t rig a new regulatory process in their favor.
—Steve Horwitz
The Surviving Roots of Manifest Destiny
The evolution of the social conscience of Western society has been affected greatly by the lessening of European peoples’ ignorance, realizing more so that one people are not superior simply because of the lack of comprehension by others, a lack of “civilization” of others, a difference in cultures. The unenlightened and arrogant customs passed down through early United States’ citizens molded young minds to view anyone different as lesser beings, worthless and dispensable. As the weeds of the earth plagued the crops of the fields, the natives of this land vexed the divine beneficiaries of this territory. … Or so they believed. Blind obedience to social norms to the extent of absolution of crimes against humanity persisted for the “betterment” of white society. Certainly there were those disheartened by these actions; but who could rationally go against the will of God?
"Emancipation from the bondage of the soil is no freedom for the tree."
— Rabindranath Tagore
