@Runyan Is there any videos of this lecture?
You can find links to David Friedman’s Mises Brazil lecture, as well as some of his other lectures, over his website: http://www.daviddfriedman.com/MyTalks/MyRecentTalks.html
Patri Friedman’s Mises Brazil lecture is also recommended!
http://vimeo.com/user3865467/videos
http://vimeo.com/13711761 - start at 25:38 for the few points I mentioned earlier
@ Sieben
I am still on the minarchist side, since I had not enough time yet to read and think about law, enforcement, and punishment in an anarcho capitalist society. For this task it is nice to know what made people actually become ancaps. And while it is quite clear for me, who and what the most people in this forum and Mises Institute made change their mind, it was really strange for me to find out that there is also another one. Someone who on the contrary, strongly emphasizes not be austrian (only in an economic sense, but I guess this is clear here..), also became it. For my point of view this seems odd, because if you don’t share a very big part of the economic reasoning of AE, how can you also become an ancap?
It is really somewhat weird to find out about the relationships between all the different important people, “schools” etc…
The vidz of his talk in Brazil was really great! Thanks Runyan! I will just check out his site more closely. It seems his books are also for free. So I guess some of my questions will be answered here and there (as Question 2 in this Brazil talk).
Because government is a totally bankrupt philosophy from every angle? See here for the finance derrivation.
-You emphasize that your are not an austrian but an chicagoan
Correct.
I’ve never been a fan of Rothbard. My basic objection to him is that I think he was willing to use arguments he had to know were bad when they produced the result he wanted. My criticism of his work on the history of thought is one example. He accused Smith of being opposed to free trade on the basis of his support for an export tax on wool without ever telling his readers that what Smith was proposing was to replace an absolute ban on the export of wool, enforced by ferocious restrictions on the wool trade, with an export tax. He argued for the superiority of Turgot to Smith, cited Smith’s (actually quite ambiguous) support for the existence of a government role in schooling, and didn’t mention Turgot’s proposal that the French monarchy take over the entire French school system. For details of that argument see:
But there were earlier examples in other areas. We had a substantive disagreement on the nature of the legal system of a society without government, but that wasn’t the reason for my reservations about Rothbard.
Very likely correct.
Questions:
No. I don’t think I had read any Rothbard at that point.
My position at about age 15 was classical liberalism, with one problem—I didn’t see why obeying laws was morally obligatory, or how a society could work if people didn’t feel it was. When visiting colleges I was applying to I met the late Robert Schuchman, who offered arguments for private roads, one of the things I had thought had to be provided by government. But the biggest influence was reading Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. I thought I could prove that the framework for a private property society had to exist outside the market, provided by government. Heinlein offered a convincing counterexample, a description that seemed internally consistent of a (fictional) society in which law and law enforcement were endogenous, themselves a part of the market system.
One counterexample is enough to refute a theorem. So that started me thinking about how an analogous system would work in something close to our society. Out of that came the analysis that ended up in The Machinery of Freedom.
and that they propose ancap? Do you think they make a good job in proposing ancap and also educating people economics ?I expect there are Austrians who do a good job and others who don’t. The libertarian movement, like other political movements, is largely composed of people who think the arguments for their view are simple, obvious and correct, and are mistaken. My usual test is to ask whether someone could do a good job of arguing for the other side–about as good a job as most on that side could do.
I can’t think of anyone else who would clearly classify as Chicago school and as anarchist. Gary Becker once commented that he thought his position was between mine and my father’s, but I don’t think he has ever called himself an anarchist. Jim Buchanan refers to himself as a philosophical anarchist, and wrote the one really good review of The Machinery of Freedom, the one review that pointed out real problems that I had to think about, but I’m not sure if he would be better classified as Chicago, Austrian, or Virginia school. There is a bunch of younger people, such as Peter Leeson and Bryan Caplan, largely at GMU, who have anarchist sympathies and who I think are closer to Chicago school than to Austrian, but again I’m not sure of clear cases.
On the other hand, I think the younger generation of economists are much more open to the possibility of law and order and property without the state than my father’s generation were, or mine.
I had a low opinion of Rothbard’s contribution to that exchange, but I haven’t paid a lot of attention to other disputes between the schools. Bryan Caplan has a webbed piece on why he is not an Austrian which strikes me as respectful and well argued, and is based on a much more detailed understanding of the Austrian position than I have:
Sorry to hijack the tread
David,
Not too far back you made a comment in a Stephen M. video about schooling that I thought was fabulous. You mentioned that teachers and professors have too much power in their hands being the continuous intellectual-head of their classroom. Such continuous bouts of power lead them to place too much weight on their own opinion; they develop a sense that they must be right. The opinion you present on this is so far reaching, but I’ve never heard it purported by anyone else. I was wondering if you knew of anyone who developed or carried this argument further in an article or paper. If not, would you be willing to offer your opinion if I were to write up something?
@David
Thanks! I highly appriciate your answer. Wow never thought that you made this step so early (Hm what was it that I thought of when I was 15..? I guess I tried to use the most economical way of getting through school while maximizing my time in playing Baldurs Gate ;).
I know the Caplan essay and part of the following discussion, but I have no final opinion about it yet. But it is definitely well argued, and I read regularly his short blogs on econlog.econlib.org.
@ Sieben
I already somehow fear the day when I probably have to say to my friends and family: Listen, but I am an anarchist now..
You can also go the other way and accuse them of being anarchists. The state apparatus is judge in its own case. At best, democracy is anarchy for the majority with a pre-defined rightless underclass… except the majority can only govern themselves by the impotent process of voting, so its a totally chaotic and lawless idea all around.
I have nothing further to contribute to this thread, however I feel obligated to thank Mister D. Friedman for answering my question.