Sorry Malachi, I was busy and away from this site for awhile and lost track of our discussion. I think it was becoming unproductive anyway, so I don’t think I will reply to you points directly, unless you really feel I need to address certain ones. I plan to write some more posts that will hopefully clarify the points I’ve been making and also extend them into new areas.
You generate good debate, FOTH.
Thanks. I hope this debate has at least allowed us to gain a better understanding of our positions even if it has not changed them. I know it has for me. I continued the broken window debate here. I feel like I’ve talked the issue to death at this point and don’t really feel like resurrecting that particular aspect of the debate. You might find that I’ve answered your points in that thread. Here’s how I concluded that discussion:
Part of the problem is that what constitutes creation vs. destruction is in no way neutral. In order to make wood for construction, one must destroy a tree. If destruction of property necessarily means that wealth is destroyed, then cutting down a tree necessarily destroys wealth. But if nothing can be destroyed, then how can wealth be created? Isn’t it rather more relative than that? Isn’t it possible to destroy the “wealth” of those who enjoy hinking in a forest preserve by chopping it down while at the same time creating wealth for those who get to live in houses made from that wood?
Perhaps the thing I find most troubling about Hazlitt’s argument is not that he uses it to explain instances where poverty has followed property destruction, but rather that he uses it to explain away instances where the reverse seems to be true. He says, “look, all of the empirical evidence leads you to think that World War II got us out of the Great Depression. But look! I have one highly idealized example that proves that it’s not true!”
(Whether WWII really did get us out of the Depression or not, I don’t wish to address. I merely assert that such an example that Hazlitt presents is insufficient for drawing such conclusions.)
I’ve found some sources that make the same points I was trying to make at the beginning of the thread (before even the Hazlitt discussion). I’d like to quote these and expand on those original thoughts concerning economizing vs. rationing. But first, I’d like to raise some issues regarding another chapter in the Hazlitt book.