I’d like to point out that he thinks deflation is either good or harmless, except for two places where he talks about a “devestating deflation”.
Take it as a riddle and/or quiz if you wish. When is deflation devestating? You can visit my blog for the soon to be written article about when deflation is good, bad, or ugly.
Starting Hayek’s Road to Serfdom. Yawning already, but it’s probably just me.
Last month, wanting something short following Mises: LKoL, I read William Graham Sumner’s What Social Classes Owe to Each Other. Coincidentally, it was right around the time Riggenbach posted his Mises Daily about Sumner and the book. It’s a great short work, a nice complement to Herbert Spencer’s writing around the same time.
Right now I’m focusing my attention on Anthony de Jasay’s Social Contract, Free Ride. As usual, very rigorous and thought-provoking, yet still a pleasure to read. I still have the last few chapters, but he’s already laid out his argument for why, using game theory, it can be rational for self-interested individuals to contribute to public goods projects. Jasay is an expert at brushing aside all the confusion and squishy terms plaguing an issue, and there is plenty for him to address in the public goods debate.
However, in early May, I bought Liberty Fund’s first volume of their Collected Works of Bastiat, The Man and the Statesman. It contains over 200 letters, in correspondence with personal friends, colleagues and the likes of Cobden, Dunoyer and Horace Say (son of Jean-Baptiste), as well several political articles and editorials. At over 600 pages, it’s quite overwhelming at first, but there’s a lot of fascinating stuff. I do wish there were a few more letters from his youth (by letter 30, we’re at 1844, when Bastiat has officially entered the economics scene), but there’s enough to get a sense of Bastiat’s intellectual curiousity and growing passion for liberty and truth. And among the articles in the second section of the book are editorials written during the political upheaval of 1848, offering a dramatic look at the liberals’ effort to promote economic reforms in light of the February revolution.
I’m only about a quarter of the way through the letters, and so far Letter 16 is the stand out. The following is written in 1829, twenty years before Economic Harmonies, and when Bastiat had only in the previous letter, written a few months earlier, declared his intention to some day write about trade restrictions. It also anticipates both Molinari and Mises:
And in a letter written in 1820, we see Bastiat first embracing the economic point of view, having recently read Say’s Treatise:
Highly recommended for the Bastiat fans out there. And even if you don’t have much interest in correspondence or short, sometimes non-economic essays, come on: it’s Bastiat! Guaranteed fun. And as with all Liberty Fund publications, the binding and cover are top notch and the type elegant and very readable. It is a (large) beauty to hold.
EDIT: Smiling Dave, I’m with you on Road to Serfdom. I’ve tried reading it twice, and lost interest both times.
I just finished Liaquat Ahamed’s Lord’s of Finance, a treatment of the Great Depression, with a particular focus on probably the 4 most influential central bankers of the day (Benjamin Strong of the NY Fed, Montagu Norman of England, Hjalmar Schacht of Germany, and Emile Moreau of France). It was pretty interesting from a historical/biographical standpoint, but it was squarely Keynesian in its analysis of the GD (the Gold Standard may have worked before WWI, but due to imbalances in the amount of money within various countries after the war, it became impractical and incapable of avoiding the vicious deflationary cycles of depression; orthodox men were proven wrong, especially by the irreverent but brilliant young maverick economist who played by his own rules, JM Keynes; the barbarous relic was thankfully thrown off as the world recalibrated itself to the new realities of international finance and the necessities of a more “elastic” money supply, etc…)
I was so tired of the rhetoric by the end of the book I immediately ordered America’s Great Depression. The contrast has been enjoyable.
Human Action has been an ongoing project. Really cool book.
I’ve just started Gordon Thomas’s Gideon’s Spies: the Secret History of the Mossad. Pretty interesting, though largely unconfirmable (off-record sources etc), look at the Israeli intelligence agency. Reads like a spy novel I guess.
I’ve started to read this blog, that opened up around a week ago: Free Banking. Recognizable authors (well, at least authors I recognize) are Selgin, Dowd, Ebeling, Horwitz, O’Driscoll, and White. Definately a blog I would recommend bookmarking.
Reading John J. Collins’ Introduction to the Hebrew Bible. Wonderfully lengthy book explaining all the archeological, historical, and cultural facts in the origin of the Hebrew Bible. Amazingly well done and detailed, with a lot of further reading material, and not plagued with any theological construct, but strict historical-grammatical understanding of the text, without any hindrandces whatsoever of his beliefs or anything. Great textbook understanding of archeology and history in the Ancient Near East, explaining everything.
Also, Gustav Gutierrez’ A Theology of Liberation. This book is absolutely astounding, and amazing in every regard, except for the Marxist references and promotion everywhere. Surprisingly enough, it works without it, too. I swear, just add Mises to it (and you can without losing anything), and you’ll see the preference for the poor and the liberation of those in poverty through means that actually work. Everything theologically is sound and amazing, though needs to not touch Hegel…definitely using a lot of what is stated here for a huge treatise I want to write for Christian anarchism.
Also reading various graphic design books, etc. and designing plenty. Happy happy joy joy.
Hankster, I have read, Chodorov’s The Rise and Fall of Society. I found the book frustrating to read because of the author’s turgid writing style. Plus the book presents little that I didn’t already know, unless you are new to the Austrian school. The title has little to do with the actual contents. But there is one thing I still remembered: Chodorov explains that bereaucracy and big government is easier to impose, the larger the population base. The larger the ruled population, the less each citizen feels the brunt of poor decision making from the government.
I am about to order “Final Judgment: The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy” by Michael Collins Piper. A controversial book that’s out of print and expensive in the used market. Basically the author theorizes that the CIA and Israel were behind the assassination.
I think I liked the book a little better than it seems you did. Yes, not the greatest writing style but as I got into the book it grew on me (or I just stopped noticing). A title along the lines of “Society’s Enemy - The State” would have been more accurate.
The CIA I get, but what do they need Israel for? Is there a Mossad cell in Dallas Texas that has acess to stuff the CIA doesn’t have? It’s like saying the Hulk and Bilbo Baggins beat up on someone.
Maybe the author thinks Israel hired the CIA to do the job, that the CIA had no motive other than Israel’s cash, and for the few worthless shekels they would get from Israel they up and killed the President of the United States. Hey, it’s a living.
Or maybe he thinks that Kennedy was kidnaped to Israel, put to work picking tomatoes on a kibbutz, and some clone was assasinated in his place.
From what I read, Kennedy was exerting pressure on Israel to give up it’s nuclear program.
So the CIA says, “Yes, that’s a legitimate reason for us to help you assasinate our President. We would do it ourselves, but you guys know our own country so much better than we do. With your thick accents, you fill fit right in. And you will know where to get guns, all the logistics, everything. Don’t let us down. We need you.”
And what help did the CIA need from the Israelis? Arrange a bar mitzvah for Jack Ruby’s boy, if he had one, and if he was Jewish?
We are talking about the CIA. To pull off something in the United States. Dallas, Texas. The state of Israel was 15 years old, and broke. You couldn’t find a dozen people who even spoke English.
I read that book last summer, it was great. It has a wide variety of essays I think about 40 from some great authors (Hoppe, Barnett, Rothbard, Friedman etc…) I would definately recommend it.