This past weekend was the annual Austrian Scholar’s Conference held in Auburn Alabama at the Mises Institute. It was a great event. I thought I would write a follow up to the brief talk I gave discussing graduate school. My discussion was limited to general suggestions about what types of research to do (economic history) but young students have almost no specific information on how to prepare for graduate school. So here it goes…
Roderick posted some historical accuracy comments about HBOs Rome. Here’s a similar list I’d expect to have to make if HBO put out an “Athens” or a “Solon”:
1. In real life Solon was a legislator not a lawgiver. Athens had functioning law and justice; Solon just formalized it. In some cases to its functional detriment.
2. In real life everyone hated sycophants. Solon attempted to achieve equality and bring open access to justice to even the poor lower classes of Athens. Rather than only the victim having legitimacy to bring a criminal to trial, after Solon, anyone could. People who brought trials for their own profit were called sycophants and everyone hated them for sticking their noses where they didn’t belong.
3. In real life state sponsored justice did not accomplish class equality. Once the state ruled over the justice system the public prisons swelled with poor Athenians and wealthy elites walked free from crimes as always.
I’m just saying…
Taken from Theory and History by Ludwig von Mises
Part Two: Determinism and Materialism
Chapter 5: Determinism and its Critics
Section 5: Determinism and Penology
Mises explains why state punishment cannot be retributive and is only motivated by deterrence.
Thursday night my roommates and I went to see Frank Miller’s new 300 (a nearly sold out event). I thought it was a lot of fun to watch and had amazing visual effects. CNN news has been running a negative review that complains about the mismatch between futuristic special effects on the one hand and the ancient historical setting on the other. I don’t really care about this matter one way or another. I’d rather comment on one brief historical and cultural point of the film. I am highly skeptical that any society can both raise their male children to be lean mean fighting machines from birth and also place a high value on liberty and freedom as Miller’s Spartans did. My roommates and I came out of the film pointing to the obvious parallel between the Spartans and current neo-cons. Both ride to war and battle for liberty in rhetoric only.
I can’t wait to show this to my intermediate macro class. We’ve been discussing the implications that Keynes’ empirical starting point of depression era unemployment had on his models and policy implications. This may do a good job of easing the transition to our next set of theories. My, how the world changes.
Thanks to Russell Roberts at Cafe Hayek for the link.
Friday would have been the 81st birthday for Murray Rothbard. Aside from celebrating, I decided to devote my class lecture (intermediate macro) to Rothbard on Keynes. The first thing I found was Murray’s “Keynes the Man” article. I read this article again trying to decide if it was appropriate to give my class. As fascinated as I was to hear about how Keynes was a member of secret societies with strange moral beliefs, I don’t think my undergrads would’ve gotten much out of it. Then I searched through Rothbard’s Man Economy and State and found the section on “Hording and the Keynesian System.”
I got a fascinating and enjoyable delivery in the mail today. Prison Songs volumes 1 and 2 the Allan Lomax Collection. These are recordings from actual inmates between the 1930s and 1970s. The liner notes have historical footnotes, and full interview transcripts. In a word these discs are awesome. 