The Mises Blog, which is a must for anyone interested in Austrian Economics and the like ,has a relatively new feature for archiving posts by their author.
Here’s my link:
Dan D’Amico’s posts on The Mises Blog
Last week I attended the Public Choice Outreach Program and this week The Summer Institute each put on by the Center for the Study of Public Choice at George Mason University. Both events have been most rewarding thus far, and I would highly recomend them for students and scholars interested in the ideas of Public Choice.
Of particular interest to the readers of this blog, were two of the first presentations yesterday. The first was an informal discussion between James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock. It is an unmatchable experience to observe these two great minds in action. Most interesting was Tullock’s crediting of Mises as his major influence spurring him onto the idea of merging the disciplines of policitical science and economics. Buchanan admitted to having been ignorant of Mises at the time of drafting the bulk of his major theories, but once introduced to works like Human Action it was clear that Mises was the closest thinker to what he had in mind for Public Choice.
The second presentation of major interest to readers of this blog softly supports this link between Mises and Tullock and Buchanan. It was a breif review of Buchanan’s archived material now available on the GMU library website. Notice this letter in particular where Tullock says to Buchanan, “I have had an idea which might be worth thinking about. Why not try to set up a committe on Praxeology (or some similar phrase) in the Soutern Association.”
This post was also posted to the Mises Blog
The Utopia of Liberty
by Gustave de Molinari
Letters to the Socialists 1848
Translation by Roderick T. Long
(full text available at The Molinari Institute.)
LTS-I.19
Let us consider the Roman world. What do we find at the heart of this society, though it was the richest and most powerful of antiquity? On one side, a patriciate composed of a very small number of men enriched by the spoils of the universe. The life of these men, as you know, was a succession of bloody battles and foul orgies! Beside this all-powerful caste, gorging itself on the substance of an entire world as the vultures were seen to gorge themselves on the corpses of those vanquished by Marius [Online editor’s note: the Roman general Gaius Marius was said to have carried two pet vultures on his sanguinary campaigns. – RTL] – beside this engorged and satiated caste, what do we see? the impoverished multitude of proletarians and the debased multitude of slaves! You speak of the miseries of our working class; good God! as painful and pitiable as these miseries may be, you can hardly compare them with those of the Roman proletarians. At least our working class works; it does not beg! The people of our gloomy suburbs are not to be seen lining up at the gates of the splendid mansions of our moneyed aristocracy to beg alms! They are not to be seen hurling themselves like dogs upon the crumbs which the rich brush from their tables with a bored and disdainful hand! Nor yet are they to be raising daily riots to obtain free distribution of food. No! today’s worker undeniably leads a poor life; but he earns this life, he is able to earn it. The Roman proletarian was not in a position to earn his own life. The wealthy patricians had monopolised all the industries and all the soil, which they exploited by means of their slaves. Victims of this unequal competition, the proletarians’ only choice was between begging, exile, and death. They begged. And yet the lot of these degraded proletarians was still a thousand times preferable to that of the slaves. The proletarian, at least, was a man; the slave, for his part, was only one more species of beast of burden, a thing! The slave possessed nothing, not even a name. Admittedly the poor workers of our own countryside deserve our commiseration, they who pass their lives stooped to the ground, most often obtaining in exchange for their hard labour nothing better than a morsel of black bread to eat, a coarse cloth to wear, and a mud hut to sleep in; but however painful this existence, how many Roman slaves would have envied it! Recall the accounts of Pliny and Columella. [Online editor’s note: Gaius Plinius Secundus (or Pliny the Elder) and Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella, Roman writers on agriculture. – RTL] At the heart of the smiling countryside of Italy were to be found, at periodic intervals, those dark and noisome dwellings which were called ergastula. These were prisons, or to speak more accurately stables, of slaves. In the morning they filed out in bands, generally chained; they spread out across the countryside, driven by overseers armed with whips, and each furrow was watered with their sweat and their blood together. In the evening they were led back to the ergastulum, where like base animals they were tied up beside their mangers. For them no family, but a filthy promiscuity! no God, but an inexorable fate which robbed them of their humanity while leaving them not even the hope of a life to come! Such, as you know, was the condition of the labouring masses in antiquity. And yet the world had not yet been subjected to the law of laissez-faire!
What is to be gained by the creation of a state? Well, consider what a state does. First, it taxes, which means taking from the people and giving to the government, which then gives money to its friends. Second, it regulates, meaning that government tells people to do things they would not otherwise do. Third, it creates a central bank to water down the value of money. Fourth, it builds jails in which to put people who disobey, including political enemies.
The preceding quote by Lew Rockwell sums up the general thrust of my research agenda. Here are some more recent popular articles on relevant topics.
Gary North on prison ministries.
Stefan Molyneux on stateless incarceration.
Jeff Tucker gets locked up.
The New Yorker reports on restorative justice.
Enjoy for now…
First up is a list of books on prisons and a few breif words about them. I think I’ll try to find some time to make a guide list in the near future, but for right now I’m just fooling around with this feature for a while. So enjoy
BOOKS ON PRISONS
I couldn’t resist cross posting this gem of a blurb from Jeff Tucker over at the Mises Institute.
My comments on the feed are as follows:
Jeff Tucker’s articles and blog posts are refreshing and wonderful in two distinctive ways. The first is his dedication to empirical applications. Despite some of my fellow earlier commentators’ impulse to incite a praxeology v. empirics riot, I beleive applied theorizing to be one of the most important competitive advantages of Austrian economics and sound economics in general. Applied theorizing is simply the task of using theory to explain the world around us, that’s what theory is for after all. On this margin Jeff’s writings are always gems, which leads into the the second margin which Tucker always seems to impress me on; his willingness to never remove his economic lenses. In a true econo-geek fashion, Jeff sees the basic principles of economics in everything from his shoe selection, shaving routine, to his olive theivery. In this sense he is a true exemplar of spreading the economic message. Economics is not just a drawer of useless platitudes and formalistic assumptions it’s a way to see the world around you and a perspective with which you can gain understanding about the complicated problems that the world presents.
This strip seemed relevant in soo many ways…
I would like to comment on a recent Popular Mechanics article: Debunking the Myths of Katrina. This article is a must read for anyone interested in the topic of New Orleans reconstruction. While the amount of raw facts is impressive, the general tone of the article is more concerning. The argument of the article is set up so as to use raw empirics as refutation against alleged myths concerning the government’s inadequate response, meteorological reality, and environmental engineering. Factual data concerning Katrina needs to be presented and understood, this leads me to say that this article is a good one. My reservation is only in regards to the language of the argument to assert magnitudes of appropriateness to issues of economic rather than technological efficiency.
An exciting piece of news; I have recently been contracted as a graduate research fellow for the Mercatus Center. I’ll be going to New Orleans from April 1st through 8th to work directly with Emily Chamlee-Wright on gathering field research. The project is investigating questions surrounding pre-Katrina civic organization, organizational resilience during Katrina, and post-Katrina reconstruction (see Pete Boettke’s introductions to the project 1 and 2).
I’ve grown more and more fond of this phrase as of lately. In accordance with it, my topics of inspiration seem to be broad and far reaching, here are some samples.