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Book Club
A Category Archive (25 entries)
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October 23, 2009
Book Club
David Henderson
As I work my way through SuperFreakonomics, I'm starting to take back my claim that it's better than Freakonomics. It seems to have the same strength and the same weakness. The strength is its focus on incentives and facts to... MORE
October 20, 2009
Book Club
David Henderson
I'm only 27 pages into Levitt's and Dubner's new book, but already I'm liking Super Freakonomics better than Freakonomics. My problem with the first book was that it tended to emphasize small aspects of some issues and missed the big... MORE
July 18, 2009
Book Club
David Henderson
The Congressman I admire most, Ron Paul, is advocating that the Federal Reserve Bank be audited. Is this a good idea? I think there's one obvious plus and there are two less-obvious minuses. The obvious plus is that an organization... MORE
June 25, 2009
On health economics:Florence Rath died only eight days later, complaining not so much of a broken thigh and a fractured pelvis as of the refusal of the doctors to obey her."They know they can't cure me, so why don't they... MORE
May 13, 2009
My co-author Scott Beaulier blogs a meaty question for me:...The policy implication often taken from MRV is an elitist one: the world needs constraints from the mob through franchise restrictions, etc. While Rothbardhad his elitist moments (and there's plenty in the Austrian... MORE
May 12, 2009
We've finished the chapter-by-chapter of Murray Rothbard's For a New Liberty. Now I'd like to wrap things up by answering most or all of your questions about the book. Please limit yourself to questions, not statements, phrase them succinctly, and... MORE
May 5, 2009
Whew, we finally made it to chapter 15. Next week I'll do a final round-up, including a general Q&A.SummaryThis chapter sketches Rothbard's strategy for libertarian victory. He begins with a call for education:On one point there can scarcely be disagreement:... MORE
April 28, 2009
SummarySome libertarians argue that the implications of libertarianism for foreign policy are unclear. In this chapter, Rothbard argues that libertarianism implies strict "isolationism":Pending the dissolution of States, libertarians desire to limit, to whittle down, the area of government power in... MORE
April 21, 2009
SummaryThis chapter, on "Conservation, Ecology, and Growth," is an early statement of free-market environmentalism. It begins by ridiculing leftists' decades of contradictory complaints about capitalism: "Stagnation; deficient growth; overaffluence; overpoverty; the intellectual fashions changed like ladies' hemlines," and quoting one... MORE
April 14, 2009
SummaryA common reductio ad absurdum of libertarianism is that it implies anarchism. Rothbard now eagerly bites this bullet. Indeed, this chapter is the most detailed defense of anarcho-capitalism that he ever wrote.Rothbard begins by sketching how a free market would... MORE
April 7, 2009
SummaryIn this chapter, Rothbard advocates the abolition of publicly-owned streets and roads:Abolition of the public sector means, of course, that all pieces of land, all land areas, including streets and roads, would be owned privately, by individuals, corporations, cooperatives, or... MORE
March 31, 2009
SummaryIn this six-page chapter, Rothbard makes a sweeping economic case against "government in business." He begins by noting the power of status quo bias:People tend to fall into habits and into unquestioned ruts, especially in the field of government. On... MORE
March 24, 2009
SummaryIn 1973, when the first edition of For a New Liberty was published, Keynesians were still sitting pretty. Five years later, the Keynesians had so much egg on their faces that Rothbard was inspired to add this entirely new chapter... MORE
March 17, 2009
SummaryThis chapter, on "Welfare and the Welfare State," argues that the welfare state gives the poor perverse incentives. A superficial reader might say, "However original this was in 1973 when it was first written, it's now old hat. Clinton made... MORE
March 10, 2009
Since it's spring break, I figure we'll take a week off from the EconLog book club. Next week: Rothbard on the welfare state.... MORE
March 3, 2009
SummaryIn this chapter, Rothbard makes the case for the abolition of public schooling. While he somewhat surprisingly views Friedman's voucher system as "a great improvement over the present system in permitting a wider range of parental choice and enabling the... MORE
February 24, 2009
FYI: If you're having trouble keeping up with the For a New Liberty book club, the whole audio book seems to be available for free on iTunes. Personally, though, I can't bear to hear anyone say Rothbard's words but the... MORE
SummaryIn this chapter on "Personal Liberty," Rothbard puts run-of-the-mill "civil libertarians" to shame. He's more radical than most of the left on traditional civil liberties like freedom of speech, drugs, and wiretapping. He stands up for the rights to libel... MORE
February 17, 2009
SummaryThis chapter begins with a premise shared by almost everyone - that "involuntary servitude" is impermissible:The libertarian, therefore, is totally opposed to slavery. An academic question nowadays, one might object? But is it really? For what is slavery but (a)... MORE
February 10, 2009
SummaryThis is the shortest chapter of the book, just six pages long. Rothbard makes a laundry list of what he calls "the major problem areas of our society" and argues that government is central to every one of them. The... MORE
February 3, 2009
SummaryRothbard now applies the normative standards developed in chapter 2 to explain what libertarians have against government (or as Rothbard, inspired by Germanic capitalization, calls it, "the State"). The argument is simple: If a private individual did what governments do,... MORE
January 26, 2009
SummaryIn this chapter ("Property and Exchange"), Rothbard introduces the "non-aggression axiom," also often known as the "non-initiation of force axiom." The intuition is simple enough: No one has the right to start using physical violence or the threat thereof against... MORE
January 24, 2009
The For a New Liberty Book Club continues on Monday, when I'll post my thoughts on chapter 2. I plan on doing a chapter every Monday until the book's done. Anything less would be, as Rothbard loved to say, "Monstrous!"... MORE
January 20, 2009
Here's my plan: I'll lead off each discussion of Murray Rothbard's For a New Liberty with (a) a brief summary of the chapter of the week, and (b) some critical comments. But this is your book club, so in the... MORE
January 14, 2009
Tyler's been having fun with his MR Book Club on Keynes' General Theory:I will go through the book, chapter by chapter, with an eye toward a deeper understanding of what Keynes wrote and why it is, as Greg says, so... MORE
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