Liberty and Power

• Sep 26, 2010
  

  diZerega and Sandefur Again

  by Liberty and Power

  I have just posted a detailed response to Timothy Sandefur's reply to my Independent Review critique of his article.
  http://studiesinemergentorder.org/2010/09/26/timothy-sandefur-f-a-hayek-and-the-nature-of-spontaneous-order/
  
  Unlike the briefer one I posted here because the Studies in Emergent Order site was being redesigned, I deal with his points in so
  

• Sep 25, 2010
  

  Higgs Comes to the University of Alabama (Liberty and Power Lectures, October 5)

  by Liberty and Power

  

  I am delighted to announce that our own Robert Higgs will be appearing at the University of Alabama on October 5 to do what he does best. He will offer his legendary insights into the origins of the American Military-Industrial Complex. The talk will be in Room 205 at the Gorgas Library at 6:00 pm. He will be featured as part of the

• Sep 23, 2010
  

  Freedom and Language

  by Liberty and Power

  It's always an honor to have one of my old Freeman articles selected as a"timely classic" for their email digest. Yesterday they picked my Sept. 96 essay "Freedom and Language." UPDATE: Bio has been updated.
  

• Sep 22, 2010
  

  Tolkienian Quotes for the Day

  by Liberty and Power

  Yesterday was the 73rd anniversary of the publication of The Hobbit. Today is the anniversary of the Long-Expected Party celebrating Bilbo's eleventy-first birthday and Frodo's coming of age in The Lord of the Rings. Also on this day, according to the Appendices of The Lord of the Rings, 99-year-old Samwise Gamgee rode out from Bag End for the final time. He was last seen in Middle-Earth by his daughter Elanor, to whom he presented the Red Book. According to tradition, he th
  

• Sep 21, 2010
  

  Peak Complexity and Unsustainable Debt

  by Liberty and Power

  "Complexity" is an important issue in our times because it describes the inevitability of certain processes occurring in systems. While we might discuss exactly what is bound to happen exactly when, the overall drive and direction are indisputable: systems, as they grow, increase their levels of complexity, until they no longer can. That is, until it’s their very complexity that inhibits further growth. Then a move towards decreased complexity, or increased simplicity, must begin, a move that ca
  

• Sep 19, 2010
  

  Radley Balko on "Blight Fight" in Montgomery

  by Liberty and Power

  Radley Balko has a hard-hitting investigative piece at Slate asking why the city of Montgomery, Alabama is demolishing the homes of black residents on a major scale. More hopefully, he also discusses the interracial/cross-ideological movement which has been formed to fight it. Here is an excerpt:

  Over the last decade or so, dozens—perhaps hundreds—of homes in Montgomery have been declared blighted and razed in a similar manner. The

  

• Sep 18, 2010
  

  The Great Divergence: Private Investment and Government Power in the Present Crisis

  by Liberty and Power

  Private saving and investment are the heart and soul of the dynamic market process. Together they provide and allocate the resources used to augment the economy’s productive capacity, generate sustained long-run economic growth, and thereby make possible a rising level of living. Economic crises interrupt this process by discouraging investors and causing them to consume their resources or to employ them in relatively safe, low-yielding ways. Absent entrepreneurs willing to take the great risk
  

• Sep 17, 2010
  

  Timothy Sandefur, F. A. Hayek and the Nature of Spontaneous Order

  by Liberty and Power

  The Fall issue of Independent Review has my response to Timothy Sandefur's essay "Some Problems With Spontaneous Order," that appeared in its summer, 2009 issue. (Download his article at http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?a=738 )
  
  Unfortunately neither my critique nor Sandefur's response to it are available yet without buying the journal, though that will change in 6 months.
  

• Sep 16, 2010
  

  Screw the Poor! Support the UFCW!

  by Liberty and Power

  At a time when the average American is finally waking up to the sad fact that organized labor’s mindless, insatiable greed for Other Peoples’ Money is often as bad, if not worse, than that of the politicians, the United Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW) has gone off the deep end.
  
  In a move that will surely grant them the first prize ribbon
  

• Sep 15, 2010
  

  Thorstein Veblen and the Liberty Fund

  by Liberty and Power

  It is unlikely Thorstein Veblen would have been invited to the recent Liberty Fund conference on Isabel Patterson.

  In"Conspicuous Consumption," Veblen states that"the exigencies of the modern industrial system frequently place individuals and households in juxtaposition between whom there is little contact in any other sense that that of juxtaposition." In the absence, in other words, of any other connecting mechanism, we are driven to consume, and thereby display, our wealth as the only

  

• Sep 12, 2010
  

  Regime Uncertainty: Reports Keep Coming In

  by Liberty and Power

  Each summer, Wall Street strategist Byron Wien convenes a meeting of high rollers to discuss the outlook for investment. This year’s meeting brought together fifty individuals, including more than ten billionaires. Their expectations, as reported by CNBC, are gloomy:

  “They saw the United States in a long-term slow growth environment with the near-term risk of recession quite real,” said Wien, in a commentary to Blackstone clien

  

• Sep 9, 2010
  

  My ECON JOURNAL WATCH Podcast

  by Liberty and Power

  Back last June 24, Larry White interviewed me for an Econ Journal Watchpodcast. Yesterday, Arnold Kling blogged about it at EconLog, and Arnold's post was

• Sep 7, 2010
  

  Ralph Miliband and Sons

  by Liberty and Power

  Most readers will likely want to pass this up but a few, and perhaps more than a few, may enjoy reading three stories to which I link below.
  
  If you are following the campaign for the Labour Party leadership, you would be aware that the two leading candidates, David and Ed Miliband, are brothers and the sons of the late Marxist intellectual Ralph Miliband.
  
  
  

• Sep 7, 2010
  

  Appalling Report on the Border Patrol

  by Liberty and Power

  The New York Times for August 29, 2010, ran an appalling report on the activities of the Border Patrol along the Canadian border, entitled"Border Sweeps in North Reach Miles into U.S." Below are just two paragraphs, but the entire article is worth reading:
  
  ROCHESTER — The Lake Shore Limited runs between Chicago and New York City without crossing the Canadian border. Bu