With all of the talk of how charismatic Barack Obama is, or of his oratory ability—and especially given his recent presidential victory—it is time to engage in a deeper economic critique of Obama's actual policies. Once we see the true effects of his policies and the incentives they create, we will see that his leadership skills and abilities make him more of a threat to freedom than if he were less articulate.
"Essentially, economic analysis consists of: (1) an understanding of the categories of action and an
understanding of the meaning of a change in values, costs, technological knowledge, etc.; (2) a description of a
situation in which these categories assume concrete meaning, where definite people are identified as
actors with definite objects specified as their means of action, with definite goals identified as values and definite things specified as costs;
and (3) a deduction of the consequences that result from the performance of some specified action in this situation,
or of the consequences that result for an actor if this situation is changed in a specified way. And this deduction
must yield a priori-valid conclusions, provided there is no flaw in the very process of deduction and the situation
and the change introduced into it being given, and a priori—valid conclusions about reality if the situation
and situation—change, as described, can themselves be identified as real, because then their validity would ultimately
go back to the indisputable validity of the categories of action."
--Hans-Hermann Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, p. 118-19
"For it would be an absurd undertaking to banish from the language of
economic theory every manner of speaking that is not literally correct; it
would be sheer pedantry to proscribe every figure of speech, particularly
since we could not say the hundredth part of what we have to say, if we
refused ever to take recourse to a metaphor. One requirement is essential,
that economic theory avoid the error of confusing a practical habit,
indulged in for the sake of expediency, with scientific truth."
--Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, (1881). Whether legal rights and relationships are economic goods.
In H. Sennholz (Ed.), Shorter classics of Böhm-Bawerk, Volume I. Spring Mills, PA: Libertarian Press, 1962, p. 135
"How can the great suck of self ever hope to be a fat cat dozing in the sun?"
--Walker Percy
"A Volvo is a beautifully engineered, well-built statement that the owner has the soul of a dung beetle."
--Fred Reed
"The total complex of the rules according to which those at the helm employ compulsion and coercion is called law. Yet the characteristic feature of the state is not these rules, as such, but the application or threat of violence."
--Ludwig von Mises, Omnipotent Government
"No socialist author ever gave a thought to the possibility that the abstract entity which he wants to vest with unlimited power—whether it is called humanity, society, nation, state, or government—could act in a way of which he himself disapproves."
--Ludwig von Mises, Human Action
"I never knew anyone who collected anything who was good for anything else."
--anon.
"The matter does not appear to me now as it appears to have appeared to me then."
--Baron Bramwell, in Andrews v. Styrap (Ex. 1872) 26 L.T.R. (N.S.) 704, 706
"Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things - trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia.
--Puddleglum, in C.S. Lewis's Narnia book The Silver Chair (excerpt)
"She felt as soft in my hands as a nestling dove."
--Mary Renault, The King Must Die
"Society, however, cannot subsist among those who are at all times ready to hurt and injure one another.
The moment that injury begins, the moment that mutual resentment and animosity take place,
all the bands of it are broke asunder, and the different members of which it consisted are, as it were,
dissipated and scattered abroad by the violence and opposition of their discordant affections.
If there is any society among robbers and murderers, they must at least, according to the trite observation, abstain from robbing and murdering one another.
Beneficence, therefore, is less essential to the existence of society than justice. Society may subsist, though not in the most comfortable state, without beneficence; but the prevalence of injustice must utterly destroy it."
--Adam Smith
" Reunions are for losers.."
--Tom DiLorenzo.
... and my favorite: "A working wife is worth three rent houses."
--J. Lanier Yeates
A collection of recent blogs about patent hypocrisy and "success" stories:
Recently had an email discussion with an inventor. He wanted to know why abolishing the patent system would be "in his interest". Edited comments:
I don't think it's relevant whether it's in "your interest," to be honest. If I were a beneficiary of a million dollars a year of government welfare, I would have "an interest" in not having the welfare program abolished. So what? Does my interest mean it should not be abolished?
In my view, the threat posed by patents to honest businessmen is atrocious. It is pure government socialism in that it takes away property rights from people and awards them to others, as in the NTP-RIM litigation.
Of course, most patent lawyers are in favor of the patent system, and repeat the tired old mantras that it's "necessary" to "stimulate" innovation, blah blah blah. Wow, big surprise. As I showed in There's No Such Thing As A Free Patent, none of them know what the hell they are jabbering about. They are disingenous advocates for a system that helps perpetuate their livelihood. IMHO.
On Patenting Music and Patent Hypocrisy--exchange with Greg Aharonian about hypocrisy of those who implicitly claim the patent system is worth it but who refuse to engage on the issue
