Mises Community Archive

Conceived in Liberty by Rothbard

Conza88 — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 17:40:41 GMT

http://mises.org/journals/aen/aen11_2_1.asp

AEN: What about Conceived in Liberty?

MNR: After the Volcker Fund collapsed, I got another grant from the Lilly Endowment to do a history of the U.S., which I worked on from 1962-66. The original idea was to take the regular facts and put a libertarian assessment on everything. But once I started to work on it, I found many facts had been left out, like tax rebellions. So it got longer and longer. It turned into the five volume Conceived in Liberty, covering the Colonial period to the Constitution. I don't chart this stuff in advance. I don't like to work that way. I go step by step and it keeps getting longer. After Arlington House published volume four, they went out of business. Volume five, on the Constitution, was written in longhand and no one can read my handwriting.

So that's it? Has it ever been translated or decrypted? That, to me, seems like the most important part!

2 issues/questions on Free Trade vs Protectionism

LandJ — Mon, 13 Mar 2017 00:38:41 GMT

Hello everyone. I have two questions on economics and especially on International Trade: Free trade vs Protectionism. I would appreciate it if you could help me understand. (they are beginner's questions) - Subject A Suppose there are two countries, USA and Japan who produce the same cars at market price 10,000$. US government impose a 10% tariff on Japanese cars to protect US car industry and now Japanese cars cost 11,000$. Now Americans buy american cars because they are cheaper. Market law says, that when supply decreases the price increases. So, US producers will increase their prices up to 11,000$ for more profit. Thus, US consumers are harmed by this tariff. My Question: Why US producers (after the decrease of competition) will increase the price of their cars? If they rise the price of their cars from 10,000$ to 11,000$ they will immediatelly put again in the game of competition the Japanese car producers (although their cars have been imposed with tariffs). And the market share will be shared among US and Japan car producers again. So, how we are sure that the market law (price increases when supply decreases and demand remain stable or increases), will work in this case? - Subject B I watched a video of Milton Friedman who said that it is good for USA to import Japanese products, because Japanese who now will have in their hands american dollars, will use them to buy/import US products. In other words, imports of Japanese products to USA, in the long run create/fund the exports of US products to Japan. My question: Why the Japanese producer who exported his products to USA, having american dollars will use them to buy/import US products? He can go to a bank in his place, exchange the american dollars with Yen and buy Japanese products. So, how Friedman is so sure that the Japanese exporter later will buy/import US products, and thus stimulate US exports? Thank you all.

Rumors of Bitcoin's death greatly exaggerated...

AJ — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 13:39:55 GMT

The potential future "currency of the internet" zoomed past $20/BTC today, with its market cap about to overtake the all-time high reached in the 2011 bubble top. As the world's most powerful computing network, the p2p transaction technology - like p2p file transfer technology - is making end-runs around monopolistic control so easy that they look natural and even obvious.

But let's face it: Bitcoin is nothing more than a glorified point system. It is only the scarcity of the points (bitcoins) that forces a man to lay down 20 smackers just for the privilege of having a point chalked up to his account (his bitcoin address) in the universal internet ledger (the blockchain).

He is giving up cold, hard cash for nothing more than a mark in a ledger that the majority of users agree upon. He is essentially paying for the rest of the users to acknowledge his right to transfer that point to someone else (spend the bitcoin) at a later date. However, because of the way the point system works no one can reneg on that acknowledgement, so - unlike a bank debit - there is no trust involved.

What can this trustless, decentralized point system do? Well, everything a bank debit system can do, except without relying on banks or anything bricks-and-mortar, not even any company. The convertability to traditional currency is quick, cheap and liquid - if you want it - but as of now products you yourself might actually want can be obtained more cheaply (and more anonymously) in bitcoins: computers, RAM, and half a million others items at bitcoinstore.com, an upgrade for your Wordpress blog, dispute resolution services through judge.me, or a VPN through various providers - to name just a few.

Not to mention the world's largest (known) fully virtual hidden company: Silk Road, where every one of the $2 million per month of transactions are done in bitcoins. Meanwhile, one Bitcoin-only online gambling site reported 2012 earnings of over $0.5 million, while the Y-Combinator startup coinbase.com secured an additional half a million in venture capital from Silicon Valley angel investors.

Mr. Market - naturally starting with the black and gray markets - is making his own rules, unfortunately leaving some monetary theorists behind as the biggest boon to anti-statism since the internet itself slips by them unnoticed, because it is guised in garb that resembles some thousand-times refuted monetary fallacies and in a form none were expecting.

Ancapistan is already here, folks, but you don't recognize it because it's not a place, it has no borders, and it's not very big yet (only a few million dollars flow through its "streets"). It is virtual, and it doesn't secede or declare independence. It accretes. It develops, like any natural order, from a countless sum of almost indiscernable changes, each deemed negligible, dubious or useless on their own.

From a geeky novelty to a rag-tag collection of niche markets and agora of negligible mainstream interest, to gradual mainstream adoption for a few purposes where it is clearly superior... the way this voluntary order will unfold cannot be foretold.

While no one knows the future and if this experiment will succeed, it is no surprise that long-time market anarchists like Doug French (former LvMI President) and Jeff Tucker (former LvMI Editor-in-Chief) have turned tentatively positive about Bitcoin, while LvMI Founder Lew Rockwell has started accepting bitcoin donations at lewrockwell.com, receiving nearly $2000 in bitcoin donations shortly afterward.

The revolution is not being televised; it is being monetized.

Praxeological Science — Group (Mises Forum of Old)

Conza88 — Wed, 30 Nov 2016 19:27:35 GMT

Hi team, Everyone is welcome to join the discussion here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/286974241416271/

A liberty minded group created to foster discussions about praxeology—the science of human action. All interested parties are welcome. No special education is required to participate though it is hoped that members of this group are familiar with the writings of Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, and Hans-Hermann Hoppe.

— Housekeeping —

There is a plethora of pages, websites, and blogs that cater to general libertarian and Austrian Economics content. Whilst incredibly valuable they have their place elsewhere. This group aims to specialise in discussions specifically related to praxeology—the science of human action...

Torrent for Michael Cloud?

Chyd3nius — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 10:33:48 GMT

Michael Cloud have made two very interesting works in his career, book Secrets of Libertarian Persuasion and a tape, Essence of Political Persuasion. I would love to read/ listen those works to improve my argumentation, but I'm out of money at the moment. Do any of you own these works, and have a chance to seed those in torrent? "Essence" is out there as a torrent, but there is no-one sharing it.

Jesus Is an Anarchist

James Redford — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 19:02:46 GMT

My following article demonstrates the logically unavoidable anarchism of Jesus Christ's teachings as recorded in the New Testament (in addition to analyzing their context in relation to his actions, to the Tanakh, and to his apostles). It is logically complete on this subject, in the sense of its apodixis.

James Redford, "Jesus Is an Anarchist", Social Science Research Network (SSRN), Dec. 4, 2011 (orig. pub. Dec. 19, 2001), 60 pp., doi:10.2139/ssrn.1337761; PDF, 312715 bytes, MD5: ff45387b1b2ed9d6dec411d5328abdd6. http://ssrn.com/abstract=1337761 , http://archive.org/download/JesusIsAnAnarchist/Redford-Jesus-Is-an-Anarchist.pdf , http://theophysics.host56.com/anarchist-jesus.pdf , http://webcitation.org/66AIz2rJw , http://pdf-archive.com/2013/09/10/redford-jesus-is-an-anarchist/redford-jesus-is-an-anarchist.pdf

My article below is complimentary to my above article:

James Redford, "Libertarian Anarchism Is Apodictically Correct", Social Science Research Network (SSRN), Dec. 15, 2011, 9 pp., doi:10.2139/ssrn.1972733; PDF, 118091 bytes, MD5: e6de8181ad84c9d96400bb9582311c79. http://ssrn.com/abstract=1972733 , http://archive.org/download/LibertarianAnarchismIsApodicticallyCorrect/Redford-Apodictic-Libertarianism.pdf , http://theophysics.host56.com/Redford-Apodictic-Libertarianism.pdf , http://webcitation.org/63xyCLjLm , http://pdf-archive.com/2013/09/10/redford-apodictic-libertarianism/redford-apodictic-libertarianism.pdf

Very much related to the foregoing, see my following article on physicist and mathematician Prof. Frank J. Tipler's Omega Point cosmology, which is a proof (i.e., mathematical theorem) of God's existence per the known laws of physics (viz., the Second Law of Thermodynamics, General Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics), and the Feynman-DeWitt-Weinberg quantum gravity/Standard Model Theory of Everything (TOE), which is also required by said known physical laws. The Omega Point cosmology has been published and extensively peer-reviewed in leading physics journals.

James Redford, "The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of Everything", Social Science Research Network (SSRN), Sept. 10, 2012 (orig. pub. Dec. 19, 2011), 186 pp., doi:10.2139/ssrn.1974708; PDF, 1741424 bytes, MD5: 8f7b21ee1e236fc2fbb22b4ee4bbd4cb. http://ssrn.com/abstract=1974708 , http://archive.org/download/ThePhysicsOfGodAndTheQuantumGravityTheoryOfEverything/Redford-Physics-of-God.pdf , http://theophysics.host56.com/Redford-Physics-of-God.pdf , http://alphaomegapoint.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/redford-physics-of-god.pdf , http://sites.google.com/site/physicotheism/home/Redford-Physics-of-God.pdf

For anyone who has ever wondered about such questions as what the meaning of life is, what the purpose of their own life is, whether there is life after death, whether God exists, what the future holds for humanity, and why anything exists at all as opposed to nothingness, then this article answers all of those questions using the known laws of physics.

This article further provides an examination of the globalist political power-elite: history is given on their organizational structure and their methods of accumulating power; and analysis is given on where they're attempting to take the world, i.e., their self-termed New World Order world government and world religion.

The article furnishes documentation on what the globalist oligarchy's ultimate goal is. This ultimate goal of theirs most popularly goes by the name of transhumanism: immortality through technology. However, I explain in the article that the coming radical life-extension technologies create a fundamental dilemma for the oligarchs, which is why they must dominate world society before such technology becomes a reality. The details of that dilemma are explained in Sec. 8.2.2: "The Mark of the Beast" of the article.

Thus, this article explains to people what is to occur and why it is to occur, so that they will not be in ignorance as to the events that are to unfold.

Additionally, in the below resource are six sections which contain very informative videos of Prof. Tipler explaining the Omega Point cosmology and the Feynman-DeWitt-Weinberg quantum gravity/Standard Model TOE. The seventh section therein contains an audio interview of Tipler.

A number of these videos are not otherwise online. I also provide some helpful notes and commentary for some of these videos.

James Redford, "Video of Profs. Frank Tipler and Lawrence Krauss's Debate at Caltech: Can Physics Prove God and Christianity?", alt.sci.astro, Message-ID: jghev8tcbv02b6vn3uiq8jmelp7jijluqk@4ax.com , 30 Jul 2013 00:51:55 -0400. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.sci.astro/KQWt4KcpMVo , http://archive.is/a04w9 , http://webcitation.org/6IUTAMEyS The plain text of this post is available at: TXT, 42423 bytes, MD5: b199e867e42d54b2b8bf6adcb4127761. http://mirrorcreator.com/files/JCFTZSS8/ , http://ge.tt/3lOTVbp

What have Austrians been wrong about?

Austen — Wed, 08 May 2013 03:36:55 GMT

1. What have Austrians been wrong about in general?

2. What have Austrians wrongly predicted?

3. What have Austrians wrongly predicted that Keynesians have correctly predicted?

Did the Obama administration ever change the way unemployment is calculated?

Phriend — Sat, 04 Oct 2014 23:36:33 GMT

Is there any evidence that the Obama administration has further changed the way unemployment is calculated (to make the numbers look better)?

Response to "Being Classically Liberal"

Willink — Wed, 13 Aug 2014 18:50:30 GMT

Response to a post accessable here:

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=849511998416557&id=592589870775439

Now, a couple of Anarcho-capitalists wrote some angry responses saying I was utilizing a straw-man argument or that all my concerns have been adequately addressed. These claims are simply false.

Accusing individuals arguing against you as being motivated out of anger, quite the feat of logic. The latter half of this portion (“claims are simply false”) is an assertion, not an argument.

I have [read] books, essays, journal articles, etc on anarcho-capitalism and how it would work from authors like Thomas E. Woods (whom I respect highly), Murray Rothbard (For a New liberty), Lew Rockwell, David Friedman (Machinery of Freedom), Bryan Caplan, etc. To say that I was utilizing straw-man arguments, or to say that I don't understand the arguments for anarcho-capitalism is plain ignorant.

This is both an appeal to authority fallacy (look who I've read!) and red herring seeing as it simply reasserts the initial argument (I do in fact understand anarcho-capitalism) without materially addressing any of the criticisms entered previously toward his position.

I have had a completely open mind about anarcho-capitalism, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered reading a vast amount of literature on it.

Irrelevant

Furthermore, not a single comment actually addressed any one of my concerns.

Materially false. See PDF links to Block's obligations toward children, or criticisms toward substance of natural law entered by multiple posters. Hand-waving is not a substitute for sound reason.

To assume that I haven't already looked these things up doesn't make sense to me.

Of course it doesn't, but it sure does seem that way to a number of posters who seem doubtful of your grasp of the aforementioned topics.

For example, Austrian economist Thomas DiLorenzo provides a convincing critique of the belief that telephone, cable, and electric utilities are natural monopolies. [1] However, it is also well documented that natural monopolies in general do exist.

DiLorenzo argues that monopolies more generally are a creation of government privilege rather than creation of the free market. Clearly, the oil industry and pipelines more generally are largely state-cultivated creatures of regulatory privilege; according to FERC info being cited by Saidu the only requirement necessary for establishing a “natural monopoly” is control of a single pipeline. This market concentration IO theory of monopoly has been subject to intellectual criticism by myriad of economists since the mid 1970s; (see. Harold Demsetz, “Industry Structure, Market Rivalry, and Public Policy”, 1973). Either way, linking a PDF is not a refutation of an argument, and OP fails to elucidate on how Saidu's position answers to criticisms entered by DiLorenzo.

Lastly, I can find no evidence whatsoever that anarchy leads to better economic or social outcomes (such as rising incomes and life expectancy)

Seeing as there are no anarchic nations, I'm not sure why there would be this sort of empirical evidence in the first place.

For example, research finds that for developed nations, a government size of less than 25% of GDP maximizes economic growth.

It's not clear how linking studies which detail how reducing government expenditures increase economic growth is an argument against reducing expenditures further still. The second linked PDF deals almost wholly with size of govt as measured by means of GDP growth, a methodological observation already subject to criticism by other posters in recent posts by OP which were magically brushed aside as “not addressing any one of my concerns”.

There's plenty of evidence that government boosts growth up to a certain point.

Unfounded assertion with no forwarded evidence.

Nuclear Disarmament

Sieben — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 16:42:06 GMT

Obamas gotten a lot of press for his nuclear treaty thing... basically my interpretation is that "crazy countries" end up with fewer nukes. But its okay for us to have nukes. Anyway, it seems like a good thing that there are fewer nukes in the world, especially if folks who might use them on us can't get them. Is this an instance where the interest of the state intersects with the general interest?

Against Stefan Molyneux

Niccolò — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 01:00:27 GMT

I wrote this in a response to my tiring attitude of Molyneux and his militant Atheism.

IP debate - please help!

statelessrich — Sat, 21 Sep 2013 17:19:34 GMT

So I got into a Facebook IP debate. My opponent brought up some points that I want to address in the best way possible; please help me :)

This is his post:

As someone who's built a career in patent law. I've been doing this since 1995. I don't think that's a justifiable position.

I work in a big pharmaceutical company, and I see innovation every day because this company or that doesn't want to have to pay a nickel for a licensing fee off someone else's patent. It's called "designing around" and is a prime mover for innovation.

Patent law is sometimes (sort of correctly, sort of not) compared to land property rights. Imagine there is a huge gold field and Bob finds gold in sector A17. He buys the deeds to all sectors from A1 to B20. Tim sees Bob's success and whines and bitches that Bob owns all this land. But he is forced to - unless he wants to pay Bob a nickel - to go explore sectors C and D, and there he finds platinum and Element Zero, too.

In a similar way, on a daily basis, we are keenly aware of what our competitors are doing - so that we can do something different in our never-ending quest to find better medicines to cure cancer and other diseases. Because... why would we want to re-invent the wheel (copy someone else's drug) and get sued for patent infringement when we can make our own and own the patent on that? (Of course, this is all expensive.)

I find that many who decry IP laws are not creators; they are copiers, who people who want things for free or who are intellectually lazy or not curious. They are not makers. Suppose there were a world with no intellectual property laws, and let's return to the land property metaphor. So... why would it not then be ok for me to go over to your house, rummage through all your stuff and take whatever I want?

I don't like that he compares IP to property rights in land, since land is scarce and ideas are not.

Teach Kids How to Think - How?

limitgov — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 16:40:18 GMT

I'm a teacher. People always say we need to teach kids how to think.

What lessons would you create to teach kids how to think? I'm interested in teaching my students "how to think", but I'm not sure what the lessons would be like. I'm willing to use what the people on this forum come up with if its something good.

Is science prediction?

NonAntiAnarchist — Tue, 07 May 2013 14:38:53 GMT

I don't think so. It can be a feature of science, but I don't think it is at the core.

From thinking about it just for a minute, I'd say (good) science is something like true premises + internal consistency + predictability. Some times we maybe will have to settle for imperfect premises when we model things, but I think a correct premise is always preferable to an incorrect premise in the realm of science.

Curious to see what everyone else thinks.

Why Anarchy Fails

AJ — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:09:13 GMT

Humans originated in a state of anarchy, that is, without centralized power. Monopolies on force eventually emerged and took on the structure of "states" of various types in order to legitimatize their monopolies in the eyes of the people, so that they could retain their monopoly powers.

Now a critic of anarchy would say, "Anarchy has failed before. In fact it has failed everywhere, all across the world, because there are no lasting anarchist societies today. So why would we expect anarchy to work now?"

It's tempting to counter this by bringing up Somalia, but that is a very weak case since it has only been around for a short while. It's a little better to counter with the fact that countries are in anarchy with respect to each other, but that argument is not nearly incisive or comprehensive enough. Even if we win that debate decisively, all we'll have to show for it is the weak assertion that "anarchy can work in certain cases."

We'll still not really have touched on the basic issue: "Why did individual anarchy fail before, and how can we assert that it will be different this time?" After all, in anarchy nothing can be decreed; in the end, the chips will fall where they may, as determined by consumer preferences on the market. The first time, those consumer preferences led to monopoly and statism. We cannot escape or wiggle around this objection. We must attack it head on.

Below is my attempt at taking this bull by the horns.

First a note on terminology: I use the word "anarchy" in its original meaning of "society without a leader," from the Greek "an-" (without) + "arkhos" (leader). "Anarchy" does NOT mean "without laws."

Also note that "anarcho-capitalism," "market anarchy," etc. are simply theories about how a society would most successfully organize itself under anarchy. Once we achieve anarchy we have no control over how society organizes itself. All we can do is educate, for example, that people should beware of monopolies on violence, and should embrace the free market - or show the same by example.

I now offer four major driving forces that stabilize society by moving it toward the "market anarchy" that AnCaps theorize would be the most stable and successful type of social structure.

Interconnectedness, Decentralization, Education, Advancement (IDEA)

I suggest that increases in these four forces are what can and will enable stable anarchy versus the failed anarchies of the past (which were only high in decentralization, but low in the other three).

That is,

Interconnectedness of individuals and institutions (economic relationships, contractual agreements, etc.)
Decentralization of power (the very definition of anarchy)
Education and enlightenment of the people (especially in political economy)
Advancement of economic prosperity and technology (in a word, civilization)

INTERCONNECTEDNESS of individuals and institutions is at the heart of many of the arguments for PDAs, private courts, etc. We can see that the more economically interconnected countries become, the less they tend to fight each other (hence the saying, "if goods don't cross borders, troops will"). The same is clearly true for private security and adjudication providers, who will have every incentive to cooperate rather than act violently. The underlying factor is how interconnected their interests are. If their interests we not so intertwined they would have much less reason to avoid open violence.

Factors raising the level of personal and institutional interconnectivity include:

Language: spoken, then written, followed by standardization and then the current push for English as a global language, not to mention economic advancement (see below) enabling education (see below again) and thereby increasing literacy rates. Now the Internet is vigorously boosting all of these language factors.

Contract law conventions: these have developed in common law over time - I'll leave the details to someone more knowledgeable

Market interactions and the (limited) recognition of the value of unhindered free exchange, especially after Adam Smith

Greater value of reputation: a result of the rise of free-market capitalism (and of course language)

Greater power of social sanctions, thanks to several of the above

DECENTRALIZATION of power is the very essence of anarchy: no leaders or rulers, no monopolies on force. This is both the goal and a means toward the goal, because if centralized power tends towards centralization ever more quickly, then increasingly decentralized power must for the same reason tend toward more and more suppression of centralization (monopolization). In other words, the more decentralized power is, the weaker the forces toward centralization tend to become. As I mentioned above, decentralization is the one factor that was higher back when humans originated. Thus it was anarchy, but without the other stabilizing forces.

EDUCATION levels (and human knowledge itself) are far far higher - despite the ill effects of the Dept. of Education - than they were back in ancient history when the most anarchies failed. Education is probably now our most important role; if enough people understood what we do, we'd have AnCap very soon indeed. Other than that, education contributes in important ways to many other factors mentioned here, such as entrepreneurship. We are now, more than at any other time in modern history, in a strong position to destroy the old paternalistic superstitions that we need States, divinely-inspire despots, or "genius leaders" to watch over us. This superstition is indeed deeply ingrained in our language and culture, but we can shake it out of people with a little common sense and clarification of the statist bias inherent in much of our language.

ADVANCEMENT of economic prosperity and technology not only tends to strongly drive the above forces of interconnectedness and education, it also raises people's overall standard of living, reducing resource-based disputes and such. The retrogressions of statism, Keynesianism, and central banking notwithstanding, civilization is far more advanced now, and hence in a far better position to maintain anarchy for reasons too numerous to list. In some other threads, I noted that the development of privacy technologies and the Internet could blaze the most expedient path to microsecession. [Edit: Harry Felker notes the development of individual weaponry, which I think is a major key. "Right to bear arms" doesn't mean much when the strongest weapons are sticks and stones.]

Finally, as a clarifying thought exercise, imagine we're in a cyber-classroom centuries in the future, long after a stable anarchy has been achieved and society has reached levels of peace and prosperity unimaginable to us. We're listening to a biologist or historian taking about the history of statism. He takes a much simpler, more scientific/objective view of the issue than we do, saying,

"Well it's simple. Entities can be organized in either top-down or bottom-up structures.

"Top-down is clearly impractical for humans, because it is in human nature that power corrupts to the extent to which that power is absolute. It was only their lingering statist superstitions that kept the ancient humans from seeing this obvious truth, or knowing it yet dogmatically ignoring it in Orwellian doublethink fashion. If we consider other entities for which this is not the case, something like minarchy may well succeed in the long term, but human nature utterly precludes it. For humans, totalitarianism and/or collapse was the inevitable result of minarchy and all other statism.

"Having eliminated top-down organization categorically, we are left only with bottom-up. Now here is the key point: the way in which entities will organize bottom-up depends on their qualities and the conditions they face. For humans, that means their human nature and the tendencies they have developed/learned in their lives, coupled with their current circumstances (resource availability, etc.).

"Back in the Stone Age, people didn't learn much, and their circumstances were bleak, so bottom-up organization failed. Human nature does not change, but the other factors did, and pretty soon bottom-up organization became viable. As humans advanced, anarchy became more and more viable until its superiority was so overwhelmingly obvious that the old statist superstitions were finally abandoned and we truly began to reach for the stars.

"I know you're all baffled as to why this superstition was allowed to persist for so long, even after the scientific revolution. This is a more complicated matter, but it's illuminating to first note the parallels between statism and the flat-earthism we studied last week..."

Demand creates Supply or Supply creates Demand?

LandJ — Sun, 06 Oct 2013 19:29:40 GMT

Since I am new in free market economics, I do not understand something. Others claim that Demand creates Supply (Keynsians or am I wrong?), while Austrian economics say that Supply creates Demand*.

Can someone explain this to me, please?

If Demand creates Supply is wrong? If so, why? Let's say for example, there is an entrepreneur who understood that increasing muslim population lead to increasing demand for burgas. Then, he opens a small factory to produce and sell burgas. This is a scenario that could happen in real world. Isn't this a proof that indeed Demand creates Supply?

And apart from the above, in a free market consumers are the "kings". They decide what will be produced, when, how, in what quality and quantity etc. Doesn't this illustrate the "Demand creates Supply" viewpoint?

*If I am wrong about the Austrian position in this, please inform me.

Conservative Libertarians

LandJ — Sun, 06 Oct 2013 19:31:36 GMT

I observe that there is a category of individuals that call themselves Conservative* Libertarians. They explain this by supporting libertarian economic policies and conservative social policies.

Can this be consistent?

In theory, maybe they achieve this, but what about in real world? When it comes to decide about an issue, wouldn't they have to choose either to support conservative or libertarian policies? Wouldn't conservative viewpoint surpass their libertarian ideas (and the other way around)? If you think that their viewpoint is controversial, can you present me some real-world examples in which they would have to decide either to support conservative ideas or libertarian?

*By saying conservative, they do not mean the traditional meaning. For example, they support war on drugs, gay marriage prohibition, religious & national (i.e. flag burning) blashemy prohibition etc

A Critique of Mises's Praxeology (Part 1?)

Fool on the Hill — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 01:12:20 GMT

It’s been over a year since I joined this site. I have to admit that I’ve learned a lot from Mises and these boards. I never expected that I would spend this much time here. However, I think my knowledge of Austrian economics is now almost sufficient for my purposes, and it’s nearing time to move on and explore other schools of economic thought. But before I do, I would like to take all that I’ve learned and develop it into a thorough critique of what I think is wrong with the fundamentals of Austrian economics. Many have tried to critique Austrian economics before, but so many of these critiques seem peripheral and miss what is at the core of the school—its praxeology. While praxeology is invaluable when correctly understood, I think that Mises’s conception of human action is fundamentally flawed right from the first chapter of his magnum opus.

This thread will seek to explain Mises’s misconception and how it applies to several basic concepts. I would also like to explore how it relates to other concepts (e.g. value, money, economic calculation, division of labor), but those critiques will have to wait until later. This thread will contain the following sections:

I. The Category of Human Action

II. Means and Ends

III. Exchange

IV. Profit

V. Time Preference

There are several posters here who I have a good deal of respect for. I hope to hear from them. Any honest feedback will be useful, as I plan to eventually revise and complete this critique to publish elsewhere.

Illegal Drugs and China

LandJ — Sun, 06 Oct 2013 19:32:45 GMT

Hi.
I would like your opinion about war on drugs, and especially in China. A friend of mine told me that although in China laws about production, distribution and use of drugs are extremelly strict, China achieved to vanish or keep those activities in very low percentages. I don't know where did he read that, but what's your opinion about China and illegal drugs? Do you have information that and in China illegal drugs exist?

Forum members have gone here

gotlucky — Fri, 10 May 2013 19:25:25 GMT

LibertyHQ forum by forum member Wheylous

* May 2013 Low Content Thread *

Primetime — Wed, 01 May 2013 06:38:41 GMT

even good for nothing ass hats catch on every once in a while...

Bill Maher actually talks some sense...

(Please visit the site to view this media)

What Bitcoin is

AJ — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 16:24:51 GMT

Debate about Bitcoin has remained extremely murky, leading to a sort of gridlock with entrenched views, particularly as to whether bitcoins are money. With this post I hope to shed some light on Bitcoin with a view that I think transcends the central points of debate as it has so far transpired.

Step 1 in clarifying discussion about Bitcoin is to distinguish between Bitcoin (the protocol) and bitcoins (the token units). Bitcoin is a transaction system; bitcoins are the "things" that are being exchanged.

That brings us to Step 2 in clarifying discussion about Bitcoin: if we define money as a "physical object that serves as a medium of exchange," bitcoins are certainly not - and can never be - money. They are something different, yet they serve the same purpose. No, in fact it's more elucidating to say that the system (Bitcoin) serves the same purpose.

Step 3 is to discern this connotation that perhaps "money isn't needed anymore" from the leftist, Zeitgeister call for the elimination of money (really the elimination of transactions and hence the division of labor). Since transacting using the Bitcoin protocol, insofar as it is sound, would not in any way entail the destruction of the division of labor (in fact a great enrichment of it), this would only be a kneejerk response. Bitcoin - the system - simply obviates the need for money (and money substitutes) in many situations.

The following story illustrates a situation where a division of labor can function without money ("physical object that serves as a medium of exchange") or even money substitutes.

A bunch of college students decide to do a houseshare. They take turns making dinner. One day the dinner guy (A) is too busy, so he asks someone else (B) to fill in for him, with a promise to return the favor later.

Everyone in the house witnesses this, remembering that A owes B one.

There are many people in the house and this starts to happen a lot. People's memories get fuzzy, and some are not around to witness the transactions. So they decide to put a whiteboard on the fridge keeping track of who owes who how many dinners.

Some people start to rack up quite a tab. Eventually it is decided that no one can owe more than three dinners; if they skip three times they can skip no more.

To keep track of this, each person's name is written with a number underneath it. Everyone starts with a 3 underneath their name, like this:

Guy A Guy B Girl A etc...

3 3 3

Then if A skips because B agrees to fill in for him, the board now looks like this:

Guy A Guy B Girl A etc...

3 3 3

2 4

[signatures of every person in the house]

Everyone signs off that they witnessed the agreement for this transaction.

Cumbersome as it may be, this is now a working transaction system. We could call the units "housecoins." Later, for instance, Girl A can offer 2 of her housecoins in exchange for a DVD that Guy B owns. Everyone signs under the change to the ledger and it's a done deal.

What are these housecoins backed by? Nothing, in the usual monetary sense. However, they can be used reliably as long as the system remains popular with the house residents and people don't find a way to cheat the signature system.

I'm sure it's easy to see why this is so incredibly impractical that it has never been done before on a large scale. The existence of a ready medium of exchange makes this even more unnecessary for local commerce. Before the Internet and before public key cryptography, such a system would have been completely unworkable, and locally often unnecessary.

However, the Internet makes it possible for remote participants to sign off on transactions. With the Bitcoin protocol, the system is backed only by the willingness of people to participate, and the protocol prevents cheating by rewarding the transaction validators ("miners"). Technically anyone could change the protocol to benefit themselves, but that would result in a fork in the blockchain (two different public ledgers) and probably no one would use the rogue version.

Now there are a few more details that need to be seen in order to grasp how the system is able to function as it does, but the above should show that money (physical medium of exchange) and "backing" are not absolutely necessities for a division of labor; "housecoin"-type systems have failed to spring up so far simply because the technology known as "physical media of exchange" is a far easier one than the Internet, cryptography, "proof of work" systems, and the Bitcoin protocol that ties these together.

A physical medium-of-exchange system is only one type of transaction system. At a certain level of technology, others become feasible or even superior.

(Semi-)Official Mises.org EPUB Release Topic

Tex2002ans — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 03:46:06 GMT

Over the past year, I have been converting EPUBs in my spare time for the Mises Institute. I started my EPUB journey initially, because of the poor state I noticed Mises EPUBs were in. There were many typos, and overall design decisions which made me quite frustrated (bloated images, bloated files, embedded fonts, HUGE margins, etc.). Coming from a coding background, I see all of these mistakes as bloat/bugs, which must be fixed.

I also wanted to get as many books as possible into EPUB format, because it is so much more enjoyable to read the books on ANY device, and in any font size and/or font you prefer. EPUB also has the advantage of being convertible into any other format easily (for example, if you have a Kindle).

Because of my continual EPUB output/emails (annoyances :) ), in ~October 2012, I was put in touch directly with Brandon Hill ((the Store Manager at LvMI), he is in charge of running the Mises store, Amazon sales, and many other important duties). Since October 2012, I have begun working extremely closely with LvMI, and started to get more and more of my EPUBs in the Literature section.

As of today, I will officially be working on EPUBs for LvMI. :)

I wanted to create this thread as a one stop shop for all of my WIP EPUBs, instead of me flooding many of the other EPUB topics with my posts.

All of the EPUBs in this topic will be posted when I complete everything on my end (covers/eISBNs are handled on LvMI's end, and I output things too quickly for them to keep up with. :) ). If you want beautiful fancy covers? Feel free to wait until they are on the Literature section, for all those who want to read the actual text? Read my versions. :)

Feel free to post requests in this topic as well, I take them into consideration, and can/will add them to my list to work on in my spare time.

All of my work can also be found at my site (link can be found in my signature).

If you find any typos in ANY of the books (PDF/EPUB/Physical), please report it in this topic, the "Book Typos" topic, or the "Book Typos" Wiki article:

https://mises.org/Community/forums/p/29982/479290.aspx#479290

http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/MisesWiki:Typos

Every single typo that can be caught/fixed is a HUGE help.

As a side note, if anyone wants to help with hosting these elsewhere, I would be very grateful. As of now, I rely on filesharing sites (Mediafire was my favorite), but these are extremely unreliable due to the DMCA (my Mediafire account became suspended, and all of my links have been deleted). Please get in contact with me privately through email, Mises PMs, or leave me contact information as a comment on my site.

There is also the case of some gray area copyrights on some PDFs on Mises.org. If I do work on these books, they are in no way sanctioned by LvMI, and I work on these in my spare time to make more enjoyable versions for everyone to read.

New Friends

Neodoxy — Sat, 04 May 2013 02:36:09 GMT

I have no idea what's happened over the past week, but we've obviously got a sudden influx in new members, which is pretty exciting since we've only gotten a handful of new people this year.

So welcome! You can use this thread to introduce yourselves, and I hope that we'll enjoy what you all have to contribute in the coming months.

Also, this thread might help you

Edit

Also something that I'm curious about, how did you guys find the forum? I'm just surprised that we've gotten so many new people so fast.

Quick Question

Gavin23 — Thu, 09 May 2013 19:25:58 GMT

Hello all got a really quick question hope you can help me out with.

As I understand it many Anarcho Capitalists and even many Minarchists do not support the concept of Intellectual Property. I tend to agree with that.

What is there view then on other intangible forms of property such as various finacial instruments and securities like stocks etc? Would this not count as real property under this line of thinking?

Thanks!